Saving the Children
The CDC & FDA unanimously approved the new omicron specific boosters for use in children aged five to twelve, going beyond what even the Moderna CEO is recommending. This created a lot of uproar in certain circles, but it should come as no surprise. Anyone who would have thought differently or had concerns about the risk benefit of the vaccines was long ago pushed out. Even with the first round of vaccines the push to market them to children has been dumbfounding. The reason children do not have the same problems with covid is well known and has been for some time. A recent analysis has even confirmed this by reporting that the fatality rate for ages 0-19 from the original Wuhan strain was 0.0003%
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The virus binds to the ACE2 receptor to gain access into the cell. It binds so well to this receptor it is as if thousands of generations of virus were screened and selected for such a result. Perhaps Mother nature hit the lottery several times in a row to achieve this evolutionary advantage, but it is far more likely that human tinkering is the culprit. Call it viral research, gene amplification, bioterrorism, or the search for future cures. The end result is the same with viruses making incredible evolutionary leaps that while theoretically possible in nature are incredibly unlikely. Meanwhile the risk of an accidental release outweighs the potential benefits of this research.
Whatever the original source, the reality is we have a novel coronavirus that sticks to the ACE2 receptor like super glue. This is incredibly unfortunate for the elderly and the obese who have greater expression of the enzyme and thus a greater chance of infection. It is a blessing from God however that children simply do not express this enzyme to the same extent as their parents. Therefore, they contract the virus less often and if they do the cases are mild or asymptomatic. This is not new information, but it may seem that way since it is rarely discussed. Despite that fact fear mongering, intimidation and outright lies have been used to market an unlicensed product to the population least likely to receive a benefit. Call me old fashioned but I believe pharmaceutical intervention in children especially needs to have a clear and demonstrable benefit which I have not seen.
Speaking of children, however we do currently have an issue with RSV in children. Emergency room and urgent care visits have shown a recent spike in these diagnoses. The chart below is for Virginia, but other states are seeing a sharp increase as well. Some have argued that this is due to a lingering immunity gap left over from the lockdowns. Human isolation is known to have a negative effect on the immune system and the theory is that these children and potentially their mothers never had the opportunity to build immunity to these common pathogens; and the bill is now coming due.
If that were the case, I would expect to see some discrepancy between the states that locked down differently. Texas and California are about as opposite as can be when it comes to lock down policy, but they are both seeing the same increased caseload. The graphs for New York and Florida also look remarkably similar. Whatever is happening here appears to be across the board despite differences in lockdown policy or vaccination. This early spike of RSV is a foreboding sign as we head into the fall with flu season around the corner and covid is going nowhere soon. The press is referring to this convergence as a "tridemic".
That thought reminded me of an opinion article posted yesterday to the Washington Post saying it is time to push for an RSV vaccine for children. They are truly prescient because Moderna just so happens to have a new mRNA RSV vaccine in development. If you are feeling frisky and over 60 you can sign up for the trial here https://conquerrsv.com/.
MRNA technology is the latest and greatest tool, and the pharmaceutical industry is planning to use it extensively for anything they can get away with. A recent BBC interview features the founders of BioNTech publicizing the technology as a cure for cancer by 2030. We have a long way to go before we are at that point, but the following statement made during the interview is very telling.
Türeci told Kuenssberg that BioNTech had learned how to manufacture mRNA vaccines faster during the pandemic and had a better understanding of how people’s immune systems responded to mRNA. The intense development and rapid rollout of the Covid shot had also helped medicines regulators work out how to approve the vaccines. “This will definitely accelerate also our cancer vaccine,”
I am certainly glad that the process of making these products has advanced our understanding of them, better late than never but the kicker here is the line about figuring out how to get it approved. There is of course the old-fashioned way of obtaining approval by proving it is safe and effective but that takes forever and there is no guarantee you will even make it to market. Daily cancer deaths dwarf covid deaths so the argument for an emergency use authorization practically makes itself. President Pfizer has been promising a moonshot to cure cancer for a while now and he may be closer than he is aware.
Jacob Hyatt Pharm D.
Father of three, Husband, Pharmacist, Realtor, Landlord, Independent Health, and Medicine Reporter
https://substack.com/discover/pharmacoconuts
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Further Reading and References
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/oct/16/vaccines-to-treat-cancer-possible-by-2030-say-biontech-founders
https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(22)01277-6/fulltext
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02046-8/fulltext
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32496587/
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/closer-look-covid-mortality-rate
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33168188/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7461228/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34735717/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9277324/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35992140/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36209167/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/27/rsv-surge-pediatric-vaccine/
