Fighting an invisible illness: the curse of Long Covid

Note that she fell ill AFTER being vaccinated

By MILANDA ROUT

The first time I got Covid it landed me in hospital on Christmas Day. It was 2022 and my husband dropped me off outside Emergency, our two worried kids watching from the car. I didn’t want to leave them but I had no choice: I’d been ­experiencing wave after wave of horrible nausea, and I had never felt my heart beat so fast. I felt on the verge of collapse. Being Covid positive, I was told by hospital staff to wait on a bench outside and that’s where I sat, miserably, until a nurse came to see me.

“So you have Covid,” she said. “Well, what did you come here for? Do you think I have a magic pill that’s going to make you feel better?” The rational, fact-finding journalist part of my brain knew what she said was correct – there wasn’t a quick fix, and being Christmas the ­hospital was operating with skeleton staff who were overworked and exhausted at this point in the pandemic. But I had never felt so sick in my life, and I simply did not know what else to do. Surely there was someone who could help me?

What I didn’t realise in that moment was that, 16 months later, I would still be struggling with this same feeling of utter desperation, hopelessness and fear. Because since the acute phase of the infection ended, I have been ­struggling with the mysterious and debilitating condition known as Long Covid.

I am not alone: it is estimated that one in 10 people who contract Covid develop Long Covid, which is defined in Australia as being symptomatic three months after the original infection. According to research publishedlast year, as many as 65 million people have Long Covid worldwide, with numbers ­increasing with each new wave of the viral ­infection. In Australia, there is no national registry keeping tabs on the number of cases but a recent federal parliamentary inquiry into Long Covid heard there could be anywhere between 200,000 and two million sufferers.

What is clear from data collected globally since the pandemic began is that Long Covid affects more women than men, especially women in their thirties and forties. (Being a 45-year-old woman, I am a fairly typical case.) As a patient, and as a journalist, I wanted to understand why Long Covid remains largely a mystery, even though scientists and physicians have had more than four years to get to grips with it. The first key question, for me: why are women getting Long Covid more than men?

“I wish I could tell you but we just don’t know yet,” says Professor Steven Faux, who ­co-founded one of the first Long Covid clinics in Australia, at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney. “There are a handful of reasons [being explored]. One is psychosocial, that we put women in harm’s way when it comes to caring for people because most nurses are women. “

There is another issue, he says. “A group of researchers in the US said, ‘We think it is happening in that period because they’re perimenopausal and no one is looking at that. Is that possible?’”

But, Faux says, the most fascinating theory is US immunologist Professor Akiko Iwasaki’s research around the hormonal response – that the female’s immune system is more aggressive than the male’s, and turns on faster and stronger to protect any potential unborn child. But it then exhausts itself and it can’t keep fighting against the virus and stop it from developing reservoirs in different organs.

Faux sees more women than men at St Vincent’s Long Covid clinic (55 per cent female patients compared with 45 per cent male). The most common age group is 31-45 years, followed by 46-60 years. This echoes the experience of other clinics in Australia and overseas and was also noted as a concern by the parliamentary committee inquiry into Long Covid. “There’s just a lot more women,” Faux says.

The reason I am talking to Faux in his tiny ­office at St Vincent’s between clinic appointments on a Thursday afternoon is not only ­because is he one of the leading Long Covid experts in Australia and I selfishly want to pick his brain, but because he is the first person in this country to have written a comprehensive guide to the illness. To be published in May, Long Covid: Expert Advice, from Diagnosis to Treatment and Recovery is aimed at patients, people just like me, who have been struggling to get better. It also advocates for us. And it does so in a particularly empathetic way.

“If you are living with Long Covid, we know that in your own ways you try to keep going, try to be the person you were, while battling the fear that you will never be the same,” Faux writes early on, setting the tone. “This book is an attempt to say to all of you: we see you.”

Those few sentences in the book encapsulate my experiences in a way that no other doctor has been able to. It’s comforting to simply read Faux’s acknowledgment of the awful symptoms – the erratic heartbeat, the exhaustion, the brain fog, the doctors’ ­appointments, the specialists’ appointments, juggling work, juggling children and the heavy weight of waking up every morning and not feeling any better.

“One of the things about Long Covid is that it’s a largely invisible illness,” Faux writes. “When you have it, you don’t necessarily look any different. It is not like you’ve lost a limb or have a cast on your harm. Fatigue or cognitive impairment is often subjective; it’s hard to show people you are fatigued because the only way to do that is to complain about the symptom.”

Faux is the Director of Pain Medicine at St Vincent’s, and previously spent 22 years as the director of rehabilitation. He has spent almost 30 years helping people ­recover from injury and illness. He and his ­colleagues recognised early on in the ­pandemic that there was a need to plan beyond the acute infection stage. And after working on the front line in the Covid wards for months, he saw first-hand what was coming. “What I knew of previous pandemics, and the effects of viral illnesses such as HIV and polio, was that the pandemic was about to ­deliver thousands of people who would be ­damaged by this infection and who would ­require rehabilitation,” he writes.

His unit soon started getting referrals for Covid patients who still had symptoms after three months. They called themselves “long haulers” on social media and were reporting breathlessness, coughing and exhaustion.

“We initially thought it was because the virus was destroying their lungs and they needed pulmonary rehab – but then a lot of the people we were ­seeing couldn’t go back to work because they couldn’t concentrate,” Faux tells me.

“I had colleagues emailing me saying, ‘Are you using brain injury rehab for these people?’ and it was then I ­realised that if we didn’t do something proactively, we were going to end up with an army of people who were disabled for some time.”

More than 200 different symptoms are now ascribed to Long Covid. According to a 2021 review quoted by Faux in his book, the most common is fatigue (45.1 per cent), followed by breathlessness, then insomnia, difficulty waking, anxiety, depression, brain fog, muscle pain, palpitations, headaches and a loss of taste and smell. But it can be hard to pin down. “People with Long Covid often say they don’t feel themselves, or are unable to get on with things as they used to, but many can’t really articulate what they feel,” he writes. “At the St Vincent’s clinic I’ve seen people lose their jobs as a result of Long Covid. I’ve seen it place stress on relationships and cause untold anxiety.”

Faux estimates there could be as many as one million Australians living with Long Covid, given that around one in ten people who get Covid develop Long Covid and more than 11 million Australians are thought to have contracted Covid since the pandemic began. “This figure would place Long Covid high on the list of the most significant medical conditions ­affecting the Australian population,” he points out. “Compare this with type 2 diabetes at 1.3 million, asthma at 2.7 million, heart disease or stroke at 1.2 million and cancer at 1 million.”

I managed to avoid Covid for the first two years of the pandemic, and I was beginning to think I was one of the lucky ones until I finally tested positive. This, of course, was well after the peak of the pandemic, after lockdowns, and after almost every Australian had been vaccinated. By then, we had certainly heard of Long Covid. The Weekend Australian Magazine had reported on the condition back in 2020 – a growing army of Covid “long-haulers”, many of whom had only a mild case of Covid-19, ­describing “a medley of lasting symptoms”.

When I fell ill, three days after my son tested positive in December 2022, I wasn’t too worried. I was fully vaccinated. The symptoms were ­initially mild: I had a temperature for a few days, a slight cough and felt generally unwell. But the symptoms dramatically escalated one evening when I was cooking dinner for my ­family. A wave of nausea and dizziness hit, my heart started beating fast and erratically and I thought I was going to faint. I immediately stopped what I was doing and lay down on the couch, waiting for it to pass. It didn’t.

During my first hospital visit on Christmas Day, they checked my heart and found nothing wrong, then hooked me up to a bag of IV fluids. I overheard the doctor ask a nurse whether I was eligible for antiviral drugs. “No, she’s too young,” came the reply. I was discharged a few hours later as there was nothing more they could do. I was back in hospital on New Year’s Eve with the same frightening symptoms. This time I underwent exhaustive tests and spent a night in the Covid ward before being discharged. Two weeks later, I finally tested negative to Covid – though my symptoms remained.

“They will lift,” a close friend reassuringly messaged me. But even as time went by, there was no easing of the symptoms. The godawful nausea meant I had no appetite and lost five kilos, and I couldn’t do anything physical without feeling dizzy. My husband had to take care of me and keep the kids occupied during a month of school holidays. Worst of all, my heart was behaving very strangely. All of a ­sudden I would feel it beating as if it would leap out of my chest, then I would get this horrible jittery feeling like when you’ve had too much coffee. Sometimes this would last for days.

I attempted to go back to my job as a journalist for The Australian’s WISH magazine in the middle of January 2023. I was working from my parents’ house – they were helping look after my children. One day I’d been working for about two hours when another wave of nausea and dizziness hit. I remember crying in despair in front of my husband and kids, frightened that this illness would rob me of my career.

Then came the dreaded “brain fog” reported by many Long Covid sufferers: I kept forgetting words and confusing things. The words and memories were there, I just couldn’t access them. It took away my confidence to write – a key part of my job – as well as my ability to function day-to-day as a mother and wife with school-age children.

Many studies have found that Long Covid affects the brain, and it’s a key part of the rehabilitation program at the St Vincent’s clinic – even though Faux admits the medical profession is at a loss to explain what causes the fog. “It’s unclear whether the effects on the brain are due to the persistence of the virus or to the immune system’s response, but brain ­imaging studies have shown that the parts of the brain involved include the orbitofrontal areas (above the eyes) close to where the olfactory (smelling) nerves enter the brain, and near some of the areas of the memory centres (the hippocampus and limbic systems),” he writes. “There is also evidence of thinning of the brain’s grey matter in those with Long Covid who have brain fog.”

The other debilitating symptom Faux sees that has also changed my life is post-exercise malaise. It means you can’t tolerate any type of exercise, and your body tells you afterwards – not during – with a swift return of symptoms. We’re not talking about the ­serious exertion of running or ­lifting weights in the gym; it can be triggered by the expending of ­energy in almost any way. Carrying too many groceries one evening meant I woke up the next day to find my nausea had returned powerfully, and I found getting out of bed incredibly difficult. The day before, I’d felt fine.

As I grew to understand, people living with Long Covid don’t have a linear recovery. You can have a good day, or even have a good week – and then you can overdo it physically, without realising, and be back to square one. For me, this was when the fear crept in and I found ­myself panicking that I might never recover.

“Living with uncertainty is one of the big ­issues for Long Covid,” explains Faux. “We ­always advise people with Long Covid a bit like we approach cancer rehabilitation – if you’re having a good day, enjoy it and don’t expect it to be the same tomorrow. And if you are having a shit day, then ride it out and maybe tomorrow will be completely different.”

