Good article. However, I notice that nowadays the accepted bona fides in almost everything about the vaccines is the phrase “I had my second jab last week” or “my second jab is next week”. The standard used to be an anti-Trump comment thrown in for good measure regardless of the topic, but now it’s an assurance that jabs have been had.
Sigh.
I think you can be a good and intelligent person with valid points to make regardless of your political or immunological status.
Johann Strauss
2 years ago
I have no doubt that this is a real issue. Perhaps key is that dosage of the mRNA and DNA-based vaccines has not been properly assessed. In contrast to a regular vaccine in which a known amount of antigen, inactivated or attenuated virus is injected, the link between amount of DNA-based (adenovirus vector) or mRNA-based vaccines injected and the amount and duration of spike protein actually produced has perhaps not been thoroughly investigated and I would expect variations of over an order of magnitude, especially between the young and the old, and even between men and women, but for that matter just between individuals.
We are told that the spike protein is innocuous and not pathogenic in its own right but that simply can’t be true. There has to be an ED50 and an LD50 for the spike protein and the safety margin may be quite narrow. (After all even the margin of safety for an OTC drug such as tylenol/paracetamol is relatively narrow). Indeed, one might speculate that those experiencing serious side effects, including life threatening ones such as coagulation with concomitant thrombocyopenia (very rare under normal conditions and unlikely for a physician to ever see this during his/her career) and myocarditis in the young and healthy, may in fact be associated with high production of spike protein.
Isn’t it time for the powers in charge to get off their high horse and actually start investigating the nature and causes of these untoward side effects. Just anecdotally, I know that many of my friends and acquaintances have experienced really bad (but not life threatening) side effects after their second shot (especially of the Moderna version of the mRNA vaccine) to the extent that they have never felt so bad before in their lives. This is worrying because the incidence of side effects is so much larger than for any other regular vaccine on the market, and the powers that be simply to want or refuse to com to terms with that little pesky fact.
Last edited 2 years ago by Johann Strauss
Andrew D
2 years ago
I read this twice, and excuse male ignorance, but I’m still not clear about what the purported ‘changes’ are. Delayed or missed periods? Heavier ones? More painful ones? I don’t doubt that there’s a problem here, but apart from registering the usual moan about the uncaring patriarchy (are there no women in medicine?), I’m none the wiser.
Kathryn Allegro
2 years ago
Kristina Murkett is absolutely right in saying that breaking down trial data by sex is long overdue. She should be thanked for acknowledging that this is a problem that affects women and only women because of the very basic facts of female biology. Sex matters.
The New York Times and The Guardian covered this story earlier in the spring. Both reports avoided using the word ‘woman’, e.g. “people who had menstrual cycles or a uterus reported menstrual irregularities after reporting exposure to tear gas”, “people who are pregnant”, “respondents who potentially menstruate.”
nytimes.com/2021/05/01/us/period-tear-gas-study-portland.html
theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/29/teargas-protest-menstrual-cycles-health-impact
Some women do not have a uterus. Some do not have menstrual cycles. Some (even many) are not pregnant. Some women, as all men, fall into all three categories. It must be concluded, then, that writers who use the word “people” when they refer only to women do not consider men to be people.
Chris Milburn
2 years ago
As a physician who works in a province of Canada with less than 1 million people, I personally know of or have looked after 3 myocarditis patients, 3 Guillain-Barre, 1 severe VITP, several cases of serious blood clots, as well as 3 cases of “COVID-arm” (a real thing, not a colloquial or hysterical description). It is nearly impossible to report a vaccine AE here, FB groups that tried to have people come together to share AE experience have been purged, and speaking at least for Canada, the message continues from “the authorities” that “vaccines are safe and everyone should get one”. Tell that to the 20-something healthy thin guy whose heart will never work the same, and whose risk for serious outcomes from COVID was essentially zero.
I’m not an anti-vaxxer (I got mine), but I am pro-science.
Good article. However, I notice that nowadays the accepted bona fides in almost everything about the vaccines is the phrase “I had my second jab last week” or “my second jab is next week”. The standard used to be an anti-Trump comment thrown in for good measure regardless of the topic, but now it’s an assurance that jabs have been had.
Sigh.
I think you can be a good and intelligent person with valid points to make regardless of your political or immunological status.
I have no doubt that this is a real issue. Perhaps key is that dosage of the mRNA and DNA-based vaccines has not been properly assessed. In contrast to a regular vaccine in which a known amount of antigen, inactivated or attenuated virus is injected, the link between amount of DNA-based (adenovirus vector) or mRNA-based vaccines injected and the amount and duration of spike protein actually produced has perhaps not been thoroughly investigated and I would expect variations of over an order of magnitude, especially between the young and the old, and even between men and women, but for that matter just between individuals.
We are told that the spike protein is innocuous and not pathogenic in its own right but that simply can’t be true. There has to be an ED50 and an LD50 for the spike protein and the safety margin may be quite narrow. (After all even the margin of safety for an OTC drug such as tylenol/paracetamol is relatively narrow). Indeed, one might speculate that those experiencing serious side effects, including life threatening ones such as coagulation with concomitant thrombocyopenia (very rare under normal conditions and unlikely for a physician to ever see this during his/her career) and myocarditis in the young and healthy, may in fact be associated with high production of spike protein.
Isn’t it time for the powers in charge to get off their high horse and actually start investigating the nature and causes of these untoward side effects. Just anecdotally, I know that many of my friends and acquaintances have experienced really bad (but not life threatening) side effects after their second shot (especially of the Moderna version of the mRNA vaccine) to the extent that they have never felt so bad before in their lives. This is worrying because the incidence of side effects is so much larger than for any other regular vaccine on the market, and the powers that be simply to want or refuse to com to terms with that little pesky fact.
I read this twice, and excuse male ignorance, but I’m still not clear about what the purported ‘changes’ are. Delayed or missed periods? Heavier ones? More painful ones? I don’t doubt that there’s a problem here, but apart from registering the usual moan about the uncaring patriarchy (are there no women in medicine?), I’m none the wiser.
Kristina Murkett is absolutely right in saying that breaking down trial data by sex is long overdue. She should be thanked for acknowledging that this is a problem that affects women and only women because of the very basic facts of female biology. Sex matters.
The New York Times and The Guardian covered this story earlier in the spring. Both reports avoided using the word ‘woman’, e.g. “people who had menstrual cycles or a uterus reported menstrual irregularities after reporting exposure to tear gas”, “people who are pregnant”, “respondents who potentially menstruate.”
nytimes.com/2021/05/01/us/period-tear-gas-study-portland.html
theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/29/teargas-protest-menstrual-cycles-health-impact
What else would you expect from the NYT and The Guardian. They have become laughable.
Some women do not have a uterus. Some do not have menstrual cycles. Some (even many) are not pregnant. Some women, as all men, fall into all three categories. It must be concluded, then, that writers who use the word “people” when they refer only to women do not consider men to be people.
As a physician who works in a province of Canada with less than 1 million people, I personally know of or have looked after 3 myocarditis patients, 3 Guillain-Barre, 1 severe VITP, several cases of serious blood clots, as well as 3 cases of “COVID-arm” (a real thing, not a colloquial or hysterical description). It is nearly impossible to report a vaccine AE here, FB groups that tried to have people come together to share AE experience have been purged, and speaking at least for Canada, the message continues from “the authorities” that “vaccines are safe and everyone should get one”. Tell that to the 20-something healthy thin guy whose heart will never work the same, and whose risk for serious outcomes from COVID was essentially zero.
I’m not an anti-vaxxer (I got mine), but I am pro-science.