Login
I Was a Healthy Physician Who Took the Covid Shot… Now I’m Paralyzed: ‘We’re the Vaccine Industry’s Dirty Little Secret’
Multiple people across the globe who stepped forward early to receive the COVID-19 vaccine are speaking about what they say is the debilitating neurological condition they developed after getting the shot. Officials became concerned about potential side effects, even shutting down Oxford-AstraZeneca’s phase three COVID-19 vaccine trials while investigators researched possible links to the shot.
Later, health authorities concluded the disabling condition, transverse myelitis (TM), was coincidental and trials were resumed. However, similar cases emerged in recipients of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines after rollout, raising ongoing concerns about possible connections. Daily Mail can now reveal that thousands of cases of the same neurological condition were reported after all major brands of COVID-19 vaccines were administered.
Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Joel Wallskog, author and Oxford University lecturer Sally Bayley and business owner Rebecca Thommen all received a COVID-19 vaccine — either the AstraZeneca, Pfizer or Moderna shots — and were diagnosed with TM soon after.
TM is primarily an autoimmune condition that causes inflammation of the spinal cord that can lead to sudden weakness, numbness in the limbs, permanent or temporary paralysis, and bladder and bowel issues.
Hormone Replacement Therapy Will No Longer Carry a Warning Label, FDA Says
Hormone therapies for menopause will no longer carry a black box warning about serious risks such as breast cancer, heart attack and stroke, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced Monday. In the announcement and an accompanying editorial in the medical journal JAMA, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and other agency officials said the warnings are based on outdated science and have discouraged women from taking hormone therapy.
The medications are commonly prescribed to treat menopause symptoms such as hot flashes, mood swings, difficulty sleeping, urinary tract infections and vaginal dryness, and to reduce bone fractures. They replace estrogen and progesterone — hormones that decline during menopause — and come in the form of pills, patches, gels and creams.
“We are going to stop the fear machine steering women away from this life-changing, even lifesaving, treatment,” Makary said in a news conference. “The FDA is taking action to remove the black box warnings from estrogen-related products. This is based on a robust review of the latest scientific evidence.”
I’m a Physician Who Went to the Anti-Vaccine Movement’s Biggest Gathering. More of My Colleagues Should Too
As I stepped into line to pick up my badge for the Children’s Health Defense (CHD) conference last weekend in Austin, Texas, a gregarious man approached holding two tall plastic tubes he said contained “clots” from COVID-19 vaccinated bodies. After 36 years in the Air Force, he told me, he’d been pushed out for refusing the shot. Now in retirement, he calls funeral homes and surveys undertakers to document alleged vaccine harms.
Over the next two days, I heard versions of the same arc again and again: loss reframed as mission, grievance redirected into organizing.
I came to CHD out of curiosity — to hear how this movement wins people over, and why its message resonates so deeply. Over two days, I spoke with dozens of attendees between sessions and as a guest on the podcast “Why Should I Trust You?” I didn’t change any minds, nor did my convictions waver. But every conversation was honest and respectful.
Dynavax Pays Vaxart $30M for Oral COVID-19 Vaccine Program
Dynavax is paying $30 million upfront for global rights to Vaxart’s investigational oral COVID-19 vaccine, positioning the biotech to see phase 2b data before placing a bigger bet on the program. The program made the headlines this year because of the U.S. government’s on-again, off-again support for the phase 2b trial. The U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority is funding the trial.
In February, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services told Vaxart to stop work on the study. While the stop work order was lifted in April, Vaxart was again told to down tools in August. Dynavax has spotted an opportunity amid the upheaval, bagging rights to the oral COVID-19 vaccine for $25 million upfront and a $5 million investment in Vaxart.
While the deal gives Dynavax global rights to the program, the structure effectively grants the biotech an option to further develop the asset. Once it sees phase 2b data, Dynavax can either scrap the deal or pay $50 million to take the vaccine forward.
Intranasal Vaccine Shows Promise Against Bird Flu in Early Trial
An intranasal adjuvanted recombinant influenza vaccine appeared to safely prompt a robust response to a range of H5N1 clades, according to a phase I trial.
Immune responses among the three groups that received one of three doses of the adjuvanted clade 2.1 influenza A/H5 recombinant hemagglutinin glycoprotein (rH5) vaccine were improved from baseline and they were better than those in comparator groups who received an unadjuvanted vaccine or placebo, reported Justin R. Ortiz, MD, of the Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, and colleagues in Nature Communications.
“We can actually prime the immune system using the intranasal vaccine,” co-author Franklin Toapanta, M.D., Ph.D., also of the Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, told MedPage Today. With the adjuvanted vaccine, the immune system “was able to recognize several strains of the influenza virus, which means there was a breadth of the immune response that was triggered by the vaccine.”
Expert Panel Asks Serum Institute to Tighten HPV Vaccine Trial Before Testing on Women of Childbearing Age
India’s expert committee on vaccines has asked the Serum Institute of India (SII) to revise its Phase III trial plan before moving ahead with tests of its cervical cancer vaccine in women of childbearing age. The vaccine is currently approved only for girls and young women aged nine to 26 years. The committee has suggested key changes in the study design, including strengthening the trial’s objectives and tightening the scientific criteria for proving non-inferiority against Merck’s Gardasil.
The Pune-based vaccine maker had presented the protocol of its proposed study titled, “A Phase-III, double-blind, randomized, active-controlled, multicentric clinical trial to evaluate the immunogenicity and safety of qHPV Vaccine (CERVAVAC) administered intramuscularly in women aged 27 to 45 Years as compared to Merck’s HPV 6/11/16/18 Vaccine (Gardasil).”
According to the minutes of the meeting of the subject expert committee (SEC), seen by News18, “the study vaccine is already approved in the age group of 9-14 years (male and female), at two-doses schedule (0 and 6 months) and for age group of 15-26 years (male and female), at three-dose schedule (0, 2 and 6 months) for prevention of the disease caused by Human Papilloma Virus types 6, 11, 16 and 18.”
