Thank you! We were lucky that our local CVS had the peds COVID vaccine as soon as Hochul issued her order allowing access. I hate that this is where we are with access. For years these anti-vax folks have talked about "choice" and much like every other line they feed us, their choice is to force their anti-science magical thinking on the rest of us.
Might I suggest that one might minimize disrupting the circadian rhythm at night by utilizing a red light type LED for a night light. In a study of 2, I/we have found it quite helpful and one retains night vision capacity with this part of the light spectrum. This is also important for reducing the risk of falls at night, esp for those of us with a few moons to our lifetime credit. An archived outline from the CDC describes the red light beneficial effect: https://archive.cdc.gov/www_cdc_gov/niosh/emres/longhourstraining/color.html. {Disclaimer: This may not be current science because as we all (should) know scientific knowledge evolves and we should not be dogmatic without our own critical analysis and due diligence}.
Several years ago I started putting a red filter on my alarm clock, and put a red nightlight in my bathroom. The first night I went into the bathroom with the red highlight, I was immediately struck by how peaceful it felt compared to the blue light of my old one. I have been sleeping much better ever since I started using those. They have helped with chronic sleep issues. I would definitely recommend trying red filters and nightlights.
You know, if the submariners used red incandescent lights and had to sleep in shifts, the science for benefitting our circadian rhythms is old stuff, As I frequently attended my ailing wife at nights it was imperative for me to rapidly fall back to sleep before the next two hour interval was upon me. My balance isn't ideal in the middle of the night and having some visual perception of my surroundings, the floor, my feet was a great helped to me, and I cannot imagine it not helping others. We have read a lot about blue lights and what not to stare at before you go to sleep (staring at your spouse, not included, ahem) but I have not heard anyone promote a positive with that negative. I think red lights have gotten a bad rap with the knowledge of certain districts in Amsterdam! I could ramble for a couple of hours how that has impacted me in my research, trying to introduce a repurposing therapeutic. Once a particular therapy is locked in it takes more than a crowbar too loosen it up for some daylight.
Since I've long had sleep issues, both from my childhood and being post-menopausal, when I read that red lights are good, I jumped on it, and I'm glad I did. In my opinion it really pays to stay open to possibilities. as long as they are not quackery. I apply staying open to animals, plants, spiritual things, as well as medical things, because it can help enrich my life. PS, I have to say that I am always happy to have my spouse turn out the lights before he kisses me goodnight.
So far as having your spouse turn out the lights, I gave up on that a long time ago when I got my Alexa Echo Dot and my Smart lightbulbs. Now it's just a matter of declaring "Alexa, bedroom light off" Easy Peezy. Same for turning on a little Pandora music or adding something to my grocery list - with my voice. Ain't tech grand?
My partner - with RLS and Parkinson’s, Finally started to use an eye mask after both I and his doctor ganged up - it’s made a huge difference in the length and quality of his sleep. I use one too and i think I sleep more deeply with it on.
We have gone the curved curtain rod with blackout curtains and an alarm clock that dims to nothing route. We’re also very much people who read real books for 20-30 minutes before attempting sleep- it does wonders for winding us down and making the transition easier.
It sounds like I ought to change my routine from computer after we turn the VTV off to reading a book. Some of the books I read would not help because I tend to read difficult non-fiction books, and I can't read fiction because it always has a part that gets my adrenaline going. But if I read nature books, that would be a good change.
You've been reporting that Covid is coming down. But my D.C. physician has treated six COVID patients over the course of one week, and my daughter, who lives in D.C., is reporting the same uptick. That shows, I think, that data collecting is not up to par. I'm concerned because I'm involved in a large national conference Oct. 15-18 in D.C.
Why does the CDC declare that Covid vaccines are safe and effective? I think my third Covid mRNA vaccine dose in January 2022 almost killed me. Four days after the injection, my blood pressure went up to about 220/100 and heart rate was about 100, on my home monitor, for about 2 hours. I was on high blood pressure medication for 15 years prior. I called 911 for an ambulance. If I had known about this study "Comparative safety of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines to influenza vaccines: A pharmacovigilance analysis using WHO international database", published in Journal of Medical Virology 94, no. 3 (2022), showing an odds ratio of 12.72 to 1 of having a hypertensive crises, I would have stopped getting the mRNA Covid vaccine. See https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jmv.27424
This is one of many studies reported in the book Vax-Unvax about the dangers of the Covid mRNA vaccines.
