“You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.”
— William Wilberforce
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) last week added an autoimmune condition known as Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) as a possible side effect to the product information on AstraZeneca/Oxford University’s Vaxzevria (or “AZD1222”) experimental adenovirus vectored vaccine. GBS is a neurological disorder that causes pain, numbness, muscle weakness and sometimes paralysis.1 2 3 4 A total of […]
Health Canada, the Canadian government’s department responsible for national health policy, earlier this month updated the product information label for Pfizer/BioNTech’s experimental messenger RNA (mRNA) biologic (also known as BNT162b2 or “Comirnaty” vaccine) to reflect reported cases of Bell’s palsy—an immune mediated neurological disorder characterized by temporary muscle weakness or paralysis on one side of […]
A new poll conducted Yahoo! News/YouGov during July 13-15, 2021 found that 37 percent of unvaccinated Americans are more fearful of the three experimental COVID-19 biologics currently available in the United States than they are of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that can cause the disease. The survey of 1,715 adults in the U.S. found that only […]
A recent study published by King’s College in London, which operates the ZOE COVID Study app to monitor COVID infection and vaccination rates, found that, as of July 15, 2021, there was an average of 15,537 new daily symptomatic cases of COVID-19 among partly or fully vaccinated people in the United Kingdom—an increase of 40 […]
The government of Italy has suspended AstraZeneca/Oxford University’s experimental AZD1222 COVID-19 vaccine for people under 60 years of age in that country. The decision, announced on June 11, 2021, follows the recent death of 18-year-old Camilla Canepa, who died of a cerebral due to a blood clot 16 days after receiving the first dose of […]
Hundreds of thousands of British citizens marched in central London on May 29, 2021 in a “Unite for Freedom” rally to protest against the government’s COVID-19 lockdowns, vaccine passports and other pandemic-related regulations and restrictions.1 2 Chanting “no more lockdowns” and “take your freedom back,” protesters later gathered at the Westfield shopping center, which was […]
Last week was a bad one for COVID-19 biologics produced by Moderna, Inc. and Johnson & Johnson, Inc. (J&J). News reports began filtering out about new research from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which were published on Apr. 5, 2021 in the journal JAMA and revealed that people who receive Moderna’s […]
A manufacturing plant in Baltimore, Maryland where two experimental COVID-19 vaccines are manufactured has caused the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to delay authorization of the plant’s production lines due to the contamination of 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine.1 Ingredients Used in Two COVID-19 Vaccines “Mixed Up” During Production […]
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) held an emergency meeting on Mar. 18, 2021 after many European countries suspended use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca experimental COVID-19 vaccine due to reports of severe side effects including blood clots, low platelet counts and death.1 The EMA conducted a preliminary investigation into potential serious side effects and pronounced the vaccine […]
Pharmaceutical and medical device giant Johnson & Johnson, Inc. (J&J) announced on Feb. 28, 2021 plans to test its experimental Ad26.COV2.S vaccine for COVID-19 on infant children (including newborns), pregnant women and people with compromised immune systems. J&J did not include infants, pregnant women or the immunocompromised in the U.S. population in clinical trials on […]