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Research Allows More Insight Into Post-Vaccine Heart Inflammation Cases

By LokMarg 13th May 2023

When the new Covid-19 vaccinations were introduced two years ago, public health experts discovered an increase in incidences of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, particularly among young guys who had received mRNA immunisations. However, it remained unclear what exactly was producing this response.

In a new study, Yale scientists have identified the immune signature of these heart inflammation cases.
These findings, published in the journal Science Immunology, rule out some of the theorised causes of heart inflammation and suggest potential ways to further reduce the incidence of a still rare side effect of vaccination, the authors say.

Myocarditis is a generally mild inflammation of heart tissue which can cause scarring but is usually resolved within days. The increased incidence of myocarditis during vaccination was seen primarily in males in their teens or early 20s, who had been vaccinated with mRNA vaccines, which are designed to elicit immune responses specifically to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), among males aged 12 to 17, about 22 to 36 per 100,000 experienced myocarditis within 21 days after receiving a second vaccine dose. Among unvaccinated males in this age group, the incidence of myocarditis was 50.1 to 64.9 cases per 100,000 after infection with the Covid-19 virus.

For the new study, the Yale research team conducted a detailed analysis of immune system responses in those rare cases of myocarditis among vaccinated individuals. The team was led by Carrie Lucas, associate professor of immunobiology, Akiko Iwasaki, Sterling Professor of Immunobiology, and Inci Yildirim, associate professor of pediatrics and epidemiology.

They found that the heart inflammation was not caused by antibodies created by the vaccine, but rather by a more generalized response involving immune cells and inflammation.

“The immune systems of these individuals get a little too revved up and over-produce cytokine and cellular responses,” Lucas said.

Earlier research had suggested that increasing the time between vaccination shots from four to eight weeks may reduce risk of developing myocarditis.

Lucas noted that, according to CDC findings, the risk of myocarditis is significantly greater in unvaccinated individuals who contract the Covid-19 virus than in those who receive vaccines. She emphasized that vaccination offers the best protection from Covid-related diseases. (ANI)

Centre Forms 4-Member Team To Probe WHO Claims On Maiden Pharma

By LokMarg 12th October 2022

The Central Government on Wednesday formed a four-member expert committee to investigate the report sent by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on the deaths of 66 children in the Gambia by consumption of cough syrups from Sonipat-based company Maiden Pharmaceuticals Limited, said official sources.

“Government is alert and formed a committee. Production of cough syrups by Maiden Pharmaceuticals Ltd has been suspended, and a lab report is awaited. Four-member expert committee has been formed to investigate the report sent by WHO,” official sources told ANI.
A committee comprising technical experts Dr. YK Gupta, Vice Chairperson, Standing National Committee on Medicines (chair); Dr. Pragya Yadav, ICMR -NIV, Pune; Dr. Arti Bahl, Division of epidemiology, NCDC, New Delhi, and AK Pradhan, JDC(I), CDSCO has been formed.

According to the reports, Atlanta-based Atlantic Pharmaceuticals Company Ltd which has permission to export medicines to the Gambia ordered combined syrups bottles which were purchased from Maiden Pharmaceuticals limited.

“From the preliminary inquiry of Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO), it has been made out that Maiden Pharmaceuticals Ltd is a manufacturer licensed by the State Drug Controller for the product’s Promethazine Oral Solution BP, Kofexnalin Baby cough syrup, MaKoff Baby Cough Syrup and MaGrip n Cold Syrup under reference, and holds manufacturing permission for these products for export only,” the sources said.

The company has manufactured and exported these products only to the Gambia.

“It is a usual practice that the importing country tests such imported medicines on quality parameters, and satisfies itself as to the quality of the products before the importing country decides to release such products for usage in the country. In the present case, it is yet not clear whether these medicines were tested in the Gambia before release,” the sources added.

The WHO has informed that as per the tentative results received by WHO, out of the 23 samples of the products under reference which was tested, four samples have been found to contain Diethylene Glycol or Ethylene glycol.

“WHO has not yet made available a certificate of analysis. It has informed that the same will be made available in near future,” the sources said.

The top officials informed that the exact “one-to-one causal relation of death” has not been provided by WHO to CDSCO although CDSCO has requested WHO twice in this regard.

Earlier in the day, the Haryana government has ordered a halt to the total production of cough syrups from Sonipat-based company Maiden Pharmaceuticals Limited.

The company has also been issued a show cause notice for 12 violations found at its manufacturing plant.

