Some observations suggest that the illness depletes NAD, which in turn leads to uptake of tryptophan which is then depleted too. NAD production reserves get totally exhausted leading to inhibition of electronic transport chain of mitochondria. This in turn leads to tissue hypoxia, increased inflammation and avalanche of processes typical for neurological injury.
This also explains the inhibition of serotonin production - all tryptophan reserves (serotonin precursor) are redirected to NAD syhtesis.
I cannot recommend this material enough [1]. Some quantative info on cellular respiration in Covid patients is presented at [2].
This sums up the symptoms of long Covid: fatigue, brain fog, neurological damage, problems with breathing, acquired type 2 diabetes, panic attacks, POTS, GI and cardiovascular issues. This hypothesis also provides the basis for an actionable treatment plan, which is similar to treating Beriberi.
Statistically 30% of Covid survivors are affected, regardless the severity of original illness. If your family member or you had a Covid you should be very alert.
>How can a few days of viral infection deplete NAD for months?
That's a mystery. A longer than usual disease progression fully depletes the NAD, while a flu does this partially? A more involved attack on mitochondria?
On a general note, metabolism is like a self-supported recursive function. But when one stack frame collapses, the whole calculation breaks like a house of cards causing the interlocked dependencies of pathological phenotypes.
>Also shouldnt tissue hypoxia be quite evident?
Not at all. For example, not all the labs can test for lactic acidosis. And even the ongoing lactic acidosis may be
so localized that the measurement is negligible up to the error of measurement.
> fatigue, brain fog, neurological damage, problems with breathing, acquired type 2 diabetes, panic attacks, POTS, GI and cardiovascular issues.
I'm NOT trying to provoke, troll, pick a fight, etc. but...This list correlates very well with the Western diet & lifestyle.
Could Covid be contributing? Yes, of course. But when it comes to deaths Covid is more of an opportunist than a pure solo killer. It does far better against the weak/weakened (e.g., elderly, those with preexisting conditions, etc.) That said, perhaps the same can be said for the survivors? That is, perhaps these long Covid issues aren't 100% due to the virus.
In addition, the severe cases get medical treatment. What contributions are those treatmemts making? For example, respirators save lives, but they cause can infection and have other side effects.
I'm not disputing the dangers of Covid. But context matters, and when it comes to health, healthcare, and analysis we'd be naive to ignore the context (i.e., the Western diet + lifestyle was already a known danger).
But when it comes to deaths Covid is more of an opportunist than a pure solo killer. It does far better against the weak/weakened (e.g., elderly, those with preexisting conditions, etc.)
That's generally true for all disease. Disease preys upon the weak.
That's not what that chart says. It says "In addition to killing babies, small children and elderly, it killed an unusually large number of young adults." It creates a W shape rather a U shape. The higher figures are still the youngest and oldest.
For 1918 Flu 99% of deaths in US were people under 65 vs 24% deaths under 65 for Covid-19... "nearly half the deaths the were people 20-40" in the US, compared with 2% of deaths for Covid
The chart says people less <1 or >85 were killed at a higher rate than people 25-35, but those were significantly smaller populations.
I don't really follow where you are getting your data. The link in this comment only seems to show Covid data and no Spanish flu data (unless I'm missing something) and the Wikipedia article indicates we don't have firm numbers even for the overall death toll of the Spanish flu.
It's generally true that disease preys upon the weak. That's not something that stands out to me, personally, as a special observation about the current pandemic.
Of course, there are always exceptions to any rule, but I don't really know why you are engaging in this way.
From my end, it looks like pedantry and it looks like pointless pedantry in this case. I don't see how it casts light on our current crisis.
I'm interested in better understanding our current crisis in hopes of finding a path forward.
> I don't really follow where you are getting your data. The link in this comment only seems to show Covid data and no Spanish flu data (unless I'm missing something) and the Wikipedia article indicates we don't have firm numbers even for the overall death toll of the Spanish flu.
It's right in the cited wikipedia article.
And that was a rude reply. You've made no specific claim and cited no evidence, only making broad tautological pontifications about "disease preying on the weak", when the profile of who diseases can target varies considerably like in the above example.
>That is, perhaps these long Covid issues aren't 100% due to the virus.
I agree. But it is hard to find a specific correlation. The neurological complications after Covid affect people of all ages except very young. Even the late teenagers (18 yr) can be affected, albeit to a lesser degree.
> In addition, the severe cases get medical treatment. What contributions are those treatmemts making?
Some antibiotics like Levofloxacin and Fluoroquinolone are known to induce a mitochondrial disease in some people. This may be a contributing factor.
The only thread I can find that runs through all these disorders is an inability to balance oxidative stress. The reason symptomatic COVID will vary so much between people is that genetics, nutrition, and life stress are all variables that no one is tracking.
And the reason fluoroquinolones hurt mitochondria is that they produce an enormous oxidative stress burned on the mitochondria, depleting SOD and Glutathione.
I do not understand your comment and it is probably a result of your misinterpretation of what I have proposed.
I understand that my idea seems simple, but what I am proposing is that many people could have an inability to handle the extra burden of oxidative stress that COVID puts on them, and yet have no current signs of disease. These are the so called "healthy" people who end up hospitalized with COVID.
It is just that people with diabetes and much more likely to be sick because the underlying disability is a poor diet has lead to their inability to handle oxidative stress.
This would link why people with mood disorders are also at higher risk from COVID.
Again, not being snarky but diabetes is a (worse) outcome (of the Western diet + lifestyle). The fact that its been normalized and can be treated (with meds) doesn't change the fact it is a risky and dangerous disease.
Blaming Covid is convenient but it's also deceptive. Is there any science that says diabetes makes you stronger?
Well, it may be that type 2 diabetes has the same mitochondrial roots. Specifically, the oxidative phosphorylation pathway gets wrecked in T2DM. This produces ROS. A lot of ROS, and it looks like the very same defect occurs in long Covid patients. And some of them become type 2 diabetics out of nowhere.
