Top American researchers and Filipino medical experts discussed pressing issues and confusions about the virus and the vaccine during the first Philippine COVID summit on November 25, organized by the Concerned Doctors and Citizens of the Philippines (CDC PH).
The speakers during the event shared recent scientific, clinical experiences, and insights for a better understanding and effective management of COVID-19.
It included doctors Pierre Kory, Peter McCullough, Sabine Hazan-Steinberg, Marivic Villa, all practicing and based in the United States; and Romy Quijano, Allan Landrito, and Rafael Castillo from the Philippines.
Doctors Villa, Kory, McCullough, and Dr. Hazan-Steinberg are all Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) members, regularly updating physicians worldwide on cost-effective and commonly available treatments. They were among the first to advocate the use of ivermectin in COVID-19 and have urged national governments to include ivermectin in their prevention and early treatment kits. According to them, countries like India, Indonesia, and Japan heeded the advice and are now enjoying a near-COVID-free status, with zero deaths and zero new cases on some days.
Aside from the new insights for more effective management of COVID-19 patients, practical information, studies, and reports were also tackled during the whole-day event.
Castillo, a cardiologist at Manila Doctors and member of the Professional Regulatory Board of Medicine Hospital, said, “Although no one in the panel thought that a well-managed COVID-19 outbreak could lead to numerous fatal outcomes, we expressed some concern why health officials are not analyzing seriously and explaining to the public why the Philippines is showing a paradoxical increase in deaths despite the 93-percent decrease in new confirmed cases, from peak levels of more than 20,000 new cases daily more than two months ago.”
Castillo also mentioned that at the peak of the last surge, the weekly daily average of deaths was 153 daily. This number of people dying has slowly increased, despite the marked drop in new cases. He cited that as of November 21, the weekly average is more than 200 deaths daily, hitting more than 300 deaths on some days, though the new cases have been markedly reduced to only 1,200 cases daily.
“When you compute the case fatality risk (CFR), which is a crude manner of estimating disease severity and assessing our effectiveness in managing cases, the CFR has increased from 0.7-percent weekly average during the mid-September peak to 16.7 percent as of November 25. That’s a 22-fold increase in the percentage of patients dying, but nary an explanation from the authorities why, all of a sudden, local COVID patients are dying more. Is the virus getting more virulent? Is there something wrong with the way we manage our patients? Unless we identify the cause for this—whether it’s just a statistical fluke or a chance occurrence or some real problems—we won’t know how to properly address it to prevent more Filipinos from dying,” Castillo added.”
“Early treatment is the key to survive COVID-19 infection”
According to Villa, an internal medicine specialist practicing pulmonary medicine, intensive care, and functional medicine in Florida, COVID-19 is treatable so long as it is treated early enough.
“Unfortunately, many wait until they’re severely sick before they
see a doctor. An extreme fear of the disease can only lead to worse outcomes, so it is best to maintain an objective, healthy attitude about COVID-19. It is a disease we should be alarmed but not phobic about,” she said.
Kory and McCullough reiterated that early treatment is vital to surviving COVID-19 infection. They stressed that recognizing symptoms early, and taking treatments that have been shown to be effective in preventing multiplication of the virus and the cytokine storm that it triggers, can go a long way in improving outcomes even in high-risk individuals.
“Breastfeeding is unsafe when the mother has just been vaccinated”
Villa, Quijano, and Landrito do not advise mothers who have just been vaccinated to breastfeed their children.
Villa cited two of her patients in Florida who continued to breastfeed their two and four-month-old babies after vaccination.
“The babies developed a febrile illness which was unresponsive to treatment. They were diagnosed with a multisystemic inflammatory disease, and she said that the role vaccination played could not be ruled out. Unfortunately, both babies die,” shared Villa.
According to the panel of doctors, this happened because just as antibodies could be passed on to the baby from the body through breast milk, it is also possible that the spike proteins coming from the vaccine could be passed on to the baby and cause the arteries to get swollen.
“The spike protein is part of the virus that the vaccines make the body produce in big quantities after vaccination. Although it was believed to stay localized in the injection site of the vaccine, there is mounting evidence that the billions of spike proteins produced by the body circulate and lodge in the various organs. In the case of breastfeeding mothers, they could be passed on to the babies. Spike proteins are now believed to be the culprits that cause tissue and organ damage either from an actual infection or from vaccination,” Villa added.
“Vaccinated individuals cannot donate blood”
Quijano said that individuals who received vaccines are not advisable to donate blood.
“One would not like to get blood where spike proteins are circulating in abundance. Such would only be justifiable in acute emergencies, as in the case of shock due to massive blood loss, but in non-emergency cases. I advise them not to agree to receive blood from vaccinated people,” said Quijano, a retired professor from the University of the Philippines College of Medicine and an expert in pharmacology and pharmacovigilance, the science that monitors the effects of various medicines when they are made available to the public.
He also urged the National Red Cross and all blood-bank institutions to strongly consider not accepting blood donations from fully vaccinated individuals until it could be ruled out that there are no more circulating spike proteins in the donor’s blood. He also dreaded when the blood banks would run out of blood because everyone would be vaccinated and could not donate blood anymore.
“Vaccines may increase the risk of a heart attack”
The panel of doctors also tackled the lingering but unproven fear that vaccines produce spike proteins that may cause problems in the lining of arteries and veins, promoting the development of blood clots. They stressed that the resulting heart attack or stroke might not be immediate but may happen in the upcoming several years.
Proving that this concern has a scientific basis, the experts cited a study by Dr. Steven Gunsry that evaluated the overall cardiovascular risk of vaccinated individuals to develop a heart attack in the next five years. This study was published by the Circulation Journal, the official journal of the American Heart Association and one of the most credible sources of new scientific data on cardiovascular medicine.
The study used the PULS Cardiac Test that predicts the likelihood of having a heart attack in five years, and the researchers have shown more than a doubling of the risk. The test reflects the severity of the inflammation happening in the arteries and the likelihood that an atherosclerotic plaque might rupture, causing thrombosis or blood clots.
“Health officials should weigh this new data and exercise an abundance of caution in vaccinating all regardless of the risk. Any treatment that can cause more than a doubling of the risk of a heart attack is definitely not acceptable,” said Castillo.