As I noted earlier, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the global pandemic emergency over.
Demand for the vaccine has plummeted, so firms are beginning to look for new profit opportunities.
Germany’s BioNTech, Pfizer’s partner on COVID-19 vaccines, said on Monday its first-quarter net income plunged on lower demand for the shots as it widens its work on cancer and other diseases.BioNTech, which reported it had built up an 18.6 billion euro ($20.55 billion) balance of cash and receivables at the end of March, has pursued a string of takeovers and alliance deals to broaden its work on cancer treatments.The company, which is also working on other vaccines against infections such as tuberculosis and shingles, said its quarterly net profit dropped to 502 million euros, down from 3.7 billion euros a year earlier, as COVID-19 vaccine demand plunged.
The chart from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows the demand for the shots in the US has completely cratered.
Meanwhile, Yale researchers have identified the reason for the cases of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart) reported in some young men after they received the covid vaccine.
After running a series of tests, Yale scientists discovered myocarditis may likely be caused by an overreaction from the body’s natural immune system — and not from antibodies induced by COVID-19 vaccines, according to the study published Friday in Science Immunology.Experts say the findings not only provide a clearer picture of how a small number of people react to the vaccine, but it can also help future research into who might develop the condition and more targeted therapies….While severe cases can damage the heart and cause heart failure, cases of COVID vaccine-related myocarditis have typically been mild in nature, said Dr. Donald Lloyd-Jones, former president of the American Heart Association and Eileen M. Foell professor of heart research at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.”While we can see over time some scar tissue form in the heart, we can see that people can get back to doing what they do, like getting back to sports” within a month, he said.
The study was published in the journal Science Immunology.
The study was based on 23 patients ages 13 to 21 who developed myocarditis after their second dose of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine. An analysis of blood samples from nine of these patients — all of whom had gotten Pfizer — found elevated cytokine levels.Cytokines help coordinate the body’s immune response to pathogens, including bacteria, viruses and other invading microbes, as well as vaccines. But at too high levels, cytokines can trigger a rapid expansion of white blood cells that are capable of causing inflammation.That’s what appears to be happening in some young men who develop myocarditis or pericarditis — two types of heart inflammation — after getting the Covid vaccine.“It’s a little bit of a double-edged sword,” said senior study author Carrie Lucas, an associate professor of immunobiology at Yale University School of Medicine. The vaccinated individuals mount a strong immune response, she said, but that response is also causing “cells to overreact and cause tissue inflammation.”
In January 2022, an article published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) concluded:
Based on passive surveillance reporting in the US, the risk of myocarditis after receiving mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines was increased across multiple age and sex strata and was highest after the second vaccination dose in adolescent males and young men. This risk should be considered in the context of the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination.
Many people have weighed the risk to reward and opted not to take more shots.
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