The title of this post by Peter Selley comes from the Acts of the Apostles. It captures the moment where the Divine is advising Paul to stop persecuting Christians. Acts 9:5 (KJV). An if you can’t beat them, why not join them moment.
The words lend themselves to the situation of anyone attempting to grapple with the growth of a new RSV religion in more than one sense. Among the ironies in this story is the silence around a real risk – that the pricks will cause the kicks to stop.
Why this expanding drive in well-to-do nations to wipe out a generally benign but much maligned Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV)? For background see
- The Once and Future Immunity
- Coming Clean on Neonatal Deaths
- For Every Matter under Heaven, there is a Season
The crusaders producing RSV vaccines claimed this terrible disease takes tens of thousands of infant lives in underdeveloped countries and the need to save these lives has led to magnificent international campaign to confirm the efficacy and safety of a set of modern miracles – the RSV ‘vaccines’. Presidents of countries like Chile have been reported as being present at their national airports to take personal delivery of these life-saving technological marvels.
All the while it was accepted, but not clearly stated, that infant deaths from RSV in developed countries are vanishingly rare. There might be a need for protection from RSV in a small number of infants compromised by other disorders or by prematurity, but we already had palivizumab, a monoclonal antibody, for this that could be given to vulnerable infants at clinical discretion.
Despite a rhetoric stressing this was all about helping developing countries, some of us on a bad hair day might have difficulty avoiding the feeling that in fact it was all about seeing whether every pregnant woman in the developed world could be signed up to getting either a vaccine when pregnant or agreeing to her newborn infant being given a monoclonal antibody jab at birth.
Monoclonal antibodies have a reputation for being dangerous and not to be taken lightly as well as being staggeringly expensive. Got $2000 to spare?
Could women be rolled over?
There was perhaps another why-would-you-climb-Mt-Everest element to this, which links to the discovery of RSV and the first attempts to create a vaccine. No-one had heard of an RSV virus until we began using chimpanzees to develop polio vaccines. Some of the chimps were noticed to have caught ‘colds’ and were found to harbour RSV.
For conspiracy theorists the only reason humans now have RSV is that we got infected polio vaccines. This seems unlikely – but it does point to the fact that RSV has not been an established disorder recognized for millennia. Unlike polio, diphtheria, whooping cough – your grandmother would have known nothing about it.
Pfizer’s first foray into RSV was a formalin-inactivated vaccine that did more harm than good. When vaccinated kids caught RSV, they had worse, sometimes fatal chest infections due to what came to be called antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE). This is now an established hazard of vaccines for respiratory diseases – like dengue.
Pfizer’s 1960s vaccine was ditched. But Bill Gates and others, seemingly on emotional missions, have since poured huge amounts of money into creating an effective RSV vaccine. Does effective mean life-saving. Did someone important lose a brother to this illness? Or does effective mean profitable?
Jab-berwocky
Beware the Jabberwock my son
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch
Preventing RSV has become a bizarre domain in the last 2 years. It would take someone like Lewis Carrol to capture the non-sense. Experts pull in opposite directions to experts and regulators pull in opposite directions to other regulators. See Everyone Has The Right To Challenge Scientific Experts
What do the experts recommend? Depends on which “experts” you ask.
No expert will give a view as to whether Sanofi-AstraZeneca’s Beyfortus (nirsevimab, a monoclonal antibody) injected into babies who are a few hours old, is safer or more effective than Pfizer’s Abrysvo (an RSVpreF vaccine) injected into their mothers when pregnant.
This is not surprising. They have not been compared. And neither has been shown to work as opposed to wriggle through regulatory hoops. Nor has either been shown to be as safe as not giving anything.
What you get seems to come down to price, and deals done with the country you are in. Pfizer and AstraZeneca appear to have carved up the world market fairly equally – UK and Argentina have backed the maternal vaccine while most of Europe and Chile have chosen Beyfortus. The USA confusingly allows women to choose between the two – in principle but in practice your doctor chooses.
The European Medicines Authority (EMA) licensed Abrysvo to be given between 24 and 36 weeks, whereas in the USA the recommendation is that it should not be given before 32 weeks. Why the difference?
