Immune stimulation by vaccination e.g. Staphylococcus Toxoid Vaccine, BCG

What about this one? Though note the issues in the thread about blinding.

 

I forgot about this one (even though I read about it yesterday), but glancing over what is written it doesn't seem to be one of those trials launched towards the beginning of the pandemic to address acute Covid, but seems rather Long-Covid specific?

From what I remember the trials looking at the effects on acute Covid typically had hundreds or even several thousands of participants (and I don't think any of those had a follow-up to look at LC).

 

I think this is a followup of an acute COVID study: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT04369794

I think there have been a few papers on this "BATTLE trial": https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&q=jalalizadeh+bcg+battle&btnG=

 

You're right!

 

Moderators or anyone: should this thread maybe be renamed so that the topic is vaccines in general as a treatment? I'm guessing there won't be much more news on staph toxoid specifically, and the working theory behind any vaccine as a treatment is probably pretty similar (i.e. immunostimulation). Done

 

But also the "psychiatric" symptoms have pretty low scores at baseline. 0 is normal, 6 is worst. These are comorbid CFS+FM patients, so while they didn't ask about PEM, the most severe symptoms make sense for these conditions: fatiguability, aches and pains, reduced sleep, muscular tension, failing memory, concentration difficulties.

The scores for these "psychiatric"-type symptoms are near normal: phobias, suicidal thoughts, worrying over trifles, inner tension.

If it's not ME/CFS, it's at least a condition mainly characterized by fatigue and pain, with sudden onset in at least 31% of participants. (16% infection, 15% pregnancy)

 

Hypothesis: BCG vaccination as a treatment option for ME/CFS and Long COVID, 2024, Herbert Renz-Polster

[Not peer reviewed]

Abstract
The Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine has notable “trained immunity” effects. It has shown therapeutic effects in autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes (T1D) and multiple sclerosis (MS). The BCG vaccine is the most commonly used vaccine worldwide. It may be a treatment option for Long COVID and myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).

Link (Patient-Led Research Collaborative)

-----------------

Interesting list of benefits

As a potential latent virus reactivation preventative

Mentions staph vaccine

 

I don’t know - I think the specificity of what it is against is just as interesting tbh

I looked it up and whilst the staph bit was what I thought it was (eg sore throats - which is why I think it’s interesting as I was plagued by tonsilitis in my youth before getting ME but also lots of pwme get sore throat as symptom)

the toxoid part seems to say it’s against the skin infection reaction to the staph aureus virus


Which also makes little sense

but then I realise there are mentions of staph being related to a type of shock syndrome

too tired to unpick but guessing there was a reason for choosing this particular one

and the fact that for the old one used in the Swedish clinic (non BCG?) it has to be once a month taken ie not used as a vaccine but as a treatment makes it a bit different?

 

I do too, I just think there might be an immune system stimulation effect common to all vaccines which is the main effect, though of course with subtle differences between different vaccines. And it might be better to have a single thread to compare and contrast different vaccines in this sense so that it is more organized and comprehensive.

If, say, BCG vaccine suddenly was shown to be very effective, or shown to have a unique mechanism apart from just priming the body for a fake infection, then maybe that could be split off into its own thread.

Well, I think all vaccines in this thread should be for unconventional use of them for treating, or maybe preventing, ME/CFS or long COVID, which might require weird dosing schedules.

 

Perhaps but looking at the original discontinued one it was a toxoid and I can’t work out if it was working on the toxins released by the staph rather than the virus itself - ended up opening an NIH paper that whole interesting is way over my head certainly in layering the cognitive load.

and there is eg a strange one like this
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7987673/
Where it mentions a vaccine for SA that targeted the wrong thing led to increased catastrophic outcomes and the trial in 8000 cardiac patients was stopped (intro first para)

so it seems there is something specific in this.

SA is a very common bacteria and associated with antibiotic resistant conditions

so it could be about ‘something already there’ rather than the standard immune response to vitus

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6024779/

particularly when you think about it being implicated in issues with people who specifically have depleted immune systems (eg hospital and mrsa) . It seems it’s this range of different groups of toxins that can cause different types of havoc with different biofilms etc


And this one on vaccines fir it specifically note how SA is a wicked problem in itself
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/staphylococcus-vaccine


So I’m torn if it was just the article above with the BCG vaccine (which notes affect in eg MS) but the first paper on this thread is the toxoid one

 

I was also hoping for this thread to include discussion about COVID vaccine as a treatment for long COVID. As discussed in this thread: Link

But maybe you're right that they should all be separate.

 

That sounds good too. To let you know (if you hadn’t noticed anyway ) I’m no expert at all and v tired so just throwing ideas out but could be talking tiredness gibberish - absolutely do feel free to ignore and go for what you had in mind

it’s all very interesting either way and thanks for posting the first bit as I’ve found the info about those clinics I didn’t know existed fascinating too

 

On the Health Rising blog about Dr. Gottfries, someone made this interesting comment:

One of the books is about $40 on Amazon, the other I can only find from one seller in Germany for €400.

 

I found an old, long thread about staph toxoid vaccine on Phoenix Rising.

 

I just had a glance at the first few pages of one of them - don't waste your money, it's complete pseudoscientific drivel. There's a lot of this kind of stuff mentioned favourably on HR: