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Heartbroken Dad Seeks Truth About Teen Son’s Death, Blames COVID-19 Vaccination
Dan Hartman is sure that his hockey-loving son died from a COVID vaccination, but he’s being told very little about what happened. The Ontario dad says he wants answers about the sudden death of 17-year-old Sean.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ontario Minor Hockey Association implemented a policy that required players aged 12 and over to be vaccinated or risk not being able to play. Hartman said that Sean decided to get the shot last August in order to continue playing, as hockey was his passion.
In Ontario, there is no minimum age of consent under the Health Care Consent Act, which means youth of Sean’s age can get vaccinated without parental consent.
“So on August 25, he had the Pfizer vaccine. And on August 29, he went to the emergency [room] — he had brown circles around his eyes, and a rash and he was vomiting,” Hartman said.
“They sent him home with only Advil. The doctor didn’t do two blood tests that he should have done. I’ve been told by another doctor that he should have done them. And on the morning of September 27, he was found dead on the floor beside his bed.”
“He was a perfectly healthy boy. He had no underlying conditions,” Hartman said. “They don’t know why he died. Nobody can tell me why he died. And I asked the coroner, ‘can you tell me 100 percent it wasn’t the vaccine?’ And he said ‘no.’”
U.S. To Declare Health Emergency Over Monkeypox Outbreak
The U.S. will declare a public health emergency to bolster the federal response to the outbreak of monkeypox that already has infected more than 6,600 Americans, two people familiar with the matter said Thursday.
The announcement will free up federal funding and resources to fight the virus, which may cause fever, body aches, chills, fatigue and pimple-like bumps on many parts of the body. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity ahead of the announcement.
The declaration comes as the the Biden administration has faced criticism over the pace of vaccine availability for monkeypox. Clinics in major cities like New York and San Francisco say they haven’t received enough of the two-shot vaccine to meet demand and some have had to stop offering the second dose of the vaccine to ensure supply of first doses. The White House said it has made more than 1.1 million doses of vaccine available and has helped to boost domestic diagnostic capacity to 80,000 tests per week.
The monkeypox virus spreads through prolonged and close skin-to-skin contact, including hugging, cuddling and kissing, as well as sharing bedding, towels and clothing. People getting sick so far have been primarily men who have sex with men. But health officials emphasize that the virus can infect anyone.
Novavax Starts COVID-19 Vaccine Trial for Children Aged Six Months to 11 Years
U.S. biotech company Novavax, Inc., has started its phase 2b/3 Hummingbird global clinical trial.
The trial will evaluate the safety, effectiveness (immunogenicity), and efficacy of two doses of the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine (NVX-CoV2373) in younger children aged six months through 11 years, followed by a booster at six months after the primary vaccination series.
The trial will assess the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine in infants (six through 23 months of age), toddlers (two through five years) and children (six through 11 years).
The trial is an age de-escalation trial and age groups will be tested sequentially. Participants have begun dosing in the six to 11-year-old age group. The trial will also have sentinel cohorts in each age group and cohort progression and age-de-escalation will occur after safety review.
Scientist Testifies Fauci’s Claim That NIH Never Funded Gain-of-Function Research Is ‘Demonstrably False’
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) convened a first-of-its-kind Senate hearing on gain-of-function research Wednesday, during which expert witnesses contradicted Dr. Anthony Fauci’s public statements that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) never funded gain-of-function research.
“The statements made on repeated occasions to the public, to the press and to policymakers by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director, Dr. Fauci, have been untruthful. I do not understand why those statements are being made because they are demonstrably false,” Rutgers University molecular biologist Dr. Richard Ebright testified in response to a question from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).
Ebright was one of three scientists who testified that gain-of-function research needs more oversight at a Homeland Security subcommittee that focuses on emerging threats and spending oversight. This controversial field of research studies how pathogens might be enhanced to cause new, potentially deadlier infectious diseases.
Gain-of-function experiments involve taking a pathogen that was found in nature and altering it in a lab.
Biden stays COVID positive in test on Thursday
U.S. President Joe Biden tested positive again for COVID-19 on Thursday but he was feeling “very well,” his physician Kevin O’Connor said in a memo released by the White House.