EMA is in denial about the excess of preterm births in Abyrsvo trials. It does not even refer to the “imbalance” in preterm births in the clinical trial data for the vaccine. Experts in different member states, however, appear to have different views as to when it should be injected: Austria (24–36 weeks), Belgium (28–36 weeks), France and Luxembourg (32–36 weeks). So much for EU harmonisation.
In the UK, MHRA licensed Abrysvo to be given between 28 and 36 weeks and it became the recommended treatment because of a deal done with Pfizer..
In Northern Ireland the EU 24 week start date applies, even though the Republic has opted for Beyfortus rather than Abrysvo.
Britain’s NHS recommends giving the vaccine early – at 28 weeks. But they also allow it off-label after 36 weeks, even during labour or after delivery. Is this a first instance of NHS guidelines recommending off-label use of a vaccine?
In the US, FDA solve a preterm birth risk by stating the vaccine should not be given before 32 weeks. The approval of Abrysvo for mothers in the USA last year gave rise to some extraordinary exchanges. Watch this Video Clip where sensible vaccine expert Prof. Hana El Sahly shares her concerns about the preterm birth signal, only to have an uncomfortable Dr Peter Marks (FDA) give the final go-ahead to Pfizer.
While American experts might be concerned, Britain’s Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) President, Prof. Steve Turner, is unfazed be these concerns and will happily co-administer the vaccines.
Britain’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization is unfazed by the prospect of more premature babies to look after, claiming the Americans have had no premature births, without taking into account that it is getting close to impossible to have a vaccine triggered premature birth if you delay the vaccine till after 32 weeks.
The usual story is that drug company advertising of prescription-only products is illegal except in the US and New Zealand. Not quite true. It is legal in the UK for Advertisements for a licensed vaccine product that have been approved by Health Ministers as part of a “Government controlled vaccination campaign” are exempt from this prohibition.
Where advertising of vaccines is permitted, drug companies scarcely need to bother as there is wall to wall coverage even for shortages. Meanwhile ‘providers’ – pharmacies and doctors – scrabble amongst themselves to collect fees for immunising as many as they can.
Modernasation
Moderna was late for the RSV Immunisation Party with its mRNA “vaccines”: unexplored territory in pregnancy.
Moderna has a “commercially sensitive” special relationship with the UK government. It is building a new factory at Harwell in Oxfordshire, expected to produce up to 100m mRNA vaccine doses a year from 2025. Vaccines that will have to find a market. The UK population is about 68m.
However, Moderna, and other newer RSV vaccine manufacturers, have hit a problem with their clinical trial in pregnant women: how do they ethically justify having a placebo group? It would mean some women being given the placebo but the UK’s policy is that all pregnant women should be vaccinated… with the Pfizer product.
Probably because of this, recruitment has had to stop in the UK but will no doubt press on in other countries.
Moderna also has had a spot of bother with the UK Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA) – the self-regulatory body of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI). Moderna has breached their code of practice by “Alleged use of social media to solicit the recruitment of children into a clinical trial using unapproved financial incentives”. That is illegal.
They have a NextCOVE trial of their mRNA Covid vaccine in children as young as 12. Moderna had proposed to reward – presumably their parents – £1500 per child to take part in the trial.
Moderna was found guilty for “Failing to maintain high standards” and “Bringing discredit upon, and reducing confidence in, the pharmaceutical industry”.
Rhyme or Reason?
Another Moderna trial, codenamed RHYME, is their second venture into mRNA vaccines for kids. Equal numbers of babies between 5 and 23 months of age in this trial were to be injected with three shots of either mRNA-1345, mRNA-1365 or placebo. At the moment, there are no licensed RSV vaccines for infants – trials have been started and abandoned.
mRNA-1345 targets RSV whilst mRNA-1365 targets both RSV and hMPV – Human metapneumovirus. hMPV is even less of a problem than RSV. it can cause a cold.
RHYME involves three intramuscular injections on Days 1, 57 and 113 for the babies. Then four “blood draws” – of between 5 and 13ml taken from a vein at various stages throughout the 6 or 12 months of the study.
Should we be worried about mRNA vaccines? Well, from the Covid vaccine experience it was the mRNA vaccines compared to other types of vaccine that were
- More likely to be associated with myo/pericarditis.
- This risk was greater in younger people and
- Greater in second and subsequent vaccinations.
Giving three mRNA shots to babies is sailing into uncharted waters.
In the USA Rhyme parents are compensated “up to” $2,400 (£1880). Why offer such a large sum to parents? Is this not an unethical inducement?
