Are vaccines the light at the end of the tunnel?

[hawkesbaynz]

9 hours ago, cantstopingcruising said:

How did this thing with Bill Gates ever get started?

 I see that Mick Jagger is even mentioning Bill Gates in a song his is doing with David Grohl lampooning the flat earth types.

 

Such a shame about the side-effects about AZ and now J&J. Allegedly the UK has probably saved 10,000 lives through the vaccine program but lost about 4 lives from the side-effects.  Arguably if there was not so much media interest, knee jerk government (not health agency) responses, and in the case of the EU Anglophobia it would have been seen for what it is - very rare side-effects.

 

I believe the UK is now advising the under 30s not to have the AZ on a safety/benefit calculation. Seems reasonable.

 

The fact that AZ is selling their jabs for cost rather than big profits must rankle Big Pharma too (there's me off on a conspiracy theory jaunt).

[TeeRick]

1 hour ago, mayleeman said:

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/52847648

 

A nice review (from last May) by BBC Reality Check of various false vaccine conspiracy theories generated and/or spread by Alex Jones, Roger Stone, a Russian Communist Party official, an Italian pharmacolgist, etc.

It is a sad comment on society that there is always a group of people out there that really believe this stuff.  Enough said.

[Homosassa]

19 hours ago, K.T.B. said:

 

GPS works great, too!  I never get lost going to the bathroom now!

I understand that the chip can be programed for no middle of the night bathroom trips. 

 

I received this information from a message sent by my TV set.

Edited April 14, 2021 by Homosassa

[K.T.B.]

10 hours ago, cantstopingcruising said:

How did this thing with Bill Gates ever get started?

Some people have very big imaginations!

 

And yet these idiots carry around their cellphone 24/7 without a clue that they're already being tracked.  

[K.T.B.]

16 minutes ago, Homosassa said:

I understand that the chip can be programed for no middle of the night bathroom trips. 

 

I received this information from a message sent by my TV set.

 

It's always scary when the smart TV is smarter than us....

 

I, for one, welcome our new electronic overlords. 

[Fouremco]

1 hour ago, 4774Papa said:

https://abc6onyourside.com/news/coronavirus/covid-long-haulers-feel-better-after-vaccine-researchers-looking-into-why

 

Thanks. That's an interesting and positive article.

[D C]

1 hour ago, hawkesbaynz said:

 

Such a shame about the side-effects about AZ and now J&J. Allegedly the UK has probably saved 10,000 lives through the vaccine program but lost about 4 lives from the side-effects.  Arguably if there was not so much media interest, knee jerk government (not health agency) responses, and in the case of the EU Anglophobia it would have been seen for what it is - very rare side-effects.

 

I believe the UK is now advising the under 30s not to have the AZ on a safety/benefit calculation. Seems reasonable.

 

The fact that AZ is selling their jabs for cost rather than big profits must rankle Big Pharma too (there's me off on a conspiracy theory jaunt).

The sad thing is that this pause for an extremely rare condition (if a link is demonstrated) will result in preventable covid deaths. 

[Homosassa]

25 minutes ago, K.T.B. said:

 

It's always scary when the smart TV is smarter than us....

 

I, for one, welcome our new electronic overlords. 

My new user name is 100111010101000001.

[jagoffee]

13 hours ago, nocl said:

The ironic thing is that this actually shows how seriously the FDA takes vaccine safety issues.  That the safety monitoring system works detecting a safety signal with 6 cases out of more than 7 million vaccinations.

I know you have a lot of knowledge about these kind of “things”.  I read that the FDA did not actually halt the J&J vaccine shots. They recommended that the states make a decision to stop.

More false news?  
If it is real true, then why didn’t the FDA make a decision and stop all states from administering the shots and halt the shots?

 

I am not taking a position on whether the shots should have been stopped. Just seems like they are not that serious.  

 

[mayleeman]

1 hour ago, Homosassa said:

 

I received this information from a message sent by my TV set.

 

Once the word gets around, with the huge runup in aluminum foil demand, we need to invest in aluminum futures.