While I was undergoing a series of tests last year to find out why my heart was beating erratically, a doctor helpfully told me that Long Covid is a post-viral syndrome much like Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and the sheer volume of cases mean the symptoms cannot be dismissed as psychosomatic. “One of the things that people were initially saying with Long Covid is that these people are histrionic, they are putting it on,” Faux says. “But it became clear to me when we opened the clinic and talked to the first patients that they were not.

“The patients we see can’t work and they want to work. They need money and they have to put bread on the table. They don’t have a ­history of chronic pain or diagnosable illnesses. These are people with very little to gain by being sick.”

There is a six- to nine-month waiting list to get into the St Vincent’s Long Covid clinic. Faux and Associate Professor Anthony Byrne, a respiratory physician, set up the team that includes nurses, physiotherapists, a sleep specialist, a neurological rehabilitation expert and a psychologist. Each patient who is referred by their GP gets an assessment and a tailored rehabilitation program. It’s a slow process, but it does work. “If patients are identified early and they get a psychologist and a physio, or a physio and ­occupational therapist, whatever they need, and they start treatment early, the evidence from overseas is that they recover faster,” ­explains Faux. “And the evidence from our ­clinic is that there is a substantial return to work at six months following the commencement of rehabilitation.”

Last April, a federal parliamentary committee made nine recommendations following its inquiry into Long Covid. Among them was that the government should partner with state health departments to develop and fund more multidisciplinary Long Covid clinics. Yet when Health Minister Mark Butler released the federal government’s response to the inquiry, this was not one of the recommendations it supported. In the same month, the government committed $50 million of funding for research into Long Covid and established a national database on the disease. In fact, despite the demand for Long Covid clinics and the committee’s recommendations, governments appears to be withdrawing their support for them. In an RMIT study published last October co-lead author Dr Shiqi Luo stated: “We have insufficient Long Covid clinics to meet the demand”. An ABC investigation last December found five of the country’s 23 clinics have either been scaled back or closed.

Unlike me, Julie Lamrock contracted Covid early in the pandemic, in 2019, when a passenger she collected in her shuttle bus from the Overseas Passenger Terminal disembarked from the Ruby Princess cruise ship.When The Weekend Australian Magazine reported on Covid “long-haulers” in 2020, Julie was still ­experiencing pain, fatigue and brain fog. Her symptoms have never abated. Today, she ­describes her now four-year battle with Long Covid as a “living nightmare”. “Only last year did I start to go out again,” she says. “but the pain is always there. The fatigue is always there. I actually go to sleep in pain and I wake up in pain … and I’m living this every day.”

She says her treatment includes visits to a pain specialist and a pain psychiatrist, but after Nepean Hospital ceased its Covid-19 follow-up service she was no longer being treated as any part of a cohesive Long Covid treatment plan. “There’s nothing happening. Why haven’t I been told to go and see a [particular specialist] doctor? Why isn’t there a system where every doctor can turn around and say, ‘Well, here’s a number you can call and yes, here’s a referral to this clinic, get this done, get that done’?”

I was referred to a Long Covid clinic by my cardiologist last April. I received a call in June asking me what I needed help with; I told them. I didn’t hear anything back until October last year when I received another call saying the clinic was moving online and Long Covid case management was going back to GPs. I have since learned that what was once my Long Covid clinic is now an eight-week online education program and a support group.

When, in writing this article, I asked Health Minister Mark Butler about the future of Long Covid clinics, he did not directly respond, noting only the need for “multidisciplinary team-based healthcare for people with chronic and complex conditions like Long Covid.” The Department of Health and Aged Care released a plan in February this year addressing Long Covid, now referred to in government circles as PASC (Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19). There is no mention of Long Covid clinics. “States and territories decide the mix of the ­services and functions delivered in their jurisdiction … some have used funding to establish clinics for the management of people with PASC,” the plan states. “People with PASC will be able to benefit from the Government’s … commitment” to “expand general practices”.

Faux thinks this approach is flawed, and Long Covid patient care should be done in multidisciplinary rehab clinics because it’s not easy to treat. “The GPs are doing their best, but there’s not enough GPs and it’s very complicated because you’ve got to rule out everything else first,” he says.

People are not going to stop getting Covid and, in turn, Long Covid. “In January of this year, 100,000 positive cases were registered in the country. 100,000 people got Covid. That means about 10,000 people got Long Covid,” Faux tells me. “And every month there’ll be another 10,000. There’s lower vigilance with respect to Covid vaccinations and so we expect that people will get it a little bit more. There’s been no decrease in demand at the clinic.”

Faux quotes research in his book that shows 91 per cent of Long Covid sufferers have improvement in symptoms within 12 months; I was also told this by my cardiologist, who urged me just to hang on, as it was most likely I would get better within a year. And I did. I remember cycling with my family to a pool in February this year and feeling totally fine – fit, even. I had also gone back to reformer pilates. “Finally, I’m properly myself again,” I said to my husband.

But three days later, I tested positive for Covid. This time I was prepared.

After multiple conversations with my kind GP, I found out that even with Long Covid I wasn’t eligible for the antiviral drug Paxlovid as I was too young and was not severely immunocompromised. But I could get a course of antivirals privately for $1200.

It was an extraordinary amount of money, but I was willing to pay it in order to avoid a repeat of what I’d been through before. I dispatched my husband to get the antivirals that night; within two days I’d tested negative to Covid and my symptoms were ­almost gone. I was due to finish the five-day ­antiviral course on a Sunday, and I was already planning to go back to work on the Monday. But as soon as I finished the antivirals, my Long Covid symptoms came back: the crippling ­nausea, the irregular heartbeat, the exhaustion. I started to panic. How could I be back here again?

Five weeks later, I’m sitting in Faux’s ­office. “The statistics say you will get better,” he ­kindly reassures me. I tell him how I’m still struggling with nausea, fatigue and post-exercise malaise. I’ve stopped all exercise and I am back mostly working from home. “It’s going to be slow, and that will be very frustrating – but you have to try and look after ­yourself in that time,” he says. The empathy and understanding he shows me during our hour-long interview is also apparent in every single chapter in his book. Faux not only truly sees me and all people living with Long Covid, he has compiled a comprehensive management plan to help. “Your road to recovery may be a long one, unfortunately, but you are not alone and you are already one step ­closer to your destination,” he writes.

As for the future, Faux is full of hope. He says there is a lot of research being done around the world on the condition, from examination of its causes to trials of drugs to treat it. “It is already better now than it was a year ago, and we’re optimistic that this trajectory will continue,” he notes. “The more we know, the better the outcomes for people with Long Covid will be.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/weekend-australian-magazine/women-are-the-new-face-of-long-covid-im-one-of-them/news-story/874c98c8350a96554dc90736f27367b5

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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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Japanese Real-World Observational Study: mRNA Vaccines how Low efectiveness

From February 1 to March 17, 2022, Epidemiological, public health and health economic researchers representing Hiroshima University in Japan along with Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, Health Insurance Bureau, Medical Economics Division conducted a test-negative case-control study using a dataset of 117,335 individuals, collected through the COVID-19 J-SPEED form in the PCR center at Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan.

The study team, represented by corresponding author Yui Yumiya, Ph.D., MPH, Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Biomedical and Health Sciences (Medical), estimated a propensity score matching for vaccine status based on participants’ demographic characteristics. Thereafter, the team calculated the odds ratio from logistic regression to determine any association between COVID-19 vaccination status and test positivity rate adjusting for symptoms, exposure to close contact, as well as previous history.

The Hiroshima University-led team of researchers established vaccine effectiveness as a formula (1 –aORs) ×100%). The team concluded that the data generated points to the protective effect of the COVID-19 vaccines against the Omicron strain. However, that’s interpreted in such a way because more unvaccinated are infected than vaccinated. If measured against the World Health Organization standard for vaccine approval, the mRNA vaccines as assessed in this study would fail the WHO 50% vaccine effectiveness test, as even boosted vaccine effectiveness equaled 26.4%.

The results of this AMED-funded observational study were published in PLOS, Global Public Health.

The authors of this study emphasize some strengths, such as the comprehensive data collection conducted across all PCR centers in collaboration with the Hiroshima prefectural office. Considered an “extensive and unique epidemiological survey,” it represents a material contribution, “with no comparable large-scale study conducted in other prefectures of Japan.”

Of course, many limitations with such a study exist (and are mentioned below), but the authors promote their use of detailed information representing occupation and various risk factors (likelihood of close contact and pre-existing conditions) that they articulate enhancing the study’s robustness. Such factors, adjusted within the model, account for potential confounding influence.

PCR Positivity Rates by Vaccination Status: the X axis represents the study period; y axis represents the test positivity rate. The figure displays PCR positive rates for three distinct groups: non-vaccinated, vaccinated with two doses and vaccinated with three doses (booster).

Finding

Reporting PCR test positivity rates were 7.9%, 4.5%, and 2.8% for the non-vaccinated (non-vaccinated, vaccinated with a single dose, and vaccinated with two doses less than 14 days ago), vaccinated with two doses (vaccinated over 14 days ago), and three doses, respectively.

Presenting both unadjusted and adjusted analyses, vaccine effectiveness of two doses against infection were 38.5% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 32.8%–43.8%) and 34.7% (95%CI: 28.4%–40.4%), respectively, compared to the non-vaccinated group. Vaccine effectiveness of three doses was 33.8% (95%CI: 25.0%–41.5%) and 26.4% (95%CI: 16.4%–35.2%), respectively, compared to those vaccinated with two doses.

While the authors cite these results in the positive (vaccine affords protection), not only should the actual vaccination effectiveness rate be questioned, but also noted that three dose rates is lower than the VE for two jabs. The authors emphasize the protective influence of the vaccine countermeasures.

Limitations

All observational studies fall short in terms of evidentiary strength as compared to randomized controlled trials. Consequently, the team’s findings should be interpreted with caution and consideration of such inherent limitations, which include:

No specified estimation of VE for individual vaccine types, booster types (heterologous or homologous), time-sensitive effectiveness (effectiveness at different intervals post-vaccination), or the interval between vaccine doses.
The generalizability of our results may be affected due to the nature of this study population. For example, PCR test recipients who visited a PCR center may have a higher level of health consciousness compared to those who didn’t visit a PCR center.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/japanese-real-world-observational-study-mrna-vaccines-fall-well-short-of-whos-50-ve-threshold-3765f65e

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Another finding of low vaccine effectiveness

How durable was the original monovalent mRNA vaccine when measured against prevention of COVID-19 Omicron-associated hospitalization involving children and adolescents? The Overcoming COVID-19 investigator network recently reported on this data between 2020 and 2023.

