Eric Topol

The two easy areas I can cite are the lackluster results of the RECOVER initiative (https://erictopol.substack.com/p/long-covid-mitochondria-the-big-miss), and the complete failure of any government to distribute vaccines well.

Another: 19 September 2022, US President Biden declares COVID to be "over"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHT1enFH2sI

Meanwhile, it is easy to get Pfizer and Moderna vaccines (mRNA based), and hard to get Novavax (protein based). By hard I mean impossible. mRNA are not well understood, have nasty side effects for some people (including me), and lose their efficacy after a few months, thus the need for boosters. You can verify this with blood tests that show antibody levels. With Novavax, which is based on technology that's been around for 20 years, it appears (based on studies) that it keeps its efficacy for at least a year after multiple doses, and it has minimal side effects (including my own shot).

That said, many governments have relationships with Pfizer and Moderna, and so these vaccines are easily attainable, while no such relationship exists with Novavax, and it is impossible to get it. I say impossible after asking about 50 doctors, contacting pharmacies, and finally contacting Novavax themselves, who told me that it is not possible to get until the new mix comes out.

So why would a vaccine that seems to actually work be unavailable, while ones that do not work are easy to get?

I realize that this is more a commentary on COVID than…

This doesn't sound like a crisis? These are all recent:

"How Much Does Long COVID Cost Society? New Data Shed Light"

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/how-much-does-long-covid-cost-society-new-data-shed-light-2024a1000j5j

"Long COVID: confronting a growing public health crisis"

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(23)00268-0/fulltext

"The Long Covid Moonshot"

https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-sanders-introduces-historic-moonshot-legislation-to-address-the-long-covid-crisis/

"Long Covid is a significant health crisis in China too"

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanwpc/article/PIIS2666-6065(24)00217-7/fulltext

"Long Covid at 3 Years"

https://erictopol.substack.com/p/long-covid-at-3-years

"The future of excess mortality after COVID-19"

https://www.swissre.com/institute/research/topics-and-risk-dialogues/health-and-longevity/covid-19-pandemic-synonymous-excess-mortality.html

"Covid Brain"

https://erictopol.substack.com/p/covid-brain

"The Indomitable Covid Virus"

https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-indomitable-covid-virus

The reason you don't hear any news about long covid is that it affects peoples brains, hearts, immunity, microbiome, organs, and employability. The hospitals do not attribute the rise of problems in these areas to long covid, so there is no news about long covid as the ultimate source of increases in childhood diabetes, the rise of autoimmune diseases, middle age heart attacks, a higher…

This is insane again as it was just found that an infection lowers your IQ by 3 points (2 big recent studies)*. The average person now has over 3 infections to date. We aren't even far enough in the research to understand the compound effects on the brain (and body). And basically, everyone in society, even the smartest people are losing IQ points at a time when we need people to become more intelligent and aware and able to adapt to an accelerating future...

"Extrapolation to Loss of IQ points, compared to uninfected controls:

Mild Covid, Resolved Symptoms: 3 points

Unresolved Symptoms: 6 points

Covid requiring Intensive Care Unit admission: 9 point

Reinfection: Additional 2 points "

https://erictopol.substack.com/p/long-covid-and-cognitive-deficits https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2311330 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2311200

The virus is a massive vascular infection attacking every cell on the lining of the body (blood vessels, endothelial cells) and even organ organs, heart damage etc... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8771611/

Eric Topol has a more useful summary [1] of the peptides, including which have FDA approval and the health effects. Here's a quote:

"Why have peptides become so popular without data to support the promotional claims? This, in part, reflects the challenge and mistrust of the medical establishment, which worsened during the Covid pandemic, but was already showing strong signs of opposition by the wide adoption of supplements (with a very similar lack of supportive data on efficacy and safety) long before 2020. Ironically, anti-vax individuals are against shots with as rigorous datasets as we’ve ever seen (e.g. >70,000 participants in the initial mRNA Covid vaccines randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials released in late 2020) but happy to get injections of peptides for which there are scant if any data to support their use."

[1] https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-peptide-craze

The WHO [1] has a clinical definition of the disease and some basic data on chance of Covid infections turning into Long Covid. Then the meta study by Eric Topol and Zayad Ali-al from last year is probably a good primer into what is known about the disease that is well established science [2].

Its not a big unknown anymore, its very prevalent, it has a lot of symptoms, it has a clinical definition but its problematic and there are many diagnostic tests that can detect parts of the condition but none has yet reached sufficient prominence to be adopted by healthcare. Healthcare is largely ignoring that Long Covid exists so you can't get diagnosed with it but its very much a real thing and a lot of people have it.

[1]https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/post-covid-19-condition-(long-covid)

[2] https://erictopol.substack.com/p/long-covid-at-3-years

If you haven't seen the chart from the UK study, I highly recommend checking it out: https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-shingles-vaccine-and-reduction

When the vaccine came out in the UK, they included a hard age cutoff: Above a certain age, you weren't eligible. Below that age, you were eligible.

They looked at the probability of a dementia diagnosis over the 7 years after the vaccine was introduced.

People who were born in the "can get the vaccine" group have markedly lower rates of dementia. People in the "too old" group have higher rates. It's cut and dry. The researchers didn't separate out the people who actually got the vaccine.

It's one of those studies where you don't even need to look at the p-value to see the difference between the cohorts.