COVID19

The mass-produced COVID-19 vaccines built using the mRNA model – which were rapidly manufactured during the global pandemic – could also help the immune system recognise and attack cancer tumours, new studies have shown.

Studies in mice and an analysis of medical records of cancer patients – who received mRNA shots for COVID-19 before starting immunotherapy for cancer treatment – revealed a startling pattern: the vaccinated patients lived significantly longer than those who had not received the shots.

A team of researchers from the University of Florida and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center presented the results this week at the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress in Berlin and published in the peer-reviewed journal, Nature.

The results, they say, reveal that the mRNA vaccines do not just prevent infection – they also “wake up” and prompt the body’s immune system to fight tumours.

The discovery has come at a time when US President Donald Trump’s administration has slashed funding for mRNA research.

So, why is this being touted as groundbreaking? What does it mean for cancer patients? And how did the COVID-19 pandemic become the medium for this unlikely discovery?

What is an mRNA vaccine?

Unlike traditional vaccines, which used weakened or inactive parts of a virus to trigger the immune system to build a defence, mRNA vaccines deliver a small strand of genetic code known as “messenger RNA” directly into the body’s cells.

The cell reads this blueprint as an instruction to manufacture a spike protein which mimics that of the virus, and display it on its surface, effectively waving a red flag that alerts the immune system to build a defence.

The body then creates antibodies and memory cells trained to recognise and attack that protein spike if it ever appears again.

How did researchers discover the link between mRNA and cancer?

This is an area of research which has been going on for some years, most notably by paediatric oncologist Elias Sayour, the Stop Children’s Cancer/Bonnie R Freeman Professor for Pediatric Oncology Research at the University of Florida, in the United States.

The COVID-19 pandemic presented a particular opportunity to study the implications of mRNA for cancer treatment as the world moved en masse to vaccinate the population.

When Sayour’s former student, oncologist Adam Grippin, examined clinical data of more than 1,000 patients treated between August 2019 and August 2023 at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, he found a striking pattern.

People who had received a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine within 100 days of starting immunotherapy lived significantly longer than those who received the same medical treatment but did not have the vaccine.

How much longer did people live with the vaccine?

For patients with advanced lung cancer, the median survival rate nearly doubled if they had the vaccine, rising from 20.6 months to 37.3.

More strikingly, the survival improvements were most pronounced in patients with immunologically “cold” tumours – meaning that the mRNA vaccine appeared to “wake up” the immune system in patients with these harder-to-treat cancers – turning “cold” tumours into ones the immune system could more easily recognise and attack.

The researchers noted that their findings were consistent across varying factors, such as different vaccine manufacturers, doses and time of vaccination.

The researchers also compared the survival rates in a smaller group of patients receiving immunotherapy for metastatic melanoma, the most advanced stage of a type of skin cancer. In the study, 43 patients had an mRNA COVID vaccine and 167 did not.

Patients who did not receive the vaccine had a median survival of just more than two years. By contrast, those who were vaccinated before starting treatment had not yet reached their median survival point more than three years into follow-up, the research found.

How does it work?

The researchers discovered that mRNA vaccines work like an alarm for the body’s defence system.

When the vaccine is given, it puts the immune system on alert, making it more likely to notice cancer cells that it might have ignored before. Once the immune system is activated, it begins to attack these cells.

But cancer cells fight back. They produce a protein called PD-L1, which works as a shield that “hides” them from the immune system. However, there are drugs known as immune checkpoint inhibitors that can block this shield.

When both the vaccine and these drugs are used, it creates the ideal situation – the immune system is active and alert, and the cancer’s defences are down, Grippin explained.

While the researchers said that they do not yet fully understand the mechanisms, the findings suggest that mRNA vaccines can be used to re-programme immune responses to cancer.

What does this mean for cancer patients?

These findings are preliminary. If, however, the study is validated in clinical trials, it could have huge implications for the treatment of cancer.

“These vaccines produce powerful anti-tumour immune responses that are associated with massive improvements in survival for patients with cancer,” Grippin said.

“The implications are extraordinary – this could revolutionise the entire field of oncologic care,” said Sayour. “We could design an even better nonspecific vaccine to mobilise and reset the immune response, in a way that could essentially be a universal, off-the-shelf cancer vaccine for all cancer patients.”

Grippen, who co-led the study with Steven Lin, professor of radiation oncology, said his team is launching a Phase 3 clinical trial to confirm the initial results and investigate whether COVID mRNA vaccines should be made part of the standard of care for patients.

