Transcription
A warm welcome to today's talk, Thursday, the 25th of November. Now, I've had a huge amount of questions on this abstract that appears to show that the increased risk of a heart attack, what's called an acute coronary syndrome, that that increases some 11 up to 25 risk over five years in a group of people that have been vaccinated with mRNA vaccine. So, is this true? Is there an increased risk in this group from 11 risk over five years up to 25 increased risk over five years? If so, that is a massive, massive increase and an incredibly significant finding. The answer's not entirely straightforward, so let's look at it.
Now, this comes from this paper here. In fact, when I say paper, I couldn't find the paper. Um, it's just an abstract, so it is this abstract here. So, this has got quite a lot of publicity, including some mainstream media in the UK, certainly I'm not so sure about the US, but it's just based on this abstract. Now, the abstract is normally the introduction to the paper, but if the paper's there, I certainly can't find it. So, it seems to be a fairly quickly written abstract, fairly quickly written for for several reasons that we'll look at as well. But let's see what it's about. So, um, it's this abstract.
Now, it's in this journal, Circulation, which is, which is a reputable peer-reviewed journal. And, um, this is the, this is the link here, you can check it out for yourself. Um, mRNA. Now, mRNA, that's a strange way to write it. Normally, we would write M for messenger, then RNA for ribonucleic acid. So, it just strikes me as a bit strange that that deviation from the norm is in, is in the title there. But anyway, that's nothing to do with the content. So, "mRNA COVID vaccine dramatically increases endothelial inflammatory markers and acute coronary syndrome risk as measured by this Plus Cardiac test."
Now, just, we do need a bit of background there. So, so what we, what we would normally have here is, imagine that that's an artery that's supplying part of the heart muscle with blood, the myocardium. And that's going to divide into smaller arteries. And these, uh, smaller coronary arteries will supply an area of cardiac tissue with blood, say an area of myocardium that will take blood to that area of tissue. Now, the endothelium is the lining of this, uh, these blood vessels. So, that is the vascular endothelium that that's referring to. And inflammatory markers can lead to inflammation in this endothelium. This can become inflamed. So, we can get inflammation in the, the endothelium, which of course we don't want because acute coronary syndrome is really an inflammatory disease. So, we don't want to increase that. So, if we increase the endothelial inflammatory markers, that would indicate that these markers are indicators of increased inflammatory activity in this area where we don't want it. Because if there's increased inflammatory activity here, this can cause destabilization of what we call plaques, atheromatous plaques, these cholesterol-based plaques here. And if these become destabilized, that can cause blood to clot. Now, if you get a little bit of blood clotting and what's called white thrombus, that will reduce the blood supply in these areas of tissue, leading to what we call ischemia. That would be called an unstable angina. If it's more severe, if you get more clotting, that would lead to what we call an NSTEMI, another ST myocardial infarction, uh, non-ST elevation myocardial infarction. And if there's a lot more clot there, that would lead to what we call an ST elevation myocardial infarction. So, NSTEMI or a STEMI. So, that's what acute coronary syndrome is. The most mild form is acute, is is unstable angina. The second most common form is, uh, non-ST elevation myocardial infarction, and the more severe form is called ST elevation myocardial infarction. So, that's all that's what acute coronary syndrome is. So, but basically, we don't want this inflammation. So, to measure markers of that is, is remarkably relevant. So, uh, measure measurement of multiple protein biomarkers, fine, absolutely fine. But, and these are used to generate a score predicting the five-year risk in terms of percentages of a new acute coronary syndrome, in other words, a new acute heart attack sort of situation. And acute coronary syndrome, as we've said, could be an unstable angina, NSTEMI, or STEMI, all of which, of course, are bad. Um, score is based on changes from the norm of multiple protein biomarkers. Okay.
