Waiting for a Safer Vaccine

Recently, I sent a message to my pickup hockey buddies explaining why I haven't yet received my second dose of COVID-19 vaccine.  Here is part of that message.

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Here’s the short version. I am partially vaccinated- first dose of the mRNA BioNTech/Pfizer; I am waiting for a safer, protein-based vaccine for my second dose (Novavax would suffice). I am also taking prophylactic ivermectin, which is 88% effective in blocking acquisition of COVID-19, even without any vaccine. The BioNTech/Pfizer is between 39 and 94% effective depending on the variant in question and the degree of vaccine waning. Moreover, the mRNA "vaccines" are classified as leaky in that they allow the virus to infect people and spread it to others, while reducing the severity of the disease in the vaccinated person. A sterilizing vaccine would stop infection and transmission. I am less likely to catch COVID-19 and spread it to others than someone who is just double vaxxed.

Here’s the longer version.

Why did I take one dose of an mRNA “vaccine” but not the second? When I was offered the first dose in March 2021, I took it because I made assumptions based on previous vaccines and only learned later about downside of the new technology. Just before I was to take my second dose, I learned enough about the adverse effects of the current mRNA products to step back; coincidentally, news came out that the Novavax vaccine (non-mRNA) was effective. That made me decide to take wait for a non-mRNA product for my second dose.

What is not safe about the mRNA “vaccines”? For starters, these products have been fast-tracked with the blessing of the various national regulatory agencies such as Health Canada and Food and Drug Administration in the USA. Many of the usual animal studies to identify potential toxicities have not been done. Moreover the companies like Moderna and Pfizer have received liability protection against adverse effects; they cannot be sued for harm done by their vaccines. Some skeptical scientists have asked to see data from animal studies related to the question safety such as reproductive problems. To the best of my knowledge, the full set of safety experiments has not been done. There are some data suggesting that reproduction could be an issue in the future. I am not saying that there will be problems; it’s just that we don’t have enough information to make an informed conclusion. Let’s look at an example. The mRNA vaccines comprise an mRNA cargo surrounded by a protective coat of fats. Ideally the dose that is injected into the deltoid muscle would stay there, where the mRNA would enter cells and produce proteins that are almost identical to the proteins of the viral spike; these proteins would initiate the immune response. According to experiments done in rats and disclosed to Japanese regulators, ~25% of the dose remains in the deltoid muscle and the remaining 75% is distributed throughout the body. Disturbingly, significant amounts were found in the gonads of females and males. That is not to say that there will be infertility or birth defects in humans but we don’t know. But, we don’t know that there won’t be infertility or birth defects- only time will tell. Yet young women have been reporting disturbances of their menstrual cycle after mRNA vaccination. This is one reason that some scientists suggest that children and young people should not be vaccinated with these products until more information is known. Another is that children are not particularly susceptible to getting COVID-19 and when they do, it is usually not severe. Thus, their risk from COVID-19 is low, and the risk from the mRNA vaccines may be too high. As of Sep 3, 2021 Britain was not advising vaccination of 12-15 year-olds.

What are the other documented risks of mRNA vaccines? Two websites that are widely used for adverse effects are Vigiaccess (vigiaccess.org, WHO) and vaccine adverse effects reporting system (VAERS, USA government, Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) (hhs.gov) ). Vigiaccess had 2,201,851 adverse event reports as of Oct 8, 2021. Herein one of the more frequent adverse effects was nervous system disorders with 952,822 events. Myocarditis, especially in young males, and blood clots have also been the subject of numerous reports in the medical literature. See paper by Rose and McCullough in Current Problems in Cardiology (A Report on Myocarditis Adverse Events in the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) in Association with COVID-19 Injectable Biological Products - ScienceDirect ) VAERS had more reports of vaccine adverse effects in the first nine months of 2021 than in the previous 30 years in total before these vaccines were released.

Not everyone agrees with these interpretations of the VAERS data. A criticism raised by Reuters is that the correction factor used by Rose and McCullough for under-reporting is too large. Nevertheless the shape of the curve doesn’t change, just the numbers on the vertical axis.

Why are there safety issues with the mRNA vaccines? When these vaccines were designed, the spike protein of SARS CoV2 was targeted because the virus uses this to interact with the ACE-2 receptor of human cells and gain entry into cells. I can’t fault the vaccine designers for this because it was a logical first step. This resulted in vaccines that used their mRNA to direct cells to make multiple copies of the spike protein. Eventually, the spike protein was identified as an important player in causing damage to the human body. Thus, we had the unfortunate situation of a “cure” imitating the “problem”.