What did scientists find in tests with mice?

In the mouse experiments, researchers found that injecting an mRNA COVID vaccine directly into a tumour made dendritic cells – a type of white blood cell – more alert.

Once the dendritic cells picked up on presence of the tumour, they sent out signals that attracted T cells to come and attack it. In some mice, this helped slow the growth of the cancer.

But there’s a big catch. Not everyone naturally has T cells that are capable of killing cancer cells. For some people, their immune system can tell that a tumour is dangerous, but their specific T cells do not know how to destroy it.

That’s one reason why immunotherapies – treatments that boost the immune system to fight cancer – work for some patients but not for others.

Having an mRNA COVID vaccine will not make your body produce new tumour-fighting T cells. What it might do, based on this early research, is make dendritic cells more likely to notice a tumour and effectively deploy the T cells.

Sept. 17 (UPI) — Massachusetts says that all citizens should be vaccinated to protect against the COVID-19 virus as the Bay State will now force insurance providers to cover vaccines approved by the state.

On Wednesday, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health released its COVID-19 vaccine guidelines through 2026 that suggested all state residents get a COVID-19 shot, including children ages 6, and particularly those at higher risk of exposure, with a weakened immune system or pregnant.

“We are not going to let Donald Trump or Robert Kennedy take away your ability to make your own health care decisions,” said Gov. Maura Healey.

The decision by Massachusetts came as the Food and Drug Administration under U.S. Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. approved in August its most recent round of COVID shots but federally limited their use.

Healey said earlier this month that Massachusetts will begin to require health insurance companies to cover state-recommended vaccines and became the first U.S. state to do so, followed by Illinois in an executive order Friday by Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat.

Executive actions in Illinois and Massachusetts could be the first in a series of other similar acts by governors to create a coalition to set vaccine policy separate of federal authorities.

“Massachusetts will continue to lead with science and protect access to life-saving vaccines,” Healey, 54, said Wednesday in a statement.

Notably, the Healey administration’s plan was backed by the nonprofit entities Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans.

The newly issued state guidelines stand in stark contrast to federal recommendations by the Trump administration and Centers For Disease Control and Prevention.

Massachusetts health officials said the state acted on an “extensive review of current scientific data” consistent with widely respected groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The commonwealth’s Public Health Commissioner Robbie Goldstein reiterated Wednesday that vaccines remain the “most effective public health intervention of the past century,” adding that vaccine use has “saved millions of lives.”

Goldstein stated its guidelines were “grounded in evidence and science, driven by equity and shaped by the lived experiences” of Massachusetts’ 351 communities.

On Monday, Healey called Kennedy a “walking conspiracy theorist who is denying people vaccines and the healthcare they want and need” during a speech to Massachusetts Democrats as she hailed her administration’s new vaccine coverage mandate for insurance conglomerates.

A recent study indicated that in 2022 and 2023 more than 1.5 million “missing Americans” died due to COVID-19 in excessive deaths that could have been averted.

But on Wednesday Healey said the state was taking this action “so the people of Massachusetts know that you will continue to be able to get the vaccines you want and need — no matter what happens at the federal level.”

Also on Wednesday, ex-CDC Director Susan Minaret appeared on Capitol Hill to testify in front of lawmakers over her termination by Kennedy due to allegations that she refused to allow all decisions to be approved by political staff.

It’s been more than 2,000 days since Covid-19 appeared in late 2019 growing to more than 700 million cases and at least 7 million deaths globally. Like many other people who were infected by Covid-19, I have long thought about its origins and where we go next.

As someone who had been a lawyer admitted to practice before the Supreme Courts of the US, New York and Massachusetts, and as chief legal counsel of President Jimmy Carter’s White House Conference on Families, looking at Covid-19 from an international law perspective by the standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt”, it’s clear to me that no country has proven where the disease originated.

Under international law the principle of onus probandi,serious matters like lethal modalities such as nuclear, chemical and biological weapons or allegations of lethal pathogenic origins require the highest standard of “proof beyond a reasonable doubt”. It is also why the complaining party, not the accused, that bears the burden of proof.

That’s also why the WHO Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens explicitly requires the proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” gold standard, not the lower “preponderance of the evidence” test that something is merely more likely true than not. And it’s why the WHO panel operates under the legal principle of in dubio pro reo, a presumption of innocence until the accusing party proves otherwise.