[zap99]

1 hour ago, hawkesbaynz said:

 I see that Mick Jagger is even mentioning Bill Gates in a song his is doing with David Grohl lampooning the flat earth types.

 

Such a shame about the side-effects about AZ and now J&J. Allegedly the UK has probably saved 10,000 lives through the vaccine program but lost about 4 lives from the side-effects.  Arguably if there was not so much media interest, knee jerk government (not health agency) responses, and in the case of the EU Anglophobia it would have been seen for what it is - very rare side-effects.

 

I believe the UK is now advising the under 30s not to have the AZ on a safety/benefit calculation. Seems reasonable.

 

The fact that AZ is selling their jabs for cost rather than big profits must rankle Big Pharma too (there's me off on a conspiracy theory jaunt).

Such a shame. There is a vaccine that can save many,many thousands of lives with a tiny risk of blood clots. Apparently not just limited to the AZ jab. If I was an AZ executive and was making zero profit I would advocate finishing the current contracts and them just stop making it.

[markeb]

5 minutes ago, jagoffee said:

I know you have a lot of knowledge about these kind of “things”.  I read that the FDA did not actually halt the J&J vaccine shots. They recommended that the states make a decision to stop.

More false news?  
If it is real true, then why didn’t the FDA make a decision and stop all states from administering the shots and halt the shots?

 

I am not taking a position on whether the shots should have been stopped. Just seems like they are not that serious.  

 

FDA and CDC jointly recommended a pause. FDA could have suspended use under the EUA, but didn’t. Hard to say why not, but this looks like it could easily be background noise. One report I saw had an incidence of 5 in a million for a background rate; so far this is less than 1 in a million. It’s going to be almost impossible to draw any conclusions on causality with those numbers. 
 

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/joint-cdc-and-fda-statement-johnson-johnson-covid-19-vaccine

[cangelmd]

On 4/13/2021 at 9:30 AM, mimbecky said:

I heard a short informational while driving about Jennifer Doudna and her work with mRna.  I found it fascinating and picked up the book "Code Breaker" by Walter Isaacson. Given that I don't have any sort of science background, it is a tough read but not dry at all and seriously cool.

CodeBreaker is on my “to listen” list.

[cangelmd]

1 hour ago, markeb said:

FDA and CDC jointly recommended a pause. FDA could have suspended use under the EUA, but didn’t. Hard to say why not, but this looks like it could easily be background noise. One report I saw had an incidence of 5 in a million for a background rate; so far this is less than 1 in a million. It’s going to be almost impossible to draw any conclusions on causality with those numbers. 
 

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/joint-cdc-and-fda-statement-johnson-johnson-covid-19-vaccine

I misread all this the first time. With the J and J, they are seeing cavernous sinus or central venous sinus thrombosis, coupled with thrombocytopenia (low platelets). If it was just blood clots, even blood clots with low platelets, I think there would be less concern, but this has the feel of a syndrome. 1/ million blood clots, maybe even small pulmonary emboli, I think are well within background, but venous sinus thrombosis is a little different - harder to diagnose, less common, causes strokes.

[markeb]

2 minutes ago, cangelmd said:

I misread all this the first time. With the J and J, they are seeing cavernous sinus or central venous sinus thrombosis, coupled with thrombocytopenia (low platelets). If it was just blood clots, even blood clots with low platelets, I think there would be less concern, but this has the feel of a syndrome. 1/ million blood clots, maybe even small pulmonary emboli, I think are well within background, but venous sinus thrombosis is a little different - harder to diagnose, less common, causes strokes.

Thanks. I got most of that, but the incidence I saw probably wasn’t as specific as what they’re actually reporting here. But with the incidence as low as it is, and assuming it stays that low, causality is really going to be tough. They could go to age and gender recommendations in the meantime, I suppose?

[NMTraveller]

9 minutes ago, markeb said:

Thanks. I got most of that, but the incidence I saw probably wasn’t as specific as what they’re actually reporting here. But with the incidence as low as it is, and assuming it stays that low, causality is really going to be tough. They could go to age and gender recommendations in the meantime, I suppose?

