Covid News Watch
‘People Should Be Made Aware of Link Between COVID Jab and Heart Problems’ + More
Planet Normal: ‘People Should Be Made Aware of Link Between COVID Jab and Heart Problems’
Vaccines undoubtedly allowed the country to get back to normal after the coronavirus pandemic, but information about potential side effects is not as well publicized as it should be. That’s the view of the Telegraph Science Editor Sarah Knapton, who spoke to columnists Liam Halligan and Allison Pearson on the latest Planet Normal podcast.
“I do think there is some sort of link between heart problems and the jab,” Sarah told the podcast. Sarah said in some cases mRNA vaccines are believed to have caused an issue called “molecular mimicry.”
“When you get a jab, sometimes the body basically mistakes the protein,” she said. “It’s trying to fight proteins in the heart or peptides in the heart … It basically causes autoimmunity and starts battling you rather than the virus.”
Sarah warns there is an “observational link that shows there’s an increase in heart problems, particularly after the mRNA jabs. People should be aware of it and they should be told about it so they can make up their own minds.”
�?Severely Damaged’ and Abandoned: Australian Victims of COVID Vaccine Injuries Feel They Are �?Not Being Heard’ by Australian Government
Thousands of Australians suffering from COVID-19 vaccine injury feel they are “not being heard” or treated fairly by the government. Veteran Liberal MP Russell Broadbent has taken up the case of the thousands of Australians who have experienced an adverse reaction after getting the COVID-19 jab.
He’s met with a number of vaccine injury victims in person, in the hopes he can encourage a better response from the government. “Every one of these vaccine injuries was in strong, healthy, well men and women before they took the vaccine,” Mr. Broadbent said.
Former AMA president Kerryn Phelps is one of many Australians speaking out about vaccine injury in an attempt to ignite a conversation about the vaccine program and response. Dr. Phelps penned a lengthy submission to a parliamentary inquiry into long COVID last year, revealing she and her wife had both been injured after receiving Pfizer jabs.
Launched in December 2021 by the previous government, the COVID-19 vaccine claims system was designed to compensate Australians who had suffered a “moderate to severe impact” following inoculation. Since the compensation scheme was established there have been more than 3,200 claims with only 3% or just 109 being approved. More than 2,480 are still under review while 383 have been refused and 232 have withdrawn.
House Republicans Take Their First Swat at Biden’s COVID Response
Congressional Republicans took their first crack at Biden administration officials over their response to the COVID pandemic during a hearing Wednesday as part of a wider push to use their new power in Washington to probe everything from the actions of the FBI to the business dealings of the president’s son.
The hearing is expected to be the first of many by House Republicans around the pandemic response as well as the origins of the COVID virus. A separate committee also plans to investigate how hundreds of billions of dollars in COVID relief funds were lost to fraud during both the Trump and Biden administrations.
The committee members questioned Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Rochelle Walensky, Food and Drug Administration commissioner Robert Califf and Lawrence A. Tabak, the senior official performing the duties of the director of the National Institutes of Health.
Members are also pursuing investigations into the origins of the virus. A letter sent to the National Institutes of Health earlier this month asked for a range of documents related to the monitoring of biosafety and research practices at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where Republicans have speculated the virus may originate. Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., accused the NIH of stonewalling Congress in its efforts to uncover the origins of the virus during the hearing Wednesday.
An Experimental COVID Treatment Could Be a Promising Alternative to Paxlovid, Study Finds
An experimental COVID-19 antiviral appears to be effective at preventing hospitalizations without some of the downsides of other treatments. A study appearing Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine found that a shot of interferon lambda prevented 51% of hospitalizations among people who have been vaccinated — an already low-risk group and one that hasn’t been proven to benefit from other treatments.
Interferon lambda still has to go through the regulatory approval process, so it’s not available. But the study suggests it could be a viable alternative to authorized treatments like Paxlovid and is superior in some ways. Monoclonal antibodies, which were effective against earlier variants, are no longer working, leaving people who can’t take Paxlovid with fewer options.