Now, we're told some of these. Now, the first one we're told about is Interleukin-6, IL. So, Interleukin-16, sorry, Interleukin. Now, the, um, these were originally discovered, as I understand this, in leukocytes. So, leukocytes are the white blood cells. Interleukins, they are cytokines that go from one white blood cell to another white blood cell. They are like hormones between, um, between individual cells. So, um, so more of this, it is a pro-inflammatory cytokine. I think it, I think it encourages the, uh, the migration of, um, uh, T, T, uh, T helper cells as well. I think I'm not sure about that. Anyway, it's definitely a pro-inflammatory cytokine. So, we accept that. More information on it there. This other one is called soluble Fas. Now, I'm not going to go into this. There is more information on it here. But this is an inducer of what you call apoptosis. Apoptosis. So, if we have some cells here, imagine that's a nice living cell there with a nucleus, and that's another one there with a nucleus, and that's another one there with a nucleus. Now, what apoptosis is, apoptosis is cell suicide. So, in apoptosis, there will be, um, digesting enzymes in the cell, which are released in the process of apoptosis. So, when a particular thing, so, so that this Fas is actually a, a protein there in the, uh, in the membrane. And when this other thing called, uh, um, this one here, when this one comes along, FasL, when that comes along and and links on to that, that triggers this process of apoptosis. And that means that these digestive enzymes are released, and they will simply digest the cell. It will kill the cell. The cell will die. It's a cell suicide, or apoptosis. So, um, this soluble Fas, um, is an indicator of apoptosis. And again, again, we can certainly, we can certainly accept that that makes sense. Uh, now, this is from this paper here on Heart. So, um, um, FasL. FasL is that, is the ligand. That's the bit that actually stimulates it. And, um, now, from this paper, this is not from this is not from the abstract. This is, this is all from this paper here, from that paper here. We do learn that adenovirus can result in over-expression of this, uh, FasL, which could result in apoptosis. We're not told about adenovirus components in this paper, but it's possible. So, the physiology hangs together, you know. So, so far, this is making, uh, biochemical physiological sense as we normally understand it.
Now, uh, another, another one here, another one of these, um, these protein factors, these biomarkers, is Hepatocyte Growth Factors. Now, hepatocyte, of course, the liver cells. So, what you normally find is this will probably first be identified in liver cells. But we now know it does other things. Serves as a marker for chemotaxis of T cells into the epithelium and cardiac tissue. So, the epithelium there, I think that's referring actually to the endothelium, um, the lining, the lining of the, uh, the lining of the blood vessels there, um, and, and into the cardiac tissue as well. So, T cells, this is saying that T cells, these T cells could go into the endothelium and into the, um, into the cardiac tissue. And of course, the T cells can, well, they will be pro-inflammatory. These are designed to destroy, uh, T cytotoxic cells are designed to destroy virally infected cells. So, we certainly don't want those, uh, destroying cells in the, in the heart, into the myocardium. But, um, that's what that's what this does. So, it again, it's a reason, a very reasonable biomarker to choose. And again, more information on it there.
Now, the abstract says, "Amongst other markers which we are not told, unfortunately, we simply don't know that yet." Um, "Elevation of the norm increases the Plus score." So, if these markers are increased, that increases the Plus score, that increases the percentage likelihood that, uh, an acute coronary syndrome, a heart attack sort of disease, will occur in the next five years. "Decrease below the normal lowers the Plus score, decreasing the chances of a heart attack in the next five years." The score has been measured every three to six months in our patient population for at least eight years. So, this is a population they've been following up during this, at least three to six months over a period of eight years. So, that means they've got good baseline figures. So, that, that's good.
Recently, with the advent of the mRNA, so, mRNA, the right way expressed that time, recently with the advent of the mRNA COVID vaccines by Moderna and Pfizer, dramatic changes in the Plus score became apparent in most patients. So, this is what this is about. Now, this report summarizes those results. Now, they seem to be following up this group of 566 patients. Now, that is quite a respectable number. And it looks like these have been followed up over, over an eight-year period before the pandemic. So, we've got a good cohort here with good, um, good, good baseline characteristics and data, uh, could be collected, of course, over that time. Age range of the patients, from 28 to 97, so that's good. Male to female ratio is one to one, so again, good. Now, these are seen in a preventative, seen in a preventative cardiology practice. Okay. Had new Plus score test drawn from two to ten weeks following the vaccine. Right. So, from two to ten weeks after the vaccine. So, Plus two to, uh, Plus ten weeks after the vaccine, they worked out their Plus score. That therefore constitutes a group. This was compared to the previous Plus scores drawn three to five months previously, before the vaccines. So, this is before the vaccines. So, before, so we have their scores before vaccination, and we have the scores after vaccination. And this seems to be a group of 566 people. So, basically, um, these are acting as their own control. So, this is called test, and then we introduce a change, which in this case, of course, is the vaccine, and then we retest. So, this basically is a controlled study where the individuals being tested are acting essentially as their own controls. So, it's a recognized research method, test, change, retest. So, it's not, it's not a different, um, comparison group. It's not a placebo group. But it's true that before they didn't have the vaccine, and after they did have the vaccine. So, it is a valid test-retest comparison. And was compared to the previous course. So, that's good.
