LTCOVID.com

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When one starts a journey on foot, one step leads to the next.

So here at LTCOVID.com are the steps taken so far (links below will take you to each step):

• • • Formulating a Questionnaire to learn more about the "long-term" variant of COVID-19
    • Placing that Questionnaire and obtaining responses.
    • Gathering and analyzing these responses
    • Studying and hypothesizing that the "long-term" COVID-19 illness is a problem with  celllular energy.  Focusing at higher power to bring in the seemingly inescapable specific involvement of mitochondria in this disease process.
    • Focusing on that problem for a solution, and hypothesizing that red (660 nm) and near-infrared (830 nm) light can improve the cellular energy problems encountered in "long-term" COVID-19.
    • Summarizing and presenting the above as a quick (7.5 minute) "flyby" overview.
    • Sensing, based on past personal experionce applying the Scientific Method, that a study seemed necessary to challenge some hypotheses. And so now, we have landed together on the present page.

Why a study ?

• • • To convince myself that my hypotheses (1. a cellular energy problem, & 2. certain wavelenghts of light may help) are sustainable.
    • To convince those with "long-term" COVID-19 that this merits pursuit and should be tried, which can be done safely.
    • To convince those scientists and researchers already involved in various ways, that these hypotheses merit being paid attention to. Responses to that challenge may include presentation of data as feedback aimed at disproving the ideas presented here. If well done, that would be most welcome.
    • How this might be put into practice and why, has been covered at this link.

What does our version ( or vision ) of such a study look like?

Here is a video presentation of our thoughts, but more specifically, our current protocol.

The video hopes to provide a good idea of where we are heading. It lasts 9 min & 32 sec:

If needed, here is the link to this video.

So where are we in this?  Is our study progressing?

• • 1. Yes.
    2. We are communicating with potential providers of the required materiel
    3. We are very concerned that this process will take an important amount of time (it always does) and that the amount of time required, could delay getting a potentially useful intervention to those who could benefit.

What does number 3. above mean?

Research is sometimes carried out in a "big" environment. All the research that brought the world to a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 in record time = a "big research" environment.

Big research in a field linked to medical care involves getting onto a path that in most countries involves the equivalent of, to name a few:

• • • Institutions that do research (universities, providers of medical care, for-profit organizations, not-for-profit organizations, suppliers, manufacturers, sellers, resellers, etc).
    • Lots of employees at such institutions.
    • Not just a "shot in the dark." It's what they do, day in day out, since they got into "big research" and made a career of it.
    • Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) at such institutions
    • Government agencies charged with assuring truth in claims made before marketing of products and existing primarily for consumer safety.
    • Et cetera

All of those exist for valid reasons. Some are motivated by pure science. Others by making a profit. Others by a blend of both. All of those motivations are quite acceptable if they lead to an improvement in the care of those who have a specific illness under study.

Selecting the above point about government agencies charged with review of proposed products before marketing, the FDA is one well-known example. They define a process and an order for its implementation. Those moving through that process spend time communicating with FDA, and usually follow the defined order precisely to eventually get to a stamp of approval.

To get a sense of that process, here are some links:

One example of where the process can lead.

An example of where one does not want the process to lead.

FDA: Breakthrough Device Program

FDA: Early Feasibility Studies (EFS) Program

FDA: How to Study and Market Your Device

FDA: Investigational Device Exemption

I am not about to suggest a method for circumventing the above steps. I believe in their purpose and foundational principles, and even their methods as I understand them.

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Readers who are not in Medicine or Scientific Research have learned to identify the "stamp of approval" signs when increasingly, the public embarks on reading results of research. The NEWS has become more careful about presenting the links to studies and data, and the public follows those links.