From the study you cited: "The overall safety profile patterned a lower risk of serious AEFI following mRNA vaccines compared to influenza vaccines."
Not being a statistician I believe that is a comparative risk, not an absolute risk. the overall safety of mRNA vaccines seems pretty decent overall.
(This is from an 80+ year old who has had six rounds of mRNA vaccine with no reaction at all, never got Covid but lost several unvaccinated friends to it.)
I got Covid disease after three mRNA Covid vaccine injections, but I recovered after three days, so that is good. But I still have complaints. I was not given a chance to have informed consent. I was never shown a package insert. I found the package insert here: https://www.fda.gov/media/155675/download. There is no mention of blood pressure spike in the insert, thanks. I found more information in this study "Blood Pressure Increase following COVID-19 Vaccination: A Systematic Overview and Meta-Analysis" here https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9147472/#sec5-jcdd-09-00150 Conclusion: "Overall, included studies accrued 357,387 subjects with 13,444 events of abnormal or increased BP. The pooled proportions of abnormal/increased BP or stage III hypertension recorded following vaccination (3.20% and 0.6%, respectively) showed that this event should not be considered sporadic. However, in view of the small number of included studies and their inherent quality limitations (different times of observation, definition of BP increase, and a lack of a control group), the observed phenomenon requires further investigation in controlled settings." Apparently, I had a stage III hypertension event, I am in the 0.6%. This is an absolute risk, not a relative one. From Google: "Stage III hypertension is a severe form of high blood pressure, characterized by the following blood pressure readings:
Systolic pressure: 180 mmHg or higher
Diastolic pressure: 120 mmHg or higher
Symptoms:
Many people with stage III hypertension do not experience any symptoms. However, some may develop:
Headache, Dizziness, Shortness of breath, Chest pain, Vision changes, and Confusion.
Risks:
Stage III hypertension significantly increases the risk of serious health complications, including:
stroke, heart attack, kidney failure, and aortic dissection.
Treatment:
Immediate medical attention is crucial for stage III hypertension. "
I would rather have gotten a monoclonal antibody or Paxlovid, and not the vaccine. But there was no information about these treatments at the time.
I looks at these studies. The first one is now four years old and in any case the abstract concludes this way: "This study has not identified significant safety concerns regarding mRNA vaccination in real-world settings. The overall safety profile patterned a lower risk of serious AEFI following mRNA vaccines compared to influenza vaccines."
Your second article is a literature review with some significant number crunching from divergent sources. This is not a bad or nefarious thing, but it does warrant caution in attempting to generalize the results. The 95% confidence intervals on some of the resulting numbers are, not surprisingly, very wide, e.g.: "The proportions of patients with abnormal BP or with a significant increase in BP ranged from 0.93% to 23.72%, with a pooled point estimate of 3.91% (3.20% excluding statistical outliers). Moreover, the estimate of stage III hypertension or hypertensive urgencies and emergencies following COVID-19 vaccination was 0.6% (95% CI: 0.1–5.1%)." (from https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9147472/#sec5-jcdd-09-00150).
In any case, you should be getting medical advice from your PC doctor, not Google or what seems to be a somewhat selective Google search. Your doctor knows your health issues better than Google.
Slight digression: the current administration has, not surprisingly, stopped funding the NIH National Library of Medicine. Presumably because they don't want data messing up their ideology-driven decisions.
Thank you all for your input. I started this thread with the question "Why does the CDC declare that Covid vaccines are safe"? I shared my frightening experience with the Moderna mRNA Covid-19 vaccine. You all are pushing back, poking holes in my evidence. Are you trying to convince me that the Covid-19 vaccine is perfectly safe? No one ever gets any kind of harm, ever? If so, you can examine the package insert for SPIKEVAX created by Moderna at https://www.fda.gov/media/155675/download
In section 5.2 Myocarditis and Pericarditis it says "Based on analyses of commercial health insurance claims data from inpatient and outpatient
settings, the estimated unadjusted incidence of myocarditis and/or pericarditis during the period 1 through 7 days following administration of the 2023-2024 Formula of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines was approximately 8 cases per million doses in individuals 6 months through 64 years
of age and approximately 27 cases per million doses in males 12 years through 24 years of age." 8 per million is 1 in 125,000. That probability is not zero. I guess I was supposed to take the vaccine and hope I am not that one in 125,000 that gets Myocarditis. That is the gambling game we are playing. I of course will discuss the meaning of a Stage III hypertensive event with my doctor, next appointment. But I needed a quick definition. Was the definition provided by Google wrong? I was hoping the discussion would not decay into politics. I am just trying to formulate a true statement based on the scientific method.
