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COVID vaccine and VAERS discussion
Thread starter trevor
I've lost a friend recently about this vaccine. She asked me a question about how I feel about it. I told her I was vaccinated because I believe in the science and that we need to get this virus under control. She started spouting off different conspiracies as well. I asked her where she was getting her information from but she wouldn't tell me. My guess is from conspiracy podcasts and websites. And FB. When I asked if that was the case she never spoke to me again. People are very gullible so I don't fault her for it. I even said I don't care if she or anyone else gets vaxxed. Their choice. I've learned that when someone asks me my opinion to be prepared for a heated and insulting debate. Now I just say I don't care. It's not worth losing friends over and it's an argument where you cannot convince them otherwise so what's the point?
The vaccine itself does not stop the spread of the virus, we will never hit zero. its here to stay for good. All the vaccine does is prevent you from getting serious illness from the virus, or even prevents any symptoms from developing (though 30-40% of people infected with covid never develop symptoms) . it's going to be like the common cold and the seasonal flu. it's going to come in waves. Everyone is going to get it. you can't control a virus that has roughly R3 spread rate. Seasonal flus and common colds typically lie between R0.5 and R2.. Just be thankful it's not airborne Ebola. Though im sure someone will think of that as a bio weapon someday.
trevor said:
VAERS has reported over 17,000 deaths linked to the vaccine
they haven't been linked to the vaccine. Vaers does not determine causality.
and 14,500 there [according to your link] are over the age of 65.
More than 408 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered in the United States from December 14, 2020, through October 18, 2021. During this time, VAERS received 8,878 reports of death (0.0022%) among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine. FDA requires healthcare providers to report any death after COVID-19 vaccination to VAERS, even if it's unclear whether the vaccine was the cause. Reports of adverse events to VAERS following vaccination, including deaths, do not necessarily mean that a vaccine caused a health problem.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html
VAERS has reported over 17,000 deaths linked to the vaccine, not to mention a ridiculous amount of cases of heart inflammation.
From the 10/15/2021 release of VAERS data:
Found 17,128 cases where Vaccine is COVID19 and Patient Died
Table
Age
Count
Percent
< 3 Years
0.02%
27
612
1,982
11.57%
TOTAL
17,128
100%
Case Details
Source: https://www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?TABLE=ON&GROUP1=AGE&EVENTS=ON&VAX=COVID19&DIED=Yes
A third of these death reports don't even have an age.
A VAERS report does not mean there is actually a link.
In the US, 414 million doses of the vaccine have been administered; 17128/414000000=0.004% or a 1 in 250.000 chance that your doctor is going to report your death on VAERS. This is age-dependent; if you'fe under 65, it's more like 1 in 400.000.
Meanwhile, 0.23% of Americans have died of Covid so far, that is 60 times worse.
Vaccine-induced heart inflammations occur less often and are less severe than Covid-induced inflammations.
You are getting scared because people are feeding you misleading information without context.
Project Dates:
12/7/2007 to 9/29/2010
Every patient receiving a vaccine was automatically identified and for the next 30 days their health care diagnostic codes, laboratory tests, and medication prescriptions were evaluated for values suggestive of an adverse event.
Source: https://digital.ahrq.gov/ahrq-funded-projects/electronic-support-public-health-vaccine-adverse-event-reporting-system
The study you're citing is a) 10 years old, and b) has a couple of computer nerds classify anything that happens to a patient within 30 days after a vaccination as "adverse event", whether it makes sense or not, and regardless of whether the side effect is already known. (e.g. if the study says headaches are a common side effect, a doctor probably wouldn't report it, but it counts as "underreported" for the study.
Here's why you should never draw conclusions from VAERS:
It's designed so that anyone — parents, patients and health care professionals — can freely report any health effects that occur after a vaccination, according to the CDC, whether or not those effects are believed to be caused by the vaccine. The reports are not verified before they're entered into the database. But anyone with a computer can search the data, download it, sort through the numbers and interpret them as they wish.
That makes VAERS fertile ground for vaccine misinformation that spreads widely on social media and elsewhere. Even though VAERS warns its users that reports should not be used on their own to determine whether a vaccine caused or contributed to a particular illness, many who tap into the system do that anyway, citing these government statistics to justify broader conclusions about what they consider the dangers of vaccines.
Offit explained that four sets of data are needed to measure whether a vaccine has caused or contributed to an adverse event: vaccinated people who experienced that problem; vaccinated people who didn't have it; unvaccinated people who had the problem; and unvaccinated people who didn't.
"What (VAERS) gives you is one piece of information: You had a vaccine, had a side effect," he said. "That in no sense tells you whether or not the side effect was caused by the vaccine. So it's a noisy system that frankly is more frightening than helpful."
The fear is amplified by anti-vaccine groups and activists who use VAERS's unverified, incomplete numbers to advance far-reaching claims, Offit said.
Source: https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/may/03/vaers-governments-vaccine-safety-database-critical/
[Edit: I'm adding quotes for the references I am replying to.]
The vaccine itself does not stop the spread of the virus, we will never hit zero.
The first is wrong, and the second is not yet provable. To stop the virus, the vaccine only has to be effective enough (and administered widely enough) to get the transmission rate below 1, in conjunction with other measures like contact tracing and quarantine. Booster shot recipients having 95% protection at first is an encouraging data point.
Obviously if there's still a significant portion of vaccine refusers, this "never hit zero" becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy, similar to how measles outbreaks are on the rise again due to anti-vaxxer parents.
and 14,500 there are over the age of 65.
EXACTLY, thank you for bringing that up, I was hoping you would notice that and you did just that! because this is an issue i've wanted to talk about.....so if you drop dead of a heart attack 12 hours after taking the vaccine, it can't be proven that it was the vaccine that killed you. but if you have a brain aneurism or commit suicide but test positive for covid, covid gets put on your death certificate and you land on that big number that's floating around on google's and yahoo's headlines???????????? pretty convenient to the multi billion dollar cure. I kid you not,, i personally knew someone who died of an aneurysm last year despite having no symptoms, and they told his family it was due to covid after they tested him.. Another, my moms neighbor who's son committed suicide due to PTSD, tests positive and they put covid on his death certificate? if we can get some consistency on the rules, there wouldn't be as much skepticism . Example, this Coroner comes out and says 2 of her 4 "covid deaths" were people who had been shot? I've never believed conspiracy theoris but i've never seen so much logic and common sense thrown out the window with this covid "crisis", that makes me believe it's 100% political.
"these two people had tested positive for COVID but that's not what killed them," she said. "The gunshot wound killed them."
The state of Colorado classifies COVID deaths in two ways: A death due to COVID, where it was the underlying cause, and a death with COVID, where there was a positive test but it wasn't listed as the cause of death.
"Today, Colorado's reporting 4,156 COVID deaths, these are actually deaths among cases. Then they show 3,230 deaths due to COVID, and so they're differentiating that, but I think it can maybe go a little further and I think the policy could be changed," said Richard Cimino, Grand County Commissioner for District One."
https://www.kmov.com/news/colorado-...cle_297e3550-4131-11eb-9f01-ffe3e11d0f46.html
And if you look on the vaers website, some of the deaths are detailed. i'll give 2 for example. A guy has a heart attack after his 1st dose the day later. Sure, i understand you can't prove that was caused by the vaccine, but then the patient below it, "Foaming from the mouth 4 minutes after injection, pronounced dead 2 hours later", yes. i think that one is clear. and again most of these reactions are not reported to VAERS.
but if you have a brain aneurism or commit suicide but test positive for covid, covid gets put on your death certificate and you land on that big number that's floating around on google's and yahoo's headlines???????????? pretty convenient to the multi billion dollar cure. I kid you not,, i personally knew someone who died of an aneurysm last year despite having no symptoms, and they told his family it was due to covid after they tested him..
1. aneurisms are a known issue if you get covid.
2. you need to stop posting old links that break the no-click policy
3. i dont think most locals are counting non related covid deaths as covid deaths lately. (i added the bold this time)
This chart shows the number of COVID-19-associated deaths among Connecticut residents by date of death. COVID-19-associated deaths involve persons who tested positive for COVID-19 around the time of death (confirmed), and those who were not tested for COVID-19 whose death certificates list COVID-19 disease or SARS-CoV-2 infection as a cause of death or a significant condition contributing to death (probable).
Source: https://data.ct.gov/stories/s/COVID-19-Daily-Report/q5as-kyim/
vaccinated and unvaccinated carry the same amount of viral loads. Isreal has the highest vaccination rates and they've been exploding the past 2 months.
"Foaming from the mouth 4 minutes after injection, pronounced dead 2 hours later",
allergic reaction is a known side effect.
Example, this Coroner comes out and says 2 of her 4 "covid deaths" were people who had been shot? I've never believed conspiracy theoris but i've never seen so much logic and common sense thrown out the window with this covid "crisis", that makes me believe it's 100% political.
and your own old link belies what you are saying in your comment. (again bold is for emphasis)
December 2020 The state of Colorado classifies COVID deaths in two ways: A death due to COVID, where it was the underlying cause, and a death with COVID, where there was a positive test but it wasn't listed as the cause of death.
"Today, Colorado's reporting 4,156 COVID deaths, these are actually deaths among cases. Then they show 3,230 deaths due to COVID, and so they're differentiating that, but I think it can maybe go a little further and I think the policy could be changed," said Richard Cimino, Grand County Commissioner for District One.
