Covid News Watch
Moderna’s Billionaire CEO Draws Criticism for Earning Nearly $400 Million in Stock Options Last Year + More
Moderna’s Billionaire CEO Draws Criticism for Earning Nearly $400 Million in Stock Options Last Year, and Then Getting a Raise on Top of It
Moderna‘s chief executive officer Stéphane Bancel raked in about $393 million in 2022 thanks to stock options and then received a raise on top of it — compensation that’s giving some analysts pause.
In addition to exercising his stock options in 2022, 50-year-old Bancel earned a $1.5 million salary — a 50% jump from 2021, according to securities filings from March. Although Bancel donated $176 million after-tax to charity last year and pledged to continue donating, analysts are still critical of the executive pay at Moderna, the Washington Post reported.
His charitable efforts aren’t enough to curb criticism over his compensation, particularly as the development of the Moderna vaccine was supported by $1.7 billion from taxpayers and the National Institutes of Health.
Sen. Bernie Sanders spoke out against Moderna’s “corporate greed” in a March hearing over the company possibly quadrupling the price of the COVID-19 vaccine. “In the pharmaceutical industry today, we are looking at an unprecedented level of corporate greed, and that is certainly true with Moderna,” Sanders said.
Texas AG Ken Paxton’s COVID Vaccine Investigation Could Stick It to Big Pharma Execs
It’s sickening how much Big Pharma bosses have profited from the COVID-19 pandemic, after overselling billions of people around the world on the wondrous qualities of their vaccines.
Moderna chief executive Stéphane Bancel made nearly $400 million last year on his stock options and still owns a reported $2.8 billion of shares in the company plus his salary and perks. His Pfizer counterpart, Albert Bourla, pocketed a $33 million salary last year, on top of the millions in Pfizer shares he sold.
But before they ride off into the sunset to count their filthy lucre, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton plans to investigate whether their companies misrepresented the efficacy and safety of the vaccines and manipulated vaccine trial data.
On Monday, Paxton will launch an investigation into potential violations of his state’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, he has revealed exclusively in The Post.
He also wants to know whether the pharmaceutical giants engaged in gain-of-function research and misled the public about it. The Texas investigation could have widespread implications for the legal immunity granted to manufacturers of the COVID-19 vaccines and open the door to class-action lawsuits from people injured by the mRNA jabs, amid reports of rare but serious adverse effects.
BioNTech/Pfizer’s Mooted EU Deal for 70 Million COVID Shots Threatens Rivals
A proposed deal between BioNTech/Pfizer and the European Union for about 70 million COVID-19 shots a year until 2026 threatens to push rivals Moderna, Novavax, and Sanofi out of the market, risking the regional prevention of COVID-19 being left to just one product.
The bloc is negotiating an amended deal with Pfizer despite the European public prosecutor opening a criminal investigation into their original agreement. The fresh proposal includes a new provision for member states to pay half price — about €10 — for each canceled dose, according to people close to negotiations, who also confirmed the annual 70 million figure. The newer contract would allow the EU to upgrade to newer vaccines tailored to any future variants, two of those people said.
Poland and some other central European countries are refusing to sign the amended deal because they do not want to pay for canceled doses, according to two of the people. But if these holdouts can be persuaded, a revised deal would highlight the near-monopoly status enjoyed by BioNTech/Pfizer across the bloc.
“If [BioNTech/Pfizer] supply around 70 million doses per year for the next few years, that’s pretty much the totality of the market,” said one person familiar with the negotiations.
AstraZeneca Says New COVID Drug Could Guard Against All Variants of Concern to Date
A replacement for a key COVID-19 antibody drug that has been used to protect immunocompromised Americans could be available within months, executives for drugmaker AstraZeneca said Thursday, after promising early results suggested it may work against “all known variants of concern” to date.
The company’s new experimental drug, currently named AZD3152, is being tested in a trial dubbed “Supernova” with the hope of preventing symptomatic infection in people with weakened immune systems. Results from that study are on track to be out by September, an AstraZeneca spokesperson confirmed to CBS News.
