Thursday, May 02, 2024
CDC Found Evidence COVID-19 Vaccines Caused Deaths
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials found evidence that the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines caused multiple deaths before claiming that there was no evidence linking the vaccines to any deaths, The Epoch Times has learned.
CDC employees worked to track down information on reported post-vaccination deaths and learned that myocarditis—or heart inflammation, a confirmed side effect of the vaccines—was listed on death certificates and in autopsies for some of the deaths, according to an internal file obtained by The Epoch Times.
Myocarditis was also described as being caused by vaccination in a subset of the deaths.
In other cases, the CDC workers found that deaths met the agency’s definition for myocarditis, that the patients started showing symptoms within 42 days of a vaccine dose, and that the deceased displayed no virus-related symptoms. Officials say that after 42 days, a possible link between the vaccine and symptoms becomes tenuous, and they list post-vaccination deaths as unrelated if they can find any possible alternative causes.
In cases with those three features, it’s “absolutely” safe to say that the vaccines caused the deaths, Dr. Clare Craig, a British pathologist and co-chair of the Health Advisory and Recovery Team Group, told The Epoch Times in an email.
Despite the findings, most of which were made by the end of 2021, the CDC claimed that it had seen no signs linking the Moderna and Pfizer messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines to any deaths reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).
CDC officials in a letter to The Epoch Times dated June 13, 2023, said that there were no deaths reported to the VAERS for which the agency determined “the available evidence” indicated Moderna or Pfizer vaccination “caused or contributed to the deaths.”
The agency also said that evidence from seven deaths from thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome following the Johnson & Johnson vaccination suggested that the vaccine led to people dying.
“That’s a scandal, where you have information like this and you continue to put out this dishonest line that there’s only seven deaths and they’re all unrelated to the mRNA vaccines,” Dr. Andrew Bostom, a heart expert based in the United States, told The Epoch Times.
The CDC is “concealing these deaths,” he said.
A CDC spokeswoman, presented with the file and dozens of questions about it, said that “determining a person’s cause of death is done by the certifying official, physician, medical examiner, or coroner, who completes the death certificate.”
The spokeswoman declined to explain why the CDC doesn’t consider autopsies or death certificates as evidence of causality, the criteria that would establish vaccine-caused deaths, or whether the numbers have been updated since 2023. She also declined to answer questions about specific deaths outlined in the file, citing “privacy and confidentiality.”
People who die in the United States with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 are counted as COVID-19 deaths. That count has included a number of deaths from unrelated causes. The CDC also in 2023 advised death certifiers to include COVID-19 on certificates even if the deaths happened years after COVID-19 infection.
“They are taking the exact opposite approach to COVID deaths! Every death after a test was a COVID death. No death after a vaccine is a vaccine death!” Dr. Craig said. She questioned what it would take for the CDC to admit that the vaccines have caused some myocarditis-related deaths.
More People Died
The file, acquired by The Epoch Times through a Freedom of Information Act request, has never before been reported. The file was obtained after U.S. authorities rejected another Freedom of Information Act request for the autopsies themselves. The file outlines the agency’s investigation into reports submitted to VAERS of suspected cases of myocarditis or a related condition, pericarditis, following COVID-19 vaccination.
CDC employees, starting in April 2021, contacted health care providers and other agencies to obtain medical records, death certificates, and autopsies as they sought to confirm whether each report was legitimate.
The file shows the CDC examined 3,780 reports through April 13, 2023, a small number of which were duplicates. Among the reported cases, 101 resulted in death.
In one instance, a 37-year-old man started suffering symptoms that can be caused by myocarditis, such as shortness of breath, shortly after receiving a Moderna COVID-19 shot. The man collapsed three days after vaccination and was soon pronounced dead.
Dr. Darinka Mileusnic, the medical examiner who examined the man, said in an autopsy report that the patient died of “post vaccination systemic inflammation response” which caused, among other problems, acute myocarditis, according to the CDC file.
The CDC worker who was assigned to look into the death wrote that it was “evident of a sudden death post second dose of Moderna vaccine.”
“One of the factor[s] to death [sic] is acute myocarditis. There are other findings related to VAE [vaccine adverse event] and non vaccine related. Thus, it can’t be distinguished that only vaccine may have caused the death,” the CDC employee wrote.
Dr. Mileusnic declined a request for comment through her employer, the Knox County Regional Forensic Center in Tennessee. The center said it would only provide an autopsy report if the decedent’s name and date of death were provided. The CDC file did not include names.
After another man, 24, died on Oct. 27, 2021, about two months after receiving a second Pfizer injection, his health care provider diagnosed him with myocarditis. An autopsy listed “complications of COVID-19 vaccine-related myocarditis” as the cause of death, according to the file.
A post-mortem test for COVID-19 returned negative, there were no viral organisms found in post-mortem testing of the heart, and there were no other signs of viruses causing the myocarditis, the notes show.
Another vaccine recipient, a 77-year-old man, was found dead at home on Nov. 14, 2021. The autopsy confirmed the man had pericarditis and listed the cause of death as “complications from the COV-19 booster,” according to the file.
The CDC worker who looked at that case said it met the CDC’s definition of pericarditis based on the autopsy and death certificate but noted there were comorbidities such as coronary artery disease that were listed as contributing to the death. The patient also received shots against influenza and shingles about two months before death, so “it is difficult to say that COV-19 vaccine alone caused pericarditis,” the worker wrote.
A voicemail left for the man’s doctor was not returned.
Among other deaths in the CDC file are:
A male, whose age was redacted, suffered sudden cardiac death in April 2021 following a Johnson & Johnson vaccination. He was diagnosed with myocarditis, which was confirmed by the medical examiner. A CDC worker stated that the case did not technically meet the agency’s case definition, but they would “consider probable subclinical myocarditis, given the histopathological findings.”
A 21-year-old woman who died in 2021 after seizures and cardiac arrhythmias following Pfizer vaccination was found on autopsy to have lymphocytic myocarditis. The CDC listed her case as confirmed myocarditis with no evidence of viral causes.
A 45-year-old man was found dead in his bed in 2021 after Moderna vaccination but testing for myocarditis and pericarditis was not performed.
A 55-year-old woman who was “found unresponsive in [a] field” in 2021 after Johnson & Johnson vaccination was confirmed on autopsy to have myocarditis and to have suffered a cardiac arrest. The death met the CDC’s case definition but concurrent upper respiratory infection “makes viral myocarditis a potential alternative cause,” a CDC worker stated. The medical examiner declined to comment.
Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson did not return requests for comment.
Lot numbers for the vaccines injected into people who died were among the information in the file redacted by the CDC. Some vaccine lots have caused significantly more problems than others, according to CDC data obtained by the nonprofit Informed Consent Action Network.
Deaths in other countries from vaccine-induced myocarditis have been reported in journals, including deaths among young people. More deaths from vaccines in cases that didn’t include myocarditis have been confirmed by international authorities. Death certificates obtained by The Epoch Times from several U.S. states have also listed the COVID-19 vaccines as causing or contributing to dozens of deaths.
Overruling
The file and a tranche of emails also obtained by The Epoch Times shows the agency started intervening shortly after the vaccines were introduced in post-vaccination cases that led to death and sometimes overruled the certifier.
Take the case of a 23-year-old man who left home on April 13, 2021, to go for a jog and was found dead on the side of the road. His death occurred four days after receiving Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine.
An autopsy found myocarditis and the case met the CDC’s case definition for myocarditis. But the CDC’s Infectious Diseases Pathology Branch (IDPB) then weighed in. “Per IDPB evaluation, not myocarditis,” the notes for the case say.
