COVID 19 vaccine successfully developed!!

[Hypocrite-The]

Here’s How the AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine Compares to Pfizer’s and Moderna’s
AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine has not yet been submitted for U.S. approval.
Research from the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca shows that a single shot of the two-step vaccine slows transmission—and that delaying the second dose might be beneficial.
South Africa has stopped offering the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine to its citizens following reports that it offers only little protection against the country’s dominant coronavirus variant.
The United Kingdom became the first country to approve AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use on Dec. 30, just weeks after Pfizer’s and Moderna’s respective vaccines received a green light from the Food and Drug Administration in the United States. The approval is another promising sign in the global immunization rollout—especially because this option, developed by the University of Oxford and biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, could be key to reaching people in rural and underfunded areas.

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Unlike its competitors, the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine can be stored at higher temperatures, costs less per dose, and uses different technology to immunize people. New findings out of South Africa, however, could interrupt the vaccine’s path to approval: It appears to offer only minimal protection against the country’s dominant, more contagious variant, which is rapidly spreading worldwide.

Although vaccine hasn’t been approved for use in the U.S. yet, here’s what we know about it so far, and how it stacks up against Pfizer’s and Moderna’s.

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How does the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine work?
AstraZeneca’s vaccine uses adenovirus-vectored technology. Translation: It’s a harmless, modified version of a common cold virus that usually only spreads among chimpanzees. This altered virus can’t make you sick, but it carries a gene from the novel coronavirus’ spike protein, the portion of the virus that triggers an immune response. This allows the immune system to manufacture antibodies that work against COVID-19, teaching your body how to respond should you become infected.

In other words, AstraZeneca’s vaccine mimics a COVID-19 infection without its life-threatening side effects, per a release from the company. The reason researchers chose a chimpanzee adenovirus is simple: The modified virus needs to be new to the people being vaccinated—otherwise, the body won’t create those all-important antibodies. Anyone could already have antibodies for a cold spread among humans, but far fewer people have been exposed to a cold spread among chimps.

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Initially, the vaccine was administered with two shots spaced about a month apart. But new research from Oxford and AstraZeneca appears to show that the vaccine’s efficacy actually goes up when the second dose is delivered more than 12 weeks after the first. (More on this study’s findings below.)

The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, meanwhile, rely on mRNA technology, which essentially introduces a piece of genetic code that tricks the body into producing COVID-19 antibodies, no virus required. Both approved vaccines require two shots spaced about a month apart. Although no adenovirus-vectored vaccine has been approved for human use before, companies like Johnson & Johnson, CanSino, and NantKwest are all working on their own versions.

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How does the AstraZeneca vaccine compare to the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines?
Storage and distribution
AstraZeneca’s vaccine is the easiest to transport so far—it can be stored for up to six months between 36 and 46°F, normal refrigerator temperatures. The Moderna and Pfizer options, meanwhile, must be stored at subzero temperatures until they’re ready to be used, at -4°F and -94°F, respectively. (mRNA technology is relatively fragile compared to adenovirus-vectored tech, meaning it must be kept at much lower temperatures to remain effective and stable.)

AstraZeneca’s higher storage temperature could make distribution much easier. “A clinic, a nursing home, or even [regional] health departments may not have freezers that can hold things at -94°F,” says Kawsar Talaat, M.D., an infectious disease doctor, vaccine researcher, and assistant professor in the department of International Health at Johns Hopkins University. Being able to use a typical fridge “allows time for distribution, allows the vaccine time to get to more rural areas, [and allows vaccines] to be kept at a clinic for a longer period of time.”

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Cost
The new vaccine also beats its competitors on price: AstraZeneca’s vaccine costs providers about $4 per dose, while Pfizer’s costs $20 and Moderna’s costs $33, Al Jazeera reports. These prices will most likely fluctuate as time goes on and the vaccines evolve.

Side effects
All three vaccines’ side effects are similar, including potential injection site pain and flu-like symptoms, including fever, fatigue, headaches, and muscle pain, which are to be expected as your immune system is primed, especially after the second dose.

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Efficacy
The two mRNA vaccines have a slight edge in efficacy; both Pfizer and Moderna report being about 95% effective against COVID-19 after the second shot in clinical trials. (For comparison, the annual flu shot is usually between 40 and 60% effective, per the CDC.) They also appear to reduce the risk of severe illness even if you do become infected with SARS-CoV-2.

The new AstraZeneca study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, found the vaccine is 76% effective against the current, dominant strain of the novel coronavirus for up to three months after just one dose. Remarkably, it also appears to show that the vaccine becomes more effective with a longer wait between doses; infections were less likely among those who received their booster more than 12 weeks after their initial shot compared to those who received their booster less than six weeks after. More research is needed to confirm the significance of these findings, however.

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If the data checks out, this could free up reserves of second-dose AstraZeneca vaccines to be used as first doses, potentially bolstering the global immunization effort. Since each vaccine is unique, though, separate trials recommending a longer wait between doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines will be necessary.

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Every available vaccine, along with Johnson & Johnson’s (which also has yet to be approved in the U.S.), appears to offer lower protection against the new, more infectious COVID-19 variants currently spreading in the U.S. and abroad. New research from South Africa on the AstraZeneca vaccine found an under-25% efficacy against mild and moderate illness from the country’s more contagious B.1.351 variant, failing to meet the threshold for emergency approval. As a result, South Africa has since stopped offering the AstraZeneca vaccine to its citizens.

For now, the best way to avoid the variants is to continue following disease prevention guidelines and to get an authorized vaccine as soon as you’re eligible.

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Which COVID-19 vaccine is the best?
There’s no “best” vaccine option, as there’s not enough research to confirm that yet. Vaccines aren’t a silver bullet, especially as the pandemic rages on: They must be combined with masks, hand-washing, and social distancing to work as effectively as possible, per the CDC. No matter which COVID-19 vaccine becomes available to you first, you can feel confident in its ability to protect you, as long as you continue being cautious until positive cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are significantly reduced nationwide.

In the meantime, it’s likely “that all the manufacturers are working on making their vaccines more stable at easier-to-manage temperatures,” Dr. Talaat explains. Similarly, manufacturers are likely working toward greater protection against new variants. As their formulations change, their pros and cons will, too.

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For now, we can be thankful that AstraZeneca’s vaccine is being studied more. “The next generation of vaccines, like AstraZeneca’s, which is kept at refrigerator temperatures, is a major advancement,” Dr. Talaat says. “When you’re talking about distribution to the entire world, it’s much easier to do because we already keep vaccines cold. It’s a lot harder to keep things frozen.”

This article is accurate as of press time. However, as the COVID-19 pandemic rapidly evolves and the scientific community’s understanding of the novel coronavirus develops, some of the information may have changed since it was last updated. While we aim to keep all of our stories up to date, please visit online resources provided by the CDC, WHO, and your local public health department to stay informed on the latest news. Always talk to your doctor for professional medical advice.

Go here to join Prevention Premium (our best value, all-access plan), subscribe to the magazine, or get digital-only access.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io
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[laksaboy]

No mention of Sinovac? That doesn't inspire confidence, does it?

 

[zhihau]

No mention of Sinovac? That doesn't inspire confidence, does it?

Tiagong our neighbors up north will be taking Sinovac, got shadow or not?

 

[eatshitndie]

the mrna solution to target the spike protein is the correct one. as the virus mutates, it is its spikes that mutated to adapt to becum more transmissable variants. the pfizer and moderna mrna vaccines have been proven to address mutations of these viral spikes even after 1 year of vaccine creation. the 1st mrna vaccine was concocted 48 hours after genome sequencing of virus in january 2020. newer variants in spring of 2021 may require modifications of the mrna vaccine to address drastic mutations of the spikes. the virus uses the spikes to attach to human cells and attack them in order to replicate. there will be more mutations (and variants) over time with less folks vaccinated. but mrna vaccine solutions can easily be improved to counter the threat. 2nd or 3rd (modified) booster shots can be administered within weeks to improve chances against new variants. with new variants, the traditional j&j 1 shot regimen may not be as effective. where’s that self-claimed sinkie “scientist” vamjok? no sight no sound? hiding in toilet doing upskirt after getting rubbished?

 

[blackmondy]

Lee Hsien Loong mishandled the pandemic, perhaps he should be the first to get vaccinated.

Fucker should be vaccinated with cyanide.

 

[Hypocrite-The]

the mrna solution to target the spike protein is the correct one. as the virus mutates, it is its spikes that mutated to adapt to becum more transmissable variants. the pfizer and moderna mrna vaccines have been proven to address mutations of these viral spikes even after 1 year of vaccine creation. the 1st mrna vaccine was concocted 48 hours after genome sequencing of virus in january 2020. newer variants in spring of 2021 may require modifications of the mrna vaccine to address drastic mutations of the spikes. the virus uses the spikes to attach to human cells and attack them in order to replicate. there will be more mutations (and variants) over time with less folks vaccinated. but mrna vaccine solutions can easily be improved to counter the threat. 2nd or 3rd (modified) booster shots can be administered within weeks to improve chances against new variants. with new variants, the traditional j&j 1 shot regimen may not be as effective. where’s that self-claimed sinkie “scientist” vamjok? no sight no sound? hiding in toilet doing upskirt after getting rubbished?