Lambda is a type of interferon that has effects specifically in the liver and lungs, not the whole body. This limits side effects seen by other interferons, including flu-like symptoms, body aches and depression, said Dr. David Apelian, interim CEO of Eiger BioPharmaceuticals, which makes interferon lambda and provided it for the study. The company is also testing it against flu and RSV, hoping that eventually, interferon lambda can treat a wide range of respiratory viruses.
Data from the newly published study has been available for nearly a year and Dr. Paul Sax, who directs the division of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and was not involved in the research, said he thought the drug would have been approved long ago. But the Food and Drug Administration determined that the study was not adequate to win authorization and said more data was needed. Eiger has not yet managed to fund another COVID-19 trial.
Drug Companies Face COVID Cliff in 2023 as Sales Set to Plummet
Pharmaceutical companies that made billions from the pandemic over the past two years selling vaccines and treatments are now up against a steep COVID cliff and investor pressure to spend their windfalls wisely.
Western drugmakers including Pfizer Inc. (PFE.N), BioNTech SE (22UAy.DE), Moderna Inc. (MRNA.O), Gilead Sciences Inc (GILD.O), AstraZeneca Plc (AZN.L) and Merck & Co (MRK.N) are estimated to have brought in about $100 billion in revenue from COVID vaccines and treatments in 2022.
These companies are used to steep revenue drops known as patent cliffs that occur when their exclusivities on big-selling drugs expire and generic rivals move in, but they strategize for those swings for years.
Pfizer has been the biggest corporate beneficiary of the pandemic financially, with more than $56 billion in 2022 revenue from the vaccine it developed with German partner BioNTech and from its COVID-19 antiviral treatment Paxlovid.
Big Changes Are Coming to U.S. Healthcare as Pandemic Emergencies Expire
U.S. News & World Report reported:
Americans received unprecedented access to healthcare during the pandemic, including hassle-free public insurance and free tests, treatments and vaccines for COVID-19. Now, they need to prepare for most of that to unwind, experts say.
The change most Americans will notice is an end to free COVID care, starting with testing, experts said. Depending on their insurance status, people will have to pay some or part of the cost of both at-home tests as well as the more comprehensive and accurate COVID tests conducted at doctors’ offices and hospitals.
Eventually, people will also have to start forking over money for COVID vaccines and treatments like Paxlovid.
Australia to Expand Rollout of Fifth COVID Vaccine Shot
Australia will roll out a fifth dose of COVID-19 vaccine later this month to all citizens aged 18 and above who have not contracted coronavirus or been vaccinated in the past six months, Health Minister Mark Butler said on Wednesday.
The decision expands eligibility for the booster shot to include about 14 million people, more than half the country’s population, who will be offered Omicron variant-specific vaccines from Feb. 20, Butler said.
Only severely immuno-compromised people had been recommended to take a fifth dose until now, the advice being to receive the booster three months after their fourth shot.
But there has been a slow uptake of booster shots, with official data showing around 72% having had a third dose and only 44% their fourth one.
No New Variants Emerged From China’s COVID Outbreak, Study Finds
Analysis of COVID-19 cases in Beijing suggests that no new variants emerged from China’s recent outbreak, according to a study published Wednesday.
The Chinese-funded study, which was published in The Lancet, found that of 413 sampled infections in Beijing, all belonged to existing COVID variants. The most common was Omicron subvariants BA.5.2 and BF.7, which together accounted for more than 90% of local infections.
Although the study covered a short period early in the outbreak and the sampling was limited to Beijing, its findings are in line with reports from Italy and other countries that have been testing arrivals from China for COVID and sequencing the results, said Tongai Maponga, a researcher in the Division of Medical Virology at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa.
Quebec Recommends Booster Only to Vulnerable Never Infected With COVID + More
Quebec Recommends Booster Only to Vulnerable Never Infected With COVID
Quebec is changing its vaccine strategy: public health officials are now recommending booster shots only for vulnerable people who have never had COVID-19. Quebec public health director Dr. Luc Boileau made the announcement at a news conference Thursday afternoon.