The evaluation is one of the documents the CDC has refused to disclose. It also refused to answer questions about the man’s death or other specific cases, referring vaguely to privacy.
Dr. Bostom, after reviewing the notes on the case, said it was a “clear-cut” example of vaccine-caused myocarditis.
The CDC doesn’t conduct autopsies itself but gathers the files as part of the investigation. Autopsies aren’t perfect but are considered the gold standard in figuring out the cause of death, Dr. Bostom said.
“It’s about the strongest evidence we can get,” he said.
Two of the cases in the file were reported by Dr. James Gill, the chief medical examiner of Connecticut, and several other doctors in a February 2022 peer-reviewed paper. The doctors revealed findings of atypical myocarditis in two teenagers after Pfizer vaccination, describing it as a “post-vaccine reaction” that might have developed due to “an excessive inflammatory response.”
CDC officials issued a public response saying IDPB’s evaluation of the cases pointed to non-vaccine causes: a parvovirus in one case, and sepsis from a bacterial infection in the other.
“These omissions could lead incorrectly to the assumption that COVID-19 vaccines were directly responsible for the deaths of these 2 patients. We believe that providing these important pathologic findings will allow readers a fuller perspective of the causes of death in these cases,” the CDC said at the time.
Dr. Christopher Paddock, one of the officials, said in an email obtained by The Epoch Times that the CDC response detailed “the work we did to identify the actual cause of death in this young man.”
In a blunt reply, the doctors said the CDC “overstepped its role” with the response and explained why the CDC’s claims didn’t hold up. The parvovirus, they said, wouldn’t cause the type of heart injury seen in the boy who died. The presence of bacteria is “not the cause of death but a consequence of death,” they said.
The certificate for the boy who died in Connecticut mentioned vaccination, Dr. Gill has told The Epoch Times. The autopsy report of the other boy notes he died of “myocarditis of uncertain etiology.”
Another death of a minor was examined by CDC workers after being reported to VAERS. A 7-year-old in Washington state died on Feb. 26, 2022, about two weeks after receiving a Pfizer shot. The medical examiner identified myocarditis as a cause of death, but, “per IDPB, infectious causes [were] identified,” according to the file.
“CDC followed-up to assist in [the] investigation of the case. From the investigation, the cause of the myocarditis could not be clearly determined,” a spokesperson for Public Health – Seattle & King County told The Epoch Times via email.
Other emails obtained by The Epoch Times show that in addition to Washington state officials, authorities in multiple states asked the CDC to test tissue samples from people who died after vaccination. They also reveal that the CDC knew of several additional post-vaccination deaths in which myocarditis was found on autopsy—and at least some other possible causes were ruled out—before issuing its 2023 statement on zero deaths.
Details From Emails
A man on active duty in the Army, for example, “collapsed after a short run” and was unable to be resuscitated, Dr. John Su, the lead official for vaccine safety for the CDC’s COVID-19 vaccine task force, wrote on March 30, 2022. “On autopsy, the pathologist observed evidence of myocarditis.”
Testing for COVID-19 came back negative, and “toxicology and other analyses were unremarkable,” according to the email, although there were indications that an “anatomic variant in the vasculature of the heart” could have caused the sudden cardiac arrest.
The CDC around the same time received a request to analyze tissue from a 42-year-old New Hampshire resident who died in early 2022 after a Pfizer vaccine dose. The autopsy found “extensive acute and subacute myocarditis,” Dr. Jennie Duval, the chief medical examiner at the New Hampshire Department of Justice, told the CDC. Postmortem testing for COVID-19 returned negative.
A spokesperson for the department told The Epoch Times in an email that its Office of the Chief Medical Examiner “will not release cause and manner of death or any other information because autopsy reports, investigative reports and supporting documentation are confidential medical records.”
The CDC also in 2022 received autopsy reports for George Watts Jr., a 24-year-old from New York state who collapsed at home after receiving a Pfizer vaccine, died from “COVID-19 vaccine-related myocarditis,” and tested negative for COVID-19; and Joseph Keating, a 26-year-old man from South Dakota who, per an autopsy and death certificate, died from vaccine-induced myocarditis.
It’s not clear why the CDC doesn’t count the death certificates or autopsies as evidence that vaccines contributed to or caused the deaths.
The CDC’s position is not surprising since it was among agencies that “were the leaders of the disinformation campaign to convince the American public, including George Watts, Jr., that experimental vaccines were safe and effective even before they were licensed,” Ray Flores, an attorney representing the Watts family in a lawsuit filed against the government, told The Epoch Times via email.
“Now everyone knows they’ve unequivocally been shown to kill,” he said.
A CDC official said in one missive in early 2022 that the CDC’s IDPB had recently become “heavily involved in coordination, consultation, and laboratory evaluation of autopsy tissues from deaths occurring after COVID-19 vaccination, including cases of suspected myocarditis.”
The effort involved closely coordinating with the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office, state health officials, and CDC officials working on policy and communications, she said.
“When requested, CDC can provide consultation for analysis of tissue specimens,” a CDC spokeswoman told The Epoch Times.
The CDC’s 2023 statement of zero deaths being linked to the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines was attributed to the Immunization Safety Office.
The office was headed at the time by Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, who offered false information about COVID-19 vaccine safety during the pandemic. The CDC also hid the finding of hundreds of safety signals for the shots, including sudden death and tinnitus, and published a paper this month that was falsely promoted as debunking an association between sudden death and the mRNA vaccines.
More than 676 million doses of the vaccines have been administered to date, the CDC noted. While the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has been pulled from the market, the agency maintains that shots from Pfizer, Moderna, and Novavax are “safe and effective.”
“The authorized and approved COVID-19 vaccines are being administered under the most comprehensive and intensive vaccine safety monitoring effort in U.S. history,” the CDC spokeswoman told The Epoch Times.
The spokesperson said the agency “has not detected any unusual or unexpected patterns for deaths following COVID-19 vaccination that have not already been thoroughly described and made public in the published biomedical literature or public presentations.”
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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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Tuesday, April 30, 2024
AstraZeneca admits to rare, deadly side effect of Covid jab as lawsuits mount
I had two shots of AstraZeneca and didn't even get a sore arm out of it -- nothing. So your mileage may vary
AstraZeneca has admitted that its Covid-19 vaccine could cause a rare but deadly blood-clotting condition, potentially exposing the UK pharmaceutical giant to lawsuits brought by loved ones of those injured or killed as a result of the jab, according to court documents.
Lawyers representing “dozens” of class-action claimants say some of their clients’ cases could be worth as much as $38 million, calling the Cambridge-headquartered pharma firm’s vaccine was “defective,” according to the Daily Mail.
Recent research from RMIT University and Monash University found Australia’s Covid-19 vaccination campaign likely prevented the death of 17,760 people aged over 50 in New South Wales between August 2021 and July 2022.
The AstraZeneca inoculation, which was also administered in Australia, has proven to be effective in combating Covid-19 with some estimates suggested it saved as many as six million lives worldwide. But it has also produced rare side effects in some people, reports the New York Post.
AstraZeneca, which is contesting the claims, acknowledged in a February legal document that its vaccine can “in very rare cases,” cause a condition called thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, or TTS.
TTS can cause patients to suffer from blood clots as well as a low blood platelet count, which in some cases have seriously harmed or even killed recipients of the company’s vaccine.
The potential complication was listed as a possible side effect from the time of the vaccine’s release, but AstraZeneca’s acknowledgment in February marks the first time the pharmaceutical titan has admitted it in court, according to the UK newspaper The Telegraph.