That could tee up a potential emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration to make the drug available by the end of the year when another fall and winter resurgence of COVID-19 is expected.
IN-DEPTH: U.S. Officials Reject Compensation for People Diagnosed With COVID Vaccine Injuries
U.S. authorities rejected multiple people who sought compensation for COVID-19 vaccine injuries, despite diagnoses from doctors, documents show. Letters from U.S. officials reviewed by The Epoch Times show officials contradicting doctors who treated patients as they turned down requests for payment.
Cody Flint, an agricultural pilot, was diagnosed by four doctors with a severe adverse reaction to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. Shortly after being vaccinated, Flint experienced intense head pressure, which led to problems such as perilymphatic fistula, the doctors said.
Flint sent a slew of medical files, including evidence of the diagnoses, to the U.S. Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP), which compensates people who prove they were injured by a COVID-19 shot. But administrators for the program rejected Flint’s application in a denial letter, saying they “did not find the requisite evidence that the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination caused” the conditions from which he suffers.
More than 8,100 applications, as of April 1, have been submitted to the CICP for compensation for a COVID-19 vaccine-induced injury or death. Three hundred and sixty-two in total have been turned down. Just 23 have been accepted. All but two are for a type of heart inflammation called myocarditis or a related condition known as pericarditis, both of which U.S. authorities say are caused by COVID-19 vaccination.
Dr. Fauci on Mistakes Made During the Pandemic: ‘We Have to Get Away From the Blame Game’
Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview this week that people should stop blaming public health officials for mistakes that were made during the pandemic.
CNN’s Christiane Amanpour asked Fauci what he thinks he and the scientific community “got wrong” with the policies that they pushed for and implemented. “What are the real takeaways, the real lessons for public health?” she asked.
“I think we have to get away from the blame game because so many of the things that you have mentioned were unknowns at the time,” Fauci responded. “It’s so easy.”
CDC Set to Stop Tracking Community Levels for COVID
As the nation’s public health emergency expires on May 11, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will stop reporting its color-coded COVID-19 Community Levels as a way to track the spread of the infection.
Instead, the CDC will keep tabs on COVID-19 largely by tracking hospitalizations in some areas, according to a source familiar with the agency’s plans.
This is much the same way the agency tracks other respiratory infections, such as the flu.
Could Long COVID Change Brain Activity?
U.S. News & World Report reported:
Scientists report that brain scans of long COVID patients show abnormal activity in areas related to memory.
The scan results validate the concerns of these patients, who feel like they’re experiencing fatigue, trouble concentrating and memory issues, even though their scores on thinking tests don’t show it.
“We were able to show that even though they were able to do the task — they did everything correctly — the brain was functioning in a way that shows that it’s compensating,” said lead researcher Dr. Linda Chang, a neurologist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. “The brain actually is using different parts of the brain to do the work. That means the normal brain network is not functioning as well.”
Chang and her research team studied this in 29 people who had been infected with COVID about seven months earlier, nine of them were hospitalized for their illness. Each patient had at least one ongoing neuropsychiatric symptom.
Fauci Spins Yarn About How Alleged COVID Lab Outbreak ‘Ain’t a Lab Leak’ + More
Fauci Spins Yarn About How Alleged COVID Lab Outbreak ‘Ain’t a Lab Leak’
A virus breaking out of a lab does not necessarily constitute a “lab leak,” Dr. Anthony Fauci contended in his latest argument in favor of the natural origins theory for COVID.
In a newly published interview with The New York Times, Fauci entertained the notion that COVID did emerge from a lab in Wuhan, China while making the case that such a scenario would affirm his preferred theory of a “natural occurrence,” perhaps at a nearby wet market.
“If it’s not an engineered virus, what actually leaked from the lab?” Fauci said. “If it wasn’t an engineered virus, somebody went out into the field, got infected, came back to the lab and then spread it out to other people. That ain’t a lab leak, strictly speaking. That’s a natural occurrence.”
The comments elicited swift pushback on social media. “Fauci lies even when the facts are in full view and the lies are obvious. He has no shame, and he has no decency,” tweeted Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University.
A One-Stop Shot for Annual Vaccines?
