Mainstream media thrilled over study showing Paxlovid prevents some long COVID symptoms
The unusual intense coverage of a new study showing benefits of the Pfizer antiviral drug Paxlovid can best be explained by the collusion between the media and the big drug industry.
In its 2022 financial guidance, the company reported Paxlovid revenue of $22 billion.
True, the new data are impressive in some ways. But some relevant questions can be raised and will be done here.
Here are some excerpts from the new study.
“In this work, we aimed to examine whether treatment with nirmatrelvir in the acute phase of COVID-19 is associated with reduced risk of post-acute sequelae. We used the healthcare databases of the US Department of Veterans Affairs to identify users of the health system who had a SARS-CoV-2 positive test between March 01, 2022 and June 30, 2022, were not hospitalized on the day of the positive test, had at least 1 risk factor for progression to severe COVID-19 illness and survived the first 30 days after SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis. We identify those who were treated with oral nirmatrelvir [this drug is just part of Paxlovid] within 5 days after the positive test (n=9217) and those who received no COVID-19 antiviral or antibody treatment during the acute phase of SARS-CoV-2 infection (control group, n= 47,123).”
“Compared to the control group, treatment with nirmatrelvir was associated with reduced risk of PASC (HR 0.74 95% CI (0.69, 0.81), ARR 2.32 (1.73, 2.91)) including reduced risk of 10 of 12 post-acute sequelae in the cardiovascular system (dysrhythmia and ischemic heart disease), coagulation and hematologic disorders (deep vein thrombosis, and pulmonary embolism), fatigue, liver disease, acute kidney disease, muscle pain, neurocognitive impairment, and shortness of breath. Nirmatrelvir was also associated with reduced risk of post-acute death (HR 0.52 (0.35, 0.77), ARR 0.28 (0.14, 0.41)), and post-acute hospitalization (HR 0.70 (0.61, 0.80), ARR 1.09 (0.72, 1.46)).”
“Nirmatrelvir was associated with reduced risk of PASC in people who were unvaccinated, vaccinated, and boosted, and in people with primary SARS-CoV-2 infection and reinfection. In sum, our results show that in people with SARS-CoV-2 infection who had at least 1 risk factor for progression to severe COVID-19 illness, treatment with nirmatrelvir within 5 days of a positive SARS-CoV-2 test was associated with reduced risk of PASC regardless of vaccination status and history of prior infection. The totality of findings suggests that treatment with nirmatrelvir during the acute phase of COVID-19 reduces the risk of post-acute adverse health outcomes.”
“Nirmatrelvir was associated with reduced risk of PASC across strata of baseline risk, and in people who were unvaccinated, vaccinated, and boosted; and in people with primary SARS-CoV-2 infection and reinfection.”
Though the study reports “reduced risk of 10 of 12 post-acute sequelae” note that various reports on long COVID usually refer to 20 to 30 typical symptoms. And it is not entirely clear which of the 10 were most helped by the expensive, prescription drug.
Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of research and development at the VA St. Louis Health Care System and lead author of the new report, said it showed the importance o f introducing an antiviral to reduce the severity of acute disease. It also lends credence to the idea that long covid symptoms may be driven, at least in part, by viral persistence, in which the virus is not fully cleared by infected individuals.. He said “Suppressing the viral load may reduce the problem of viral persistence.”
What has not received any attention, however, is whether the antiviral ivermectin might also offer similar benefits.
Nor has there been any research on whether high doses of vitamin D might also be beneficial for long COVID.
The people who enrolled qualified to receive the drug according to the emergency use authorization issued last year by the Food and Drug Administration, which is for anyone 12 and older at risk of severe disease including those 65 and older. As a result, the study did not include previously healthy young people, who represent the majority of patients seen at many long covid clinics, according to Benjamin Abramoff, director of the Post-COVID Assessment and Recovery Clinic at Penn Medicine.
There is no data to show whether those previously healthy young people would reap the same benefits as people at risk of severe disease.
Al-Aly, the lead author, said the study also highlighted for him the remarkable underutilization of an effective therapy, with 85 percent of people who were qualified to be prescribed the antiviral not taking it. “Is it because they were not offered it, or they had concerns?” he asked. “We are not saying any and all people should take Paxlovid,” Al-Aly said. “At this point, we do not know that. People need to understand that.”
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COVID Vaccine Shedding – Canaries in the Mine
Spike protein shedding. The media ignored it, people found out the hard way, and most no longer discuss it. But some symptoms remain.
