Live blood analysis and thermography quackery applied to COVID-19

I was originally going to write this post about how ridiculously overblown the claims of a certain conspiracy theorist about “depopulation” due to COVID-19 vaccines, given that of late he’s been claiming that these vaccines are killing people at twice the rate that the Nazis killed Jews during the Holocaust, and, oddly enough, this person was not Mike Adams (although Adams does echo such conspiracy theories). Then I perused a certain Substack (which is home to quacks monetizing their quackery) and came across an article by Steve Kirsch (who is, of course, that conspiracy theorist and one whom I’ve written about a fair amount lately) and decided that a discussion of all the lurid depopulation fantasies of conspiracy theorists could wait for another day. The reason is an article on his Substack entitled Computerized Thermographic Imaging and Live Blood Analysis Post C19 Injection, in which Kirsch asks:

I’m on the road and just got this. Is this legit? Can someone replicate this?

The question, of course, is; What is “this” that Kirsch is curious about and wants to see replicated, other than involving live blood analysis (sometimes also called live blood cell analysis) and thermography, both varieties of quackery that I’ve written about in the past? Actually, that’s all there is to it. The reason that this caught my eye and led it away from depopulation is how these two quack techniques were applied to COVID-19. I bet you can guess how, too, just from the title, which indicates that these modalities were applied to COVID-19 “vaccine injury.” But how?

To answer that, I need to move to the article that Kirsch cites, and—surprise!—it’s also on Substack. It’s also by someone whom I had not heard of, either, Ana Maria Mihalcea, MD, PhD, who interviewed Brazilian “researcher” Felipe Reitz, someone else of whom I hadn’t heard before to produce a Substack entitled Computerized Thermographic Imaging and Live Blood Analysis Post C19 Injection, with a subtitle Shocking New Images – Stop The Shots Now! (Of course.)

Proving that all one has to do to get some link sharing love from Kirsch is to send out an email with quackery or conspiracy theories that appeal to him, Kirsch cites an email from Dr. Mihalcea:

Dear Colleagues,

I interviewed a Brazilian Biologist and Researcher, Felipe Reitz, who is doing Computerized Thermographic Imaging in the C19 injected and correlating this with Live Blood Analysis. The clots are everywhere, even in young athletes in their 20’s, it is absolutely heartbreakingly shocking. These are completely asymptomatic. For the love of humanity, please look at these images and the video we did.

As an Internal Medicine Physician of over 20 years’ experience, I have never seen anything so devastating in its implications. He has found the same thing in children, as young as 2 years old.

If this visual proof does not help doctors stop the jabs, or people not to get them, I do not know what will. Maybe whole-body Computerized Thermography needs to be standard of care for all C19 injected people.

Thermography is, of course, an imaging modality that quacks have long falsely billed as better at finding breast cancer (and a lot of other things) than mammography and other medical imaging modalities, even though the evidence doesn’t support such extravagant claims, and live blood cell analysis involves looking at a drop of blood under the microscope and inferring all sorts of things from it that pathologists both laugh at and become alarmed at. Before I discuss the “findings” in more detail, including some of the video to which Kirsch also links (on Rumble, naturally), I had to know who these two people were.

Dr. Mihalcea bills herself as having both an MD and a PhD—like me—but also lists a website to Arthema Sophia Publishing advertising a book by her entitled Light Medicine: A New Paradigm – The Science of Light, Spirit and Longevity. This was not a promising start to my search, as this website bills her book thusly:

Light Medicine is the science of connecting light and spirit with health and longevity in the human body. This evolutionary model connects the creative force of the divine spiritual being ─ incarnated in a physical body ─ to the Observer in quantum physics and explains how our thoughts affect physical reality.

Through extensive research, Dr. Mihalcea ties together, in a unique way, multiple scientific disciplines — biophysics, genetics, torsion and quantum physics, biochemistry, and neurology — with the power of the mind. How we think manifests a state of health or disease. This tapestry of context provides a fundamental basis for how modern miracles of healing can happen and are intentionally created.

Based upon teachings by Ramtha the Enlightened One, Dr. Mihalcea presents a new way of assessing molecules of healing according to their light value. She explains the remarkable, scientific documentation of the great American Channel, JZ Knight, as an extraordinary example of how one’s Divine Spirit can manipulate the matter of the physical body.