Pharmaceutical companies and public health experts are eyeing ways to make vaccinations more accessible, considering the low uptake of bivalent COVID-19 boosters and annual flu shots. They envision a single jab that could offer yearly protection against respiratory viruses like COVID, the flu and respiratory syncytial virus.
Vaccination uptake for COVID and the flu are subpar: About 20% of adults have received a bivalent booster and less than half of adults got a flu shot this year, according to the CDC.
Advisers to the CDC said there could potentially be annual COVID-19 boosters, similar to the annual flu shot. The natural extension for several companies — including Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax — is to combine the two shots.
The combo candidates are in early- to mid-stage clinical trials. But regulators are interested: Pfizer has received fast-track designation from the FDA, which would speed up the review process; the company is still in the first phase of testing. And, in addition to testing a combo COVID/flu shot, Moderna has a vaccine that would protect against COVID, flu and RSV in early-stage trials. Novavax is conducting Phase II trials of a combo COVID/flu vaccine.
The COVID Public Health Emergency Is Ending: It Now Joins the Ordinary Emergency That Is American Health
In recent months, the Biden Administration has pointed to falling COVID death rates as a sign that the emergency is over. It’s true that COVID deaths have declined from the peaks of more than 3,000 daily deaths in winter 2021. Yet, even as COVID fatalities finally subside to weekly lows under 1,500 per week, COVID is on track to become the 9th leading cause of death in the U.S. Now, with the end of the public health emergency on April 10, COVID has simply joined the ordinary emergency that is American health.
Following the end of the public health emergency, Americans will continue living sicker, shorter lives than our counterparts in other high-income countries. Even before the pandemic, the U.S. spent more on healthcare as a share of its economy while lagging behind most other peer countries in life expectancy, chronic disease burden and preventable deaths. Study after study has revealed unequal access to healthcare — and to the conditions necessary for healthy lives — as the defining features of the American health landscape.
The pandemic made these chasms deeper. Life expectancy in the U.S. has fallen by 2.7 years since the start of the pandemic, reaching the lowest level since 1996, with large disparities by race. Maternal mortality soared in 2021, and racial gaps in maternal health outcomes widened. For the first time in decades, mortality rates among children and adolescents also increased in 2021, with firearms becoming the leading cause of death among youths aged 1 to 19. Though the American pandemic story is tragic, it is also, in a sense, an unremarkable chapter in American public health.
Lessons for the Next One
As the COVID-19 public health emergency enters its final weeks, Washington is still gripped by the debate over how the pandemic started and what the Trump and Biden administrations got wrong. But one thing most can agree on: This won’t be the last time we face off with a deadly pathogen, and we’d better be ready.
That’s the premise of a new report released by the COVID Crisis Group, headed by Philip Zelikow, former executive director of the 9/11 Commission. The group of 34 experts was assembled in 2021 to lay the groundwork for a future COVID commission that never came to be. So they released their findings today, offering a series of lessons about what went wrong — and occasionally right — in America’s pandemic response.
The Final Brick in the Vaccine Efficacy Narrative
Two key bricks seem to have already fallen from the COVID vaccines’ narrative — the one about their fantastic efficacy against infections and the one about their superb safety. However, one stubborn narrative brick seems to stand still, leading many people to believe that the booster doses of the vaccines are capable of providing long-term protection against severe illness and deaths (despite their failure to protect against infections).
But is this brick really that strong? Does the existing scientific literature really support the notion that the two types of protection are independent from each other — that the protection against severe illness and deaths somehow remained high while the protection against infections disappeared?
In our new article in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Dr. Yaffa Shir-Raz, Dr. Shay Zakov, Dr. Peter McCullough, and I aimed to answer these questions from a purely scientific point of view. We conducted a rigorous review of representative data from three types of sources: the original clinical trials by Pfizer and Moderna, the more contemporary studies on the fourth dose of the vaccine and the popular dashboards of pandemic statistics.
Please know that I am not arguing that our article can substitute for a comprehensive systematic review of all the available evidence. However, in scientific discourse, a single “black swan” as termed by Karl Popper — a single negative instance that does not fit in with the theory — may falsify a universal claim; and I promise you that our article portrays numerous such black swans that tear down this last brick of the vaccine efficacy narrative.
