Erica Hayes, 40, has not felt healthy since November 2020 when she first fell ill with covid.

Hayes is too sick to work, so she has spent much of the last four years sitting on her beige couch, often curled up under an electric blanket.

“My blood flow now sucks, so my hands and my feet are freezing. Even if I’m sweating, my toes are cold,” said Hayes, who lives in Western Pennsylvania. She misses feeling well enough to play with her 9-year-old son or attend her 17-year-old son’s baseball games.

Along with claiming the lives of 1.2 million Americans, the covid-19 pandemic has been described as a mass disabling event. Hayes is one of millions of Americans who suffer from long covid. Depending on the patient, the condition can rob someone of energy, scramble the autonomic nervous system, or fog their memory, among many other symptoms.

In addition to the brain fog and chronic fatigue, Hayes’ constellation of symptoms includes frequent hives and migraines. Also, her tongue is constantly swollen and dry.

“I’ve had multiple doctors look at it and tell me they don’t know what’s going on,” Hayes said about her tongue. 

Estimates of prevalence range considerably, depending on how researchers define long covid in a given study, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts it at 17 million adults.

Despite long covid’s vast reach, the federal government’s investment in researching the disease — to the tune of $1.15 billion as of December — has so far failed to bring any new treatments to market. 

This disappoints and angers the patient community, who say the National Institutes of Health should focus on ways to stop their suffering instead of simply trying to understand why they’re suffering.

“It’s unconscionable that more than four years since this began, we still don’t have one FDA-approved drug,” said Meighan Stone, executive director of the Long COVID Campaign, a patient-led advocacy organization. Stone was among several people with long covid who spoke at a workshop hosted by the NIH in September where patients, clinicians, and researchers discussed their priorities and frustrations around the agency’s approach to long-covid research.

Some doctors and researchers are also critical of the agency’s research initiative, called RECOVER, or Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery. Without clinical trials, physicians specializing in treating long covid must rely on hunches to guide their clinical decisions, said Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of research and development with the VA St Louis Healthcare System.

“What [RECOVER] lacks, really, is clarity of vision and clarity of purpose,” said Al-Aly, saying he agrees that the NIH has had enough time and money to produce more meaningful progress.

Now the NIH is starting to determine how to allocate an additional $662 million of funding for long-covid research, $300 million of which is earmarked for clinical trials. These funds will be allocated over the next four years.

At the end of October, RECOVER issued a request for clinical trial ideas that look at potential therapies, including medications, saying its goal is “to work rapidly, collaboratively, and transparently to advance treatments for Long COVID.”

This turn suggests the NIH has begun to respond to patients. This has stirred cautious optimism among those who say that the agency’s approach to long covid has lacked urgency in the search for effective treatments.

Stone calls this $300 million a down payment. She warns it’s going to take a lot more money to help people like Hayes regain some degree of health.

“There really is a burden to make up this lost time now,” Stone said.

The NIH told KFF Health News and NPR via email that it recognizes the urgency in finding treatments. But to do that, there needs to be an understanding of the biological mechanisms that are making people sick, which is difficult to do with post-infectious conditions.

That’s why it has funded research into how long covid affects lung function, or trying to understand why only some people are afflicted with the condition.

Good Science Takes Time

In December 2020, Congress appropriated $1.15 billion for the NIH to launch RECOVER, raising hopes in the long-covid patient community.

Then-NIH Director Francis Collins explained that RECOVER’s goal was to better understand long covid as a disease and that clinical trials of potential treatments would come later.

According to RECOVER’s website, it has funded eight clinical trials to test the safety and effectiveness of an experimental treatment or intervention. Just one of those trials has published results.

On the other hand, RECOVER has supported more than 200 observational studies, such as research on how long covid affects pulmonary function and on which symptoms are most common. And the initiative has funded more than 40 pathobiology studies, which focus on the basic cellular and molecular mechanisms of long covid.

RECOVER’s website says this research has led to crucial insights on the risk factors for developing long covid and on understanding how the disease interacts with preexisting conditions.

It notes that observational studies are important in helping scientists to design and launch evidence-based clinical trials.

Good science takes time, said Leora Horwitz, the co-principal investigator for the RECOVER-Adult Observational Cohort at New York University. And long covid is an “exceedingly complicated” illness that appears to affect nearly every organ system, she said. 

This makes it more difficult to study than many other diseases. Because long covid harms the body in so many ways, with widely variable symptoms, it’s harder to identify precise targets for treatment.

“I also will remind you that we’re only three, four years into this pandemic for most people,” Horwitz said. “We’ve been spending much more money than this, yearly, for 30, 40 years on other conditions.”

NYU received nearly $470 million of RECOVER funds in 2021, which the institution is using to spearhead the collection of data and biospecimens from up to 40,000 patients. Horwitz said nearly 30,000 are enrolled so far.

This vast repository, Horwitz said, supports ongoing observational research, allowing scientists to understand what is happening biologically to people who don’t recover after an initial infection — and that will help determine which clinical trials for treatments are worth undertaking.

“Simply trying treatments because they are available without any evidence about whether or why they may be effective reduces the likelihood of successful trials and may put patients at risk of harm,” she said.

Delayed Hopes or Incremental Progress?

The NIH told KFF Health News and NPR that patients and caregivers have been central to RECOVER from the beginning, “playing critical roles in designing studies and clinical trials, responding to surveys, serving on governance and publication groups, and guiding the initiative.”

But the consensus from patient advocacy groups is that RECOVER should have done more to prioritize clinical trials from the outset. Patients also say RECOVER leadership ignored their priorities and experiences when determining which studies to fund.

RECOVER has scored some gains, said JD Davids, co-director of Long COVID Justice. This includes findings on differences in long covid between adults and kids.

But Davids said the NIH shouldn’t have named the initiative “RECOVER,” since it wasn’t designed as a streamlined effort to develop treatments.

“The name’s a little cruel and misleading,” he said.

RECOVER’s initial allocation of $1.15 billion probably wasn’t enough to develop a new medication to treat long covid, said Ezekiel J. Emanuel, co-director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Healthcare Transformation Institute.

But, he said,  the results of preliminary clinical trials could have spurred pharmaceutical companies to fund more studies on drug development and test how existing drugs influence a patient’s immune response.

Emanuel is one of the authors of a March 2022 covid roadmap report. He notes that RECOVER’s lack of focus on new treatments was a problem. “Only 15% of the budget is for clinical studies. That is a failure in itself — a failure of having the right priorities,” he told KFF Health News and NPR via email.

And though the NYU biobank has been impactful, Emanuel said there needs to be more focus on how existing drugs influence immune response.

He said some clinical trials that RECOVER has funded are “ridiculous,” because they’ve focused on symptom amelioration, for example to study the benefits of over-the-counter medication to improve sleep. Other studies looked at non-pharmacological interventions, such as exercise and “brain training” to help with cognitive fog.

People with long covid say this type of clinical research contributes to what many describe as the “gaslighting” they experience from doctors, who sometimes blame a patient’s symptoms on anxiety or depression, rather than acknowledging long covid as a real illness with a physiological basis.

“I’m just disgusted,” said long-covid patient Hayes. “You wouldn’t tell somebody with diabetes to breathe through it.”

Chimére L. Sweeney, director and founder of the Black Long Covid Experience, said she’s even taken breaks from seeking treatment after getting fed up with being told that her symptoms were due to her diet or mental health.

“You’re at the whim of somebody who may not even understand the spectrum of long covid,” Sweeney said.

Insurance Battles Over Experimental Treatments

Since there are still no long-covid treatments approved by the Food and Drug Administration, anything a physician prescribes is classified as either experimental — for unproven treatments — or an off-label use of a drug approved for other conditions. This means patients can struggle to get insurance to cover prescriptions.

Michael Brode, medical director for UT Health Austin’s Post-COVID-19 Program — said he writes many appeal letters. And some people pay for their own treatment.

For example, intravenous immunoglobulin therapy, low-dose naltrexone, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy are all promising treatments, he said.

For hyperbaric oxygen, two small, randomized controlled studies show improvements for the chronic fatigue and brain fog that often plague long-covid patients. The theory is that higher oxygen concentration and increased air pressure can help heal tissues that were damaged during a covid infection.

However, the out-of-pocket cost for a series of sessions in a hyperbaric chamber can run as much as $8,000, Brode said.

“Am I going to look a patient in the eye and say, ‘You need to spend that money for an unproven treatment’?” he said. “I don’t want to hype up a treatment that is still experimental. But I also don’t want to hide it.”

There’s a host of pharmaceuticals that have promising off-label uses for long covid, said microbiologist Amy Proal, president and chief scientific officer at the Massachusetts-based PolyBio Research Foundation. For instance, she’s collaborating on a clinical study that repurposes two HIV drugs to treat long covid.

Proal said research on treatments can move forward based on what’s already understood about the disease. For instance, she said that scientists have evidence — partly due to RECOVER research — that some patients continue to harbor small amounts of viral material after a covid infection. She has not received RECOVER funds but is researching antivirals.

But to vet a range of possible treatments for the millions suffering now — and to develop new drugs specifically targeting long covid — clinical trials are needed. And that requires money.

Hayes said she would definitely volunteer for an experimental drug trial. For now, though, “in order to not be absolutely miserable,” she said she focuses on what she can do, like having dinner with her family.

At the same time, Hayes doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life on a beige couch. 

RECOVER’s deadline to submit research proposals for potential long-covid treatments is Feb. 1.

The post Long-Covid Patients Are Frustrated That Federal Research Hasn’t Found New Treatments appeared first on Medika Life.

As parents you’ve been force fed a barrage of carefully scripted “justifications” for these vaccines and in case anyone considered an independent thought, legislation would simply be updated to include new vaccines, essentially removing your choice. In all States in the US a child cannot enter school without having complied with a vaccination schedule. Can you object? Yes, but only in certain states, and usually only on religious grounds. States like California are mandatory, no matter your objection.

The health impacts of the mandated 16 vaccines (spread over 72 doses, before the age of 18) have never enjoyed close scrutiny. What we do know for certain is that older adults (50+) who benefited from far fewer vaccines (3 on average), have far more resilient immune systems when compared to a 20 or 30 year old. Our immune system benefits from each challenge it receives, learning and growing stronger. By preventing many non-fatal infections through an expanded immunization agenda, we actively restrict our immune system from developing properly.

In short, we are producing weaker and less resilient human beings, one’s that are more prone to disease and more likely to develop chronic conditions.

Shockingly, a pre-licensing placebo-controlled safety study is not required in the US for the licensing of a vaccine. Don’t, however, take my word for it. THE HHS confirmed this in response to a written inquiry in 2018, the reply coming from Melinda Wharton, MD, MPH, then Acting Director of the National Vaccine Program Office. The question is shown below;

Please explain how HHS justifies licensing any pediatric vaccine without first
conducting a long-term clinical trial in which the rate of adverse reactions is
compared between the subject group and a control group receiving an inert
placebo?

Inert placebo controls are not required to understand the safety profile of a new vaccine, and are thus not required. In some cases, inclusion of placebo control groups is considered unethical. Even in the absence of a placebo, control groups can be useful in evaluating whether the incidence of a specific observed adverse event exceeds that which would be expected without administration of the new vaccine. Serious adverse events are always carefully evaluated by FDA to determine potential association with vaccination regardless of their rate of incidence in the control group. In cases where an active control is used, the adverse event profile of that control group is usually known and the findings of the study are reviewed in the context of that knowledge.