Source: https://www.kmov.com/news/colorado-coroner-calling-out-how-state-classifies-covid-19-deaths/article_297e3550-4131-11eb-9f01-ffe3e11d0f46.html
actually the last month their numbers have been dropping like a stone. you should check current info before you post
September and August, also known as the 2 months before october, is considered "last 2 months". they hit their all time high as a country september 15th 2021.
is considered "last 2 months"
they hit their all time high as a country september 15th 2021.
yea my state has one of the highest vaccination rates (or the highest i forget) in the country and we went up those months too because delta hit. but unlike Israel we are still up. deaths though are still low compared to pre-vaccine though.
FatPhil
Bad show. Don't try and mess with language, the last 2 months are September and October.
You *said* "exploding the past 2 months". Deirdre rightly called you on that.
Your own defence shows *plumetting* in the past 2 months, which is the exact opposite.
..so if you drop dead of a heart attack 12 hours after taking the vaccine, it can't be proven that it was the vaccine that killed you
People get strokes and heart attacks all the time, and some randomly happen after vaccinations. So what they did is what my quote said, they looked at all the data (not just the scary reports), compared the normal risk of stroke to what people get after the vaccination, and found this (not the only study, but the first hit on Google):
Further analysis found that between days 15-21, after the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine, the risk of stroke caused by a blood clot in the brain (ischaemic stroke) was raised by 12%.
However, for those people with the virus, the risk of stroke was significantly raised from day 0 through to 28 days, with the risk doubled at 15-21 days and overall, was 12 times higher.
There would be an estimated 1,699 extra cases for every 10 million people after infection, while there would be only 143 extra cases after the first Pfizer jab.
Researchers said the risk of thrombocytopenia associated with the AstraZeneca drug was the same as having other, commonly used vaccines including the flu jag.
There was no increased risk of heart attack with either vaccine.
Source: https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19541035.edinburgh-university-study-finds-pfizer-stroke-link-data-reassuring/
So, the heart attacks reported on VAERS are not actually linked to the vaccines, those people would've had that heart attack anyway even if they hadn't gotten vaccinated.
And the stroke risk of 143 in 10 million equates to 1 in 70.000, or 0.0014%. (Again, 0.23% of unvaccinated Americans have died of Covid.)
"Foaming from the mouth 4 minutes after injection, pronounced dead 2 hours later"
You missed the part where literally anybody can add anything to VAERS?
And you do not link this report.
but if you have a brain aneurism or commit suicide but test positive for covid, covid gets put on your death certificate and you land on that big number that's floating around on google's and yahoo's headlines????????????
Excess mortality (i.e. the above-average number of deaths) and reported Covid deaths match fairly well across the world. If anything, Covid deaths are under-reported. This has been debunked many times.
vaccinated and unvaccinated carry the same amount of viral loads.
Yep, almost (factor of 2). But breakthrough infections occur much less frequently.
The 338 reported VBT cases represent 0.14% of Washoe's vaccinated
population of across the study period, compared to a 2.54% rate in those unvaccinated.
In this case series analysis from Washoe County, Nevada, the rate of breakthrough
infections was more than 18-fold lower than the rate of infections among unvaccinated
individuals. Most importantly, rates of severe illness were low in vaccinated individuals. These
findings add to a growing body of data that can reassure the public on the real-world
effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines.
Source: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.09.21262448v1
If you cut a replication rate of R=3 by a factor of 18, you're down to R=0.2, which easily stops the pandemic.
Yes, but "foaming at the mouth after 4 minutes" is something someone made up, that doesn't happen; it is not a sign of an allergic reaction.
Allergic reactions are no reason to die if you are in medical care already.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises people to stick around for 15 minutes after vaccination, and those with a history of other allergies for 30 minutes, so they can be treated immediately if they have a reaction.
The Alaska health worker, who doctors said had no history of allergies, was following that advice and got prompt care for a particularly severe reaction called anaphylaxis. She has recovered after a night of observation in the hospital — but won't be allowed a second vaccine dose.
Source: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mprnews.org/amp/story/2020/12/16/alaska-woman-has-allergic-reaction-to-covid-vaccine-health-officials-track-safety
When I got vaccinated, I didn't just show up and got the shot; I had to fill out a questionnaire about my medical history that included questions about allergies. I expect the doctor I talked to would have raised this issue before I got the shot if I had had any.
Cases, yes; deaths, no.
Since the beginning of the fourth wave in June, almost 1,600 people have died, the majority in August and September, 631 and 668, respectively. Another 224 individuals have died from COVID-19 since the beginning of October.
The number of victims during the fourth wave has remained significantly lower than during the previous wave, when the virus killed 1,445 in January and 947 in February. But the past three months still have been among the deadliest since the pandemic began last year.
Most of the victims have been over the age of 60 and unvaccinated, the ministry reported.
Source: https://m.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/coronavirus/covid-israel-passes-8000-deaths-what-do-we-know-about-them-682482/amp
The fact that Israel has more cases is due to the new delta variant, and probably due to a different level of restrictions made possible because most of Israel is vaccinated.
What is the level of restrictions compared to pre-vaccine? Have you had lockdowns again?
Life goes on almost as normal over here, with case numbers so high in places, we'd have been locking down a year ago.
Have you had lockdowns again?
not at all. they didnt even reduce the inside dining capacity this time. masks were suggested by the state , but mask requirements were left up to the towns themselves to decide.
There is still some caution by officials (like healthcare worker mandates, masks in schools ) but mostly i think people got pandemic fatigue this summer just as delta arrived. we have like 75% unvaccinated in our hospitals, and of the vaccinated they are by large very old or immunocompromised... which we all know the very old and the immunocompromised often dont mount any sufficient immune response to any types of vaccines. so while they are technically "vaccinated", i dont really consider them vaccinated
The patient was diagnosed with anaphylactic shock and treated appropriately.
Interventions:
The patient experienced shortness of breath and was promptly administered 2 shots of 0.3mg Epi followed by a loss of consciousness (LOC) and a series of 4 consecutive seizures accompanied with LOC and urinary incontinence.
Seizures as a manifestation of anaphylaxis are rare with 1 study claiming 13% of cases of anaphylaxis having LOC and only 1.5% cases with loss of bladder or bowel control.
Source: https://journals.lww.com/md-journal/fulltext/2018/05040/neurologic_manifestations_in_anaphylaxis_due_to.22.aspx
That case wasn't a vaccination, but actually allergy treatment. The condition is not described as "foaming at the mouth", but rather "loss of consciousness" and "seizures". The patient did not die. And besides having known allergies, they had a suspected anaphylactic event prior to that:
Subcutaneous immunotherapy is a common practice for those with unrelenting allergies (especially environmental allergies).
This case is one of continued subcutaneous immunotherapy after the patient had an initial systemic reaction suspicious for anaphylaxis 6 months before the life-threatening anaphylaxis.
I grant you that anaphylaxis can, in rare cases, induce a convulsive seizure:
Tonic-clonic seizures cause a loss of muscle control, which can make it difficult to swallow or open the mouth. During a seizure, this excess saliva tends to pool in the mouth before being thrust through clenched teeth, mixing with oxygen and gases in the mouth, and developing a foamy appearance.
Source: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321756#causes
A medical professional would describe this as "seizure" and not as "foaming at the mouth".
That case wasn't a vaccination, but actually allergy treatment
anaphylactic shock is anaphylactic shock. the cause doesnt matter.
and seizures can come with foaming of the mouth.
i'm not saying i believe trevor's unsourced examples, i'm just saying it isnt outside the realm of possibility.
trevor described it, not a doctor.
Keith Beachy
And if you look on the vaers website, some of the deaths are detailed. i'll give 2 for example. A guy has a heart attack after his 1st dose the day later.
Over 600,000 people in the US die from heart disease in a year. Did the person have heart disease, or high risk for heart disease? VAERS deaths could be car accidents, suicide, gun shot, old age, anything... not an indicator of vaccine caused deaths, but deaths that occur after someone had a shot. A heart related death after a vaccine shot for Covid, may be as likely as death by Covid complications. Heart disease and Covid seem to be killing about the same numbers. The deaths after vaccination due to car accidents should be lower than death after vaccination due to heart disease - based on stats.
Not logical for anti-vaxxers to use VAERS to support anything.
Have you reported the deaths you know/claim were blamed on Covid by mistake to the appropriate agencies - or what that hearsay and google stuff?
this is a thread about vaccine misinformation and you bring a graphic scary account that happens to have nothing to do with vaccination but that everyone who reads your post will believe did
and yes the cause matters, and it matters that your patient had allergies and an anaphylactic episode to begin with, which wouldnt happen at a covid shot unless you lied to the doctor
(pro tip: never lie to your doctor)
my takeaway is that you don't care about misinformation as long as it fits your message
if he didn't even quote VAERS, I have even less reason to believe it
which wouldnt happen at a covid shot unless you lied to the doctor
oh bunk. not everyone knows if they are allergic to the specific ingredients in these (or any other) specific vaccines.
why are YOU spreading misinformation? yes seizures during anaphylaxis is rare, but you yourself posted evidence it can happen. Are you having some english-as-second-language misunderstanding again? You gave me a thumb down for saying -accurately- Israel has been doing much better this last month... so obviously you must be misinterpreting some things you read in english.
CaptainCourgette
What!!? Sure early on that was the case but have you actually looked at the numbers in the last few months they got overtaken a long time ago
eg data from
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
I live now in spain vaccination rate 81.24% but I'm from nz vaccination rate 75.03% which both are ahead of israel at 70.80%, yes israel is ahead of the US at 65.57% but mate israel hardly 'has the highest vaccination rates'.