Dogs Could Be ‘Patient Zero’ for Virus With Potential to Infect Humans
A bird flu virus that has spread to canines may hop hosts in the future, potentially infecting humans through their pet dogs, according to scientists at China Agricultural University.
Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic gained steam in 2020, more Americans have turned their eyes to the pathology and the origin of viruses, as well as methods to fight infection through vaccines and prevention. Although no dog-to-human infection of the H3N2 avian flu has been detected, the virus is evolving to exhibit new properties that show its potential of infecting other mammals in the future, such as humans.
The scientists published their study in the science journal eLife on April 11. The findings revealed that the virus infecting dogs is descended from H3N2, a type of avian flu. The virus first began affecting dogs nearly 20 years ago in China. It spread to American dogs by 2015. The virus causes mild respiratory symptoms in dogs, such as sneezing, coughing and lethargy. The mortality rate is low, according to VCA Animal Hospitals.
There was no proof of the virus spreading to humans from dogs, but experts believe the virus could mutate further if it continues to become established in dogs. The Independent reported that British scientists interpreted the study as revealing that dogs could be “patient zero” for the virus’s evolution. According to Professor James Wood, who heads the Department of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Cambridge, H3N2 seems to have become a dog-specific virus.
The Ongoing Search for Long COVID Treatments
As the federal government continues to wrestle with a response to long COVID, Food and Drug Administration officials are turning to patients who’ve experimented with unproven treatments for clues about how to manage the condition and design clinical trials.
The big picture: More than three years into the pandemic, there’s still no standard protocol for diagnosing or treating the neurological issues, cognitive difficulties, breathing problems and other health problems that plague millions of people after they fell ill with the virus.
Government efforts have so far yielded little for the more than 20 million Americans experiencing ongoing symptoms, with questions particularly swirling around a $1 billion National Institutes of Health effort called RECOVER, as STAT and Muckrock report.
Zoom in: During a six-hour meeting on Tuesday, patients told FDA officials about months-long waits to get into long COVID clinics and efforts to treat symptoms with old drugs and supplements, most of which aren’t covered by insurance because of the off-label use.
Possible Links Between COVID Shots and Tinnitus Emerge + More
Possible Links Between COVID Shots and Tinnitus Emerge
Thousands of people say they’ve developed tinnitus after they were vaccinated against COVID. While there is no proof yet that the vaccines caused the condition, theories for a possible link have surfaced among researchers.
Shaowen Bao, an associate professor in the physiology department of the College of Medicine at the University of Arizona, Tucson, believes that ongoing inflammation, especially in the brain or spinal cord, may be to blame. Bao, a longtime tinnitus sufferer and a representative of the American Tinnitus Association’s scientific advisory board, has studied tinnitus for more than a decade.
A Facebook group of people who developed tinnitus after getting a COVID vaccine convinced Bao to look into the possible link. He ultimately surveyed 398 of the group’s participants. Along with ringing in their ears, participants reported a range of other symptoms, including headaches, dizziness, vertigo, ear pain, anxiety and depression. Significantly more people first developed tinnitus after the first dose of the vaccine, compared with the second.
As of Sunday, at least 16,183 people had filed complaints with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that they’d developed tinnitus, or ringing in their ears, after receiving a COVID vaccine. The CDC has not, however, made those reviews public, as it did after looking into other possible vaccine side effects, such as inflammation of the heart or myocarditis — frustrating leading vaccine expert Dr. Gregory Poland, founder and director of the Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group in Rochester, Minnesota.
“Why has the CDC not done all of the research that they should do on this and published it?” Poland said. Poland, who was stricken with tinnitus after he received his COVID vaccines two years ago, suggested that the CDC remains “unconcerned” about these reports of tinnitus.
Dentists: Unexplained Pain, Tooth Loss and Bone Problems May Be Linked to COVID Vaccine
Before business owner and busy mom Alana Parker experienced severe oral pain and facial swelling after receiving Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine in 2021, she had good dental health with never so much as a cavity. When her symptoms progressed and an ulcer had grown to the point where the bone was protruding, causing her to lose large fragments of her jawbone, Parker knew she was in serious trouble.
