Sunday, October 29, 2023
Saturday, October 21, 2023
Leishmaniasis: Sand fly infection
From unscreened migrants?
Another potentially life-threatening form of the disease, visceral leishmaniasis, affects the spleen, liver and bone marrow, and a new study suggests this form may be gaining a foothold in U.S. sand flies when they feed on infected dogs brought into the country by well-meaning dog rescue organizations.
the dogs are rescued from Turkey by animal lovers and then placed in other countries.
hmm... wonder how many of them have rabies?
and right on cue, this expert blames global warming.
"As our weather gets more erratic and the planet as a whole gets warmer and wetter, it becomes a much better place for these bugs to live and create disease," said study author Christine Petersen, director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the University of Iowa. "We need to up our game and remember these tropical diseases aren't going to be so tropical anymore due to global warming," she added.
uh, malaria was rampant in Europe and in much of the USA in the past. And of course, yellow fever epidemics killed thousands, not just in the Missisipi delta but upstream, and don't forget the epidemic of Philadelphia in 1790.
Yellow fever is endemic in Brazil, and an epidemic in Angola spread to China via their workers in that country.
article here....ironically yellow fever was not reported in China in the past LINK...NATURE WONDERS WHY
The reasons explaining this absence (e.g., transmission barrier resulting from low compatibility between mosquito and virus genotypes2,3, limited duration and low viraemia in humans, absence of a sylvatic cycle4,5, competition with well-established flaviviruses as dengue and Japanese encephalitis viruses6) are still poorly explored, making the possibility of an epidemic unpredictable.
actually other studies doubt that part about mosquitoes.
back to leishmaniasis.
How is it controlled?
the treatment varies (partly because there are different versions of the disease and parasite. And also because of drug resistance. CDC Page here.
I am familiar with many of these drugs because we use them against fungus infections.
They have few side effects, except for the main one for serious disease: Amphotericin B.
One parenteral agent, liposomal amphotericin B (AmBisome®), which is administered by IV infusion, is FDA-approved for treatment of visceral leishmaniasis (the approved indications do not include cutaneous or mucosal leishmaniasis). This approval for visceral leishmaniasis dates back to 1997.
I used that on a patient who had cerebral blastomycosis (a disease that usually infects dogs but we had a few cases in the north woods of Minnesota). That drug is toxic: The patient with recurrant cerebral blastomycosis had to be treated with IV Amphotericin, and it destroyed his kidneys, and shortly after we stopped treatment because his kidneys were failing, he died of a stroke from high blood pressure from his bad kidneys. Sigh.
Among American troops serving in Iraq, 653 cases of cutaneous and 2 cases of visceral leishmaniasis were reported by the end of March 2004. According to the U.S. sources, the number of infected American soldiers could have been higher, from 750 to 1250 or even more, what made up to nearly 1% of U.S. troops serving in Iraq in 2003-2004.
Sand flies are usually found in small pockets around rodent burrows, and are not spread evenly across sites. They typically bite at night while people are sleeping, and the bites are not found until the following day. Sand fly bites can quickly become numerous, painful, and very distracting (see photo to right). Follow these precautions to help prevent sand fly bites that can lead to leishmaniasis and other diseases such as sand fly fever: • Limit outdoor activity between dusk and dawn when sand flies are most active. Avoid sleeping in the open. If possible, personnel should sleep in sealed, air-conditioned buildings or tents, or employ window screens or other barriers to help keep sand flies from entering. However, since sand flies are much smaller than mosquitoes (approximately one-third the size), they can oftentimes work their way through standard window screens (16-18 mesh/in2 ) and even standard military bed netting (25-27 mesh/in2 ). • Sand flies bite both indoors and outdoors. Although generally nocturnnocturnal, they can also feed during the day. Personal protective measures should be used at all times. • Use the DoD Insect Repellent System for maximum protection from sand fly bites. This system incorporates a properly worn, permethrin-treated uniform; DEET, picaridin, or IR3535 repellent on exposed skin; and sleeping inside a permethrin-treated bed net. To keep sand flies on the outside of your clothing, tuck pant legs inside boots, and fasten your cuffs snuggly at the wrist.
hmmm...essentially the same way you protect yourself against malaria, yellow fever, tick borne diseases, etc.
so what about vaccines? LINKyup. It's a lot of stuff about T cells:
The generation of immunological memory is a requirement of effective vaccination. Studies on the generation of effector and central memory CD4+ T cells indicate that central memory T cells mediate long-term immunity to L. major infection, even in the absence of persistent parasites
so is there a vaccine? Well, the Russkies had one in the past:
An effective vaccine against leishmaniasis has existed in the past. This involved inoculation with live, virulent parasites, in a process called leishmanization. It was practiced successfully in the former Soviet Union, Middle East and Israel.30, 31 However, it was abandoned in most countries because of logistical problems and safety concerns, due to some individuals developing non-healing lesions and immune suppression.
and giving dead parasites gave partial immunity.but ran into problems of keeping the vaccine potent due to storage problems and other logistical problems
However, concerns remain regarding the feasibility of developing killed, whole-parasite vaccines, including the variation in results obtained from different field and clinical trial sites in the past, and potential difficulties in producing such a product to good clinical manufacturing standards.
attenuated parasites in vaccines seems to be a good commpromise (i.e. a parasite treated to make it weaker).
and then they are trying a vaccine that only uses part of the parasite to induce immunity>
then there are DNA vaccines that have been tried since 1992
. despite many years of effort in identifying immunogenic parasite antigens and advances in vaccine technologies, there does not yet appear to be a vaccine candidate capable of delivering the level of protection needed for a disease elimination program.
this would be a place for using mRNA technology. LINK
long discussion. Like Covid, or like Tuberculosis, you can't just make an antibody: You have to persuade the T cells to kill the germ.
and although these vaccines work on experimental animals, they just don't work well in primates. so there is dog vaccine but none for humans...
tge o=problem?,P>In contrast to the relative ease in generating responses in mice (where even naked RNA can generate immunity if larger enough doses are provided), several formulation strategies have failed upon evaluation in primates and humans [49]. Thus, although many candidates may appear valid in small animal models this “primate barrier” represents a critical hurdle to clinical use of RNA vaccines.
this article discusses problems of mRNA theraputics. too bad because that would be a good way to get rid of the disease, in both animals and in humans... Sorry I will have to read up on this.
Here is a video about the disease.
And here is a video to scare you about the disease:
Gun control rhetoric ignores the reality
During 2022, the national firearm homicide rate decreased for the first time since the sharp increase from 2019 to 2020. Nonetheless, the rate in 2022 (5.9 per 100,000) remained substantially higher than the 2019 rate....
The annual rate among Black persons during 2022 (27.5) was lower than that in 2021 (30.4) or 2020 (28.3) but was still substantially higher than in 2019 (20.5). Among AI/AN persons, the rate during 2022 (9.3) exceeded the rates in both 2021 (7.7) and 2020 (7.9). During 2022, the rate among Hispanic persons leveled off (5.5) but remained higher than that in 2019 (3.8). Rates among non-Hispanic White and A/PI persons, although lower, also increased from 2019 to 2021, followed by a decrease in 2022..
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Black lives matter.
This is a danger in the inner city: and it is a threat to the teenagers trying to be good. and it often overlaps other crimes.
Not that race is always accurate of course.
and they lump Black Americans together: not separating the more recent immigrant groups from those who were descended from slaves.And one suspects the homicide rate would be higher among Somali immigrants because there is a gang problem, than among those from Africa or the West Indies.
and a lot of this is connected with drugs: Either by gangs selling drugs, or by people who are chronic users of drugs..
and the dirty little secret is that not all deaths by firearms are homicides:
Again I turn to the Minnesota data
Homicides and homicide rates spiked in 2020—a trend also observed nationally—while other manners of violent death did not.
what does that mean? car accidents I presume are considered by them as violent deaths? Falls? drownings>
ironically not all firearm deaths are homicides:
Firearms were used in 45% of suicide deaths, 65% of homicide deaths and 54% of inter-personal violence homicide deaths.
Most firearm deaths, 75%, were suicide.
Minnesota has large racial disparities in suicide and homicide rates. Suicide rates in Minnesota are highest among the American Indian population, more than 70% higher than for the white population.
yes. The Indian Health Service has an aggressive outreach to fight the suicide problem on the reservations, which is often associated with drug or alcohol abuse problems.
Most people think of the reason they need gun control in the USA is mass shootings, but they are wrong.
The problem is gangs and suicide.
Many people understandably assume the high number of gun deaths in the U.S. is due to mass shootings, which receive frequent attention from the media. In truth, mass shootings account for only a small percentage of gun deaths in the United States. Rather, nearly two-thirds (63%) of gun deaths in the US in 2019 were suicides.
Again, back to the Minnesota data on gun homicide:
Homicide rates in the state are highest among the Black or African American population and the American Indian population, more than 10 times the rate of the white population.
Presumably poverty, except it is lower among the Hispanics, who tend to be poorer than these groups. Perhaps the culture of strong family connections in Hispanic culture.
Then we come to the anti depressant hysteria that is pushed every time a person goes amok and it is found they were on treatment. Of course, mentally ill people get treated, so is it the drugs or the mental illness? (some drugs like Prozac can exacerbate mania in bipolar people and people coming out of a depression often turn their self hatred outward and kill themselves, or attack others who the therapist assure them were the cause of their depression).
this was a problem even before modern Anti depressant medicines were available. And indeed the statistics make one wonder if it might be not enough got antidepressant treatment.
Antidepressants were found in the systems of 29.8% of females who died by suicide, compared to 12.1% in males.
Then we come to the obvious: if it is not gang or drug dealing related, it is anger within the family:
Spouses were suspected as the perpetrator in 21.1% of homicide cases where the victim was female. The victim’s boyfriend or girlfriend was suspected in an additional 15.5% of cases.
what is left out of this is a discussion of drug or acohol use that exacerbated homicides.
Drug use is behind a lot of gang murders, drug and alcohol use is a major factor in car accidents, and don''t forget the 100 thousand fentanyl deaths a year thanks to China and the Mexical cartels and the open border policies that make smuggling easy.
the problem of suicide in alcoholics has long been known.
and don't forget the problem of drug and alcohol deaths from accidents, most commonly car accidents.
Sigh.
Wednesday, October 11, 2023
a summary of the shennanigans to cover up Covid's origin.
Wednesday, October 4, 2023
follow the money: transgender stuff is big money
When I took the gnrh antagonist to shrink my endometriosis, got severely depressed. another time when it returned, I took a medicine with testosterone side effects and it made me hyper, hairy and horney.
long term the danger of gnrh antagonists is osteoporosis, and the side effect of hormones is heart disease. We stopped using estrogen to shrink prostate cancer because too many men got heart disease, and there are also reports of men getting breast cancer from the estrogen .
and if I am sceptical of Johns Hopkins, it is because their sex clinic were the ones behind telling the Catholic bishops not to fire their gay priests who preyed on boys, but to treat them.
is big pharm overcharging for vaccines?
AlJ has a post about South Africa complaining that big pharm overcharged them for the covid vaccine.
very single contract – there were a total of four that were revealed, with Johnson & Johnson (J&J), Pfizer, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (Gavi), and the Serum Institute of India – turned out to overwhelmingly favour Big Pharma and demand South Africa pay much more than its more powerful counterparts to protect its citizens from the worst of COVID.
I know the Philippines was bullied to sign a pfizer paper saying that they wouldnot allow people to sue for liability if something went wrong, and so it was not signed in Jan and we didn't get the Pfizer vaccine for another six months.
Monday, October 2, 2023
dengue and vaccine in the Philippines
Yes, the government was doing programs to try to stop it, but they ran into problems:
unclear who they are pointing fingers to. Those in charge of the Barangay, or poor people?
This might show part of the problem:
Another problem encountered was the challenge of eradicating local breeding sites, which are primarily water-holding containers. In areas with unreliable piped water, residents store water in such containers. Further, miscellaneous containers are commonly kept by residents as these can be used for other purposes or even sold for income. Lastly, inefficient garbage collection services may result in scattered trash that can accumulate rainwater.
Yes! these are problems that contribute to the spread of Dengue. I mean, you know you have to change the dog's water because if you don't do it every day, you get wrigglers floating in the dish
Now imagine it is a puddle from the rain that didn't dry up, or garbage that collects water (i.e. plastic cup discarded), etc. And since we got a new mayor (the sister of the previous one) we haven't had the streets cleaned regularly, although we do have garbage pickup weekly
but the government program gave 8oo thousand kids a dengue shot: the problem? If you never hda dengue before, the shot could cause a secondary immune problem. The rest of the article is about if they should introduce Wolbachia infected mosquitoes.
Lancet article on the severe dangue cases .
The risks associated with Dengvaxia must be put into perspective. First, many cases of hospitalisation and severe dengue following vaccination are likely to be attributable to vaccine breakthrough cases in seropositive vaccinees because a high proportion of vaccinees are dengue seropositive, in whom the vaccine protects but does not give total protection.
italics mine. But I thought you were only supposed to give the vaccine to those who had had dengue in the past.... if they didn't have dengue in the past, getting the vaccine led to an increased chance of getting severe dengue or something.
