Variations On A Theme
I return to my mantras about the antivaccine movement in the age of COVID-19: There is nothing new under the sun , and everything old is new again . Even the most obscure antivaccine pseudoscience and conspiracy theories are being resurrected, dusted off, tweaked a bit, and repurposed to use to attack COVID-19 vaccines. There doesnt need to be any evidence or even biological plausibility, just science-y speculation that sounds impressive to people without a background in the relevant sciences. Classens claim that mRNA vaccines can cause prion disease leading to neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimers disease is just another example of this.
With Classens claim, Im hard pressed to think of an old antivaccine trope that hasnt yet been weaponized against COVID-19 vaccines, with one exception. No one, to my knowledge, has yet claimed that COVID-19 vaccines cause autism. The reason for that omission is simple, however. As of today, no COVID-19 vaccine has been authorized for use in children. As soon as a COVID-19 vaccine is authorized or approved for use in children, antivaxxers will claim it causes autism. Its coming. You know it is.
Should I Still Wear A Mask In Crowded Areas After I Get The Vaccine
According to the CDC, fully vaccinated people generally dont need to wear a mask in outdoor locations. As far as indoor settings, the CDC recommends checking the local infection rates and transmission levels in your area.
In areas or times of high transmission, wearing a mask indoors in crowded areas may be recommended to offer you additional protection from a SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Vaccines Against Parkinson’s Disease
Neurodegenerative disease is an umbrella term for a range of conditions which primarily affect the neurons in the human brain. Among them, Parkinson’s disease is the second most common disease in the world, and there is currently no cure available for the disease. As the incidence of PD increases, developing a vaccine that can prevent the disease will be an effective strategy for controlling PD. Creative Biolabs has extensive experience in the development of PD vaccines, thus is well-prepared to provide professional and targeted services to help researchers advance the development process.
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Parkinsons Process Nipped In The Rna Bud
A well-tended world can turn into an unweeded garden, Hamlet moaned. Tragically, he turned out to be better at moaning over things rank and gross in nature than at getting a grip on his predicament. Refusing to follow Hamlets example, scientists based at Scripps Research have shown that they can get a handle on their own version of an unwelcome weeda protein that aggregates in Lewy bodies and culminates in Parkinsons disease.
This protein, -synuclein, is deemed undruggable. It is an intrinsically disordered protein that lacks binding pockets for small molecules. Rather than let -synuclein be expressed, by which point it may become all but unmanageable, the Scripps Research scientists, together with colleagues from other institutions, decided to nip it in the budthe RNA bud. That is, the scientists chose to target the mRNA that encodes -synuclein. Preventing mRNA from being processed by ribosomes, they discovered, is cytoprotective.
The scientists, led by Matthew D. Disney, PhD, professor, department of chemistry at Scripps, designed a small molecule that selectively targets the messenger RNA that encodes -synuclein protein and selectively inhibits its translation. This small molecule, called synucleozid, stops the ribosome from detecting the messenger RNA template, thus preventing -synucleins translation.
Parkinson’s Disease And Pathogenesis
The loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra in the brain, which further leads to the progressive and severe motor impairment, is the most important feature of Parkinson’s disease. The results of more than a decade of research indicate that protein -synuclein , which is normally expressed at the neuronal terminals, may be involved in the development of PD. A series of studies have found that modification or accumulation of this protein caused by mutations or a large increase in the number of the gene encoding -syn contributes greatly to the occurrence of PD. Studies in animals have also indicated that prion-like spread of -syn protein may induce PD-like neurodegeneration. In addition to the -syn gene and the role of protein in the development of PD, neuroinflammation is also a very important factor in the pathogenesis of PD. Microglia can ensure the stable production of reactive oxygen species, IL-1, TNF, and IL-6 in the brain, and its chronic activation can lead to continuous damage to neurons dealing with abnormal state of -syn. Moreover, the interaction of microglia with the peripheral immune system could cause infiltrating immune cells to produce deleterious immune response. The involvement of peripheral immune responses in PD also provides an idea for the treatment of PD, which is to control microglia-induced neuroinflammation by vaccination.
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Vaccines And Prion Disease
Before I discuss all these claims, I have to answer the question: What are prions? Prion diseases are more properly referred to as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies and represent a rare form of progressive neurodegenerative disorders that can affect both humans and animals. The most famous prion diseases in animals are bovine spongiform encephalopathy , scrapie, and chronic wasting disease in humans, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease and kuru. These diseases have a long incubation period and produce in the brain characteristic spongiform changes associated with loss of neurons with no inflammatory response. The causative agents for these diseases are prions. According to the CDC:
The term prions refers to abnormal, pathogenic agents that are transmissible and are able to induce abnormal folding of specific normal cellular proteins called prion proteins that are found most abundantly in the brain. The functions of these normal prion proteins are still not completely understood. The abnormal folding of the prion proteins leads to brain damage and the characteristic signs and symptoms of the disease. Prion diseases are usually rapidly progressive and always fatal.
The BSE inquirys report calls for vaccines to be investigated as a possible route of transmission. But it concedes that this will be hampered by the fact that systematic records of the action taken in response to BSE in respect of individual medical products are lacking.
And:
And:
And:
Case Series And Literature Reports
The first patient is a 46-year-old man, with a 9-year PD history, successfully implanted with bilateral Subthalamic Deep Brain Stimulation in May 2019. In April 2021, he received two doses of mRNA-1273 vaccine , without experiencing side effects. On December 2021 symptoms were well controlled with levodopa/benserazide 100/25 mg 5 times a day, selegiline 10 mg, and stimulation set at 130 Hz, 60 s, 3.1 mA , and 2.6 mA . The same night of the mRNA-1273 booster he experienced motor and non-motor symptoms worsening , without flu symptoms. He added three night doses of levodopa/benserazide, with onset of dyskinesia but incomplete wearing-off control. Six days later, we evaluated regular DBS functioning: in MED-OFF/STIM-ON condition, the MDS-Unified Parkinsons Disease Rating Scale III score was 61, the Non-Motor Symptoms Scale score was 66, and Montreal Cognitive Assessment score was 26. Motor symptoms improved increasing stimulation intensity : MDS-UPDRS III score decreased to 36 in MED-OFF/STIM-ON, and to 8 in MED-ON/STIM-ON . The patient achieved good wearing-off control in the following days, also returning to usual therapeutic regimen: mild dyskinesia resolved after restoring previous stimulation settings.
Few other data are available in literature, with four cases of PD symptoms worsening and three cases of new movement disorders in healthy people .
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Vaers Paper Don’t Prove Claim
In an email sent to USA TODAY, Seneff cited two additional pieces of evidence: another recent paper she co-authored and reports in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, commonly known as VAERS. Neither supports the claim that children shouldn’t be vaccinated due to the threat of neurodegenerative diseases.
“I have never seen this and 100% of my patient population has neurodegenerative diseases,” Dr. Maria Escolar, professor of pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh, said in an email. “You would think they would be the first to be affected if this statement was true.”
Seneff’s paper, on the collaborative research site Authorea, claims “potential profound disturbances” resulting from the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines “have a potentially direct causal link” to a wide array of conditions, including neurodegenerative diseases.
But the paper which is not peer-reviewed does not include definitive proof that the vaccines cause such diseases. One of its co-authors, Dr. Peter McCollough, has previously promoted misinformation about COVID-19.
Fact check:French rugby player Jordan Michallet died by suicide, not COVID-19 vaccine
“I got to the second sentence of the abstract which reads: ‘The utilization of mRNA vaccines in the context of infectious disease had no precedent, but desperate times seemed to call for desperate measures,'” Salmon said. “This is incorrect.”
Fact check:Reports of adverse events due to COVID-19 vaccines are unverified
A Case Report: Multifocal Necrotizing Encephalitis And Myocarditis After Bnt162b2 Mrna Vaccination Against Covid
How to cite: Mörz, M. A Case Report: Multifocal Necrotizing Encephalitis and Myocarditis after BNT162b2 mRNA Vaccination against Covid-19. Preprints2022, 2022060308 .Mörz, M. A Case Report: Multifocal Necrotizing Encephalitis and Myocarditis after BNT162b2 mRNA Vaccination against Covid-19. Preprints 2022, 2022060308 .Copy
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Immune Environment In Pd
Many studies have reported changes in the levels of cytokines in the brain and serum of PD patients. These confirm that the immune system is involved in the disease. And what is worth noting is that in addition to pro-inflammatory cytokines, the level of some cytokines that are anti-inflammatory or with repair function has also increased. These results have further led to the hypothesis that proinflammatory cytokines such as TNF-, IL-1 can maintain microglia activation and promote dopaminergic neuron death in PD patients. Dopamine and other neurotransmitters regulate the differentiation of CD4 T cells. In the course of PD disease, the number of available DAs is greatly reduced compared to normal, and these limited DAs will bind to the receptor with the lowest Ki, and finally cause the CD4 T cell response to shifting to Th1 type, and due to the suppressed IL-10 production. The tolerance will also be compromised. In the immune system of PD patients, the number of B cells also decreased, and their proliferation was also regulated by DA.
Vaccines And Alzheimers Disease: A Brief History
One of the earliest antivaccine claims that I ever dealt with was a rather specific claim about the influenza vaccine. I first encountered it when Bill Maher parroted it in an interview with Larry King on Larry King Live, way back in December 2005. I think its useful to recount what Maher said in this exchange:
MAHER: Im not into western medicine. That to me is a complete scare tactic. It just shows you, you can
KING: You mean you dont get a you dont get a flu shot?
MAHER: A flu shot is the worst thing you can do.
KING: Why?
MAHER: Because its got its got mercury.
KING: It prevents flu.
MAHER: It doesnt prevent. First of all, thats
KING: I havent had the flu in 25 years since Ive been taking a flu shot.
MAHER: Well, I hate to tell you, Larry, but if you have a flu shot for more than five years in a row, theres ten times the likelihood that youll get Alzheimers disease. I would stop getting your
KING: What did you say?
MAHER: That went better in rehearsal but it was still good. Absolutely, no the defense against disease is to have a strong immune system. A flu shot just compromises your immune system.
A chiropractor. Of course, the presentation at NVIC had to be recorded by a chiropractor:
This is an old claim, dating back 24 years!
And heres a more recent addition since 2005, dated 2006:
But what about prion disease? And what are prion diseases, anyway?
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Is It Safe To Get A Covid
Yes, it is safe to get a COVID-19 vaccine if you have Parkinsons.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends vaccination with one of the three COVID-19 vaccines that have been approved for everyone over age 18 and authorized for emergency use for everyone ages 5 and older, including people with certain chronic health conditions.
While there are some exceptions and modifications to vaccinations in people with certain diseases, Parkinsons disease is not one that comes with modified vaccine conditions or guidance.
How Well Does The Covid
COVID-19 vaccination is recommended in people with Parkinsons disease to prevent severe illness, hospitalization, or death. There are no data to suggest the vaccine is more or less effective for people with Parkinsons compared with the general population.
mRNA vaccines are more than 94 percent effective at preventing COVID-19, including severe disease, while the viral vector vaccine is about 70 percent effective . Efficacy can vary from person to person and based on what variant of SARS-CoV-2 you are exposed to.
Each vaccine type has its own efficacy, and how well the vaccine works can depend more on what medications you are taking and your specific immune response than on the fact that you have Parkinsons disease.
At this time, Parkinsons disease and its therapies are not believed to enhance or reduce the effect of COVID-19 vaccines, and the vaccines will not interfere with standard therapies for Parkinsons.
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The Claim: Children Shouldn’t Receive The Covid
The majority of Americans are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 including 55% of children ages 12-17, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But online, skepticism persists about the safety of the shots for young people.
