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Researchers start to find clues on the trail of long COVID

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By Daniel Lawler

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No, Thuban, I don't want to check. You are making the assertion so, it would be nice if you provided reliable evidence or a link to it.

6 ( +15 / -9 )

Other research indicates that vaccination may in fact be a contributing factor in these symptoms.

No it does not, that is completely false. As the article clearly explains vaccination reduces the risk of getting long covid, a nameless person on the internet using as a reference "just trust me bro" is not an argument against the clear evidence on one of the many advantages of vaccination. This baseless claim is made by antivaxxer groups only to try and mislead others into making wrong decisions about their health and it can have serious repercussions.

Check the ratio of medical problems of people who didn't take any Covid vaccines vs. those who took them.

Done, not vaccinating is correlated with much higher incidence of problems.

The data for cardiovascular issues and excess mortality is especially worrisome

Yes, and once again this is something that points clearly to the infection as the cause and vaccination as one effective way to reduce that risk.

1 ( +12 / -11 )

Vaccination against COVID has been shown to significantly reduce the chance that people will get long COVID, emphasizing the importance of booster shots, researchers say.

Yes, indeed, that is what the experts say:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38274635/

-1 ( +6 / -7 )

Yes, indeed, that is what the experts say:

Not really, the report is already infamous for many methodological flaws:

https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2024/01/26/antivaxxers-write-about-lessons-learned-but-know-nothing/

What the experts actually say is this:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vaccination-dramatically-lowers-long-covid-risk/

One meta-analysis of 24 studies published in October, for example, found that people who’d had three doses of the COVID vaccine were 68.7 percent less likely to develop long COVID compared with those who were unvaccinated. “This is really impressive,” says Alexandre Marra, a medical researcher at the Albert Einstein Israelite Hospital in Brazil and the lead author of the study. “Booster doses make a difference in long COVID.”

There is no institution of medical science that supports the conclusions of Mead's report, meanwhile several explicitly say vaccines reduce the risk of long covid.

-4 ( +7 / -11 )

The below-cited study will likely interest mostly diagnosticians, from GP towards immuniologists and neurologists. Presented with patients suffering with symptoms more alligned with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) inside long COVID. These researchers position that “chronic manifestations of illness may result from an altered host response to infection or inability to resolve inflammation, as is being reported in Long COVID.” Showing their data that suggests that “Long COVID and ME/CFS may be due to an aberrant response to an immunological trigger-like infection, resulting in a dysregulated immune system with CD8 T-cell dysfunction reminiscent of some aspects of T-cell clonal exhaustion, a phenomenon associated with oxidative stress.” This paper also includes some intriguing case histories.

Released two weeks ago and published online in Brain, Behavior & Immunity. (I really need to clean out my to-read folder more often).

Note:

This is only the beginning of our research into immune dysregulation and its role in the immunopathogenesis of ME/CFS and Long COVID. In our ongoing research there appears to be evidence of other compensatory immune mechanisms for control of persistent pathogens in these patient populations. At present, we have demonstrated the utility of a CD8 T-cell functional assay for IFNγ and TNFα production following stimulation with a generic T-cell stimulus as a first logical and clinically feasible step in assessing CD8 T-cell dysfunction for diagnosis and tracking of responses to therapy. With further research we hope to be able to identify treatment-responsive subsets of patients, predict outcome and severity and be better able to understand the pathogenesis of ME/CFS and Long COVID and the mechanism of action of this nebulized antioxidant, anti-pathogen, and potentially immunomodulatoryagent in treatment of these disabling disorders.

[No conflicts declared].

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbih.2023.100720.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

So you counter a peer-reviewed paper in a scientific journal with a blog and a report from a science magazine written by someone who "is an award-winning freelance science journalist based in the Rocky Mountains" and "specializes in writing about astronomy, geology and the environment".

Impressive.