I admit I am confused about this.
But did the vaccine help? It appears yes.
Second, in all children vaccinated, the overall incidence of hospitalised dengue is likely to be substantially lower in the 5 years following vaccination than would have been the case had no one been vaccinated.
italics mine.
On a population level, in highly endemic regions, like the selected regions of the Philippines, the number of dengue cases averted by Dengvaxia is likely to substantially outweigh the number of vaccine-induced cases, and vaccination with Dengvaxia has an overall net benefit to the population.
I agree. But like the kerfuffle over covid shots, if it is your kid who dies, well maybe you might object to that cold hearted analysis.
Vaccinating only those testing seropositive would be the preferred strategy for future use of the vaccine, but this depends on the development of sensitive and specific rapid point-of-care tests to identify this group.
Malaria vaccine being hyped is not very good
,,,,,,,,,,The WHO has recommended a second malaria vaccine for children which is already approved for use in Burkina Faso, Ghana and Nigeria https://t.co/YsWvRE8BRe pic.twitter.com/Rii4hXGgHj
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) October 2, 2023
The World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended a second malaria vaccine, a decision that could offer countries a cheaper and a more readily available option than the world’s first shot against the parasitic disease. The R21/Matrix-M, developed by Britain’s Oxford University, can be used to curb the life-threatening disease spread to humans by some mosquitoes, the WHO said on Monday.
Oxford University developed the new three-dose vaccine with help from the Serum Institute of India. Research has suggested it is more than 75 percent effective and protection is maintained for at least another year with a booster.
Lancet article Sept 2022:
vaccine efficacy against clinical malaria was 36% in infants aged 5–17 months and 26% in infants aged 6–12 weeks after four doses of the vaccine.other questions about the approval: This study was done on a very small number of children.Between June 2, and July 2, 2020, 409 children returned to receive a booster vaccine. Each child received the same vaccination for the booster as they received in the primary series of vaccinations; 132 participants received 5 μg R21 adjuvanted with 25 μg Matrix-M, 137 received 5 μg R21 adjuvanted with 50 μg Matrix-M, and 140 received the control vaccine.
Between June 2, and July 2, 2020, 409 children returned to receive a booster vaccine. Each child received the same vaccination for the booster as they received in the primary series of vaccinations; 132 participants received 5 μg R21 adjuvanted with 25 μg Matrix-M, 137 received 5 μg R21 adjuvanted with 50 μg Matrix-M, and 140 received the control vaccine.
so the efficency was judged how?
Vaccine safety, efficacy, and a potential correlate of efficacy with immunogenicity, measured as anti-NANP antibody titres,
oh. antibody titers.
this article seems to be about the booster.
In the high-dose adjuvant group, vaccine efficacy against multiple episodes of malaria was 78% (95% CI 71 to 83), and 2285 (95% CI 1911 to 2568) cases of malaria were averted per 1000 child-years at risk among vaccinated children in the second year of follow-up
those were not actual numbers but extrapolated from the 400 in the study?
statistical tables show 24 percent of the kids got malaria, vs 63 percent in control groups.
Efficacy was further assessed at 24 months (range 660–731 days) following the primary series of vaccinations, where 280 participants had at least one episode of clinical malaria. All of these participants received a booster dose before the second malaria season, approximately 12 months following the primary series of vaccinations. These malaria episodes were recorded in 82 of 132 participants in group 1, 70 of 137 in group 2, and 128 of 140 participants in group 3 (the control group)
Three serious adverse events were reported in participants (appendix 2 p 5) after the booster vaccination up to 12 months follow-up. All were deemed unrelated to vaccination. These serious adverse events all resolved and comprised severe malaria with pneumonia, severe malnutrition with anaemia, and bacterial meningitis.
severe malnutrition? One wonders if maybe starting a nutrition program might be needed.
I should note that they had lots of nice data about using mosquito nets, spraying and taking medicine in the groups so these things were not neglected
the malaria they are talking about is the Falciparum type, which is more virulent and kills people via cerebral malaria. Alas, this germ has developed resistance to anti malarial medicines so there is a need for a vaccine.
The problem? This is not a good vaccine.
And in an area with a high childhood morality from other things (diarrhea, respiratory diseases) one looks in vain for the number of kids who died during the study these other diseases.