Finland halts Moderna vaccinations for young men over heart inflammation concernsUDPATE: Via Medical Express:
Finland has decided it will pause rolling out Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine to men born in 1991 and later due to concerns about the rare side effect of heart inflammation post-inoculation, following Nordic nations Sweden and Denmark.
Speaking at a news conference on Thursday, the director of Finland's National Institute for Health and Welfare, Mika Salminen, announced Helsinki's halt on offering Moderna's Spikevax jab to its younger male population.
"A Nordic study involving Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark found that men under the age of 30 who received Moderna Spikevax had a slightly higher risk than others of developing myocarditis," he explained.
Salminen said that while the heart inflammation often went away on its own in a few days, he recommended instead that this demographic be inoculated with Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccine, marketed as Comirnaty.
The director also said young male Finns who have had their first dose of Spikevax would receive Comirnaty for their second. He insisted it was still important to get the second dose to get maximum protection against the virus.
Iceland halts Moderna jabs over heart-inflammation fears
Iceland on Friday suspended the Moderna anti-COVID vaccine, citing the slight increased risks of cardiac inflammation, going further than its Nordic neighbours which simply limited use of the jabs.
"As the supply of Pfizer vaccine is sufficient in the territory ... the chief epidemiologist has decided not to use the Moderna vaccine in Iceland," said a statement published on the website of the Health Directorate.
This decision owed to "the increased incidence of myocarditis and pericarditis after vaccination with the Moderna vaccine, as well as with vaccination using Pfizer/BioNTech," the chief epidemiologist said in a statement.
For the past two months, Iceland has been administering an additional dose "almost exclusively" of the Moderna vaccine to Icelanders vaccinated with Janssen, a single-dose serum marketed by America's Johnson & Johnson, as well as to elderly and immunocompromised people who received two doses of another vaccine.
This will not affect the vaccination campaign in the island of 370,000 inhabitants, where 88 percent of the population over 12 years old is already fully vaccinated.
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"We've actually had discussions with power utilities who are concerned that they simply will have to implement blackouts this winter. They don't see where the fuel is coming from to meet demand. 23% of utilities are switching away from gas this fall/winter to burn more coal.With natgas, coal, and oil prices all soaring is a clear signal the green energy transition will take decades, not years. Walking back fossil fuels for unreliable clean energy has been a disaster in Asia and Europe. These power-hungry continents are scrambling for fossil fuel supplies as stockpiles are well below seasonal trends ahead of cooler weather.
The correction issued on Thursday means Mandavilli exaggerated the number of child hospitalizations by 837,000 cases. Approximately 500 American children have eventually died from the disease. The exaggeration was included in a report on the debate surrounding whether and how to vaccinate children.While there have always been reporters that cut corners or frame an issue to enhance an ideology, altering the scope of children's deaths is sensationalism most despicable.
Mandavilli has been a controversial figure at the Times for her ideologically-colored pandemic coverage. In May, she tweeted that"Someday we will stop talking about the lab leak theory and maybe even admit its racist roots. But alas, that day is not today."She later deleted the tweet but not before adding"a theory can have racist roots and still gather reasonable supporters along the way. Doesn't make the roots any less racist or the theory any more convincing, though."The theory has not yet been disproved. To the contrary, it has picked up a number of prominent supporters in the scientific community, including former Times reporters Nicholas Wade and Donald McNeil. McNeil was the lead coronavirus reporter at the publication prior to his being fired and smeared by the Times for uttering a racial epithet in the context of discussing its moral valence and grace on an educational trip several years ago.
The correction is notable as the nature of the threat that coronavirus poses to children figures heavily in the continued and often partisan debates over vaccine and mask mandates in schools.
While Republicans such as Florida governor Ron DeSantis maintain that such decisions should be left up to parents, President Joe Biden and American Federation of Teachers head Randi Weingarten have advocated for mandates, insisting that they're necessary to protect students and staff alike.
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