In July, six-month-old Robyn (above) was first in the UK to join the RHYME trial at the Jenny Lind Children’s Hospital in Norwich. It is not clear whether the photograph was taken before or after her inaugural vaccination and blood sampling.
A-tishoo! A-tishoo! We all fall down.
Hopefully Robyn was in the control group as it appears that mRNA-1345 is ineffective. On 12 September Moderna announced to their investors that they were discontinuing the program for mRNA-1345 in babies under 24 months. “The Company does not expect [the] program to advance beyond the ongoing Phase 1 based on emerging clinical data.”
Does “emerging clinical data” mean lack of efficacy? Or nasty side effects? No medical experts will dig into this the way investment analysts like Steve Scala did for GSK’s RSV vaccine who found that a “safety signal” meant an excess of preterm births and deaths.
Sisunatovir
Another RSV project that recently bit the dust. Sisunatovir, an oral drug, was supposed to benefit adults and infants with RSV. In 2022 Pfizer bought Reviral, a UK biotech company – for $525 million to get their hands on sisunatovir, which FDA granted Fast Track Designation in 2020.
Pfizer has now ditched it because “ongoing challenges, including a drug-drug interaction with antacids”, hampered clinical development. Clinicaltrials.gov says the trials were terminated “for business reasons”. In the adult trial, just 16 of the projected 2715 volunteers were recruited from 200 centres around the world.
Another Oddity
Any attempt to find out what medical colleagues think of all this gets nowhere fast. Friendly obstetricians know nothing about any of this, even though pre-eclampsia and other problems affecting mothers are doubled in the vaccine trials. Fetal medicine specialists know nothing either. Some of them haven’t even heard of Abrysvo or Beyfortus.
But in the UK the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health RCPCH campaigned to get the government to introduce the maternal RSV vaccination programme. There is a pretzel quality to the RCPCH campaign which included a plug for Sanofi the maker of Beyfortus.
RCPCH claimed “Evidence shows that rolling out an RSV vaccine to infants could result in 108,000 fewer GP consultations”. There are 27,662 fulltime equivalent GPs in UK. This would free up 4 consultations per GP – perhaps one a month each during the RSV season.
Notice the pediatricians are talking about saving GP – family doctor – primary care doctor – time. Except of course GPs will now additionally have to offer mothers appointments for the RSV shot.
The RCPCH has set up a pompously named “Commission on Immunisation Access, Uptake and Equity” – funded by educational grants from GSK, Sanofi and AstraZeneca.
Industry seem to have embraced pediatricians who except for a few RSV cases in hospitals are bit players in this whole story. Perhaps gratified by the attention they are now getting they are more easily rolled over than obstetricians and fetal medicine docs.
There were two maternal vaccine candidates. GSK’s RSVpreF3 whose trials terminated because of neonatal deaths, prematurity, jaundice and maternal problems, without any reduction in serious all cause bronchiolitis and more infections in general in the vaccinated group.
Pfizer’s phase 3 data (table S8) showed that their vaccine reduced the occurrence of “medically attended lower respiratory tract infection (MA-LRTI)” in first six months of life by just 2.5% i.e. 250 pregnant women would need to be vaccinated to prevent one child getting MA-LRTI.
Maternal vaccination does not reduce medically attended LRTI in babies. Breast feeding is more beneficial.
We are not aware of any pediatrician who has expressed concern about the excess of dangerous side effects like hypertensive disease, including preeclampsia in vaccinated mothers or the increase in workload stemming from harmed mothers or babies.
Beywatch
Who knows whether the maternal RSV vaccines will stay afloat in these stormy waters. What about Beyfortus?
Reports from Japan and France outline concerns at giving this monoclonal antibody to babies just a few hours old.
In Japan, MedCheck advises against universal Beyforcing. It highlights an excess of deaths with this product in published clinical trials suggesting thrombosis-associated events might be to blame. MedCheck also note that in a 1993 clinical trial, Respigam, an RSV Immune globulin, similar in action to Beyfortus had 6 deaths, 3/81 in the high-dose group, 3/79 in the low-dose group with none among 89 controls.
Infants getting Beyfortus also have an excess of neurological events like seizures. As seizures occasionally happen in neonates, Beyfortus induced seizures risk being passed off as liable to have happened anyway.
