A ‘World Gone Mad’—The Cost of COVID Lockdowns

The days of COVID lockdowns may be behind us for the time being, but a multinational academic team has conducted a broad analysis of government pandemic actions and found them to be “a global policy failure of gigantic proportions,” often driven by state and media-sponsored fear campaigns.

Their findings, published in a book titled “Did Lockdowns Work? The Verdict on Covid Restrictions,” are based on a worldwide meta-analysis that screened nearly 20,000 studies to determine the benefits and harms from health diktats, including lockdowns, school closures, and mask mandates. According to economist Steve Hanke, one of the co-authors, one of the things that drove countries into a state of panic and draconian policies was reliance on mortality models from sources like the Imperial College of London (ICL) that generated “fantasy numbers” showing that millions of deaths could be averted by instituting crippling society-wide lockdowns.

Prior to the COVID outbreak, “most countries did have a plan to deal with pandemics,” Hanke told The Epoch Times, “but after the Imperial College of London’s ‘numbers’ were published, those plans were, in a panic, thrown out the window.

“In each case, the same pattern was followed: flawed modeling, hair-raising predictions of disaster that missed the mark, and no lessons learned,” he said. “The same mistakes were repeated over and over again and were never challenged.”

Hanke is an economics professor and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise. The other co-authors of the study are Jonas Herby, special adviser at the Center for Political Studies in Copenhagen, and Lars Jonung, an economics professor at Lund University in Sweden.

While the meta-analysis surveyed thousands of studies, it found that only 22 of them contained useful data for the study. The report focused on mortality rates and lockdown policies during 2020.

“This study is the first all-encompassing evaluation of the research on the effectiveness of mandatory restrictions on mortality,” Jonung stated. “It demonstrates that lockdowns were a failed promise. They had negligible health effects but disastrous economic, social and political costs to society.”

According to Hanke, the ICL models predicted that lockdowns would prevent between 1.7 million and 2.2 million deaths in the United States. The meta-analysis, however, indicates that lockdowns prevented between 4,345 and 15,586 deaths in the United States. This fits a pattern of overstated predictions from the ICL, which health officials either didn’t know about or overlooked, he said.

A ‘Long History of Fantasy Numbers’

“There is a long history of fantasy numbers generated by the epidemiological models used by the Imperial College of London,” Hanke said. “Its dreadful record started with the UK foot-and-mouth disease epidemic in 2001, during which the Imperial College models predicted that daily case incidences would peak at 420. But, at the time, the number of incidences had already peaked at just over 50 and was falling.”

In 2002, the ICL predicted that up to 150,000 people in the UK would die from mad cow disease; in 2019, the BBC reported that the number of UK deaths from mad cow disease was 177. In 2005, Neil Ferguson, who led the ICL, predicted up to 200 million deaths from the H5N1 bird flu, which had at that time killed 65 people in Asia; according to the World Health Organization (WHO), between 2003 and 2023, 458 people died from H5N1 worldwide.

The ICL’s habit of “crying wolf” did not prevent the BBC, once COVID-19 struck, from relying on its data to broadcast dire weekly warnings to its 468 million listeners, in 42 languages worldwide.

“Maybe the Imperial College models are ideal fear-generating machines for politicians and governments that crave more power,” Hanke said. “H.L. Mencken put his finger on this phenomenon long ago when he wrote that ‘the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins.’”

While there were some U.S. states that never issued lockdown orders, including Wyoming, Utah, South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, and Arkansas, Sweden was the rare national exception that refrained from forcing people into lockdowns. American governors who refused to lock down their states were harshly criticized in the media, which predicted that this would cause mass deaths.

A ‘National Stay-at-Home Order’

In April 2020, under the Trump administration, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams criticized Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who had lifted lockdowns in his state, telling NBC’s “Today” show that federal guidelines should be taken as “a national stay-at-home order.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN at the time that, regarding lockdowns, “the tension between federally mandated versus states’ rights to do what they want is something I don’t want to get into. But if you look at what’s going on in this country, I just don’t understand why we’re not doing that.”

Left-leaning states like California and New York kept draconian regulations in place longer than most, with New York City even setting up a system of vaccine passports that prevented the unvaccinated from entering public places like restaurants, bars, theaters, and museums. While America’s federal system, which vested health authority with states, prevented the U.S. government from forcing lockdowns on the entire country, President Joe Biden issued vaccine and mask mandates once he took office that were ultimately ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court.

For Sweden, however, the protections from these types of health mandates were written into their constitution, called the Regeringsform.

This document reads: “Everyone shall be protected in their relations with the public institutions against deprivations of personal liberty. All Swedish citizens shall also in other respects be guaranteed freedom of movement within the Realm and freedom to depart the Realm.” This law permits exceptions only for convicts and military conscripts; in addition, Swedish law does not allow the government to declare a state of emergency during peacetime.

“Also important in the Swedish Covid case was the lead public health official, Dr. Anders Tegnell,” Hanke said. “His views on public health were the antipode of those held by the Covid Czar in the U.S., Dr. Anthony Fauci.”

In a September 2020 interview, Tegnell described lockdowns as “using a hammer to kill a fly,” and said of the rush among virtually every other country to impose them, “it was as if the world had gone mad.”

Sweden also did not impose mask mandates, while at the other extreme, Australia arrested citizens who went maskless or congregated outside, and Austria made it a criminal offense to refuse the COVID vaccine. At the time, the New York Times called Sweden a “pariah state” and “the world’s cautionary tale.”

Some of the differences between modeled and actual results come down to what Hanke calls the “hot stove effect.”

“When someone is warned that a stove is hot, they voluntarily keep their hands off the stove,” he said, citing evidence that, if credibly warned, people tend to take precautions without being forced.

A Move to Centralize Authority

And yet, rather than allowing citizens to make their own health decisions, most governments were united in forcing populations to follow behaviors that had not been recommended during pandemics up to that point. This year, 194 nations have come together to negotiate a global pandemic accord and amendments to International Health Regulations (IHR) that would centralize pandemic response within the WHO.

There is little in the pandemic accord or the IHR amendments regarding civil liberties and the personal protections against state abuses contained in the Swedish Regeringsform, such as the right to free speech, travel, and association, and nothing regarding the right to refuse experimental drugs. Instead, the negotiations focus on concentrating power and policy in the hands of a finite number of health officials in Geneva.

This includes centralization of medical supply chains, pandemic response policies, and a coordinated suppression of “misinformation.” As the countries of the world, including the United States, proceed down this path, some are questioning the wisdom of centralizing control when the states and countries that reacted to COVID in the least damaging way were the exception rather than the rule.

“Central planning is based on what Nobelist Friedrich Hayek identified as the ‘pretense of knowledge,’” Hanke said. “The results usually end up in a river of tears. It’s most often prudent to proceed via decentralized experimentation rather than with a global plan.”

In addition, government policies often are unidimensional; they typically enforce a single-minded goal, such as attempting to stop the spread of a virus, while ignoring side effects and collateral damage. The response to COVID is a textbook case of that.

“The record of public health officials is pretty dismal,” Hanke said. “Covid policies represent one of the greatest policy blunders in the modern era.”

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

The book does recognize some benefits from COVID lockdowns.

“Lockdowns, as reported in studies based on stringency indices in the spring of 2020, reduced mortality by 3.2% when compared to less strict lockdown policies adopted by the likes of Sweden,” the authors state. “This means lockdowns prevented 1,700 deaths in England and Wales, 6,000 deaths across Europe, and 4,000 deaths in the United States.”

By comparison, the authors write, a typical flu season leads to 18,500–24,800 deaths in England and Wales, 72,000 flu deaths throughout Europe, and 38,000 deaths in the United States.

Meanwhile, negative effects from lockdowns included: damage to mental health, loss of jobs, company bankruptcies, an increase in crime, loss of freedom and other infringement on civil liberties, inflation, an increase in public debt, and harm to children’s education and well-being.

A 2022 psychology report on “The Impact of School Closure on Children’s Well-being During the COVID-19 Pandemic” found that “those children exposed to COVID-19 related measures, such as mandatory school closure, are more likely to manifest symptoms of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), stress, insomnia, emotional disturbance, irritability, sleep and appetite disturbance, negative eating habits, and impairment in social interactions.”

The Congressional Budget Office calculated that real GDP fell 11.3 percent in the second quarter of 2020 and was still down 5.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2021, relative to CBO’s pre-pandemic January 2020 projections.

The authors of “Did Lockdowns Work?” recommend that in future pandemics, “lockdowns should be rejected out of hand.”

Asked if he expected that leaders around the globe would consider studies like his and learn from the COVID experience, Hanke replied, “If the history of public health policy serves as a guide, my answer is ‘no.’”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/analysis-a-world-gone-mad-the-cost-of-covid-lockdowns_5368628.html

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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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Note

I managed my seasonal virus better than I expected yesterday and managed to put up something interesting on all my blogs. I seem to be on track to do that today as well

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COVID-19 can cause brain cells to 'fuse'

Researchers at UQ have discovered viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 can cause brain cells to fuse, initiating malfunctions that lead to chronic neurological symptoms.

Professor Massimo Hilliard and Dr Ramon Martinez-Marmol from the Queensland Brain Institute have explored how viruses alter the function of the nervous system.

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has been detected in the brains of people with ‘long COVID’ months after their initial infection.

“We discovered COVID-19 causes neurons to undergo a cell fusion process, which has not been seen before,” Professor Hilliard said.

“After neuronal infection with SARS-CoV-2, the spike S protein becomes present in neurons, and once neurons fuse, they don’t die.” They either start firing synchronously, or they stop functioning altogether.”

As an analogy, Professor Hilliard likened the role of neurons to that of wires connecting switches to the lights in a kitchen and a bathroom.

“Once fusion takes place, each switch either turns on both the kitchen and bathroom lights at the same time, or neither of them,” he said. “It’s bad news for the two independent circuits.”

The discovery offers a potential explanation for persistent neurological effects after a viral infection.

“In the current understanding of what happens when a virus enters the brain, there are two outcomes – either cell death or inflammation,” Dr Martinez-Marmol said. “But we’ve shown a third possible outcome, which is neuronal fusion.”

Dr Martinez-Marmol said numerous viruses cause cell fusion in other tissues, but also infect the nervous system and could be causing the same problem there.

“These viruses include HIV, rabies, Japanese encephalitis, measles, herpes simplex virus and Zika virus,” he said.

“Our research reveals a new mechanism for the neurological events that happen during a viral infection.

“This is potentially a major cause of neurological diseases and clinical symptoms that is still unexplored.”

The research was published in Science Advances.

https://stories.uq.edu.au/contact-magazine/2023/covid-19-can-cause-brain-cells-to-fuse/index.html

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Italian Bombshell—COVID-19 mRNA Vax Cardiac Problems ‘Not Uncommon’

Research led by Italian physician-scientists, including corresponding author Nino Cocco at Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome, Department of Cardiovascular Sciences and Francesco Pelliccia, Ph.D., Sapienza University of Rome shows mounting concerns associated with the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines.

Sharing that “several patients” complained of heart palpitations or even worse arrhythmic events after receiving an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine in their specific clinical practice, the research collective sought to undertake a literature review of post-COVID-19 vaccine heart rhythm disorders which turned up several instances of heart rhythm disorders after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination.

Noteworthy, biomedical researchers from both Italy and Switzerland found this problem with other vaccines in addition to the COVID-19 products. Importantly, in regard to COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, the study authors call out that serious adverse events are ‘not uncommon” and demand clinical and scientific attention now.

Context

While mass vaccination against SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19, was considered collectively the best way to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, and generally, these products helped reduce cases of morbidity and mortality, the Italian-led team reports a troubling concern. They state that “side effects are being reported more frequently as more and more people around the world become treated.”

While the mRNA products are deemed “safe and effective” by regulatory bodies, the study team here emphasizes the importance of not underestimating “other side effects” in addition to the predominant risk of myopericarditis.

Key findings

Reporting on case series of patients affected by cardiac arrhythmias post-mRNA vaccine from their own clinical practice, the Italian-led team evaluate the literature. Reviewing the official vigilance database, Dr. Coco and colleagues report that “heart rhythm disorders after COVID vaccination are not uncommon and deserve more clinical and scientific attention.”

This assessment represents a distinct change in direction as most physician-scientists continue to downplay the linkages between the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines and various cardiovascular and other disorders linked to the novel products.

While the study authors continue to support the use of mRNA technology, arguing in their paper published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences that “the risk-benefit ratio” remains “clearly in favor of vaccination,” they posit that linked “heart rhythm disorders are not a negligible issue, and there are red flags in the literature about the risk of post-vaccination malignant arrhythmias in some predisposed patients.”

The authors raise questions about the impact of COVID-19 vaccines on heart conduction. They also review possible molecular pathways for the COVID-19 vaccines to impact cardiac electrophysiology and cause heart rhythm disorders.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/italian-bombshellcovid-19-mrna-vax-cardiac-problems-not-uncommonfindings-demand-clinical-scientific-attention-94c4729b

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Super fit mother-of-two, 37, 'is left in chronic pain, bound to a wheelchair and forced to find a new home' after Covid jab

A mother-of-two claims she has been left in debilitating pain and now relies on a wheelchair to get around after receiving three doses of a Covid vaccine.

Mel Guevremont, 37, says she has gone from being a keen gym-goer, surfer, snowboarder and rock climber to barely being able to take a few steps around her home before her legs give out.

Ms Guevremont, from Sydney, claims her body has broken down and she has been forced to wear a neck brace since receiving her third Pfizer mRNA vaccine in March 2021.

'It's ruined my life completely and utterly,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'I am skin and bones. I don't recognise myself. It's not my body and I wake up with a new symptom every day. It's a grieving process.'

Ms Guevremont and her partner Richard Ellison, who moved to Australia from Canada seven years ago, said they were forced to sell their Manly unit because it was located on the fourth floor and she struggles with stairs.

They now live with their two boys in a ground-level home in the south-eastern Sydney suburb of Maroubra.

Ms Guevremont said she has spent more than $25,000 seeing specialists, including neurologists and rheumatologists, but has not found them helpful.

Mel Guevremont says she has been left in a wheelchair after three doses of the Covid vaccine

Her comments come after a landmark Covid vaccine injury class-action lawsuit was filed in April against the Australian government, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and the Department of Health.

The nationwide suit, which reportedly has 500 members, seeks redress for those allegedly left injured or bereaved by the Covid vaccines.

Ms Guevremont said she was a fit and healthy woman who regularly took part in outdoor activities - but her active lifestyle has drastically changed.

'Right before these jabs I was snowboarding in New Zealand. The only problem I had was a tweaked knee from too much surfing and playing basketball,' she said.

'I was an adrenaline junkie. I did not stop. It's quite the clash for me to be barely able to hold a cup of coffee or hold my own neck.

'How do you go from snowboarding, ripping on a mountain and having a great time, to all of a sudden can't hold your neck?'

Ms Guevremont claims she is also suffering from electric shocks, unexplained weight loss and body weakness.

'I went to a beauty salon and after a while I couldn't feel my legs,' she said. 'When I tried to get up, my legs just completely collapsed. I sort of laughed and brushed it off. 'I thought maybe it was related to post-pregnancy hormones.'

Ms Guevremont says she struggles to do basic physical activities like walk to the park or even pick up her two boys, who are aged two and four.

'It breaks my heart. My young one wants to play soccer, and he knows I played soccer with him before, and all of a sudden I can't,' she said. 'I wonder if I am going to be there for my kids.'

The mother has made farewell videos for her boys just in case she is 'not around' when they grow older.

In July 2021, Ms Guevremont caught Covid-19, which she said took her four days to get over, after which 'she was fine'.

In November 2021, her condition spiralled and she fainted and collapsed. 'My partner rushed me to the hospital and I stayed there for a week,' she said.

She said a specialist suggested she might have 'post-vaccination syndrome and potentially post-viral syndrome' - although she only wrote the second diagnosis in her notes.

In referrals seen by Daily Mail Australia, hospitals and neurologists have diagnosed Ms Guevremont with 'suspected vaccine injury'.

Last year, Ms Guevremont reported herself as a vaccine injury to the TGA but said she was still waiting for a response. 'They fail to follow up and investigate,' she said.

A TGA spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia an 'acknowledgement email requesting further information was sent in response to an adverse event report submitted by Ms Guevremont'.

They added: 'The TGA strongly encourages vaccine recipients and healthcare professionals to report their experience of suspected adverse events, even if there is only a very small chance a vaccine was the cause.

'The TGA uses these reports to look for patterns in reporting that may indicate a new safety signal for a vaccine.'

The spokesperson said such a signal will lead 'to appropriate regulatory action which may include making changes to a vaccine's Product Information and communicating information to doctors.

'To date, the TGA has initiated over 43 regulatory actions to include new safety information in Product Information documents,' the TGA representative said.

But Ms Guevremont said she felt 'abandoned' and turned to Kerryn Phelps, the former head of the Australian Medical Association, for help.

Last December, Professor Phelps told a parliamentary inquiry into long Covid that both she and her wife had been vaccine-injured.

Ms Guevremont said Professor Phelps was very kind and supportive in referring her to a neurologist who 'specialised in vaccine injuries' but who turned out to be too busy to see her.

She also condemned the vaccine-injury compensation scheme run by Services Australia. 'The compensation scheme is a joke,' she said.

The compensation scheme for Pfizer vaccines includes about 10 eligible conditions, but these don't include neurological conditions such as Guillain-Barre Syndrome and Transverse Myelitis, even though they are listed for AstraZeneca shots.

'The TGA and regulators around the world continue to monitor and analyse Covid-19 vaccine safety data covering hundreds of millions of people, and the latest evidence from clinical trials and peer-reviewed medical literature,' the TGA spokesperson said.

'This information continues to overwhelmingly support the safe and effective use of Covid-19 vaccines.

'It remains the consensus view of international regulators and health departments that the benefits of Covid-19 vaccination continue to far outweigh the rare risks.'

Ms Guevremont is currently looking at experimental treatments and possibly moving the U.S. to receive them.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12197225/Vaccine-injured-Mel-Guevremont-says-Pfizer-Covid-jab-wheelchair.html

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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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Partial return

I am still climbing out from under the tyranny of my seasonal virus so am not yet up to resuming a full schedule of blogging. I have however noted the rather shocking article below so reproduce it here today -- JR

Laid Low by the COVID Vaccine, Now They've Got a Bad Case of Federal Unresponsiveness

In April 2021, Adele Fox received a single shot of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine. Within a few hours, the 60-year-old resident of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, started feeling shooting pains in her legs, arms, and neck. The pain didn’t abate over the next few days. Instead, it got worse and was accompanied by nausea and debilitating fatigue.

Within a few weeks, neurologists affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital diagnosed her with several serious conditions they say were a result of her COVID-19 vaccine, including small-fiber neuropathy (which causes a painful tingling in the extremities) and Sjögren’s Syndrome (which leaves patients pained and fatigued, and in extreme cases, can damage internal organs).

This shot, which was supposed to get Fox back to normal, instead left her with diminished ability to work and enjoy life. Persistent physical therapy and experimental treatments she’s taken since have done little to alleviate her symptoms.

“I used to do so much, and now it’s a struggle,” she says. “Sometimes you just get down.”

With her medical bills mounting and her condition not improving, Fox sought compensation for her damaged health. Federal liability protections prevent the vaccine-injured from directly suing vaccine manufacturers like Johnson & Johnson. Instead, claimants have to go to the federal government for compensation.

But as Fox would soon learn, the government has two starkly different injury programs for vaccines. One operates like a civil court with a neutral judge, lawyers on both sides, and a guaranteed right of appeal. In recent decades, it has approved about 75% of claims and pays out hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

The other, which handles COVID-19 vaccines, has rejected almost every claim brought to it, awarding less than $10,000 since the pandemic. And in a nation nearly numb to the pandemic's toll and its scandals, the program is adding seething frustration atop lasting injury to Fox and people like her in a little reported aftermath to the government’s much criticized performance on vaccines – ranging from erratic booster advice to broad-brush vaccine mandates that cost people their jobs.

Fox filed her claim two years ago, submitting hundreds of pages of medical documents about her condition and diagnoses. She’s nevertheless one of the 10,887 people still waiting on a decision. “You’re not even hearing anything from the organization that’s supposed be helping you,” she says. “The phone keeps ringing, no one is emailing, nobody is doing anything.”

The federal agency overseeing the program, the Health Resources and Services Administration, said in a statement to RealClearInvestigations that the current number of claims “significantly exceeds the previous volume in the program” and that the program has “hired additional staff to address this growth in claims, and the President’s budget requests additional funding to support the additional staffing needed to process claims.”

Tale of Two Compensation Programs

The government’s two contrasting vaccine compensation programs are similarly named and thus easily confused. The first, Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) was created in the 1980s and covers most routine vaccines. The second, the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP), is a result of war-on-terror legislation in 2005 and now covers COVID-19 vaccines. Their bureaucratic differences help explain why a nation that has spent trillions of dollars on COVID relief programs has provided almost no assistance to people harmed by the vaccines that the government encouraged, and sometimes required, them to take.

The earlier program was supposed to shore up pharmaceutical companies’ willingness to make childhood vaccines in the face of persistent vaccine injury lawsuits, while also giving the vaccine-injured a fair and expedited process for compensation.

The vaccine-injured would not sue pharmaceutical companies. Instead, they’d petition the government in Federal Claims Court, where special masters (judges) would decide cases. Compensation came from a government-administered trust fund paid for by excise taxes levied on vaccine manufacturers.

Between 2006 and 2021, this court adjudicated cases from 10,602 petitioners and issued compensation to 7,618 of them. The compensation trust fund sits at $4 billion and pays out about $200 million in compensation and attorneys’ fees each year.

This earlier program bears little resemblance to the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program, where the COVID-vaccine cases of Fox and many others are languishing.

It was meant to incentivize pharmaceutical companies to be part of the federal response to one-off, one-in-a-million events like a bioweapon attack or an outbreak of a deadly pandemic. Although almost one billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in the United States, and health authorities say boosters could become as common as the annual flu shot, it remains the only way people harmed by the shot can receive compensation.

It's far from guaranteed they’ll get it.

Before the pandemic, this program received a little over 500 claims and had paid out compensation to only 30 people – mostly for H1N1 (swine flu) vaccine injuries. In just the past two years, it has been asked to make decisions on over 10,000 injury claims related to COVID countermeasures.

As of June, it made decisions on just 919 of these COVID-related claims and rejected 894 of them. It has so far paid out only $8,593 in compensation to just four people who were injured by a COVID vaccine. The program has deemed another 20 people eligible for compensation, but has yet to pay them.

It’s not a judicial process either. Rather, it’s an administrative process overseen by Health Resources and Services Administration, which is housed within Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). People file a claim and government medical reviewers decide whether to pay out or not. That’s an awkward arrangement, given that HHS is deciding whether to pay for damages caused by products it approved and in some cases mandated.

Because it’s an administrative process, there’s no right to counsel and no neutral arbitrator. A denied claimant can file for reconsideration with HRSA, but otherwise has no right to appeal.

Unlike the earlier program, the CICP offers no compensation for pain and suffering and doesn’t pay attorneys’ fees. Most successful claimants have received compensation totaling a few hundred dollars or a few thousand dollars. The highest award for a COVID-19 vaccine injury sufferer was $3,957.66 to a person who got myocarditis (a heart condition) from a vaccine.

It also has shorter filing deadlines. People have to file a claim within one year of vaccination, a much shorter window than the earlier program’s standard of three years from the onset of symptoms. Of the 894 claims that CICP has rejected, 444 of them were for missing the filing deadline.

CICP also only awards compensation in cases where there’s “compelling, reliable, valid, medical, and scientific evidence” that someone’s injury is linked to a covered countermeasure. HRSA describes this as “a high evidentiary standard.” Renée Gentry, a practicing vaccine injury lawyer who directs the Vaccine Injury Litigation Clinic at George Washington University, says it’s a much higher bar than what the earlier vaccine injury compensation program requires, which contributes to a much lower rate of successful claims.

The Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program’s nature as a small emergency program has seen its capacity strained by a flood of COVID-related injury claims. Of the 11,806 COVID-related claims filed, 10,887 are still pending. Those four cases where COVID compensation was paid out didn’t come until after April 2023, over two years since the first vaccines were administered.

Pain and Suffering

The shortcomings of CICP are all too apparent for the people who are forced to wade through it. Even folks who seem to have done everything right are left waiting or disappointed by the program.

Fox filed her claim in May 2021, which was relatively early in the immunization campaign. She also had clear diagnoses from well-credentialed doctors linking her conditions to her COVID-19 vaccination. Fox says she provided the program with no shortage of documentation as well.

After filing all that paperwork, she hasn’t been idle either. After months of not hearing anything back from CICP, Fox started to reach out repeatedly to anyone she thought might be able to move the needle. She spoke repeatedly with representatives from Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s and Rep. Chris Pappas’ offices. She also kept calling program administrators, trying to figure out what was taking so long.

“I’m sure they saw my number, and said ‘Ah, Fox, oh no, not her [again]’,” she jokes.

Her congressional representatives did reach out to CICP on her behalf. That was at least effective at getting program administrators to call Fox personally twice, once in July 2022 and again in June 2023. But each time, they could only offer her reassurance that her paperwork had been received. On both calls, Fox says she was told that the program was vastly overburdened by the flood of COVID-19 claims it had received. She, like thousands of others, would have to wait.

The few decisions on COVID-19 claims that have trickled out haven’t offered much relief to the people who’ve received them. That includes Cody Flint, one of the 894 people who’ve had their COVID-related claims rejected.

Flint was vaccinated in February 2021, when he received a single Pfizer dose. He says that he started to feel headaches and had affected vision within 30 minutes of the shot. He was still experiencing symptoms two days later when he headed to his job as a crop-dusting pilot.

While flying that day, he started to experience extreme tunnel vision, followed by a sensation he describes as “a bomb [going] off in my head.” He barely managed to get his plane back to his runway, where his coworkers found him slumped over his controls and shaking.

