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Publications

SARS-CoV-2 elicits robust adaptive immune responses regardless of disease severity – Science Direct

We report broad serological profiles within the cohort, detecting antibody binding to other human coronaviruses. 202(>99%) participants had SARS-CoV-2 specific antibodies, with SARS-CoV-2 neutralization and spike-ACE2 receptor interaction blocking observed in 193(95%) individuals. A significant positive correlation (r=0.7804) between spike-ACE2 blocking antibody titers and neutralization potency was observed. Further, SARS-CoV-2 specific CD8+ T-cell responses were clear and quantifiable in 95 of 106(90%) HLA-A2+ individuals.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352396421002036

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Opinion

Letting children catch Covid may be safer than giving them vaccine, say experts – The Telegraph

Professor Robert Dingwall said children may be “better protected by natural immunity generated through infection than by asking them to take the ‘possible’ risk of a vaccine”.

…On Wednesday, Prof Dingwall, a social scientist who sits on a subcommittee of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) as well as on the JCVI, spoke out, saying the “risk/benefit for teenagers must be firmly established” before any decisions were taken. 

In a detailed Twitter thread, he said: “Teenagers are at intrinsically low risk from Covid. Vaccines must be exceptionally safe to beat this. Given the low risk of Covid for most teenagers, it is not immoral to think that they may be better protected by natural immunity generated through infection than by asking them to take the possible risk of a vaccine.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/30/letting-children-catch-covid-may-safer-exposing-vaccine-risk/

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News

The lockdown fanatics are moving on to climate change – Spiked

In truth, it’s very difficult to ‘hold governments, companies and international bodies’ to account on climate change. The public have been given no vote on climate-change policies, and no political party has offered criticism of climate-change alarmism. Certainly don’t expect any real criticism to come from CCAG.

But then perhaps that is the point of Indie SAGE or CCAG – not to hold power to account, but to prevent the technocratic apparatus from being properly held to account. For there is nothing fear-mongering technocrats like King fear more than democracy – because it threatens to take away the power granted to them by endless emergencies, be they Covid or climate change.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/06/29/the-lockdown-fanatics-are-moving-on-to-climate-change/

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News

‘Remorseless’ build-up of Covid hospital patients simply hasn’t happened – The Telegraph

Admissions have failed to sky-rocket – and it’s time ministers took their own advice about learning to live with the virus

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/28/remorseless-build-up-covid-hospital-patients-simply-hasnt-happened/

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News

Family heartbroken as mum-of-three dies after receiving AstraZeneca Covid vaccine – The Express

Lucy Taberer, 47, tragically died after suffering a rare reaction to the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine. After her vaccination, the mum-of-three from Leicester developed blood clots on the brain which is believed to have sparked a massive stroke. Her family said they did not want to put people off vaccinations but wanted to raise awareness so people can spot danger signs.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1455438/covid-vaccine-mum-dies-astrazeneca-leicester

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News

CDC links Pfizer Covid vaccine to heart inflammation – latest update and symptoms to spot – The Express

THE CENTERS for Disease Control and Prevention’s safety committee has provided an update on the association between Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines and heart inflammation.

On 23 June the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s safety committee said there was a “likely association” between the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines and myocarditis (the medical term for heart inflammation) and pericarditis (inflammation of the tissue that surrounds the heart) in some young adults. The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices said there was a higher than expected number of reports of heart inflammation in people aged 16-24 who had received the mRNA vaccines but that the benefits of vaccination still clearly outweighed the risks.

https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1454457/pfizer-vaccine-side-effects-moderna-heart-inflammation-shortness-of-breath

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News

Drug firms giving MPs ‘hidden’ funding, research shows – The Guardian

Drug companies are giving groups of MPs and peers that campaign on health issues hundreds of thousands of pounds a year in “hidden” funding that could hand them “undue influence”, research has found.

The pharmaceutical industry has built up a “hidden web of policy influence” over dozens of all-party parliamentary groups (APPGs) at Westminster by making hundreds of “non-transparent” payments to them, as part of the industry’s wider effort to lobby those in power, researchers claim.