So far, 51 cases have been filed in London’s High Court, estimated to be worth around $190 million (GBP100 million) total, the outlet writes.
Due to a bargain AstraZeneca struck with the UK government at the height of the pandemic to indemnify the drugmaker against potential lawsuits, taxpayers will be on the hook for any payouts resulting from the claims.
One of the claimants who filed suit is Jamie Scott, an IT engineer and father of two left with a permanent brain injury resulting from a blood clot after he received the vaccine in April 2021.
His wife, Kate, told The Telegraph she’s hopeful the company’s admission will accelerate the outcome of their case.
“We need an apology, fair compensation for our family and other families who have been affected. We have the truth on our side, and we are not going to give up.”
In a statement, AstraZeneca expressed sympathy for anyone who was allegedly harmed by the vaccine, but defended it as a net positive and pointed out that complications are exceedingly rare.
“Patient safety is our highest priority, and regulatory authorities have clear and stringent standards to ensure the safe use of all medicines, including vaccines,” the statement reads in part.
“From the body of evidence in clinical trials and real-world data, the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine has continuously been shown to have an acceptable safety profile and regulators around the world consistently state that the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks of extremely rare potential side effects.”
The AstraZeneca Covid vaccine was first approved for emergency use in December, 2020.
Of the 50 million doses administered in the UK during the crisis, 81 people have died from blood clots potentially linked to the jab, according to health data compiled by UK pharmaceutical watchdog the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency.
The odds of a recipient developing TTS as a result of the vaccine is calculated as somewhere in the range of 1 in 50,000.
In Australia, the government said the rate of TTS linked to the jab was around two people per 100,000 vaccinated.
In all, the AstraZeneca vaccine is credited with saving as many as six million lives globally during the pandemic, according to the University of Oxford, which partnered with the company in developing the jab.
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Small Chinese sample suggests link between Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine and Kidney-Related Disease
A team of nephrologists and associated physician-scientists from Zhengzhou University in Zhengzhou, a city with over 10 million people in Northern China extracted the gene expression data of Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells (PBMCs) from 15 controls (day 0 post the second dose of Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 COVID-19 mRNA vaccine) and 29 vaccinated samples (day 1–10 post second dose also of the same BNT162b2 COVID-19 mRNA vaccine) (GSE201535) from what is known as the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) dataset and normalization of the counts by log(x + 1) using Sangerbox.
Meanwhile, the gene expression data of glomeruli from 21 controls (living donors) and 27 IgAN were collected (GSE104948). Also in this study, focusing on the keyword “COVID-19 vaccine” was used to search the GeneCards database to screen the associated genes supporting this investigation into cases of glomerulonephritis, a kidney condition reported after the mass-scale use of COVID-19 countermeasures with IgA nephropathy (IgAN) emerging as particularly prominent.
The recent study results were published in Karger Kidney and Blood Pressure Research, and the study was conducted with the help of Henan Provincial People’s Hospital.
What is IgAN and glomerulonephritis?
Glomerulonephritis is a group of kidney diseases that cause inflammation of the glomeruli, the tiny filters inside the kidneys that remove waste and extra fluids from the blood, this condition can come on quickly or slowly, and mild cases often don’t cause any noticeable symptoms.
IgAN or IgA nephropathy is considered a rare kidney disease occurring when the body’s immune system generates antibodies in the kidneys, leading to inflammation and kidney damage. The inflammation makes it harder for the kidneys to filter waste and fluid from the blood. IgAN is also known as Berger disease.
Background to this study
The Chinese researchers point to “accumulating evidence” disclosing the risk of IgA nephropathy (IgAN) presenting shortly after the second dose of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine. But not surprisingly, the undying mechanism remains unclear. Thus, the investigation here better understands potential molecular mechanisms.
The team downloaded both gene expression datasets of COVID-19 mRNA vaccination (GSE201535) and IgAN (GSE104948). Weighted Gene Co-Expression Network Analysis (WGCNA) in a bid to identify co-expression modules related to the second dose of COVID-19 mRNA vaccination and IgAN. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were screened, and a transcription factor (TF)-miRNA regulatory network and protein-drug interaction were constructed for the shared genes.
What did they find?
The use of WBCNA led to the identification of one module linked to the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine, with four modules linked to IgAN. Further analysis employing gene ontology (GO) uncovered “enrichment of cell cycle-related processes for the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine hub genes and immune effector processes for the IgAN hub genes.”
With 74 DEGs identified in relation to the second Pfizer dose, plus 574 DEGs for IgAN, “Intersection analysis with COVID-19 vaccine-related genes led to the identification of two shared genes, TOP2A and CEP55. The TF-miRNA network analysis showed that hsa-miR-144 and ATF1 might regulate the shared hub genes.”
Summary
The team shares in this paper a “common pathogenesis of COVID-19 mRNA vaccination and IgAN. The identified pivotal genes may offer new directions for further mechanistic studies of IgAN secondary to COVID-19 mRNA vaccination.”
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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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Monday, April 29, 2024
Mainstream Starts to Cover: NBC Affiliate Covers COVID-19 Vaccine Injured, Cautiously
Mainstream media has started to cover the topic of COVID-19 vaccine injury. Most recently, KARE 11 in Minneapolis thanks to Craig Norkus, a 22-year photojournalist at the media who became ill after receiving the COVID-19 jab in November 2022.
While the NBC affiliate for the Twin Cities area first acknowledges that the overall general safety of the COVID-19 vaccines has been established, this doesn’t necessarily mean that a “small group of Minnesotans claiming vaccine injury” aren’t hurting, in some cases, severely due to rare but real COVID-19 vaccine injuries.
Another TrialSite subscriber and vaccine-injured person sent the story to TrialSite, noting the NBC affiliate loaded the content with lots of accompanying vaccine-friendly information but points out that the local media finally covered the topic of COVID-19 vaccine injury.
Pointing out that recent studies evidence an overall safety profile, some questions remain unanswered. To date, KARE 11 states that no study has been able to prove that mRNA vaccines can induce neurological problems, the reality is that numerous such problems can and do ensue after vaccination.
Patient advocacy group React19, a TrialSite partner, established the Scientific Publications Directory for example. In this repository set up via a collaborative effort with TrialSite’s support, React19 now maintains 3,580 peer-reviewed studies (mostly case series) tracking various adverse event incidents post-COVID-19 vaccination.
How many of the studies involve neurological conditions? 656 studies cover some form of neurological condition associated with COVID-19 vaccination. This does not mean that each one of these studies prove that the vaccine caused the condition.
In fact, most of the studies in the online directory are case series, meaning a type of medical research design that involves the detailed examination of a small group of individuals (or just one patient) who share common characteristics or experiences. In a case series, researchers typically report on the clinical features, treatment, and outcomes of a series of patients with similar conditions or who underwent similar interventions. However, unlike a randomized controlled trial, these investigations are not designed to establish causation.
Unfortunately, the NBC affiliate doesn’t cite the React19 database, although they should. The media does refer to the recent study tracked by TrialSite involving the recent study from the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine finding that only one adverse event with a proven link to the Pfizer and Moderna shots-- myocarditis—inflammation of the heart. The experts in the study determined the two mRNA vaccines do not cause Guillain-Barré syndrome, Bell’s palsy, thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) or heart attack. Researchers determined there's not enough evidence to accept or deny a link to any other neurological issues studied. Although, it’s clear from the React19 publication directory that incidence of GBS for example as well as Bell’s palsy are associated with these vaccines.
According to Norkus, who was a key force in getting this coverage of the COVID-19 vaccine injured after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, “I felt like I was dying,” said Norkus. “I was lost, looking for answers, and no one had any.”
