“Pfizer Inc. deepened its commitment to the genetic approach to disease underpinning its Covid-19 vaccine on Monday, striking deals that will give access to three smaller companies’ technology in the area.”
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We need to speed up our little awakening because we’re still light-years behind the reality. This dwarfs Afghanistan and Covid is but a chapter in its playbook. This connects all the trigger-words: 5G, Covid, Vaccines, Graphene, The Great Reset, Blockchain, The Fourth Industrial Revolution and beyond.
A wide variety of internet-connected “smart” devices now promise consumers and businesses improved performance, convenience, efficiency, and fun. Within this broader Internet of Things (IoT) lies a growing industry of devices that monitor the human body, collect health and other personal information, and transmit that data over the internet. We refer to these emerging technologies and the data they collect as the Internet of Bodies (IoB) (see, for example, Neal, 2014; Lee, 2018), a term first applied to law and policy in 2016 by law and engineering professor Andrea M. Matwyshyn (Atlantic Council, 2017; Matwyshyn, 2016; Matwyshyn, 2018; Matawyshyn, 2019). IoB devices come in many forms. Some are already in wide use, such as wristwatch fitness monitors or pacemakers that transmit data about a patient’s heart directly to a cardiologist. Other products that are under development or newly on the market may be less familiar, such as ingestible products that collect and send information on a person’s gut, microchip implants, brain stimulation devices, and internet-connected toilets. These devices have intimate access to the body and collect vast quantities of personal biometric data. IoB device makers promise to deliver substantial health and other benefits but also pose serious risks, including risks of hacking, privacy infringements, or malfunction. Some devices, such as a reliable artificial pancreas for diabetics, could revolutionize the treatment of disease, while others could merely inflate health-care costs with little positive effect on outcomes. Access to huge torrents of live-streaming biometric data might trigger breakthroughs in medical knowledge or behavioral understanding. It might increase health outcome disparities, where only people with financial means have access to any of these benefits. Or it might enable a surveillance state of unprecedented intrusion and consequence. There is no universally accepted definition of the IoB.1 For the purposes of this report, we refer to the IoB, or the IoB ecosystem, as IoB devices (defined next, with further explanation in the passages that follow) together with the software they contain and the data they collect.
An IoB device is defined as a device that • contains software or computing capabilities • can communicate with an internet-connected device or network and satisfies one or both of the following: • collects person-generated health or biometric data • can alter the human body’s function. The software or computing capabilities in an IoB device may be as simple as a few lines of code used to configure a radio frequency identification (RFID) microchip implant, or as complex as a computer that processes artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms. A connection to the internet through cellular or Wi-Fi networks is required but need not be a direct connection. For example, a device may be connected via Bluetooth to a smartphone or USB device that communicates with an internet-connected computer. Person-generated health data (PGHD) refers to health, clinical, or wellness data collected by technologies to be recorded or analyzed by the user or another person. Biometric or behavioral data refers to measurements of unique physical or behavioral properties about a person. Finally, an alteration to the body’s function refers to an augmentation or modification of how the user’s body performs, such as a change in cognitive enhancement and memory improvement provided by a brain-computer interface, or the ability to record whatever the user sees through an intraocular lens with a camera. IoB devices generally, but not always, require a physical connection to the body (e.g., they are worn, ingested, implanted, or otherwise attached to or embedded in the body, temporarily or permanently). Many IoB devices are medical devices regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).3 Figure 1 depicts examples of technologies in the IoB ecosystem that are either already available on the U.S. market or are under development. Devices that are not connected to the internet, such as ordinary heart monitors or medical ID bracelets, are not included in the definition of IoB. Nor are implanted magnets (a niche consumer product used by those in the so-called bodyhacker community described in the next section) that are not connected to smartphone applications (apps), because although they change the body’s functionality by allowing the user to sense electromagnetic vibrations, the devices do not contain software. Trends in IoB technologies and additional examples are further discussed in the next section. Some IoB devices may fall in and out of our definition at different times. For example, a Wi-Fi-connected smartphone on its own would not be part of the IoB; however, once a health app is installed that requires connection to the body to track user information, such as heart rate or number of steps taken, the phone would be considered IoB. Our definition is meant to capture rapidly evolving technologies that have the potential to bring about the various risks and benefits that are discussed in this report. We focused on analyzing existing and emerging IoB technologies that appear to have the potential to improve health and medical outcomes, efficiency, and human function or performance, but that could also endanger users’ legal, ethical, and privacy rights or present personal or national security risks. For this research, we conducted an extensive literature review and interviewed security experts, technology developers, and IoB advocates to understand anticipated risks and benefits. We had valuable discussions with experts at BDYHAX 2019, an annual convention for bodyhackers, in February 2019, and DEFCON 27, one of the world’s largest hacker conferences, in August 2019. In this report, we discuss trends in the technology landscape and outline the benefits and risks to the user and other stakeholders. We present the current state of governance that applies to IoB devices and the data they collect and conclude by offering recommendations for improved regulation to best balance those risks and rewards.
