This will be a very interesting series to read. In addition to mea culpas, some of which are due, we should also forgive much of the “flip flopping” that occurred in real time as we learned about the durability of vaccine effectiveness for example. Or that was compelled by political pressure and intimidation like defining a public health tool (the mask) as an emblem of tribal identification, and then heaping scorn. It’s always easy to look back and second guess.
I also hope we don’t fail to acknowledge a very committed and hostile anti-vax community that now has one of its major proponents campaigning for the Republican presidential nominee with the hopes he can take the reigns of Health and Human Services. No amount of introspection and analysis about health communication will be sufficient to overcome that rigid and warped mentality and agenda.
Just look at the literal death threats that Dr. Jetelina received. I get a taste of that sometimes when I post stuff, like a recent article I did on why we choose to keep our daughter up to date with Covid vaccines. You get this:
“This piece of sh*t psycho is a f*cking murderer. F*cking moronic.” ~Derek Krane
“This so-called “doctor” is a brainwashed fool, and is part of the genocide agenda. He is complicit in murder." ~David Geezermann (an alias I presume)
“...the example of a mercenary and accomplice to genocide, who deserves to be in lifetime prison. The reason he is still working to murder children proves once again that we are in a depopulation war.” ~Professor Fred Nazar
“Some people should not be allowed children.” ~Tim West
“…has the CDC far up his *sshole. He suggested you murder your child with the Covid vaccine. I agree with you, Ryan. It’s not malpractice. It’s murder.” ~ Tim Holt
Sound familiar? I have a post half written about how to deal with conspiracy theories and theorists, let me know if you want a first look or post here!
And thank you for the bravery of the public health community alongside the healthcare workers like myself during the darkest days of this pandemic. Nothing brought more light, hope, and improvement to this situation than vaccines.
CLEARLY, Mental Illness is an epidemic & the worst plague they helped kill more people with Covid because of delusional thinking... Why isn't it getting called out? There are so many mentally ill who do not fall into the Psychotic Disorders nor Mood Disorders by Personality Disorders who wear the "mask of sanity" REALLY WEL but you hear them speaking out lying & destroying society... There's no other way than to call out the mentally ill in the category of Personality Disordered: Anti-Social PD/Malignant Narcissists/Sociopaths/Psychopaths & those lines overlap with each other. These are the MOST dangerous elements in society not viruses & not the Psychotic Disorders or the Mood Disorders. MASS PSYCHOSIS is more dangerous than Covid (at least we know how to deal with Covid) -- How do you deal with MASS PSYCHOSIS with a "Contagion" -- (be they politicians or fringe talk show "hosts" who are the real provacateurs & saboteurs that are destroying Society? That is the question that needs a solution.) PS: "Delusional Thoughts" are NOT "Theories" -- THEY ARE DELUSIONAL THOUGHTS that do not follow true science theory principles... We have to start calling that crap out too!
CLEARLY, Mental Illness is an epidemic & the worst plague they helped kill more people with Covid... Why isn't it getting called out? There are so many mentally ill who wear the "mask of sanity" REALLY WEL but you hear them speaking out & destroying society... There's no other way than to call out the mentally ill because THEY are the MOST dangerous elements in society not viruses. MASS PSYCHOSIS is more dangerous than Covid (at least we know how to deal with Covid) -- How do you deal with MASS PSYCHOSIS with a "Contagion" -- (be it a politician or fringe talk show "hosts" -- that is the question that needs a solution- PS: "Delusional Thoughts" are NOT "Theories" -- THEY ARE DELUSIONAL THOUGHTS that do not follow true science theory principles... We have to start calling that crap out too.
About masks, not vaccines: I believe that public health officials lost sight of probably the most important reason for me to wear a mask, and properly: to protect others from me. It’s not the nanny state telling me what I should do to protect myself — it’s the community’s interest in reducing transmission from people who are infectious without major symptoms (like before they get sick)….. in December 2021, in London, I saw posters from the NHS that had a drawing of a person wearing a mask, with the words “I wear this to protect you. Please wear yours to protect me.” I rarely saw this message so clearly articulated.
I teach early childhood music using the Kindermusik curriculum. As early as summer 2020, we were singing a song- “my mask protects you; your mask protects me; together we can work on a healthy community.”
1) Public Health leaders brag to (who they assume to be) sex workers about their MDMA sex orgies they held in 2020 and how they wanted to "Make people trying to avoid the shots feel uncomfortable"
2) Because Moderna and Pfizer claimed the side effects were very minor "a sore arm" in a few percent. Nowhere in the studies did it talk about 20%-30% of experimental group feeling the sickest they have in years, unable to get out of bed a day or two. Even YLE openly talks about how terrible she feels from mRNA shots and switched to Novavax. How as this missed in the early studies?
3) Because the CDC director, Anthony Fauci, the President, and Public Health at large promised that if you got the vaccine, you wouldn't get Covid.
4) Because when the evidence became overwhelming that the vaccine didn't prevent infection, rather than admit they were wrong, instead they tried to censor (WH pressured Social Media to censor anyone saying the vaccine didn't stop transmission - Alex Berenson perhaps the most famous example), then tried to reframe them as "rare breakthrough infections", and then fully gaslit everyone saying "the science changed".
5) Because the science never changed. The Pfizer study took 40,000 people, split into 2 groups, and followed them for 2 months. A miniscule number of people were infected in both control and experimental arm (from a massively infectious disease), asymptomatic testing was not performed, and there were zero Covid deaths in both arms. It baffles me to this day how that weak evidence could justify firing from their jobs, bribing them with Weed and Kripy Kreme (this is true), shaming the public, and blocking kids from school.
6) Because they never apologized for any of this abhorrent behavior. They hid under the guise of "the science change" "it was an emergency" "we worked with the evidence at hand"
7) Because to this day they support their behavior by citing garbage evidence.
Which brings me to "One model estimated that Covid-19 vaccines prevented 20 million deaths worldwide in their first year alone."
Kristen,
I've been a paid subscriber here since near the beginning of the newsletter, and always respected YLE's communication, empathy, and willingness to challenge herself. Aside from differing opinion on Covid I suspect we align on politics (Democrat), religion (Atheist), and science (curiosity+sekpticism).
But this is ridiculous for you, an educated person, to look at a study like that, and not be able to tear it to shreds.
It makes an extraordinary claim. It proposes that 20 million people would have died in 2021 alone without the vaccine. The extraordinary claim is backed by the lowest tier of evidence - a mathematical model.
A minimal amount of Skepticism applied refutes this sort of nonsense:
1) Why were there only 3 million excess deaths worldwide in 2020 (a 5% increase over the expected 60 million deaths) when we now know Covid was already circulating somewhere between August and November of 2019? Shouldn't there have been 20 million (+33%) excess deaths in 2020 pre vaccine?*
2) Why did excess deaths increase so much *after* the vaccine was rolled out in so many countries? South Korea is a perfect example - by end of 2021 they had one of the highest vaccination rates in the world (84% - tied with Portugal) - yet would see all cause mortality skyrocket in 2022 - jumping from an expected 300K deaths to 371K. This represents one of the worst mortality events in the entire pandemic, for any country, and Public Health ignored it, which I can only imagine is because it didn't fit the story they believed the vaccine was one of "the most impressive medical feats in history."**
3) Why didn't excess deaths soar in countries which either didn't roll out the vaccines (almost all African nations) or had very little vaccination uptake? Bulgaria has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the world, yet while South Korea morgues overflowed in 2022, Bulgaria regressed back to the mean (118K deaths against expected 109K in 2022, by 2023 below the mean at 100K)?***
These are damning counterfactuals to such an extraordinary claim.
Science is supposed to be dispassionate. You shouldn't care whether something is true is not. But these vaccines crossed from science to politics almost immediately, and as a result we paused rigorous skepticism.
Anyone who bothered to even read this, if you read my rebuttals and immediately felt the urge to defend the study, I propose you are not dispassionate, and here are the counters to expected critiques of those 3 points:
*1 - "We didn't have 20 million excess deaths because of the Swiss Cheese model - vaccines are only one slice - we wore cloth masks, we closed schools, we had lockdowns to save lives which is why only 3 million people died not 20 million"
>Why then did countries which didn't participate in the Swiss Cheese model do the same or better?
Amen to number 2! Those of us who were seriously ill after the vaccines, sicker than we had ever been from an actual illness; those whose autoimmune diseases flared; those whose AFIB came back; those who suffered other effects in the first 12-ish hours have been labeled as anti vaccine or dismissed and told to try a different version.
I know you are also in NEO, Michael. None of our care providers have recommended vaccines this year. Not our pediatrician at Akron Children’s, my PCM (she actually told me last year I should never get another one due to my experience), and not my husband’s PCM. My 75 year-old father also saw his physician, who has also been a family friend for over 40 years and who recommended the 7-8 shots he’s already had, said this year, “I cannot, in good conscience recommend these anymore given the side effects I have seen.”