But. I was able to observe, diagnose and treat one person with such condition. She had Covid in August 2020, then vaccinated in 2021 and had the second Covid in August 2021. All episodes were not severe, just usual cold.
During the second Covid, at the very start of illness, she started to develop the signs of POTS. She was administered B1 TTFD, B3 Nicotinamide Riboside, multivitamin, D and C. POTS quickly resolved in 1 week. After that, I had a hard time talking her to continue the medications. She believed that she was strong enough already.
All went seemingly well. She totally got well and fully recovered. On occasional walk I told her about mitochondria, ATP synthesis, electron transport chain, suffering people with burning feet and hands, just for kicks. She told me that I was a mad scientist, that all such diseases are designed by nature to make the Darwin selection work etc. And that I should not really care as people are not able to value that.
The next day we were amid a walk again and that time it was 12 km (7.5 miles) distance. In the middle of the route, she had her first panic attack. All of a sudden, her breath rate increased significantly (hyperventilation) and face were starting to cover in large redish blumishes. She then told me that her knee muscles are going to collapse (miopathy) and she may fall. She felt the need for sugar and water. We were able to go into gas station and get a sweet snack. I estimated the volume corresponding to 15 g of sugar and gave it to here. Panic attack had stopped like it did not happen at all.
Most people will be puzzled by this situation, but it was clear as day to me. Her oxidative phosphorylation pathway got inhibited and she became unable to consume the usual levels of glucose from the blood. Her ATP production was down. When ATP production became critically low, the nervous system began to panic and the endocrinal and cardiovascular systems entered into compensatory state, trying to increase oxygen saturation (hyperventilation), the bloodflow (tachycardia) and glucose levels to overcompensate the ever decreasing ATP production. Once she ate 15 g of sugar compensation of ATP production was reached and she stabilized. Attack was stopped right there. She had a stroke of false hypoglycemia and it was resolved now.
Important observation - this occurred during the long walk which depletes ATP faster due to physical load.
Next morning, I measured her blood glucose level. She went into diabetic area (7.4 mmol/L), despite having an absolute healthy glucose levels (5.2 mmol/L) months before.
I immediately suggested the therapy targeted on mitochondrial ETC. B1 TTFD, B3 (Nicotinamd Riboside), Multivitamin Complex, C, D. This time, I extended the list of supplements with Q10, alpha-lipoic acid, L-Carnitine and Benfotiamine given the seriousness of situation.
Her glucose uptake were gradually improving. After 3 weeks of therapy she had 5.5 mmol/L fasting glucose level which was healthy and totally fine. No diabetes.
We continued with that route for 1 more month, then gradually downgrading to Q10, alpha-lipoic acid and B1 (100mg HCL supportive dose). She was on stable 5.2 mmol/L fasting glucose levels which is excellent.
Currently she is on Q10 60 mg + B1 HCL 100 mg every other day. No signs of regression. We will drop the medications in month or two.
Was I able to treat the diabetes? Probably no. What I've treated is a long Covid syndrome that could lead to diabetes and variety of other induced pathologies.
Why? Because science frees from suffering and I like to help people, despite all their flaws.
I hope that someone somewhere will find this information helpful.
It is not the usual doctor stuff, but it should be.
I was misdiagnosed my whole life even though it was obvious there was some maternal genetic (metabolic/mood/immune) issues passed down through my family. It was only my own efforts at understanding genetics and the role nutrition plays in creating and controlling oxidative stress was I able to ween myself off of medications (many of which made me worse because breaking them down caused even more oxidative stress).
The research fails at being implemented because these are polygenic disorders. ME/CFS can be caused by several different genotypes, so they will have to look at each person individually for answers.
Doctors do not care about nutrition and they do not yet understand the viability of vitamins as cures or prodrugs. I had a doctor yelling, yes yelling, at my friend saying she was not anemic and did not have a B6 deficiency. She went to another primary care doctor and she confirmed the anemia and when's he had her serum B6 tested she had a serious deficiency. The doctor put her on B6.
Since I was a child I had mood issues (Anxiety, Depression, Bipolar, Aspergers), fatigue, chronic muscle pain (lactic acid), and immune disorders (Ankylosing Spondylitis). It turned so bad I could not work anymore and have been on disability for 20 years. Yet, I getting any type of non routine test is a battle and when I do, and they are off, they just shrug. Why not look into it more so I can start working again? And it will be the same battle for people with Long Covid.
Regardless, Manganese (not magnesium) has changed my life pretty drastically. I do not think there is a final solution for me since my condition is genetic, but what I have done helped more than any medicine I have ever been on. And when I tell my doctors they say; "Well, I am glad that worked for you." They are not even interested.
Without knowing your genetics or having labs you can test with some supplements, but just know if you have a bad reaction that still tells you some good information! But a bad reaction is a signal what you are taking should be stopped.
Understand haw oxidative stress is controlled in the body and you will make great progress. For example, exercise increases oxidative stress, so, long covid...ya know?
Yeah, it's not easy / simple. But there's risk in allowing a less science aware media dictate the default narrative.
As for antibiotics vs "the gut", what I've read (on the gut) says there are known connections to the immune system, brain, nervous system, etc. Crush your gut (with ABX) and there will be side effects.
p.s. re: late teenagers - in the West youth is no longer synonymous with health. They're on the same diet + lifestyle. But, again, the media consistently fails to mention this. It's easier to blame than to own (a known problem).
When I got COVID 6 months back, brain-fog was the only complication I had and it got me really worried as being physically disabled any cognitive impairment would mean I loose everything.
Brain-fog to me was a mix of being dull & delirious.
Since oxygen saturation and other vitals were at acceptable limits I was in home quarantine and there was no help(treatment) for brain-fog in specific where I live. Fortunately after two weeks, the signs of normal brain function returned and now I'm confident that my cognitive abilities are back to normal.
But since I had COVID, I'm having digestive problems for certain foods(Greens) something which I have been consuming since childhood and abundantly for past several years for health reasons. Now I'm having digestive issues with almost all greens, Some severe(Moringa Oleifera). I heard similar experience about digestive problems to certain food items of a doctor in an Economist podcast about long-COVID.
