Claim: SARS caused death by infecting the brain.
Walter M Chesnut, who writes the substack wmcresearch.substack.com, has been looking into the hypothesis that demyelination of the brainstem is a possible cause of the sudden deaths we have been seeing. As part of his research, he stumbled across this 2008 study :
It seems that when they infected transgenic human-ACE2 mice (hACE2) with the original SARS virus, the virus very quickly infected the brains of those mice, and they died, even though their lungs were clear of the virus.
The cerebellum remained uninfected, but the thalamus, cerebrum and brainstem were heavily infected. This was completely unexpected, because there is only 0.1-1% of hACE2 in the brain, when compared to the lungs. The brain infection was thought to be the main reason for the pneumonia/ breathing difficulties the mice were suffering from.
The researchers would have liked to examine the brains of SARS sufferers from the 2002-2003 outbreak, to see if there were any signs that they had been killed by the brain infection, but there were none available.
The purple stained areas of the mouse brains above, from the study, show the extent of the infection. The mice died on the fifth day.
The infection of the brain occurred simultaneously with the clearance of the virus from the lungs.
This extract from the discussion explains that neurological issues were part of the original SARS virus:
While SARS-CoV is considered a respiratory pathogen in humans, the virus has been detected in the brains of infected patients. In one report, examination of autopsy samples from eight patients with SARS revealed the presence of SARS-CoV in brain samples by immunohistochemistry, electron microscopy, and real-time reverse transcription-PCR (20). In another study, using immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization, Ding et al. detected virus in the cerebrum (but not the cerebellum) in four SARS cases (14). Furthermore, some patients who survived SARS display neurological/psychological sequelae that appear to be disproportionate to the extent of lung infection or expected side effects of corticosteroid therapy (11, 25, 28, 53) (steroids were used in most patients with SARS in the outbreak of 2002 to 2003) (45). In one such patient with neurological sequelae, SARS-CoV was detected in the cerebrospinal fluid by reverse transcription-PCR during the acute phase of illness (25). In another instance, Xu et al. described a patient who developed progressive neurological symptoms starting at day 28 after onset. This patient later succumbed to infection, and autopsy revealed the presence of SARS-CoV in the brain accompanied by neuronal necrosis, glial hyperplasia, and edema (53). Our results are consistent with the notion that direct infection of the human CNS occurs in some patients…
…Our results suggest that SARS-CoV primarily entered the brain via the olfactory nerve. However, the rate at which SARS-CoV spread within the brain was striking. Viral antigen was not detected until 60 to 66 h p.i. and, by this time, was already present in the olfactory bulb and several brain regions connected to this structure. Furthermore, 6 to 12 h later, viral antigen was detected throughout the brain and had spread to first- and second-order structures connected with the olfactory bulb as well as structures only remotely connected with the olfactory system
Multiple Sclerosis after vaccination - is this the same thing?
Questions: does SARS-COV2 cause the same kind of brain damage?
Does SARS-COV2 vaccination cause MS, or demyelination disorders?
It appears to - see paper 5 below, which seems to have disappeared from the internet
Steve Kirsch, who is also looking at this issue, has listed a number of studies into MS and vaccination:
A rare presentation of undiagnosed multiple sclerosis after the COVID-19 vaccine
New diagnosis of multiple sclerosis in the setting of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine exposure
Multiple sclerosis relapse after COVID-19 vaccination: A case report-based systematic review
The new paper itself (which appears to be unfindable now), but see the Dr. Been video. Here’s a link to the webarchive version of the paper.
Here is the abstract of the fifth study, which seems to have disappeared from the internet:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/13524585221123682
What is interesting about this study is that the team of authors has received funding from pharmaceutical companies in the past with a financial interest in Covid-19 vaccines - Novartis is particularly notable because in late 2021 they signed an agreement with Pfizer and BionTech to manufacture Covid-19 vaccines.
https://web.archive.org/web/20211008185037/https://www.novartis.com/news/covid-19-news-feed
Evidence on the other side? Hmmm….
Interestingly there are many abstracts concerning Covid-19 vaccines listed in the same issue of Multiple Sclerosis Journal.
This paper says that there is no change in the number of cells per mm^3 in the cerebrospinal fluid of 116 MS patients after vaccination. I don’t know enough about MS to know if this is what you would be looking for if the vaccines were worsening MS.
Interestingly Salvatore Iacono, who is the lead author, and was at the University of Palermo in Italy, is now living in New York and his email address indicates that he is working for Allergan, a lucrative manufacturer of cosmetic biotech, which is now part of Abvie, a huge pharmaceutical chain.
Here are some of the other abstracts.
This study comes to the conclusion that in 4 cases out of the 5 they studied, it is just a coincidence that demyelinating disease occurs after COVID-19 vaccination, on the basis of tests done after the disease is found. (Look at all the conflicts of interest by the way! )
In 1 out of the 5 cases, however, the “MOGAD” case, is a definite new case of MS after COVID-19 vaccination.
Another paper with lots of declared conflicts of interest: