The Wry Observer’s Covid-19 update (224)

Various bits of news require an update for completeness.

The release of correspondence casts more doubt on The Lancet article that firmly denied the possibility of a lab leak in Wuhan. Although it appears that some of the senior players had their doubts, the party line seems to have been toed out of political expediency. Such interference bodes ill for the future of scientific and medical research, although we are (mostly) only too aware of the bias introduced by the suppression of publication of drug trials that fail to show benefit.

The problem of post-vaccination myocarditis is explained in an article/blog which turned up in my inbox yesterday (although it appears to be a year old). See https://wmcresearch.substack.com/p/spike-protein-induced-cardiotoxicity?utm_source=cross-post&publication_id=770713&post_id=135784167&isFreemail=true&utm_campaign=516896&utm_medium=email

Note the role of TNF and IL-1. I have suggested that anyone with symptoms or signs of trouble should have steroids as soon as possible. Apropos immune mediators it’s also interesting to see the early apparent success of biologics administered intrathecally to reduce amyloid formation in Alzheimer patients. It’s over 12 years ago that the Professor of Rheumatology at Guy’s Hospital, Gabriel Panayi, noted the disappearance of renal amyloid in patients with rheumatoid arthritis treated with TNF blockade, and I suggested back then that they should be tried in Alzheimer’s. Ahead of the game again…

There are rumblings about a new Covid wave that will be caused by a subtly different variant of Omicron. This has caused an Omigod reaction with loud screams in the media. Yet increasing analysis of historic data leads one to think – what fatal wave? It’s time to stop panicking. Not only should one not cross one’s bridges until you come to them, but you should not worry about crossing those bridges until you are sure that there are bridges. There’s enough unnecessary panic about. Don’t start me on climate change (I have kept that out of this blog, but if you want my sceptical views you can find them in my Substack blog at https://drandrewbamji.substack.com/); just to add that the latest evidence for why global temperature has risen this year is because of the massive release of water vapour into the stratosphere following the Tonga eruption. Fossil fuel use pales into insignificance. If Nobel prizewinners in Physics don’t believe the climate change mantras then neither will I. I mention this because there is a common thread; climate change prophesy is based on computer modelling just as pandemic death risk is. GIGO (or for the acronym virgins, garbage in, garbage out).

All quiet on the Inquiry front.

The Wry Observer’s Covid-19 update (223)

The Heneghan/Jefferson dialogue on their “Trust the Evidence” blog underlines the disappearance of the Hallett Inquiry from the news now that the Big Beasts have given their evidence, which wasn’t worth much anyway. Having trawled through the module list again I looked at the core participants and was perhaps unsurprised to find that they were almost without exception people who could have had no insight into the pathological mechanisms of Covid-19. As for the module remits there is but one sentence in the Vaccines and Therapeutics module that gets to the heart of the matter – when people get very sick with Covid-19, how should they have been treated. I am somewhat concerned that they are going to spend time analysing trials, which I have stated many times were unnecessary.

When will the clinicians (hello, here I am!) get their chance to explain things? I am still waiting to be called… never mind that I am retired, medicine in many ways is like swimming or riding a bicycle, you never forget how to do it. A single case will, if significant enough, stick in the mind forever. Significance can take many shapes; amusing, challenging, upsetting, revelational, oxymoronic among others. There are many examples in my book “Mad Medicine” (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mad-Medicine-maxims-National-Service/dp/1688011897) which any student of medicine or the NHS would do well to read, not least so they don’t fall into the traps that I did or underestimate the importance of institutional memory.

(Written 13th July)