Vaccine Curious

Ram Duriseti, MD, PhD, was part of the recent reanalysis of the phase 3 trials of mRNA vaccines to children, and also a strong voice of reason in California during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Here he joins Tracy Beth Høeg and Christine Stabell Benn to talk about his experience as an Emergency Physician during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ram also explains why he mostly stayed out of research prior to the pandemic despite his PhD.

We move on to discuss the reanalysis of the phase 3 trials of mRNA, its results, and its implications. Many new mRNA vaccines are underway for different pathogens. We all agree the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines were not sufficiently tested for their potential non-specific effects. The new mRNA vaccines will provide new opportunities for this but the FDA and EMA are unfortunately unlikely to require these types of studies for approval.

Finally Ram discusses losing his clinical position at Stanford due to the booster mandate. Link to the reanalysis paper (preprint): 

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.07.23298573v3.full.pdf

Vaccination of Adults, Vaccine Safety, Non-Specific Effects of Vaccines, Gender Differences in Vaccine Responses, and New Malaria Vaccines...

Sitting in the airport on the way back to Denmark, in a conversation with Dr. Tracy Beth Høeg, Dr. Christine Stabell Benn shares her impressions from the World Vaccine Congress, which took place in Washington DC from 1-4 April 2024.

PS: We apologize that the sound quality is not perfect.

What does this mean, how did this happen and what next?

In this episode of "Sensibly curious about vaccines", Christine Stabell Benn, MD, PhD and Tracy Beth Høeg, MD, PhD invited Joshua Guetzkow, PhD and Retsef Levi, PhD to talk about what they discovered in relation to the changes in the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing process that happened in the fall of 2020.

We talk bias and lack of regulatory oversight from the FDA and EMA, what Pfizer may not have disclosed about the vaccine contents, what we know about the contents and safety of the "process 2" batches that the public received, the history of harms from vaccines rolled out with inadequate safety testing, the importance of transparency and how independent research, uncensored discussion and legal actions may offer solutions.

Links to relevant literature:

Drs. Guetzkow and Levi's BMJ rapid response about process 1 and 2: https://www.bmj.com/content/378/bmj.o1731/rr-2.

Dr. Guetzkow's Twitter thread on the process switch: https://x.com/joshg99/status/1658421192326365185.

Dr. Guetzkow's blog post on the CDC's safety signal analysis: https://researchrebel.substack.com/p/cdc-finally-released-its-vaers-safety.

On the higher frequency of adverse events in process 2 batches: https://dailyclout.io/pfizer-process-2-vaccine-had-2-4-times-adverse-events/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email. The Ontario Preprint showing SV40 promoter in Pfizer mRNA vaccines: https://osf.io/mjc97/ A good timeline of the events: https://geoffpain.substack.com/p/production-of-the-pfizer-biontech.

Dr. Guetzkow's project on censorship and suppression of scientists and doctors who raise safety concerns about vaccines: https://researchrebel.substack.com/p/suppressing-scientific-discourse and his paper on censorship and suppression of COVID-19 heterodoxy: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11024-022-09479-4.

A "Sensibly curious about vaccines"-podcast – with @TracyBethHoeg and @StabellBenn.

We discuss the latest evidence from Phillip Buckhaults' lab of DNA contamination in COVID-19 vaccines, more data on the new monovalent XBB COVID-19 vaccine and the current evidence landscape for the hepatitis B vaccine in infants & how the US and Europe disagree on recommendations.

Links to the papers/talks we are discussing:

A review on the use of aluminium as a vaccine adjuvant: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30139653/

Cochrane review of RCTs of hepatitis B vaccine in infants: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD004790.pub2/full

Landmark NEJM study (RCT) on hepatitis B vaccine in high risk adult males 1980: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM198010093031501

A study of the overall health effects of hepatitis B vaccine from Guinea-Bissau: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15626943/

A "Sensibly curious about vaccines"-podcast – with @TracyBethHoeg and @StabellBenn.

We talk about studies about COVID-19 vaccines' effects on the immune system & Influenza vaccine efficacy data and recommendations by country.

Links to the papers/talks we are discussing:

A review of the beneficial and negative non-specific effects of live and non-live vaccines: https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/laninf/PIIS1473-3099(19)30742-X.pdf

TEDx with the tennis analogy: https://www.ted.com/talks/christine_stabell_benn_how_vaccines_train_the_immune_system_in_ways_no_one_expected?language=en

The systematic review of the randomized trials of influenza vaccine in pregnancy: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/9/12/1452

A "Sensibly curious about vaccines"-podcast – with @TracyBethHoeg and @StabellBenn.