The injury presented just two days following a booster dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. The photojournalist started suffering head and body aches, severe exhaustion, and confusion, along with cool and hot tingling in his fingers and legs.
As reported by Chris Hrapsky blood tests revealed his immune system was under attack, but five separate specialty doctors could not explain the source of his symptoms.
Yet by April last year, an osteopathic doctor diagnosed Norkus with immunosuppression and small fiber neuropathy. And Norkus’ physician now believes that Norkus’ conditions were triggered by the vaccine.
While the local media claims no study can prove an mRNA connection to Bell’s palsy, the React19 online database includes 45 peer-reviewed studies involving COVID-19 vaccination and Bell’s palsy. See the link.
TrialSite’s Brandon Bushong recently interviewed vaccine injury activist Wayne Rohde, author of “The Vaccine Court 2.0 Revised: The Dark Truth of America’s Vaccine Injury Compensation Program” who elaborates on all the ways bias impacts the system, to the detriment of those injured and in urgent need of care.
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COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines Linked to Cutaneous [skin] Adverse Events—Most Non-Significant, However, Severe in Rare Cases
Dermatologist from the Department of Dermatology, Kagoshima City Hospital and University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences Kagoshima, Japan investigate cutaneous adverse events (AEs) manifesting after COVID-19 vaccination.
Frequently described, the investigators led by Atsunori Baba M.D., and colleagues report the need for a larger case series and literature review and hence this specific study. Calling out for the urgent need for an extensive investigation of new cases and previous reports to better capture the unfolding evidence concerning post-COVID-19 immunization cutaneous AEs, the team sought to analyze patients with cutaneous AEs after COVID-19 vaccination in their specific hospital located in deep southern Japan on Kyushu island.
The team of physicians also reviewed studies of cutaneous AEs. Analyzing post-COVID-19 vaccination cutaneous AEs in the Kagoshima City Hospital department, the Japanese Registry, and previous literature, the investigators also enrolled 30 patients with cutaneous post-vaccination AEs in the department over 2 years (April 1, 2021, to March 31, 2023). Confirming cases registered in the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare COVID-19 vaccine side effect reporting system (February 17, 2021–March 12, 2023), the study team reports 587 retrieved records, plus 93 articles were included for data extraction.
Dr. Atsunori Baba and colleagues report on the identification of a total of 28 non-injection-site cutaneous AEs and two injection-site AEs. Six (20.0%) patients developed new-onset erythematous eruptions, and five (16.7%) patients developed urticaria. Pruritic eruption, eczema, shingles, and sweating symptoms have also been reported.
Published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Dermatology, Atsunori Baba and colleagues point out that in previous studies on non-injection-site cutaneous AEs, individuals who received the BNT162b2 vaccine were older than those who received mRNA-1273 (P < 0.01).
Cutaneous AEs were mostly nonsignificant and self-limiting reactions; but the study authors report on rare, severe, or life-threatening AEs also linked to COVID-19 vaccination.
The findings lead the authors of this study to conclude that “Physicians should be aware of the various possible cutaneous AEs associated with the COVID-19 vaccination.”
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Western Vaccines Outperform the Chinese with Significant More Protection Against Breakthrough Infection
A team of pharmacy researchers from University of Cyberjava in Persiaran Bestari, Selangor Malaysia and Serdang Hospital conducted a retrospective cohort study at a multispecialty tertiary hospital in Selangor, including 200 fully adult vaccinated patients, with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, admitted from September 2021 to February 2022.
Participants were selected by simple random sampling. Infection severity was categorized as CAT 2–3 (mild–moderate) and 4–5 (severe–critical). Vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine known as BNT162b2, the Malaysian team sought to learn more about mRNA vaccine performance. What were the clinical outcomes (time to breakthrough infection, intensive care unit [ICU] admission, and in-hospital mortality) of hospitalized patients with SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infection concerning the Pfizer-BioNTech jab?
With results published in Heliyon, the authors report:
“The time to breakthrough infection was significantly longer for BNT162B2 recipients (128.47 ± 46.21 days) compared to CoronaVac (94.09 ± 48.71 days; P = 0.001) and ChAdOx1-S recipients (90.80 ± 37.59 days; P = 0.019).”
Also, the authors reported no associations involving SARS-CoV-2-related ICU admission, mortality, and the vaccines.
Based on a statistical multivariable analysis, the study’s authors point to the following as significant predictors of severity:
Vaccine type
Variant of concern
Ethnicity
Hypertension
Evidencing superior performance for the Western COVID-19 vaccines, “BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1-S recipients had significantly (81% and 74%, respectively) lower odds of CAT 4–5 infection compared to CoronaVac recipients.” The latter was developed in China.
Interestingly, from an ethnicity perspective, Indian patients faced a (83%) lower chance of CAT 4–5 infection compared to Malay patients.
For breakthrough infections, the Delta surge was more dangerous than Omicron. Patients with breakthrough infections during the latter period had a significantly (58%) lower risk of CAT 4–5 compared to those in the former (Delta). The CAT 4–5 risk was significantly (nearly threefold) higher in hypertensive patients.
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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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Sunday, April 28, 2024
Long COVID Condition Resolves Over Time, Study Suggests
Research led by the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney has found that the immune abnormalities in most people with mild or moderate long COVID had largely resolved two years after infection.
In a cohort of patients suffering from long COVID, biomarkers present in patients eight months after contraction largely resolved by 24 months, suggesting that long COVID can settle over time.
Biomarkers are biological molecules that can indicate diseases or health conditions, the U.S. National Cancer Institute states. Long COVID clinical symptoms are consistent with biomarkers exhibiting a sustained inflammatory response.
Details of the Study
The study participants included people who had contracted COVID-19 in Australia’s first wave and a corresponding control group. The study considered the health information systematically reported by patients and detailed blood tests.
The exact scale of immunological improvement is difficult to quantify because immune function significantly varies from person to person. However, after 24 months there were no observable differences between the study’s control and long COVID group.
Chansavath Phetsouphanh, co-author of the paper and senior lecturer at UNSW’s Kirby Institute, said in a news release that significant improvements have been found.
“Almost one and a half years later, we are pleased to see that among this same group, significant improvements were found in blood markers,” he said. Blood markers are an easily accessible, cost-effective, and accurate biomarker.
“For the majority of samples we analysed in the laboratory, the biomarkers previously indicating abnormal immune function have resolved,” Mr. Phetsouphanh said.
This trend was also observable in the self-reported data with 62 percent of participants indicating improvements in health-related quality of life.
Study Limitations
The study is one of a small number that measures clinical data, self-reported health information, and intense blood sampling of the same group over an extensive period.
Professor Anthony Kelleher, director of the Kirby Institute, said that immunology is a complex science.
While the finding was encouraging, he noted it involved just one cohort that experienced an early strain of COVID-19 and whose initial COVID-19 infection was generally considered mild or moderate.
Prof. Kelleher said they cannot say for certain that outcomes in the unvaccinated clinical cohort will be true for vaccinated people. He also said that it’s uncertain whether those infected with a different strain of COVID-19 will experience the same outcomes.
“What we do know is that for most people with long COVID, both their symptoms and their biomarkers improve significantly over time, and this is a cause for optimism,” he said.
“Importantly, we will continue to undertake research to understand more about why some people don’t improve, and what can be done for those people.”
Ongoing Impact on their Life Quality
“While this is very encouraging and a reason for optimism, there are still around one third of patients who identify some ongoing impact on their quality of life,” said Professor Gail Matthews, head of infectious diseases at St Vincent’s Hospital.
