Hepatitis update: April 27, 2022

It's not from the vaccine!

Rumors are rampant around the internet that the hepatitis outbreak among children is tied to the COVID vaccine so I feel the need to correct that. This is utterly and irrefutably not true. The outbreak began in the UK where the bulk of cases are. NONE of those children were vaccinated against COVID. Not a single one. This is not a side effect of being vaccinated -but it very well may be a side effect of having had COVID even in kids who were asymptomatic as so many of them are. We don't yet know, it is just one possible explanation that is being evaluated. And many of the children who are getting sick are kids who were too young to be vaccinated, so there is absolutely no way it is from the vaccine.

As you know, we can't just jump to conclusions regarding what is causing this. So far, only around 40% of the kids that are getting this are testing positive for the adenovirus type 41 so that too seems unlikely to be the culprit. No one is really prepared to cross that off the list entirely yet, but it is looking less likely.

Japan is reporting its first case and Canada is investigating "cases" with no specific number yet. So this is going to be a thing. If you have children, watch for upset stomach, vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal pain.

You may recall that children who had COVID are 30-160% more likely to develop diabetes afterward than children who did not get COVID. It is not uncommon to see things like this following some viruses. Remember during the height of the pandemic we talked often about the fact that death should not and could not be the only measure of the severity of COVID, we did not know the long-term impact of contracting it - we still really don't. This hepatitis thing may be completely unrelated, perhaps it is a case of super bad timing, we just have to wait and see. We have to dust off that ole slogan Facts, not Fear.

FINAL THOUGHTS: As the hepatitis situation begins to unfold I am so discouraged to see us circling back to the same place....conspiracies, misinformation, lies, etc. When this all began back in 2020 someone was pretty critical of me for using words like, "should" "may" and "possibly." They wanted me to use more solid words and dismissed me altogether because they said it didn't sound like I actually knew anything because those words were so noncommittal. What I knew, was that we didn't really have any solids yet. We had hypotheses that we were testing and believed to be true but they were yet unproven and I did not want to tell you anything that wasn't true. This situation is much the same, and I know that can be frustrating and unnerving. And I know that most people are exhausted, "over it" and really low on motivation. So I want to offer a few words of encouragement to you today. You have done amazing things over the last 2 years. You have overcome hardship, committed yourself to seeking and spreading truth, and you have sacrificed a great deal. Thank you. Thank you for all you have done and all you continue to do. It has not gone unnoticed.