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We need to talk about the vaccines Public debate on side-effects is being censored

Censorship always backfires (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Censorship always backfires (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)


January 19, 2022   9 mins

Last week, a group of scientists, doctors, and academics published an open letter calling on Spotify “to take action against the mass-misinformation events which continue to occur on its platform”. Specifically, they were objecting to two recent episodes of Joe Rogan’s podcast, in which he interviewed the prominent vaccine sceptics Dr. Peter McCullough and Dr. Robert Malone. “By allowing the propagation of false and societally harmful assertions,” the letter claimed, “Spotify is enabling its hosted media to damage public trust in scientific research.”

I am an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics, as well as a practising physician, and I firmly believe that it would be a mistake to censor Rogan under the guise of combating “misinformation”.

Rogan is not a scientist, and, like everyone else, he has his biases. But he is open-minded, sceptical, and his podcast is an important forum for debate and dialogue. It is not enough, moreover, to simply dismiss Malone and McCullough as conspiracy theorists. They are controversial and polarising figures, but they do have real credentials. Malone is a physician who has worked in molecular biology and drug development for decades, while McCullough was, until recently, an academic cardiologist and researcher.

Both speakers made accurate and useful points on Rogan’s podcast — as well as unsupported, speculative, alarmist, and false ones. The correct way to deal with incorrect ideas in biomedicine, if they rise to a level of prominence that warrants rebuttal, is to rebut them.

In what follows, I attempt to assess their main claims, explaining what they get right and what they get wrong. I cannot address every point that the two of them made — both episodes are close to three hours long — but I hope that I can provide some clarity in a debate that often lacks it.

Claim: The risks of mRNA vaccination are underdiscussed and boosters should be debated

Early in his interview, Malone is critical of the scientific and media discussion of vaccine safety, noting that “no discussion of risk is allowed”. Later, he says that the pejorative label of “anti-vaxxer” is used to stifle legitimate debate over vaccines. Malone and McCullough both warn that mRNA vaccines, such as Pfizer and Moderna, can cause myocarditis, especially in young men who are at low risk from the virus. Given these and other alleged risks, they warn against recommending — or requiring — boosters for the general population.

I believe they are correct in these sentiments. In April 2021, the first reports of myocarditis were noted in Israel, with the majority of cases occurring in young men who had recently received an mRNA vaccine. Since then, the evidence for vaccine-related myocarditis has grown. We know now that boys are more likely to be affected than girls. We know that Moderna has higher rates than Pfizer. We know that dose two causes more myocarditis than dose one. The precise estimate of risk is now thought to be between 1 in 3,000 to 6,000 for males in the target range (roughly age 12 to 30), and researchers have shown that the CDC’s method to study this underestimates myocarditis risk.

Such concerns are not limited to the fringe. Marion Gruber and Phil Krause, the former director and deputy director, respectively, at the US Food and Drug Administration, resigned last autumn over White House pressure to green-light boosters. Paul Offit, a prominent vaccine advocate and the director of vaccine communication at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, recently told the Atlantic that he advised his own 20-something son not to get boosted. Other nations are taking the myocarditis concern seriously, too. Several have banned or discouraged the use of Moderna in young men. Others advise two doses spaced further apart, and some have held off on a second dose entirely for younger age groups.

It is perfectly valid to question the wisdom of boosters, at least in young people, though I do think they are beneficial for older and more vulnerable people. Like Malone, I have seen researchers smeared as “anti-vaxxers” for simply suggesting that myocarditis is a real safety concern, or that we don’t know the optimal duration and dosing strategy of vaccination, particularly for young and healthy people and those who have recovered from infection. Malone and Rogan are correct that the media dismisses concerns over myocarditis by claiming that most cases are “mild”, when in fact it is too early for us to know the full effects.  And I agree that this is an area of live debate that has not been adequately covered by the media.

Claim: Vaccines have lots of other dangerous side effects

At other points in his interview, Malone alludes to many potential side effects of vaccination, claiming it can result in seizure and paralysis, and that the menstrual irregularities associated with the vaccine suggest it is a “major threat to reproductive health” for women. He suggests that vaccination can suppress T cells, raising the risk of unusual cancers.

To date, I have seen no evidence to support any of these claims, and I believe it is a mistake to raise them. First, they are irresponsible — Malone’s rhetoric verges on fear-mongering — and second, they distract from his legitimate points on myocarditis in young men.

McCullough suggests that vaccine-related deaths and injuries in the US are severely underreported by the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). While I agree that there are problems with VAERS, I find it difficult to believe the numbers McCullough offers of 45,000 dead and 1 million injured. Here is why.

VAERS is a voluntary collection network that is prone to two types of biases. First, it may undercount vaccine-related events because providers did not recognise them or lacked motivation to report them. But it can also overcount them. Bad things can happen after vaccination, such as heart attack, that are entirely coincidental but that still might be reported.

Trying to find safety signals due to vaccination requires comparison against base rates, or how many events are expected to occur without vaccination. Even very unusual events, such as the blood clots that happened after the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, stand out fast. Similarly, elevated myocarditis rates in young men, especially after dose two of Moderna, jump out of the data.

Death signals are trickier to parse, and require knowledge of the ages and medical problems of people getting vaccinated. Even then, they must be weighed against data that shows vaccines reduce a big cause of death — death from Covid-19. For these reasons, I think it is premature and misleading to talk suggest that the vaccine caused 45,000 deaths. If McCullough wishes to make this case, the best forum would a scholarly publication, where other researchers can examine and critique his methodology.

Claim: US vaccine policy ignores the science on natural immunity

Malone and McCullough both make valid points that vaccine policy has not accommodated scientific knowledge of natural immunity. Should vaccines be required for people who have already been infected with Covid? If a healthy young person had one dose of the vaccine and then got Omicron, do they need a second? What if a person had two doses and Omicron — should they need to receive a booster, as some workplaces now require? These are open and legitimate questions.

Proponents of vaccines and boosters for those with a prior Covid-19 infection often point to antibody titers — blood tests showing that a recently vaccinated or boosted person has higher levels of Covid-19 antibodies than someone with natural immunity. But this is not persuasive.

Antibodies are a means to a clinical end, which is preventing someone from getting re-infected, becoming very sick, becoming hospitalised, or dying. Antibodies, especially in the short term, are bound to be higher the more you dose an individual, but the scientific burden is to show that these doses further improve the clinical endpoint in randomised studies. This burden has not yet been met.

Yet, here too, Malone goes over the top. He and Rogan refer to “multiple studies” showing that those who get vaccinated after being infected with Covid are at a two-to four-times greater risk of having an adverse reaction to the vaccine; later, Malone describes Rogan’s friends who are encouraging him to get vaccinated as asking Rogan to put himself “at higher risk” and “take more risk for your health in order to join their club”. There is a dialogue to be had about whether Rogan might benefit from zero, one, or two doses, but the overall risks of vaccination remain low, particularly for a 54-year-old man such as Rogan.

At times, Malone refers to accurate studies, but I worry the audience draws the wrong inference. Malone, for instance, claims that natural immunity is six to 13 times more effective than the vaccine at preventing hospitalisation and 27 times more effective against developing symptomatic disease. I assume he is referring to this August 2021 study from Israel. This study does indeed suggest that natural immunity is more protective than vaccines against the Delta variant, though it also suggests that natural immunity plus a single vaccine dose is more protective than natural immunity alone.

While this has implications for the number of doses a Covid-19 survivor might consider getting, it should not be misconstrued to mean that infection is preferable to vaccination for an adult who has yet to experience either. Vaccination is almost surely preferable for most un-immune adults.

At one point in his interview, Malone says: “Think twice about giving these jabs to your kids.” While I can understand how many will be angered by this statement, the truth is other nations, such as the United Kingdom, are thinking twice — at least for healthy 5 to 11-year-olds, the group with the lowest risk of bad outcomes from Covid. As of this moment, the UK’s advisory panel has said that only 5 to 11-year-olds with comorbidities should get vaccinated.

Claim: Effective early treatments, including hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, are being suppressed

McCullough and Malone are proponents of early treatment for Covid-19, specifically with ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. Both allege that public health authorities have intentionally suppressed the use of these drugs. McCullough states that early in the pandemic, “there was no focus on sick patients”, while Malone speculates that hospitals don’t want early treatments because they profit when people are hospitalised and claims that “probably half a million excess deaths” have happened in the United States through the intentional blockade of early treatments.

These are entirely false and insulting allegations, and Malone’s in particular are flat-out conspiratorial. Academic hospitals attempted all sorts of disparate treatment protocols in the hopes of helping sick patients. Many physicians did not wait for randomised control trials — the gold standard of medicine — to act; they simply acted. In fact, a Harvard hospital recommended hydroxychloroquine prior to randomised data.

The problem was not that there was no appetite for early treatment. The problem was that when the randomised trial data came in, they suggested the drugs favored by Malone and McCullough were ineffective. A pooled analysis of all such studies by Axfors and colleagues suggests patients treated with chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine had increased risk of death.

And ivermectin has not shown persuasive evidence of benefit in randomised trials to date. Of course, a randomised trial cannot prove that a therapy can never work under any circumstances, just as you cannot prove that Santa Claus doesn’t exist. But the burden is on proponents to show when and how their therapy helps, and they have not met it.

Rogan, Malone and McCullough are wrong to claim that ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are known to be secretly effective, but they are correct that these drugs have been unfairly demonised. The truth is that they are neither particularly dangerous nor effective. The media labelling ivermectin a “horse drug” or “horse dewormer” was particularly absurd. Ivermectin is a well-known drug taken by humans all over the world.

Claim: Public debate over Covid-19 is often unfairly censored

Malone, Rogan, and McCullough are all correct on one topic: there is an effort to suppress information and censor debate on social media. The clearest example is that for more than a year, Facebook banned all discussion of the lab-leak hypothesis, until articles by Nicholson Baker, Nicholas Wade, and Donald McNeil broke the dam. This was a remarkable suppression of free speech.

Previously, I investigated the mechanism by which Facebook polices pandemic “misinformation” through third-party investigators. I found, in several cases, that the expert designated to fact-check a claim had already stated their opinion on it prior to being selected. This is a deeply problematic mechanism, as the person who selects the fact-checkers can scour the Internet to an expert who agrees with them, and there is no external review, appeal or oversight.

Malone discusses a controversial October 2020 email from National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins to Anthony Fauci in response to the Great Barrington Declaration. In it, Collins called three of the declaration’s authors “fringe” epidemiologists and demanded a “quick and devastating published take down of its premises”. I completely agree this was problematic.

As I have argued elsewhere, 2020 was a time of deep uncertainty about the science surrounding Covid-19 and the appropriate policy response to the pandemic. Collins is not an epidemiologist, and he has no standing to decide what counts as a “fringe” view within that field. As NIH director, his job is to foster dialogue among scientists and acknowledge uncertainty. Instead, he attempted to suppress legitimate debate with petty, ad hominem attacks.

***

The efforts to censor Malone and McCullough have massively backfired, with both men gaining prominence and publicity from the attempts to shut down their speech. More generally, I strongly disagree with efforts to censor scientists, even if they are incorrect, and no matter the implications of their words, as I believe the harms of censorship far exceed any short-term gains.

One problem, which has been on full display in this controversy, is that censorship may draw more attention to incorrect ideas. Another is that in the middle of any crisis, the answers to many scientific and policy questions will be uncertain. Disagreement on these questions is natural, and attempts to suffocate “harmful” speech run the risk of stifling critical debates, including by silencing third parties who may have important contributions but who fear the professional or reputational consequences of speaking up.

Perhaps the most serious objection to censorship is that the censors themselves are not fit for the task. Censors are unaccountable. They may be biased, misinformed or undereducated. They may lack perspective. In short, they are as fallible as the people they are trying censor. This is especially true in science, where, as history shows us, consensus views can turn out to be false, while controversial or heretical ideas can be vindicated.

Finally, in the modern world, where the censor is so often a giant technology company, there is tremendous potential for abuse. The same tools used to suppress scientific “misinformation” may someday be used to solidify political power and stifle dissent.


Vinay Prasad is Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco. He is a practising hematologist and oncologist, and author of more than 300 peer-reviewed publications.

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Matt Hindman
Matt Hindman
2 years ago

The biggest problem with trying to censor vaccine side effects is that most people know someone in their extended circle of friends, family, and acquaintances who has had a serious, adverse reaction to one of the vaccines. At the last place I worked at, one woman had her sister lose the function of her arm for a week after having the Moderna shot and another of my coworkers had a brother who had to go to the hospital with breathing issues and a strange rash from the Pfizer shot. If someone had gone on to Twitter with these stories, they probably would have been banned for misinformation. Too bad for the powers that be that people still talk to each other in real life.

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt Hindman
rodney foy
rodney foy
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt Hindman

I hear all this, yet I see things like this which puts the cases of myocarditis at 7 to 36 per million vaccinations. What gives?

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/myocarditis-and-pericarditis-after-covid-19-vaccination/myocarditis-and-pericarditis-after-covid-19-vaccination-guidance-for-healthcare-professionals

Also, I read that the “nocebo effect” accounted for about 76% of all common adverse reactions after the first dose and nearly 52% after the second dose.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2788172?resultClick=3

Last edited 2 years ago by rodney foy
Norman Powers
Norman Powers
2 years ago
Reply to  rodney foy

It seems pretty clear that all available numbers on side effects, whether academic or government, are wildly undercounting.
At least three problems:

  1. Moderna is triple the dosage of Pfizer/AZ and seems to cause far more damage and side effects, but some countries use it heavily and others nearly don’t use it at all. That means your local experience may be very different to other people’s local experiences.
  2. Public health is totally corrupt everywhere, but slightly less so in the UK. If you look at where the cleanest data comes from, it’s always British data. Problem: Britain is one of the places that hardly uses Moderna, so side effects will be less visible there.
  3. They aren’t doing random surveys to find these people. Instead they’re waiting until people self-diagnose and take themselves to hospital, and the hospital then has to be honest enough to make a proper diagnosis despite the obvious implications. There’s enormous pressure on people to not do this.
Last edited 2 years ago by Norman Powers
rodney foy
rodney foy
2 years ago
Reply to  Norman Powers

What caused public health to become “totally corrupt everywhere”? That’s a big claim

Norman Powers
Norman Powers
2 years ago
Reply to  rodney foy

Would love to know the causes myself, but is it really a big claim at this point? We’ve seen public health officials in every country, not just one or two, totally invert their advice on things like masks without any new evidence to support such changes. We’ve seen them constantly refuse to release important data, we’ve seen an actual honest-to-god conspiracy by virologists to suppress and cover up their own beliefs on the origins of COVID with zero consequences, we’ve seen continuous failures of public health modelling, again, with no consequences for anyone involved or even any recognition from health agencies that this has happened at all.
I suspect the problem is that there are lives at stake, so admitting mistakes would be terrible, meaning you need seriously good incentives to do so. But the public sector has no such incentives, creating a culture in which intellectual honesty is just impossible. Anyone who admits mistakes gets excluded because they make the others look bad, so pretty quickly you end up only with the sort of people who can rationalize to themselves why obvious problems aren’t really problems.