I wonder if this could be related to dosing in women?  A 240 pound guy gets the same dose as a 120 pound lady?  Your thoughts?

 

Extremely rare nonetheless.

Edited April 14, 2021 by NMTraveller

[markeb]

8 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

I wonder if this could be related to dosing in women?  A 240 pound guy gets the same dose as a 120 pound lady?  Your thoughts?

Curious what cangelmd thinks, but I’m betting physiology, not vaccine mass. Which is why it could be really hard to tease out causality. There’s a concept that temporal association does not equal causation. It may, but it’s hard to ignore this happened after that. 

Edited April 14, 2021 by markeb

[nocl]

2 hours ago, jagoffee said:

I know you have a lot of knowledge about these kind of “things”.  I read that the FDA did not actually halt the J&J vaccine shots. They recommended that the states make a decision to stop.

More false news?  
If it is real true, then why didn’t the FDA make a decision and stop all states from administering the shots and halt the shots?

 

I am not taking a position on whether the shots should have been stopped. Just seems like they are not that serious.  

 

They issued a pause.  That is the regulatory level of action that occurs when there is a safety signal of this kind.  A pause is a recommendation that all use of the product be stopped.  Since the product was not withdrawn a state could continue to use it.  But if they do they face considerably more liability if any body injected during the pause were to develop the problem.

 

For the FDA to force stoppage rather than recommend they would need to withdraw the EUA.  Something that the data does not yet support.  It is a rather rare indication and an investigation is required. I stand behind by comments about showing how closely the FDA look at safety issues. One of the reasons why this was probably triggered is that J&J uses similar technology as AZ.  When one drug in a class has a problem any other drugs in the same class will be scrutinized looking for the same issue.

 

I expect that there will be a label change either restricting the population for which the vaccine is recommended or will result in a warning added to look out for blood clots and not to treat with Hiparin, the normal treatment for clots.  Instead using an alternative therapy.

[nocl]

54 minutes ago, cangelmd said:

I misread all this the first time. With the J and J, they are seeing cavernous sinus or central venous sinus thrombosis, coupled with thrombocytopenia (low platelets). If it was just blood clots, even blood clots with low platelets, I think there would be less concern, but this has the feel of a syndrome. 1/ million blood clots, maybe even small pulmonary emboli, I think are well within background, but venous sinus thrombosis is a little different - harder to diagnose, less common, causes strokes.

From what I have read even more so it seems to be clots related to heparin induced thrombocytopenia.  Which is much lower than just clots or thrombocytopenia related clots.

 

Heparin induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) is a clinicopathological syndrome that occurs when heparin dependent IgG antibodies bind to heparin/platelet factor 4 complexes to activate platelets and produce a hypercoagulable state.

 

https://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.g7566#:~:text=Heparin induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) is,and produce a hypercoagulable state.

 

So it does raise the question as to why the vaccine is causing this immune response in a very few cases.

 

Just as a note in some COVID19 cases there have also been heparin induced thrombocytopenia.

 

I wonder if it has to do with some feature in how the vaccine was built and the portion of the virus used.

[nocl]

2 hours ago, zap99 said:

Such a shame. There is a vaccine that can save many,many thousands of lives with a tiny risk of blood clots. Apparently not just limited to the AZ jab. If I was an AZ executive and was making zero profit I would advocate finishing the current contracts and them just stop making it.

The biggest issue with AZ in not the safety issue but its performance against some of the variants.  However, as the saying goes a vaccine with good effectiveness against some strains is better than no vaccine at all.  For most of the third world the choice is the Chinese vaccine with very poor efficacy in general or AZ with its issues.  

[deadzone1003]

If the blood clot is occurring at a rate of 1 in a million (I think it is much higher), it is unlikely to show up in Phase III trials.  There were about 45,000 participants in the J&J Phase III trials.  Even a rate of 1 in a 100,000 may not show up in Phase III trials as the probability is slightly less than 50%.  I read somewhere the AZ clotting occurred primarily in under-30 category while J&J occurs in females, 16-48.  It is a rare problem but because social media amplifies it to where people become scared of it, instead of being cautious and weighing the risks.  