The results are challenging, evidencing rapidly waning vaccine effectiveness (VE) based on the known confluence of factors from mutating viral pathogens to the possibility of immunological imprinting (antigenic sin), and frankly, vaccines not engineered for breadth or durability results.

How severe is the waning VE? It is significant. For example, when measuring against hospitalization, VE should be substantially high, as the threshold is different for this class of product than preventing transmission. When the hospitalization incidence occurs a mere four months or more after the hospitalization event the VE rate equals 19% and ranges from as low as 2% to up to 32%. This is a remarkably weak rate evidencing serious concern about the longer-term viability of the COVID-19 countermeasures. The targeted threshold of effectiveness needs to be significantly higher for our children and adolescents.

Background

Authoring this study paper was the Overcoming COVID-19 investigators, part of a study seeking to characterize the development of COVID-19 complications in children and young adults as a consequence of exposure to COVID-19 including the Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MSI-C).

MIS-C emerged as a significant concern during the SARS-CoV-2 delta surge but waned during Omicron.

A real-time surveillance and observational study, the investigation included prospective enrollment of study participants with collection of blood and respiratory samples. What were the risk factors and outcomes of COVID-19 critical illness in the pediatric population? What defined complications in this young vulnerable court and linked to SARS-CoV-2? What about predictive markers of these complications? Finally, what characterized the development and maintenance of adaptive immunity? The Overcoming COVID-19 investigators sought to answer these, and other questions.

How durable is pediatric vacation with use of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine countermeasures? This was a central question driving this investigation. Overall, parents have increasingly opted to keep their children away from the COVID-19 countermeasures.

The authors, represented by corresponding author Laura Zambrano, Ph.D., M.D., senior epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), report that during December 19, 2021–October 29, 2023, the Overcoming COVID-19 Network evaluated vaccine effectiveness (VE) of ≥2 original monovalent COVID-19 mRNA vaccine doses against COVID-19–related hospitalization and critical illness among U.S. children and adolescents aged 5–18 years, using a case-control design.

The authors report, “Too few children and adolescents received bivalent or updated monovalent vaccines to separately evaluate their effectiveness” which most certainly is a telling data point as to the reality of demand for COVID-19 vaccines among parents and their children and adolescents.

For this particular study, the authors led by Zambrano point out that a majority of individuals tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 fell in the unvaccinated category, “despite the high frequency of reported underlying conditions associated with severe COVID-19.”

Findings

So, what was the vaccine effectiveness of the original monovalent vaccine against COVID-19–related hospitalizations?

According to the findings here, VE equaled 52% (95% CI = 33%–66%) when the most recent dose was administered <120 days before hospitalization, and 19% (95% CI = 2%–32%) if the interval was 120–364 days. TrialSite suggests the rate of 19% VE in preventing hospitalization 4 months and on represents an incredibly weak record.

Another measure, or slice of the data, was a vaccine administered any time within the previous year, which looks at least somewhat better than the pathetic 19% figure, especially for this category of the original monovalent vaccine against COVID-19–related hospitalization was 31% (95% CI = 18%–43%).

When looking at the definition of hospitalization with more granularity, diffident VE rates emerge. For example, looking at the category “COVID-19-related illness” defined as receipt of noninvasive or invasive mechanical ventilation, vasoactive infusions, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, and illness resulting in death and VE rates equaled the following:

VE Scenario

VE was similar after excluding children and adolescents with documented immunocompromising conditions.

The CDC authors emphasize that the receiver of ≥2 monovalent mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are associated with fewer COVID-19 hospitalizations during the Omicron period in children and adolescents aged 5–18 years. But this
“protection from original vaccines was not sustained over time, necessitating increased coverage with updated vaccines.”

A majority of hospitalized kids were unvaccinated, and few had received updated vaccine doses despite a high prevalence of underlying comorbidities associated with more severe disease.

The social determinants of health continue to be a factor in vaccination trends, with vaccination rate decline associated with social vulnerability.

The authors acknowledge carefully the overall dismal VE rates, stating:

“VE of original monovalent doses against COVID-19–related pediatric hospitalizations were lower than previous VE estimates reported by the Overcoming COVID-19 Network before Omicron emergence.”

The CDC does not include any risk-benefit analysis within its recommendations, e.g., avoids discussion of myocarditis/pericarditis risk to young adolescent males and avoids the topic of natural immunity when recommending that “all children and adolescents receive updated COVID-19 vaccines to protect against severe COVID-19.”

Limitations

Not surprisingly, many limitations suggest any interpretation done so with caution. Dr. Zambrano and team identify four major limitations including:

SARS-CoV-2 infection-induced immunity was not assessed

Limited viral sequencing data prevented consideration of subvariant-attributed immune evasion

Limited coverage with bivalent vaccines and currently recommended updated monovalent vaccines precluded the estimation of VE of these formulations

Previously healthy children and adolescents accounted for <20% of case-patients, limiting generalizability

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/4-months-post-mrna-vaccination-rate-of-preventing-pediatric-hospitalization-abysmal-at-19-major-cdc-investigation-4947e805

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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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Japanese Epidemiological Bombshell: Investigators Link Mass mRNA Vaccination and Adverse Cancer Outcomes

Physician-Epidemiologist Miki Gibo affiliated with Matsubara Clinic and National Health Insurance Yusuhara Hospital in Yusuhara, Kochi, Japan and colleagues recently had a disturbing paper published in Cureus. Peer reviewed, the team for Japanese researchers look into the question of excess deaths during and after COVID-19 and incidence of cancer mortality after the third MRNA COVID-19 vaccine.

While talk or “turbo cancer” is rampant on social media such as X any such claims require significant evidence. TrialSite has chronicled real world data and tracked the growing number of case series involving some form of cancer in association to COVID-19 vaccines. But case series-based studies are not designed to establish causation. In collaboration with React19, TrialSite supported that patient advocacy’s development of the Scientific Publications Directory. Now managed by React19, approximately 200+ studies involving cancer and COVID-19 vaccination are available in this online study hub.

Dr. Gibo and colleagues discuss in their Cureus piece excess deaths including cancer in Japan, a population that was heavily exposed to mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, and one that is rapidly aging. Their recent output was published just days ago in Cureus. Importantly, while the findings herein raise profoundly disturbing questions, this study output does not equate to confirmatory evidence that COVID-19 vaccines and cancer have some causal linkage. More investigation is necessary.

The Study

The team in this study evaluated how age-adjusted mortality rates (AMRs) for different types of cancer in Japan changed during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2022).

Tapping into official Japanese statistics and employing logistic regression analysis, the investigators compared observed annual and monthly AMRs with predicted rates based on pre-pandemic (2010-2019) figures.

What are the findings?

Interestingly, the team observed no significant excess mortality during the first year of the pandemic (2020). This data point resonates with other national data TrialSite reviewed in the United States, for example.

Disturbingly, Dr. Gibo and colleagues observed excess cancer mortality in 2021, after mass vaccination with the first and second vaccine doses. This data includes what the medical researchers report observations involving “significant excess mortalities” for all cancers, along with upward trends with select types of the disease.

This study discusses possible explanations for these increases in age-adjusted cancer mortality rates but is not designed to prove causation.

Conclusion

The Japanese medical researchers raise disturbing questions with this significant study. For example, as published in the peer-reviewed Cureus the team observed in 2022, after mass population exposure to COVID-19 mRNA vaccines “statistically significant increases in age-adjusted mortality rates of all cancer and some specific types of cancer, namely, ovarian cancer, leukemia, prostate, lip/oral/pharyngeal, pancreatic, and breast cancers.”

Declaring that the data exhibit “particularly marked increases in mortality rates of these ERα-sensitive cancers,” Dr. Gibo and colleagues suspect that the findings “may be attributable to several mechanisms of the mRNA-LNP vaccination rather than COVID-19 infection itself or reduced cancer care due to the lockdown,” the latter of which could just as well be an explanation.

But the former could be an explanation as well, and that’s a real problematic proposition needing immediate investigation. Gibo and colleagues certainly recommend more research.

Limitations

Not clinically validated, the team taps into official data sources employing descriptive statistics. The authors suggest more statistical investigation associated with vaccination status is necessary to bolster any evidence.

The Study Authors’ Questions

Why are AMRs of ovarian cancer, leukemia, prostate, lip/oral/pharyngeal, pancreatic, and breast cancers increased significantly beyond the predicted rates, especially in 2022, in Japan?

Does the research of Solis et al. on the binding ability of S-protein of SARS-CoV-2 against over 9,000 human proteins matter here? In that research, the authors point out that S-protein specifically binds to ERα and upregulates the transcriptional activity of Erα. Importantly, all of the identified cancers are known as estrogen and estrogen receptor alpha (ERα)-sensitive cancers.

The present study points out more estradiol (E2) to human breast cancer cells can lead to proliferation of the cancer cells, whereas the addition of raloxifene, a selective ERα modulator, inhibits proliferation.

Could ERα-mediated transcription induce endogenous DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) in ER-sensitive cancers? According to some research, “Transcriptionally activated ERα induces DSBs by topoisomerase II and the recently known R-loop/G-quadruplex structures formation, significantly increasing the need for BRCA1 for their repair in breast cancer cells.”

Dr. Gibo and colleagues point out that in their study they present “nuclear translocation of mRNA and S protein with the nuclear localization signal [90], and an in silico bioinformatic analysis showed interactions between the S2 subunit of S-protein and BRCA1, BRCA2, and P53 [91], possibly resulting in their sequestration and dysfunction.”

Could it be the case that a possible co-occurrence of high BRCA1 demand to repair DNA damage triggered by activated transcription via ERα bound with S-protein along with dysfunction of BRCA1 sequestrated by S-protein raises concerns about increased cancer risk in ERα-sensitive cells in mRNA-LNP SARS-CoV-2 vaccine recipients?

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/japanese-epidemiological-bombshell-investigators-link-mass-mrna-vax-cancer-outcomes-as-likely-connected-b8d363c9

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Reportedly, During Covid, The Elderly Were the First to be Sacrificed

Last month, it was reported former New York State governor Andrew Cuomo had been subpoenaed by Congress over elderly Covid deaths under Cuomo’s administration. The ex-governor was accused of using under-reported numbers to bolster his handling of COVID-19 especially with the number of deaths which occurred in 2020, when Cuomo required nursing homes to accept elderly Covid positive patients. As a result of this policy, Cuomo has been accused of causing the death of over 15,000 New Yorkers. His deposition in front of the Republican led House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic is scheduled for May.