Dr. Amy Hartsfield, a private practice dentist in Homewood, Alabama, obtained her specialization from the American Board of Orofacial Pain and the American Board of Dental Sleep Medicine after practicing 14 years of general dentistry.
Parker isn’t the only patient she’s seen with severe facial pain issues. Since the vaccines were rolled out, Hartsfield has seen an exponential increase in patients with head and facial neurovascular and myofascial pain, including headaches, toothaches not caused by the tooth, osteonecrosis of the jaw, sleep issues, tinnitus, and oral and facial autoimmune conditions.
In her research, Hartsfield discovered an array of health issues the COVID-19 vaccine spike protein can cause, many of which are related to immunity and blood microclots.
Lawmakers Push Back on Chinese Efforts to ‘Interfere’ in COVID Investigation
House lawmakers investigating the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic on Monday called for the Chinese government to make available scientists and military officials to testify in Washington, pushing back on what they said are efforts by China’s embassy to interfere in their probe.
The request was made in a letter exclusively obtained by The Hill. The letter was sent by the chair of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic to China’s Ambassador to the U.S. Qin Gang.
Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), the chair, criticized the embassy as seeking to “interfere” in the investigation, in a letter to committee members sent on April 14 by Li Xiang, a counselor with China’s embassy.
Wenstrup, in his letter, said China’s “interference is unacceptable and will not impede the Select Subcommittee’s efforts. We encourage you to cease and, instead, cooperate with the numerous international investigations into the origins of COVID-19.” He also said China should make at least five Chinese officials connected to the state’s health administration, military and the Wuhan Institute of Virology available to the probe.
Disability Denied: Unable to Work, COVID Long Haulers Face Barriers to Benefits
Marie, who left a corporate job in Missouri after contracting COVID-19 in the first wave and then developing what came to be known as long COVID, received five months of short-term disability through her employer. It was “a lifesaver,” she said. But in 2022, she caught COVID again, and this time it’s taken much longer to recover from the long COVID that followed.
Not knowing when or if she’ll be able to go back to work, Marie (who asked that only her middle name be used for fear of reprisal from the Social Security Administration) began pursuing long-term disability coverage and is also applying for disability coverage through Social Security.
Marie and other COVID “long haulers” must navigate a disability claims system that was already difficult before the pandemic, with sometimes years-long wait times and no clear guidance on how to prove their disability. Long COVID has supercharged those problems for many by adding additional hurdles.
Although the federal government has said that long COVID can be considered a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the healthcare system doesn’t have a clear way to diagnose it. There is no single test to identify long COVID, and not having a positive test of the initial COVID infection can be a barrier to qualifying for disability, long haulers say.
WHO Watching XBB.1.16, Dubbed Arcturus on Social Media, as a Coronavirus Variant of Interest
The World Health Organization has elevated the fast-growing Omicron sublineage XBB.1.16 as a new variant of interest and says it is out-competing the previously dominant XBB.1.5 in many regions.
XBB.1.16 is a descendant of the recombinant XBB, which is a mashup of two BA.2 sublineages. On social media, the variant has been nicknamed Arcturus, like the brightest star in the northern celestial hemisphere. Currently, it is the dominant variant in India, where it is causing a wave of mostly mild illnesses. But it has been spotted in 32 other countries, including the United States.
WHO says that while this variant seems to be spreading faster than previous variants, and escapes immunity — even in people who’ve recently had the XBB.1.5 strain — it does not seem to be causing more severe illness. Therefore, the WHO says the risk from this variant is low.
Last week in the United States, XBB.1.16 accounted for an estimated 10% of COVID-19 cases nationally, up from about 6% the week prior. The XBB.1.5 variant continues to be the dominant cause of new infections in the United States, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Pinkeye Cases Rise in Allergy Season. It Might Be a COVID Symptom, Too.
