Infant Boy in India Dies Hours After Getting Oral Polio Vaccine
A seven-month-old infant boy died on July 7, 2020 within hours of receiving the live attenuated oral polio vaccine (OPV) in Palghar, India. The baby was given one dose of the OPV drops in the evening and was found dead the following morning by his parents.1 2 3 According to a news report, government welfare […]
81 Percent of Clinical Trial Volunteers Suffer Reactions to CanSino Biologics’ COVID-19 Vaccine That Uses HEK293 Human Fetal Cell Lines
An experimental vaccine for COVID-19 is being developed by CanSino Biologics, Inc. of Tianjin, China, in partnership with China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences’ Institute of Biotechnology. A Phase 1 human clinical trial of the COVID-19 vaccine (adenovirus type-5 Ad5-nCoV) has been completed in China involving 108 healthy adults, ranging in age from 45–60 years […]
Rapid Tests for Coronavirus Raise Concerns Over Accuracy
On Mar. 27, 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to pharmaceutical and medical devices company Abbott Laboratories, Inc. of Abbott Park, Illinois for a rapid diagnostic test for the SARS-CoV-2 virus known as ID NOW.1 2 3 “We know how important it is to get point-of-care tests out […]
Why is Good News on COVID-19 Bad?
There seems to be a pattern emerging to push back on any new information that suggests COVID-19 may not be as severe as initially believed, even if that new information comes from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO). It is unclear why, although one might speculate […]
COVID-19 Vaccine Will Likely Be Given Multiple Times, Perhaps Annually
In an interview with the JAMA on June 2, 2020, Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) said that while he was “cautiously optimistic” about the effectiveness of the vaccines being developed for COVID-19, he was concerned that any protection the vaccines may provide might only be temporary. […]
CDC Reduces COVID-19 Fatality Rate to 0.26 Percent
In a new document providing guidance for public health officials on COVID-19, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates the infection fatality rate (IFR) for the disease at 0.4 percent, or about half the nearly one percent fatality rate the CDC estimated in March 2020 when it was predicting up to 1.7 […]