Decades of indoctrination and conditioning have convinced us that science never lies and that we cannot question anything produced by the scientific community. Science does not lie, not in a pure, unadulterated form. What we are bombarded with on a daily basis is, however, not any form of science any ethical professional would dare to claim. It is business, abetted by regulatory bodies and governments, masquerading behind and appropriating science, which is then twisted to suit the purposes of the companies benefiting from it.

Truth has become an outdated, antiquated word in the modern world of medical science.

You may ask, what this has to do with RFK, Jr., vaccines, and the medical fraternity?

You’ve recently participated in a global medical experiment with completely unknown consequences, at least none that are yet glaringly apparent, aside from a global increase in cancers, heart conditions and a litany of other other medical conditions, many of which can prove fatal. COVID “vaccines” were administered globally to billions of individuals. You may be one.

Almost all of your doctors and medical professionals, with a few exceptions, encouraged you to take these treatments. The billing that they were approved for broad use was misleading and the manner in which approval was obtained left much to be desired. These treatments were experimental, not adequately tested, and couldn’t remotely be called definitively safe. Why would your trusted healthcare providers do this?

Indoctrination is trusting a system of which they are the product. It no longer exists to foster only the best interest of the patients but rather leaves open the possibility of conflict of interest around “patient care or profit.” Most doctors didn’t even think to question the safety of the “miraculous Covid cure.”

A Global Pandemic

At the end of 2019, the world was exposed to a global contagion we were told was deadly, and much like influenza, in some instances it was. The source of the contagion has yet to be established, but facts seem to point at a Chinese research facility, a topic you can read more about here. Covid was to become a household word over the next two years, one that would dictate movement, work, schooling, and every other normal aspect of our lives as countries closed their borders, curfews were installed, and almost every aspect of our day-to-day life was dictated by our elected governments.

Two months after the outbreak, a miraculous breakthrough was announced: a vaccine! Based on a new technology, mRNA, the vaccine promised to reduce transmission and offer protection. We waited with bated breath, and in late November 2020, the vaccine was released for public use. After months of confinement, travel restrictions, working from home, and avoiding elderly members of our families, we sighed a global sigh of relief.

That sigh proved to be a little pre-emptive. Suddenly, taking the vaccine was no longer a matter of choice. It became mandated, and in many countries governments hid behind cloaks of restrictions rather than coming out and publicly mandating the Covid vaccine. Work, school and access to food and housing were subject to individuals being vaccinated. As I sit and type this, I still cannot believe how dystopian it sounds.

Billions had the vaccine administered, many not though choice, but through coercion. No vaccine, no work, no school, no food, and no access to rented property. In countries like Australia people refusing the vaccine, anti-vaxers, as they were quickly labeled, were even put into interment camps.

A Closer Look Behind mRNA and Pfizer and Moderna’s “Vaccines”

Why would people have refused to be injected with the Covid “vaccines” if they promised to protect you and reduce transmission? It turns out not everyone can be classified as a sheep. Questions were asked right from the outset of the announcement of the release of the vaccines.

It takes anywhere between six to 10 years to bring a vaccine to market. The reason for this is that the vaccine requires lengthy trials to prove safety. We know from experience that side effects can take years to manifest. Bringing a product to market in nine months raised huge flags.

We now know that some companies involved in producing what they loosely termed a “vaccine” to take advantage of market protection (in particular, Modena and BioNTech/and Pfizer) obscured data and omitted certain tests in the clinical trials of their Covid treatments. Tests that would have disclosed the reality of their treatments’ ability to integrate with our DNA, use of the SV-40 enhancer (a known link to cancer) in their treatments in levels far exceeding acceptable levels (clear clinical evidence of this vector has been found in the vaccines despite their continued denial) and effecting a bait and switch with the release of their final product, altered from the original provided for testing.

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Essentially, and we can debate why until time provides answers, these companies, in a global outbreak orchestrated by unknown players and enforced by your governments, forced an essentially untested, new type of gene therapy (not a vaccine) down your global throats, the full consequences of which have yet to become apparent. This quote is from an expert in the field of genomics (Kevin McKernan, who headed up the global genome project) on the mRNA vaccines.

These gene therapies are an attempt to centralize control over this evolutionary process, where they can mandate mRNA injections into billions of people and play SimCity on the evolutionary process and the human trajectory. They are entirely incapable of doing this and it is a disastrous idea. The hubris of authoritarians is an extinction level risk for humankind and needs to be dis-intermediated swiftly.

I have linked to a few articles in the paragraphs abovefor those with an interest in genomics, viruses, and vaccines. Two years ago, this article would have been labelled as anti-vaxer and dismissed. I sincerely hope we’ve moved beyond that point and that science is able to reclaim its integrity. This brings us back to RFK Jr. and America’s co-opted health care system.

The Perfect Pharma Salesman is…

Your doctor, of course. When you present yourself for medical assistance, you are in fact, facing a representative of the pharmaceutical industry. Doctors will argue vehemently against this, but the fact remains, their universities, courses, curricula, and anything relating to their degrees and the educations they receive is regulated by pharma. Doctors are the public face of a multi-billion dollar marketing scheme and pharma are the beneficiaries.

A doctor is indoctrinated from the first day they step into a class.

Little wonder then they would play along with the farce of the Covid “vaccines”, knowing full well mRNA was a new and as yet unproven delivery method (previously restricted to testing on end-of-life patients) for what was an untested and unsafe treatment. Established beliefs and conditioning often fly in the face of logic and common sense. Little wonder they played along. Indoctrination is a powerful tool.