“MIT Scientist Warns Parents NOT TO GIVE CHILDREN Vaccine, Could Cause Crippling Neurodegenerative Disease In Young People,” reads the headline of a Jan. 18 article from the Geller Report, a website run by Pamela Geller. The activist has previously sharedfalse and misleading claims on social media.
The article, which accumulated more than 300 shares within 10 days, cites a Fox News clip featuring Stephanie Seneff. The computer science researcher said during a Jan. 13 broadcast that parents “should do everything they can” to avoid getting their children vaccinated against COVID-19.
After someone receives the vaccine, many of the immune cells responding to the shot “end up in the spleen, which is where you want them to be to produce the antibodies,” Seneff, a senior research scientist at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, told host Laura Ingraham.
“But the problem is that those germinal centers in the spleen are really the center place where Parkinson’s disease develops and probably many other neurodegenerative diseases,” she said.
Fact check:COVID-19 vaccines primarily designed to prevent serious illness, death
But this claim is baseless.
USA TODAY reached out to Geller for comment.
What Does It Mean
Both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines met the high standards required for use authorization after rigorous data scrutiny and validation as required in the normal US FDA vaccine approval process. This process is essential in determining not only safety and efficacy, but also that the vaccine benefits outweigh its risks. Today, in the United States, the death toll from COVID-19 topped 500,000 people worldwide, it has been associated with more than 2,462,000 deaths.
Based upon the available data, the incidence of side effects in persons with PD have not been different than in the general population. The approved mRNA-based vaccines, Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna:
Finally, as stated by the experts, Bloem et al., , even after being fully vaccinated, it is important that persons with PD continue complying with the public health guidelines to reduce exposure and transmission of COVID-19 as recommended by WHO and the CDC.
Learn More
References
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Development Of Vaccines Against Pd
At present, the design ideas of PD vaccine can be divided into two strategies, one is to produce antibodies against -syn, and the other is to produce T cell responses that can regulate neuroinflammatory reactions. The main goal of the former is to remove the accumulated -syn, while the latter targets microglia. Immunization with some non-PD related antigens such as COP-1, MOG, VIP, BCG, CFS, and -syn can reduce the death of neuronal cells and regulate the microglia response. In addition, an increase in the number of Tregs cells in the spleen, an increase in DA levels, and even a recovery of dopaminergic neurons was observed after vaccination.
Neurodegenerative diseases, especially Parkinson’s disease, seriously affect the quality of life of patients and the risk of death is high, so the development of effective PD vaccine is imperative. Creative Biolabs has many years of experience in the field of vaccines. We have also conducted in-depth research on vaccines for neurodegenerative diseases. Countless successful cases that we helped researchers to favorably complete their research tasks have proven that Creative Biolabs is the most reliable partner for your vaccine development!
All of our products can only be used for research purposes. These vaccine ingredients CANNOT be used directly on humans or animals.
Who Is J Bart Classen
It turns out that hes been a subject on this particular blog before, primarily as scientist who gave antivaxxer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. ammunition for his false claim that vaccines are responsible for the obesity epidemic. According to Wikipedia, Dr. Classen received his MD from the University of Maryland, Baltimore in 1988 and also has an MBA from Columbia University. Unsurprisingly, hes been quoted by Sharyl Attkisson, a reporter whos become an antivaccine activist and conspiracy theorist in her own right. Classens website, Vaccines.net, is pretty rudimentary but does proclaim:
The content of this site is not intended to be anti-immunization but instead to promote the concept that the goal of immunization is to promote health not eradicate infections. It is hoped that through the collection and dissemination of information about the chronic effects of vaccines, safer immunization practices will become available for those who choose to be immunized.
There it is, the Im not antivaccine Im a pro-safe vaccine gambit, beloved of antivaxxers going back at least to Jenny McCarthy 14 years ago. Naturally, after proclaiming himself a vaccine safety advocate, Dr. Classen then goes on to spout antivaccine misinformation:
And now he thinks that mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines can cause prion disease leading to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimers disease. With zero evidence to support his idea and very close to zero biological plausibility. Of course.
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