Is there a link between Covid and Parkinson's?

In the often surreal world of the blogosphere, there is a bitter war of typed words, over whether Covid has led to a increase in the number of people diagnosed with Parkinson's. 

And many of the participants of this particular war are taking no prisoners.

The language used is often hate filled and blatantly abusive, almost as if the writer believes that his opponent is personally responsible for people developing Parkinson's. Those who challenge the writer are being called evil or stupid or frequently both. It's a sad fact that the web is not a bastion of balanced debate, but rather a location where hate filled language is all to common.

And sadly, most of what is being said is substance free, prejudice masquerading as rational thought.  Championing unsupported garbage as fact.

So is there any evidence in support of the accusation that Covid causes Parkinson's? Or for that matter the more serious accusation that the Covid vaccine is the cause of it in many new sufferers?

Big 'pharma' being the eternal bad boys of course.

Lets be clear what is being said. The proponents are arguing that Covid 19, or frequently its vaccine, triggered the start of Parkinson's in a significant number of people, who would otherwise be clear of it. So a disease that normally takes 17 to 20 years to become symptomatic, is now progressing to the same level in weeks.

To me at least this seems unlikely. Looking back to my diagnosis I can now see early symptoms which I ignored as being 'just what happens as you grow older.' However I'm not a Clinical Consultant, so I need to be wary of jumping to conclusions. However as the disease typically takes circa17 years for the symptoms' to become clear enough to enable diagnosis, I could not help but feel that anyone saying that their Parkinson's symptoms were triggered by Covid were wrong.

So I decided to do a bit of research, in the confident expectation that I would be shown to be right. Things have turned out to be a bit more complicated..........

Research led by Richard Smeyne, PHD, of Thomas Jefferson University Philadelphia, published in the journal Movement Disorders, conducted in pre-clinical models, suggests that Covid could play a role in bringing on Parkinson's disease.

However these were conducted in pre-clinical models and it would appear that there is a level of uncertainty as to how representative this is at representing the human brain. So for example in autopsies of the human brain the researchers don't see COVID virus in the brain, but they often see it in the models.

An obvious disconnect, one the authors realised and were careful not to dismiss. They were more than comfortable in recognising the lack of certainty in their results.

However the more I read, the sad fact was that none of the research done was able to say with certainty that Covid-19 was, or was not triggering Parkinsonism or PD. 

Many researchers claim to have identified a link, at least with Parkinsonism. However the research did suggest that these symptoms would disappear after a period and did not seem to result in Parkinson's proper itself.

There are a few cases where Covid and PD seem to occur together, but it is likely that the condition was already pre-existing, and its appearance being either coincidental or at most being triggered by Covid. Either way, there is little evidence that Covid causes PD.

So as is so often the case, absolute clarity and certainty evades us. Doesn't stop the keyboard warriors spewing their anger and hate, claiming an almost divine right to be believed. All to often we seem, as a species, unable to deal with uncertainty and ambiguous answers. We demand certainty and claim it even where it doesn't exist.

It may be messy at times, but when the truth is uncertain we need to deal with it. Otherwise we are left with banal name calling based on zero evidence.

And who actually wins such an argument?

On the issue of whether the vaccine caused Covid, some UK research concluded that the vaccine DID increase the number of people suffering from neurological conditions BUT fewer then would have occurred from catching Covid. So overall, on this issue at least, the conclusion was that the vaccine was still beneficial even with this heightened risk.

I suspect that this conclusion will simply mean that the proponents of this issue will read and quote the part of the research they approve of, whilst ignoring the big picture.

Hey it's 'big pharma'. They've got to be lying. Yes?