Last edited 2 years ago by Norman Powers
Jem Barnett
Jem Barnett
2 years ago
Reply to  Norman Powers

One of my favourite pandemic contributions from The Science (TM) is on masking:
2020: Masks are not effective against Covid-19 and may actually be bad for you. Children especially should not be wearing face masks. [WHO; UK Government SAGE advisory panel]
2021: New guidance has come in from The Science (TM) and it turns out masks are essential, so we’re going to be enforcing this with law. You must wear them everywhere and put them on your kids as well. Oh, hold on, no… Sorry! …wait a minute, we just consulted The Science (TM) again and he says that actually 2 (or even 3) masks are best. Stock up guys! …He also advises that Covid-19 is *highly* infectious if you’re standing up in a pub or restaurant, but Covid won’t bother infecting you if you’re seated, so it’s fine to be mask-free while sitting down but do make sure you get that mask on pronto if you’re about to stand up. That’s the moment when nasty Mr Covid will pounce! 


rodney foy
rodney foy
2 years ago
Reply to  Jem Barnett

I’m critical of masks in the real world. This is not because masks can’t block aerosols. This has been demonstrated, but only with suitable masks (eg. FFP2, FFP3, N95, KN95).

But many/most governments don’t specify which masks to use, or provide them free, so people put any old rags over their faces.

Then, even with the correct masks, they need to be a good fit.

And you have to take them off to eat, allowing you to spray your aerosols around for everyone else to breathe in.

I’m not surprised that it’s hard to find any real-world useful effect

stephen archer
stephen archer
2 years ago
Reply to  rodney foy

I spent 10 days in Austria in Sept/Oct and there it’s FFP2 masks which are required and compliance is near 100%. They’re not certified for filtering out virus and bacteria (FFP3 are to 95% when used properly) but what the h*ll, they’re better than surgical masks under your nose, so that’s fine. So for restaurants, you wore it going 5m to your table, 10m to the toilet, and another 5m leaving the restaurant, but the rest of the time (99,9%) it’s OK to leave it on the table. Then there were the long train journeys. Order snacks and drinks from the buffet car or bring out a picnic lunch and you could sit for 3 hours with the mask on the table, which the majority of fellow passengers were doing.
Rodney, please stop pleading for sensible dialogue on mask wearing. The message should be NO, useless, no more discussion, no more masks (unless they are FFP3 in uncontrolled crowded situations when a Delta+ variant is on th0e rampage)

Stephanie Surface
Stephanie Surface
2 years ago
Reply to  rodney foy

even the FFP2 and 3 don‘t really protect https://swprs.org/face-masks-and-covid-the-evidence/

Liz Walsh
Liz Walsh
2 years ago

Masks function as talismans, like Dumbo’s feather. Obviously they mitigate dispersion of gross aerosol material, but if, as was said of cloth masks, they were to viral passage as a cyclone fence was to a mosquito, though the N95s were better, more like a mosquito through hardware cloth. Improved masks merely provide a more reassuring illusion of security. Masks have been useful as symbolic muzzles, identifying those whose fear of an apparently falling sky makes them willing to seek refuge in Foxy-Loxy’s den.

Michael O'Donnell
Michael O'Donnell
2 years ago
Reply to  Liz Walsh

They don’t give you very much protection but there is stronger evidence that they provide a degree of protection from you. Now we’re all immunised I do think this needs looking at again. If you are aren’t immunised and are elderly, overweight or have an underlying health problem and still choose not to mask up and take sensible precautions then more fool you

Michael O'Donnell
Michael O'Donnell
2 years ago
Reply to  rodney foy

They don’t block aerosols they disrupt them. There are many videos on YouTube showing if you would care to look at them. It’s a shame you are making bald statements with no basis.

Nicholas Croft
Nicholas Croft
1 year ago

FYI. More up to date info on mask effectiveness with comprehensive data:
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub6/full
Cheers.

SULPICIA LEPIDINA
SULPICIA LEPIDINA
2 years ago
Reply to  Jem Barnett

Surely you mean Mrs Covid?

Elaine Giedrys-Leeper
Elaine Giedrys-Leeper
2 years ago
Reply to  Jem Barnett

Which set of SAGE minutes said masks were ineffective and in fact bad for you ? – this is a genuine enquiry.

Jem Barnett
Jem Barnett
2 years ago

I don’t know the date, I would have to search through the weekly reports from 2020. Though some of the recorded public statements show the attempt to execute a pivot from ‘they’re useless, don’t bother’ to ‘they’re compulsory now’… I guess they were reflecting the pivoting attitudes in SAGE, but it was a bit confused for much of 2020!
March 12th 2020: Deputy chief medical officer Dr Jenny Harries: ‘For the average member of the public walking down a street, it is not a good idea
 in fact, you can actually trap the virus in the mask and start breathing it in.’
April 16th 2020: Chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty said: ‘The evidence is weak, but the evidence of a small effect is there under certain circumstances.’
July 24th 2020: Face masks made compulsory in indoor settings and on transportation.

Gunner Myrtle
Gunner Myrtle
2 years ago
Reply to  Norman Powers

The problem is we are now in a position where you are never sure if the latest info from health authorities is the truth – or one of their lies meant to get us to comply. I don’t think they truly understand how badly they’ve harmed their own credibility.

Jacob Smith
Jacob Smith
2 years ago
Reply to  Gunner Myrtle

That’s the problem with the behavioral economics people in government. We don’t like being manipulated er, I mean nudged, and we can’t trust anything they say to be the simple truth as they understand it. It makes me so angry I lose the ability to write a coherent comment so I’ll shut up now.

Last edited 2 years ago by Jacob Smith
Shawn Smith
Shawn Smith
2 years ago
Reply to  rodney foy

Or observation.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  rodney foy

The corruption is mainly in the Big Pharma area not the general nurses etc. some of who are too frightened to speak out because of loss of work, especially in the USA. My own daughter in law, a doctor, faces losing her job in the UK, as she hasn’t had the jab. We all had Covid over Christmas and are now fine. A lot of people say follow the money which might have some truth in it if you research the whole system.

Gunner Myrtle
Gunner Myrtle
2 years ago
Reply to  Norman Powers

I am always interested in what is not being studied. Why aren’t there good studies on mask effectiveness after two years of a pandemic?

Jesse Porter
Jesse Porter
2 years ago
Reply to  Norman Powers

Goes to show, there are liars, damn liars and statisticians.

Michael O'Donnell
Michael O'Donnell
2 years ago
Reply to  Norman Powers

You can’t compare doses of different vaccines with each other. There are different formulations and even molecular weights to take into account Your statement therefore has no basis.

Jem Barnett
Jem Barnett
2 years ago
Reply to  rodney foy

Pfizer’s own 6 month trial data shows that 78% of participants in the vaccine group reported adverse effects from the drop-down list in the monitoring app, and of those 5% were classified as severe adverse effects. 30% of vaccine group participants reported an adverse effect that was not on the drop-down list, using the manual reporting function. Of those, 2% were classes as severe.
Knowing this, it seems astonishingly unlikely that when rolled out to millions of people, many of whom are much more elderly/frail/vulnerable than the younger and healthier subjects used in the trial, that the adverse effect rate would magically drop to almost nothing?
Maybe I’m a dufus, but I’m unclear on what mechanism could make a 78% AE rate drop to 1%. It seems more likely that we aren’t finding a higher number of AE’s because we are not looking for them…

Last edited 2 years ago by Jem Barnett
Michael K
Michael K
2 years ago
Reply to  Jem Barnett

Similar numbers were apparent from the initial trials on the Moderna vaccine as well.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/info-by-product/moderna/reactogenicity.html
At the time, I became very skeptical mostly because of the common side effect profile. Compared to an influenza vaccine, it is catastrophic indeed. As could be expected, this was taken as a normal thing by the communication elite. They suggested that it just showed that the vaccine is effective. Except it’s not that effective, as we now know.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.370.6520.1022

Jem Barnett
Jem Barnett
2 years ago
Reply to  Michael K

Thanks Michael, much appreciated for those links, I will take a look.

Michael O'Donnell
Michael O'Donnell
2 years ago
Reply to  Michael K

Neither of these links tells you anything other than the vaccines can cause pain, swelling, headaches and fever in quite a few recipients. All are minor and not life threatening. There is a very small number of events of more severity: many of these are likely to be coincidental. Most people I know were well aware of this before taking the jab and were not unduly put out if they experienced such side effects. Please stop cherrypicking snippets of data and put them in context in future.

Michael K
Michael K
2 years ago
Reply to  rodney foy

The nocebo effect can easily be extracted out of the original side effect data on the CDC website. There, we find an 80% chance of systemic and another 80% chance of local side effects in the vaccine group, whereas the number is at around 20% in the placebo group. The nocebo effect accounted for one fourth of all (common) side effects at best.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/info-by-product/moderna/reactogenicity.html
There are some studies with influenza vaccines which show a side effect profile similar to that of the placebo group, meaning that the vaccines themselves cause barely any side effects. In light of this, and taking into account the 60% absolute increase of systemic and local side effects seen after mRNA injection, the Moderna vaccine has an incredibly heavy side effect profile. This, however, was appreciated very early on. It is more than weird that there seems to be doubt about it now.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.370.6520.1022
Way back then, the argument was that heavy side effects clearly show the vaccine is working. Now we know that’s not the case. Before anybody objects, a vaccine that has to be re-administered every few months has never been seen, and if it has been seen, it was never considered for any meaningful application.

Michael O'Donnell
Michael O'Donnell
2 years ago
Reply to  Michael K

How often and how many times do people have the MMR jab or the tetanus one?

Graham Stull
Graham Stull
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt Hindman

My dad (80 yo) received his Moderna booster on 27 October from a drive thru clinic attached to his local hospital. I saw him on 3 November, and he complained to me he was feeling strange and ‘unwell’.
On 30 November, he had multiple strokes and was rushed to the same hospital. He suffered considerable brain damage and has lost the function in his right leg and right arm.
Despite repeated attempts, we could not get the health care provider in question (Memorial Hospital in North Conway, NH) to report the event to VAERS.
Of course, no one can say for sure this was due to the booster. But you can be sure no one else in the family will put that stuff in their arm.

rodney foy
rodney foy
2 years ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

So sorry to hear that.

I can understand their reluctance to report it, and I can see how that could cause side effects to be under reported.

Presumably, the strokes get logged somewhere. If there is an increase in strokes due to vaccinations, would this not appear in some other statistics?

Graham Stull
Graham Stull
2 years ago
Reply to  rodney foy

I mean, it will appear as an increase in the total number of strokes in a given year. But those who are determined to believe in the vaccines can simply attribute these extra strokes to covid, rather than the vaccines. Unless the database is linked to the vaccine administration in some way, it is impossible to know.

Norman Powers
Norman Powers
2 years ago
Reply to  rodney foy

There are no statistics being kept on vaccine side effects. The only source of data on that are (a) total numbers and (b) databases like VAERS or the UK yellow card system. Officially, vaccines don’t cause side effects at all or if they do it’s always so rare as to be not worth tracking properly.
So what do we see with what we’ve got – well, the data in VAERS has gone vertical. There are more reports of adverse events for COVID vaccines that all other vaccines combined in the history of the tracking programmes. VAERS can’t be shut down because its existence is written into law, but it can be ignored. Anyone who tries to use that data to infer that COVID vaccines might cause high rates of side effects discovers they are suddenly unpublishable, or that their results are dismissed on stupid grounds like “correlation doesn’t imply causation” – stupid because it’s only technically true: causation always implies correlation, so correlations are often good indicators of causation and many scientific discoveries have been made by observing a correlation then finding the causation. It doesn’t mean that all correlations are misleading or should be ignored.
It’s especially stupid in this case because these databases were explicitly set up to gather effect reports and make causal inferences about them. And you don’t need to be a medic to observe that “weird exotic medical problems that appear soon after taking an experimental drug using brand new technology” has a very high probability of a causal link.

Last edited 2 years ago by Norman Powers
Elaine Giedrys-Leeper
Elaine Giedrys-Leeper
2 years ago
Reply to  Norman Powers

Plenty of statistics being collected and reported on for example the Vaccine Safety Datalink (6.2 million individuals in 8 participating US health plans) along with CISA, BEST, VAECS, VA ADERS, IHS Sentinel survey, DOD electronic health record and defence medical surveillance system – all in the USA
and then the 3 huge studies out of Israel published in the NEJM September – December 2021
and then the massive paper published in Nature in December looking at the 38.5 million vaccinated population in the UK between 1 Dec. 2020 and 24 Aug 2021
The papers of course do a proper job – comparing adverse effects with an appropriate comparator background rate, instead of just sticking a wet finger in the air and comparing with the adverse events caused by Covid itself.

Michael O'Donnell
Michael O'Donnell
2 years ago

Well said! Where have all these self-declared experts, who keep posting on here to tell us how dangerous the vaccines are, come from? Who taught them to understand how clinical trials work and how to understand the statistics? I wonder how many of them know what standard error is or what confidence intervals are. Don’t tell me “I have friend who
” the history of Medicine is littered with the mistakes of doctors who relied on anecdote and their own experiences.

Dave Stenhouse
Dave Stenhouse
2 years ago
Reply to  rodney foy

When you contrast the reluctance of hospital-based authorities to report a possible vaccine adverse event with the financial incentive many have to report a Covid death or hospitalization, you set up a difficult stage to manage in any purely scientific or statistically equivalent manner.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt Hindman

‘Most people’. You are overstating your case. I don’t know anyone who has experienced any side effects, apart from the very well known and advertised ones of soreness, fatigue, mild flu like symptoms etc, which have hardly been ‘suppressed’.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

My next door neighbour had pericarditis, two heart attacks and is left with a syndrome that results in vertigo. Can’t remember the name. In his 40s.

rodney foy
rodney foy
2 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

Me neither. You got down ticked for stating your experience

Deborah H
Deborah H
2 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

I know 2 – a 40ish mom with pulmonary edema and told not to have the 2nd dose and a 30 something man got Bell’s palsy shorty after vaccination.

Deb Grant
Deb Grant
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt Hindman

No, we don’t know anyone in our extensive international circle of contacts who has reported Covid vaccine side effects.

Michael O'Donnell
Michael O'Donnell
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt Hindman

I don’t know of anyone who has anything other than a sore arm or a day or two of feeling under the weather. I have checked with several of my friends and neither do they. It’s this sort of bald statement without basis that ruins the debate.

Nicholas Croft
Nicholas Croft
1 year ago
Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
2 years ago

This appears on the surface to be a reasonable article although the author would like to have it both ways. The author also makes claims, for example regarding HCQ and ivermectin, that other equally credentialed, and indeed more experienced, epidemiologists such as Harvey Risch at Yale would disagree with. Further, recall that McCullough until relatively recently practiced in a very prestigious academic center (Baylor) and is one of the most cited physician-scientists around with a h index of 120 (on Google scholar) compared to only 40 for Prof. Prasad. So one might really ask who is the most expert here. An important point, given that so many are claiming they are experts. At least Prasad realizes that everything is “not quite right in the state of Denmark”.

As for adverse reactions, everybody knows someone who has had a severe adverse reaction – maybe not severe enough to put one in the hospital but more than severe enough to have to take several days off work (with severe fever and chills) or to suffer from brain fog for several months. So in the interests of full openness, here are the reports of adverse reactions in the UK pasted from https://dailysceptic.org/2022/01/18/vaccine-safety-update-23/

  • Pfizer’s six-month trial data suggests its Covid vaccine is causing more illness than it prevents, according to analysis by a group of Canadian medics.
  • The European Medicines Agency has listed a rare spinal condition as a side effect of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine.
  • A study shows a rise in PEG antibodies following mRNA vaccination was associated with higher reactogenicity and PEG interactions.
  • A collection of reports from 2021 finds 449 athletes who have had cardiac arrests following the Covid vaccine with 263 deaths. Reports of heart attack deaths amongst professional footballers are significantly up in 2021 compared with previous years.
  • A first case of myocarditis after Covid vaccine has been reported in Morocco.
  • Vaccination manufacturer Valneva is planning to launch its Covid vaccine in Scotland.
  • The JCVI has made the Pfizer Covid vaccine available for 5-11 year olds who are considered high risk or have an immunosuppressed household member.
  • VAERS â€“ the American version of the Yellow Card reporting system – released new data on January 13th bringing the total to 1,033,994 reports of adverse events following Covid vaccines, including 21,745 deaths and 170,446 serious injuries.
  • DAEN Australia â€“ the equivalent of the Yellow Card reporting system – has logged (up to January 4th) 99,911 reports of adverse events, including 734 deaths.
  • Children (Under 18) Adverse Events UK â€“ up to January 5th, the MHRA reports a total of 2,746 adverse event reports, comprising 2,471 Pfizer, 248 AstraZeneca, 16 Moderna and 11 unspecified from 3,033,100 children vaccinated. This includes 49 reported cases with Pfizer and one with Moderna of myocarditis/pericarditis, suggesting a current risk of 12 cases per million doses for this age group.
  • Booster Doses â€“ up to 38,050 adverse events have been reported across all vaccines up to January 5th, suggesting a reporting rate of one adverse event per 1,000 doses.

Summary of Adverse Events in the U.K.

According to an updated report, the MHRA Yellow Card reporting system has recorded a total of 1,414,293 events based on 431,482 reports. The total number of fatalities reported is 1,932.

  • Pfizer (25.3 million first doses, 21.9 million second doses) now has one Yellow Card in 162 people vaccinated. Deaths: 1 in 36,988 people vaccinated (684).
  • AstraZeneca (24.9 million first doses, 24.1 million second doses) has one Yellow Card in 103 people vaccinated. Deaths: 1 in 21,066 people vaccinated (1,182).
  • Moderna (1.6 million first doses, 1.4 million second doses) has one Yellow Card in 50 people vaccinated. Deaths: 1 in 55,172 people vaccinated (29).

Overall, one in every 120 people vaccinated (0.83%) have experienced a Yellow Card adverse event. The MHRA has previously estimated that the Yellow Card reporting rate may be approximately 10% of actual figures. Note that sometimes in Yellow Card reporting, the numbers of adverse events (including fatalities) will be lower than the previous week. The Yellow Card system is a passive reporting system, so in theory this should not happen as all reports should be cumulative. However, the MHRA say they analyse the data prior to publication, with deaths and pregnancy conditions being notably investigated. They do not state criteria by which reports would be removed and to date have not clarified why this data varies. It is therefore unclear how many reported adverse events have been removed from the reports since reporting began in February 2021.

  • Pulmonary Embolism & Deep Vein Thrombosis = 3,890
  • Anaphylaxis = 1,556
  • Acute Cardiac = 23,960
  • Pericarditis/Myocarditis = 1,723
  • Herpes = 4,915
  • Blindness = 478
  • Deafness = 730
  • Spontaneous Abortions = 709
  • Headaches & Migraines = 135,783
  • Vomiting = 18,154
  • Strokes and CNS haemorrhages = 2,999
  • Guillain-BarrĂ© Syndrome = 581
  • Facial Paralysis incl. Bell’s Palsy = 2,108
  • Tremor = 13,538
  • Seizures = 3,299
  • Paralysis = 1,407
  • Reproductive/Breast Disorders = 52,322

Further analysis can be found via the U.K. Freedom Project.
comment image

Now it would seem to me that it doesn’t matter how you cut this, the adverse reaction rate related to the COVD vaccines is orders of magnitude worse than that for all other vaccines combined, and the completely honest truth of the matter is that if the vaccines weren’t for Covid and if Governments, public health authorities, and many in the public (especially in the “blue” states) weren’t gripped by fear, panic and hysteria, these vaccines would have been taken off the market a long time ago. What’s worse, right now there is absolutely no logical rational for mandating vaccination, whether for government or health workers, given that it is acknowledged that the vaccines do not prevent infection or transmission, and that the viral loads of infected individuals, whether vaccinated or unvaccinated, are comparable (and indeed a recent internal memo from the UK Ministry of Health indicates that the soon to be implemented NHS vaccination mandate is likely to fail in court for precisely these reasons). In other words, while the vaccine may (and the operative word here is “may”) reduce the severity of a COVID infection, they do not serve to protect or help anybody other than the vaccinated individual. And hence there is no public health or epidemiological reason to enforce vaccination.

Last edited 2 years ago by Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
2 years ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

Perhaps everybody you know is on the old side (over 65)! Virtually everybody I know under that age had a significant reaction on the 2nd shot and a worse one on the 3rd shot (if they had a booster). And by significant I mean things like “the worst migraine in their lives”, not being able to get out of bed for a day with fever and very severe body aches, etc…. You might call such adverse reactions minor but you can bet if many have those types of reactions, a fraction is going to have something a lot worse, because I guarantee you that polio, MMR and DTP don’t have those types of reactions. And the figures bear that out.

rodney foy
rodney foy
2 years ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

I just had a sore arm after my 3rd (moderna), around my 65th birthday

Last edited 2 years ago by rodney foy
Jem Barnett
Jem Barnett
2 years ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

Obviously this is purely anecdotal, but I know 3 people under 40 who’ve had serious reactions, one of whom was hospitalised for it. So maybe an average of 1 is not so far off?

SULPICIA LEPIDINA
SULPICIA LEPIDINA
2 years ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

Thank you for that epic reply.
At my advanced age I am far too idle to do such research, but thanks to your diligence now feel completely reassured.

Susan
Susan
2 years ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

Wow, Johann, thank you SO much for all this information. It’s an excellent summary and all credit to you for sharing it. I hope reading it will change the views of anyone who still doubts the seriousness of the side effects.

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

You are blowing smoke, and you know it. This is a pile of anecdotes. For these data to be worth *anythying at all*, you need to compare the number of reports you get, with the number of events you would expect by pure chance when you look at tens or hundreds of millions of people. When done properly that tells you things – like the rare cases of myocarditis, or blood clots that were proved. When done improperly, like here, it is just so much scaremongering.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

No it is you who are blowing smoke because you just don’t want to accept reality. Every one of the reported events exceeds the expected number of cases by a huge margin. Further, you don’t get perfectly healthy young people all of a sudden getting some severe condition (whether myocarditis, strokes, anomalous clots with thrombocytopenia, etc. etc. etc….) within a few days of vaccination. Just remember, young healthy people don’t just get things like Bell’s palsy and Guillain Barre out of the blue, unless they have been subject to some recent severe viral infection. Incidentally, just for your information, the regular flu shot has also been associated with an increase in Guillain-Barre post-vaccination but nowhere close to the extent observed for the Covid vaccines.
As it is, the discussion regarding the current COVID vaccines is somewhat superfluous given that they are useless against Omicron – as fully acknowledged by the Israeli vaccine Czar interviewed recently by Freddie on Unherd.
But what you have to understand Rasmus, is that it is really important to investigate the adverse effects from the Covid vaccines seriously because if this isn’t done it’s ultimately going to do enormous harm to any confidence in public health measures and other perfectly safe vaccines (e.g. MMR, DPT, etc…). And that will have severe public health consequences. So the approach of “see no evil, hear no evil” is entirely inappropriate and quite frankly luddite.

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

Well, if these reported events exceed the expected number of cases by a huge margin, it should be easy to point to a published statistical analysis, with traceable data, references etc., that proves exactly that. After all, you could not know it was so if someone had not done the analysis. The same for the vaccine having no effect against omicron. So: gimme! Or admit you have nothing to show.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

Look I would suggest you do your own research and look at the published Government statistics. I’m not going to provide you with a ton of references. Suffice it to say, as an MD I know what conditions are rare and which are common. When conditions crop up that one is unlikely to see in a lifetime of general practice (i.e. in the community as opposed to a quaternary care hospital) something is up. When the number of adverse reactions in VAERS associated with the Covid vaccines exceeds that of all other vaccines combined since the VAERS database was created indicates that something is going on. As for Omicron and the vaccine don’t take my word for it; listen to the vaccine chief in Israel, especially since Israel has administered boosters and second boosters at a far higher rate than anyone else. And you could also take a look at the leaked memo from the U.K. Department of Health regarding the low probability of the NHS vaccine mandate passing muster with the courts given that the vaccine is essentially ineffective against Omicron.
Incidentally, you might also like to know that the monoclonal antibodies which were directed against the original spike protein and are basically the pick of the crop in terms of neutralizing activity, are no longer effective against Omicron, so nobody would expect antibodies generated by the current vaccines that express the original spike protein to be effective either. But you’d need to know a bit of immunology, biology and biochemistry to appreciate that rather than fob everything off.
It’s also worth noting that any statistical analysis of the VAERS database has been effectively censored: e.g. the Rose and McCullough article on this topic which was accepted for publication after peer review and appeared in Pubmed was subsequently withdrawn by the publisher (Elsevier) for no reason at all because it went against the “narrative”. That’s known as censorship, and incidentally there is a law suite regarding this.

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

In short, you have nothing to show.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

Yeah right. He made up all the data and the tables. If he is lying he is super consistent over many months and his findings jibe with many others. Rasmus do you work for big pharma? I am curious to know your motivation.

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago

I am not working for anybody in particular. But it is not rocket science. Imagine that those very same tables of reported side effects were for 100 million people who had drunk beer within the past month. Would you believe Johan Strauss at his word that beer was exceedingly dangerous? No, as a sensible person you would realise that all kinds of things can happen over a month to a sample of 100 million people, and you would compare with a sample of 100 million people who had not drunk beer before you jumped to conclusions. This is exactly the same situation. Unless you have a handle on how many of those effects would be expected to happen by chance (and how reliable the data are), you cannot conclude anything at all. Particularly if the data are being quoted by a known fanatic teetotaller, MD/PHD or not. If these are strong and unmistakable effects, it would be very easy to put together a strong, well-sourced paper, and convince someone halfway reputable to publish it. If Johan Strauss and his sources cannot and will not do that, and he even refuses to say exactly where he gets many of his numbers from (‘do your own research’ forsooth!) it is because he has not got the data and is trying to flummox us.

That does not mean that everything he says is necessarily wrong. COVID vaccines seem to have more side effects than more established vaccines (maybe not surprising since they were developed in such a hurry), and they are clearly not as good at suppressing disease as many other vaccines (though that is still better than anything ever developed against flu, AIDS, or malaria). I do not claim it is certain or obvious where the balance lies. But the word of someone who makes excessive claims and refuses to provide evidence is worthless – and that is Johan Strauss.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

Seems Rasmus you are incapable of reading since I gave a link to the original article that I pasted for my comment!!! Further, you would have seen that the article I pasted itself had plenty of links. So this is not my data and what you are actually talking about is simply beyond me, other than that you are both pig-headed and blind. Further the data come directly from the UK Government, not some conspiracy group.
What you fail to appreciate is that the incidence of adverse reactions from the current COVID vaccines dwarfs adverse reactions from all other vaccines combined. The numbers are just absolutely overwhelming, and unfortunately being suppressed by the MSM and denied by the US and UK public health authorities, even though the numbers are in the VAERS and Yellow book databases, as well as all other post-release surveillance databases from the European countries. So there is no need for any statistics. Further, I can assure you that the numbers in the VAERS database which I’m familiar with since I’m in the US are way underreported. Not only was this established prior to COVID by a number of publications from well-known institutions including Harvard, but any look at the VAERS website will tell you immediately just how much of a hassle it is to report anything. Indeed, I personally know many well-educated professional people (not scientists or medics) who weren’t even aware of the VAERS database and how to report adverse reactions.
The problem is that anybody who raises these issues is automatically canceled, especially in the US, and one has to be very tough to withstand that. If you listen to Peter McCullough, for example, citations to published papers pour out of his mouth in every single interview and congressional testimonies, but anything negative about the vaccines is basically silenced whether by the MSM, twitter, Google, YouTube, Facebook, etc….. YouTube and the others even censored US congressional hearings – the videos were totally removed from Youtube within less than a day. (Yes they can be found on some alternative sites but these are not well known and one has to look hard for them). That’s a problem as indeed Prasad noted in his article. and it’s all the worse because ultimately public confidence in science, public health authorities, medical doctors, etc…. will go down the drain. That too is a problem and will have widespread consequences (which could lead to major reductions in publicly funded science).
Incidentally, today’s announcement by HM’s Government would suggest that they now agree with virtually everything I’ve said. Just wait for the NHS vaccine mandates to be shelved in the not too distant future, especially since any requirements to show vaccination status for events and various indoor locations is being dropped. And by the way all masking requirements have now just been dropped in England as well. Why? Because they’ve come to realize that masking had absolutely no effect on the spread of SARS-CoV2 in the community.
And for the record I’m absolutely not anti-vaxx. I’ve had basically every vaccine there is to be had in my life (including recent MMR and DPT boosters), and I’ve had two shots of the Pfizer vaccine, although not the booster as I felt there was absolutely no need, and the risk/benefit ratio just wasn’t favorable. Seems I was rather prescient in that regard since the booster is only good for about 6 weeks! So why put oneself at risk for that.

rodney foy
rodney foy
2 years ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

Even though my 3rd has largely worn off, it protected me against severe illness through the recent peak of Omicron

Glyn Reed
Glyn Reed
2 years ago
Reply to  rodney foy

I had omicron over Christmas – no more than a very bad cold. So glad I don’t bother with the ineffective vaccine as several triple vaccinated friends were all equally unwell and one with on going symptoms.

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

Which link would that be? There have been so many. Let us take that post from yesterday with all the links, and the ‘Summary of adverse events’ table.