Public health is recommending only vulnerable individuals who have never had COVID-19 receive a booster shot, six months after their last dose. Healthy individuals do not need another dose this winter or spring, he said.
“What we are seeing in the surveillance data and the effectiveness data is that people who have been infected even though they were infected prior to the Omicron wave, so that’s over a year ago, we still have good protection against hospitalization and mortality,” said Dr. Caroline Quach-Thanh, a pediatrician and microbiologist-infectious disease expert at CHU Sainte-Justine.
She is also the president of the Quebec immunization committee (CIQ), which has a mandate to advise the Health Ministry on vaccination strategies in Quebec.
GP Suspended for Nine Months After Promoting Vitamins and Iodine for COVID
A GP in private practice has been suspended from the U.K. medical register for nine months for promoting dubious treatments, including putting misleading claims about COVID-19 online.
A medical practitioners tribunal heard that Sarah Myhill posted videos and articles on her website during the pandemic, describing “safe nutritional interventions” which she said were “now so well established that vaccination has been rendered irrelevant.”
The tribunal found that Myhill, who practises in Powys, promoted and endorsed the use of high doses of vitamins C and D and the inhalation of iodine through a salt pipe for the treatment of bacterial and viral infections including COVID. She also promoted the use of ivermectin without articulating the risks and sold an iodine preparation on her website.
Laval U Prof Gets Second Suspension for COVID Vax Comments, 4 Months No Pay
A professor at Laval University in Quebec City has been suspended for the second time by the institution for comments he made regarding the risks associated with COVID-19 vaccination in children.
Patrick Provost, a full professor in the Department of Microbiology, Infectious diseases and Immunology at the Faculty of Medicine, said in a statement the suspension is effective from Jan. 23 to May 23 and will be without pay. He says the decision was communicated to him on Jan. 23 in a letter that states he will get fired if found in contravention again.
Provost had been suspended for eight weeks by the university last summer for comments on vaccination he made in December 2021, saying that the risks for children outweigh the benefits.
“Not only are there risks of myocarditis [heart inflammation] and other side effects, but there’s no real benefit to vaccinate children because they are not inclined to develop complications from COVID,” Provost told The Epoch Times in a previous interview.
WHO, CDC Study: Vast Majority of COVID Deaths Among Older Adults
U.S. News & World Report reported:
More than 80% of COVID-19 global deaths during the first two years of the pandemic were among people aged 60 and older, according to a new study from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The trend held true across countries of all economic backgrounds, the report published Thursday found. But older populations in lower and middle income countries experienced the highest mortality rates and accounted for the majority of global COVID-19 death estimates.
The research also found that the median percentage of adults aged 60 and older who had their primary shots was 76% at the end of 2022, which is significantly short of WHO’s goal to have all at-risk populations fully vaccinated.
Three Important Studies Shed Light on Long COVID
One of the most puzzling and concerning aspects of the coronavirus has been the large number of cases in which symptoms persist for months or even years. Three years into the pandemic, we still have lots of questions about the condition known as long COVID: What is it? What causes it? And how common is it really?
A recent paper published in Nature Medicine attempts to divide the spectrum of symptoms into four groups: cardiac and renal abnormalities; sleep and anxiety problems; musculoskeletal and nervous system concerns; and digestive and respiratory system consequences.
It’s also important to investigate the trends in long COVID over time. A second paper, published in the Lancet, shows the incidence of long COVID was lower during the Omicron surge than in the Delta surge. The difference was striking: People who contracted the coronavirus in the Omicron wave were about half as likely to develop post-COVID symptoms compared with those in the Delta wave.
I’ve saved the most illuminating study for last: A nationwide study from Israel, published a few weeks ago in the British Medical Journal, found that among both children and adults who had post-COVID symptoms, most were resolved within a year of diagnosis.
