The Playground

    Thanks for the update and glad you are ok. Along the same lines, my recent experience involved my fully vaccinated son in law ( interesting how the word "Fully" precedes the word "Vaccinated" these days but that's a topic for another day ) who got it from his FV co-worker, it then spread it to my FV daughter, my NV wife, didn't touch my NV son, and not really sure about myself (FV). Generally was fever, chills , lack of energy and gastro-intestinal woes but everyone is fine now. I also hope that the omigod is highly contagious and not dangerous to anyone FV or NV

    "Geometric Integration for Particle Accelerators"

    Etienne Forest ´

    Published 24 April 2006


    Abstract

    This paper is a very personal view of the field of geometric integration in

    accelerator physics—a field where often work of the highest quality is buried

    in lost technical notes or even not published; one has only to think of Simon van der Meer Nobel prize work on stochastic cooling—unpublished in any refereed journal. So I reconstructed the relevant history of geometrical integration in accelerator physics as much as I could by talking to collaborators and using my own understanding of the field. The reader should not be too surprised if this

    account is somewhere between history, science and perhaps even fiction.


    PACS numbers: 02.40.Sf, 02.60.Jh, 29.27.−a, 45.20.Jj

    Paxlovid: What people should know about Pfizer’s new COVID treatment medicine


    Paxlovid: What people should know about Pfizer’s new COVID treatment medicine
    Note that views expressed in this opinion article are the writer’s personal views and not necessarily those of TrialSite. More than you get from
    trialsitenews.com



    Note that views expressed in this opinion article are the writer’s personal views and not necessarily those of TrialSite.


    More than you get from mainstream media

    Joel S. Hirschhorn


    The pro-drug industry mainstream media are insanely positive over the newly FDA-approved Pfizer antiviral COVID treatment pills.


    The drug, Paxlovid, received an emergency use authorization by FDA for use in patients 12 years old and up who have tested positive for COVID-19 and are at high risk.


    Now is the time to speak calmly and accurately about Paxlovid. First, everyone should appreciate that there was very little testing of the short- and long-term safety of this product, exactly what happened with COVID vaccines. Really good testing of a new drug should take many months or even years.


    All you get is positive news for this new drug – actually a combination of drugs.


    Here are brief summary statements about this new product:


    It was approved by the FDA without any external meetings, serious reviews of test data or opportunity for public input. Pretty much all the regulatory work was done behind closed doors. Terrific for Pfizer. Bad for the public.


    Of importance, note that in the trials only 21% of people had a comorbidity, while in reality 94% of COVID deaths have at least one comorbidity, and the average number of underlying medical conditions is four.


    As to antiviral science, protease enzymes must be present for the virus to successfully infect by completing the cycle before taking the cell over. Paxlovid or any drug classified as a ‘Protease Inhibitor’ will inhibit or decrease the protease enzyme interfering with the virus. Paxlovid blocks the 3CLPro protease from chopping up the long protein into pieces. The virus can’t separate out which pieces to cut out and assemble. It can’t make copies of itself. The covid infection quickly stops


    Contrary to what the government says, ivermectin is the most successful and proven protease inhibitor in use worldwide. Just as with Paxlovid, ivermectin decreases the protease enzyme but…there are benefits of ivermectin in covid treatment that are not present in Paxlovid. Additional actions of ivermectin include anti-coagulant action and anti-inflammatory actions, both observed in covid infections. And IVM has been safely used for decades and there have been many medical studies as well as clinical results showing its antiviral and anti-inflammatory effectiveness.


    Paxlovid requires combination with an HIV/AIDS drug, Ritonavir, preventing the breakdown of the Paxlovid so it may inhibit or decrease the enzyme interrupting the viral life cycle. Ritonavir acts as a booster for Paxlovid, keeping it active inside a person’s body. Ritonavir also has its own black box warning and side effects include life-threatening liver, pancreas and heart issues. Does the public really want to take an HIV/AIDS drug?


    A course of the treatment is 20 Paxlovid pills and 10 ritonavir pills taken over five days. Taking 6 pills daily can pose challenges for many elderly people in particular.


    According to Pfizer’s press release, for people with proven COVID infection, Paxlovid reduces hospitalization/death by 89% when taken within three days of symptom onset. So in the treatment group there were 5 of 697 hospitalized with no deaths compared to 44/682 hospitalized with 9 subsequent deaths.


    Think about that statement of taking this drug combo within three days of symptom onset. Here are critical problems facing ordinary people: how can you accurately identify COVID symptoms from similar symptoms from the flu or a bad cold; how can you get a fast test; how can you get in touch with your doctor within just a day or two and decide whether you really have COVID (don’t have drug interactions) and if so get a prescription; how can you get the prescription filled quickly? None of these are easy to address and overcome. All this makes this new combo medicine unrealistic and impractical for nearly everyone.


    Also reported was an approximately 10-fold decrease in viral load at day 5, relative to placebo, indicating robust activity against SARS-CoV-2 and representing (supposedly) the strongest viral load reduction reported to date for a COVID-19 oral antiviral agent.


    How interesting it would have been to test the Pfizer drug against an ivermectin protocol.


    For example, how does the Pfizer drug compare with the Dr. George Fareed and Dr. Brian Tyson protocol? Well, Fareed and Tyson had many more patients (about 7,000) taking the drug combo and yet they had fewer hospitalizations (4) and the same number of deaths (0). So, you’re way better off with the Fareed and Tyson protocol. And the safety protocol of IVM after billions of uses globally is far better proven than for the Pfizer product.


    For a good discussion on how IVM compares to Paxlovid, see this article. Especially on scientific evidence of ivermectin’s ability to block 3CL protease.


    In terms of safety, the most common side effects reported during treatment and up to 34 days after the last dose of Paxlovid were dysgeusia (taste disturbance), diarrhea and vomiting. But what more serious side effects may turn up months or years later?


    Paxlovid must not be used with certain other medicines, either because due to its action it may lead to harmful increases in their blood levels, or because conversely some medicines may reduce the activity of Paxlovid itself. The list of medicines that must not be used with Paxlovid is included in the proposed conditions for use. That list includes a very large number of drugs and supplements used by many millions of people, including, for example, Lipitor and St. John’s Wort. Paxlovid must also not be used in patients with severely reduced kidney or liver function.