"Are you trying to convince me that the Covid-19 vaccine is perfectly safe? No one ever gets any kind of harm, ever?" Obviously not. I can't say *that* about getting up in the morning. Nothing in life is "perfectly safe." Let us avoid that obvious rhetorical strawman.
The actual question is: is getting vaccinated less risky and more beneficial than getting ill with a virus whose long-term effects are still being examined? I know of no evidence that the answer is anything other than "yes." It's a straightforward risk/reward analysis. Type I vs. Type II error and the associated cost of each.
"I am just trying to formulate a true statement based on the scientific method." I have not seen any evidence of that. What I have seen is a clear case of cherry-picked articles which you apparently have either misunderstood or misrepresented.
I would like to make one more point, about the first study, the conclusion was "The overall safety profile patterned a lower risk of serious AEFI following mRNA vaccines compared to influenza vaccines". What is the value of this kind of study, except to obscure the harm caused by the mRNA vaccine? The author reveals his motivation near the beginning of the abstract: "Despite the high volume of emerging evidence regarding
adverse events (AEs) associated with the COVID‐19 mRNA vaccines, previous studies have thus far been largely based on the comparison between vaccinated and unvaccinated control, possibly highlighting the AE risks with COVID‐19 mRNA
vaccination." YES that is what exactly I want to know, data that possibly highlights the AE risks with COVID-19 mRNA vaccination, using the proper scientific method, a study that compares the vaccinated with the unvaccinated. Almost all RCT vaccine safety studies done to get an FDA license use this deceptive technique to obscure the vaccine injuries, by using a control group that uses another vaccine or the vaccine under test with the antigens removed, but the adjuvant remaining, as a placebo, so the manufacturer can claim the vaccine is safe because there was no difference between the study group injury rate and the control group in injury rate.
Thanks for taking the time to answer me. I am willing to confess my stupidity if it is clearly demonstrated to me, and learn. But I object to the language in the original e-mail "An update on Covid-19 vaccines" "VRBPAC determines vaccine formula and if safe and effective". I object to the use of the word "safe". So the true meaning of "safe" in CDC diagrams is that the risk of taking the vaccine is less than the risk of getting the disease. That is the true statement I was looking for. I would like that CDC to stop using the word "safe". Think of some other word. All I did was quote from the conclusion of some studies I found, and the package insert. Please show me how I cherry-picked them, what exactly did I misrepresent and not understand?
Can you help explain why the AAP recommends the flu vaccine for all children over 6 months old but the COVID vaccine for children 2 - 18 only in certain risk groups? I know the AAP recommends that the COVID vaccine is available for all children if their parent wants them to have the protection, but as a parent I'm trying to make that decision for my child who is not in one of those risk groups.
Every year my doctor, my child's pediatrician, and my insurance company remind us we all need flu shots, but the COVID vaccine is never mentioned by any of them. It's hard to parse out if this is just because of the political nature of the COVID vaccine or because we're at greater risk from the flu than from COVID.
Just like hunger in the US is going to "disappear" now that the Feds have stopped tracking food insecurity, so will infectious disease be "cured" by this government shut down. Thanks for doing the hard work of ferreting out the real story and keeping us all informed.
I haven't seen (or have missed) any info comparing this season's vaccines. Costco near me has 3 options (and no Novovax): Updated COVID - Moderna/Spikevax (Age 12+), Updated COVID - Moderna/mNEXSPIKE (Age 12+), & Updated COVID - Pfizer (Age 12+). Any insights about these would be most appreciated!
Thank you for making us aware of the food products recalled due to potential listeria contamination! There is additional information on affected pasta salad products sold at Kroger and Albertson’s stores on the FDA’s website:
The way you describe San Diego, as actually having a cloud makes it sound a lot like El Paso. Here we call it "severe clear" when there are no clouds in sight. That is how we are most of the time, except during monsoon season.