…[R]esearch found:
16 health-related APPGs received 168 payments from 35 drug firms worth £1.2m in 2012-18 – one-sixth of their total funding

Two APPGs, on health and cancer, accepted more than £600,000 in that time

50 health-focused APPGs received almost another £1m in 304 payments from patient organisations or health charities, which themselves take sums of money from big pharma

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/25/drug-firms-giving-mps-hidden-funding-research-shows

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Opinion

Continued mask wearing won’t help us return to normal – The Critic

Masks act as a crude reminder that danger is all around, that we are all potential biohazards. So, on a common-sense level, continued wearing of them will exacerbate anxieties rather than reduce them. But there is another, less obvious reason why the continued use of face coverings is counterproductive as a means of promoting confidence and encouraging people to return to normality: masks will act as a “safety behaviour” that will prevent disconfirmation of anxious beliefs.

https://thecritic.co.uk/continued-mask-wearing-wont-help-us-return-to-normal/

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Alternative Media Opinion

A “Leap” toward Humanity’s Destruction – Unlimited Hangout

The world’s richest medical research foundation, the Wellcome Trust, has teamed up with a pair of former DARPA directors who built Silicon Valley’s skunkworks to usher in an age of nightmarish surveillance, including for babies as young as three months old. Their agenda can only advance if we allow it.

https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/06/investigative-reports/a-leap-toward-humanitys-destruction/

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News

Dignity unveils turnaround plan as profits hit by falling death rate – Independent

Funeral firm Dignity said profits have fallen amid a marked drop in UK deaths since April as the group’s new boss outlined his turnaround plans.

The group said that following a 27% surge in first quarter deaths to 204,000 during a Covid-hit start to the year, the number of deaths fell below the five-year average in April and May and were 7% lower.

This has left underlying operating profits “slightly” lower year-on-year at £30.7 million for the 21 weeks to May 21, according to Dignity.

https://www.independent.co.uk/business/dignity-unveils-turnaround-plan-as-profits-hit-by-falling-death-rate-b1871236.html

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News

Covid: Ivermectin to be studied as possible treatment in UK – BBC News

University of Oxford scientists are trialling giving Ivermectin to over-50s with Covid symptoms to see if it can keep them out of hospital.

http://archive.today/2021.06.23-080235/https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57570377

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News

Flu and pneumonia deaths now 10 times higher than Covid – The Telegraph

The number of people dying with flu and pneumonia on their death certificate in England and Wales is now 10 times higher than those with Covid, figures show.

The latest weekly data on deaths from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that there were 84 deaths mentioning Covid in the week ending June 11. There were 1,163 involving flu and pneumonia.

Registered Covid deaths fell by 14 per cent since the last update, in the week ending June 4, when 98 deaths were recorded.

Covid deaths now make up just 0.8 per cent of all deaths – down from 1.3 per cent in the previous week, despite the fact that week included the late May bank holiday, meaning there were fewer death registrations.

…The figures are much lower than would usually be expected for respiratory disease at this time of year. The five-year average for deaths involving flu and pneumonia in the same week is 1,704.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/22/flu-pneumonia-deaths-now-ten-times-higher-covid/

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Publications

The Safety of COVID-19 Vaccinations—We Should Rethink the Policy – MDPI

Conclusions: This lack of clear benefit should cause governments to rethink their vaccination policy.

The present assessment raises the question whether it would be necessary to rethink policies and use COVID-19 vaccines more sparingly and with some discretion only in those that are willing to accept the risk because they feel more at risk from the true infection than the mock infection. Perhaps it might be necessary to dampen the enthusiasm by sober facts? In our view, the EMA and national authorities should instigate a safety review into the safety database of COVID-19 vaccines and governments should carefully consider their policies in light of these data. Ideally, independent scientists should carry out thorough case reviews of the very severe cases, so that there can be evidence-based recommendations on who is likely to benefit from a SARS-CoV2 vaccination and who is in danger of suffering from side effects. Currently, our estimates show that we have to accept four fatal and 16 serious side effects per 100,000 vaccinations in order to save the lives of 2–11 individuals per 100,000 vaccinations, placing risks and benefits on the same order of magnitude.

