Mark writes:
Dear Dr. Griffin,
Thank you for your continuing efforts to educate the world about clinical issues related to Covid, as well as your work with infectious diseases in developing countries.
I wanted to bring to your attention that there are an estimated 9 million Americans living abroad for work or retirement, or they are temporarily trapped by the pandemic. I am based in SE Asia for work and can return to the States for vaccination, but many Americans cannot afford to fly back (for example retired war veterans), or it is too dangerous and physically difficult for them to travel. The US State department has failed to respond to this group – something that would be easy to address via the embassies and consulates, without requiring local government approvals (US embassies are considered American soil and vaccines could be delivered via diplomatic transport). I have written to Dr. Francis Collins requesting this issue be raised and have received several personal replies from his staff. My question is “if we can ship millions of vaccines to places like India, why can’t we also take care of at-risk Americans currently residing outside the US?” I have written to the NYT and Washington Post as well as my congressional representatives with no response.
I would appreciate your raising this issue on TWIV and forwarding my message to those persons you believe could be helpful in moving this issue forward.
Thanks again for your work.
Best regards
Mark
Mark Daniels
Biosensors for Viral Immunobiology
Attana Diagnostics
Joy writes:
There is an active clinical trial for use of mAbs (Leronlimab) for treating Long Haulers. I signed up for it Last January but got reinfected AGAIN before the trial began. I think there were a couple of other trials being conducted. Since there are no treatment options for Long Covid MISC, PASC, I am wondering why they are not testing Regeneron, etc for that purpose?
Us Long Haulers know WHO WE ARE!. Sadly many of us are being gaslit by the medical community. My doc has known me for most of my life and didn’t recognize this as a condition until very recently, and after more than a year. I am deeply saddened this isn’t getting enough attention and after 18 months there is still no medical code for it. My doctor doesn’t even know how to refer me to a specialist for it. My insurance won’t cover the long-term effects of this disease. We are being denied care because our doctors are unable to code for it. I was unable to get mAbs after my most recent infection because my doctor didn’t know how to prescribe the infusion regarding PASC.
Hope you can give us Long Haulers some hope, and insight, because the public health and medicine system is moving too slow. This existed since at least April 2020, yet only officially acknowledged it as a condition in February 2021.
I never fail to watch TWIV Clinical Updates in hope of hearing about any breakthroughs in research.
Thanks for all you do.
~ Joy
Tom writes:
Dear Dr. Griffin,
Our son will turn twelve in early July and he plans to get vaccinated on his birthday. During your show last week, you mentioned the study on college athletes and responded to a parent’s email question about myocarditis, pointing out that the long-term risk of myocarditis from natural infection is much greater than the risk of myocarditis from vaccination. Thank you for that information. We are also hearing some doctors saying that the first vaccination dose might be okay, but that two doses for a child is too much and too risky. How much does the first dose of vaccine decrease the infection risk compared to the second dose? How much does the myocarditis risk from the vaccine increase between the first and second dose? Are you recommending one dose or two doses for a twelve-year old male?
May God Bless You,
Tom
Maryland
Lori writes:
Dear Dr. Griffin,
As Canadians who live and work in Kazakhstan, we’ve been very grateful for the steady flow of reasonable information from TWIV. Vaccine hesitancy has a lot of traction across Central Asia: people don’t really trust that the government has their best interests in mind.
But most of us expats were very happy when we finally got access to a COVID vaccine – Sputnik V was the first to be available, and we got it as soon as we could. Now there is a choice between Sputnik V, Sinopharm, and QazVac (the Kazakh-created vaccine).
We were finally able to fly back home to Canada this summer (but had to donate our vital organs to afford the quarantine hotel in Toronto – OK, just kidding – no organs were harvested, but it was expensive). As Sputnik V is not recognized by Health Canada, we are considered unvaccinated, so we are considering re-vaccinating with one approved by Health Canada.
My question is: we already had 2 doses of Sputnik in May: is 2 doses of another vaccine, during July, “bad for the body”?
Thank you for all of the work that you do – we truly appreciate your calm and level headed advice!
Lori