Applying these standards, the required burden of proof level has not been met in even one case as the US and some allies have falsely accused Wuhan as being the origin of Covid-19.

China, in fact met its primary obligations under the WHO International Health Regulations, including timely notification to WHO of unusual pneumonia cases in December, 2019; sharing viral genome sequencing with WHO in December, 2019; and facilitating the WHO-China joint investigation during 2021.

I also find it unpersuasive that the “beyond a reasonable doubt” test was met since there were multiple independent reports, including wastewater and antibody blood testing of varying levels of credibility, of Covid-19  being present in Europe and the Americas prior to December 1, 2019. Since there is substantial evidence that Covid-19 appeared earlier on in numerous venues far beyond China, it has to be a case of “where there’s smoke, there’s fire”. For example, consider:

In Italy, multiple studies based on the presence of antibodies in blood samples found Covid-19 as early as October, 2019.

In France, the analysis of thousands of blood samples detected Covid-19 antibodies in 13 cases from November, 2019 to January, 2020.

In the Americas, signs of Covid-19 based on the presence of antibodies in blood samples were found in Brazil in November, 2019 and in the US in early December, 2019.

To me, however, the most convincing evidence is that after so much time has passed and so much money has been expended, no Western intelligence agency has been able to find Covid-19s origin with a high level of confidence; therefore not “beyond a reasonable doubt”.

Beginning with 2020, without the legal proof threshold being met, a handful of lawsuits outside the US, were filed against China over Covid-19 . All have been unsuccessful. In the US, a greater number of cases yielded only two Pyrric victories among numerous defeats whose massive judgments in cases that are mere political theater, clogged an understaffed, overburdened  judicial system, but not one cent will ever be collected because under international law, these judgments will be uncollectable. There are several reasons for these disparities.

Legally, other nations have more respect for the longstanding doctrine of sovereign immunity governing one nation or its political subdivisions suing another. Consequently, such cases are also more difficult to file there.  The doctrine, which must be music to Donald Trump’s ears, can be traced back to the English common law doctrine: rex non potest peccare or “the king can do no wrong”.

The US is the most litigious country globally, having the highest number of cases filed annually. One of the reasons is an unusual feature of the American legal system that allows litigants to bring cases without paying their lawyer, unless their lawyers are successful, in which case the lawyers take a negotiated percentage of the judgment, usually upwards of 40%.

From the 1990s, The US had been more politically divided. As part of this trend, American views on China were negatively affected and have severely deteriorated, accelerated by Covid-19. For example, Gallup found that about 41% of American had a favorable view of China in February, 2019, but by 2023 this number fell to 15%. Putting these facts together, it’s no surprise that the US has been the ground zero for quixotic  lawsuits seeking damages for Covid19.

US courts are governed by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act which accords foreign states broad immunity from lawsuits in US courts with several seemingly narrow exceptions. China, however, adheres to the principle of absolute sovereign immunity, and does not recognize the exceptions and abstains from appearing in US courts.

The exceptions, however, encouraged the conservative attorneys-general of red states Missouri and Mississippi to sue China. They were fully aware of China’s position and the futility of obtaining damages, beyond performing a political theater of the absurd that would further gum up an already understaffed judicial system.

Both officials belong to the National Association of Attorney Generals, which we jokingly call “National Association of Aspiring Governors” and both used the suits to waste taxpayers money to further their political careers, and in the case of the Missouri A-G, to help him become US senator.

The “justice is blind” mantra, at least in the case of Missouri, also fall on deaf ears. The 2-1 decision that turned on the narrow exceptions, smacks of political bias. At least one of the two judges allowing the exceptions to hold against China, perhaps both, should have recused themselves to avoid an appearance of impropriety; each was a Trump-appointee.

Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh, Jr., who wrote the majority opinion is first cousin of the notorious extreme right media commentator Rush Limbaugh. The latter, with an audience of more than 15 million, had said that “the coronavirus is being weaponized as yet another weapon to bring down Donald Trump and it probably is a ChiCom (Chinese Communist) laboratory experiment that is in the process of being weaponized”. Judge Limbaugh had an unambiguous moral duty to recuse himself. but didn’t.

The cases have many flaws but I agree with the dissent in the Missouri case, written by the Chief Judge, not a Trump-appointee, that the exceptions did not apply to China.

The Covid-19 nightmare may be over but other pathogens with pandemic potential are literally waiting in the wings. Last year there were 17 global disease outbreaks, including Marburg virus. Mpox and H5N1 bird flu.

