“Mystery”

ABC News- Ten positive tests and counting: The mystery of why some people just keep catching COVID

Recently Marion has resorted to giving up going into the office, resolving to spend three months working from home in a desperate attempt to out-manoeuvre the virus at least long enough to get a fifth vaccine dose. Right now, she says, a six-month break between illnesses is little more than a pipe dream.

Vancouver Sun- Vancouver man who opened store selling hard drugs dies of a reported overdose

…supporters say Martin was a drug legalization advocate who wanted to provide a safe supply of drugs to users amid B.C.’s overdose crisis wrought by a poisoned illicit drug supply.

In May, he opened The Drugs Store on the corner of Main and Cordova streets, selling illicit hard drugs up to quantities of 2 1/2 grams per customer — the possession limit allowed under recently relaxed drug decriminalization laws.

The Hill: We tried to improve COVID vaccine labeling — the FDA said ‘no thanks’

Vaccination and multiple sclerosis

The British Medical Journal;

Whether Pfizer’s maternal respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine candidate increases the risk of preterm birth dominated discussions at a meeting last week of the committee advising the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).1 While all members of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) voted positively on efficacy, four out of 14 voted that the data were not adequate to support safety.

As The BMJ revealed earlier this month,2 Pfizer’s clinical trials showed increased levels of preterm births among vaccinated women, and GSK, which was working on a similar vaccine, halted vaccination in its phase 3 trials after observing an increase in neonatal deaths and preterm births.34

Paul Offit, professor of paediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and VRBPAC member who voted “no” on safety, said at the meeting that he had “no problem” with efficacy. On safety, however, “the GSK experience” troubled him.5 “If preterm births are in any way a consequence of this vaccine it would be tragic.”

In Pfizer’s phase 2 trial, there were three preterm births (2.6%) in the placebo group v six (5.3%) in the vaccine group. In the phase 3 trial, which studied preterm births as an “adverse event of special interest,” 5.7% of babies were born preterm among vaccinated women v 4.7% in the placebo group. There was also an imbalance in babies with low birth weight (5.1% in the vaccine group v 4.4% in the placebo group).6 None of the differences were statistically significant.

It’s insignificant that the statistically insignificant differences all go in the same direction.

Doubled risk: This study by Taiwanese and Stanford researchers on the US vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals shows an alarming statistical increase in the retinal vascular occlusion.

Abstract:

We aimed to investigate the risk of retinal vascular occlusion after COVID-19 vaccination. This retrospective cohort study used the TriNetX global network and included individuals vaccinated with COVID-19 vaccines between January 2020 and December 2022. We excluded individuals with a history of retinal vascular occlusion or those who used any systemic medication that could potentially affect blood coagulation prior to vaccination. To compare the risk of retinal vascular occlusion, we employed multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazards models after performing a 1:1 propensity score matching between the vaccinated and unvaccinated cohorts. Individuals with COVID-19 vaccination had a higher risk of all forms of retinal vascular occlusion in 2 years after vaccination, with an overall hazard ratio of 2.19 (95% confidence interval 2.00–2.39). The cumulative incidence of retinal vascular occlusion was significantly higher in the vaccinated cohort compared to the unvaccinated cohort, 2 years and 12 weeks after vaccination