I am happy to live in a state where we don't have to worry about vaccine availability for COVID-19. Go figure that my state is Texas! I'm also happy that you had some good news to report. We desperately need that.
Our State Dept. of Health still has a Covid vaccine finder on its website. Not sure how it's working in red states, but I thank goodness for our Democratic governor who made sure our access to vaccines remains safe and convenient.
Thank you for these continuing updates -- truly a Godsend in the wasteland of federal propaganda.
I worked in group health insurance for about 15 years, and my take on it is that if the FDA has approved those vaccines, insurance companies would likely pay for them. Vaccines are a whole lot cheaper than extensive ICU hospital stays. I've been retired for a long time, but I think that insurance companies (the good ones) are basically practical in their thinking.
I support the ACA subsidies (and we should have iniversal health care). OTOH with my <32k social security and small pensions I pay 15% of my income a year in healthcare premiums - Medicare plus a secondary. I’d love to pay less.
In Utah, we were able to obtain both COVID and flu vaccines for our entire family, and covered by ACA insurance. So happy to hear all this refreshingly good news!
In Maine, our local pharmacies have, and are administering the latest Covid vaccine. I am so grateful to all who made this possible.
Thank you for your informative updates!
Thank you! We were lucky that our local CVS had the peds COVID vaccine as soon as Hochul issued her order allowing access. I hate that this is where we are with access. For years these anti-vax folks have talked about "choice" and much like every other line they feed us, their choice is to force their anti-science magical thinking on the rest of us.
Regarding sleep- I frequently use an eye mask and love it. Blocks out light from the alarm clock etc. I swear it helps me sleep better.
My husband started wearing an eye mask! Haha looks ridiculous, but he said it also helps.
Might I suggest that one might minimize disrupting the circadian rhythm at night by utilizing a red light type LED for a night light. In a study of 2, I/we have found it quite helpful and one retains night vision capacity with this part of the light spectrum. This is also important for reducing the risk of falls at night, esp for those of us with a few moons to our lifetime credit. An archived outline from the CDC describes the red light beneficial effect: https://archive.cdc.gov/www_cdc_gov/niosh/emres/longhourstraining/color.html. {Disclaimer: This may not be current science because as we all (should) know scientific knowledge evolves and we should not be dogmatic without our own critical analysis and due diligence}.
Several years ago I started putting a red filter on my alarm clock, and put a red nightlight in my bathroom. The first night I went into the bathroom with the red highlight, I was immediately struck by how peaceful it felt compared to the blue light of my old one. I have been sleeping much better ever since I started using those. They have helped with chronic sleep issues. I would definitely recommend trying red filters and nightlights.
You know, if the submariners used red incandescent lights and had to sleep in shifts, the science for benefitting our circadian rhythms is old stuff, As I frequently attended my ailing wife at nights it was imperative for me to rapidly fall back to sleep before the next two hour interval was upon me. My balance isn't ideal in the middle of the night and having some visual perception of my surroundings, the floor, my feet was a great helped to me, and I cannot imagine it not helping others. We have read a lot about blue lights and what not to stare at before you go to sleep (staring at your spouse, not included, ahem) but I have not heard anyone promote a positive with that negative. I think red lights have gotten a bad rap with the knowledge of certain districts in Amsterdam! I could ramble for a couple of hours how that has impacted me in my research, trying to introduce a repurposing therapeutic. Once a particular therapy is locked in it takes more than a crowbar too loosen it up for some daylight.
Since I've long had sleep issues, both from my childhood and being post-menopausal, when I read that red lights are good, I jumped on it, and I'm glad I did. In my opinion it really pays to stay open to possibilities. as long as they are not quackery. I apply staying open to animals, plants, spiritual things, as well as medical things, because it can help enrich my life. PS, I have to say that I am always happy to have my spouse turn out the lights before he kisses me goodnight.
So far as having your spouse turn out the lights, I gave up on that a long time ago when I got my Alexa Echo Dot and my Smart lightbulbs. Now it's just a matter of declaring "Alexa, bedroom light off" Easy Peezy. Same for turning on a little Pandora music or adding something to my grocery list - with my voice. Ain't tech grand?
