Omicron South Africa: https://www.nicd.ac.za/disease…rveillance-datcov-report/
The hospital data has been corrected and now shows a 5% increase for last weak. This has been expected as cases follow PCR+ by 5..10 days and reporting is slow on weekends.
But cases are down by 50% and thus no more increase is expected for this week. Compared to cases, numbers for hospital/ICU added are low.
Welcome to boosterworld.
Did you already have your 7th or 10th booster? Certificates will soon be cleared world wide for all double/tripple vaxx.
Do you remember the slogans of the drug dealers? Gene therapy ("vaccination") will give you your freedom back... Same with speed,crack, heroin you will be free for some time....
Now the only free persons on the planet are the recovered ones... What irony....
Billions of fools world wide soon will beg for boosters number 4,5,6,7,,.....................127.....Israel just launches the 4th for happy meal olds....
But may be buying a tombstone is cheaper...
If you didn't get it so far.. Omicron is just a classic cold. Most younger here say it lasts 1-2 days with no impact.
They need to up the positives to justify boosters
33% of COVID-19 Cases in UK Asymptomatic so Testing Set to Expand to Those with No Symptoms
The United Kingdom’s (UK) Department of Health and Social Care released their most recent COVID-19 data for the public. Of note, they found that about 33% of all COVID-19 cases of late in the UK are classified as asymptomatic. The latest Omicron variant of concern-driven surge testing is high on the public health authorities’ agenda. The UK’s number of SARS-CoV-2 cases is breaking daily records. TrialSite notes that the total number of daily deaths is far lower than the two previous most intense surges.
Because about 33% of all COVID-19 cases are asymptomatic in the UK, the Department of Health and Social Care will prioritize testing people without symptoms as well. Given there’s such a high number, many countries do basic detection for symptoms; yet, many people may unknowingly transmit the virus because they are asymptomatic. A fully vaccinated individual can experience a breakthrough infection, become contagious, and not even know it.
According to the Guardian, about half of all adults in the UK have received the third booster shot as authorities accelerate their massive boost program to be completed by January due to the Omicron variant. Over 20 million have already received a booster (almost half of all adults).
The UK booster program has been recorded as one of the fastest ever. Meanwhile, the media there reports 93,045 new COVID-19 cases in one day, with 111 COVID deaths, and 7,611 patients in the hospitals—875 of them depending on ventilators.
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While identified Omicron cases were only 3,201, modeling suggests this could be the dominant variant of SARS-CoV-2 soon. For example, according to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), this number is more than twice the amount identified the previous day (1,691).
Imperial College of London Study
According to a recent Imperial College of London study, the Omicron variant is now 5.4 times more infectious than the Delta variant. The study suggests protection against reinfection is down to about 19%. The actual study output can be reviewed here.
Omicron Rises in Scotland
In Scotland, first minister Nicola Sturgeon reports that Omicron is the dominant variant, representing 51.4%—this new super-mutant has replaced Delta in that country. Her latest declaration and more are summarized in the latest Edinburgh News.
Lower Death Rates
In previous surges, the total number of deaths was far higher than now. For example, by April 21, 2020, at the onset of the pandemic, the UK reported 1,224 deaths due to COVID-19. That figure rose to 1,820 on January 20, 2021. Yesterday the death count was 111 with a 113 seven-day new average. Of course, a combination of vaccination, new care options (e.g., dexamethasone, monoclonal antibodies, etc.), off-label activity, and generally more awareness of how to treat the condition has dramatically lowered the death rate, suspects TrialSite. But rarely does mainstream media talk about how better the situation is from that vantage point.
Australia: Do Severe Measures Yield the Results the West can Live With?
