Covid-19 vaccines and vaccinations

Thank you @ukxmrv. I have three separate replies to the three yellow cards I filled in. They are identical apart from the different number attached to each response. I spoke to someone once.

I was not given a sheet with possible side effects listed after vaccination and initiated the yellow card response myself due to the severity of the reactions.

I was given a card after each v with the batch number. Before I had the second AZ I had a lengthy call with an immunologist. To me she appeared to be following a script and nothing I could say would lead her to change her advice which was to have the second. I felt very at risk due to health complications and age so went forward.

I need to decide what if anything further to do in relation to the yellow cards. I felt too unwell to pursue it immediately. Now I need to decide how much energy to use on this, a typical ME dilemma.

 

I didn't get an information sheet with side effects either and no advice on side effects or any warning.

At the clinic I asked what the vaccine was and told it was AstraZeneca. I wasn't told it was the Indian manufactured Covishield. After the vaccine I was given a card with the batch number. Wasn't until after the batch numbers were compared on a Facebook group that I realised what it was.

It wasn't until my husband was given his 2nd dose that an information sheet was given at that clinic.

 

I don't follow the news around vaccines.

But I happened to see this article so I thought I'd post it here:

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/24/florida-surgeon-general-covid-vaccine-00093510

 

Guillain-Barré-syndrome and Covid-19 vaccines: focus on adenoviral vectors.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2023.1183258/full

 

The new XBB.1.16 covid variant, Arcturus, can cause pink eye. Even though this variant is supposed to be new in the U.S., I wonder if it's what my sister contracted in January.

She tested negative for flu and covid, but she had a dreadful cough for 3 weeks and so much diarrhea during that time that she lost an alarming amount of weight. She told me the other day that she also had such bad pink eye with this illness that she had to go to urgent care for just that symptom. So I wonder if this new variant has been in the U.S. longer than researchers think and if covid testing didn't pick up this variant in January.

Of course, she might have had an entirely different illness.

 

Novel Rutgers vaccine may provide more durable protection against SARS-CoV-2

https://www.news-medical.net/news/2...re-durable-protection-against-SARS-CoV-2.aspx

 

Risk assessment of retinal vascular occlusion after COVID-19 vaccination (2023, Nature npj Vaccines)

HR for all retinal vascular occlusion types was 3.51 at 2 weeks, peaking at 6.27 at 8-10 weeks.

 

Booked my 5th vaccine for next week. It's an updated version.

 

The interesting thing when the nurse called yesterday to book my home visit is that they still didn't understand what M.E was and kept asking me to spell it.

They assume it's FM and are careful not to cause pain when injecting. I don't have pain.

 

I got my 5th booster yesterday but it wasn't an updated version, it was the same one from Pfizer that I got last December.

The nurses had no information on the one jab flu/covid combo for this fall.

 

COVID-19 vaccines undergo major overhaul this fall.

https://www.science.org/content/article/covid-19-vaccines-may-undergo-major-overhaul-fall

 

Risk of Alzheimer's Disease Following Infuenza Vaccination: A Claims-Based Cohort Study Using Propensity Score Matching

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35723106/

 

Here are the details of the results:

• 5.1% of patients who received a flu vaccine developed Alzheimer’s disease.
• 8.5% of patients who did not receive a flu vaccine developed Alzheimer’s disease.
• The relative risk for vaccinated individuals was 0.60, or a 40% reduction in the risk of Alzheimer’s disease

Interestingly, this supports other studies that show a decreased risk of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia among individuals who have had various adulthood vaccinations including Tdap (the adult vaccine for tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis), polio, and herpes zoster (shingles).

According to first author Avram S. Bukhbinder, M.D., a recent alumnus of McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, in a press release issued on June 24, 2022:

The strength of this protective effect increased with the number of years that a person received an annual flu vaccine – in other words, the rate of developing Alzheimer’s was lowest among those who consistently received the flu vaccine every year. Future research should assess whether flu vaccination is also associated with the rate of symptom progression in patients who already have Alzheimer’s dementia.

https://www.skepticalraptor.com/ske...a-40-reduction-in-risk-of-alzheimers-disease/

 

A fascinating study, given a similar finding with shingles vaccination. Are we at the point that we can categorically say that the influenza vaccine directly protects against subsequent Alzheimer’s rather than there being something else in the behaviour of people who get vaccines that coincidently protects them from dementia, for example the possibility that people who seek out vaccinations are more likely to eat healthily?

Certainly this looks interesting and reinforces the idea that we still have a lot to learn about the impact of viruses and the role of the immune system.

 

It looks really interesting, doesn't it.

I wonder if the fact that numerous vaccines seem to offer some protection may mean it's partly an effect of the immune system being slightly activated, rather than a specific vaccine or infection. I wonder if anyone will follow it up in the years following the pandemic, where large numbers of older people—some of whom might not usually take up vaccines—have had a whole series of mini activations.

 

BioNTech faces first German lawsuit over alleged COVID vaccine side effects

Rogert & Ulbrich says it has filed about 250 cases for clients seeking damages for alleged side-effects of COVID-19 vaccines.

Another law firm, Caesar-Preller, says it is representing 100 cases, with both firms saying separately they cover almost all cases in Germany between them.

A handful of similar cases have been filed in Italy.​

 

There are cases in the UK going through the legal process. Many people are reporting extremely serious and life changing injuries.

 

The following link is from the Daily Mail online today. I reminded myself that the Daily Mail was more responsive to the issue of ME than many other papers.


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/...1billion-AstraZeneca-compensation-battle.html

edit: sorry for the presentational issues.
edit2: sentence omitted

 

Another article from Germany: Post-COVID vaccination syndrome: What do we know?

Like long COVID, post-COVID vaccination syndrome is characterized by a wide variety of symptoms and clinical pictures including chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS/ME), migraines, muscle pain or cardiovascular diseases.

As multifaceted as the symptoms may be, they have one thing in common: They can occur in those affected shortly after COVID vaccination.

Many people think they have post-COVID vaccination syndrome because they developed such symptoms after their shot.

From the point of view of those affected, this is completely understandable, says Harald Prüss from Berlin's Charité hospital and the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE). But, he adds, just because the symptoms occurred after the shot doesn't mean it caused them.

Prüss explains that post-COVID vaccination syndrome "is totally overestimated in its dimensions."

(...)

Additionally, one of the only ways to say with any degree of certainty that a person is suffering from post-COVID vaccination syndrome rather than long COVID is if that person started experiencing symptoms shortly — weeks, not months — after getting the jab and had not been diagnosed with COVID at any point before. This can be difficult, because people may have had a COVID infection yet not known it.

(...)

Dr. Christine Falk, president of the German Society of Immunology, says the link between long COVID and post-COVID vaccination syndrome could be a cross-reaction with the spike protein — which is created by a vaccine or is an element of it — and the infection itself.

There are some people who, after being infected or vaccinated, not only create normal antibodies against the spike protein, but also experience a sort of cross reaction that produces antibodies that are inadvertently able to recognize endogenous structures — i.e., essential structures created by the body itself. These are called autoantibodies and are present in many people with autoimmune diseases.

That could be why post-COVID vaccination syndrome and long COVID have such similar symptoms.

With all of that said, Falk's idea is only a theory at this point, with much more research needed on the topic.​