My partner - with RLS and Parkinson’s, Finally started to use an eye mask after both I and his doctor ganged up - it’s made a huge difference in the length and quality of his sleep. I use one too and i think I sleep more deeply with it on.
We have gone the curved curtain rod with blackout curtains and an alarm clock that dims to nothing route. We’re also very much people who read real books for 20-30 minutes before attempting sleep- it does wonders for winding us down and making the transition easier.
It sounds like I ought to change my routine from computer after we turn the VTV off to reading a book. Some of the books I read would not help because I tend to read difficult non-fiction books, and I can't read fiction because it always has a part that gets my adrenaline going. But if I read nature books, that would be a good change.
You've been reporting that Covid is coming down. But my D.C. physician has treated six COVID patients over the course of one week, and my daughter, who lives in D.C., is reporting the same uptick. That shows, I think, that data collecting is not up to par. I'm concerned because I'm involved in a large national conference Oct. 15-18 in D.C.
FYI..my husband, 58 and I, 81 both were able to get flu and covid vax at COSTCO last week with no problems.
Fantastic! I will try Costco soon. Hoping they have Novavax
Costco in Southern CA has Novovax, as does CVS. I found this year’s to be more reactogenic than last year’s.
I wish I'd kept a copy of their choices. We got Moderna's Spikevax. According to their website or COSTCO Los Feliz they do have Novavax
COVID (Pfizer) - Now available, please check appointments as eligibility varies by state
COVID (Moderna) - Now available, please check appointments as eligibility varies by state
COVID (Novavax)® - Now available, please check appointments as eligibility varies by state
Why does the CDC declare that Covid vaccines are safe and effective? I think my third Covid mRNA vaccine dose in January 2022 almost killed me. Four days after the injection, my blood pressure went up to about 220/100 and heart rate was about 100, on my home monitor, for about 2 hours. I was on high blood pressure medication for 15 years prior. I called 911 for an ambulance. If I had known about this study "Comparative safety of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines to influenza vaccines: A pharmacovigilance analysis using WHO international database", published in Journal of Medical Virology 94, no. 3 (2022), showing an odds ratio of 12.72 to 1 of having a hypertensive crises, I would have stopped getting the mRNA Covid vaccine. See https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jmv.27424
This is one of many studies reported in the book Vax-Unvax about the dangers of the Covid mRNA vaccines.
From the study you cited: "The overall safety profile patterned a lower risk of serious AEFI following mRNA vaccines compared to influenza vaccines."
Not being a statistician I believe that is a comparative risk, not an absolute risk. the overall safety of mRNA vaccines seems pretty decent overall.
(This is from an 80+ year old who has had six rounds of mRNA vaccine with no reaction at all, never got Covid but lost several unvaccinated friends to it.)
I got Covid disease after three mRNA Covid vaccine injections, but I recovered after three days, so that is good. But I still have complaints. I was not given a chance to have informed consent. I was never shown a package insert. I found the package insert here: https://www.fda.gov/media/155675/download. There is no mention of blood pressure spike in the insert, thanks. I found more information in this study "Blood Pressure Increase following COVID-19 Vaccination: A Systematic Overview and Meta-Analysis" here https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9147472/#sec5-jcdd-09-00150 Conclusion: "Overall, included studies accrued 357,387 subjects with 13,444 events of abnormal or increased BP. The pooled proportions of abnormal/increased BP or stage III hypertension recorded following vaccination (3.20% and 0.6%, respectively) showed that this event should not be considered sporadic. However, in view of the small number of included studies and their inherent quality limitations (different times of observation, definition of BP increase, and a lack of a control group), the observed phenomenon requires further investigation in controlled settings." Apparently, I had a stage III hypertension event, I am in the 0.6%. This is an absolute risk, not a relative one. From Google: "Stage III hypertension is a severe form of high blood pressure, characterized by the following blood pressure readings:
Systolic pressure: 180 mmHg or higher
Diastolic pressure: 120 mmHg or higher
Symptoms:
Many people with stage III hypertension do not experience any symptoms. However, some may develop:
Headache, Dizziness, Shortness of breath, Chest pain, Vision changes, and Confusion.