The bottom five bullet points and the tables are simply lists of adverse event counts. No consideration of whether they are more or less than would be expected for a random selection, data quality etc.

A couple of apparently reliable reports that make little change to the overall picture, because they are either rare (spinal conditions) or of unknown significance (what difference does PEG antibodies make in real life?)

Three anecdotal/cherrypickings (athlete deaths, footballer heart attacks, a single case of myocarditis in Morocco).

A couple of reports that simply say vaccination is beginning.

The ‘group of Canadian medics’ give a pdf with some arguments. Just leafing through I notice that their main arguments against are that Pfizer should have waited till at least 2023 before they released any vaccine, and that they were dreadfully wrong in doing their phase 1 trial on a sample that represented the population instead of giving it to the over-75 only. Which is obviously rubbish. If you want to say, calmly, that COVID vaccines have not had as thorough an evaluation as most vaccines (because, you know, people were in a bit of a hurry), you clearly have a point, and we can discuss where that puts us. If you use these arguments to dismiss the vaccines as useless, as they do, you are clearly not in the business of finding out the truth.

The ukfreedomproject is analysing those adverse reports. Good on them. They list a lot of adverse effects, including a list of the 20 most common effects – which all seem to fall under the heading of ‘normal flu symptoms’. With commendable honesty they have a list of ‘What we do not know’, which includes
Whether a death or reaction reported was caused by the vaccine or a coincidenceDemographic information of patient (gender, age, health status)Need I say more? These people (and Dr Laurie, with whom they work) seem serious and honest, if somewhat inexperienced – they cite their shock at finding out that conditions in a reporting system could sometimes be recorded with very different wordings, which I had figured out for myself without even looking at the data. They are clearly contributing to the debate – but they do *not* claim more than ‘reasons for concern’, and rightly so.

In the end we have a long list of adverse events. Since these are clearly extraordinary circumstances – it is probably the first time you give a brand new vaccine to many hundreds of millions of unvaccinated adults in a span of just a year – I ask: How do we know that these numbers are real and a sign that the vaccine is bad, and how do the ill effects of getting vaccinated stack up against the ill effects of getting COVID unvaccinated. So what is your answer? Well, you look at the data and say that ‘the numbers are just overwhelming’. In other words: in the opinion of Johan Strauss this is just so obvious that no precise analysis is needed. And I am sorry, but that just does not impress me. In the opinion of Rasmus Fogh it is not clear without some analysis what these number mean. So, why is your opinion so much more authoritative than mine? Let alone Faucis? Because you are an MD? With all you write about ‘the art of medicine’ do you believe that getting an MD gives you a mystic intuition that means you can know the truth even in the absence of (and better than) reliable data?

It is surely remarkable that you get an extraordinary number of adverse reports – but it might be because the situation is extraordinary in the first place, not because the vaccine is particularly bad. You might be right – I can certainly not prove the contrary. But the way to convince people (like me) is to produce that evidence and put it out for people to read and criticise. If it is as obvious as you claim that should not be too hard. If instead you chose to pile up ever longer lists of unvalidated and unanalysed adverse effects that do not prove anything, I think I am entitled to conclude that the emperor has no clothes.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

Why don’t you read the paper by Rose and McCullough. Was accepted for publication after Peer review in Current Problems in Cardiology, appeared in PubMed (so published for all to read), and then withdrawn by the publisher (Elsevier) on no scientific grounds whatsoever. The article has now been reproduced on Substack: https://jessicar.substack.com/p/a-report-on-myocarditis-adverse-events. Plenty of references in the paper for you to look at. Only deals with myocarditis.
As for censorship and an article directly related to this paper with quotes from one of the authors, Jessica Rose, see https://www.theepochtimes.com/researcher-calls-out-censorship-after-journal-pulls-covid-19-vaccine-adverse-events-analysis_4221081.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-01-20&utm_medium=email&est=6%2FwjV6zEh7kgO8AOJ57Q7aXhsyWiEil4fzt%2Fn83w8o3bOJpc3itAkpgXyFXTgcmr
Well worth reading as well.
Incidentally it is also well know that the cationic lipids used in the lipid nanoparticle to transport the mRNA vaccines into cells are highly toxic, but this known issue was waved away by the various Committees for Medical Products (e.g. FDA) on the basis that the dose was low. Maybe so, maybe not.
One last thing regarding the terminology of the use of “vaccine” that Rasmus quibbled about in some other response. The fundamental difference between the mRNA/DNA vaccines versus regular vaccines is that in the former you know exactly how much of the antigen (whether whole virus, part of the virus, attenuated live virus, inactivated virus, a specific antigen from the virus, etc…) you are injecting. In the latter, however, you know who much mRNA or DNA you are introducing, but you have no idea what the variation is in terms of the synthesis of the antigen by the cell. It is likely that the amount of antigen (spike protein in this instance) actually produced, whether this involves a single translation step for the mRNA vaccines, or both transcription (to mRNA) followed by translation for the DNA-based vaccines, varies by well over an order of magnitude from individual to individual. Indeed, this may be exactly why most of the adverse reactions correlate inversely with age, since the translational (and transcriptional machinery) of the elderly is likely not as efficient as that of the young.

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

OK, this is a serious study (among other things), and it seems to show pretty clearly that COVID vaccines do have a problem with causing myocarditis. I could find a few quibbles on specific wordings, and in principle I would like to see any attempted rebuttals (or just the referee reports) before making a final conclusion. But then there is no real reason to doubt this point. Others have found myocarditis as well.

In addition, separate from the myocarditis data, there is a discussion of the advisability of COVID vaccination in general. That contains a number of tendentious formulations and highly controversial statements. For instance their insistence on calling COVID vaccines ‘injectable biologicals’, comments like “Dose 2 is generally administered 3 weeks following the first dose assuming the individual survives dose 1 without any major complications, including death.” (my italics), and their blithe statement that there are ample effective drug treatments for COVID based (according to the titles of their references) on a belief in the effectiveness of cloroquine, hydroxycloroquine, and ivermectin. Then there are comments that are not only controversial but strictly political, like “by no means, should parental consent be waived under any circumstances to avoid children volunteering for injections with products that do not have proven safety or efficacy”. If the journal has withdrawn the paper, it is no doubt because of this purely polemical aspect.

The nice thing is that even though the authors are clearly highly biased in their opinions on COVID vaccines, this makes no difference to their analysis of myocarditis data. There is enough here to substantiate the claim that vaccination causes myocarditis as a side effect, and to enable experts (not me) to find any holes or weaknesses there might be in the arguments. They are not relying on their credibility alone. If you have similar quality references for some of your other claims, I would like to see them.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

How about you start looking yourself rather than expect me to do all the work for you! That’s just laziness on your part. For starters you might just like to read dailysceptic.org which contains some very useful articles every day to supplement your Unherd reading.
Now lets look at some of your criticism regarding the so-called polemics. It is completely unethical and unherd of to carry out any medical procedure on a minor (i.e. anybody under 18) WITHOUT parental consent. They are just stating the obvious and something that has always been well accepted.
Likewise calling the mRNA and DNA vaccines biological injectables is exactly what they are and absolutely the correct description. What is being injected is NOT a known quantity of antigen to which the body will produce antibodies against. What is being injected is the code either in the form of mRNA or DNA to hijack one’s cells protein synthesis machinery to express the antigen (spike protein). So it is indirect, it has never been used before, and the person-to-person variation in the amount of spike protein produced has not been seriously studied whether in humans or in animals. That’s a big issue and probably is related to adverse reactions. Indeed, the fact that the Moderna vaccine which has 3 times the dose of mRNA (100 micrograms) versus the Pfizer one (30 micrograms) has been found to cause a greater number of adverse reactions supports this. But it is also self-evident. Dosage of any “drug” is critical as there is a delicate balance between the ED50 (effective 50% dose) and the LD50 (lethal 50% dose). Even something as trivial as tylenol (paracetamol for the Brits) has a rather narrow safety range before it messes up one’s liver irreversibly. (i.e. really easy to overdose on tylenol).
Finally, regarding ivermectin and HCQ taken in combination with a cocktail of other drugs (prednisone, butenoside, fluvoxamine, azithromycin, doxycycline) and various vitamins and minerals including vitD, vitC and zinc has quite clearly been shown to be effective in early treatment. There are plenty of trials (albeit not randomized) all over the world, and these have been used with apparently great success. Indeed a recent RCT in Brazil of fluvoxamine (an SSRI used for depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder) is purportedly 90% effective in reducing hospitalization. Given the fantastic safety profile of invermectin, HCQ, doxycycline and azythromycin (a bit less for fluvoxamine) it truly boggles the mind why doctors have had their license to practice threatened in many states and countries should they try these cocktails. If the cocktails were dangerous it would be one thing, but they are no more dangerous than chicken noodle soup, which incidentally contains some ingredient (forgotten exactly what) that has been shown to be rather useful to alleviate symptoms and reduce their duration for the common cold (i.e. chicken soup is little bit more than just an old wives tale, but no doubt had it been advocated by Trump, the sale of chicken noodle soup and the ingredients to make it oneself would have been banned by the CDC and FDA!)

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

And while you’re at it Rasmus, take 2 min out of your busy day and check this Video out related to vaccine victims, especially young children: https://vimeo.com/667132536/650d625ec8

Better hurry up before the video is taken down by Vimeo!
All the severe medical conditions referred to in the video involving real people who suffered and some of whom died, are so rare in healthy kids that they are basically unheard of in this demographic.
Now if this video doesn’t make you see the light, and at least consider the possibility that you’ve been way off base and just plain old obstinate, then clearly you have neither a heart nor a soul.

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

In short: I won’t. Currently I believe that the official guidelines for COVID treatment are a lot better than the alternatives you favour. I accept that there will be tragedies from vaccinating – I just believe that there will be even more tragedies from not vaccinating. Reading a site that just takes it for granted I am wrong will not change my mind, nor will tugging at my heartstrings. Conclude what you want about my soul.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

Drowning man clinging desperately to a log!

Andrew Dalton
Andrew Dalton
2 years ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

Some great posts and I don’t have time to comment on all points made.
On masking though, one of the interesting tidbits I saw on Lockdown Sceptics yesterday was that government had recommended masks in schools on the grounds of a 30% reduction in transmission only to find (much later) that the difference in absences between schools with and without mask mandates was 0.5%.
I’ve no idea what credible source produced that 30% figure. However, it looks like assumption became policy, became received wisdom. Reality kept on doing its own thing.

rodney foy
rodney foy
2 years ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

Something that greatly reduces the danger isn’t “essentially ineffective” (although it wears off fairly quickly)

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
2 years ago
Reply to  rodney foy

First, Omicron is not dangerous. Second, everytime you get an additional shot you subject yourself to a risk of an adverse reaction that you can do nothing about to control. Not like taking some drug that produces an adverse reaction and all you have to do is stop taking the drug.

Gunner Myrtle
Gunner Myrtle
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

A 1 in 3000 event for young men is not that rare. Another study had it at 1 in 1700. The issue is not the side effects per se – but that young people don’t need this vaccine. There is no reason for them to take on this risk.

Nicholas Croft
Nicholas Croft
1 year ago
Reply to  Gunner Myrtle
rodney foy
rodney foy
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

I do agree

Hosias Kermode
Hosias Kermode
2 years ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

Thanks for putting all that together.

stephen archer
stephen archer
2 years ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

If the vaccines had been restricted to those at great risk of dying then that’s a different matter. How can you have avoided noticing all the politicians implementing irrational and senseless measures and the general public complying with irrational and senseless measures, all of these gripped by fear, panic and hysteria? The anti-vaxxers mental state is more likened to concern rather than panic.

Gunner Myrtle
Gunner Myrtle
2 years ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

My wife went to bed for three days feeling absolutely rotten from her vaccine. First time ever. She never does that. My daughter is now seeing a gynaecologist for menstrual irregularities which her GP said are a known side effect of the vaccine. I note that there was no mention of this side effect when they got the vaccine. There is a reason why so many nurses won’t take the vaccine. Many are women of child bearing age and they know about the complications. I just get tired of this vaccine being pushed on young people who don’t need it while being told it is risk free. Giving it to 5 year olds would be criminal.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago

“If McCullough wishes to make this case, the best forum would a scholarly publication, where other researchers can examine and critique his methodology.” So much to comment on, but on skimming this leapt out at me. This is exactly what McCullough was doing and he was censored and his paper removed. I really do think this author should spend some more time first noting this man’s stellar experience and contribution to science and secondly actually listening to his story.

Michael Richardson
Michael Richardson
2 years ago

This seems to have become very common. Prof. Norman Fenton from QM London reported that early on, when he and colleagues were submitting papers that were in line with the narrative, they were all published; but as soon as they started to diverge, then they were rejected. So maybe the best forum would be scholarly publications, but once those publications start censoring like this, that avenue is no longer open.
This also explains why many dissenting voices have been written off as “right wing”; generally, right wing publications have been more open to giving exposure to a range of viewpoints. There have been many people saying that the whole Covid19 thing has resulted in strange bedfellows (like Charles Walker and David Blunkett agreeing with one-another).

Glyn Reed
Glyn Reed
2 years ago

I suppose it all comes down to money. Who are the major investors in these scientific journals, who doles out the massive research grants, who pays the most commission
.

Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
2 years ago

Lots of errors in your article – the bit of ‘
“the menstrual irregularities associated with the vaccine suggest it is a “major threat to reproductive health” for women.” which you then discount completely – And the fact mice had the mRNA and nanolipides concentrated in their ovaries and testes, and that the first part is covered as true in a vast number of references. The first is from NIH (Government) so they are aware – hundreds of references also fallow..

“$1.67 million to explore potential links between COVID-19 vaccination and menstrual changes.” (USA NIH)

“To date, I have seen no evidence to support any of these claims, (of vaccine injury) and I believe it is a mistake to raise them. First, they are irresponsible —”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAeVLdMnerQ Senator Ron Johnson conference with a dozen vaccine injured people, dibiliting injury. Also Dr Campbell has two similar –

“Rogan, Malone and McCullough are wrong to claim that ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are known to be secretly effective”

Here is the #1 covid youtuber Dr (of Nursing) Campbell, a vax believer and proponent doing a Ivermectin meta study analyst – he also covers Ivermectin in India, and in other places, as being effective. Vitamin D is his biggest thing the Government has neglected, and not aspirating Vaccines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j7am9kjMrk

“VAERS is a voluntary collection network that is prone to two types of biases.”

Yes, but it is laborious to complete, then you are interviewed by the CDC as it is their official site, and it states that false claims are punishable by fines or prison. Also it has closing on 20,000 deaths from the vax, and well over a million vax ‘Injuries’. If anything is is vastly under reported from all I hear. I know a woman with a very bad vax reaction and she did not do VAERS – my guess is very few do.

