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College to Charge Unvaccinated Students $1,500 ‘Health & Safety’ Fee
Starting Fall 2021 , Rhodes College will charge unvaccinated students $1,500 per semester to “cover the costs of mandatory testing.”
The school, located in Memphis, Tennessee, announced the policy in a June 8 letter.
Rhodes College will require the COVID-19 vaccine for all students, staff, and faculty on campus after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) formally approves the vaccines. As of this writing, the school strongly encourages vaccination.
Stronger Evidence Shows mRNA Vaccines Could Cause Heart Inflammation
One doctor said heart inflammation can be caused by certain vaccines — the smallpox vaccine was known to cause it. Now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating whether the mRNA COVID-19 shots do as well.
“They haven’t definitively made a causal link. What they’ve seen now is an association that seems to be getting a little bit stronger evidence,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Stronger evidence that the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, from Pfizer and Moderna, could be causing myocarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle or pericarditis, inflammation of the lining of the heart, especially in males aged 16-24.
Regeneron Antibody Saves Lives in Some Hospitalized COVID Patients, Study Finds
A monoclonal antibody treatment for COVID-19 developed by Regeneron saved lives among hospitalized patients who had not mounted their own immune response, a finding that could dramatically change the way that doctors will use the therapy, researchers in the United Kingdom announced Wednesday.
The new data mark the first time that a medicine that works by fighting the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been shown to reduce mortality. Other treatments, such as the steroid dexamethasone, have been shown to save lives by tamping down the immune system’s overactive response to the virus.
5th Exec Joins Moderna Billionaire Club as Stock Price Soars — Despite Growing Number of Injury Reports
For the fifth time since the onset of the COVID pandemic in early 2020, the skyrocketing price of Moderna stock has produced a billionaire.
Moderna President Dr. Stephen Hoge is the company’s latest shareholder and executive to join the “three-comma-club” — with an estimated $1.1 billion fortune.
Other club members are CEO Stéphane Bancel, chairman and cofounder of Noubar Afeyan, founding investor Timothy Springer and cofounder Robert Langer, Forbes reported.
Hoge, 45, joined Moderna in 2012 and owns 0.4% of Moderna stock — worth $365 million — in addition to about $685 million in options. Like the other Moderna shareholders, Hoge frequently sells stock — including $65.5 million worth (pre-tax) between March 2020 and April 2021.
Hoge is one of more than 40 new billionaires who made 10-figure fortunes with companies involved in the “battle against COVID.”
Physician: ‘Fanaticism’ — Not Science — Governs CDC’s Aggressive Push to Vaccinate Even Those With Natural Immunity
Although accurate numbers are difficult to come by, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conservatively estimates more than a third of Americans (at least 114.6 million) have been infected with SARS-CoV-2. There is ample reason to believe that in most of these individuals, SARS-CoV-2 infection “induces long-term immunity.”
For example, a December 2020 study by Singapore researchers found neutralizing antibodies (one prong of the immune response) remained present in high concentrations for 17 years or more in individuals who recovered from the original SARS-CoV.
More recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) published evidence of durable immune responses to natural infection with SARS-CoV-2.
‘This Week’ With Mary + Polly: Why Benefits of COVID Vaccine for Kids ‘Don’t Outweigh Risks’ + More
This week, Mary Holland, Children’s Health Defense (CHD) president, and Polly Tommey, co-producer of “Vaxxed,” cover the latest COVID headlines including Moderna’s plan to make its COVID vaccine available to children as young as 5 by fall, Pfizer testing its vaccine on kids ages 5 through 11 and an expert who told the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for kids, the benefits of the COVID vaccine “don’t outweigh risks.”
Mary and Polly also discuss an admission by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that teens vaccinated with Pfizer or Moderna vaccines have a higher risk of heart inflammation. They also covered the story of a 21-year-old New Jersey student who developed myocarditis after the Moderna shot, and the CDC’s calling of an emergency meeting on rising cases of heart inflammation in people under 30 who got the COVID vaccine.
Vaccine Advisers Not Planning to Back COVID Jabs for Children, Says UK Minister
Vaccination experts are not planning to recommend COVID-19 jabs for children, a cabinet minister has said, while prominent academics have suggested that existing doses should be used to immunise vulnerable people around the world before those in the UK who are relatively safe.
Speaking for the government on Wednesday, Liz Truss, the international trade secretary, said she understood that the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) would not recommend the vaccination of under-18s.
Pediatricians Work to Close Gaps in COVID-19 Vaccine Coverage by Vaccinating Adults
When the Biden administration kicked off a “month of action” this June, aimed at vaccinating 70% of the adult population with at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose by July 4, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy acknowledged it wouldn’t be an easy task.
“Because we had so much success early on, we are now getting to the part of the campaign which is tougher,” Murthy said. “We’ve got to look further, if you will — convince more people, get to the right information, increase access even further.”
Army Soldier Dies 6 Days After Receiving Pfizer Vaccine
An Army soldier in his 20s has died six days after receiving his first dose of Pfizer‘s coronavirus vaccine, officials said Monday.
The soldier, based in Seoul, was found unconscious in his barracks the previous day and transferred to a nearby hospital but died.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the death was directly related to the vaccine.
An autopsy is planned to look into the exact cause of the death, officials said.
It is the second death of a service member following COVID-19 vaccination.
FDA Authorizes Another Batch of J&J Vaccine
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorized another batch of Johnson & Johnson‘s (J&J) coronavirus vaccine manufactured at a troubled Baltimore facility.
The agency said in a short statement on Tuesday that it authorized an additional batch from the Emergent BioSolutions facility, bringing the total number of authorized batches to three.
When Will You Need a COVID Booster Shot? Pfizer Monitors Breakthrough Infections as Experts Say More Data is Needed
We will be looking at real world data to help us understand when we might see a change in vaccine effectiveness,” said David Swerdlow, Pfizer’s clinical epidemiology lead for vaccines, at the Precision Medicine World Conference, Bloomberg Law reported.
Swerdlow said examples of fully immunized people contracting COVID-19—known as breakthrough infections—and other immunological and clinical data would be monitored “closely” for signs indicating “when a booster might be needed.”
Experts and pharmaceutical companies producing vaccines all believe it is likely people will need a third booster dose to bolster flagging immunity at some point in the future, though it is not yet clear when this may be.
Watch: Rand Paul Demands Exclusion of Wuhan Lab Funders From Investigations
Senator Rand Paul urged Wednesday that those involved in funding the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s coronavirus ‘gain of function’ research cannot be allowed to be a part of investigations again.