“After misleading the public and filtering the truth from the American people regarding how many COVID-19 deaths occurred in nursing homes, Andrew Cuomo has been dodging our committee, delaying our investigation and refusing to take accountability,” New York Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island), one of the panel’s members, said in a statement. Malliotakis added, “His misguided policies led to the deaths of more than 15,000 New Yorkers. His testimony is crucial to helping us prevent a tragedy like this from occurring ever again.” But the bigger question is, was this the only occurrence of Covid neglect? Apparently not.

United Kingdom

In 2023, TrialSite reported on a lawsuit against the British Government by the families of elderly patients who died in nursing homes. The families claimed not enough was done to take care of their loved ones and infected patients were transferred into nursing homes and spread the virus. This is eerily similar to the events which will soon have former New York State governor Andrew Cuomo appearing in front of a Congressional committee. It seems, however, there are more instances of Covid elder abuse in the UK.

DNR’s

In a recent article in the Daily Mail, there is a report of Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) papers being forged. Relatives of elderly patients say their loved ones were left to die against the wishes of the families. This is now being investigated by the Scottish Covid-19 inquiry which has named the use of DNRs as one of the primary reasons for its investigation. According to one relative of an elderly woman who died, the relative’s name and signature were on a DNR authorization but the relative never saw nor signed the document.

The Scottish government insisted there was no change in advice given to clinicians during the pandemic regarding the use of DNRs, but the evidence in this area has shown, so far, this not to be true. Administrators at some elder care homes in Scotland have been accused of having a culture where health professionals urged nursing homes to update their “anticipatory care plans” for residents. One administrator says she was told, “You need to look at who doesn't have DNRs because they will now need to have one.” Allegedly, after this conversation DNRs were in place for all residents of the nursing home and the administrator wondered to what extent family members had been consulted. The impression the administrator had was if an elderly resident became ill with Covid, they wouldn’t go to the hospital. The administrator added, “You could clearly see that, if they went to hospital, they had a really good chance of improving, of getting over what was making them unwell in the first place. But it was almost like, you were not playing God, but it was just 'no, you can't go, so you just have to stay.” According to the administrator it was difficult for the nursing home to access ambulances, paramedics or hospital beds.

It is alleged the Scottish government allowed this practice. In January, TrialSite reported Scottish police were looking into the possibility of an “industrial sized’ cover up by Scottish ministers regarding deaths of elderly patients in nursing homes due to Covid. Twenty-two official internal complaints were raised concerning the Scottish government’s official response to the nursing home deaths. Again, on this issue, DNRs were involved.

Covid Devastated Nursing Homes
The pandemic neglect in nursing homes wasn’t limited to the UK. According to an article by the Kaiser Family Foundation in 2022, Covid deaths in elder care facilities accounted for at least 23% of all Covid deaths in the United States as of January 2022. Canada was ranked last for the amount of deaths caused by Covid in nursing home facilities.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) (2021) reported 570,626 nursing home residents' infections and 112,383 residents’ deaths in the USA before the wide availability of COVID-19 vaccination in 2020 for nursing home residents (e.g., Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson and Johnson). Since the mass vaccination program another 57,808 residents have died, at least a percentage of them, fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

TrialSite chronicled disproportionate morbidity and mortality among the nation’s most vulnerable, sick and elderly residents.

According to the Centers for Medicare data 170,191 elderly died in long term care during the pandemic. In what seems a low rate, only 43.3% of long-term care residents are up to date with their COVID-19 vaccines. Why would this be the case?

What is truly unfortunate is it seems the elderly have become political pawns and tragically, easily dispensable. It is problematic when a politician actually admits he covered up elderly deaths because the political data would be used against him. The shame of all of this remains the reality that this represents a worldwide problem (at least in developed nations in English speaking countries) and a sad comment on health care, politics and the world when the elderly—that is our parents and grandparents-- are so easily tossed away.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/reportedly-during-covid-the-elderly-were-the-first-to-be-sacrificed-7bad5921

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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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Rand Paul Pulls Back Curtain on the ‘Great COVID Cover-up’

In an explosive new op-ed, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) claimed that at least 15 separate federal agencies knew that attempts to create a COVID-19-like coronavirus were being undertaken at the Wuhan Institute of Virology as early as January 2018.
Yet heads of these agencies did not reveal this information to the public; for years, they actively refused to release information on the project to lawmakers such as Dr. Paul, who were attempting to provide congressional oversight.

“For years, I have been fighting to obtain records from dozens of federal agencies relating to the origins of COVID-19 and the DEFUSE project,” Dr. Paul, who in March revealed he was formally launching a bipartisan investigation into the virus’s origins with Democratic Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, wrote.
The DEFUSE project refers to a proposal submitted by EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S.-based nongovernmental organization headed by British zoologist Peter Daszak, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The purpose of the proposal was to “insert a furin cleavage site into a coronavirus to create a novel chimeric virus.”

Dr. Paul also identified two additional parties that were part of the original plan to create chimeric coronaviruses at the Wuhan lab: the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the federal agency formerly headed up by Dr. Anthony Fauci, and Dr. Ian Lipkin, a professor of epidemiology and one of the authors of the now-disgraced “Proximal Origin” paper. The authors of the paper, which was published in Nature in March 2020, stated that evidence clearly indicated that SARS-CoV-2 emerged naturally, even though privately, the authors expressed clear concerns that evidence suggested the virus was genetically designed.

Some scientists have already raised ethical concerns in response to the revelation.

“We now know Ian Lipkin was part of the initial DEFUSE proposal,” Bryce Nickels, a professor of genetics at Rutgers University, said in response to the revelation. “Everything he has said about COVID origins and his role in the fraudulent ‘Proximal Origins’ paper must now be reconsidered in the wake of these new revelations.”

It’s not just Lipkin, of course.

All of these parties failed to speak up when COVID-19, one of the deadliest viruses in a century, emerged from Wuhan, Dr. Paul said, and details of the DEFUSE project may not have come to light at all if not for a whistleblower (identified as Lt. Col. Joseph Murphy).

More details of what the Kentucky senator calls “the Great COVID Cover-up” are likely to materialize as Dr. Paul and Mr. Peters continue their investigation. But an abundance of evidence already shows it’s no exaggeration to use that word: coverup.

Dr. Paul is hardly the first government official to use the term.

Nearly a year ago, David Asher, a bioweapons specialist who led the State Department’s investigation into the origins of COVID-19, sat down with New York magazine journalist David Zweig and explained why there has been so little progress made in discovering the origins of COVID: Those with institutional power don’t want answers.

“It’s a massive coverup spanning from China to DC,” Mr. Asher said. “Our own state department told us, ‘Don’t get near this thing; it’ll blow up in your face.’”

Other government whistleblowers have also attempted to expose the coverup.

In August, the CIA confirmed that the agency was “looking into” allegations from a CIA whistleblower who claimed that analysts tasked with determining the origins of COVID were offered “significant” financial incentives to change their assessment that COVID likely emerged accidentally from the Wuhan lab. (It’s worth noting that Dr. Fauci allegedly was admitted to agency headquarters “without a record of entry” while the CIA was conducting its investigation into COVID’s origins.)

The reason the government would cover up DEFUSE becomes obvious when one analyzes the nature of the proposal, which British author Matt Ridley weeks ago noted included a great many “wacky” (and reckless) ideas such as spraying vaccines into bat caves to immunize them.

“In the end, what they were doing was making more dangerous viruses, with a view of understanding them,” Mr. Ridley said. “It looks very strongly as if in trying to prevent a pandemic they may have caused one.”

While we still do not know this for certain, it looks increasingly likely that COVID-19 was born of gain-of-function research that was partially funded by the U.S. government.
Though this result would be shocking to many, especially those who see the state as virtuous and infallible, it’s far less surprising to students of history and economics.

“The worst evils which mankind ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments,” Ludwig von Mises wrote in “Omnipotent Government.” “The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster.”

The reason for this is obvious. The more power is concentrated, the less accountable it becomes, and power without accountability is a recipe for disaster.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/rand-paul-pulls-back-curtain-on-the-great-covid-cover-up-5629596?ea_src=frontpage&ea_med=opinion-6

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Australia: Senator Claims TGA ‘Overriding’ Experts While Processing Vaccine Injury Claims

Senator Gerard Rennick has alleged—under parliamentary privilege in the Senate—that the Therapeutic Goods Administration is “overriding the decision of the specialists” in refusing claims for vaccine injury from people who received COVID-19 vaccinations.

Services Australia administers the scheme, which offers people a way to seek a one-off compensation payment, instead of going through legal proceedings, if they experienced harm from a vaccine.

The Scheme was designed to “compensate for losses due to the harm ... suffered” and not for “pain and suffering.” The compensation covers lost earnings, out-of-pocket expenses, paid attendant care services, and “deceased ... vaccine recipient payments and funeral costs.”

To meet the criteria for the payment, Services Australia’s website says a person must have:

received an approved COVID-19 vaccine.

met the definition of harm, for example, an administration-related injury or one of the clinical conditions listed in the policy.

been admitted to hospital as an inpatient, or seen in an outpatient setting for an eligible clinical condition.

been admitted to hospital as an inpatient for an administration-related injury.

experienced losses or expenses of $1,000 or more.

The site also lists the eligible conditions including myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) and the autoimmune disorder Guillain Barre Syndrome.

A claimant must have their condition verified by “a medical specialist in the relevant field of practice” (for instance, a cardiologist for myocarditis), and then send the medical report and evidence of the expenses being claimed for assessment by Services Australia.

Senator Claims to Have ‘Insider’ Informant

Mr. Rennick told the Senate that he had spoken to “an insider from the TGA” who had since resigned, and who “played a big role in designing this scheme.”

“The whole point of that scheme was that once the injured person got a specialist to say that the person was injured by the vaccine, he or she would be entitled to compensation. Now that is not happening,” the senator said.

“What is happening is Services Australia make these people wait [on average] 297 days to get a decision. Many of them can no longer work. They are seriously ill. They have to do all the legwork of trying ... see a specialist, a cardiologist or a rheumatologist, and that takes a lot of work. It’s very expensive. You’ve got to go and get MRIs or something to back [it] up. And then they’ve basically been neglected.”

He alleged that, once the claim came up for a decision, “what they do is [refer it] back to the TGA, [and the] TGA is a turning around and saying ‘we are overriding the decision of the specialists who actually examined the patient.’”

“Now my insider tells me these doctors at the TGA are not qualified to be overriding specialists. And I believe that if you haven’t examined the patient who you decide this isn’t actually a vaccine injury, how would you know?”

Mr. Rennick said he had talked to scientists—whom he did not name—who told him that “you will never know while a person’s leaving because you can’t take tissue samples from living people. So we are operating in the dark here in regards to our ability to examine what’s really going on as a result of these vaccine injuries.”