Vibrations. Quantum physics. It had to be…vibrations and quantum physics. I’m getting definite Deepak Chopra vibes here. She’s also a chelationist and “integrative doctor,” although she appears at one time to have been a legitimate physician. Indeed, she appears to have made her turn to quackery fairly recently, as in 2019, if her bio is to be believed. I always wonder how and why physicians turn to pseudoscience.

Let’s just say that Dr. Mihalcea clearly abandoned science a long time ago if she really believes this New Age drivel. A Google search for her led me to the website of what appears to be her practice. Guess what? Her quackery involves so much more than just light therapy nonsense based on misunderstood and misapplied quantum physics mashed up with New Age woo! (Because of course it does!) She offers:

• Anti – Aging Consultations
• Bioidentical Hormone Replacement
• Early Detection & Preventative Screening
• Integrative Cancer Therapy
• Internal Medicine & Primary Care
• IV Nutrient Therapy
• Light Therapy & Mindful Healing
• Max Pulse
• Peptide Therapy
• Tele-health Consultations
• WAVI Brain Performance
• Weight management

I’m guessing that the primary care, weight management, and “early detection” services that she offers are not based on science. (I realize that’s an incredibly safe bet.) I was, however, curious about a couple of these, such as Peptide Therapy, having written about a fair number of these other modalities before:

There are several thousand known peptides which control gene expression regulating every system of the body, including immune system, hormonal regulation, tissue healing, brain and central nervous system health, DNA repair, and much more.

Peptide therapy has extraordinarily high levels of safety. Because they are so specifically able to target gene expression, like specific keys opening specific locks, they do not have side effects because they do not affect anything else, only their target. Peptides can be used for chronic disease treatment, antiaging purposes, immune function restoration, cognitive health, performance enhancement and preventative care.

So far, these claims range from true to sort of true, with one totally false claim. (The claim that an intervention, no matter what it is, has no side effects because it’s so perfectly targeted is always a huge red flag for quackery.) As for “peptide therapy,” what the heck does that even mean? I can point out that insulin is a peptide; one could easily rebrand insulin therapy for diabetics could as a form of “peptide therapy” if one wanted to. Indeed, vaccines that use peptides from the pathogen targeted could also be rebranded as peptide therapy that “boosts the immune system.” (I wonder why I’ve never seen a quack do either of these things.)

Of course, this is not what we’re getting at:

Given that peptides act to stimulate very specific and targeted effects in the body, their range of therapeutic benefit is extremely broad. Specific Peptides can be used for every organ system or more globally for super regulation of hormonal glands or cellular rejuvenation through Telomere lengthening.

Peptides can potentiate the effectiveness of many other treatments. Science has shown that aging is a dynamic process that can be successfully delayed and even reversed.  Peptides are a powerful cornerstone of our anti-aging approach. 

At AM Medical LLC we work with patients to develop individualized peptide recommendations for specific diseases or anti-aging purposes.

“Anti-aging.” Of course, it had to be anti-aging quackery. You can subject yourself to the videos embedded in her page on peptide therapy if you wish, but my eyes started rolling as soon as I heard her tout “neurocognitive” and “neuro-enhancing” peptides. (She does realize, doesn’t she, that peptides are broken down in the stomach and small intestine, right? They have to be injected to work as advertised.

I could go on, but you get the picture. What about Felipe Reitz? There’s not a lot on him from Google, but Dr. Mihalcea bills him as a biologist and inventor, touting the “many, many” academic positions that he’s held at the beginning of her video:

What we learn in the video, unsurprisingly, is that the positions that Reitz held were mostly at “integrative medical centers,” one of them one of the “largest integrative medical centers in Europe.”

So what is Reitz claiming? Mihalcea and he show a bunch of images billed as thermography and live blood analysis, which is why at this point I think it’s important to point out a couple of things. I’ll start with the live blood cell analysis because it’s the most obvious quackery. In brief, live blood cell analysis involves taking a drop of blood from the patient and putting it on a microscope slide under a glass cover to keep it from drying out. The practitioner then looks at the blood under a microscope, usually hooked up to a video camera, and takes pictures. The technique is called a number of things besides live blood cell analysis, such as dark-field video analysis, nutritional blood analysis, and many others. Usually, the cells are observed under dark field, which is a type of microscopy that makes objects appear to stand out against a dark background. Virtually always live cell analysis is performed by chiropractors, naturopaths, and other “alternative medicine” or “alternative health” practitioners. Of course, it is true that doctors, particularly pathologists, hematologists, and oncologists do look at blood under the microscope to diagnose disease, but nothing like what quacks who use live blood cell analysis claim, such as the ability to diagnose all sorts of nutritional deficiencies and chronic diseases.