What other approaches could be taken against COVID-19? Two that have caught the attention of many doctors and scientists internationally are drug prevention and drug treatment. In particular, ivermectin has been documented to be ~88% effective against contracting the disease Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of COVID-19 Infection: A Systematic Review, Meta-analysis, and Trial Sequential Analysis to Inform Clinical Guidelines (nih.gov) , which compares well with the 90-94% of the mRNA vaccines. But there are significant advantages to ivermectin. Firstly, ivermectin stops viral replication while the mRNA vaccines are in the “leaky” vaccine category. They can reduce viral replication and render people less susceptible to hospitalization while they can still acquire the virus and spread it to others as seen in Israel now. Secondly, ivermectin is effective against the new variants, probably because it can act by interfering with a transport protein of human cells, which are unaffected by virus mutation. The mRNA vaccines in contrast target the viral spike protein and can be made less effective when the virus mutates into new variants- a problem that Dr Fauci raised early on. All of this means that if I take ivermectin prophylactically, I am less hazardous to others than people who are double vaxxed. Drug treatment of the disease is another strategy that has gone begging. There are now many different drug treatment protocols that have been discovered by doctors, mostly in developing countries. By using existing drugs, it has been possible to cure people before they become seriously ill and require hospitalization. Unfortunately, our “authorities” have committed to a vaccine-only strategy for prevention and almost nothing for treatment. When a person tests positive for COVID-19, they are told to go home and isolate; take Tylenol for pain as necessary. If/when your lips turn blue, go to the hospital, where they may be put on mechanical ventilation with a significant risk of dying. Early in the disease is when they should be treated with any one of a number of successful drug protocols. Some family doctors have said that 100% of their patients treated within the first few days do not require hospitalization. Unfortunately, the professional colleges have made the problem worse by not approving any treatment and actively discouraging doctors from even trying to treat. See Alberta example- https://abpharmacy.ca/joint-message-cpsa-and-acp-regarding-inappropriate-prescribing-and-dispensing-ivermectin-treat-or.

After all the reading that I have done in the last 16 months or so, I suggest that we could have been free of the pandemic in January 2021 if we had implemented a drug and nutrient-based strategy. It would not have been necessary to employ vaccines at all. Not only would this approach have been more effective but it would have cost much less and would have allowed us to use our medical system for its normal purposes. The approach taken has costed us in many other ways as well; think schooling for kids, sports for kids, mental health, jobs and the economy, surgeries not done, etc.

Why is drug treatment, like ivermectin, not supported? The simple answer is big money. If any treatment such as ivermectin had been allowed to show effectiveness, big pharma could not have obtained EUA (emergency use authorization in the USA) and Intermittent Order in Canada to sell their vaccines so soon. Moreover, Merck (the originator of ivermectin) has a new anti-viral (molnupiravir) that they are marketing, but it is not as effective as ivermectin. In open competition, it could not make money. Merck has gone so far as to claim that ivermectin is not safe or effective, after getting it approved for parasites in Canada. They also let the supply of ivermectin in Canada lapse, and are telling pharmacies not to dispense their Stromectol® without Merck’s approval. Merck received $365 M from the US government for molnupiravir development and $1.2 B for a delivery contract. It is clearly not in big pharma’s financial interests for any treatment with old, cheap drugs to be used. I have worked with the canadiancovidcarealliance.org for several months where my task has been to match patients with doctors who will treat/prevent COVID-19 with available drugs. We have matched hundreds since June and have a backlog of ~2000; this has caused the launch of a telemedicine clinic dedicated to COVID-19 because most family doctors have been cowed into not treating it in the early critical stage. This is what I received a couple of days ago from someone who asked for help- “My sister would most likely not be alive today if you and Dr. C did not do what you did.‎ She is at home with her husband and 3 small children and we hope that she will make a full recovery. What we have experienced over the past two weeks with the healthcare system is unbelievable. Our family Dr. abandoned her in her greatest time of need, the hospitals did not want anything to do with her.”

Evidence supporting other approaches. The different approaches taken by the various states in India can be instructive. Some of them have chosen to focus on vaccination, while others have chosen drug-based prophylaxis. Let’s compare the large states of Uttar Pradesh and Delhi (ivermectin use) with the much smaller state of Kerala (ivermectin not approved) in the graphs below. The pictures speak for themselves.

In summary, I know that Canada could have done much better in handling this pandemic. Personally, I have chosen not to take a second dose of an mRNA vaccine because there is a better way forward for me. My personal choice does not increase the risk for anyone with whom I have contact; in fact, it offers them better protection than they offer me. There are lots of other risks to life, even in Canada, and we haven’t shut down the country for them. Why have we taken such a blunt approach to this pandemic? Is it because of our blunt leaders?

All the best (While we dither, people die),

Kanji