Only 14 Deaths Recognised as Vaccine-Related

Senator Rennick claimed there were 1,000 reports of suspected deaths due to the vaccines in the country.
“And how many have the TGA recognised? 14,” he said.

“When you press the TGA and you say to them, ‘Can you actually prove this wasn’t a vaccine?’ They say, ‘No, we can’t.’

He also claimed there were 10,000 unexplained excess deaths during the period between May and December 2021 when the vaccines were being administered.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/senator-claims-tga-overriding-experts-while-processing-vaccine-injury-claims-5614072

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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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Esteemed Australian Immunologist/Virologist on Long COVID & Long Vax: Spike Protein Pathogenicity

An author with the Australian Journal of General Practice, Emeritus Professor in Immunology, University of Queensland, Faculty of Science, now retired and independent to speak his mind, Robert Tindle, Ph.D. is no lightweight. Heavily published deep into the science of virology and immunology, he presently educates his peers about the plight of long COVID and long Vax patients.

Elaborating on the scope and severity of the crisis while directing attention to the patient's plight, Prof Tindle explains to the Australian medical establishment the mechanism of action now evidenced by mounting scientific literature concerning both long COVID and the vaccine injured, or long-Vax, the latter being not yet accepted, at least overtly, by medical establishments of the West. To alleviate patient suffering, a growing economic toll and a debilitated medical establishment, we must open our eyes to science, embrace the truth, and forge a new path forward.

Anywhere from 2% to 20% of individuals who are infected with SARS-Cov-2, the virus behind COVID-19, end up with post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC or long COVID), according to the World Health Organization (WHO), European Union and the UK and US governments. This condition occurs >12 weeks after the initial COVID-19 infection and can endure for many months, even years. Recently the University of Queensland Australia Emeritus Professor elaborates on the condition millions of people struggle with worldwide, with hundreds of thousands of people in Australia coping with either long COVID or long Vax.

The recent paper was published as a viewpoint in the Australian Journal of General Practice, emphasizing that the plight of long COVID patients cannot be underestimated. Prof Tindle reports the presence of long COVID digital support groups emerging as a civil society safety net, but the lack of institutional scientific and medical support leads to a mounting crisis for patients. They are not listened to, and health systems are not prepared for delivering the right care, meaning long COVID patients resort to self-prescribed medication with use of over-the-counter remedies for example, diet changes and the like.

A heterogeneous disease with myriad of symptoms (cardiac, pulmonary, hematological and neurological), the retired Australian scientist points to overlap with myalgia encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, postural orthopedic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and other post-viral manifestations.

What’s behind lingering COVID-19 symptoms despite the clearing of the infection? No one can be certain and according to the Australian scientist, “Public officials are flying blind when it comes to long COVID and vaccination.” But Tindle introduces some of the unfolding science for explanations.

While patients are not able to find a trustworthy diagnosis, they are often required to seek multiple medical positions, and these patients are often told they are merely struggling with anxiety or post-pandemic mental health issues.

What’s the medium duration of long COVID symptoms? According to Tindle, it is five months, however, 10% of long COVID patients may experience symptoms at month 12. In fact, fatigue, shortness of breath and difficulty concentrating can persist with this patient cohort still by year two after infection.

Still what is up in the air is whether some people may never recover.

What are some biomarkers involved?

Patients struggling with long COVID may present elevated inflammatory biomarkers, such as interleukin-6, C-reactive protein, tumor necrosis factor-α), possibly functioning as a core set of blood biomarkers that can be used to diagnose and manage long COVID patients in clinical practice.

Economic Contagion

Prof Tingle reports that 20% of long COVID patients in the UK either stopped working or were not able to return to work six months after their initial infection. In Australia, 240,000 persons with long COVID can no longer work full time. Meanwhile, absenteeism on the job only grew, accelerated with long COVID.

Make no mistake, economies are impacted. From reduced working time to loss of earning capability, and the lack of diagnosis in countries like Australia, this means that many won’t be eligible for disability schemes.

With no guidelines for how long COVID patients can access social security and employment protection, the working classes are particularly vulnerable.

Nowhere to Turn?

Efforts at establishing long COVID clinics have not translated into sustained access to care. Without substantive treatment guidelines or support they become “little more than incident report centers.” Moreover, waiting times in such long COVID clinics can equate to many months. In fact, in places like Australia, Prof. Tindle informs us that many GPs are not even aware of such clinics!

However, some progress has been made in Europe, reports Tindle. Some European nations and the UK offer more established long COVID clinics offering everything from online recovery platforms to GP training and even specialty access for children.

Bombshell: COVID-19 Vaccination & Long COVID

While TrialSite has reviewed some study results suggesting that vaccination may have put a dent in long COVD, other credible studies imply no such connection. Frankly, the evidence is both mixed, and not strong enough for any claims that the COVID-19 vaccines inhibit long COVID.

But Prof. Tindle goes on the record, expressing his concern that “COVID-19 vaccination per se might contribute to long COVID, giving rise to the colloquial term ‘Long Vax.”

Importantly, while most national medical establishments in the West such as the United States or the UK don’t yet accept the premise that the spike protein manifested from mRNA vaccines can lead to damage, Tindle in this established Australian General Practitioners journal expresses his viewpoint that “the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 exhibits pathogenic characteristics and is a possible cause of post-acute sequelae after SARS-CoV-2 infection or COVID-19 vaccination.”

Supporting the mRNA vaccine-induced spike protein as a pathogenic agent hypothesis, Tindle continues, “COVID-19 vaccines utilize a modified, stabilized prefusion spike protein that might share similar toxic effects with its viral counterpart.”

The Australian virologist/immunologist proffers, “A possible association between COVID-19 vaccination and the incidence of POTS have been demonstrated of 284,592 COVID-19 vaccinated individuals, though at a rate that was one-fifth of the incidence of POTS after SARS-CoV-2 infection.” He points to Kwan et al.

Hammering on a topic deemed taboo for at least a while in medical establishments, the vaccine induced spike protein pathogenicity represents a real problem, pointing to very real-world, well-established links to myocarditis risk.

And what about the problem of mRNA biodistribution? Throughout the pandemic, medical establishment actors and representatives informed that the COVID-19 vaccination was safe and effective, and that there were no risks of the mRNA-induced spike protein circulating in the body for longer periods of time, and in the process, ending up in far flung tissues and organs. The mRNA would simply flush out via the lymphatic system in a matter of days, maybe a week at the most.

Of course, TrialSite has chronicled the incidence and studies disproving this continuous myth, at least in a percentage of individuals receiving COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. Prof Tindle verifies this reality, reporting, “mRNA vaccines can result in spike protein expression in muscle tissue, the lymphatic system, cardiomyocytes and other cells after entry into the circulation,” citing Trougakos et al.

Moreover, growing evidence suggests, and Tindle confirms in his viewpoint that individuals receiving at least two doses of mRNA vaccine “display a class switch to IgG4 antibodies.” Citing Uversky et al., Tindle articulates an important point as “abnormally high levels of IgG4 might cause autoimmune disease, promote cancer growth, autoimmune myocarditis and other IgG4-related diseases (IgG4-RD) in susceptible individuals.”

Long Vax, Another Crisis

Tindle steps into the controversial topic of COVID-19 vaccine injured, or long vax, seamlessly and with ease and backed by the unfolding science, comparing it to long COVID in many ways.

Reaffirming a growing body of evidence observing COVID-19 vaccination, including boost courses, with “incidence of long COVID-like symptoms, adding further to public health officials’ concerns.”

And key to any resolution, including therapeutic options, would be to scientifically comprehend the cellular and pathological effects of COVID-19 vaccination with and without infection. Yet vaccine approvals, accelerated during the pandemic crisis, lacked any long term-safety data, a growing concern according to Prof Tindle given the possibility of immune dysfunction.

A key point Tindle seeks to make here is that it’s quite likely at least among susceptible individuals COVID-19 vaccinations could be associated with long COVID. Put another way, “It is perhaps, premature to assume that the past SARS-CoV-2 infection is the sole common factor in long COVID.”

Where to Go from Here?

From expressing hope that $50 million in Australia’s Medical Research Future Fund may help advance practical medical and scientific knowledge into the matter, Tindle also seems somewhat hopeful about a national center for disease control providing a national interrogative repository for what have been to date, “fragmented incidence and outcome data for long COVID.”

Tindle also points to a promising study last year led by scientists at QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Brisbane, Australia demonstrating in a preclinical study involving a model of peptide inhibitor of nuclear angiotensin-converting enzyme 2. The scientists reported in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications that this led to reversing “persistent inflammation driving long COVID” while also “reducing the latent viral reservoir in monocytes/macrophages” while associated with “reduced SARS-CoV-2 spike protein expression in monocytes from individuals who are recovered from infection.” Clinical trials were pending at the time last year, and TrialSite will do a follow up article on that discovery.

The message from this important viewpoint published in GP’s journal in Australia--more clearly needs to be done to help struggling patients, whether they are diagnosed with long COVID or long Vax.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/esteemed-australian-immunologistvirologist-on-long-covid-long-vax-spike-protein-pathogenicity-49d322e2

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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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Censored again

Google have just deleted my post of 24 March about myocarditis in children. It is however still available at its original source:

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/pfizer-finally-releases-myocarditis-study-for-children-who-received-covid-19-vaccine-5611209

COVID Infection Not the Only Cause for Long COVID: Immunologist

Long COVID may not be solely caused by a COVID-19 infection given the lack of long-term safety data associated with the COVID-19 vaccine, an immunology professor has said.

In an externally peer-reviewed op-ed published by the Australian Journal of General Practice, Emeritus Professor Robert Tindle said that public health officials are “flying blind” when it comes to linking long COVID to post-COVID-19 vaccination.

“There is no consensus on what causes lingering COVID-19 symptoms long after the acute infection has cleared,” Mr. Tindle opined, adding that patients who are unable to secure a diagnosis for long COVID have sought multiple medical opinions only to be told the condition is due to “anxiety or post-pandemic mental issues.”

Long COVID is described by the World Health Organisation as the continuation or development of new symptoms three months after the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection, with these symptoms lasting for at least two months without any alternative explanation. This definition is now accepted by the Australian government.

The median time for long COVID symptoms is five months, with 10 percent of patients having symptoms at 12 months, according to a study.

Fatigue, shortness of breath, and difficulty concentrating have been reported in patients up to two years post-infection.

Mr. Tindle said that the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 exhibits pathogenic characteristics, and is a possible cause of acute symptoms after a COVID-19 infection or post-vaccine.

