Drug offers hope in fight against Covid
At last: Immunotherapy for Covid. Immunotherapy saved me from stomach cancer: Completely wiped it out
Australian scientists have taken a critical step towards developing a one-stop Covid-19 therapy to combat existing and future strains of the virus.
In what it described as a “very significant” development, a team at Brisbane’s Translational Research Institute repurposed an existing oral drug that acts on cholesterol receptors, activating the body’s immune response rather than attacking the virus. The drug reduces inflammation in the lungs and associated coughing and breathing difficulties.
A study involving mice, published in the European Respiratory Journal, found the virus that causes Covid-19, SARS-CoV-2, triggered the production of oxidised cholesterols.
In response, the body creates immune cells to fight the infection, which have a cholesterol-sensing receptor named GPR183. While white blood cells are important to fight the infection, having an excess of a particular type called macrophages is a hallmark of severe Covid-19.
Recent tests on infected mice found the drug was effective in blocking the cholesterol receptors and reduced the number of macrophages cells within the lungs. It also reduced the mice’s viral load. Associate professor Katharina Ronacher realised the significance of oxidised cholesterols in respiratory illnesses while researching tuberculosis six years ago while in South Africa. When she realised the two viruses worked in similar ways, she tested her findings on Covid-19.
“It was actually initially very intuitive,” Professor Ronacher said. “Once we understood the mechanism and studied this in mice infected with tuberculosis first, I knew it would actually work well in Covid-19.”
She said the reason the discovery was so exciting was because the cholesterol receptor had never before been targeted with a drug. “It’s a completely new therapy and this really opens up the research in other areas,” she said.
The study took two groups of mice infected with Covid-19 and gave one group the drug and the other a placebo. Mice given the treatment lost less weight, appeared happier and had less inflammation in the lungs. Researchers were also surprised to find the medication also caused them to carry less of the virus.
The treatments would not need to target a specific Covid-19 variant as it worked to trigger the immune response of the body rather than target the virus itself like typical antivirals.
With the fourth wave of Covid-19 expected to hit over the Christmas period, Professor Ronacher said it is important to have alternative treatments.
“At any time, a new variant can emerge that can be so different that our current immunity does not really help us much, and vaccines don’t really help much, then we definitely need other drugs,” she said.
“We also need drugs that are not necessarily antiviral, because viruses produce resistance to those back very quickly. We really need host-directed therapies … like a type of immune therapy.”
Patients with other severe respiratory illnesses and transplant recipients could also find relief with the drug, although this has not been tested.
“It has really far-reaching implications,” Professor Ronacher said.
The study was a collaboration between Mater Research, the University of Queensland and the University of Copenhagen, and was funded by the Mater Foundation, the Australian Infectious Disease Research Centre and Diabetes Australia.
Human clinical trials have yet to be locked it, with more funding needed.
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Novak’s mandate: How dangerous are the vaccines?
This week, Labor immigration minister Andrew Giles quietly confirmed on Tuesday 15 November that the ban on Novak (No Vax) Djokovic would be dropped but refused to comment ‘on privacy grounds’. Whose privacy? Presumably that of the minister, frightened of a backlash from zero-Covidian zealots. So far, it hasn’t materialised.
The tide is slowly turning in Australia. The latest True North Strategy Compass polling of Australians, released on 16 November, showed that despite the fact that 95 per cent of Australians over the age 18 had been vaccinated, almost half of all Australians surveyed, 46 per cent, said governments should not have the power to mandate vaccines and 8 per cent of those who were vaccinated regret it. On a national scale, that would equate to around 1.5 million Australians over the age of 18. Of those who got vaccinated most (48 per cent) said they were glad they did it because it allowed them to escape lockdown sooner. Only 44 per cent were glad because they didn’t get Covid.
The polling comes as the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) quietly confirmed for the first time on 12 November that it was unlikely to approve another booster for people under 30 due to the increased risk of myocarditis and the fact that there would only be a ‘minimal’ reduction in transmission from a fifth jab. ATAGI member Professor Allan Cheng said ‘the more doses you get, the less benefit you derive from them and then we start to worry about causing side effects’. That’s a rare confession.