Maybe. However tryptophan by itself won't heal you once the pathology onset has occurred.
The usual scheme is to use a combination of medications in order to unblock the electron transport chain while inhibiting the inflammatory response.
If you want to know more, read the comments section of the video above. Some of them contain hints and even actionable recipes.
Keywords, hints, typical doses: B1/Thiamin (in form of HCL 100-2000 mg, Benfothiamin 100-600 mg, TTFD 50-800 mg), B3/Niacin (in form of nicotinic acid - never, nicotinamide 250 mg, Nicotinamide Riboside 100-400 mg), Mg (200-400 mg), K (50-300 mg), B2 (50-400 mg), C (150-500 mg), D (5000 I.U. - 400 000 I.U), Aspirin (150-500 mg), CoQ10 (60-200 mg), Alpha-lipoic Acid (60-300 mg), Acetyl-L-Carnitine (500 mg), Zinc (20-50 mg), Copper (2mg), N-Acetyl-Cysteine/NAC (600-1800 mg), Betaine (50 mg), Quercetin (250 mg), Trans-reservatrol (150 mg), Multivitamin Complex (obligatory when large doses of B vitamins are taken).
Please note that provided list of medications is for reference only. Those medications are carefully combined to reach the desired therapeutic effect. B1, B3, Multivitamin Complex, C, D and Mg are essential elements. Others are used in more involved cases.
Nutritional correction is obligatory: totally no alcohol, minimize high carbs (< 50 g of sugar per day), totally avoid sweeteners (with the exception of stevia), avoid highly-processed food. Milk and meat are god send for people in that condition. Avoid the prolonged periods of hunger but be careful to not eat too much. Having a slightest sense of hunger after the meal is beneficial. Make at least 2 hour intervals between meals.
As someone with a Complex I Deficiency I did not know you could "unblock" the electron transport chain. Taking these supplements without knowing your genetics will result in undue suffering and confusion.
And to speak of the election transport chain and not include Manganese and ascorbic acid means this comment should not be taken at face value.
Ascorbic acid is usually a part of vitamin C supplementation. Multivitamin complexes do contain manganese, but one needs to check. Did not know they were essential. Thanks for the information.
Besides that, there is a work of Dr Costantini that lays down the basis of ETC "restart" with full enzymatical saturation. Take a look [1]. Definitely works for some people, sometimes to a great surprise after decades of suffering.
Unless you know your genetics, telling someone what they need is useless. I know my genetics. And I tried Thiamine years ago. It made me manic, most likely because my real issue was a depletion of manganese that not only increase superoxide damage in my mitochondria, but also inhibited my TCA cycle in the wrong location. Taking thiamine pushed my TCA cycle but since my TCA cycle was inhibited, the metabolites that were created caused other issues. Or it could have been that the Thiamine meant a build up of NADH that my Complex I could not handle and it just created more (e-) in my mitochondrial matrix and then more superoxdides.
Why is a multivitamin complex necessary after large doses of B vitamins? I thought that B vitamins are just water-soluble and your body removes the excess.
Vitamins are catalysts of chemical reactions. When you speed up reactions dependent on, say, B1 - you should also be sure that adjacent reactions are fastened up. Otherwise, this may cause an imbalance which can be disastrous or even fatal.
The same rule goes to minerals - when you take vitamins, the reaction speeds increase and they start to consume significantly more substrates causing electrolyte disbalances, which can be disastrous and even fatal. That's why you have to make sure that you take enough of Mg, K, P when you get vitamins as well.
No, and it wold probably make things worse if this is true. Tryptophan is turned into NAD but if you do not have enough of the cofactors to make NAD down the Kynurenine pathway then you will just deplete yourself of cofactors even further.
I do not think depletion of NAD is the the issue honestly, but if it is the real issue is a B2 or B6 deficiency after infection.
As someone who is disabled with a mitochondrial disease (Complex 1 Deficiency) that expresses as a mood disorder (which includes the anxiety they speak of in the article) and ME/CFS, I feel sure enough to posit that the cause of all the symptoms from covid are brought about by an individuals ability to handle oxidative stress. This increase in oxidative stress is most likely the result of a combination of genetics and vitamin depletion after infection.
Through years of living with my disorder I have found that any stress (environmental, psychological, physical) leads to a build up in oxidative stress in the mitochondria, triggering either mania or profound fatigue, pain and depression. Through shaping my environment and the use of specific supplements I am able to mostly control my mood and health without the use of daily medications.
Until we talk seriously about nutrition and stress, people will keep dying of COVID19, and they will never be free of medications that help in the short term but have bad/unknown effects in the long term.
Until we talk seriously about nutrition and stress...
There have been articles about how our crops have drastically less nutritional value than they used to have. So your comment has me wondering if that's kind of a root cause of the pandemic itself.
I can't find the article I'm thinking of but found these:
Supermarket vegetables now 5-40% lower in nutrients than 50 years ago (13 yrs ago)
> ... Have found signs that the virus can establish a foothold of sorts on the periphery of the brain, where the protective blood-brain barrier opens up to allow key molecules to slip through. One of those places is the olfactory bulb ... Yet scientists have so far found little evidence that the virus penetrates any deeper than that. Instead, they’ve seen the type of damage caused by strokes, as well as the blood clots that may have precipitated them. That’s part of why Boldrini and many others suspect that inflammation — the immune system’s all-hands-on-deck response to an invader — may play an essential role in the brain damage experienced by COVID-19 patients. Inflammation can trigger blood clots, and once a clot forms, inflammation increases around it. It’s similar to what’s seen in people who experience traumatic brain injury ... [Such] people ... [may show] sudden changes in behavior and personality [including] suicide ... It’s eerily similar to what many COVID-19 patients face
> COVID-19 damages the hippocampus. That could help explain why some patients have lingering issues with depression and anxiety. If this damage is caused by inflammation, it probably wreaks havoc in several ways. Scientists suspect it disrupts the flow of serotonin ... and prompts the body to make kynurenine instead, even though it’s toxic to neurons. Inflammation also triggers coagulation, creating clots that can block blood flow to cells and kill them. And it activates the microglia, which may attempt to remove more neurons than they normally would.
