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Doctor Died From Rare Reaction to AstraZeneca COVID Jab, U.K. Coroner Rules
A doctor died from a rare reaction to the AstraZeneca COVID jab in one of the first rounds of vaccinations, a coroner has ruled. Dr. Stephen Wright, 32, an NHS clinical psychologist and frontline health worker, suffered from a combination of a brainstem infarction, bleed on the brain and vaccine-induced thrombosis, an inquest at London’s Southwark coroner’s court heard.
He was in one of the earliest groups of people to be given the jab and died 10 days after it was administered. The coroner Andrew Harris said it was a “very unusual and deeply tragic case,” but noted that the inquest’s conclusion was not “blaming AstraZeneca.”
The MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency) is currently investigating the small group of people who had a severe reaction to the jab to understand what causes it, though no government decision has been taken based on their findings yet.
Dr. Mark Howard, a consultant pathologist and medical examiner at King’s College Hospital, said scientists and medical experts were not aware of the vaccine’s possible deadly side effects when Wright received the jab as it was so early in its rollout, but even at later stages there would have been no way of predicting this “rare and unintended consequence.”
Moderna Teams Up With IBM to Put AI, Quantum Computing to Work on mRNA Technology Used in Vaccines
Moderna and IBM are teaming up to use generative artificial intelligence and quantum computing to advance mRNA technology, the development at the core of the company’s blockbuster COVID vaccine, the companies announced Thursday.
“We are excited to partner with IBM to develop novel AI models to advance mRNA science, prepare ourselves for the era of quantum computing, and ready our business for these game-changing technologies,” Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said in a statement.
The companies said they signed an agreement for Moderna to access IBM’s quantum computing systems. Those systems could help accelerate Moderna’s discovery and creation of new messenger RNA vaccines and therapies, according to Dr. Dario Gil, director of IBM research.
Under the deal, Moderna’s scientists will also have access to IBM’s generative AI model known as MoLFormer. Generative AI describes algorithms that can be used to create new content based on the data they have been trained on.
The companies said Moderna will use IBM’s model to understand “the characteristics of potential mRNA medicines” and design a new class of vaccines and therapies. The agreement comes as Moderna navigates its post-pandemic boom driven by its mRNA COVID vaccine.
The NIH Has Poured $1 Billion Into Long COVID Research — With Little to Show for It
The federal government has burned through more than $1 billion to study long COVID, an effort to help the millions of Americans who experience brain fog, fatigue and other symptoms after recovering from a coronavirus infection. There’s basically nothing to show for it.
The National Institutes of Health hasn’t signed up a single patient to test any potential treatments — despite a clear mandate from Congress to study them. And the few trials it is planning have already drawn a firestorm of criticism, especially one intervention that experts and advocates say may actually make some patients’ long COVID symptoms worse.
Instead, the NIH spent the majority of its money on broader, observational research that won’t directly bring relief to patients. But it still hasn’t published any findings from the patients who joined that study, almost two years after it started.
There’s no sense of urgency to do more or to speed things up, either. The agency isn’t asking Congress for any more funding for long COVID research, and STAT and MuckRock obtained documents showing the NIH refuses to use its own money to change course.
Patients and researchers have already raised alarms about the glacial pace of the NIH’s early long COVID efforts. But a new investigation from STAT and the nonprofit news organization MuckRock, based on interviews with nearly two dozen government officials, experts, patients, and advocates, and internal NIH correspondence, letters, and public documents, underscores that the NIH hasn’t picked up the pace — instead, the delays have compounded.
People Lost Faith in Childhood Vaccines During COVID Pandemic, UNICEF Says
People all over the world lost confidence in the importance of routine childhood vaccines against killer diseases like measles and polio during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report from UNICEF.
In 52 of the 55 countries surveyed, the public perception of vaccines for children declined between 2019 and 2021, the UN agency said.
The data was a “worrying warning signal” of rising vaccine hesitancy amid misinformation, dwindling trust in governments and political polarization, UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, said.
In countries including Papua New Guinea and South Korea, agreement with the statement “vaccines are important for children” declined by 44%, and by more than a third in Ghana, Senegal and Japan. In the United States, it declined by 13.6 percentage points. In India, China and Mexico, confidence remained broadly the same or increased, the report added.
