UK Medicines Watchdog ‘Considers Limiting Use Of Oxford-AstraZeneca Coronavirus Vaccine In Young’
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article in The Times.
This is the first two paragraphs.
The medicines watchdog is considering restricting use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine in younger people, it was reported last night.
Channel 4 News said sources had told it that the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) could decide as soon as today after concerns about very rare cases of blood clots potentially linked to the vaccine.
I’m, no medic, but I do find, I got a different reaction to the AstraZeneca vaccine to that of my friends.
But I am coeliac on a long-term gluten-free diet and have therefore got a strong immune system.
I believe my immune system gave the vaccine and its carrier a bit of a kicking.
But then it did that four months ago, with a pneumococcal vaccine.
There is a peer-reviewed Danish study, which I wrote about in A Danish Study On Links Between Coeliac Disease And Blood Clots.
I just wonder if there is a link in there somewhere.
All those, who have suffered blood clots after having the AstraZeneca vaccine should at least be tested for coeliac disease.
Have I Got Thrombophilia?
I was chatting on-line on The Times last night with a guy or even a girl, as their nick didn’t indicate gender.
I had said that a Danish study had shown that there were links between coeliac disease and blood clots. I wrote about this study in A Danish Study On Links Between Coeliac Disease And Blood Clots. Two of my on-line friends have since responded to that post with stories of coeliacs and blood-clots.
I got this reply from the person, I was chatting with.
There are some studies linking coeliac condition and the Factor V Leiden thrombophilia mutation. Several members of my family have (or had, since some have passed away) both conditions. I have the Factor V Leiden, as have both of my children. I do a lot of family history and have traced the Leiden mutation through triangulation of DNA matches and shared chromosome matches (via Family Tree DNA which goes into such detail) and I believe this is pointing to my Swedish ancestry.
I replied and asked if the person had coeliac disease.
This was the reply.
I had some tests and a biopsy about 30 years ago to see if I had inherited the coeliac condition which had cut a swathe through my mother’s side of the family. It was negative, but I do suspect that I may have passed it on to my son. He’s not keen on getting tested although he did get a Leiden Factor V test and he is heterozygous for that. My mother, aunt, grandmother and cousins have coeliac and Leiden. Some have both and some have one or the other.
My mother was young enough to get proper advice, but my grandmother had a terrible time. She just literally faded away. Her treatment was eating raw liver and having injections of liver which left lumps under her skin. Awful.
I then looked up thrombophilia on Wikipedia. The picture of a red leg in the entry could have been of me, except that with me, It’s the other leg.
The NHS web site also gives useful information.
I need to see an expert urgently!
But at least, I’m already on the likely medication – Warfarin.
So it’s hopefully just a case of keep taking the tablets.
I must admit, I’m slightly annoyed with the medics. I have never been told, that there is a link between coeliac disease and blood clots, when evidence from the Danish peer-reviewed study and people I’ve met on-line clearly shows there is a link!
Given, all the arguments about the AstraZeneca vaccine and blood clots, more research needs to be done.
Blood Clots In Young German Ladies After AstraZeneca Vaccine
There have been various reports that young ladies in Germany have suffered blood clots after having the AstraZeneca vaccine.
I am coeliac on a long-term gluten-free diet.
The UK, Ireland and Italy are generally fairly good at identifying coeliacs, as they suffer from so many side effects, one of which is strokes.
I had a stroke and a cardiologist thought it could have been because I wasn’t diagnosed until fifty, so my diet damaged my heart muscle causing atrial fibrillation.
My father, who I now believe was coeliac, died of a series of strokes.
I do wonder, if Germany doesn’t look for coeliacs, as they should, partly because it is a Jewish disease in their minds. Certainly finding gluten-free food in Germany can sometimes be difficult.
It should also be noted that the NHS says that there are three times as many coeliacs who are female.
Conclusion
This adds to the circumstantial evidence that coeliac disease is the alligator in the swamp of Covid-19.
Long Covid And Coeliac Disease
I recently heard an interview with Adrian Chiles on Radio 5 about the so-called long covid
I am 73 and the more I read about Long Covid, the more I think I had something similar around 1958, when I had just started Minchenden Grammar School, where I missed most of the Spring Term. This was at the time of the 1957-8 flu pandemic., which killed between one and four million people worldwide.