The official French post-marketing surveillance report analysed the adverse events in France – an early adapter of universal Beyfortifying their new citizens in the first few hours of life. The most common reaction reported was that the immunisation was ineffective. The investigation concluded that there were three main areas of concern:-
- Severe breathing difficulties including breathlessness and respiratory arrest,
- An influenza-like illness with decreased food intake and hypotonia,
- And a single CVA (stroke) (case #23) causing seizures (but without clarifying whether the stroke was thrombotic or haemorrhagic).
Only three deaths were notified over a six-month period. But this suggests serious underreporting – there were 117 deaths in France in babies between 2 and 6 days of life in September and October 2023, at a time when 60-80% of babies were being Beyfortified.
Hélène Banoun has published a peer-reviewed article in which, she proposes that Beyfortus might facilitate and worsen RSV infection (or other respiratory infections), and that this could be attributable to antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE)
Beyfortus may have some efficacy at reducing hospital admissions due to RSV bronchiolitis in babies, but it is not clear that it is beneficial overall and giving a monoclonal antibody like this to every newborn is asking for trouble.
You Gotta Love Those Pricks
The introduction of immunisation against RSV has been uncoordinated, rushed and irresponsible. RSV is an annual event, not an unexpected emergency pandemic, and close to entirely harmless in developed countries.
But if you were Wily Pharma would you be more motivated by making money jabbing developed world babies and their mothers or by saving a few lives in countries that don’t have a distribution network to get the jabs to babies anyway or a State apparatus that is unlikely to all but force women to offer their babies up?
Would you be more like Willy Sutton who when asked why he robbed banks said – that’s where the money is.
RxISK will feature the Sutton take on the opportunities Healthcare affords next week.
PS. We know Willie S is normally spelt Willie.
annie says
It’s not hard for Thee – Prickly great, detailed exposé
In the beginning…
Covid jabs for mothers-to-be: The lies keep on coming
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/covid-jabs-for-mothers-to-be-the-lies-keep-on-coming/
A guide to RSV vaccination for pregnant women
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/respiratory-syncytial-virus-rsv-maternal-vaccination/a-guide-to-rsv-vaccination-for-pregnant-women
When you will be offered the RSV vaccine
You should be offered it around the time of your 28 week antenatal appointment. If you haven’t heard by this stage, contact your maternity service or GP practice to make an appointment. Having the vaccine in week 28 or within a few weeks of this will help you build a good level of antibodies to pass on to your baby before birth. This will give your baby the best protection, including if they are born early.
You can still have the vaccine later in your pregnancy but it may be less effective. If it wasn’t possible to have your vaccine earlier, it can be given right up until you have the baby. If you have it very late in pregnancy, it may still protect you from infection and reduce the risk of you spreading infection to your newborn baby.
You will be offered the RSV vaccine during every pregnancy
It’s ‘free’; the gov.uk guidance is ‘free’ –
Free ‘at the point of delivery’ …
Patrick D Hahn says
Our public health authorities demonstrated their tender concern for the immune health of people in low-income countries during the covid pandemic. The rate of vaccine-preventable deaths in children in Nigeria and Sierra Leone soared. And why was this? Not because the parents were not perfectly willing to have their children vaxxed. They were PREVENTED from doing so by the lockdown restrictions intended to break the will of the citizenry, crush their spirit, and get them to accede to having anything shot into their veins as long as the drugmakers call it a “vaccine.”
And the New York Times held these deaths up as proof that we need to do more to suppress vaccine “disinformation.” These people are like the man who murders his parents and asks for mercy on the grounds that he’s an orphan.
annie says
Another entry – to the growing RSV market
Merck & Co eyes growing RSV market with strong clesrovimab data
https://www.thepharmaletter.com/biotechnology/merck-co-eyes-growing-rsv-market-with-strong-clesrovimab-data
Merck & Co (NYSE: MRK) has announced encouraging data from a Phase IIb/III clinical trial for clesrovimab, its investigational antibody designed to prevent respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in infants.
The data, revealed at IDWeek 2024 in Los Angeles, positions clesrovimab as a potential rival to the RSV market leader, Sanofi (Euronext: SAN) and AstraZeneca’s (LSE: AZN) Beyfortus (nirsevimab).