Risks:
Stage III hypertension significantly increases the risk of serious health complications, including:
stroke, heart attack, kidney failure, and aortic dissection.
Treatment:
Immediate medical attention is crucial for stage III hypertension. "
I would rather have gotten a monoclonal antibody or Paxlovid, and not the vaccine. But there was no information about these treatments at the time.
I looks at these studies. The first one is now four years old and in any case the abstract concludes this way: "This study has not identified significant safety concerns regarding mRNA vaccination in real-world settings. The overall safety profile patterned a lower risk of serious AEFI following mRNA vaccines compared to influenza vaccines."
Your second article is a literature review with some significant number crunching from divergent sources. This is not a bad or nefarious thing, but it does warrant caution in attempting to generalize the results. The 95% confidence intervals on some of the resulting numbers are, not surprisingly, very wide, e.g.: "The proportions of patients with abnormal BP or with a significant increase in BP ranged from 0.93% to 23.72%, with a pooled point estimate of 3.91% (3.20% excluding statistical outliers). Moreover, the estimate of stage III hypertension or hypertensive urgencies and emergencies following COVID-19 vaccination was 0.6% (95% CI: 0.1–5.1%)." (from https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9147472/#sec5-jcdd-09-00150).
In any case, you should be getting medical advice from your PC doctor, not Google or what seems to be a somewhat selective Google search. Your doctor knows your health issues better than Google.
Slight digression: the current administration has, not surprisingly, stopped funding the NIH National Library of Medicine. Presumably because they don't want data messing up their ideology-driven decisions.
Thank you all for your input. I started this thread with the question "Why does the CDC declare that Covid vaccines are safe"? I shared my frightening experience with the Moderna mRNA Covid-19 vaccine. You all are pushing back, poking holes in my evidence. Are you trying to convince me that the Covid-19 vaccine is perfectly safe? No one ever gets any kind of harm, ever? If so, you can examine the package insert for SPIKEVAX created by Moderna at https://www.fda.gov/media/155675/download
In section 5.2 Myocarditis and Pericarditis it says "Based on analyses of commercial health insurance claims data from inpatient and outpatient
settings, the estimated unadjusted incidence of myocarditis and/or pericarditis during the period 1 through 7 days following administration of the 2023-2024 Formula of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines was approximately 8 cases per million doses in individuals 6 months through 64 years
of age and approximately 27 cases per million doses in males 12 years through 24 years of age." 8 per million is 1 in 125,000. That probability is not zero. I guess I was supposed to take the vaccine and hope I am not that one in 125,000 that gets Myocarditis. That is the gambling game we are playing. I of course will discuss the meaning of a Stage III hypertensive event with my doctor, next appointment. But I needed a quick definition. Was the definition provided by Google wrong? I was hoping the discussion would not decay into politics. I am just trying to formulate a true statement based on the scientific method.
"Are you trying to convince me that the Covid-19 vaccine is perfectly safe? No one ever gets any kind of harm, ever?" Obviously not. I can't say *that* about getting up in the morning. Nothing in life is "perfectly safe." Let us avoid that obvious rhetorical strawman.
The actual question is: is getting vaccinated less risky and more beneficial than getting ill with a virus whose long-term effects are still being examined? I know of no evidence that the answer is anything other than "yes." It's a straightforward risk/reward analysis. Type I vs. Type II error and the associated cost of each.
"I am just trying to formulate a true statement based on the scientific method." I have not seen any evidence of that. What I have seen is a clear case of cherry-picked articles which you apparently have either misunderstood or misrepresented.
I would like to make one more point, about the first study, the conclusion was "The overall safety profile patterned a lower risk of serious AEFI following mRNA vaccines compared to influenza vaccines". What is the value of this kind of study, except to obscure the harm caused by the mRNA vaccine? The author reveals his motivation near the beginning of the abstract: "Despite the high volume of emerging evidence regarding
adverse events (AEs) associated with the COVID‐19 mRNA vaccines, previous studies have thus far been largely based on the comparison between vaccinated and unvaccinated control, possibly highlighting the AE risks with COVID‐19 mRNA
vaccination." YES that is what exactly I want to know, data that possibly highlights the AE risks with COVID-19 mRNA vaccination, using the proper scientific method, a study that compares the vaccinated with the unvaccinated. Almost all RCT vaccine safety studies done to get an FDA license use this deceptive technique to obscure the vaccine injuries, by using a control group that uses another vaccine or the vaccine under test with the antigens removed, but the adjuvant remaining, as a placebo, so the manufacturer can claim the vaccine is safe because there was no difference between the study group injury rate and the control group in injury rate.
