fosborb posted:

spike protein in novavax comes from moth cells

Whoolighams posted:

"But current vaccines will only protect against all infections for about three months"

is there any reason to believe this is even closer to true

Steve Yun posted:

Pingui posted:

Article casually dissuading people from getting a booster.

Whoolighams posted:

"But current vaccines will only protect against all infections for about three months"

is there any reason to believe this is even close to true

Whoolighams posted:

"But current vaccines will only protect against all infections for about three months"

is there any reason to believe this is even close to true

genericnick posted:

The expert is Monica Gandhi again, right?

Pingui posted:

lmao, imagine someone getting paid to make this assessment.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/pfizer-ceo-expects-17-americans-will-get-new-covid-shots-2023-10-16/ posted:

Pfizer CEO expects 17% of Americans will get new COVID shots

Pingui posted:

Remembering that the likelihood of getting COVID went up the two weeks post vaccination, I think a bunch of people got straight up COVID at the mass vaccination sites.

Edit: Which in the lighter cases could have been perceived as vaccine side effects.

Bruce Hussein Daddy posted:

Feeling my very large mothy titers right now.

Also, that was my first time in a Costco

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(23)01034-6 posted:

Highlights
• Long COVID is associated with reduced circulating serotonin levels
• Serotonin depletion is driven by viral RNA-induced type I interferons (IFNs)
• IFNs reduce serotonin through diminished tryptophan uptake and hypercoagulability
• Peripheral serotonin deficiency impairs cognition via reduced vagal signaling

Summary
Post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC, “Long COVID”) pose a significant global health challenge. The pathophysiology is unknown, and no effective treatments have been found to date. Several hypotheses have been formulated to explain the etiology of PASC, including viral persistence, chronic inflammation, hypercoagulability, and autonomic dysfunction. Here, we propose a mechanism that links all four hypotheses in a single pathway and provides actionable insights for therapeutic interventions. We find that PASC are associated with serotonin reduction. Viral infection and type I interferon-driven inflammation reduce serotonin through three mechanisms: diminished intestinal absorption of the serotonin precursor tryptophan; platelet hyperactivation and thrombocytopenia, which impacts serotonin storage; and enhanced MAO-mediated serotonin turnover. Peripheral serotonin reduction, in turn, impedes the activity of the vagus nerve and thereby impairs hippocampal responses and memory. These findings provide a possible explanation for neurocognitive symptoms associated with viral persistence in Long COVID, which may extend to other post-viral syndromes.

Graphical abstract

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/16/health/long-covid-serotonin.html posted:

Scientists Offer a New Explanation for Long Covid
In some patients, remnants of the coronavirus in the gut may stifle production of serotonin, an important neurotransmitter, researchers suggest.
(..)
In their study, published on Monday in the journal Cell, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania suggest that serotonin reduction is triggered by remnants of the virus lingering in the gut. Depleted serotonin could especially explain memory problems and some neurological and cognitive symptoms of long Covid, they say.

Why It Matters: New ways to diagnose and treat long Covid.
This is one of several new studies documenting distinct biological changes in the bodies of people with long Covid — offering important discoveries for a condition that takes many forms and often does not register on standard diagnostic tools like X-rays.

The research could point the way toward possible treatments, including medications that boost serotonin. And the authors said the biological pathway that their research outlines could unite many of the major theories of what causes long Covid: lingering remnants of the virus, inflammation, increased blood clotting and dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system.

“All these different hypotheses might be connected through the serotonin pathway,” said Christoph Thaiss, a lead author of the study and an assistant professor of microbiology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

“Second of all, even if not everybody experiences difficulties in the serotonin pathway, at least a subset might respond to therapies that activate this pathway,” he said.
(..)
Maayan Levy, a lead author and assistant professor of microbiology at the Perelman School of Medicine, said levels of serotonin and other metabolites were altered right after a coronavirus infection, something that also happens immediately after other viral infections.

But in people with long Covid, serotonin was the only significant molecule that did not recover to pre-infection levels, she said.

The team analyzed stool samples from some of the long Covid patients and found that they contained remaining viral particles. Putting the findings in patients together with research on mice and miniature models of the human gut, where most serotonin is produced, the team identified a pathway that could underlie some cases of long Covid.

Here’s the idea: Viral remnants prompt the immune system to produce infection-fighting proteins called interferons. Interferons cause inflammation that reduces the body’s ability to absorb tryptophan, an amino acid that helps produce serotonin in the gut. Blood clots that can form after a coronavirus infection may impair the body’s ability to circulate serotonin.