Right. Now, what happened here? Baseline Interleukin-16 increased. Now, they said it increased from 35 equals minus 20. I don't know what that means. I just don't understand this sort of way of expressing it. And the units are not given. I would like to know what the units are there. This is the sort of thing with the being a full paper, we don't seem to have the full paper. So, and then above the norm to eight again, 18 equals slash minus 75. Above the norm again, it doesn't make any sense. But if we take this as one measure here, if we take that as one measure, and we take that as another measure, we can see that it has increased. So, we'll accept that it's increased. So, I'm happy to accept this increase. Soluble Fas increased. Again, again, these make no sense. 22 plus stroke minus 15. I don't know what it means. Anyway, it increased from that up to that. So, again, um, we accept there's an increase. You know, we don't know the units again, um, which would be, it would be nice. But again, if the full paper follows, we expect they'll be in there. HGF, Hepatocyte Growth Factor, again, that increased from this, again, don't quite understand that, up to that. But again, we accept that it has increased. So, basically, we see that, um, that inflammatory marker increased, that inflammatory marker increased, and that inflammatory marker increased after, after vaccination. So, that, that's what that is saying.
Now, what we're not told in this paper is how many of these patients actually had COVID. We're not told whether if these patients had COVID, that was related to variability within the cohort. These are just average figures. We assume these are just average figures for the cohort. So, there's a lot of things it doesn't tell us. I'd really like to know if the patients that had COVID had had higher, um, higher levels of these inflammatory markers or not. But we're simply not told that. We don't know. We wait for the full paper. We assume a full paper is coming. We don't know yet. Um, that, now these changes resulted in an increase of the Plus score. Uh, so, in their group, um, the the average risk of having an acute coronary syndrome in the next five years was 11, and this went up to a 25 risk. So, instead of having 11% risk of having an acute coronary syndrome in the next five years, that went up to 25 risk. Now, again, we don't know much about the group, but that increase from 11% to 25 is of course totally massive, absolutely massive. If this were to be applicable to the entire population, this would basically mean we're going to get an unimaginable amount of, uh, extra heart attacks. Um, that's what that would mean. Um, we don't know about the time frame, of course. At the time of this report, these changes persist for at least two and a half months post the second vac dose. So, okay, we know they persist for two and a half months. So, does this risk only increase for two and a half months, or does the increase increase for longer? Again, we don't know. What we can say is this increased risk from 11 up to 25 risk over five years, only according to this paper, seems to last for 2.5 months. Does it last for longer? We don't know. That's all we're told.
"We conclude that the mRNA vaccines." And again, this the way this is written is direct from the, direct from the paper, which I must say, I do find a little bit, um, I wouldn't say casual, but it's not, it's not quite the way I would have written it. Um, but this is exactly from, from the abstract. Um, there we go. 2.5 months of the vac. Yeah, okay. Yeah, it's obviously meant vaccine, but, um, that's the way it's written in this abstract. "We conclude the mRNA vaccines dramatically increase inflammation of the endothelium and T cell infiltration into the cardiac muscle." So, in other words, um, they're saying that you do get, uh, increased inflammation here and increased T cells into here, some of which may be T cytotoxic cells, which most certainly, most certainly have the potential to kill cardiac cells. They certainly have that potential. Um, the paper, the abstract says, "and may account for the observed observation of increased thrombosis," that's the blood clots, "that makes sense because of the increased inflammation, cardiomyopathy," that makes sense, "of the apoptosis and destruction of cardiac myocytes," the the cardiac muscle cells, "by, uh, T, um, cytotoxic cells, and other vascular events following vaccination." It does make sense. And I would add further that if there's a higher dose of the vaccine going to the myocardium due to inadvertent intravascular administration, this rate would be dramatically increased. Again, probably, we believe, well, I'm sure that that this inadvertent intravascular administration happens, and you will get a much higher dose of the vaccine going to the heart all at the same time, uh, as opposed to if it was just given in the muscle, because we don't aspirate to check in the UK. And in the United States, um, I've just learned, um, well, I've only, I've only got one source on this at the moment, but apparently in Japan, they are aspirating. So, in Japan, they're aspirating. Taiwan, they're aspirating. I'm pretty sure China, they do seem to be aspirating. Denmark, they're aspirating. So, there's going to be data on this soon. And, um, it's just a picture that people are still getting, um, inadvertent intravascular administration. While we wait, so very consistent with the hypothesis I've been promoting for some time.