Pinkeye — an inflamed, itchy and painful eye — is common during allergy season. But now some doctors are concerned the ailment may also be associated with a new coronavirus subvariant.
Health experts say they have not conclusively linked the condition, formally called conjunctivitis, to the subvariant Arcturus. But anecdotal reports suggest the subvariant may produce fever and conjunctivitis, mainly among children.
Pinkeye can be caused by allergies, injury, bacterial infections or viral infections (not just COVID), and can occur in both children and adults.
Medical professionals say although people who are diagnosed with covid do sometimes present with conjunctivitis, it is too early to tell whether there’s a greater chance of pinkeye associated with the new subvariant.
Virtual Communication Left Seniors Feeling Anxious, Depressed During Pandemic, According to Brigham and Women’s Study
Older adults who frequently used technology to connect with friends, family, and healthcare providers during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic reported feeling more anxious and depressed than those who sought in-person visits, according to a new study by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Among Americans over 65, virtual interactions — e-mail, phone, and video calls — were associated with increased mental health concerns, according to the study, which analyzed national survey data and was released earlier this month.
“What we found that makes this a little bit interesting is those that were able to maintain face-to-face connections actually reported less risk,” said Rebecca Robbins, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard and associate scientist at Brigham and Women’s Division of Sleep and Circadian disorders.
Robbins, the study’s lead author, said that while communications technology was heralded as a “panacea” for loneliness during the pandemic, it failed to meet the needs of some older adults unfamiliar with digital platforms. Robbins and other researchers analyzed data from the National Health and Aging Trends Study, an annual home survey of Medicare beneficiaries. The study included a supplemental COVID-19 survey between June and October 2020, from which her team pulled data.
About 20% of those surveyed reported feeling depressed, and 25% reported feeling anxious about the pandemic, according to the study.
Vaccine Uptake Among Children in England Has Fallen Since Start of Pandemic
Vaccination rates have fallen among schoolchildren in England since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, health officials have said, amid a global crisis of confidence in vaccines.
“In recent years, we have seen vaccine uptake fall due to the challenges posed by the pandemic,” said Dr. Vanessa Saliba, a consultant epidemiologist at U.K. Health Security Agency (UKHSA).
Uptake of the jab that protects against the bacteria which lead to meningitis fell significantly last year, the U.K. Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said. The number of youngsters given a shot against polio, diphtheria and tetanus, also known as the three-in-one jab, also fell, it added.
Researchers Detect 2 New SARS-CoV-2 Strains on Polish Mink Farms
Researchers identify two novel SARS-CoV-2 strains most closely related to variants circulating in humans more than 2 years earlier on two mink farms in Poland, the possible result of long-term, undetected circulation in the animals.
SARS-CoV-2 monitoring on Polish mink farms began in May 2020. Starting in December 2021, all Polish mink farms were monitored when mink showed signs of disease or died in higher-than-expected numbers.
On two farms, the researchers uncovered two novel SARS-CoV-2 variants most closely related to the B.1.1.307 strain that circulated in humans in late 2020 and early 2021. The new variants, however, had at least 40 polymorphisms, which the authors said suggests that they originated in an unknown or undetected animal reservoir. The mink did not show symptoms.
The researchers noted that the circulation of SARS-CoV-2 in humans and susceptible wildlife at farms carries the risk of viral spillover and the establishment of novel wildlife reservoirs. “It seems that relying only on passive surveillance in response to symptomatic outbreaks could result in many cases being overlooked,” they wrote.
Doctor Died From Rare Reaction to AstraZeneca COVID Jab, U.K. Coroner Rules + More
Doctor Died From Rare Reaction to AstraZeneca COVID Jab, U.K. Coroner Rules
A doctor died from a rare reaction to the AstraZeneca COVID jab in one of the first rounds of vaccinations, a coroner has ruled. Dr. Stephen Wright, 32, an NHS clinical psychologist and frontline health worker, suffered from a combination of a brainstem infarction, bleed on the brain and vaccine-induced thrombosis, an inquest at London’s Southwark coroner’s court heard.