Depleted serotonin disrupts the vagus nerve system, which transmits signals between the body and the brain, the researchers said. Serotonin plays a role in short-term memory, and the researchers proposed that depleted serotonin could lead to memory problems and other cognitive issues that many people with long Covid experience.

“They showed that one-two-three punch to the serotonin pathway then leads to vagal nerve dysfunction and memory impairment,” Dr. Iwasaki said.

There are caveats. The study was not large, so the findings need to be confirmed with other research. Participants in some other long Covid studies, in which some patients had milder symptoms, did not always show depleted serotonin, a result that Dr. Levy said might indicate that depletion happened only in people whose long Covid involves multiple serious symptoms.

What’s Next: A clinical trial of Prozac.
(..)
There is tremendous need for effective ways to treat long Covid, and clinical trials of several treatments are underway. Dr. Levy and Dr. Thaiss said they would be starting a clinical trial to test fluoxetine, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor often marketed as Prozac, and possibly also tryptophan.

“If we supplement serotonin or prevent the degradation of serotonin, maybe we can restore some of the vagal signals and improve memory and cognition and so on,” Dr. Levy said.

Real Mean Queen posted:

I saw a loving buuuuuunch of people making post-vaccination plans for the hours or minutes following the first and second shots, I bet that’s in there too.
(..)

Pingui posted:

Update:

Petey posted:

18 hours after moth juice and i am tired and a bit nauseated, but not nearly as bad as i was after the first 3.

Steve Yun posted:

https://twitter.com/nateb_panic/status/1713932159487033367?s=46

Gunshow Poophole posted:

i am not speculating about this public figure

https://x.com/kprather88/status/1714085573739041119?s=20

I'm laughing, actually

Bruce Hussein Daddy posted:

Also, that was my first time in a Costco

Petey posted:

18 hours after moth juice and i am tired and a bit nauseated, but not nearly as bad as i was after the first 3.

BusError posted:

Same, and holy poo poo.

maxwellhill posted:

bunker busting infection

maxwellhill posted:

Day 1, head pain so extreme I couldn't sleep. Day 2, ditto but it's my throat. NOT MILD

maxwellhill posted:

In some profoundly unlucky way, I am COVID positive. I made it 4 years all the way until 10/15/23 before breaking my streak and losing this game in the most limp dicked way possible -- while bunkering -- after a busy year of masterfully dodging it on crowded transportation, in crowded public buildings, shared cars, numerous medical visits, etc.

Possible exposure routes:
[list]
[*](Most likely IMO) A grocery trip on Oct 10th in a P100. Lingered in aisles extra long unable to find stuff, trying not to narrowly follow where coughing kids/adults had been, which were numerous. Thing is, I wore a P100 and airtight eye protection. I was as sure as ever of the seal of both, and this STILL is the most likely route -- a stealth P100 leak. I even sprayed nose + throat with strong neutral HOCl when I got home to kill anything that got past before it could replicate, and this is STILL the most likely vector.

[*]On the same trip on the 10th, unmasking in a huge empty field with over ~100ft social distancing to other hikers, open visibility in all directions. Dry sunny air. If there was someone heading upwind I donned. I biked to get there in a P100.


I was not re-boosted in over a year due to bad reactions. I was about to grab Novavax XBB this week. Shouldn't have held out. Probably my biggest mistake other than being so unlucky that it catches me by the skin of its teeth.

Day 1, head pain so extreme I couldn't sleep. Day 2, ditto but it's my throat. NOT MILD

Petey posted:

good lord. this is definitely the most hermetically sealed infection story i have heard. i'm sorry, and i hope it passes quickly.

Baddog posted:

2 (3?) years now

maxwellhill posted:

(Most likely IMO) A grocery trip on Oct 10th in a P100. Lingered in aisles extra long unable to find stuff, trying not to narrowly follow where coughing kids/adults had been, which were numerous. Thing is, I wore a P100 and airtight eye protection. I was as sure as ever of the seal of both, and this STILL is the most likely route -- a stealth P100 leak. I even sprayed nose + throat with strong neutral HOCl when I got home to kill anything that got past before it could replicate, and this is STILL the most likely vector.

quote:

Apartment air leakage. Mine is a single floor house, sharing only one wall with a neighbor, along the kitchen and bathroom. It would have to be a very slow seepage. I count it as more possible because I could hear someone sneezing as they went in and out this week one day. That was by my outside double door which seals pretty well, and I cranked up the huge corsi by the door on high for the rest of the day.