Actually spain is now one of the countries with the highest vaccination rates and FWIW cases are very low ATM
Given the endemic problem of taking partial truth statistics out of context. This is today's effort by my state's health department to persuade people to be vaccinated. To be clear I fully agree with the goal of increasing vaccinations. For those for whom it is not genuinely, medically "contra-indicated".
BUT what about these numbers is the pro-vax misuse of stats to counter the anti-vax misuse of stats?? Because there is at least one big factor in the context that is not obvious.
You gave me a thumb down for saying -accurately- Israel has been doing much better this last month... so obviously you must be misinterpreting some things you read in english
"thumb down" means dislike, not disagree. trevor was clearly referring to the 4th wave in Israel, and instead of addressing his point about that, you niggled about that he was a month off. He was, but I still did not like that level of response.
yes seizures during anaphylaxis is rare, but you yourself posted evidence it can happen.
The severity and type of anaphylaxis still depend on the sex and age of the patient and on the agent that causes it, as well as on a history of prior exposure.
To equate someone whose allergies are so severe that they're seeking treatment with someone who doesn't even know they have allergies, and to imply that these people can expect the same type of severe reactions, is misleading.
Common signs and symptoms in anaphylaxis cases were generalized urticaria, diffuse erythematous rash, angioedema, respiratory and airway obstruction symptoms, and nausea.
Source: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2776557
I'm not seeing seizures on that list.
I found an older, pre-Covid study about "Clinical features and severity grading of anaphylaxis" that shows that the agent matters: "Older age, insect venom, and iatrogenic causes were independent predictors of severity." Basically, bee stings are the worst. Table 1 shows more reactions from antibiotics (145) and over-the-counter pain killers (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory, 32) than vaccine (4), which is equal to kiwi fruit (4).
econ41 said:
Your source says, "Based on NSW data between August and October 2021, unvaccinated people were 24x more likely to be admitted to hospital with #COVID19.".
Source: https://mobile.twitter.com/NSWHealth/status/1453179667553394694
They scaled the hospitalisation rate per million, presumably per million people vaccinated or unvaccinated respectively, so that it correctly reflects individual risk.
I don't see any misuse.
Spoiler: Vaccination rate by age in NSW
Source: https://www.nsw.gov.au/covid-19/stay-safe/data-and-statistics
i didn't imply they can expect it.
i'm saying outright it is plausible that there is a ONE in 414 million chance you might have an allergy you are unaware of which could lead to seizure/allergic reaction after vaccination. ALL medicines come with risks for a small portion of the population.
(granted perhaps this guy was prone to seizures, there is no proof the vaccine or allergic reaction caused it. )
i'm saying outright it is plausible that there is a ONE in 414 million chance you might have an allergy you are unaware of which could lead to seizure/allergic reaction after vaccination.
We're not talking about "allergic reaction", that chance is more like 2%, but would be something like a skin rash in most circumstances.
We're talking about a full-blown seizure. I am saying it's not plausible for anyone to experience this "out of the blue", if at all. I looked for evidence that this could happen, but did not find any.
I'm also saying it's not plausible that this would be entered into VAERS as "foaming at the mouth" instead of e.g. "untreated anaphylaxis with LOC, seizures, and death" by the physician signing the death certificate. The "foaming at the mouth" is fear-mongering, and agenda-driven, and thus likely to be made up.
It's also not plausible that the person would be vaccinated at a place that is not prepared to treat a severe allergic reaction that sets in minutes after the dose has been injected. The CDC recommendations on this are clear.
I'm also saying it's not plausible that this would be entered into VAERS as "foaming at the mouth" instead of e.g. "untreated anaphylaxis with LOC, seizures, and death" by the physician signing the death certificate
none said it was written by a doctor. family members can enter reports to vaers as well. which would account for why trevors link says 17,000 reports (outcome death) while cdc has the number around 8,500... multiple reports on same patient.
VAERS is a passive reporting system, meaning it relies on individuals to send in reports of their experiences. Anyone can submit a report to VAERS, including parents and patients.
Healthcare providers are required by law to report to VAERS:
Vaccine manufacturers are required to report to VAERS all adverse events that come to their attention.
Online reporting is strongly encouraged. Please report clinically important adverse events that occur after vaccination of adults and children, even if you are not sure whether the vaccine caused the adverse event.
The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) accepts all reports, including reports of vaccination errors. Guidance on reporting vaccination errors is available if you have additional questions.
Knowingly filing a false VAERS report is a violation of Federal law (18 U.S. Code § 1001) punishable by fine and imprisonment.
Source: https://vaers.hhs.gov/reportevent.html
why would you assume he wasnt treated at site? moved to hospital after initial treatment at clinic, recovered from the allergic reaction and then allegedly died 2 hours later of something else.
we have no idea the age or medical conditions/medication this patient was on as trevor did not give us a page number.
here's the case:
(note: link is all covid vaccine/death/foam at mouth cases which equals 28 cases)
she was 96. died from asphyxiating vomit.
VAERS ID: 1533593 (history)
Form: Version 2.0
Days after vaccination: 0
Vaccination / Manufacturer Lot / Dose Site / Route
COVID19: COVID19 (COVID19 (PFIZER-BIONTECH)) / PFIZER/BIONTECH FD0889 / 1 - / -
Administered by: Other Purchased by: ?
Symptoms: Asphyxia, Body temperature, Cardio-respiratory arrest, Foaming at mouth, Multiple organ dysfunction syndrome, Pallor, Vomiting
SMQs:, Torsade de pointes/QT prolongation (broad), Anaphylactic reaction (broad), Acute pancreatitis (broad), Arrhythmia related investigations, signs and symptoms (broad), Shock-associated circulatory or cardiac conditions (excl torsade de pointes) (narrow), Torsade de pointes, shock-associated conditions (broad), Hypovolaemic shock conditions (broad), Toxic-septic shock conditions (broad), Anaphylactic/anaphylactoid shock conditions (broad), Hypoglycaemic and neurogenic shock conditions (broad), Convulsions (broad), Oropharyngeal conditions (excl neoplasms, infections and allergies) (narrow), Acute central respiratory depression (broad), Gastrointestinal nonspecific symptoms and therapeutic procedures (narrow), Hostility/aggression (broad), Hypotonic-hyporesponsive episode (broad), Generalised convulsive seizures following immunisation (broad), Respiratory failure (broad), Drug reaction with eosinophilia and systemic symptoms syndrome (broad), Sepsis (broad)
Life Threatening? No
Died? Yes
Date died: 2021-07-21
Days after onset: 0
Office Visit? No
ER Visit? No
ER or Doctor Visit? Yes
Hospitalized? Yes, ? days
Extended hospital stay? No
Other Medications: PREDONINE [PREDNISOLONE]
Current Illness:
Preexisting Conditions: Medical History/Concurrent Conditions: Anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody positive vasculitis
Diagnostic Lab Data: Test Date: 20210721; Test Name: Body temperature; Result Unstructured Data: Test Result: 36.9 Centigrade; Comments: before vaccination.
CDC Split Type: JPPFIZER INC202100943885
Write-up: Multi-organ failure resulting from asphyxia due to vomiting; Multi-organ failure resulting from asphyxia due to vomiting; Multi-organ failure resulting from asphyxia due to vomiting; cardio-respiratory arrest; Complexion ill; Foaming at mouth; This is a spontaneous report from a contactable physician received from the Regulatory Authority. Regulatory authority report number is v21120990. A 96-year and 3-month-old female patient received BNT162B2 (COMIRNATY, Solution for injection), via an unspecified route of administration on 21Jul2021 at 14:17 (Batch/Lot Number: FD0889; Expiration Date: 30Sep2021) (at the age of 96-years-old) as dose 1, single for COVID-19 immunisation. Body temperature before vaccination was 36.9 degrees centigrade. Family history was unknown. Medical history included antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)-associated vasculitis. Concomitant medications included prednisolone (PREDONINE) orally ongoing at 6 mg/day taken for an unspecified indication, start and stop date were not reported. On 21Jul2021, the patient experienced complexion ill and foaming at mouth at 14:22 (5 minutes after the vaccination). On 21Jul2021, the patient died with multi-organ failure resulting from asphyxia due to vomiting. The course of the events was as follows: On 21Jul2021 at 14:17 (the day of vaccination), the patient received the coronavirus vaccination. At 14:22 (5 minutes after the vaccination), complexion ill was noted. The patient was found foaming at the mouth. At 14:25 (8 minutes after the vaccination), medical review was done in a sitting position. The carotid artery was not palpable at that time. At 14:28 (11 minutes after the vaccination), the reporting physician was called, went to hospital. The physician assessed the patient was in cardio-respiratory arrest. At 14:30 (13 minutes after the vaccination), cardiac massage was started by another person. At 14:33 (16 minutes after the vaccination), an ambulance was called. At 14:35 (18 minutes after the vaccination), an automated external defibrillator (AED) was used, but no improvement was obtained. The reporting physician classified the events as serious (hospitalization) and assessed the causality between the events and BNT162b2 as unassessable. Other possible cause of the event such as any other diseases included asphyxia due to vomiting. The patient died on 21Jul2021. It was not reported if an autopsy was performed. The reporting physician commented as follows: The information was from Primary care. There was a contact from the hospital where the patient was urgently taken, and it notified that the death cause was multi-organ failure resulting from asphyxia due to vomiting.; Reporter''s Comments: The information was from Hospital. There was a contact from the hospital where the patient was urgently taken, and it notified that the death cause was multi-organ failure resulting from asphyxia due to vomiting.; Reported Cause(s) of Death: Multi-organ failure resulting from asphyxia due to vomiting; Multi-organ failure resulting from asphyxia due to vomiting; Multi-organ failure resulting from asphyxia due to vomiting
Source: https://medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?EVENTS=on&PAGENO=3&PERPAGE=10&ESORT=NONE&REVERSESORT=&VAX=(COVID19)&SYMPTOMS=(Foaming_at_mouth_%2810062654%29)&DIED=Yes
Same over here. You get (got) an invitation letter, and right before the appointment you have (had) to fill in a questionnaire and show legal ID. The questionnaire contained a section about allergy. Indeed, I had to tick the box, as I have quite a few allergies, so then you have to go in a differently coloured waiting que. So there they pay a bit more attention during the administration, and I suppose an ambulance is around the corner.
