LIGHT THERAPY SHINES THROUGH

 

[Left to Right: Rep. Alex Mooney (R-WV); Rep. Jim Hagedorn (R-MN), 

Dr. Tara Schwetz (White House)]

[Published in Newsmax]

Light Therapy Shines Through | Newsmax.com

Rapidly mainstreaming breakthrough medical research, sometimes called "bench to bedside," has become a bipartisan priority. The rapid development and dissemination of COVID-19 vaccines established a new focus on how lives can be saved and improved if regulatory pathways, research resources, and the medical professional acceptance were better aligned.

Dr. Tara Schwetz, a senior member of the President's Office of Science and Technology, is driving the establishment of the new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). Legislation to establish and fund ARPA-H is now moving through Congress.

This new agency is patterned after the Defense Department's DARPA, the "gold standard" for creative, paradigm-busting research and application.

One of the premiere examples of a paradigm-busting breakthrough medical technology is Photobiomodulation (PBM), also known as red light therapy.

PBM's effectiveness and future were recently showcased when scientists and practitioners presented their latest research to leaders from research institutions, research hospitals, cancer clinics, and medical schools at PBM2021.

Dr. Schwetz joined members of Congress as a keynote speaker to address scientists and medical professionals from 20 countries at the PBM2021 Global Conference on the importance of innovative medical technology.

PBM is a noninvasive, FDA cleared, medical technology that directs red and near-infrared light into mitochondria to restore normal cell function and reduce inflammation. It is a natural process aiding a natural process.

PBM has been used in over 100 million patient treatments without any documented side effects. PBM's role in speeding recovery and reducing side-effects from cancer treatments is documented as reducing the cost of care by up to 73%.

PBM therapy is successfully helping veterans with managing pain, treating neurological conditions, and speeding wound healing throughout the Veterans Integrated Services Networks (VISNs), including the Martinsburg VA Medical Center, the VA Boston Healthcare System, the Salt Lake City VAMC, and the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center in Chicago.

PBM prevents the painful side effects of cancer chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The Multinational Association for Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC) recommends PBM as the standard of care for preventing oral mucositis. PBM is now preventing cancer therapy side effects at leading cancer centers, including St. Jude's Children Research Hospital, MD Anderson Cancer Center, and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard

PBM therapy's efficacy is supported by over 800 randomized clinical trials (RCTs) and 8,000 research studies, many published in leading scientific journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and The Lancet.

There are currently over 190 active PBM clinical trials. Awareness of, and support for, PBM therapy is expanding thanks to formal presentations to policy leaders on its benefits for pain management, wound healing, and preventing cancer therapy side effects.

These presentations ranged from congressional briefings to testimony before the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), federal Pain Management Best Practices Inter-Agency Task Force, the Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) Board of Scientific Counselors, and the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

Photobiomodulation's "light revolution" hopes to follow in the path blazed by other important medical technology that went from exotic to commonplace. MRIs and sonograms are just two breakthrough technologies that overcame initial resistance to become integral to maintaining our health.

TRUMP's FALTERING REVOLUTION

Also published on Newsmax.  #DEEPSWAMP  #RINOgator

President Trump made draining Washington’s Swamp the centerpiece of his Presidency.  The swamp is winning.  Its RINOgators are on the verge of destroying the Trump Presidency. 

Trump’s Executive Branch is now running on empty.  His appointment process is the slowest since Jimmy Carter in 1977.  He recently defended his depleted ranks of loyalists, “we don’t need all of the people. You know, it’s called cost saving.”  In fact, Trump not bringing in his loyalists means the Executive Branch is being run by Obama holdovers, and senior careerists, who run the government from acting positions.  They owe their last eight years of promotions and bonuses to their loyally enforcing and implementing Obama’s policies.

The swamp is exploiting Trump’s misunderstanding of “people equal policy”. 

The few political managers Trump has placed are completely isolated and outmaneuvered. Worse, most of Trump’s appointments are people who owe their loyalty to everyone but Trump.  The inner circles of the White House, and legions of political operatives in the Departments and Agencies, wish Jeb Bush was President.  Their disloyalty to Trump is manifest in leaks and their ineffectual and slow paced efforts to change anything.