“COVID-19 vaccines utilise a modified, stabilised prefusion spike protein that might share similar toxic effects with its viral counterpart,” Mr. Tindle said.

“A possible association between COVID-19 vaccination and the incidence of POTS (postural orthopaedic tachycardia syndrome) has been demonstrated in a cohort of 284,592 COVID-19-vaccinated individuals, though at a rate that was one-fifth of the incidence of POTS after SARS-CoV-2 infection.”

Mr. Tindle listed other associations with long COVID following the uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine, including an increase in myocarditis post-vaccination, elevated spike proteins in muscle tissues, the lymphatic system, and the circulatory system, and elevated levels of IgG4 antibodies that are linked to the promotion of cancer.

“There are clear implications for vaccine boosting where these and similar observations relating to COVID-19 vaccination and the incidence of long COVID-like symptoms are substantiated, adding further to public health officials’ concerns,” he said.

“Understanding the persistence of viral mRNA and viral protein and their cellular pathological effects after vaccination with and without infection is clearly required.

“Because COVID-19 vaccines were approved without long-term safety data and might cause immune dysfunction, it is perhaps premature to assume that past SARS-CoV-2 infection is the sole common factor in long COVID.”

Moreover, Dr. Aseem Malhotra—Britain’s high-profile cardiologist and previous supporter of mRNA COVID vaccines—previously told The Epoch Times that heart complications—such as cardiac arrhythmia, heart failure, cardiac arrest, myocarditis, and pericarditis—have seen an uptick since the vaccine rollout.

“Long vax” is the colloquial term used to describe long COVID caused by vaccination.

Long COVID From Omicron Variant

Meanwhile, a study by the Australian National University (ANU) has found the risk of developing long COVID from the Omicron variant is higher than originally thought.

The Australian study found that in a highly vaccinated population not broadly exposed to earlier SARS-CoV-2 variants, 18 percent of people infected with the Omicron variant reported symptoms consistent with long COVID 90 days after infection.

“Despite reports that the risk of long COVID may be lower following Omicron infections than with earlier SARS-CoV-2 variants, we found that the burden of long COVID may be substantial 90 days after Omicron infections,” lead researcher Mulu Woldegiorgis said.

Additionally, the study found that 90 percent of the study participants with long COVID reported experiencing multiple symptoms, such as tiredness and fatigue (70 percent), followed by difficulty thinking or concentrating (brain fog), sleep problems, and coughing. A third of women in the study reported changes in their menstrual cycle.

However, a study by Germany’s Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg has shown that unvaccinated people infected with the Omicron variant had the lowest risk of long COVID.
The study found that while previous infections reduce the risk of long COVID by 86 percent, vaccination status prior to COVID infection is irrelevant to a person’s risk of developing long COVID.

However, the authors of the German study acknowledged that none of the participants were given an actual diagnosis of long COVID or tested for comorbidities.

Long COVID Presents Health and Financial Challenges

Mr. Tindle outlined the health and financial challenges faced by Australians who have long COVID, saying that support measures need to be in place for those who suffer from the chronic condition.

According to a 2022 study (pdf) by the Australian National University (ANU), approximately 500,000 adult Australians, or 4.7 percent have experienced long COVID.

Mr. Tindle described the frustrations expressed by long COVID support groups, such as the Australian Long COVID Community Facebook Support Group, including inadequate health system responses in dealing with long COVID.

“The outcome for some of those experiencing long COVID is self-prescribed medication using over-the-counter remedies and dietary changes based on potentially conflicting or misleading online information. Some speak of a substantial proportion of their income being used this way,” he said.

However, Mr. Tindle did acknowledge the listings of antiviral drugs for COVID such as Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir and ritonavir) and Lagevrio (molnupiravir).

An estimated 240,000 of those with long COVID no longer work full time, thus affecting the economy, Mr. Tindle said.

“Reduced to working part-time to cope with unwellness, those with long COVID commonly report having to wait a year or more before receiving a diagnosis,” he said.

“Without a definitive diagnosis, those with long COVID are not eligible for Job Seeker, the Disability Support Pension and National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) protection under the Fair Work Act, thereby conferring long-term financial difficulties for themselves and their dependents.

“There is a need for guidelines on how those with long COVID can access social security and employment protection.”

Mr. Tindle added that both the federal and state health departments need to provide more guidance to primary healthcare providers on handling long COVID.

“Although some states have established long COVID clinics, some of these at least are of little help to the patient in providing substantive treatment guidelines or support and are little more than incident report centres,” he said, adding that the wait time for a long COVID clinic is usually months, with some GPs unaware of the clinics’ existence.

“Long COVID is not an easy medical condition for clinicians, health administrators, support systems, or patients. The Australian health system is already stretched in coping with other chronic medical conditions,” he said.

“Nevertheless, we must do better than in the approximate three years since long COVID was first reported.”

https://www2.theepochtimes.com/world/immunology-professor-challenges-long-covid-cause-to-virus-alone-citing-vaccine-safety-data-gap-5626619

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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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Washington Post sides with the vaccine establishment

The Covid pandemic opened up a new era, one that likely has significant implications across medicine. Because of the worst epidemic in modern history, there is no longer a blind acceptance of the pharmaceutical industry, or at least some of the players within that industry, which, because of the coronavirus, appeared to put profit over care.

From the onset of the pandemic, TrialSite chronicled how Pfizer not only cut corners concerning regulatory matters (e.g., no IND-enabling studies, no sufficient pharmacodynamics) but also shamelessly exploited the pandemic for profit, a form of profiteering during the worst breakout of a disease in a century. Additionally, the imposition of vaccine mandates which led to deepening political divisions within the United States.

Compounding this is the behavior of Big Pharma with their seemingly relentless crusade to avoid price oversight for medications in any possible way and the additional effort to deny and deflect responsibility for possible Covid vaccine injury, or “long-vax.”. Even U.S. government agencies mandated with protecting the public seem stubbornly steadfast in aligning with industry over the people on the issue of vaccine injury.

Given history and the controversy surrounding the politicization of the Covid pandemic it is, perhaps, a given the “vaccine wars” could persist as an ongoing political hot potato topic. And what a topic for instilling tension and divisiveness, all helpful in ensuring advertiser interest.

Mainstream Media’s Rush to Judgement?

Recently, The Washington Post ventured into the vaccine wars when it published an article on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s newly announced running mate, Nicole Shanahan. A tech lawyer who was once married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Shanahan has a history of being involved in Democratic politics, but not anymore.

Also, a mother, Shanahan has opened up that her own child has been vaccine injured, or so she believes. It turns out Shanahan’s daughter was diagnosed with autism and as reported in the Washington Post this led the very successful mother to investigate the disease.

Shanahan doesn’t deny the importance of the pharmaceutical sector, quoted by the fourth largest daily in the U.S. by circulation “Pharmaceutical medicine has its place, but no single safety study can assess the cumulative impact of one prescription on top of another prescription, and one shot on top of another shot on top of another shot, throughout the course of childhood. We just don’t do that study right now and we ought to. We can and we will. Conditions like autism used to be one in 10,000. Now here in the state of California it is one in 22.”

While Shanahan has expressed serious skepticism about certain vaccines, she and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are not “anti-vaxxers” as she has explained. The VP choice referred to an interview Kennedy did with Newsweek magazine saying he is only concerned with vaccine injuries. The New York Times also did a profile of Shanahan in which she also expressed her concern about vaccine injuries.

Checked with Experts

The Washington Post checked in with five autism experts to question the view of Shanahan, and the group concluded Shanahan’s views are “misguided, wrong or lacking context.” The article then goes on to accuse Kennedy of being a long purveyor of falsehoods about vaccines, spreading misinformation, particularly about a measles outbreak in Samoa.

Clearly not objective, any questioning of the autism rates of today has nothing to do with any vaccines, goes the Ministry of Truth. Yes, Wakefield was proven to be wrong, and despite the fact that the childhood vaccination schedule has exponentially increased, and there have been no longitudinal studies tapping into observational real-world data, doesn’t seem to matter to The Washington Post.

The article concludes “Shanahan does not quite say that vaccines cause autism, but she implies it, demanding a study that is not feasible because it would be unethical. Not true at all. Real-world evidence are used frequently to study medical and health-related trends, less the need for randomized controlled trials and the use of a placebo.

Does The Washington Post’s immediate dismissal of any of Shanahan’s concerns evidence the true bias associated with this media?

The media points out that Shanahan cites numbers that claim that autism has spiked, without acknowledging it as the main reason for this trend: the very definition of autism has expanded over time. But how do we know this latter point is the only answer? Should it not be investigated?

Assuming the role of arbiter of truth The Washington Post effectively establishes that anybody that dares question vaccine policy equals a proponent of anti-vaccine rhetoric. Meaning according to the Jeff Bezos owned asset (via Nash Holdings) “The overall effect is to cast doubt on the safety of vaccines.”

Whether or not Shanahan is right or wrong doesn’t appear to be an issue for the Bezos’ controlled media.

Yet the childhood vaccination schedule continues to grow, along with waiver of liability since the 1986 Vaccine Act. That initial waiver was put in place to ensure vaccine makers were incentivized to step into what were at the time low margin businesses.

However, times have changed. Vaccines can be quite profitable, and with limited liability along with advancing science uncovering new targeted opportunity this has led to a growing supply of vaccines. Pfizer generated nearly $100 billion on COVID shots alone.

Denying what vaccines have done for modern health is silly. One only needs to look at smallpox, polio, measles and the associated morbidity and mortality figures pre- and post-vaccination, to get an appreciation of the progress.

But raising targeted questions is most certainly what science should be all about, and while Kennedy can seem slippery on some of the issues, he has also consistently taken on corporate power in the courts on the behalf of consumers--in the spirit of consumer rights activist Ralph Nader.

Some recent polls evidence an appreciation for Kennedy’s message, which to a great extent seems to align with an interesting fusion of the traditional social democrats of yesteryear challenging both corporate power and the polarization of socio-economic class division yet the whole campaign is infused with both libertarian and national populist strains.

In some recent polls, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. polls in the double digits, not seen since the independent candidate Ross Perot made his run.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/jeff-bezos-washington-post-fires-first-salvo-in-vaccine-wars-it-must-be-election-season-1072160f

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Biden quietly revokes COVID executive order requiring masks in federal buildings

President Biden retracted several COVID-19 executive orders Friday — including one imposed on his first day in office to require people to wear masks in federal facilities.

Biden’s Executive Order 13991 — titled “Protecting the Federal Workforce and Requiring Mask-Wearing” — was issued after the wearing of face masks became heavily polarized, with outgoing President Donald Trump and his aides rarely wearing them and focusing on “reopening” from lockdowns.