This article on New Decoder is a personal memory of that pandemic, from an experienced journalist called Harvey Morris.
Last night, I was listening to another program about kids with long covid and they seemed to be describing how I felt all those years ago.
One of those two programs, also said that one doctor tested patients for coeliac disease.
In 1997, at the age of fifty, I was diagnosed as a coeliac and have been gluten-free ever since. From friends and acquaintances, who are also coeliac on a long-term gluten-free diet, it appears that none of us have had a serious dose of the covids, including one who works in an office with several cases of Covid-19.
This observation has been backed-up by peer-reviewed research at the University of Padua, who followed a group of coeliacs on a long-term gluten-free diet through the first wave of the pandemic. None caught the virus.
It should also be noted that Joe West at the University of Nottingham, has shown that coeliacs on a long-term gluten-free diet are 25 % less likely to get cancer, so do we have a strong immune system, that gives us this protection against against both cancer and the covids.
Coeliac disease has been called the many-headed hydra by some doctors, so could it be an alligator in the swamp of Covid-19?
Research needs to be done!
But could it be that in 1958, my less than perfect immune system, because I was not diagnosed as a coeliac and was not on a gluten-free diet, had difficulty overcoming the flu at the time?
A Slight Problem With Covid-19 Vaccination
I had my first AZ vaccine five weeks ago. I have had a slight allergic reaction around the injection spot, as I did with a pneumococcal injection a few months ago.
I am coeliac on a long term gluten-free diet, which means my immune system is probably very strong. Peer-reviewed research at Nottingham University has shown that coeliacs on this diet, do have a 25 % less chance of getting cancer.
I’m no medic, but do sponsor cancer research, and like many I suspect, I am very familiar with how the AZ vaccine uses viral-vector techniques. I suspect my immune system could be reacting to the carrier.
I suspect, we’ll see a few problems like this and some other more serious problems, but I’m fairly sure they can be solved. I might be better with an mRNA vaccine.
The Recovery Trial And Coeliac Disease
The Recovery Trial appears to have been a success, with another drug announced to have positive benefits in fighting Covid-19 today.
As a coeliac on a long-term gluten-free diet like up to one-in-100 or even 1-in-50, in the UK, I wonder what they have found out about my susceptibility to Covid-19 and how my disease would affect my treatment!
I just typed “coeliac” into the Recovery Trial and I found nothing.
Using Google directly, I didn’t get any matches either.
So I suspect that they know nothing about how coeliacs are affected by Covid-19.
Since 1997, after I was diagnosed at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, I’ve been on a strict long-term gluten-free diet, my health has improved dramatically from what it was for the previous fifty years.
My only major health issue, since 1997, has been a serious stroke in 2010, from which I have made an almost full recovery.
But one cardiologist has told me, that the stroke could have been caused by fifty years of unhealthy eating, that damaged my heart muscle to cause atrial fibrillation.
I have only found one serious peer-reviewed study on coeliac disease and Covid-19 on the Internet.
This paper on the US National Library of Medicine, is from the University of Padua in Italy.
The University followed a group of 138 patients with coeliac disease, who had been on a gluten-free diet for at least six years, through the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in Padua.
This sentence, sums up the study.
In this analysis we report a real life “snapshot” of a cohort of CeD patients during the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in Italy, all followed in one tertiary centre in a red area of Northern Italy. Our data show, in accordance with Emmi et al., the absolute absence of COVID-19 diagnosis in our population, although 18 subjects experienced flu-like symptoms with only one having undergone naso-pharyngeal swab.
It says that no test subject caught Covid-19, in an admittedly smallish number of patients.
But it reinforces my call for more research into whether if you are a diagnosed coeliac on a long-term gluten-free diet, you have an immune system, that gives you a degree of protection from the Covids.
How Many Patients In The Recovery Trial Are Coeliac?
The Wikipedia entry for The Recovery Trial says this about the numbers of patients.
The trial began in March 2020 and has an estimated duration through June 2021. As of December 2020, the trial had enrolled more than 20,000 COVID-19 participants admitted to hospitals in the UK.
