English foreword:

 

A lot of information had already been gathered but really starting to write happened on Christmas Day 2020 after my 6th grandchild was born some eight hours earlier. Without the skill of conventional medicine, Lena would most likely have been just a number in the perinatal mortality statistics. The mother probably would not have survived either. Not only the skill but also the empathetic way in which the parents-to-be were guided alleviated much of the pain caused by unfulfilled expectations. Working in healthcare is a vocation. The gynecologist, the nurses, the midwives, the pediatrician, all on duty on Christmas Day. These are the silent heroes of healthcare every day. The respect for them cannot be expressed enough. Thanks to them, Lena is now in our midst. Our Christmas baby! Welcome Lena.

 

Everything that follows is therefore not focused on individuals. Rather, it is a comment on a system in which individuals, function. They too are shaped, often without realizing it, by the dominant opinion imposed by forces that are often invisible. The fact is that from the moment you comment on this dominant consensus, you risk being marginalized.  

 

In my career, two pandemics occurred namely swine flu in 2009 AND the corona crisis of 2019 - 2022.  The latter crisis unfolded while writing "Bodyguard" and Chapter 5 of this book was dedicated to it but input of information was stopped from 16 September 2020 because the manuscript had to go to the printer. I write about the first crisis in Chapter 9 of the book you now hold in your hand.

 

Indeed, the original intention of Bodyguard was to explain day-to-day practice but also to outline the place of homeopathic medicine in society. The corona crisis emerged in full force while writing and could not be ignored. In the underlying book, I want to elaborate on the possibilities that homeopathic treatment could additionally offer in pandemics. As doctors, we took the Hippocratic Oath upon graduation. In this, the young doctor promises to "use quality medicine to the best of his ability in the service of fellow men and society". Is it not regrettable then to note that a great therapeutic arsenal, especially applicable in epidemics, is ignored?

 

"So, to make head and body healthy, you have to heal the soul first: that comes first. For this is the biggest mistake we make today in treating the human body: that doctors separate that soul from the body."  

Plato, 157 BC.

 

The title of my book leaves nothing unclear. All over the world, innocent citizens have been victims of omission by the authorities.  The reader gets an insight into how the covid crisis was experienced by a general practitioner with additional training in homeopathic medicine. Everything you read is taken from daily practice. This book had to be written. After all, we are facing a health care problem. Much was being hushed up. Certain things were not allowed to see the light of day. As a reader, you will be taken on a journey. Through waves, solidarity, hope, freedom to the loss of integrity. Finally, unfortunately for many people, not much more remains than to conclude that they were unlucky. Even worse, some people are close to despair and for them there is a life before and after covid-19.

 

First, the covid crisis would have looked different had homeopathic medicine been integrated into the health care system. Patients would have received better and more targeted help during the quarantine phase where they now only had access to painkillers.

 

Without the individualized treatment with homeopathic medicines, it was a scared wait and see how things would evolve. Will an admission follow or not? Whereas treatment, each time targeting the specific, individual symptoms, would have given the virus less of a chance to settle in the cells. In several patients, this could have avoided long-term mischief, especially the development of lung covid. The number of hospital admissions would have been less, and should admission have been necessary, even then these patients would have benefited additionally from support based on the most salient symptoms. Of course, this dominant attitude of conventional towards homeopathic medicine is not something specific to this crisis. Nothing new under the sun. Ever since its inception, homeopathy has been reviled. My bold assertion is explained with brief descriptions of clinical cases from everyday practice.

 

Second, a phenomenon of dominant thinking also occurred within conventional medicine. Only one opinion was possible. One discourse. That of those virologists who dominated the media from the beginning of the crisis. Any opinion considered dissident by them had to be silenced immediately. There was no room for nuance in the debate. The mainstream media contributed diligently to this. Dominant thinking thus did its work against an external enemy namely homeopathic medicine, as well as against an internal enemy, the so-called "dissident" voices.

 

The covid crisis would have looked different had there been more openness to other opinions within conventional medicine. Many patients would have been spared much suffering.  

 

“Much is proven that is fundamentally untrue, 

And much is eternally true, though the proof is not there”. 

P.A. de Génestet (1829 ~ 1861)

 

The whole covid crisis should be a lesson in humility for medicine. So far, it does not give the impression that this is the case and that is such a pity.  People have relentlessly pursued mass vaccination without taking natural immunity into account and measures that are known to be inefficient/unhelpful. But yes, one had to do something.

 

The phenomenon of "progressive insight" is often brought up when one has had to adjust one's opinion. None of this is bad, but it often happened richly late. It is well known that medical experience is nothing more than a succession of unsteady medical theories. Methods that were considered standard are sooner or later just as easily rejected again. A direct consequence of their reductionist way of thinking.

