COVID rants /shares 2.0 thread

[Krystina Ferraris]

17 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Thanks for jumping in and adding more background, Krystina. I'm neither immunologist nor vet, but I am endlessly curious and the immune system fascinates me, particularly since mine doesn't work quite right.

Now it's time for some bad analogies.

Yesterday, I learned that CCR5 isn't just something a virus can use to get into a cell, but it's also something a cell can use to call for help. This really complicates things. If most HIV infections are using CCR5 to kill, it might be worth blocking access. But if 10% are using CXCR4, you don't really want to compromise the body's ability to call for help via CCR5. If your volunteer fire department is full of nutcases, tone down the urgency of your call.

I think a lot of us are familiar with the analogy of a virus having a key to a door on the cellular factory, but now I realize it ain't that simple (is anything?). There are circumstances in which nailing the the front door shut so the key won't help also disconnects your phone, and some intruders have a key to the back door.

Even more interesting is the possibility that doors operate differently depending on there the factory is located. In most of the body, blocking a doorway prevents access, but in the central nervous system, blocking a doorway might allow it. That was hinted at by the encephalitis research I cited, raising concern that Leronlimab might actually exacerbate NeuroAIDS.

It really comes as no surprise to me that virtually any knob or switch you find in the human machine is potentially connected to multiple things in the weirdest way imaginable.

So much to wonder about, I love it.

That's a great analogy Madeleine,  and just like you I never stop wondering at how complex and fabulous all living  creatures are!

The immune system of mammals is endlessly complex and I have just skimmed the surface of how it works. I am actually studying it in greater details at the moment for a specific set of equine metabolic diseases. I need immunology for dummies 🤣

[Madelaine McMasters]

2 minutes ago, Krystina Ferraris said:

That's a great analogy Madeleine.

Call me Maddy, Krystina.

I can't spell Madelaine and neither can you.

;-).

[Love Zhaoying]

25 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

There are circumstances in which nailing the the front door shut so the key won't help also disconnects your phone, and some intruders have a key to the back door.

Old song: "Bar the doors!" "They're coming through the window!" - A dad thing

[Coffee Pancake]

The blocks could be super important functional messages (incoming or outgoing) or viruses.

[Krystina Ferraris]

9 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Call me Maddy, Krystina.

I can't spell Madelaine and neither can you.

;-).

Oops hey Maddy! 😄

[Madelaine McMasters]

Just now, Krystina Ferraris said:

Oops hey Maddy! 😄

I was just thinking about something. I have a cousin who's a veterinarian.

My favorite thing to do
is to make her say "ewwwww!"

[Selene Gregoire]

40 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

I was just thinking about something. I have a cousin who's a veterinarian.

My favorite thing to do
is to make her say "ewwwww!"

 

pssst... You dropped something.

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 hour ago, Coffee Pancake said:

The blocks could be super important functional messages (incoming or outgoing) or viruses.

That's a beautiful analogy, Coffee. I knew that viruses were messages (instructions for hijacking the assembly line). I guess I just didn't know it well enough.

I've got a lot of learning to do.

[Arielle Popstar]

Instead of talking vaccine hesitancy maybe we should be focusing on Vaccine Patent Hesitancy;

 

[Rowan Amore]

https://www.statnews.com/2021/04/13/no-evidence-patents-slow-vaccine-access/

[Rowan Amore]

In the United States, Operation Warp Speed, a Trump administration program that funded the search for vaccines in the United States, disbursed more than $10 billion to hand-picked companies and absorbing the financial risks of bringing a vaccine to market. The deals came with few strings attached.

Large chunks of the contracts are redacted, and some remain secret. But public records show that the government used unusual contracts that omitted its right to take over intellectual property or influence the price and availability of vaccines. They did not let the government compel companies to share their technology.

By comparison, one of the world’s largest health financiers, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, includes grant language requiring equitable access to vaccines. As leverage, the organization retains some right to the intellectual property.

[Krystina Ferraris]

1 hour ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

I was just thinking about something. I have a cousin who's a veterinarian.

My favorite thing to do
is to make her say "ewwwww!"

I say that often and usually in reference to a certain species of bipedal animal 😄

[Arielle Popstar]

Being that the USA and the UK seem to feel the need to hoard the vaccines and refuse to export any elsewhere, more manufacturing capability in other parts of the world may be the only way to produce enough for other countries to actually get any.

[Krystina Ferraris]

1 hour ago, Selene Gregoire said:

 

pssst... You dropped something.

 

Hopefully I haven't done anything so bad yet to be torched 🔥

[Nalates Urriah]

20 hours ago, Innula Zenovka said:

Yes, but I think I mentioned that my niece and her fiancé both work in British NHS hospitals, so they're subject to UK regulation, and our regulators move pretty quickly when they have to.