-1 ( +7 / -8 )

So you counter a peer-reviewed paper in a scientific journal with a blog and a report from a science magazine written by someone who "is an award-winning freelance science journalist based in the Rocky Mountains" and "specializes in writing about astronomy, geology and the environment".

No, with the arguments that are reunited in the blog, you have refuted none of them, so they still stand as valid criticism repeated by many professionals including the author. It is very easy to find people repeating the individual criticisms, from the unethical "re-analysis" of the clinical trials to the invalid use of a technique that easily detects RNA as if it specifically detected only DNA.

As long as you have no counter argument against the reasons explained they remain a perfectly good explanation why Mead's report is being ignored as pseudoscience and antivaxxer disinformation and contradicted by the institutions of medical science in the world.

Institutions that support the flawed conclusions of the report? still zero. Obviously the whole community of doctors and scientists of the world are not as likely as being wrong as one single group, specially based on a single report that can be so easily disproved.

-5 ( +6 / -11 )

Other research indicates that vaccination may in fact be a contributing factor in these symptoms.

Check the ratio of medical problems of people who didn't take any Covid vaccines vs. those who took them.

The data for cardiovascular issues and excess mortality is especially worrisome.

This is true across the board. Easy to access this information.

5 ( +11 / -6 )

This is true across the board. Easy to access this information.

Since nobody can actually prove this with any evidence it seems it is impossible to access this information, as expected since it does not exist. That is the problem with claiming things without basis, the moment anybody ask for proof the only exit is to repeat the empty claim because there is none to give.

-7 ( +5 / -12 )

This is true across the board. Easy to access this information.

Yes, basic research can accomplish a lot.

6 ( +11 / -5 )

Yes, basic research can accomplish a lot

For example it can be used to confirm that the claim was false and no information is available anywhere to support it. Zero information indicating vaccines contributing to long covid.

-6 ( +6 / -12 )

no information is available anywhere to support it.

Multiple peer-reviewed studies have been provided by me and others to support it. But yeah, there will always be some blogs to counter them and for some that is enough to consider such studies as "debunked".

2 ( +9 / -7 )

Amazing that at least 6 people don't think Thuban should provide any evidence. I think that reveals something about the world of evidence-free certitude that some people inhabit.

-5 ( +6 / -11 )

Multiple peer-reviewed studies have been provided by me and others to support it.

Not at all, the only reference you brought here has been debunked by arguments you could not refute at all, if that was your best reference that means you have not supported this claim.

Again, "blogs" are not the ones debunking the reference you brought, the arguments listed are the ones, and they remain perfectly valid from any of the many different sources that repeat them.

-4 ( +7 / -11 )

They also have "to contend with disbelief or dismissal from the medical community or from within their social circles", she said.

Is this true, disbelief of dismissal from the medical community?

-5 ( +0 / -5 )

Is this true, disbelief of dismissal from the medical community?

Unfortunately not all the people working in a professional field are actually prepared to do their jobs professionally, that applies also to health care and doctors, nurses, etc. can make mistakes of judgment ignoring the best available scientific evidence and believing instead their personal opinion holds more value. It does not need to be even that frequent, even a rare example falling upwards to a position of power can have huge negative effect by giving a false legitimacy appearance to pseudoscientific beliefs.

-6 ( +4 / -10 )

The most common are fatigue, shortness of breath, muscle pain and brain fog.

And depression, anxiety and racing heart. I also wonder if long covid contributes to suicide. Needless to say we will be studying this for a long time as evidence comes out and scientific studies are conducted.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

So you counter a peer-reviewed paper in a scientific journal with a blog and a report from a science magazine written by someone who "is an award-winning freelance science journalist based in the Rocky Mountains" and "specializes in writing about astronomy, geology and the environment".

No, with the arguments that are reunited in the blog, you have refuted none of them

You provide a link to a blog and you expect others to go through it and refute everything they write?

Health authorities are using studies with carefully selected data to promote vaccines, emphasizing their alleged protective effects while completely disregarding all the serious safety concerns.