I've found this article/report showing it halves the chances (note that it halves the chances of long COVID amongst those infected, which means, since the vaccine also lowers the risk of getting infected, getting the vaccine will lower the total chances around a factor of maybe 4-10 (depending on which vaccine and strain of virus) compared to unvaccinated):
From this I interpreted that Long COVID feature (any) didn't have significant outcome difference. And that some symptoms oddly happen more within vaccinated.
Hazard ratios for the outcome within 6 months of infection with SARS-CoV-2 between individuals vaccinated vs. unvaccinated against COVID-19. HR lower than 1 indicate outcomes less common among vaccinated individuals. Horizontal bars represent 95% confidence intervals. Each outcome is a composite endpoint with death as a component to address competing risks. The contribution of the outcome of interest to the overall incidence of the composite endpoint is encoded by the colour.
There may be bias in this study of course, maybe unvaccinated and vaccinated behave very differently and the behaviour could be a cause.
Vaccinated may be more anxious folk and therefore end up with more anxiety after covid as well.
I'm missing some other study that I think found around 0-20% reduction for different long term issues. Can't find it right now.
> Vaccinated may be more anxious folk and therefore end up with more anxiety after covid as well
I think there is a big mental thing at play with Covid for sure. Me and my buddy got Covid at the same time (before vaccination). I wasn't worried at all to be honest, because I don't let the media persuade me about things. For example: Letting my kids go out and play by themselves.
I basically just watched movies, checked my oxygen levels every now and then and called it a day. I felt like shit though. His situation was different. We have both the same build. He constantly kept going to urgent care freaking out that he couldn't breath even though his oxygen was fine. I think he was having panic attacks. He ended up getting through it but it might have a lasting or at least some impact to his mental his.
You're right though seeing young skinny, healthy, people at my work getting boosters just makes me cringe. I think to myself that there is some kind of mental disorder going on.
The article is almost biographical, narrative and romantic, as a writing style, when it comes to the lab head. And is also very explicit about the research being a team effort - condition which makes both 'A scientist' and '"This" scientist' improper.
It is a bit ridiculous. The article about the vaccine efficacy going down at 6 months at all metrics [1] has been dropped from the front page (and the second page, too!). Yet this piece of garbage goes up unquestioned.
And both articles come from the same source no less!
I know there is an agenda to parrot and group think and all that, but ... really? And for the record, I personally think there's absolutely no downside to the vaccine, so everyone who doesn't is an idiot -- but this type of "babysitting the idiots" is going to backfire. Terribly.
Thanks for calling me an idiot. I make a well researched decision to not get vaccinated based on my lifestyle, risk profile, the unknown long term effects of the vaccines, the known declining efficacy of the vaccines and the way we are blindly pushing this on everyone. Calling people idiots isn't going to help the discussion.
Sars-cov-2 infection also has unknown long term effects. Why do you think they are less risky than the vaccine ones? Or you assume you'll very unlikely to get infected.
This. I'm sure there are specific situations that I haven't conceived of, but in general I find it hard to believe that you can look at the data and conclude that the vaccine is more dangerous than the disease itself. Unless you are in some kind of a very high risk category for mRNA vaccines, the risk of serious side effects or death seems to be at least one order of magnitude less for the vaccine than for the virus itself.
I'm a bit uncomfortable with the overall authoritarian approach to public health in the West (see also: fluoride in water; harmless, but unnecessary and immoral). So I can sympathize with people who are uncomfortable with a vaccine mandates, particularly nowadays that the issue is politicized and is no longer "just" about public health.
But all that said, I suspect a lot of people who claim to have evaluated the risks are really just rationalizing an emotional decision.
If you consider infection rate in your area and your own behaviour vs behaviour of an average person in your area, you can do some basic math to understand what the chances of getting covid are for you. For example I've deduced it to be around 1% per year, right now.
My behaviour is also better for society in terms of reducing the R. Even if I were to get Covid, since I go out so rarely it's unlikely I would ever go outside during a symptomatic phase.
What I'm doing for example:
1. WFH.
2. Order everything in.
3. Go see family only when infection rate is reasonably low.
4. Do sports outside.
5. Go to gym only at times when there's very little traffic and cases per day seems reasonable to me.
And trust me I do believe Covid19 is really bad, but I don't like vaccines either based on information I've gathered.
Keeping my R lower than 1 or even 0.5, I can also live guilt free. Many vaccinated people have R larger than 1.
I wear medical mask if I happen to be around people, in indoor settings or are you saying it's likely one could get infected outdoors otherwise?
There probably is some sort of hole which I'm not considering and it's mainly unknowns why I even believe it to be 1%. If there were no holes I'd believe it to be near 0%.
There's people who go to office, are around other people 40+ hours a week, then come to home to large families, have children that went to school. Offices, schools, things like these probably have the most spread.
Even with a vaccine that has 90% efficacy for preventing infection they would be exposed to the virus more than 10x that I am, and so would have higher chance of getting infected.
I know some studies calculated efficacy from hours spent in a high risk situation.
> Calling people idiots isn't going to help the discussion.
Ironically, when we are at the point that the alternative is for subtle manipulation of the information that is being given around (which is my complain), I'd personally prefer the former, and I guess many people would, too. I'm not sure if it is really going to "help" anything but, given the doubt, I think brutal honesty is the more humane option.
In any case, I only put that disclaimer to avoid attracting the usual trolls (plus downvotes from the other side), but I see it attracted the usual trolls anyway. I hope a mod deletes it.
Claiming someone is an "idiot" is not brutal honesty.
Are you claiming that you think they have low IQ, or what exactly are you being brutally honest about?
What is even definition of an idiot for you?
This word only exists as a tool to either manipulate or shame or simply live out your emotional rage, it's not about brutal honesty. It's not about being truthful or even trying to understand the truth.
Generally, if someone calls someone else an "idiot", I can give benefit of the doubt few times if this happens, okay it's an emotional outburst, but otherwise I would lose trust in their general resolve.