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused worldwide panic and, in some cases, overreaction by governments. It appears Australia is one of the countries where the government is overreacting. In November, TrialSite News reported on so-called “Covid-19 Quarantine Camps” located in Australia’s Northern Territory. As initially reported by TrialSite, these camps seemed to be specifically for the indigenous population of Australia as well as purportedly “travelers.” At that point, the Aborigines had a low rate of vaccination. Subsequently, more reporting has come out, including news report from reporter Freddie Sayers’ UnHerd, which was featured on YouTube. Sayers interviewed Hayley Hodgson, who was sent to one of the Australian camps located in Rock Springs. Hodgson says the reason she was sent to the quarantine camp wasn’t because she tested positive for COVID-19 but because she “lied to authorities”. So it would seem the Australian Quarantine Camps have expanded their reach. Yet, it appears the mainstream media has tiptoed around the subject. What is the true intention of these camps? Notably, as TrialSite points out below, camps such as these in the past were used for Australia’s “white only” policy.
Reports are that the cost of these camps ranges from $2500 for individuals and $5000 for families. There is concern this could be the future of Australia. In June, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison promised $200 million in funding for a new camp in Victoria as a sign the government feels this strategy is working.
Interestingly, in August, mainstream media was investigating these facilities. The New York Times reported on a camp in Howard Springs. The Times declared this was not Australia’s first foray into internment camps. In the 1800s and 1900s, similar facilities were used to enforce the country’s “white Australia” policy. Formerly a mining camp and controversially, the Howard Springs camp was designated primarily for people from the Philippines or India (traveling into Australia) and concludes with the statement that quarantine in Australia has become a “state of mind”. Given the article in The New York Times was written in August, that “state of mind” has apparently expanded. Clearly, mainstream media has avoided this topic, given the focus of late on equity and equality in places like the United States.
According to the BBC, Howard Springs can hold upwards of 2000 people. What is alarming here is the mental state of the residents. The BBC article reported on teenagers who had escaped from the camp and were later caught. Anxiety over internment is also an issue raised in the New York Times piece and in UnHerd where Hodgson claimed she was offered doses of valium to combat her anxiety over her confinement.
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COVID-19 cases are rising in Australia again, despite strict border controls and prolonged lockdowns, not to mention truly questionable internment policies. But the seemingly harsh measures being imposed by the government are doing little to block the spread of the disease in the aggregate. TrialSite News has reported on strict governmental measures specifically in China where severe lockdowns, border controls, and contact tracing programs have slowed down COVID-19 spread. But the social, economic, and moral costs of such a regimen are heretofore not acceptable in the West. Has there ever been a time when mass internment and strict manipulation of a population worked?
TrialSite will continue to monitor the situation
Omicron is not that scary yet, so let's wait for the data shall we before projecting anything nasty.
Cases going op in the hospital since a few weeks time, but not much of a signal on the number of deaths is seen yet. But people are very uncool. The only cool
one is Giesecke who want people to wait for the results of UK,South Africa and Denmark before cancelling Christmas. We also see the danger with
vaccine passports where double vacced 75 year olds thinks that's safe and ok to go to a public event that are protected by passports and then end
up in ICU.
SOUTH AFRICAN SCIENTISTS FINALLY TAKE A STAND ON DESTRUCTIVE COVID-19 MEASURES?
By Shabnam Palesa Mohamed – TrialSiteNews Africa
In an intriguing U-turn on the science and practicality on quarantining and tracing Covid-19 contacts in a so-called ‘third world country’, the South African Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC) on C19 issued a recent recommendation that stirred up debate and raised questions on possible motives. TrialSite News Africa lead Shabnam Palesa Mohamed takes a closer look.
What is the crux of the MAC recommendation?
The far reaching 4-page recommendation by the MAC, co-chaired by Professor Koleka Mlisana (National Health Laboratory Service) and Professor Marian Jacobs (University of Cape Town) were published 16 December 2021. Addressed to Health Minister Joe Paahla, they are based on the following admission: “quarantining and contact tracing are of negligible public health benefit…”
They recommend instead:
The abolition of quarantine (the isolation of well individuals who are believed to have come into contact with a person confirmed to have COVID-19).
The immediate cessation of contact tracing (finding all contacts of a positive case).
What significant highlights are contained in the recommendation?
The failure of quarantining: With hunger and poverty at boiling point, the MAC finally admits the “substantial economic and social burden” of quarantining, including the “loss of income, loss of employment, and loss of schooling time”. But is this a case of too little, too late?
No discrimination between vaccinated and unvaccinated: Suggesting an acceptance of the equal transmission risk between the jabbed and the unjabbed, they say the vaccination status of people not diagnosed as having COVID-19 should not be a point of discrimination.
Natural immunity: The admission that acknowledges natural immunity is significant as the reluctance to admit natural immunity has been rigorously debated: “the proportion of people with immunity to COVID-19 (from vaccination and/or infection) has risen”.
The virus cannot be contained or eliminated: This admission highlights measures which try to slow or stop the spread as the impact on the South African economy and psyche has been massive: “efforts to eliminate and/or contain the virus are not likely to be successful”.
Transmission dynamics: The recommendation refers to “an outdated understanding of the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2”. This includes spread via aerosols which “can occur over distances greater than 1-1.5 meters”, negating social distancing as a containment tactic
Suboptimal test sensitivity: There is an admission that the testing used is “suboptimal” with reference to the sensitivity. Note: The PCR test is criticised nationally and internationally for both false positive (high cycle threshold values are used) and false negative results.
No unnecessary testing: A person need not test unless they “become[s] symptomatic”. This is a radical shift from the largely debunked ‘asymptomatic but positive’ theory. A group of academics also raised the alarm on costly C19 testing, that wasted hours of treatment time.
A peculiar science shift is happening. But will it persevere?
The recommendations by the MAC are supported by groups of academics who finally made a fresh approach public. The first group is WITS University based Shabir Madhi, Jeremy Nel and Francois Venter, who penned this article 15 December 2021. The second group, also published a day before the MAC recommendation, include Hassan Mahomed, David Pienaar, Mary-Ann Davies, Angela De Sa, Andrea Mendelsohn, and Benjamin Botha — academics in the medical field at the University of Cape Town or officials at the Western Cape Department of Health. Of course other respected experts have opined the same and more for months, and are ignored, censored or ridiculed. Why?
How are frontline experts reacting to the apparent shifts?
Outspoken intensivist and anaesthetist Prof Nathi Mdladla responds to TrialSite News Africa: I’ve been having restless nights about a response I want to write to the recent MAC recommendations and the outstanding ones they are not addressing. The first issue with this revision is its lateness, proving once more that “guidelines are for the obedience of fools and guidance of wise men”.
I actually wrote about the absurdity of closing buildings after a positive case had been in the premises and extended this to the predictable problem prolonged isolation of otherwise healthy positive staff would have on patient outcomes. As a result, our hospital abandoned many of the MAC’s guidelines and followed what was practical for us. Staff were still allowed to follow national guidelines but not discouraged to return as soon as they were healthy. We did away with contact quarantining and were doing symptom watching from the first wave.
This move by the MAC has many potential hidden agendas behind it. The imminent one I can pick up is a need to garner public confidence in the face of a progressive perception of a committee out of touch with reality. It is also interesting that this change of direction is considered necessary because it’s from UCT – Prof Marion Jacobs has a past relationship with the institution and is naturally sensitive to its outputs, even if they are rehashing what we’ve been telling them for over 15months.
I am more concerned about the last paragraph of this article, which is still showing the old biases not supported by science, and especially the conclusion on vaccines being supported by science, when the evidence is quite clear right now in South Africa.
Mdadla recently wrote a powerful piece about the Omicron variant vs mandatory vaccines and vaccine passports, published in BizNews, also the very day before the MAC recommendation.
Are there any socio-political dynamics to consider?
Former president Jacob Zuma was recently ordered back to jail as part of a high profile case against him regarding corruption. Meanwhile, current president Cyril Ramaphosa is allegedly recovering from a bout of Omicron variant, after having taken two vaccines. While the former has not endorsed forced vaccines, the current, who is former trade unionist, is not opposed to mandatory injections.
South African politics being both predictable and unpredictable, vaccines, repurposed medicines and chaos in the broken health care system can become the basis for a successful political campaign. In a country where HIV, cancer, TB, gender-based violence and other endemic conditions have been ignored over impractical and costly C19 measures affecting lives and livelihoods, South Africa would support a health care professional with competence, a backbone, and zero conflicts of interest.
Call to action: What recommendations would you make to the South African minister of health Joe Paahla? Email [email protected] for the best ones to be collated and published.
Norway Institute of Public Health Finds Some Anomalies in Menstrual Cycles Associated with COVID-19 Vaccination
More COVID-19 vaccine data points materialize based on the results of a recent study sponsored by Norway’s Institute of Public Health (FHI) which found that COVID-19 vaccination is associated with some disruption in the menstrual cycles of young women. In an observational, self-report study involving 6,000 females aged 18 through 30 the study team uncovered a cluster of data indicating that the vaccines are associated with higher natural variability in menstrual cycle. This study is not yet peer reviewed so this outcome shouldn’t yet be cited as any medical evidence—at least not yet.
Do the COVID-19 vaccines lead to issues with menstruation? Some have speculated that these vaccines are in fact connected to some observed challenges. For example, in the United Kingdom’s health regulator (Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency) yellow card safety system an amount over 30,000 incidences of modifications to menstrual patterns were reported since the onset of mass COVID-19 immunization. TrialSite reported on these findings back in September. Imperial College of London Researcher Suggests Investigation into COVID-19 Vaccine Impact on Menstrual Cycle (trialsitenews.com)
Note that the data derives from the Norwegian UngVoksen – FHI (Young Adult) cohort from October 21, 2021, to November 11, 2021.
What follows is a summary of the Norwegian data.
Table 1. Changes in reported bleeding patterns before and after vaccination among 3972 menstruating women aged 18–30 years, before and after first vaccine dose.
Menstrual change Before 1st vaccine dose (unvaccinated)* After 1st vaccine dose (vaccinated with at least one dose)*
Heavier than normal 7.6% 13.6%
Longer duration than normal 9.3% 12.5%
Shorter interval between periods 9.5% 12.0%
Longer interval between periods 10.3% 10.9%
Unexpected breakthrough bleeding 13.8% 14.2%
More painful periods than normal 11.4% 14.6%
Period-like pains without bleeding 18.3% 15.8%
Table 2. Changes in reported bleeding patterns before and after vaccination among 3507 menstruating women aged 18–30 years, before and after second vaccine dose.
Menstrual change Before 2nd vaccine dose (vaccinated with one dose)* After 2nd vaccine dose (vaccinated with two doses)*
Heavier than normal 8.2% 15.3%
Longer duration than normal 8.2% 14.3%
Shorter interval between periods 7.9% 14.3%
Longer interval between periods 8.4% 10.5%
Unexpected breakthrough bleeding 10.0% 15.1%
More painful periods than normal 9.8% 16.0%
Period-like pains without bleeding 11.8% 16.5%
Table 3. Risk of bleeding disturbances among women with menstrual changes, before and after dose one, and before and after dose two.
Menstrual change Relative risk and 95% confidence interval after 1st vaccine dose Relative risk and 95% confidence interval after 2nd vaccine dose
Heavier than normal (634 dose 1, 557 dose 2) 1.90 (1.69-2.13) 1.84 (1.66-2.03)
Longer duration than normal (636 dose 1, 541 dose 2) 1.46 (1.31-1.61) 1.71 (1.55-1.89)
Shorter interval between periods (603 dose 1, 488 dose 2) 1.32 (1.19-1.46) 1.57 (1.42-1.73)
Longer interval between periods (594 dose 1, 434 dose 2) 1.07(0.97-1.17) 1.24 (1.13-1.37)
Unexpected breakthrough bleeding (725 dose 1, 559 dose 2) 1.09 (1.01-1.17) 1.49 (1.37-1.62)
More painful periods than normal (706 dose 1, 582 dose 2) 1.35 (1.24-1.47) 1.62 (1.49-1.77)
Period-like pains without bleeding (830 dose 1, 583 dose 2) 0.91 (0.86-0.97) 1.36 (1.27-1.45)
Summary of ‘Recurrent Risk’
The Norwegian team report a summary of “Recurrent Risk” including:
This is the risk of menstrual changes after the second dose among women who experienced this after the first dose (recurrence risk):
After vaccination with the first dose of coronavirus vaccine, 13.6 per cent reported unusually heavy periods.
Among these, almost two out of three women experienced unusually heavy periods after the second dose (65.7 per cent).
Among women who did not experience heavier periods after the first dose, 8 per cent reported unexpectedly heavy periods after the second dose, which is comparable with the incidence among unvaccinated people.
For the other menstrual changes, the recurrence risk after the second dose was similar in size.
Limitations
This study includes limitations. It’s not peer reviewed yet and relies on a self-reporting scheme which can raise several factors that can influence the results. Thus far research hasn’t demonstrated any material harm of the COVID-19 vaccinates regarding fertility of existing pregnant women for example.
The team from Norway reported “It is conceivable that women who experienced menstrual changes after the first dose were concerned and thus more likely to report this also after the second dose, compared with women who did not experience menstrual disorders after the first dose. There has been a lot of media attention around the signals that have come after coronavirus vaccination, which may have also contributed to more women reporting menstrual changes after vaccination, even if they have previously experienced similar episodes without vaccination.”
What are Others Reporting?
But TrialSite does note that the contribution from the participants was important and offers unique view about conditions that cannot be pulled out from national health registries.
Back in April TrialSite reported that a CDC group known as the CDC COVID-19 Response v-Safe COVID-19 Pregnancy Registry Team had study results published in the New England Journal of Medicine that found not safety concerns. TrialSite notes however that the vaccines had only been released for a few months by that point.
In the United States the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommend that pregnant individuals be vaccinated against COVID-19 despite the novel nature of these products. The rationale? ACOG argues that the risk associated with a pregnant individual getting COVID-19 with an escalation to severe infection or death during pregnancy pushes the risk-benefit analysis in the favor of benefit. ACOG recommends vaccination may occur during any trimester while they recommend the jab sooner rather than later.
In September a group of OGBYNs from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School investigated the matter. Published in Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology the group leaves much open for further research.
TrialSite reminds that pregnant women and lactating people were excluded from the initial clinical trials, thus data on COVID-19 vaccine safety and efficacy was limited (Bianchi et al, 2021) while guidance from the public health agencies has been at times conflicted (Adhikari and Spong, 2021). But these studies were earlier in the year.
Some data however from the Development and Reproductive Toxicity (DART) studies appeared positive but limited in scope. Animal studies aren’t enough to mitigate prospective risk. However the CDC is on the record. that the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination for pregnant individuals outweigh the risks.
TrialSite will continue to monitor this very important concern. The concerns TrialSite raises include A) lack of sponsor and regulatory body transparency (e.g., redacted documents under analyses); B) clear possibility that adverse event levels may be suppressed and C) lack of any liability under the PREP Act—in America.
TrialSite will continue to monitor this important topic.
About FHI
Formed in 1929, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health Norwegian Institute of Public Health – NIPH (fhi.no) or Folkehelseinstituttet (FHI) is a government agency as well as research institute and represents Norway’s national public health institute. The agency falls under the hierarchy of the Ministry of Health and Care Services. The agency serves the Norwegian public as a public health institution and employs 1,400 employees.
Is Regulatory Capture Behind the Strange Observations Associated with the Recent COVID—19 Ciclesonide Study?
This Ciclesonide Randomized controlled trial stood up to peer review and was published in the highly regarded JAMA. However, the way they presented the results is very strange—even concerning. Why dilute the results—lessen headline potential? Like the treatment of the highly efficacious but cheap fluvoxamine trials. Here is their conclusion: “The results of this randomized clinical trial demonstrated that ciclesonide did not achieve the primary efficacy end point of reduced time to alleviation of all COVID-19–related symptoms.”
Thanks to a tip from a long-standing, TrialSite community member from Orange County, California we report these findings. That’s an unimpressive sounding result. However, the details from the trial showed that their secondary endpoint was that participants who were treated with ciclesonide had fewer subsequent emergency department visits or hospital admissions for reasons related to COVID-19 (odds ratio, 0.18; 95% CI, 0.04-0.85). No participants died during the study. The Phase 3 study was sponsored by Covis Pharma S.à.r.L.