Novel Monoclonal Antibody Protects Infants Against RSV
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/novel-monoclonal-antibody-protects-infants-against-rsv/ar-AA1szHpX?ocid=BingNewsSerp
“RSV requires no introduction. It’s the most common cause of hospitalization in infants in their first year of life,” Sinha told attendees.
“Did you see any difference in the estimated efficacies if you looked at those babies 29 to 35 weeks of gestational age compared to 35 weeks or older?” asked session moderator Judith Guzman-Cottrill, DO, of Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.
“That’s an important question and we’re in the process of conducting subanalyses that look at those groups of gestational age as well as chronological age, weight, and a number of other factors,” that will be presented in the near future, Sinha said.
Safety was also a primary endpoint of the study. Overall, any adverse events (AEs), drug-related AEs, serious drug-related AEs, and deaths were similar between the clesrovimab and placebo groups. The majority of AEs were mild or moderate. There was one grade 3 AE of urticaria in the clesrovimab group but was not considered related to the study. There were seven deaths in the clesrovimab group (0.3%) and three in the placebo group (0.2%), but no deaths were considered related to the study intervention or to RSV.
The study was funded by Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD). Some co-authors are employees of MSD or Merck.
Harriet Vogt says
‘The introduction of immunisation against RSV has been uncoordinated, rushed and irresponsible. RSV is an annual event, not an unexpected emergency pandemic, and close to entirely harmless in developed countries.’
Exactly.
Compare the scaremongering copy written by the RCPCH ‘media and public affairs team’, aka Sanofi:
‘RSV is a complex and common viral infection …
Evidence shows that rolling out an RSV vaccine to infants COULD result in 108,000 fewer GP consultations, 74,000 A&E visits and 20,000 fewer hospitalisations solely in those under one.
Sanofi has estimated that RSV in children under 5 in the UK costs £80 million each year in loss of earnings, NHS costs and reduced productivity.
RSV is a widespread threat to infants. says, drama queen, Professor Ian Sinha.
With the commonsense of very recent advice from Doncaster and Bassetlaw Foundation Trust – pretty much what Peter has written:
‘It is important for parents to note that most children infected with RSV will only experience mild symptoms such as a runny nose, coughing and sneezing, fever and wheezing and they probably won’t occur all at once. Most recover in around one or two weeks, and won’t need to see anybody.
However, in some instances, the virus can cause bronchiolitis – a lower respiratory tract infection that in some cases can prove severe, especially for those under the age of two – so it is best to know the signs and symptoms, and when you should seek further advice’.
Children are more at risk of being admitted to hospital if they were born prematurely (before week 37 of pregnancy) or have an underlying health problems.’https://www.dbth.nhs.uk/know-signs-symptoms-rsv/#4
The numbers hospitalised, 20-30,00 a year – effectively 5% of under 5s – the majority I’d guess the vulnerable for whom treatment already exists, makes no health economic sense to those of us with commonsense.
But I can well believe general practice is inundated with the anxious parents of snotty babies. Surely, if we are ever going to be a society that takes responsibility for our own health – the much vaunted PREVENTION, the strategic plank of every NHS review since the year dot – then surely we have to teach parents how to cope and when to worry. I’m speaking as a mother who managed her second baby’s slightly alarming bronchiolitis with some sleepless nights holding a wheezing little scrap on my shoulder, in a humidified room.
Your eye is fixed on the science and the politics. Mine on patients, their families and carers. So I had a trawl through Mumsnet ,,where they ran a straw poll – out of 76 mums ‘78% planned to have the RSV vaccination, 11% decided against and 12%’were undecided.
I found a few semi-critical thinkers, for example:
‘I’m getting it tomorrow, I’m 33 weeks. The data on it looks like it was researched and trialled well. If I can prevent my baby getting something really nasty in the first 6 months of life then I’m happy to go for it. I had to think about it, though. No one loves having vaccines and after the criticism of the covid vaccine which is the newest one I have had, I do feel a bit sceptical about new vaccines being a rolled out. But as this might do some real good, why not is my thought. Each to their own though :)’
Some whose other children had been hospitalised with RSV, so the most susceptible patient target audience for the vaccine:
‘My DD was hospitalised in 2022 at 8 weeks old with RSV and was on oxygen and a feeding tube for 5 days, wish the vaccine had been around then, my friends DS was hospitalised the same month with RSV and also had to have oxygen and a feeding tube, it’s horrible’
But the vast majority, unwisely, put their trust in the system and ‘the process’. Ofc you can never be sure, how many of these comments are placed by company PRs.