 

In the context of the covid crisis, we think, for instance, of the observation that vaccinated people can also spread the virus when infected. The covid safe ticket (CST) thus contributed to the spread of the virus rather than to its containment. 

The role of the mainstream media throughout the crisis should not be underestimated. They blindly followed the virologists. Other scientists got no forum in the media and/or were totally silenced.

 

Fear was being instilled among people. This is a well-known and often used tactic in the marketing world: "fear makes consumers". The more fearful people are made in the case of covid-19, the more inclined they are to get vaccinated with an experimental drug, even if they do not belong to a risk group at all. They were urged to do so out of solidarity and in the public interest. This would reduce the number of infections, which is not the case. In some of them, this over-stimulation of the immune immune system caused dramatic short- and long-term consequences.

 

"Theory is when you know everything, and nothing works. Practice is when everything works, and nobody knows why" Einstein.

 

One thing is clear...what we see with our eyes is only a semblance of reality. Much is hidden from our sight but also from our understanding. As has happened so often throughout history, every crisis has brought some good. Let us hope that this may also be the case with the corona crisis.

 

“All science is certain, evident knowledge. We reject all knowledge which is merely probable and judge that only those things should be believed which are perfectly known, and about which there can be no doubts.” Descartes, 17th century

 

As for my personal story as a GP with additional training in homeopathic medicine, I can say that I certainly experienced the first few weeks of the first wave as very intense with a few tough cases close to my heart. Fortunately, everyone came through well, even so my 70-year-old patient who spent weeks in intensive care. All patients recovered well without developing long covid.

 

The book is divided into the following chapters: 

 

Chapter 1: Waves. 

Like a kind of investigative journalist, I go through articles published in the written press both in the mainstream and specialized medical press. I list the facts, supported by the references. Statements in television programs are also scrutinized. The reader will have to draw his/her own conclusion about how everything turned out. It has been a while now, the whole pandemic, and people like to forget. The purpose of this chapter is to re-immerse you in the atmosphere of "back then".

 

Chapter 2: The soil and the germ 

In this chapter, I delve a little deeper into why now one person was more affected by the virus than another. 

 

Chapter 3: Solidarity 

During the first wave, there was tremendous solidarity. By following measures and by "staying in our hovel", we were going to beat the virus together. There was applause for the caregivers. An unprecedented calm descended on society. In this chapter, I describe cases from my own practice. I hope that you, the reader, will also be fascinated by the power of drugs that are freely available in nature, without patents and without supply problems.

 

Chapter 4: Hope 

If taking PCR tests was almost impossible in the first wave, it was smoother in the second wave. I describe some cases from my own practice. 

The first reports appear of accelerated vaccine production. There is hope again.  

 

Chapter 5: Freedom.  

"The road to freedom". Vaccinations were going to provide that. I go into the history of vaccination. The various covid vaccines are described. The possible short-term and long-term harmful effects of these vaccines are also discussed in detail.

 

Chapter 6: Integrity

The advent of vaccines creates a polarization in society. People are excluded because of personal choices. I describe four cases of patients whose drive for integrity paid dearly. It may be clear that covid-19 is no "ordinary flu" 

 

Chapter 7: Bad luck 

People who had already gone through covid-19, already had natural antibodies and still got vaccinated. Or people who, at the time of vaccination, had covid-19. People who got vaccinated, then contracted covid-19 and then got further vaccinated. Many variations on a theme but all with dramatic health consequences for some patients. Even non-medically trained people now know what myocarditis is. Sudden death! Turbo cancers. Furthermore, due to over stimulation of the immune defence system, an increase in herpes infections is observed. Several cases of glandular fever also occurred, even in elderly people. Case studies from own practice are described.

 

Chapter 8: Despair

Long covid! A disaster. Healthy people getting into trouble. Even people who were not really very sick from covid-19 during the quarantine phase. Brain fog. Concentration problems as well as unbearable fatigue. Some cases are discussed.

 

Chapter 9: Prelude. 

What preceded. Especially swine flu in 2009. A déjà-vu feeling overwhelms us. It just seems copy-paste.

 

Chapter 10: Reflection. 

Time to reflect on what has been and what remains. At the future and how things could be different. 

The best steersmen are on shore and the reader could accuse me of that too. But there are many of us who want to sail in a different direction. In different ways, different people keep saying that the whole healthcare system should be organized differently. A pharmaceutical industry that has, to satisfy shareholders does not always put the patient first. Interests come into conflict with each other. What about patents? What about philanthropy? What about the role of the media? In the end, we are left with so many questions but still one should not exclude the other namely integrated medicine where the best of different approaches are offered to the patient who is then free to choose. Surely that does not seem so difficult to me. What forces are holding that back? So, I keep hoping, out of naivety? I don't know. May be. What I do know is that I had to write this book. It would be nice if something positive could grow from Absenteeism. Hope springs to life!

 

"The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who look at it without making one".Einstein.