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Operation Warp Speed logo
Transhumanism, Bodyhacking, Biohacking, and More
The IoB is related to several movements outside of formal health care focused on integrating human bodies with technology. Next, we summarize some of these concepts, though there is much overlap and interchangeability among them. Transhumanism is a worldview and political movement advocating for the transcendence of humanity beyond current human capabilities. Transhumanists want to use technology, such as artificial organs and other techniques, to halt aging and achieve “radical life extension” (Vita-Moore, 2018). Transhumanists may also seek to resist disease, enhance their intelligence, or thwart fatigue through diet, exercise, supplements, relaxation techniques, or nootropics (substances that may improve cognitive function). Bodyhackers, biohackers, and cyborgs, who enjoy experimenting with body enhancement, often refer to themselves as grinders. They may or may not identify as transhumanists. These terms are often interchanged in common usage, but some do distinguish between them (Trammell, 2015). Bodyhacking generally refers to modifying the body to enhance one’s physical or cognitive abilities. Some bodyhacking is purely aesthetic. Hackers have implanted horns in their heads and LED lights under their skin. Other hacks, such as implanting RFID microchips in one’s hand, are meant to enhance function, allowing users to unlock doors, ride public transportation, store emergency contact information, or make purchases with the sweep of an arm (Baenen, 2017; Savage, 2018). One bodyhacker removed the RFID microchip from her car’s key fob and had it implanted in her arm (Linder, 2019). A few bodyhackers have implanted a device that is a combined wireless router and hard drive that can be used as a node in a wireless mesh network (Oberhaus, 2019). Some bodyhacking is medical in nature, including 3D-printed prosthetics and do-it-yourself artificial pancreases. Still others use the term for any method of improving health, including bodybuilding, diet, or exercise. Biohacking generally denotes techniques that modify the biological systems of humans or other living organisms. This ranges from bodybuilding and nootropics to developing cures for diseases via self-experimentation to human genetic manipulation through CRISPR-Cas9 techniques (Samuel, 2019; Griffin, 2018). Cyborgs, or cybernetic organisms, are people who have used machines to enhance intelligence or the senses. Neil Harbisson, a colorblind man who can “hear” color through an antenna implanted in his head that plays a tune for different colors or wavelengths of light, is acknowledged as the first person to be legally recognized by a government as a cyborg, by being allowed to have his passport picture include his implant (Donahue, 2017). Because IoB is a wide-ranging field that intersects with do-it-yourself body modification, consumer products, and medical care, understanding its benefits and risks is critical.
The Internet of Bodies is here. This is how it could change our lives
04 Jun 2020, Xiao Liu Fellow at the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, World Economic Forum
We’re entering the era of the “Internet of Bodies”: collecting our physical data via a range of devices that can be implanted, swallowed or worn.
The result is a huge amount of health-related data that could improve human wellbeing around the world, and prove crucial in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
But a number of risks and challenges must be addressed to realize the potential of this technology, from privacy issues to practical hurdles.
In the special wards of Shanghai’s Public Health Clinical Center, nurses use smart thermometers to check the temperatures of COVID-19 patients. Each person’s temperature is recorded with a sensor, reducing the risk of infection through contact, and the data is sent to an observation dashboard. An abnormal result triggers an alert to medical staff, who can then intervene promptly. The gathered data also allows medics to analyse trends over time.
The smart thermometers are designed by VivaLNK, a Silicon-Valley based startup, and are a powerful example of the many digital products and services that are revolutionizing healthcare. After the Internet of Things, which transformed the way we live, travel and work by connecting everyday objects to the Internet, it’s now time for the Internet of Bodies. This means collecting our physical data via devices that can be implanted, swallowed or simply worn, generating huge amounts of health-related information.
Some of these solutions, such as fitness trackers, are an extension of the Internet of Things. But because the Internet of Bodies centres on the human body and health, it also raises its own specific set of opportunities and challenges, from privacy issues to legal and ethical questions.
Image: McKinsey & Company
Connecting our bodies
As futuristic as the Internet of Bodies may seem, many people are already connected to it through wearable devices. The smartwatch segment alone has grown into a $13 billion market by 2018, and is projected to increase another 32% to $18 billion by 2021. Smart toothbrushes and even hairbrushes can also let people track patterns in their personal care and behaviour.
For health professionals, the Internet of Bodies opens the gate to a new era of effective monitoring and treatment.
In 2017, the U.S. Federal Drug Administration approved the first use of digital pills in the United States. Digital pills contain tiny, ingestible sensors, as well as medicine. Once swallowed, the sensor is activated in the patient’s stomach and transmits data to their smartphone or other devices.
In 2018, Kaiser Permanente, a healthcare provider in California, started a virtual rehab program for patients recovering from heart attacks. The patients shared their data with their care providers through a smartwatch, allowing for better monitoring and a closer, more continuous relationship between patient and doctor. Thanks to this innovation, the completion rate of the rehab program rose from less than 50% to 87%, accompanied by a fall in the readmission rate and programme cost.
The deluge of data collected through such technologies is advancing our understanding of how human behaviour, lifestyle and environmental conditions affect our health. It has also expanded the notion of healthcare beyond the hospital or surgery and into everyday life. This could prove crucial in fighting the coronavirus pandemic. Keeping track of symptoms could help us stop the spread of infection, and quickly detect new cases. Researchers are investigating whether data gathered from smartwatches and similar devices can be used as viral infection alerts by tracking the user’s heart rate and breathing.