    Paxlovid is not recommended during pregnancy and in people who can become pregnant and who are not using contraception. Breastfeeding should be interrupted during treatment. These recommendations are because laboratory studies in animals suggest that high doses of Paxlovid may impact the growth of the fetus.


    As to availability, Pfizer CEO Bourla recently said the company can manufacture 80 million courses in 2022, with 30 million available in the first half of the year. That is not enough to serve many millions of Americans coming down with symptoms and a positive test result.


    This too was said, tens of thousands of the pills will ship in the US before the end of 2021 and hundreds of thousands more are expected at the beginning of 2022, a Pfizer spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal. The US government is paying Pfizer $5.3 billion for 10 million treatment courses that will be delivered by the end of next year, according to the paper. Will medical insurance cover $530 per course?


    Always follow the money. A month ago, SVB Leerink analyst Geoffrey Porges projected the drug will generate $24.2 billion in 2022 sales. Together with the company’s megablockbuster COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer could be looking at $50 billion in peak pandemic vaccine and drug sales, Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Louise Chen wrote earlier this month. No surprise that some top Pfizer executives have become billionaires.


    Do you want to do what is right for you, or terrific for Pfizer?

    Quote from RobertBryant

    the one that finds an antivaxxer behind every bush?

    Well it would seem Huxley is correct according to Merriam-Webster update, if you oppose mandates you are an anti Vaxer. Even the meaning has changed during the pandemic!

    SARS-CoV-2 vaccine Alpha and Delta variant breakthrough infections are rare and mild, but happen relative early after vaccination


    SARS-CoV-2 vaccine Alpha and Delta variant breakthrough infections are rare and mild, but happen relative early after vaccination
    Introduction COVID-19 vaccines significantly reduce SARS-CoV-2 (SCoV2)-related hospitalization and mortality in randomized controlled clinical trials, as well…
    www.medrxiv.org


    Abstract

    Introduction COVID-19 vaccines significantly reduce SARS-CoV-2 (SCoV2)-related hospitalization and mortality in randomized controlled clinical trials, as well as in real-world effectiveness against different circulating SCoV2-lineages. However, some vaccine recipients show breakthrough infection and it remains unknown, which host and viral factors contribute to this risk and how many resulted in severe outcomes. Our aim was to identify demographic and clinical risk factors for SCoV2 breakthrough infections and severe disease in fully vaccinated individuals and to compare patient characteristics in breakthrough infections caused by SCoV2 Alpha or Delta variant.


    Methods We conducted an exploratory retrospective case-control study from 28th of December to 25th of October 2021 dominated by the Delta SCoV2 variant. All cases of infection had to be reported by law to the local health authorities. Vaccine recipients’ data was anonymously available from the national Vaccination Monitoring Data Lake and the main local vaccine center. We compared anonymized patients’ characteristics of breakthrough infection (n=492) to two overlapping control groups including all vaccine recipients from the Canton of Basel-City (group 1 n=126’586 and group 2 n=109’382). We also compared patients with breakthrough infection caused by the Alpha to Delta variant. We used different multivariate generalized linear models (GLM).


    Results We found only 492/126’586 (0.39%) vaccine recipients with a breakthrough infection after vaccination during the 10 months observational period. Most cases were asymptomatic or mild (478/492 97.2%) and only very few required hospitalization (14/492, 2.8%). The time to a positive SCoV2 test shows that most breakthrough infections occurred between a few days to about 170 days after full vaccination, with a median of 78 days (interquartile range, IQR 47-124 days). Factors associated with a lower odds for breakthrough infection were: age (OR 0.987, 95%CI 0.983-0.992), previous COVID-19 infection prior to vaccination (OR 0.296, 95%CI 0.117-0.606), and (self-declared) serious side-effects from previous vaccines (OR 0.289, 95%CI 0.033-1.035). Factors associated with a higher odds for breakthrough infection were: vaccination with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine (OR 1.459, 95%CI 1.238-1.612), chronic disease as vaccine indication (OR 2.109, 95%CI 1.692-2.620), and healthcare workers (OR 1.404, 95%CI 1.042-1.860). We did not observe a significantly increased risk for immunosuppressed patients (OR 1.248, 95% CI 0.806-1.849).


    Conclusions Our study shows that breakthrough infections are rare and show mild illness, but that it occurs early after vaccination with more than 50% of cases within 70 to 80 days post-full vaccination. This clearly implies that boost vaccination should be much earlier initiated compared to the currently communicated 180-day threshold. This has important implications especially for risk groups associated with more frequent breakthrough infections such as healthcare workers, and people in high-risk care facilities. Due to changes in the epidemiological dynamic with new variants emerging, continuous monitoring of breakthrough infections is helpful to provide evidence on booster vaccines and patient groups at risk for potential complications.

    Sildenafil for the Treatment of Patients With COVID-19 and Perfusion Mismatch on Subtraction Computed Tomography Angiography: A Pilot, Placebo-Controlled Randomised Trial


    Sildenafil for the Treatment of Patients With COVID-19 and Perfusion Mismatch on Subtraction Computed Tomography Angiography: A Pilot, Placebo-Controlled Randomised Trial


    Abstract

    Background: Severe gas exchange impairment can develop even in initial stages of COVID-19 pneumonia. SARS-CoV-2 seems to affect the regulation of pulmonary perfusion, through a renin-angiotensin system imbalance that occurs as a result of the virus binding to ACE2. Hypoperfusion to areas of well-aerated lung parenchyma results in a ventilation-perfusion mismatch that can be characterized using subtraction computed tomography angiography (sCTA). We aimed to investigate the potential efficacy and safety of oral sildenafil in the treatment of inpatients with COVID-19 that showed perfusion abnormalities in sCTA.