Experts warn that there is a 40 to 53% likelihood of another serious pandemic within 25 years.

Trump has already slashed the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) budget from $9.3 to 4.2 billion in 2026. At the same time WHO will (again) lose its largest contributor next year per orders of President Trump to the tune of $500 million to $1.3 billion. Combined, this will cripple the UN body and severely weaken global health surveillance, especially neutering WHOs Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network that relies heavily on American data-sharing and technical support. Trump has even forbidden the remaining experts who weren’t fired from the CDC, from co-authoring scientific papers with WHO staff.

Sadly, like the CDC. the WHO itself is destined to be in poor health, and may suffer terminal decline, causing needless deaths at home and abroad if the US continues down its selfish path. This churlish US action will undoubtedly severely increase the more than 14 million deaths forecast globally by 2030 as a consequence of savage 83% budget cuts to the US Agency for International Development and related US foreign aid programs.

China will assuredly pick up some of the slack, especially via its Belt and Road Initiative and its Health Silk Road but cannot unilaterally restore funding to previous levels. Other nations hopefully can pick up some of the shortfall.

Under international law, we may never know where Covid-19 came from. However, If we don’t want the past to be prologue and if we don’t follow philosopher George Santayana’s wise advice that those who don’t learn from the mistakes of history are bound to repeat them, we must prepare our new multipolar world for the health and other shocks that await us.

Winter is approaching in the United States and COVID-19 cases are rising. Questions about accessing protective vaccines are swirling.

Nearly five years since the first US patient was vaccinated to help stem what was then a raging coronavirus pandemic, doctors, patients and pharmacists are navigating a radically different public health landscape.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on August 27 announced it had approved some COVID-19 vaccines – but for far fewer people than in years past.

If you tried to schedule a COVID-19 vaccine this week, your pharmacy’s online scheduler might have told you it isn’t available yet.

Meanwhile, leading medical organisations disagree with the government’s latest COVID-19 vaccine guidance.

If all that leaves you wondering about your ability to get a COVID-19 shot, you’re not alone. It’s confusing.

We sought answers.

Q: Who can get a COVID-19 vaccine?

First, what we do know: The FDA approved the 2025-26 vaccines for anyone age 65 and older and any person six months and older who has at least one underlying health condition that increases their risk of severe COVID-19 infection.

So, people in those groups should be able to schedule vaccinations as soon as healthcare providers who are authorised to administer the vaccine receive it – likely in the next few weeks.

Q: I don’t fit into those categories. Am I banned from getting a COVID-19 vaccine?

Not “banned”, per se. But it may require more legwork on your end. You’ll need to consult your doctor, who can legally prescribe a COVID-19 vaccine for you even if you don’t fall within the categories the FDA specified.

“Physicians can prescribe medications and vaccines that are beyond the label, beyond the licence,” said Dr William Schaffner, Vanderbilt University Medical Center professor of infectious diseases.

That’s true for adults and children – and the practice of prescribing medications and vaccines for “off-label” use is fairly common in paediatrics, he said.

Q: OK, so will insurance still cover COVID-19 vaccinations under these new rules?

If you’re in one of the two FDA-approved categories, the outlook is probably better than if you’re not.

Federal law requires that most health insurance plans fully cover vaccines recommended by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its vaccine advisory committee.

Here’s the rub: Because the CDC hasn’t yet adopted 2025-26 COVID-19 vaccine recommendations, whether the shots will be covered by insurance is a grey area.

The CDC’s panel of experts, the Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices (ACIP), had planned to vote on updated COVID-19 vaccine recommendations at its June meeting, but did not. And it’s unclear when or if the ACIP will vote on the recommendations.

But there could be another avenue for people to get insurance-covered COVID-19 vaccines. The CDC’s vaccine recommendations typically include a provision for what’s known as “shared clinical decision making”, Schaffner said.

That means, for example, “If you were 52 years old and otherwise healthy, but you nonetheless wanted to get the vaccine, you could discuss that with your doctor – shared clinical decision-making – and you could receive the vaccine, and insurance companies would honour that,” he said.

That provision could be important for healthy people who want to avoid COVID-19 infection because they are close contacts with or care for people with high-risk conditions.

But again, without CDC recommendations, “We don’t know if that provision is still there,” Schaffner said.

