<![CDATA[The Agape Always Foundation - Blog]]>Tue, 25 Jun 2024 19:13:43 -0500Weebly<![CDATA[NYTIMES ARTICLE by Gina Kolata November 11, 2020]]>Tue, 01 Dec 2020 01:57:02 GMThttp://agapealwaysfoundation.org/blog/nytimes-article-by-gina-kolata-november-11-2020 
NYTIMES ARTICLE by Gina Kolata November 11,2020 
Gina Kolata wrote an article that was published in the New York Times 11/11/2020 that I’ve been saying since the very beginning of this pandemic. I’m glad researchers have shown the truth if it . The truth is , we already have significant herd immunity . That’s why only a small number of people percentage-wise, get really ill. I bet pediatricians and family doctors who are exposed to lots of sick kids all the time are highly immune. I bet I am immune. I bet my son who is a dentist and his staff are immune, and I bet my grandchildren are too. And anyone they have slobbered on the past five years …. lol . Daycare is great for getting lots of immunities!
 
It’s been a big puzzle of the pandemic: Why are children so much less likely than adults to become infected with the new coronavirus and, if infected, less likely to become ill?
A possible reason may be that many children already have antibodies to other coronaviruses, according to researchers at the Francis Crick Institute in London. About one in five of the colds that plague children are caused by viruses in this family. Antibodies to those viruses may also block SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus causing the pandemic.
In a study published Friday in Science, the group, led by George Kassiotis, who heads the Retroviral Immunology Laboratory at the institute, reports that on average only 5 percent of adults had these antibodies, but 43 percent of children did.
Researchers who did not participate in the study were intrigued by the finding. H. Benjamin Larman, an immunologist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, called it a “well-done study that puts forward a compelling theory which is supported by their data.”
Stephen J. Elledge, a genetics professor at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, had a similar response. He and others have found many people have antibodies to common colds caused by other coronaviruses; in laboratory studies, these antibodies also block the new coronavirus.
In March, as the pandemic was just beginning, Dr. Kassiotis and his colleagues decided to develop a highly sensitive antibody test. To assess it, they examined blood samples taken before the pandemic from over 300 adults and 48 children and adolescents, comparing them with samples from more than 170 people who had been infected with the new coronavirus.
The scientists expected samples taken before the pandemic to have no antibodies that attacked the new coronavirus. Those were to be the controls for the test the scientists were developing.
Instead, they found that many children, and some adults, carried one antibody in particular that can prevent coronaviruses, including the new one, from entering cells. This antibody attaches itself to a spike that pokes out of coronaviruses.
While the tip of the spike is unique to the new coronavirus, the base is found in all coronaviruses, Dr. Kassiotis said. In lab tests, antibodies to the base of the spike prevented the new coronavirus from entering cells in order to reproduce.
Now the researchers are planning to expand their study to monitor thousands of children and adults. Some have antibodies that can block the new coronavirus in lab tests. Others do not.
“If they have the pandemic strain, are they protected?” Dr. Kassiotis asked. Will they get sick, he wondered, or will the infection be all but undetectable?
Dr. Elledge and his colleagues at Harvard developed their own highly specific, sensitive and exhaustive antibody test, VirScan. It is able to detect a diverse collection of antibodies that are directed at any of more than 800 places on the new coronavirus, including the antibody that Dr. Kassiotis and his colleagues studied.
After examining blood taken from 190 people before the pandemic emerged, Dr. Elledge and his colleagues concluded that many already had antibodies, including the one targeting the base of the spike — presumably from infections with related coronaviruses that cause colds.
But while adults might get one or two colds a year, Dr. Elledge said, children may get up to a dozen. As a result, many develop floods of coronavirus antibodies that are present almost continuously; they may lessen cold symptoms, or even leave children with colds that are symptomless but still infectious.
While adults may not have detectable coronavirus antibodies, many may be able to quickly make antibodies if they are infected with a coronavirus.
In typical viral infections, the immune system pours out antibodies to fight the virus. When the infection is quelled, the antibodies, no longer needed, diminish in number. But the body is left with so-called memory cells that allow antibody production to soar rapidly if the virus tries to invade again.
Then why do we have a pandemic? Shouldn’t most of us be protected by memory cells left by other coronavirus infections?
“It is quite possible that you lose your memory over time,” Dr. Elledge said. He suspects that the new coronavirus may interfere with the activation of the memory cells able to respond to the infection.
An infection “might give you a hazy memory that fades over time,” he said. If so, a very recent infection with a common cold coronavirus would be needed to protect against the new coronavirus, and even then the protection might last only for a limited time.
The new coronavirus would have hobbled the production of antibodies that specifically attack it. That might explain why children, with their seemingly continuous colds, are much better off than adults.
Dr. Elledge said that if he is right about the loss of memory cells, that bodes well for vaccines. A vaccine boosts antibody production without the presence of a virus. So the virus “is not in the background, messing up memory cell formation,” he said.
Another possibility is that most adults actually are protected by memory cells from previous infections with the common cold. Although few have enough antibodies in their blood to protect them at any given time, they may be able to quickly make antibodies to lessen the impact of the new coronavirus.
That might explain why many adults who are infected recover quickly.
“We focus on those who get really sick, but 95 to 98 percent of those who get the virus don’t have to go to the hospital,” Dr. Elledge said. “There are a lot of people who do get better.”
That happened to Dr. Larman and his family of five. Four of them got sick with Covid-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus, in July. None were seriously ill, and his 4-year-old son was spared altogether.
“My son was not isolated from us and therefore heavily exposed,” Dr. Larman said. “He tested negative twice, and so we certainly suspect that he had some form of pre-existing immunity.”
This article first appeared on The New York Times and was republished with permission.
]]><![CDATA[Too Chicken for Africa Back Then]]>Tue, 05 May 2020 03:53:43 GMThttp://agapealwaysfoundation.org/blog/too-chicken-for-africa-back-then
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Agape is a Clinic that is all about Love. God's Love. The word Agape means love in Greek. The founding of the clinic was inspired by a pediatrician I met when I was in medical school. The doctor’s name was Dr. Robert Appleby and he practiced medicine in Connecticut. He had started a charity clinic in the Norwalk, CT area and also had a private practice. This appealed to me because I was a chicken! I wanted to do mission work but I was concerned about the health risks associated with going into areas of Africa where there are dreaded diseases that have no cures. I also wanted to raise a family of my own and give the wonderful suburban lifestyle I experienced growing up to my own children. After seeing how Dr. Appleby was able to combine a successful private practice with a fruitful volunteer activity, I thought I would follow in his footsteps and to do something similar in.....maybe my fifties! However, God had a different plan.  I ended up starting the clinic before I even finished training. When my husband and I tried to have children, we ran into about three years of infertility. I became quite depressed.  God told me to look outside myself to work through my depression. As I was obviously too old to be a candy striper by this time, I decided to try to be a volunteer doctor.  I looked for a clinic opportunity in Dallas but could not find one. I was directed to Los Barrios Unidos Community Clinic in West Dallas. I offered my services as a volunteer doctor there but Horace Sarabia, the Executive Director, told me that they needed me to be on their board instead. If I worked as a volunteer it could cause them to receive less money from the federal government! I decided I had to be obedient and trust God, even though being on a board was not my first choice. I joined their board and within two months,  I  heard of the opportunity to start a clinic in Grace United Methodist Church in East Dallas at one of the board meetings!  It turned out that THAT opportunity came from my OWN CHURHC, Highland Park United Methodist, giving funding to the East Dallas Cooperative Parish under Ruth Collins Sharp Altshuler’s leadership, but I had to go to West Dallas to hear about the opportunity in East Dallas that was funded by my church in North Dallas. I can just picture God laughing about trying to get me connected me to the right place where I was supposed to serve, but once it happened, the rest was easy. My pastor, Leighton Farrell, wrote me a check for $2000 himself, for plumbing and lighting improvements to the closet in the basement that just had a lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, and we opened on August 20, 1983. Now, decades later, we are in a 10,000 square-foot building across the street.
 