    Methods: This triple-blind, single-centre, placebo-controlled trial, was done at Hospital Naval Almirante Nef, Chile. We enrolled adult patients (>18 years of age) with clinically diagnosed, highly probable or confirmed COVID-19 infection, that were admitted for inpatient treatment, and with a sCTA carried out within 24 hours of admission that showed perfusion abnormalities in areas of well-aerated lung parenchyma. Patients were randomly assigned (1:1) to receive sildenafil (25 mg orally three times a day for seven days) or placebo. The primary endpoint was the change in the ratio between arterial oxygen partial pressure and fractional inspired oxygen (PaO2/FiO2 ratio), and a co-primary endpoint was the change in alveolar-arterial oxygen gradient (A-a gradient), both of which were calculated 1 hour after administration of the intervention on the first day, and on a daily basis during follow-up, using samples from an arterial line in all patients, and analysed using a two-way repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA). Secondary endpoints including intensive care unit admission, the requirement of non-invasive mechanical ventilation or requirement of high-flow nasal cannula, initiation of mechanical ventilation and mortality rates were evaluated using survival analysis with the Kaplan-Meier method and log-rank statistic. The trial is now done. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04489446.


    Findings: Between August 20, 2020 and March 31, 2021, we recruited 20 patients per group. No statistically significant differences in mean PaO2/FiO2 ratios (repeated measures ANOVA p=0·67) and A-a gradients (repeated measures ANOVA p=0·69) were found between study groups. Invasive mechanical ventilation had to be initiated in four patients, all in the placebo arm, showing a statistically significant difference with the sildenafil arm (logrank p=0·04). Patients allocated to the sildenafil arm also showed a significantly shorter median length of stay in the hospital when compared with the placebo group (9 IQR 7-12 days vs 12 IQR 9-21 days, p=0·04).


    Interpretation: Sildenafil treatment decreased the need for initiation of invasive mechanical ventilation and reduced the length of stay in the hospital. However, there were no statistically significant differences in the oxygenation parameter (PaO2/FiO2 ratio and A-a gradient). The improvement in clinically relevant outcomes, without significant differences in specific laboratory outcomes, warrants the conduction of larger trials using sildenafil for the treatment of COVID-19 patients with specific perfusion patterns in sCTA.


    Clinical Trial Registration Details: This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04489446.


    Funding Information: There were no external sources of funding for this investigation.


    Declaration of Interests: We declare no competing interests.


    Ethics Approval Statement: The study was approved by the ethics committee of Hospital Naval Almirante Nef, and by the ethics committee of Universidad Andres Bello, Chile. All patients provided written informed consent before randomisation

    The Wall Street Journal Steps Up and Discusses Fluvoxamine as a Treatment for COVID-19


    The Wall Street Journal Steps Up and Discusses Fluvoxamine as a Treatment for COVID-19
    Note that views expressed in this opinion article are the writer’s personal views and not necessarily those of TrialSite.by Michael B. Goodkin MD,
    trialsitenews.com


    by Michael B. Goodkin MD, FACC


    Yesterday the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published an opinion piece about fluvoxamine for COVID. WSJ Fluvoxamine 12/28/21. Is fluvoxamine the COVID-19 drug we have been waiting for? Authored by Allysia Finley, this important information was already sent to another WSJ reporter a month ago. Since then, the reporting teams conducted due diligence and turned out a great article, cutting to the heart of National Institutes of Health (NIH) mismanagement in not recommending fluvoxamine to treat COVID infected patients. Publishing an article which on no uncertain terms mentioned the obviously proven benefit of fluvoxamine and made no bones about the fact that it should have received an emergency use authorization (EUA) takes some courage, something that has been in short supply among the press during the pandemic.


    You can expect that NIH and Infectious Disease Society of America (ISDA) will again declare the data is insufficient and yet despite being so deep into the pandemic, they’ll argue another large trial is needed. But with a raging pandemic and more than sufficient evidence why would there be such trepidation? The results for this repurposed drug were announced August 6.


    Fluvoxamine could have helped a lot of patients infected with the delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 and moving forward could aid omicron patients. The unvaccinated and children are disproportionately affected. They need treatment. During the pandemic NIH has said it is fine to not treat sick patients with safe drugs that might work, and most physicians have submissively complied–out of fear. The article suggested that even if fluvoxamine does not get an EUA, states can enact laws to protect physicians from the overzealous medical boards, allowing them to prescribe it. Those medical boards accept FDA recommendations as dogma and have been asked to punish not only those who prescribe ivermectin but even those who suggest that it works. We don’t know if those medical boards will accept the obvious evidence that fluvoxamine works and that the FDA was wrong to not recommend it.


    I and many others have written extensively in TrialSite News about how the government has suppressed repurposed drugs, presumably because their success would have prevented a successful vaccine rollout. Hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin and famotidine have been victims.



    Unfortunately for the government, they couldn’t control fluvoxamine because Steve Kirsch’s Early Treatment funded early studies which led to the TOGETHER trial led by Ed Mills at McMaster University. The government did the only thing they could, which was ignore the results. They got their sycophants at IDSA to also come up with a flimsy excuse, saying it should only be used in trials.


    A lot of newspapers were sent important information and updates about fluvoxamine: they did nothing. Many major journals know about the withholding of data associated with fluvoxamine yet remain silent. Why would European Journals not find a reason to aggressively recommend fluvoxamine over lockdowns in Germany and Austria. The major journals and medical organizations also know how badly ivermectin was underdosed in prominent studies in North America and the UK. No one did anything. Fluvoxamine information was sent to Republican senators who could have helped the public, advanced their careers, and used as leverage against entrenched bureaucrats in the federal government. No one did anything.


    The unwillingness of the press and organized medicine to say anything about something so obvious and apparent has emboldened the government health care agencies. It takes a lot of “Chutzpah” to completely ignore a 1497 patient well done, randomized trial which was stopped because the benefit made it unethical to continue. The government, more than likely due to a confluence of factors such as industry influence and ideology suppressed other repurposed drugs positioning that we couldn’t have both treatments and vaccines.


    I hope the actions of the Wall Street Journal will embolden the rest of the press to question the actions of Dr. Anthony Fauci et al. In the meantime, TrialSite will continue to report objectively about research during this pandemic

    Quote from RobertBryant

    the one that finds an antivaxxer behind every bush?