To confirm whether your insurance will cover your COVID-19 shot, Schaffner recommends talking to your doctor and, potentially, your insurance provider. But first, give it a little more time: healthcare providers themselves are still working out the details.

Q: If my insurance doesn’t cover vaccination, how much might it cost?

Vaccine manufacturers report that COVID-19 vaccines cost about $142, according to the CDC’s price lists. It’s unclear whether that would be the out-of-pocket cost for patients receiving a COVID-19 vaccine not covered by insurance.

Q: Are COVID-19 vaccines still recommended during pregnancy? And if I’m pregnant and want one, what can I do? 

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr in May announced he had unilaterally removed COVID-19 vaccines from the recommended immunisation schedule for healthy children and pregnant women. The health-focused news outlet STAT reported that no one from the CDC or ACIP was consulted before Kennedy announced this change. Vaccine experts called the move concerning and unprecedented.

Removing the vaccines from the immunisation schedule could limit vaccine access by reducing insurance companies’ coverage of the shot. But again, by consulting with your doctor, you might still be able to access it. Some pharmacies also might be able to provide it, because the CDC lists pregnancy as a factor that increases the risk of severe COVID-19 infection.

Q: Is there anyone who should not get the COVID-19 shot?

Broad health guidance always comes with exceptions. For example, people who have had “a very severe adverse reaction to a previous COVID-19 vaccine” should not get this season’s version, Schaffner said. You should discuss your health situation with your physician for personalised guidance.

Q: Why is the outlook for COVID-19 vaccines so different this year?

In short, Kennedy has long been broadly critical of vaccinations and, now that he’s in charge of the nation’s healthcare policy, has taken actions to overhaul their regulation and distribution.

Typically, the CDC recommends vaccines based on guidance from ACIP. ACIP’s recommendations become CDC policy if they’re adopted by the CDC director. This year, Kennedy fired all 17 members of ACIP and replaced them with new members, many of whom have expressed anti-vaccine views. CDC Director Susan Monarez was fired on August 27 amid a dispute with Kennedy over vaccine policy.

In previous years, the CDC recommended annual COVID-19 vaccines for everyone aged six months and older. The committee still hasn’t issued COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for this year.

Q: Aren’t there some medical organisations that recommend COVID-19 vaccinations for most people, though? 

Yes. In recent months, professional organisations have issued their own recommendations that contradict new messaging from the federal government.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends routine COVID-19 vaccines for all children aged six months to 23 months and for children aged two to 18 in some situations, including if they’re at high risk of COVID-19, have never been vaccinated against it or live in a household with people who are high risk.

And the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends that anyone pregnant or lactating receive updated or “booster” COVID-19 vaccines.

Dr Tina Tan, president of the Infectious Disease Society of America, said the FDA’s decision to limit the COVID-19 vaccine’s approval “contradicts the evidence base, severely undermines trust in science-driven policy and dangerously limits vaccine access”.

Q: What qualifies as an underlying health condition that puts someone at higher risk? 

The FDA and HHS did not point us to a list of health conditions that meet the high-risk requirements.

The CDC’s website catalogues a number of underlying conditions that it said demonstrate “a conclusive increase in risk for at least one severe COVID-19 outcome”. They included: chronic lung diseases, cancer, certain chronic kidney and liver diseases, diabetes, some disabilities, heart conditions, HIV, physical inactivity, primary immunodeficiencies and some mental health conditions.

Q: But I clicked on those lists and both say ‘pregnancy and recent pregnancy’ are risk factors. How do I square that with the latest changes?

You’re right. These lists are inconsistent with the messaging coming from top HHS officials. Again, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists continues to recommend COVID-19 vaccines for people who are pregnant and lactating. Talk to your doctor.

Q: Is this season’s COVID-19 vaccine formula different from last season’s?

Yes. After the FDA passed its recommendations to vaccine manufacturers in May, the COVID-19 vaccines were updated to target the viral strain expected to circulate this year. The changes align with the World Health Organization’s recommendations.

Q: When will the updated COVID-19 shots be available? 

Since the FDA’s approval, updated vaccines are set to start shipping immediately and might even be available now in some pharmacies. Pfizer said it was shipping immediately and would be available across the US “in the coming days”. Sanofi, the company distributing the Novavax non-mRNA vaccines, said its vaccine should be available “in the early fall”.

But what that means for how quickly you can access it could depend on where you live, your age and your health. (See next question.)

Q: Where can I get the updated COVID-19 shots? 

We knew you were going to ask. And we wish we had a straightforward answer.

