Looks like Pfizler found another way to screw up your immune system

From Jeff Childers

Uh-oh! CNN ran an article Wednesday with the alarming headline, “Covid-19 Cases That Return After Antiviral Treatment Puzzle Doctors.” The gist is some people who take Paxlovid find their symptoms temporarily abate but then come roaring back, even worse.

The article begins by describing Erin Blakeney, a 43-year-old researcher who is fully boosted, not immunocompromised, and wears KN95 masks around other people. But she and her husband both tested positive for asymptomatic Covid in March, and to be extra safe, Erin got them some Paxlovid. It’s supposed to only be prescribed for high-risk patients, but Erin wanted to be extra sure. Because you can never be too careful.

After taking the five-day series of pills, Erin and her husband tested negative. Whew. But then within a few days, the article explains “she was starting to get congested again. When she woke up on Tuesday, April 12, she realized that she was really sick. Her husband was, too.” They both took rapid tests, and guess what? Positive again.

But this time she had a high fever, a rapid heart rate and a “really awful” cough. She says her breathing was very wheezy. She wound up going to the ER, where doctors were mystified it could even happen, after taking Paxlovid. “They were like, ‘we’ve never heard of this,’ “ Blakeney explained. CNN reports she’s now “mostly recovered,” though her cough has lingered.

CNN describes a couple other examples, and then admits the experts are baffled. Dr. Michael Charness, a Boston VA neurologist who’s submitted a pre-print study about the problem, admitted “At the moment, I would say it’s just a little mysterious. There are a lot of potential explanations for what’s going on. They’re all speculation, and it has to be much better studied.”

How could this possibly have happened? The drug was SO carefully vetted by the FDA before being approved under EUA as one of the only treatments for Covid. Weird.

Pfizer admitted to CNN that, in the clinical trial for the drug, a “small number” of patients taking Paxlovid experienced higher viral loads 10 to 14 days after starting treatment compared with their viral loads at day 5. Pfizer claims the placebo group showed the same thing, which if true, doesn’t say much for any benefit from Paxlovid.

Blogger Igor Chudov rounded up an impressive number of online posts from puzzled people who recently took Paxlovid and then got a worse case of covid. Chudov re-printed the posts in his Substack. Many of the folks reported all-new types of symptoms arising during their second infection, like first-time loss of smell or taste. Almost all report having been vaccinated.

So, what’s going on? No help from the experts, unfortunately, even though they have opinions about everything else.