Here’s the proof anti-vaxxers have got it wrong – it’s NOT the Covid jab making people ill, says PROFESSOR ROB GALLOWAY

Being known as the Sick Man of Europe is not the honor anyone would want. But would it surprise you to hear that we’ve gotten even sicker since Covid?

The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show that 36 percent of working-age people had at least one long-term health problem, up from 31 percent before Covid.

Even more alarming, more than 2.5 million people were economically inactive due to long-term illness, an increase of more than 400,000 since the pandemic began.

And yes, there’s no doubt that this is due to the damaging effects of our lifestyle, including obesity, lack of exercise and eating ultra-processed foods (which make up 60 percent of the average Brit’s diet).

But I want to bring up another factor: the long sting in the tail of Covid.

Now I know that many people think the vaccine is to blame for the rise in ill health: I get a lot of stickings and threats on social media when I write about its benefits, with people saying I’m missing the point about the disease. harms and accuses me of being a vaccine fanatic.

To some extent I can understand why some people are so overwrought: the distrust many of us now have of pharmaceutical companies in general, the failed hope (as I originally believed) that vaccines would prevent you from getting Covid, and the lack of long-term safety data has led many to question it.

However, the results of a new study have finally put this argument to rest.

The study was published last month with little fanfare, but hidden in the fine print of the results section was something very eye-opening.

Initially we all thought Covid was just a respiratory disease. Unfortunately, it is more complicated, with a greater number of manifestations than we could have imagined. For the virus appears to be unique in that it not only damages organs, but can also alter our immune response, cause chronic inflammation and alter the hormonal controls in our body.

(This uniqueness makes the likelihood of Covid being man-made – accidentally or deliberately, we’ll never know – in a laboratory a reasonable theory, rather than just a crazy conspiracy.)

These factors all increase our risk of several long-term illnesses after a Covid infection, ranging from lung clots to strokes and heart attacks and even an increased risk of dementia.

And this new study now reveals that it also increases our risk of developing an autoimmune disease.

As someone with a strong family history of this (my grandmother and cousin had rheumatoid arthritis) and who myself suffers from Crohn’s disease (which got worse after my two episodes of Covid), this article caught my attention.

The study, published in the respected journal JAMA Dermatology, was based on the medical records of more than six million people: half of them had had Covid and the other half were matched as ‘controls’ – meaning they had similar characteristics, except he hadn’t had Covid.

The Covid patients all became ill before October 2020 (when not everyone had yet received the vaccine). The results were astonishing.

If you had Covid, you had a 35 percent increased risk of developing Crohn’s disease and a 15 percent increased risk of ulcerative colitis (both of which are debilitating conditions that cause inflammation of the digestive tract); a 9 percent increase in rheumatoid arthritis (where your immune system attacks the tissues in the joints); and an 11 percent increase in ankylosing spondylitis (which causes an inflamed and painful spine).

There was also a 13 percent increase in Sjögren’s syndrome (where the immune system attacks glands that produce saliva and tears, causing very dry mouth and eyes); and a massive 45 percent increase in Behcet’s disease (which attacks your blood vessels and causes symptoms ranging from mouth and genital sores to joint pain).

The researchers also found that patients who had been in intensive care with Covid – a sign of a serious infection – were at an even greater risk of developing an autoimmune disease later.

But hidden deep in the additional pages of the results section of the article was the most important information.

Figure 11 was a table entitled ‘Subgroup analyzes of the risk of autoimmune connective tissue diseases by vaccination status’.

This innocent-looking table compared the risks of getting an autoimmune disease if you had Covid in people who had had the full vaccination course, an incomplete vaccination course and no vaccination.

The results were surprising. For example, overall there was a 13 percent increased risk of developing Sjögren’s syndrome after getting Covid.

But if you weren’t vaccinated and developed Covid, you had a 76 percent increased risk of Sjogren’s disease. The increased risks occurred in all other conditions: rheumatoid arthritis went from a 9 percent risk to a 55 percent risk; Crohn’s from 35 percent to 121 percent; ulcerative colitis 15 percent to 191 percent; and so forth.

Even more remarkable is that for some conditions such as psoriasis there was no risk if you had had Covid but had been vaccinated. But if you weren’t vaccinated and contracted the virus, you had a 95 percent increased risk of developing the condition.

The researchers concluded that the results “may provide evidence to support the hypothesis that Covid vaccines may help prevent autoimmune diseases.”

No one wants to inject a vaccine into their body, especially if there is no long-term safety data.

But what we do know is that Covid vaccines have not contributed to the increase in ill health, quite the opposite.

Not only would many more millions have died, but the post-Covid burden of ill health would have been much greater.

So following a purely scientific approach without conflicts of interest, I will continue to take the Covid vaccine.

And if I’m somewhere where I’m at risk of getting Covid, like in a busy emergency room or on an airplane, I wear a mask, even though it makes me socially uncomfortable. I don’t want to risk long-term post-Covid complications – or add to the increasing ill health in this country.

But if the evidence changes, my opinion will change too, and you’ll be the first to know.

That’s not fanaticism. This means that the patient’s well-being comes first.

@drrobgalloway

My concerns about new weight loss medications

My father taught me to be suspicious of anything that seems too good to be true. Does this also include the new slimming injections?

The first UK related death (in this case Mounjaro) was recently reported. Susan McGowan, 58, an NHS nurse, received two injections in the weeks before she died. The shot was listed as a contributing factor.

And now it has been reported that there have been 274 hospital admissions due to these drugs, and almost 15,000 adverse reactions. Worryingly, there is no data on long-term safety or efficacy.

Being very overweight or obese is dangerous and most diets fail – so there is a place for these drugs.

But I fear we are succumbing to the easy lure of Big Pharma that tells us a drug can solve a lifetime of unhealthy living. There is a worrying history of ‘miracle drugs’ gone wrong.

For the sake of our patients, I hope my fears are misplaced. But until we know more about their long-term safety, my advice to patients will be to try safe and healthy alternatives to these injections first.