Prof. Matthews said some patients may have a range of underlying causes for their long COVID symptoms.
She added that not all of these causes are driven by immunological abnormalities and that some are likely to persist even when the immunological environment has largely returned to normal.
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Can nasal Neosporin prevent COVID-19?
Four years ago, when COVID-19 first began to spread globally, it didn't just damage our physical health, but also the health of our information ecosystem. Ever since, the internet has been rife with health misinformation on ways to treat or protect oneself against the coronavirus.
First, internet healers falsely suggested that gargling salt water and vinegar could prevent a coronavirus infection. Then, despite multiple studies debunking the effectiveness of ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug used in horses (and less commonly in humans), Joe Rogan fans continued to cling onto it as a potential treatment.
Health misinformation is a symptom of a lack of certainty. When there is no guaranteed preventative measure or treatment, people are bound to find solutions on their own. Thanks to cognitive biases like confirmation bias, they might even appear to work. But what if a way to reduce exposure to COVID-19, and treat it, was hiding in our medicine cabinets all along — and it wasn’t pseudoscience?
A new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that neomycin, an ingredient in the first aid ointment Neosporin, may prevent or treat a range of respiratory viral infections such as COVID-19 and influenza when applied to the nose.
In the study, researchers found that mice who had neomycin in their nostrils exhibited strong antiviral activity against both SARS-CoV- 2 and a highly virulent strain of influenza A virus. It also mitigated contact transmission of SARS-CoV- 2 between hamsters.
“We decided to see if neomycin applied into the nose can protect animals from infection with COVID as well as the flu,” Dr. Akiko Iwasaki, the lead author of the study and a professor of immunobiology at the Yale University School of Medicine, told Salon in a phone interview. “And what we found is that treatment with neomycin significantly prevented infection and also reduced disease burden in animals.”
Iwasaki described the work as “encouraging” because it shows that neomycin can trigger an antiviral response in animals by creating a localized immune response. “That’s resulting in this protection that we see,” Iwasaki said.
The results are encouraging for mice and hamsters. But what about humans? The researchers proceeded to recruit healthy volunteers and asked them to apply Neosporin with a cotton swab to their nose, twice a day. The placebo for some was vaseline. The researchers measured their antiviral response and found similar results.
“When we compared the gene expression in the nose, Neosporin stimulated genes whereas those people who had Vaseline did not,” Iwasaki said. “So this suggests that we might be able to use Neosporin or neomycin in humans to induce this antiviral state that we also saw in animals.”
Does that mean we should all be applying Neosporin to our noses in high-risk situations? Not exactly, but it probably wouldn’t hurt either — as long as someone isn’t allergic to the cream, which is a combination of the antibiotics bacitracin, neomycin and polymyxin B. Notably, details around the dosage remain unclear.
“We know from the dose response that we did in animals that we probably need to give humans more Neosporin, or neomycin,” she said. “Because Neosporin has very little neomycin compared to what we were able to achieve in the animal model.”
Iwasaki added they know that Neosporin can produce a similar effect in humans as it did in animals, but whether or not it can reduce transmission has yet to be determined.
“For that, we need different kinds of study and a much larger study to determine that,” she said.
Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center and infectious disease doctor who wasn’t involved in the study, told Salon via email that the research could have broader implications that extend beyond COVID-19.
“This could be a potential broad spectrum antiviral treatment and prophylaxis,”Adalja said. “The molecules in the topical antibiotic cream induce certain antiviral compounds to be made by cells where the ointment has been applied; these antiviral compounds produce non-specific immunity that impacts various viruses.”
Iwasaki cautioned against the idea that people swabbing their noses with Neosporin will be a cure-all in the future. Instead, she said she sees this as another possible layer of protection.
“We know how important it is to layer protection against infections,” Iwasaki said. “Vaccines and masks and other measures are very important, but this type of strategy where we can trigger the host to produce antiviral factors may be another layer that we can add on to the existing ones.”
The more layers a person has, Iwasaki said, the less likely a person is to get infected.
“And that's really important for preventing diseases like long COVID,” Iwasaki said, referring to a condition in which COVID symptoms last for months or even years. “So I think it's definitely worth kind of moving forward with an approach like this.”
An approach that was right under our noses all this time.
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Supreme Court Win for Police Constable Who Refused the COVID-19 Jab
A senior constable in Victoria who faced charges for not taking the COVID-19 vaccine has won his battle in a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court. This decision could set a precedent for others impacted by vaccine mandates in the state and around Australia.
The case centered on whether the requirement to provide evidence of vaccination status necessitated receiving a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Constable Simon Peter Shearer had been charged with a breach of discipline for failing to comply with the COVID-19 vaccination requirements outlined in the Victoria Police Manual.
The officer’s decision not to receive any dose of the COVID-19 vaccine by Aug. 16, 2022, led to an internal disciplinary inquiry initiated by the Victorian Police chief commissioner.
However, Victorian Supreme Court Justice Michael McDonald concluded this charge was unjust and should be quashed.
“The plaintiff’s failure to receive a dose of COVID-19 vaccine by 16 August 2022 did not constitute a breach of the Victorian Police Manual,” Judge McDonald said.
“Consequently, the DIO [disciplinary inquiry officer] did not have power to reprimand the plaintiff for a breach of discipline.”
In addition, the judge said the plaintiff was denied procedural fairness for two reasons.
“First, the charge did not provide adequate notice of the case the plaintiff was required to meet,” Judge McDonald found.
“Second, the DIO failed to disclose to the plaintiff issues critical to his decision to find the charge proven.”
Constable Shearer, who had been working in the legal services department of Victoria Police as a lawyer since 2013, had a medical exemption for vaccine requirements due to Graves’ disease, an autoimmune condition impacting the thyroid.
According to court documents, this exemption expired in 2021.
Further, the constable went on long service leave from December 2021 to July 2022. In July 2022, Victoria’s chief police commissioner issued a new policy manual on vaccine requirements.
The constable argued that he was not required to provide his vaccination status to the police or be vaccinated to perform his duties in order to return to work.
However, on September 21, 2022, he was charged with a breach of discipline for failing to comply with the vaccine requirements of the Victorian Police Manual.
The judge has now nullified the charge, and both parties will have the opportunity to make submissions on costs.
“My provisional view is that the defendant should pay plaintiff’s costs on a standard basis, to be taxed in default of agreement,” the judge stated.
Case ‘Reaffirms Our Faith in the Justice System’: Lawyer
Principal lawyer Irene Chrisopoulidis described the result as a significant win for the plaintiff and the individuals and families affected by such policies. She said many of these individuals were unfairly and unjustly treated during one of the most challenging times in our history.
“The lives of these employees and their families, impacted by such organisational policies and decisions, resulted in lifelong effects,” Ms. Chrisopoulidis added in a LinkedIn post.
“This case not only reaffirms our faith in the justice system, it reflects the courageous and tenacious character it takes to stand up for your rights in pursuing justice. It has been our honour to represent the Plaintiff in this matter.”
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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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Thursday, April 25, 2024
COVID-19 Vaccine Emails: Here’s What the CDC Hid Behind Redactions
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) hid how a woman who suffered chest pain and other symptoms following COVID-19 vaccination received a shot because of a mandate at work, newly obtained documents show.
The agency also redacted how multiple children were diagnosed with Kawasaki Disease after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, according to the documents.
The Epoch Times obtained more than 1,400 pages of emails from the CDC concerning its Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment (CISA) project, which analyzes post-vaccination problems reported by health care providers. The tranche included numerous redactions.
While redactions are allowed under the Freedom of Information Act, there were signs that too much information was being hidden.
The Epoch Times appealed some of the redactions.