Mrna vaccine is the way of the future. If it works.n can be adapted to the flu etc. Only issue is for now kangaroo land is only capable of manufacturing the astra zenecca vaccine which is a viral vector vaccine. The way the people freak out over the virus. Might as well inoculate ppl with all 3 different types of vaccines.

 

[eatshitndie]

Mrna vaccine is the way of the future. If it works.n can be adapted to the flu etc. Only issue is for now kangaroo land is only capable of manufacturing the astra zenecca vaccine which is a viral vector vaccine. The way the people freak out over the virus. Might as well inoculate ppl with all 3 different types of vaccines.

the mrna platform is now being researched for cancer treatments and stem cell production (without the need for human embryos). it has greater use outside of vaccines.

 

[Hypocrite-The]

the mrna platform is now being researched for cancer treatments and stem cell production (without the need for human embryos). it has greater use outside of vaccines.

That could b the bright spot to the virus. Trump has speeded up the development of mrna. Wonder if it can cure aids etc

 

[vamjok]

No mention of Sinovac? That doesn't inspire confidence, does it?

if you realise Sg govt have not approve their usage their vaccine already reached our shore. Can see the Chinese govt is intentionally trying to pressure the local govt to approve it.

 

[Hypocrite-The]

Your COVID-19 vaccine safety questions, answered by experts
By Annika Blau
Posted Yesterday at 2:00am, updated 8hhours ago

We put your questions about vaccinations to experts.(AAP)
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The COVID-19 vaccines have been developed at break-neck speed and in some cases use new technology.
It's little wonder some of you have questions.
Since August last year, we've been collecting your queries and concerns about the coronavirus and COVID vaccines.
With the Pfizer shot rolling out in Australia this week, we've put the questions you asked most to leading experts in infectious diseases and immunisation.
From why you need a vaccine if you have a strong immune system to whether genetic vaccines can change your genome, we've got the answers.
Meet the experts
Kristine Macartney is an infectious diseases paediatrician and University of Sydney professor. She monitors the safety and effectiveness of vaccines as director of the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS).
Christopher Blyth is an associate professor in paediatrics at the University of Western Australia and co-director of the Wesfarmers Centre of Vaccines and Infectious Diseases. He is co-chair of Australia's peak scientific committee on immunisation, a research fellow at Telethon Kids Institute, Infectious Diseases Physician at Perth Children's Hospital and a clinical microbiologist at PathWest Laboratory Medicine.
Archa Fox is an associate professor and ARC Future Fellow at the University of Western Australia. She is a molecular biologist specialising in RNA, the genetic code behind viruses and many of the COVID-19 vaccines.
Your questions
Scroll down to read all the answers, or jump ahead by clicking on the questions that interest you:

• Isn't it better to risk COVID than take a new vaccine?
• Can't I wait and see while others take it?
• Why can't we just immunise vulnerable people and leave others to fight COVID with their immune systems?
• Have approvals and testing been rushed through?
• How do we know there won't be longer-term effects if we're testing short term?
• Genetic vaccines are new so have we had enough experience to know they're safe?
• I've heard the vaccines make your cells produce a foreign protein. Should I worry?
• Do the genetic vaccines change a person's genome sequence?
• Do the vaccines include mercury and other heavy metals?
• Does the vaccine make you more susceptible to HIV?
• Do the vaccines use cells from aborted foetuses?
• Is there a miniature chip inside the vaccine that will be used to track us?
• Do the vaccines affect fertility?
• Is it safe to get the vaccine if I'm pregnant?
• Do the vaccines affect breastfeeding?

Why do I need a vaccine?

Isn't it better to risk COVID than take a new vaccine?
Professor Macartney: Though they are new, these vaccines have been so incredibly well studied. There's now more than 200 million doses that have been administered globally and tens of thousands of those were in clinical trials. So we actually know more about these vaccines than we have about some other vaccines launched in years past. It's amazing what we've been able to learn because of the mass participation of people in these trials and roll-out.

Can't I wait and see while others take it?
Professor Macartney: While a young person has a reasonable chance of not becoming critically ill with COVID-19, they certainly have a chance of passing it to others who are vulnerable and it could have serious health consequences.
The key thing here is that we will only succeed in stopping this pandemic if most of the population is vaccinated. And while some people may think "I don't need to be vaccinated, I'll rely on others", we know that if everyone joins together, taking up the safe and effective vaccines we have, that's how we can turn this into being a manageable virus rather than one wreaking havoc on our world.
We've been hoping life will be normal by 2022 — it's not quite as black and white as that. If we wish to get back to a more normal life, we quite simply need to get a lot of people protected against serious disease through vaccination.

Professor Kristine Macartney says Australia cannot afford to be complacent.(ABC News: Nicole Chettle)

Why can't we just immunise the vulnerable and leave others to fight COVID with their immune systems?
Professor Macartney: If we do that, this virus will continue to spread, especially to those with weaker immune systems or who are vulnerable. These people, even if they are vaccinated, will not be fully protected. They also need to rely on not meeting another person who is infected with the virus. Some people's own immune response may not respond as well to the vaccine, or if they met someone who had a very high level of virus it may overwhelm their protective response from the vaccine. The key thing here is to not meet anyone with the virus, and the way to do that is through mass vaccination, so the virus will not have anywhere to travel.
If we have a lot of people who aren't vaccinated, the virus will just continue to spread and be a risk to our families and friends. We cannot afford to have it circulating at high levels in the community.
It sometimes seems okay to say "I don't mind if I get sick", but in my experience as a clinician who looks after people in intensive care, when others feel they might have passed on that infection to a person who ends up seriously ill in hospital, it's a terrible burden to bear. People feel absolutely devastated about that — knowing they didn't do everything they could have.
Everyone knows or cares for someone who is older, or might have had treatment for cancer, or for some other reason will be vulnerable. It's so important that we think of those people, because if we're not vaccinated, we're keeping them at risk.
Dr Fox: Younger people can strengthen their immune system but as you get older your immune system is just not as good. It's just part of getting older. The only way we can protect older people and the immunocompromised is to vaccinate.
But even if every young person ate well and did exercise and had a strong immune system, if they get infected with the virus, they could still suffer from COVID-19 — some people develop long COVID, and there is mortality in all age ranges, even if you have a strong immune system. We don't yet understand why some people get really bad COVID-19 symptoms and others don't. In future we may know people's risk factors at the genetic level, but right now you're playing Russian roulette if you're going to just rely on boosting your immune system to stop getting sick.
If everybody just takes an individual stance and boosts their own immune system, that's not how vaccines work — they rely on herd immunity, it's about you protecting everyone else. The studies coming out now suggest transmission of the virus will be greatly reduced by the vaccinated.
Dr Blyth: Although we encourage people to stay healthy, there is no single way to strengthen one's immune system to make it able to combat COVID infection. The only way we're going to be able to do that is through a vaccine. So I'd encourage people to remain as healthy as possible throughout the pandemic but a key component is a vaccination. While we know some groups in particular are more susceptible to severe outcomes, COVID can affect anyone.
When will I get the COVID-19 vaccine?

Tell us a bit about yourself and we'll tell you where you are in the queue for the COVID-19 jab.
Read more
Is it safe?

Have approvals and testing been rushed through?
Professor Macartney: I understand people's concern given that everything has happened at pandemic speed. But it's important to remember that this has been the focus for hundreds of thousands of the world's cleverest scientists, those in regulatory authorities, and specialists in ethics and many aspects of the vaccine development and delivery process. They’ve all been working round the clock to ensure the integrity and quality of the data and the vaccines themselves. The whole scientific world and many others have turned their minds to ensuring that the quality and safety of the vaccines is paramount. Billions of dollars have been thrown at this to back that approach.
While things have gone much faster than usual, the rigour with which testing, approvals and all aspects of development have been undertaken has been of the highest standard. So many people have stopped doing the other work they do to become involved in COVID — they've turned all of their skills to support the development and manufacture. That's what's helping us know they're safe and quality products.
Dr Fox: These vaccines have not been rushed through. They are faster because there have been absolutely no delays to getting funding. As scientists, we spend so much time trying to get funding for the necessary trials and experiments to prove something works. That is the biggest delay to scientific research. Then, at every stage there were people lining up to participate in trials. Often that recruitment is difficult and a very long process. It's really those two things that removed the usual waiting times. That's why what would previously take five years took one year.
In Australia, our vaccines have had the full approval process, not emergency authorisation like in some countries. That means every bit of data that was required for approval has been provided, whereas with emergency approval they don't require quite so much data. The regulators who sit on those approval panels would've been working around the clock to scrutinise that data. In that sense there would've been a bureaucratic layer stripped away as they were able to focus on this approval, not other work.
Dr Blyth: Current technology enables us to develop vaccines much faster than previously and through collaboration between researchers and industry we've been able to do this in record time.
In addition to new technology, we did things differently this time, running trials concurrently. Traditionally, we run the three phases of clinical trials one after the other, pausing to review data between steps. But we were able to run them continuously in populations with large amounts of COVID disease, so it was faster to see if a vaccine truly worked. This was an economic risk for manufacturers and governments but not a safety risk.
The threshold for approval for these vaccines in Australia has been no different for COVID than any other vaccine. They're going through as rigorous, if not more rigorous a process than usual, given the incredible scrutiny. I have confidence they are safe and effective.