I am luckily not anaphylactic, so no problems for me. Never was afraid of the shot though.
My vaccination and my wife's were arranged by and performed by our long term GP practice. Which implicitly managed both aspects, confirming ID and knowledge of medical history. Plus the Australian national health service Medicare has the ID info, access to medical history through the national, optional "My Health Record" data base and maintains the national registry of vaccinations giving access to proof of COVID awareness. I'm not aware of the checking processes adopted by the many "Walk In" vaccination hubs that have been established by State Health Agencies.
Here's a blog post about a part of the official process to approve the Pfizer vaccine for children, in case anyone is interested in the considerations that go into that. I'm quoting just one interesting tidbit for our discussion of adverse events:
Today VRBPAC (an external scientific advisory committee to the FDA) voted in favor of the Pfizer COVID19 vaccine for 5-11 year olds. VRBPAC was the second stop in a long process to get the vaccine authorized for emergency use.
There were 5 severe adverse events. None were linked to the vaccine:
Ingestion of a penny (1 person in the vaccine group)
Fractures (2 people in the vaccine group and 1 in the placebo)
Infective arthritis (one person in vaccine group)
There were no cases of myocarditis (heart inflammation), anaphylaxis or deaths among ages 5-11 in the clinical trials.
Source: https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/vaccines-for-5-11-year-olds-fda-meeting
This is an autoimmune disease.
Our (U.S) liberal leaning media is broadcasting that there really is no data from trials. But i will point out for readers that any viral infection can lead to myocarditis or MIS-C. including Covid.
also like to point out the Pfizer dose (5-11 years) in U.S anyway is 10mg vs the 12+years dose of 30 mg.
The company acknowledged it's likely the trials are too small to truly assess the risks of some rare side effects like myocarditis and pericarditis, which have been linked to the shots in adults and adolescents who have received the vaccine. But it cited safety surveillance conducted in Israel — which rolled out Pfizer's vaccine for adolescents nationwide earlier this year — that suggest rates of this kind of heart inflammation in younger children after the shots "are likely to be even lower" than in adults.
Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pfizer-covid-vaccine-kids-effective-trials/
FDA scientists said Pfizer's trial wasn't large enough to detect rare side effects like myocarditis that have been observed after the second dose, particularly in younger men and teenage boys. Just over 1,500 children ages 5 to 11 received the vaccine in the Pfizer trial (another 750 received a placebo) and there were no cases of myocarditis.
Kuritzkes pointed to data from an Israeli study of people ages 16 to 40 that found the risk of myocarditis is actually greater from COVID than it is from the vaccine. That study missed younger adolescents, however.
Source: https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/what-to-know-about-myocarditis-and-covid-vaccines-for-children-under-12/2538461/
Our (U.S) liberal leaning media is broadcasting that there really is no data from trials.
Because, you know, there was, and the article I quoted talked about it.
The main takeaway from the data is that the smaller dose still gives good protection, i.e. the vaccine does its job. And it confirms that the dosage is essentially safe.
The problem with children is that they rarely get severe cases of Covid, so even the rare chance of vaccine complications matters. From what we now know, these risks might balance out statistically, so decisions would be made on a case-by-case basis. For example, if there are immunocompromised people in the kid's household, it'd be a good idea to vaccinate the child to protect those people.
Michael Kurilla, the only person who abstained on the vote, issued a statement explaining his rationale. There were multiple factors that effectively boil down to the fact that he doesn't think all children need this vaccine — many have already had Covid infections and have some immunity because of it — and he's not convinced the vaccine's protection will last long enough given the current schedule of two doses administered three weeks apart.
Some children clearly need this vaccine, said Kurilla, director of the division of clinical innovation at the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, but "I don't see the need for 'emergency use' of this vaccine across the entire age group and would have preferred a more nuanced approach."
[The panel voted "yes" on this:]
Based on the totality of scientific evidence available, do the benefits of the Pfizer- BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine when administered as a 2-dose series (10 micrograms each dose, 3 weeks apart) outweigh its risks for use in children 5-11 years of age?
Several panelists clearly worry that while they believe the vaccine should be an option, particularly for kids who are at risk, they're not sure the data exist for a wide approval.
Source: https://www.statnews.com/2021/10/26/pfizer-covid19-vaccine-kids-vrbpac-fda/
For now, with the data we currently have, refusing to get under-12-yo kids vaccinated may be a sensible choice, in the absence of reasons that Covid may be pose a special danger if that kid got it. But having the kid vaccinated is also sensible and helps stop the epidemic.
We'll know more when more kids have been vaccinated, and more data on side effects exists.
I'd agree that we don't have enough data (yet) to support a vaccine mandate for children, unless things get worse/stay bad.
Claim: adverse reactions in Covid vaccine trials are not being recorded
Dr. Dan Stock Argues Against Vaccines at Mt. Vernon, IN School Board Meeting
Hevach
Need help further debunking: IJVTPR (International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research) paper titled "Worse than the disease?"
Claim: Pfizer's own data shows that their vaccine "does more harm than good"
Need help further debunking: IJVTPR (International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research) paper titled "Worse than the disease?" Coronavirus COVID-19 17 Jan 3, 2022
Claim: adverse reactions in Covid vaccine trials are not being recorded Coronavirus COVID-19 106 Nov 16, 2021
Finnish politician on possible Covid Vaccine Genocide Coronavirus COVID-19 12 Jun 30, 2021
P Need Debunking: "Experimental Vaccine Death Rate for Israel's Elderly 40 Times Higher Than COVID-19 Deaths" Coronavirus COVID-19 7 Mar 4, 2021
Report: "23 die in Norway after receiving Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine" (NY Post) Coronavirus COVID-19 9 Jan 16, 2021
A Needs Debunking: Proposed COVID Vaccine will become part of our DNA, make us programmable Coronavirus COVID-19 37 Oct 7, 2020
Claim: Covid vaccine gives you "Serpent" DNA/marks you 666 Coronavirus COVID-19 9 Sep 18, 2020
P Claim: 75 Deaths of athletes in Five Months are Because of COVID-19 vaccines Coronavirus COVID-19 13 Nov 9, 2021
Claim: Covid vaccines contains self-aware aluminum parasites Coronavirus COVID-19 44 Oct 18, 2021
T Claim: Offguardian article claiming that Covid PCR testing is flawed and not reliable Coronavirus COVID-19 8 Oct 15, 2021
P Friend has fallen into COVID-conspiracies Coronavirus COVID-19 96 Oct 8, 2021
Are 99% of COVID-19 Deaths Among the Unvaccinated? Coronavirus COVID-19 50 Aug 30, 2021
D Claim: Videos of people exhaling vape smoke through a mask, demonstrate masks as useless against a virus.. Coronavirus COVID-19 42 Jun 25, 2021
G Claim: China refused to hand "key data" to WHO delegation during the recent investigation in Wuhan Coronavirus COVID-19 29 Feb 14, 2021
Covid Stimulus Bill mandates UFO Disclosure UFOs and Aliens 5 Jan 10, 2021
Explained: Covid-19 research with pre-2020 dates in Google search results Coronavirus COVID-19 4 Jan 6, 2021
Explained: "Disappearing needles" in Covid Vaccinations Coronavirus COVID-19 1 Dec 16, 2020
A Plug for "You Can Know Things" Coronavirus COVID-19 0 Dec 6, 2020
B Covid hoaxer and anti vaxxer's son, speaks out. Coronavirus COVID-19 1 Oct 26, 2020
Claim: Only 6% of COVID deaths are "real" - the rest died due to comorbidities Coronavirus COVID-19 12 Sep 1, 2020
The E-PAI report on the Origins of COVID-19 Coronavirus COVID-19 0 May 11, 2020
Debunked: The WHO did not take the Taiwan CDC seriously Coronavirus COVID-19 0 May 6, 2020
Claim: U.S. Covid-19 Deaths are being Artificially Inflated Coronavirus COVID-19 38 May 5, 2020
Claim:Natural Covid-19 broke out of Wuhan lab (not man-made) Coronavirus COVID-19 72 Apr 15, 2020
Claim:HIV Protein Sequences in Covid-19 (report withdrawn by authors) & other "man made" claims Coronavirus COVID-19 32 Jan 31, 2020
COVID-19 Coronavirus current events Coronavirus COVID-19 1127 Jan 24, 2020
Claim: Pfizer's own data shows that their vaccine "does more harm than good" Coronavirus COVID-19 81 Dec 31, 2021
Vaccine compensations do not prove that vaccines are dangerous Health and Quackery 1 Jun 4, 2019
Claim: Section 13.1 on Vaccine Inserts Removed to Hide that Vaccines not Tested to Cause Cancer Conspiracy Theories 7 Apr 1, 2019
No, SB 1424 is Not a Censorship Bill Criminalizing Anti-Vaccine Misinformation Conspiracy Theories 9 Jul 1, 2018
Federal Financial Settlements Proves Vaccine Harm Health and Quackery 3 May 17, 2017
B Claim: Flu vaccine from multi-dose vials Use Too Much Mercury Health and Quackery 19 May 4, 2017
Debunked: Dr. Daniel Niedes: Too Many Vaccines Health and Quackery 1 Jan 9, 2017
Claim: flu vaccine increases risk of non-influenza infection Health and Quackery 8 Dec 22, 2016
Chemtrails and the Anti-Vaccine Movement Contrails and Chemtrails 34 Oct 18, 2016
Aluminum in Hepatitis B Vaccine Health and Quackery 22 Dec 1, 2015
Claim: CDC covers up research linking MMR vaccine to autism Conspiracy Theories 13 Sep 10, 2014
Debunking Vaccine Myths Health and Quackery 482 Feb 9, 2014
PaxVax releasing GMO cholera vaccine into 'the environment'. Science and Pseudoscience 12 Dec 3, 2013
Debunked: The Vaccine Hoax is Over / JCVI Health and Quackery 35 May 11, 2013
How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed- Health and Quackery 9 Jan 7, 2011
Finnish politician on possible Covid Vaccine Genocide
Need Debunking: "Experimental Vaccine Death Rate for Israel's Elderly 40 Times Higher Than COVID-19 Deaths"
Report: "23 die in Norway after receiving Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine" (NY Post)
Needs Debunking: Proposed COVID Vaccine will become part of our DNA, make us programmable
Claim: Covid vaccine gives you "Serpent" DNA/marks you 666
Claim: 75 Deaths of athletes in Five Months are Because of COVID-19 vaccines
Claim: Covid vaccines contains self-aware aluminum parasites
Claim: Offguardian article claiming that Covid PCR testing is flawed and not reliable
Friend has fallen into COVID-conspiracies
Are 99% of COVID-19 Deaths Among the Unvaccinated?
