Scientific censorship gives no room for error or apologies, if people are harmed

It was surprising that sharing my autoimmune research and our proposed research strategy, could become a target for LinkedIn censorship. This scientific perspective on autoimmunity is important as it allows a full explanation of severe COVID-19 and evolving patterns that may occur post vaccination.

Censored LinkedIn post

An autoimmune disease occurs when the immune system recognises an normal protein as being foreign and attacks itself. Many viruses can trigger a similar response.

Our research in early 2020 identified ACE-2 (the SARS-COV2 viral entry receptor) as being central to the proposed autoimmune response in severe COVID-19 (those patients hospitalised needing oxygen or ITU).

The proposed study intended to look for autoantibodies to ACE2 in the serum of patients who have had serious disease, needing hospitalisation.
Once serum has been identified and ethics approval granted:
- dot blot assessments to confirm presence of autoantibodies.
 - if autoantibodies are present then these samples will be tested to look for antibodies to defined peptide sequences from the ACE2 enzyme. 
- Peptide arrays have been defined looking at peptide sequences in the ACE2 enzyme and reaction with patient serum.
- Phase One will test 18 samples from defined subgroups of patients.

Limitations of cost and sample collection blocked our progress to demonstrate autoantibodies to ACE-2 in the serum of severe COVID-19 patients.

Luckily, others were able to do the research.

Arthur, John M., et al. "Development of ACE2 autoantibodies after SARS-CoV-2 infection." PloS one 16.9 (2021): e0257016.

This is important because options for treatment of autoimmunity are at our fingertips. It can be managed with steroids, methotrexate, cyclophosphamide, mycophenolate, hydroxychloroquine, azathioprine and cyclosporine to list a few.

Better understanding of COVID-19 increases options for treatment.

---

Could the algorithm have picked up the word hydroxychloroquine and therefore censored the post?

Highlighted comments