0 ( +7 / -7 )

You provide a link to a blog and you expect others to go through it and refute everything they write?

Only if you think you can refute any of the argument used there, the obvious other option is to recognize you can't do it because they are valid and correct and prove the reference you tried to use is deeply flawed scientifically and explains why it had to be published in a recognized predatory journal. Your problem is thinking a valid argument requires an appeal to authority to remain valid, but that makes no sense. A child could repeat these arguments and they would not be any less valid.

The point is that you could not refute even one point, much less all of them, and that is because the arguments in the reference are solid. Each has been used by many other professionals to address the different problems of the report (since it recycle debunked claims made previously it also can be refuted by the arguments that destroyed those claims as well.

Health authorities are using studies with carefully selected data to promote vaccines, emphasizing their alleged protective effects while completely disregarding all the serious safety concerns.

Yes, because that is how it has to be done, "carefully selected data" means including only things that can be confirmed and analyzed scientifically, and at the same time disregarding things that have been repeatedly debunked with arguments (such as those that you could not refute here) simply because there is no point in considering falsehoods in order to make decisions, specially when involving human health.

-6 ( +4 / -10 )

Vaccination against COVID has been shown to significantly reduce the chance that people will get long COVID, emphasizing the importance of booster shots, researchers say.

I would trust the Nobel prize winner in Medicine over any handpicked pharma-backed "researcher". Dr Luc Montagnier and others warned of Antibody-dependent Enhancement (ADE) developing due to vaccines being introduced in the middle of a pandemic. Well, it hashappened. Current variants are not "immune evasive", the immune system has been compromised by the vaccines, leading to ADE.

Anyone continuing to promote continuous boosters for an indefinite period of time, despite the real, ethical and unbiased research-backed evidence we have, is downright reckless.

1 ( +7 / -6 )

I would trust the Nobel prize winner in Medicine over any handpicked pharma-backed "researcher".

Except that was completely unable to present any evidence of this claim, at all. And that he never was able to explain the epidemiological evidence that disproved him either. This is just again the same situation he got at the end of his life, endlessly claiming the DNA is an antenna for radio waves and that it can literally teleport, even when he failed to bring any evidence of this being even remotely possible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_teleportation

That is the problem with people that do not understand science, thinking credentials replace evidence when actually the evidence is what brings credentials in the first place, or take them away as it was unfortunately the case in his latests years.

Anyone continuing to promote continuous boosters for an indefinite period of time, despite the real, ethical and unbiased research-backed evidence we have, is downright reckless.

That is still the medical consensus of the world, no institution refutes the value of vaccines and boosters, the actual unethical thing is to disperse disinformation that puts in risk the health of the public instead of accepting there is no possibility for every single recognized institution of medical science of the world being wrong.

-6 ( +4 / -10 )

I’m not getting the vaccine, simple as. I’m not going to risk the side-effects

0 ( +6 / -6 )

I’m not getting the vaccine, simple as. I’m not going to risk the side-effects

It is your decision to make but unless there is an objective medical reason to avoid the vaccine that still means getting a much higher risk from the disease. You would be taking the worse option.

-6 ( +1 / -7 )

It is your decision to make but unless there is an objective medical reason to avoid the vaccine that still means getting a much higher risk from the disease. You would be taking the worse option.

Again, if faced with the choice of listening to a not-so-covert representative of Pfizer or the European Union, the vast majority of us would choose the latter, who have stopped recommending boosters for any demographic outside of the elderly and those with comorbidities.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

Again, if faced with the choice of listening to a not-so-covert representative of Pfizer or the European Union, the vast majority of us would choose the latter, who have stopped recommending boosters for any demographic outside of the elderly and those with comorbidities.

No need to listen to any representative, much less an imaginary one. The world experts on the field (as in every respected institution on the field) clearly and unequivocally recommend vaccines as a safe and effective measure to lower very importantly the risk from covid, and they can even show the evidence to support that conclusion. This includes of course the European Union, with the European Medicines Agency clearly and explicitly recommending them.

https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/human-regulatory-overview/public-health-threats/coronavirus-disease-covid-19/covid-19-medicines/covid-19-vaccines-key-facts

The COVID-19 vaccines authorised in the EU continue to prevent severe disease, hospitalisation and death linked to COVID-19.  