If you typically get your COVID-19 shots at a local pharmacy, it might not be that easy this year.

As of August 29, the scheduling apps for Walgreens and CVS notified patients in some locations that they could not schedule a COVID-19 vaccine appointment because of state restrictions, inventory or the need for a prescription.

In 18 states and Washington, DC, pharmacists’ authority to administer vaccines is linked to the CDC’s recommendations, said Brigid Groves, the American Pharmacists Association’s vice president of professional affairs. The states are: Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.

That means even though the FDA has issued its approval, in those 19 places, pharmacists cannot administer it because it isn’t on the CDC immunisation schedule yet, Groves said.

The American Pharmacists Association has asked those states’ governors to issue executive orders granting pharmacists broader authority to administer vaccines.

In the other 32 states, with some exceptions, it’s possible that a pharmacy can administer the updated COVID-19 shots for patients who fall within the FDA-approved categories of recipients.

If you are getting it “off label”, however, because you don’t have one of those underlying conditions, you might need to get it straight from your prescribing doctor.

One caveat: if ACIP votes on recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines that include giving them to healthy people through the “shared clinical decision making” process, Groves said pharmacists would be able to vaccinate almost anyone. That’s because pharmacists are considered clinicians who can conduct that shared decision-making.

Q: When might ACIP vote on COVID-19 vaccine recommendations? 

The committee has a September 18-19 meeting scheduled, according to the CDC’s website. A meeting agenda hasn’t been published yet.

Q: How will a pharmacy know if I have an underlying condition?

Typically, pharmacies ask patients to self-attest whether they have an underlying condition, Groves said. For example, a person who is under age 65 but has severe asthma would self-attest to that when making a vaccine appointment. So far, all signs point to that self-attestation still being the case.

Q: When is the best time to get vaccinated? 

During fall and winter months, when COVID-19 infections are typically expected to spike alongside other respiratory infections.

Q: What do the administration’s vaccine changes mean for future COVID-19 vaccines?

Kennedy recently cancelled $500m in funding for mRNA vaccine development. Two of the most effective COVID-19 vaccines are mRNA. Some companies had been researching combined mRNA flu and COVID-19 shots, and those projects’ status is unclear.

The FDA also recently announced that vaccine makers seeking approval for future COVID-19 vaccines, or boosters, would need to conduct new randomised clinical trials of healthy populations. That move, combined with the decision to narrow the FDA’s vaccine approval for certain segments of the population, is expected to limit COVID-19 vaccine access.

Aug. 18 (UPI) — An Australian court on Monday fined national flag carrier Qantas nearly $60 million for illegally firing more than 1,800 ground workers and then outsourcing their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Australia’s Transport Workers Union said in a statement that it was the largest employer penalty in Australian corporate history.

“Against all odds, TWU members have sent a $90 million warning to corporate Australia: you can’t break the law and get away with it,” the union said, referring to the amount Qantas was fined in Australian dollars.

Federal Court Justice Michael Lee said a little more than half of the penalty should be paid to the TWU, while the recipients of the remaining sum will be decided at a later hearing, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.

Lee said that while Qantas has expressed “genuine regrets” about the situation, he believes that “this more likely reflects the damage this case has done at the company rather than unique remorse for the damage done to the affected workers.”

He said that the airline “resisted until it could resist no more.”

Qantas said the Monday judgement holds the company “accountable for our actions.”

“We sincerely apologize to each and every one of the 1,820 ground handling employees and to their families who suffered as a result,” Qantas Group Chief Executive Officer Vanessa Hudson said in a statement.

“The decision to outsource five years ago, particularly during such an uncertain time, caused genuine hardship for many of our former team and their families. The impact was felt not only by those who lost their jobs, but our entire workforce.”

The ruling brings an end to a five-year fight by the TWU over Qantas’s firing of some 1,800 workers and then outsourcing their jobs in 2020.

Qantas appealed through the Australian court system, with the High Court affirming that the airline had acted illegally by outsourcing the employment.

The Monday fine is on top of the roughly $78 million that Qantas agreed to pay eligible workers in December, after its failed bid arguing that it should not have to offer workers compensation.

“Qantas was not sorry to workers when it illegally outsourced these workers, many finding out they’d lost their jobs over loudspeaker in the lunch room. It was not sorry when it dragged them all the way to the High Court, or when it argued it should have to pay them no compensation at all,” TWU National Secretary Michael Kaine said in a statement.