He was in one of the earliest groups of people to be given the jab and died 10 days after it was administered. The coroner Andrew Harris said it was a “very unusual and deeply tragic case,” but noted that the inquest’s conclusion was not “blaming AstraZeneca.”
The MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency) is currently investigating the small group of people who had a severe reaction to the jab to understand what causes it, though no government decision has been taken based on their findings yet.
Dr. Mark Howard, a consultant pathologist and medical examiner at King’s College Hospital, said scientists and medical experts were not aware of the vaccine’s possible deadly side effects when Wright received the jab as it was so early in its rollout, but even at later stages there would have been no way of predicting this “rare and unintended consequence.”
Moderna Teams Up With IBM to Put AI, Quantum Computing to Work on mRNA Technology Used in Vaccines
Moderna and IBM are teaming up to use generative artificial intelligence and quantum computing to advance mRNA technology, the development at the core of the company’s blockbuster COVID vaccine, the companies announced Thursday.
“We are excited to partner with IBM to develop novel AI models to advance mRNA science, prepare ourselves for the era of quantum computing, and ready our business for these game-changing technologies,” Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said in a statement.
The companies said they signed an agreement for Moderna to access IBM’s quantum computing systems. Those systems could help accelerate Moderna’s discovery and creation of new messenger RNA vaccines and therapies, according to Dr. Dario Gil, director of IBM research.
Under the deal, Moderna’s scientists will also have access to IBM’s generative AI model known as MoLFormer. Generative AI describes algorithms that can be used to create new content based on the data they have been trained on.
The companies said Moderna will use IBM’s model to understand “the characteristics of potential mRNA medicines” and design a new class of vaccines and therapies. The agreement comes as Moderna navigates its post-pandemic boom driven by its mRNA COVID vaccine.
The NIH Has Poured $1 Billion Into Long COVID Research — With Little to Show for It
The federal government has burned through more than $1 billion to study long COVID, an effort to help the millions of Americans who experience brain fog, fatigue and other symptoms after recovering from a coronavirus infection. There’s basically nothing to show for it.
The National Institutes of Health hasn’t signed up a single patient to test any potential treatments — despite a clear mandate from Congress to study them. And the few trials it is planning have already drawn a firestorm of criticism, especially one intervention that experts and advocates say may actually make some patients’ long COVID symptoms worse.
Instead, the NIH spent the majority of its money on broader, observational research that won’t directly bring relief to patients. But it still hasn’t published any findings from the patients who joined that study, almost two years after it started.
There’s no sense of urgency to do more or to speed things up, either. The agency isn’t asking Congress for any more funding for long COVID research, and STAT and MuckRock obtained documents showing the NIH refuses to use its own money to change course.
Patients and researchers have already raised alarms about the glacial pace of the NIH’s early long COVID efforts. But a new investigation from STAT and the nonprofit news organization MuckRock, based on interviews with nearly two dozen government officials, experts, patients, and advocates, and internal NIH correspondence, letters, and public documents, underscores that the NIH hasn’t picked up the pace — instead, the delays have compounded.
People Lost Faith in Childhood Vaccines During COVID Pandemic, UNICEF Says
People all over the world lost confidence in the importance of routine childhood vaccines against killer diseases like measles and polio during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report from UNICEF.
In 52 of the 55 countries surveyed, the public perception of vaccines for children declined between 2019 and 2021, the UN agency said.
The data was a “worrying warning signal” of rising vaccine hesitancy amid misinformation, dwindling trust in governments and political polarization, UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, said.
In countries including Papua New Guinea and South Korea, agreement with the statement “vaccines are important for children” declined by 44%, and by more than a third in Ghana, Senegal and Japan. In the United States, it declined by 13.6 percentage points. In India, China and Mexico, confidence remained broadly the same or increased, the report added.
CDC Signs Off on Additional COVID Booster Doses for Certain People
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its recommendations on the COVID-19 vaccines on Wednesday to allow another dose of the bivalent booster for people who are 65 and older or who have weakened immune systems and who “want the option of added protection” against the coronavirus.
The move aligns with Tuesday’s U.S. Food and Drug Administration actions to allow these groups to get additional booster doses ahead of the fall vaccination campaign. On Wednesday, members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices met to discuss the changes and expressed their support for them, although the committee did not vote.