Experimental treatments for Covid are being tested all the time and, if and when they prove safe and effective, they go into general use.    It's happening all the time

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52354520

The idea that caring professionals like my niece and her fiancé are standing by helplessly watching patients die because they're not allowed to administer particular drugs they believe would help the patient is insulting nonsense, to my mind.

You are entitled to your opinions and beliefs. I pointed out the reasons I chose to answer 'not necessarily'. I said nothing about your relatives. If you are attempting to use the character of your relatives as proof of what's happening in the medical field and that system isn't being abused and is totally righteous... you have a lot of evidence to the contrary to over come.

In the USA those doctors that had good documented success with HCI & Zinc were prohibited from using it off label by Dr Fauci's mandate. (Ref) AFAIK, this is the first time in history a safe drug has been removed from a medical professional's discretion as a treatment for off label use. So, people in the position of your relatives often are restricted by higher authorities. 

If the character of your relatives is such that they will NOT bow to authority and will do what they know is best for the patient then you have to explain why the system is removing such people from their jobs, threatening them with prosecution, and ridiculing them for you to claim the system is totally righteous. Remember. A number of doctors have the documentation to back up their decisions.

True, treatments fro CoVid are in testing. But, there is no vaccine or treatment that is in use per the medical definition safe for general use, AFAIK. Everything CoVid related is a study... experimental. The current EUA vaccines are the biggest experimental medical study ever made.

While Austraila has had interesting success with various old known safe drugs the national government is restricting what can be used as a CoVid treatment. Doesn't matter that doctors have had success. It only matters a study of a new use for an old well known and tested safe drug hasn't been completed.

[Rowan Amore]

17 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

In the USA those doctors that had good documented success with HCI & Zinc were prohibited from using it off label by Dr Fauci's mandate

None of your references showed this.  Nothing reputable.  Not surprising.  

In fact, this one disputes your claim..from your references

https://checkyourfact.com/2020/06/23/fact-check-anthony-fauci-known-hydroxychloroquine-wonder-drug-coronavirus-2005/

[Arielle Popstar]

31 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

By comparison, one of the world’s largest health financiers, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, includes grant language requiring equitable access to vaccines. As leverage, the organization retains some right to the intellectual property.

That equitable thing seems to be lacking:

Not only will poorer countries be forced to wait, but many are already being charged much higher prices for every dose. Uganda, for example, has announced a deal for millions of vaccines from AstraZeneca, at a price of $7 a dose – more than three times what the EU paid for the same jab. Including transport fees, it will cost $17 to fully vaccinate one Ugandan.

Campaigners and scientists warn that we are on course for a “vaccine apartheid” in which people living in the global south are inoculated years after those in the West.

The effects of this inequity would be stark. Modelling by Northeastern University indicates that if the first 2bn doses of Covid-19 vaccines were distributed proportionally by national population, worldwide deaths would fall by 61%. But if the doses are monopolised by 47 of the world’s richest countries, only 33% fewer people will die.

[Rowan Amore]

Of course there is inequity but that's not Bill Gates fault which is what I was  addressing.

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/gates-helps-launch-drive-global-vaccine-distribution-77367993

In case you're feeling generous

https://gogiveone.who.foundation

Edited May 4, 2021 by Rowan Amore

[Arielle Popstar]

4 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Of course there is inequity but that's not Bill Gates fault which is what I was  addressing.

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/gates-helps-launch-drive-global-vaccine-distribution-77367993

In case you're feeling generous

https://gogiveone.who.foundation

Nothing there about him not being in control of the pricing. Just about getting more people to pay for the increased prices. 

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Nothing there about him not being in control of the pricing. Just about getting more people to pay for the increased prices. 

Pricing? It's free..

[Arielle Popstar]

Just now, Love Zhaoying said:

Pricing? It's free..

Your sense of humour is over my head and seems like mine is below yours.

[Rowan Amore]

https://www.msn.com/en-in/money/topstories/bill-gates-making-200-billion-from-vaccines-microsoft-co-founder-explains-math-behind-returns/ar-BB19tg5o

[Love Zhaoying]

18 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

20 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Pricing? It's free..

Your sense of humour is over my head and seems like mine is below yours.

The vaccine is free to individuals in the US. It's a fact. No humor.

[Nalates Urriah]

17 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. J&J makes both the scrutinized vaccine and Tylenol.

Like it or not, public policy can both reflect and affect public perception, even intentionally. The public is understandably wary of the new (J&J vaccine) and comfortable with the old (J&J Tylenol), regardless of the actual risks.  
@Lyssa Greymoonposted a parody that explains how things might get or seem out of whack.

That's a remarkable claim, Nalates. Cytodyn has only promoted Leronlimab as a treatment.

The following is a synopsis of my quick look into Leronlimab. I'm not an immunologist, so take my take on this with some salt.