The order is “hereby revoked,” the White House said in a Friday afternoon announcement more than four years after the virus brought mobile morgues to New York and shut down schools and businesses across the country.

Under the prior order, federal agencies were told to “immediately take action” to “require compliance with CDC guidelines with respect to wearing masks, maintaining physical distance, and other public health measures by: on-duty or on-site Federal employees; on-site Federal contractors; and all persons in Federal buildings or on Federal lands.”

The enforcement of mask requirements long ago subsided, with the White House lifting its own internal mask requirements more than two years ago in March 2022 after the CDC adjusted its mask recommendations to account for local risk reflected by hospitalization rates.

Biden on Friday also retracted Executive Order 13998, adopted on Jan. 21, 2021, that sought to impose mask mandates on flights, trains and buses, and Executive Order 13910, adopted by Trump on March 23, 2020, to forbid the hoarding of medical supplies.

The announcement additionally terminated federal positions created to manage the pandemic.

“The positions of COVID-19 Response Coordinator [vacant since June 2023] and Deputy Coordinator of the COVID-19 Response… are hereby terminated,” Biden decreed.

The developments mark a near complete return to pre-pandemic rules after a gradual easing of enforcement.

Biden in June 2022 ended requirements that travelers entering the US — including American citizens — present negative COVID-19 tests. That rule was announced in January 2021 in the final days of the Trump administration.

Biden in May 2023 ended his mandate, imposed in September 2021, that all federal workers submit to COVID-19 vaccination or lose their jobs unless they had a qualifying religious or medical exemption.

Other pivots back to the pre-pandemic status quo have worried Biden’s critics, including his administration’s April 2023 decision to resume funding for the EcoHealth Alliance, a group that did risky US-financed “gain of function” research on coronaviruses at a lab in Wuhan, China, before the pandemic’s origin in the same city in late 2019.

https://nypost.com/2024/04/12/us-news/biden-rids-covid-executive-order-requiring-masks-in-federal-buildings/

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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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Decision Reserved in Case of Ontario Doctor Who Questioned COVID Lockdowns

An Ontario doctor who was critical of COVID lockdowns argued her case in court on April 10.

Dr. Kulvinder Kaur Gill was trying to quash three cautions placed on her public file by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO). The cautions were made after two tweets in 2020 by Dr. Gill, in which she questioned COVID lockdowns. Dr. Gill became well known during the COVID-19 pandemic for her online challenges to the government’s public health restrictions.

The panel of three judges of the Divisional Court of the Ontario Superior Court reserved their decision on the judicial review, which means there is no set date on which the decision will be released.

Dr. Gill, who specializes in pediatrics, allergy, and clinical immunology, amassed a significant following on X, formerly known as Twitter, where she expressed opinions and concerns about government’s pandemic response, including the potential negative effects of lockdowns and other mandates.

Because of that, she became the subject of seven public complaints lodged with the CPSO, along with a separate investigation by the college’s registrar.

All eight cases were reviewed by the CPSO committee known as the Inquiries, Complaints and Reports Committee (ICRC) in February 2021.

While the committee dismissed five of the complaints, it issued orders for three separate cautions to be placed on her public file.

On March 24, Elon Musk’s X announced that it would help pay her legal bills in trying to get the cautions overturned, saying in a post, “X is proud to help defend Dr. Kulvinder Kaur Gill against the government-supported efforts to cancel her speech.”

That prompted a heartfelt thank you on X from Dr. Gill: “elonmusk’s @X contacted me directly confirming Elon’s committment to pay remainder of campaign to reach $300K AND Elon has committed to assisting my appeal of 3 CPSO cautions, for my 2020 tweets opposing lockdowns, to the very end (ONCA&SCC if needed) May Waheguru bless you.”

Dr. Gill is represented by Libertas Law. In a news release from Libertas, lawyer Lisa Bildy said, “The CPSO issued guidance that doctors’ opinions during Covid-19 had to align with the government and took steps to censure ethical physicians who raised alarm bells about public health policies.”

“But the stifling of scientific debate, especially on novel measures being imposed on a massive scale, is not reasonable, in our submission, nor is it in the public interest,” Ms. Bildy continued.

The two tweets from August 2020 that were the subject of the cautions questioned if there were valid reasons for the lockdowns.

The first said, “There is absolutely no medical or scientific reason for this prolonged, harmful and illogical lockdown.”

The second tweet said, “If you have not yet figured out that we don’t need a vaccine, you are not paying attention.”

In a series of posts on X from the judicial review on April 10, JRwatch_ON said Dr. Gill’s lawyer argued that her client’s tweets were based on evidence, and that debate is important in a democratic society.

In the news release, Libertas Law said while some have portrayed Dr. Gill as an “anti-vaxxer,” it is not true.

“She has always been a proponent of routine childhood vaccines in her clinical practice,” adding that “she also supports Covid vaccines for high-risk individuals with informed consent.”

It says there was no COVID-19 vaccine authorized anywhere in the world in August 2020 when Dr. Gill posted the tweet about vaccines.

“The comment was in relation to a press conference that day by Dr. Theresa Tam in which she stated that, despite the anticipated authorization of a vaccine, possibly by that year’s end, it would not be a silver bullet and lockdowns and restrictions could persist for at least another two or three years,” said the release.

In addition, it said that “the use of widespread and prolonged lockdowns of healthy and low-risk people was contrary to all prior pandemic planning and principles of public health,” adding “evidence of lockdown harms has continued to mount.”

For its part, the CPSO has argued that the evidence indicated lockdowns in China and South Korea were having an effect, and said Dr. Gill was making misinformed and misleading statements, adding it was irresponsible to make such statements on social media during a pandemic.

The hearing is the latest in Dr. Gill’s legal battles. Last fall, she was scheduled for a disciplinary hearing by the CPSO, which was suddenly dropped in September, without the CPSO providing any specific reasons.

In a post at the start of the April 10 judicial review, Dr. Gill posted to X, “I’m at the Divisional Court of the Superior Court of Ontario today with my brilliant lawyer @LDBildy and the support of @elonmusk’s @X.”

And at the end of the hearing, Dr. Gill posted: “and that’s a wrap. A sincere thank you to all who sent their prayers & well wishes, & all who followed along the @JRwatch_ON live-tweets.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/decision-reserved-in-case-of-doctor-who-questioned-covid-lockdowns-5626576?ea_src=au-frontpage&ea_med=world-left-medium-0

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High Dose Spirulina Regimen Remarkably Reduces COVID-19 Mortality, Improves Hospital Discharge Rate in 7-Day Window

A biomass of cyanobacteria, meaning blue-green algae, spirulina (arthrospira platensis), a cyanobacterium is consumed by both humans and animals, cultivated worldwide. Purported to have anti-inflammatory, antiviral and antioxidant effects, in Western society any claims must be backed by well-designed, randomized controlled trials.

The form Arthrospira is used as a dietary supplement or whole food. What’s the effect of high-dose Spirulina supplementation on hospitalized adults with COVID-19? With not a lot of research backing such a question, a Persian team of scientists affiliated with Pasteur Institute of Iran, Bahalrloo Hospital at Tehran University of Medical Sciences and even one of the scientists affiliated with Tufts University in the U.S. sought to evaluate the efficacy and safety of high-dose Spirulina platensis for SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The results are frankly remarkable, but the study has limitations—the open-label introduces the opportunity for biases, and the study size suggests the need for larger confirming studies, the results published in the Frontiers in Immunology peer-reviewed journal point to a significant finding. Western medicine would not accept these findings as particularly earth shaking but nonetheless, TrialSite points out some possibly intriguing outcomes.

Brief Background

The general class of product is used as feed supplement across aquaculture, aquariums and poultry industries. The use of this natural product started in the Americas—actually in present day Mexico by the Aztecs and other Mesoamericans until the 16th century. Upon the Spanish conquest soldiers of Cortes documented its use. Fast forward to modern day in addition to use as a supplement and for the industries mentioned above, spirulina is under investigation to address food security and malnutrition, plus as dietary support in scenarios such as space flight or even the Mars mission. With less need for land and water than livestock, the supplement represents an economical source of protein and energy.

What’s the basis for this Persian study?

In many societies, dietary supplements are reportedly helpful as supplements in response to viral infections. Take Spirulina, the filamentous, gram-negative cyanobacterium—a blue-green microalga that is a non-nitrogen-fixing photoautotroph according to the authors of this study recently published in Frontiers in Immunology.

Rich in protein (over 70%), plus vitamins, minerals (e.g., D, B12, provitamin A (beta carotene) and iron), numerous other ingredients are present such as phycocyanobilin (PCB), according to the Persian authors, which is a blue pigment protein with anti-inflammatory, anticancer and antioxidant properties.

Citing previous research, the authors of this study articulate that Spirulina consumption boosts B-group vitamins, especially B6, while decreasing interleukin-4 (IL-4) levels in persons with allergic rhinitis. But the substance also increases immunoglobulin A levels in saliva, suggesting that it could possibly enhance mucosal immunity. The supplement is also known to increase function of natural killer (NK) cells while boosting interferon-y (IFN-y) secretion, thus in aggregate overall better innate immune system health.

Finally, with a substance known as calcium spirulan (Ca-Sp) also present, the Iran-based investigators cite in vitro studies suggesting that this substance inhibits growth of select enveloped viruses, such as mumps virus, measles virus, influenza A (IAV), HIV-1, human cytomegalovirus and herpes simplex type 1. But in Western society, this is not widely touted, at least not in medical establishment circles. Evidence requires well-designed randomized studies.

Corresponding authors for this study included Seyed Ahmad Seyed Alinaghi, M.D., M.Phil, Ph.D. with Tehran University of Medical Science, Iranian Research Center for HIV/AIDs, Iranian Institute for Reduction of High-Risk Behaviors.

The Study

The Persian team designed a randomized controlled trial (IRCT20210216050373N1) investigating the research hypothesis: can high dose Spirulina supplement reduce COVID-19-related mortality or accelerate hospital discharge within seven days; secondary endpoint involved overall discharge or mortality?

This study was an open-label trial, conducted in a multi-center environment involving both Ziaeian Hospital and Baharloo Hospital, both affiliated with Tehran University of Medical Sciences. The trial site team recruited patients from July 27, 2021, through to February 17, 2022.

Importantly, the trial site team had to change the study from single-blind trial due to the patients in the Tehran hospitals not trusting the placebo, meaning recruitment was too challenging. This is why the investigators had to remove the placebo. The authors appeared to have followed good clinical practices, triggering protocol change, etc.