Woolworths, Australia’s largest retailer, which employs 180,000 people, announced on 15 November that it would end its vaccine mandates for staff effective 22 November.
But Australian Football League star and nurse Deni Varnhagen and fellow nurse Courtney Millington have lost their second legal challenge to the South Australian vaccine mandate for healthcare workers and their application to appeal the decision was dismissed.
Refusing to hire unvaccinated nurses is testimony to idiocy of the Australian health establishment which has belatedly admitted that vaccination doesn’t stop transmission and infection provides protection. So why persist with a mandate when the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation says there is a nationwide shortage of at least 8,000 nurses?
Varnhagen who was working in intensive care and has just given birth to a baby girl was particularly concerned about the impact of the vaccine on her fertility. She is not alone.
In the US, on 10 November Dr James Thorp, an obstetrician gynaecologist with over 40 years of experience including on the board of the Society of Maternal Foetal Medicine and the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, author of over 200 publications and a reviewer for major medical journals, wrote that Covid vaccinations are ‘the greatest disaster in the history of obstetrics and all of medicine’, should never have been used in pregnancy and were promoted unlawfully, with ‘falsified data’. He notes that it was known as early as 2012 that lipid nanoparticles concentrate in the ovaries of rats, that in the Pfizer trial on rats, vaccine concentrated in the ovaries 118-fold in 48 hours and may permanently damage the human genome for multiple generations. Thorp writes that he has witnessed a dramatic rise in foetal morbidity, malformations and mortality since vaccination commenced, a 75-fold increase in miscarriages and a 12,000-fold increase in menstrual abnormalities.
In France, Mélodie Feron has formed a group of 10,000 women called ‘Where’s my cycle’. She organised a rally in Paris attended by Dr. Laurence Kayser, a Belgian gynaecologist who told investigative journalist Mary Beth Pfeiffer that, ‘The injections didn’t create a new disease, they revealed… dormant pathologies, and allowed them to explode…’. In October, a committee of the European Medicines Agency recommended that heavy menstrual bleeding in menstruation be acknowledged as a possible side effect of mRNA vaccines.
Dr Kimberly Biss, an obstetrician gynaecologist in Florida, said in October that since the vaccine rollout she has seen a 50 per cent rise in infertility and miscarriages and a 25 per cent increase in abnormal Pap smears and irregular cervical malignancies.
Michelle Gershman, a whistleblower nurse in Fresno California reported an increase at her hospital in stillbirths after 20 weeks (foetal demise) from one to two every two or three months to 22 in July and 22 in August. Gershman released an email she received from the hospital which said stillbirths were projected to increase stipulating babies must be put in a white bucket and adding callously, ‘I know that it feels disrespectful to many of you to pour a bottle of saline over the baby, so you can wrap the baby in a saline soaked Chux if it feels better to you.’
Is it happening in Australia? The Australian Bureau of Statistics won’t release data on births for 2022 until December. So far, the Therapeutic Goods Administration has received more than 5,390 reports of menstrual disorders, 891 incomplete abortions, 844 spontaneous abortions, 235 reports of premature babies of whom 11 died, 176 foetal deaths, 88 cases of foetal distress, four of whom died, 90 stillbirths, 88 cases of multiple congenital abnormalities of whom 11 died, 62 cases of congenital heart disease of whom 10 died. The TGA says none are related to the Covid vaccines although it does admit that at least 14 Australians are likely to have been killed by the vaccines and at least 700 hundred injured by myocarditis.
Vaccine injuries are still a taboo topic in Australia. The federal government has only offered a maximum of $20,000 compensation for vaccine injuries but it will cover funeral costs. The October budget revealed the scheme has paid out less than $1 million but that is projected to increase to $76.9 million next year, the equivalent of 3,845 claims at the maximum rate. That is not going to be the end of it. So far there have been 136,529 reports of adverse events including 946 deaths, more than any other vaccine in history. In the absence of any longterm safety data, or evidence of efficacy, that should be reason enough to end the vaccine mandates.
Don’t hold your breath.
https://spectator.com.au/2022/11/novaks-mandate/
**************************************************Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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