CASoS Engineering for Viral Epidemics & Pandemics

     From its experience with CASoS information process engineering, the Global SoS Network has made a brief foray into pharmaceutical engineerimg and found that the 2020-2022 global pandemic may not have been really caused by a virus. Not that the virus is not the origin of the disease. 

The ongoing global pandemic could be the result of a systems problem in the form of a technological constraint: The institutions that form part of the international medical community are probably not aware of existing simple and economic ways to kill or eliminate viruses.

Thus the pandemic invites the application of CaSoS Engineering to the hierarchy of controls  towards a problem not unlike the 2005 Avian flu epidemic, only that in this case the disease has already circled the globe. However, The Global SoS Network sees the solution in the process of how to get the right information around the globe to the right people at the right time.

  Image: © Institute for Human Rights and Business (IHRB)

There are plenty of published studies and other on-line information regarding antiviral remedies that are not being taken into account by major national and international institutions responsible for public-health strategies and solutions, apparently including the World Health Organization (WHO).

The global pharmaceutical industry is a capital-intensive business. The billions of dollars that are invested yearly must show a return; otherwise progress that depends on new approaches to disease and aging concerns would slow down, and maybe even stop. Consequently, the medical community rightly has its eyes and its heart on the pharmaceutical engineering processes that will produce manufactured medicines that will kill the virus, and then cure the transmissible disease in question.

But apparently, the mainstream medical system only “sees” mainstream medicine. At the same time, there is another medical system, with its own pharmaceutical engineering processes that is producing low-cost solutions. Because it is considered fringe and/or unproven medicine and sometimes harbinger of even contradictory and/or dangerous procedures, the mainstream medical system does not take it fully into account. However, according to some sources, alternative medicine is a highly profitable industry. So pause should be given to the idea of how could at least some alternative medicine be as profitable as it is, were it not effective.

The two systems seem to be travelling along parallel roads, never to meet. In this unfortunate situation, mainstream medical practitioners and academics have very high responsibilities. Their reputations are at stake if they follow what they may consider unproven medicine methods and products.

Meanwhile, millions are becoming infected and millions are dying. And even though the WHO estimates that 80% of the world’s population uses some type of herbal medicine, human society appears to be mostly unaware of the many alternative remedies available to combat and eliminate disease-causing viruses and save many lives. This lack of knowledge embodies the technological constraint. And no, there is no conspiracy theory at work here. It is just seems to be the economics of the health business, and of the required conservatism and high responsibility of the medical profession.

As a way out of this SoS conundrum and ways of preventing the recurrence of this type of event, producers of medical solutions that are not being taken into account must streamline their collective intelligence, perhaps through their legislative systems. Hopefully, the likely result will be that, when effective, those products will be used to save lives without harming the pharmaceutical industry.

It is a tall order, but it will take time for the proper institutional structure to be in place so that members of the medical community, in their role as constituents, can streamline the necessary information through their legislators. In this type of situation, it is the job of the legislative system to create a system that will discern what is useful from what is not.

The Potential of Cuisine:

Take for example the emergence of alpha, delta, omicron and other Covit variants in the UK, India, South Africa and other parts of Africa. These area all curry -loving countries, and curry is made basically with curcumin.

In late September 2020, the U.S. media reported approximately 7 million US Covit-19 infections as it crossed the threshold of 200,000 fatalities. Meanwhile, India reported around half the fatalities for a similar number of reported infections, even as some commentators indicated that there could really have been 10 or 20 times as many infections. Taking into account all the known socioeconomic and healthcare parameters in the two countries, the stark difference invites CASoS investigation.

Similar occurrences have developed in the UK and Africa. And goggling of the words “curcumin virus,” results in more than 2 million hits, and the related websites indicate how the spice inhibits the growth of viruses and bacteria. Moreover, arming this knowledge with a) the fact that one main ingredient of curry is curcumin, and b) that India is a home country for curry, help bring forth some relevant questions.

Is the relatively low death rate a result of common use of curry as a spice? Further questions abound, such as: how many of the victims were not curry users? Does constant use of curry as a spice  decrease Covit-19 symptoms, and if so, how? Should hospitalized Covit patients consume spicy curry food?

According to easily accesed information, curcumin dissolves in the lipid envelope of the virus. And by the scientific method, some further key questions can be asked. Is it possible that the common use of curry somehow modifies the envelope of the virus, so that it  mutates? Is it also posible that those mutations render the virus more susceptible to the body defenfense mechanism?

If so, then the case should be studied for any hint of correlation and, very importantly, for causation.   The resulting CASoS roadmaps should help guide national and international WHO policy for a systematic, or at least a more focused, use of that spice as part of the arsenal against transmissible diseases.

Fortunately, objectives 3.3 and 3.d of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable development have already established global mandates regarding the ending transmissible disease and epidemics by strengthening capacity with risk reduction and management.

Relevant SDGs:

3.3 By 2030, end the epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and neglected tropical diseases and combat hepatitis, water-borne diseases and other communicable diseases.

3.d Strengthen the capacity of all countries, in particular developing countries, for early warning, risk reduction and management of national and global health risks.

But, how to proceed? It is also very fortunate we live in the age of information, which makes it possible to inject an institutional solution through instrumental parties at a critical node of the medical system. From those vantage points, relevant institutions would be able to disseminate the required information around the world to maximum effect, thus break the technological constraint: Most humans would know what to do to eliminate the threat in case of a viral infection.

In this context, the WHO can help strengthen the capacities the SDGs are asking for, by adding one step to its recommended 5 step anti-corona virus procedure.

Current WHO 5 step procedure to kicking out corona virus:

Step 1. Hands- Wash your hands frequently

Step 2. Elbow- Cover your nose with a bent elbow when coughing, sneezing.

Step 3. Face- Avoid touching your face, eyes, and nose.

Step 4. Distance- Stay at least one meter distance from others.

Step 5. Feel- Know your symptoms. If you feel unwell follow instructions provided by local health authorities.

In spite of the 5-step recommendations, the pandemic still is a powerful force to contend with. Taking into account the strength capacity mandate made by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the WHO should gather and revisit all existing alternative virus-fighting knowledge and, when required, start the relevant trials. There are many very reputable practitioners and professional groups and associations that deal with alternative treatments, and there are integrative approaches that can surely add to the arsenal of knowledge that will be necessary to stop the present and future viral pandemics. As a case in point, a google search for alternative medicine gives over a billion hits.

Taking into account that this surely will not be the last global pandemic, the suggestion that The Global SoS Network makes is that the WHO -also aking into account their findings into a possible curcumin/turmeric effect on viruses- should then add a 6th step to its published procedure to eliminating out this and other virus-borne diseases such as Aids, Ebola, etc.

Step 6. Use curcumin (or other scientifically identified alternative virus-killing products) as soon as feasible, in the appropiate dosages, in order to eradicate this and other virus, as may be the case.