Paediatrician Dr Chris Blyth (right) with fellow scientist Jonathan Carapetis.(720 ABC Perth: Emma Wynne)

How do we know there won't be longer-term effects if we're testing short term?
Professor Macartney: It's extraordinarily rare for any vaccine to show a side effect that develops later after vaccination, such as the following week. Most side effects occur within the first few days, such as a sore arm, muscle aches or a temperature. Very few vaccines have ever been shown to have a late-onset side effect. But the regulatory authorities who've approved the vaccines have only done so on the basis of reviewing data from many thousands of people at least two months after the second dose of the vaccine. Those people are continuing to be followed.
Vaccines have been in clinical trials for nine months now where they've been given to over a quarter of a million people in those trials. More than 200 million doses of approved vaccines have also now been given worldwide and many doses have been of the two vaccines we're using in Australia. So far, we're not seeing longer-term side effects. But that doesn't stop us from continuing to monitor the safety of the vaccines. Studies are being done all around the world looking for those needle-in-a-haystack events — but we know the benefits of these vaccines are so great and the safety profile is looking excellent.
Dr Fox: The only way we can be 100 per cent sure there are no long-term problems is to monitor long-term. But when you add up all of the bits of evidence that have been gathered — studies in animals over long periods of time that show they're fine, and the ways we know the molecules and cells work, that they're broken down quickly — there's no scientific basis to believe there'll be long-term effects.
As a scientist these vaccines don't scare me at all, because I can look at all the components and know they'll either degrade or are harmless.
Every vaccine was new once. Most of us don't think too much about getting the whooping cough vaccine or diphtheria vaccine — at some point they were the new ones, but our parents or grandparents agreed to take them.
Genetic vaccines
The two vaccines currently approved in Australia (the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-Astrazeneca shots) are what's known as "genetic vaccines". Traditional vaccines inject a weak or inactivated copy of a virus, or a lone protein from it, to train your immune system to recognise and destroy that virus. Genetic vaccines instead give your cells instructions to make a single protein from the coronavirus themselves. As it is a single protein not a whole coronavirus particle, you can't get sick.
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Duration: 4 minutes 2 seconds4m 2s

How will the coronavirus vaccine work?

Genetic vaccines are new so have we had enough experience to know they're safe?
Professor Macartney: Genetic vaccines are not as new as we think. They've been under development for decades, but it's only been in recent years that they've been taken forward in licensed vaccines. For example, the vaccine that has helped stop the Ebola outbreak in Africa is a genetic vaccine and that's been pivotal to controlling the disease there. The safety of this vaccine design has been studied extensively in the laboratory as well as in many different types of animal models, and in other trials prior to Covid-19. These studies have shown this vaccine type to have a good safety record. There have also been tens of thousands of people in clinical trials who have received the different types of COVID-19 vaccines and many people vaccinated worldwide with no safety signals occurring.

I've heard the vaccines make your cells produce a foreign protein. Should I worry?
Professor Macartney: Our bodies are meeting and dealing with foreign proteins every single day in many different ways. From the moment we're born, our body is coated in foreign proteins and they make it into our nose and mouth, through our skin, into our blood, and our immune system is trained by those foreign proteins to know what the world is like and what is safe. We use foreign proteins in all vaccines to help us develop a protective response to a serious disease without having the side effects from the disease itself.
In some ways, genetic vaccines are even more natural than other vaccines because instead of injecting a foreign protein, they instruct your cells to make that protein themselves and switch on the immune system to recognise it. It's a very clever use of our own immune system. It's similar to how we're starting to treat cancer by boosting the immune system to fight cancer itself.
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Do the genetic vaccines change a person's genome sequence?
Dr Blyth: One of the types of vaccines we'll be using is an mRNA vaccine [the Pfizer shot], which contains a small piece of genetic material. This is not the same as our genes (which are made up of DNA) and the vaccine has no capacity to incorporate into an individual's genes. The vaccine is a sophisticated way to get a person's cells to manufacture the key coronavirus spike protein that we need to induce immunity. It is rapidly destroyed by the body and will have no long-lasting impact on an individual's genes.
Professor Macartney: The genetic vaccines don't change a person's genome sequence.
With mRNA-based vaccines, like the Pfizer and Moderna shots, it's genetic code that degrades and disappears within moments of being used by the cells in the body. There are extensive studies that show that code is only around for an instant. In animal models, when they've tried to look for that mRNA after administering the Pfizer vaccine, they can't find it anywhere in the body. It's not the sort of substance that can stay in the body or be incorporated into human cells.
The same goes for viral vector vaccines [like the Oxford Astrazeneca shot]. They are very short-lived in the body. The genetic material is there to do the work of stimulating the immune system, then it's gone.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration has given the Pfizer vaccine the green light.(ABC News)Other concerns

Do the vaccines include mercury and other heavy metals?
Dr Fox: No they don't and we know that from the published list of ingredients and components in the different vaccines. Anyone can look at the list.
Dr Blyth: Vaccines used in the Australian program do not contain mercury. The vaccines that will be used are free from preservatives and any toxic substances.

Does the vaccine make you more susceptible to HIV?
Dr Fox: This is a misunderstanding that came about after the University of Queensland vaccine trial was abandoned because it could trigger a false-positive result to an HIV test. That's because the way they made that vaccine was to piggy-back the SARS-COV-2 protein onto one little building block of HIV, not the whole virus. You can't get HIV from one isolated building block of the virus. But the HIV test would still recognise that protein and that would trigger a false positive result.
Dr Blyth: The UQ vaccine candidate produced a false-positive HIV test because a protein used in the vaccine was originally derived from the HIV virus. None of the recipients got infected with HIV because HIV is not transmitted through vaccines. A vaccine does not increase your risk of infections such as HIV, it protects against COVID-19.

Does the vaccine use cells from aborted foetuses?
Dr Fox: This is only applicable to some of the vaccines — the DNA-based vaccines like the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, but not the mRNA vaccines like Pfizer and Moderna.
To make the DNA vaccines you require living cells, what we call "cultured cells" or "cell lines". They're incredibly common in any research lab in the world. If you trace the history of that cultured cell line all the way back to the 1970s, the original source was donated material from an aborted foetus. That material would otherwise have been destroyed but was donated instead. They're certainly not from recently aborted foetuses.
The cells that are grown now are very different to their original source. It's the same as taking a biopsy of your skin and growing that in the lab forevermore — would you feel connected to those skin cells that are growing and growing and growing?
There is so much medical research and innovation in the last 50 years that has depended on these cultured cell lines. Without them, we would not have had the eradication of so many diseases, like Polio, for example.

Dr Archa Fox studies RNA, the genetic code that viruses are made from, and which is used in many of the approved COVID vaccines.(Supplied: UWA)

Is there a miniature chip inside the vaccine that will be used to track us?
Professor Macartney: There's certainly no miniature chip in vaccines. There's so many people responsible for the manufacture and development of these vaccines that it just wouldn't be possible for that to ever occur. It's a great myth that has been catchy on social media and is intended to frighten people — it seems awful to take advantage of people with a falsehood as impossible as this feeling vulnerable in the pandemic.
Dr Fox: This is a misconception that has evolved because some researchers developing mRNA vaccines have separately done research on biotechnology that involves implants. People are putting those two things together, but that's different research from different companies for totally different products. The vaccine companies have been very transparent with publicly available lists of ingredients in their vaccines. You can read them for yourself and see there's no hydrogels, no silicone chip.
Dr Blyth: With the Pfizer vaccine, you're injecting 0.3mls of vaccine. It's a liquid injected into the arm. It does not contain any additional components and certainly nothing that could enable us to track people.
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Duration: 28 minutes 1 second28m

The Vaccine: How effective will it be and what's the rollout plan?Fertility, pregnancy and breastfeeding

Do the vaccines affect fertility?
Dr Fox: There's no evidence to suggest that the vaccine affects fertility. There is also no scientific reason to suspect that the vaccines might affect fertility. It will be possible within the next year to measure if there is any drop in fertility rates because millions of people around the world have now received the vaccines.
Dr Blyth: No vaccines impact fertility and importantly, that applies to COVID vaccines. It's absolutely safe for people planning pregnancy.