    Not sure who it is that W so persistently says weird things about. And you are so careful in your posting I'm glad to see the above ad hom is atypical.


    Personally I do not find antivaxxers. Never met one. Though friends tell me that they sometimes find posters or whatever with weird antivaxxer messages - I guess whomever puts them up must be an antivaxxer. And at least two unrelated friends have shared with me trouble they have with members of their family who are beguiled by antivaxxer memes and refuse all COVID vaccinations.


    Even so there is a very large amount of disinformation and plain wrong fake science propagated on social media and posted repeatedly here by a number of people.


    And I refer to specific posts as being antivaxxer lies when they are. You cannot have any sort of PC faux balance when people put forward arguments that are just 100% baloney and provably so. It is egregious fallacy of authority to accept uncritically the statements of an expert when (a) they are posting outside their accepted area of expertise and (b) 99% of experts in the correct area say they are wrong and point out precisely why.


    This stuff is not creative, it uses memes that have been around for 30 years and in most cases 100 years. Even though only maybe 0.01% of those with any sort of professional qualification propagate it.


    Let me give you two examples.


    Example 1.

    On using VAERS to estimate deaths caused by COVID vaccines. Steve Kirsch has argued completely erroneously that VAERS shows a high death rate from vaccines. Jeffrey Morris (an expert data scientist) has answered Kirsch's arguments point by point. Kirsch has then replied to Morris's rebuttal. Comparing the rebuttal, and the reply to the rebuttal, even if you don't understand the arguments, you can easily see that Kirsch is avoiding answering Morris's points, and Morris is only avoiding answering a repeated question from Kirsch which logically cannot be answered (it is a variant of "when are you going to stop beating your wife/husband/partner?"). I recommend this to anyone who wants to understand what antivaxxer disinformation is.


    Response to Steve Kirsch's ad hominem attack, and clarifying the key sleight of hand in his argument
    Here I am pulling out an Appendix to a recent blog post that responds to Steve Kirsch's substack post he wrote in response to that blog post, that tries to…
    www.covid-datascience.com


    Example 2.

    On the previous page here W posted (below) an essay from two professionals claiming:

    On COVID vaccines: why they cannot work, and irrefutable evidence of their causative role in deaths after vaccination

    Quote from Wyttenbach

    After 70 section of"vaccine deaths" it is clear that some people that get circulating spike RNA in their blood vessels can die from an autoimmune reaction.

    Lets hope that only a small fraction is affected!https://doctors4covidethics.or…ads/2021/12/end-covax.pdf


    Even if you are not a scientist, when somone claims irrefutable evidence you might be suspicious that they are emphasising this because the underlying argument is in fact refutable.


    This essay is antivaxxer propaganda - I use the words advisedly - and my reasons for thinking that are as follows:


    (1) It targets a key antivaxxer meme - that COVID mRNA vaccines are uniquely dangerous. Now, that might be true, except that the arguments for is it true or not are played out by the many vaccine monitoring groups in every country in the world. They leap on possible side effects (some countries quicker than others). Vaccines are paused or regulations changed in response to evidence. The data on which this surveillance is done is now very large - because so many people have been vaccinated. The arguments for risks and analyses are published, separately, by different nations. Even if you believe (as it seems many do) that the US medical system is profoundly corrupt, you would have to reckon every other nation is similarly corrupt with doctors who are deliberately killing people. I'm inclined to think these things are done reasonably well - in the UK wee have NICE which establishes clinical guidelines for dug use and is accepted as a good way to do this by mots people. It is independent. Similarly our vaccine regulation (and our regulators are a good deal more skeptical about the vaccines than the US regulators). For example here is the EU pharmocovigilance committee. Here is the latest report on the Pfizer vaccine.


    (2) It is an essay self-published by the two authors, which does not engage with any of the other work in the field. It has zero references! I'm not sure how many of you are old enough to realise this: but it is awfully easy for clever people to get things very wrong when looking at fields they are not familiar without bothering to review the work already done. A mistake young researchers typically make. And some people never grow out of it. When making novel and controversial claims it is all the more important to check you have a clue what you are talking about. You don't have to agree with what others think - but you need to show you are aware of it and answer why your analysis is different.


    (3) These guys are not expert in the relevant fields (vaccine safety, RNA-based therapies). From their essay:

    Dr. Bhakdi has spent his life practicing, teaching and researching medical microbiology and infectious
    diseases. He chaired the Institute of Medical Microbiology and Hygiene at the Johannes Gutenberg
    Unversity of Mainz, Germany, from 1990 until his retirement in 2012. He has published over 300
    research articles in the fields of immunology, bacteriology, virology and parasitology, and served from
    1990 to 2012 as Editor-in-Chief of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, one of the first scientific
    journals of this field that was founded by Robert Koch in 1887.
    Dr. Arne Burkhardt is a pathologist who has taught at the Universities of Hamburg, Berne and
    Tübingen. He was invited for visiting professorships/study visits in Japan (Nihon University), the
    United States (Brookhaven National Institute), Korea, Sweden, Malaysia and Turkey. He headed the
    Institute of Pathology in Reutlingen for 18 years. Subsquently, he worked as an independent practicing
    pathologist with consulting contracts with laboratories in the US. Burkhardt has published more than
    150 scientific articles in German and international scientific journals as well as contributions to
    handbooks in German, English and Japanese. Over many years he has audited and certified institutes of
    pathology in Germany


    (4) Now, this is not needed, because they are damned by content, but it adds to the overall picture. They have political views that are strongly antivaxxer. In other words, this essay is not their only unbiassed contribution, they have put forward many disparate arguments all with the same message, and all very far outliers with no support from experts, many of which are easily contradicted:


    Sucharit Bhakdi (สุจริต ภักดี [sut̚˨˩.t͡ɕa˨˩.rit̚˨˩ pʰak̚˦˥.diː˧]; (wikipedia)

    born Sucharit Punyaratabandhu, สุจริต บุณยรัตพันธุ์, 1 November 1946, in Washington, D.C.) is a retired Thai-German microbiologist. In 2020 and 2021 Bhakdi became a prominent source of misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic, claiming that the pandemic was "fake" and that COVID-19 vaccines were going to decimate the world's population.[3][2]


    Arne Burkhardt (https://meduza.io/en/feature/2…-s-coronavirus-propaganda)

    On September 20, 2021, a private clinic in the German city of Reutlingen hosted a “Pathologists’ Conference” that featured three speakers, including Arne Burkhardt, the private clinic’s owner. For roughly three hours, Burkhardt and his colleagues addressed a small audience, describing their study of COVID-19 patients’ biomaterials (though they conducted no autopsies themselves), arguing that supposedly abnormal accumulations of white blood cells in the kidneys and liver indicate that vaccines against the disease “provoke an excessive immune response.” Burkhardt even claimed that analysis under an electron microscope showed that coronavirus vaccines contain “unusually shaped foreign bodies,” likely made of metal. His presentation included a slide that bore the question: “Mikrochips??”

