Month: September 2021

On the tail of the Spanish influenza pandemic that killed some 50 million people worldwide at the end of World War I, a strange crippling illness spread through Europe, causing severe lethargy, nerve problems, headaches and confusion. Scientists named the syndrome encephalitis lethargica — and it is estimated to have afflicted more than one million people at the time, according to the journal Brain. Thousands were left with permanent neurological damage that rendered them all but comatose. The 1990 hit film Awakenings dramatised the neurologist and author Oliver Sacks’s attempts to revive victims who had been trapped for decades in motionless, speechless passivity. Many experts believe that encephalitis lethargica was an after-effect of Spanish flu and that the virus travelled to victims’...

A South Florida doctor became the second physician to make the contentious decision to refuse treatment to unvaccinated patients in a COVID-ravaged state. Lina Marraccini, a primary care doctor in South Miami, chastised patients for a “lack of selflessness” in a letter that claimed the unvaxxed pose too great a risk to her staff. “This is a public health emergency — the health of the public takes priority over the rights of any given individual in this situation,” said Marraccini wrote in the letter, obtained by NBC 6. “It appears that there is a lack of selflessness and concern for the burden on the health and well-being of our society from our encounters.” The doctor said the ban on unvaccinated patients was due to the FDA’s approval of the Pfzier vacc...