The CDC agreed to remove some of them, revealing what the agency initially shielded.
In one email, a provider reports a 30-year-old woman who suffered chest pain and leg twitching following COVID-19 vaccination. The original copy of the email stated in part that she “got vaccine due to [redacted].”
In the updated copy, the CDC removed the redaction, showing that the woman received a vaccine because of a mandate at work.
Several other portions of the emails that are now unredacted show the CDC hid how multiple children, including a 2-year-old, were said to have suffered from a serious inflammatory illness called Kawasaki Disease shortly after receiving a shot.
One girl suffered inflammation around the eyes, swollen lips, high fever, and a rash, and “was admitted last week with Kawasaki,” one of the girl’s parents wrote on Dec. 5, 2021, the new documents show. She received a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine two weeks prior.
Dr. Matthew Oster is a cardiologist who works for the CDC.
“The biggest question, of course, here, is whether this was truly [redacted] or whether this was [redacted] related to the vaccine,” Dr. Oster wrote after hearing about the case.
The cleaner copy of the email showed that the redactions covered “KD,” or Kawasaki Disease, and “MIS-C,” or multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children.
“We do now have a small number of cases like this one,” Dr. Oster said.
The CDC has portrayed MIS-C as only being caused by COVID-19, but studies have found that there were MIS-C cases before the COVID-19 pandemic and that some people suffered the syndrome after vaccination without evidence of COVID-19. The CDC says on its website that the agency is “investigating reports of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) associated with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which may present with Kawasaki disease-like features.”
Another email originally hid the age of a male child and what his doctor suspected he suffered after receipt of a second dose of Moderna’s vaccine.
The boy was 2 years old, the newly obtained documents show, when he was admitted with what a pediatric infectious disease doctor suspected was “atypical Kawasaki Disease.” The documents show that the doctor also considered MIS-C as a diagnosis in light of how the boy’s sister tested positive for COVID-19 on the same day the boy started showing symptoms of fever, although multiple COVID-19 tests on the boy returned negative.
The doctor said he had a “low suspicion” for a COVID-19 vaccine reaction but still submitted a report to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which the CDC helps run.
Kawasaki Disease was detected as a safety signal for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines among children aged 5 to 11 when the CDC first ran an analysis on VAERS data in 2022, according to files previously obtained by The Epoch Times. The analysis did not include children younger than 5. Kawasaki disease after COVID-19 vaccination has been reported in the literature, although a study on patients with a history of the disease who contracted COVID-19 or were vaccinated uncovered no signs of problems.
An internal CDC message, now fully unredacted, showed that an official described there being “another CISA ‘inquiry’ about a child with atypical Kawasaki Disease.” Another official said the reports were “very rare” while a third said the normal CDC processes were sufficient to monitor for the disease post-vaccination “unless there’s a specific ask or data need.”
Other removed redactions show that:
A person reporting symptoms after COVID-19 vaccination was reporting that the symptoms included Coxsackievirus and that he himself was the patient. The provider wrote, “I ... don’t know whether to fear another vax more or less than the risk of infection.”
A patient who was reported as suffering heart inflammation after a third Pfizer dose, and came back with the inflammation one year later, was 17 and a male.
The CISA expert who said the woman who suffered chest pain could get additional vaccine doses was Dr. Oster. Previously disclosed emails showed the program repeatedly said people with post-vaccination symptoms should receive more doses.
A patient with “intense malaise” and other symptoms about six months after a Pfizer shot had an elevated heart rate, per a portable electrocardiogram, and sinus tachycardia per a cardiology consultation.
Words and phrases that were redacted originally, but not any longer, include “your daughter”, “hospitalist”, “the parents”, “cardiac workup”, “a physician”, “I believe”, “patient was started on a course of Prednisone”, and “does not drink, smoke, or use any drugs.”
Every single email chain for which redactions were protested was returned with at least some redactions cleared.
The original version claimed that the redactions were appropriate under exceptions outlined in the Freedom of Information Act, including an exception that protects “personnel and medical files and similar files” if their disclosure “would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”
A CDC official told The Epoch Times in an email that the agency, after receiving the appeal, conducted a “careful review” and removed some of the redactions. The official did not explain why the CDC wrongly redacted so much information.
The CDC “has provided modified records for the pages listed in your appeal,” an official with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC’s parent agency, told The Epoch Times in an email. Appeals of CDC Freedom of Information Act requests are lodged with the department.
Fits Pattern
Any person can request information through the Freedom of Infection Act (FOIA), and agencies across the government typically redact portions of responsive documents or withhold them entirely. Agencies “often use FOIA exemptions improperly, withholding records simply because they may reveal problems at the agency or just ‘paint the agency in a bad light,’” Melissa Wasser, a lawyer at the Project On Government Oversight, told senators in 2022. People “consistently receive large swaths of arbitrarily redacted information,” she added.
When presented with signs that information was improperly redacted or withheld, people primarily have two options: lodge an appeal or sue.
Both methods have worked to extract information from the CDC during the pandemic.
An Epoch Times appeal in another case, for example, returned a copy that removed significant redactions that were applied to an internal email describing what Pfizer and Moderna told them about studies that were being done regarding heart inflammation and COVID-19 vaccines.
The unredacted information showed that Moderna had not tested samples from vaccine recipients for subclinical myocarditis because it was waiting for a “specific cardiac biomarker [to] be identified.” An outside study from Switzerland later found signs of subclinical heart inflammation in about one out of 35 people.
The CDC acknowledged that the information had been wrongly redacted. It reasoned that the information “cannot be considered confidential” because it was shared before and “is readily available to the public,” although some of the details had never been made public previously.
Among other lawsuits, meanwhile, one led to the release by the CDC of answers from its V-safe surveillance survey while a second prompted the disclosure of what participants wrote in free-text fields after the CDC left off adverse events of special interest from the survey. Some of the data had never before been described publicly, while other information from the system had only been outlined in CDC-authored studies and presentations.
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U.S Government Continues to Ignore COVID-19 Externalities--Injured Suffer with Abysmal Compensation Record
Vaccine injury activist Wayne Rohde reports that the track record for COVID-19 vaccine injury compensation continues to demonstrate a complete lack of support for the many people adversely impacted by the COVID-19 countermeasures. For example, take the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP), the organization mandated to help individuals hurt by such countermeasures. How many claims have they awarded and reimbursed in 2024—just one.
According to Rohde, author of “The Vaccine Court: The Dark Truth of America’s Vaccine Injury Compensation Program,” this abysmal result derives from HRSA’s just released April CICP compensation statistics.
Rohde's, whose son was impacted by a vaccine injury, reports in his blog that “…we should not expect anything positive. Just a pathetic operation. They continue to disappoint.”
In fact, Rohde reports the only compensated petition (accurately described as medical expense reimbursement) marks the 12th comp case overall.
“Just one comp since March 5th. A COVID-19 vaccine causing syncope. A fainting injury. It is still serious. The injured petitioner fainted, fell to the ground, maybe suffering a concussion, highly possible jaw and dental injuries.”
What’s the total for this latest injury? $4,493.00 to cover unreimbursed medical expenses. That makes 12 petitions compensated for a total of $39,203 since 2021.
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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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Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Pfizer ‘Chose Not to’ Tell Regulators About SV40 Sequence In Covid Shots
A senior Health Canada official says pharma giant Pfizer made a conscious decision to not advise regulators that its mRNA COVID-19 vaccine contained a DNA sequence from the Simian Virus 40 (SV40).
This information appears among multiple emails between staff from key drug regulators, including Health Canada (HC), the U.S. Food and Drugs Administration (FDA), and the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The information was obtained through an access-to-information request.