This indoctrination extends to every aspect of modern medicine, including the ridiculous number of times your child (if you’re a US citizen) is vaccinated by the time they reach the age of 18. Don’t believe me? Read this advice from the CDC, and do make a note of how many times Pfizer and Moderna’s names appear (the same companies that just experimented on you). The question this begs, is why would we suddenly be vaccinating our children so heavily, so frequently, and with a such a dizzying array of shots.

H.R.5546 – National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986

The United States (in a moment of madness or more likely, successful lobbying) indemnified pharma companies to protect them against any possible legal claims arising from the use of a vaccine in children. In effect, this became a “get out of jail free” card that led directly to the frenzied development of “vaccines” for every imaginable disease under the sun. Once again, doctors were at the forefront of selling these treatments to their patients.

If you’ve been indoctrinated into the faith, it is sacrilege to question your god. In modern medicine, it is tantamount to self destruction. This indoctrination is the main obstacle Kennedy faces. Pharma’s influence permeates every level of modern healthcare, from politics to regulatory authorities such as the CDC and NIH and on, down to the doctors and nurses, the real face of modern medicine.

While many label Kennedy as anti-vaccine and a conspiracy theorist, this is simply a ruse to discredit him and evade examining the real and pertinent concerns he raises relating to the state of American healthcare. He has come up with an incredibly simple and elegant solution to the vaccine question.

Burning the “Get Out of Jail Free” Card

Remove the immunity enjoyed by pharma for childhood and other vaccines and sit back and wait to see how many pharma companies have actual faith in the products they are retailing. Expect to see the number of vaccinations your child currently endures reduced dramatically. Why? Simply because these products do carry risks, severe or otherwise, that have been obscured by companies in their haste to get a product to market. Make hay while the sun shines, as the expression goes, only in this instance it was profit rather than sunshine. Profit that was protected by the US government. Until now.

The topic of vaccines is an especially sensitive one, confounded by multiple factors when it should actually be governed by one simple question. Is the vaccine safe for your child? The truth is, we cannot be sure, except in the instance of mRNA based shots now touted for the market. These are fraught with hidden dangers and Kennedy’s removal of the blanket indemnity for these so called “vaccines” which are actually gene therapies, will no doubt result in their removal from the market.

The reason we cannot be sure is that the clinical trial system is as broken as the rest of healthcare, and is subject to the same manipulation and lobbying influences the rest of the healthcare system endures. Manipulation and subversion of data is common practice, the two most glaring public examples being the latest additions to the vaccine stable, namely Pfizer and Moderna’s Covid treatments.

Kennedy simply wants the truth to out. He wants to ensure your children are enjoying the protection they deserve and that the individuals playing medical roulette with their health are held to account. Convincing the devout (your doctors) of his intentions may be an insurmountable obstacle, unless we can bundle the lot on a donkey on the road to Damascus.

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[Always consult with your physician to determine medical advice and direction. This article does not intend to suggest you should or should not receive vaccines according to a recommended schedule. It does recommend that you study peer-review science and ask informed questions.]

The post Kennedy’s Biggest Challenge Isn’t Vaccines, It’s Medical Indoctrination appeared first on Medika Life.

The FDA has approved an updated covid shot for everyone 6 months old and up, which renews a now-annual quandary for Americans: Get the shot now, with the latest covid outbreak sweeping the country, or hold it in reserve for the winter wave?

ABOut the partnership

Healthbeat is a newsroom partnership between KFF Health News and Civic News Company that produces reporting on public health and the systems of prevention that communities rely on to stay healthy. 

The new vaccine should provide some protection to everyone. But many healthy people who have already been vaccinated or have immunity because they’ve been exposed to covid enough times may want to wait a few months.

Covid has become commonplace. For some, it’s a minor illness with few symptoms. Others are laid up with fever, cough, and fatigue for days or weeks. A much smaller group — mostly older or chronically ill people — suffer hospitalization or death.

It’s important for those in high-risk groups to get vaccinated, but vaccine protection wanes after a few months. Those who run to get the new vaccine may be more likely to fall ill this winter when the next wave hits, said William Schaffner, an infectious disease professor at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and a spokesperson for the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.

On the other hand, by late fall the major variants may have changed, rendering the vaccine less effective, said Peter Marks, the FDA’s top vaccine official, at a briefing Aug. 23. He urged everyone eligible to get immunized, noting that the risk of long covid is greater in the un- and undervaccinated.

Of course, if last year’s covid vaccine rollout is any guide, few Americans will heed his advice, even though this summer’s surge has been unusually intense, with levels of the covid virus in wastewater suggesting infections are as widespread as they were in the winter.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now looks to wastewater as fewer people are reporting test results to health authorities. The wastewater data shows the epidemic is worst in Western and Southern states. In New York, for example, levels are considered “high” — compared with “very high” in Georgia.

Hospitalizations and deaths due to covid have trended up, too. But unlike infections, these rates are nowhere near those seen in winter surges, or in summers past. More than 2,000 people died of covid in July — a high number but a small fraction of the at least 25,700 covid deaths in July 2020.

Partial immunity built up through vaccines and prior infections deserves credit for this relief. A new study suggests that current variants may be less virulent — in the study, one of the recent variants did not kill mice exposed to it, unlike most earlier covid variants.

Public health officials note that even with more cases this summer, people seem to be managing their sickness at home. “We did see a little rise in the number of cases, but it didn’t have a significant impact in terms of hospitalizations and emergency room visits,” said Manisha Juthani, public health commissioner of Connecticut, at a news briefing Aug. 21.

Unlike influenza or traditional cold viruses, covid seems to thrive outside the cold months, when germy schoolkids, dry air, and indoor activities are thought to enable the spread of air- and saliva-borne viruses. No one is exactly sure why.