Deer Carry COVID Variants No Longer Seen in People
U.S. News & World Report reported:
While COVID-19 variants Alpha, Gamma and Delta are no longer circulating among humans, they continue to spread in white-tailed deer. The animals are the most abundant large mammal in North America. Scientists aren’t sure whether the deer could act as long-term reservoirs for these obsolete variants.
In a new study, researchers at Cornell University, in Ithaca, NY, collected 5,700 deer lymph node samples from 2020 to 2022 in the state, comparing the genomic sequences of the variants found in deer with sequences of the same variants taken from humans across New York. The investigators found the viruses had mutated in the deer, which suggested the variants had likely been circulating in the animals for many months.
Some of the viruses had up to 80 mutations compared with the human sequences. This provided further evidence that the viruses had likely been circulating in the deer for some time. The virus may have adapted to deer, possibly making it more transmissible among them.
A 2022 study by Diel and others revealed that across five states surveyed in 2021, the COVID-19 virus was found in up to 40% of white-tailed deer. There are 30 million of the animals in the United States. The researchers said more study is needed to confirm whether these variants will disappear in deer over time or spread to other wildlife, such as predators.
China’s CanSino Confident Its mRNA COVID Vaccine as Good as Moderna, Pfizer Shots
CanSino Biologics (6185.HK) Chief Executive Yu Xuefeng said on Friday he was confident his company’s experimental COVID-19 vaccine using messenger RNA (mRNA) technology was as good as shots from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech.
As the COVID-19 pandemic evolves in China after the country abandoned its zero-COVID policy in December, domestic companies like CanSino are racing to develop mRNA COVID vaccines.
The country — which experienced a wave of infections across its 1.4 billion population after the sudden relaxation of COVID restrictions — has so far declined to use mRNA vaccines from abroad, and has yet to approve a domestic one that uses the technology.
In January, CanSino reported “positive” interim data from its experimental COVID-19 mRNA booster vaccine, CS-2034, in a mid-stage clinical trial.
Moderna Booster Vaccine Singled Out for Chronic Hives + More
Moderna Booster Vaccine Singled Out for Chronic Hives — Chronic Spontaneous Urticaria More Frequent When Compared With Pfizer’s mRNA Vaccine
The monovalent Moderna COVID-19 booster vaccine may be associated with an elevated risk for new-onset chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU), or hives lasting more than 6 weeks, according to a Swiss study.
Among people who got an mRNA COVID vaccine booster and had new-onset hives reported to local allergists, 90% had vaccination precede CSU in the canton of Vaud during the study period, as did 81% of patients in the nationwide cohort, reported Yannick Daniel Muller, MD, Ph.D., of the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, and coauthors.
The reason behind the possible association is unclear, and warrants further study, according to the study authors. “As a potential contributing mechanism warranting further investigations, our group previously showed that the Moderna vaccine had a greater association with positive skin and basophil activation tests results compared with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine,” wrote Muller and coauthors.
Merck COVID Drug Linked to New Virus Mutations, Study Says
Merck & Co.’s COVID-19 pill is giving rise to new mutations of the virus in some patients, according to a study that underscores the risk of trying to intentionally alter the pathogen’s genetic code. Some researchers worry the drug may create more contagious or health-threatening variations of COVID, which has killed more than 6.8 million people globally over the past three years.
Mutations linked to the use of Merck’s pill, Lagevrio, have been identified in viral samples taken from dozens of patients, according to a preprint study from researchers in the U.S. and at the Francis Crick Institute, Imperial College London and other U.K. institutions.
Researchers found Lagevrio-induced mutations in small patient clusters, indicating the new versions were spreading among them. While the biggest group they found with similar mutations was 21 people, that may not fully represent the true scope of the problem as viral samples of many patients aren’t analyzed, according to Ryan Hisner, an independent researcher from Indiana who helped write the paper.