    Journalists at Correctiv have linked Burkhardt and one of his co-presenters to an association called Physicians and Scientists for Health, Freedom, and Democracy, members of which have been caught selling forged medical-mask exemptions. The Pathologists’ Conference itself was possible thanks in part to the Corona Investigative Committee, an organization run by Reiner Fuellmich, whose Grassroots Democratic Party combines fundamentally different marginal political groups in Germany, such as alternative-medicine believers and far-right conspiracy theorists. The German Society of Pathology promptly denounced the “unscientific statements” presented at the Pathologists’ Conference in Reutlingen.

    Most news outlets ignored the event, but there was one notable exception: Russia Today’s German-language edition, which uncritically cited Burkhardt’s dubious research without even mentioning the German Society of Pathology’s objections, until an update added more than a month later. By that time, a study by Meduza shows, a Russian-language translation of the story was already a viral hit among Russian anti-vaccine Telegram channels (including some with nearly 100,000 subscribers) and similar communities on Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki.


    (Easily contradicted here: covid pandemic is fake, vaccines have a connection to microchips)


    (5) This last I hesitate to include here. I am of course not an expert on vaccine adverse effects, nor a medical expert. But then Bukhardt and Bhakdi are not experts either on the topic they write about, and in the essay W thought was important they have overlooked other specific analysis done by experts. I claim one advantage over them - I am willing to look at what others have said.


    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8052499/pdf/main.pdf


    That is what experts, writing in a way that makes sense and shows to an outsider they have done their homework (at lead to some extent) think about the topic of this evidence from autopsies and whether it might be caused by vaccines. They do not exclude possible links and think it is worth being cautious:


    Due to the reported deaths, the authors believe that a general vaccination recommendation for all people over the age of 80 years should be reconsidered critically. In multimorbid patients in a very poor and/or deteriorating general condition in the days before vaccination, the general vaccination reactions and underlying immunological stimulation may be sufficient to lead to decompensation of their underlying diseases and even death. Likewise, the indication for palliative patients should be critically examined in individual cases, as is already recommended in Norway. Multimorbid patients with end-stage disease were not included in phase 3 of the vaccination studies, so that experience can only now be gained for this vulnerable group [9].

    According to a recommendation of the PEI, COVID-19 vaccination can be carried out regularly in the case of existing allergies to food, insect venoms or inhalation allergies. However, a relative contraindication exists in patients with previous vaccination complications with ingredients of the vaccines against COVID-19. In the case of previous vaccination complications, the observation and monitoring time should be extended to 30 min after injection [17]. If an allergy to PEG is suspected, allergological clarification is recommended before vaccination [7]. In addition to this recommendation, the indication for vaccination in elderly and/or severely ill patients should, in the opinion of the authors, be decided on a case-by-case basis if there is a history of allergies with respiratory symptoms (e.g. dyspnea). Before vaccination, the availability of guideline-based therapy (epinephrine, antihistamines) should be checked.

    Following citations we get more (science) on this topic.


    https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/10/24/5876

    Autopsy Findings and Causality Relationship between Death and COVID-19 Vaccination: A Systematic Review


    Greinacher et al. [19] reported six cases of fatal adverse effects after COVID-19 administration, even if only one case is discussed in their report. Limiting the comments to this case, the authors reported a portal-vein thrombosis; moreover, they described thrombi in the splenic and upper mesenteric veins; finally, small thrombi were reported in the infrarenal aorta and both iliac arteries. Finally, autopsy findings revealed cerebral venous thrombosis. This paper described, for the first time, the presence of antibodies against platelet factor 4 (PF4), suggesting a similar pathological mechanism to severe heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT).

    Althaus et al. [20] discussed eight cases of death after ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 administration, although the post-mortem examination was performed in only two cases, as reported in Table 1. The main findings were massive cerebral hemorrhage with edema, and bilateral pulmonary thromboembolism. In both cases, the authors reported the presence of microthrombi on glomeruli. The authors concluded that all patients developed vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT) after the administration of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine ChAdOx1 nCoV-19. This diagnosis was based on the presence of a high antibody titer against PF4. In this paper, the authors suggested that the presence of PF4 antibodies in VITT patients induced a significant increase in procoagulant markers.

    Mauriello et al. [21] presented a fatal case of thromboembolism following administration of the first dose of ChAdOx1 nCOV-19 (AstraZeneca). At autopsy, massive cerebral hemorrhage was found, even if the level of serum anti-PF4 antibodies was undetectable. Based on their report, the authors suggested avoiding the use of ChAdOx1 nCOV-19 vaccine in subjects with a pre-existing condition of thrombocytopenia due to myelodysplasia, such as in the reported case.

    Wieldmann et al. [22] presented a case series of five women with rapid progressive neurological symptoms, cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) with intracerebral hemorrhage and thrombocytopenia, occurring 7/10 days after ChAdOx1 nCOV-19 (AstraZeneca) vaccination. Four of them died and autopsies were performed. The post-mortem findings are very similar in all subjects involved: cerebral hemorrhage with the presence of thrombi at the level of the sinuses. In all cases, the authors reported the presence of anti-PF4 antibodies.

    Bjørnstad-Tuveng et al. [23] discussed a single case of a female healthcare worker who died of intracranial hemorrhage. Moreover, the authors described the presence of small thrombi in the transverse sinus, frontal lobe, and pulmonary artery. In light of the previous studies, the authors performed the anti-PF4 tests confirming the presence of these antibodies.