State health minister Anil Vij told ANI on Wednesday, “The samples of three drugs of the Sonipat-based pharmaceutical company, which were mentioned by WHO, have been sent to Central Drug Laboratory in Kolkata. The report is yet to come. We will take action only after the report comes. After a joint inspection by Central and State officials, 12 violations were found in the manufacturing facility. … It has been decided to shut down total production. We have sent a notice in this regard.”

The pharma company had come under scanner following the death of 66 children who had consumed the cough syrup in the Gambia.

World Health Organization (WHO) on October 5 issued a medical product alert over four India-made cough and cold syrups manufactured by Maiden Pharmaceuticals. WHO has also notified that the same cough and cold syrups could be linked to the deaths of 66 children in the Gambia. (ANI)

Path To Peace, Reconciliation Lies In Reclaiming Kashmir’s Cosmopolitan Histories

By LokMarg 11th October 2022

There is a knowledge vacuum regarding the connected histories of Kashmir since the 2000 years of its formative history. There has been systematic academic neglect which gave rise to a host of misconceptions and misrepresentations due to the rush towards separatist politics, said a press release.

There has been a deliberate silence on Kashmir’s historical identity to suit the separatist political agendas across the globe. This systematic erasure of Kashmir’s history from living local memory is the root of the disinformation and conflict in the valley and has led to the irreparable loss of life, generational trauma, and grief, as per the press release.
According to historian and Associate Professor Dr. Shonaleeka Kaul’s seminal work ‘The Making of Early Kashmir: Landscape and identity in the Rajtarangini’, Kashmir emerged in a network of shaped interactions with the Indic subcontinent or supra region, not in isolation or insularity, as per the statement.

She maps out detailed connections and centrality of Kashmir to the imagination, participation, and subscription to all pan-Indian beliefs and practices before the closed, exclusionist character of separatist politics denied it in service of conflict, resulting in the disintegrating of both Muslim and Pandit communities. This deracination (uprooting of one from their natural geographical, social, and cultural environment) was done by propping up a fundamentalist narrative and agenda to develop a false narrative that Kashmir was hermetically sealed off from India.

In a five-part series in The New Indian Express, Dr. Kaul goes on to systematically prove that Kashmir was open, cosmopolitan, and Indic in her genesis and epitomized the Indic for two millennia. She uses not only historical geography, archaeology, linguistics, and belief systems to prove her thesis but also testimonies of ancient and medieval observers outside of Kashmir, the evolution of the Kashmiri script, matrimonial alliances with various kingdoms of India, art, philosophy, and migration patterns across the two pan-Indic routes of trade and communication, namely the Uttarapath from Peshawar to Bengal and the Dakshinapath from Bihar to peninsular and coastal India.

The identity of a community or region forms organically over a long duration with a network of shaped interactions with other regions or a supra region as mentioned above. Hence Kashmir could not have developed a unique and insular one, considering how it was part of the pan-Indian political formations and a part of trans-regional Indic kingdoms.

If we are to redress this knowledge vacuum, the fallacies regarding Kashmir’s social and cultural interconnectedness must be distanced from the exclusionist and separatist status that has been pushed forward to service conflict by vested interests, not just domestically but internationally too. Yes, Kashmir does display a distinct regional self-awareness from the accounts that have come down to us, emphasising Kashmir’s overarching adherence to all Indian beliefs and practices; proving yet again that there was no conflict between the local and pan-Indic affiliations and Kashmir was always crucial to the subcontinent’s affairs.

If anyone is looking for a path to peace and reconciliation, it can only lie in reclaiming Kashmir’s plural, open and cosmopolitan histories, and the acceptance that its genesis was Indic in nature. Then only can people heal through reversing the epistemic violence done to them by taking pride in their history and cultural, social, and political connectedness to the subcontinent.

Epistemic violence is the consequence of epistemic injustice (the injustice of dismissing the knowledge of Kashmir’s connected past with the subcontinent and diminishing the validation of evidence proving these shared histories), in Kashmir’s case, the global anti-India machinery and the ‘Atlantic Gang’ has constantly pushed this epistemic injustice with well-funded disinformation and conflict toolkits. The marginalization of the voices from the minority Pandit community as well as the victims of terrorists from the majority Muslim community is proof of this epistemic violence.

Foreign powers, and their allies in keeping a region down geopolitically, through means of conflict, and anarchic narratives which disrupt the social fabric of a subcontinent that has developed cohesion over centuries, despite repeated invasions, plunder, and eventual partitioning of two separate countries, cannot be allowed to manipulate the internal workings of a population that has chosen violence to redress their traditional political grievances by ethnically cleansing a community. There is no ethical, moral, or political basis for the regressive aspirations of a separate homeland only on the basis of religion. (ANI)