In journalist Brian Deer's "The Doctor who Fooled the World, a scathing takedown of Andrew Wakefield, he always refers to the disgraced physician as a "doctor without patients".
And that seems to be the only the people still talking about Covid vaccines. Social Media doctors without patients who have a brand image to uphold.
I was stunned to see Andrea Love, formerly of The Unbiased Science Podcast, write an entire substack column a few weeks ago promoting the Covid vaccines for children. In 2024. Inredible.
I wasn’t. It is on brand for her. Vaccines or bust. Even on TWIV, they admit there is no data behind the recommendations. Vincent Racaniello seems upset about the blanket recommendations every time they discuss it.
As an aside, I don’t know what happened with her and Jess Steier. It was a very weird parting of ways.
I don't recall if you ever joined Jess and Andrea's private Facebook Group for paid subscribers, but their parting basically came down to money. They just couldn't gain traction getting paid subscribers to justify the time both invested into the podcast, prolific social media posting, substack newsletters, etc. I think they had something like 200 paid subscribers, which meant they were essentially working this part time gig for pennies per hour.
They alluded to having a difference of opinion on how to make it work, and then suddenly you see they are no longer FB friends (neither are most of their staff like Montana Mullins, various unpaid interns), Jess takes over the USP brand, Andrea starts Immunologic.
It's sad that it appears it cost them their friendship. I hope this assumption is completely wrong, but given I haven't seen any cross collaboration / cross promotion, it appears that's the case.
People with Covid brain damage and cognitive decline don't even recognize it, per a recent study. By the end of 2022, 77.5% of Americans had antibodies from at least one Covid infection. No one is doing anything about the constant infections and reinfections. I just saw a friend wonder how her 10 month old baby got Covid. They don't mask or take any precautions for themselves or their kid and they still can't connect the dots. These aren't dumb people either. The pandemic is ongoing. And no one seems to give a crap except for the ever shrinking numbers of Novid people. I have no choice but to avoid Covid, and as a byproduct, all people as much as possible. I barely leave my house. I always mask. I was just ridiculed at the grocery store for wearing my mask by a teenager. I was the only person masking in the entire store. I'm almost always the only one masking. I have 2 degenerative inflammatory conditions of my own and I take care of my extremely high-risk mom. Her asthma is so bad that she can't mask. And that doesn't even begin to touch her other health issues. And all of them would be made permanently worse by a single Covid infection. We're both vaccinated and boosted. It's not enough. It's never been enough. Biden lied about making Covid a priority regardless of political cost. He declared Covid over when the emergency designation ended and this summer has been the worst for Covid yet. I am tired of people making excuses for the people who decided a long time ago that being inconvenienced by Covid mitigations wasn't something they were going to do. People have proven, en mass, that they don't give a crap about other people and never really did. And now they can't even recognize their own brain damage. 4 million people can no longer work because of LC. Women working with disabilities has increased exponentially. And the anti-science, anti-vaxxers won't stop lying and speading disinformation. They are getting worse every day. They'd rather drink aged pee and horse dewormer than see a doctor or get a vaccine. They are talking about putting RFK Jr on health committees. The man is part of the 12 people responsible for over 60% of health and vaccine disinformation on social media and the internet. This is where we are. This is the reality that terrifies so many of us. It's not sustainable for anyone. The CDC won't even mention masking anymore. They're still recommending hand washing for an airborne virus. And dont even get me started on the horrific way that people are still being treated by healthcare workers who don't mask and call you combative if you ask them to. Hospital acquired infections are on the rise and continue to get worse because HCP are also anti-science in a lot of cases now. The 'Covid Cautious' community are seen as the wackos and the ones who are wrong when we're the only ones left doing what we should have all been doing this entire time. It's infuriating. All I see are people advocating for Covid treatments but not a word from most of those same people about prevention.
I no longer see a future where I will ever be comfortable or safe in public spaces again. Everyone seems fine with that.
For what it’s worth, I’m not fine with it. You have been abandoned. It’s not ok. It’s also frankly short-sighted to abandon you, because the people who only care if an issue directly affects them don’t seem to realize that any person, at any time, can suddenly find themselves in the same boat with you!
I could understand this level of denial from the public. People can be selfish. But I simply do not understand why research seems to have abandoned you, as well.
Is science actually still working to solve the problems that would free you from your isolation? I have no idea.
I really wish YLE would cover the state of affairs around this. How risky is an infection, currently? What are the options for the immune-compromised? What new preventatives are in the research pipeline? What new therapeutics might be coming?
This new series is important, but I subscribe primarily to understand what’s happening -now-. There is less of that than I’d like to see. Is that because there is no new research? I don’t know, because I don’t know where else to look (that I can trust). Frankly I’m getting a little frustrated.
Considering how well COVID vaccines worked in the beginning, there was an exuberant exceptions that arose. This lead to misunderstanding of how vaccines work. However, I would point out that vaccine mandates have reduced childhood deaths and disabilities, won the American Revolutionary War and eliminated Smallpox. Also, SCOTUS did ruled that vaccines can be mandated in 1905.
There's also the issue that the official definition of vaccine was quietly changed, at least once, if not twice, from preventing infection to reducing severity. This reduces credibility.
Trying to mandate both the shots and the masks did a lot of harm, especially with the US being politically divided so severely. Wearing a mask became a symbol of submission to the right and a talisman to the left. A lot of people, especially those on the political right, are outright saying, "Never Again".
Sadly, you are echoing adages that are easily disproved. I understand why. I am a doctor and have vaccinated all my children based on exactly those notions that you state above: that vaccinating everybody will save lives based on historical data.
But it was Covid that prompted me to look into these claims diligently. While vaccinations have demonstrably shown efficacy in preventing the targeted disease, there is no proof that populations who are highly vaccinated are healthier with regard to illnesses in general because they are vaccinated. A large, prospective or even retrospective examination of all health outcomes between the vaccinated and unvaccinated has never been done by the CDC. That alone should be reason to pause.
Instead, smaller studies that are independently funded are brutally attacked and the authors get discredited and lose their professional affiliations. Take for example the original Wakefield study. I would wager that not a single person who uses him as an example of "discredited antivax nutjobs" has actually read his original study which never concluded that the MMR vaccines cause autism. He very appropriately suggested that more studies are warranted before any conclusion should be reached.
But the mere hint that a link might exist was enough to mobilize the entire orthodoxy against him. My point is that when it comes to misleading the public and using dangerous propaganda both sides are guilty.
Interesting you should bring up the "Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children" by Wakefield. This paper was exposed as fraudulent and claimed causative link to colitis and colitis with autism. There were also conflict of interest not mentioned in the paper. Further, he was selling diagnostic kits for a syndrome that doesn't exist. It should be mentioned that he was holding a patent to a rival vaccine. Subsequent studies did not support these claims. The main claim that Thimerosal was not proven but were eliminated as a overly cautious move that did not make any difference. I would like to refer you to this BMJ editorial: https://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452 for more information.
I disagree with you and the BMJ editorial. Wakefield did not make such claims in the paper. In fact he specifically states in the discussion "We did not prove an association between the MMR vaccine and the syndrome described."
You have cited an excellent example of how the medical orthodoxy attacked a very reasonable paper on unfounded grounds for their own intents and purposes. Please quote any sentence from the original paper that "claimed a causative link to colitis and colitis with autism" as you state above. There is none.
"The main claim that Thimerosal was not proven but were eliminated as a overly cautious move that did not make any difference."
Wakefield made no such claim about Thimerosal in his paper. Thimerosal is not even mentioned anywhere.
I would conclude that you never read the original study, only what third parties have been saying about it.
I have too. What qualifies it as a dumpster fire? He told us exactly what he did. He used a small case series of children who developed behavioral abnormalities, some of whom had received the MMR vaccine (8 out of 12) previously and presented the histopathologic anomolies in their small intestine.
He then suggested that further research is necessary to identify any causal link if one exists. He also explicitly stated that he did NOT find an association between the MMR vaccine and the syndrome he was describing.
Ah, I see you are one of those "just asking questions" types. I can do that too.
Did you read the retraction?
To give you the benefit of the doubt, let's say there were no issues with the Wakefield paper. He suggested further research. An incredible amount of further research was done, which clearly demonstrated his hypothesis was unfounded. Why are we discussing this?
And also just to be clear what was written in the paper, please stop misconstruing it:
"We did not prove an association between measles,
mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described.
Virological studies are underway that may help to resolve
this issue.
If there is a causal link between measles, mumps, and
rubella vaccine and this syndrome, a rising incidence
might be anticipated after the introduction of this vaccine
in the UK in 1988. Published evidence is inadequate to
show whether there is a change in incidence22 or a link
with measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine.23"
Wakefield seems to just be asking questions too...
Nope. I am not "just asking questions". I am stating outright that the original article would only draw such criticism in a world where certain questions cannot even be posed.