“Qantas is only sorrow now that it has to pay the larges penalty fine of any employer in Australian corporate history.”

The announcement comes about 14 months after Qantas reached a settlement with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to pay a multi-million-dollar fine for booking flights that had previously been canceled.

July 8 (UPI) — Italian authorities arrested a Chinese national accused by the United States of working at the direction of Beijing to steal COVID-19 vaccine research from U.S. universities, immunologists and virologists during the early days of the pandemic.

Xu Zewei, 33, of China, was arrested Thursday in Malan. The nine-count indictment charging him and his co-conspirator, 44-year-old Chinese national Zhang Yu, was unsealed Tuesday by the Justice Department as it seeks Xu’s extradition. Zhang remains at large.

The arrest and filing of charges are the latest U.S. law enforcement action targeting Chinese nationals accused of working at the behest of Beijing’s foreign intelligence arm, the Ministry of State Security, in recent months.

According to the indictment, Xu and his coconspirators were involved in the China state-sponsored HAFNIUM hacking campaign — also known as Silk Typhoon — that targeted vulnerabilities in the widely used Microsoft Exchange Server program to gain access to victims’ information from February 2020 to June 2021.

Federal prosecutors said they used the vulnerabilities in the Microsoft program to install code known as webshells on their victims’ computers, gaining remote access to the devices.

The victims were not named in the charging document, but are identified as a university located in the Southern District of Texas and a university based in North Carolina involved in “research into COVID-19 vaccines, treatments and testing,” as well as a second university based in the southern district of Texas and a law firm with offices in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, including internationally.

During a press conference Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Nicholas Ganjei for the Southern District of Texas said Xu would be assigned targets from his handlers within the Ministry of State Security’s State Security Bureau with instruction to hack their computers and steal specific information.

Once with access to the requested accounts, he copied gigabits of COVID-19 research that he then transferred to China. Ganjei explained the law firm was targeted for the confidential information it had on its clients, specifically that of U.S. policy makers and government agencies.

“Although the Chinese state-sponsored hackers are, on occasion, indicted by the Department of Justice, it is exceedingly rare — indeed it is virtually unheard of — to actually get your hands on them,” he said.

“Since 2023, the United States has waited quietly and patiently for Xu to make a mistake that would put him within the reach of the American Judicial system. And last week, he did just that, traveling from Shanghai to Milan, Italy.”

Ganjei said Italian authorities took him into custody once his plane touched down.

He further described that alleged crimes as those not specifically targeting computers, but targeting “American scientific innovation” and the “American system of justice.”

“Although, the conduct in this case took place several years ago, we never lost sight of our goal to bring the perpetrators of these cyber intrusions to justice. Now, at least, some of that story can be told,” he said.

A little more than a week earlier, the Justice Department charged two Chinese nationals with spying on the U.S. Navy and its bases as well as assisting Beijing with recruiting others within the U.S. military as potential Ministry of State Security asstes.

June 27 (UPI) — Federal officials have charged four people from California with what they call the largest COVID-19 tax credit fraud scheme ever identified in the United States, amounting to more than $90 million in payouts.

Two of the defendants are also facing attempted murder charges for shooting one of their co-conspirators, the FBI’s Los Angeles field office confirmed in a release.

Kristerpher Turner, Toriano Knox, Kenya Jones and Joyce Johnson are all facing federal conspiracy to commit mail fraud; mail fraud; and conspiracy to submit false claims charges.

Jones and Knox are also facing gun and attempted murder charges for shooting Turner in 2023, in an attempt to prevent him from speaking to authorities.

A federal indictment was unsealed earlier this month against all four.

Officials allege Turner operated the fraud ring that invoiced close to $250 million in COVID-19 relief payments to the federal government.

“In total, from approximately June 2020 and December 2024, the defendants and their co-conspirators submitted and caused the submission of fraudulent forms for at least 148 companies, seeking a total of approximately $247,956,938 in tax refunds to which they were not entitled,” the FBI statement reads.

The group ultimately received at least $93 million in Treasury checks from the IRS.

According to authorities, while Turner ran the scheme, Knox, Jones and Johnson served as recruiters, even luring friends and family members aboard and obtaining their personal or business information to submit false benefits claims.

“At some point during the scheme, the now-defendants learned that the IRS and others were making inquiries about their fraudulent activity,” the FBI statement reads, alleging Knox and Jones of carrying out a shooting to prevent him from acting as a witness.