At the same time, this complex and evolving technology raises new regulatory challenges.
What counts as health information?
In most countries, strict regulations exist around personal health information such as medical records and blood or tissue samples. However, these conventional regulations often fail to cover the new kind of health data generated through the Internet of Bodies, and the entities gathering and processing this data.
In the United States, the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA), which is the major law for health data regulation, applies only to medical providers, health insurers, and their business associations. Its definition of “personal health information” covers only the data held by these entities. This definition is turning out to be inadequate for the era of the Internet of Bodies. Tech companies are now also offering health-related products and services, and gathering data. Margaret Riley, a professor of health law at the University of Virginia, pointed out to me in an interview that HIPPA does not cover the masses of data from consumer wearables, for example.
Another problem is that the current regulations only look at whether the data is sensitive in itself, not whether it can be used to generate sensitive information. For example, the result of a blood test in a hospital will generally be classified as sensitive data, because it reveals private information about your personal health. But today, all sorts of seemingly non-sensitive data can also be used to draw inferences about your health, through data analytics. Glenn Cohen, a professor at Harvard Law school, told me in an interview that even data that is not about health at all, such as grocery shopping lists, can be used for such inferences. As a result, conventional regulations may fail to cover data that is sensitive and private, simply because it did not look sensitive before it was processed.
Data risks
Identifying and protecting sensitive data matters, because it can directly affect how we are treated by institutions and other people. With big data analytics, countless day-to-day actions and decisions can ultimately feed into our health profile, which may be created and maintained not just by traditional healthcare providers, but also by tech companies or other entities. Without appropriate laws and regulations, it could also be sold. At the same time, data from the Internet of Bodies can be used to make predictions and inferences that could affect a person’s or group’s access to resources such as healthcare, insurance and employment.
James Dempsey, director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, told me in an interview that this could lead to unfair treatment. He warned of potential discrimination and bias when such data is used for decisions in insurance and employment. The affected people may not even be aware of this.
One solution would be to update the regulations. Sandra Wachter and Brent Mittelstadt, two scholars at the Oxford Internet Institute, suggest that data protection law should focus more on how and why data is processed, and not just on its raw state. They argue for a so-called “right to reasonable inferences”, meaning the right to have your data used only for reasonable, socially acceptable inferences. This would involve setting standards on whether and when inferring certain information from a person’s data, including the state of their present or future health, is socially acceptable or overly invasive.
Practical problems
Apart from the concerns over privacy and sensitivity, there are also a number of practical problems in dealing with the sheer volume of data generated by the Internet of Bodies. The lack of standards around security and data processing makes it difficult to combine data from diverse sources, and use it to advance research. Different countries and institutions are trying to jointly overcome this problem. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and its Standards Association have been working with the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA), National Institutes of Health, as well as universities and businesses among other stakeholders since 2016, to address the security and interoperability issue of connected health.
As the Internet of Bodies spreads into every aspect of our existence, we are facing a range of new challenges. But we also have an unprecedented chance to improve our health and well-being, and save countless lives. During the COVID-19 crisis, using this opportunity and finding solutions to the challenges is a more urgent task than ever. This relies on government agencies and legislative bodies working with the private sector and civil society to create a robust governance framework, and to include inferences in the realm of data protection. Devising technological and regulatory standards for interoperability and security would also be crucial to unleashing the power of the newly available data. The key is to collaborate across borders and sectors to fully realize the enormous benefits of this rapidly advancing technology.
Governance of IoB devices is managed through a patchwork of state and federal agencies, nonprofit organizations, and consumer advocacy groups
The primary entities responsible for governance of IoB devices are the FDA and the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Although the FDA is making strides in cybersecurity of medical devices, many IoB devices, especially those available for consumer use, do not fall under FDA jurisdiction.
Federal and state officials have begun to address cybersecurity risks associated with IoB that are beyond FDA oversight, but there are few laws that mandate cybersecurity best practices.
As with IoB devices, there is no single entity that provides oversight to IoB data
Protection of medical information is regulated at the federal level, in part, by HIPAA.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) helps ensure data security and consumer privacy through legal actions brought by the Bureau of Consumer Protection.
Data brokers are largely unregulated, but some legal experts are calling for policies to protect consumers.
As the United States has no federal data privacy law, states have introduced a patchwork of laws and regulations that apply to residents’ personal data, some of which includes IoB-related information.
The lack of consistency in IoB laws among states and between the state and federal level potentially enables regulatory gaps and enforcement challenges.
Recommendations
The U.S. Commerce Department can put foreign IoB companies on its “Entity List,” preventing them from doing business with Americans, if those foreign companies are implicated in human rights violations.
As 5G, Wi-Fi 6, and satellite internet standards are rolled out, the federal government should be prepared for issues by funding studies and working with experts to develop security regulations.
It will be important to consider how to incentivize quicker phase-out of the legacy medical devices with poor cybersecurity that are already in wide use.
IoB developers must be more attentive to cybersecurity by integrating cybersecurity and privacy considerations from the beginning of product development.
Device makers should test software for vulnerabilities often and devise methods for users to patch software.
Congress should consider establishing federal data transparency and protection standards for data that are collected from the IoB.