“McCullough and Malone are proponents of early treatment for Covid-19, specifically with ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. Both allege that public health authorities have intentionally suppressed the use of these drugs. “
“These are entirely false and insulting allegations,”

They are entirely TRUE claims. If you do not know this, and how all social media and MSM censored the topic you must have been not paying attention. The infamous Hydroxyloroquine double blind study gave the drug at the end of the illness in hospital – NOT early as a preventative of hospitalization when it works according to thousands of experts.. I hear this was to discredit the drug, as was said by the doctor.

You leave out Bret Weinstein. He must be watched on this, again an expert, and been on Unherd 3 times, and Very convincing, youtube – watch them.

Anyway, almost all you say seemingly comes from your bias – I Suggest you debate one of these guys and put it on youtube. I am 100% certain McCullough or Malone would take you on, and my guess – by the vast amount of references they cite, would flatten you. Try it in person – sniping in print is not scientific debate.

Last edited 2 years ago by Galeti Tavas
Jem Barnett
Jem Barnett
2 years ago
Reply to  Galeti Tavas

I’d love to see them debate this. Dream scenario: This author + Peter and Robert, and have Bret Weinstein host / chair the discussion. I think we could really squeeze some excellent knowledge out of such a chat.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago
Reply to  Jem Barnett

I suspect the author would be demolished!

David B
David B
2 years ago
Reply to  Jem Barnett

I’d like Rasmus Fogh too! He is so typical of the “none so blind as those who will not see” mentality that will be horribly exposed in the near future.

Nicholas Croft
Nicholas Croft
1 year ago
Reply to  David B

Once you see the website of who he works for you’ll have an “aha” moment.
Think MySpace circa 2000/2001 vs FB now 😉

Michael K
Michael K
2 years ago
Reply to  Galeti Tavas

Not aspirating vaccines, vitamin D and pulse oximeters are likely the most critical, underreported aspects of this entire issue.

Dave Mil
Dave Mil
2 years ago

I don’t see how you can dismiss the concern that menstrual irregularities are a risk to reproductive health with “To date, I have seen no evidence to support any of these claims”. Have you seen evidence that refutes those claims? Until recently, linking these ‘irregularities’ with the vaccine was taboo. Now we’re ‘allowed’ to talk about it but surely anything that disrupts a natural cycle in the reproductive organs could potentially pose a further risk. Unless independent studies have been conducted clearly showing there are absolutely no consequences beyond ‘late periods’ (which as far as I’m aware there are none) this claim should be taken seriously. Especially when we remember that any link between the two was refuted for almost a year by the creators of these vaccines until they were forced to back down due to the number of claims.

Norman Powers
Norman Powers
2 years ago
Reply to  Dave Mil

Yes. It’s a really good article and though I’ve had harsh words for epidemiologists in the past, I’m refining this view to exclude those who are also practicing medics, as it seems they’re really a totally different animal to the likes of Ferguson.
Yet that part seems to be showing a failure to generalize. Myocarditis is a real problem because serious people have managed to get papers published on it, but for anything else like widespread reports of menstrual disruption talking about it is “irresponsible”? Claims the vaccines could cause heart damage were widely described as irresponsible and evidence-free, right up until they suddenly weren’t. There are tons of side effects being documented in case reports, why is myocarditis special? This looks like more medical groupthink.
One of my fiancĂ©s friends lost her period for nearly 6 months (it’s back now thank goodness). The doctors never even investigated. She was blown off for the entire time. For sure it was never reported anywhere. There are other friends who experienced less severe disruptions but lots of them have had such issues. In most cases they didn’t report it, when they did it was the same experience – doctors didn’t care and sent them home. How exactly is evidence that the good doctor would accept supposed to appear, with attitudes in the medical world being like that?

Last edited 2 years ago by Norman Powers
liesel.vonmetz
liesel.vonmetz
2 years ago
Reply to  Dave Mil

As a menopausal woman I was alarmed when my first jab caused a period. We are always told “if you bleed unexpectedly follow it up.” At my second jab I raised it and was told by the (female) vaccinator “oh yes, quite a lot of women report that.” Whether it was officially reported I don’t know, but in spite of being “common knowledge” I have not see this officially listed as a side-effect. The only place this has been discussed properly is in a good article in the Spectator. Conclusion so far: they don’t have a clue how a jab causes this. Given the links between the menstrual system and the immune system and that women are far more likely to have auto-immune conditions (the female immune system has to be complex as it has to cope with pregnancy), dismissing the concerns of women about the possible effects on fertility is breathtakingly arrogant. I won’t consider having the booster nor any more COVID jabs until they (1) can fully explain this effect and justify why it is harmless (2) correctly list it as a side effect with accurate likelihood info and (3) remove the immunity from being sued that the vaccine providers have.

Michael K
Michael K
2 years ago
Reply to  liesel.vonmetz

Thank you for reporting this experience. Please keep talking about it! These things have to be heard.

Andrea X
Andrea X
2 years ago

“As of this moment, the UK’s advisory panel has said that only 5 to 11-year-olds with comorbidities should get vaccinated.”
They also said that of the 12-15YO, but got overruled.
(And why healthy children should get vaccinated is still beyond me).

Last edited 2 years ago by Andrea X
Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
Reply to  Andrea X

Healthy children ar always vaccinated: measles, mumps rubella, TB, etc. Which point were you trying to make?

Colin Watts
Colin Watts
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

The point is healthy children are not at risk from covid-19. They are at risk from measles, mumps rubella, TB etc.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

Rasmus, you’re reply really does display either pig-headedness or complete ignorance. Andrea was clearly not talking about MMR, DPT, polio and other childhood vaccinations. She was talking SPECIFICALLY about the Covid vaccines and their adnministration to children. And just because something is called a “vaccine” does NOT mean that all vaccines are equally safe or equally effective. Each one is different and each one has a very different safety and effectiveness profile. For example, Yellow fever vaccine is not just administered willy-nilly even though it’s very effective – why because it can have quite nasty side effects.
I think that’s your real problem borne out of what could be termed willful ignorance. You think that just because the current Covid vaccines have been denoted as vaccines that they are both very safe and very effective. They are neither. They have been associated with a huge number of adverse reactions that completely swamps adverse reactions from all other vaccines combined – that’s a statement of absolute fact and is abundantly evident from all surveillance databases. Likewise, their efficacy appears to wane rapidly with 2 doses only providing about 6 months of protection (up to the delta variant) with another 6 weeks or so added on by a booster. And essentially no protection against the Omicron variant. Those are the facts.

Charles Elliston
Charles Elliston
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

You qoute all fully trialed vaccines not ’emergency use’ labelled as the current covid vaccines still are. Caution is not a bad thing, especially since the risk-benefit ratio is in favour of not.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

Hmmm, starting to let yourself down badly
.

Mike Michaels
Mike Michaels
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

It’s not a vaccine. How many times?

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
Reply to  Mike Michaels

Vaccine noun:
A preparation of a weakened or killed pathogen, such as a bacterium or virus, or of a portion of the pathogen’s structure that upon administration to an individual stimulates antibody production or cellular immunity against the pathogen but is incapable of causing severe infection.
[American Heritage Dictionary].
If you want to spend your time playing word games instead of arguing your case, like the woke, that is surely because you do not have much in the way of convincing arguments.

stephen archer
stephen archer
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

That’s not how the CDC had defined a vaccine as preventing infection, prior to their recent backtracking on mRNA “vaccines”

Last edited 2 years ago by stephen archer
Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
Reply to  stephen archer

All these definition games are a waste of time. There is a real discussion here: How well do these vaccines protect against getting sick, against serious effects, and against onwards transmission? The answer seems to be fairly well, for earlier variants, and less well, for omicron. My impression is that even for omicron the vaccines help a lot, if less than we would have hoped. If you disagree with this, that is a point worth arguing over. Whether you choose to call it a vaccine is simply irrelevant. If it does not help, it does not matter if we call it an ineffective vaccine, or a non-vaccine. If it does help, we should use it, whether we call it a vaccine or not.

The point in insisting on not using the word ‘vaccine’ is exactly the same as when the woke start discussing whether some phrase or act is ‘misogynistic’ or ‘racist’. It replaces an important discussion, whether said act is harmful or permissible, with an empty legal discussion whether it falls within some formal definition. The hope being that instead of saying ‘all things considered this is OK, so we should allow it’, people can be conned into saying ‘this falls within the definition of “racist”, racist things are by definition bad; therefore we must ban it regardless of the actual consequences’.

If you think that the vaccines are useless, say they are useless and let us discuss it. Do not try to evade the actual substance by insisting on politically correct words.

Nicholas Croft
Nicholas Croft
1 year ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

The issue was WHO they were MOST useful for – The elderly/frail (say over 65) and/or co-morbidities – predominantly severely overweight people (with breathing issues).
And, you must know by now – they didn’t stop transmission. So a young healthy person could spread it regardless of their vax status.

Richard Lyon
Richard Lyon
2 years ago

I was hoping that Professor Prasad would be addressing the phenomenon, now clearly visible in public data sources such as Our World in Data, of rising non-Covid excess death in highly “vaccinated” countries, with the commencement of the rise coincident with the mass roll out of experimental, unlicensed gene transfer technology therapies years away from completion of minimum safety testing, and causes of death consistent with published side effect risks of that therapy.
Rather, recalling that e.g. thalidomide was prescribed for 4 years before its catastrophic birth defect side effect risks were noticed, we have his startling claims that “…the overall risks of vaccination (sic) remain low, particularly for a 54-year-old man such as Rogan” and “Vaccination (sic) is almost surely preferable for most un-immune adults.”
How on earth does he think that he knows that at this stage?
In his analysis, Professor Prasad appears to perpetuate the perennial confusion in the pro “vaccine” camp between claimed absence of evidence of harm, and evidence that harm is not present – the latter requiring years of careful, incremental safety testing and focussed analysis of results.
And all of this in an article claiming that Malone and McCullough have “gone over the top”.

Last edited 2 years ago by Richard Lyon
jim peden
jim peden
2 years ago
Reply to  Richard Lyon

Yes, you are right on the button re excess mortality. In the UK it has been significant in both 2020 and 2021. It will be a while before the true causes and details of this are teased out by diligent and detailed study but the sea is changing. We may yet see the truth of it all.

Joffre Woods
Joffre Woods
2 years ago

A fair & balanced article apart from, for some reason, yet more scepticism on natural immunity for the young, fit & healthy. Is half a million years of human evolution, survival and co existence with Coronaviruses not to be considered as, at the very least, relevant? Then, there’s all these selfish unvaccinated b*stards who’ve been strutting around without so much as a buy your leave, not wearing masks, catching Covid, passing it on, surviving and leading perfectly normal lives, throughout, since day 1. I think we should be told.

Michael K
Michael K
2 years ago

A beautiful fact-check – I hope I don’t discredit your article by calling it that.
Very correct about the myocarditis issue, which was apparent very early in the vaccination campaign, and very problematic with numbers of 1 in 5000 per shot. Now you will say that it’s “just for certain groups” – but that’s not true. On one of their websites, the German government mention a 1 in 5000 chance for severe side effects (that is, life-threatening or deadly) in general. They try to sell this as “very rare” by citing the number 0,02%, which is in fact quite a high number for a “safe” vaccine, especially seeing how everybody needs at least three doses of this stuff.
You’re however very incorrect about the issues raised in concern to cancer, autoimmunity and the like. Seeing how this is the first vaccine ever to cause your body to attack its own cells because of membrane proteins, there is a respectable potential for risk. And these decidedly long-term conditions will not necessarily show up within the short time frame of one or two years. True, a virus also causes the body to attack it’s own cells – but there is absolutely no comparison to the degree and time-frame in which this happens with these new vaccines.
We also don’t know whether systemic spike protein can cause any significant, lasting damage. Systemic spike is usually only found in severe COVID cases, but will always be present with vaccination. True, only in small amounts, except if the injection directly enters the bloodstream, which will happen in 1-5% of all cases. Indeed, what happens when a full dose of mRNA droplets enters your bloodstream? Nobody knows! Ain’t that fun?
Also somewhat wrong about the natural immunity argument. It’s certain, or at least very likely, that the reason for the harsh reaction of the body to 2nd, 3rd or 4th doses is because of already existing antibodies. Yes, a single dose before infection may provide a good trade-off between protection and side effects. But if it is given after infection, the picture changes, because we will have to assume heavier side effects, even if there is better protection.
Finally, most of the discussion in general is completely moot, as we are not even sure that the vaccine works against Omicron. And, even if it does, whether there is still any net benefit in vaccinating someone from the risk group.

Last edited 2 years ago by Michael K
Nicholas Croft
Nicholas Croft
1 year ago
Reply to  Michael K
John Vaccaro
John Vaccaro
2 years ago

The author states: “Vaccination is almost surely preferable for most un-immune adults”. That’s a big statement as Covid has proven to be a significant threat only to the elderly and those with multiple comorbidities. Without longterm safety results for these MRNA vaccines the risk-reward profile should, in my opinion, favour young, healthy adults not taking the vaccination/boosters until we genuinely know that there are no problems coming down the line in a few years. That was the original plan from the UK government and vaccine task force under Kate Bingham – interesting that plan then morphed into vaccinating everyone, multiple times, and making it mandatory in some settings. Sounds more religious than scientific to me.

Last edited 2 years ago by John Vaccaro
Keith Dudleston
Keith Dudleston
2 years ago

Its great that at last a serious scientist is brave enough to address the issue of the widespread censorship of the public debate about manageing the pandemic. Much of the critism of this responce will be miss informed and wrong, but suppression of the debate will only add fuel to the fire and give “wings” to this misinformation. Of course some claims will probably turn out to be true. The artificial origin of the virus, the lack of efficacy of most rudimentary face masks and the
damage done by school closures (and some legal limits to normal social interaction) may turn out to be good examples.

Last edited 2 years ago by Keith Dudleston
stephen archer
stephen archer
2 years ago

If I were to nit-pick his criticism I would conclude that he may be correct in the exaggeration of some of the figures, eg. on vaccine-related deaths, but McCullough and Malone are probably correct in principle on all the issues they’ve uncovered. When I’ve listened to them I’ve been focused on the explanations and the why they have had these assertions, and less on the figures which I assume are subject to a lot of varying parameters or assumptions. It’s the non-numerical details which are the issue with the vaccines. Even if it was 2,000 vaccine related deaths and not 45,000, it’s still a reason why these vaccines should not be pumped into individuals at no great risk of dying from Covid-19.
Just because the author has seen no evidence of serious side effects, eg. menstrual cycles, he’s immediately discounting that Malone has seen these. I just don’t believe that Malone’s integrity would allow him to just make things up.
As always with these characters who want to disprove uncomfortable facts or assertions, it’s so easy from them just to discount and question these instead of finding out where Malone and McCullough are getting their information and coming to their conclusions.
I’m veering towards believing the so called conspiracy theorists (although it’s theories with a lot of hard facts and evidence) simply because the “opposition” and establishment are just not interested in presenting detailed counter arguments and facts. The suppression and cancelling which they mainly focus on just has the opposite effect for me.