Is it safe to get the vaccine if I'm pregnant?
Dr Fox: Pregnant people were not included in the phase three clinical trial — that's very common practice, for pregnant people not to be included in clinical trials of anything. The current advice is if you're not in a high-risk group, it's better to wait until we have more research. But that's only because of an absence of data, it's not based on any suggestion there is a risk. The data will come soon because all around the world people are getting vaccinated, including pregnant people, and those who want to go on and become pregnant.

Do the vaccines affect breastfeeding?
Dr Blyth: The COVID vaccines are safe for anyone breastfeeding. The recommendation is that you can receive COVID-19 vaccines at any time while breastfeeding.

Further testing is required to determine how the vaccine affects pregnant women specifically.(Pexels: Jeshoots.Com)

 

[Hypocrite-The]

How the Johnson & Johnson single-dose COVID-19 vaccine is different from others
By Michael Doyle with wires
Posted 7hhours ago, updated 2hhours ago

Johnson & Johnson are preparing to distribute their single-dose vaccines across the United States.(Johnson & Johnson Via AP)
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The United States now has a third regulator-approved coronavirus vaccine.
The US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) cleared the vaccine produced by medical giant Johnson & Johnson.
However, this vaccine is different from the others approved in the US.
It has provided optimism that swathes of the world could be vaccinated from COVID-19 much quicker than first thought.
Look back on Monday's coronavirus developments.Johnson & Johnson's vaccine only needs one dose
Johnson & Johnson has achieved something different to most other vaccine candidates — developed a single-dose COVID-19 vaccine.
Your COVID-19 vaccine questions answered

Got questions about the COVID-19 vaccines being used in Australia? We have answers.
Read more
Most other vaccines administered around the world, including in Australia, require two doses of the vaccine.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, currently being administered in Australia, requires a person to receive two shots, 21 days apart.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, approved for use in Australia on February 16, allows for a longer timeframe between the two shots.
The Australian government's Department of Health website says the second dose of the vaccine can be given anywhere between four and 12 weeks after the first shot is administered.
Other vaccines which require two doses include Novavax — which the Australian government has contracted to purchase 51 million doses pending approval — the Moderna vaccine, Russia's Sputnik V and China's Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines.
However, Johnson and Johnson is not the only company to be developing a single-dose vaccine.
The CanSino Biologics vaccine developed in China also has a single-dose shot.
How does Johnson & Johnson compare with the other single-dose vaccine?
The American company has shown results which have proven to be more effective than its Chinese counterpart.
When will I get the coronavirus vaccine? Who gets the vaccine first?

Here's the plan for who's getting it first and when you can expect to get the jab.
Read more
The USFDA said Johnson & Johnson's vaccine offered strong protection against serious illness, hospitalisations and death.
One dose was 85 per cent protective against the most severe COVID-19 illness, in a massive study that spanned three continents.
Protection remained strong in countries such as South Africa, where the variants of most concern are spreading.
Meanwhile, the Chinese single-shot vaccine falls well below that mark, according to initial data.
CanSino Biologics said its vaccine was 68.83 per cent effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 disease two weeks after a single-dose vaccination, citing interim data, while the rate fell to 65.28 per cent four weeks after one shot.
However, reports from a trial of the vaccine in Pakistan, and other countries, showed promising results in preventing serious coronavirus infections.
Faisal Sultan, Pakistan's Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on National Health Services, said the CanSino Biologics shot was 90.98 per cent effective in preventing serious infections.

How does it compare with the two-dose vaccines?
While current data shows the two-dose vaccine can be more effective against milder symptoms of COVID-19, the Johnson & Johnson trial could be a better indicator of the current climate.
In the US, the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna shots were 95 per cent protective against symptomatic COVID-19.
Johnson & Johnson's one-dose effectiveness of 85 per cent against severe COVID-19 dropped to 66 per cent when moderate cases were counted.
But it is hard to compare these stats because of differences in when and where each company conducted its studies.
Unlike the Johnson & Johnson studies, the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna research finished before the South African and British variants began widely spreading.
Read more about COVID-19 vaccines:

• Your vaccine questions answered
• Is there any danger in getting a higher dose of the vaccine?
• Nurses explain what the safeguards are after two vaccine errors mar Australia's rollout

Warmer temperatures make the single-dose vaccines easier to store
Along with being a single dose, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine also has another big advantage — it can be kept in warmer temperatures.
Pfizer vs AstraZeneca — what's the difference?

Most Australians will get the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, but priority groups will receive the Pfizer drug. So, how are they different?
Read more
The difficulty of storing the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine became an issue in Victoria during the first week of the vaccine rollout in Australia.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine needs to be stored at -70 degrees Celsius, making it extremely difficult to transport and keep in storage.
The Moderna vaccine used in the US also needs to be stored below zero, at -20C.
However, the Johnson & Johnson jab can be stored in a regular fridge between 2-8C.
This puts the vaccine on par with other vaccines which can be stored at these temperatures, including the Sputnik V and the Oxford-AstraZeneca.
These advantages in transport and storage will make the vaccine potentially more accessible.
In the United States, Johnson & Johnson is aiming to distribute 20 million doses by the end of March, and 100 million by the middle of the year.
Australia not in line for Johnson & Johnson shot
For now, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is not on Australia's approval radar.
The federal government has signed three deals with vaccine developers. Johnson & Johnson is not one of them.
But with the virus continuing to evolve, the single-dose vaccine could be used in Australia at some point.
If the Johnson & Johnson vaccine does become an option, will it be worth taking over other vaccines?
Dr Francis Collins, director of the US National Institutes of Health, told The Associated Press results indicated there was no need to prefer one vaccine over another.
"What people I think are mostly interested in is, is it going to keep me from getting really sick?" Dr Collins said.
"Will it keep me from dying from this terrible disease?
"The good news is all of these say yes to that."

 

[Leongsam]

Danger of mRNA vaccines to elderly under spotlight after 16 deaths in Switzerland

By Global Times Published: Feb 28, 2021 05:50 PM

File photo:Xinhua
The deaths of 16 elderly people in Switzerland after being inoculated with Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines underscore the potential danger of mRNA vaccines to the age group, Chinese vaccine experts said, further calling for caution.

At least 16 people died after receiving vaccines in Switzerland, the Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Products (Swissmedic) was quoted as saying by Sputnik in a report on Saturday.

The agency said it had obtained about 364 suspected adverse drug reactions, with 199 incidents linked to the vaccines developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, and 154 to Moderna's drug, said the report.

Swissmedic said the average age of the deaths was 86 and most of them had pre-existing diseases, adding there was no evidence to suggest that the vaccines were the cause of death.

Chinese experts said the incidents should be assessed cautiously to understand whether the deaths were caused by the vaccines or other preexisting conditions in these individuals.

Previously, Norway reported 23 deaths in connection with vaccinations, all of whom were over 80 years old. The COVID-19 vaccines from BioNTec/Pfizer and Moderna were used in Norway.

A Chinese immunologist who requested anonymity told the Global Times that the large-scale use of mRNA vaccines carries the risk of causing abnormal immune dysfunction, allergy or even death, especially among the elderly and people with underlying diseases.

The immunologist suggested individuals with preexisting conditions, the elderly and those with vulnerable immunity not be given vaccines.

The Global Times found that major Western media outlets have been downplaying the deaths relating to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, and also the 16 deaths in Switzerland.

Some observers questioned the veracity of declarations that the sporadic deaths were unrelated to the vaccines, calling on Western media to report the deaths fairly.

Global Times

 

[Hypocrite-The]

Danger of mRNA vaccines to elderly under spotlight after 16 deaths in Switzerland

By Global Times Published: Feb 28, 2021 05:50 PM

File photo:Xinhua
The deaths of 16 elderly people in Switzerland after being inoculated with Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines underscore the potential danger of mRNA vaccines to the age group, Chinese vaccine experts said, further calling for caution.

At least 16 people died after receiving vaccines in Switzerland, the Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Products (Swissmedic) was quoted as saying by Sputnik in a report on Saturday.

The agency said it had obtained about 364 suspected adverse drug reactions, with 199 incidents linked to the vaccines developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, and 154 to Moderna's drug, said the report.

Swissmedic said the average age of the deaths was 86 and most of them had pre-existing diseases, adding there was no evidence to suggest that the vaccines were the cause of death.

Chinese experts said the incidents should be assessed cautiously to understand whether the deaths were caused by the vaccines or other preexisting conditions in these individuals.

Previously, Norway reported 23 deaths in connection with vaccinations, all of whom were over 80 years old. The COVID-19 vaccines from BioNTec/Pfizer and Moderna were used in Norway.

A Chinese immunologist who requested anonymity told the Global Times that the large-scale use of mRNA vaccines carries the risk of causing abnormal immune dysfunction, allergy or even death, especially among the elderly and people with underlying diseases.

The immunologist suggested individuals with preexisting conditions, the elderly and those with vulnerable immunity not be given vaccines.

The Global Times found that major Western media outlets have been downplaying the deaths relating to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, and also the 16 deaths in Switzerland.

Some observers questioned the veracity of declarations that the sporadic deaths were unrelated to the vaccines, calling on Western media to report the deaths fairly.

