A Nature publication by Mulroney et al. entitled N1-methylpseudouridylation of mRNA causes +1 ribosomal frameshifting ¹ was published on December 6, 2023. The authors showed that N1-methylpseudouridine affects the fidelity of mRNA translation via ribosome stalling resulting in the production multiple, unique and potentially aberrant proteins by frameshifting.
I got it bad a year ago. Not hospitalized, but I was in bed for 6 weeks. And got long covid. I can paddle some but I can’t lift the canoe, so I’ve barely gotten out on the water since.
I got a couple shots but had bad allergic reactions doc said no more after the second. The rest of the family is up on theirs tho.
I’d be skeptical of any data produced by any for profit entity seeking any sort of regulatory authorization or approval. But in the U.S., it has become popular to bash science, withhold funds for political gain, and to complain that well-controlled, replicated research in University and Federal labs costs too much. So, with few exceptions, University researchers must go begging for “external sponsored dollars” and scientists in public service eventually leave in order to earn a competitive salary. Consequently, we as a society have made the de facto choice to bet our health on data produced by entities with a clear motivation for bias. Such data may or may not be knowingly flawed … but that’s the bet.
I agree with your point, but that doesn’t mean I have to disregard what I know when it pertains to my own health by taking an unknown platform (mRNA) when I can find the Infection Fatality Rate in the scientific literature for my strata (John Ioannidis) and apply the risk:benefit analysis.
We have active suppression once an issue like this becomes highly politicized and that’s not an environment where the truth emerges.
The previous statement somebody made that those of us with reservations are only getting it from “FOX news” is highly divisive as if we cant have science degrees (this decade) also.
There has been no plausible biological mechanism that turns off the mRNA and spike protein synthesis, so I am passing.
Once somebody makes those political dispersions, I suspect they are not following the scientific literature on this topic.
I was just rereading the last bits in this thread. Having had to listen to a friend go on about RFK Jr’s book not all that long ago I am not too interested in any arguments about studies. When a lawyer with an ego the size of Montana can get better credence for his medical views than a significant portion of the medical profession things have gotten out of hand.
But saw the end of the post above… higher than what?
The patients enrolled in the study who had received a fourth dose of vaccine when compared to those who had received three doses had a 17% lower rate of confirmed covid-19 infection during the two month primary period of the study.
However, when these same individuals were followed up during the period January 1 2023 - June 2023 the cohort of individuals who had received a fourth dose of vaccine were found to have a 17% greater rate of confirmed infection than those who had received only three doses.
Or in other words, the fourth dose appeared to result in a 17% reduction in infection risk over a two month time period, but during the next 5-6 months the rate of infection was actually 34% greater in the individuals who had received a fourth dose, resulting in an overall 17% greater risk of infection from the time of their enrollment in the study up to June 2023. So per this study, the fourth dose of vaccine reduced infection risk for a few weeks but then appeared to increase infection risk over the ensuing few months.
There is a concern that repeated vaccinations against the same or similar viruses might result in “immune fatigue”.
Interesting. People have put masks back on here and there with CoVid rates up again, so as a curiosity point I wonder if there was a difference in risk avoidance between those two groups. But I am not curious enough to shake it out since I seem to have a ridiculously high resistence to anything active.
It it entirely possible that there was selection bias between the group of individuals who chose to get the 4th dose of vaccine and the group that elected to stop at three. A presumption might be made that the prior group would have a greater degree of hand washing, risk avoidance, etc. But it seems highly unlikely that the 4 dose group would have suddenly abandoned their avoidance behavior and began to engage in less restrictive behavior after two months resulting in an increased risk of infection thereafter.
Re: the high risk of infection between 2 and 6 months for 4th dose recipients:
At least a component of this is the inherent selection bias in observational studies. Assuming any of the involved individuals are rational actors, the 4 dose group will contain a higher percentage of individuals who are unusually susceptible to respiratory viruses. They get multiple severe colds every year, and will do anything to reduce their risk of getting more. 4th dose group will also contain more hypochondriacs, who are more likely to be diagnosed with covid in the presence of mild infection. In the 3 or less dose group, there will be a higher percentage of people who almost never get upper respiratory viruses. Most people in the 0-2 dose group are not going to test for covid unless mandated, hospitalized, or sufficiently ill to want antivirals. Considering the study design, I suspect we are seeing a protective effect for a few weeks, then reversion to baseline risk, rather than an increased risk attributable to the booster.