Insiders explain that Trump dislikes people with government experience and that he feels Reagan and his appointees could have done more to shrink government.  If that is so, why is he fixated on bringing in Bush alumni who grew government? 

Trump declared that he would drain Washington’s swamp by not hiring lobbyists.  During the transition, countless personnel clearance forms were used supposedly to prevent lobbyists insinuating themselves. This failed.  USA Today reports that more than 100 former federal lobbyists are now working inside the Trump Administration.

Trump has been ill-served and misled from the very beginning.  During the Spring of 2016, key elements of the Reagan coalition, including Reagan Administration alumni and key think tanks, were ready, willing, and able to help Trump be successful.  They were ignored.

In June 2016, Trump realized he needed to prepare for being President.  Instead of turning to those conservatives who were openly and passionately supporting him, Trump turned to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.  Where Trump conservatives would have opened the door to legions of proven change agents, Christie opened the flood gates to Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush operatives.  Where Trump loyalists would have worked for free, Christie spent millions on hiring the Boston Consulting Group to run the Transition.  The Boston Consulting Group had never run a Presidential Transition, but the Managing Partner in charge of the contract was the daughter of longtime Bush loyalist.

The Trump Transition ended-up preparing for the Romney/Bush Administration.  Even Steve Bannon was duped into believing only the Washington Establishment was capable of helping Trump prepare for his Presidency.  Highly capable conservatives, Reagan alumni, and professionals who were for Trump since June 2015, were systematically shut out.  Never-Trumpers, even ones who ran anti-Trump floor operations at the Republican National Convention, were welcomed.

The Romney/Bush Transition became the Romney/Bush Administration on January 20, 2017. At the same time, Reince Priebus and his minions from the Republican National Committee (RNC) took over core White House operations.  This included the Office of Presidential Personnel that clears and recommends all political appointees.  Priebus rightly deserves credit for quelling Republican rebellion in the final months of the 2016 campaign.  For this, Trump should have rewarded Preibus with the non-critical Ambassadorship of his choice.  Instead, Priebus became Chief of Staff and proceeded to fill Trump’s inner circle with RNC operatives, few of whom even liked Trump.  The RNC operatives in charge of Presidential Personnel placed their friends on Trump’s political front line.  They even conducted purges of the few Trump loyalists who had made it inside.  Ironically, Never-Trumpers got away with accusing Always-Trumpers of being disloyal.

While President Trump was signing Executive Orders and making inspiring speeches, the RINOgators of the Washington, DC swamp were commandeering key positions, making sure Trump’s vision would never become a lasting operational reality.  They are doing everything possible to protect their swamp.

The most tragic result of Trump being misled is that he is spending his time on actions that will be swept away with the next Administration.  The Washington swamp is drawing Trump into this trap.  Time magazine recently ran an alarmist cover story on Trump’s regulatory reductions.  Even Trump’s inner circle believes the hype. His communications director declared, “No President or Administration has deregulated or withdrawn as many anticipated regulatory actions as this one in this short amount of time.”  In reality, saving $560 million is a pittance against the $2+ trillion regulatory burden faced by America business.

At best, stopping new regulations is like trimming Kudzu.  All these bad policies and regulations have only been driven underground.  They remain in desk drawers and computer files ready to be unleashed. Unless the underlying policies, people, and laws are changed, all these sidelined regulations will spring forth the moment Trump leaves office. The people who would actually pull-up the regulatory Kudzu by its roots are not in place.  Washington, DC’s “RINOgators” have settled in to protect their status quo and wait out Trump.

Real and lasting change will happen only if Trump appoints sufficient numbers of his actual loyalists as soon as possible. He must act quickly and decisively to remove Bush/Romney traitors and replace them with those fully committed to his revolution.  Perhaps the dual attacks by Bush 41 and 43 will open Trump’s eyes to the treachery around him.