Turner was shot in August of 2023 and is now paralyzed.

The FBI, IRS Criminal Investigation section and office of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration were involved in the joint investigation.

All four defendants are facing maximum sentences of 20 years in federal prison for each fraud charge if convicted. Knox and Jones are also facing 30-year sentences if convicted of attempted murder charges, while the gun charges carry maximum penalties of life in prison.

The case is not the first multi-million-dollar fraud committed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Earlier this month, a June Chicago laboratory owner received a seven-year prison sentence after being convicted of falsifying COVID-19 test results. Authorities contend the fraud scheme generated $14 million.

WHO chief Tedros says ‘all hypotheses must remain on the table’ after critical information not provided to investigators.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says efforts to uncover the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic are still ongoing and incomplete, as critical information has “not been provided”.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said “all hypotheses must remain on the table” to determine the cause of the virus, also known as SARS-CoV-2, after an expert group investigating its origins reached an unsatisfying conclusion in its final report released on Friday.

“We continue to appeal to China and any other country that has information about the origins of COVID-19 to share that information openly, in the interests of protecting the world from future pandemics,” Tedros said.

The global pandemic, which began in 2020, killed millions worldwide, with countries enforcing lockdowns in an attempt to stop the spread of the virus. With the first cases detected in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, information from the country is seen as key to preventing future pandemics.

In 2021, Tedros launched the WHO Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO), a panel of 27 independent international experts.

Marietjie Venter, the group’s chair, said on Friday that most scientific data supports the hypothesis that the new coronavirus jumped to humans from animals.

But she added that after more than three years of work, SAGO was unable to get the necessary data to evaluate whether or not COVID was the result of a lab accident, despite repeated requests for detailed information made to the Chinese government.

“Therefore, this hypothesis could not be investigated or excluded,” she said, however adding, “It was deemed to be very speculative, based on political opinions and not backed up by science.”

Venter also said there was no evidence to prove that COVID had been manipulated in a lab, nor was there any indication that the virus had been spreading before December 2019 anywhere outside of China.

‘Remains inconclusive’

In 2021, a group of experts from the WHO first travelled to Wuhan to examine the origins of the virus with their Chinese counterparts.

By March of that year, their joint report found that the most likely hypothesis was from bats to humans via an intermediate animal.

They said at the time that a lab leak was “extremely unlikely”.

However, that investigation faced backlash for lacking transparency and access, and not taking the lab-leak theory seriously.

After that, SAGO was launched.

According to the SAGO report, “the weight of available evidence … suggests zoonotic [a disease spread between animals to humans] spillover … either directly from bats or through an intermediate host”.

“Until more scientific data becomes available, the origins of how SARS-CoV-2 entered human populations will remain inconclusive,” Venter said.

“Understanding the origins of SARS-CoV-2 and how it sparked a pandemic is needed to help prevent future pandemics, save lives and livelihoods, and reduce global suffering,” she added.

Tedros said it was a “moral imperative” to determine how COVID began, noting that the virus killed at least 20 million people, wiped at least $10tn from the global economy and upended the lives of billions.

June 19 (UPI) — The owner of a Chicago laboratory was sentenced to seven years in prison for his role in a $14 million scheme of falsifying COVID-19 test results.

Zishan, Alvi, 46 of Inverness, Ill., was sentenced Wednesday for the scheme and was ordered to pay $14 million in illegitimate taxpayer-backed payments.

The fraud involved releasing negative test results to patients, even when the laboratory had not conducted the tests, or the results had been diluted by Alvi to save on costs.

U.S. District Judge John Tharp sentenced Alvi and called his actions “fraud on a massive scale,” and said how it also put the public in unsafe circumstances when they were seeking reassurance through testing.

“People were scrambling to get tested for COVID because they didn’t want to imperil the safety and health of the people they cared about,” Tharp said.

“A negative test was like a passport, ‘You know, I tested negative. I can go see my grandma, I can go see my children with their newborn baby.’ These were people who depended on that report to govern what they could safely do and not do.”

Alvi knew the laboratory was faking results, but Alvi still reported it back to the Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration, prosecutors said.

Alvi stood at the lectern before he was sentenced and told the judge how he was “filled with remorse and a deep sense of regret” for his “selfish decisions.”

“I should never have put profits ahead of the job we intended to do for the public,” Alvi said, as several relatives wiped tears from their eyes in the courtroom gallery. “I should have put the people first.”