‘The question is rather why would you not have it? The hoops vaccine development has to go through to demonstrate safety and effectiveness are extensive, and the bar set by the NHS to fund something like this is so high – you can be as certain as is possible that it is a) worthwhile and b) safe. Believe me, they wouldn’t pay for it otherwise!’
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/pregnancy/5157371-rsv-vaccine
Clearly some of the pro RSV mums are circumspect about covid vaccines – but the point is that anything to do with the vulnerability of babies is conceptualised as a world apart from our own.
The awful irony is that, for most of us the safest place we’ll ever inhabit is our mothers’ wombs . What’s worse than companies whose sole objective is returns to investors? Companies backed by billionaires on an emotional altruism trip. Stay out of our wombs , Bill.
annie says
‘Vaccine Expert’ – Dr Xand highlighted that RSV vaccines are advised for pregnant women …
BBC Morning Live expert Dr Xand gives urgent advice as Covid cases rise
Dr Xand van Tulleken has addressed public confusion surrounding different types of vaccination, amid fears of a “tripledemic” in the UK
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/health/bbc-morning-live-expert-dr-33950366
TV doc Dr Xand van Tulleken has cleared up the public’s vaccine confusion as fears of a “tripledemic” grip the UK. Speaking on BBC Morning Live, he tackled a viewer’s burning question: if you’ve had the Covid and flu jab, should you get an RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) shot too?
Dr Xand highlighted that RSV vaccines are advised for pregnant women and those aged 75 to 79. If your 80th birthday falls on or after 1 September 2024, you’re in line for the RSV vaccine until 31 August 2025, per NHS guidance. However, he pointed out that one jab doesn’t shield you from multiple bugs. A Covid jab only fends off Covid.
He explained: “What I would say, it’s a great question because when I saw this question I was like: ‘Oh, I wonder which of the jabs I’d sort of rather have’,” he shared with the hosts. “Then you sort of think ‘, hang on a minute’, all these viruses can be life-threatening; they can have long, long, long consequences not just for you but, of course, for the people you might infect. And so, you should have all of them, they’re all different and one vaccination protects you against that particular virus.”
Dr Xand said: “So, if you’ve had a Covid vaccination that will protect you against Covid but it won’t protect you against RSV. You need all three really is what I’d say, the other thing I’d say is, getting them way easier than you’d think.”
However, it’s worth noting that some vaccinations are only recommended for specific groups of people at increased risk of illness. The NHS recommends that anyone over 65, pregnant individuals, and older adults in care homes should receive the Covid jab.
Additionally, anyone aged six months to 64 years with a health condition or treatment that increases their risk of getting seriously ill from Covid-19 is advised to take the jab. Flu vaccines are also recommended for certain groups. Dr Xand’s comments come amidst concerns over a ‘tripledemic’ this winter, with cases of Covid, flu, and RSV set to rise. Recently, Brits were warned of a new ‘XEC Covid variant’ with symptoms including sore throat, cough, fever, and nausea.
While the UKHSA Deputy Director, Dr Gayatri Amirthalingam, said it’s ‘normal and expected for viruses to genetically change over time’, scientists have raised concerns about the number of cases. If you’re eager to get your Covid jab sorted, it’s a breeze to book an appointment.
Just give a ring to 119 or hop onto the NHS website to arrange it. And if you’re up for it, you might snag a flu shot at the same time, provided you tick the eligibility box.
For those awaiting the RSV jab, keep an eye on your letterbox as GP surgeries will be sending out invites. NHS England advises to hang tight for that invite, but they also spill the beans: “Some community pharmacies in the East of England will also offer RSV vaccinations later this month. You can check if there will be pharmacy appointments in your local area at http://www.nhs.uk/book-rsv. Please note, pharmacy bookings are not currently available.”
They add a nudge, “When you are offered an appointment, it’s important you get vaccinated as soon as you can, ahead of the colder months.”
BBC ML “Tripledemic” Threat – Video
‘Oh, I wonder which of the jabs I’d sort of rather have'”
Maybe try the one for ‘pregnant individuals’
A Simple Prick.