To put it simply, I think most people would prefer being directly called an idiot versus "we question so much your ability to make decisions that we are going to try to censor the information that we provide you without telling you anything".
It's actually wiser, strategically, to do this silent manipulation (and most definitely it's not strategically wise to call one an idiot), but, as the receiver, I'd prefer the honest approach myself.
Both is happening. And both are dispelling me emotionally from the mainstream. While this is going on though, I still believe I can see through my emotions, that I also feel towards people who pressure unvaccinated and think the issue is binary and understand data I'm seeing with reasonable accuracy.
I don't know if the silent manipulation is benefitting the world, maybe it is getting more people to vaccinate, but I can guarantee that this only makes me personally dig deeper and distrust most things coming from the same sources that silently manipulate the information. Also given a "good to be true" view of mainstream or anything I disbelieve it. If something is too good to be true, like how current vaccines are portrayed, it deserves further inspection.
All in all when you are classifying someone "an idiot", is there any other correlation that this person would likely have in their characteristics?
E.g. let's say is definition of "an idiot" to you someone who "didn't take the vaccine".
Or is "an idiot" someone who generally has poorer mental capabilities? What do you think it correlates to?
Below average memory?
Below average comprehension? Of what?
Below average scientific understanding?
Below average abstract reasoning?
Below average working memory?
Do you think being an idiot means at least few of those? How do you think they reached their conclusion? Can you even understand how they reached their conclusion or are you just speculating in your head how they reached it and therefore they must have poor comprehension or memory?
> Calling people idiots isn't going to help the discussion
At this point, the only thing more idiotic than refusing to get vaccinated is trying to convince the voluntarily unvaccinated to vaccinate. The discussion is over. Positions are entrenched. The best we can do is isolate the population and move on.
What data have you "observed"? I should also note that I take issue with the word "observed" here. A phenomenon as large as world-scale inoculation calls for large-scale statistical analysis rather than your anecdotal "observation".
Indeed, and I feel "large-scale statistical analysis" is one of the things we are lacking.
More research into VAERS data and also Europe's adverse events reporting tool. There's so many more reports there compared to other vaccines, it seems quite scary to me. It's not scientific evidence, but to me it still seems alarming enough, and it's hard for me to think what other thing except the vaccine itself could've caused that many reports.
What are the exact odds of getting e.g. heart related issues like Myocarditis?
Considering my demographics (28y male), fit, healthy what are the chances for me to get long lasting issues either affecting mental or physical performance?
I don't believe for instance that Myocarditis is 1 out of 100,000. There's anecdotal stories of couples getting these adverse effects together. See "danielshep60". I don't believe he's lying either, considering he's shown all paperwork, medications etc, he also said, after he and his partner both got diagnosed, he called around his social circle to see if anyone else was experiencing chest pains, which his cousin did and he urged him to go check it out, and also got diagnosed with Myocarditis. There may be a lot of undiagnosed Myocarditis going on as well.
Then besides heart issues, what is being more frequently reported by vaccine long haulers, is 1) fatigue and 2) brain fog.
So now I'm worried about both mental performance, as my work requires mental performance, and physical performance since I do sports.
There's no good way to link fatigue and brain fog back to vaccines, so how could I know what is the frequency of those?
Then of course I did research into how runners have been faring after vaccination. I searched reddit.com/r/running, for posts. There's 50/50 whether vaccine had any effect at all, or some people couldn't run for the following 1 to 7 days which is fine, but I'd say around 1:15 - 1:30 ratio of commenters said even after many months they were still unable to run even a mile, although previously they were able to run 5-10km+.
Then I'm concerned about how the trials were made. For example with Pfizer, just recently coming out the report about data integrity in BMJ, and also trial participants in some cases being excluded when they had adverse effects, AND the way they seemingly were letting people report side effects in an app where they did it after a week and there were only pre-determined side effects available to select from and no free-form text. If you wanted to report something else you had to contact them, and in some cases it seems these contacts were ignored and not reported in the final study.
There's many more concern for me from vaccines, but I'll just stop now, because the biggest argument against those is that "covid is probably worse, so just take the risk with vaccine, or alternative is worse".
So my current strategy is to stay at home, and I believe by doing this I have 1% or less chance to contract covid within the following year. Maybe during that time things, data clears up, or there's better solutions available to either covid or to any damage vaccines may cause.
By that I'm avoiding potential unknowns about both covid19, and the vaccine. Also I'm keeping my R very low, even if I was to get covid19, I would not be likely to spread it since I spend my time at home with no people around, except for some edge cases. If everyone behaved like me I believe the virus would die out.
I have gone over many studies about both Covid19, and vaccines. I believe if you are frequently in contact with people and/or in risk group you probably should take the vaccine to reduce chance of hospitalisation and deaths, but I don't think it's calculated decision for me, personally. I definitely don't want to get Covid19 and I believe it can cause a lot of long term damage + unknown damage, but so can the vaccine, albeit very likely to a lesser extent.
Also vaccine effect will wade in 6 months and it doesn't seem like it would protect breakthrough infections that could also cause long term damage, so then you may have done already vaccinations multiple times and also still get the infection which would again increase chances of total long term damage.
Well, it is nice that you actually put out your thoughts in a structured manner. Many would not have taken the time.
1. VAERS data & co.
This is the biggest vaccination campaign in history. 7.25 billion doses have been administered to date. It also happens to be underway under a sociopolitical and technological climate which promotes superfast information sharing where misinformation can spread extremely fast. It is undeniable that much of this misinformation has concerned the vaccine.
Combining the fact that a shit ton of people have been getting vaccinated and the current climate, is it really surprising that we see a spike in an unvetted, online side effect submission system? I mean, this would not be worrying even if this was just a large vaccination campaign. It is an enormous vaccination campaign, the biggest in history, undertaken in a climate which promotes misinformation and probably interacts with societal group psychology in complex ways (for example, are people perhaps more likely to fall prey to the placebo effect and report/over-exaggerate their S.E.s in VAERS?)