Here with an intro to what was learned from studying overall health effects of vaccines in Guinea-Bissau.

Link to the article that we are discussing: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/robert-f-kennedy-jrs-comments-our-studies-vaccine-benn

An introduction to a podcast series where the two medical doctors compare US and Danish public health policy, with a focus on the many differences in COVID-19 response and vaccination policies.

Link to Tracy Beth Høeg's X profile: https://twitter.com/TracyBethHoeg

Laure Pittet is an MD-PhD from Switzerland. Laure has investigated whether BCG vaccine against tuberculosis can protect infants against eczema (atopic dermatitis). She shares the result of an Australian randomised trial and summarises the results of three trials that now all point to a role of BCG in infants of allergic parents – and we discuss what is needed to move to policy.

I dette afsnit af ”Vaccine curious” er jeg gæst i min egen podcast. Min kommunikationsrådgiver Benjamin Elberth har placeret mig i den stol, som mine gæster normalt sidder i, og konfronterer mig nysgerrigt med den kritik, jeg har mødt i vaccinedebatten.

Mød historiker Anne Hagen Berg. Syddansk Universitet, som har skrevet PhD afhandling om, hvad der lå til grund for indførslen af paraplyvaccinen mod mæslinger, røde hunde og fåresyge i Danmark. Vi kommer også ind på, om/hvad der har ændret sig i forhold til indførslen af COVID-19 vaccinerne.

Mihai Netea, professor of experimental medicine at Radboud University, discovered that vaccines can affect the immune system in ways that alter the general defense against other infections. Here he tells the story about the surprising discovery of trained immunity, explains the mechanistic background (it can be explained very simply, using the bookmark as a metaphor), and we discuss the many potential implications and applications. 

In this episode of Vaccine Curious, anthropologist and professor of medicine Peter Aaby explains how he discovered that vaccines, in addition to their disease-specific effects, also affect the risk of other infections – and why it might have taken an anthropologist to challenge the paradigm for vaccines. 

There could be no better introduction to the English version of my podcast "Vaccine curious" than Professor Stanley Plotkin’s overview over the evolution of vaccinology. Prof. Plotkin is the ”grandfather” of vaccines – among others the inventor of several vaccines and the editor of the textbook in vaccinology.

Allan Randrup Thomsen, professor i virologi ved Rigshospitalet, forklarer om forskellen på infektioner, levende og ikke-levende vacciner, når det gælder den specifikke beskyttelse, som man opnår. Der er store og vigtige forskelle, som Allan forklarer bedre end nogen jeg kender.

Jens Lundgren, professor i infektionssygdomme ved Rigshospitalet, tager os med på en spændende fortælling om, hvordan han, ved at stille nogle simple spørgsmål til data, fik ny viden om COVID-19 behandlingen. Jeg spørger ham ud vedrørende vaccineforskningen.

Forfatter og meningsdanner Anne Sofie Allarp er kendt for klare beskeder. Hun har et nært familiemedlem, hvis formodede langvarige bivirkning efter vaccine er indberettet af egen læge. Her forventede Anne Sofie Allarp så, at samfundet stod klar til at hjælpe og lære mere, men hun blev skuffet.

Jeg har besøg af Sine Jensen, seniorrådgiver ved Forbrugerrådet TÆNK. Hun sidder blandt andet med som borgerrepræsentant, når borgeres ankesager om erstatning i forbindelse med vaccineskader behandles. Vi hører om Anni, som blev syg få timer efter sin første COVID-19 vaccine i januar 2021, og som stadig har symptomer, og vi drøfter, hvordan sundhedssystemet håndterer vaccinebivirkninger. Det korte svar: Der er rigeligt med forbedringspotentiale.

Sammen med Anders Beich, praktiserende læge og indtil for nyligt formand for Praktiserende Lægers Organisation, ser jeg nærmere på, hvad der sker, når lægen står i det spændingsfelt mellem Sundhedsstyrelsen og patienten, der opstår, når Sundhedsstyrelsen fokuserer på samfundets bedste, men lægen på borgerens bedste.

Jeg har fået besøg af Professor Thorkild Sørensen fra Københavns universitet. Han er altid god for en provokerende titel – og han har selv valgt sin egen. Svaret på spørgsmålet får du undervejs.