Watch Dr. Wayne Winegarden, Director of PRI's Center for Medical Economics and Innovation, respond to news that the federal government will stop paying for COVID-19 vaccines on NTD Business. https://youtu.be/f6gCvoK_Pv4?t=324...
Late last month, the Food and Drug Administration advised COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers to develop booster shots aimed at the omicron variant of the virus. Regulators hope the shots will be ready by the fall. That will probably be too late to stop BA.5, the highly transmissible subvariant that has quickly become the dominant strain in the United States. It's been roughly six months since omicron caused COVID cases to spike. Yet the FDA waited until a new, more transmissible version of the virus was threatening a wave of cases...
By Henry I. Miller, M.S., M.D. and John J. Cohrssen Earlier this week, President Biden outlined new steps to confront the growing spread of Covid-19 from the new, more infectious Omicron variant, which, in only a few weeks, has soared from virtually nonexistent to 73 percent of all new cases. Unfortunately, Biden’s plan failed to include what could be the most important action of all: an all-out effort to make safe and effective anti-viral Covid-19 pills available—two of which have now...
Dr. Henry Miller joins the John Batchelor Show to talk about the latest news coming out of the United Kingdom, NHS reports on omicron, how the new variant compares to other variants of the COVID-19 virus, and what it means for Europe and the United States. Miller also talks about how transmissible omicron is, how effective vaccines and boosters could be, and it's impact on lockdowns, mask mandates, and travel. ...
Whether it was flip-flops on the effectiveness of masks, seemingly inane restrictions on certain activities, or crass politicization of the use of ineffective drugs, the past 20 months have provided numerous reasons to question what we were told. Significant numbers of people are resisting employer mandates to get the COVID-19 vaccine and thereby jeopardizing their jobs. Still, there is a useful but misunderstood and underused mitigation tool — rapid-result antigen tests , which detect pieces of the SARS-CoV-2 virus's proteins — that can...
After more than a year and a half of an agonizing pandemic, researchers at Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics have announced a successful oral antiviral treatment. The drug, called molnupiravir, prevents about half of COVID-19-associated hospitalizations. The data monitoring committee, which oversees clinical trials, stopped the trials because the evidence of efficacy was sufficiently persuasive — hospitalizations reduced by 50%, deaths by 100% — that they deemed it unethical to continue with a placebo-treated control group. On Oct. 11, the sponsors requested emergency...
This week, Pfizer-BioNTech submitted data to the Food and Drug Administration demonstrating the safety and effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccine in children ages 5 to 11. The duo is expected to apply for emergency-use authorization in the coming weeks. Federal regulators have promised they'll "urgently" review the data. The FDA's Dr. Peter Marks told USA Today the data would be "looked at if not within hours, certainly within the day." Speed is of the utmost importance. The FDA has already slowed the...
There is continuing confusion, and even consternation, over what seem to be disparate policies, recommendations and mandates emerging in response to the Delta-driven surge of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations in much of the country. Masks or no masks? Vaccine mandates versus voluntary vaccination? Proof of vaccination for admission to bars and entertainment venues? The Zeitgeist is nicely captured by this Saturday Night Live sketch earlier this summer on the CDC’s seemingly ever-changing mask policy: In fact, the patchwork of policies and what some have derided as “moving the...
Biden Plan May Require 2/3 of American Workforce to Either Get Vaccinated or Weekly COVID-19 Tests President Biden laid out a six-step plan to control the spread of the highly infectious coronavirus Delta variant and get more Americans vaccinated against COVID-19. “We have the tools to combat the virus,” he said during a press conference today at the White House. “If we can come together as a country and use those tools… we can, and we will, turn the tide on COVID-19.” ....
Henry Miller, M.S., M.D. joins the nationally-syndicated Lars Larson Show to talk about the latest COVID-19 variants and how they differ from previous versions. Miller also talks about the range of immunity including vaccines, herd immunity, and other factors. Lars Larson National Podcast · Lars Larson National Podcast 08-31-21...
