When the Amelie Clinic was started in 2019, Jonas Axelsson had been researching diseases related to viruses for several years. Among other things, together with cardiologist Artur Fedorowski, he had mapped blood samples from American patients with POTS.
Then the pandemic broke out and the patients at the clinic rapidly increased. Jonas Axelsson wanted to take samples from his own patients and applied for ethics permission in August 2020.
Got millions in research money
Now Jonas Axelsson has received five million kroner from the Kampradstiftelsen for a treatment study on his patients. He wants to use the antiviral Valganciclovir, the same medicine with which he has already, according to his own information, treated approximately 100 patients at the clinic.
There is no evidence that treatment with antiviral medications works. Recently, doctors and researchers in Norway came out and warned against medication against post-viral diseases.
– Even if there are reactivated viruses, there is no evidence that it is what causes the patients’ symptoms, says Professor Vegard Bruun Bratholm Wyller at the University of Oslo.
However, research studies are ongoing, including at Karolinska, where another antiviral drug is being tested in a placebo study on post-covid patients.
The Professor: Bad study
But Jonas Axelsson’s study was rejected by Clinical Immunology, the Academic Specialist Center and the Academic Primary Care Center within the Stockholm Region. It appears in email exchanges that SVT has read. Instead, Uppsala University has received the money for it and Professor Jonas Bergquist has offered cooperation. But even he is doubtful about that particular medicine. He has warned of liver toxicity and has also not seen the medication help with post-viral illnesses.
– The study I have seen was a really bad study, I don’t think you can say anything based on it, says Jonas Bergquist.
The research has not started yet. The application to the Ethics Review Authority has not even been submitted, SVT’s review shows.
– We are working on the application, says Jonas Axelsson.
See the cardiologist’s reaction in the clip