The FTC could play a larger role to ensure that marketing claims about improved well-being or specific health treatment are backed by appropriate evidence.
JAMMU and Kashmir is almost always in the news for one reason or another. Apart from the obvious political headlines, J&K was also in the news because of covid-19. As the world struggled with covid-19 pandemic, J&K faced a peculiar situation due to its poor health infrastructure. Nonetheless, all sections of society did a commendable job in keeping covid under control and preventing the loss of life as much as possible. The doctors Association in Kashmir along with the administration did as much as possible through their efforts. For that we are all thankful to them. However, it is about time that we integrate our Healthcare System by upgrading it and introducing to it new technologies from the current world.
We’ve all heard of the Internet of Things, a network of products ranging from refrigerators to cars to industrial control systems that are connected to the internet. Internet of Bodies (IoB) the outcome of the Internet of Things (IoT) is broadly helping the healthcare system and every individual to live life with ease by managing the human body in terms of technology. The Internet of Bodies connects the human body to a network of internet run devices.
The use of IoB can be independent or by the health care heroes (doctors) to monitor, report and enhance the health system of the human body. The internet of Bodies (IoB) are broadly classified into three categories or in some cases we can say three generations – Body Internal, Body External and Body embedded. The Body Internal model of IoB is the category, in which the individual or patient is interacting with the technology environment or we can say internet or our healthcare system by having an installed device inside the human body. Body External model or generation of IoB signifies the model where the device is installed external to the body for certain usage viz. Apple watches and other smart bands from various OEM’s for tracking blood pressure, heart rate etc which can later be used for proper health tracking and monitoring purposes. Last one under this classifications are Body Embedded, in which the devices are embedded under the skin by health care professionals during a number of health situations.
The Internet of Bodies is a small part or even the offspring of the Internet of Things. Much like it, there remains the challenge of data and information breach as we have already witnessed many excessive distributed denial of service (DDos) attacks and other cyber-attacks on IoTs to exploit data and gather information. The effects are even more severe and vulnerable in the case of the Internet of Bodies as the human body is involved in this schema.
The risk of these threats has taken over the discussion about the IOBs. Thus, this has become a great concern in medical technology companies. Most of the existing IoB companies just rely on end-user license agreements and privacy policies to retain rights in software and to create rights to monitor, aggregate and share users’ body data. They just need to properly enhance the security model and implement high security measures to avoid any misfortune. For the same the Government of India is already examining the personal data protection bill 2019.
The Internet has not managed to change our lifestyles in the way the internet of things will!
Views expressed in the article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the editorial stance of Kashmir Observer
The author is presently Manager IT & Ops In HK Group
Social media, sensor feeds, and scientific studies generate large amounts of valuable data. However, understanding the relationships among this data can be challenging. Graph analytics has emerged as an approach by which analysts can efficiently examine the structure of the large networks produced from these data sources and draw conclusions from the observed patterns. By understanding the complex relationships both within and between data sources, a more complete picture of the analysis problem can be understood. With lessons learned from innovations in the expanding realm of deep neural networks, the Hierarchical Identify Verify Exploit (HIVE) program seeks to advance the arena of graph analytics.
The HIVE program is looking to build a graph analytics processor that can process streaming graphs 1000X faster and at much lower power than current processing technology. If successful, the program will enable graph analytics techniques powerful enough to solve tough challenges in cyber security, infrastructure monitoring and other areas of national interest. Graph analytic processing that currently requires racks of servers could become practical in tactical situations to support front-line decision making. What ’s more, these advanced graph analytics servers could have the power to analyze the billion- and trillion-edge graphs that will be generated by the Internet of Things, ever-expanding social networks, and future sensor networks.
In parallel with the hardware development of a HIVE processor, DARPA is working with MIT Lincoln Laboratory and Amazon Web Services (AWS) to host the HIVE Graph Challenge with the goal of developing a trillion-edge dataset. This freely available dataset will spur innovative software and hardware solutions in the broader graph analysis community that will contribute to the HIVE program.
The overall objective is to accelerate innovation in graph analytics to open new pathways for meeting the challenge of understanding an ever-increasing torrent of data. The HIVE program features two primary challenges:
The first is a static graph problem focused on sub-graph Isomorphism. This task is to further the ability to search a large graph in order to identify a particular subsection of that graph.
The second is a dynamic graph problem focused on trying to find optimal clusters of data within the graph.
Both challenges will include a small graph problem in the billions of nodes and a large graph problem in the trillions of nodes.
Transhuman Code authors discuss digital ID’s and a centralized AI-controlled society. In 2018 More info
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Sanofi-Aventis agreed to pay $109 million to resolve allegations that the company gave doctors free units of Hyalgan (an injection to relieve knee pain) to encourage those doctors to buy their product. Sanofi lowered the effective price by promising these free samples to doctors, but at the same time got inflated prices from government programs by submitting false price reports, alleged the United States. Medicare and other government health care programs “paid millions of dollars in kickback-tainted claims for Hyalgan,” according to the DOJ announcement.