Monovalent mRNA vaccines, which protect only against the original strain of the coronavirus, will no longer be recommended in the United States, the CDC says. The updated bivalent shots from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech protect against the original strain as well as the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of the Omicron variant.
Why Reports of Period Weirdness After COVID Shots Were Ignored
One day in early 2021, Katie Lee, a former student of mine who is now a professor at Tulane University, sent a message asking if I’d heard anything about heavier or breakthrough bleeding with the coronavirus vaccines. I hadn’t and put her message out of my mind. Two weeks later, I received my first dose, and soon afterward I got my period. I bled so heavily that I was swapping out overnight-strength pads every hour.
I decided to tweet out a query: Has anyone else had changes in their periods since receiving the vaccine? The response was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced on social media. I was bombarded with similar stories. Within a few hours, Lee and I were furiously messaging each other, and soon we developed a survey seeking to explore further whether coronavirus vaccine side effects might extend to changes in periods.
We expected about 500 people to participate — and ended up with more than 165,000 responses. Menstrual changes matter to millions of people, and pharmaceutical companies, medical professionals and politicians need to invest in research and provide incentives for redesigning research so that it accommodates menstruation.
Medical treatments and vaccine trials — for coronavirus and other maladies — will continue to disserve those bodily systems about which they ask no questions. We deserve better than to be surprised when a new treatment makes us bleed on our office chair.
Abbott Labs Shares Pop as Revenue, Earnings Defy Steep Drop in COVID Test Sales
Shares of Abbott Laboratories popped Wednesday after the company’s earnings and revenue topped Wall Street’s expectations, defying a dramatic slowdown in sales of its COVID-19 tests.
The medical-products company posted adjusted earnings per share of $1.03. That’s above the average estimate of 99 cents per share, based on a survey of analysts by Refinitiv. Shares jumped over 7%.
Abbott reported revenue of $9.7 billion for the first quarter, slightly surpassing the Refinitiv estimate of $9.64 billion due to recovery in its medical devices business. But the Chicago-based company noted that revenue decreased by 18.1% from the same period last year, largely driven by a steep decline in global sales of its rapid COVID test.
But Abbott and other drugmakers like Pfizer and Moderna have been bracing for a drop-off in COVID-related sales this year as the world emerges from the pandemic amid slowing demand for blockbuster vaccines and treatments.
Scientists Get Closer to a ‘Universal’ Flu Vaccine
U.S. News & World Report reported:
Researchers are reporting progress on the path to a “universal” flu vaccine — one that would battle all strains of the virus and give the world a weapon against future flu pandemics.
In an early clinical trial, U.S. government scientists found that their experimental flu vaccine was able to coax recipients’ immune systems to produce “cross-reactive” antibodies. That is, they made antibodies against many strains of influenza type A — one of the two major groups of the virus. Experts called the findings promising, in that the vaccine did exactly what you’d want in this early phase of testing.
However, it has not yet been shown to actually protect people from the flu, stressed researcher Sarah Andrews of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ Vaccine Research Center.
She estimated that it could take five to 10 more years of development before if all goes well, the vaccine is ready for the real world. Right now, the available flu vaccines prime the body to fight four flu strains: two type A influenza strains, and two type B.
New White House Plan Aims to Provide Uninsured With Free COVID Vaccines
The Biden administration unveiled Tuesday a $1.1 billion program aimed at providing COVID-19 vaccines and treatments to the uninsured at no cost after the federal supply is exhausted.
The two-part initiative would utilize pharmacies, local health departments and federally supported health centers to provide COVID-19 care, according to a fact sheet distributed by the White House. The funds should support the program through December 2024.
One prong of the new program calls for creating a public-private partnership with local and national pharmacies, which administer the majority of adult COVID-19 vaccinations. The federal government will provide a per-dose payment to the pharmacies to cover the cost of administrating the vaccines and treatments, including the antiviral medications Paxlovid and Lagevrio. Pharmacies can also receive one-time payments for each site that targets areas with low rates of access and vaccination.