2. Myocarditis
A valid concern, but all data points to it being extremely rare as well as mild (0.0006% incidence rate?).
As well as that, recent theory suggests it may be linked to administration method (erroneous administration into vein instead of muscle) instead of the vaccine itself.
I know you said you "don't believe" the statistics, but... that's just not really how statistics works? You cite purely anecdotal evidence from your friend group to disprove large-scale international analysis. This is laughable. Incidence in your friend group means absolutely nothing in the context of an international rollout. If we're playing the anecdote game, I know hundreds of people who've gotten the vaccine, none of which have gotten myocarditis. This must mean it never occurs. Also, I really don't care about "danielshep60". Citing a random Internet user is even more ridiculous than citing your friend group or family. I don't think I even need to get into it, but even if what they are saying is true, it means nothing in the grand scale of things.
3. Fatigue & brain fog
I should start by noting that fatigue & brain fog are widely documented to be common symptoms of the long COVID syndrome, which affects old and young. Long COVID is also alarmingly common.
I'd have to see proper evidence showing a statistically relevant correlation between vaccination & long-term brain fog/fatigue.
I'm sorry to report that a subreddit does not consist of any kind of valuable correlative indicator when talking about the medical domain. There is just such a swarm of flaws in such analysis that it must be discarded entirely (biased sampling, placebo, and fabrication being the top three).
Unfortunately, many of your arguments fall back to a common faulty root: ignoring large-scale analysis and falling back to anecdotal evidence (a la Nicki Minaj "friend of cousin got swollen testicles because of the vaccine!").
As for the BMJ trial, this is an ongoing investigation and I can't really comment without more data. We will see! :)
When i got vaccinated with Moderna vaccine i had weird heart flutters every 10 minutes or so (one day after 2nd dose - from noon until evening). It wasn't painful or anything but it was very weird, sometimes it felt like heart skipping a beat and sometimes like doing a double or triple beat. I did get checked out but by the time i got to the doctor the whole thing was almost over, they hooked me up to those heart monitors for 15 minutes but had no "flutters" during that time. Doc said im young and my heart is fine and that was that. Next day i had some more in the morning but everything was fine afterwards and i had no problems since. I don't know if it falls under Myocarditis or not but i'm sure noone reported it anywhere.
Either way, i'm still gonna go for the booster shot soon since i'm scared of Covid more than the vaccine, but just wanted to point out it's not so black and white, the side effects are likely under reported since the incentive is to get as many people vaccinated as possible. Doing large scale analysis on faulty data is just as accurate as anecdotal evidence.
Every year, there's also very many other vaccines administered, e.g. Influenza, so the numbers aren't that off. I'm not sure about how many others besides Influenza.
2019 there was around 170M Influenza vaccine doses with 605 deaths.
2021 there's 430M Covid vaccine doses or 223M people with at least 1 dose and there's 18400 deaths.
Usually VAERS would be expected to be very under reported.
I agree there's a lot of misinformation that's been going on, but the people who vaccinated mostly thought it was very safe so there's lower likelihood of placebo etc.
Another thing is that it's not very easy to create reports in VAERS and it takes time, doctors may not always have time or believe that some death or adverse effect was linked to the vaccine in the first place.
Overall this data alone is definitely not enough to conclude for sure that covid vaccines are not safe, but at least to me it definitely throws some red flags, in combination with all the other things, there seems to be a pattern.
Your points may be valid, but I can't determine that and unless this data is properly addressed and debated over, I don't think it's safe enough. So I would urge heavier debate and analysis of this data. I think vaccine has to be proven safe rather than me having to prove that it's dangerous.
There should be enough resources to debate and analyse this properly. Same thing --- there should be more resources allocated to debating people who claim vaccines are not safe. Seemingly no debate doesn't inspire any confidence in me. There should be full time groups of people dedicated for this, not just writing articles, but doing live debates. Debate has to be proper back and forth. Not "fact checkers" which often concentrate on one single part that can be most easily argued against and leave some other parts which usually interest me the most out.
Right now there's one side that is bashing the other side, full of strawmans and ad hominem attacks. There's no proper debate going on. Why?
If these vaccines are very safe and effective and would save the world from the pandemic, I imagine it would deserve at least 10M+ to be invested into live debates. I see a lot of investing in censoring, but no debates.
2. Myocarditis
If incidence rate was 0.0006%, meaning 1 out of 1,666,666, it would be extremely rare that a couple on this earth would have both people getting this.
Even if incidence is 1 out of 100,000 like I have seen claimed by official sources multiple times, from 1 billion couples, chance of there being at least 1 couple where both individuals had this would be 10%.
I have seen multiple anecdotal reports of couples both having issues. Danielshep60 being one who has gone on video with all the evidence and stories. It's difficult to understand frequency from anecdotal reports where people alone claim they have had it, but if you consider couples it makes it possible to at least calculate how statistically rare that would have to be. So either
a) Danielshep60 must be lying. And I don't think he is based on what I've seen, I'm usually good at spotting discrepancies and lies.
b) Chance of myocarditis is far bigger than 1/100,000.
c) Something extremely, very, unlikely has happened, and all the other anecdotes are definitely lies.
I assume you would guess it's a), but I can't conclude that myself based on also other video stories I have seen, and everything seems to match.
> As well as that, recent theory suggests it may be linked to administration method (erroneous administration into vein instead of muscle) instead of the vaccine itself.
Yes, this is possible, but it also means I wouldn't get the vaccine before it's officially acknowledged that they should do aspiration and this indeed reduces chance of myocarditis occurring.
In very many anecdotal reports where people have gotten myocarditis, they have felt metallic taste just 15 seconds after the vaccine, so it does seem that in their cases it probably has entered bloodstream, unless there's some better explanation.
> I know you said you "don't believe" the statistics, but... that's just not really how statistics works?
I believe "statistics", I love poker, I love numbers, I love making decisions based on probabilities, I just don't believe that numbers coming from trials are correct. For example, maybe people weren't properly checked for myocarditis, and this matches some reports from trial participants. I think statistics are great, I just don't trust that everything was done properly, and it seems BMJ confirms it at least for 1 subcontractor. Now this is not final evidence that trial data may not be correct, but it's enough for me to postpone the vaccine.