What you are actually choosing are the baseless claims of someone that tried to push the idea that DNA could magically teleport, that is not as strong argument as you thought it was.

-7 ( +0 / -7 )

It is your decision to make but unless there is an objective medical reason to avoid the vaccine that still means getting a much higher risk from the disease.

Im at literally a 0% risk if I don’t catch covid

Im putting myself at a guaranteed risk if I get the vaccine

Not gonna risk it sorry

2 ( +5 / -3 )

Im at literally a 0% risk if I don’t catch covid

Im putting myself at a guaranteed risk if I get the vaccine

Good point. You are also at 0% risk of vaccine side effects if you don't take the vaccine.

Amazing that at least 6 people don't think Thuban should provide any evidence. 

But there is evidence.

0 ( +4 / -4 )

Im at literally a 0% risk if I don’t catch covid

But there is no realistic way to ensure not catching covid (unless you live on an sterile bubble) this is already considered in the higher risk you get by not vaccinating. Not vaccinating is already a guaranteed higher risk even if you mistakenly believe you can avoid for sure being infected.

Good point. You are also at 0% risk of vaccine side effects if you don't take the vaccine.

But again this is invalid since there is no way to guarantee not catching covid, so the risk is still higher for not vaccinating.

But there is evidence.

Repeating this claim without being able to provide this evidence clearly indicates the contrary. If someone came and said "that evidence was proved to be a scam by people that benefit economically from others getting covid", would you simply accept this claim? or would you first ask for this to be proved?

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

But there is no realistic way to ensure not catching covid (unless you live on an sterile bubble) this is already considered in the higher risk you get by not vaccinating. Not vaccinating is already a guaranteed higher risk even if you mistakenly believe you can avoid for sure being infected.

There is a chance I’ll never catch Covid though, which would mean my overall risk of any long term covid side effects and any long term covid vaccine side effect is 0

If I get the vaccine there’s a chance I’m putting myself at a higher risk of side effects as I could never catch Covid at all

2 ( +4 / -2 )

But again this is invalid since there is no way to guarantee not catching covid, so the risk is still higher for not vaccinating.

No it isn’t.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

Repeating this claim without being able to provide this evidence clearly indicates the contrary.

Great example of faulty logic.

And here is evidence, which means every time you said there is no evidence, you were wrong.

 German Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach acknowledged in March that though rare, Long Covid–like symptoms after vaccination are a real phenomenon.

https://www.science.org/content/article/rare-link-between-coronavirus-vaccines-and-long-covid-illness-starts-gain-acceptance

1 ( +3 / -2 )

There is a chance I’ll never catch Covid though

But that chance is not enough to make it less risky, this is already considered as part of the equation. There is no realistic way to reduce this chance enough to make it more risky to vaccinate.

No it isn’t.

You have not argued how anybody can be guaranteed not to contract covid, that means this criticism is still perfectly valid. There is no need for a certainty on infection for vaccines to be the better option, the simple possibility is enough to make it a much more risky option.

Great example of faulty logic

Yes, repeating a claim when it has been already challenged for lack of evidence is a faulty logic, repeating something do not prove it at all, instead it just indicates there is no evidence for that claim at all.

German Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach acknowledged in March that though rare, Long Covid–like symptoms after vaccination are a real phenomenon.

Seven months after your reference the evidence that supposedly would prove this theory instead contradict it. Your reference only makes the claim the rare occurrences could be related to vaccination, but offers no evidence to even indicate this was likely, so no you still have not provided any evidence to prove this point. On the other hand the reference already provided:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vaccination-dramatically-lowers-long-covid-risk/

Is from January 2024, and clearly, unequivocally proves that being vaccinated reduces the risk of long covid. Which is why there is no respected institution in the world that contradicts this conclusion.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

Collectively we are now not naïve to the virus anymore. At this point there's no reason to take up a vaccine anymore unless you are elderly or a member of an at-risk group.

