Tuesday, April 23, 2024
COVID-19 Vaccine Protection Among Children Plummets Within Months: CDC Study
Children who received an original COVID-19 vaccine have little protection against hospitalization just months after vaccination, according to a new study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Children initially have 52 percent protection against hospitalization but that estimated effectiveness plummeted to 19 percent after four months, according to the paper.
Protection against so-called critical illness also dropped sharply, from 57 percent to 25 percent, researchers found.
The researchers include CDC employees and the paper was published in the CDC’s weekly digest on April 18.
The study covered children who received two or more doses of the original Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines from Dec. 19, 2021, through Oct. 29, 2023.
The study involved children aged 5 to 18 who were hospitalized with acute COVID-19 and tested positive for the illness and compared them to a control group of children hospitalized with COVID-19-like symptoms but who tested negative for COVID-19.
Researchers drew data from the Overcoming COVID-19 Network, which includes health care sites in most of the United States, and ended up with 1,551 case patients and 1,797 in the control group.
The study found that “receipt of ≥2 original monovalent COVID-19 vaccine doses was associated with fewer COVID-19–related hospitalizations in children and adolescents aged 5–18 years; however, protection from original vaccines was not sustained over time,” Laura Zambrano, a CDC epidemiologist, and her co-authors wrote.
It also recorded a similar drop in protection against critical illness, defined as being placed on mechanical ventilation, vasoactive infusions, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or dying.
The researchers asserted that the results highlighted the current CDC guidance that all people aged 6 months and older receive one of the newest COVID-19 vaccines, which were introduced in the fall of 2023 with clinical data from just 50 humans and no efficacy estimates. The CDC only publishes papers in its weekly digest, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, after they’re shaped to “comport with CDC policy.” The papers are not peer-reviewed.
Ms. Zambrano did not respond when asked for data suggesting that the currently available shots provide longer-lasting protection than the original vaccines.
The CDC’s website says, in promoting vaccination, that COVID-19 vaccines are “effective at protecting people from getting seriously ill, being hospitalized, and dying” but the hyperlink that ostensibly supports the statement goes to a page that is not live.
U.S. authorities have been moving COVID-19 vaccines to a once-a-year model, similar to influenza vaccines. The model features updating the formulation of the vaccines on an annual basis, in an acknowledgment that any protection the vaccines give quickly wanes. The formulation is typically updated in the fall.
Just 14 percent of children, and 23 percent of adults, have received one of the newest vaccines as of April 6, according to CDC estimates. The available vaccines are messenger RNA (mRNA) shots from Pfizer and Moderna and an alternative from Novavax.
Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, noted that, according to the new paper, the maximum effectiveness estimates against hospitalization were 61 percent, regardless of how the data were sliced, that more deaths were recorded among the case patients, and the median hospitalization duration was four days for both groups.
“I do not see how a clinician whose concern is treating patients and whose job does not depend on pushing mRNA vaccines would find this a basis for recommending shots—quite the contrary,” Dr. Orient, who was not involved in the research, told The Epoch Times in an email. “It reeks of conflict of interest.”
Stated limitations of the paper include not assessing post-infection immunity and a lack of sequencing data.
The conflict of interest section runs 688 words and includes some of the authors reporting funding from Pfizer and Moderna or ownership of Pfizer stock.
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UC Riverside Breakthrough: Novel Live-Attenuated RNA Virus Vaccine Eliminates Chasing Strains?
According to a recent University of California, Riverside (UCR) media release, scientists at the Inland Empire-based Southern California research center recently demonstrated a novel RNA-based vaccine strategy that is effective against any strain of a virus and can be used safely even by babies or the immunocompromised.
This would be a monumental breakthrough, one that would eliminate the current “chasing of strains” involved with the flu and now COVID-19 shots. Specifically, the team led by Rong Haia Ph.D. and Shou- Wei Ding, Ph.D. characterized a unique live-attenuated RNA virus vaccine, where attenuation resulted from the elimination of the viral RNAi suppressor and enhanced the production of virus- targeting small- interfering RNAs.