> I know hundreds of people who've gotten the vaccine, none of which have gotten myocarditis.
You may very well know and this wouldn't disprove that myocarditis's frequency could be for example 1 out of 300. You would still more likely have 100 friends who never got myocarditis, but these odds are for example very worrying.
If what Danielshep60 says is true, it can be statistically proven that what numbers are coming from e.g. Pfizer's studies or some other studies are wrong, as such a combination of a couple + a relative of theirs having the diagnosis would be extremely unlikely.
Also another survey, for people who had post vaccine injury, the claim for 10% of them was that they also had a relative who had persistent adverse effects after the vaccine. If they had 10 relatives on average, it could mean incident rate to be around 1%.
> 3. Fatigue & brain fog
> I should start by noting that fatigue & brain fog are widely documented to be common symptoms of the long COVID syndrome, which affects old and young. Long COVID is also alarmingly common.
Yes, totally agreed! I believe different studies say that getting long covid could be 5% to 65% chance depending on the definition and requirements for long covid. I definitely wouldn't want to get covid.
> I'm sorry to report that a subreddit does not consist of any kind of valuable correlative indicator when talking about the medical domain. There is just such a swarm of flaws in such analysis that it must be discarded entirely (biased sampling, placebo, and fabrication being the top three).
Yeah, it's impossible to determine the exact frequency, but considering everything, I see it being possible that getting covid vaccine could ruin running 1 out of 1,000 cases or more. Once again, I don't have evidence for it, but this is based on my intuition.
Yeah, will see what happens with BMJ trial.
It's definitely possible I will take this vaccine in the future, but I need more data & analysis.
Trust me, I'm not happy about spending so much time on deciding this, and I kind of wish I maybe should've just taken it in summer, so I didn't have to spend so much time and energy trying to research this. Unfortunately my research has only opened more question marks, but I'm not feeling good about taking it any longer.
For what it's worth, thank you for actually analysing the evidence and not blindly falling into conspiracy or groupthink against the vaccine. While I object to some of your points, your hesitation is your right. I also appreciate the fact that you're open to taking it in the future once your questions are addressed.
As someone who took both shots 6 months ago and had absolutely zero issues, if you decide to take it, I hope your journey will be the same as well!
:)
Edit: I just noticed something interesting. You said something about the fact that if the incidence rate was 1/1 million, it would be statistically unlikely for a couple to both get it. If the aspiration theory was true though, would this really be the case? It would be very likely that both partners got vaccinated by the same provider, perhaps even by the same person. That drastically increases the chance of aspiration not occurring for both people! Just an interesting observation about how the mathematical theory of statistics is not always immediately applicable to RW situations.:)
As far as I've heard/seen anecdotally about aspiration is that at least in most cases there was no aspiration. People reporting many stories where they specifically asked for aspiration to be done, and nurses very frequently said, they are not trained for that any longer. Some nurses didn't even know what it was, and some other nurse aspirated AFTER the injection. Luckily there was no blood in this case.
It would be interesting to know how many nurses will aspirate, but given what I've seen/heard, it seems like 90% or more don't. Unless again, anecdotal stories are biased and only mention it when it's not done.
If I remember correctly, the couple got vaccinated around 2 weeks apart, I don't remember if the provider was the same. But story went something like they went to the ER because of her, but he was also asked how's he feeling and I think he mentioned something about chest/shoulder pains as well, and so they both got tested at the same time and received their diagnosis on the same day.
If aspiration wasn't done just in 10% of the cases, then yeah, this could skew with data and make a couple more likely to have it if they do go get it at the same provider and person who doesn't do it.
Interestingly, there was a study 7 years ago that found out 74% of end-users aspirated,
If that is the case then I'd definitely like to hear their explanation for how so many who have come to Myocarditis or long term issues felt metallic taste within 15 seconds.
It's not like this would be a placebo, if so many different sources report the exact same thing?
Besides text anecdotal stories, sources for at least 2 people on video experiencing that metallic taste:
And if it did happen to be true that, aspiration could've saved all of those people then I'm endlessly disappointed in capabilities of our medical communities. Especially with so many reports constantly flowing in, in the similar direction.
But generally what I've been reading about aspiration now is that there are pretty convincing reasons not to do it.
> The best we can do is isolate the population and move on.
Or force them to vaccinate -- it would not be the first time this has been done.
IMHO that looks like a much more sensible option than having "vaccination passes" which basically mandate vaccination anyway but also happen to become (yet another) type of government ID.
I'm not going to be the one to complain that societal paternalism is a bad thing.
It is absolutely questionable that you show to believe to have a capacity for judgement adequate to know the "truth" and be able to impose it to others (also) on that basis.
It's called democracy. We assume everyone +18 has this "capacity" and as such impose the will of the majority on others. Has been going on for some decades already...
And has to deal with the issue that people in general have a strongly bad judgement owing to lack of resources to acquire the instruments (time is always relatively scarce), complicated by the fact that people in the lower side of the "distribution" of the abilities lack the awareness of their inadequacy.
Consistently, "democracy" has a strong connotation of negative value, which also implies a countervalue: "better than other systems", which does contain its big "though" - making evident that common forms are suboptimal compromises, in light of the inadequacy mentioned above.
I just want to point out that the main cause of breakthrough cases is having too many people be unvaccinated. They are breeding grounds for mutations, and the reason the word 'variant' is now in vogue.
Not to throw ad hominem back at the above poster, which I'm of course doing, but I have hard time trusting ability to understand information and do correct deductions from said information by anyone calling others "an idiot". Now I'm not saying that they are "idiot" themselves, which I don't think they are, but it's revealing in my view how the ways they reach any conclusions in life may be flawed.
Here's few thoughts:
1. Single decision like this in such a short timeframe of these vaccines being available does not make or imply anyone to be an idiot. You have no clue about their circumstances someone may be in or what they've seen.