The risk of drug-linked mutations is too great to continue using Merck’s drug, Hisner said. The U.S. should explore authorizing drugs used in other countries to control COVID, like Xocova from Japan-based Shionogi & Co., and discontinue the use of Lagevrio, said Michael Lin, a Stanford University antiviral drug researcher who said he consulted with the authors but wasn’t involved in the study.
Pfizer Accused of ‘Obscene’ COVID Profits After Posting Record Revenues
Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has been accused of making an “obscene profit” from the coronavirus pandemic after it posted record revenue of more than $100 billion for 2022, a rise of 23% on the previous year.
The company’s COVID products Comirnaty, an mRNA vaccine and Paxlovid, an oral antiviral, accounted for over $56.7 billion of the company’s worldwide revenue. Sales of the two drugs in the U.S. alone accounted for around $19.3 billion, its January 31 financial results revealed, with the company having an estimated market share of 64 percent for the vaccine in America.
Pfizer‘s net income after expenses was almost $31.4 billion, of which $11 billion will be going directly to shareholders in the form of dividends and share buybacks, it stated. The company said in its financial statement that growth was “driven primarily” by global sales of Paxlovid and a “strong” increase in sales of Comirnaty in “developed markets.”
“Pfizer has made an obscene profit from the pandemic,” Mohga Kamal-Yanni, policy co-lead at the People’s Vaccine Alliance, told Newsweek. “History is littered with egregious examples of pharmaceutical companies exploiting crises for profit, but none have been as lucrative as the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Inside the Secret Government Meeting on COVID Natural Immunity
Four of the highest-ranking U.S. health officials — including Dr. Anthony Fauci — met in secret to discuss whether or not naturally immune people should be exempt from getting COVID-19 vaccines, The Epoch Times can reveal.
The officials brought in four outside experts to discuss whether the protection gained after recovering from COVID-19 — known as natural immunity — should count as one or more vaccine doses.
“There was interest in several people in the administration in hearing basically the opinions of four immunologists in terms of what we thought about … natural infection as contributing to protection against moderate to severe disease, and to what extent that should influence dosing,” Dr. Paul Offit, one of the experts, told The Epoch Times. Offit and another expert took the position that the naturally immune need fewer doses. The other two experts argued natural immunity shouldn’t count as anything.
The discussion did not lead to a change in U.S. vaccination policy, which has never acknowledged post-infection protection. Fauci and the other U.S. officials who heard from the experts have repeatedly downplayed that protection, claiming that it is inferior to vaccine-bestowed immunity. Most studies on the subject indicate the opposite.
U.S. FDA Removes COVID Test Requirements for Pfizer, Merck Pills
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Wednesday removed the need for a positive test for COVID-19 treatments from Pfizer Inc (PFE.N) and Merck & Co Inc (MRK.N).
Pfizer’s Paxlovid and Merck’s Lagevrio pills were given emergency use authorizations in Dec. 2021 for patients with mild-to-moderate COVID who tested positive for the virus, and who were at risk of progressing to severe COVID.
Still, the FDA said the patients should have a current diagnosis of mild-to-moderate COVID infection.
The health regulator said individuals with recent known exposure with signs and symptoms may be diagnosed by their healthcare providers with COVID even if they have a negative test result.
DC Boss James Gunn Shrugs off �?Shazam’ Star Zachary Levi’s Anti-Pfizer Tweet
DC boss James Gunn has addressed a controversial tweet from Zachary Levi that called into question the “Shazam!” star’s position on vaccines.
On Saturday, Levi tweeted “Hardcore agree” in response to someone who asked whether people consider pharmaceutical company Pfizer “a real danger to the world.” Levi’s tweet has since ignited a debate as to whether the onscreen superhero is against corruption in the pharmaceutical industry or Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.
“Actors and filmmakers that I work with are going to say things that I agree with and things that I don’t agree with,” Gunn said Monday during a press event on the Warner Bros. studio lot, according to Variety.