The public did that less in the past because, well, it was usually crushingly boring if you hadn't been born and weaned with the right scientific words already in your mouth. Words like: "meta-analysis, Mayo Clinic (or other equivalents), FDA approved, National Institutes of Health, approved by the IRB, World Health Organization, National Health Service, SPF Santé Publique (Belgium), CDC," and all the rest. But readers have learned to look for the labels, even if they aren't always understood in depth. Its just become that way. Wasn't always. And one can quickly tack on here that one obvious reason exists that what has become "Big Science," has invariably become "Big Business." Too often, which comes first, or should, is not always clear. "Just the way it is now, " say those who defend 'the System' in its present embodiment.

"Instant expertise," that too often results when the public follows the links from the  NEWS, is not free of risks.

"Big Research"  may also mean that Louis Pasteur, John Lister, or Marie Curie and others, might not have had much of a chance of getting their little projects off the ground in today's world. Too much regulation may kill some very promising projects.

And yet, this idea if suggested as fact is somewhat of a myth. A historical falsehood. 

These just mentioned scientists and others before and after, were very much attuned to the science that surrounded them and the discoveries of others, staying up to date for their times. Even without email and the Internet, believe it or not. Libraries and written letters exchanging ideas, used to be very popular.

But today, the images portrayed in the NEWS do have more of that "Big Science" look, than images of the lone researcher in his basement lab, surrounded by equipment making sparks, and always with very slicked down or just weird hair (A. Einstein).

In fact, with or without the weird hairdo, everyone reading (and writing) this has some responsibility to enact change. Many (? most) will not pick up that gauntlet.

Why this interlude here ?

Because as an "old school" styled researcher, the path to success will be quite challenging for the solitary researcher writing these lines. While knowiing the steps, having walked them in the past, and not afraid to pursue them one after another, that will be a slow process.

How should that "path to success" be defined?

As fame and fortune?

Getting published in the "peer-reviewed" literature?

Winning a scientific prize?

Selling a ton of devices that FDA approved and that gillions of people bought?

Just a few examples of Fame and Fortune.

I would define it instead as relieving the suffering of many, many individuals who are still in (and are increasingly joining) that group of "long-term" COVID-19.

Making them feel better ASAP.

For me, that would be "success."

I do not want a slow process. Those involved with "long-term" COVID-19 don't want "slow" either.

And they have been to date, remarkably patient patients.

"And ? ..."

And if you are part of "Big Science" as it exists today in December, 2020:

• • • if you have at your institution the IRB in place, awaiting to review and approve your protocol
    • if you already have sources of funding for a protocol of a probably quite reasonable budget
    • if you aleardy have all the required materiel or can easily get it made
    • if you have a whole team of interested fellow researchers of all levels who you direct or share findings and work and ideas with each day
    • if there exists an office near yours (or you know how to find it) where people work each day communicating with the FDA (or equivalent agency outside of the USA) and who are well versed in completing the required forms and following up
    • if a little further down the hall is a Bio-Engineering Department or whatever your department is  called where the Bio-statisticians hang out who will be glad to analyze and torture your results until they spit out their truths (the data, not the number crunchers)
    • most importantly if you can find scientific merit in our protocol as alluded to in the video above, and published in greater detail through the articles and references provided therein
    • if you have a hunch that whether you think it will work or not, it ought to be pursued

Then ...

Please take my protocol and run with it.

• • • if you hadn't even thought at all to date about this path that I have followed to where it led, let it now be your path as well.
    • I don't care if you make a bundle or get The Big Prize of not. I sincerely hope you can do both.
    • But rest assured that I will be watching to see if you succeeded in relieving suffering, and in healing the sick where possible. Or not. For that, is the true goal. The must always remain primary, goal.
    • So what are you waiting for? 
    • It's not "stealing" since I just gave it to you.
    • Modify my protool as you need, to make it happen, and to make it work where you are.
    • And good luck with your research.

I'll still be here.

Moving along as quickly and as best I can, in my way, and respectful of all steps that need to be taken to make this safe and effective for those with the "long-term" variant of COVID-19.

We still have a few ideas that may be of use to all concerned.

Time to move together, not alone.  With dauntless resolution.

Now go for it.

"Who is this guy, anyway?"

A little BIO without too many references >>>>

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