Randomized and controlled, the study team’s trial involved 189 patients with COVID-19, randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio to an experimental group receiving 15.2g of Spirulina supplement plus standard of care (44 non-intensive care units and 52 ICU).

Conducted over a six-day period, the trial site team monitored immune mediators on days 1,3,5 and 7.

What were the study findings?

By day 7 of the study, no deaths associated with COVID-19 were reported in the Spirulina group. 15 deaths (15.3%) occurred in the control group. Within seven days, the Persian study team reported, “A greater number of patients discharged in the Spirulina group (97.7%) in the non-ICU compared to the control group (39.1%) (HR, 6.52; 95% CI, 3.50 to 12.17).”

The study team reports mortality was overall higher in the control group (8.7% non-ICU, 28.8% ICU) compared to the Spirulina group (non-ICU HR, 0.13; 95% CI, 0.02 to 0.97; ICU, HR, 0.16; 95% CI, 0.05 to 0.48).

Additionally, the team reports those patients in the ICU and in the Spirulina, arm evidenced “significant decrease in the levels of MIP-1α and IL-6.” Meanwhile, in those subjects in the intervention group (Spirulina) across ICU and non-ICU subgroups as intervention time increases reported IFN-y levels were significantly higher. Of course, this latter observation represents a cytokine playing a critical role in the immune response against both viral and bacterial infections, as well as in regulating immune response, inflammation and tumor surveillance.

The study authors report no presentation of side effects related to the Spirulina supplements.

Conclusion

The Persian team finds that high-dose Spirulina combined with the standard of care regimen in that part of the world targeting COVID-19 “may improve recovery and remarkably reduce mortality in hospitalized patients with COVID-19.”

Limitations

The Western medical world will not respond to this study result for a number of reasons. First, as the Persian authors self-declared, the study was not blinded, but as mentioned above, the investigators had to adjust to ensure sufficient level of recruitment.

TrialSite points out that non-blinded studies introduce several issues into interpreting the study result. From the potential of bias (selection bias, performance bias and detection bias) to placebo effect to observer bias and less objectivity, to mention some issues, blinded status becomes important for medical establishment acceptance.

Also, because use of traditional and herbal medicine is widespread among Persian (Iranian) peoples, the data obtained from follow-up post discharge can easily be unreliable. Importantly the authors point out this use of traditional and herbal medicines markedly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. While follow-up was not part of the study protocol, the physician-scientists running this study to their credit “tried our best to follow up with patients long term.”

But many patients were not interested in follow-up post discharge due to a confluence of standard reasons one would find across much of the world.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/high-dose-spirulina-regimen-remarkably-reduces-covid-19-mortality-improves-hospital-discharge-rate-in-7-day-window-7b8a6234

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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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As an Epidemiologist, I Could See Straight Away That Covid Was Being Over-Hyped

BY DR EYAL SHAHAR

It was an evening in mid-March 2020. Almost two years had passed since I retired from the University of Arizona, where I was a Professor of Epidemiology in the College of Public Health.

I was watching the news from Israel, the country in which I lived during the first three decades of my life. The reporters were broadcasting a forthcoming catastrophe, a doomsday in the making. It was all about a new coronavirus epidemic which erupted in China and had reached Israel, Europe and parts of the U.S.

Like everyone, I have been following the news from the Far East since the beginning of the year. Although infectious diseases were not my subject matter research, epidemiologists are trained to think critically, to question what many accept at face value. The picture that emerged was far from clear. A few observations did not fit well with the apocalyptic predictions.

So, I decided to write a short article in Hebrew and submit it as an op-ed to a newspaper in Israel. That’s how the series of essays now published as The Covid Pandemic: Unconventional Analytical Essays (2020-2023) started. It was supposed to have ended about three years later with my summary of what has actually happened in Israel (as opposed to the official narrative), but I added a few more later articles on Covid vaccines. In between, I wrote about many aspects of the pandemic, drawing upon data from Sweden, Denmark, Europe, Arizona, the US, the U.K. and Israel.

Forty essays are included in the book. The first one was titled ‘Hold off on that Apocalyptic Consensus About the Coronavirus’ (March 24th 2020). All of them were written for the public at large and were data driven. They were not based on ‘opinion’ or ‘intuition’. They are science, as best as I know it. If written in a formal, academic style, many of these essays could have been submitted to epidemiology journals. Whether they would have passed the guards of official narratives is a different question.

What will you find in the book?

Back in 2020, I devoted several essays to lockdown-free Sweden and showed, unequivocally, the futility of lockdowns and the misleading comparison of Sweden to neighbouring Nordic countries. The last one in this series, published in 2022, was titled ‘Sweden or the World: Which was a Cautionary Tale?’, paraphrasing headlines that claimed the opposite in the spring of 2020.

Several essays have estimated the death toll of panic-triggered responses to the pandemic. By September 2021, before the return of the flu, between 15% and 30% of the excess mortality in the U.S. may be attributed to the so-called mitigation efforts (‘The Mystery of Unaccounted Excess Deaths in the U.S.’). These were lives that were lost in vain — at least 115,000 deaths and possibly twice as many. The consequences of lockdowns and disruptions of normal life did not end in 2021. Lives have continued to be lost in many countries, including the U.K. Some of the mechanisms are described in my essay ‘Covid: The Death Toll of Panic’.

In numerous essays, I studied excess mortality and explained why trends should be examined over an entire winter (‘flu years’), not by calendar years. Using this approach, I estimated the excess mortality in Europe (‘How Severe was the Pandemic in Europe?’). In the first year (2019-2020), it was only somewhat higher than in a previous season with severe flu (2017-2018). The second year (2020-2021) was very harsh but far from apocalyptic – about twice as severe as 2017-2018. In both years, all-cause mortality would have been lower without lockdowns.

Over a dozen essays cover various aspects of Covid vaccines. I showed severe biases in influential studies from Israel and estimated the correct effectiveness against Covid death, which ranged from mediocre to zero or sometimes negative, in the frail elderly. Using data from the U.K., I showed the questionable effectiveness of the first booster and the futility of the second (fourth dose). In three essays, I estimated the short-term fatality rate of Covid vaccines, which was unacceptable but fortunately not as high as others had suggested. Long-term fatality is difficult to estimate. One essay describes unacceptable rates of side-effects, as found in a largely unknown official survey in Israel (‘Downplaying the Side Effects of Boosters’).

Did Covid vaccines save millions of lives? Not according to a comparative analysis of Israel with Sweden in the winter of 2020-2021 (‘Thousands of Averted Covid Deaths in Israel: Science Fiction’). Nor did they reduce the delayed death toll of Covid in Denmark (‘Lockdown and Vaccines: Lessons from Denmark’).

In the last essay, which imagines a future perspective on Covid vaccines, I wrote:

Twenty years later, we are still studying the long-term morbidity and mortality consequences of disseminated lipid nanoparticles (the mRNA carriers), self- manufactured toxic spike protein and aberrant proteins in various tissues, elevated levels of IgG4 antibodies after repeated injections, and the integration of foreign DNA fragments into the genome.

These days, a group of scientists is studying cancer cells from vaccinated patients to determine if foreign DNA is present there. Chances are that you will not find much on this topic or on other vaccine-related effects in mainstream media. So, keep following the Daily Sceptic and Brownstone, as I have been doing for a long time. No end is in sight to the saga of Covid vaccines.

https://dailysceptic.org/2024/04/08/as-an-epidemiologist-i-could-see-straight-away-that-covid-was-being-over-hyped/

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UK Watchdog Accuses Pfizer of Promoting ‘Unlicensed’ COVID Vaccine on Social Media

A UK pharmaceutical watchdog said that Pfizer has breached its regulatory code five times, including “promoting an unlicensed medicine,” due to a social media post made by a Pfizer employee.

The Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA) issued the ruling after receiving a complaint in February 2023 regarding a post on X that was made by a Pfizer employee in the United States.

The post included Pfizer’s press release announcing the conclusion of the Phase 3 Study of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, which was later shared by a Pfizer senior employee in the United Kingdom.

PMCPA ruled that Pfizer has breached its regulatory code, including “bringing discredit” on the pharmaceutical industry, promoting an unlicensed medicine, and making a misleading claim.

The pharmaceutical company was also accused of “making claims that did not reflect the available evidence regarding possible adverse reactions,” and failing to maintain high standards.

The complaint raised concerns about “Pfizer’s misuse of social media to misleadingly and illegally promote their COVID vaccine,” alleging that the post lacked safety information about the vaccine.

According to the complainant, “such misbehavior was even more widespread than they had thought, extended right to the top of their UK operation and was apparently continuing to this very day.”

The complainant argued that the post has remained visible on the Pfizer UK senior employee’s X feed for over two years.

“In the circumstances the complainant thought that the British public had the right to expect Pfizer UK to have conducted some sort of audit of its social media accounts (at least of its significant accounts, amongst which they would include its UK senior employees) to ensure that anything which was similarly in breach of the code was removed—even to the extent of deleting accounts if necessary. This clearly was not done,” the complaint stated.

Social Media Post Was Not Intended to Be Promotional

Pfizer told the PMCPA that it took its commitment to the regulatory code “extremely seriously” and that it had conducted a thorough investigation into the matter.
The company claimed that the post “was not intended to be promotional in nature” and that it contained “a statement of fact of the efficacy endpoints of the study.”

Pfizer also said that there was no intent by the UK senior employee to promote or to advertise its vaccine candidate, adding that the post was re-shared “in error.”

According to the company, the senior employee was an infrequent user of X and has only 321 followers, the majority of whom are professional individuals involved in, or with an interest in, the UK healthcare and research sector.

“Pfizer UK had a comprehensive policy on personal use of social media in relation to Pfizer’s business which prohibited colleagues from interacting with any social media related to Pfizer’s medicines and vaccines,” it said.

In its response to the PMCPA, Pfizer said it has taken actions to address the complaint, including issuing a UK company-wide instruction urging employees to check their social media accounts to ensure their activity complied with the Pfizer social media policy.

“Pfizer accepted that these colleagues acted in error and these errors regretfully were likely to have resulted in the promotion of an unlicensed vaccine to the UK public in a manner that was not consistent with the requirements of Clause 2,” it stated.

However, the PMCPA stated in its report that the post has resulted in “an unlicensed medicine being proactively disseminated on Twitter to health professionals and members of the public in the UK.”

The watchdog considered that the corrective and preventative actions taken following previous breaches of the code with respect to employee activity on social media “had not been implemented to the standard which was expected or required.”

It also stated that the post made no reference to adverse events of the vaccine.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/business/uk-watchdog-accuses-pfizer-of-promoting-unlicensed-covid-vaccine-on-social-media-5625184

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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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