Petey posted:

did you know that if you are a costco member, and you start your own company or are self-employed, you can buy into costco's (excellent) health insurance and use it for your company/self, often at better deals than on the obamacare marketplace? https://www.costco.com/health-insurance-marketplace.html

maxwellhill posted:

In some profoundly unlucky way, I am COVID positive. I made it 4 years all the way until 10/15/23 before breaking my streak and losing this game in the most limp dicked way possible -- while bunkering -- after a busy year of masterfully dodging it on crowded transportation, in crowded public buildings, shared cars, numerous medical visits, etc.

Possible exposure routes:

• (Most likely IMO) A grocery trip on Oct 10th in a P100. Lingered in aisles extra long unable to find stuff, trying not to narrowly follow where coughing kids/adults had been, which were numerous. Thing is, I wore a P100 and airtight eye protection. I was as sure as ever of the seal of both, and this STILL is the most likely route -- a stealth P100 leak. I even sprayed nose + throat with strong neutral HOCl when I got home to kill anything that got past before it could replicate, and this is STILL the most likely vector.
  
  
• On the same trip on the 10th, unmasking in a huge empty field with over ~100ft social distancing to other hikers, open visibility in all directions. Dry sunny air. If there was someone heading upwind I donned. I biked to get there in a P100.
  
  
• On Oct 7th I had a fleeting interaction talking over a fence at a person who had a cough when we were apart. Outside in a P100.
  
  
• Feeding feral cats outside in a P100. Besides the two dates above, cats were my only exception from isolation. Several days ago, one of them barged inside for a moment and sneezed at me to feed them faster, into my house air. I cranked up the corsi box and made the front room a wind tunnel, avoided it, and kept the p100 on several extra minutes.
  
  
• Apartment air leakage. Mine is a single floor house, sharing only one wall with a neighbor, along the kitchen and bathroom. It would have to be a very slow seepage. I count it as more possible because I could hear someone sneezing as they went in and out this week one day. That was by my outside double door which seals pretty well, and I cranked up the huge corsi by the door on high for the rest of the day.
  
  
• A possibility involving very long incubation times. On Oct 1st I had a quick chat outside with a neighbor in a P100. Sept 29th was my previous major trip out, similar to my grocery trip on the 10th, no worse. The 28th, chilling with neighbor outside in a P100. I've accounted for every exposure going back to Sept 25th.
  
  
• Some freak occurrence like an undetected sewage gas bubble, a secret bio attack, food that stayed infectious for several days in the fridge, etc.
  

Starting on the 15th, I developed a painful swollen tonsil in my sleep, pushed through the day since that's not unusual for me, then that night noticed a sudden onset headache which IS unusual for me. I also noticed my arm felt sore in a way that reminded me of post-vaccine. That gave me a hunch to test.

I cackled when I glanced back at the test and saw a single DARK black line, because it was not the C line (that hadn't even faded in yet), and it was just so thoroughly unexpected given recent inactivity and such a vague hunch. Soon after, a lot more symptoms started up (sickly tingling, worse headache, nausea, sinuses, eventually coughing and diarrhea). I was on pax before the 15 minutes was up for the test. Another test the following morning did the same instant black T line. I think it further points toward the 10th as a likely infection date, allowing 5 full days for the line to get that dark, because apparently by then I was CONTAGIOUS, extremely so already.

I was not re-boosted in over a year due to bad reactions. I was about to grab Novavax XBB this week. Shouldn't have held out. Probably my biggest mistake other than being so unlucky that it catches me by the skin of its teeth.

Day 1, head pain so extreme I couldn't sleep. Day 2, ditto but it's my throat. NOT MILD

bizwank posted:

Your company has to have at least one eligible employee who isn't an owner nor spouse of an owner to qualify for this plan. This unfortunately rules out a lot of self-employed people/couples, like myself.

Baddog posted:

Huh. Kind of a derail, but what about if I "employ" my kid? Would be a pain in the rear end to start doing payroll and whatnot, but if we lose health insurance....

Baddog posted:

Huh. Kind of a derail, but what about if I "employ" my kid? Would be a pain in the rear end to start doing payroll and whatnot, but if we lose health insurance....