He was diagnosed with perilymphatic fistula (or tear of the inner ear) caused by elevated intracranial pressure – which could only be relieved through repeated draining of his spinal fluid. Given the timing of his symptoms and the fact that he’d passed a flight physical just a couple weeks prior, his doctors said his condition was almost certainly caused by the vaccine. His injury prevented him from returning to work as a pilot, and his mounting medical bills saw him draw down all of his savings.

In April 2021, Flint filed a claim. In May 2022 – just a few weeks after Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith asked HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra about his case specifically in a committee hearing – Flint’s claim was rejected. The program’s medical reviewers told Flint that it was more likely his injuries were caused by barotrauma from flying a plane.

He petitioned for a reconsideration of his case. His doctors argued that there was no way he’d have experienced barotrauma from flying just a few hundred feet off the ground. Commercial airliners, they noted, are pressurized at 6,000 to 8,000 feet of elevation. Flint’s lawyers also submitted recent studies linking the symptoms he’d experienced to COVID-19 vaccinations.

Nevertheless, a separate medical reviewer at HRSA upheld the CICP’s initial denial in January 2023. That letter succinctly stated that HHS has “no appeals process beyond this reconsideration” and “there is no judicial review of a final action concerning CICP eligibility.”

Efforts at Reform

The federal government’s liability protections for COVID-19 vaccines aren’t scheduled to expire until the end of 2024. Once they do, those claiming a vaccine injury will be able to pursue claims against vaccine manufacturers in state courts.

While liability protections remain in effect, the federal program is injured claimants’ only potential source of compensation.

Whether or not the HRSA succeeds in boosting staffing in line with its statement to RCI, those seeking compensation have started to get organized. They’ve formed the group React19, which is dedicated to advocating for additional research into the side effects of COVID-19 vaccines. It’s grown into a network of tens of thousands of people who say they suffered adverse injuries from the shot. Flint, the pilot, is on its board of directors.

“It’s a very pro-vaccine community,” says Christopher Dreisbach, the group’s legal affairs director. “You say anything about vaccine injuries, you’re branded as anti-vaxxers. We are pro-science, we are not political. We’re just dealing with a very politicized issue.”

He says the politicization of vaccines has made their efforts at compensation reform a challenge.

When the CICP, and the 2005 Pandemic Response and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act that created it, were first being debated, Republican lawmakers were its main advocates, while its main critics were Democrats. The partisan politics of the program and liability protections for pharmaceutical companies has done a 180 since COVID.

In 2005, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee argued during the House floor debate on the PREP Act that the law’s liability shield would leave injured healthcare workers with little protection or chance of compensation. Come 2023, she would return to the floor of the House to argue in favor of mandating those same healthcare workers receive a vaccine covered by the PREP Act’s liability shield.

The PREP Act’s harshest critics during COVID, meanwhile, have mostly been Republicans.

“I call the PREP Act medical malpractice martial law,” says Rep. Thomas Massie, who complains that its liability shield is both incredibly broad and improperly preempts state law. “I think it’s sort of anathema to the way our government is set up. I found it hard to believe that Congress would pass something, much less that a Republican president would invoke it.”

In March 2022, Sen. Mike Lee introduced a bill that would have amended CICP to give claimants the same framework for pursuing compensation as the VICP. They could file in Federal Claims Court and receive an expedited, judicial adjudication of their injury claim.

Gentry argues that it would be far simpler to just move the COVID-19 vaccines into the VICP program, which already has a successful track record of adjudicating injury claims. In order for that to happen under the law that created the VICP, the CDC needs to recommend the vaccines for routine administration to children (which has already happened) and vaccine manufacturers would have to start paying excise taxes. That latter condition will require action from Congress.

VICP needs a number of updates as well, says Gentry, including expanding the number of special masters to handle the backlog of cases and increasing the available levels of compensation (which haven’t been updated since the 1980s).

Increasing the number of special masters is particularly important if the VICP program is going to be expected to process tens of thousands of COVID claims, she says. But she argues it’s the best way of getting the vaccine injured out of CICP and into a program that will work for them. “If you’re taking away someone’s constitutional right to sue, you really have to give them a reasonable and meaningful alternative and that’s what this program is, for all of its faults,” says Gentry.

While efforts at reform in Washington lumber on, React19 has started a privately funded compensation program that’s thus far paid out $552,000.

“Is that making a meaningful difference to all the vaccine injured everywhere? No, that’s not enough,” says Dreisbach, but he notes that it’s far more than what CICP has paid out. “That should be pretty embarrassing to the federal government.”

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2023/06/28/laid_low_by_the_covid_vaccine_theyre_also_not_immune_to_a_bad_case_of_federal_unpreparedness_943284.html?mc_cid=e24a78ea0c&mc_eid=012a6b3e32

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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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The virus strikes back

Yesterday, I though I had beaten the virus that was attacking me. I was able to have a normal day. But this morning I woke up feeling very washed out and with nesr-zero energy. So I have done very little today. No blogging.

Will I be back on deck tomorrorw? I hope so. But old guys like me have to take it a bit easy so maybe not. A lot of men my age are dead, if I can put it that way. So I am definitely on extra time

'Stunning' Emails Show What Biden Administration Officials Knew About COVID Vaccines Very Early On

Newly released emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request show that public health officials knew about “breakthrough cases" of COVID-19 in vaccinated individuals early on, but continued pushing vaccine mandates anyway.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky discussed in a January 2021 email how she had spoken to then-NIH Director Francis Collins about the issue.

“Dear all, I had a call with Francis Collins this morning and one of the issues we discussed was that of vaccine breakthroughs. This is clearly and [sic] important area of study and was specifically called out this week here,” she said, adding a link to a paper titled, “SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines and the Growing Threat of Viral Variants.” She goes to say she discussed this with someone “a few weeks ago” and that Dr. Anthony Fauci was also aware.

In media hits months later, however, Walensky was saying that vaccinated individuals “don’t get sick” and “do not carry the virus.”

"Our data from the CDC today suggests that vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don't get sick, and that it's not just in the clinical trials, but it's also in real-world data,” she said on MSNBC in March of 2021.

She then defended those comments in a congressional hearing, arguing it was true when she said it, though it “did change over time.”

In May of 2021, Fauci made similar claims, telling Americans that vaccinated individuals "become a dead end to the virus."

"Even though there are breakthrough infections with vaccinated people, almost always the people are asymptomatic and the level of virus is so low it makes it extremely unlikely — not impossible but very, very low likelihood — that they’re going to transmit it,” Fauci told CBS's "Face the Nation."

“When you get vaccinated, you not only protect your own health and that of the family but also you contribute to the community health by preventing the spread of the virus throughout the community,” he added. “In other words, you become a dead end to the virus. And when there are a lot of dead ends around, the virus is not going to go anywhere. And that’s when you get a point that you have a markedly diminished rate of infection in the community.”

Sharing the email, Stanford School of Medicine professor Jay Bhattacharya called the revelation "stunning."

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2023/06/22/emails-show-admin-officials-knew-about-covid-breakthroughs-very-early-on-n2624779

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Australia Removes Moderna Vaccine for Children Under 5

Health authorities in Australia have quietly removed Moderna’s paediatric COVID-19 vaccine for children five years and under, with both options offered by the company now no longer available in the country.

This comes after the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) announced it would no longer recommend COVID-19 vaccines for individuals who are under five unless they have one of seven specific high-risk medical conditions that could place them in heightened-risk categories for severe COVID-19.

The seven conditions include severe primary or secondary immunodeficiency, including those undergoing treatment for cancer or those on immunosuppressive treatments; bone marrow or stem cell transplant or chimeric antigen T-cell (CAR-T) therapy; complex congenital cardiac disease, structural airway anomalies or chronic lung disease, type 1 diabetes mellitus, chronic neurological or neuromuscular conditions or a disability with significant or complex health needs.

“ATAGI does not currently recommend vaccination for children aged 6 months to <5 years who are not in the above risk categories for severe COVID-19. These children have a very low likelihood of severe illness from COVID-19,” the advisory body said.

The Epoch Times has reached out to Moderna for comment on the decision.

Moderna Vaccine Only Gave Modest Protection: ATAGI
In justifying its change of advice, the health authority said that there was a very low risk of severe COVID-19 in healthy children aged six months to less than five years.

“This age group is one of the least likely age groups to require hospitalisation due to COVID-19. Among the small number who are hospitalised or who die due to COVID-19, underlying medical conditions or immunocompromise are frequently present,” ATAGI said.

They also noted that the age cohort had a relatively low rate of paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome (PIMS-TS) following COVID-19 compared to other older children, and this further declined with the Omicron variant compared to ancestral SARS CoV-2 strains.

Further, the health advisory group noted that a clinical trial of 5,500 children aged six months up to five years demonstrated that the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine provided only modest protection against infection, while safety data reported patterns of vaccine-related adverse events.

“Up to one in four children in this age group had a fever following vaccination with Moderna vaccine, with higher rates seen in those with a history of previous COVID-19,” they said.