Given what was presented in the Wakefield paper further research was needed. That is exactly what Wakefield said, just as you quoted. I didn't misconstrue anything.
Your position and tone is exactly why there is an "antivax" movement. By attacking a research paper that suggests more research based on scant findings you must start with the belief that the MMR vaccine could not, under any circumstances, be responsible for the syndrome he was describing.
How do you know this based on the findings in his paper? You don't. Neither does he. Wakefield suggests more research. You call his paper a "dumpster fire". You don't have to be a gastroenterologist, vaccine developer or neurologist to see that if there was a link people who exercise your type of "logic" will never find it.
Wakefield admitted to changing his results to "show significance." that's not what your reported in your message, and it's dangerously wrong. Why not work harder to understand what's going on and not just focus on one small corner of the internet world.
It is so easy for (much of) the general population to sweep this whole thing under the rug. Thank you for giving it the attention it needs, Miscommunication is a killer, especially when public science literacy is so low. I look forward to the next installments in the series!
Echoing others to applaud this series, which is off to a rip-roaring start. I particularly appreciated this framing: “The goal is not to point fingers or assign blame—it was h.a.r.d. to communicate to a polarized nation during a deadly pandemic when yesterday’s data was already outdated. But we need to get a view from outside our bubble and understand how messages were perceived, so we don’t miscommunicate next time.” I look forward eagerly to coming installments.
"The Covid-19 vaccines are undoubtedly among the most impressive medical feats in history. One model estimated that Covid-19 vaccines prevented 20 million deaths worldwide in their first year alone."
If this statement is true, why did the Pfizer Phase III trial show no mortality benefit at all? (in fact, more people in the vaccine cohort died, although not statistically significant) "Models" can tell you what you want them to tell you based on the assumptions/inputs. If those are flawed, the model is garbage.
Hi Paul. I appreciate your comments here. I think you will find this very interesting. As you probably know there is a ton of evidence of fraud and data manipulation in the original Pfizer trial. Here's a deeper dive:
IIRC there was 1 death in Experimental Arm, 2 deaths in Control Arm, none of them related to Covid though. I could be mixing up with Moderna? It's been a bit since I read them, or my Mandela Effect kicking in?
Three deaths you refer to in the Pfizer trial were in fact attributed to Covid-19, allowing the investigators to claim a 50% efficacy in preventing Covid death. Of course over 20 thousand people had to vaccinate to prevent a single death. That might be acceptable if there was zero risk. This is why any effort to quantify risk is immediately discredited.
On the other hand, as Paul states, there was no all cause mortality benefit. While a few more people in the treatment arm died, that arm of the study contributed more person-years, so the mortality rate in both wings are comparable. In other words, no benefit with regard to mortality, supporting the idea that 20 million lives saved is questionable.
If one were to dig into the weeds we would be able to see much more. The total number of deaths in the 40 thousand were only about 38, far less than what we would have expected using mortality rates based on the age of participants. There should have been more like 250 deaths in the six month observation period, even without a raging pandemic in progress.
What happened? Obviously some of the people lost to follow up probably died. Shockingly, 1 in 25 people in the study were lost to follow up. WIth so few outcomes in the evaluable population, making any claims about efficacy is not just imprudent but illogical.
Furthermore, the 95% efficacy against infection claim came from just 170 outcomes across the two arms, 162 in the control and only 8 in the treatment. What Pfizer did not report in their published study in the NEJM was that there about 3,400 people in the study that expressed Covid symptoms but were never tested. They never explained why they weren't and the FDA never asked. Obviously the true vaccine efficacy might have been very, very different if all of them were tested. It's no surprise that people started contracting Covid after a primary series. The proof that the jabs were efficacious were based on faulty data and assumptions.
In my investigation into how the CDC calculated vaccine effectiveness, i.e. how good the vaccine was doing in the public after authorization, I have found that they are being deceptive. They do not include outcomes in people who have recently completed the primary series while still including them in the pool of "fully vaccinated". This will mathematically create artificial effectiveness.
I wrote to them repeatedly asking them to clarify this. I finally heard back from them asking me to refer to a page on their own website where their own methodology was made public. I looked again, and they took it down. Luckily I had screen shotted the relevant blurbs.
In the end, I was able to do some rough calculations that told a much different story about these shots. By using the CDC's methodology they would be able to "show" that a placebo would have an effectiveness profile that matched what they were reporting about the Covid shots for the first 8 months. Based on the population uptake the artificial effectiveness would have approached zero. Coincidentally, that is exactly when we were told that boosters would be necessary.
Then, once again, the CDC used the same flawed methodology to calculate the effectiveness of the booster, allowing to claim utility when none exists. I explain my approach below. I think you would find it eye opening:
Thanks for the added information - I read IIRC Matthew Crawfords walkthrough of Fenton/Neil's work you referred to in your substack post, going through yours now as it's been a while.
"What Pfizer did not report in their published study in the NEJM was that there about 3,400 people in the study that expressed Covid symptoms but were never tested. "
Peter Doshi, PhD, a BMJ editor first broke the story on the BMJ in January 2021, just weeks after Pollack et al published summary findings from the Pfizer mRNA trial in the NEJM. He gives a clear and concise analysis here:
Pfizer mentions these 3,410 participants who were "suspected" of having Covid-19 in a letter to the FDA's VRBPAC in support of their application for EUA. There is no mention of these folks in the NEJM article which effectively launched a world-wide vaccination campaign.
During the blinded, controlled period, 15 vaccine arm patients died and 14 placebo. During the open-label period, 3 vaccine and 2 original placebo patients who received the vaccine after unblinding died.
We have to deal in reality if we're ever going to move forward with any level of trust. There's no good evidence that the covid vaccines reduced transmission in any meaningful way or prevented any deaths. On the other end of this, we don't have solid evidence that they caused excess deaths either. There have been no good, long-term clinical trials done on any of these shots.
Also, masks have never stopped or reduced the spread of respiratory viruses anywhere in the world. They may work in theory or in somebody's lab, but in the real world they don't. All systematic reviews of masks that existed in March 2020 said the same thing - there is no evidence that they work.
People latched on to a narrative in the spring of 2020 (masks) and early in 2021 (vaccines) and that was that. This has never been about science or evidence.
We know the whole anti vaccine ideology started long before COVID. I can only relate to what my son, who is a pediatric nurse, has seen. When we wonder and are scratching our heads as to why pertussis is currently going around our county like a forest fire, perhaps we should wonder why the parents are currently not vaccinating. He has whole families that come in and refuse to vaccinate against anything. He uses me as an example of someone who got pertussis 4 years into a TDaP vaccine. It was bad but could have been a lot worse. He sent two babies and a toddler down to Denver Children's Hospital last week. By the way, I got another one on Sunday at 3 years. And I never want that again. I only wonder when measles will return. Polio as well. And they all say it is because they have heard or read as Dr. Google that these vaccines cause autism. And this is thanks to the celebrities and politicians who promote this false science. So this crazy is still out there. And then came a new disease and pandemic. I worry if Trump becomes president and how he has said he won't require vaccines for school children. And then the nutjob Kennedy has bent his ear and who is currently saying he will clean up the public health agencies. I guess that means no vaccines. And God help us when something new comes along that we might need a new vaccine for.
First off, how many hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens have been imported into the US from areas where these diseases are still rampant and vaccination is spotty at best? There's more to the story than, "it's those damn anti vaxers".
It's also a problem when someone dares question whether or not they want to take one or have it given to their children and yes, side effects, including autism are a growing concern. Denigrating, ridiculing, ostracizing, and trying to force people through govt into taking them does not help or work. If anything, it adds to the justification and reason to why people are resistant. I read a discussion this morning with a post by a nurse at one of the really big name university based hospitals saying that he is concerned with the "schedule" they use today of giving children so many of them at once and thinks that it would be much better to space them out, but god forbid anyone do other than put blind faith in the edicts.
This is an important topic. I hope that follow-up essays will get into the weeds a bit more than this one, which I find is a classic limited hangout, in the sense that it uses cherry-picked references and assumptions to reach conclusions.
There is far more than misinformation and miscommunication around this issue, and both have been used by both sides. While newsletters like this one have attacked the so-called "anti-vax" movement repeatedly over the last four years, very little acknowledgement of the gross lapse in scientific rigor used to arrive at "consensus" positions have been made.
Miscommunication from our public health institutions is a nice way of framing inaccuracies and straight out lies. The public was told very early on that Covid vaccines would stop infection and transmission. That was the leverage point to impel people to do their civic duty and vaccinate.
There was never any evidence that they would stop transmission. The wildly generous vaccine efficacy that was touted by the original trials was soon found to be questionable or at the very least temporary. Nevertheless, the WHouse insisted, nearly a year after the vax campaign began that "if you get these vaccines, you won't get Covid". That was a lie.
Just recently, the senior public health advisor to the NYC Mayor was caught admitting that he broke his own rules with regard to gathering several times, admitting to using MDMA (a Schedule 1 controlled substance--possession of which is a felony which should result in suspension of licensure) and attending underground drug-fueled parties with hundreds of people while denizens of NYC were confined to their apartments. He justified it, claiming that "he had to blow of steam".
In a series of candid statements, Dr. Jay Varma, who appeared next to his boss Mayor Bill de Blasio daily, also admitted that it was bizarre how people feared unvaccinated people who had already been exposed to the virus and they were as protected as those who received the vaccine. He actually wonders out loud how anyone would come to that conclusion. The audacity.
Governor Newsom infamously was caught at a large gathering in a restaurant, unmasked with dozens of people when this was not just frowned upon but punished.
Email exchanges between Drs. Fauci and Collins clearly demonstrate that they wanted to brutally discredit the thousands of doctors and practitioners who supported the Great Barrington Declaration which cited historically appropriate measures that had been deemed effective during pandemics.
Mark Zuckerberg has openly admitted that the Biden administration coerced him into taking down any post which was critical of his pandemic policy, including satire.
This is not just a matter of incomplete information that was poorly conveyed to the public. Public distrust in the medical establishment is justified. Why would anybody trust "the science" when their spokespersons broke laws and chose to not abide by the same draconian measures they enforced on the people?
The idea that the vaccines "saved" 20 million lives is also up for debate. You cited a Lancet article from over two years ago to make that claim. Those claims are based on vaccine effectiveness which is also up for debate.
Denis Rancort has put forth a diligent analysis of all-cause mortality increases in multiple countries that offer a convincing argument that these shots may have KILLED 20 million innocent people. Who is right? The CDC? Why? How do you know besides blind faith? Our CDC is the only major public health agency that continues to recommend Covid vaccines for infants. Why should our citizenry trust them when nobody else (besides NZ) agrees? A large medical center in Ohio inexplicably stopped offering Covid-19 vaccines to their own employees. Why?
The problem with trying to regain trust is that it is hard. Very hard for two reasons. There is still little to no transparency. Why would Pfizer be given decades to provide the public the very same information that was given to the advisory panels at the FDA and the CDC when they made their decision to issue an Emergency Use Authorization after just a few weeks of deliberation?
Second: The vaccine was forced upon the public. When you take away a person's right to choose about what to put into their own bodies and then offer a vague mia culpa and promise to do better in the future you aren't going to bring anybody back into the fold. I suggest this kind of sanguine view of the last four years is going to drive even more people away from trusting the orthodoxy. I would think twice about how you are handling this issue.
In a population where vaccine coverage is high, and the vaccine is not perfect, a high proportion of susceptible people will be among the vaccinated, and thus so will a high proportion of the cases — even though there are far fewer cases in total. As an epidemiologist, this does not seem complicated or obscure to me, but it is devilishly hard to communicate clearly. Maybe this series of posts can suggest ways to do that well.
TFG fired the Pandemic Response Team 2 years before Covid started because Obama created it. The CDC was bullied by that administration and the people after that into doing nothing helpful. And he also didn't follow the pandemic playbook also left by Obama because TFG tried to dismantle everything he did because TFG is a racist POS.
You are talking about the Base Rate Fallacy, but that doesn't explain what happened. Covid absolutely exploded in highly vaccinated countries (as did excess deaths).
Pre vaccine Portugal peak was 1,000 cases per million people. After entire population vaccinated it jumped to 5,000 per million. Israel pre vaccine peak was 800, it jumped to 8,000.
Between Jan 2020 and Dec 2020 Germany had a total of 1.3 million cases. By July 2021, they had 3.7 million cases. By end of 2021 7.2 million cases. This is despite a rapid uptake of vaccination in Germany. And this applies to Denmark, Vermont, Austria, and nearly every other country.
I don't want to be rude, but it's alarming that an epidemiologist wouldn't be aware of this fact.
The anti vax community has really gained traction (and new members) through all of this.
And, I never understood how anyone could fall prey to their nonsense. I do get it on some level now.
Initially, the vaccines were sold at 98% protective. And, with the original variant, that may have been true. The second it became obvious they weren’t, that should have been communicated. I think the verbiage “break through infection” did a lot of damage. And “you don’t have to mask if you are vaccinated” didn’t win points either.
I cannot imagine how difficult it was to be a scientist/physician/public health official during those early days. But, as a layperson, I was soaking up everything trusted voices said. Over time, it seemed the messaging was agenda driven and not science driven. It still seems that way.
I spent way too much time debating anti-vaxxers the last 20 years on Facebook, Reddit, (old) Digg.com, and various message boards/usenet
Almost always, the "traditional" antivaxxers were liberals. Big Pharma was evil of course, a perverse function of capitalism, which put profits over people. It was self evident they couldn't be trusted. It was the Republicans who argued the "free market" ensured that while mistakes happen (Vioxx), the net positive of Pharma was good. That what was I up against. Trying to convince liberals that on this point, Pharma was usually in the right.
It was surreal to see the camps instantly flip at the end of 2020. Reminded me of the scene in The Simpson Movie when faced with impending doom, the drunks from Moe's tavern run into the church, and the Reverand Lovejoys congregation runs into Moe's Tavern.
RFK Jr, one of the vanguards of the Anti Vax movement was a liberal darling back then. I distinctly remember his softball interview on The Daily Show in 2005 from Jon Stewart (it was still online until a few months ago CC finally purged it). [1] George Carlin, a leftist anarchist of course had his hilarious bit on vaccines [2]. Etc
To your point: " the vaccines were sold at 98% protective. And, with the original variant, that may have been true"
That was what was frustrating to many of us - the original studies showed no such thing. As I mentioned in my mainline comment - the trials were very, very small. They didn't track infections as they didn't do routine testing in either group. There weren't even any covid deaths in placebo or vaccine arm. The trials told us very little. Yet they were communicated to the public as a miracle.
The perfect gift for RFK Jr and the acolytes of Wakefield.
YLE was one of the few early on who kept cautioning we don't know if they prevent transmission which was one of the many reasons I took founding pledge to her blog, but by summer/fall of 2021 she seemed to have abandoned her caution and got caught up in the religious like fervor of the mRNA proponents. I remember specifically a post where she cited an article from Das Spiegel claiming cases in Europe were highly correlated to low vaccine uptake while countries like Denmark and Portugal were doing "swimmingly well" (that phrase always stuck with me). 5 minutes of double checking the claim she would have realized that collapsed, the data Das Spiegel used was out of date and in fact Cases were overrunning Portugal, Denmark, etc.
Thank you. Blanket pronouncements followed by ridicule of those who hesitate to agree were not helpful. Especially when the pronouncements were amended. Perhaps having tolerance and consensus is not possible in our current culture. Humility and respect seem to decrease when not present in communication. We live in a fallen world; may we not fall with it.
As a pediatrician interested in health communication, and looking back at the early days of the pandemic, I was appalled at the communication coming from CDC. Historically, CDC had been a leader in that field. I am not sure we ever recovered
It did not help that the head of the CDC was a virologist (politically appointed) and not an epidemiologist.
And as a BTW, Tony Fauchi is not trained in Epidemiology or public health, and had no business falling into that vacuum, grabbing the limelight (as he did with the AIDS epidemic and) making COVID recommendations either.
In fact, a large part of the epidemic surveillance system was dismantled just prior to COVID.
As a physician of 40 years practicing in infectious diseases, internal medicine and mental health, one of the things that I am aware of about the distrust is a general sentiment that the pharmaceutical industry is out to make money even at the expense of patients and the general public.
This will be a very interesting series to read. In addition to mea culpas, some of which are due, we should also forgive much of the “flip flopping” that occurred in real time as we learned about the durability of vaccine effectiveness for example. Or that was compelled by political pressure and intimidation like defining a public health tool (the mask) as an emblem of tribal identification, and then heaping scorn. It’s always easy to look back and second guess.
I also hope we don’t fail to acknowledge a very committed and hostile anti-vax community that now has one of its major proponents campaigning for the Republican presidential nominee with the hopes he can take the reigns of Health and Human Services. No amount of introspection and analysis about health communication will be sufficient to overcome that rigid and warped mentality and agenda.
Just look at the literal death threats that Dr. Jetelina received. I get a taste of that sometimes when I post stuff, like a recent article I did on why we choose to keep our daughter up to date with Covid vaccines. You get this:
“This piece of sh*t psycho is a f*cking murderer. F*cking moronic.” ~Derek Krane
“This so-called “doctor” is a brainwashed fool, and is part of the genocide agenda. He is complicit in murder." ~David Geezermann (an alias I presume)
“...the example of a mercenary and accomplice to genocide, who deserves to be in lifetime prison. The reason he is still working to murder children proves once again that we are in a depopulation war.” ~Professor Fred Nazar
“Some people should not be allowed children.” ~Tim West
“…has the CDC far up his *sshole. He suggested you murder your child with the Covid vaccine. I agree with you, Ryan. It’s not malpractice. It’s murder.” ~ Tim Holt
Sound familiar? I have a post half written about how to deal with conspiracy theories and theorists, let me know if you want a first look or post here!