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/9/7/693/htm

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Opinion

Flawed modelling is condemning Britain to lockdown – The Telegraph

As Sarah Knapton has revealed in these pages, the brutal postponement of Freedom Day coincided with the release of a bunch of alarmist models predicting a huge new wave of deaths. The most pessimistic, inevitably from Imperial College, forecast 203,824 deaths over the next year. It did so by assuming just a 77-87 per cent reduction in hospitalisations following two vaccinations, despite the fact that real world data shows two vaccinations to be between 92 per cent (AstraZeneca) and 96 per cent (Pfizer) effective in preventing hospitalisation. That would cut the Imperial forecast of deaths by a gob-smacking 90 per cent to 26,854.

This keeps happening. In April the modellers assumed a 30 per cent effectiveness for the vaccine at preventing the spread of the virus. This was described as “a pessimistic view – but it is plausible, it’s not extreme”, by Professor Graham Medley, chairman of the SPI-M sub-group of Sage. It turns out it was far from plausible. At the end of March the BBC’s favourite modeller, Imperial College’s Neil Ferguson, was forecasting that by June 21, even with “optimistic” assumptions, less than half of Britain would be protected against severe disease by vaccination. The true figure is over 80 per cent.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/21/flawed-modelling-condemning-britain-lockdown/

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News

Covid outbreak at Kenwyn Care Home where every resident is fully vaccinated – Cornwall Live

A coronavirus outbreak has hit a Cornish nursing home where almost everyone has been given both doses of a Covid vaccine.

Kenwyn Care Home in Truro is closed to visitors after an unspecified number of positive tests for the virus among staff and residents.

At the care home, 100 per cent of residents and 94 per cent of staff have been given both doses of a coronavirus vaccine, according to the home.

https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/covid-outbreak-kenwyn-care-home-5556416

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Publications

FDA Approves First Oral Blood Thinning Medication for Children – FDA

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Pradaxa (dabigatran etexilate) oral pellets to treat children 3 months to less than 12 years old with venous thromboembolism (a condition where blood clots form in the veins) directly after they have been treated with a blood thinner given by injection for at least five days. The FDA also approved Pradaxa oral pellets to prevent recurrent clots among patients 3 months to less than 12 years old who completed treatment for their first venous thromboembolism.

http://archive.today/2021.11.03-234924/https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-oral-blood-thinning-medication-children

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News

Flu could be ‘bigger problem’ than Covid this winter, warns JCVI deputy chairman – The Telegraph

Flu could be a “bigger problem” than Covid-19 this winter, the deputy chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has warned.

Professor Anthony Harnden told BBC 4’s Today programme: “I will emphasise that actually flu could be potentially a bigger problem this winter than Covid.

“We’ve had a very, very low prevalence of flu for the last few years, particularly virtually nil during lockdown, and we do know that when flu has been circulating in very low numbers immunity drops in the population, and it comes back to bite us. So, flu can be really, really important this winter.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/21/flu-could-bigger-problem-covid-winter-says-jcvi-deputy-chairman/

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News

Kids, Covid and Delta – The New York Times

This evidence suggests that serious versions of Covid will continue to be extremely rare in children.

As you can see here, some common activities — and several other diseases — have caused significantly more childhood deaths than Covid has:

http://archive.today/2021.06.18-131244/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/18/briefing/kids-covid-and-delta.html

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News

Food shortages now ‘inevitable’ due to labour crisis, industry warns – The Grocer

Worsening supermarket food shortages are now “inevitable” in the coming weeks as labour shortages across the food supply chain approach crunch point, the sector has warned.

Chronic driver shortages have been compounded by shortfalls across other low-paid sectors including harvesting, manufacturing and packaging, and the supply chain is creaking under the pressure.

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/supermarkets/food-shortages-now-inevitable-due-to-labour-crisis-industry-warns/657227.article

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News

Exclusive: Hundreds Of Police Officers Accused Of Abusing Powers For Sexual Gain – PoliticsHome

Hundreds of police officers are referred to the official police watchdog every year for abusing their powers for sexual gain, according to exclusive figures obtained by PoliticsHome.

Data from the Independent Office for Police Conduct shows that the highest level of corruption referrals this year were concerning police officers engaging in inappropriate sexual contact with often vulnerable members of the public. 

https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/hundreds-of-police-officers-accused-of-abusing-powers-for-sexual-gain