Dr. Henry Miller joins the nationally-syndicated Lars Larson Show to discuss the "swiss cheese" approach to testing, screening, and treating COVID-19 and the impact to civil liberties. Miller and Larson debate the balance needed to react to COVID-19 and the moving target by public health officials. Lars Larson National Podcast · Lars Larson National Podcast 08-03-21...
Each of the measures shown in the figure here--the "Swiss cheese model of prevention"--lowers the probability that an infectious dose of virus will find its way to your respiratory tract and, if it does, will actually cause an infection. Also, depending on the effectiveness and extent of vaccine administration, vaccination could make some of the other interventions superfluous. Such strategies are the essence of preventive medicine. Many of us take drugs to lower our cholesterol levels or blood pressure to reduce the...
It's been about six months since the Food and Drug Administration allowed the distribution of the first COVID-19 vaccines via emergency use authorizations, which are preliminary approvals during a public health emergency based on lower standards of safety and efficacy than for a normal, or "full," approval. As of July 13, 48.1% of the U.S. population had been fully vaccinated. However, uptake has been inconsistent among different groups and locales, the earlier momentum for vaccination has waned, and there are surges of...
The COVID-19 vaccines have been nothing short of miraculous. Life is returning to normal in many places. But ACSH advisor Dr. Henry Miller argues that we will still need effective medical treatments for COVID-19. COVID-19 vaccines are the miracle that has significantly suppressed the pandemic in a number of countries, including the United States, where the current seven-day moving averages of cases and deaths are at levels not seen since March of 2020. With continued aggressive vaccination, we can further suppress the numbers – getting us...
President Biden recently backed a World Trade Organization proposal to waive intellectual property protections on COVID-19 vaccines and therapies — a move the Trump administration rejected just a few months ago. The White House’s decision is a catastrophe. The waiver will do nothing to increase access to vaccines. It will, however, undermine the system of intellectual property protections that made these breakthrough vaccines possible. Patients today and well into the future will suffer, as investors think twice about funding risky efforts to research and develop therapies...
Henry Miller, M.S., M.D. and Lars Larson talk about vaccine "passports" and the concern that documentation for vaccines could be expanded for other uses. Larson compares the vaccine passports to the widespread use of social security cards and the pending policy questions from requiring medical documentation. Lars Larson National Podcast · Lars Larson National Podcast 04-06-21...
Anyone active on social media is aware that there is a great deal of passionate but ill-founded opposition to vaccination, including to the new COVID-19 vaccines. How could that be? Physicians and the public health establishment are constantly promoting vaccination, especially as we try to stem the tide of the coronavirus pandemic. It turns out that the anti-vaccine sentiment is the product of what can only be described as an industry whose principal protagonists are an organized group of professional propagandists. As recently reported in the...
During the past year, many thousands of articles and commentaries have been published on almost every imaginable aspect of the SARS-Cov-2 virus and the COVID-19 pandemic it has caused. They have appeared online, in journals, on preprint servers, in newspapers, and on Facebook and Twitter, to say nothing of local electronic bulletin boards. TV news programs continue to feature prominently the latest developments and statistics. As the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines has progressed throughout the country, a prominent issue is vaccine hesitancy –...
Dr. Henry Miller joins the John Batchelor Show talks about Israel's success in vaccinating their population and how it compares with COVID-19 vaccine rates in the United States and Europe. Miller and Batchelor also talk about some troubling news out of South Africa, where small studies have shown coronavirus reinfections, resistance to current treatments, and a story out of the Brazilian city of Manaus about supplies and resources being depleted. Miller explains that despite original herd immunity in Brazil, a...
Henry Miller, M.S., M.D. and PRI's Senior Fellow talks to the nationally-syndicated Lars Larson Show to talk about his latest op-ed featured in Issues & Insights, "Something to Chew on: A Simple and Smart Approach to Health." Miller talks about how simple practices like chewing sugar-free gum can help prevent disease, bacteria, and other sickness. Miller and Larson also talk about the latest updates regarding the COVID-19 vaccines and cases. Lars Larson National Podcast · Lars Larson National Podcast 02-02-21...