Indeed, that’s why the College of American Pathologists even issued a warning statement about live blood cell analysis years ago, describing the “analysis” thusly:

Live blood analysis (also known as live blood testing, nutritional microscopy, live cell analysis and hemaview) is the observation of a pin prick quantity of blood through a microscope. Marketers have claimed that by studying ‘live’ blood in this way, they are able to detect diseases and identify abnormalities in blood cells including allergies, vitamin deficiencies and illness.

The statement then goes on to explain that live blood cell analysis cannot do any of these things, under light field or dark field microscopy, the latter often being the preferred modality of quacks because it produces more “interesting” images, which are, as Stephen Barrett once pointed out, almost always misinterpreted:

Although a few characteristics of blood (such as the relative size of the red cells) are observable, live cell analysts invariably misinterpret other things, such as the extent of red blood cell clumping, changes in the shape of the cells, and other artifacts that occur as the blood sample dries. 

I would also add that the interpretation of the “live blood,” which inevitably ends up clotting and/or drying on the slide, is almost entirely subjective, with little or no agreement between practitioners what a given “finding” even means. So naturally quacks like Mihalcea and Reitz love live blood cell analysis to “diagnose” supposed “vaccine injury” from COVID-19 vaccines.

But what about thermography? As I’ve often said, thermography is a bit more interesting in that it is an imaging modality that has been much studied in medicine for various conditions, including, yes, breast cancer. Indeed, as I’ve pointed out, years ago at my previous job I was once involved in clinical testing of a device that combined mammography with thermography, the idea being to increase the sensitivity and specificity of mammographic imaging for detecting breast cancer.

It’s been a while since I’ve discussed thermography, so I’ll provide a brief recap on how it works.

The idea is simple. As its name implies, thermography measures differences in temperature. Most thermography systems use infrared imaging to measure and image temperature, and there’s nothing magical about it. The technology has been in use for various applications for several decades. The rationale for applying thermography to the detection of, for example, breast cancer—or any cancer—is that breast cancers (like other cancers) tend to induce angiogenesis, which is nothing more than the ingrowth of new blood vessels into the tumor to supply its nutrient and oxygen needs. (A tumor that can’t induce angiogenesis can’t grow beyond the diffusion limit in aqueous solution, which is less than 1 mm in diameter.) These blood vessels result in additional blood flow, which results in additional heat. In addition, the metabolism of cancer cells tends to be faster than the surrounding tissue, and cancer is often associated with inflammation, two more reasons why the temperature of breast cancers might be higher than the surrounding normal breast tissue and therefore potentially imageable using infrared thermography.

There are many problems, however. For one thing, thermography tends to measure surface temperature; it’s not clear that a tumor deep in the breast would produce enough additional heat to show up on the surface. Another issue is that there aren’t any widely agreed-upon standards for the performance and interpretation of breast thermography. Not only have these standards not been developed, largely thanks to its adoption as a “breast cancer screening tool” that’s “better and safer than mammography” by some physicians, chiropractors, and naturopaths. Still another issue is that it’s not a good study to find breast cancer in an asymptomatic patient, as I reviewed three years ago, with studies. Basically, for breast cancer at least, MRI provides the same information as thermography (differences in blood flow), with the added benefit of also producing high quality anatomic images, something no thermography device can do.

Unsurprisingly, thermography is touted by quacks as being able to detect all sorts of diseases and abnormalities better than “conventional” imaging techniques. So how do Mihalcea and Reitz justify using thermography to detect clots supposedly caused by COVID-19 vaccines and the dreaded spike protein? They justify it based on a 32-year-old study that didn’t even use thermograph alone but combined it with plethysmography, also known as pulse volume recording, which is a noninvasive test that measures blood flow within arteries or veins that can detect blockages.