“Covid is still very transmissible, very new, and people congregate inside in air-conditioned rooms during the summer,” said John Moore, a virologist and professor at Cornell University’s Weill Cornell Medicine.

Or “maybe covid is more tolerant of humidity or other environmental conditions in the summer,” said Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University.

Because viruses evolve as they infect people, the CDC has recommended updated covid vaccines each year. Last fall’s booster was designed to target the omicron variant circulating in 2023. This year, mRNA vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer and the protein-based vaccine from Novavax — which has yet to be approved by the FDA — target a more recent omicron variant, JN.1.

The FDA determined that the mRNA vaccines strongly protected people from severe disease and death — and would do so even though earlier variants of JN.1 are now being overtaken by others.

Public interest in covid vaccines has waned, with only 1 in 5 adults getting vaccinated since last September, compared with about 80% who got the first dose. New Yorkers have been slightly above the national vaccination rate, while in Georgia only about 17% got the latest shot.

Vaccine uptake is lower in states where the majority voted for Donald Trump in 2020 and among those who have less money and education, less health care access, or less time off from work. These groups are also more likely to be hospitalized or die of the disease, according to a 2023 study in The Lancet.

While the newly formulated vaccines are better targeted at the circulating covid variants, uninsured and underinsured Americans may have to rush if they hope to get one for free. A CDC program that provided boosters to 1.5 million people over the last year ran out of money and is ending Aug. 31.

The agency drummed up $62 million in unspent funds to pay state and local health departments to provide the new shots to those not covered by insurance. But “that may not go very far” if the vaccine costs the agency around $86 a dose, as it did last year, said Kelly Moore, CEO of Immunize.org, which advocates for vaccination.

People who pay out-of-pocket at pharmacies face higher prices: CVS plans to sell the updated vaccine for $201.99, said Amy Thibault, a spokesperson for the company.

“Price can be a barrier, access can be a barrier” to vaccination, said David Scales, an assistant professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Without an access program that provides vaccines to uninsured adults, “we’ll see disparities in health outcomes and disproportionate outbreaks in the working poor, who can ill afford to take off work,” Kelly Moore said.

New York State has about $1 million to fill the gaps when the CDC’s program ends, said Danielle De Souza, a spokesperson for the New York State Department of Health. That will buy around 12,500 doses for uninsured and underinsured adults, she said. There are roughly one million uninsured people in the state.

CDC and FDA experts last year decided to promote annual fall vaccination against covid and influenza along with a one-time respiratory syncytial virus shot for some groups.

It would be impractical for the vaccine-makers to change the covid vaccine’s recipe twice every year, and offering the three vaccines during one or two health care visits appears to be the best way to increase uptake of all of them, said Schaffner, who consults for the CDC’s policy-setting Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

At its next meeting, in October, the committee is likely to urge vulnerable people to get a second dose of the same covid vaccine in the spring, for protection against the next summer wave, he said.

If you’re in a vulnerable population and waiting to get vaccinated until closer to the holiday season, Schaffner said, it makes sense to wear a mask and avoid big crowds, and to get a test if you think you have covid. If positive, people in these groups should seek medical attention since the antiviral pill Paxlovid might ameliorate their symptoms and keep them out of the hospital.

As for conscientious others who feel they may be sick and don’t want to spread the covid virus, the best advice is to get a single test and, if positive, try to isolate for a few days and then wear a mask for several days while avoiding crowded rooms. Repeat testing after a positive result is pointless, since viral particles in the nose may remain for days without signifying a risk of infecting others, Schaffner said.

The Health and Human Services Department is making four free covid tests available to anyone who requests them starting in late September through covidtest.gov, said Dawn O’Connell, assistant secretary for preparedness and response, at the Aug. 23 briefing.

The government is focusing its fall vaccine advocacy campaign — which it’s calling “Risk Less. Do More.” — on older people and nursing home residents, said HHS spokesperson Jeff Nesbit.

Not everyone may really need a fall covid booster, but “it’s not wrong to give people options,” John Moore said. “The 20-year-old athlete is less at risk than the 70-year-old overweight dude. It’s as simple as that.”

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KFF Health News correspondent Amy Maxmen contributed to this report. Healthbeat is a nonprofit newsroom covering public health published by Civic News Company and KFF Health News. This article was updated at 2:40 p.m. ET on Sept. 5, 2024, to correct the name of the Department of Health and Human Services’ fall vaccine advocacy campaign.

The post The New Covid Vaccine Is Out. Why You Might Not Want To Rush To Get It appeared first on Medika Life.

First, the guidance itself removes a specific reference to COVID-19 and groups it together with other respiratory viruses, such as influenza and RSV. This, in and of itself, is a significant change. And the new guidance says that if you do not have a fever for 24 hours and are feeling better, you do not have to isolate for five days and can continue normal activities.

As far as I’m concerned, this is a big deal. In many settings, especially in healthcare settings, if one or more staff members have to isolate at home for five days if they test positive for Covid, this can cause significant staffing difficulties. Now, the CDC finally recognizes that common sense needs to prevail.

That common sense includes the fact that, if you are sick, you need to stay home. This is true whether it is the flu, Covid, RSV, or any other illness. Once you’re feeling better, then you can resume normal activities.

Now, it is true that Covid can spread to other people even if the carrier does not have any symptoms. And so, again, common sense needs to prevail: if you are around people who are at high risk for severe illness with Covid, you should wear a mask around them. And, when you are sick, you should stay away from them completely. This is proper “virus etiquette” that more of us need to develop. It is the same as coughing or sneezing into one’s elbow.