“As fever in this age group can sometimes result in medical review and/or investigations and occasionally trigger a febrile convulsion, the side effect profile for this vaccination needs to be considered in the risk-benefit discussion.”

Additionally, the health authorities also changed their advice on COVID-19 booster shots for those 18 and under, with the body now recommending that children and adolescents aged under 18 years who do not have any risk factors for severe COVID-19, should not receive a booster shot.

Omission of Children’s COVID-19 Vaccine Deaths In Australia Raises Concerns

The changing advice follows concerns in March that Australia’s drug regulator was too slow to update the country’s Database of Adverse Event Notifications (DAEN) despite several deaths being attributed to the vaccine, including two children, aged 7 and 9.

The information came to light following a Freedom of Information request by an Australian doctor that found the delayed response from the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).

Senator Gerard Rennick said he would push for independent oversight of the TGA.

“A third independent medical party should examine the evidence as the TGA has a conflict of interest because they approved the vaccines and would therefore be held responsible for the deaths of these children due to poor regulatory oversight,” Rennick told The Epoch Times.

The senator also said he was concerned that the TGA was soft-pedalling the risks with the COVID-19 vaccines, especially around myocarditis and cardiac arrests.

“They are definitely downplaying the risks. They do not have enough information to rule it out given the known link between the vaccines and myocarditis and myocarditis and cardiac arrests,” Rennick said.

The TGA states that they “rigorously assess any COVID-19 vaccine for safety, quality and effectiveness before it can be supplied in Australia.”

As of June 19, the DAEN states that since the beginning of the vaccination rollout in Australia, there have been 138,645 adverse events reported to the federal government. Of those, 135,126 are believed to be directly related to the vaccines, while 991 are reportedly vaccine-related deaths.

Further, in the age cohort of six months to 17, there have been 5,817 adverse events recorded, with 5,689 attributed solely to COVID-19 vaccines. Nine children and adolescents have also reportedly died as a result of an adverse vaccine reaction.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/australia-removes-moderna-peadiatric-vaccine-approval-for-children-under-5-post_5341468.html

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Large 1.3M Observational Study on Vaccine & Previous Infection-Based Effectiveness Against Omicron

How effective are the COVID-19 vaccines in children? This is a study question pursued by a biomedical research team led by physicians and scientists at University of North Carolina Gillings School of Public Health in an observational cohort study based on electronic health record-based vaccination records involving outcomes associated with Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT162b2) and Moderna (mRNA-1273) mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines.

Data for this observational type of study originate from the North Carolina COVID-19 Surveillance System and the COVID-19 Vaccine Management System for 1,368,721 North Carolina residents aged 11 years or younger from Oct 29, 2021 (Oct 29, 2021 for children aged 5–11 years and June 17, 2022 for children aged 0–4 years), to Jan 6, 2023. Cox regression statistics were utilized to arrive at time-varying effects of both primary and booster vaccination and previous infection on the risks of Omicron infection, hospital admission and death.

Oddly, the study team didn’t collect side effect data. The authors find the mRNA vaccines effective, but their protective effects wane. The study team touts what is highly robust protection associated with previous infection (natural immunity) which against some parameters wanes slower than vaccination.

This study characterized the long-term effects of vaccination and previous infection to Omicron infection and severe outcomes in children aged 5-11 years. They compared the effectiveness of monovalent and bivalent boosters in the cohort. Also, the investigated estimated the time-varying effects of vaccination and previous infection on omicron infection, and severe outcomes in children aged 0-4 years. The study records covered all lineages of the Omicron variant.

Findings

What about primary vaccination vs monovalent booster dose? The study team points out in The Lancet that the effectiveness of a monovalent booster dose after month one equaled 24.4% (14.4-33.2) and that of a bivalent booster dose equaled 76.7% (45.7-90.0%).

What about previous infection? That is, children that were infected with SARS-CoV-2 (Omicron variant), and the protective effect against Omicron reinfection. The data reveals preexisting infection is quite effective at 79.9% (78.8-80.9%) after month three, and 53.9% (52.3%-55.5%) by month 6.

When looking at the youngest cohort—age 0-4 years—the University of North Carolina team found that effectiveness of primary vaccination against infection, when compared to unvaccinated status, equaled 63.8% (57.0-69.5%) by month 2 after the jab, and 58.1% (48.3-66.1%) at month 5 after the first dose.

Previous infection for this cohort, which was frequent and represented low risk overall, exceeded vaccination at 77.3% (75.9-78.6) at month 3 and 64.7% (63.3-66.1) at month 6.

Across both age groups, both vaccination and previous infection were reported as better effectiveness against severe illness as measured by hospital admission or death, as a composite endpoint than against infection.

Summary

Vaccination was effective in helping to prevent Omicron infection as well as more severe infection, but like all other studies reveal with the mRNA vaccines, that protection wanes over time. The bivalent boosters were more effective as compared to the monovalent boosters. Importantly, the authors denote, “Immunity acquired via Omicron infection was very high and waned gradually over time.”

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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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Was the COVID Vaccine Safe for Pregnant Women?

MARTY MAKARY

In December 2020, just before the vaccines for COVID-19 were first released to the public, Dr. Mandy Cohen, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Resources in North Carolina, urged everyone to get vaccinated as soon as they were able. “Corners were not cut,” Cohen said with confidence.

Then as now, pregnant women asked if COVID vaccines were safe for them. Public health officials said “yes” when the correct answer should have been “we don’t know yet,” given that pregnant and breastfeeding women were excluded from the original COVID vaccine trials. With Cohen set to replace Dr. Rochelle Walensky as director of the Center for Disease Control at the end of June, it is a good time to consider how Walensky performed on COVID—and in particular, on Women’s health issues—and ask whether Cohen will be any different.

In February 2021, to settle the controversy over whether the COVID vaccines should be used during pregnancy, Pfizer launched a randomized controlled trial of 4,000 pregnant women. But five months into the study, after enrolling 349 women, the study mysteriously stopped recruiting. Pfizer never offered a reason. Most concerning, the pregnancy outcomes of those who participated in the trial, and their babies, are still not public today, nearly two years later.

But the CDC did not wait for good data to make a decisive recommendation. In April 2021, just four months after the COVID vaccine was first granted an emergency use authorization and two months into the then ongoing Pfizer pregnancy trial, Walensky decided not to wait for the trial results, and instead recommended that all “pregnant people” get the vaccine. Three months later, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) followed the CDC and “enthusiastically” recommended it as well.

Concerned by the zealousness and absolutism of this recommendation in the absence of evidence, a group of scientists and I petitioned the FDA to add a disclaimer to the vaccine label stating that no randomized trial data is available on the vaccine in pregnant women.

A few months ago, the FDA’s Dr. Peter Marks wrote back to us, denying our request. “The Petition fails to explain how including the fact of no results being reported would be relevant information that would contribute to the safe and effective use of the vaccine,” he claimed.

In other words, women don’t need to know. Just get vaccinated.

Not having any good data didn’t seem to bother the CDC.

Can a vaccine have a different safety profile in pregnant women than in the general population? There’s actually a precedent. The CDC advises that pregnant women not receive the HPV, MMR, or chickenpox vaccines, and instead recommends taking them before or after pregnancy, when indicated.

Remarkably, as the now outgoing CDC director—along with the ACOG—was pushing COVID vaccine absolutism for all pregnant women (regardless of preexisting natural immunity), a June 2021 New England Journal of Medicine editorial on COVID vaccines warned readers of “the dearth of safety information about pregnancy.” The article added the importance of waiting for Pfizer’s pregnancy trial to shed light on the matter, but alas, the early results are still locked up.

Pharma companies actually have a track record of halting trials that aren’t going their way and hiding results they don’t like. It allows them to control the narrative and manipulate markets. In many cases where data is hidden, Pharma companies play doctors like a fiddle.

A 2021 study by Yale, Stanford, and the University of Pennsylvania published in The BMJ found that out of 58 new drugs that the FDA approved in a two-year period, 33% did not make their trial results public, according to the researchers’ review of the data six months after the drugs’ approval. In 2004, Merck famously withheld clinical trial findings that Vioxx, their newly approved drug that was being used by 80 million Americans, increased heart attack risks. Vioxx was eventually pulled off the market.

In the case of the COVID vaccine trial in pregnant women, the trial may have been terminated not because the results were unfavorable, but because no data was needed. The medical and public health establishments had already made up their minds, declaring it safe and effective regardless of what the data was going to show. Why evaluate a product if the CDC and ACOG are already sold on the product?

Using the same groupthink science, the CDC and ACOG are now blindly recommending boosters and the new bivalent vaccine for healthy pregnant women, and once again ignoring the role of natural immunity. The ACOG website does not cite any clinical trials to back their recommendation, of course. Not only does the new bivalent vaccine lack any randomized trial data in pregnant women, it lacks any randomized trial data in humans (it was authorized based on data from eight mice).

