Reflecting their baseless antagonism towards COVID vaccines, the state's legislature, governor, and attorney general have made decisions that will have deadly consequences for many Texans.
COVID vaccines
A retired psychologist attacked an article of mine about deranged Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo's views of public health policies toward the COVID-19 pandemic. His assertions ranged from the preposterous to the merely inaccurate.
Jerry Rogers, the editor of both RealClearHealth.com and RealClearPolicy.com, moderated a discussion with several experts [1], including me, on various aspects of vaccines.
In order to accurately capture the nuance of an article, especially those about scientific and medical matters, headline writers and editors should read the piece before composing a headline.
Why are some people fully protected by vaccination, or infection-acquired immunity to COVID, when others are not? Does the fault lie with the vaccines? Do some individuals mount a more robust immune response? A new study provides an answer that lies in between those choices and gives me a chance to write about the power and limitations of metaphors.
Two bills – one in Idaho, the other in the U.S. Senate – defy science, logic, and civic responsibility. The first would criminalize the administration of life-saving mRNA vaccines, while the second would ban mask mandates.
Even as we find ourselves in a new wave of COVID-19, the politicizers and minimizers of the pandemic won't let up. They continue to spread disinformation about both the effectiveness and safety of masks.
Original Antigenic Sin (OAS) is the “tendency of individuals exposed to a given strain of influenza to respond with antibodies that react more strongly to the first strain of influenza they had met in early childhood than to the exposure strain itself.” A new study in Nature tries to unravel the reason for that propensity and tells us something about vaccines and boosters.
It’s now been established that vaccination may be the last best hope of stemming the tide of increasing COVID-19 infections. We are currently in the 5th round of vaccinations, all of which performed as expected in the laboratory, hence their FDA certifications. However, vaccine effectiveness in the field depends on human elements that are not controllable in a free society.
Every day of the week, surgeons stand before their peers to discuss and explain the most recent bad outcomes. It is part of our training and our work. As we continue to discuss and explain the public health, behavioral, and political choices during the pandemic, those weekly surgical conversations about morbidity and mortality can give us some insight into how we respond to what went right and what went wrong.
Both mRNA vaccines target COVID-19’s spike, involve two doses, at least currently, and have been widely effective. That hasn’t stopped inquiring minds from wondering whether there are some head-to-head differences in the real world.
As of today, people who are immunocompromised are allowed to receive a booster shot. Sounds simple, right? That is, until the madness becomes evident.