    Scully et al. [24] reported seven cases, even if the post-mortem examination was performed in only one case, describing evidence of thrombosis in many small vessels located in the lungs, intestine, cerebral veins, and venous sinuses. Moreover, an extensive intracerebral hemorrhage and positivity for the anti-PF4 test were reported.

    Günther et al. [25] described the case of a subject who presented with typical symptoms of VITT, including thrombocytopenia, cerebral venous and sinus thrombosis (CVST), and signs of disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC). The presence of anti-PF4 antibodies was reported. The post-mortem findings confirmed the presence of residual thrombus in the left sinus transversus without evidence in the brain or in other organs.

    Pomara et al. [26] presented two cases (one male and one female) of death after vaccine administration: the presence of extensive cerebral hemorrhages was reported in both cases. Moreover, in one case, portal and mesenteric thromboses with extension into the splenic vein were described, while, in the other case, massive thrombosis of the whole venous tree of the left upper limb extending from the hand to the axillary vein, with symmetric lesions in the veins of the right hand and the right axillary vein, was reported. In both cases, the anti-PF4 test was positive. It is important to note that for the first time the causality WHO algorithm was adopted to determine the direct link between vaccination and a fatal adverse effect [27]. Moreover, the same group suggested inserting autopsy as an essential tool that should be carried out in each suspected case.

    Schneider et al. [28] discussed nine cases occurring at the same time as ChAdOx1 nCOV-19 vaccination: although they did not describe the application of the WHO algorithm to ascertain the causality relationship, the authors excluded it in one case, while they classified another case as “unlikely”, and the other two cases as “very likely”.

    The fatal cases related to the BNT162b2 vaccine administration involved 10 subjects (7 females, 3 males), with an average age of 66.7 ± 20.8.

    Edler et al. [29] described three cases of elderly subjects affected by severe cardiovascular diseases and other comorbidities (see Table 1). All subjects died in the context of these pre-existing conditions, while one case, testing positive at nasopharyngeal swab, developed COVID-19 pneumonia. In this report, it is important to note the pivotal role of autopsy in order to exclude a causality relationship between vaccine administration and death.

    Hansel et al. [30] reported a case of an elderly male subject who had received the first dose of the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. The man was affected by several comorbidities, and although he did not present with any COVID-19-specific symptoms, he tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 before he died. The authors did not confirm the causality relationship.

    Schneider et al. [28] discussed the data of five cases occurring at the same time as BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine administration. Based on pre-existing diseases and post-mortem findings they did not indicate a causal relationship with the vaccination. Only one case was classified as having a “possible” relationship with the vaccine administration.

    Choi et al. [31] described a particular myocarditis related to the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, identifying histological differences from viral or immune-mediated myocarditis: indeed, the authors reported that the inflammatory infiltrates were predominantly neutrophils and histiocytes, rather than lymphocytes.

    The fatal cases related to mRNA-1273 vaccine administration involved four subjects (two females, two males), with an average age of 68 ± 22.5.

    Verma et al. [32] reported the first fatal case after mRNA-1273 vaccination: this is the first case related to the second rather than the first dose.

    Schneider et al. [28] described three cases: the authors concluded that there was no relationship between death and vaccine administration based on the autopsy findings combined with pre-existing diseases.

    The same authors reported one case related to the Ad26.COV2.S (Janssen) vaccine, reporting a possible causality relationship based on post-mortem findings. Similarly, Choi et al. [33] reported the fatal case of a subject who died two days after Ad26.COV2.S (Janssen) vaccination. Although the patient suffered from multiple myeloma diagnosed 1.5 years before, the cause of death was identified as fatal systemic capillary leak syndrome possible related to COVID-19 vaccination.


    Vaccination plays a key role in the pandemic war, representing a crucial measure of infection control [34,35]. At the time of writing, COVID-19 cases are sweeping Europe once again, particularly in those countries with a low rate of vaccination.


    The first requirement is to ensure thorough, up-to-date, correct, and complete information on vaccines. In particular, their side effects must be publicized, including all useful information needed to interpret this properly in context [35]. Of course, in the case of the COVID-19 vaccination, the necessity of a promptly available vaccine has led to some adverse effects not being completely known. Although the rate of severe adverse effects is very low, it is important to highlight that in the first phase of vaccination, the package leaflet of each vaccine and the relative informed consent did not contain the unknown adverse effects that were added only after the first cases of severe adverse effects. It is important to remark that a pharmacovigilance system is mandatory after each drug approval, monitoring all suspected adverse reactions [14].


    Based on the discussed data, a causality relationship between vaccine administration and death was demonstrated in 13 cases of ChAdOx1 nCOV-19 (AstraZeneca) vaccination, while it was excluded in the other 6 cases; in two cases the relationship was classified as “very likely”, and in the last one as “unlikely”. As concerns BNT162B2, of the ten cases reported in the literature, the causality relationship was established in one case, while in another case it was defined as “possible”. Finally, the causality relationship was established in one case of mRNA-1273 vaccination and classified as “possible” in the two cases related to the Ad26.COV2.S (Janssen) vaccine. As recently noted in a review published by Sharifian-Dorche et al. [36], other severe adverse effects have been described related to other authorized vaccines.


    Analyzing the international data, it has been reported that both vaccines based on the adenoviral-based vector (ChAdOx1 nCov-19 and Ad26.COV2.S Janssen) can cause similar adverse reactions, generating severe adverse effects such as thrombocytopenia and thrombosis in atypical locations (cerebral and/or splanchnic veins) in healthy subjects a few days following vaccination. Based on the data obtained through this literature review, these symptoms appeared 8.6 ± 4.1 days after vaccine administration. All included cases were related to the first dose administration. Nevertheless, these severe adverse effects are extremely rare: 3 to 10 cases per million. Similar complications are lower for the two messenger RNA (mRNA)-based vaccines (BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273): severe adverse effects have been estimated to occur in 0.8 to 1 case per million [37].