Global Times

Sounds like chicom propaganda to discourage and make the ang mor vaccines look bad,,,also why waste vaccines on 80yos? should just implement a cut off age of 70,,,

 

[Leongsam]

scientificamerican.com

The Risks of Rushing a COVID-19 Vaccine
William A. Haseltine

6-8 minutes


Telescoping testing time lines and approvals may expose all of us to unnecessary dangers

Credit: Mladen Antonov Getty Images
The excitement and enthusiasm for a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of 2020 is both palpable and understandable. We all hope for a rapid end to the pandemic and an effective vaccine would be a surefire solution. But there are risks that come with a fast-tracked vaccine delivered end of this year, not the least of which are the risks related to the safety of the vaccine itself.

Telescoping testing timelines and approvals may expose all of us to unnecessary dangers related to the vaccine. While preclinical trials to evaluate the potential safety and efficacy of vaccine candidates are likely to include tens of thousands of patients, it is still unclear whether that number will be large enough and a trial will last long enough to evaluate safety for a drug that would be administered to so many. The US alone plans to vaccinate hundreds of millions of people with the first successful candidate. One serious adverse event per thousand of a vaccine given to 100 million people means harm to 100,000 otherwise healthy people.

Aside from questions of safety that attend any vaccine, there are good reasons to be especially cautious for COVID-19. Some vaccines worsen the consequences of infection rather than protect, a phenomenon called antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE). ADE has been observed in previous attempts to develop coronavirus vaccines. To add to the concern, antibodies typical of ADE are present in the blood of some COVID-19 patients. Such concerns are real. As recently as 2016, Dengavxia, intended to protect children from the dengue virus, increased hospitalizations for children who received the vaccine.

Questions also arise around the efficacy of a potential vaccine. The little we know of the current generation of COVID-19 vaccines raises serious questions regarding their ability to protect people from infection. We know all the candidates tested to date in non-human primates failed to protect any of the monkeys from infection of the nasal passages, the primary route of human infection. Failure to protect entirely from infection fits with all we know about attempts to protect monkeys from two other deadly coronaviruses, those that cause SARS and MERS.

On a brighter note, at least some of the candidate vaccines did raise significant immune responses. How that translates to protection of humans is uncertain though as monkeys do not become noticeably ill or exhibit many of the life-threatening consequences of COVID-19, even when exposed to high doses of the virus via the nose, lung, and rectum simultaneously. As many of the most serious COVID symptoms do not appear until late in the disease course, sometimes four to five weeks following exposure, there is a possibility that we will not have sufficient time to judge efficacy of a new vaccine, even by the lower standard of symptom amelioration.

An effective COVID-19 vaccine also faces several hurdles beyond our control. The older we get the poorer our ability to respond to vaccines. Resistance to vaccination begins early at age 30 and becomes progressively more profound with time. That is especially troubling as those over 60 are the population most at risk. Vaccination of the elderly may sometimes succeed by administering repeated doses and by increasing the potency of the vaccine with powerful adjuvants. But these adjuvants can be especially risky for the very old.

It seems a folly then to rush our way towards a vaccine in 2020 if it is likely to have only limited benefit to the population most in need and may put otherwise healthy people at risk. The risk goes far beyond the dangers a COVID vaccine alone may hold. Public support for vaccines in general is already an issue. Trust in other lifesaving vaccines will be eroded even further if a COVID vaccine goes wrong and many more people—children especially—will be at risk if vaccination rates fall.
Yes, we are all increasingly longing for an end to the outbreak. But a safe vaccine, effective for all those at risk, is worth the wait, especially when we have other solutions in hand. We already know from the experience of countries in Asia that the epidemic can be stopped in its tracks with basic public health measures: widespread testing, contact tracing, and mandatory controlled quarantine—not necessarily in a dismal public health facility as many imagine, but in our own homes with virtual supervision or in a hotel environment. These efforts alone could bring new infections down to almost zero within just weeks.

In addition, I believe it will be possible before the end of this year to protect those most at risk from exposure with combinations of monoclonal antibodies or with truly effective antiviral drugs. These drugs could treat those who were ill and prevent further infection. In addition to pursuing a vaccine within a realistic timeframe, we should also be throwing our weight behind these other types of medical solutions which have historically been much quicker to bring to market safely.
There is no doubt we need an urgent end to the pandemic. Economies around the world are crashing. Governments are piling up trillions of dollars in debt. And, in the US alone, tens of millions are without work or income. But there are still costs that are too great, even when compared to such numbers. When we have solutions to the pandemic in hand we cannot risk the potential lives lost of rushing a COVID vaccine to market. We must hold dear the central dictum of the medical community, first, do no harm. Trust that given the time science will deliver a medical solution in the form of a vaccine or a chemoprophylactic drug treatment, and in the meantime let us immediately implement the public health strategies that we know will work today to drive new infections down to nothing.

 

[Leongsam]

