EVIDENCE is growing that Covid-19 vaccines may worsen the disease in some recipients. The danger arises when a vaccinated person meets the actual virus. Antibodies developed as a result of the jab can end up enhancing disease rather than protecting against infection.
Previous warnings about this potentially lethal effect, known as antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE), have been downplayed or dismissed as theoretical by the manufacturers. The phenomenon has been seen with vaccines against other viruses but is considered very rare.
After reviewing published evidence concerning the effect, however, two US experts [1] have concluded it is ‘non-theoretical and compelling’. Receiving the vaccine could convert a subject from someone who experiences mild disease ‘to someone who experiences severe disease, lasting morbidity or even death’.
They say that to meet the ethical requirement of informed consent, all potential vaccinees, as well as trial participants, should have this risk specifically drawn to their attention.
Meanwhile, an international group of doctors and scientists have published an appeal to governments, regulators and vaccine developers worldwide to halt mass-vaccination programmes until safety issues, especially ADE, have been resolved.
They say that given the high rate of adverse effects there is a need for better understanding of the benefits and risks, particularly in sections of the community who were excluded in most of the clinical trials. These included the elderly and people with prior exposure to SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing Covid-19.
Exclusion of the latter, the group says, is particularly unfortunate ‘as it denied the opportunity of obtaining extremely relevant information concerning post-vaccination ADE in people that already have anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies.’ Without careful monitoring, cases of ADE or similar immune pathology caused by the vaccine would be indistinguishable from severe Covid-19.
The same may be true of damage caused by a toxin, the so-called ‘spike’ protein, production of which is triggered in our body cells by the vaccine. The protein is a uniquely dangerous characteristic of the virus, and the aim of the vaccine is to alert the immune system to it so as to block infection.
But not a single study has examined how long the toxin continues to be produced in us following vaccination, the doctors say. The jab itself may be causing the very symptoms it is designed to protect against, symptoms then erroneously diagnosed as ‘coincidental’ cases of infection. ‘If so, the true adverse effects of the current global vaccination strategy may never be recognised unless studies specifically examine this question.’
This an extraordinarily serious concern, since across the world sicknesses and deaths seen immediately in the wake of vaccination are regularly attributed to the virus itself. This has been the case even with dramatic increases in deaths concurrent with vaccination drives, such as last January in Gibraltar.
A family doctor in Texas highlighted the risk of ADE in evidence this month to the Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs. Dr Ben Edwards said more than half of Texans now have natural immunity to the virus, and this confers ‘a more robust immunity’ than the vaccine. But two different studies have shown that ‘vaccinating someone who is already robustly immune increases their risk of adverse reactions 2-3-fold.’
He told the committee that in the past four months, 4,178 deaths associated with the Covid vaccine had been reported to the US Government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), almost the same as the 4,182 deaths reported from all vaccinations combined over the past 20 years.
The deaths included those of a 15-year-old boy in Colorado, two 16-year-old girls in Wisconsin, a 17-year-old girl in Wisconsin and a 17-year-old boy in New Hampshire, all previously healthy.
Pointing to studies indicating that only a tiny percentage of adverse reactions reach VAERS, Dr Edwards added: ‘To give context, in the 1976 swine flu epidemic, after recording 500 cases of paralysis, with 53 deaths, the vaccine was pulled off the market.
‘I have received numerous reports from family members of my patients, and close friends of my patients, that within hours to days of receiving the vaccine they’ve suffered stroke, heart attack, pulmonary embolism, blood clots, sudden death; and as far as these family members know, none of these were reported by the medical staff as being associated with the vaccine. So my concern is that there is indeed vast under-reporting.’
He said there was no need for the jab in people who have acquired immunity, whether through having had the disease, or having been exposed to the virus without developing symptoms.
Asked by the committee chairman if people can do anything to strengthen their immune system, Dr Edwards said: ‘Absolutely . . . through proper nutrition, hydration, exercise, sunlight, and most importantly, peace – not the spirit of fear which in my opinion has overcome this nation.’
Last week former White House Covid-19 adviser Dr Scott Atlas made a similar criticism of fear-based policies which, he said, had caused rational and critical thinking to disappear. Lockdowns in the United States and across the globe had not only been a ‘heinous abuse of power’ by public health experts, but had also failed to protect the elderly and vulnerable. The harm caused would be felt for decades to come.
In an interview with Epoch TV, Atlas said he believed lockdowns were appropriate in the early stages of the pandemic, when it was thought the virus could be more lethal than turned out to be the case. But a ‘frenzy’ took over, and the goal gradually shifted from protecting health care facilities to stopping Covid-19 cases altogether.
‘Fear is very powerful, and it was really shown how powerful fear is during this pandemic,’ he said. Americans bought into the initial control measures because they thought they would be temporary, and a small price to pay to get things under control. But poor leadership by ‘the faces of public health’ led to persistent lockdowns that defied logic, causing loss of medical resources for countless others.
Child abuse and domestic abuse skyrocketed, opioid deaths and suicides surged, and there was a dramatic rise in young people suffering from depression and anxiety. Children were kept out of school – ‘sacrificed’ – out of fear for adults, even though the children had no significant Covid risk.
‘I think it is still somehow held by many people that OK, the lockdowns are an economic harm, but we’re saving lives. No, you’re destroying families, you’re destroying lives, and you’re literally killing people. It’s a disgrace.’
Fear-based public health responses to the Covid crisis as described by Dr Atlas have caused immeasurable harm in many countries, including the UK. We still don’t know the full outcomes of this ‘frenzied’ period, including whether the vaccines are fit for purpose.
At least some are weathering the crisis well. As Saturday’s Daily Mail revealed, nine executives from four vaccine companies have become billionaires during the pandemic, reaching a combined net wealth of $19.3billion. The list was compiled by the People’s Vaccine Alliance, a campaign group that includes Oxfam, UNAIDS, Global Justice Now and Amnesty International.
And according to a January report by Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies, 651 existing US billionaires, including Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and Elon Musk, saw their collective wealth grow by more than $1trillion during the first nine months of Covid-19, even as the less fortunate faced economic hardship and hunger.
[1] Dr Timothy Cardozo, professor of biochemistry and molecular pharmacology, New York University, and Dr Ronald Veazey, associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Tulane University Medical School and primate research centre.