    (6) My point is that with a bit of time and effort, anyone can look up the science and evaluate it. There will always be a debate, and possible risks of vaccines need to be considered, as well as any new types of evidence. To be highlighting obviously poor and incomplete essays from non-experts who speak at political antivaxxer conferences, rather than the full breadth of scientific debate, leads to completely biassed and eroneous conclusions.


    W (and probably a few others here) by highlighting this political stuff masquerading as science without context, is propagating antivaxxer memes.


    I am aware that such memes have some popularity here, and that my explanations of why they are not good science are not popular (I guess most might see this as me feeding the trolls, and those who don't bother to read the details think I am claiming to be more of an expert than these antivaxxer non-experts. Quite the opposite - the difference is I know I am not an expert, and am not afraid to look at the expert work as a whole).


    That is what it is. Still, I am interested in how a suspicious (yes, skeptical) observer of this stuff can determine who to believe and why. I hope the above shows why my comments on these "antivaxxer meme" issues are so strong. I don't write it up in this detail very much because it would take time and be (to me and I suspect everyone else) pretty boring and duplicative.


    Aantivaxxers under every bush? I have no idea what motivates W etc. It is a complete mystery to me. So I cannot call them antivaxxers. However I can say with proof that most of what they post on this thread is antivaxxer propaganda - and I wish they would be a bit more critical. I believe anyone who reflected on what they were posting would not want to post such obviously misleading stuff.


    Have a happy New Year, free from undue bias due to bombardment with antivaxxer memes,


    THH


    PS - my attention to this stuff perhaps reflects certain OCD aspects of my personality. I'm pretty sure I'm not myself on the Autistic spectrum (clinically) but I have a lot of time for those who are. I think this aspect of my personality: otherwise known as "flogging a dead horse" might explain that fellow feeling.


    Anyway. I don't care. Politic or not, when people post stuff that is obviously just wrong, and support it with arguments so poor as to be basically indistinguishable from lies, AND when this stuff matters to people's important life decisions, like whether to get vaccinated from COVID, I will spend some of my free time putting the contrary views so everyone here can judge for themselves.

    Quote from Fm1

    Well it would seem Huxley is correct according to Merriam-Webster update, if you oppose mandates you are an anti Vaxer. Even the meaning has changed during the pandemic!

    I won't go by dictionary definitions. Although an unconditional opposition to mandates - in any society where rules exist for safety and exactly how many is politics - is surely such an extreme ideological view as to be obviously wrong the same way antivaxxer memes are.


    And for what I consider antivaxxer, and why, see my post above.


    THH

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    (3) These guys are not expert in the relevant fields (vaccine safety, RNA-based therapies).

    Top clown post of the year!


    For doing a section you must be a RNA specialist... Doing sections on vaccine deaths is illegal and anti vaxx....


    I can only explain such comments by total loss of any morality after 3x RNA jabs damaging most important areas of a clown brain...

    Quote from Wyttenbach

    Top clown

    Thanks for the compliment. Not merited, but I'll take it all the same!


    Wikipedia on Shakesperean Fool (or clown):


    As Shakespeare's fools speak truth to the other characters, they also speak truth to the audience. For example, Feste, in Twelfth Night, first introduces a central theme with his song to Olivia:


    What is love? ’tis not hereafter,

    Present mirth hath present laughter;

    What’s to come is still unsure:

    In delay there lies no plenty,

    —Then come kiss me, Sweet-and-twenty,

    Youth’s a stuff will not endure. (II.iii.52).


    Shakespeare closes the play with Feste alone on the stage, singing directly to the audience "of man's inexorable progress from childhood's holiday realm ... into age, vice, disillusionment, and death. ... [This] pessimism is informed and sweetened, however, not only by the music to which it is set, but by the tolerance and acceptance of Feste himself."[8]

    Good detailed blog post from paediatrician mostly I agree with:


    I Disagree With an Article Called “Vaccines Save Lives”
    A good title to a bad essayDr. Martin Kulldorff, one of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD), recently penned an article for his new employer,…
    sciencebasedmedicine.org


    Worth reading for the arguments around child COVID vaccination.


    Notably, I’ve never read an essay against vaccinating children where the author even attempted to educate their readers about the basic facts I’ve outlined above. I know I talk about this a lot, but here’s why I think this is so important. These doctors know that presenting all the data in a thorough and nuanced manner makes an incredibly strong case to vaccinate children against COVID-19, and so they conceal the facts and treat “mild” and temporary myocarditis from the vaccine as a fate worse than death from the virus. No semi-rational author could include all the relevant facts and still conclude that it’s a bad idea to vaccinate children. I challenge Dr. Kulldorff or anyone else to write such an article, including all the above facts, and prove me wrong.


    I have no idea what might lead intelligent doctors to omit crucial information, spread disinformation, and make fallacious arguments to obscure the fact that COVID-19 vaccines can save children’s lives, especially in an article titled “Vaccines Save Lives”. Certainly, there was nothing I saw in the GBD to suggest the authors would be against vaccinating children.


    However, I would speculate that Dr. Kulldorff knows that honestly presenting the facts would undermine the rationale behind the GBD, which divided people into “vulnerable” and “not vulnerable” categories. Acknowledging that COVID-19 significantly impacted, even killed, a large number of people in the “not vulnerable” group would mean Dr. Kulldorff might have to consider that its most basic premise was flawed. If he recognizes that it’s important to protect children with the vaccine today, it would be a tacit admission that maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to purposefully expose them to the virus in the past.


    For contrarian doctors anchored to their ideas and sheltered from their consequences, it’s easier to erase 1,000 dead children, ignore overwhelmed pediatricians, and disparage an effective vaccine than to consider they could have been wrong. How sad.

    The Great Barrington Declaration Was Silenced. So Why are They Silencing Me?
    An Introduction to the Great Barrington DeclarationThe main premise behind the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) was that people who were "not vulnerable" to…
    sciencebasedmedicine.org


    Fun:


    I couldn’t agree more. As long as a policy memo is signed by a large number of people, the NIH director is obligated to use his pulpit to give its ideas and authors a megaphone, regardless of the memo’s contents. After all, some of its distinguished signatories included “Dr Johnny Bananas” and “Professor Cominic Dummings,” who are absolutely real people.