Biden was still experiencing a “very occasional” cough, but the cough was improving, O’Connor said in the memo. Biden will continue in isolation.
Biden, 79, had just emerged from isolation on Wednesday last week after testing positive for COVID for the first time on July 21. He tested positive again on Saturday in what O’Connor described as a “rebound” case seen in a small percentage of patients who take the antiviral drug Paxlovid.
Are ‘Novids’ Special or Just Lucky at Avoiding COVID?
If you consider yourself a “Novid,” in other words, someone who has never had COVID-19, are you mistaken, special, or just plain lucky? Researchers are trying to answer that question.
It’s estimated that more than 70% of Americans have been infected at some point during the pandemic, but we all know someone who says they’ve never had it. Data suggests millions of Americans who think they’ve never had COVID in fact have had it but didn’t get tested because they had no symptoms or simply thought they had a regular cold or allergies.
That said, there are some people who have managed to avoid COVID and researchers are studying them to try to find out why. For example, people who work from home, consistently wear masks and continue to socially distance are actively protecting themselves.
But others may have genetic or immune system advantages that offer greater protection. Others may have had prior exposure to similar viruses or take drugs for other conditions that provide some defense.
Here’s Everything You Need to Know About the Monkeypox Outbreak
With anxiety, frustration, and “pandemic fatigue” remaining at high levels after two and a half years of watching COVID disrupt everything — from businesses to education to travel and much more — it is understandable that many people are worried that we are in the early stages of the next pandemic with the current monkeypox epidemic.
Especially considering the regular headlines, the unusual name, and the recent World Health Organization (WHO) designation of monkeypox as a “public health emergency of international concern” (PHEIC).
It doesn’t help that former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams, who presided over the nation’s initial response to the COVID pandemic, recently induced some panic when he tweeted, “I hate to tell you all this, but COVID is still a pandemic, and now monkeypox is too. And both are gonna get a LOT worse before they get better… just wait till schools — including colleges — reopen in a few weeks…” before later admitting that this is not actually the case.
At this point in the monkeypox epidemic, when case numbers are relatively few and infections are concentrated among well-defined communities, we have a unique and narrow window of opportunity to adopt lessons we have learned from the COVID pandemic and enact focused protection of those who are at risk to both protect those individuals and halt the broader spread of the virus.
South Africa Reports First Death Causally Linked to COVID Vaccine
South Africa’s health regulator reported on Thursday a causal link between the death of an individual and Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine, the first time such a direct link has been made in the country.
The person presented with rare neurological disorder Guillain-Barre Syndrome soon after being given J&J’s vaccine, after which the person was put on a ventilator and later died, senior scientists told a news conference.
“At the time of illness no other cause for the Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) could be identified,” Professor Hannelie Meyer said.
The person’s age and other personal details were not disclosed for confidentiality reasons.
Rich Countries Put Billions Into Global COVID Responses. Low-Income Countries Wish They Could Spend It on Bigger Problems
Wealthy nations, including the United States, have treated the COVID-19 pandemic as a once-in-a-century threat to public health that necessitated an unprecedented response, both in sped-up vaccine development and counter-measures like lockdowns.
But health leaders in many lower-income countries see the coronavirus differently, as just one of many out-of-control contagions — and often not the deadliest one in their borders.
They are increasingly questioning Western donors who want them to put COVID-19 at the top of their priority lists, arguing that the donors’ money would be better spent on a holistic approach to disease.
They’re also frustrated with the pace of vaccine and therapeutic development for COVID-19, expressing resentment about how long they’ve waited for effective treatments for other diseases prevalent in low-income countries but not rich ones.
U.S. Regulators Defend Requiring More Data on Monkeypox Drug
As U.S. monkeypox cases rise, U.S. health agencies in a medical journal article published on Wednesday defended their decision to require human trial data to show that SIGA Technologies’ experimental drug TPOXX is safe and effective to treat the virus.
U.S. agencies have been under pressure to ease access to the drug, which is being distributed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under a special “compassionate use” access that requires doctors to request it from the agency or their health department and enroll each patient in a study.
As of July 22, 223 people have been treated with the drug, compared with more than 6,000 known cases in the United States.