The reason I am so excited about this change is because, today, the COVID-19 virus is a completely different pathogen. In the very beginning, COVID-19 caused severe illness in a great number of people. In the United States, it killed over 1 million people. That is a lot. I myself came down with COVID-19 in November 2020, and I have never had a viral illness like that one. It was unlike anything I have ever experienced. Now, however, for many people, COVID-19 is simply a bad cold.

It has been several months, if not years, that I have seen a life-threatening case of Covid ARDS in my ICU. Recently, I had a patient who tested positive for Covid and had severe lung infiltrates. It turns out that those were due to severe heart failure and not Covid. In fact, many of the patients we see in the hospital with Covid have other conditions that brought them in, and the Covid was simply a bystander.

That said, this does not mean that Covid cannot cause severe illness at all. The elderly, the frail and weak, and those with compromised immune systems are still at high risk for life-threatening illness, even with the current variant of Covid. They, of course, need to remain vigilant and careful. And those of us who are not at high-risk need to be cognizant of this and, again, have proper virus etiquette.

All of this having been said, this is a great change. I disagree with the those who say that this new guidance will make people dismiss Covid as a significant disease. People have already moved beyond Covid, and this is because the COVID-19 of 2024 is substantially different than the COVID-19 of 2020. This is reality, and I am very happy that the CDC has finally acknowledged this reality.

Listen to the podcast episode about this article.

The post It’s About Time: CDC Changes COVID Isolation Guidelines appeared first on Medika Life.

Does even light physical activity hurt people with post-exertional malaise (with symptoms such as fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, and challenges with body temperature regulation)?

I was lucky; my COVID-19 infection was virtually asymptomatic. I slept ten hours, something I never do. So I tested.

Others are less fortunate.

In 2022, seven percent of adults had Long COVID. Women (8.5 percent) were more likely than men (5.2 percent) to ever have Long COVID-19, and women (4.4 percent) were also more likely than men (2.3 percent) to currently have Long COVID.

Long COVID-19

Long COVID, a perplexing phenomenon characterized by the persistence of symptoms for weeks, months, or even years after recovering from COVID-19, continues to baffle medical professionals and researchers.

Those who suffer from it experience a wide range of symptoms, including fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, and challenges with body temperature regulation.

Many people believe that exercise could worsen long COVID and cause harm.

Today’s goals

However, a recent study published in the British Medical Journal has shown that exercise may be a key player in long COVID recovery.

In this article, I will explore the findings of this study and provide insight into how exercise can improve the health-related quality of life for individuals experiencing long-term effects of COVID.

Post-exertional malaise (PEM)

Post-exertional malaise refers to worsening symptoms after even minor physical or mental exertion.

This phenomenon typically intensifies 12 to 48 hours post-activity, lingering for days or weeks.

Would exercise worsen COVID-19-related fatigue?

Chronic fatigue syndrome

Unlike many fatiguing diseases, where patients often find relief after exercise, those with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome face a different reality.

Even the slightest exertion can trigger Post-exertional Malaise (PEM), exacerbating their symptoms instead of providing relief.

Managing PEM involves adopting activity management strategies, commonly known as pacing.

The objective is to prevent flare-ups and avoid relapses by maintaining a delicate balance between rest and activity.

New study

A recent study published in the British Medical Journal has provided the first evidence-based recommendation for self-reported long COVID: exercise.

The research, titled “Clinical effectiveness of an online supervised group physical and mental health rehabilitation programme for adults with post-covid-19 condition (REGAIN study): multicentre randomised controlled trial,” focused on individuals recently discharged from the hospital after experiencing COVID-19.

Study objectives

The goal of the REGAIN trial (Rehabilitation Exercise and psycholoGical support after COVID-19 InfectioN) was to assess the effectiveness of an eight-week, organized online supervised group program focused on physical and mental health rehabilitation.

The objective was to determine whether this structured intervention could enhance the health-related quality of life in adults experiencing long Covid-19 compared to standard care.

Exercise intervention

These participants reported ongoing damage from COVID-19, commonly known as self-reported long COVID-19.

Researchers randomly assigned study subjects to an 8-week group exercise program or a single check-in session, with the main measure being their quality of life.

Exercise details

The REGAIN internet-based exercise and behavioral support intervention comprised an initial individual consultation with a skilled practitioner.

Eight online group exercise sessions and six group support sessions were conducted over eight weeks.

Additionally, participants could avail themselves of an online repository containing on-demand exercises and support videos.

Results

Despite failing to achieve full participation from everyone, the study showed significant improvements.

In the intervention group, 47% of participants (141 individuals) fully adhered to the program, 39 percent (117 individuals) partially adhered, and 13 percent (40 individuals) did not receive the intervention.

Even with varying levels of engagement, positive outcomes were still evident.

Compared to standard care, the exercise intervention improved health-related quality of life, particularly in areas such as depression, fatigue, and pain interference.

My take

These positive effects were sustained at the 12-month mark, suggesting that exercise can play a crucial role in the recovery of individuals experiencing long-term effects of COVID.

Researchers are testing the exercise and counseling intervention in a randomized controlled trial.

Got long-COVID-19? Please check in with a valued healthcare provider before embarking on physical activity.

The post Exercise Emerges as Key Player in Long COVID Recovery: Game-Changing Findings appeared first on Medika Life.

The vaccines mostly showed safe results, but the study confirmed some rare side effects. For example, the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine showed a slightly higher risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome and a type of blood clot in the brain known as cerebral venous sinus thrombosis. However, these risks were not seen with mRNA vaccines like Pfizer and Moderna.

The study also found that heart inflammation (myocarditis and pericarditis) was more likely after Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, but this was extremely rare. Interestingly, there was a higher-than-expected occurrence of a brain condition called acute disseminated encephalomyelitis after the first dose of the Moderna vaccine, but this was based on a very small number of cases.

