Category: Corona Virus

What Covid Reveals About our Leaders

In this 80th in a series of live discussions with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying (both PhDs in Biology), we discuss the state of the world through an evolutionary lens. In this episode, we once again discuss the “lab leak” hypothesis for the origins of SARS-CoV2, as this week a letter published in Science has helped it gain yet more credibility in mainstream scientific circles. We then discuss ivermectin, a decades-old drug with a well-established history of efficacy against many human pathogens. What is its mechanism of action? What do Covid case rates in Africa, against a background of on-going prophylactic use of ivermectin for other conditions, suggest about its possible efficacy against Covid? Is it safe for children? Also, what does the FDA require of a new drug or treatment to grant Emergency Use Authorization? Does Merck have an opinion on the matter? How about the media? Finally, we discuss cicadas: when they’re coming back, why they do what they do, and why you’re lucky you’re not infected by Cordyceps fungus. Get $15 off your first order at Public Goods at https://www.publicgoods.com/darkhorse or with code DARKHORSE at checkout. Mentioned in this episode: Bloom et al 2021. Investigate the origins of COVID-19. Science 372(6543): 694. https://science.sciencemag.org/conten… Jacobsen, R. 2021. Top researchers are calling for a real investigation into the origin of covid-19. MIT Technology Review, May 13, 2021. https://www.technologyreview.com/2021… DarkHorseLive episode 61, in which we first discussed ivermectin at some length: https://youtu.be/KfbBvvPVFdw Saha, J.K. and Raihan, M.J., 2021. The binding mechanism of ivermectin and levosalbutamol with spike protein of SARS-CoV-2. Structural Chemistry, 1-8: https://link.springer.com/article/10…. Kaur, H., Shekhar, N., Sharma, S., Sarma, P., Prakash, A. and Medhi, B., 2021. Ivermectin as a potential drug for treatment of COVID-19: an in-sync review with clinical and computational attributes. Pharmacological Reports, 1-14: https://link.springer.com/article/10…. Hellwig, M.D. and Maia, A., 2021. A COVID-19 prophylaxis? Lower incidence associated with prophylactic administration of ivermectin. International journal of antimicrobial agents, 57(1): 106248: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science… Guerrero, R., Bravo, L.E., Muñoz, E., Ardila, E.K.G. and Guerrero, E., 2020. COVID-19: The Ivermectin African Enigma. Colombia Médica, 51(4). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33795… Levy, M., Martin, L., Bursztejn, A.C., Chiaverini, C., Miquel, J., Mahé, E., Maruani, A., Boralevi, F. and Groupe de Recherche de la Société Française de Dermatologie Pédiatrique, 2020. Ivermectin safety in infants and children under 15 kg treated for scabies: a multicentric observational study. British Journal of Dermatology, 182(4): 1003-1006. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31344… FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization Guidelines: https://www.fda.gov/media/97321/download Bannister, A. 2021. Don’t mention Ivermectin; it’ll upset the vaccine rollout. BizNews, May 12, 2021: https://www.biznews.com/thought-leade… Merck Statement on Ivermectin use During the COVID-19 Pandemic, February 4, 2021: https://www.merck.com/news/merck-stat… No evidence ivermectin is a miracle drug against COVID-19 – fact-checking by the AP on December 11, 2020: https://apnews.com/article/fact-check… Dr. Pierre Kory testifies before the Senate, December 15, 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28YV8… Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance: https://covid19criticalcare.com YouTube Cancels the U.S. Senate. Washington Post op-ed by Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson on February 2, 2021: https://www.wsj.com/articles/youtube-… Map of periodical cicada emergences: https://cicadas.info/wp-content/uploa… Marshall, D.C. and Cooley, J.R., 2000. Reproductive character displacement and speciation in periodical cicadas, with description of a new species, 13‐year Magicicada neotredecim. Evolution, 54(4): 1313-1325. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/p… Everything you always wanted to know about Magicicada: https://web.archive.org/web/201107200… Lovett, B., Macias, A., Stajich, J.E., Cooley, J., Eilenberg, J., de Fine Licht, H.H. and Kasson, M.T., 2020. Behavioral betrayal: How select fungal parasites enlist living insects to do their bidding. PLoS pathogens, 16(6): 1008598. https://journals.plos.org/plospathoge…SHOW LESS

Reviewing Some Possible Unintended Consequences of the mRNA Vaccines Against COVID-19

https://ijvtpr.com/index.php/IJVTPR/article/view/23/34

International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice & Research:

NOTE – This is a very long & very technical article. Here we give the ABSTRACT, a table of “Unprecedented” issues with the current COVID vaccines, and then titles and snippets from selected major sections of the article itself.

If you have time to read just ONE thing, scroll down to the “Unprecedented” table shown below.

ABSTRACT

Operation Warp Speed brought to market in the United States two mRNA vaccines, produced by Pfizer and Moderna. Interim data suggested high efficacy for both of these vaccines, which helped legitimize Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by the FDA. However, the exceptionally rapid movement of these vaccines through controlled trials and into mass deployment raises multiple safety concerns.

In this review we first describe the technology underlying these vaccines in detail. We then review both components of and the intended biological response to these vaccines, including production of the spike protein itself, and their potential relationship to a wide range of both acute and long-term induced pathologies, such as blood disorders, neurodegenerative diseases and autoimmune diseases.

Among these potential induced pathologies, we discuss the relevance of prion-protein-related amino acid sequences within the spike protein. NOTE – “Prion” based diseases include Mad Cow disease in animals and Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease in humans.