The UCR team demonstrates that single-dose immunization with the vaccine just 2 days in advance induced full protection in neonatal and adult mutant mice lacking adaptive immunity. Also, the immunized mutant mice remained protected against lethal challenge for at least 90 days postvaccination.
Human enterovirus- A71, influenza A, and dengue viruses all encode a similar RNAi suppressor, suggesting potential for developing a distinct type of virus vaccine to confer rapid and effective protection in infants and other immune- compromised individuals.
TrialSite this week purchased the study, reviewing below in conjunction with the UCR News media entry.
The Problem
Researchers on an annual basis make attempts to predict the four influenza strains that are most likely to be prevalent during the upcoming flu season. And every year, people line up to get their updated vaccine, hoping the researchers formulated the shot correctly.
Ditto for COVID vaccines: these vaccine products are reformulated to target sub-variants of the most prevalent strains circulating in the U.S.
What’s the Breakthrough?
Based on a recent breakthrough published earlier in the week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the new strategy would eliminate the need to create all these different shots, because it targets a part of the viral genome that is common to all strains of a virus.
“What I want to emphasize about this vaccine strategy is that it is broad,” said UCR virologist and paper author Rong Hai. “It is broadly applicable to any number of viruses, broadly effective against any variant of a virus, and safe for a broad spectrum of people. This could be the universal vaccine that we have been looking for.”
The Novel Vaccine
With traditional vaccines contain either a dead or modified, live version of a particular virus, with these products the body’s immune system recognizes a protein in the virus and mounts an immune response. Eliciting T-cells to attack the virus, thereby inhibiting the spread of the pathogen. It also produces “memory” B-cells that train your immune system to protect you from future attacks.
Interestingly enough, this novel vaccine discovered at UCR uses not mRNA, but actually also a live, modified version of a virus. The difference, however, from others; this novel candidate does not rely on the vaccinated body having this traditional immune response or immune active proteins — which is the reason it can be used by babies whose immune systems are underdeveloped, or people suffering from a disease that overtaxes their immune system. Rather, the experimental vaccine relies on small, silencing RNA molecules.
According to Shouwei Ding, distinguished professor of microbiology at UCR, and lead paper author “A host—person, a mouse, anyone infected— will produce small interfering RNAs as an immune response to viral infection. These RNAi then knock down the virus.”
Jules Bernstein reported on this finding for UCR News, educating that viruses typically generate RNAi response blockers in the form of proteins. According to Ding, “If we make a mutant virus that cannot produce the protein to suppress our RNAi, we can weaken the virus. It can replicate to some level, but then loses the battle to the host RNAi response.” Elaborating on this concept, Ding shared with the UCR reporter, “A virus weakened in this way can be used as a vaccine for boosting our RNAi immune system.”
Validating in Early-Stage Study
When the researchers tested this strategy with a mouse virus called Nodamura, they did it with mutant mice lacking T and B cells. With one vaccine injection, they found the mice were protected from a lethal dose of the unmodified virus for at least 90 days. Note that some studies show nine mouse days are roughly equivalent to one human year.
There are few vaccines suitable for use in babies younger than six months old. However, even newborn mice produce small RNAi molecules, which is why the vaccine protected them as well. UC Riverside has now been issued a US patent on this RNAi vaccine technology.
In 2013, the same research team published a paper showing that flu infections also induce us to produce RNAi molecules. “That’s why our next step is to use this same concept to generate a flu vaccine, so infants can be protected. If we are successful, they’ll no longer have to depend on their mothers’ antibodies,” Ding said.
Their flu vaccine will also likely be delivered in the form of a spray, as many people have an aversion to needles. “Respiratory infections move through the nose, so a spray might be an easier delivery system,” Hai said.
Additionally, the researchers say there is little chance of a virus mutating to avoid this vaccination strategy. “Viruses may mutate in regions not targeted by traditional vaccines. However, we are targeting their whole genome with thousands of small RNAs. They cannot escape this,” Hai said.
Ultimately, the researchers believe they can ‘cut and paste’ this strategy to make a one-and-done vaccine for any number of viruses.
“There are several well-known human pathogens; dengue, SARS, COVID. They all have similar viral functions,” Ding said. “This should be applicable to these viruses in an easy transfer of knowledge.”
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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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