This large-scale study is crucial in identifying rare side effects of COVID-19 vaccines. Although there were some variations in the data due to different healthcare systems and study methods across countries, the overall findings are reassuring. They confirm that the known risks of COVID-19 vaccines are very rare and that the benefits outweigh the potential risks. Continuous monitoring and analysis of real-world data are important as vaccination programs continue worldwide.

The post Understanding the Safety of COVID-19 Vaccines: Insights from a Major International Study appeared first on Medika Life.

I always get my vaccinations in my left arm. Not because I anticipated the intriguing new study results.

Rather, I sleep on my right side and don’t want the discomfort associated with vaccination on my compressed arm.

Before we examine sidedness and vaccinations, I must share that winter has begun in Seattle. I define the season as dark and rainy.

Chilled-looking people walking along the riverside, the snow beginning, faintly, to pile up on the roofs of cars, the bare trees shaking their heads left and right, dry leaves tossing in the wind. The silver of the metal window sash sparkled coldly. Soon after, I heard sensei call, “Mikage! Are you awake? It’s snowing, look! It’s snowing!” “I’m coming!” I called out, standing up. I got dressed to begin another day. Over and over, we begin again. — Banana Yoshimoto

Arm-Sidedness and COVID Vaccination

I read the title of a recent article and thought, “Really?” But as you will see, there is a logic to the finding. Here’s the title:

Differences in SARS-CoV-2 specific humoral and cellular immune responses after contralateral and ipsilateral COVID-19 vaccination.

In other words, individuals may get more protection against COVID-19 if they get their vaccinations and boosters in the same arm.

The Study

German researchers examined health data for 303 people who got the mRNA vaccine and a subsequent booster shot. None had a history of COVID-19 infection.

They measured the antibody levels of the subjects two weeks after the second shot.

Here are the surprising results:

The number of protective “killer T cells” was higher in the 147 study participants who got both shots in the same arm.

Scientists found killer T cells in 67 percent of cases when both shots entered the same arm. This number compares to 43 percent of cases with different arms.

My Take

Same-arm vaccinations may work better because the cells providing the immune response are in nearby (underarm) lymph nodes.

There may be a more vigorous immune response if the immune cells in the nearby nodes are restimulated in the same location.

Since this study does not represent high-level evidence, we need more studies to validate the results. Moreover, we don’t know if the findings apply to other vaccines, including the flu.

Still, I will continue to get my vaccinations in my left arm. I sleep on my right side, so it is for the best.

The post Is Getting COVID Shots in the Same Arm Better? appeared first on Medika Life.

That said, it is clear that vaccination against SARS CoV-2 also comes with risks. It is not completely benign. That is also indisputable. Specifically, vaccination against SARS CoV-2 has been associated with myocarditis/pericarditis, especially in adolescent and young adult males.

The mechanism of this very rare, albeit very real, complication (estimated to be between 0 to 35.9 cases per 100,000 across age groups and mRNA vaccine cohorts) has been thought to be either an allergic reaction, an autoimmune reaction from the vaccine, or a cross-reaction from the antibodies generated by the vaccine itself.

Researchers from Yale University have elucidated the actual cause of myocarditis. They studied 23 patients with vaccine-associated myocarditis and/or pericarditis. They did extensive and exquisite studies on these patients, and here their conclusions:

our results demonstrate up-regulation in inflammatory cytokines and corresponding lymphocytes with tissue-damaging capabilities, suggesting a cytokine-dependent pathology, which may further be accompanied by myeloid cell–associated cardiac fibrosis. These findings likely rule out some previously proposed mechanisms of mRNA vaccine–-associated myopericarditis and point to new ones with relevance to vaccine development and clinical care.

Thus, it is the actual immune system itself – revved up by the vaccine – that directly damage the heart muscle itself. Now, this raises a number of questions: why more often in young males? Why the heart and not other organs? If there could be scarring in the heart, then what are the long-term effects? What does this mean for future mRNA vaccines? Hopefully, these and even more questions will be answered with further research.

Yes, the cohort is quite small, and it may be difficult to extrapolate these findings to all patients with vaccine-induced myocarditis. Nonetheless, the findings are an important contributor to the literature. It emphasizes the great importance to follow these patients long-term to make sure they don’t have any long-term complications. In addition, it is quite important to highlight what the researchers themselves pointed out about their findings:

It is also critical to contextualize the rare risk of adverse events and potential clinical sequelae after SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in comparison with the greater risks of sequelae (including myocarditis), hospitalization, and/or death resulting from infection with SARS-CoV-2.

Indeed, according to the CDC, the risk of cardiac complications of the infection itself far far outweighs the risk of myocarditis from the vaccine:

Hopefully, further research will add to this study’s important body of knowledge and help us develop even safer vaccines for the next pandemic.

Study Reference: Anis Barmada, et al. Cytokinopathy with aberrant cytotoxic lymphocytes and profibrotic myeloid response in SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine–associated myocarditis. Sci.Immunol.8,eadh3455(2023). DOI:10.1126/sciimmunol.adh3455

The post New Research Clarifies Cause of Myocarditis After mRNA Vaccine appeared first on Medika Life.

A nurse was killed when she refused to give a patient a cigarette. Of course, the patient had already committed murder, so what did he have to lose? By using a ballpoint pen, a patient stabbed another nurse in the neck.

A psychiatrist on a ward where I worked was also attacked. After I left the office and building, the patient repeatedly hit the small woman psychiatrist with her handbag, which contained a heavy book. The psychiatrist had injuries to her shoulder and neck and went on sick leave for two months. The patient was immediately transferred to another hospital in the state, one for violent patients who had attacked, primarily, physicians.

