A quite rare, but very fatal neurodegenerative disease called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) leads to death within a year of diagnosis. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), this condition is triggered by the presence of the prion protein, a folded cellular glycoprotein that transmit its misfolded shape onto other normal variants of the same protein. While it’s not known what causes a normal protein to misfold, scientists do suspect that the abnormal three-dimensional structure confers infectious properties, collapsing neighboring protein molecules into the same form. With cases of CJD occurring at about one case per million, it was surprising to recently read about a cluster of such cases in France and other surrounding countries in Europe. From 1992 to 2019, only 28 cases of CJD were diagnosed in France. However, right after the COVID-19 vaccination program’s implementation in France, according to one recent study, 26 persons died because of this rare neurodegenerative disorder. This significant anomaly got the attention of a mathematician and computer scientist from Bordeaux University as well as two specialist-physicians from France as well as Switzerland. The trio of prominent researchers, including a controversial Nobel Prize winner now deceased, reported that all prion research in France had been frozen since “the death of technicians from French public research facilities.” Seemingly bizarre, not to mention disturbing, Jean Claude Perez, Ph.D., who retired after a career with IBM European Research center on Artificial Intelligence from Bordeaux, France, teamed with Drs. Clair Moret-Chalmin, a neurologist from Clermont, France, and the recently deceased and famous Luc Montagnier to conduct a study investigating whether prion regions were associated with the SARS-CoV-2 original strain and variants as well as any relation to the vaccines themselves. The study authors purport finding not only a cluster of CJD cases post COVID-19 vaccination, but data points indicating presence of a prion region both in the original wildtype SARS-CoV-2 strain and all material variants except, paradoxically, Omicron.
A brief note on Dr. Montagnier: He was a famous, highly accomplished, and respected French virologist who won the Nobel Prize for his discovery of HIV—among other awards and prizes--and worked at the prominent Pasteur Institute in Paris while also working as a professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. During the pandemic, Dr. Montagnier was labeled a “conspiracy theorist” for suggesting that SARS-CoV-2 was created in a lab, possibly deliberately, and he was relentlessly chastised for operating outside his freeway lane of expertise during the pandemic before he met unfortunate death earlier this year at the age of 89.
At times during this pandemic, the conspiracy theory tag has been used by various groups to immediately attack any scientific figures that didn’t sign off on what was considered “the science” during the formative stages of the pandemic. For example, the genesis of SARS-CoV-2 is widely believed to be zoonotic, however, there is no proof of that as of present. The scientific community has yet to determine the origin of SARS-CoV-2 despite a mission sent over to Wuhan, China, by the World Health Organization, for example.
Regarding the subject of this article: The CDC classifies two varieties of CJD, including the “classical,” which results via spontaneous protein misfolding in the brain, as well as variant CJD (vCJD) caused by exposure to the same prion that triggers mad cow disease. Currently, there are no treatments for CJD, a “universally fatal” condition, and the actual type of CJD is only known after a post-mortem diagnosis of brain tissue.
French Lab Shutdown
In July of last year, the French government announced the suspension of all prion research across the country.
A formal government press release translated into English declared, “Provisional suspension of work on prions in French public research laboratories.” This was a nationwide, at least temporary, halt on this work based on the collective decision from leadership at ANSES, CEA, CNRS, INRAE, and INSERM in conjunction with the Ministry of Higher Education, Research, and Innovation for at least a period of three months. This, again, was the result of a possible case of the rare but deadly CJD in a prion research laboratory.
Apparently, a retired lab professional from INRAE was suffering from CJD, and according to the formal French government notice, “This could be a second case of infectious CJD affecting scientists who worked on prions, after the first case of an assistant engineering who died of the disease in 2019, and had been injured in 2010 during an experiment.”
This high-risk French research was supporting important public health perogatives in France: advancing the understanding of the functioning of “these infectious pathogens,” and contributing to results that the leadership believes transferrable to other related neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinsons.
The Study Summary
In a preprint study published in ResearchGate, the three scientists set out to investigate any association of COVID-19 vaccination and CJD. Performing literature reviews and conducting two complementary methods of prion analysis, the investigators discuss the presence of a prion region in sampled spike proteins in both the original wildtype variant of SARS-CoV-2 and “all of its successive variants, but also all of the ‘vaccines’ built on this same sequence of the Spike SARS-CoV2 from Wuhan.”
