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Women Said COVID Shots Affect Periods. A New Study Shows They’re Right.

The Washington Post reported:

Not long after the rollout of coronavirus vaccines last year, women around the country began posting on social media about what they believed was a strange side effect: changes to their periods.

Now, new research shows that many of the complaints were valid. A study of nearly 20,000 people around the world shows that getting vaccinated against COVID can change the timing of the menstrual cycle. Overall, vaccinated people experienced, on average, about a one-day delay in getting their periods, compared with those who hadn’t been vaccinated.

The data, published Tuesday in the British Medical Journal, was taken from a popular period tracking app called Natural Cycles and included people from around the world, but most were from North America, Britain and Europe. The researchers used “de-identified” data from the app to compare menstrual cycles among 14,936 participants who were vaccinated and 4,686 who were not.

Researchers don’t know exactly why the vaccines seem to affect menstrual cycles, but Alison Edelman, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Oregon Health & Science University, who led the study, said that the immune and reproductive systems are linked and that inflammation or a strong immune response could trigger menstrual fluctuation.

Any change in getting your period can be stressful, triggering worries about an unplanned pregnancy or a health scare, and people have expressed frustration that public health officials didn’t warn them about a possible side effect or do more research before rolling out the vaccines.

Study Tries to See if Child Vaccines and Asthma Are Linked

Associated Press reported:

A number of scientists have wondered if aluminum, a vaccine additive that has been used for decades, had a role in allergies and asthma in children.

A new federally funded study has found a possible link, but experts say the research has important shortcomings and is not a reason to change current vaccine recommendations. The study doesn’t claim aluminum causes the breathing condition, and officials say more work is needed to try to confirm any connection, which hadn’t been seen in earlier research.

The study, released Tuesday, suggests that young children who were vaccinated with most or all of the recommended aluminum-containing vaccines had at least a 36% higher risk of being diagnosed with persistent asthma than kids who got fewer vaccines.

Aluminum has been used in some vaccines since the 1930s, as an ingredient — called an adjuvant — that provokes stronger immune protection.

Fauci Finally Admits He and His Team ‘Botched’ Aspects of U.S. Response to COVID

The Daily Wire reported:

Dr. Anthony Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. That means his job — his one job — is to handle a severe outbreak of an infectious disease.

But Fauci now reportedly admits he and his team “botched” certain aspects of how to handle COVID after it hit the U.S. in March 2020, including his flip-flopping on the efficacy of masks and the lengthy time it took to make rapid tests available nationwide.

Fauci also admitted at the Texas Tribune festival last week that he knew the “draconian” COVID policies he advocated for would lead to “collateral negative consequences” for the “economy” and for “schoolchildren.”

But, of course, Fauci had some blame to spread around, citing the “divisiveness” of “social media” for his flip-flopping.

Just 1.5% of Eligible People Have Gotten Updated COVID Booster

ZeroHedge reported:

Only 1.5% of those eligible to receive the new COVID booster jab — which was tested on just 8 mice, not humans, before the FDA approved it — have taken the updated shot, according to data released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Approximately 4.4 million people have taken the tweaked booster shot from Pfizer and Moderna after they were rolled out three weeks ago around Labor Day weekend. The bivalent shots were designed to target both the original COVID-19 strain and the currently circulating Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, NBC News reports.

“I would expect a much higher proportion of Americans to have gotten the booster by this point,” said Yale Medicine infectious diseases specialist, Dr. Scott Roberts, who said the relatively low uptake was “demoralizing.”

“The fact that this booster came out days before Biden said the pandemic is over is a huge mixed message,” said Roberts, who added that a lack of public awareness surrounding the shots — or the ‘prevailing narrative that the pandemic is ending’ might have hindered the rollout. “Now it’s going to be that much harder to convince those at risk who are on the fence to get a booster.”

Rising COVID Cases in the U.K. May Be a Warning for the U.S.

CNN Health reported:

There are signs that the United Kingdom could be heading into a fall COVID-19 wave, and experts say the United States may not be far behind.

A recent increase in COVID-19 cases in England doesn’t seem to be driven by a new coronavirus variant, at least for now, although several are gaining strength in the U.S. and across the pond.

“Generally, what happens in the U.K. is reflected about a month later in the U.S. I think this is what I’ve sort of been seeing,” said Dr. Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at Kings College London.

Spector runs the Zoe Health Study, and says the study, which has been running since the days of the first lockdown in England in 2020, has accurately captured the start of each wave, and its numbers run about one to two weeks ahead of official government statistics. After seeing a downward trend for the past few weeks, the Zoe study saw a 30% increase in reported COVID-19 cases within the past week.

Five Things About COVID We Still Don’t Understand at Our Peril

The Washington Post reported:

Since a new coronavirus launched the global pandemic that has now killed more than 6.5 million people — 16% of them in the United States alone — scientists in record numbers have devoted themselves full time to unraveling its mysteries.

In less than three years, researchers have published more than 200,000 studies about the virus and COVID-19. That is four times the number of scientific papers written on influenza in the past century and more than 10 times the number written on measles.

Still, the virus has kept many of its secrets, from how it mutates so rapidly to why it kills some while leaving others largely unscathed — mysteries that if solved might arm the world’s scientists with new strategies to curb its spread and guard against the next pandemic.

Scientists have found very similar viruses in horseshoe bats living in remote caves in Laos, southern China, and other parts of Southeast Asia. So far, though, no one has succeeded in drawing a line between the viruses in bats and the Huanan Seafood Market, which sold and butchered live animals in Wuhan, China, and where many scientists believe the virus first spilled over into people.

U.S. FDA Clears Additional Lots of Moderna’s COVID Booster Amid Shortage

Reuters reported:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Monday it has authorized an additional five batches of Moderna Inc.’s (MRNA.O) updated COVID booster shots made at a Catalent facility in Indiana after it deemed them safe for use.

Last week, the health regulator allowed the use of ten batches of Moderna’s updated booster shots made at the Bloomington, Indiana facility, owned by a unit of Catalent Inc. (CTLT.N), which is currently not a part of the company’s emergency use authorization.

The FDA had earlier said Moderna had requested authorization for additional batches in light of the current supply issues. It did not provide details on the number of doses cleared in both instances.