FSM Friends’ News and Articles
Long COVID: “This is not a small problem. It is important to include long COVID when we consider the toll of this pandemic. Much reporting focuses on the death toll, which of course is the worst outcome, but when considering the burden of an illness we need to include morbidity with mortality. Long COVID means millions of people will be affected, with lost productivity and increased health-care costs. Any “cost-benefit” analysis of steps taken to mitigate the pandemic needs to include long COVID in the equation.”
“The vaccinated are a danger to the unvaccinated because of shedding!” – The latest COVID-19 antivaccine disinformation: “If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that anti-vaxxers very much resent it when it is pointed out that they are nearly always the source of outbreaks. They interpret these observations as accusing them of being “dirty”—or, to borrow a religious term, given how much anti-vaxxers’ views tend to resemble religion—that they are “unclean”. Moreover, given how steeped in alternative medicine much of the anti-vaccine world is, along with the germ theory denial that permeates anti-vaccine beliefs, it’s not surprising that they believe, in essence, in miasmas or some sort of magical field radiated by the vaccinated that sickens the unvaccinated”.
General
Op-Ed – Are the immunosuppressed responding to two doses? Immune-suppressed people are finding that they may get less reliable or less effective benefits from the COVID-19 vaccines, and evidence is starting to build in this area. For this reason is important that immune-suppressed persons in COVID-19 risk areas continue to take appropriate precautions like mask wearing and social distancing. Of course, more study is needed. It may be that better vaccine response can be achieved through modified vaccine schedules or additional doses, but it will take time for evidence on these hypothesis to be developed. In the meantime, there is one well established technique that is known to be very effective in protecting immune-suppressed persons. That is for society around them to achieve herd immunity.
Sports concussions affect men and women differently. Female athletes need more attention in brain research: “We need studies in women to assess the interaction between exposure to single or repeated head impacts and the potential changes in brain and behaviour across the lifespan.” Males and females experience diseases and show symptoms differently – this is true for behavioural disorders in childhood and for how symptoms for a heart attack might present. Unfortunately, women have long been underrepresented in clinical trials and studies for both logistical and societal reasons. And increased focus on women’s sport at an elite level is highlighting the need for an increased understanding of traumatic brain injury in women, and what long term effects may result.
Lesser-known Health Professions
Orthotists: Orthotics is a medical specialty that focuses on the design and application of orthoses. An orthosis is “an externally applied device used to modify the structural and functional characteristics of the neuromuscular and skeletal system.”