Hazards of the COVID-19 vaccine - Bulatlat
Bulatlat Contributors

20-26 minutes

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sputnik_V_Vaccine_Representation.jpg
By ROMEO F. QUIJANO, M.D.
Professor (Ret.)
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
College of Medicine, University of the Philippines Manila
The COVID-19 (SARS-Cov-2) vaccine is fraught with hazards. This should be the obvious, rational conclusion of anyone who cares to objectively study the available scientific and other relevant information about it. There are many factual danger signals that are easily discernible.
During the 2002-2003 SARS-1 outbreak, it took about 20 months before a vaccine was made ready for human testing in clinical trials despite the fact that concerns about safety were still unresolved. This was already way too fast compared to the usual time necessary for pre-clinical trials or animal studies to be satisfactorily completed before any ethical experimentation on human beings or clinical trials can be started. Yet for Covid-19 candidate vaccines, clinical trials were started barely five months after SARS-Cov-2 emerged, bypassing the necessary pre-clinical studies normally required and ignoring the serious safety concerns in the previous attempt to rush a SARS-1 vaccine (which was eventually scrapped).
One major safety concern in developing a vaccine is how to get around the danger that the vaccine might actually “enhance” the pathogenicity of the virus, or make it more aggressive possibly due to antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE), as what happened with previous studies on test vaccines in animals. If that should happen in a major human trial the outcome could be disastrous. (1,2,3,4) This serious adverse effect may not even be detected by a clinical trial especially in highly biased clinical trials laden with conflicts of interest involving vaccine companies. Even when a serious adverse event is detected, this is usually swept under the rug.
For example, initial clinical trial results for the COVID-19 vaccine of Moderna reportedly showed that three of the 15 human experimental subjects in the high dose group suffered serious and medically significant symptoms. Moderna, however, concluded that the vaccine was “generally safe and well tolerated,” which the corporate-dominated media dutifully reported, covering-up the real danger from the vaccine.(5,6,7,8) In a brazen act of unethical behaviour, Moderna even used a volunteer vaccine recipient, Ian Haydon, to appear in many appearances on media promoting Moderna’s experimental COVID-19 vaccine. Moderna encouraged Haydon to appear on TV to deceive the public and its shareholders. Less than 12 hours after vaccination, Haydon suffered muscle aches, vomiting, spiked a 103.2 degree fever and had lost consciousness.(9) The vaccine, pushed by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and financed by Bill Gates, used an experimental mRNA technology that supposedly would allow rapid deployment, waiving the usual pre-clinical and animal studies.
The fact that an entirely new RNA vaccine technology which has never been used before in humans is a danger signal that should not be ignored. Several of the US candidates (Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech, and Arcturus Therapeutics) are using this never-before-approved technology. Exogenous mRNA is inherently immunostimulatory, and this feature of mRNA could be beneficial or detrimental. It may provide adjuvant activity and it may inhibit antigen expression and negatively affect the immune response. The paradoxical effects of innate immune sensing on different formats of mRNA vaccines are incompletely understood. Potential safety concerns include local and systemic inflammation, biodistribution and persistence of expressed immunogen, stimulation of auto-reactive antibodies, and potential toxic effects of non-native nucleotides and delivery system components. A mRNA-based vaccine could also induce potent type I interferon responses, which have been associated not only with inflammation but also potentially with autoimmunity. Another potential safety issue could derive from the extracellular RNA which has been shown to increase the permeability of tightly packed endothelial cells and may promote blood coagulation and pathological thrombus formation. (10)
Another danger of mRNA vaccines is the use of biotech “carrier systems” involving lipid nanoparticles (LNPs). LNPs “encapsulate the mRNA constructs to protect them from degradation and promote cellular uptake,” and additionally, rev up the immune system. The LNP formulations in the three mRNA Covid-19 vaccines are also “PEGylated,” meaning that the vaccine nanoparticles are
coated with a synthetic, non-biodegradable and increasingly controversial polymer called polyethylene glycol (PEG). LNPs could contribute to one or more of the following: immune reactions, infusion reactions, complement reactions, opsonation reactions, antibody reactions or reactions to the PEG from some lipids or PEG otherwise associated with the LNP, as well as adverse reactions within liver pathways or degradation of the mRNA or the LNP, any of which could lead to significant adverse events. Furthermore, PEG can also provoke severe neuropsychiatric symptoms in offsprings, including mood swings, rage, phobias and paranoia. Investigators who once assumed that the polymer was largely “inert” are now questioning its biocompatibility and warning about PEGylated particles’ promotion of tumor growth and adverse immune responses that include “probably underdiagnosed” life-threatening anaphylaxis. This is a significant concern since a 2016 US study reported detectable and sometimes high levels of anti-PEG antibodies (including first-line-of-defense IgM antibodies and later-stage IgG antibodies) in approximately 72% of contemporary human samples and about 56% of historical specimens from the 1970s through the 1990s. The manufacturers of genetically engineered adenoviral vector COVID-19 vaccines undergoing clinical trials (Johnson & Johnson, Oxford, and CanSino) also use PEG as an inexpensive additive for vaccine storage. If one of the PEGylated mRNA vaccines for Covid-19 gains approval, the increased exposure to PEG will be unprecedented and potentially disastrous. (11,12)
Like the mRNA vaccines, the adenoviral vector COVID-19 vaccines are still experimental and have not been used before in mass vaccination for infectious diseases. Given the history of poor safety record of many vaccines, the risk of unpredictable and potentially disastrous adverse effects is of utmost concern.
For example, among other dangers, the virus-vectored vaccines could undergo recombination with naturally occurring viruses and produce hybrid viruses that could have undesirable properties affecting transmission or virulence. The numerous variables affecting the probability that recombination will take place and the possible outcomes of recombination are practically impossible to quantify accurately given existing tools and knowledge. The risks, however, are real, as exemplified by the emergence of mutant types of viruses, enhanced pathogenicity and unexpected serious adverse events (including death) following haphazard mass vaccination campaigns and previous failed attempts to develop chimeric vaccines using genetic engineering technology.
Genetically engineered vaccines carry significant unpredictability and a number of inherent harmful potential hazards, including unintended and unwanted side effects with regard to the targeted or non-targeted individuals. Potential undesirable immunological effects include unexpected immunopathological reaction, autoimmune reaction, long-term tolerance, persistent infection and latent infections. There is also the potential to transfer or recombine genetic material from genetically engineered viruses or GE virus-vector vaccines to the targeted individual germ line cells. It can also undergo chromosomal integration or insertional mutagenesis, leading to random insertions of vaccine constructs into host cellular genomes, resulting in alterations of gene expression or activation of cellular oncogenes, thus raising the possibility of inducing tumors. Even minor genetic changes in, or differences between, viruses can result in dramatic changes in transmission abilities, host preferences, and virulence. The new, hybrid virus progenies resulting from such events may have completely unpredictable characteristics. Virulence reversion, for example, was documented when a live recombinant vaccinia–rabies glycoprotein virus vaccine prepared for wild raccoons and foxes infected a 28-yr-old pregnant woman. (13) Virulence reversion was also documented when recombination between commercial infectious laryngotracheitis virus (ILTV) vaccines in poultry has resulted in virulent recombinant viruses that caused severe disease and that have emerged as the dominant field strains in important poultry producing regions in Australia. (14)
The risks of recombination was actually raised earlier in a meeting convened by the World Health Organization in 2003, wherein regulators representing the European Union, the US, China, and Canada raised the specific issue on recombination: “Recombination of a live virus-vectored vaccine with a circulating or reactivated latent virus could theoretically generate a more pathogenic strain…The risk of recombination should be studied if possible in a non-clinical model system, but should also be considered in clinical study designs.” This was listed among the “recommendations to WHO and priorities for future work” as one of several “issues of critical importance to be investigated further.” (15) Apparently, however, the WHO, governments and the vaccine industry never took this recommendation seriously. This comes as no surprise, given the history of WHO’s rapid approval and endorsement of several such live virus-vectored vaccines without the necessary and thorough safety studies, made especially concerning during the current mad scramble for a COVID-19 vaccine.
There’s also a concern that some people may already be immune to the adenovirus carrying the coronavirus gene into the body since adenoviruses circulate through the human population making the vaccine ineffective. (16) Data on the initial clinical trial of the adenoviral vector COVID-19 vaccine made by CanSino Biologics of China that was published in the Lancet showed that in the highest of the three doses used in the study, the number of side effects was high — 75% of the people in the highest dose group reported at least one side effect. Side effects included fever — pain at the injection site, headache, fatigue, among others. Ten volunteers (9% of the overall study group) had Grade 3 side effects, defined as “serious and medically significant symptoms,” six (17%) in the highest dose group and two (6%) each in the low and middle dose groups. The study also found that one dose of the vaccine, tested at three different levels, appeared to induce a good immune response in some subjects. But about half of the volunteers — people who already had immunity to the backbone of the vaccine — had a dampened immune response. (17)
The Dengvaxia vaccine fiasco in the Philippines also illustrates the danger of rushing a vaccine and allowing corporate interests driven by market forces to address people’s health needs. As a result, many of the vaccinated suffered or died after a botched mass vaccination program.(18) According to the Chief Pathologist of the Public Attorney’s Office, 153 of those vaccinated with Dengvaxia had died as of February 18, 2020. (19)
Another example of the danger of corporate fast-tracking of vaccine clinical safety trials is the case of the HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) vaccine. Two of the biggest vaccine manufacturers spiked their placebos with a neurotoxic aluminum adjuvant and cut observation periods. Numerous adverse events, including life-threatening injuries, permanent disabilities, hospitalizations and deaths, were later reported after vaccination with bivalent, quadrivalent or nine-valent HPV vaccines. The company scientists routinely dismissed, minimized or concealed those injuries using statistical gimmicks and invalid comparisons designed to diminish their relative significance. Some regulatory agencies were complicit in covering up increased incidence of adverse effects in post-marketing surveillance studies.(20, 21)
Another concern is that vaccines produced with cell cultures are often contaminated with naked nucleic acids, genomic fragments, retroviruses and other foreign materials that carry uncertain but potentially serious hazards. This contamination may be present in the source material, e.g. human blood, human or animal tissues, cell banks, or introduced in the manufacturing process through the use of animal sera. Many candidate COVID-19 vaccines are produced on what is called “immortal” cell lines or cancerous types of cells (e.g. Vero cells derived from the African green monkey) that could spread cancer-promoting material into the human recipient. Manufacturers and authorities assure us that these do not cause tumors per se. However, scientific studies tell us that after these cells have been repeatedly cultured a certain number of times, they can convert to a cancerous state. Immortal cell lines show 100-times greater number of DNA recombination events compared to normal cells. This could result in viral-viral or viral-cellular interactions that can generate new viruses and result to pathological consequences, including autoimmunity and cancer. (22) Even the US FDA recognized this danger. In a paper published in its website, it stated: “In some cases the cell lines that are used might be tumorigenic, that is, they form tumors when injected into rodents. Some of these tumor-forming cell lines may contain cancer-causing viruses that are not actively reproducing. Such viruses are hard to detect using standard methods. These latent, or ‘quiet,’ viruses pose a potential threat, since they might become active under vaccine manufacturing conditions.” (23)
Still another concern, not only in terms of safety issues but also on moral grounds, is the use of aborted fetal cells in vaccine manufacture. Vaccines produced from human fetal cells contain cell debris and contaminating fetal DNA (together with its epigenetic modification) which cannot be fully eliminated during downstream purification. This could cause insertional mutagenesis (potentially causing cancer) and autoimmunity in the vaccinated. At least six of the COVID-19 candidate vaccines (Cansino, AstraZeneca/Oxford, Janssen, ImmunityBio/NantKwest, University of Pittsburgh and Altimmune) use one of two human fetal cell lines: HEK-293, a kidney cell line that comes from a fetus aborted in about 1972; and PER. C6, a proprietary cell line owned by Janssen, developed from retinal cells from an 18-week-old fetus aborted in 1985. (24)
There are many plausible biological mechanisms for potential adverse effects of all the vaccines in the pipeline for COVID-19. The history of vaccination is replete with scientific evidence of adverse effects through enhanced pathogenicity, mutation, recombination, induced immune system dysfunction, and various non-specific effects following vaccination despite regulatory approval and prior clinical trials and other corporate sponsored studies that were claimed to be proof of safety. The inherent danger of injecting microbial protein fragments, contaminants, DNA and other foreign materials into the human body is well documented in the scientific literature. Practically all vaccines contain such hazardous foreign fragments and materials and are unavoidably unsafe. Furthermore, exposure of the vaccinee to other environmental hazards (pesticides, air pollutants, 5G radiation, ionizing radiation, etc.) resulting to synergistic adverse effects not captured by corporate sponsored “safety” studies is also another plausible mechanism that may result in acute or long-term injury, including death.
Safety assessments under the corporate dominated scientific milieu are grossly inadequate and oftentimes erroneous. Pre-clinical studies and clinical trials are done or sponsored by the very corporations who sell the vaccines and they do not adequately address the plausible adverse effects that cannot be detected by the corporate sponsored studies. There are no independent studies that could validate the claims of the vaccine manufacturers. Therefore, there is no reason to believe that the potential benefits from an upcoming COVID-19 vaccine would outweigh the potential adverse effects, despite assurances of safety by the vaccine industry, international institutions, governments and the mainstream medical science groups.