[Scot Faulkner advises corporations and governments on how to save billions of dollars by achieving dramatic and sustainable cost reductions while improving operational and service excellence. He served as the Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives.  He also served on the White House Staff, and as an Executive Branch Appointee.]

The Great Republican Hope: Political Hysteresis

[Guest Contributor - Donald G. Mutersbaugh, Sr.]

I am writing this blog to offer optimistic thinking to the Republican Party: maybe there is a chance of winning the 2016 presidential election – but not necessarily because of anything that the Republicans may do. It has occurred to me that over the years the baton for the office of President has been passed back and forth between the Republican and Democratic parties. I was curious as to what the relationship was between the years. The more studious historians will, of course, have many explanations of why elections are won and lost: employment or unemployment; interest rates; tax policies; disposable income and voting one's “wallet”; monetary policies; balance of trade; deficit reduction; quantitative easing; wars; the list goes on and on. And I agree with them: there have got to be logical, motivating factors that drive people to the polls to vote for one candidate or the other. But I also thought about the cyclical swings: today a Republican, tomorrow a Democrat. This mood of the country – the zeitgeist – manifests itself in the actual electoral outcome.

When I started to write this blog, my intuitive feeling was that there has to be a political cycle that causes these swings; the questions are what is this cycle and is it predictable? I have decided to call this behavior Political Hysteresis: the tendency of an electoral outcome to vary about the central tendency of moderation based upon past and current candidates for the office of President. Granted, it is the candidate’s position and the Party's platform that drive the election. However, I would like to propose a simpler reason: hysteresis. “Hysteresis is the dependence of a system not only on its current environment but also on its past environment….To predict its future development, either its internal state or its history must be known.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hystersis]

What if we look at the history of Presidential elections to try to determine if there is a central tendency throughout time? I found the perfect analogy under the Control System definition of hysteresis to explain how this might apply to the election cycles; think like a thermostat and a heating system. The analogy is the following. The election is the thermostat. The unit “on” is the Republican Party (conservative) candidate; the unit “off” is the Democratic Party (liberal) candidate. The actual temperature is the electorate. And the value the thermostat is set at is the mood of the country. The temperature rises (conservative), the unit shuts down; the temperature cools (liberal), the unit turns on. But the question – which is really food for thought since this is not a scientific presentation – is: using political hysteresis, who's going to win the election in 2016?

I would like to share some of the results of my analysis. Using the 156 years from 1861 (the beginning of the Republican Party) to 2017, the average years between officeholders is 5.8 for Republicans and 8.7 for Democrats. Allowing for terms with the assassinations that occurred during this time, the total number of terms is 45: 27 were Republican and 18 were Democrat. Republicans were in control 60% of the time, and Democrats were in control 40% time.

If you start in 1861 and add the average of 5.8 years to the beginning year of office, you can correctly predict the Republican in office subsequently 25 times, or 56%; using 8.7 years, you can correctly predict the Democrat in office subsequently 16 times, or 36%. If you add the average of 5.8 years to the ending year of office, you can correctly predict the Republican in office subsequently 24 times, or 53%; using 8.7 years, you can correctly predict the Democrat in office subsequently 16 times, or 36%. (Note: these tables are not shown.).
But consider the following:

Republicans have an average of 12 years of continuous term control; Democrats average 8 years (black is a correct prediction; red is an incorrect prediction).

However, if you start in 1861 and use these averages (i.e., 12 and 8) president by president, then a Republican will win the White House in 2017 (predicted terms): 1873, 1897, 1909, 1921, 1945, 1957, 1993, 2005, 2017. By adding 12 years to the beginning date of 1861, this methodology has correctly predicted (over the years) a Republican win 77% of the time; the Democratic prediction has been less accurate at 47% (data not shown).

The lessons to be learned: 1) Barring voter registration fraud, stuffing the ballot box, and the Republicans managing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, political hysteresis smiles favorably upon a Republican Party win in 2017. 2) It appears that voters generally prefer a Republican as President; they just need a Democrat once in a while to remind them why….