In the video and on the Substack, Dr. Mihalcea presents images like this:

And writes:

In these never-before-seen images of individuals who received the experimental mRNA shot, we can see extensive abnormal vein imaging suggesting blood clotting in both deep venous and superficial venous system. These individuals are completely asymptomatic and do not feel anything, nor do they have swelling.

One wonders why these individuals were “completely asymptomatic.” My guess is that it’s because they didn’t really have extensive venous disease in their lower extremities. If you can stand to watch the video, you’ll soon see that Reitz’s “controls” leave a lot to be desired, as do his images, for instance this screen cap:

Reitz identifies the dark line in the leg in the upper right hadn’t corner as all “clot,” but how does that even make sense? Think about it. Even if it were a clot, one would not expect it to be hotter than the surrounding tissue; one might even expect it to be cooler, because it’s impeding the return flow of blood. Moreover, veins don’t generally look like that on venography; so how one could look like that on thermography, I have no idea. As for the “superficial veins,” it’s quite possible that thermography can detect them, but likely only if blood is flowing. Clots would tend to make the superficial vein more like the same temperature as the surrounding tissue because less blood (or no blood) would be flowing through them.

Again, thermography tends to find temperature differences in more superficial structures, such as the skin and tissue right below it. Also, thermography is a difficult technique to do correctly and reproducibly, even if you are a scientist making a serious effort to see if it can detect breast cancer. Room temperature must be carefully controlled. The body part to be imaged must have been unclothed for at least a certain amount of time, to allow the heat loss from the skin to stabilize at the room’s temperature. If all of these factors aren’t carefully controlled for, all you get is uninterpretable nonsense, which is what Reitz is showing. Reitz also claimed to have sent the patients for a Doppler ultrasound, which is quite good for imaging veins, but oddly enough he shows no images from the ultrasounds even as he claimed that they confirmed “blockages.” Also, as I like to say, if you think the patient has superficial clots, why bother with thermography? Physical exam and ultrasound would reveal the clots or blocked veins if they are present.

Then there were the “live blood cell analysis” images like this:

These are the same sort of uninterpretable images that live blood cell analysis practitioners always produce to impress their marks. They mean nothing, as CAP has pointed out. For one thing, how blood looks under the microscope can vary greatly depending on how the slides are prepared and how long the blood has been allowed to sit on the slide before observation. The test is basically completely unreliable to diagnose anything, other than maybe blood that’s been left out too long and has started to dry out or clot, as Edzard Ernst has written many times.

As for the rest of the video, the discussions of thermography and live blood cell analysis are interspersed with the usual misinformation and conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccine, such as claims that there’s lots of graphene in them and that that might actually be what “shedding” is about. At one point they even joke about the vaccines making people magnetic; only they aren’t joking to make fun of the claim. They take the claim seriously, and it’s suggested that Reitz should check some of his samples to see if they’re magnetic now.

Indeed, Dr. Mihalcea’s “abstract” of Reitz’s “findings” is loaded with antivax nonsense:

These shocking thermographic images suggest extensive subcutaneous and deep vein blood clotting in C19 injected individuals. Dark Field Microscopy complements the analysis of these individuals, showing what potentially could be Graphene Hydroxide or nanostructures of other metal composition. These alarming findings should alert health care practitioners to screen people who received the gene modifying injections for blood clots, even if they are completely asymptomatic. Thermography may be a noninvasive safe way to do so. Felipe has now also seen this in children as young as 2 years old. This visual proof of harm should galvanize every health care provider to stop giving the shots and every person to stop accepting them.

Lovely. She’s even echoing Mike Adams’ equally ridiculous nonsense about “nanostructures” in the clots. Elsewhere in the Substack, she even cites Adams’ incompetent analysis of blood clots that had somehow found their way to his “lab” via a dodgy embalmer. I can see what Mike Adams and Ana Maria Mihalcea have in common with live blood analysis practitioners: They like to substitute pareidolia for actual diagnosis.

The bottom line is that, just as there are no new antivaccine lies under the sun, and everything old is new again in antivaccine world since the pandemic hit, every old quackery is new again as well for COVID-19. It’s unsurprising that someone like Steve Kirsch would fall for thermography and live blood cell analysis, but distressing to me as a physician and scientist that so many physicians and scientists join homeopaths, naturopaths, chiropractors, and the like to promote such unscientific and pseudoscientific quackery.