 

[Leongsam]

Could mRNA COVID-19 vaccines be dangerous in the long-term?
‘There is a race to get the public vaccinated, so we are willing to take more risk.'
By MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMAN
NOVEMBER 17, 2020 07:10

Coronavirus vaccine under development (illustrative)

(photo credit: DADO RUVIC/REUTERS)

Advertisement





Israelis celebrated on Friday when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the country had signed a deal with Pfizer Inc.to buy its novel coronavirus vaccine. But the fact remains that if Pfizer succeeds – or Moderna, with whom Israel also has a contract – these will be the first-ever messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines brought to market for human patients.

In order to receive Food and Drug Administration approval, the companies will have to prove there are no immediate or short-term negative health effects from taking the vaccines. But when the world begins inoculating itself with these completely new and revolutionary vaccines, it will know virtually nothing about their long-term effects.



“There is a race to get the public vaccinated, so we are willing to take more risks,” Tal Brosh, head of the Infectious Disease Unit at Samson Assuta Ashdod Hospital, told The Jerusalem Post.

When Moderna was just finishing its Phase I trial, The Independent wrote about the vaccine and described it this way: “It uses a sequence of genetic RNA material produced in a lab that, when injected into your body, must invade your cells and hijack your cells’ protein-making machinery called ribosomes to produce the viral components that subsequently train your immune system to fight the virus.”

“In this case, Moderna’smRNA-1273 is programmed to make your cells produce the coronavirus’ infamous coronavirus spike protein that gives the virus its crown-like appearance (corona is crown in Latin) for which it is named,” wrote The Independent.

Brosh said that this does not mean the vaccine changes people’s genetic code. Rather, he said it is more like a USB device (the mRNA) that is inserted into a computer (your body). It does not impact the hard drive of the computer but runs a certain program.

But he acknowledged that there are unique and unknown risks to messenger RNA vaccines, including local and systemic inflammatory responses that could lead to autoimmune conditions.



An article published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, a division of the National Institutes of Health, said other risks include the bio-distribution and persistence of the induced immunogen expression; possible development of auto-reactive antibodies; and toxic effects of any non-native nucleotides and delivery system components.

Brosh compared the mRNA vaccine to traditional vaccines, such as those for influenza, which use an inactivated virus that was destroyed by heat or chemicals to elicit an immune response without infecting the recipient. Others, such as for measles or mumps, use a weakened virus that is unable to hurt you but can still train your immune system to fight it.

Oxford University’s AstraZeneca, the Russian’s Sputnik V and the Israel Institute for Biological Research’s Brilife are all based on more traditional technologies.

BUT MICHAL LINIAL, a professor of biological chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told the Post that she believes there is no cause for concern.

Linial explained that “mRNA is a very fragile molecule, meaning it can be destroyed very easily... If you put mRNA on the table, for example, in a minute there will not be any mRNA leftover. This is as opposed to DNA, which is as stable as you get.”

She said that this fragility is true of the mRNA of any living thing, whether it belongs to a plant, bacteria, virus or human.

As such, she said the worry should not be that the mRNA won’t get into the cells and instead will stay outside, floating in the body and causing some kind of reaction. Rather the concern should be that if it doesn’t enter the cells, it will disintegrate and therefore be ineffective.

She said that while Moderna and Pfizer are based on new vaccine technologies, they are asking our bodies to do something they do every day: protein synthesis, the process where cells make proteins.

Moderna and Pfizer are simply delivering a specific mRNA sequence to our cells. Once the mRNA is in the cell, human biology takes over. Ribosomes read the code and build the protein, and the cells express the protein in the body.

Linial said she believes that the reason no mRNA vaccine has been developed yet is because there was just no need to move this fast on a vaccine until COVID-19 came along. She noted that most of the vaccines people take today were developed decades ago.

She said her concerns have less to do with the use of mRNA and more to do with the long-term efficacy of the vaccine, as well as other challenges that could cause something to go wrong and lead people to believe they are vaccinated when they are not.

For example, she said that because mRNA is so fragile, the Pfizer vaccine must be stored at negative 70 degrees Celsius. If the ideal environment is not maintained, the vaccine could “spoil” and become ineffective.

In addition, she said several questions remain, such as whether these vaccines will really be able to mount a sufficiently protective immune response and how long that immunity would last.

“It would be the worst [scenario] if people behave like they are immune but can still become infected,” Linial said.

Brosh added that the country and the world should be cautious about any of the vaccine candidates until the final results of their Phase III trials are peer-reviewed and published. But he said that once those studies are published and the vaccines approved, it will be OK to take them.

“We will have a safety profile for only a certain number of months, so if there is a long-term effect after two years, we cannot know,” Brosh said, adding that we could wait two years to discover them, “but then we would have the coronavirus for two more years.”

Linial expressed similar sentiments: “Classical vaccines were designed to take 10 years to develop. I don’t think the world can wait for a classical vaccine.”

But when asked if she would take the vaccine right away, she responded: “I won’t be taking it immediately – probably not for at least the coming year,” she told the Post. “We have to wait and see whether it really works.”

 

[Leongsam]

Editors' Pick|Dec 18, 2020,07:16pm EST|155,136 views
What Are The Long-Term Safety Risks Of The Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 Vaccines?

Ellen MatloffContributor

Healthcare
I cover genetic counseling, testing and digital health.

US Vice President Mike Pence receives the COVID-19 vaccine in Washington, DC, December 18, 2020. ... [+]
AFP via Getty Images
On Friday evening, December 18, 2020 the United States Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approved Moderna’s mRNA Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, joining Pfizer’s previously approved vaccine in the fight against Covid-19.

In previous articles, I discussed how these mRNA vaccines work and the safety data gathered from clinical trials thus far on the Pfizer vaccine. But the big question with these new vaccines, developed during ‘Operation Warp Speed,’ is do we have enough data to predict if they are safe long-term? Or, as my husband asked, “are we going to turn into zombie vampire mutants like in ‘I am Legend’?”

Zombies silhouette
getty


I must admit that I haven’t seen that movie, but was also concerned about what long-term data we have about the mRNA Covid-19 vaccines developed in less than one year. As eloquently posed in an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine article about the Pfizer vaccine, “Only about 20,000 people have received this vaccine. Will unexpected safety issues arise when the number grows to millions and possibly billions of people? Will side effects emerge with longer follow-up?”

The authors of the Pfizer vaccine clinical trial study explain that their data show a greater than 83% likelihood of finding at least one adverse, or undesirable, event, if the true incidence of that event is 1 in 10,000. However, the study does not include enough participants, nor has it followed them for enough time, to reliably detect adverse events that are rarer than 1 in 10,000.

MORE FOR YOU
Is The Covid-19 Vaccine Safe?
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How Do The Covid-19 mRNA Vaccines Work?

Of course, the only way to know what, if any, long-term side effects result from the use of these mRNA vaccines is to follow the participants of the Pfizer and Moderna clinical trials, vaccinate and study many more people, and then follow all of them for several years. That effort is well underway. In fact, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) developed a new smartphone-based tool, “v-safe,” to increase the CDC’s ability to rapidly detect any safety issues with the Covid-19 vaccines. But what do we know about the potential long-term side effects of mRNA vaccines now?

mRNA vaccines are not as new as you may think. In fact, mRNA vaccines have been studied over the past two decades and have shown great promise for both infectious disease and cancer. mRNA vaccines have several benefits over the traditional vaccines that many of us have taken for years, that are made using a piece of a dead or weakened virus. One of the benefits of the mRNA vaccines over these traditional vaccines is safety. Because mRNA vaccines are not using a live virus, there is no potential risk of being infected with the condition (in this case, Covid-19). Another benefit of mRNA vaccines is effectiveness. mRNA is efficient and can be taken up and used by the body quickly. Finally, mRNA vaccines are quicker and easier to produce than traditional vaccines, because they are produced in a laboratory instead of in an egg or other mammalian cell. Therefore, mRNA vaccine production can be controlled more closely, and is less expensive and faster to produce in large quantities.

This is not the first time that an mRNA vaccine has been used in humans. The first human trial of an mRNA vaccine began in 2009 in a small group of patients who had prostate cancer. Overall, that mRNA vaccine was well tolerated and had a good safety profile. In 2013 a clinical trial began of an mRNA rabies vaccine in healthy human adults. This rabies trial was important because the safety requirements for a vaccine in a healthy population are more stringent than those for a vaccine being used to treat a disease. The study ran from 2013-2016, and continues to collect long-term safety data. But overall, this vaccine was deemed generally safe and tolerable. mRNA vaccines are now in use in clinical trials for HIV, the Zika virus, and influenza.