On Aug. 23, 2023, Dr. Dean Smith, a senior scientific evaluator in HC’s Vaccine Quality Division, wrote an email to a colleague at the FDA about SV40.
Health Canada had obtained confirmation two weeks earlier from Pfizer that SV40 DNA sequences were present in its COVID-19 vaccine.
“I understand that there have been internal discussions at CBER [Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research] regarding the presents [sic] of an SV40 enhancer/promoter sequence, noting that its presence is unrelated to the purpose of the Pfizer’s plasmid as a transcription template for their mRNA COVID-19 vaccine,” wrote Dr. Smith.
“Pfizer has communicated to us recently, that they apparently chose not to mention this information to EMA, FDA or HC at the time of their initial or subsequent submissions.”
Dr. Smith added the information had been independently made public in April 2023, via a pre-print study from U.S. scientist Kevin McKernan.
Mr. McKernan, a genomics expert, had found quantities of DNA in the mRNA shots above the regulatory threshold set out by the health agencies. Dr. Smith wrote that the study had resulted in “questions coming to agencies.”
The Epoch Times had contacted HC on the matter on July 17. The first email related to SV40 within Health Canada released in the access-to-information package was sent two days later, on July 19.
In that email, Dr. Tong Wu of HC’s Vaccine Quality Division reached out to his colleague Dr. Michael Wall, a senior biologist evaluator.
“Co [Pham, executive director of HC’s Centre for Vaccines, Clinical Trials and Biostatistics] agreed to have an IAS for the SV40 promoter sequence as we discussed today. We can talk about it tomorrow,” Dr. Wu wrote. “IAS” could be a reference to an Issue Analysis Summary to evaluate a new regulatory affair.
As first reported by The Epoch Times in October, Health Canada was not aware of the SV40 enhancer presence. Since then, the FDA and the EMA have both confirmed they also weren’t aware of its presence.
Health Canada has since maintained that the SV40 enhancer/promoter sequence is a “residual DNA fragment” in Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. “The fragment is inactive, has no functional role, and was measured to be consistently below the limit required by Health Canada and other international regulators,” the agency has repeatedly said.
‘ZERO Checks’
This view has been challenged by Mr. McKernan and others, including Dr. Philip Buckhaults, professor of cancer genomics and director of the Cancer Genetics Lab at the University of South Carolina.
In response to the information released by Health Canada, Mr. McKernan posted a thread on the X platform. “No prior vaccine in Canada has been approved with such a sequence contaminant,” he said.
“Pfizer assured [HC] the sequence is not material to plasmid manufacturing,” he added. “This is an overt lie. You cannot make plasmids without the promoter for the antibiotic resistance gene. It is active in mammalian cells. If it’s not needed, why is it in there?”
Mr. McKernan also noted how HC has asked Pfizer for its Polymerase Chain Reaction (PRC) protocol, saying this means “they have performed ZERO checks on this DNA contamination themselves and are entirely relying on the word of the manufacturer.”
A response to a Canadian Member of Parliament’s question tabled in the House of Commons by Health Canada appears to be line with this observation. “It is important to assess the results using the authorized validated assays performed by the vaccine manufacturers to ensure that the quality of commercial vaccine lots are comparable to lots shown to be safe and efficacious in clinical studies,” said Health Canada in December.
Concerns related to the presence of unintended DNA in the mRNA shots pertain to their potential to integrate into the human genome and cause issues like cancer. The Florida State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo has called for a halt of mRNA shots over these risks.
Health Canada said in March in a document tabled in Parliament that “any claims that the presence of the SV40 promoter enhancer sequence is linked to an increased risk of cancer are unfounded.”
Dr. Buckhaults has started a scientific study to ascertain those integration risks. On April 23, he wrote on X that he had confirmed previous findings that the amount of DNA in mRNA shots exceeds the limit set by regulators.
“Yes, there was more than 10 ng/dose. I am sure of it now,” he wrote while posting his methodology. This is the same threshold applied by Health Canada.
Even if the amount of DNA was below, there are still concerns the threshold was set for regular vaccines and not the new technology using lipid nano particles (LNP).
Dr. Buckhaults wrote that the “10 ng limit is not appropriate for LNP encapsulated DNA,” adding that “as far as I know there have been no safety studies for this situation. It was not possible because of the abbreviated timeline during the emergency you saw authorization.”
Seeking ‘Remedy’
In his August 23 email to the FDA employee, Dr. Smith said HC Canada did not view the SV40 issues as an “urgent risk topic.” However, the official responsible for evaluating the safety of vaccines expressed concerns about how news of the SV40 could impact the upcoming fall 2023 vaccination campaign.
“It would be unfortunate if the information circulating had a negatively [sic] impact on public acceptance of the vaccine this year or in the future,” he said.
Despite being of this view, Dr. Smith said regulating agencies should work to encourage Pfizer to “remedy the situation” before the campaign.
In the email, Dr. Smith said HC believed the upcoming rollout of the fall COVID-19 vaccine campaign meant the agencies should be “on the same page.”
Mr. Smith’s email was written a day after Pfizer provided a response to a Quality Clarifax submitted by HC around the SV40 promoter. If deficiencies are identified in Clinical Trial Applications, HC may request additional information, which is known as a Clarifax.
On August 29, HC senior biologist Dr. Wall wrote an email to senior evaluator Dr. Tong Wu, where he said he and Mr. Smith agreed they should not inform Pfizer of their interaction with the EMA and U.S. FDA on the SV40 promoter, “especially they [sic] do not seem to care much at this moment.”
“However, we can not say nothing! Please see the following text that Julie and I worked out,” Mr. Wall added, before providing a draft comment to Pfizer’s response that was blacked out.
The same day, Dr. Wall also sent an email to Dr. Wu with a draft of the Clarifax questions to be sent to Pfizer, which included the statement, “Health Canada would continue to work with international regulatory partners to achieve harmonisation regarding removal of these sequence elements from the plasmid for future strain changes.”
Pfizer did not respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times
Commenting on DNA contamination, Health Canada reiterated its previous position on the matter.
“Based on its evaluation of the data and scientific information for the vaccine, Health Canada has concluded that the risk/benefit profile continues to support the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine,” said spokesperson Anna Maddison.
Dr. David Speicher, a Canadian virologist who replicated the findings from Mr. McKernan and Dr. Buckhaults with Canadian mRNA vials, told The Epoch Times he’s preoccupied about what’s been revealed in the internal Health Canada emails. He notes that while Health Canada has dismissed the DNA fragments as biologically inactive with no functional role, they judged worthy to hold discussions with other regulators.
“We know from testing several vials that the level of SV40 enhancer-promoter in the XBB.1.5 booster is at similar levels as the others Pfizer COVID modRNA vaccines, making it just as problematic,” he says. “Pfizer has not cleaned up the vaccine, yet the regulators are sadly more concerned about vaccine uptake in the population rather than the health risks from these vaccines.”
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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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Tuesday, April 23, 2024
COVID-19 Vaccine Protection Among Children Plummets Within Months: CDC Study
Children who received an original COVID-19 vaccine have little protection against hospitalization just months after vaccination, according to a new study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Children initially have 52 percent protection against hospitalization but that estimated effectiveness plummeted to 19 percent after four months, according to the paper.
Protection against so-called critical illness also dropped sharply, from 57 percent to 25 percent, researchers found.
The researchers include CDC employees and the paper was published in the CDC’s weekly digest on April 18.
The study covered children who received two or more doses of the original Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines from Dec. 19, 2021, through Oct. 29, 2023.