That’s awful. I hope you are staying well . We had a men’s Bible study group dinner scheduled last night but had to cancel because so many had some form of crud.
If we (as a society) give the politicians, cultists, cable news airbags, and the expert-in-everything social media rotters who politicize science anything more than the time of day, we all lose. And there’s a special place in the hereafter (where the climate is considerably beyond the 1.5 deg C threshold), for those who would block scientific inquiry.
Free choice isn’t free if we don’t have good information.
My husband and I both got it in June 2022 on a cruise around the Svalbard Islands in a ship with about 90 paying passengers and a fair number of staff. We had been very careful before then but decided to take the risk to see the polar bears etc.
For us it was just like a mild cold. I had read that with Omicron it was common to test negative on the RATs (rapid antigen tests) until several days after your first symptoms, and sure enough our tests were negative until 3-4 days after the first symptoms.
We were both vaxxed and boosted (mine was 3 weeks before), and we both took 5 days of zinc and hydroxychloroquine when our symptoms started. I have no idea whether the vax or the medication made a difference, since Omicron was mild for most people anyway.
The scary thing about COVID-19 is how variable and unpredictable its effects are. People who are less healthy to begin with have higher odds of a bad case, but the exceptions to that rule seem disconcertingly numerous. It seems we all know frail 90-somethings who shrugged off their COVID cases as well as young and apparently healthy people who had a very rough time with it.
We haven’t had a really hefty flu season for a while. But flu in a really prevalent year has had similar behaviors. Some people who seem like they should shake it off get sent to bed and others with apparently scarey vulnerability seem to kick it like a bad cold.
The first rounds of CoVid were marked by a more severe attack on lung function - I never had an oxymeter stashed with my thermometer in the house until CoVid. But most of the mutations since then seem to have settled down to either a bad head cold an/or a bronchial impact best handled by something with guanifesin in it.
From pblanc
“It it entirely possible that there was selection bias between the group of individuals who chose to get the 4th dose of vaccine and the group that elected to stop at three.”
From pbailey
“At least a component of this is the inherent selection bias in observational studies.”
In fact I have gotten all the shots myself due to a vulnerability. Said health issue is one that I am successfully keeping at bay, but I know from past history that if I let something catch me and trigger it I get real bad real fast.
My position is the US FDA has an obligation to demand randomized trials powered and designed to assess clinical endpoints from Pfizer & Moderna because they have made 100 billion.
We are also global outliers vs. most other cultures in that we give so little honor and respect to our elders, many of whom have far less natural immunity than those who are lucky enough to be younger and/or stronger. Showing a little respect to those at high risk of serious health consequences by doing what we could to protect them (distancing, masks, and - yes - vaccines) didn’t seem like a very big ask to me as the pandemic was spreading exponentially, and it still doesn’t today.
ALL shots for a virus are a little behind. Unless someone can figure how to manufacture and distribute a whole lot of shots in the space of a couple of weeks this will always be the case. Because viruses mutate.
I am ok with discussions about more work on natural immunity. Frankly could have saved the US a lot of grief w swine flu.
But not with singling out CoVid for a problem that is universal to any vaccine against a virus.
There have already been multiple very large studies including one done in New York State as well as one done in California, plus multiple studies done in other countries that have demonstrated that naturally-acquired immunity through prior infection is more durable than that acquired through immunization.
Large population-based studies done in the United Kingdom showed many persons who had no history of clinical infection did indeed have circulating anti-nucleocapsid antibodies indicating they had had subclinical infection. This included a majority of school-age children. By this time last year, or sooner, studies showed that only a very small percentage of the UK population were immunologically naive. Yet the CDC chose to discount this information of this type and continue to recommend immunization for almost everybody regardless of their prior history.