Claim: Videos of people exhaling vape smoke through a mask, demonstrate masks as useless against a virus..
Claim: China refused to hand "key data" to WHO delegation during the recent investigation in Wuhan
Covid Stimulus Bill mandates UFO Disclosure
Explained: Covid-19 research with pre-2020 dates in Google search results
Explained: "Disappearing needles" in Covid Vaccinations
A Plug for "You Can Know Things"
Covid hoaxer and anti vaxxer's son, speaks out.
Claim: Only 6% of COVID deaths are "real" - the rest died due to comorbidities
The E-PAI report on the Origins of COVID-19
Debunked: The WHO did not take the Taiwan CDC seriously
Claim: U.S. Covid-19 Deaths are being Artificially Inflated
Claim:Natural Covid-19 broke out of Wuhan lab (not man-made)
Claim:HIV Protein Sequences in Covid-19 (report withdrawn by authors) & other "man made" claims
Vaccine compensations do not prove that vaccines are dangerous
Claim: Section 13.1 on Vaccine Inserts Removed to Hide that Vaccines not Tested to Cause Cancer
No, SB 1424 is Not a Censorship Bill Criminalizing Anti-Vaccine Misinformation
Federal Financial Settlements Proves Vaccine Harm
Claim: Flu vaccine from multi-dose vials Use Too Much Mercury
Debunked: Dr. Daniel Niedes: Too Many Vaccines
Claim: flu vaccine increases risk of non-influenza infection
Chemtrails and the Anti-Vaccine Movement
Aluminum in Hepatitis B Vaccine
Claim: CDC covers up research linking MMR vaccine to autism
Debunking Vaccine Myths
PaxVax releasing GMO cholera vaccine into 'the environment'.
Debunked: The Vaccine Hoax is Over / JCVI
How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed-
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text:
Latest News from ROA
11 Aug Radiation Center of Greater Nashua Is the First Center in Northern New England Offering Tattoo and Mark-Free Radiation Treatments
Radiation Center of Greater Nashua is the first center in Northern New England offering tattoo and mark-free radiation treatments....
17 Feb ROA Doctors Selected as NH and MA "Top Doctors of 2022"
Radiation Oncology Associates would like to congratulate Andrea McKee, Dr. Brian Knab, Su Metcalfe, Thomas Sheldon, Jeffrey Brower, Jeffrey Lemons, and Vivek Patel for being selected for the distinguished honor of "top doctors" for 2021. This distinction is bestowed upon those doctors who have been voted by their peers as...
27 Aug Welcoming Dr. Kristofer Roberts to Radiation Oncology Associates
For Dr. Kristofer Roberts, joining Radiation Oncology Associates (ROA) at Concord Hospital Payson Center for Cancer Care was part of a transcontinental journey. Dr. Roberts is from Alaska, went to college and medical school at UCLA, then completed his radiation oncology residency training at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota in...
12 Dec Radiation Center of Greater Nashua in New Hampshire awarded Accreditation Program for Excellence (APEx)
From Focus, Elekta's online magazine: "The Radiation Center of Greater Nashua (Nashua, New Hampshire), a freestanding radiation oncology center in the United States, has been awarded a four-year accreditation with the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Accreditation Program for Excellence (APEx®)." ...
26 Sep ROA Doctors Selected as NH and MA "Top Doctors of 2019"
Radiation Oncology Associates would like to congratulate Dr. Brian Knab, Dr. Su Metcalfe, Dr. Tom Sheldon, Dr. Andrea McKee, and Dr. Asa J. Nixon for being selected for the distinguished honor of "top doctors" for 2019. This distinction is bestowed upon those doctors who have been voted by their peers...
25 Sep Jeffrey Brower, UF College of Medicine Alumni, Receives UF 40 under 40 Recognition
UF College of Medicine Alumni Jeffrey Brower, Ph.D. '08, M.D. '12, recently received the University of Florida's 40 under 40 designation and an Outstanding Young Alumni award. Read a short excerpt of UF's article below....
24 Sep Adjuvant Chemoradiotherapy Versus Radiotherapy Alone in Women with High-Risk Endometrial Cancer (Portec-3): Patterns of Recurrence and Post-Hoc Survival Analysis of a Randomised Phase 3 Trial
The PORTEC-3 trial investigated the benefit of combined adjuvant chemotherapy and radiotherapy versus pelvic radiotherapy alone for women with high-risk endometrial cancer. We updated the analysis to investigate patterns of recurrence and did a post-hoc survival analysis....
20 Apr Results of GOG 249 A Phase III Trial: Adjuvant Pelvic Radiation Therapy Versus Vaginal Brachytherapy Plus Paclitaxel/Carboplatin in High-Intermediate and High-Risk Early Stage Endometrial Cancer
Abstract, Purpose: The primary objective was to determine if vaginal cuff brachytherapy and chemotherapy (VCB/C) increases recurrence-free survival (RFS) compared with pelvic radiation therapy (RT) in high-intermediate and high-risk early-stage endometrial carcinoma....

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Irvine Sellar, The Shard's developer and joint owner, had an ambitious vision to create an architecturally striking vertical city incorporating retail, offices, hotel, apartments, restaurants and a public viewing gallery. His idea was to build a diverse vibrant community, and provide multiple areas within which the public could experience the building and its magnificent views. And all of this astride one of London's major transport hubs.
Sellar acquired Southwark Towers, occupied by PwC, as an investment in November 1998. When the UK government shortly afterwards began encouraging high-density developments close to transport hubs, Sellar set about planning a world-class building that would capture people's imagination. He arranged lunch in Berlin with award-winning architect Renzo Piano and, Sellar says, the architect's initial reaction was far from encouraging: "Renzo said: 'You know, I hate tall buildings – they are arrogant, aggressive, like fortresses.' I thought it was going to be a short lunch.
"But there was something about the energy of the railway lines and the beauty of the Thames that appealed to him. So Renzo turned over his menu and started to sketch. What he drew in a matter of seconds bears a remarkable resemblance to The Shard today." Having seen the sketch, Sellar told Piano that if he would sign it and sign up, then he would build The Shard. Piano wrote: "To Irvine from Renzo, May 2000 Berlin" – and The Shard journey was under way.
Some challenging years followed, during which the project overcame a lengthy planning process and a high-profile public inquiry, only for investment to slip away following the global economic crash. But The Shard's future was assured in 2008 when the State of Qatar came on board as a partner who shared Sellar's vision. The construction phase was exhilarating and testing in equal measure. The team overcame sub-zero temperatures, gale force winds and the Thames breaking through the protective dam.
Pioneering engineering methods were used, such as top-down construction, where foundations are dug while the core is built up – a first for the UK. Over one 36-hour period – employing 700 lorry-loads, one every three minutes – the team poured 5,400 cubic metres of concrete. The years of hard work and ingenuity came to fruition in 2012, when The Shard was completed and officially opened by the Prime Minister of Qatar. Since then, its restaurants, hotel and viewing gallery have opened to the public and tenants have begun to move into its offices.
Today, The Shard is a living, dynamic building, full of energy. Its sits proudly next to its stunning sister building, The News Building, now headquarters to News UK and illustrious titles and media brands: The Times, HarperCollins, Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal. These two Renzo-designed buildings will be occupied by 12,500 people and are already establishing a new vibrant community - Shard Quarter.
The finished building remained true to the original vision of a "Vertical City" with multiple and different occupiers, many of which will operate 24 hours a day, including hotel, education, medical, tourist attraction, residential, retail, restaurant, and offices. The Shard's proximity to London Bridge Station, which itself is being transformed into a 21st-century transport hub used by 75 million people a year, means travelling to it is a smooth experience for occupiers and visitors alike.
On 5 July 2012 The Shard was formally inaugurated by His Excellency Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassem Bin Jabor Al Thani, Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the State of Qatar, and HRH the Duke of York KG, in an event that marked the physical completion of the exterior of the building and represented the culmination of a 12-year journey to build a significant new landmark on the London skyline. The inauguration was also marked by a spectacular light and laser show that illuminated the building.