We also present a brief review of studies supporting the potential for spike protein “shedding”, transmission of the protein from a vaccinated to an unvaccinated person, resulting in symptoms induced in the latter. NOTE – This phenomenon is sometimes referred to, optimistically, as a “self-spreading vaccine”.

We finish by addressing a common point of debate, namely, whether or not these vaccines could modify the DNA of those receiving the vaccination. While there are no studies demonstrating definitively that this is happening, we provide a plausible scenario, supported by previously established pathways for transformation and transport of genetic material, whereby injected mRNA could ultimately be incorporated into germ cell DNA for transgenerational transmission.

We conclude with our recommendations regarding surveillance that will help to clarify the long-term effects of these experimental drugs and allow us to better assess the true risk/benefit ratio of these novel technologies.

Unprecedented

Unprecedented. This word has defined so much about 2020 and the pandemic related to SARS-CoV-2. In addition to an unprecedented disease and its global response, COVID-19 also initiated an unprecedented process of vaccine research, production, testing, and public distribution (Shaw,2021).

The sense of urgency around combatting the virus led to the creation, in March 2020, of Operation Warp Speed (OWS), then-President Donald Trump’s program to bring a vaccine against COVID-19 to market as quickly as possible(Jacobs and Armstrong, 2020).

OWS established a few more unprecedented aspects of COVID-19. First, it brought the US Department of Defense into direct collaboration with US health departments with respect to vaccine distribution (Bonsell, 2021).

Second, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) collaborated with the biotechnology company Moderna in bringing an unprecedented type of vaccine against infectious disease to market, one utilizing a technology based on messenger RNA (mRNA) (National Institutes of Health, 2020).

The confluence of these unprecedented events has rapidly brought to public awareness the promise and potential of mRNA vaccines as a new weapon against infectious diseases into the future.

At the same time, events without precedent are, by definition, without a history and context against which to fully assess risks, hoped-for benefits, safety, and long-term viability as a positive contribution to public health.

In this paper we will be briefly reviewing oneparticular aspect of these unprecedented events, namely the development and deployment of mRNA vaccines against the targeted class of infectious diseases under the umbrella of “SARS-CoV-2.”

We believe many of the issues we raise here will be applicable toany future mRNA vaccine that might be produced against other infectious agents, or in applications related to cancer and genetic diseases, while others seem specifically relevant to mRNA vaccines currently being implemented against the subclass of corona viruses. While the promises of this technology have been widely heralded, the objectively assessed risks and safety concerns have received far less detailed attention. It is our intention to review several highly concerning molecular aspects of infectious disease-related mRNA technology, and to correlate these with both documented and potential pathological effects.

Vaccine Development

Development of mRNA vaccines against infectious disease is unprecedented in many ways. In a 2018 publication sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, vaccines were divided into three categories: Simple, Complex, and Unprecedented (Young et al., 2018) …

Technology of mRNA Vaccines

In the early phase of nucleotide-based gene therapy development, there was considerably more effort invested in gene delivery through DNA plasmids rather than through mRNA technology. Two major obstacles for mRNA are its transient nature due to its susceptibility to breakdown by RNAses, as well as its known power to invoke a strong immune response, which interferes with its transcription into protein …

Adjuvants, Polyethylene Glycol, and Anaphylaxis

Adjuvants are vaccine additives intended to “elicit distinctive immunological profiles with regard to the direction, duration, and strength of immune responses” from the vaccines to which they are added (Liang et al., 2020). Alum or other aluminum compounds are most commonly utilized in traditional vaccines, and they elicit a wide range of systemic immune activation pathways as well as stromal cell activation at the site of the injection (Lambrecht et al., 2009; Danielsson & Eriksson, 2021) …

mRNA Vaccines, Spike Proteins, and Antibody-Dependent Enhancement (ADE)

ADE is an immunological phenomenon first described in 1964 (Hawkes et al., 1964). In that publication Hawkes described a set of experiments in which cultures of flavivirus were incubated with avian sera containing high titers of antibodies against those viruses. The unexpected finding was that, with increasingly high dilutions of the antibody-containing sera, cell infectivity was enhanced …

Pathogenic Priming, Multisystem Inflammatory Disease, and Autoimmunity

Pathogenic priming is a concept that is similar in outcome to ADE, but different in the underlying mechanism. We discuss it here as a unique mechanism through which the mRNA vaccines could provoke associated pathologies. In April 2020 an important paper was published regarding the potential for self-reactive antibodies to be generated following exposure to the spike protein and other antigenic epitopes spread over the length of SARS-CoV-2 ….

The Spleen, Platelets and Thrombocytopenia

Dr. Gregory Michael, an obstetrician in Miami Beach, died of a cerebral hemorrhage 16 days after receiving the first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. Within three days of the vaccine, he developed idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), an autoimmune disorder in which the immune cells attack and destroy the platelets …

Spike Protein Toxicity

The picture is now emerging that SARS-CoV-2 has serious effects on the vasculature in multiple organs, including the brain vasculature … In a series of papers, Yuichiro Suzuki in collaboration with other authors presented a strong argument that the spike protein by itself (with NO VIRUS ATTACHED) an cause a signaling response in the vasculature with potentially widespread consequences (Suzuki, 2020; Suzuki et al., 2020; Suzuki et al., 2021; Suzuki and Gychka, 2021) …

A Possible Link to Prion Diseases and Neurodegeneration

Prion diseases are a collection of neurodegenerative diseases that are induced through the misfolding of important bodily proteins, which form toxic oligomers that eventually precipitate out as fibrils causing widespread damage to neurons…The CDC web site on prion diseases states that “prion diseases are usually rapidly progressive and always fatal.”(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2018).