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
Reply to  stephen archer

It is not our job to find out ‘where Malone and McCullough are getting their information and coming to their conclusions’. It is their job to tell us, clearly, so we can evaluate their data and their conclusions. If Malone has the evidence, he needs to publish the evidence and defend his conclusions. If he does not have the evidence, how can he know? You cannot present a counterargument unless the other side first presents their argument and their evidence. And, no, ‘Malone has too much integrity to lie to us’, does not cut it.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

You do realize that McCullough publishes like a rabbit don’t you.

James Stangl
James Stangl
2 years ago

A few qualifiers: I’m an MD in the USA, I’ve had the two-jab Pfizer course (I’m in a “high risk” specialty), and I’m recovering from Omicron. All that said, I welcome Dr. Prasad’s balanced piece on the effects of stifling serious scientific discussion on vaccine efficacy and adverse effects, and how the rank censorship going on can engender a lot of conspiracy theory.

I did a very quick and dirty calculation based on the number of males 14-29 in the USA as of 7/1/2020 (~33.6 million). Assuming an incidence of vaccine-induced myocarditis that Dr. Prasad quoted of 1:3000, that works out to at least 11,200 teen to young adult men who would suffer a non-trivial cardiac complication. And as he points out, the CDC’s numbers may underestimate that risk.

Knowing what I know at present, if you were to ask me, “Will you get your teen an mRNA booster, or get yourself one?” my medical response would be, “Hell no!” I will happily rely on hybrid immunity (initial vax + natural immunity).

Jordan Flower
Jordan Flower
2 years ago

Even while trying to push back against corporate press, the author lets some of their talking points creep into his first paragraph.

the prominent vaccine sceptics

Neither McCullough or Malone are vax skeptics. They’re big pharma skeptics. That’s an incredibly important distinction.

Russell Hamilton
Russell Hamilton
2 years ago

Excellent article.

Peter Lee
Peter Lee
2 years ago

Prasad tries to present an unbiased opinion (I’m a nice guy believe me) but he shows his colours when he talks about therapeutics. Why have people gone to court to get their relatives treated with Intermectin? Not a well researched scientific paper!

Last edited 2 years ago by Peter Lee
Tom Jennings
Tom Jennings
2 years ago

I believe this gentleman has good intentions but is suffering from expert insularity. If he could put himself in the position of a reasonably intelligent lay person who has concluded they are being lied to, this would be a very different article. Alas, he did not and possibly can not.

Annemarie Ni Dhalaigh
Annemarie Ni Dhalaigh
2 years ago

Great article by Prasad, he is exactly what we want doctors to be like. He’s been a rational, objective yet kind voice since the start of this whole thing. The funny thing about the progressive hysterics is that they assume that Joe Rogan listeners will do exactly what he himself or his guests do, and believe everything that is said without further interrogation. Because they are incapable of independent thought, they assume everyone else is. I love Rogan’s podcast, he’s curious, funny and has some great guests. I listened to what he, Malone and McCullagh had to say but I am vaccinated anyway, though more due to pressure rather than health reasons.

The biggest problem out of all of this is that trust in public health authorities, science and medicine has been completely destroyed. I don’t think it will ever be repaired. This is the result of the death of religion unfortunately, many scientists and doctors have no moral and ethical framework in which to act, so they happily lie, cheat and manipulate

Though if I were younger and male I would have resisted the vaccination. Deeply wrong to essentially force young fit healthy males to be vaccinated given the risks

There is a well known mountain biker in his late 20s who has been destroyed by myocarditis, his livelihood and life destroyed.

Greg Moreison
Greg Moreison
2 years ago

Interesting article. One thing:

“Finally, in the modern world, where the censor is so often a giant technology company, there is tremendous potential for abuse. The same tools used to suppress scientific “misinformation” may someday be used to solidify political power and stifle dissent.”

Someday?! I rather think this has already happened old chap.

Last edited 2 years ago by Greg Moreison
Marek Nowicki
Marek Nowicki
2 years ago

Good attempt to bring civility in the discussion about CoV2. The missing point: in the society where we know in seconds about every financial transaction the critical data about health is unreliable and fragmented. Statistical imputations take us astray into “GIGO land” ….over and over again…Covid vaccine side effects are the case point.

Peter Lee
Peter Lee
2 years ago
Reply to  Marek Nowicki

It is not ‘civility’ we need; It is facts not biases. Many errors etc in this paper, Why is there so much controversy over this pandemic, Why are these negatives not being taken seriously and studied. Why do people have to go to court to get Intermectin prescribed. Why do public health keep changing their minds over masks, protocols, lockdowns and the effects of the virus on various age groups (particularly school children). This is a time for all voices to heard and the situation investigated. The one thing we do know is that the Vaccines were totally inadequately tested and studied before they were released. That means we were human quinea pigs,

Charles Elliston
Charles Elliston
2 years ago
Reply to  Peter Lee

Agreed. If there is an attempt to bring ‘civility’ back into the debate, its only because the true facts are finally emerging and the official ‘reductive’ narrative faltering. Acquiescence will be a necessary part of damage limitation.

John Aronsson
John Aronsson
2 years ago

The truth, Dr.Prasad, is that after more than two years of this crap I don’t believe you. Further, I’ve stopped giving the benefit of doubt to my own physicians.
I hope you’re happy.

Dennis Boylon
Dennis Boylon
2 years ago

The author is wrong. There are no long term RCT studies on Ivermectin and HCQ. These have purposefully been stifled to force people to take vaccines in the West. In the half a$$ed studies they did do they still showed they were more effective than Remdesivir. There is also evidence that 5 treatments of remdesivir leads to kidney damage and failure. Remdesivir is a dangerous drug and is its use was ordered by Fauci in spite of the poor results from the study and the known risks associated with taking it. Something really stinks here and I have to question Prasad’s integrity to not point this out.

Dennis Boylon
Dennis Boylon
2 years ago
Reply to  Dennis Boylon

I also want to point out that India, China, and Japan are all using Ivermectin, HCQ, or Chloroquine (China as Malone pointed out). Are they just stupid or not as gullible as Westerners? https://time.com/5826618/remdesivir-leaked-data-who-website/

Dan Croitoru
Dan Croitoru
2 years ago
Reply to  Dennis Boylon

Japan is not using it. Nurse Campbell lied.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago
Reply to  Dennis Boylon

But Remdesivir costs what
 $3000 or something like that? With that urgent imperative, it had to be waived through for humanitarian reasons.

Alison Wren
Alison Wren
2 years ago

I’m wondering why, if a death within 28 days of a positive Covid diagnosis is a Covid death, when will we be applying the same criterion to death within 28 days of a Covid vaccine?? In my long life I’ve only known one sudden heart attack in a young man until 6 months ago, when I’ve known two men who have died. If we aren’t collecting the statistics, we cant get definitive proof.

Richard Lyon
Richard Lyon
2 years ago
Reply to  Alison Wren

Because this statistical treatment is what gives even saline water the appearance of efficacy against infection: everyone who is infected after treatment is recorded as not having been treated, simultaneously reducing the number of apparently treated infections and increasing the number of untreated infections *even with salt water*.
This is doubly important with this vaccine scam because treatment increases the risk of infection after dosage, making it even more important to conceal post-treatment infection.
Normally the regulators prevent that sort of thing. But the heads of the regulation agencies now sit on the board of the companies perpetrating the statistical fraud, or hope to in the near future.

Last edited 2 years ago by Richard Lyon
Brendan O'Leary
Brendan O'Leary
2 years ago
Reply to  Alison Wren

COVID is a notifiable disease (in the UK at least).
Therefore it must be mentioned on a death certificate, along with any “other significant disease” such as cancer.
It is imperfect, but this is how stats are gathered.
Thus the death certificate of my 97yo MiL , who died in hospital of a nosocomial infection a few years ago, stated “cancer” since she had a slow-moving cancer that was not making her ill or requiring further treatment.

Hendrik Mentz
Hendrik Mentz
2 years ago

but the overall risks of vaccination remain low, particularly for a 54-year-old man such as Rogan. Vaccination is almost surely preferable for most un-immune adults.

I’m surprised that the author believes that the overall risk ‘remain(s) low’ of a vaccine based on novel/unprecedented technology that would normally have had a 2% probability of success after trials running >12years, was deemed 95% effective and approved in a matter of months | Source: Seneff, S. and Nigh, G. (2021). ‘Worse than the disease? Reviewing some possible unintended consequences of the mRNA vaccines against Covid-19’. International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research accessible online as a download

Geoffrey Wilson
Geoffrey Wilson
2 years ago

A good article, with some bias as identified persuasively by some commenters – thank you to the author and those commenters. I was sorry to see the (to me) unfair dismissal of the early treatment, low-cost, medicines. I have yet to see, and strongly suspect they do not exist, any proper study of their use as early interventions, since as the author admits the focus of research has been on hospital patients who by definition are not early in their illness. I suspect others like me are simply staggered that the UK proposes a trial of early home treatments only involving expensive Pfizer/Moderna new drugs. Invitation to conspiracy theory, anyone?

Orson Carte
Orson Carte
2 years ago

I’m sure I’m not the one one who, very early in the ‘pandemic’ noticed that the only advice given to Covid (or possible-Covid) sufferers was to go home and call 999 if you couldn’t breathe. What happened to the usual advice of take paracetomol, cold and flu remedies? Let alone, take shedloads of Vit D, Vit C, zinc etc etc to try to fight it off. And let’s not even mention Ivermectin, HCQ, that should have been freely available as early treatment.
It almost felt like they wanted people to retreat to their homes, untreated, and just get more and more ill until finally they could be dragged into ICUs and shoved onto ventilators.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago

I’ve taken Ivermectin through all the waves from beta and rock and rolled my way through. No special social distancing, masks etc after a few months into the first wave. I don’t want it, but want to live an isolated life even less.

Alison Wren
Alison Wren
2 years ago

I’m 75 now, was 73 when I got Covid in October 2020. A week in bed (with vit D Zn etc)a week of being a bit tired. So when vaccine came out, & communications to tell me to get it. I declined, knowingI had natural immunity. Tried to get a natural booster when my daughter had Delts in August 2021. Failed. Got Omicron at Christmas, success!! I will never take this vaccine even if it means I will never see my family in Australia again in this life.

Elaine Giedrys-Leeper
Elaine Giedrys-Leeper
2 years ago

Ivermectin :
ACTIV-6 COVID 19 in the USA – trial number NCT04885530 still recruiting, apparently.
Another trial in the Phillipines.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
2 years ago

Do you know what the trial consists of. Is it just Ivermectin or all the rest of the stuff (doxycycline/azithromycin, butenoside, vit D, vit C, zinc, quercetin, fluvoxamine). Because that’s the key. Single drug treatment doesn’t work. Also, at what stage are the patients going to be administered ivermectin. In the Oxford trial, for example, I believe it’s up to 14 days post start of symptoms – so doomed to fail because the treatment regimen will only work when given within a couple of days of the start of symptoms, and the sooner the better.
The problem with clinical trials is that once a protocol is set, it’s set in stone and can’t be changed according to the patients’ needs and circumstances (i.e.symptoms and condition). That too is very problematic in the context of COVID. Further, what makes things even more difficult at the current point in time is that the dominant strain, Omicron, is very mild and generally only produces a bad (or not so bad) cold. So really hard to determine whether anything you give prevents hospitalization and death when deaths are so few in number.

Last edited 2 years ago by Johann Strauss
Ian Herriott
Ian Herriott
2 years ago

Ivermectin clearly works. I’m really not sure why the mountain of available evidence on its efficacy is not recognised by this author. There’s a strange push back on this subject by recognised podcast Dr’s.
Always referring to lack of large rcts which is ridiculous as they will never come to fruition(only big pharma can afford these and this naturally conflicts with their interests)

This is the fairest analysis carried out by any researcher I’ve have come across.
Alexandros Marinos

https://doyourownresearch.substack.com/p/a-conflict-of-blurred-visions

jim peden
jim peden
2 years ago
Reply to  Ian Herriott

Meta analyses of IVM and other potential treatments are available at https://ivmmeta.com/ (I have no connection with it). The analyses take into account the (highly variable) notional quality of each report and you can easily drill down to form your own conclusions.

Alka Hughes-Hallett
Alka Hughes-Hallett
2 years ago

This is a “bug” we are discussing. A respiratory bug albeit a very infectious one.
If living in a herd is the only way our society lives, we have to accept some bugs ( even man made one’s) will spread rapidly and kill some of us. However many many more will survive. Herd immunity is the only natural science based scenario we can possibly hope is our salvation. The rest of the therapies are all temporary and passing time till we gain that immunity. The biological design that has taken millions of years and the immunity that has been acquired over tens of thousands of years, cannot be replicated by a yr old vaccine without violating some human genetic code somewhere.
Humans are very clever but hubris and ego is a major flaw that prevents us from logically working out what the real risks are.
Vinay, your explanation is very logical and helpful but as a doctor you cannot deny we have lost control of our senses during this period.
Now I am 56 , I run and exercise regularly and am slim and fit. Tell me, why must I take a vaccine. Why have the governments and some doctors put a mandate for blanket vaccines for the whole world.
Every step that has been taken during this pandemic has been a knee jerk reaction. So if there are some other doctors who are giving a knee jerk reaction of their own, it’s only understandable. No one is taking them on face value just as the main stream are not been taken on face value.
Of course over time we will realise what we should or shouldn’t have done. But it’s been a painful journey.

ROBERT GATES
ROBERT GATES
2 years ago

The criticism of hydroxychloroquine treatment failed to mention that the ineffective studies quoted ( Axfors et al) did not use it very early in the infection or in combination with Zinc and either azithromycin or doxycycline. About 80% of the studies were in patients hospitalised and presumably not at an early stage. Why was an acceptable high quality study of both the triple therapy mentioned or ivermectin not started long ago when there was evidence in vitro that there was a good biological evidence for an effective mechanism of action.

Antony Hirst
Antony Hirst
2 years ago

A very welcome article that is not a fact-check, just a balancing perspective. Malone et al are throwing some speculative stuff out there, but I think they need to, to get people to think. But it is potentially damaging, encouraging people who would benefit from the vaccine to become ‘anti-vaxx’.
The critical problem with the proposal to not silence the Covid19 vaccine dissenters is that with a properly reasoned and education debate, there would never have been any vaccine mandates.
One thing is absolutely clear to me, that these pharma companies had their mRNA products ready to rock but no illnesses to roll with. When Covid came along the lobbyists went into overdrive. I am certain there is deep and malignant corruption behind all this.
That does not mean the product is not the most effective virus vaccine yet, nor does it mean there was ever any intentional harm, but commerce has trumped welfare.