Actually repeated covid is correlated with serious and likely long lasting health risks including long covid but also lung, heart, brain problems:

https://time.com/6553340/covid-19-reinfection-risk/

This means that a vaccine that can decrease those risks is still a very necessary things, anything that lets people have only 2 or 3 cases instead of 5 can mean a lot in the future. Everybody is still at risk.

-4 ( +2 / -6 )

Sorry, but you claimed there is no evidence, it was provided, and so your claim is wrong.

Not at all, not only because infection requires exposure to the risks you are trying to avoid in the first place, but because being vaccinated after infection has been proved to provide even better immunity.

Not as much as repeated shots are...

That claim is still false and not supported by any evidence.

Sorry, but you claimed there is no evidence, it was provided, and so your claim is wrong.

You have produced no evidence, your reference is about thinking about a possibility and saying studies would be needed to get that evidence, 7 months later the evidence collected clearly pointed to the opposite conclusions.

No evidence for your claim was provided.

Or as your own quoted text says:

Our data show a relatively clear signal that there probably is an increase in POTS after vaccination and after infection,” he says.*

So no evidence of that increase actually being present, just that he thinks this probably happens. Then seven months passed and no evidence of this happening has been presented.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

Not at all, not only because infection requires exposure to the risks you are trying to avoid in the first place, but because being vaccinated after infection has been proved to provide even better immunity.

You're off the subject.

We are talking about the vaccine and its link to long Covid.

More evidence, although you claimed there is none.

From the New England Journal of Medicine, which was easily found:

A Possible Role for Anti-idiotype Antibodies in SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Vaccination

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMcibr2113694

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

You're off the subject.

For the claim that vaccines cause long covid it is perfectly valid to ask for evidence of this being the case, that evidence has not been presented so it still is a baseless claim.

More evidence, although you claimed there is none.

Even the title of your reference contradict your claim "*A Possible Role for Anti-idiotype Antibodies in SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Vaccination*"

It does not say this happens (much less that it is more important in vaccination compared with the infection) but that this could happen and then explain how many different factors well demonstrated to be more important during the infection could be the cause.

So no, your reference do not support the claim that vaccines are producing long covid in any significant degree, easy to understand the moment no epidemiological data is presented that says vaccinated people have higher rates than non-vaccinated people. As mentioned, a research proposal is not the same as presenting the results from that research

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

For the claim that vaccines cause long covid it is perfectly valid to ask for evidence of this being the case, that evidence has not been presented so it still is a baseless claim.

Talk about baseless.

Largest-ever COVID vaccine study links shot to small increase in heart and brain conditions

https://www.yahoo.com/news/largest-ever-covid-vaccine-study-203626142.html

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

That study does not relate to Long Covid or Long-Covid-like symptoms.

You should read it.

It also confirms, several times, that the Covid infection proper poses a higher risk of developing the events than the vaccination.

Wrong issue.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Largest-ever COVID vaccine study links shot to small increase in heart and brain conditions

As already mentioned there is zero correlation in this reference between vaccines and long covid, it does not even mentions long covid at all. This is the third reference you have brought that is unrelated to the claim made, that makes it terribly clear there is no actual article that supports your claim. The reference is about the wrong issue.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

As already mentioned there is zero correlation in this reference between vaccines and long covid, 

As mentioned in the latest study too, the vaccine causes many of the same ailments as caused by those who have long covid from being infected with Covid.

Undeniable.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

As mentioned in the latest study too, the vaccine causes many of the same ailments as caused by those who have long covid from being infected with Covid.

Yet you are unable to present any evidence of a significant incidence of long covid, instead presenting unrelated articles, that would only prove you have no evidence for your claim, so you have to bring things that do not even mention long covid at all.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

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