[zap99]

10 minutes ago, nocl said:

The biggest issue with AZ in not the safety issue but its performance against some of the variants.  However, as the saying goes a vaccine with good effectiveness against some strains is better than no vaccine at all.  For most of the third world the choice is the Chinese vaccine with very poor efficacy in general or AZ with its issues.  

The reason given by EU countries is safety. Plenty of variants floating around in the UK. 50%+ have had one jab and about 15% both. Number of daily deaths is now about 32 and less than 3,000 cases pd. That's about 10% of the European big countries. Efficacy is 90%+. It works fine.

Edited April 14, 2021 by zap99

[nocl]

Just now, zap99 said:

The reason given by EU countries is safety. Plenty of variants floating around in the UK. 50%+ have had on jab and about 15% both. Number of daily deaths is now about 32 and less than 3,000 cases of. That's about 10% of the European big countries. Efficacy is 90%+. It works fine.

Sorry that is not how efficacy is measured.  Efficacy is a point in time measurement in a clinical trial.  The AZ vaccine demonstrated approximately 77% efficacy in its clinical trials with the original strain and with B.117 the UK strain.

 

The clinical trial in South Africa where it encountered B.1.351 (the SA strain) its efficacy was only 10%.

 

As a result South Africa dropped it from its vaccination program.  If B.1.351 were to get wide spread in the UK and other countries that are primarily using the AZ vaccine cases will rise.

 

You will see a booster sometime before the end of the year to address the gap with the current vaccine and address those with mutations similar with B.1.351.

 

As I said above a vaccine effective against some strains is better than none, but it does leave some rather dangerous gaps that will need to be addressed.

 

As far as the regulatory authorities it addresses the strains they are dealing with today, they are working on the solution for the other strains. Publicizing the strain issue will just increase vaccine hesitancy so why publish it.

[zap99]

1 minute ago, nocl said:

Sorry that is not how efficacy is measured.  Efficacy is a point in time measurement in a clinical trial.  The AZ vaccine demonstrated approximately 77% efficacy in its clinical trials with the original strain and with B.117 the UK strain.

 

The clinical trial in South Africa where it encountered B.1.351 (the SA strain) its efficacy was only 10%.

 

As a result South Africa dropped it from its vaccination program.  If B.1.351 were to get wide spread in the UK and other countries that are primarily using the AZ vaccine cases will rise.

 

You will see a booster sometime before the end of the year to address the gap with the current vaccine and address those with mutations similar with B.1.351.

 

As I said above a vaccine effective against some strains is better than none, but it does leave some rather dangerous gaps that will need to be addressed.

 

As far as the regulatory authorities it addresses the strains they are dealing with today, they are working on the solution for the other strains. Publicizing the strain issue will just increase vaccine hesitancy so why publish it.

The UK vaccination programme is ahead of EU. About 50/50 AZ/Pfizer. Our folk have significantly less deaths, so efficacy in the real world is , does it stop folk catching the virus and dying.?

 

[nocl]

12 minutes ago, zap99 said:

The UK vaccination programme is ahead of EU. About 50/50 AZ/Pfizer. Our folk have significantly less deaths, so efficacy in the real world is , does it stop folk catching the virus and dying.?

 

Still misusing efficacy.

 

Efficacy can be defined as the performance of an intervention under ideal and controlled circumstances, whereas effectiveness refers to its performance under 'real-world' conditions

 

Efficacy is defined as (# cases untreated arm - # cases treated arm)/# cases untreated arm

 

A drug can be effective but efficacy has a specific meaning when it comes to drugs and vaccines.

 

Now you could go with the oxford dictionary meaning "

 

"the ability to produce a desired or intended result" but that is a general term not with a numeric qualifier

 

 

Against B.117 and the original strain which is primarily what you have in country - yes it is having benefits.  Against  B.1.351 and similar strains not so much.

Edited April 14, 2021 by nocl