Recently, public health officials went a step further and proposed the idea that people will need an annual COVID shot. That would mean that the average 5-year-old girl would need 77 mRNA COVID vaccine shots in her lifetime. Given the known risks of myocarditis and blood clots with each shot, such a sweeping recommendation should be based on trial data, not dogma. A recent study authored by Dr. Joseph Fraiman in the journal Vaccine identified the rate of “serious adverse events” after the COVID vaccine to be 1 in 662 doses.

To their credit, ACOG’s website does acknowledge COVID vaccination could delay menstruation. A large COVID vaccine study published last July found that “periods were late by less than 1 day on average.” When asked about this, Dr. Anthony Fauci told Fox News’ Bret Baier, “The menstrual thing is something that seems to be quite transient and temporary. We need to study it more.” But saying for two years that we don’t have enough studies is ironic when Fauci himself commanded an annual research budget of $6 billion. A Swedish study published last month in The BMJ found that an adjusted 26% increased risk of menstrual disturbance after the COVID vaccine in women age 12-49.

Since early 2021 women were reporting changes to their periods and unexpected vaginal bleeding, calling for proper study. Last October, the European Union’s regulator advised that “heavy menstrual bleeding” be added as a side effect on Pfizer and Moderna vaccine labels. Here in the U.S. there’s been no such update to product labeling.

This lack of humility was also evident when healthy young women were told with incredible absolutism that the COVID vaccine cannot affect fertility. The right answer should have been: We don’t think it will affect fertility but we don’t have any good data on the question. A Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) study published last fall concluded that, “Findings of this study suggest that receipt of the first inactivated COVID-19 vaccine dose 60 days or less before fertilization treatment is associated with a reduced rate of pregnancy.”

The medical establishment has also blindly pushed for universal COVID vaccination and boosters in lactating mothers. This recommendation came before a study in JAMA Pediatrics discovered vaccine mRNA particles in breast milk. The finding was so unexpected that it became the journal’s No. 1 most discussed study of 2022, according to the JAMA website. Coming in second was a study reporting myocarditis after COVID vaccination, and third was a study I authored with my teams at Johns Hopkins on durability of natural immunity. It’s telling that the most discussed JAMA studies of 2022 were all on topics that public health officials have consistently downplayed.

In the absence of good data, organized medicine chose the path of stern paternalism. But in my experience as a physician, it’s far better to properly inform a patient rather than steamroll their questions. It may be that Pfizer’s pregnancy trial would have been favorable to the vaccine, showing that the benefits outweigh harms, but Pfizer has not released the data. Perhaps the data was not favorable, or perhaps Pfizer realized they had convinced the medical establishment without data, so why run the risk of sharing what a placebo-controlled trial shows?

In the absence of good data, organized medicine chose the path of stern paternalism.

Perhaps the most famous example of hidden trial data is the 1989 Minnesota study that found there were more deaths in the group that ate a low-fat diet than in the control group that did not. The study was completed in 1973, 16 years before it was released to the public. When asked about the delay, the lead investigator, Dr. Ivan Frantz, famously said “we were just so disappointed in the way they turned out.”

The FDA recently authorized a second round of COVID bivalent vaccines for people over the age of 65, with no supporting clinical data. The authorization came a month after the FDA leaked to the press their intention to do so. This is the Biden administration’s new way of running the FDA. Leak something to the media, gauge public backlash, and fast track authorization of the drug without the supporting data typically required.

Is the COVID vaccine safe in pregnancy? Probably. But cutting corners on research and pushing vaccines without data is dangerous. It’s probably why 58% of women under age 50 say they do not trust public health officials when they say that the COVID vaccine is safe and effective in pregnancy, according to a University of Pennsylvania study published last month. Overall trust in the CDC is down from 69% pre-pandemic to 44% today. Dishonesty has consequences.

Even if the vaccine’s benefit outweighs the risks in healthy pregnant women, a review of 65 studies published in The Lancet in February concluded that natural immunity is at least as effective as vaccinated immunity, and probably more effective. So why is the medical establishment blowing through so much political capital on a blanket campaign to immunize those already immune?

For those who think the boondoggle of COVID policy has ended, consider the fact that just two months ago, public health officials beclowned themselves by insisting Novak Djokovic could not enter the U.S. to play tennis outdoors because he’s not vaccinated. This position, known as Biden’s “Djokovic doctrine,” embodies persistent errors in public health groupthink today, from ignoring natural immunity to downplaying vaccine induced myocarditis in young males to overlooking data on how extremely low risk the virus is for healthy young people to segregating people by vaccine status.

And just this week, the Biden White House required college athletes who won national championships visiting the White House to mask and stay six-feet apart if they are not vaccinated. Even if they have natural immunity. What does Mandy Cohen have to say about this standing policy still in place today?

To rebuild trust, the medical establishment—including physician associations and academic leaders—should be honest about what is known and unknown, rather than lock arms and broadcast its dogmas as science. For every subgroup in the population, medical science has long held high the principle of requiring data before making strong recommendations. Women should not be treated any differently.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/was-covid-vaccine-safe-pregnant-women

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All-Cause Mortality Up after Mass COVID-19 Vaccination

Data from Japan and Germany display disturbing trend

Governments around the globe put a huge amount of faith in COVID-19 vaccines as their only intervention to reduce mortality. Yet, no prospective randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled trial has demonstrated a reduction in death with COVID-19 vaccines. On the contrary, every single data system around the globe has reported increased mortality coinciding with the roll-out of the vaccines.

Scherb and Hayashi used Japan and Germany for study of temporal trends in mortality. Both countries have excellent reporting systems. For Japan (125.7 M) and Germany (83.2 M), the WHO indicates as of 18, June 2023, and 14 May 2023, a total of 392,346,325 and 193,232,623 vaccine doses, respectively have been administered. This equates to 2-3 doses per person.

The authors found a disturbing jump in mortality coinciding with the start of mass vaccination. At the end of a pandemic, since the frail and elderly have suffered disproportionate casualties, there is usually a culling effect and mortality should go down. If the vaccines were effective, then certainly they should have dropped the death rate even more. The figures from Japan and Germany tell a different story.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/all-cause-mortality-up-after-mass-covid-19-vaccination-c5aaa4f2

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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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Illness

I came down with a nasty cold on Friday and am still at the tailend of it. I will not be blogging today but hope to be recovered and back on deck tomorrow. I was tested for Covid but did not have it. It is just a seasonal virus

SARS-CoV-2 Mass Vaccination Likely Accelerates Viral Mutation—Time to Upgrade COVID-19 Vaccines?

The lead scientist at Sechenov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, Saint-Petersburg, Russia, and an expert infectious disease modeler at University Medical Center, Utrecht, Julius Center, Epidemiology & Health Economics in the Netherlands combined their intellectual prowess to investigate SARS-CoV-2 immune selection pressures, ultimately producing an important, published analysis titled “Evolutionary implications of SARS-COV-2 vaccination for the future design of vaccination strategies.” Mass vaccination was the “pillar of the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

But critics such as Geert Vanden Bossche, a TrialSite contributor, warned that mass vaccination might trigger mass evolutionary pressures, thus accelerating pathogen mutations. The Belgian virologist was summarily dismissed by mainstream science and its media channels as an overreacting crank. However, here, an intellectually gifted duo based in Russia and Holland raise the specter that based on their modeling “mass vaccination might accelerate SARS-CoV-2 evolution in antibody-binding regions compared to natural infection at the population level.”

In what should be a must read for decision makers in vaccination, the authors both review the most important factors shaping vaccination strategies during the COVID-19 crisis, while also probing the implications of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination on virus evolution in light of accumulated knowledge and in the context of viral evolutionary theory.

Their analysis raises the specter of a reality involving the evolution of rapidly mutating antibody-binding regions. Finally, the pair acknowledge the need for their own assumptions to be validated, while also pointing to the need for the research necessary to design potential future advancements in both vaccination and broader vaccination strategy.

The basis for mass vaccination

The formidable pair introduce the reader to vaccination strategies in the context of COVID-19, educating that primary tools employed during the pandemic were predictions based on robust epidemiological models tailored to the available data. Called “dynamic transmission models” or “infectious disease models”, they were used to simulate the transmission of a virus across a specific population, introducing and evaluating potential software simulated control measures.

It was, after all, transmission models for the virus, including mutation and how vaccination would respond, that were used to develop vaccination schemes during COVID-19: many national strategies were based on these models.

Key assumptions

Embracing material evidence of robust genetic variation in antibody-binding regions of SARS-CoV-2, the authors both capitalize on the similarity involving both the envelope proteins of SARS-CoV-2 as well as influenza, the pair make a key assumption: “That immune selection pressure acting on these regions” of both COVID-19 and the flu are comparable.

The authors, hardening their data including assumptions, analyze and discuss implications for SARS-CoV-2 evolution based on a mathematical model developed initially for influenza. The duo, if their analyses are accurate, most certainly impacts the future design of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination strategies.