The study involved children aged 5 to 18 who were hospitalized with acute COVID-19 and tested positive for the illness and compared them to a control group of children hospitalized with COVID-19-like symptoms but who tested negative for COVID-19.
Researchers drew data from the Overcoming COVID-19 Network, which includes health care sites in most of the United States, and ended up with 1,551 case patients and 1,797 in the control group.
The study found that “receipt of ≥2 original monovalent COVID-19 vaccine doses was associated with fewer COVID-19–related hospitalizations in children and adolescents aged 5–18 years; however, protection from original vaccines was not sustained over time,” Laura Zambrano, a CDC epidemiologist, and her co-authors wrote.
It also recorded a similar drop in protection against critical illness, defined as being placed on mechanical ventilation, vasoactive infusions, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or dying.
The researchers asserted that the results highlighted the current CDC guidance that all people aged 6 months and older receive one of the newest COVID-19 vaccines, which were introduced in the fall of 2023 with clinical data from just 50 humans and no efficacy estimates. The CDC only publishes papers in its weekly digest, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, after they’re shaped to “comport with CDC policy.” The papers are not peer-reviewed.
Ms. Zambrano did not respond when asked for data suggesting that the currently available shots provide longer-lasting protection than the original vaccines.
The CDC’s website says, in promoting vaccination, that COVID-19 vaccines are “effective at protecting people from getting seriously ill, being hospitalized, and dying” but the hyperlink that ostensibly supports the statement goes to a page that is not live.
U.S. authorities have been moving COVID-19 vaccines to a once-a-year model, similar to influenza vaccines. The model features updating the formulation of the vaccines on an annual basis, in an acknowledgment that any protection the vaccines give quickly wanes. The formulation is typically updated in the fall.
Just 14 percent of children, and 23 percent of adults, have received one of the newest vaccines as of April 6, according to CDC estimates. The available vaccines are messenger RNA (mRNA) shots from Pfizer and Moderna and an alternative from Novavax.
Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, noted that, according to the new paper, the maximum effectiveness estimates against hospitalization were 61 percent, regardless of how the data were sliced, that more deaths were recorded among the case patients, and the median hospitalization duration was four days for both groups.
“I do not see how a clinician whose concern is treating patients and whose job does not depend on pushing mRNA vaccines would find this a basis for recommending shots—quite the contrary,” Dr. Orient, who was not involved in the research, told The Epoch Times in an email. “It reeks of conflict of interest.”
Stated limitations of the paper include not assessing post-infection immunity and a lack of sequencing data.
The conflict of interest section runs 688 words and includes some of the authors reporting funding from Pfizer and Moderna or ownership of Pfizer stock.
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UC Riverside Breakthrough: Novel Live-Attenuated RNA Virus Vaccine Eliminates Chasing Strains?
According to a recent University of California, Riverside (UCR) media release, scientists at the Inland Empire-based Southern California research center recently demonstrated a novel RNA-based vaccine strategy that is effective against any strain of a virus and can be used safely even by babies or the immunocompromised.
This would be a monumental breakthrough, one that would eliminate the current “chasing of strains” involved with the flu and now COVID-19 shots. Specifically, the team led by Rong Haia Ph.D. and Shou- Wei Ding, Ph.D. characterized a unique live-attenuated RNA virus vaccine, where attenuation resulted from the elimination of the viral RNAi suppressor and enhanced the production of virus- targeting small- interfering RNAs.
The UCR team demonstrates that single-dose immunization with the vaccine just 2 days in advance induced full protection in neonatal and adult mutant mice lacking adaptive immunity. Also, the immunized mutant mice remained protected against lethal challenge for at least 90 days postvaccination.
Human enterovirus- A71, influenza A, and dengue viruses all encode a similar RNAi suppressor, suggesting potential for developing a distinct type of virus vaccine to confer rapid and effective protection in infants and other immune- compromised individuals.
TrialSite this week purchased the study, reviewing below in conjunction with the UCR News media entry.
The Problem
Researchers on an annual basis make attempts to predict the four influenza strains that are most likely to be prevalent during the upcoming flu season. And every year, people line up to get their updated vaccine, hoping the researchers formulated the shot correctly.
Ditto for COVID vaccines: these vaccine products are reformulated to target sub-variants of the most prevalent strains circulating in the U.S.
What’s the Breakthrough?
Based on a recent breakthrough published earlier in the week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the new strategy would eliminate the need to create all these different shots, because it targets a part of the viral genome that is common to all strains of a virus.
“What I want to emphasize about this vaccine strategy is that it is broad,” said UCR virologist and paper author Rong Hai. “It is broadly applicable to any number of viruses, broadly effective against any variant of a virus, and safe for a broad spectrum of people. This could be the universal vaccine that we have been looking for.”
The Novel Vaccine
With traditional vaccines contain either a dead or modified, live version of a particular virus, with these products the body’s immune system recognizes a protein in the virus and mounts an immune response. Eliciting T-cells to attack the virus, thereby inhibiting the spread of the pathogen. It also produces “memory” B-cells that train your immune system to protect you from future attacks.
Interestingly enough, this novel vaccine discovered at UCR uses not mRNA, but actually also a live, modified version of a virus. The difference, however, from others; this novel candidate does not rely on the vaccinated body having this traditional immune response or immune active proteins — which is the reason it can be used by babies whose immune systems are underdeveloped, or people suffering from a disease that overtaxes their immune system. Rather, the experimental vaccine relies on small, silencing RNA molecules.
According to Shouwei Ding, distinguished professor of microbiology at UCR, and lead paper author “A host—person, a mouse, anyone infected— will produce small interfering RNAs as an immune response to viral infection. These RNAi then knock down the virus.”
Jules Bernstein reported on this finding for UCR News, educating that viruses typically generate RNAi response blockers in the form of proteins. According to Ding, “If we make a mutant virus that cannot produce the protein to suppress our RNAi, we can weaken the virus. It can replicate to some level, but then loses the battle to the host RNAi response.” Elaborating on this concept, Ding shared with the UCR reporter, “A virus weakened in this way can be used as a vaccine for boosting our RNAi immune system.”
Validating in Early-Stage Study
When the researchers tested this strategy with a mouse virus called Nodamura, they did it with mutant mice lacking T and B cells. With one vaccine injection, they found the mice were protected from a lethal dose of the unmodified virus for at least 90 days. Note that some studies show nine mouse days are roughly equivalent to one human year.
There are few vaccines suitable for use in babies younger than six months old. However, even newborn mice produce small RNAi molecules, which is why the vaccine protected them as well. UC Riverside has now been issued a US patent on this RNAi vaccine technology.
In 2013, the same research team published a paper showing that flu infections also induce us to produce RNAi molecules. “That’s why our next step is to use this same concept to generate a flu vaccine, so infants can be protected. If we are successful, they’ll no longer have to depend on their mothers’ antibodies,” Ding said.
Their flu vaccine will also likely be delivered in the form of a spray, as many people have an aversion to needles. “Respiratory infections move through the nose, so a spray might be an easier delivery system,” Hai said.
Additionally, the researchers say there is little chance of a virus mutating to avoid this vaccination strategy. “Viruses may mutate in regions not targeted by traditional vaccines. However, we are targeting their whole genome with thousands of small RNAs. They cannot escape this,” Hai said.
Ultimately, the researchers believe they can ‘cut and paste’ this strategy to make a one-and-done vaccine for any number of viruses.
“There are several well-known human pathogens; dengue, SARS, COVID. They all have similar viral functions,” Ding said. “This should be applicable to these viruses in an easy transfer of knowledge.”
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Monday, April 22, 2024
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.”
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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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