A figure of 1-in-100 is accepted, as an at least figure of the number of coeliacs in the UK population. Some doctors rate it as high as 1-in-50.
So that should mean that somewhere between 200 and 400 of those on the trial were coeliac. But that figure would include those who were both diagnosed and undiagnosed.
I would love to have an answer to my question. But I suspect, that the data is not available.
Another Answer
There could of course be another answer – Diagnosed coeliacs on a long-term gluten-free diet don’t get the virus serious enough to go into hospital.
Cooking Multiple Cinties
My son and his husband came round for supper on Sunday, so I cooked a batch of Cinty’s French fish pies.
The method is detailed in Serial Cooking – Cinty’s French Fish Pie.
I cooked four, which was one for each of us and one for the freezer.
Note.
- Every pie got two pieces of haddock.
- The topping was a mix of gluten-free bread and parmesan, blended in one of Delia’s Little Choppers.
- I served them with baked tomatoes.
I cooked them in 0.6 litre Le Creuset dishes. You can never have too many of these.
Is This The Proof That Coeliacs On A Gluten-Free Diet Don’t Get The Covids?
I took this picture in Marks and Spencer’s food store on Finsbury Pavement this morning,
I know Easter is coming, but it did seem to me that they had over-ordered the gluten-free hot cross buns.
But have their gluten-free sales held up extremely well during the pandemic?
Are their large numbers of gluten-free customers, still well enough to be buying the good things in life?
Certainly, throughout the pandemic, there’s never been a shortage of gluten-free scones!
Or it could be a simple case of a computer saying “Let them eat loadsa buns!” in the City of London!
Should Coeliacs On A Long-Term Gluten-Free Diet Have The Pfizer Or AstraZeneca Vaccine?
This is an interesting question.
I believe that coeliacs on a long-term gluten-free diet have a strong immune system and this is responsible for the group, to which I belong, having a 25 % less risk of suffering from cancer, according to Joe West at Nottingham University.
This strong immune system may react to and attack a two-dose viral-vector vaccine like the AstraZeneca, so would I be better off with the Pfizer?
I wrote about why this could happen in Coronavirus: Why Combining The Oxford Vaccine With Russia’s Sputnik V Vaccine Could Make It More Effective.
This is an extract from that post.
A Possible Problem With Viral-Vector Vaccines
This is a paragraph from the article on the Conversation, which talks of a problem with viral-vector vaccines.
When a person is given a viral-vector vaccine, as well as generating an immune response against the coronavirus’s spike protein, the immune system will also mount a response against the viral vector itself. This immune response may then destroy some of the booster dose when it is subsequently delivered, before it can have an effect. This has long been recognised as a problem.
It looks like a case of shoot the messenger to me.
The Russian solution is to use different viral-vectors in the two doses.
Conclusion
As I believe, I already have a degree of natural protection from my diagnosed coeliac disease and long-term gluten-free diet and the resulting strong immune system, I think on balance, I’d personally choose the Pfizer vaccine.
But the choice of vaccine will probably not be down to me!
Inner Eye AI Identifies Tumours To Speed Up Treatment Of Cancer
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on The Times.
This is the introductory paragraph.
A hospital in Cambridge is the first to use artificial intelligence technology developed by Microsoft to treat cancer patients faster, helping to cut the treatment backlog and save lives.
There is only one NHS hospital in Cambridge and that is Addenbrooke’s, who probably saved my life, by diagnosing me as coeliac in 1997.
This paragraph explains the development of the software and how it will be deployed across the NHS.
Inner Eye is the result of an eight-year project with Microsoft and Addenbrooke’s and is being introduced in other NHS trusts. It is easy to access and free to use. When the AI tool is in place, hospitals will be able to use their own data to improve accuracy.
This paragraph sums up the usefulness of the system.
Pat Price, a professor at Imperial College London and chairwoman of Action Radiotherapy, a charity, said: “This is just one brilliant example of the quiet but amazing technological revolution that has unfolded in radiotherapy in recent years and could dramatically improve cancer survival rates.”
It really is amazing how since my wife died of a squamous cell carcinoma of the heart, treatment of cancer has improved.
I can envisage a time, when a rare cancer like that, which killed her in three months, will be survivable!
The Anonymous Widower 