Maria Rita Gismondo, but has the Covid alarm returned?
"No! The alarm comes from some "owl" colleagues who fuel pessimism and panic. It is also true of a certain press looking for attractive news and we know that the topic is. We must make a necessary distinction. Covid is the pathology that the SarSCoV2 virus caused in 2020 and 2021. Covid, or the disease, no longer exists. The virus continues to circulate and infect but it is a completely different pathology. SarSCoV2 is a Coronavirus. Its close relatives circulate giving similar symptoms, the common cold."
In her “Shadows in the Mirror”, she talks about mistakes and successes, seen from the center of the field.
«I underline that my book was published in July 2020 and contains almost everything that would happen after. Am I a seer? No. I am a virologist who has always been faithful to science and has not been guided by politics. Those who have studied Virology know some concepts well, such as, for example, that the so-called RNA viruses mutate very easily, and that vaccines against these viruses are unable to stop their infection. Many, especially the competent institutions, knew that the pandemic plan did not exist. They knew but, in the obligatory chorus, they did not speak. You see, I have always been a "black sheep" in the pack."
Were we hit by something unpredictable or could we and should we have been ready?
«A pandemic has arrived. We know that every ten, twenty years, one arrives. But I have always maintained that this was not a natural pandemic. When I declared that this virus was too different, that it had strange characteristics, that even today the animal that passed it to us could not be found, I was strongly criticized. Now the CIA even says so. Unless it was released deliberately, it escaped from a laboratory. This was stated by Montagnier, who was certainly not the least of scientists. However, the disaster would have been avoidable if healthcare had not been reduced to the bare bones for more than twenty years, if someone had not "imposed" tachipirina and watchful waiting. If the intensive care places had been at least double."
When did you realize we were about to be overwhelmed?
«April, May 2020. We had nothing, we faced the virus with our bare hands».
Let's clear our doubts: did vaccines one, two, three and four save us overall or did we get injected with something untested?
«I am not afraid, as always, to express my ideas which I do not pretend are always right. We were in a tragic moment. We had to try to do something. As I said before, we knew – but could not say – that we would not have an effective vaccine as such. Rather we could have tried to ease the blow. Having administered a vaccine, even if in some respects not entirely known, is justifiable. What I never accepted was the presumption with which it was imposed, the discarding of any other vaccine, focusing only on one type. Why not vaccinate with "traditional" vaccines that we have been using for a hundred years? Why have someone sign a fake release? We signed to join voluntarily but it was mandatory! Why vaccinate children who have not been affected by the pandemic, except for the weak, or the chronically ill? Why the green pass, which was responsible for an increase in infections? Why? Someone, I won't mention his name, had established that having the green pass, or having been vaccinated, had made us free. People with green passes entered restaurants, went to the gym, sure of not contracting the infection and therefore failed to comply with prevention measures. And then he caught the virus!
“People die while walking, they were fine shortly before”: are you on the side of that part of the country that demonizes the vaccine or were people dying earlier from the same causes?
«There is no doubt that this country has deliberately ignored the side effects. As well as being an injustice, it is also a scientific waste. You see, studying adverse effects strengthens the research. But it doesn't seem to matter. At an international level there has been a significant increase in cancer cases. We have no evidence to attribute it to the vaccine. We remember that for two years healthcare was stopped and prevention and treatment were practically cancelled. How many tumors could we have diagnosed in time? Two years in these illnesses is a long time, too long!
What is bioterrorism?
«I'll give you a brief answer but it would deserve entire volumes. In short, it is the use of biological substances and microorganisms for terrorist attacks."
“Leave the kids alone,” he said on TV the other day.
«And I repeat it, over and over again. They were devastated. Psychology and psychiatry clinics are crowded with teenagers. Suicide attempts are frequent, self-harm and violence are also increasing by 30%. Did we think that by staying at home with social media and depriving them of socialization, we wouldn't have any consequences? Now someone wants to gag them with masks. At school. Then they go out and, fortunately, without masks, they are all together. Why the mask at school? So as not to lose that sense of fear to be exploited?".
How has your life changed, working in Milan, after the Great Emergency?
«In two years it's as if twenty have passed. Toxic notoriety. I have practically been deprived of my privacy. Journalists even at home. Impossible to go to a restaurant or take a train without being stopped. Maybe some people like it – and we know it! – but not to me. It's fine to be interviewed if you say sensible and above all useful things, but not being able to leave home to go to the supermarket in a tracksuit is too much. To overcome this phenomenon, I changed my glasses and hairstyle. But then I recently returned to television... and I'm afraid I'll have to change again! It wasn't just this effect. I experienced a chauvinism that I didn't imagine existed in the great Milan, where the main media publications reside. An example? My title is professor, holding the chair of Clinical Microbiology at the Faculty of Medicine of the State University of Milan. Well everyone, I mean everyone, continues to call me with the title of doctor and my colleagues are all professors! Another example? They keep talking to me about Professor Galli as my "boss". False. Both, he is now retired, directors of Complex Units, he of Infectious Diseases, I of Clinical Microbiology, Virology and Bioemergencies of the "Sacco"".
The government. During and after the pandemic, how did you operate? The preface of his book is by the former deputy minister of Health.
«Sileri is great! He publicly denounced that the minister did not inform him of many of his decisions, which practically bullied him, denying him for a certain time to pay the people in his secretariat. He kept his promise, without being enchanted by the sirens of politics. Once his term was over, he went back to being a surgeon. We have always had an excellent relationship and he had the courage to write the preface of my book, even though he knew the less than idyllic relations between me and Minister Speranza. I have openly criticized Minister Speranza's entire work and today I am more convinced of this than ever. The list of his misdeeds would be too long. A vote? Vastly insufficient."
She has several degrees, manages a complex structure of a hospital in Milan, has an impressive series of specializations, an ocean of skills that is complex even to cross. What effect does it have in front of the TV to hear actors, singers, influencers, alas, giving advice on epidemics?
«I believe that everyone should do their job. I confess to you that you don't just have to think about those categories, there are colleagues of mine who have never entered a laboratory, or an infectious disease department, who have also become television stars. The selection parameter? Be pro-government."
What does he dream about?
«For decades I dreamed of conducting scientific research whose results were useful, of doing my job well, at the hospital or at the university. Today only research makes me dream, which remains in my DNA. Public health no longer makes me dream and I will leave it in a year. If there is the possibility of using my experience outside the hospital – not political positions, please – I will be available. I confess it for the first time: the hospital is starting to weigh on me. Today's healthcare does not belong to me. I have always wanted to be a doctor, since I was a child, with the pride of being able to do good for others. I understand the doctor as someone who is aware that his patient needs to understand, to speak, to be reassured, a professional who doesn't watch the clock, who is also available, sometimes, on the telephone, while on holiday. The one who, if someone is ill, on the train, on the plane, on the street, shows up and helps. The one who dedicates some of his holidays to volunteer where there is a need. There are fewer and fewer colleagues like this and the environment has changed. I cannot accept that there is a time limit for a doctor's visit! Some ideas are buzzing in my mind that, who knows, he might meet me again, I'll tell you later. Some evenings, with everyone's understanding, I go dancing in the milonga and it does me a lot of good, both for my body and my soul."
Enrico Pilia