While mass vaccination helped reduce morbidity and mortality, in many cases, that was a temporal public health gain, due to the combination of both an evolving pathogen and what TrialSite has argued are limitations with the initial vaccination products (e.g., durability, breadth challenges, lack of sterilizing powers, etc.).

Chinks in the mass vaccination armor?

Both Rouzine and Ganna raise the specter of limitation to the current mass vaccination approach. They raise the critical concern that “vaccination can also have implications for SARS-CoV-2 evolution in antibody-binding regions, located in the spike protein that is targeted by the available vaccines. SARS-CoV-2 perpetually evolves due to its escape from the immune response in individuals induced by both natural infection and vaccination.”

In fact, the authors remind the reader that irrespective of vaccination, when it comes to a pathogen like SARS-Cov-2 accumulating mutations in T-cell epitopes and antibody-binding regions powers selection pressure to escape natural immunity.

The authors demonstrate via modeling that mass vaccination can in fact, increase this inherent pressure, thus accelerating SARS-CoV-2 evolution in spike epitopes when compared to natural infection. The authors model this, thus conveying the distinct possibility that the arguments of Vanden Bossche have some merit.

Future research

The authors’ time and effort into this investigation evidence ongoing concern. “If SARS-CoV-2 continues to cause the substantial burden of severe disease in vulnerable individuals, we should either design a type of vaccine that does not carry any potential danger of accelerating virus evolution in epitopes but is still effective against severe disease or find other methods of reducing virus circulation.”

Rouzine and Ganna introduce several research pathways to consider for ongoing investigation into better options. Will apex research institutes, national public health agencies and major centers of biomedical research be receptive?

Summary

While the authors contribute their customary kudos to the current response to COVID-19 mass vaccination scheme, completely bypassing the topic of serious safety signals, they acknowledge that the pathogen that caused the COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve, escaping in many cases from both natural and vaccine-induced immunity.

Demonstrating the distinct possibility that mass vaccination schemes in the context of the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen may serve to accelerate its evolution in rapidly mutating antibody-binding regions when comparing to natural infection, Rouzine and Ganna point out that their conclusion rests upon fundamental assumptions, including A) that the immune selection pressure exerted on antibody-binding regions of SARS-CoV-2 are in fact similar to those of influenza and B) on existing multi-locus models of influenza evolution.

Capitalizing on similarities between the envelope proteins of both SARS-CoV-2 and influenza in antibody epitopes, they further acknowledge that their model’s assumptions must be tested and potentially hardened. But in these author’s favor—they’ve proven to be correct with influenza—they have a serious track record.

Emphasizing what are limitations with the current COVID-19 mass vaccination approach, the authors carefully warn public health leaders that the role of mass vaccination on SARS-CoV-2 evolution “should be acknowledged for future vaccination strategies that target most at-risk populations, especially if vaccination campaigns will cover a substantial part of the population.”

Key considerations in the next round of COVID-19 vaccine development: “Mutations in immunologically relevant genomic regions, viral recombination, virulence and fitness evolution.”

The authors conclude by validating the current approach as likely the best considering all the factors involved (emergency pandemic, etc.).

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/sars-cov-2-mass-vaccination-likely-accelerates-viral-mutationtime-to-upgrade-covid-19-vaccines-b6e80ab0

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Covid heartburn on Twitter

It’s incredible how soft some people are on social media. And I’m not even talking about overly political people right now. A mass exodus of scientists and medical professionals appears to be leaving Twitter because they can’t handle the trolls. Do they know of these fantastic features called the “mute” and “block” buttons that drown out the clowns? Some are annoying, but if they’re asking questions and looking for a debate, you can choose to or not to engage with them. Those with too much time on their hands focusing only on ad hominem attacks should be blocked. It’s not complicated.

Conservative women, especially, have been subjected to heinous harassment by progressives, who are, at their core—just miserable people. Incapable of accepting differing views and the people who hold them for some reason. They have an addiction to harassing people to cower to their political opinions. While not religious, left-wingers do carry the same evangelist zeal, stunningly intolerant that some people think differently than they do. We’re supposedly on the "wrong side of history"—how often have you heard that phrase— and they can’t sleep at night knowing everyone doesn’t think alike under the authoritarian ethos of progressivism.

And yet, scientists decide to leave the battlefield because some no-name trolls decide to call out these people about vaccines. Galileo was tortured and didn’t bend. Eppur si muove has lost its meaning. The fireworks began when Dr. Peter Hotez appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast (via Axios):

A feud broke out on Twitter over the weekend between popular podcaster Joe Rogan and prominent vaccine researcher Peter Hotez, with the podcaster challenging the scientist to a debate about vaccines in an online skirmish that drew fire from a few billionaires.

Why it matters: The incident — which ultimately resulted in individuals approaching the scientist outside his home — highlighted the potential risks for researchers and medical professionals using the platform, which saw a rise in hate speech after its acquisition by billionaire Elon Musk.

[…]

The Twitter battle over the weekend started after Rogan hosted Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on his show for three hours, spending much of the time talking about anti-vaccine views.

In response, Hotez, part of a Nobel Prize-nominated team that created an affordable, patent-free COVID vaccine for use in poorer countries, retweeted a Vice article with the headline "Spotify Has Stopped Even Sort of Trying to Stem Joe Rogan's Vaccine Misinformation."

The show spread "nonsense," Hotez tweeted.

That prompted a challenge from Rogan to Hotez: "Peter, if you claim what RFKjr is saying is 'misinformation' I am offering you $100,000.00 to the charity of your choice if you're willing to debate him on my show with no time limit."

What happened next: Rogan's challenge sparked an internet pile-on against Hotez, accusing him of being a "pharma shill," as well as a back-and-forth between some of Twitter's most influential, including Musk and billionaire investor Mark Cuban.

[…]

What they're saying: Twitter is "no longer a tool that's accelerating science. On the contrary," said Michael Mina, chief science officer at eMed and a pediatric immunologist who regularly used Twitter during the pandemic to talk about COVID. He still uses Twitter, but sparingly, and expects he'll leave completely within the next six months, he said.

"It allowed me to effectively and efficiently sift through the noise of this massive explosion of new publishers and journals and papers that were published," Mina told Axios.

[…]

In comments to Axios as well as online, scientists and medical researchers have said they're increasingly finding it difficult to find relevant information on Twitter. A recent study found Twitter's new algorithms are amplifying anger more since Musk took over the platform.

Hotez told Axios he's seen a clear shift in anti-vaccine views as part of a well-organized, well-financed anti-science movement, and that's playing out on the platform.

Of course, Axios finds a way to thread a swipe at Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter. There are ways to moderate your communities, as mentioned above. The publications added that scientists are posting elsewhere, like Substack. Still, the fires of outrage over vaccines could be addressed if the medical community owned up to the misinformation about the COVID vaccine and the pandemic. We were told to get the shot, take off the mask. The efficacy rates were touted as the main selling points. And then the vaccinated got COVID during the Omicron wave.

There have been shiploads of people dying from cardiovascular episodes, many under 44. And now, we’ve learned that those who have contracted and survived infection had an antibody response that was just as good as those vaccinated with two doses of the mRNA vaccine. The reality of the vaccine is that it might prevent death, but there’s no protection against infection. It’s very much like the flu shot, which has an efficacy of less than 60 percent, but it does increase the odds of you not dying from the virus that kills tens of thousands of Americans every winter.

But that fact dilutes the panic and fear the COVID regime sold to us for months over a virus with a 99-plus percent survival rate. People got vaccinated and still contracted COVID, with some dying from infection, especially older Americans. And now, with boosters, we’re learning that it weakens the immune system. Until these philosopher kings admit they blew it on COVID, expect more angry folks to confront them.

The online shenanigans still pale compared to what Galileo and other scientists of his era endured when presenting their scientific findings. Imagine being tortured for suggesting the Earth revolves around the sun. He stood firm while today’s Dr. Hotez mulls leaving because it’s too heated on Twitter. Yikes.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2023/06/21/galileo-would-be-spinning-in-his-grave-if-he-found-out-scientists-were-doing-this-n2624769?utm_source=thdailyvip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&recip=6139244

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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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Analysing a vaccine critic's claims

Should there be a Royal Commission conducted as part of the Australian government’s COVID-19 emergency response? That’s the opening question media personality professor David Flint David asks Malcolm Roberts, an Australian politician on the “Save the Nation” show.

Roberts, a member of right-leaning populist One Nation and a Queensland senator since 2019, replied “Absolutely.” In an interview on the “malfeasance” associated with the Australian government’s response to COVID-19, Malcolm Roberts speaks some truth, but at some points in the conversation conveys points that aren’t necessarily true or conclusively proven as fact.