Shortly after raising eyebrows with his anti-Pfizer stance, Levi tweeted a link to a 2009 press release from the Department of Justice announcing that the United States government had reached a $2.3-billion settlement with Pfizer “to resolve criminal and civil liability arising from the illegal promotion of certain pharmaceutical products.”
�?Wouldn’t Do Anything Different’: Dr. Peter McCullough Unbowed After Winning Legal Case
A district judge vindicated Texas cardiologist and outspoken COVID vaccine critic Dr. Peter McCullough on Wednesday, dismissing a lawsuit filed against him approximately two years ago by his former employer Baylor Scott and White Health system.
McCullough, dubbed a prominent purveyor of COVID misinformation by his detractors, was sued by the health system two years ago for allegedly violating a separation agreement and bringing the Baylor Scott and White Health name into the media. Associate Judge Tahira Khan Merritt of the Judicial District Court Dallas County dismissed the suit with prejudice.
“This is a strong victory for freedom of speech and fair balanced publication and media presentation of clinical data as it has emerged over the course of the pandemic crisis,” McCullough told The Daily Wire. “My analyses and conclusions have been accurate, consistent, and have always been my own, not those of any institution.”
Baylor accused McCullough in the $1 million lawsuit of “reputational harm,” stating that McCullough gave several media interviews and was published in journals that mentioned Baylor as an affiliate even though he had parted ways with the employer.
Draft WHO Pandemic Deal Pushes for Equity to Avoid COVID ‘Failure’ Repeat
Governments may have to reserve drugs and vaccines for the World Health Organization to distribute in poorer countries to avoid a repeat of the “catastrophic failure” during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an early draft of a global pandemic agreement.
One of the most concrete proposals in the draft accord reviewed by Reuters on Wednesday includes a measure to reserve 20% of any tests, vaccines or treatments developed for use in poorer countries. The draft also looks set to continue a long-running argument by calling for intellectual property rights to be waived during pandemics, which advocates say would allow for wider access to life-saving drugs and vaccines more quickly.
The pharmaceutical industry is against the move. The draft also retains earlier provisions that could see pharmaceutical companies made to release details of any public contracts for vaccines and treatments during such global health emergencies.
The agreement, which is commonly known as the pandemic treaty, has been drawn up by WHO member states and will now go through a lengthy negotiating process before being finalized.
The Funding Cliff for Student Mental Health
Public school districts that received a windfall of COVID relief funds for mental health services are confronting a new dilemma: How to sustain counseling, screenings, teletherapy and other programs when the money runs out.
Why it matters: The youth mental health crisis is not getting better, and schools are increasingly being pressed into service as first responders amid rising rates of suicidal ideation, overdoses and gun violence.
The big picture: Advocates, researchers and administrators told Axios the schools will be hard-pressed to retain qualified mental health personnel after the funding expires at the end of fiscal 2024.
House Passes Bill to End Coronavirus-Era Telework Policies for Executive Agencies
The House on Wednesday passed a bill that would force executive agencies to end teleworking policies implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic, ordering the entities to revert back to plans in place in 2019. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the sponsor of the bill, called the measure “urgent.”
“The federal workforce needs to get back to work. Federal agencies are falling short on their missions. They are not carrying out their duties; they are failing the American people,” he said.
The number of government employees teleworking increased rapidly amid the pandemic. According to a CBS News review of data and reports from the Office Of Personnel Management (OPM), the number of government employees who teleworked increased from roughly 483,000 in 2018 to more than 1 million by 2021.
Americans Deserve the Truth About the Overcounting of COVID Deaths + More
Americans Deserve the Truth About the Overcounting of COVID Deaths
Los Angeles Daily News reported:
For nearly three years, we have lived under a regime of “health officer orders,” accompanied by piles of data telling us the precise number of “cases” and “deaths due to COVID.” Analytical creations to count “transmission” and “community spread” were formulated to explain the supposed need to impose unprecedented restrictions on the population.