We will all feel more comfortable when millions of people have received the mRNA Covid-19 vaccines and we have years of data to prove that they are as safe and effective as we believe them to be. Unfortunately, time is not on our side, and we have more than enough data to understand the risks of Covid-19 infection and its deadly consequences. Today, more than 1.6 million people worldwide have lost their lives due to Covid-19 and more than 75 million people have been infected. We have enough short-term data on the mRNA COVID vaccines and long-term data on other mRNA vaccines to make emergency use authorization a reasonable decision.




Full coverage and live updates on the Coronavirus

 

[Hypocrite-The]

This is really getting ridiculous...wats next? Skinny ppl will live forever? How many ang mors are obese? 50%?



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A nurse fills a syringe with the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine at a vaccination centre in Seoul
Show caption
Coronavirus
Pfizer vaccine may be less effective in people with obesity, says study
Healthcare workers with obesity found to produce only about half the antibodies healthy people do

Coronavirus – latest updates
See all our coronavirus coverage
Linda Geddes Science correspondent
Mon 1 Mar 2021 05.18 AEDT
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare via Email
The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine may be less effective in people with obesity, data suggests.

Italian researchers have discovered that healthcare workers with obesity produced only about half the amount of antibodies in response to a second dose of the jab compared with healthy people. Although it is too soon to know what this means for the efficacy of the vaccine, it might imply that people with obesity need an additional booster dose to ensure they are adequately protected against coronavirus.

Obesity increases risk of Covid-19 death by 48%, study finds
Previous research has suggested that obesity – which is defined as having a body mass index (BMI) over 30 – increases the risk of dying of Covid-19 by nearly 50%, as well as increasing the risk of ending up in hospital by 113%.

Some of this may be because people with obesity often have other underlying medical conditions, such as heart disease or type 2 diabetes, that increase their risk from the coronavirus, but excess body fat can also cause metabolic changes, such as insulin resistance and inflammation, which make it harder for the body to fight off infections.

This constant state of low-grade inflammation can also weaken certain immune responses, including those launched by the B and T cells that trigger a protective response following vaccination. Separate research has shown that the flu vaccine is only half as effective in people with obesity compared to those who are a healthy weight.

The new study, which has not yet been peer reviewed, provides the first direct evidence to suggest a similar problem might occur with Covid-19 vaccines.

Aldo Venuti, of the Istituti Fisioterapici Ospitalieri in Rome, and his colleagues assessed the antibody response following two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in 248 healthcare workers. Seven days after receiving the second dose, 99.5% of them had developed an antibody response, and this response was greater than that recorded in people who had recovered from Covid-19. However, the response was blunted in people who were overweight and obese.

“Since obesity is a major risk factor for morbidity and mortality for patients with Covid-19, it is mandatory to plan an efficient vaccination programme in this subgroup,” Aldo and his colleagues wrote. “Although further studies are needed, this data may have important implications to the development of vaccination strategies for Covid-19, particularly in obese people. If our data was to be confirmed by larger studies, giving obese people an extra dose of the vaccine or a higher dose could be options to be evaluated in this population.”

“We always knew that BMI was an enormous predictor of poor immune response to vaccines, so this paper is definitely interesting, although it is based on a rather small preliminary dataset,” said Danny Altmann, a professor of immunology at Imperial College London. “It confirms that having a vaccinated population isn’t synonymous with having an immune population, especially in a country with high obesity, and emphasises the vital need for long-term immune monitoring programmes.”

In a separate study of Brazilian healthcare workers, Altmann and his colleagues showed that reinfection with Sars-CoV-2 was also more common among people with a high BMI, and that they tended to have lower antibody responses to the original infection.

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Vaccines and immunisationPfizerObesityHealthPharmaceuticals industryItalynews
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[Leongsam]

This is really getting ridiculous...wats next? Skinny ppl will live forever? How many ang mors are obese? 50%?



Subscribe
The Guardian - Back to home
News
Opinion
Sport
Culture
Lifestyle

A nurse fills a syringe with the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine at a vaccination centre in Seoul
Show caption
Coronavirus
Pfizer vaccine may be less effective in people with obesity, says study
Healthcare workers with obesity found to produce only about half the antibodies healthy people do

Coronavirus – latest updates
See all our coronavirus coverage
Linda Geddes Science correspondent
Mon 1 Mar 2021 05.18 AEDT
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare via Email
The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine may be less effective in people with obesity, data suggests.

Italian researchers have discovered that healthcare workers with obesity produced only about half the amount of antibodies in response to a second dose of the jab compared with healthy people. Although it is too soon to know what this means for the efficacy of the vaccine, it might imply that people with obesity need an additional booster dose to ensure they are adequately protected against coronavirus.

Obesity increases risk of Covid-19 death by 48%, study finds
Previous research has suggested that obesity – which is defined as having a body mass index (BMI) over 30 – increases the risk of dying of Covid-19 by nearly 50%, as well as increasing the risk of ending up in hospital by 113%.

Some of this may be because people with obesity often have other underlying medical conditions, such as heart disease or type 2 diabetes, that increase their risk from the coronavirus, but excess body fat can also cause metabolic changes, such as insulin resistance and inflammation, which make it harder for the body to fight off infections.

This constant state of low-grade inflammation can also weaken certain immune responses, including those launched by the B and T cells that trigger a protective response following vaccination. Separate research has shown that the flu vaccine is only half as effective in people with obesity compared to those who are a healthy weight.

The new study, which has not yet been peer reviewed, provides the first direct evidence to suggest a similar problem might occur with Covid-19 vaccines.

Aldo Venuti, of the Istituti Fisioterapici Ospitalieri in Rome, and his colleagues assessed the antibody response following two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in 248 healthcare workers. Seven days after receiving the second dose, 99.5% of them had developed an antibody response, and this response was greater than that recorded in people who had recovered from Covid-19. However, the response was blunted in people who were overweight and obese.

“Since obesity is a major risk factor for morbidity and mortality for patients with Covid-19, it is mandatory to plan an efficient vaccination programme in this subgroup,” Aldo and his colleagues wrote. “Although further studies are needed, this data may have important implications to the development of vaccination strategies for Covid-19, particularly in obese people. If our data was to be confirmed by larger studies, giving obese people an extra dose of the vaccine or a higher dose could be options to be evaluated in this population.”

“We always knew that BMI was an enormous predictor of poor immune response to vaccines, so this paper is definitely interesting, although it is based on a rather small preliminary dataset,” said Danny Altmann, a professor of immunology at Imperial College London. “It confirms that having a vaccinated population isn’t synonymous with having an immune population, especially in a country with high obesity, and emphasises the vital need for long-term immune monitoring programmes.”

In a separate study of Brazilian healthcare workers, Altmann and his colleagues showed that reinfection with Sars-CoV-2 was also more common among people with a high BMI, and that they tended to have lower antibody responses to the original infection.

Topics
Coronavirus
Vaccines and immunisationPfizerObesityHealthPharmaceuticals industryItalynews
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare via EmailShare on LinkedInShare on PinterestShare on WhatsAppShare on Messenger
View on theguardian.com
About us
Contact us
Complaints and corrections
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Work for us
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Help
All topics
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Facebook
Twitter
Advertise with us
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Support The Guardian
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Subscribe
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© 2021 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

This proves what I have been saying all along that Covid-19 is no big deal. It is the obesity that is causing deaths not Covid. However instead of allowing society to fat shame people to the point where they actually do something about their grotesque bodies we are supposed to celebrate body positivity no matter how fat these disgusting lumps of lard are.

 

[Leongsam]

10 things I hate about fat people

They whine about being fat but will unleash their wrath on you if you ever say the same to their face.



Mariam Tariq December 27, 2010

1. They think being fat is the sole reason for all their miseries in life — from acne to rejection from graduate school.

2. You can never go shopping with them because they won’t stop asking you questions like: “Does this shirt make me look fat?” “Do these shoes make me look fat?” “Does this room make me look fat?”

3. They always have their eyes on your food. There’s a reason why we give you leftovers. It’s not because we’re done eating; it’s because you stare us down until we choke on it or fear that we will.

4. They think they’re doing mankind a favour by going to the gym and walking on the treadmill — at minimum speed, mind you.

5. They whine about being fat but will unleash their wrath on you if you ever say the same to their face.

6. It’s perfectly okay for them to tease and bully the skinny kids, but if someone calls them by the ‘f’ word, it’s immoral and inhumane.

7. Since when did ‘fat’ become a dirty word?

8. They eat when they’re sad, they eat when they’re happy, they eat when they’re hungry, they eat because, why not? They take their breakfast, lunch and dinner and they still have room to binge because, hey! You’ve got to have a decent snack...right?

9. They ruin sleepovers because they snore like nobody’s business and the whole blanket rolls around their circumference, leaving the skinny ones shivering. But nobody should complain because Yokozuna there might feel left out.

10. They sweat profusely — all year round. Yeah, we all get hot flashes once in a while, but expecting people to turn on the air conditioner when its -1 degree Celsius outside is a little inconvenient.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 26th, 2010.