Leronlimab is potentially anti-viral for the CCR5-tropic strain of HIV (90% of current cases), where it blocks the CCR5 receptor on the human cell wall, thwarting step two in the HIV entry pathway. It doesn't work for the other 10%. There go your "cure" and "most viral infections" claims, and I haven't even stepped outside of HIV. If it were approved as an HIV treatment, one would take it, perhaps twice a month, for life.

Covid-19 does not use the CCR5 pathway to infect, so Leronlimab cannot function as a true anti-viral there. Instead, it modulates the cytokine immune response (which does use CCR5), tamping down cytokine storms we've read about since Covid-19 first knocked on our door. This is only useful in late stage infection, and only in those who actually endure a cytokine storm. Inexpensive steroids have been used to perform this same function.

I imagine there are thousands of viruses (measles, polio, influenza, rhino, etc) that don't use the CCR5 enabled pathway. To suggest Leronlimab has any potential to cure those viruses is nonsense.

In fact, research into the function of CCR5 in immune function suggests that drugs like Leronlimab might cause harm in certain circumstances.

From this article... https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/197/2/183/809887

"Although there is reason to be optimistic about the development of CCR5 antagonists for the treatment of HIV-1 infection, it is also reasonable to hypothesize that antagonism of CCR5 will be advantageous in certain circumstances but disadvantageous in others."

The highlighted part of that quote refers to the paragraph above it in the article where there's a short explanation of encephalitis research suggesting a potential that CCR5 antagonists might actually help transmission of HIV inside the central nervous system.

Leronlimab is but one of many drugs jockeying for attention from the medical community. Here's a short list of competitors...

https://pharmaceutical-journal.com/article/feature/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-covid-19-therapy-trials

Cytodyn released the results of its most recent clinical trial last month, cratering the company's stock price. Their chief scientific officer stepped down shortly after, without explanation...

https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/cytodyn-s-chief-scientific-officer-rahman-quietly-exits-amid-leronlimab-limbo

While it might be possible to treat the symptoms of an infectious viral disease to the point it's just a minor nuisance,  such treatment does nothing to stop the proliferation and mutation of the virus. That puts us perpetually in peril of dealing with a mutation that can't be treated. That's why vaccination is the go-to "cure" for communicable disease. If we can teach our own immune systems to recognize and destroy the pathogen, we've cut off proliferation at the knees and increased the possibility of extinction.

Those who refuse vaccination for other than medically sensible reasons are, to my mind, condemning humankind to suffer their ignorance, indefinitely.

Let me repeat your claim, Nalates... Leronlimab is "a treatment that for all practical purposes cures most viral infections?

Do you still stand by that claim?

This was an interesting dive. My reticular activating system is now primed for CCR5. I look forward to accidentally learning more about it.

...goes off to plant more marigolds.

The Leronlimab is a cytokine control drug with minimal if any side effects. Any virus that triggers a cytokine storm is a definite candidate for Leronlimab treatment. All viruses trigger some level of cytokine response. A significant number trigger some level of a storm. So, can Leronlimab be a treatment for all viruses?  Yes, but the degree of effectiveness will vary. The bigger the storm the more effect Leronlimab will have.

If you are wanting to make the point that Leronlimab will NOT be approved for ALL viruses, I have to agree. If you want to hammer the all or most viruses part that is fair enough too.

The point you are missing with J&J and Tylenol is the CDC reaction to 6 out of 7 million people being negatively affected. There is something more than an abundance of caution going on with the J&J restriction. Just as I claim there is something more going on with Leronlimab being refused a EUA.

CytoDyn's last study was a disaster. Their protocol was a four dose treatment. The FDA restricted them to two doses in the study. Why? Would anyone be surprised that it didn't work as CytoDyn claimed it would? What was the FDA doing? Now another study will have do be done using the prescribed protocol further delaying an approval.

The Philippines has issued their equivalent of a EUA. They are having good results with the severely ill CoVid patients. So why in the world is the FDA putting up roadblock after roadblock? Both CytoDyn and J&J have suffered unusual actions by the FDA and CDC that don't stand up to common sense reason on examination of the CoVid vaccine EUAs.

That CCR5 control might possibly be causing a negative effect is not supported by CytoDyn's studies. CytoDyn's studies suggest otherwise. We have less information on the vaccines and their possibly inducing an ADE response which if it happens will kill far more people than CoVid. Leronlimab should have gotten an EUA so the CCR5 questions could quickly have been answered. If Leronlimab is ineffective, while it wouldn't save people we know it doesn't kill them or have other negative effects. The same is not true of the CoVid vaccines. We don't KNOW how many people, if any, will have an ADE response to the vaccines in ~6 months.

 

[Rowan Amore]

So sorry!  Didn't mean to confuse anyone with facts. How silly of me. 😁