2. Medication/vaccines have trade-offs, even if these are 10,000,000:1 ratio.
3. I believe current studies show vaccines have a lot more potential downsides than mainstream media is letting on. Which makes it hard to trust anything mainstream media is saying right now.
4. While anecdotal reports are not scientific evidence, they are definitely cause for alarm at present time. Looking at VAERS and similar European adverse reporting sites, I don't think there can be a good explanation why the reports are so high compared to other vaccines, except the fact that these vaccines are actually causing so many issues.
5. Above poster doesn't know your age, gender, existing conditions, allergy risks, behaviour - maybe you live alone and never go outside, etc.
6. Despite whatever anyone likes to repeated, that mRNA tech has been studied for decades, which I don't even necessarily think is the issue here, the spike protein might be the issue here for instance, we don't know what the long term issues are, e.g. recent study showing that it may impair DNA repairs. There's so many hints everywhere, and we haven't had time to investigate all of this.
7. Despite what people like to claim, it is possible to avoid Covid19 by staying inside, and make chances of getting it reasonably low, 1% per year possibly, if you can work from home and order everything in. Only see family when infections in you area are really low. In this case you are also doing more for your society than an average vaccinated person, since your R is definitely below 1. If everyone behaved like you without vaccines, the virus would die out.
8. More and more data coming out about adverse effects and wading efficacy.
9. Issues with Pfizer trials, and trial participants with adverse effects being excluded, gaslighted etc.
10. If you do get vaccine damage, there's no compensation and you might just get gaslighted like has happened to thousands of people. In fact to my knowledge at least 6 people committed suicide because they had vaccine injuries and nobody believed them.
On what unclear basis the statement is legitimate 'One personally thinks there's absolutely no downside to X, so everyone who doesn't is an idiot' ?!
Look: even when the statement is disambiguated as 'A personally thinks there's absolutely no downside to X, [and from that also thinks] everyone who doesn't is an idiot', no, A is not entitled to think that "people with different ideas are idiots". A is supposed to have had an amount of intellectual experience in the past, that has already clearly and inequivocally shown A that A is fallible, and has only limited information and a partial grasp of the world.
In the same sense as "I personally don't think that the reason for hairloss is a dinosaur that comes visit overnight and pulls people's hair while they're sleep, and everyone who does [think that] is an idiot". People having a different opinion is not a problem. People coming repeatedly to outlandish conclusions based on the limited evidence is a problem. Even with "limited grasp of the world" et al which is tautology. These "but you can't know everything!" arguments only go so far.
But the «outlandish conclusions based on the limited evidence» represent a strawman: the problem is different.
And it remains that the conclusions you have made are in your head and a substantial part of the rest of the world legitimately, according to their experience, came to different conclusions.
That argument is just valid. Especially given the tautology. You may get misleading corroborations from easier evaluations and than fail in the critical ones.
Contextually, given data collection that shows a 25% rate of cognitive neurological disorders 6 months post-infection, I am not sure where is the alarmism or how to question it.
In general, if there is a phenomenon, I want it studied, with a strength proportional to that being a phenomenon of concern.
Incidentally: I am not sure Von Neumann in his last times was more concerned of the cancer, than of the cognitive abilities he lost and was losing. Of all the things one may sacrifice, some put mental faculties towards last.
I also believe it's not alarmism, based on anecdotal evidence I've seen. Covid-19 is bad for your brain and magnitudes more than any usual flu or cold. I do also think that vaccines can cause this, with much less chance than covid-19 itself, but none of this is spelling good. And vaccines either don't reduce the danger of covid affecting your brain at all or it reduces it by some unknown factor (maybe half), but definitely doesn't completely remove the danger. Vaccines are effective against hospitalisations and deaths, but not necessarily against this.
This is based on anecdotal reports and studies that I've seen.
I believe people underestimate bad long term effects from both covid and vaccines, and they mainly just focus on hospitalisations and deaths, while any damage to brain etc is going under the wraps.
To clarify when I mention impact on brain, I mostly mean brain fog and neurological symptoms. Here are some, I would have to keep a list somewhere to provide this though.
And vaccines either don't reduce the danger of covid affecting your brain at all or it reduces it by some unknown factor
The issue with your citations is that they analyze breakthrough infections, not exposures. You're correct in that vaccines may not protect an infected individual from neurological damage to the same degree they do lung damage, but you seem to be overlooking all the infections that don't happen at all because of the vaccine. In those cases the vaccine was effective in preventing brain damage due to covid.
Yes, agree with that, but I thought this to be an entirely different topic and a given. I should probably point this out as a disclaimer still. All of what I said was for the case after you've got covid not accounting for your vaccination status or behaviour at all necessarily.
The main point is that even with the vaccine you should still be careful about getting covid since it may not necessarily fully protect against long covid, which for me is a much bigger danger than say chance of hospitalisation or death.
> In the new study, Belgian and German researchers claim that the virus infects sustentacular cells but not OSNs [olfactory sensory neurons]. “That is just a critical distinction,” said the senior author Peter Mombaerts, who directs the Max Planck Research Unit for Neurogenetics in Frankfurt, Germany. “Once you believe that olfactory neurons can be infected, there is a quick route into the olfactory bulb and then you’re in the brain already.”
> Nobody doubts that the central nervous system is affected by the disease; the debate concerns whether these effects are due to the virus infecting neurons or some more indirect mechanism, such as an inflammatory response in the blood irrigating the brain – with different implications for prognosis and treatment.
This also explains the inhibition of serotonin production - all tryptophan reserves (serotonin precursor) are redirected to NAD syhtesis.
I cannot recommend this material enough [1]. Some quantative info on cellular respiration in Covid patients is presented at [2].
This sums up the symptoms of long Covid: fatigue, brain fog, neurological damage, problems with breathing, acquired type 2 diabetes, panic attacks, POTS, GI and cardiovascular issues. This hypothesis also provides the basis for an actionable treatment plan, which is similar to treating Beriberi.
Statistically 30% of Covid survivors are affected, regardless the severity of original illness. If your family member or you had a Covid you should be very alert.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UOyE-3PbJY
[2] https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/ajpcell.004...