And thank you for the bravery of the public health community alongside the healthcare workers like myself during the darkest days of this pandemic. Nothing brought more light, hope, and improvement to this situation than vaccines.
You know, I really don’t think, as this series is framed, it should be viewed as mea culpas, but rather simply the continuing question to improve public health communications. That is always a laudable goal, no matter the headwinds (which, as you justly note, can be fiercely vitriolic). On the subject, BTW, of excellent public health communication and the importance of the upcoming election, I thought of your own excellent writing on reading this piece from Danielle Ofri: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/23/opinion/trump-obamacare-health-courts.html?unlocked_article_code=1.NE4.53v5.E1UYQY8TqVs0&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb
It is difficult to have adequate public health communication when there are so many liars who have the attention of public.
CLEARLY, Mental Illness is an epidemic & the worst plague they helped kill more people with Covid because of delusional thinking... Why isn't it getting called out? There are so many mentally ill who do not fall into the Psychotic Disorders nor Mood Disorders by Personality Disorders who wear the "mask of sanity" REALLY WEL but you hear them speaking out lying & destroying society... There's no other way than to call out the mentally ill in the category of Personality Disordered: Anti-Social PD/Malignant Narcissists/Sociopaths/Psychopaths & those lines overlap with each other. These are the MOST dangerous elements in society not viruses & not the Psychotic Disorders or the Mood Disorders. MASS PSYCHOSIS is more dangerous than Covid (at least we know how to deal with Covid) -- How do you deal with MASS PSYCHOSIS with a "Contagion" -- (be they politicians or fringe talk show "hosts" who are the real provacateurs & saboteurs that are destroying Society? That is the question that needs a solution.) PS: "Delusional Thoughts" are NOT "Theories" -- THEY ARE DELUSIONAL THOUGHTS that do not follow true science theory principles... We have to start calling that crap out too!
Thank you for writing a thorough and compelling message about where we have been and where we are stuck with vaccine advocacy. Stay strong.
CLEARLY, Mental Illness is an epidemic & the worst plague they helped kill more people with Covid... Why isn't it getting called out? There are so many mentally ill who wear the "mask of sanity" REALLY WEL but you hear them speaking out & destroying society... There's no other way than to call out the mentally ill because THEY are the MOST dangerous elements in society not viruses. MASS PSYCHOSIS is more dangerous than Covid (at least we know how to deal with Covid) -- How do you deal with MASS PSYCHOSIS with a "Contagion" -- (be it a politician or fringe talk show "hosts" -- that is the question that needs a solution- PS: "Delusional Thoughts" are NOT "Theories" -- THEY ARE DELUSIONAL THOUGHTS that do not follow true science theory principles... We have to start calling that crap out too.
About masks, not vaccines: I believe that public health officials lost sight of probably the most important reason for me to wear a mask, and properly: to protect others from me. It’s not the nanny state telling me what I should do to protect myself — it’s the community’s interest in reducing transmission from people who are infectious without major symptoms (like before they get sick)….. in December 2021, in London, I saw posters from the NHS that had a drawing of a person wearing a mask, with the words “I wear this to protect you. Please wear yours to protect me.” I rarely saw this message so clearly articulated.
I teach early childhood music using the Kindermusik curriculum. As early as summer 2020, we were singing a song- “my mask protects you; your mask protects me; together we can work on a healthy community.”
The kids understood.
Trust in vaccines declined because...
1) Public Health leaders brag to (who they assume to be) sex workers about their MDMA sex orgies they held in 2020 and how they wanted to "Make people trying to avoid the shots feel uncomfortable"
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/09/jay-varma-covid-sex-parties/679983/
2) Because Moderna and Pfizer claimed the side effects were very minor "a sore arm" in a few percent. Nowhere in the studies did it talk about 20%-30% of experimental group feeling the sickest they have in years, unable to get out of bed a day or two. Even YLE openly talks about how terrible she feels from mRNA shots and switched to Novavax. How as this missed in the early studies?
3) Because the CDC director, Anthony Fauci, the President, and Public Health at large promised that if you got the vaccine, you wouldn't get Covid.
4) Because when the evidence became overwhelming that the vaccine didn't prevent infection, rather than admit they were wrong, instead they tried to censor (WH pressured Social Media to censor anyone saying the vaccine didn't stop transmission - Alex Berenson perhaps the most famous example), then tried to reframe them as "rare breakthrough infections", and then fully gaslit everyone saying "the science changed".
5) Because the science never changed. The Pfizer study took 40,000 people, split into 2 groups, and followed them for 2 months. A miniscule number of people were infected in both control and experimental arm (from a massively infectious disease), asymptomatic testing was not performed, and there were zero Covid deaths in both arms. It baffles me to this day how that weak evidence could justify firing from their jobs, bribing them with Weed and Kripy Kreme (this is true), shaming the public, and blocking kids from school.
6) Because they never apologized for any of this abhorrent behavior. They hid under the guise of "the science change" "it was an emergency" "we worked with the evidence at hand"
7) Because to this day they support their behavior by citing garbage evidence.
Which brings me to "One model estimated that Covid-19 vaccines prevented 20 million deaths worldwide in their first year alone."
Kristen,
I've been a paid subscriber here since near the beginning of the newsletter, and always respected YLE's communication, empathy, and willingness to challenge herself. Aside from differing opinion on Covid I suspect we align on politics (Democrat), religion (Atheist), and science (curiosity+sekpticism).
But this is ridiculous for you, an educated person, to look at a study like that, and not be able to tear it to shreds.
It makes an extraordinary claim. It proposes that 20 million people would have died in 2021 alone without the vaccine. The extraordinary claim is backed by the lowest tier of evidence - a mathematical model.
A minimal amount of Skepticism applied refutes this sort of nonsense:
1) Why were there only 3 million excess deaths worldwide in 2020 (a 5% increase over the expected 60 million deaths) when we now know Covid was already circulating somewhere between August and November of 2019? Shouldn't there have been 20 million (+33%) excess deaths in 2020 pre vaccine?*
2) Why did excess deaths increase so much *after* the vaccine was rolled out in so many countries? South Korea is a perfect example - by end of 2021 they had one of the highest vaccination rates in the world (84% - tied with Portugal) - yet would see all cause mortality skyrocket in 2022 - jumping from an expected 300K deaths to 371K. This represents one of the worst mortality events in the entire pandemic, for any country, and Public Health ignored it, which I can only imagine is because it didn't fit the story they believed the vaccine was one of "the most impressive medical feats in history."**
3) Why didn't excess deaths soar in countries which either didn't roll out the vaccines (almost all African nations) or had very little vaccination uptake? Bulgaria has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the world, yet while South Korea morgues overflowed in 2022, Bulgaria regressed back to the mean (118K deaths against expected 109K in 2022, by 2023 below the mean at 100K)?***
These are damning counterfactuals to such an extraordinary claim.
Science is supposed to be dispassionate. You shouldn't care whether something is true is not. But these vaccines crossed from science to politics almost immediately, and as a result we paused rigorous skepticism.
Anyone who bothered to even read this, if you read my rebuttals and immediately felt the urge to defend the study, I propose you are not dispassionate, and here are the counters to expected critiques of those 3 points:
*1 - "We didn't have 20 million excess deaths because of the Swiss Cheese model - vaccines are only one slice - we wore cloth masks, we closed schools, we had lockdowns to save lives which is why only 3 million people died not 20 million"
>Why then did countries which didn't participate in the Swiss Cheese model do the same or better?
*2 - "South Korea is cherry picking"
>What about Norway? Canada? Australia? Taiwan?
*3 - "Bulgaria is cherry picking"
>What about South Dakota? Greece? Poland?
Amen to number 2! Those of us who were seriously ill after the vaccines, sicker than we had ever been from an actual illness; those whose autoimmune diseases flared; those whose AFIB came back; those who suffered other effects in the first 12-ish hours have been labeled as anti vaccine or dismissed and told to try a different version.
I know you are also in NEO, Michael. None of our care providers have recommended vaccines this year. Not our pediatrician at Akron Children’s, my PCM (she actually told me last year I should never get another one due to my experience), and not my husband’s PCM. My 75 year-old father also saw his physician, who has also been a family friend for over 40 years and who recommended the 7-8 shots he’s already had, said this year, “I cannot, in good conscience recommend these anymore given the side effects I have seen.”
In journalist Brian Deer's "The Doctor who Fooled the World, a scathing takedown of Andrew Wakefield, he always refers to the disgraced physician as a "doctor without patients".
And that seems to be the only the people still talking about Covid vaccines. Social Media doctors without patients who have a brand image to uphold.
I was stunned to see Andrea Love, formerly of The Unbiased Science Podcast, write an entire substack column a few weeks ago promoting the Covid vaccines for children. In 2024. Inredible.
I wasn’t. It is on brand for her. Vaccines or bust. Even on TWIV, they admit there is no data behind the recommendations. Vincent Racaniello seems upset about the blanket recommendations every time they discuss it.
As an aside, I don’t know what happened with her and Jess Steier. It was a very weird parting of ways.
I don't recall if you ever joined Jess and Andrea's private Facebook Group for paid subscribers, but their parting basically came down to money. They just couldn't gain traction getting paid subscribers to justify the time both invested into the podcast, prolific social media posting, substack newsletters, etc. I think they had something like 200 paid subscribers, which meant they were essentially working this part time gig for pennies per hour.
They alluded to having a difference of opinion on how to make it work, and then suddenly you see they are no longer FB friends (neither are most of their staff like Montana Mullins, various unpaid interns), Jess takes over the USP brand, Andrea starts Immunologic.
It's sad that it appears it cost them their friendship. I hope this assumption is completely wrong, but given I haven't seen any cross collaboration / cross promotion, it appears that's the case.
I was in the group for maybe a year.
I found it weird because there was no explanation or indication they were still friends. Just severed ties.
People with Covid brain damage and cognitive decline don't even recognize it, per a recent study. By the end of 2022, 77.5% of Americans had antibodies from at least one Covid infection. No one is doing anything about the constant infections and reinfections. I just saw a friend wonder how her 10 month old baby got Covid. They don't mask or take any precautions for themselves or their kid and they still can't connect the dots. These aren't dumb people either. The pandemic is ongoing. And no one seems to give a crap except for the ever shrinking numbers of Novid people. I have no choice but to avoid Covid, and as a byproduct, all people as much as possible. I barely leave my house. I always mask. I was just ridiculed at the grocery store for wearing my mask by a teenager. I was the only person masking in the entire store. I'm almost always the only one masking. I have 2 degenerative inflammatory conditions of my own and I take care of my extremely high-risk mom. Her asthma is so bad that she can't mask. And that doesn't even begin to touch her other health issues. And all of them would be made permanently worse by a single Covid infection. We're both vaccinated and boosted. It's not enough. It's never been enough. Biden lied about making Covid a priority regardless of political cost. He declared Covid over when the emergency designation ended and this summer has been the worst for Covid yet. I am tired of people making excuses for the people who decided a long time ago that being inconvenienced by Covid mitigations wasn't something they were going to do. People have proven, en mass, that they don't give a crap about other people and never really did. And now they can't even recognize their own brain damage. 4 million people can no longer work because of LC. Women working with disabilities has increased exponentially. And the anti-science, anti-vaxxers won't stop lying and speading disinformation. They are getting worse every day. They'd rather drink aged pee and horse dewormer than see a doctor or get a vaccine. They are talking about putting RFK Jr on health committees. The man is part of the 12 people responsible for over 60% of health and vaccine disinformation on social media and the internet. This is where we are. This is the reality that terrifies so many of us. It's not sustainable for anyone. The CDC won't even mention masking anymore. They're still recommending hand washing for an airborne virus. And dont even get me started on the horrific way that people are still being treated by healthcare workers who don't mask and call you combative if you ask them to. Hospital acquired infections are on the rise and continue to get worse because HCP are also anti-science in a lot of cases now. The 'Covid Cautious' community are seen as the wackos and the ones who are wrong when we're the only ones left doing what we should have all been doing this entire time. It's infuriating. All I see are people advocating for Covid treatments but not a word from most of those same people about prevention.
I no longer see a future where I will ever be comfortable or safe in public spaces again. Everyone seems fine with that.
For what it’s worth, I’m not fine with it. You have been abandoned. It’s not ok. It’s also frankly short-sighted to abandon you, because the people who only care if an issue directly affects them don’t seem to realize that any person, at any time, can suddenly find themselves in the same boat with you!
I could understand this level of denial from the public. People can be selfish. But I simply do not understand why research seems to have abandoned you, as well.
Is science actually still working to solve the problems that would free you from your isolation? I have no idea.
I really wish YLE would cover the state of affairs around this. How risky is an infection, currently? What are the options for the immune-compromised? What new preventatives are in the research pipeline? What new therapeutics might be coming?
This new series is important, but I subscribe primarily to understand what’s happening -now-. There is less of that than I’d like to see. Is that because there is no new research? I don’t know, because I don’t know where else to look (that I can trust). Frankly I’m getting a little frustrated.
It wasn’t just a communication problem, it was a policy problem: vaccine mandates.
If you don’t take the vaccine, you can’t go to school. You can’t keep your job.
Vaccine mandates would have been more morally justified if the vaccines had actually stopped transmission and infection.
Considering how well COVID vaccines worked in the beginning, there was an exuberant exceptions that arose. This lead to misunderstanding of how vaccines work. However, I would point out that vaccine mandates have reduced childhood deaths and disabilities, won the American Revolutionary War and eliminated Smallpox. Also, SCOTUS did ruled that vaccines can be mandated in 1905.
There's also the issue that the official definition of vaccine was quietly changed, at least once, if not twice, from preventing infection to reducing severity. This reduces credibility.
Trying to mandate both the shots and the masks did a lot of harm, especially with the US being politically divided so severely. Wearing a mask became a symbol of submission to the right and a talisman to the left. A lot of people, especially those on the political right, are outright saying, "Never Again".
First, the definition was tweaked a number of time over the years. I'll let you read this. https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-976069264061
As for masks, that has a lot to do with the 'leadership' at the beginning of the pandemic.
Sadly, you are echoing adages that are easily disproved. I understand why. I am a doctor and have vaccinated all my children based on exactly those notions that you state above: that vaccinating everybody will save lives based on historical data.
But it was Covid that prompted me to look into these claims diligently. While vaccinations have demonstrably shown efficacy in preventing the targeted disease, there is no proof that populations who are highly vaccinated are healthier with regard to illnesses in general because they are vaccinated. A large, prospective or even retrospective examination of all health outcomes between the vaccinated and unvaccinated has never been done by the CDC. That alone should be reason to pause.
Instead, smaller studies that are independently funded are brutally attacked and the authors get discredited and lose their professional affiliations. Take for example the original Wakefield study. I would wager that not a single person who uses him as an example of "discredited antivax nutjobs" has actually read his original study which never concluded that the MMR vaccines cause autism. He very appropriately suggested that more studies are warranted before any conclusion should be reached.
But the mere hint that a link might exist was enough to mobilize the entire orthodoxy against him. My point is that when it comes to misleading the public and using dangerous propaganda both sides are guilty.
Interesting you should bring up the "Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children" by Wakefield. This paper was exposed as fraudulent and claimed causative link to colitis and colitis with autism. There were also conflict of interest not mentioned in the paper. Further, he was selling diagnostic kits for a syndrome that doesn't exist. It should be mentioned that he was holding a patent to a rival vaccine. Subsequent studies did not support these claims. The main claim that Thimerosal was not proven but were eliminated as a overly cautious move that did not make any difference. I would like to refer you to this BMJ editorial: https://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452 for more information.
I disagree with you and the BMJ editorial. Wakefield did not make such claims in the paper. In fact he specifically states in the discussion "We did not prove an association between the MMR vaccine and the syndrome described."
You have cited an excellent example of how the medical orthodoxy attacked a very reasonable paper on unfounded grounds for their own intents and purposes. Please quote any sentence from the original paper that "claimed a causative link to colitis and colitis with autism" as you state above. There is none.
"The main claim that Thimerosal was not proven but were eliminated as a overly cautious move that did not make any difference."
Wakefield made no such claim about Thimerosal in his paper. Thimerosal is not even mentioned anywhere.
I would conclude that you never read the original study, only what third parties have been saying about it.
I've read the Wakefield study. It is a dumpster fire.
I have too. What qualifies it as a dumpster fire? He told us exactly what he did. He used a small case series of children who developed behavioral abnormalities, some of whom had received the MMR vaccine (8 out of 12) previously and presented the histopathologic anomolies in their small intestine.
He then suggested that further research is necessary to identify any causal link if one exists. He also explicitly stated that he did NOT find an association between the MMR vaccine and the syndrome he was describing.
What is the problem?
Ah, I see you are one of those "just asking questions" types. I can do that too.
Did you read the retraction?
To give you the benefit of the doubt, let's say there were no issues with the Wakefield paper. He suggested further research. An incredible amount of further research was done, which clearly demonstrated his hypothesis was unfounded. Why are we discussing this?
And also just to be clear what was written in the paper, please stop misconstruing it:
"We did not prove an association between measles,
mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described.
Virological studies are underway that may help to resolve
this issue.
If there is a causal link between measles, mumps, and
rubella vaccine and this syndrome, a rising incidence
might be anticipated after the introduction of this vaccine
in the UK in 1988. Published evidence is inadequate to
show whether there is a change in incidence22 or a link
with measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine.23"
Wakefield seems to just be asking questions too...
Nope. I am not "just asking questions". I am stating outright that the original article would only draw such criticism in a world where certain questions cannot even be posed.
Given what was presented in the Wakefield paper further research was needed. That is exactly what Wakefield said, just as you quoted. I didn't misconstrue anything.
Your position and tone is exactly why there is an "antivax" movement. By attacking a research paper that suggests more research based on scant findings you must start with the belief that the MMR vaccine could not, under any circumstances, be responsible for the syndrome he was describing.
How do you know this based on the findings in his paper? You don't. Neither does he. Wakefield suggests more research. You call his paper a "dumpster fire". You don't have to be a gastroenterologist, vaccine developer or neurologist to see that if there was a link people who exercise your type of "logic" will never find it.
"We have identified a chronic enterocolitis in children
that may be related to neuropsychiatric dysfunction. In
most cases, onset of symptoms was after measles,
mumps, and rubella immunisation. Further investigations
are needed to examine this syndrome and its possible relation to the vaccine."
"Addendum:
Up to Jan 28, a further 40 patients have been assessed; 39 with the
syndrome."
Looking for confirmation?
Wakefield admitted to changing his results to "show significance." that's not what your reported in your message, and it's dangerously wrong. Why not work harder to understand what's going on and not just focus on one small corner of the internet world.
It is so easy for (much of) the general population to sweep this whole thing under the rug. Thank you for giving it the attention it needs, Miscommunication is a killer, especially when public science literacy is so low. I look forward to the next installments in the series!
Echoing others to applaud this series, which is off to a rip-roaring start. I particularly appreciated this framing: “The goal is not to point fingers or assign blame—it was h.a.r.d. to communicate to a polarized nation during a deadly pandemic when yesterday’s data was already outdated. But we need to get a view from outside our bubble and understand how messages were perceived, so we don’t miscommunicate next time.” I look forward eagerly to coming installments.
"The Covid-19 vaccines are undoubtedly among the most impressive medical feats in history. One model estimated that Covid-19 vaccines prevented 20 million deaths worldwide in their first year alone."
If this statement is true, why did the Pfizer Phase III trial show no mortality benefit at all? (in fact, more people in the vaccine cohort died, although not statistically significant) "Models" can tell you what you want them to tell you based on the assumptions/inputs. If those are flawed, the model is garbage.
Hi Paul. I appreciate your comments here. I think you will find this very interesting. As you probably know there is a ton of evidence of fraud and data manipulation in the original Pfizer trial. Here's a deeper dive:
https://madhavasetty.substack.com/p/new-revelations-around-the-fraudulent
IIRC there was 1 death in Experimental Arm, 2 deaths in Control Arm, none of them related to Covid though. I could be mixing up with Moderna? It's been a bit since I read them, or my Mandela Effect kicking in?
Hi Michael,
Three deaths you refer to in the Pfizer trial were in fact attributed to Covid-19, allowing the investigators to claim a 50% efficacy in preventing Covid death. Of course over 20 thousand people had to vaccinate to prevent a single death. That might be acceptable if there was zero risk. This is why any effort to quantify risk is immediately discredited.
On the other hand, as Paul states, there was no all cause mortality benefit. While a few more people in the treatment arm died, that arm of the study contributed more person-years, so the mortality rate in both wings are comparable. In other words, no benefit with regard to mortality, supporting the idea that 20 million lives saved is questionable.
If one were to dig into the weeds we would be able to see much more. The total number of deaths in the 40 thousand were only about 38, far less than what we would have expected using mortality rates based on the age of participants. There should have been more like 250 deaths in the six month observation period, even without a raging pandemic in progress.
What happened? Obviously some of the people lost to follow up probably died. Shockingly, 1 in 25 people in the study were lost to follow up. WIth so few outcomes in the evaluable population, making any claims about efficacy is not just imprudent but illogical.
Furthermore, the 95% efficacy against infection claim came from just 170 outcomes across the two arms, 162 in the control and only 8 in the treatment. What Pfizer did not report in their published study in the NEJM was that there about 3,400 people in the study that expressed Covid symptoms but were never tested. They never explained why they weren't and the FDA never asked. Obviously the true vaccine efficacy might have been very, very different if all of them were tested. It's no surprise that people started contracting Covid after a primary series. The proof that the jabs were efficacious were based on faulty data and assumptions.
In my investigation into how the CDC calculated vaccine effectiveness, i.e. how good the vaccine was doing in the public after authorization, I have found that they are being deceptive. They do not include outcomes in people who have recently completed the primary series while still including them in the pool of "fully vaccinated". This will mathematically create artificial effectiveness.
I wrote to them repeatedly asking them to clarify this. I finally heard back from them asking me to refer to a page on their own website where their own methodology was made public. I looked again, and they took it down. Luckily I had screen shotted the relevant blurbs.
In the end, I was able to do some rough calculations that told a much different story about these shots. By using the CDC's methodology they would be able to "show" that a placebo would have an effectiveness profile that matched what they were reporting about the Covid shots for the first 8 months. Based on the population uptake the artificial effectiveness would have approached zero. Coincidentally, that is exactly when we were told that boosters would be necessary.
Then, once again, the CDC used the same flawed methodology to calculate the effectiveness of the booster, allowing to claim utility when none exists. I explain my approach below. I think you would find it eye opening:
https://madhavasetty.substack.com/p/an-elegant-demonstration-of-how-efficacy
Thanks for the added information - I read IIRC Matthew Crawfords walkthrough of Fenton/Neil's work you referred to in your substack post, going through yours now as it's been a while.
"What Pfizer did not report in their published study in the NEJM was that there about 3,400 people in the study that expressed Covid symptoms but were never tested. "
Where can I find more information on that?
Peter Doshi, PhD, a BMJ editor first broke the story on the BMJ in January 2021, just weeks after Pollack et al published summary findings from the Pfizer mRNA trial in the NEJM. He gives a clear and concise analysis here:
https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/01/04/peter-doshi-pfizer-and-modernas-95-effective-vaccines-we-need-more-details-and-the-raw-data/
Pfizer mentions these 3,410 participants who were "suspected" of having Covid-19 in a letter to the FDA's VRBPAC in support of their application for EUA. There is no mention of these folks in the NEJM article which effectively launched a world-wide vaccination campaign.
Thank you! The layers of this insanity are going to take decades to unravel.
During the blinded, controlled period, 15 vaccine arm patients died and 14 placebo. During the open-label period, 3 vaccine and 2 original placebo patients who received the vaccine after unblinding died.
We have to deal in reality if we're ever going to move forward with any level of trust. There's no good evidence that the covid vaccines reduced transmission in any meaningful way or prevented any deaths. On the other end of this, we don't have solid evidence that they caused excess deaths either. There have been no good, long-term clinical trials done on any of these shots.
Also, masks have never stopped or reduced the spread of respiratory viruses anywhere in the world. They may work in theory or in somebody's lab, but in the real world they don't. All systematic reviews of masks that existed in March 2020 said the same thing - there is no evidence that they work.
People latched on to a narrative in the spring of 2020 (masks) and early in 2021 (vaccines) and that was that. This has never been about science or evidence.
We know the whole anti vaccine ideology started long before COVID. I can only relate to what my son, who is a pediatric nurse, has seen. When we wonder and are scratching our heads as to why pertussis is currently going around our county like a forest fire, perhaps we should wonder why the parents are currently not vaccinating. He has whole families that come in and refuse to vaccinate against anything. He uses me as an example of someone who got pertussis 4 years into a TDaP vaccine. It was bad but could have been a lot worse. He sent two babies and a toddler down to Denver Children's Hospital last week. By the way, I got another one on Sunday at 3 years. And I never want that again. I only wonder when measles will return. Polio as well. And they all say it is because they have heard or read as Dr. Google that these vaccines cause autism. And this is thanks to the celebrities and politicians who promote this false science. So this crazy is still out there. And then came a new disease and pandemic. I worry if Trump becomes president and how he has said he won't require vaccines for school children. And then the nutjob Kennedy has bent his ear and who is currently saying he will clean up the public health agencies. I guess that means no vaccines. And God help us when something new comes along that we might need a new vaccine for.
First off, how many hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens have been imported into the US from areas where these diseases are still rampant and vaccination is spotty at best? There's more to the story than, "it's those damn anti vaxers".
It's also a problem when someone dares question whether or not they want to take one or have it given to their children and yes, side effects, including autism are a growing concern. Denigrating, ridiculing, ostracizing, and trying to force people through govt into taking them does not help or work. If anything, it adds to the justification and reason to why people are resistant. I read a discussion this morning with a post by a nurse at one of the really big name university based hospitals saying that he is concerned with the "schedule" they use today of giving children so many of them at once and thinks that it would be much better to space them out, but god forbid anyone do other than put blind faith in the edicts.