9
Endo
FEB 2014
Endo Health Solutions Inc. and its subsidiary Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc. agreed to pay $192.7 million to resolve criminal and civil liability arising from Endo’s marketing of the prescription drug Lidoderm. As part of the agreement, Endo admitted that it intended that Lidoderm be used for unapproved indications and that it promoted Lidoderm to healthcare providers this way.
8
AstraZeneca
APRIL 2010
AstraZeneca was fined $520 million to resolve allegations that it illegally promoted the antipsychotic drug Seroquel. The drug was approved for treating schizophrenia and later for bipolar mania, but the government alleged that AstraZeneca promoted Seroquel for a variety of unapproved uses, such as aggression, sleeplessness, anxiety, and depression. AstraZeneca denied the charges but agreed to pay the fine to end the investigation.
7
Amgen
DEC 2012
Amgen agreed to pay a $762 million fine to resolve criminal and civil charges that the company illegally introduced and promoted several drugs including Aranesp, a drug to treat anemia. Amgen pleaded guilty to illegally selling Aranesp to be used at doses that the FDA had explicitly rejected, and for an off-label treatment that had never been FDA-approved.
6
Merck
NOV 2011
Merck agreed to pay a fine of $950 million related to the illegal promotion of the painkiller Vioxx, which was withdrawn from the market in 2004 after studies found the drug increased the risk of heart attacks. The company pled guilty to having promoted Vioxx as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis before it had been approved for that use. The settlement also resolved allegations that Merck made false or misleading statements about the drug’s heart safety to increase sales.
5
Eli Lilly
JAN 2009
Eli Lilly was fined $1.42 billion to resolve a government investigation into the off-label promotion of the antipsychotic Zyprexa. Zyprexa had been approved for the treatment of certain psychotic disorders, but Lilly admitted to promoting the drug in elderly populations to treat dementia. The government also alleged that Lilly targeted primary care physicians to promote Zyprexa for unapproved uses and “trained its sales force to disregard the law.”
4
Abbott
MAY 2012
Abbott was fined $1.5 billion in connection to the illegal promotion of the antipsychotic drug Depakote. Abbott admitted to having trained a special sales force to target nursing homes, marketing the drug for the control of aggression and agitation in elderly dementia patients. Depakote had never been approved for that purpose, and Abbott lacked evidence that the drug was safe or effective for those uses. The company also admitted to marketing Depakote to treat schizophrenia, even though no study had found it effective for that purpose.
3
Johnson & Johnson
NOV 2013
Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay a $2.2 billion fine to resolve criminal and civil allegations relating to the prescription drugs Risperdal, Invega and Natrecor. The government alleged that J&J promoted these drugs for uses not approved as safe and effective by the FDA, targeted elderly dementia patients in nursing homes, and paid kickbacks to physicians and to the nation’s largest long-term care pharmacy provider, Omnicare Inc. As part of the agreement, Johnson & Johnson admitted that it promoted Risperdal for treatment of psychotic symptoms in non-schizophrenic patients, although the drug was approved only to treat schizophrenia.
2
Pfizer
SEPT 2009
Pfizer was fined $2.3 billion, then the largest health care fraud settlement and the largest criminal fine ever imposed in the United States. Pfizer pled guilty to misbranding the painkiller Bextra with “the intent to defraud or mislead”, promoting the drug to treat acute pain at dosages the FDA had previously deemed dangerously high. Bextra was pulled from the market in 2005 due to safety concerns. The government alleged that Pfizer also promoted three other drugs illegally: the antipsychotic Geodon, an antibiotic Zyvox, and the antiepileptic drug Lyrica.
GlaxoSmithKline agreed to pay a fine of $3 billion to resolve civil and criminal liabilities regarding its promotion of drugs, as well as its failure to report safety data. This is the largest health care fraud settlement in the United States to date. The company pled guilty to misbranding the drug Paxil for treating depression in patients under 18, even though the drug had never been approved for that age group. GlaxoSmithKline also pled guilty to failing to disclose safety information about the diabetes drug Avandia to the FDA.
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Social isolation, with or without loneliness, can have as large effect on mortality risk as smoking, obesity, sedentary lifestyle and high blood pressure“
The causal relation between isolation, depression, stress and diseases falls into the “settled science” category, there may only be a debate on how much is too much. On the quantitative matter, the agreement seems to be that we’re all different, to a point. So for this article I’m just going to investigate some reputable sources on this topic, with minimal inputs from myself.
“Conversely, people who engage in meaningful, productive activities with others tend to live longer, boost their mood, and have a sense of purpose. These activities seem to help maintain their well-being and may improve their cognitive function, studies show”, the report follows. The article deals mainly with long term and chronic isolation and loneliness, but that’s not “as opposed to a short term quarantine”, it’s just a subjective quantitative difference. And if the situation is pre-existent, quarantining everyone seriously exacerbates it. Isolation in any quantity can trigger or aggravate a bad situation for a set of people, especially if there are other factors to promote it, such as uncertainty or fear. Everyone knows someone who goes crazy over a single day of loneliness, as well as “anti-social” people who can hardly be pulled out from self-isolation. There’s a full spectrum of personalities and a full spectrum of threats for them from mass-quarantines. Remember: isolation is worse when everyone around is in isolation too.
