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LOS ANGELES – In early March, I wrote a column for cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer in which I speculated on the protection COVID-19 vaccines would offer to people with immunity issues. There was no research on this topic at the time.
I wrote about my friend, Tom, who is a member of this hapless club. Following a kidney transplant in 2003, Tom started taking immunosuppressive drugs every day and since. Although these drugs (which prevent her body from rejecting the kidney) have allowed her to lead a normal life, her resistance to infections is compromised.
Tom is a world class worrier and now he had something beyond the pandemic to worry about: people with all types of immunity issues (about 3% of adults in the United States) had not been included in clinical trials of the vaccines. Would vaccines give them a defense against COVID-19? No one knew it, but Dr.Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, advised people like Tom to get vaccinated because some immunity is better than nothing. Tom had his two hits.
Passionate about Google, Tom recently turned to his favorite search engine to see if there had been any research on the subject. Luckily, he discovered a recently published Johns Hopkins study that investigated the level of immunity kidney transplant recipients could expect from vaccines. The antibody numbers after the first shot were not encouraging – only 17% had detectable antibodies.
Curious about his own antibody levels, Tom did more research on Google and successfully embarked on the Hopkins study. By that time he had failed the first study but they accepted him after his second stroke.
In May, Johns Hopkins published the results of the second study in which those who had received their second shot have been tested. The numbers have improved – 54% had detectable antibodies; 46% did not have one.
A week later, Tom received an email from the researchers. He had tested “weakly positive” for antibodies. Not great but better than zero.
Tom was encouraged until he read this statement from one of the researchers, Dr. Dorry Segev of John Hopkins: “Given these observations, transplant recipients should not assume that two doses of vaccine guarantee sufficient immunity against SARS-CoV-2, no more than that. done after a single dose.
After a third study involving a small group of 30 transplant patients who had received boosters, scientists at Johns Hopkins determined that a third of people who had shown no detectable antibodies in the previous two tests had had them after the boost . Of those who had shown low levels of antibodies in the first two studies, many had increased their levels to a higher level.
But because this study only involved 30 people, Hopkins decided to continue it with more booster recipients. Tom has not yet had his recall but he will also be part of this study.
Unfortunately, via Google, Tom quickly found something new to fear. Shortly after the last Johns Hopkins tests, hospitals began reporting large numbers of groundbreaking cases, people who had been vaccinated but still contracted COVID-19. Tom wondered how many of these people had immunity issues.
It didn’t take long for him to confirm his suspicions. According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 40% to 44% of breakthrough cases requiring hospitalization were people with immunity problems.
Although scientists at Johns Hopkins advise people with compromised immunity to continue taking precautions (masks, distancing, etc.) after being vaccinated, Tom, being a germaphobe, wore two masks long before the study and will continue indefinitely. He likes to joke that his masks are so tight that his ears resemble Prince Charles’s and his nose seems to have come a few millimeters closer to his mouth.
He was hoping to kiss his grandchildren now. No chance.
Award-winning novelist and former magazine editor who co-wrote the film “Blue Streak,” John Blumenthal’s work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Playboy, Publishers’ Weekly, Salon and Huffington Post. This was written for The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com.
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