None of this happened recently, and the violence at the two hospitals where I worked was always treated the same: transfer when an MD was attacked, quiet room for every other attack. The staff felt demeaned and resentful.

“The risk of workplace violence is not distributed evenly across specialty. Data shows that those who work in the emergency department, in geriatrics, or in psychiatry are substantially more likely to experience violence.”

Today, however, the level of violence, primarily at hospitals, is causing a sudden decision for nursing staff to seek other employment or leave the field entirely because of burnout or a lack of safety. Some estimates place the number of nurses leaving by 2027 at around 600,000. The result is that we have inadequate levels of staffing now, and it will get worse. In fact, hospitals are upping their recruitment abroad to supplement the paltry stream from US sources.

The rise in violence against medical professionals has had a substantial influence on the medical community, causing serious difficulties for both patient care and healthcare workers. Stressed and overworked healthcare professionals may degrade the standard of patient care. Also, the fear of violence can make it difficult for healthcare professionals to carry out their jobs properly, which can reduce productivity and increase the risk of patient care errors. In such a situation, what can be done?

How It Is Being Addressed

The media has been providing information on the issue, and both public awareness and education about it are needed. But is that enough? Obviously, an informed public is needed, but what steps are hospitals taking to protect and train their personnel?

According to research, healthcare is the profession where more violence occurs than in any other workplace, and about 654,000 personnel are injured each year. Yes, this is shocking, and I’m willing to play devil’s advocate here after reading what hospitals are proposing by way of decreasing violence in healthcare settings. No, I am not an expert on the matter, but some of the propositions appear to be circling the wagons without addressing some very real issues.

A perusal of the information that is being provided to healthcare personnel boils down to learning to de-escalate potentially violent incidents, educating the public and patients, planning for escape, where to hide, and how to call for help or security personnel. The one factor that is missing is the most distressing of all. The reasons for violence? Patient dissatisfaction, scarcity of mental health facilities, the opioid crisis, the pandemic—the list goes on.

Using a phrase that has become familiar to many of us, “You don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.” How does that apply here? I believe it is apparent that we are not more forcefully addressing the issue of gun availability, but not simply the ready supply of guns in stores.

The type of gun that is being used in almost all of these violent incidents is one meant for war. To more graphically present what these guns do, I have read in the research that the exit wound is the size of an orange, and survival is all but hopeless.

The issues are broader than employee and patient education, where to hide, or hospital protocols. To say that we are handling the question of gun violence in the US would seem to me to be somewhat naive or evasive. It’s a head-in-the-sand gesture when over 200 mass shootings occurred in the first half of 2023. Anyone wishing for more detailed information on gun violence can search the Gun Violence Archive.

Personnel shortages are only one result of the violence we are seeing. The future history books will carry a good deal of bold-faced type to underscore the recklessness we’ve encountered with regard to loss of life and our responses. The question remains: when will it stop?

The post How Can We Address Increasing Violence Against Healthcare Personnel? appeared first on Medika Life.

The most troubling news about the spread of COVID-19 comes from a recent CDC conference where 35 attendees came down with the virus. These people would appear to be part of a group that is eminently aware of the risks and the precautions that must be taken to avoid infection. But, they didn’t take precautions? Were they as worn out as the rest of us and wanted to be free to go to a “safe” conference?

Since 2018, the COVID-19 epidemic has affected people worldwide, and there have been hints recently that its spread might or might not be ending. As more people become immunized, disease rates decline, and restrictions are loosened, there is greater optimism than ever that this pandemic will end. But, some CDC members have run into heated arguments that have caused them to understand an alarming truth: It might never end.

Members of the CDC are becoming increasingly worried about the possibility that reduced vaccination rates in some areas would undercut the progress made in the fight against the flu and make it more difficult than originally anticipated to stop its spread.

The number of COVID-19 cases in India, brought on by the virus’s new variant strain, has increased alarmingly quickly, raising concerns throughout Southeast Asia and India, according to CDC experts and global health officials.

The Economic Times of May 1, 2023, indicated: “India on Monday reported 4,282 coronavirus infections, while the number of active cases dropped by over 1,750 to stand at 47,246, according to the latest Health Ministry data. The death toll has increased to 5,31,547 with 14 more fatalities, which includes six reconciled by Kerala, the data updated at 8 a.m. showed.”

In the face of the news coming out of India and, possibly being withheld in other countries, how can we say the pandemic is over and we no longer need to take precautions? The CDC has insisted that people who have received the flu shot are allowed to engage in a variety of activities without having to abide by specific rules, such as mask-wearing and physical distancing requirements. But people contract the virus despite immunization.

Although there are fewer cases and more people getting vaccinated, the difficulties CDC staff and public health professionals confront demonstrate that the H1N1 epidemic has not yet been defeated. How will the recent CDC ruling that one vaccine shot by a person coming into the US will be viewed as “fully vaccinated” now affect our citizens?

“Because some traveler vaccine records might not specify whether recent Moderna or Pfizer doses received were bivalent, CDC will consider anybody with record of a single dose of Moderna or Pfizer vaccine issued on or after August 16, 2022, to meet the requirements,” is the agency’s response.

Recent occurrences among CDC members demonstrate that the influenza pandemic is still running strong despite broad vaccination campaigns against the Delta subtype. More Delta cases must be immediately treated in order to combat the pandemic flu outbreak, as cases and hospitalizations may surge across the country.

Together, we can face this catastrophe head-on, but experts are showing concern that another pandemic may be on the horizon this coming fall and questioning whether or not current vaccines will be sufficiently robust to quell it and save lives. This doesn’t bode well for our continued health-related stress, and that may contribute to infection rates as well since we know stress has a tendency to lower our natural immunity anyway.

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