The “emergency,” which was said to be justified by the risk that hospitals would be overwhelmed, has continued for years longer than any credible threat that hospitals might be overwhelmed. Throughout it all, the public was told continuously that people are dying in frightening numbers “due to COVID.”
CNN medical analyst and Washington Post columnist Dr. Leana Wen was one of the most alarmist COVID “experts” throughout the pandemic, consistently arguing for the tightest restrictions on freedom and the nastiest treatment of people who chose not to receive the emergency-use-authorized vaccines. So it was something of a news event when she wrote a recent column titled, “We are overcounting COVID deaths and hospitalizations. That’s a problem.”
Massachusetts took additional measures to determine how many hospitalized patients “with” COVID were there “due to” COVID. The state requires hospitals to report how many COVID-positive patients receive a particular drug, dexamethasone, which is a standard treatment for the type of lung inflammation induced by COVID. The result? Only about 30% of patients hospitalized “with” COVID were hospitalized “for” COVID.
CDC Aware of Reports of �?Debilitating Illnesses’ After COVID Vaccination: Official
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials are aware of reports of long-lasting problems following COVID-19 vaccination, an official recently disclosed. “With respect to reports of people experiencing debilitating illnesses, we are aware of these reports of people experiencing long-lasting health problems following COVID vaccination,” Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, director of the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office, said on Jan. 26.
Shimabukuro was speaking during a Jan. 26 Food and Drug Administration (FDA) meeting that discussed COVID-19 vaccine safety and effectiveness.
Dr. Hayley Gans, a pediatrics professor at Stanford University Medical Center, had asked how federal authorities were tracking problems that have cropped up after vaccination and might not be “amenable” to rapid cycle analysis, or one way of monitoring vaccine safety.
Shimabukuro’s comments are unusual among federal officials, who have been reluctant to connect adverse events with the COVID-19 vaccines. U.S. officials have only acknowledged a handful of serious adverse events as being caused by one or more COVID-19 vaccines.
Vaccine Makers Kept $1.4 Billion in Prepayments for Canceled COVID Shots for the World’s Poor
The New York Times via Yahoo!Finance reported:
As global demand for COVID-19 vaccines dries up, the program responsible for vaccinating the world’s poor has been urgently negotiating to try to get out of its deals with pharmaceutical companies for shots it no longer needs.
Drug companies have so far declined to refund $1.4 billion in advance payments for now-canceled doses, according to confidential documents obtained by The New York Times.
Gavi, the international immunization organization that bought the shots on behalf of the global COVID vaccination program, COVAX, has said little publicly about the costs of canceling the orders. But Gavi’s financial documents show the organization has been trying to stanch the financial damage. If it cannot strike a more favorable agreement with another company, Johnson & Johnson, it could have to pay still more.
The vaccine-makers have brought in more than $13 billion from the shots that have been distributed through COVAX. Under the contracts, the companies are not obligated to return the prepayments Gavi gave them to reserve vaccines that were ultimately canceled.
House Republicans Pass Bill to End COVID Public Health Emergency
House Republicans passed a bill on Tuesday to end the COVID-19 public health emergency, moving ahead with the legislation despite the Biden administration announcing one day earlier that the declaration would end in May.
The legislation — titled the Pandemic is Over Act — passed in a 220-210 party-line vote.
The measure, which stretches two pages, would terminate the COVID-19 public health emergency on the day it is enacted. The Trump administration implemented the declaration in January 2020 and it has remained in place since.
The bill, however, is unlikely to move in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) said the bill would “abruptly and irresponsibly end the COVID-19 public health emergency virtually overnight.”
Pfizer Sees Steep 2023 Fall in COVID Sales, Aims to Bolster Pipeline
Pfizer Inc. (PFE.N) on Tuesday forecast a bigger-than-expected drop in sales of its COVID-19 vaccine and treatment for 2023, intensifying investor concerns over demand for the products as governments cut orders and work through inventories.
Chief Executive Albert Bourla said that 2023 should be a “transition year” for Pfizer’s COVID products, before potentially returning to growth in 2024.