The France-based authors shared that their complementary methods included the use of PLAAC software (Lancaster et al., 2014), supporting the detection and sequencing of amino acids, allowing for the detection of regions likely to develop a prion function. They also utilized a “Master Code of DNA” (Perez, 2009, 2015), (Perez & Montagnier, 2021), supporting the reinforcement of the hypothesis of possible prion function. This latter approach offers a framework to investigate select structures of patterns of the curves of the Master Code, unifying the genomic and proteomic signatures of the considered sequences.
The prominent French authors establish that nearly 50 cases, seemingly “spontaneous emergence of CJD, have appeared in France and Europe very soon after the injection of the first or second dose of Pfizer, Moderna, or AstraZeneca vaccines.”
In identification of what the investigators deem an enigma associated with one variant, they write, “With a density of mutations 8 times greater than that of the rest of the spike, the possible harmfulness of this prion region disappears completely in the Omicron variant.” Attempting to answer this former paradox, the French and Swiss trio analyzed the combination of cases of CJD occurring in Europe between the first dose of either Pfizer or Moderna (both mRNA-based vaccines) with the sudden presentation of CJD.
Scientists Communicate with TrialSite
TrialSite reached out to Dr. Jean Claude Perez, requesting a quote. He and Dr. Clair Moret-Chalmin sent TrialSite the following:
“We just wanted to add this clarification to the TrialSite News article recounting our research on the emergence of a new, rapid form of fatal Creutzfeldt Jakob disease following COVID-19 vaccines.”
The scientists in France continued in an email:
“This article will have been, above all, the ultimate research of my friend, RIP Nobel Prize winner Luc Montagnier, the discoverer of the HIV virus and AIDS. Above all, Luc reared that—beyond the Creutzfeldt Jakob risk for vaccinated adults—this prion disease might reach tomorrow the millions of children on whom this vaccine, useless for them, will have been imposed.”
Discussing their deceased friend and colleague, Dr. Claude Perez and Moret-Chalmin noted, “A few days before his death, Luc, from his hospital bed, continued to suggest advice or avenues to explore our article, such as the attached Table.” That table is included as part of their findings and presented below.
What follows is a summary of table 2 in the manuscript titled, “Presence of the PRION region in ALL historical SARS-CoV-2 Spikes except Bat RaTG13.
Identification of the main SARS-CoV-2 strain and variants
PRION region amino acids 473-510
Notes
SARS-coV-2 Wuhan
Yes
Alpha (UK)
Yes
Beta (South Africa)
Yes
Gamma (Brazil)
Yes
Delta (India)
Yes
mRNA vaccines Pfizer
Yes
mRNA vaccines Moderna
Yes
batRaTG13
No
Prion region totally absent
ScovZC45
Yes (shifted)
In the 50 first amino acids
ScovZXC21
Yes (shifted)
In the 50 first amino acids
Summary
Noting that CJD takes years to present symptoms, the team communicated in their preprint the investigation into 26 CJD cases in 2021, but Dr. Claude Perez and Moret-Chalmin acknowledge in the paper that they are not able to explain the cause of the disease.
Probing the known history and pathology of known CJD, the trio compare known science with the anomalous observations “following [COVID-19] vaccinations.”
Regarding the 26 cases of what the investigators purport to be CJD: symptoms associated with CJD emerge on average 11.38 days post the COVID-19 jab. As of the writing of their paper, which TrialSite reminds is not yet peer-reviewed, and thus shouldn't be cited as scientific or medical evidence, 20 of the subjects of this retrospective died on average 4.76 months after the vaccination event. Of that number, 8 of the subjects experienced a sudden death, which according to the authors, presents as a “new form of CJD” as compared to a classical form of the disease which emerges after decades.
Other Research & Discussions
Are there other scientific medical discussions centering on prions, CJD, and the COVID-19 vaccines? What follows is a brief summary of sample research involving the two topics.
CJD Death after second Pfizer Dose in American Hospital
Interestingly, a case series study conducted at a prominent American health system reveals a case of CJD after COVID-19 vaccination. Led by Andrea J Folds, MD, Melanie-Belle Ulrich, MD, Sann Y Htoo, MD, and Anjeza Chukus, MD, all affiliated with HCA Healthcare Department of Internal Medicine and/or HCS Healthcare Aventura Hospital, authored the research paper titled, “Sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease After Receiving the Second Dose of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine.”