Richard Lyon
Richard Lyon
2 years ago
Reply to  Antony Hirst

Interestingly, not only did they appear to have mRNA products ready to rock, they appear to have had the SAR-CoV-2 virus variant ready also. US Patent US7220852B filed in 2004 by CDC, and US Patent 9193780 issued in 2015 to Ablynx appear to identify all of the features described subsequently in 2019 to be “novel” and “unique” to SAR-CoV-2 i.e the polybasic cleavage site, the novel spike protein, and the ACE-2 receptor binding domain.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago
Reply to  Richard Lyon

I’ve seen this recently
 it is chilling.

Charles Elliston
Charles Elliston
2 years ago
Reply to  Antony Hirst

Yes, I read a comment which went something like “You’ll never understand the pandemic until you realise that the vaccine was not made for Covid, Covid was made for the vaccine”.

Edward De Beukelaer
Edward De Beukelaer
2 years ago

Interesting article, especially good that it asks for open and free debate which is the essence of science. (science is a process and is very different from opinions)
The one worry though is that he seems to comes from a pov that ‘unless damage is proven it does no exists’ : this way of working has caused quite some damage in medicine over the years.
I suspect he may also seem to like RCT’s type of research to prove things. There are lots of problems with the way medical research tries to prove things:
https://www.raadrvs.nl/documenten/publications/2017/6/19/no-evidence-without-context.-about-the-illusion-of-evidence%E2%80%90based-practice-in-healthcare
Unless we get an overhaul in the way medicine approaches patients by being less interested in how to treat illness to concentrate how to how to make people (and animals and soils and farming) healthy and resilient, not much will change and we still will continue to see the industry of illness causing the damage it does.
It is interesting to see that most medical practitioners would agree with this: that is what they would prefer but because of the system of medicine it does not happen.. There is likely more progress in veterinary medicine on this than in human medicine …. makes one wonder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq2W1obcwwQ

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
2 years ago

Your point about the RCT is well taken. There is no question that a double-blind RCT is the gold standard. However, the RCT is like a juggernaut: once the conditions of the RCT are set, they are set in stone and cannot be changed. i.e. if the RCT prescribes dose x with no other medications, you can’t change mid-trial to dose y with the addition of other drugs/vitamins/etc…. Hence, the RCTs for HCQ and ivermectin were effectively designed to fail, and that’s especially so since they are really only effective when taken within less than a day or two of the onset of symptoms. Under these conditions, one really has to rely on actual practitioners in the community who can alter and tweak their protocols based on their results, and they can also do this mid-course with individual patients. i.e. they can decide when to give invermectin/vit D/Zinc/doxycycline, when to initiate monoclonal Ab therapy, and when to supplement with butenoside inhaler or a prednisone course, or need to resort to iv dexamethasone and various other immunomodulators. In other words there is a significant amount of “art” involved, hence the term “the art of medicine”. If there were no art one could rely entirely on well programmed robots to replace doctors.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago

We’re there large RCT done with Remdesivir for Covid?

mike otter
mike otter
2 years ago

In agreement with most comments below: Consider how little we hear from the 1000s who have vaccines from MMR to Tetanus, Hep A&B and “Seasonal Flu” each year compared to the covid “vaccines”. One business neighbour of ours has 50 staff, 40 of whom had at least one female family member who experienced menstrual or hormonal change, some serious. It is the talk of most NHS cafes round here (staff canteens went out Major then Blair)

Alan Thorpe
Alan Thorpe
2 years ago

There should not be any need for a debate on the side effects. The purpose of trials is to determine the side effects of vaccines as well as the benefits. All the vaccine manufacturers failed to carry out appropriate tests and the governments should not have given them emergency approval.
The debate we need is why governments authorised this. They must be held to account as well as the vaccine manufacturers.

Jesse Porter
Jesse Porter
2 years ago

I was truly excited to read a professional in the field, hoping against hope that rational discussion was finally occurring in this debacle. What I found, instead, was a blind following the blind. Prasad showed, barely, a willingness to acknowledge certain weaknesses in the official façade, but quickly and more forcibly ducked behind the expert wall that protects the establishment.
I’m not sure what happened about fifty years ago, but something, that make take centuries to surface, solidified the protective wall that protects experts from the common folk, who in turn became vermin. The one percent became more certain than ever that they were of a different species then those of the 2-99%. Perhaps they thought that after millions of years they had made an evolutionary leap. After all, if you swallow the hyper-addictive pill of evolutionary theory and its close cousin, progressivism, such a feat just might be plausible.
A non-progressive reading of history reveals that the natural tendency of all things is to decline and death. But the truth is not comforting, the very opposite of evolution and progress. If there has been progress, it has been in the methodology of killing each other. From hitting each other over the head with sticks and stones to enhanced viruses to turn loose on millions of people at a time. Progress? The real bat cave is elsewhere.

Malcolm Ripley
Malcolm Ripley
2 years ago

I see the author is suffering from a large dose of denial. I particularily like the comment “To date, I have seen no evidence to support any of these claims, and I believe it is a mistake to raise them”. Oky Doky so because YOU have not seen any evidence it should not be raised….righty ho…… enough said I think. Not very scientific that approach is it!
I was willing to give the author an opportunity to debate (with himself) the questions he raised but that comment of denial nailed it for me. IMHO this is what they call “controlled opposition”. When you examine what he agrees with its what has already been uncovered as “not conspiratorial”. Let’s re-examine in another 3 months shall we……..the proverbial has only just started to hit the fan.

Michael Coleman
Michael Coleman
2 years ago

Excellent article by Dr. Prasad but he is too tentative regarding Ivermectin when he says “ ivermectin has not shown persuasive evidence of benefit in randomised trials to date.”
I just finished writing an article on my Pure Science Substack and there is convincing RCT data of Ivermectin efficacy (especially as prophylaxis)
https://purescience.substack.com/p/how-many-covid-deaths-would-ivermectin

Michael Coleman
Michael Coleman
2 years ago

Excellent article by Dr. Prasad but he is too tentative regarding Ivermectin when he says “ ivermectin has not shown persuasive evidence of benefit in randomised trials to date.”
I just finished writing an article on my Pure Science Substack and there is convincing RCT data of Ivermectin efficacy (especially as prophylaxis)
https://purescience.substack.com/p/how-many-covid-deaths-would-ivermectin

Jeffrey Chongsathien
Jeffrey Chongsathien
2 years ago

This is a deeply flawed article, especially about dismissing the financial incentives of hospitalisation to prevent the hospitals going bankrupt. Follow the money.

Jeffrey Chongsathien
Jeffrey Chongsathien
2 years ago

This is a deeply flawed article, especially about dismissing the financial incentives of hospitalisation to prevent the hospitals going bankrupt. Follow the money.

chris sullivan
chris sullivan
2 years ago

Thankyou muchly for investigating and clarifying these issues for us !

Vladimir Gorelov
Vladimir Gorelov
2 years ago

A very excellent article.

Shawn Smith
Shawn Smith
2 years ago

Thank you, Dr. Prasad.

sjkhayes
sjkhayes
2 years ago

Thank you for a balanced article.

Mangle Tangle
Mangle Tangle
2 years ago

Thanks to the author. Excellent article.

stephaniehauselmann
stephaniehauselmann
2 years ago

Thank you very much for this superb article.

Stacey Martin
Stacey Martin
2 years ago

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veterinary care center
veterinary care center
2 years ago

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veterinary care center
veterinary care center
2 years ago

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Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago

So what are you proposing? Never try to suppress or counter any opinion, let anybody say anything unopposed, however blatantly irresponsible, unsupported, false, and insulting it might be, keep publishing, and wait for truth to triumph in the end? This might well be the best for science, and in cases like climate science there is at least a case for staying out of the mud fight. The trouble is that the end may well be several decades away. Several decades of people being frightened away from life-saving vaccinations by irresponsible propagandists add up to quite lot of deaths. Do you think this is OK? Or do you have an opinion on what one might do to avoid it?

Last edited 2 years ago by Rasmus Fogh
Michael K
Michael K
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

Calling a vaccine life-saving, while ignoring the fact that it can be very much life-taking for other people, is in itself irresponsible. The intention of saving lives is fine, yet if it is practiced by taking away people’s choice, any credibility quickly wanes. Adding the lies and obfuscations that were put in place about this “life-saving” vaccine, i.e. that it’s 100% safe and effective after only two doses, no wait, three doses, err I mean, four doses, certainly hasn’t helped the “life-savers” of the world.
And this is literally the problem. If the vaccine were completely safe, it would have been much harder to attack and discredit it. Sure, some side effects may or may not have come up a few years in, but at least nobody could have known. In the current scenario, however, known side-effects were denied and anybody mentioning them was censored. Don’t you think that’s the problem, rather than some people spouting baseless nonsense? And even if those people were the only issue, wouldn’t it be the responsibility of those who chose to listen to them, if they die as a result? In a democracy, you can’t mother everybody else just because you believe you know what’s best for them. You have to listen to them, take their questions seriously, and try to answer them in a transparent way, and then still respect if they choose not to listen to you.

Last edited 2 years ago by Michael K
Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
Reply to  Michael K

I believe in statistics. And I believe that COVID vaccinations are saving large numbers of lives, and refuseniks are by and large putting themselves at increased risk. Agree or disagree?

Michael K
Michael K
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

I do believe the COVID vaccinations have saved a number of lives in the past. And I do believe that people in the risk group have put themselves at increased risk by not getting vaccinated shortly before the cold season.
The underlined parts are important because I believe in statistics, too. Therefore I must seriously consider the fact that statistically, COVID vaccines have three to four times as many common side effects as other vaccines, which is weird. I must also consider the fact that after a few months, the vaccines lose a large part of their effectiveness, which is also weird. Finally, I must admit that I have no knowledge about whether the vaccines provide any protection from Omicron, and if so, how large the actual threat from Omicron is for an individual in a risk group.

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
Reply to  Michael K

I would say ‘unfortunate’ rather than ‘weird’. And current evidence seems to be that vaccination *does* protect against omicron, both getting it, spreading it, and surviving it, even if not as well as one would have liked. But we seem to be living on the same planet.

Michael K
Michael K
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

Doesn’t matter whether you call it unfortunate or weird, it’s a strong argument against these pharmaceuticals. In medicine, there is something called a risk-benefit ratio. If a pharmaceutical has more downsides than advantages, or if the case is unclear, patients are usually discouraged from taking it, unless they want to try.
The risk-benefit ratio is the only value that tells any believer in statistics whether they should take a medication, or refrain from it. Indeed, all other considerations are technically worthless: the rational human being must always choose the smallest risk and the largest benefit.
Overall, the benefits of these pharmaceuticals are overexaggerated, and have been corrected downwards multiple times. A vaccine that’s 95% effective only if it is taken every few months is simply not a good vaccine. Statistically, this tips the scales towards the risk side, as more injections mean more side effects. Looking at the side effects of the COVID vaccines, and comparing them with other vaccines, the rates themselves are unusually high. This, once more, tips the scales towards the risk side. A reduced effectivity against Omicron does the very same thing.
Unfortunately, we do not have accurate statistical estimates of side effects and true effectivity, as this discussion has been discouraged in the past. Therefore, anybody who believes in statistics should be very wary of these pharmaceuticals, because reliable statistics are only now starting to assemble, having been suppressed now for at least a year.

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
Reply to  Michael K

I am not particularly interested in comparing COVID vaccine risks to the risks of vaccines against other diseases. The point that matters is how the risks of COVID vaccinations compare to the risks of getting COVID unvaccinated. And, of course, to the risk of transmitting COVID to someone else, who would get hurt from that. Anything else is a might-have-been.
Also, I have to say, anyone who claims that estimates of vaccine side effects and efficiency has been ‘suppressed’ and ‘discouraged’, so that only now are we getting to the truth – or anyone who insists on calling COVID vaccines ‘pharmaceuticals’ – has a very low inherent credibility in my eyes.
But never mind. Give me a link to a solid study that actually *shows* what the side effects and efficiency of the vaccines are, and compares them with the effect of getting COVID, something that gives proper references to its sources and enough details that its conclusions can be criticised. If that shows that particular groups are better off unvaccinated, I shall pay attention.

Last edited 2 years ago by Rasmus Fogh
Michael K
Michael K
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

The comparison between the risk of getting COVID unvaccinated and vaccinated would indeed be interesting, but the data are obfuscated by hospitals trying to get additional funding by declaring as many COVID deaths as possible. That such financing programs have existed and exist in most, if not all countries, has been well-documented for at least a year.
If you are trying to claim in any way that information about side effects has not been strategically suppressed, you must live on the moon. Some very early data out of Israel has clearly shown an increase in myocarditis especially in young people, none of which has been discussed in any kind of public forum. Much rather, it was claimed that “the benefits still outweigh the risks” which is, a) a completely subjective, non-fact-based statement, and b) obviously vastly impacted by an individual’s age and risk profile. What followed was, as you probably know, the push for vaccination of children, who were clearly shown to be excessively negatively impacted by the myocarditis risk, which was however rarely or not discussed. People have been banned from public forums and websites and have been branded as spreaders of fake news for bringing up these scientically validated facts. Furthermore, autopsies have been blocked for political reasons on numerous occasions. I don’t know how else to call that if not suppression. In case you were only to consume mass media, with the occasional dash of Unherd, most of this will be news to you.
If a vaccine isn’t a pharmaceutical, then what is it? A new breed of duck?
A study such as you seem to require does not exist, for the reasons I mentioned above. It will yet take months, if not years until we know the real rate of death from COVID, not with COVID, and until we know the real rate of myocarditis cases with deadly results. In fact, since such a study does not exist, your point of the vaccines bringing more benefit than harm is just as baseless as mine about it likely being the opposite, at the very least in individuals outside of risk groups.

Last edited 2 years ago by Michael K
Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
Reply to  Michael K

That leaves us in a bit of a pickle. Nobody has the foggiest idea whether the vaccines work, or do harm, or do good, there is no way to find out, and anyway all the best qualified and authoritative sources are disqualified because they are associated in some way with hospitals or drug companies, which are all dishonest. In short, there is no evidence for anything, and it is all a matter of pure faith. In which case I can only say that I trust my faith more than yours, and nothing you can say would move me.

Is that really where we want to end? Or might there be some way of bringing some kind of evidence into this after all?

Last edited 2 years ago by Rasmus Fogh
Dave Stenhouse
Dave Stenhouse
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

Pfizer’s combined Phase2/3 trial data showed that the placebo group were over 99% protected from Covid. (Only 162 of 21728 participants in the placebo arm of the double-blinded RCT had a lab-confirmed Covid-19 diagnosis). https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577.
I’m deliberately providing a provocative but factual statement regarding the primary source for FDA Emergency Use Authorization of the Pfizer vaccine. The Relative Risk Ratio of 95% efficacy popularized by the media and public health appears to be a consistently used statistic showing a bias inherent in the messaging from its inception.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
2 years ago
Reply to  Michael K

Absolutely spot on, but unfortunately Rasmus is just blind to reality as he’s been for many months. Very unfortunate that a supposedly smart person is so blind to the evidence directly in front of their eyes, if only they chose to look at it.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

Rasmus, get a grip on reality. Your statement is completely incorrect. Right now there is NO evidence that the current vaccines do anything against Omicron. They do not reduce the rate of infection, transmission, viral load or disease severity (which fortunately is mild in the case of Omicron). Perhaps just listen to Freddie’s recent interview with the Israeli vaccine chief who I suspect has a good idea of what’s going on, especially since Israel was gung-ho on boosters and double boosters. And as you may know they have also recently shown that the 4th booster is completely useless.