This is an important topic. I hope that follow-up essays will get into the weeds a bit more than this one, which I find is a classic limited hangout, in the sense that it uses cherry-picked references and assumptions to reach conclusions.
There is far more than misinformation and miscommunication around this issue, and both have been used by both sides. While newsletters like this one have attacked the so-called "anti-vax" movement repeatedly over the last four years, very little acknowledgement of the gross lapse in scientific rigor used to arrive at "consensus" positions have been made.
Miscommunication from our public health institutions is a nice way of framing inaccuracies and straight out lies. The public was told very early on that Covid vaccines would stop infection and transmission. That was the leverage point to impel people to do their civic duty and vaccinate.
There was never any evidence that they would stop transmission. The wildly generous vaccine efficacy that was touted by the original trials was soon found to be questionable or at the very least temporary. Nevertheless, the WHouse insisted, nearly a year after the vax campaign began that "if you get these vaccines, you won't get Covid". That was a lie.
Just recently, the senior public health advisor to the NYC Mayor was caught admitting that he broke his own rules with regard to gathering several times, admitting to using MDMA (a Schedule 1 controlled substance--possession of which is a felony which should result in suspension of licensure) and attending underground drug-fueled parties with hundreds of people while denizens of NYC were confined to their apartments. He justified it, claiming that "he had to blow of steam".
In a series of candid statements, Dr. Jay Varma, who appeared next to his boss Mayor Bill de Blasio daily, also admitted that it was bizarre how people feared unvaccinated people who had already been exposed to the virus and they were as protected as those who received the vaccine. He actually wonders out loud how anyone would come to that conclusion. The audacity.
Governor Newsom infamously was caught at a large gathering in a restaurant, unmasked with dozens of people when this was not just frowned upon but punished.
Email exchanges between Drs. Fauci and Collins clearly demonstrate that they wanted to brutally discredit the thousands of doctors and practitioners who supported the Great Barrington Declaration which cited historically appropriate measures that had been deemed effective during pandemics.
Mark Zuckerberg has openly admitted that the Biden administration coerced him into taking down any post which was critical of his pandemic policy, including satire.
This is not just a matter of incomplete information that was poorly conveyed to the public. Public distrust in the medical establishment is justified. Why would anybody trust "the science" when their spokespersons broke laws and chose to not abide by the same draconian measures they enforced on the people?
The idea that the vaccines "saved" 20 million lives is also up for debate. You cited a Lancet article from over two years ago to make that claim. Those claims are based on vaccine effectiveness which is also up for debate.
Denis Rancort has put forth a diligent analysis of all-cause mortality increases in multiple countries that offer a convincing argument that these shots may have KILLED 20 million innocent people. Who is right? The CDC? Why? How do you know besides blind faith? Our CDC is the only major public health agency that continues to recommend Covid vaccines for infants. Why should our citizenry trust them when nobody else (besides NZ) agrees? A large medical center in Ohio inexplicably stopped offering Covid-19 vaccines to their own employees. Why?
The problem with trying to regain trust is that it is hard. Very hard for two reasons. There is still little to no transparency. Why would Pfizer be given decades to provide the public the very same information that was given to the advisory panels at the FDA and the CDC when they made their decision to issue an Emergency Use Authorization after just a few weeks of deliberation?
Second: The vaccine was forced upon the public. When you take away a person's right to choose about what to put into their own bodies and then offer a vague mia culpa and promise to do better in the future you aren't going to bring anybody back into the fold. I suggest this kind of sanguine view of the last four years is going to drive even more people away from trusting the orthodoxy. I would think twice about how you are handling this issue.
In a population where vaccine coverage is high, and the vaccine is not perfect, a high proportion of susceptible people will be among the vaccinated, and thus so will a high proportion of the cases — even though there are far fewer cases in total. As an epidemiologist, this does not seem complicated or obscure to me, but it is devilishly hard to communicate clearly. Maybe this series of posts can suggest ways to do that well.
TFG fired the Pandemic Response Team 2 years before Covid started because Obama created it. The CDC was bullied by that administration and the people after that into doing nothing helpful. And he also didn't follow the pandemic playbook also left by Obama because TFG tried to dismantle everything he did because TFG is a racist POS.
You are talking about the Base Rate Fallacy, but that doesn't explain what happened. Covid absolutely exploded in highly vaccinated countries (as did excess deaths).
Pre vaccine Portugal peak was 1,000 cases per million people. After entire population vaccinated it jumped to 5,000 per million. Israel pre vaccine peak was 800, it jumped to 8,000.
Between Jan 2020 and Dec 2020 Germany had a total of 1.3 million cases. By July 2021, they had 3.7 million cases. By end of 2021 7.2 million cases. This is despite a rapid uptake of vaccination in Germany. And this applies to Denmark, Vermont, Austria, and nearly every other country.
I don't want to be rude, but it's alarming that an epidemiologist wouldn't be aware of this fact.
Note: this comment was prompted by the following query in the original post: “why are most Covid-19 deaths now among vaccinated people?”
The anti vax community has really gained traction (and new members) through all of this.
And, I never understood how anyone could fall prey to their nonsense. I do get it on some level now.
Initially, the vaccines were sold at 98% protective. And, with the original variant, that may have been true. The second it became obvious they weren’t, that should have been communicated. I think the verbiage “break through infection” did a lot of damage. And “you don’t have to mask if you are vaccinated” didn’t win points either.
I cannot imagine how difficult it was to be a scientist/physician/public health official during those early days. But, as a layperson, I was soaking up everything trusted voices said. Over time, it seemed the messaging was agenda driven and not science driven. It still seems that way.
I spent way too much time debating anti-vaxxers the last 20 years on Facebook, Reddit, (old) Digg.com, and various message boards/usenet
Almost always, the "traditional" antivaxxers were liberals. Big Pharma was evil of course, a perverse function of capitalism, which put profits over people. It was self evident they couldn't be trusted. It was the Republicans who argued the "free market" ensured that while mistakes happen (Vioxx), the net positive of Pharma was good. That what was I up against. Trying to convince liberals that on this point, Pharma was usually in the right.
It was surreal to see the camps instantly flip at the end of 2020. Reminded me of the scene in The Simpson Movie when faced with impending doom, the drunks from Moe's tavern run into the church, and the Reverand Lovejoys congregation runs into Moe's Tavern.
RFK Jr, one of the vanguards of the Anti Vax movement was a liberal darling back then. I distinctly remember his softball interview on The Daily Show in 2005 from Jon Stewart (it was still online until a few months ago CC finally purged it). [1] George Carlin, a leftist anarchist of course had his hilarious bit on vaccines [2]. Etc
To your point: " the vaccines were sold at 98% protective. And, with the original variant, that may have been true"
That was what was frustrating to many of us - the original studies showed no such thing. As I mentioned in my mainline comment - the trials were very, very small. They didn't track infections as they didn't do routine testing in either group. There weren't even any covid deaths in placebo or vaccine arm. The trials told us very little. Yet they were communicated to the public as a miracle.
The perfect gift for RFK Jr and the acolytes of Wakefield.
YLE was one of the few early on who kept cautioning we don't know if they prevent transmission which was one of the many reasons I took founding pledge to her blog, but by summer/fall of 2021 she seemed to have abandoned her caution and got caught up in the religious like fervor of the mRNA proponents. I remember specifically a post where she cited an article from Das Spiegel claiming cases in Europe were highly correlated to low vaccine uptake while countries like Denmark and Portugal were doing "swimmingly well" (that phrase always stuck with me). 5 minutes of double checking the claim she would have realized that collapsed, the data Das Spiegel used was out of date and in fact Cases were overrunning Portugal, Denmark, etc.
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[1] closest you can get is this 10 year later critique https://www.acsh.org/news/2015/08/06/jon-stewart-never-apologized-for-putting-millions-of-children-in-danger#:~:text=On%20July%2020th%202005,%20Jon%20Stewart's%20guest%20was%20none%20other
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X29lF43mUlo
Thank you. Blanket pronouncements followed by ridicule of those who hesitate to agree were not helpful. Especially when the pronouncements were amended. Perhaps having tolerance and consensus is not possible in our current culture. Humility and respect seem to decrease when not present in communication. We live in a fallen world; may we not fall with it.
As a pediatrician interested in health communication, and looking back at the early days of the pandemic, I was appalled at the communication coming from CDC. Historically, CDC had been a leader in that field. I am not sure we ever recovered
It did not help that the head of the CDC was a virologist (politically appointed) and not an epidemiologist.
And as a BTW, Tony Fauchi is not trained in Epidemiology or public health, and had no business falling into that vacuum, grabbing the limelight (as he did with the AIDS epidemic and) making COVID recommendations either.
In fact, a large part of the epidemic surveillance system was dismantled just prior to COVID.
As a physician of 40 years practicing in infectious diseases, internal medicine and mental health, one of the things that I am aware of about the distrust is a general sentiment that the pharmaceutical industry is out to make money even at the expense of patients and the general public.