Peter Selley says
If it is correct that Beyfortus is linked to a small excess of infant deaths, as the clinical trial data and post-marketing surveillance hint; and if it is correct that maternal RSV vaccination is linked to a small increase of preterm births and an excess of hypertensive disorders in pregnancy then it is appropriate to look at the number of infant deaths coded as due to RSV. Remember that about half of these deaths are in babies with severe comorbidities e.g. heart and lung disease.
Over the 10 years ending in 2023 in England and Wales there were 50 deaths in children under one year of age from Bronchiolitis or RSV pneumonia, (including 25 children where no organism was specified so may have been due to a different virus).
In the same period there was one death due to hMPV.
No clinical trials have shown that these immunisation measures save lives.
If the Government figures are correct my interpretation is that immunisation at best could prevent one or two deaths a year in otherwise healthy infants. This assumes 80% uptake and 80% efficacy.
The last death coded as “Acute bronchiolitis due to respiratory syncytial virus” in children aged 1-4 was in 2015.
Source: nomis – https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/
ICD-10 codes: J12.1, J21.0, J21.1,J21.9
David T Healy says
Given the arguments and data put forward by Annie, Harriet and Peter why would any woman have an RSV vaccine or let her infant have a monoclonal antibody?
Going along with this does not seem to be rational. The common response among doctors to this point, women or men, is that pregnant women are a push-over, semi-irrational etc. This does not fit my experience of pregnant women or new mothers who appear to me to do more research than any other group on earth and weigh up risks in a very balanced way.
Which leaves me wondering if we are dealing with something like a sacrament – baptism. There is very few effective ways to forestall the risks of life but if something goes wrong, and a parent has given a vaccine they can point to having done everything the powers that be advise and therefore they are not to blame. Parents who don’t give vaccines are pointed to and may even point to themselves as the cause of the problem.
As Harriet would say, there are emotional issues here – what we need is a strategy to get us out of hole we are digging and parading data is not a strategy except for pharma.
Vaccine sacraments in particular have a more obvious religious aspect that drug sacraments don’t have. They come with a strong keeping the herd together message – which is more the function of religion than generating a few holy people here and there.
D.
annie says
I fear for the mothers-to-be who are pressured unrelentingly, give them a guilt trip, and possibly alienate them from society.
The Covid Jab debacle is causing ructions worldwide; with no signs of abating.
Most young mothers won’t be aware of all this and we all fear for their safety.
CDC director brings awareness to COVID, flu and RSV
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/cdc-director-brings-awareness-to-covid-flu-and-rsv/ar-AA1sKiPO?ocid=BingNewsSerp
“Well, here in Georgia, we are seeing the start of some cases of flu, RSV, which is a virus that can infect little babies and just a bit of COVID hanging around. But we know they’re all going to increase as we get into Thanksgiving, Christmas,” Cohen said. “If you have an infant under eight months, we have a new immunization for our babies. So, if you have a baby under eight months talk to your pediatrician about protecting them from RSV, and if you’re a pregnant mom, we have an RSV vaccine for you as well to boost up your immune system and pass that along to your babies.”
Cohen is also encouraging businesses to be a part of the solution by offering vaccinations to their employees just like the CDC does every year for its staff.
‘and pass that along to your babies’ – Ugh
‘a strategy to get us out of hole we are digging’
All I can think of at present is to look at the disasters of Antidepressants and all the other drugs tied up in disasters, and Pfizer and AstraZeneca Covid Jabs, hiding behind dodgy data, and somehow lean in to the whys and wherefores of how those calamities are being approached.
This lot didn’t have a strategy, but a thousand voices, but now it looks like there is a more strategic force at play as time goes on.
Of course, all that trickling down to the doctors is another expressway with a dead-end.
‘Vaccine sacraments in particular have a more obvious religious aspect that drug sacraments don’t have. They come with a strong keeping the herd together message –
That is, indeed, a massive problem…
Mike says
This article reminds me about a news story I saw a few weeks ago on RTE news (Irish national TV news) there was a news story about a young man who was a soccer player (23) he was a very healthy young man who died five days after getting a Covid-19 vaccine which allegedly caused a catastrophic brain bleed. He got the jab in early 2021 and as each day went by he kept talking about how unwell he felt on the fifth day he died there was a major court case about this a few weeks ago near the end of September 2024. The pharmaceutical company who make the vaccines deny that the vaccine could be the cause of his death