    South Africa:

    cases:: https://www.worldometers.info/…rus/country/south-africa/

    Hospital :: https://www.nicd.ac.za/disease…rveillance-datcov-report/


    The case peak is already > 50% below top. But the hospitalizations usually follow 2-3 weeks later and so it does still moderately increase. The hospital wave thus is way more flat and the more young people are admitted the longer the peak will last as death is much more rare than after alpha (10x)/Delta(6x). Deaths are just now on top peak and will end up with about 70/day what is 6x lower in absolute numbers but more than 10x lower in cases numbers.

    The arguments over vaccine mandates are interesting and I find myself on the fence. Not because I think "individual rights" are breached by requirements to get vaccinated in certain jobs, or to enter certain public areas. But because I am unsure when vaccine mandates help reduce vaccine hesitancy and increase overall safety. Whether they do or not depends on a whole load of behavioural science (= we don't really know).


    Here is a discussion of the Alice-in-Wonderland-like US politics on vaccine mandates, from a pro-mandate viewpoint.


    I just think politicians should be honest (on both sides).


    • Vaccine mandates are about reducing vaccine hesitancy, which is good for society in reducing pressure on health systems (primarily).
    • They can also help the economy if people feel more comfortable going places where they know others are vaccinated.
    • They can also reduce (no way eliminate) risks of COVID infection in sensitive places - Care homes, Hospitals


    Florida Surgeon General declares single positive COVID test proves immunity forever
    Once again defying the science, Florida's new Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, recently issued an "emergency" rule basically declaring that a single…
    sciencebasedmedicine.org


    Some fun (well, also were I a Florida citizen deeply worrying) blatantly political stuff (which I know you get on both sides):


    Before we move on, let me update you on Dr. Ladapo’s tenure as Florida’s Surgeon General, as he’s been in the news near-continuously since he was introduced to SBM readers in September, where his casting doubt on vaccines, cheerleading for hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, spreading misinformation about masks, and dumpster-diving in VAERS was reported. Since then, Dr. Ladapo has packed quite a bit of controversy into less than four months in office. Dr. Ladapo

    • got his Florida medical license in record time (two days) and then had a complaint filed against him with the medical board speedily dismissed;
    • was awarded an annual salary of $437,000 (the highest ever paid), including tens of thousands of dollars from the University of Florida’s medical school, where he was also hired, and given tenure, in record time (for teaching and research) on the suggestion of a wealthy DeSantis donor, although the press reports that Dr. Ladapo has yet to show up for work there;
    • continued to spread misinformation;
    • been kicked out of a state Senator’s office for refusing her request to wear a mask due to what she described to him as a “serious condition”, later identified as breast cancer, for which she was undergoing treatment. He has yet to apologize, instead making up a lame excuse about not be able to “communicate” while wearing a mask; and
    • starred in a PSA that barely mentioned vaccines, left out testing and mask wearing altogether, yet promoted treatments of questionable effectiveness (again).

    With that, let’s turn to the exemptions to private employer vaccine mandates created by the legislature and Dr. Ladapo’s new rules implementing those exemptions.



    THH


    Steve Hirsch is a very reliable source of antivaxxer disinformation. This one, about the equivalence of Ivermectin and Paxlovid as protease inhibitors, is a particularly obvious lie.


    TSN - as a journalistic site - is allowed bias and allowed not to understand the 3rd party stuff it publishes. It is misleading in that it sort of seems to be reporting science - when half the time as here it is reporting propaganda of an easily disproved (scientifically) type:


    How Does Pfizer's Paxlovid Compare With Ivermectin?
    A new rumor claims that Paxlovid, Pfizer's Covid drug, is merely a "dressed up" ivermectin molecule with little difference other than price. The term…
    www.acsh.org


    To be able to compare ivermectin and PF-07321332 we need to look at two pharmacological measurements. One is the IC50– the half-maximal inhibitory concentration, which is the concentration at which either a biological process (such as viral replication), or enzymatic reaction within a cell, is inhibited by half. The other is Cmax – a measure of the highest attainable blood levels of a drug after it is administered. They are intimately connected.

    IC50 is sometimes called the EC50 (effective concentration 50%). They are similar, but not identical. (3). When IC50 /EC50 values are high it means that more drug will be required to inhibit the process in question (a low potency drug). Conversely, when the IC50 is low it means that the drug is more potent and less drug will be needed. Good drugs generally have low IC50 values. It's one of the most important parameters in antiviral drug discovery – something I did for 10 years.

    Below is a table which can be used as a rough, descriptive guide of a range of potencies and the probability of whether a compound of a given potency has a reasonable chance of being "strong" enough to be a useful drug. Values are approximate:


    Yes and it's easier for you to ignore the suffering of some as just a stat! A little lacking in moral integrity if you ask me, but you go have some fun!


    Mom details 12-year-old daughter's extreme reactions to COVID vaccine, says she’s now in wheelchair

    Mom details 12-year-old daughter's extreme reactions to COVID vaccine, says she’s now in wheelchair
    An Ohio mother is speaking out about her 12-year-old daughter who suffered from extreme reactions and nearly died after volunteering for the Pfizer coronavirus…
    www.foxnews.com

    The immunity after an infection lasts "live long" but not after a PCR+ test with 50% fake positive...


    Immunity after novel gene therapy lasts between 0..120 days depending on vaccine/age/precondition.


    Infection protection is sterile, what gene therapy (RNA vaccines..) never can achieve.


    What gene therapy does is - it enhances the inner protection, what is not called immunity. So by the classical definition it is not a vaccine. But to be fair the pertussis vaccine is as bad too...

    So gene/ immune therapy is about enhancing the body defense not about avoiding getting sick. It's avoiding getting really sick.


    But you can get there more easily and risk free with the totally safe 99.99% and guaranteed early IVR+ treatment. With today's gene therapy you have a high chance of permanent damage. This therapy (e.g. Pfizer) did not undergo any required test. Side effects are at least 1000x worse than from the worst known vaccine.


    So lets sum up. Only idiots die/cripple from CoV-19 or a CoV-19 gene therapy where I think the later are the greater...

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