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Increased risk of heart inflammation from Moderna Covid jab in
young men, US regulator says, after suspensions in Nordic nations
22 Oct, 2021 12:08
© Reuters / Kim Kyung-Hoon
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has reiterated the risk of heart inflammation in young men following vaccination with Moderna’s Covid-19 jab after a handful of Nordic nations halted its use in this age group.
In an announcement released on Wednesday, the body shared that “ongoing analyses from the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) safety surveillance systems have identified increased risks of inflammatory heart conditions, myocarditis and pericarditis following vaccination with the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.”
As per the statement, this risk has been seen particularly following the second dose, with symptoms appearing a few days after receiving the jab.
“The observed risk is higher among males under 40 years of age, particularly males 18 through 24, than among females and older males,” the notice read.
The comments in the FDA press release echo similar concerns from Nordic nations that led to Spikevax, the marketing name for Moderna’s Covid vaccine, to be suspended in some form.
Icelandic health authorities announced on October 8 that it will no longer administer Moderna’s mRNA shot due to the risk of rare heart inflammation seen in other Nordic countries.
The director of Finland’s National Institution for Health and Welfare, Mika Salminen, said that “A Nordic study involving Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark found that men under the age of 30 who received Moderna Spikevax had a slightly higher risk than others of developing myocarditis.”
The findings prompted Helsinki to announce that men born in 1991 and after would no longer be given the jab.
Sweden, just one day prior, froze the use of Spikevax on all of its population under 30, citing an “increased incidence” of heart inflammation diseases, myocarditis and pericarditis. Meanwhile, Norway recommends that men under the age of 30 opt for Pfizer’s jab instead.
Concerns over heart inflammation after receiving mRNA jabs from both Pfizer and Moderna, however, are not new. In June, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to the CDC revealed a total of 323 preliminary incidents, of what met the CDC definition of myocarditis or pericarditis, were recorded in Americans under the age of 29. A total of 309 of those were hospitalized.
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Fauci slams Rand Paul’s claims US-funded bat virus research led to
Covid-19 after senator demands his firing amid longstanding row
25 Oct, 2021 13:18
Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on July 20, 2021 in Washington, DC.
© AFP /Getty Images / Stefani Reynolds-Pool
White House Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci has lashed out at claims made by Senator Rand Paul that US-funded bat virus research in China could have spawned Covid-19, rebuffing the idea as “molecularly impossible.”
Speaking on Sunday to ABC News, Fauci blasted accusations made by Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had funded research in Wuhan which resulted in the origination of the coronavirus: “He's absolutely incorrect. Neither I nor Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the NIH, lied or misled about what we've done.”
The senator also called for Fauci to be fired by US President Joe Biden “for lack of judgement,” and said it is unlikely he will “admit that he lied” in an interview with Axios on HBO. “He's gonna continue to dissemble, and try to work around the truth, and massage the truth,” Paul remarked.
Of course, no one can ever admit doing anything close to willfully creating the CV19 virus.
The remarks come after the NIH’s principal deputy director, Lawrence Tabak, revealed last week that nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance did experiment on coronaviruses in China with the organization’s funding, but he denied this had anything to do with the virus that causes Covid-19.
Fauci also reiterated this and said that the viruses being studied “were distant enough molecularly that no matter what you did to them, they could never, ever become SARS-CoV-2.” It would be “molecularly impossible,” he insisted.
In a letter sent to Republican lawmakers, Tabak said the experiment found mice infected with one bat coronavirus “became sicker than those” given another type.
Despite there being a 96-97% similarity between SARS-CoV-2 and the RaTG13 and BANAL-52 bat coronaviruses, Tabak insisted “the bat coronaviruses studied under the EcoHealth Alliance grant could not have been the source of … the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The World Health Organization announced a renewed probe to determine the origins of the coronavirus earlier this month. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian promised that Beijing would continue to support and participate in finding out where the virus came from, but said it will “firmly oppose any form of political manipulation.”
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Government response to Covid-19 was too slow and insufficient
to stop spread, Swedish commission finds
29 Oct, 2021 12:37
(FILE PHOTO) © TT News Agency/Janerik Henriksson via REUTERS
A commission appointed by the government has said that Sweden’s interventions at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic were insufficient to prevent the spread of the virus, and the state’s preparedness was substandard.
The commission investigating the government’s management of the Covid-19 pandemic has issued a scathing interim report, accusing the state of introducing measures too late to prevent the spread of the deadly virus.
“Sweden’s handling of the pandemic has been marked by a slowness of response,” the commission stated, adding that “the initial disease prevention and control measures were insufficient to stop or even substantially limit the spread of the virus in the country.”
The commission also contended that it had taken “far too long” to build sufficient testing capacity as, at first, only targeted groups, such as healthcare staff, were able to get tested.
Sweden embarked on a no-lockdown strategy with tighter restrictions added during later waves of the pandemic. The country had recorded around 15,000 deaths from the virus, substantially more than its Nordic neighbors who locked down quickly.
The strategy, largely reflecting the now-defunct Great Barrington Declaration, was controversial at home and abroad as preventative measures were dropped in favor of asking the public to make their own decisions.
The move was praised by some who saw the model as more business friendly, and some predicted naturally developing herd immunity would eventually slow the spread of the virus.
The commission will deliver its final findings in a 2022 report, although the interim reports have been highly critical of the government. Beyond making its findings public, the commission has no legal power.
Nearly all Covid-19 measures have now been removed in Sweden.
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