COVID-19 shines a spotlight on the politicization of medicine across the board, from right to left, from so-called “old” industry to so-called new green industry advocates—they all are using the unfolding science to make their convenient point. But some of what Roberts has to say cannot be ignored. Of the more controversial stances, it’s proven that the 30,000 excess deaths in Australia in 2022 were caused by the mass COVID-19 vaccination countermeasure response to the SARS-COV-2 pandemic.

Roberts told Professor David Flint that in March 2021, as the mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign got underway, he asked both the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of Australia and the head of the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), the nation’s drug regulator, if the vaccines were 100% safe.

The Australian senator shared, “The immediate answer was, no they are not.” TrialSite reminds all that no vaccines are 100% safe. There are no perfect solutions to public health. There are instead tradeoffs where hopefully smart, objective biomedical scientists, physicians, regulators and other relevant experts in their respective fields determine the risk-benefit analysis—do the benefits of such vaccines markedly outweigh risks at a population/societal level? But that’s the reality of how vaccination works. Thus, Robert’s first question to the heads of Australia’s vaccine response was just not based on a notion of reality.

But Roberts' second question to the CMO and head of TGA was more on point, a question grounded in real-world reality. He asked, “Will they stop someone from getting the virus?" He told the interviewer that these top medical and regulatory heads in Australia declared, “No they will not.”

So, this was an honest answer. By March 2021, TrialSite was already learning of breakthrough infections due to the Delta variant, meaning that these COVID-19 vaccines were not of the sterilizing type. They could not stop all infectious transmission meaning that they could not be counted on to control the pandemic.

Nearly all developed nations produced public health data showing how the jabs did help reduce the incidence of morbidity and mortality associated with COVID-19 and although critics don’t believe those numbers, they don’t take time either to prove why they are incorrect.

However, the durability of the mRNA products became a serious question early on—by the spring of 2021. A significant issue was mRNA vaccine durability, so ultimately, three boosters were necessary in a period of just over a dozen months after the first primary series. While the RNA virus was mutating, this was a well-known topic. But it remained politically incorrect to even critique the vaccines for fear of creating vaccine hesitancy---something was terribly wrong.

Back to the interview, Roberts told the Save the Nation host he then asked the top medical and regulatory brass of Australia, “What dosage will you be administering the vaccines, the injections?" The Senator told Professor Flint that these powerful overseers of COVID-19 vaccine response declared, “We don’t know.”

The Australian senator summarized, “So they don’t know the dose, they know that it's not effective, they know that it won’t stop transmission, and they know that it's not 100% safe.” He paused and continued, “There is no benefit from these things, none whatsoever.”

Roberts then said, “In fact, efficacy goes into the negative after some time with people who have had these injections because it destroys the immune system.”

Mandates down under?

What about injection mandates in Australia? The Senator told the Save the Nation host that the head of the county at the time, Scott Morrison, would go on television and repeatedly lie to the Australian public that there were no such mandates.

According to Roberts, “Scott Morrison bought the injections, he gave them to the states, he then indemnified the states for their use, he then gave them access to the National Health Data, which enabled the injection to be mandated, because otherwise, the states couldn’t have enforced the mandate.”

Roberts continued, “Then we had the state premiers at the same time telling us that the reason they wanted mandates was to comply with the national cabinet.” He continued, “Well, the head of the national cabinet, which is a bogus entity as you know, was Scott Morrison.”

His point—“Scott Morrison drove the whole thing in this country.”

As part of the national Australian emergency Roberts emphasized that Morrison "redistributed taxpayer money to states for COVID-19 lockdowns (Australia was notorious in the Western world for these) and other inhuman restrictions, ineffective, damaging restrictions that weren’t effective in managing COVID.”

A correction, as TrialSite reported during the pandemic, Australia to some extent embraced the Chinese zero-tolerance COVID policy which meant strict enforcement of rules and regulations to prevent the spread of the virus. It implies that any violation of these rules would not be tolerated, and appropriate action will be taken to enforce compliance.

The specifics of zero tolerance policy for COVID-19 vary depending on the nation, context of jurisdiction, and the like. But some common elements were embraced by the Australian national and state government. This in fact, did stop the spread of COVID-19 (Australia wasn’t hit early on nearly as hard as places like America), but the policy in reality only delays the eventual spread of the pathogen, at great cost to human psychology, cultural vitality and economy we might add.

What’s Senator Roberts’ takeaway on the Australian gov response to COVID-19?

The pandemic response was “completely mismanaged, deceitful, it killed thousands of people…” Roberts intensifies his criticism of the government introducing the phenomenon of excess deaths.

Declaring that there are now 30,000 excess deaths in Australia for the year 2022 alone, this elicited an immediate response from host Professor David Flint who interrupted the Senator, “Could you explain to viewers what an excess death is?”

The Senator responded, “Every year in Australia there are an expected number of deaths, and they vary slightly but because no two years are identification, there is slight variation… and there is a range above and below the mean [number] so it varies,” and the senator demonstrated how a certain number of deaths are expected with some variation above or below the mean number.

So, the point is that the number typically occurs within an expected range, but since COVID-19 and the mass vaccination program the expected death numbers have skyrocketed across much of the developed world.

TrialSite has reported on this number. In fact, this media chronicled in early 2022, that the death rates surged just as the nation’s population became heavily vaccinated which defied expectations.

For example, TrialSite reported in late April 2022 in “Heavily Vaxxed Australia: First 3.5 Months of 2022 has Doubled the COVID-19 Deaths from 2020-2021 Combined.”

Back to the interview, Roberts said, “What we know is that provisional death data shows an excess of 30,000 or more in 2022.”

On the interest of these deaths among the leadership of Australia? Roberts said these people who head TGA, the CMO the secretary of the federal health department “don’t give a damn, there is no inquiry going on as to what is causing these excess deaths. We know, we know from overseas experts, from peer-reviewed scientific papers that it is the injections causing these [excess] deaths. And an alarming level of deaths.”

Why don’t they care? Roberts declared, “I think they are worried about being found culpable for the injections that they have pushed on people and killed people with.”

But contrary to Roberts’ claim there has not been one peer review, scientific study published in a mainstream journal that connects the mounting excess deaths crisis and the mass vaccination program.

Speculation has included COVID-19 itself, and all the problems that come after lockdowns, tight access to healthcare, and the like. But the vaccines are suspect, and Roberts is correct in his assessment that generally, governments are avoiding the topic. That avoidance most certainly signals a set of priorities and values.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/australian-senator-claim-30k-excess-deaths-caused-by-the-mrna-vax-b93a05a8

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Pfizer mRNA Vaccine Appeared to Trigger Stroke-like symptoms in one patient

Physicians from multiple health centers in Paris, France including Percy Army Training Hospital in Clamart, France in the southwestern suburbs of Paris report on a case series involving a case of subacute lumbosacral NA after the patient received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, called Comirnaty (BNT162b2).

After a thorough diagnosis the French providers concluded that there was no “triggering factor” injuring the 48-year-old patient other than the mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine—the doctors could not confirm the suspected causation however exhibiting a common trend. Does this reflect a real hesitancy to identify when the vaccine causes harm? Luckily, the patient went into full recovery after treatment with intravenous immunoglobulin.

The French doctor’s report in the journal Revue Neurologique that the individual patient has a recorded history of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome which had been treated with mandibular advancement orthotic with no history of diabetes and no medication.

Summary

The patient was infected by SARS-CoV-2 by March 2020, and later received his first jab of the Comirnaty vaccine on January 20, 2021. Just six days later on January 26, 2021, the authors report:

“The patient experienced a sudden onset of paresthesia in the anterior part of his lower right limb. The symptoms rapidly worsened throughout the day, with anesthesia starting at mid-thigh and extending to the right ankle. These deficits were then followed by neuropathic pain of the right lower limb, for which the patient was put on Pregabalin therapy by his general practitioner and a hospitalization in neurology was programmed. The patient had difficulty walking with weakness of the right lower limb.

On February 11, 2021, the patient received a second dose of Comirnaty© vaccine.”

By April 13, the patient was hospitalized in the hospital’s neurology department. Doctors reported he had “sensory symptoms” plus had difficulty walking which persisted since the jab.

A series of diagnostic measures were taken, along with tests discovering neurogenic aspect when assessing the right vastus medialis and vastus lateralis muscle with electromyography.

Considering multiple conditions including Guillain Barre syndrome, the eventual diagnosis was subacute lumbosacral NA, following a Pfizer SARS-Cov-2 vaccine in a 48-year-old patient.

The diagnosed condition is an issue related to the lower back and sacral region that has a subacute course. Lumbosacral is the region in the lower back where the lumbar spine meets the sacrum whereas subacute means a condition that is intermediate in nature—falling between acute (sudden onset, severe) and chronic (long-lasting) conditions.

The authors report that this 48-year-old patient fully recovered after receiving a regimen of intravenous immunoglobulins. While it would appear that the vaccine is the cause, the authors cannot conclusively state so.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/pfizer-mrna-vaccine-appears-to-trigger-subacute-lumbosacral-na-264ced0d

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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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