Taking inspiration from the spires of London churches and the masts of tall ships depicted by the 18th-century Venetian painter Canaletto, Renzo Piano designed The Shard as a spire-like sculpture emerging from the River Thames.
The slender pyramidal form was tuned to the mix of uses that the building contains; offices making use of the large floor plates on levels 4-28, and directly connected to the busy transport hub at ground level. Immediately above are three floors of restaurants and bars. The hotel occupies the central section of the building, with the residences above, where the building is slender enough for apartments to have views on all sides. The final floors accommodate the UK's highest public viewing galleries, 240m above street level. The spectacular glass and steel spire at 95 storeys (310m) high forms its summit, tapering off and disappearing into the sky - a particularly important detail for Piano given the building's prominence on the London skyline.
Eight sloping glass facades, the "shards", define the shape and visual quality of the tower, fragmenting the scale of the building and reflecting the light in unpredictable ways. Opening vents in the gaps or "fractures" between the shards, provide natural ventilation to winter gardens.
Fundamental to Piano's vision of the building was the idea of lightness and transparency. For all its height, The Shard would be an elegant spire in contrast to the bulky high-rises of the past. Realizing this idea meant using glass in a highly innovative way.
Piano's sophisticated use of extra white glass, with these expressive façades gives the tower a lightness and a sensitivity to the changing sky around it, The Shard's colour and mood are constantly changing according to the weather and seasons. It required a particular technical solution to ensure the facade's performance in terms of controlling light and heat. A double-skin, naturally ventilated facade with internal blinds that respond automatically to changes in light levels was developed.
Outstanding architecture is why a million people visited The Shard's viewing platform in its first year; why up to six thousand people a day visit The Shard's restaurants and bars; why tens of thousands are expected to visit the Shangri-La hotel; why its office occupiers are reporting substantial uplift in new business since moving in; and why Londoners, especially, embrace this magnificent building.
"The Shard is architecturally cultured and a great addition to the London skyline."
1999: After a government white paper encourages the development of tall buildings at major transport hubs, Irvine Sellar decides to redevelop Southwark Towers, a 1970s office complex he had acquired, and which was occupied by PwC.
2000: Sellar meets Renzo Piano in Berlin and asks him to create a 'vertical city' on the Southwark Towers site - a place where people would work, live, visit and enjoy themselves. They agreed it was fundamental to have public access to the building - something that would be unusual for a tall structure in London.
2010: As construction continues, the concrete core of the building rises steadily by approximately three metres a day until in November, it becomes Britain's tallest building, replacing One Canada Square in Canary Wharf.
2011: The core is topped out in early 2011 and as work continues, by late December 2011, the Shard overtakes the Commerzbank Tower in Frankfurt to becomes the tallest building in the European Union.
2012: On March 30, the 66-metre spire was winched into place, bringing the tower to its full height. The building is inaugurated in July by the Prime Minister of Qatar, Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, in a ceremony attended by Prince Andrew, Duke of York.
2013: The viewing platform is officially opened by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, on 1 February. The Shard's restaurants and bars - Hutong, Oblix and Aqua Shard - open over the summer, at the same time as the first office tenant, Duff & Phelps, moves into the building. In November, Her Majesty the Queen and HRH Prince Phillip visit The Shard.
2014: In February, The View from The Shard reported one million people visited the attraction in its first year. More office tenants move into The Shard, including Mathys & Squire, Foresight and South Hook Gas. The Shangri-La Hotel opens in May to critical acclaim. In June, The Shard announces another three office tenants have leased space, while later in the year Al Jazeera (September) and Warwick Business School (November) move in.
2015: Valentine's Day 2015 at The View from The Shard saw a record day of sales with 6161 visitors, pouring 2,414 glasses of champagne and a marriage proposal on average every 30 minutes. The year also saw 10 new office occupiers welcomed into the vertical city: The Office Group (TOG), global recruiter Robert Half and business consultancy Protiviti, io oil & gas consulting, Leonteq, software giant Sage, International law firm Greenberg Traurig, Khazanah, Medical Protection Society and Sapphire Systems.
2016: Located on levels 4-6, HCA Healthcare UK opened their new Outpatients and Diagnostics Centre on 1 February, accommodating up to 600 patients a day. The Shard offices completed a number of new lettings and existing occupier expansions to global luxury fashion retailer MATCHESFASHION.COM, digital Marketing agency Jellyfish, Duff & Phelps, political publishing house Dod's (Group) Plc, Tabcorp and global food products supplier Kraft Heinz. The Shard was also certified as one of the best buildings in the UK for broadband and telecoms infrastructure after being awarded a Platinum rating by international connectivity accreditor WiredScore.
2017: On Sunday 26th February, Irvine Sellar, The Shard's visionary, developer and joint owner, passed away at the age of 82. In October the final suite of available space in The Shard offices was taken by existing occupier Warwick Business School following new lettings by Foresight Group and Mitie Group PLC. Earlier in the year The View from The Shard successfully launched the UK's highest virtual reality experience where guests could ride the world's highest slide or experience dizzy heights as a construction worker.


For our website we also need to come up with ideas for merchandising. Therefore we looked through different bands such as the ones we blogged on for social media and ofcourse also Bring Me The Horizon themselves.
Nowadays, bands sell merchandise to get an extra income. They dont earn as much from concert tickets or CD sales anymore since it is easier for people to stream or pirate music.
When Bring Me The Horizon performed at the Rock A Field music festival here in Luxembourg, they couldn't include all of their merchandise, because there are loads of bands that are trying to sell their merchandise at a festival. Therefore, they include the most important merchandise that people are guaranteed to buy at a festival such as T-Shirts, Jumpers, Caps and with time, bands have started to sell phones cases on festivals as well, since a lot of people have smartphones nowadays.
The merchandise on their website are not just the typical T-Shirt or Hoodie, but include backpacks, phone cases, watches and many other things, which you can view on their website.
Fall out Boy, had quite different merchandise from Bring Me The Horizon. Their merchandise included these bobbleheads with the names of the band members on the small platform the bobbleheads are standing on. This can be purchased for 50$. However, the band is being portrayed as quite "Hipster" with the look that they have such as the hat on Patrick's head. They could have included the band members holding guitars or having Joe sit by the drumkit on the platform. On the website you can also buy as well as other T-Shirts, jumpers and wall flags.
Rise Against merchandise is more focused on different types of T-Shirts, such as for example this one with the cover from Rise Against newest digipack on there. They were however also the first of the three bands where I saw the CD in the store. The two other bands had quite a lot of merchandise, but their CD's weren't included. Whereas Rise Against included both CD but also Vinyl of their newest album The Black Market.


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"I'm Looking for a Weird Love, Baby. . ." – Romance Comics & the Strangeness of the Normative
Osvaldo Oyola / 17 February 2015
When I discovered Weird Love #3 on the shelf at my usual comics joint, I didn't hesitate to pick it up. I may still spend most of my comics dollars on superhero stuff, but I always look through the indie shelves for stuff to try out. Truth is, when it comes to indie comics I am much more likely to wait for the trade collecting individual issues, while there is something about the serialized nature of the Big Two comics that is part of their appeal to me. I know this is probably backwards since indie presses (when they're really "indie") could probably use my monthly money while I am just another sucker to Marvel and DC, but it is what it is. Let's hope that my buying Weird Love when it comes out every other month is doing a part in keeping it around.
IDW's Weird Love #4, featuring the amazingly named "Too Fat to Frug."
Anyway, I knew nothing about Weird Love, but I imagined (and hoped beyond hope) that it was some transgressive re-imagining of the romance comic genre, but what I found turned out to be even better. Instead, it was refurbished reprintings of rare romance comic stories from the 1950s and 60s. From a genre that—according to Michelle Nolan's Love on the Racks: The History of American Romance Comics—once boasted over 140 different romance titles being published at once, editors Craig Yoe and Clizia Gussoni chose the strangest of them and delicately re-furbish the art from copies (since in most cases the original art is long gone). Upon reading the stories in Weird Love #3 (and the ones in issues #4 and #5, as well), I started to get the impression that what made them "weird" was not their transgressive aspects (if any), but the dissonance between their rigid adherence to idealized depictions of heteronormativity and the contemporary moment's shifting social mores. What the stories in Weird Love soon made clear to me—and I went and sought out some of the classics of the genre in the form of reprints of Jack Kirby and Joe Simon's Young Romance for confirmation—was that the heteronormative values these romance comics reinforce are really friggin' queer. I don't say queer to mean homosexual, as in the political and pejorative usages, but I mean strange. I mean, not adhering to the categories of "normal." That the ideal depictions of sexuality and heterosexual relations could change so dramatically in the last 5 or 6 decades underscores the socially constructed nature of sex and gender, the fluidity of what appear to be their ahistorical categories, and the inextricability of "normalcy" from adherence to social codes based on the simultaneous (in)visibility of sex that, in the words of Michael Warner in the introduction of Fear of a Queer Planet, "testifies to the depth of the culture's assurance (read: insistence) that humanity and heterosexuality are synonymous." (And I would add, white heterosexuality, but sexuality and race intersect in complex ways, beyond a simple blog post, so if I don't get back to it, don't think I forgot or didn't think of it.) That the assumptions embedded in the stories were once (and to some cases still are to varying degrees) normative shows how strange heterosexuality really is.
The final panel to "Thrill Crazy" gives us the story's moral, in case we missed it.