Pfizer’s total annual sales crossed the $100 billion mark for the first time in 2022, driven by the more than $56 billion in sales of its COVID-19 vaccine and Paxlovid antiviral treatment. It expects total 2023 revenue of $67 billion to $71 billion.
The company launched five new products last year and hopes to introduce as many as 14 more over the next year and a half, including a vaccine for the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and an mRNA flu vaccine.
Colorado Doc Put on Probation for Ivermectin Prescriptions — Scott Rollins, MD, and the State Medical Board Reached an Agreement on ‘Unprofessional Conduct’
The Colorado Medical Board put a family medicine physician’s license on probation after he admitted to prescribing ivermectin for COVID-19 without properly informing patients of the drug’s risks or discussing the FDA-approved treatments for the disease.
Scott Rollins, MD, who practices in Grand Junction, and the board reached an agreement on the matter late last month, according to an online records search through the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies’ Division of Professions and Occupations.
The agreement specifically referred to three patients — unnamed and listed as Patients 1-3 — for whom Rollins did not perform or did not document the performance of clinical assessments, and did not discuss or document the discussion of several factors related to the prescription of the antiparasitic drug for the treatment and prevention of COVID.
Rollins’ license was placed on indefinite probation until his successful completion of a medical record-keeping seminar from the Center for Personalized Education for Physicians, which he completed in September 2022, as well as a 6-month follow-up program to be completed within a year of the agreement.
COVID Emergency’s End Will Mean New Costs, Hassles
The White House’s announcement that it will end the COVID-19 public health emergency — and a separate COVID national emergency — on May 11 will mean new costs and more hassles for Americans seeking healthcare.
It will also affect those receiving government nutrition assistance and could make it easier for immigrants to request asylum.
The end of the emergency also reinforces the conclusion President Joe Biden expressed last September, that most Americans have moved on from the pandemic despite the toll of more than a million lives, and that they have accepted the risks that come with the disease.
Many will have to pay for COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatments. People without health insurance will have to pay out of pocket, while those with private plans could see more costs depending on the terms of their insurance. Insurers typically cover the costs of preventive care, such as vaccines, but often charge deductibles or require cost-sharing for drugs.
A Scientist Is Using AI to Design a Nasal Spray That Could Protect Us From the Flu, COVID and Colds
A prominent researcher has designed a nasal spray that he hopes will protect people from getting sick with COVID-19. For him, it’s an early step toward his ultimate goal of crafting a virus-fighting cocktail that could work against several common infections.
The spray, in development by David Baker at the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington, aims to block the SARS-CoV-2 virus from entering cells and activating the immune system in the first place. Baker’s lab plans to start early human testing of the nasal spray later this year to make sure it’s safe and test its efficacy. The lab has reported promising results in mice.
To be clear, Baker’s spray is different from a vaccine. Vaccines stimulate the immune system to recognize and fight off an invading pathogen. Baker’s spray contains proteins designed to stick to the parts of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that it uses to enter human cells, rendering them inert.
The spray will need to prove itself in several successively larger clinical trials before it becomes available more broadly, a process that typically takes years. Even if it wins approval, Baker said there’s not yet a viable business model for this kind of therapeutic — another hurdle that will need to be overcome.
Public Health Emergency for Mpox Officially Ends
The public health emergency for the mpox outbreak that began last year is officially ending as of Tuesday, with the number of reported cases continuing to dwindle and advocacy groups declaring the emergency’s conclusion a victory for the LGBTQ community.
The Biden administration announced in December that it was not expecting to renew the public health emergency (PHE) for mpox, previously referred to as monkeypox, that was first declared in August 2022. The PHE was renewed once in November.
The most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows the seven-day moving average for mpox cases to be three, a steep drop from when cases peaked in August with more than 400 being reported daily on average.
As of the most recent CDC data, about 1.18 million doses of smallpox vaccines were administered during the monkeypox outbreak.
