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The AstraZeneca vaccine was made using an adenovirus vector. It is similar to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which was also based on adenovirus.

The adenovirus vaccines were found to slightly increase the risk of blood clots. The mRNA vaccines do not increase blood clot risk. Covid-19, of course, greatly increases the risk of blood clots, which occur in about 30% of hospitalized Covid patients.

Partly because of the slightly increased risk of blood clots with the J&J vaccine, the FDA revoked approval of this vaccine in June, 2023. It is not surprising, therefore, that the AstraZeneca vaccine is also being pulled.

I do not know if other vaccines based on an adenovirus vector would also increase the risk of blood clots. I also do not know why the adenovirus-based vaccines had this risk. There is currently a gene therapy being developed which uses adenovirus to deliver a gene encoding VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) to help patients with angina grow new blood vessels in the heart and decrease the angina pain. Although this use of the adenovirus is called a gene therapy (because it replicates what a natural human gene does), it is doubtful that the adenovirus will stick around for any length of time.

Gene Therapy Allowing Heart to Grow New Blood Vessels Supported by Early Data

Wow, easily debunked lies starting from the first sentence!

When the COVID vaccines were first being distributed to the public, the vaccine inserts were intentionally left blank.

Nope. Providing a copy of the intended product insert is a requirement for FDA approval. The vaccine inserts are and always have been available both at the manufacturers' websites and at the FDA. Links to all pertinent information about the Covid-19 vaccines can be found at the FDA's COVID-19 Vaccines webpage.

And for those who did their own research, they were discovered to be deadly.

What, exactly, is "their own" research? Finding and reading a few antivax screeds on the internet? Because I can guarantee that "their own" research doesn't include any laboratory investigations or review of the pertinent scientific studies.

And on what basis is mRNA deadly? It is contained in every cell of every living organism. Oh, the mRNA is deadly because it encodes a virus gene? Then getting infected with the actual virus must be several times more deadly, since the virus infects cells all over the body and forces them all to make virus mRNA and virus proteins. And the virus doesn't just force cells to make spike mRNA; it has 29 genes that it forces cells to transcribe into mRNA and then translate into proteins.

The Moderna patent for this mRNA technology stated that they contain self assembling lipid nanoparticle technology.

In layperson terms, lipids are fats. And fats are known to aggregate, which is a form of self-assembly. Ever mix an oil-and-vinegar salad dressing and let it sit for a few minutes? The fat all aggregates at the top, doesn't it? It's the chemical nature of fats to do this. So what if the Moderna patent states that it is using a physical property of fats to make a vaccine?

Over a hundred pathogens that can be control released over time so that deaths will appear to be random and mysterious.

Um... a single gene is not a pathogen. A pathogen contains many genes that work together to make it pathogenic. And people have died randomly forever--which is hardly mysterious.

We know that vaccines can have unintended consequences, aka side effects, but nobody's really talking about it because they're too afraid of blame and they just want it to go away.

The side effects of vaccines are caused by three things. The most common cause of side effects is the immune system, because it reacts to a vaccine exactly the same way it reacts to a pathogen. So, these side effects are similar to symptoms of the disease (but have a shorter duration). A rare cause of side effects is improper administration of the vaccine, for example, accidently giving the shot near the shoulder joint instead of in the muscle. And another rare side effect is a reaction to various vaccine ingredients. An allergic reaction to a vaccine is also caused by the immune system.

Cuomo assures us that there will be another pandemic.

Well, yes. We can never know what might be lurking in the animal population that will turn out to be able to cause pandemics in people. Pandemics have been a fact of life since humans began recording history and they will continue to be a threat far into the future.

I'm not going to discuss the various conspiracy statements in this blog. Conspiracies aren't my thing.

Whenever I read something like this, I regret even less my decision to not move back to California. Not that I regretted it much to begin with. Texas is great!

Well, I have read that Covid-19 is about eight times more deadly for diabetics than for other people.

So, it makes sense that a diabetes drug would help diabetics to survive Covid. Metformin doesn’t actually have antiviral effects. But by controlling the diabetes that predisposes people to die, it helps indirectly.

Thanks.

I am extremely curious as to what the mechanism of action is. The article did not say.

I have been taking supplemental vitamin D (with physician guidance) since long before I got cancer.

Lack of vitamin D causes problems. But surplus of vitamin D is not preventive or curative.

It’s like food. If you don’t get enough, you have problems. But getting too much isn’t healthy, either.

The Goldilocks principle is in full force here.

I am so sorry to hear that.

I’ve read stories online about people dying from believing charlatans like Mercola. It’s so tragic and unnecessary.

I know that medical science does not have all of the answers, but there is no group that knows more about medicine than physicians and researchers.

I would expect someone to have a lot more wrinkles at age 75,000. Those reconstructive surgeons did an amazing job in erasing those signs of aging!