An 82% risk reduction in emergency room visits and/or hospitalization due to COVID-19 is something that could make a massive difference in the fight against this virus and relieve pressure on hospitals. Yes, the results didn’t reach statistical significance for the Primary Endpoint. However, the secondary endpoint is much more important. According to a long standing TrialSite contributor “Who cares if someone still has a mild lingering cough after 30 days?”
What’s Going on? Why the Change?
But on to the alarming matter. The trial’s original primary endpoint was what ended up as the secondary endpoint. It was changed during the trial. According to the history on ClinicalTrials.gov they were changed as follows: Percentage of patients with subsequent emergency department visit or hospital admission for reasons attributable to COVID 19 by day 30 Time to Alleviation of COVID-19-related Symptoms by Day 30.
A full history of the trial changes can been seen at this link
The trial was stopped early but not before the original primary end point reached statistical significance with a p value of 0.03 (buried in Table 2).
A Seemingly Good Study
This was a well-designed study at ten different centers with 400 patients in a double-blind placebo-controlled trial. It yielded incredible results for a cheap, generic, safe, outpatient therapeutic despite being halted early. Yet their conclusion is basically that it failed. As a result, (or as intended) all the medical news sites are reporting it as a failure.
Check out the Conflict of Interests
The trial’s Conflict of Interest Disclosure section is also alarming with ties to: Gilead Sciences Inc, Ridgeback Biotherapeutics (original makers of Molnupiravir prior to Merck’s purchase), Roche, Genentech/Novartis, Regeneron/Sanofi, Teva, GSK Sanofi, Regeneron, Merck, and Pfizer. The Conflict-of-Interest section coupled with the change in endpoints and the obfuscated positive results are very concerning! Could this be yet another glaring example of Regulatory Capture. To add insult to injury the trial was co-funded by taxpayer dollars through the NIH.
Based on what TrialSite has covered with a range of early-care treatment studies perhaps unfortunately this disturbing matter isn’t’ surprising. But this output seemingly indicates an overt hubris that hurts the American taxpayer. According to one TrialSite contributor that wishes to remain anonymous “However, we are still shocked at the arrogance that they don’t even bother to disguise their intentions better. Why not just falsify the results? Instead, they provided easy to spot proof of their biases right in the paper.”
This randomized controlled trial is not the only evidence that supports this safe, cheap, repurposable therapeutic to treat early Covid-19. Here is another example of a positive trial:
This drug has been on TrialSite community members’ radar and holds a place in some community members’ break glass in case of emergency COVID-19 kit since July 2020. Remember our Dr. Barlett article? Is Ciclesonide what he wanted Budesonide to be
Natural immunity study needed.
Natural immunity study needed.
Why?
I don't get why that is a priority. What decision-making would it change?
It is, to be clear, not natural immunity. It is COVID-infection survivor's immunity.
Omicron is not that scary yet, so let's wait for the data shall we before projecting anything nasty.
50% - 33% hospitalisation cf delta is scary or not scary according to health system capacity and infection rate peak.
Personally 50%-33% hospitalisation from delta depends on many factors - because we don't know how that splits vaccinated /unvaccinated or prior delta infection / no prior delta infection.
But it is at least mildly good news!
Here for people that can read German:https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/…iew-komplett-NDS-JB-1.pdf
A long interview with a former Biontec researcher and a vaccine specialist about the now since (soon) two year unfolding "vaccine" story. He worked for Biotec cancer gen-therapy and personally would never take the current "vaccine" as the benefit risk ratio is not given except for high risk people (as in cancer chemo too). He would prefer a full "death" virus vaccine.
