US National Institutes of Health launch new initiative to study “Long Covid”

Some of the initial underlying questions that this initiative hopes to answer are:

• What does the spectrum of recovery from SARS-CoV-2 infection look like across the population?
• How many people continue to have symptoms of COVID-19, or even develop new symptoms, after acute SARS-CoV-2 infection?
• What is the underlying biological cause of these prolonged symptoms?
• What makes some people vulnerable to this but not others?
• Does SARS-CoV-2 infection trigger changes in the body that increase the risk of other conditions, such as chronic heart or brain disorders?

These initial research opportunities will support a combination of ongoing and new research studies and the creation of core resources. We anticipate subsequent calls for other kinds of research, in particular opportunities focused on clinical trials to test strategies for treating long-term symptoms and promoting recovery from infection.

Read here (NIH, Feb 23, 2021)

Lancet editor spills the beans and the unfolding of a pharmaceutical scandal

‘In a videotaped interview on May 24, 2020, Dr [Philippe] Douste-Blazy provided insight into how a series of negative hydroxychloroquine studies got published in prestigious medical journals. He revealed that at a recent Chatham House top secret, closed door meeting attended by experts only, the editors of both, The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine expressed their exasperation citing the pressures put on them by pharmaceutical companies... [Douste-Blazy is a cardiologist and former French Health Minister who served as Under-Secretary General of the United Nations. He was a candidate in 2017 for Director of the World Health Organization]

‘The alarming findings and serious negative impact of the Lancet report led numerous scientists around the globe to scrutinise the report in detail. That scrutiny by legitimate, independent scientists has led to many serious questions about the integrity of the study, the authenticity of the data, and the validity of the methods the authors used... [many details are provided in this story]

Demonisation of favourable HCQ-AZ treatment studies: ‘Since publishing favourable reports about a treatment combination of two cheap, widely prescribed medicines: hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic azithromycin, as a treatment of choice against Covid-19, Dr [Didier] Raoult has become the subject of intense demonisation by the corporate-influenced medical establishment, the media, and the [sic] who resort to this tactic whenever they lack evidence or legitimate grounds to support public health policies that cause people harm.’

Read here (Health Impact News, received on June 13, 2020)

Governments and WHO changed Covid-19 policy based on suspect data from tiny US company

‘The World Health Organization and a number of national governments have changed their Covid-19 policies and treatments on the basis of flawed data from a little-known US healthcare analytics company [Surgisphere], also calling into question the integrity of key studies published in some of the world’s most prestigious medical journals [The Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine].

‘Data it claims to have legitimately obtained from more than a thousand hospitals worldwide formed the basis of scientific articles that have led to changes in Covid-19 treatment policies in Latin American countries. It was also behind a decision by the WHO and research institutes around the world to halt trials of the controversial drug hydroxychloroquine. On Wednesday, the WHO announced those trials would now resume.’

Read here (The Guardian, June 3, 2020)

Trump Administration announces framework and leadership for ‘Operation Warp Speed’

‘Operation Warp Speed [the administration's national program to accelerate the development, manufacturing, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics (medical countermeasures)] is a public-private partnership to facilitate, at an unprecedented pace, the development, manufacturing, and distribution of COVID-19 countermeasures, between components of HHS, including CDC, FDA, NIH, and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA); the Department of Defense; private firms; and other federal agencies, including the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Veterans Affairs. It will coordinate existing HHS-wide efforts, including the NIH's ACTIV partnership for vaccine and therapeutic development, NIH's RADx initiative for diagnostic development, and work by BARDA.’

Read here (HHS, US Department of Health & Human Services, May 15, 2020)

Trump’s ‘Operation Warp Speed’ aims to rush coronavirus vaccine

‘The Trump administration is organising a Manhattan Project-style effort to drastically cut the time needed to develop a coronavirus vaccine, with a goal of making enough doses for most Americans by year’s end.

‘Called “Operation Warp Speed,” the program will pull together private pharmaceutical companies, government agencies and the military to try to cut the development time for a vaccine by as much as eight months, according to two people familiar with the matter.’

Read here (Bloomberg, April 30, 2020)

US and Chinese researchers team up for hunt into Covid origins

‘Professor Ian Lipkin, director of the Centre for Infection and Immunity at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, said he was working with a team of Chinese researchers to determine whether the coronavirus emerged in other parts of China before it was first discovered in Wuhan in December. The effort relies on help from the Chinese Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).’

Read here (Financial Times, April 29, 2020)

Covid-19 — A reminder to reason

‘Thus far in the Covid-19 pandemic, we’ve observed that therapeutic management has often been initiated and altered on the basis of individual case reports and physician opinion, rather than of randomized trials. In these uncertain times, physicians fall prey to cognitive error and unconsciously rely on limited experiences, whether their own or others’, instead of scientific inquiry. We believe that physicians should be acting in concert with clinical equipoise. We should be skeptical of any purported therapeutic strategy until enough statistical evidence is gathered that would convince any “open-minded clinician informed of the results” that one treatment is superior to another.

‘We are living through an unprecedented biopsychosocial crisis; physicians must be the voice of reason and lead by example. We must reason critically and reflect on the biases that may influence our thinking processes, critically appraise evidence in deciding how to treat patients, and use anecdotal observations only to generate hypotheses for trials that can be conducted with clinical equipoise. We must act swiftly but carefully, with caution and reason.’

Read here (New England Journal of Medicine, April 28, 2020)