For example, Weird Love #5 includes a story entitled, "Thrill Crazy" (which originally appeared in Love Journal #11 from December 1951), in which Marsha's desire to be popular leads her to drink alcohol and end up at a "necking party," whose "unwholesomeness" made her "feel ashamed and unclean!" She witnesses her friend have a breakdown from the anxiety of running with that teen gang, and nearly succumbs to that fate herself. Lucky for her, in the end a "worthy man"—a hardworking local boy who warns that no good will come of the company she keeps and comes to her rescue on the night of the necking party—deigns to love her despite her having gone astray. In the end she learns that "just going to a movie" with him is an appropriate amount of excitement, and a lot safer for her virtue. These stories are knots of sexual contradiction. This is what I mean by the simultaneous visibility and invisibility of sex: the stories can only allude to and cannot ever name feminine desire for sex, but the stories are built on that desire and resistance to it that virtue demands. The customs around heterosexual cultural practice are weird and sometimes even destructive, and the heterosexist assumptions that inform them harm straight people, too.
Consider, the Edith sub-plot in the most recent season of Downton Abbey. She has to hide away her very child, because otherwise people would know that she had had sex before marriage with a man she planned to marry! It would ruin her and devastate her family! It is absurd, of course—especially when looked at in light of Edith's pain at being separated from her child who may never know her. (That a family of what is essentially the peasant class, has to take in the aristocrat child is something else entirely—gendered class exploitation). Everyone knows that people have sex and that sometimes (often) have it before being married, and yet it must remain invisible, despite underwriting our relationships and our very existences. In the era of the TV show, to say it is present invites condemnation. This is not to say that women are not still shamed and scorned to varying degrees for having children out of wedlock, but there is much much less insistence to pretend at "normalcy"—a curbed sexual desire equated with moral character—to the degree that you'd deny the very existence of your child. Still, none of the romance comic stories I have been reading would dare include such a racy topic as the unwed mother.
Poor Sharon's go-go dancer career is over (from "Too Fat to Frug")
Instead, Weird Love #4 reprints the incredibly titled story, "Too Fat to Frug." I can only assume the the play on frug (to suggest "fuck") was lost on the censor board because this comic has the Comics Code seal on it. In it, sexy go-go dancer Sharon's inability to control her jealousy drives her man away and leads her to the kind of emotional overeating that "disturb[s]" her "glands" making her permanently fat, losing her dancing gig and the ability to attract any men of quality. "Luckily" for her, a nice chubby guy takes a shine to her, leading to the moral: Even fatties can find love. I mean, I think that is what I am supposed to take from it. Sure, one could read it as a positive body image supporting story, except that her fate is clearly cast as tragic. She's a loser who has to make the best of her own failure. The story's less obvious, but no less present, lesson is that if Sharon had learned to control her emotions and not second-guess her man's ogling another woman, she might not have suffered her embarrassing fatness.
Another of my favorite Weird Love stories is, "You're Fired, Darling" where Doris the office manager is forced to fire her boyfriend, Mike, who is terrible at his job. Despite his anger, he eventually comes to realize what she already knew, that he was a lot more suited to physical labor and working on a construction crew with his uncle, so he comes back to her—but makes sure to give her a spanking to teach her a lesson her for trying to "wear the pants." In the end, she expresses her relief to have Mike be "masterful" and take charge, so she doesn't have to be in the anxious and "unnatural" position she was in as his boss. This kind of submissiveness—for which the women are grateful—is a common conclusion to these stories. Looking back from 2015 this idealizing of such submissiveness becomes a kind of peculiar fetish, as strange to me as the story itself would have us believe is normal for a woman (and man) to want.
Throughout these stories women tend to be infantilized, even as the constant reminder to guard their "virtue" reinforces their primary value as sex objects. This is notable in how even young girls are sexualized—either dangerously attractive for which they are to be blamed, or pityingly unattractive to the degree that even as a child it is noteworthy how difficult it will be for her to find a husband. The shape of heteronormative romance as traced in these stories is so contradictory and confining, that it is impossible to not imagine the broadly queer possibilities that lie all around it.
Ugly girls have it hard in "The Two-Faced Woman" (reprinted in Weird Love #4)
Of course, it also bears mentioning that the vast majority of these stories (if not all—the credits of these stories are lost in some cases) are written and drawn by men, but written in a confessional first-person, so these male storytellers are ventriloquizing the desires of women and their despair when their unwillingness to conform is punished, showing them the error of straying. Or, if not punished then—like in the classic "There's No Romance in Rock n' Roll (originally from True Life Romance #3 from 1956) —discover a real mature man whose very presence recasts the female protagonist's love, rock n' roll, into childish noise! So while I call these strange attitudes towards heteronormative love "idealized," I can't claim that these attitudes were necessarily shared by women, but rather considered by the male creators the attitudes their female readership should identify with, both in the desire to rebel and in eventually righteously conforming. Over and over again, the rebellious spirit of women is evoked in order to highlight the need for them to be tamed by their relationship with the right man.
The Simon and Kirby stories reprinted in the Young Romance anthology reinforce this and really are no less weird for not being collected under the Weird Love title.
These comics—quoting Michael Warner again— "assert the necessarily and desirably queer nature of the world." We don't want to be trapped in static definitions of sexuality and gender, especially given the ways they intersect with all other aspects of life. The love depicted as ideal in these comics occupied a world without race until some Young Romance stories of the 1970s, and to my knowledge, none of them addressed gay love except in the most oblique terms. We need a queer world. A world that leaves room for non-compliance, non-conformity, for forms of loving that not only defy categorization, but break up and smash the categories that can sometimes be hidden within.
It is easy to see why Lichtenstein was attracted to the isolated panel for his work. (from "Love, Honor and Swing, Baby!" – Just Married #67, October 1969 – and Weird Love #3)
Something I really love about reading these comics is just how nicely individual panels are suited for collecting as examples of isolated absurdity that might otherwise go unnoted in so-called "traditional" forms of love. So many times, one weird scene defamiliarizes the heteronormative as to make it so strange as to be laughable, worthy of mockery. As each issue of Weird Love comes out, I find myself going to the scanner to capture examples. (And you will occasionally be able to find more examples after this post is live on the We-Are-In-It tumblr).
The history of romance comics has also reinforced for me how the market for comic books has shifted in the past and could continue to shift if the major publishers did not use the industry's arrested state of development as an excuse for more often than not peddling the same old thing. Claims that they must play to the market ignore the relative lack of competition and thus how they shape that very market by what they offer. As comics legend Dick Giordano once explained, by the late 1970s the material in romance comics became too tame for "sophisticated, sexually-liberated women's libbers" (his use of "women's libbers" is highly suggestive of what he thought about this change). Feminine desire that matched what women might actually feel and experience could not be written to circumvent the Comics Code Authority at the time. But if that is the case, the question then becomes, now that the CCA is a thing of the past and mainstream comics are full of many things that the censor board once disapproved of, what keeps the Big Two from exploring that market again?
The jury is still out about the current state of the comics buying public but signs point to significant and growing numbers of women. Recent announcements by Marvel and DC seem to directly address this realization. But while it seems like the superhero cadre is playing catch up, I wonder if this shift in comics demographic will lead to a shift in the diversity of comic genres themselves. I am not trying to suggest that more women readers will lead to a return of romance comics (though I'd love to see what a modern romance comic might look like), but the fact that DC comics published Young Romance until 1977—not really all that long ago (in my fucking lifetime!)—demonstrates that difficult to imagine changes can happen in a relatively short period of time. I mean, who in the late 50s would have predicted the resurgence of superheroes on the horizon?
Furthermore, there is still of strain of romance influence that entered the superhero genre that can occasionally be seen in the cape and cowl titles. The influence is all over the place; from Superman's Girlfriend, Lois Lane repeatedly paying for her obsession and schemes, to that splash page from Fantastic Four Annual #6, where Kirby draws the Richards with the radiance of the final "happily-ever after" panel of a romance story. It is probably most clear in the drawing style John Romita Sr brought to Amazing Spider-Man when he took over for Ditko in 1966. There are even characters that still survive from the romance days. Patsy Walker, Marvel's Hellcat, started out as a teen romance comic character, and when Marvel's predecessor Timely Comics was cutting back on all their titles in the late 50s, Patsy's three titles were still selling at phenomenal levels. I do not think it is overstating the case to say that Patsy Walker may be the most important character in the Marvel Universe, because without her success there may have been no comics division for Stan Lee and Jack Kirby to transform into what we know as Marvel Comics.
Bill Sienkiewicz's cover for issue #2 definitely calls to the romance genre.
Another example of this influence is Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's Spider-Man: Blue from 2002-03 which focuses on the shadow the death of Gwen Stacy casts on Peter Parker's marriage to Mary Jane.
But perhaps the best example is Ann Nocenti's 1984 limited series Beauty & the Beast. The Dazzler-focused series especially strikes me as the kind that really could have indulged the freakier side of the superhero concept, but then again I was also very upset when Grant Morrison walked back Beast's admission of sexual confusion, since I long ago imagined him into a long-term "open secret" type gay relationship with Wonder Man, so his queer possibilities were a part of my understanding of the character since about age 10.
