Conspirituality

Conspiracy theorists have decided Novak Djokovic has long COVID — despite no evidence — because he's become an anti-vax icon courted by RFK Jr. and Dr. Oz. So we thought it was high time for a long COVID update.

Derek looks at a new Boston Children's Hospital research on viral reactivation, as well as the findings of a 2026 meta-analysis pooling 200,000+ participants.

Matthew surveys the Canadian LC landscape, where insurance-industry money is quietly funding McGill's Institute for Transforming Healthcare and McMaster's FALCON trial, testing the pseudoscientific "Lightning Process" on Long COVID patients, led by researcher Dr. Jason Busse, who has deep insurance-disability ties.

Finally, Julian unpacks Phil Parker's Lightning Process — Ericksonian NLP dressed as neuroscience, with roots in hypnotherapy, cult techniques, and pure "neuro-bollocks."

Show Notes

Kennedy Hires Covid Vaccine Skeptic to Look at Dubious Claims of Military Deaths

A New Brunswick woman's account of being left to find her own way with long COVID

Canadians frustrated by long COVID as they grapple with its effects

December 2023 release on Canadians' experiences with long-term COVID symptoms

Fourth Report on longer-term symptoms among Canadian adults

"Dealing with the Fallout": post-COVID condition's continued impact

Survey record confirming the CCAHS was a one-time collection

RFK Jr.'s workforce cuts wiped out federal tracking of key health data

Trudeau kept Harper's health care funding formula

2025 National Health Expenditure Trends snapshot

Canada Health Transfer deductions for non-compliance are declining

Carney refuses to commit to enforcing the Canada Health Act

Canada's affordability crisis and health care

Ontario should join Alberta in challenging the Canada Health Act

Alberta's new health system structure under Premier Smith

Alberta's "Bill 11" and Ford's hospital privatization

Union concern over Saskatchewan's move toward privatization

McGill launches initiative to strengthen Canada's healthcare system

Sectoral Asset Management's healthcare-investing focus

Manulife launches Global Longevity Institute committing $350M by 2030

Manulife advances longevity leadership in Canada with support for the National Institute on Ageing's landmark survey

National Institute on Ageing releases 2025 Ageing in Canada Survey

FALCON study

Petition calling to pause McMaster's FALCON trial

Original 2011 PACE trial publication

Peter White's ties to Swiss Re

The PACE team's insurance-company consulting work

The yawning gap in ME/CFS research funding

Trial By Error: BBC Takes On The Lightning Method

Can Lightning Method Help Kids with CFS?
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Heading into the holiday weekend, RFK Jr terminated almost all grants dedicated to the Office of Minority Health. Now, $38 million over four years will be redirected from postpartum screenings and assistance for Black and Native American families to "research" on erectile dysfunction, testosterone, and sperm counts.

Derek reports on this disturbing news, as well as how the kratom industry appears to be influencing Kennedy's decisions.

Show Notes

HHS Cancels Infant Mortality, Postpartum Grants to Focus on Sperm Counts, ED

RFK Jr. Bails on MAHA Event After Being Cornered on ‘Gas Station Heroin’

Kratom drink Feel Free gains popularity despite growing concerns about addiction, health impact and death

How an Addictive Gas Station Drug Found Allies in Trump’s Cabinet
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The 1990s were a special time in American media. Female-coded, liberal-leaning, daytime TV talk shows like the Oprah Winfrey Show normalized past-life regression, alien abduction, and Satanic Ritual Abuse for housewives. At the same time, male-coded, conservative-leaning, night-time AM-radio shows like Art Bell’s Coast to Coast did the same for their husbands and brothers on the graveyard shift at budget hotels or driving enormous trucks on long stretches of open highway.

For the latest installment in his Roots of Conspirituality series, Julian digs into how these two media figures brought conspiracism, pseudoscience, and the paranormal into America’s mainstream, setting the stage for how the internet and social media would melt everybody’s minds.
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Gil Duran's exceptional new book, The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy, explains how technofascists like Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Curtis Yarvin, JD Vance, and Marc Andreessen are not-so-quietly dismantling America as we know it.

Derek discusses this science fiction nightmare we’re now all living through.

Show Notes

The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy

Gil Durán and Wajahat Ali: The Rise of "The Nerd Reich”
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The irreplaceable Dolly Parton died on August 25 after a brief battle with cancer. Social media was filled with loving tributes to an incredible artist and devoted philanthropist. A minority also felt the need to use her death to platform their own issues, including a cohort common on our beat: the anti-vaxxers.

We’re going to cover that. But we’re also going to reflect on Parton’s incredible life, because she spent so much of it uplifting others.

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