Now, this is by, this article is by Dr. Stephen R. Gundry, which we see here. He's the author of this paper. He, he has been a well-regarded, um, cardiothoracic heart surgeon. In fact, I think he, I think I'd have to check, but I think he did one of the early, uh, pediatric heart transplants. But anyway, um, he says, "Our group has been using the Plus Cardiac test score." But when we look on the abstract, we don't find his group. We just find him down as an individual. Normally, the co-authors will go on the paper as well. So, it's a little unusual to see only one author. And Dr. Gundry is not, I think it's fair to say, a figure who is greeted with, um, complete agreement amongst the scientific community. Not everyone agrees with all of his, uh, all of his, uh, uh, writings. Um, now, that's that's nothing to do with the science of this paper, but, um, he is, he is. So, for example, this is some information about him here. Does a lot of writing and podcasting, a lot of health-type related things. He seems to have this grocery facility as well. Um, now, I, I must have worked with about, I don't know, 20 or 30 cardiologists over my career, and I can't remember any of them having a grocery facility. But then again, they might not just have mentioned it. But, again, but that has nothing to do with the science of the paper.
What do I conclude? Well, I, I do make a conclusion on this. My conclusion definitely is that there is enough science here to merit an official response from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization in the UK and the Centers for Disease Control, or whoever it is responsible for this in the States. I think this merits an official response. It also merits a lot more studies. Now, this is based just on, as far as we know, from this abstract. This is based just on the presence of these inflammatory markers and their score. What I would like to see is a lot of people getting high-resolution magnetic resonance scanning, MRI scans, very high-resolution MRI scans of the coronary arteries and the, uh, the myocardial tissue. I would also like to see cardiologists doing full workups on these patients. Unfortunately, for example, when we talked to Nick, this didn't seem to be happening. I do hope Kyle's having more success now in the States, but there has been some difficulty for some patients accessing specialist cardiac services. But I think this is a research study that needs done fairly desperately. Now, I've thought of doing high-resolution MRI, of course. Cardiologists and cardiac specialist people could think of, uh, does another test that they could do as well to, to, um, to cross-correlate, to triangulate this single paper, and it is a single paper, which is based on inflammatory, uh, markers. So, they go, there's those sites, uh, the sites of interest there.
Just before we finish, a well-recognized site to diagnose or to predict your risk of a heart attack, comes from here, from the British Heart Foundation. So, I'll put the link into that if you would like to calculate your own personal risk over the next five to ten years. And the link for that is, uh, the link for that is there. So, um, in science, we need multiple papers. We need more than we need, we need teams. Um, so, it concerns me that this is one individual, that is just one abstract. Um, we would like to know the other members of the team. We would like to know their qualifications. We'd like to know a lot more. And of course, we would like the full paper. Now, if you can find the full paper, please give it to me. But this is all based on. So, here we see the metric. So, it's picked up by three news outlets, retweeted 47,000 times on seven Facebook pages. So, they go, um, these findings are interesting and, uh, not inconsistent with the idea of inadvertent intravascular administration. Um, I don't know what else to say about that, really. Um, basically, we await more information, but we do need some sort of an official response, and we do need other, other research modalities, multiple research modalities, to adjudicate if the diagnosis reached by this study is correct or not.
So, the answer to the original question we asked at the start of the paper is, is the, did this group have an increase in 25 up to up to 25 risk over of heart attack over five years up from 11? While this group seems to from this data, but before we can expand this out to the general population, we need an awful lot more. But it is, it is a very important indicator of a very important place to look because if we're missing a trick here, this has got huge implications. Thank you for watching.