This American team found conclusive evidence that a 64-year-old woman presented with symptoms associated with CJD after the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA-based vaccine. The authors wrote, “After extensive investigation, conclusive evidence identified the fatal diagnosis of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.”
Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Foundation POV
Recently, the Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Foundation (CJD Foundation) published “Is there any relation between the COVID-19 vaccine and CJD?” The foundation shares a clip of the video from the 2021 Virtual CJD Foundation Family Conference session, including Ryan Maddox, Ph.D., an epidemiologist in the Prion and Public Health Office of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases at the CDC, and Brian Appleby, MD a physician affiliated with the foundation that spoke at the CJD foundation.
Dr. Appleby asked the CDC expert if there is a connection between COVID-19 vaccination and CJD. The CDC epidemiologist shared that COVID-19 didn’t hit the scene until late 2019. He suggested that “realistically, there is no biological explanation that would relate PRION disease to COVID-19,” and that relates to the COVID-19 vaccine as well.
Maddox suggests given 85% (at the time) of the elderly population in the U.S. is vaccinated, and that some of that population will be developing prion disease, that they may overlap but don’t likely causally connect. However, Appleby reiterated further, continuing to push the subject that clearly seemed uncomfortable to Maddox, that some cases are reported where CJD symptoms sporadically emerge directly after COVID-19 vaccination. Is this pure chance, wondered Appleby?
Maddox, at the end of the clip, concedes that it's certainly possible that spontaneous CJD-like symptoms could emerge directly after COVID-19 vaccination. The clip can be found here. For more of Maddox’s perspective on CJD in America, listen to this clip.
A Turkish Cautionary Note
While this occurred in France, another set of scientist-physicians out of Pamukkale University in Turkey at the end of 2021 also reported on a possible correlation between prions and COVID-19 vaccination. Titled “Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease After the COVID-19 Vaccination,” and led by corresponding author Dr. Anil Kuvandk, the team report an observation of increasing neurological problems associated with “the clinical presentation of COVID-19,” noting the reported manifestations appear “to be a combination of nonspecific complications of the systemic disease, inflammation of the cerebrovascular system, and the effects of a direct viral infection.”
In this case series at Pamukkale University’s anesthesiology intensive care units, the physician-scientists observed a patient died from neurological findings that developed after vaccination with the CoronvaVac vaccine, the COVID-19 vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac. The authors suggest, “In cases where rapidly progressive neurological disorders are observed, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease should be considered, and the role of immunity-related condition in the progression of the disease should be investigated.”
Final Thoughts
A physician affiliated with the CJD Foundation expressed concerns last year of reports of presenting CJD directly after COVID-19 vaccination. Moreover, a case series at a major U.S. health system confirmed the death of a 64-old woman due to CJD after vaccination with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine known as BNT162b2. Turkish physician-scientists caution that based on their case series study, when persons die after COVID-19 or the vaccine with associated CJD symptoms, then that rare neurodegenerative disease should be investigated. The recent preprint study authored by a well-known French mathematician/computer scientist and two French-speaking physician-scientists--one a famous figure who discovered HIV and recently passed away-- link the original wildtype SARS-coV-2 strain and all ensuing variants, except Omicron to prion regions associated with the misfolded protein seen in CJD. Perez, Moret-Chalmin, and Montagnier (RIP) probed the literature, finding over a dozen post-COVID-19 deaths purportedly linked to CJD. The trio also conducted sequencing analyses of associated prion regions to all COVID-19 variants (except Omicron) and the mRNA-based vaccines as well. An anti-vax fishing expedition or worthwhile investigation? We think real science suggests the latter. While the findings herein certainly do not represent sufficient hard evidence of a causal link between COVID-19 vaccination and CJD, the topic does warrant further investigation. While critical inquiry into the COVID-19 vaccines is still frowned upon among many elite academic medical circles, we believe there are sufficient red flags associated with the mass vaccination programs, benefits aside, warranting further investigation on multiple scientific fronts, including this one.
https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/is-the-deadly-neurological-condition-creutzfeldt-jakob-disease-linked-to-covid-19-vaccination-2a5eff87
