While many bemoan the fact that science seems to be always changing, we can be thankful for the constant advancements which overturn incorrect scientific dogma. The need for such change becomes very evident in the case of COVID, a word we all hate but can’t escape. So many ‘truths’ of COVID which were promoted both in the media and by the medical establishment during 2020 and 2021 have been disproven, and they deserve correction so that the world knows how to respond appropriately. The reality that the SARS CoV-2 virus can remain present at low levels in our bodies for at least 2 years definitely deserves some attention.
Early on, the consensus was that within days to weeks of the acute infection’s end of symptoms, our bodies cleared out the virus and its leftover proteins. This fell in line with the general consensus for most viruses and other infections like bacteria. Conventional medicine recognized a few chronic infections like tuberculosis, but for the most part the field of infectious disease focused attention on acute infections. In this area, it had a lot of success but was facing and continues to face the threat of drug resistant infections, so the idea of chronic COVID presence was not seriously entertained.
Besides the history and consensus aspect, the initial COVID surge drew everyone’s attention to the acute mortality, which threatened a greater risk of death than the average virus, although not quite as world ending as some made it out to be. Then we began to see all the so-called Long-Hauler patients or what is now classified as Post COVID syndrome. Even then, many thought this was just the usual situation of post severe infection complication with lung issues and prolonged recoveries needing a few weeks to bounce back after an ICU or hospital stay. Now we know that Post COVID goes further in many ways than the typical post viral syndromes like Mono (EBV) cause a few weeks of problems. Some, even those who initially had milder disease, continue to experience debilitating or at least extremely annoying symptoms years later.
Many explanations have been offered for these continuing symptoms, many of which make perfect sense based on potential mechanisms and recent studies of the symptoms. While many mechanisms have been identified and acknowledged, one of the mechanisms which continued to be doubted has been that of continued presence of spike protein in the body. While there exists ample evidence for multiple mechanisms, the theory that spike protein persisted went against a lot of medical dogma. Now we know from this study and others that that dogma was wrong.
Two studies, as described by Science Daily in their summary post, clearly demonstrate that viral components continue to exist in blood and tissues samples up to 2 years after the initial infection. According to the authors, they have ruled out the possibility that this represents repeated COVID infections re-inoculating the protein into our bodies. Both studies were led by Michael Peluso out of University of California San Francisco School of Medicine and presented at a recent conference.
In one study, the researchers examined samples from 171 people who had prior COVID infection and found virus up to 14 months after infection. Not all had the virus still present, but for those who had more severe initial acute illness, the odds were higher to find protein still present.
In another study, they examined tissue samples from the school’s Long COVID Tissue Bank and found that portions of the viral RNA was still present up to 2 years later. The patients had viral RNA in connective tissue, and some appeared to be still active.
So, medical dogma was wrong about the persistence of viral proteins, RNA, and viral activity in the case of COVID. This team is continuing research into whether this persistence plays a role in long COVID and whether therapies to remove the virus and its proteins could relieve those symptoms. I am thankful for that ongoing research but also hope that this opens up the conventional medical world’s willingness to consider other persistent infections like chronic EBV and chronic Lyme disease. Helping patients live healthier, more abundant lives means overcoming the obstacle of dogma which prevents suffering individuals from getting the help they need.
Original Article:
Materials provided by University of California – San Francisco. Original written by Victoria Colliver. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Thanks to Science Daily:
University of California – San Francisco. “COVID-19 virus can stay in the body more than a year after infection.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 8 March 2024. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/03/240308165037.htm>.
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