Rosalind Schogger
Rosalind Schogger
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

You need to read ALL the scientific research, and listen to doctors, scientists and nutritionalists from around the world, not cherry-pick those which confirm your agenda. I personally know two ‘healthy’ individuals, who died within weeks of the inoculation, one from paralysis and one from her bone marrow being attacked by the Spike Protein in the substance she was inoculated with. A friend collapsed at home, shortly after her second inoculation, was concussed and ended up in hospital. My friend’s daughter got palsy down her face.

I am one individual, who knows these four people. Multiply it by individuals in the world and what large numbers you will come up with.

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago

If that had happened to me, I might think like you did. The fact that it has happened to someone else is another matter – this is where you need statistics. But as for cherry-picking, I filter, unashamedly, to select people who provide checkable evidence, publications and references, who address criticism, and who avoid conspiracies and apocalyptic terms. So far they seem to concentrate very much on one side of the debate.

Michael K
Michael K
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

Frankly, I have read numerous studies on the topic, and most contain ridiculous inaccuracies and misrepresentations of data. The two Pfizer studies (initial and 6-month follow-up) alone are a joke.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

There are “lies, damned lies and statistics”. Since you like to rely on statistics, just what is the probability that previously young healthy individuals either die or are hospitalized post-vaccination from any regular vaccine in current use. I’ll tell you: the answer is as close to ZERO as one can get. Let me put it this way, if you were a GP, the chances that you would ever see a case of Guillain-Barre or Bell’s palsy in your entire general practice career is close to zero; of course if you happen to work at Queen’s square you will see a ton of Guillain-Barre and Bell’s palsy cases. In other words, the frequency of severe adverse reactions involving very rare conditions is way way too high to blow off, even if you would like to.

Last edited 2 years ago by Johann Strauss
Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

Properly sourced numbers, please.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

OK. What you’re basically saying is that I’m just inventing these numbers in terms of their natural occurrence. All I can say is that perhaps you should register to attend med school to find out!
For example, discounting strokes and Alzheimer’s, the commonest neurological condition is multiple sclerosis. The probability of anybody knowing more than one person in their entire life with multiple sclerosis is very low. The probability of a general practitioners having several multiple sclerosis patients is also rare. But go to a neurology ward, and you will see multiple sclerosis patients a dime a dozen, and there is invariably one case of multiple sclerosis in British Med School finals.
Now, if all of a sudden a GP were to see a rash of multiple sclerosis cases, all following some vaccination or the administration of some drug, his/her ears should p***k up very sharply because that would be so unusual that there is no way it could happen purely by chance. That’s the type of thing that’s going on with all the various rare but very nasty adverse reactions that have been observed at much much higher frequencies than one would ever expect with the current crop of mRNA/DNA vaccines. That’s the problem and that’s why it’s something of real concern.

Now you may not have experienced anything significant post-vaccination. I can tell you that I also didn’t – I just had a mildly sore upper arm (in the deltoid region) that developed about 6 hours after getting the shot and only last for about 6 hours. But I know of many colleagues and postdoctoral fellows who work for me who experienced far more severe reactions. Admittedly nothing that put them in the hospital but certainly more than severe enough to think twice about getting any further shots. The fact is that when many mild (i.e. not life threatening and not requiring hospitalization) but significant adverse reactions are seen in probably 50% of those being vaccinated, you can bet your bottom dollar that there are going to be a very significant number of really serious adverse reactions.

Last edited 2 years ago by Johann Strauss
Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

We are going around in circles here. We have this unique situation where hundreds of millions of adults of all ages are being vaccinated in the middle of a pandemic. That gives these reporting numbers (no, I do not think you have made them up), and you find them worrying. So far I am with you.
Before we can decide what to do, we need two more sets of numbers. If we had given all those hundreds of millions of people a distilled water injection – placebo – how many adverse effect reports would we have got? And if we had left them alone and waited till they got a positive COVID test, how many adverse effeects would we have got? And you are not even trying to evaluate those numbers. You seem to be claiming that having been to med school, you are able to pick those numbers out of thin air. All I can say is that I am not convinced on this point.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

You are tilting at wind mills here in a really intellectually lazy way of defending your position. The incidence of the various conditions is well known and can be found in any medical text book. Hence the well-known expression taught in med school: “don’t look for zebras when there are horses” or something equivalent. The incidence of myocarditis in the young is well known. Deaths among soccer players collapsing on the field is well known and very very rare – any event makes big news and yet now we are hearing of soccer players collapsing on the field with cardiac events almost every week. Things like Guillain-Barre and Bell’s palsy, while well known are also very rare. Now I realize you may not know what’s rare and what isn’t. But if you don’t know and you don’t know what is common knowledge in any medical text book, perhaps “discretion is the better part of valour” rather than persisting in displaying blatant ignorance.

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

You said it yourself – the incidence of MS (or anything else) depends whether you are looking in a small frindship group, in a medical practice, or in a neurological ward. Here we are looking at a reporting system, confronted for the first time with several hundred million adult first-time vaccinations. What incidence should we expect? Next, if you look at health events across the entire world, there will be a few rare events somewhere just by coincidence. If you then select those rare events and say ‘see, this proves X’, you are making a mistake. As you know, test enough noisy experiments at 5% confidence level and you will find a number that show up significant. About 5% of them, in fact.

Now we have two hypotheses: Either the situation is so blatantly obvious that there is no need for careful statistics or data analysis. There is no need to provide the kind of careful analysis I am asking for because the answer is obvious without it, and any honest person would see it straight away. Anyone with access to an adverse reporting system and an old medical degree can see that the vaccinations are obviously causing much more damage than they save. It must follow that every health ministry, every hospital, every international health organisation can see this obvious truth, and are deliberately and maliciously damaging most of the world’s population.

Alternatively the situation is *not* obvious, there is a room for disagreement and mistakes, on both sides. We no longer have to assume that everybody who disagrees with you is insane or murderous. In that case it would be helpful if you could provide some better evidence, to convince people who are not convinced – and to let them check your arguments for holes. After all, you are not immune from mistakes – are you? And if you are really so sure that you are right it should be very easy for you to do so.

I know which hypothesis I think is more likely. If you want to convince me, I have told you what kind of evidence is likely to do so. If you choose not to provide it that is your right, but I shall draw my conclusions.

PS. I’ll come back to you on that myocarditis link once i have had time to read it properly.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

What are you talking about? The VAERS and Yellow book reporting system has been in place for many years. It is used a lot although way underreported as studies have shown. Those databases are absolutely essentially post-FDA (and the British equivalent) approval to detect signals of adverse reactions not observed in the clinical trials. It is only through these databases that the very significant cardiac events precipitated by Vioxx were noticed, and of course Merck tooth tooth and nail to claim that these were rubbish. But they weren’t rubbish at all. The fact that you may not have been aware of these reporting systems prior to the COVID vaccination program is neither here nor there. As they say “ignorance of the law is not an excuse for breaking the law”. Same goes here.
Now most people are not even aware of the AVERS database in the US and how to even report an adverse reaction. Not to mention that it’s a huge hassle to navigate the VAERS web site (just like all other US Government web sites which are simply appalling). So the huge number of adverse reactions being reported is not because so many people are now being vaccinated, and only very few people were vaccinated with any vaccine prior. because the latter is total nonsense given that virtually all children have to have their set of childhood vaccines to even be able to attend public school and you have to have a really good reason to get an exemption. Now that’s a lot of vaccines given that there are an awful lot of children and you have measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, diptheria, tetanus to name but a few. So the total number of childhood vaccines being given every year is massive.

Last edited 2 years ago by Johann Strauss
Dan Croitoru
Dan Croitoru
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

No, you just need to compare excess mortality from all causes with non Covid years then observe how it correlates with vaccine rollout – if the correlation is statistically significant, one needs to find an explanation!

Laura Creighton
Laura Creighton
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

According to the CDC, during the 2019-2020 flu season, 51.8% of Americans aged six months and older got a flu vaccine. VAERS reports did not go through the roof.

Last edited 2 years ago by Laura Creighton
Marcus Mattsson
Marcus Mattsson
2 years ago

Ironic giving advice not to cherry-pick data and then immediately cherry-picking your own, anecdotal experiences and giving those significance that’s not warranted.

Mary Bruels
Mary Bruels
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

But what if those statistics are wrong or manipulated to reflect the statistician’s personal bias? Do you believe ALL statistics?

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
Reply to  Mary Bruels

No. I try my poor best to judge if the numbers seem halfway plausible, if the data sources are given and reasonable, if the source looks authoritative, and try to check against criticism and counter-arguments that similarly looks reliable. If it is just an individual biased statistician, there will be others with different biases.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

Rasmus, if you are really interested in learning about the VAERS database and how severe adverse events have gone through the roof since April 21, you should listen to this excellent lecture by Jessica Rose: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPFweiO44xo
There is no hype or exaggeration in this lecture. Straightforward data talk, and I think it will answer all your questions and skepticism.
Also, if you want a really detailed and fair assessment of ivermectin and HCQ, you would do well to read the very detailed opinion (48 pages including 300 references to the scientific/medical literature) by the Nebraska Attorney Journal (https://ago.nebraska.gov/sites/ago.nebraska.gov/files/docs/opinions/21-017_0.pdf) in response to the request for the Nebraska Medical Board to take away the licenses of any physician in Nebraska who might prescribe either of these two medications. The conclusion from the Nebraska Attorney General is that there was no justification to remove licenses and that it was perfectly acceptable to prescribe either of these two medications off-label in the context of COVID, especially in early treatment and prophylaxis, and that there was plenty of good evidence , in the form of RCTs and meta-analysis, to suggest that both were quite effective, and certainly every bit as effective if not a lot more so than Remdesivir which has a vastly worse adverse reaction profile (with a significant number of fatal cardiac and renal sequelae).
And for the latest ivermectin prophylaxis trial involving over a quarter of a million people in Brazil see: https://www.cureus.com/articles/82162-ivermectin-prophylaxis-used-for-covid-19-a-citywide-prospective-observational-study-of-223128-subjects-using-propensity-score-matching Appears prophylaxis with ivermectin reduces hospitalizations and deaths by abut 50%.

Last edited 2 years ago by Johann Strauss
Dan Croitoru
Dan Croitoru
2 years ago
Reply to  Mary Bruels

So what should we believe? Your feelings and biases?

Peter Branagan
Peter Branagan
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

Reply to Rasmus Fogh.
In my day I’ve probably had more vaccine shots than you’ve had holidays.
So I’m no anti-vaxxer.
In fact I’m passionately for proper vaccines that are efficacious and safe.
However these so-called Covid ‘vaccines’ are patently not efficacious (eg Israeli finance minister gets Covid five days after getting his FOURTH shot of ‘vaccine’).
Furthermore, the issue of the long term safety of the ‘vaccines’ has yet to be established. But at least there’s one positive about the epidemiology of establishing the long term safety – the number of participants in this vast medical trial will be over 2,000,000,000 humans. So the results should yield a VERY high confidence level for statisticians!

Having had peculiar chest pains 4 days after my second shot of Pfizer I won’t be participating further in the biggest gamble (medical or non-medical) ever taken in human history.

Last edited 2 years ago by Peter Branagan
Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
2 years ago
Reply to  Peter Branagan

So well said, and my view exactly.

Marcus Mattsson
Marcus Mattsson
2 years ago
Reply to  Peter Branagan

However these so-called Covid ‘vaccines’ are patently not efficacious (eg Israeli finance minister gets Covid five days after getting his FOURTH shot of ‘vaccine’).

Dishonest at best to imply that the vaccines not completely preventing infection means they are not efficacious. We know that they are significantly worse at stopping infection for Omicron, but we also know that they significantly reduce risk of hospitalization and death.

Furthermore, the issue of the long term safety of the ‘vaccines’ has yet to be established.

The long term risks of COVID are not well-known either, but at least for vaccines, historical data tells us that it’s very rare that vaccines have side-effects that do not arise within months.

Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss
2 years ago

Marcus, you are talking out the back of your head or to put it politely your are talking through a veil of ignorance. First, there is actually not that much evidence that the COVID vaccines reduce hospitalization and death, and certainly now in the UK there are an awful lot of vaccinated individuals, including boosted, who are ending up in the hospital with Covid. Second, you can’t equate the COVID vaccines with all other regular vaccines. There is NO historical record for any Corona Virus vaccine; many attempts were made in the past to make such a vaccine but none succeeded because of major side effects for one thing. And don’t think companies didn’t try because there would be a fortune to be made in preventing the common cold (just count how many work days would be saved).

Marcus Mattsson
Marcus Mattsson
2 years ago
Reply to  Johann Strauss

How is that kind of condescending nonsense you putting anything “politely”? If you disagree with my claims, then make your case for it instead of resorting to insults.
There is an immense amount of evidence that vaccines significantly reduce risk of hospitalization and death. The fact that you think that some vaccinated people do end up in the hospital in a country as big as the UK, only shows you don’t understand statistics.
Here are the latest numbers from Denmark on hospitalized per 100,000 people:

  • Unvaccinated: 36.1
  • 1st dose: 45.7
  • Fully vaccinated: 11.5

Source
The numbers look similar for all countries, including the UK.
Even if I grant you – for the sake of argument – that we do not know the long-term side-effects of the vaccines, my original point stands: We do not know the long-term side-effects of COVID-19 either, so the point is moot.
However, the vaccines have now been given out for over a year. It is, at this point, demonstrably true that they are safe and efficient. This whole idea that known side-effects are being suppressed is nonsense. The J&J and AZ vaccines were literally put on pause when a very low risk of blood clotting was found.

Peter Branagan
Peter Branagan
2 years ago

When I talk about the long term effects of Covid ‘vaccines’ I’m talking 20yrs+. It has been shown in study after study that there is a build up of the lipids used to deliver the mRNA in some organs in the body. There is no known way for these lipids to be secreted from the body over time. Specifically high build up of these lipids have been identified in the sexual reproduction organs.

Even if there was a one in 1 to 100,000 risk that these lipids could cause harm to future generations by malformation or otherwise it is not a rational risk to take for humanity.

If you’re mad into vaxxing go ahead with the over 50s to ‘save’ some lives in the over 80s.
But leave the under 40s alone.
As for your point that we don’t know about the longterm risks of Covid infection – well, humanity has been living with variants of the common cold for hundreds of thousands of years.

Last edited 2 years ago by Peter Branagan