💡BREAKING—CDC study confirms the NIH-Moderna #COVID19 vaccine is more effective against #DeltaVariant hospitalizations than Pfizer-BioNTech or Johnson & Johnson. Vaccine efficacy for Delta🏥—Moderna 95%, Pfizer 80%, J&J 60%. VE also higher in age <74!🧵 cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/7…
2) “Overall, VE against COVID-19 hospital- ization was 86%. VE was significantly lower among adults aged ≥75 years (76%) than among those aged 18–74 years (89%) (Table). The difference in VE point estimates between age groups was similar for Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines”
3) “Across all ages, VE was significantly higher among Moderna vaccine recipients (95%) than among Pfizer-BioNTech (80%) or Janssen (60%) vaccine recipients.”
4) Is this difference also true for ER visits too? Yes. For ER—“VE was highest among Moderna vaccine recipients (92%), followed by Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine recipients (77%), and was lowest (65%) for Janssen vaccine recipients (Table).”
5) What about all breakthrough infections? Well, CDC itself doesn’t track all cases nationwide. But luckily, Oklahoma tracks breakthroughs by vaccine type - and in this other report, Moderna also had the lowest vaccine breakthrough rates for total infections!
6) Show more proof? Moderna also produced 2.6x more antibodies against the #SARSCoV2 virus than Pfizer in another Belgian study! We think this is because Moderna’s standard dose is 100 microgram while Pfizer’s is 30 mcg. Many scientists acknowledge this + Moderna longer time gap.
7) Another study from Minnesota found an even bigger difference between Moderna and Pfizer… for breakthroughs, ➡️ Moderna had HALF as many breakthrough infections as Pfizer! Look at the graph!
8) Let’s still remember unvaccinated are still 11x more likely to die of #COVID19. Thus, any vaccine is still leaps and bounds better than no vaccine. washingtonpost.com/health/2021/09…
9) Moderna is also developing 4 variant adapted variant-specific spike vaccines! One for #DeltaVariant, one for #BetaVariant, one for Beta+Delta, and one for Beta+original!
10) Where else have we seen fewer breakthroughs with Moderna? DC health department also noticed it a month ago… much much lower than J&J, and somewhat lower than Pfizer.
It’s been an active debate for a while—but the clue were all there for us epidemiologists watching closely.
11) Moderna 3rd shot booster’s EUA is obviously coming soon. But there is a bug debate whether to EUA authorize it as a full standard 100 mcg dose or to cut it to 50 mcg dose for the booster. I hope 100 mcg! google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.…
12) excited for the new booster data from Israel. See thread 🧵 below 👇
🛑CANCELLED—“Research on Women’s Health” funding website of the NIH.
2) here is the page that is now deleted. Funding opportunities in women’s health research of ORWH site. Didn’t Trump say they at least recognize women as a gender? Weird.
🪓DELETION UPDATE—More than 1,000 pages are now deleted from websites of CDC, National Institutes of Health, and other sites of the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a new WSJ analysis—including many **vaccine recommendation** scientific pages!
2) CDC’s vaccine advisory committee webpage… now ❌ DELETED ❌
3) To be clear, while the main ACIP website is still up (generic committee info), the “VACCINE SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS” website of ACIP has been **deleted**. That key page is the one with the actual public health info for vaccines. Feel free to verify:
⚠️CDC WEBSITES DELETED—Multiple CDC websites and datasets related to HIV, LGBTQ people, youth health behaviors and more have been removed after the agency was directed to comply with an executive order from President Trump by 5pm deadline. Wildest is taking down even HIV pages!
2) Like, why then hell did the “CAUSES” of HIV even get deleted??? Makes zero sense. Why is Trump WH wanting to block how to stop HIV??? cdc.gov/hiv/causes/ind…
3) also deleted: CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, which includes data from a national survey, has disappeared. so have parts of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry’s Social Vulnerability Index and the Environmental Justice Index.
⚠️Do you wonder why you haven’t heard much about this massive TB outbreak recently? Cuz the CDC can’t hold any press conferences or issue public statements of any kind.
➡️Most of the world 🌎 has been vaccinated against TB… but the US has not, which is now extra vulnerable.
2) For those asking, the majority of the world has used the BCG vaccine against TB… the BCG vaccine also protects against many other bacterial infections too. Up until now, CDC skipped it because US was low risk, and the BCG vaccine leaves a small scar & BCG messes up TB tests.
3) What about drugs for TB? Yes they exist but the problem is that TB often develops drug resistance (the bacteria evolves to evade neutralization). And thus, multi drug resistant TB has become a worldwide issue. That’s why childhood vaccination better. cdc.gov/tb/about/drug-…
⚠️PFAS IS BACK—recall the EPA plan to ban dangerous forever chemicals from drinking water ➡️Well, Trump WH just cancelled it… once again allowing big corporations to discharge PFAS into rivers. PFAS cause cancers & many diseases. Does this make American healthy again?
2) “There really isn’t a system within the human body that isn’t affected by PFAS. They are toxic in many ways, but they’re also very long-lived. They’re designed not to break down in the environment or not to break down to heat and chemical stress.” michiganpublic.org/politics-gover…
3) CDC also just got banned from seeking any advice or input from the WHO — CDC can’t communicate or even enter any WHO building anymore. Perfect way to politically isolate CDC from outside science.
NEW—CDC officially ordered by Trump WH to cease working with the @WHO, effective immediately. This is the first time in almost 77 years since WHO’s founding after World War 2. This is a dark day.
2) the memo said the stop-work policy applied to “all CDC staff engaging with WHO through technical working groups, coordinating centers, advisory boards, cooperative agreements or other means — in person or virtual.”
3) It also says @CDCgov staff are not allowed to visit @WHO offices.
CDC ordered to stop working with WHO immediately, upending expectations of an extended withdrawal