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ItemCommunicable diseases are not communicable(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2020-10) Kostoff, Ronald N. ; Briggs, Michael B. ; Kanduc, Darja ; Porter, Alan L. ; Buchtel, Henry A.Communicable disease is a misnomer. The disease is not communicable; the microbe mainly associated with the disease is communicable. Whether the recipient of the microbe develops the disease depends on the health of the recipient’s immune system. Our model of COVID-19 development starts with real-life exposures to multiple toxic stressors degrading the immune system. This is followed by the SARS-CoV-2 virus exploiting the degraded immune system to trigger a chain of events ultimately leading to COVID-19. To prevent or treat infectious disease, the health of the immune system must be maintained or improved. One major component of maintaining and improving immune system health is removal of those factors that contribute to immune system degradation. A previous monograph identified many factors that contribute to immune system degradation (Contributing Factors (CFs)). It was hypothesized that many of these CFs to immune system degradation were identical to those that past studies have shown were CFs to chronic diseases. To test this hypothesis, a proof-of-principle demonstration was performed to identify the commonality between CFs to immune system degradation and CFs to Parkinson’s Disease (PD). A very streamlined approach was used, and approximately 500 CFs were found in common between the two diseases. Since COVID-19 (and other infectious diseases) results from immune system degradation in our model, this means COVID-19 and PD are enabled by many of the same toxic exposures and toxic behaviors. Thus, many of the measures required to strategically treat and prevent infectious diseases are similar to those required to strategically treat and prevent chronic diseases. This is a major paradigm shift for orthodox Western medicine, but is required to achieve major advances in global population health.
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ItemCOVID-19: Preventing Future Pandemics(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2020) Kostoff, Ronald N. ; Briggs, Michael B. ; Porter, Alan L.The COVID-19 pandemic has had global health and economic adverse impacts. The main measures being taken to control the spread of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus associated with COVID-19) are conceptually those that were taken to control the spread of SARS-CoV in the previous coronavirus-driven pandemic of 2002-2003: good hygiene, facemasks, and quarantine (lockdown). The difference is the larger scale of these measures for SARS-CoV-2. A weakened immune system appears to be the main determinant of serious/fatal reaction to viral infection (for COVID-19, SARS, and influenza alike). There are four major approaches being employed or considered presently to augment or strengthen the immune system, in order to reduce adverse effects of viral exposure. The three approaches that are mainly focused on augmenting the immune system are based on the concept that pandemics can be controlled/prevented while maintaining the immune-weakening lifestyles followed by much of the global population. The fourth approach is based on identifying and introducing measures aimed at strengthening the immune system intrinsically in order to minimize future pandemics. The four measures are: 1) restricting exposure to virus; 2) providing reactive/tactical treatments to reduce viral load; 3) developing vaccines to prevent, or at least attenuate, the infection; 4) strengthening the immune system intrinsically, by a) identifying those factors that contribute to weakening the immune system, then eliminating/reducing them as comprehensively, thoroughly, and rapidly as possible and b) replacing the eliminated factors with immune-strengthening factors. The present monograph focuses mainly on strengthening the immune system intrinsically. It identifies hundreds of factors that contribute to weakening the immune system, as well as measures that can strengthen the immune system. It also addresses the vaccine issue, since vaccine development has been emphasized in myriad forums. Potential mid-and long-term adverse vaccine effects that cannot be identified in short-term tests characteristic of efficacy testing are identified. To ensure safety, long-term testing under real-life conditions (exposures to multiple toxic stimuli) are required. There is an incompatibility between the accelerated vaccine development times being pursued by government and industry and the long times required for validation of vaccine safety. In summary, 1) there is not unanimity within the medical community for continuing post-lockdown the severe restrictions on activities of the vast majority of the total population that are mainly applicable to the most vulnerable very small minority of the total population; 2) repurposed (mainly) antiviral treatments can only be expected to have very limited results in controlling SARS-CoV-2 viral load of the most severely impacted, based on trials conducted so far; 3) it is difficult to see how safe COVID-19 vaccines can be developed and fully tested on time scales of one or two years, as proposed presently; 4) the only real protection against a future COVID-19 pandemic or any other viral pandemic is the one that was demonstrated to work in the SARS pandemic, the MERS pandemic, the COVID-19 pandemic, and in the annual influenza pandemics: a healthy immune system capable of neutralizing incoming viruses as Nature intended. We need an Operation Warp Speed (currently working to produce a vaccine in a record short time period in the USA) to identify and eliminate those factors that weaken the immune system as thoroughly, comprehensively, and rapidly as possible.
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ItemCOVID-19 Vaccine Safety Considerations(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2020) Kostoff, Ronald N. ; Kanduc, Darja ; Porter, Alan L. ; Shoenfeld, Yehuda ; Briggs, Michael B.The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has produced global health and economic adverse impacts. The main measures being taken to control the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and of the virus-associated diseases (COVID-19) are conceptually those that were taken to control the spread of SARS-CoV in the previous coronavirus-driven pandemic of 2002-2003: good hygiene, facemasks, and quarantine (lockdown). The difference is the larger scale of these measures for SARS-CoV-2. A degraded/dysfunctional immune system appears to be the main determinant of serious/fatal reaction to viral infection (for COVID-19, SARS, and influenza alike). There are four major approaches being employed or considered presently to augment or strengthen the immune system, in order to reduce adverse effects of viral exposure. The three approaches that are focused mainly on augmenting the immune system are based on the concept that pandemics can be controlled/prevented while maintaining the immune-degrading lifestyles followed by much of the global population. The fourth approach is based on identifying and introducing measures aimed at strengthening the immune system intrinsically in order to minimize future pandemics. Specifically, the four measures are: 1) restricting exposure to virus; 2) providing reactive/tactical treatments to reduce viral load; 3) developing vaccines to prevent, or at least attenuate, the infection; 4) strengthening the immune system intrinsically, by a) identifying those factors that contribute to degrading the immune system, then eliminating/reducing them as comprehensively, thoroughly, and rapidly as possible, and b) replacing the eliminated factors with immune-strengthening factors. A previous monograph [1] focused mainly on strengthening the immune system intrinsically, and secondarily on vaccine-related issues. It identified many hundreds of factors that contribute to weakening the immune system, as well as measures that can strengthen it. The present monograph focuses on vaccine safety. A future COVID-19 vaccine appears to be the treatment of choice at the national/international level globally. Vaccine development has been accelerated to achieve this goal in the relatively near-term, and questions have arisen whether vaccine safety has been/is being/will be compromised in pursuit of a shortened vaccine development time. In addition to identifying short-term adverse vaccine effects, the present monograph identifies potential mid-and long-term adverse vaccine effects that cannot be identified in short-term tests characteristic of vaccine efficacy testing. To ensure vaccine safety, long-term testing under real-life conditions (exposures to multiple toxic stimuli) is required. There is an incompatibility between the accelerated vaccine development times being pursued by government and industry and the long times required for validation of vaccine safety. In summary, it is difficult to see how safe COVID-19 vaccines can be developed and fully tested for safety on development time scales of one or two years, as proposed presently. The only real protection against a future COVID-19 pandemic or any other viral pandemic is the one that was demonstrated to work in the SARS, MERS, and COVID-19 pandemic, and in the annual influenza pandemics: a healthy immune system capable of neutralizing incoming viruses as nature intended.