FDA: Vaccine Hesitant Can’t Use Antibody Test to Prove Immunity!
by Art Moore | WND
Many Americans who have chosen not to get one of the experimental COVID-19 vaccines because of the risks have hoped that testing positive for antibodies could substitute for being vaccinated, providing a virtual “vaccine passport.”
But the Food and Drug Administration issued guidance this week stating a vaccine is still needed to confirm immunity from the COVID-19 virus.
The FDA acknowledged that antibody tests “can play an important role in identifying individuals who may have been exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus and may have developed an adaptive immune response.”
“However, antibody tests should not be used at this time to determine immunity or protection against COVID-19 at any time, and especially after a person has received a COVID-19 vaccination.”
The FDA said that antibodies provided by the vaccines are superior to the antibodies developed from being infected by the virus, providing needed protection that the regular antibodies do not.
But that’s contradicted by empirical study data, Yale University epidemiologist Dr. Harvey Risch told WND.
He pointed to a massive study in Israel finding that people who had tested positive for the novel coronavirus in the previous three or more months had at least as much protection against new infection, hospitalization and death as vaccinated people.
“People become immune by surviving infection,” argued Risch, professor of epidemiology in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the Yale School of Public Health and Yale School of Medicine.
In an email to WND, he explained that serum antibodies and T-cell antibodies – the white blood cells that attack infections – demonstrate past history of infection.
Risch said the FDA is correct that antibodies from infection are not the same as post-vaccination antibodies.
But this is irrelevant, he contended.
“These natural antibodies are proof of past infection,” said Risch. “Past infection is extremely strong evidence of immunity.”
‘Irrational’ to vaccinate children
Risch joined Dr. Peter McCullough, a professor of medicine at Baylor University, on Thursday night in an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham.
Both have testified to the U.S. Senate, decrying the federal government’s politicization of health care during the pandemic, curbing or blocking the availability of cheap, effective treatments for COVID-19 such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.
Asked by Ingraham to comment on Dr. Anthony Fauci’s recommendation in a TV interview this week that children as young as 4 get vaccinated, Risch said it’s “irrational.”
Young children do not get very sick from COVID, they don’t spread the virus, “and they certainly do not die” from it, he argued.
“So, neither they nor the society around them has any interest in vaccinating them,” said Risch.
But they can be harmed by the vaccines, he said, pointing to cases reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System database, or VAERS. Among them were a 15-year-old who had a heart attack, a 2-year-old who died a day after the vaccination and a 6-month-old who died after receiving the vaccine through the mother’s breast milk.
“So, children have no reason to die from vaccination that isn’t going to help them or the society either,” Risch said.
McCullough warned that the randomized vaccine trials excluded people who had been infected with COVID. That means there is no safety data and no indication of the effectiveness of the vaccine for people who have been infected, he said.
Further, there are two studies from the U.K. and one from New York City that show higher rates of adverse events for recovered COVID-19 patients who are vaccinated.
“There’s no evidence of benefit and only evidence of harm,” he said. Read Full Article >