12/2022: What’s New This Month About Covid, Vaccines, and Others

A newsletter providing a short account of the articles published in the previous month

Happy New Year everyone! It’s time for me to send another monthly update on the articles published in Microbial Instincts, an independent publication about infectious diseases and vaccines, in December. As usual, here is the list (friend-linked, no paywall) that I hope will keep you more scientifically informed:

Covid-19

• Ivermectin failed in a high-dose trial, but metformin might help treat covid: The Gift Of Fire, who wrote on ivermectin before, gave us an update on the latest ivermectin randomized clinical trial, which didn’t work out well again. The writer moved on to metformin, which seems to fulfill the goals of ivermectin as a cheap and effective pill against Covid and long-Covid. Yet the ivermectin advocates and even the FDA aren’t talking about metformin. Read the article to see why.
• Triennium: A 3-year Pandemic Recap: In a long-form, Prof. Dr. Agustín Muñoz-Sanz recapitulated the key aspects of the pandemic so far. He began with the probable spillover event of the coronavirus from bats to humans, but also acknowledged that the debate on wildlife vs. lab origin of the virus may never have a winner. He then described the virus’s transmission and mutational abilities, leading to a pandemic of numerous variants and subvariants, as well as the post-covid health repercussions and the current state of vaccines and antivirals.

Cumulative incidence of long-Covid, diagnosed by a medical provider, over 10 months after randomization. Metformin reduced the development of long-Covid by 42% compared to placebo. Source: Bramante et al. (2022).

Vaccines

• New study measures the frequency of covid vaccine injuries: The Gift Of Fire described the recent study on the risk of postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), an autonomic heart disorder, from Covid and its vaccines. Although the study found that POTS risk is 5-times greater from Covid than its vaccines, the writer argued that the risk is 2-times instead if you control for their baseline POTS rates. The writer also raised issues that the study didn’t address, such as the fact that vaccines don’t prevent infection, whether the risks are cumulative, and what the risk-benefit analysis of vaccines looks like now.
• Study on Risk of POTS From COVID and Its Vaccine Is Suspicious if Not Propaganda: Herein, I also described the infamous POTS study, but arguing that the risk of POTS may actually be equal, or at most 2-times, between Covid and its vaccines, depending on how you look at the data. But the risk is certainly not 5-times, because the baseline POTS rates between the two groups are already at least 5-times different. I also discussed what this new study means for vaccine safety and how we should communicate scientific findings appropriately.

There was already a huge baseline difference in the rates of POTS between the vaccinated and infected groups. This suggests that the two groups may not be comparable. Source: Dr. Syed’s Youtube video, titled “5x More POTS with Infection vs. Vaccine — This Study Needs Correction.”

• Latest Autopsy Study on mRNA Vaccine Recipients From Germany: What It Means and Doesn’t Mean: Another recent study on autopsied vaccinees has been widely championed by the anti-vaccine community as proof of fatal mRNA vaccines. I then detailed the study’s findings in the appropriate context. For instance, this study is not meant to infer the incidence of fatal mRNA vaccine-associated myocarditis, which is very rare with an incidence rate close to 0%. I also discuss what this autopsy study means for vaccine safety, particularly for young men.

Others

• What Happened to The Monkeypox Epidemic?: Gil Pires provided an update on the recent global monkeypox epidemic, declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). But the epidemic is under control now with low case rates. Gil pointed out two probable reasons why: men who have sex with other men are taking precautions to reduce their risk of exposure, and vaccines are working.
• Role of Mind-Altering Herpesviruses in Major Depression: This time, I am writing on a non-covid topic, describing how some herpesviruses increase the risk of major depression in later life by drawing on several longitudinal nationwide studies. These herpesviruses can stay dormant in the body permanently, occasionally reactivating when the immune system is weak, and invading the brain. So, it’s theorized that multiple herpesvirus reactivations throughout life may trigger gradual brain neurological damage that may underlie clinical depression.

Immunostaining of neurons infected with varicella-zoster virus (VZV) engineered to express a green fluorescent protein (GFP). Thus, green staining indicates VZV infection, whereas red staining indicates neuronal staining. Panel G is low magnification, whereas panel H is high magnification. And panel H reveals that most neurons have already been infected with VZV at 3–7 days post-infection. Source: Markus et al. (2011).

Thank you for reading! Subscribe to Microbial Instincts here and follow or support its contributing authors if you’d like. Feel free to reach out to me for any questions or feedback by email or commenting here.