Leprosy is all the rage in the U.S. (Florida)

The CDC has recently rung the alarm bells on leprosy and no one would be able to convince me that they don’t know exactly why leprosy has reared its ugly head recently.

You can read about that here and here.

Leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease, can affect the skin, respiratory tract, eyes and nerves, and is caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae or Mycobacterium lepromatosis. These are obligate intracellular parasites meaning they depend on their hosts to survive. Leprosy can also cause disfigurement following many years of uncontrolled infection. It is not known how it is transmitted between people, but apparently it can happen after extended close contact. It is treatable with antibiotics.

Interestingly, the new cases of leprosy trend has been steadily declining for a number of years, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). According to this downward trend, there should be no reason for leprosy to regain momentum in terms of altering this downward trajectory.

The CDC are blaming this new ‘outbreak’ on armadillos. No, I am not joking. The reports of new cases of leprosy confined to Central Florida (where 81% of the new cases were traced back to)

, are definitely not due to the influx of illegal immigrants from leprosy-endemic areas. No. It couldn’t be. It must be the armadillos or rather, as stated by the CDC, ‘environmental reservoirs as a potential source of transmission’. Yes, it’s nature’s fault. Maybe it was a pangolin?

I have another suggestion as to the cause or source. If there is an uptick of new cases of leprosy considered to be a reason for concern, then I propose that it’s due to a lack of immunological control of the causative bacteria, due to the effects of the COVID-19 shots having induced immune dysfunction – possibly due to CD4+ T cell destruction – and an incapability to fight off infection. There’s another name for this that I will leave for the next article. As an infectious disease specialist at Florida International University Dr. Aileen Marty states: “The good news is that 90% of people tend to be naturally immune to the disease”. Yes. When their immune system is functioning.

Now let’s head to that good old pharmacovigilance database VAERS. What can we find in terms of both new reports of leprosy and pre-existing conditions being re-aggravated since the COVID-19 shots.

Including the Foreign data, there are 18 reports of ‘leprosy’ when querying both the SYMPTOM_TEXT, where you can find such golden words like: “Erythema nodosum leprosum post-COVID-19 vaccination” (2195545) in the absence of a reported MedDRA code, and SYMPTOM variables. None of these people had a reported history of leprosy. Of these reports, 9 were made in the U.S. and of these, 4 were made from Florida. Of these 4 Floridian reports, 3 were filed for one female for each of the consecutive Pfizer shots she received. Well done on filing 3 times!

So in total, there are only 2 people who filed to VAERS from Florida and none of them had MedDRA codes indicating a leprosy diagnosis. The indication of ‘leprosy’ came from the SYMPTOM_TEXT (ie: “a consumer and describes the occurrence of LEPROSY”).

In addition, when only querying only the SYMPTOM variable for both Foreign and Domestic reports, the number of reports goes down to 3. Of these, only 1 report was made in the U.S. from Colorado. These reports represent the actual diagnosed leprosy cases in the context of the COVID-19 shots.

My take on this, from what I know about VAERS, is that leprosy is not cause for concern. Yet. I will keep my eye on this but strangely enough, I would recommend relying on the WHO’s downward trend data. Data is data. And it backs up the idea that leprosy will keep trending down in the U.S..

I mean, unless, there is an influx of people from leprosy-endemic regions and antibiotic resistance issues become really problematic. Insert collar-pulling here.