CDC Signs Off on Additional COVID Booster Doses for Certain People
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its recommendations on the COVID-19 vaccines on Wednesday to allow another dose of the bivalent booster for people who are 65 and older or who have weakened immune systems and who “want the option of added protection” against the coronavirus.
The move aligns with Tuesday’s U.S. Food and Drug Administration actions to allow these groups to get additional booster doses ahead of the fall vaccination campaign. On Wednesday, members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices met to discuss the changes and expressed their support for them, although the committee did not vote.
Monovalent mRNA vaccines, which protect only against the original strain of the coronavirus, will no longer be recommended in the United States, the CDC says. The updated bivalent shots from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech protect against the original strain as well as the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of the Omicron variant.
Why Reports of Period Weirdness After COVID Shots Were Ignored
One day in early 2021, Katie Lee, a former student of mine who is now a professor at Tulane University, sent a message asking if I’d heard anything about heavier or breakthrough bleeding with the coronavirus vaccines. I hadn’t and put her message out of my mind. Two weeks later, I received my first dose, and soon afterward I got my period. I bled so heavily that I was swapping out overnight-strength pads every hour.
I decided to tweet out a query: Has anyone else had changes in their periods since receiving the vaccine? The response was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced on social media. I was bombarded with similar stories. Within a few hours, Lee and I were furiously messaging each other, and soon we developed a survey seeking to explore further whether coronavirus vaccine side effects might extend to changes in periods.
We expected about 500 people to participate — and ended up with more than 165,000 responses. Menstrual changes matter to millions of people, and pharmaceutical companies, medical professionals and politicians need to invest in research and provide incentives for redesigning research so that it accommodates menstruation.
Medical treatments and vaccine trials — for coronavirus and other maladies — will continue to disserve those bodily systems about which they ask no questions. We deserve better than to be surprised when a new treatment makes us bleed on our office chair.
Abbott Labs Shares Pop as Revenue, Earnings Defy Steep Drop in COVID Test Sales
Shares of Abbott Laboratories popped Wednesday after the company’s earnings and revenue topped Wall Street’s expectations, defying a dramatic slowdown in sales of its COVID-19 tests.
The medical-products company posted adjusted earnings per share of $1.03. That’s above the average estimate of 99 cents per share, based on a survey of analysts by Refinitiv. Shares jumped over 7%.
Abbott reported revenue of $9.7 billion for the first quarter, slightly surpassing the Refinitiv estimate of $9.64 billion due to recovery in its medical devices business. But the Chicago-based company noted that revenue decreased by 18.1% from the same period last year, largely driven by a steep decline in global sales of its rapid COVID test.
But Abbott and other drugmakers like Pfizer and Moderna have been bracing for a drop-off in COVID-related sales this year as the world emerges from the pandemic amid slowing demand for blockbuster vaccines and treatments.
Scientists Get Closer to a ‘Universal’ Flu Vaccine
U.S. News & World Report reported:
Researchers are reporting progress on the path to a “universal” flu vaccine — one that would battle all strains of the virus and give the world a weapon against future flu pandemics.
In an early clinical trial, U.S. government scientists found that their experimental flu vaccine was able to coax recipients’ immune systems to produce “cross-reactive” antibodies. That is, they made antibodies against many strains of influenza type A — one of the two major groups of the virus. Experts called the findings promising, in that the vaccine did exactly what you’d want in this early phase of testing.
However, it has not yet been shown to actually protect people from the flu, stressed researcher Sarah Andrews of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ Vaccine Research Center.
She estimated that it could take five to 10 more years of development before if all goes well, the vaccine is ready for the real world. Right now, the available flu vaccines prime the body to fight four flu strains: two type A influenza strains, and two type B.
New White House Plan Aims to Provide Uninsured With Free COVID Vaccines
The Biden administration unveiled Tuesday a $1.1 billion program aimed at providing COVID-19 vaccines and treatments to the uninsured at no cost after the federal supply is exhausted.
The two-part initiative would utilize pharmacies, local health departments and federally supported health centers to provide COVID-19 care, according to a fact sheet distributed by the White House. The funds should support the program through December 2024.
One prong of the new program calls for creating a public-private partnership with local and national pharmacies, which administer the majority of adult COVID-19 vaccinations. The federal government will provide a per-dose payment to the pharmacies to cover the cost of administrating the vaccines and treatments, including the antiviral medications Paxlovid and Lagevrio. Pharmacies can also receive one-time payments for each site that targets areas with low rates of access and vaccination.