Or maybe the headline was just really badly written and I got the wrong impression.

This is an artist’s impression of what the woman might have looked like. I wonder why they made her skin so dark. The neanderthals lived in Europe—wouldn’t that mean their skin color would be lighter? The reason modern Europeans lost their pigmentation was so that they could get adequate vitamin D through sun exposure. Melanin absorbs UV light, so lighter people survived better than darker people in the north.

Hmm.

It could be that he saved the taxpayers the cost of trial and incarceration.

Or it could be that he was innocent but could not handle the stress of the accusation and legal action.

We’ll probably never know.

Well, there is one thing we can say for Florida Man. He sure is creative. We never know what his next antics will be.

I know a way to use much less refrigeration...food irradiation.

That changes the chemical structure of the food, not always in ways that are palatable. And once an irradiated package is opened, it still needs refrigeration, just like canned food does once opened.

From the 50’s to the 90’s yet these houses are still standing 30 to 70 years later?

Good point there. If that concrete is so fragile, they should have collapsed already.

Oh, this is from Mercola. His net worth from selling “supplements” and useless “devices” is over $100 million. He sells this stuff by implying that he’s selling miracle cures. Nope, I have no desire to increase his net worth.

If vitamin D were really a cancer killer, how is it that people who get plenty of sunshine still get cancer?

For boys, the appeal of declaring themselves to be “transgender” in order to compete against physically smaller and weaker girls will fade when the number of “transgenders” becomes so high that there are few to no actual girls in girls’ sports. At that time, they’ll just be competing against other boys (who share their atrocious sense of fashion).

It’s a shame. I grew up in a time when women had to fight to have woman-only sports. For a long time, it looked like we had won that fight. But not any more.

...give women the right to request a female doctor for intimate care

Don't women in the UK have that right now?

My son went to see a female urologist. The first thing she asked was whether he's comfortable with a woman doctor. (He was.) I think, in the US, there is an expectation that patients can be seen by doctors of their own gender if they so choose.

It's encouraging to see some pushback against gender ideology. There is no scientific basis for the notion that someone can change genders simply by "identifying" as the other gender. And it seems that mostly women are harmed by gender ideology. We're told that we must accept men in our locker rooms or that we must compete in sports against men because they "identify" as women. Why is it that we don't see many examples of men being harmed by gender ideology?

Ah, helping to increase the spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria! Awesome!

Some respiratory viruses do increase the risk of bacterial pneumonia. In these cases, it is appropriate to take antibiotics. But I wouldn’t start reaching for the antibiotics for a viral infection based on a single study in mice. Let’s get the robust primate and then human studies done before we start routinely using neomycin for virus infections.

They initiated mumbo jumbo worthless meaningless word salad in the lexicon of politics

I thought that was just normal politician language.

The normal function of the immune system, whether in response to a spike protein encoded in a vaccine or a spike protein encoded in a virus genome along with 28 other virus genes, does not cause infertility.

If infertility were a consequence of becoming immune to coronavirus spike proteins, the human race would have died out eons ago. Coronavirus infections are common. All coronaviruses have spike proteins.

Covid-19 disease does increase pregnancy loss.

https://cgf.cochrane.org/news/covid-19-coronavirus-disease-fertility-and-pregnancy

And Covid-19 has a negative impact on male fertility.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37155673/

Interesting, isn’t it?

According to abortion zealots, the delegalization of birth control abortion was supposed to lead to an epidemic of “forced births.”

I guess, when women no longer can get pregnant with the expectation of having an abortion, they actually ARE capable of making responsible choices to not get pregnant in the first place. Abortion advocates don’t think women are capable of acting responsibly.

The mRNA vaccines have not been shown to elevate clot risk.

This risk was only seen in adenovirus based vaccines.

The AstraZeneca vaccine, like the US Johnson & Johnson vaccine, was made by inserting a DNA copy of the spike gene into an adenovirus. This adenovirus cannot cause disease since some of its pathogenicity genes have been removed.

Among the general population, there is a small risk of developing blood clots, about 1 per thousand. Clots are caused by a number of different factors: disease, drugs, injury, sitting too long, etc. The J&J adenovirus based vaccine was documented to increase the risk of blood clots by about 4 cases per million. The AstraZeneca vaccine was also associated with this slightly elevated risk of clots.

For context, around a third of hospitalized Covid patients develop blood clots. For this reason, anticoagulants are routinely given to these patients.

Partly because of the slight increased risk of blood clot, the J&J company requested the FDA to rescind approval of its Covid vaccine. The J&J vaccine is no longer manufactured or available.

It appears that the clot risk was due to an immune response against an adenovirus protein. (No reference for this; this is my educated conclusion based on the facts.)

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/safety-of-vaccines.html

https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/coronavirus-vaccine-blood-clots

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2020806/