Human beings are social creatures. Our connection to others enables us to survive and thrive. Yet, as we age, many of us are alone more often than when we were younger, leaving us vulnerable to social isolation and loneliness—and related health problems such as cognitive decline, depression, and heart disease. Fortunately, there are ways to counteract these negative effects.
Isolation is one of the factors that predisposes the elders to harm from viruses, instead of protecting them
Older adults are reporting social isolation or loneliness show poorer cognitive function 4 years later, claims a recent British study. “Interventions to foster social connections may be particularly beneficial for individuals with low levels of education.” Which is precisely why the US National Institute on Aging is so concerned about it too.
“Efforts to address social isolation in older adults, including those relying on remote technologies, are likely to be cost-effective for health care systems, and are, at the very least, humane approaches to a very common form of distress in older adults.” notes Clifford Singer, MD, University of Maine Chief and reputed Geriatric specialist.
The elders are also the age category where loneliness was the most wide-spread before quarantines. About 28 percent of older adults — that’s 14 million people, in the United States live alone, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, (HHS). While many of them are not lonely or socially isolated — some seniors feel isolate despite living among family and friends.
Loneliness May Warp Our Genes, And Our Immune Systems
If anyone likes to make distinctions between loneliness, social isolation and forced social isolation, I’m just going to say that quarantine (even voluntary self-isolation) ads a great deal to all of those. “The assumption is that social disconnectedness without perceived isolation (i.e. isolation without loneliness) would be more “ego syntonic” and less stressful than states of loneliness and depression, therefore having less impact on health. Research has not always supported this assumption (Cornwell & Waite, 2009). Social isolation, with or without loneliness, can have as large effect on mortality risk as smoking, obesity, sedentary lifestyle and high blood pressure“, notes reputed geriatrics specialist Clifford Singer, MD
Therefore a huge amount of scientific literature about loneliness becomes relevant to quarantine times.
NPR reports: “Loneliness has been linked to everything from heart disease to Alzheimer’s disease. Depression is common among the lonely. Cancers tear through their bodies more rapidly, and viruses hit them harder and more frequently. In the short term, it feels like the loneliness will kill you. A study suggests that’s because the pain of loneliness activates the immune pattern of a primordial response commonly known as fight or flight. For decades, researchers have been seeing signs that the immune systems of lonely people are working differently. Lonely people’s white blood cells seem to be more active in a way that increases inflammation, a natural immune response to wounding and bacterial infection. On top of that, they seem to have lower levels of antiviral compounds known as interferons.”
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Understanding the biology of loneliness
Losing a sense of connection and community changes a person’s perception of the world. Someone experiencing chronic loneliness feels threatened and mistrustful of others, which activates a biological defense mechanism, according to Steve Cole, Ph.D., director of the Social Genomics Core Laboratory at the University of California, Los Angeles. His NIA-funded research focuses on understanding the physiological pathways of loneliness (the different ways that loneliness affects how your mind and body function) and developing social and psychological interventions to combat it.
For example, loneliness may alter the tendency of cells in the immune system to promote inflammation, which is necessary to help our bodies heal from injury, Dr. Cole said. But inflammation that lasts too long increases the risk of chronic diseases.
Loneliness acts as a fertilizer for other diseases,” Dr. Cole said. “The biology of loneliness can accelerate the buildup of plaque in arteries, help cancer cells grow and spread, and promote inflammation in the brain leading to Alzheimer’s disease. Loneliness promotes several different types of wear and tear on the body.
People who feel lonely may also have weakened immune cells that have trouble fighting off viruses, which makes them more vulnerable to some infectious diseases, he added.
Psychologially, physical isolation is the worst form of social isolation
The impacts of social isolation become worse when people are placed in physically isolating environments. For example, solitary confinement can have negative psychological effects on prisoners – including significant increases in anxiety and panic attacks, increased levels of paranoia, and being less able to think clearly.
Many prisoners also report long-term mental health problems after being held in isolation. “Some people who have been held in social isolation against their will may develop long-term mental health conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)”, writes Science Alert
Photo: Silviu Costinescu
Are pandemics stressful and depressive? Count on quarantines to add more stress and depression and reduce the ability to fight them
The social experiment known as “the CV pandemic” (due to online censorship, I’m afraid to type its full name” is promoting the idea that everyone around is a potential walking biological bomb. I can’t think of a more stressful social situation, beats by far a war in which the enemy is clearly defined and usually distant. Unless you add a medical martial law to it. Isolation promotes stress and depression, also depletes our abilities to fight stress and depression. Which is precisely the downward spiral you need in a stressful and depressive situation such as a deadly global pandemic. Socially isolated people are less able to deal with stressful situations. They’re also more likely to feel depressed and may have problems processing information. This in turn can lead to difficulties with decision-making and memory storage and recall. In fact, social therapies are highly rated as stress-deterring methods, as recommended by the Mayo Clinic Staff: “A strong social support network can be critical to help you through the stress of tough times, whether you’ve had a bad day at work or a year filled with loss or chronic illness. And the lack of social support can lead to isolation and loneliness. Since supportive family, friends and co-workers are such an important part of your life, it’s never too soon to cultivate these important relationships. A social support network is made up of friends, family and peers. Social support is different from a support group, which is generally a structured meeting run by a lay leader or mental health professional.”