The most meaningful experience I’ve had at the clinic has been watching the organization grow and expand and change. I’ve learned to embrace changes and always be grateful for the experiences I have there. 
 
I continue to volunteer there because (A) they still let me and (B) it’s so much more fun than documenting encounters perfectly for insurance companies; and (C) because I am a healer, and I get a thrill each time I feel I’ve helped someone even a little . A few weeks ago a lady brought in her expensive medication for arthritis and the usual person who gave it wasn’t there, so I gave it . Turns out YOU TUBE taught me how to operate the unique device in 3 minutes. She was so excited, because she had been putting the shit too close to her knee, and I showed her where it should go , and the shot didn’t hurt . She was bracing herself for severe pain and there was NONE. I wish I could give that to everyone . Health care without pain !!! 
 
Volunteering has become some of the most important work of my life. I When I receive recognition for it, I feel guilty! There are  many volunteers who come to Agape and love it but never get any real recognition or praise . Years ago, we had a party and gave out plaques, after I researched our handwritten encounter notebook to find out who volunteered the most , over the first 25 years. We had already had over 700 volunteers ! It’s so humbling to realize how many people bring their gifts and talents to the Lord every day. Serving has strengthened my faith. God is Good. All the Time ! Each person is one, only one. We are each unique and can find something to give to others. If  we each give as we are able, and get out of God’s way, or maybe gets IN GOD’s WAY, hence surrounded by HIS love, we will have the opportunity to experience the high that comes from letting His love flow through us. 


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