Since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 global pandemic, many issues have arisen that run contrary to historical precedents and known and practiced public health principles of the last century. This article discusses some of these issues.
A drug safety physician’s alert to Dr. Peter Marks (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) regarding the need for clear guidance or regulation concerning COVID-19 vaccines as default investigational products in non-vaccine clinical trials.
THROUGHOUT THE COVID-19 epidemic, public health authorities have promoted contact tracing as a key tool to combat the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Nearly every country infected by the virus has adopted some version, though with evidently mixed results given the global spread of the epidemic.
I heard a devastating story last week whilst sitting in my local SAPS police station. Three police officers were openly discussing a case they had received of a man who had just committed suicide, in his home in a nearby suburb, by way of a gunshot to the head....
A drug safety physician’s message to Dr. Marks (U.S. FDA) regarding risk evaluation of anaphylaxis with the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 Vaccine.
Nick Hudson (PANDA) joins the Burning Platform to discuss what the data suggest about the effectiveness of lockdowns on a cost-to-benefit ratio. There’s a discussion around the media’s role in stoking pandemic panic, before moving on to the subject of a vaccine – its viability given a rapid public uptake after an equally rapid turnaround, and big Pharma’s push to get a solution to market without it first being peer reviewed.
Jay Bhattacharya, member of PANDA’s Scientific Advisory Board and Professor of Economics and Medicine at Stanford University, in conversation with Nick Hudson.
The media relish negative news. “If it bleeds it leads” still holds, and perhaps it’s never been truer than in the COVID-19 era. Every day the news highlights the spread of the virus and tells the sad stories of some of its victims.
The ‘Global Health Community’ that previously prioritised diseases such as HIV, TB and the big child killer, malaria, implicitly considers avoidable deaths due to interrupted healthcare an acceptable cost in the attempt to reduce transmission of SARS-COV-2.
PCR testing for COVID-19 aims to detect individuals with a high likelihood of being infectious. However, false positive test results lead to false diagnoses, unnecessary measures and distort the overall picture of the pandemic.