Beast acting beastly in Beauty and the Beast #2
The first issue in particular has a structure that seems to pay homage to the romance comic stories of old. In it, Alison Blaire, the Dazzler, has been recently outed as a mutant, leading her to hang out with shady characters that party every day of the week in pursuit of revitalizing her career, further ruining her already ruined reputation. A full page montage covers the common romance comic trope of her indulgence and resulting indignity. The Beast, Hank McCoy, former X-Man and Avenger, fills the role of the love interest, acting as impulsively aggressive and entitled to Dazzler's attention as any romance comic Romeo. The putative hero's jerkiness is justified by the female protagonist's straying. Wonder Man has a guest appearance in order to impugn Alison's virtue and declare her lacking "self-respect." Despite these problems, to me, Beauty and the Beast succeeds at doing what X-Men comics have long tried to do, make effective use of the mutant metaphor—not as a stand in for race or queer sexualities, but as stand in for the strangeness of these characters themselves, for the queerness possible within a cisgendered heteronormative framework. What is Beast if not a furry's dream? How else are we to interpret the vicious whispers of strangers that see them together in public and judge them as immoral and disgusting, if not as a sign of the strangling confines of "the normal?"
Hank and Alison feel the disapproval of their relationship wherever they go. Muties in love are disgusting! (from Beauty and the Beast #3).
The Beauty and the Beast limited series (which, by the way, Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men covered in episode 35: "Post-Disco Panic" of their awesome podcast) is very unevenly written and drawn, but highlights a line of force, a thread sewn through from the strange kinds of stories found in IDW's Weird Love series to the bizarre relationships in a world of rock people, shape-changers, elastic men and invisible women. I think the world is ready for a romance-themed superhero comic. There has been some attempts at this (like 2009's Marvel Divas, which, like the old romance comics was written and drawn by dudes and which I've only ever heard bad things about), but imagine a title given even a tenth of the kind of support bullshit like Age of Ultron or Axis crossover events gets. One can dream, I guess.
Romance comics have had a strain of influence on superhero comics (from Beauty & the Beast #2, 1984)
I am going to continue to delve into my new obsession. I think these old stories despite their frequent patriarchal foundations are important, not only because of their commonly beautiful art and storytelling, but also because they serve as a reminder of how strange the once most-accepted norms really are.
17 February 2015 in Comics, Gender, Queer, Sexuality. Tags: Alison Blaire, Ann Nocenti, Beast, Beauty and the Beast, Clizia Gussoni, comics, Craig Yoe, Dazzler, DC Comics, Dowton Abbey, Fear of a Queer Planet, Hank McCoy, Hellcat, heteronormative, IDW, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, John Romita Sr, love, Marvel Comics, Marvel Divas, Michael Warner, mutants, Patsy Walker, Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men, romance comics, Spider-Man: Blue, superheroes, Weird Love, Wonder Man, X-Men, Young Romance
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6 thoughts on ""I'm Looking for a Weird Love, Baby. . ." – Romance Comics & the Strangeness of the Normative"
A M B (@Lostinfandom) says:
Really fascinating over view of the old comics. As for romance comics today, Alex & Ada, Saga and Sex Criminals are all frequently hailed for their depictions of relationships and romance. For various reasons (including how they are serials, rather than anthologies likes the ones you reviewed) the comparisons might be harder to make.
I've been kind of obsessed with Ann Nocenti for about a year and a half, largely because of how hated her recent work for DC has been. (I like it, but I am both contrary and working with different rubric of what I want in the comics than most of the people who've hated it I wrote a bit about it here). I haven't read her Beauty and the Beast miniseries (though I have gone and read several of her Marvel era writings) and it was interesting to see some of a direct romance, most of which I don't associate with her.
Also, quick corrections, it's "Jeph" (short for Joseph) Loeb, not "Jeff"
Osvaldo Oyola says:
First of all, thanks for the catch! I knew how he spelled it, but somehow got it wrong anyway. smh.
Yes, Saga is definitely playing with the romance genre, though I think Sex Criminals is (ironically) less so. I am not familiar with Alex & Ada. Is it good?
I am also not familiar with Nocenti's recent work. What I noticed about Beauty & the Beast (aside from the romance stuff) is that her writing, at least back then, seem very influenced by her years as editor for Claremont on X-Men. It is like Claremont exposition and purple narration to the max! She also took over Daredevil when Frank Miller left the second time, which was no easy task. Anyway, I will follow your link to read more about her work now.
A M B (@bonomoam says:
I'm terrible at proof reading my own work, so the Jeph/Jeff thing probably will happen to me at some point.
I haven't read Alex + Ada yet, though I got the trade in the recent Image Humble Bundle. It's about a guy falling in love with his robot companion as she becomes more human.
I'd agree with the comment about how Nocenti's writing was influenced by Claremont. I'd even say that part of the reason her DC work was that they are out of fashion. I don't think people who consider her current Klarion run "unreadable" would pick up Longshot and say "she knew how to tell stories back then." I've only read the issues of her Daredevil run that were collected in "The Lone Stranger" tpb (so I missed the Typhoid Mary story, for which the run is mostly remembered). The first issue in it was part of the X-Men "Apocalypse" event, Daredevil is barely in it and when he is, he mutely kind of sleep fights his way. There is narrative arc for him or any other character, including the dentist who is merged with his tools in the opening pages. It's so unusual for a superhero comic. It does nothing that one "should" and everything one "shouldn't". Since reading it I've been wondering if maybe the panoramic thing it has going on is undervalued. For all the chaos that she writes, there's a sense of life outside the story, that the story is a part of the world it habits. It makes it unpredictable and IMO, worth following even when I'm not getting what I think want.
Sounds like Beauty & the Beast to me – the best part of which was the introduction of the Heartbreak Hotel, a kind of halfway house for mutants that Hank and Alison stay at for a while and the mutant theatre (that ends up being a gladiatorial combat arena – but still). They are much more interesting than the main plot.
I keep forgetting tho mention Oni Press's Are7 Aphrodite as a romance comic. It's about a divorce lawyer and a wedding planner helping their Hollywood clients marry, with lots of flirting and gossipy inrigue. Rom Com that's pretty well done.
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Horizons magazine: men, women and all the others
Some people are neither man nor woman. The latest edition of Horizons explores how medicine and society attempt to explain and treat such ambivalence. In addition, the magazine takes a close look at internet channels that reach millions by presenting research in the form of attractively packaged news stories.
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Horizons 107, November 2015: Intersex - men, women and all the others (Article and online magazine)
The Swiss research magazine Horizons brings you the latest science news from Switzerland and addresses current research policy issues in an international context. It is published four times a year in German and French by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences; an English version is available online.
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let's face it...you can't go wrong with Pork Belly.
any way you cook it, it will be delicious...it will be rich...it will be fatty. it will be unctuous and it will be worth every melt in your mouth delicious guilty morsel you find shoveling in your mouth. most likely you will have porcine butter dripping down your chin as you polish off your plate and find yourself wanting more.
i have cooked quite a few pork bellies in the past year and my favorite go-to recipe has been Jamie Oliver's Crispy Skin Roasted Pork Belly. if you have never cooked a belly before i highly suggest giving it a go. Jamie's recipe is too easy not to try.
i wanted that soft pillow-like little nugget of meaty fatty goodness.
BINGO...a slow braise with Asian aromatics.
i was looking for something like a Red Cooking or a Chairman Mao style recipe with that caramel looking glaze, but instead i went for a simple flavorful braise.
BUT...to change things up a bit i decided to add a coca cola. when reduced i think coca cola has a caramel effect....it worked.
for this recipe i combined ingredients and techniques from 2 great bloggers (links below). please check out their blogs and refer to them as i did. being this is the first time i attempted an Asian braise with pork belly, they were quite helpful.
boil some water in a stock pot big enough to fit the whole slab of belly. par boil the belly for 3-4 minutes. this removes any impurities that might be lingering. discard the liquid and clean the pot if using the same one for cooking. when cool enough to handle cut into approximate 2 -2 1/2 inch squares. tieing isn't necessary, but it looks cute and it will keep the belly pieces from separating during cooking. tie them tight because they will shrink.
in a pot big enough to hold the pork belly pieces in one layer (i used a 5 1/2 qt. cast iron-enamel) add the brown sugar, cold water, sherry or Shoaxing wine, ginger slices, cinnamon stick, scallions, arbol chilis, soy sauce and coca cola. STIR to combine and add the pork belly pieces, skin side down. at this time i removed about 2 cups of the liquid because you want the liquid to just cover the pork belly. depending on the size pot you choose you will probably need to remove some liquid...save it in case you need to add some back in during cooking. the pork should not be just floating around in the pot. they need to stay skin side down then later skin side up. bring to a boil, then lower heat to a simmer, cover pan and braise for 30-40 minutes.
after 30-40 minutes, turn the pork skin side up, cover and braise for another 2 - 3 hours. a knife should easily pierce the pork when done.
NOTE...my broth did not reduce to 1/2 as one of the recipes said. i did not get the mahogany color on my pork belly...i was hoping for a deeper thicker braising liquid.
BUT... i did end up with a light, smooth Asian flavored broth that was a lovely compliment to the unctuous fatty pork belly nuggets.
for the broth i used a fat separator, then strained the liquid through cheese cloth...do it twice if necessary for a clean-clear broth. check for seasoning...you might want to add a touch of salt. your looking for savory, but with a touch of sweet.
as shown in the photos...serving it plain and simple with a bit of the braising broth really let the pork belly shine on it's own.
I've been cooking longer than dirt is old but have never cooked pork belly. I just picked some up at my local Asian market to cook for my super cool niece for her birthday. This sounds just perfect.
hi Karen...i hope you like it. it's a makes a great presentation with the little pork packages and good conversation piece. maybe a few asian type veg. and some rice on the side and your covered. let me know how it turns out.
This recipe looks amazing & your pork bellies look pretty!
I will try this recipe tomorrow. Thinking of searing it quickly after the whole process to crunch it up & caramelise it. I wanna use it in a slider.
Ramen i hope you give a report. i would love to hear how delicious it turns out..