Thanks for taking the time to answer me. I am willing to confess my stupidity if it is clearly demonstrated to me, and learn. But I object to the language in the original e-mail "An update on Covid-19 vaccines" "VRBPAC determines vaccine formula and if safe and effective". I object to the use of the word "safe". So the true meaning of "safe" in CDC diagrams is that the risk of taking the vaccine is less than the risk of getting the disease. That is the true statement I was looking for. I would like that CDC to stop using the word "safe". Think of some other word. All I did was quote from the conclusion of some studies I found, and the package insert. Please show me how I cherry-picked them, what exactly did I misrepresent and not understand?
Can you help explain why the AAP recommends the flu vaccine for all children over 6 months old but the COVID vaccine for children 2 - 18 only in certain risk groups? I know the AAP recommends that the COVID vaccine is available for all children if their parent wants them to have the protection, but as a parent I'm trying to make that decision for my child who is not in one of those risk groups.
Every year my doctor, my child's pediatrician, and my insurance company remind us we all need flu shots, but the COVID vaccine is never mentioned by any of them. It's hard to parse out if this is just because of the political nature of the COVID vaccine or because we're at greater risk from the flu than from COVID.
Just like hunger in the US is going to "disappear" now that the Feds have stopped tracking food insecurity, so will infectious disease be "cured" by this government shut down. Thanks for doing the hard work of ferreting out the real story and keeping us all informed.
I haven't seen (or have missed) any info comparing this season's vaccines. Costco near me has 3 options (and no Novovax): Updated COVID - Moderna/Spikevax (Age 12+), Updated COVID - Moderna/mNEXSPIKE (Age 12+), & Updated COVID - Pfizer (Age 12+). Any insights about these would be most appreciated!
Thank you for making us aware of the food products recalled due to potential listeria contamination! There is additional information on affected pasta salad products sold at Kroger and Albertson’s stores on the FDA’s website:
https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts/kroger-voluntarily-recalls-two-varieties-deli-pasta-salads-because-possible-health-risk
https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts/update-albertsons-companies-voluntarily-recalls-select-store-made-deli-items-containing-bowtie-pasta
The jab makers have their own locators to help you find what you want (https://covidandvaccineupdate.substack.com/p/find-your-jab).
Now that the vaccines could become more available, here's some data on their antibody production for the current circulating viruses, especially XFG (https://covidandvaccineupdate.substack.com/p/antibodies-for-circulating-xfg-variant).
The way you describe San Diego, as actually having a cloud makes it sound a lot like El Paso. Here we call it "severe clear" when there are no clouds in sight. That is how we are most of the time, except during monsoon season.
I am happy to live in a state where we don't have to worry about vaccine availability for COVID-19. Go figure that my state is Texas! I'm also happy that you had some good news to report. We desperately need that.
Our State Dept. of Health still has a Covid vaccine finder on its website. Not sure how it's working in red states, but I thank goodness for our Democratic governor who made sure our access to vaccines remains safe and convenient.
Thank you for these continuing updates -- truly a Godsend in the wasteland of federal propaganda.
Some red states like Texas (where I live) are business as usual for COVID and flu vaccines. Not sure about RSV, but I think that's good, too.
I have a question, now that Covid vaccines have been greenlighted: are insurance companies covering the cost?
I worked in group health insurance for about 15 years, and my take on it is that if the FDA has approved those vaccines, insurance companies would likely pay for them. Vaccines are a whole lot cheaper than extensive ICU hospital stays. I've been retired for a long time, but I think that insurance companies (the good ones) are basically practical in their thinking.
Thank you!
You are welcome!
I support the ACA subsidies (and we should have iniversal health care). OTOH with my <32k social security and small pensions I pay 15% of my income a year in healthcare premiums - Medicare plus a secondary. I’d love to pay less.
In Utah, we were able to obtain both COVID and flu vaccines for our entire family, and covered by ACA insurance. So happy to hear all this refreshingly good news!