Back in February 2022, I reported secondary vaccine shedding among patients in my naturopathic medical practice, as experienced by them throughout 2021. Pfizer had acknowledged to the FDA here that spike protein shedding from COVID-vaccinated people could occur by exhalation and skin contact. I wrote about that here.
Of the people who were already my patients for other reasons (none came to me initially regarding shedding), 26 individuals noted symptoms during, and often after, contact with COVID vaccinated people (then later a few more). None of the 26 were themselves COVID-vaccinated. This distribution of first reported 2ary symptoms showed a distinct temporal pattern.
This USAfacts interactive graph alleges that 30% of the US population had received one COVID vaccine by April 1, 2021, and that 54% of the US population had received one COVID vaccine by June 30, 2021. I say “alleges,” because there were pharmacists and healthcare workers in vehement opposition to this experimental injection, as well as threatened employees and college students who knew better than to take this injection, but did not want to be fired or expelled either, and I have no idea what kind of arrangements may have happened among individuals in these groups. Suffice it to say that I suspect that the percentage of COVID-vaccinated people in the United States is overestimated.
(As for me, my long-time subscribers likely know that I provided the first comprehensive warnings about multiple aspects of COVID vaccine hazards here, and my book Neither Safe Nor Effective cites over 300 studies from the peer-reviewed medical literature on the problems with the COVID vaccines. It’s been on the Forensic Medicine bestseller list on Amazon since it came out in May.)
After the summer of 2021, I heard fewer and fewer secondary vaccine reactions from the patients in my practice.
Two interesting exceptions remain:
Case 1: A Tertiary Vaccine Reaction
Several times in 2021, patients had asked me if their own exposure to COVID-vaccinated people could be further transmitted to family members at home. I told them that I had not heard of this, and I thought they would be fine, without cause for worry.
However, this week a patient came in regarding the secondary vaccine reactions she still gets from proximity to COVID-vaccinated people. She had been included among the 26 I had earlier counted. After such exposures, she suffered menorrhagia, malaise, rashes, itching, fatigue and headaches for some time after returning home, with symptoms resolving within about a day.
Her husband suffered the malaise, fatigue, headache and itchy rash symptoms too, at the same time, although he had not been directly exposed to COVID-vaccinated people at the same time. With each incident of the wife’s exposure, the husband began to have symptoms on her return home, and for both of them, symptoms resolved within about a day. This happened to him multiple times. This was the first I had heard of any likely tertiary exposure to COVID-vaccinated people causing symptoms.
So I think tertiary exposure is worth keeping an open mind about, while at the same time, I think it is now disproven as a major health concern, because of its scarcity.
Case 2: A Role for Zinc Oxide?
Another patient, in a loving marriage of over 30 years, tried desperately to talk her husband out of getting his three COVID vaccines, but to no avail; he was determined to have them.
After he got his first COVID vaccine, she began to feel vaguely sick while around him, but he would not believe it, and insisted on getting his second, and then a booster. With each successive vaccine, she is sicker than before in his presence. She cannot be in the same room with him for more than 20 minutes, or she remains sick for hours. (He insists that his vaccines cannot be the cause of her symptoms.) Now you might think that her prior opposition to the COVID vaccines predisposed her to feel sick, but that would not explain the following:
Two of their grandchildren have also had this reaction to their granddad since his 2nd and 3rd COVID vaccines, one of them being an infant, and they physically avoid him. The dog used to cuddle up and sleep at his feet at night. The dog can no longer stand to be around him, and will approach him quickly and then leave within seconds. By all accounts, this man has a wonderful and delightful personality, and the beauty of a strong and otherwise happy marriage, in which the couple genuinely enjoy each other’s company for over 30 years, and he is generally adored by all family and friends, according to his wife.
When the wife, my patient, recently had to be near her husband in a long car ride, and other times of necessary extended proximity, her distal cephalic vein in one wrist visibly throbs, and does so for sometimes days on end. I have seen this throbbing vein. She also gets an itchy rash at these times. Recently, she began to apply a zinc oxide sunscreen to exposed skin, when having to be near her husband for any length of time, and the vein did not throb then or afterward. Also, her skin did not develop an itchy rash after zinc oxide application. So she now applies a generous coat of zinc oxide to exposed skin for times when the couple shares a room or vehicle, and it has seemed to help her a number of times.
I would caution against this strategy for children and reproductive age people. Elizabeth Plourde PhD has presented information that zinc oxide and titanium oxide skin products can have reproductive impacts that may be concerning. Her book on sunscreens offers important warnings to those who fear the sun more than commercial products applied directly to the body’s largest organ: the skin.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/covid-vaccine-shedding-canaries-in-the-mine_4853276.html
**************************************************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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