In New York City, a desperate coronavirus-stricken Bronx man tried to commit suicide-by-cop after calling 911 on himself, according to cops.
Health officials in other areas, including Portland, Oregon, saw the number of suicide-related 911 calls soar after the city’s coronavirus “state of emergency” declaration, with self-harm calls spiking 41 percent.
Isolation promotes inflammation, which promotes more isolation
The shock of social isolation could fuel inflammation in the body. And the immune system may affect a region of the brain processing fear and anxiety. “Inflammation can change people’s experiences of the social world and what they’re thinking,” says Naomi Eisenberger, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. That could make us more apprehensive about social interaction and lead to more isolation.
If the cycle continues, that could explain chronic isolation and the subsequent depression and illnesses plaguing the lonely. “There are things we can do to get out of a depressed or lonely state, but they’re not easy,” dr. Steve Cole says. “Part of the reason is because these negative psychological states develop some kind of molecular momentum.”
Past research has shown norepinephrine can increase production of immature monocytes – a type of white blood cell – in bone marrow. These monocytes demonstrate high inflammatory gene expression and low antiviral gene expression.
Researchers quoted by Medical News Today found that both lonely monkeys and humans had higher levels of monocytes in their blood. Further investigation found this is due to an increase in production of immature monocytes; monkeys repeatedly exposed to mild social stress experienced a rise in levels of these cells.
“Overall, the researchers say their findings suggest loneliness disrupts fight-or-fight signaling, which leads to increased production of immature monocytes, causing lower antiviral responses and increased inflammation. In turn, this may impair the production of white blood cells, partly explaining why lonely individuals are at greater risk for chronic illness.” – MNT
Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for coronary heart disease and stroke
“Deficiencies in social relationships are associated with an increased risk of developing CHD and stroke” claims a study published by the British Medica Journal. And they’re heavily supported by other scientific works. Sixteen electronic databases were systematically searched for longitudinal studies set in high-income countries and published up until May 2015. 23 papers met inclusion criteria for the narrative review. They reported data from 16 longitudinal datasets, for a total of 4628 CHD and 3002 stroke events recorded over follow-up periods ranging from 3 to 21 years. Reports of 11 CHD studies and 8 stroke studies provided data suitable for meta-analysis. Poor social relationships were associated with a 29% increase in risk of incident CHD (pooled relative risk: 1.29, 95% CI 1.04 to 1.59) and a 32% increase in risk of stroke (pooled relative risk: 1.32, 95% CI 1.04 to 1.68). Subgroup analyses did not identify any differences by gender.
First-year College Students Who Feel Lonely Have A Weaker Immune Response To The Flu Shot
A 2005 study at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh confirms how college challenges both mind and body, by demonstrating that lonely first-year students mounted a weaker immune response to the flu shot than did other students. The study appears in Health Psychology, which is published by the American Psychological Association (APA). <<Sparse social ties were associated at a level of statistical significance with poorer immune response to one component of the vaccine, A/Caledonia, independent of feelings of loneliness. Loneliness was also associated with a poorer immune response to the same strain as late as four months after the shot. This supports the argument that chronic loneliness can help to predict health and well-being. The independence of social-network size and loneliness as factors in immunity is supported by the observation that, says Pressman, “You can have very few friends but still not feel lonely. Alternatively, you can have many friends yet feel lonely.” The finding could also help to explain why first-year students tend to visit student health centers more than older classmates; they can be unmoored socially as they adjust to their new circumstances>>, reports Science Daily.
Does grief help? Because we’re already grieving for the world we’ve just lost
“Yes, and we’re feeling a number of different griefs. We feel the world has changed, and it has. We know this is temporary, but it doesn’t feel that way, and we realize things will be different. Just as going to the airport is forever different from how it was before 9/11, things will change and this is the point at which they changed. The loss of normalcy; the fear of economic toll; the loss of connection. This is hitting us and we’re grieving. Collectively. We are not used to this kind of collective grief in the air” – David Kessler, one of world’s foremost expert on grief, in an interview for Harvard’s Business Review. Kessler co-wrote with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief through the Five Stages of Loss. His new book adds another stage to the process, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief. Kessler also has worked for a decade in a three-hospital system in Los Angeles. He served on their biohazard’s team. His volunteer work includes being an LAPD Specialist Reserve for traumatic events as well as having served on the Red Cross’s disaster services team. He is the founder of www.grief.com which has over 5 million visits yearly from 167 countries. He goes on saying: “We’re also feeling anticipatory grief. Anticipatory grief is that feeling we get about what the future holds when we’re uncertain. Usually it centers on death. We feel it when someone gets a dire diagnosis or when we have the normal thought that we’ll lose a parent someday. Anticipatory grief is also more broadly imagined futures. There is a storm coming. There’s something bad out there. With a virus, this kind of grief is so confusing for people. Our primitive mind knows something bad is happening, but you can’t see it. This breaks our sense of safety. We’re feeling that loss of safety. I don’t think we’ve collectively lost our sense of general safety like this. Individually or as smaller groups, people have felt this. But all together, this is new. We are grieving on a micro and a macro level.”
