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Practice Admits Breach of Duty Over Vaccine Death
A medical practice has accepted that a 26-year-old man who died within two weeks of taking AstraZeneca‘s COVID-19 vaccine was not told the correct risk.
Jack Hurn, from Redditch, developed blood clots on the brain in June 2021 after he got the jab at the Revival Fires Clinic in Dudley. At the time, the advice was to offer alternative vaccines to people under 30 because of known risks.
Anchor Medical Practice has admitted a breach of duty but has not accepted liability for Mr Hurn’s death. His family is taking legal action against the doctor’s practice, claiming that the decision to vaccinate that day destroyed their lives.
Mr. Hurn started to develop headaches on 6 June, eight days after he was vaccinated and went to Alexandra Hospital in Redditch where a blood clot was identified. He was transferred to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham where the family was told there was nothing more that could be done and he died on June 11.
Senate Committee Wrestles With Risks and Benefits of Virus Research — Specter of COVID Lab-Leak Theory Looms Over Discussion
Lawmakers and scientists debated the best ways to regulate high-risk government-funded virus research during a hearing of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on Thursday.
One prominent witness called for a moratorium on gain-of-function research, while another stressed the risks of not pursuing certain kinds of experiments. Meanwhile, some committee members leveraged their time at the dais to grill former public health leaders about the lab leak theory of COVID-19‘s origins and to accuse them of complicity in a cover-up.
“Today, thousands of skilled individuals can create infectious viruses using commercially available synthetic DNA that corresponds to publicly accessible viral genome sequences,” Kevin Esvelt, PhD, of the MIT Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, told the committee.
Former CDC Director Robert Redfield, MD, testified — not for the first time — that the most likely theory of COVID-19’s origins was biomedical research followed by an accidental lab leak.
Commission Finds COVID Pandemic Caused $18 Trillion in Economic Damage to U.S.
A new report by the Heritage Foundation’s Nonpartisan Commission on China and COVID-19 found that the COVID pandemic caused $18 trillion in economic losses to the U.S. and placed blame for the outbreak on the Chinese government.
FOX Business exclusively viewed an advance copy of the report, which estimated that as of December 2023, the pandemic’s total economic cost in the U.S. topped $18 trillion after taking into account several ways in which the pandemic affected the economy.
Regarding the origins of COVID, the commission found that it “very likely stemmed from a research-related incident in Wuhan, China.”
“Although it remains theoretically possible that COVID-19 emerged via zoonosis in the wild or spillover in a wet market (spillover is a virus originating in animals before it passes to humans), there is no evidentiary basis for either of these hypotheses despite extensive testing over four years,” the commission wrote.
The report also included a timeline of the Chinese government’s actions as part of a “systematic cover-up” of the origins of COVID that began, at the latest, in December 2019, as well as its failure to take steps to contain the virus within its borders.
Young People’s Mental Health Suffered Amid COVID Pandemic, 3 New Studies Suggest
The COVID-19 pandemic and related lockdowns harmed the mental health of Canadian and U.S. youth, exacerbating depression, anxiety, and eating disorders among certain groups, according to a trio of new studies published in JAMA journals.
One of two studies from the Pediatric Outcome Improvement through Coordination of Research Networks (POPCORN) published today found that the rate of hospitalizations for mood disorders and substance use declined among male and females aged 6 to 20 years from before to during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But admissions for eating disorders rose for both sexes, and admissions for anxiety, personality disorders, suicide, and self-harm increased significantly among females.
COVID Variant KP.3 Remains Dominant in U.S. Here Are Symptoms to Watch For
The KP.3 COVID-19 variant is the dominant strain of the virus, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s data.
The CDC no longer regularly tracks and releases the number of new COVID-19 infections after the Biden administration let the COVID-19 national emergency and public health emergency expire in May 2023. States are no longer required to report new cases. In addition, home tests, which are mostly not reported to authorities, have made tallies of new infections a less reliable metric.
The KP.3 variant of COVID-19, also known as one of the “FLiRT” variants, originated from the Omicron lineage, specifically from the JN.1 sublineage, according to IDSociety.org.
According to USA TODAY, during a two-week period starting June 23 and ending July 6, the CDC’s Nowcast data tracker showed that the KP.3 variant accounted for 36.9% of positive infections followed by KP.2 at 24.4%.
UK Needs COVID-Style Push on Dementia Drugs, Says Ex-Head of Vaccine Taskforce
A COVID-style effort is needed to ensure NHS patients are first in line for a new wave of dementia drugs, according to the former head of the U.K.’s vaccine taskforce.
Kate Bingham is calling for the immediate recruitment of large numbers of patients to ensure that, as with COVID vaccines, the U.K. is a leading player in testing and launching drugs.
Experts have expressed frustration that, almost two years after a breakthrough trial, the first Alzheimer’s drugs shown to slow the rate of cognitive decline are yet to be approved in the UK.
The cognition of Alzheimer’s patients given lecanemab declined by 27% less than those on a placebo treatment after 18 months, an improvement that some argue falls short of being clinically meaningful for an individual patient. This has to be weighed against side effects that include accelerated brain shrinkage, with those taking the drug losing the equivalent of an extra teaspoon of brain matter over 18 months.