Later Update: As I predicted, calls to US helpline jump 891%, as White House is warned of mental health crisis
“Some federal officials worry the U.S. isn’t prepared to meet nation’s needs”. – ABC “Mental health – major factor”, said Donald Trump in a briefing on 9th of April announcing he summoned country’s specialists to tackle the side-effects of the lock-ups. This comes after March 29’s statements in which President Donald Trump suggested it is “common sense” to expect a “massive” jump in mental health issues. Apparently it’s not common at all, the topic is absent from the public agenda. “You’re going to have massive depression,” he said. “You’re going to have depression in the economy also. … [Expect] massive drug use, massive depression, mental depression, massive numbers of suicide.” – Source
Bonus: Isolation promotes heavy social media use, which promotes depression, which promotes more isolation and disease
Missouri University reports: “Browsing Facebook has become a daily activity for hundreds of millions of people. Because so many people engage with the website daily, researchers are interested in how emotionally involved Facebook users can be with the social networking site and how regular use can affect their mental health. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri have found that Facebook use can lead to symptoms of depression if the social networking site triggers feelings of envy among its users. Margaret Duffy, a professor and chair of strategic communication at the MU School of Journalism, says that how Facebook users use the site makes a difference in how they respond to it.
“Facebook can be a fun and healthy activity if users take advantage of the site to stay connected with family and old friends and to share interesting and important aspects of their lives,” Duffy said. “However, if Facebook is used to see how well an acquaintance is doing financially or how happy an old friend is in his relationship—things that cause envy among users—use of the site can lead to feelings of depression.”
I can go on forever with quotes from the most reputed specialists, and probably I will update this article as sources are abundant. I think we even have a case of “scientific consensus” (not that it matters, bandwagonning is a fallacy). Mass isolation is a disaster for public health, and the subjective “short term argument” is compensated by the huge number of people affected, plus a trove of aggravating factors. And one factor is the worst.
I saved the worst for last: This will be a recurrent event, as I’ve shown in my previous article. We’re never going back to the pre-pandemic way of life, these shocks will become the new normal in a few years. “We’re not going back to normal. Social distancing is here to stay for much more than a few weeks. It will upend our way of life, in some ways forever. As long as someone in the world has the virus, breakouts can and will keep recurring without stringent controls to contain them”, writes Technology Review. And when we’ll run out of viruses, someone will make more to keep the machine running, I’d add. In a report (pdf), researchers at Imperial College London proposed a way of doing this: impose more extreme social distancing measures every time admissions to intensive care units (ICUs) start to spike, and relax them each time admissions fall. Here’s how that looks in a graph.
You’re looking at a visual rendition of our social life, amplitudes ad frequencies being controlled by government, like a DJ. Enter the era of social DJ-ing, the most modern branch of social engineering.
UPDATE JUNE 15 2020 A ton of scientific literature and media reports have come to support the findings of this article since its publication, I want to highlight just one item for now, for its incisive conclusions. It’s a very recent work by French expert M ZELMAT of Laboratory of Clinical Biology, Hospital Center, France, titled “Facing COVID-19 by the Confinement : EBM, ‘MBM’ or ‘SBM’?”. It’s in prepublication on SSRN and it’s just been submitted to the British Medical Journal, so not yet approved. Download in .PDF
I’ll just copy/paste the conclusion:
“In medicine, there is only isolation and quarantine and the confinement of the general population is not only a heresy (because it does not exist in medicine nor in epidemiology nor in infectiology nor in public health) but it is based on no scientific evidence. In medicine, we can’t and we have no right to set up a treatment or a preventive measure if it is not based on evidence (Evidence Based-Medicine). The confinement is, also, very dangerous for health, economy, education and peace. The governments must listen to real experts (who put public health before private interests), stop immediately all the lockdown measures and re-open everything (economy, hospital medical services, education, etc) because nothing in this virus justifies them ; this virus is, in the general population, mild and not very dangerous as we are told because it it causes 85% of mild forms, 99 % of infected people recover, it is not a danger for pregnant women and children (unlike the flu), it spreads less faster than influenza viruses48 , children are not important drivers (unlike the flu), its mortality rate is similar to the flu or even lower and much lower than the coronaviruses that appeared in 2003 (10%) and 2012 (30%). Each year : flu virus infects worldwide 1 billion persons and kills 650,000 and tuberculosis, which is in the top 10 of death causes in the world and much more contagious (an untreated patient can infect 10 to 15 people) causes 10,4 million cases and kills 1,8 million people. Yet, we never talk about any health crisis. The entire hospital system of countries is absolutely not overwhelmed because saturation only concerns very few hospitals and this can be avoided by taking reasonable measures to manage this epidemic as we indicated and as Sweden did. The WHO must undergo a radical reform. The confinement is truly the health scam of the 21st century, an enquiry must be done about it and those responsible in the WHO and Imperial College London must be questionned and if necessary tried.“
Declaration of interests : no competing interests. Funding information : no funding by external sources. Ethical approval statement : not applicable beacuse no human subjects were invloved and no case reports/case series were included in this article.
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! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them
To be continued? Our work and existence, as media and people, is funded solely by our most generous supporters. But we’re not really covering our costs so far, and we’re in dire needs to upgrade our equipment, especially for video production. Help SILVIEW.media survive and grow, please donate here, anything helps. Thank you!
! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them
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