Not sure how trustful this entire platform and the messages from there are these days…
Vor dem Hintergrund der Proteste gegen Schutzmaßnahmen zur COVID-19-Pandemie in Deutschland ordnete der Rechtsextremismusexperte Marius Hellwig die Nachdenkseiten gegenüber dem RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland in die Reihe der „verschwörungsideologische[n] und/oder rechts-offene[n] Medien wie die das [...] Compact-Magazin, RT Deutsch, KenFM, die Epoch Times und PI News ein.“[33]
FDA authorizes new COVID treatment, a Pfizer pill; projection says 'enormous surge' of infections coming: Live updates
Marius Hellwig
Personen haben keine Relevanz bei solchen globalen Beurteilungen. Bedenklich ist jedoch wenn Fachleute, die nicht der FM/R/J/B Mafia angehören, heute in eben deren Journalien nicht mehr publiziert werden können!
Das Interview ist rein fachlich objektive und mehr als nur ausgewogen....
Aber eben dieses (ausgewogen, nicht pro Mafia) genügt bei Mafiafreunden wie dir offensichtlich für ein Paschalurteil...
Interesting POV.
In today's internet landscape it is the boring run-of-the-mill doctors with normal views whose voice is not heard.
Dr. Andrew Hill, the fraudulent UK doctor, trying to suppress Ivermectin by manipulating data has been given a 40 million "bribe" donation by teh FM/R/B mafia.
Start about minute 3.
Mercola, with his health supplement empire, is a loathsome and dangerous antivaxxer - arguments he supports deserve airing and forensic deconstruction so everyone can see their lack of merit.
The problem for this site is that TSN (oft posted here) airs these uncritically and some posters here repeat them without analysis of context.
Alas humans are only human, and lies repeated 100s of times can end up being believed. So for anyone taking any interest at all in the antivaxxer reports about VAERS, the story below should be interesting.
Note the implied straw man. No, no one is claims that VAERS is unreliable primarily because lots of people are reporting fake AEs such as being turned into fictional monsters and superheroes. Rather, we point out these examples merely as part of the discussion of how VAERS reports represent raw, unadjudicated data, with no ability to demonstrate causation. Antivaxxers leap to the assumption that any AE entered into VAERS must have been caused by the vaccine, but that is simply not the case. As I’ve discussed time ad time again, raw VAERS data cannot establish causation, as, by its very nature, it cannot establish reliable estimates for the incidence of a given AE.
Moreover, contrary to Mercola’s claim that we can be “quite certain there’s no over-reporting going on”, we can actually be quite certain that VAERS has been gamed multiple times in its 30 year history. For instance, one of the earliest times I wrote about VAERS was in 2006, when I discussed a study that examined how vaccine litigation could influence VAERS reports. Using VAERS reports from 1990 to 2003, the study found “most case reports to VAERS that were related to overdose, neuropathy, and thimerosal were related to litigation”, as were “many cases” that were related to “autism and mental retardation”. Since we now know with a great degree of certainty that vaccination is unrelated to autism, neuropathy, and mental retardation, we know with a great deal of confidence that these reports represented, if not overreporting, misreporting of AEs not related to vaccination as though they were. The study concluded, “This review shows a previously undisclosed rise in the number of reports to the VAERS related to pending litigation for vaccine injury.” In other words, this is not a new problem with VAERS.
More recently, another study showed changes in reports to the VAERS database from California that appeared to be due to the passage of SB 277, the law that eliminated nonmedical “personal belief exemptions” to school vaccine mandates, concluding that the “recent changes in reporting patterns coincident with the introduction of SB277 may indicate that more parents are using VAERS to assist in applying for a medical exemption for their child”. In other words, VAERS reports are not nearly as reliable as Mercola (and Rose) want you to believe.
Does any of this sound familiar? Relying on just raw VAERS reports from the database is exactly the mistake that Tracy Høeg, John Mandrola, and Allison Krug teamed up with COVID-19 antimasker and antivaxxer Josh Stevenson to dumpster dive in VAERS to look for myocarditis cases and declared themselves to have been “silenced” when the torrent of criticism of their bad science rolled in.
Also, contrary to claims made by Jessica Rose, Steve Kirsch, Joe Mercola, and RFK Jr. (among many other antivaxxers), underreporting to VAERS is not rampant, at least not in the way they make it seem. It’s commonly claimed that only 1% of AEs are reported to VAERS, but that is a misleading statement. As Dr. Vincent Iannelli pointed out a couple of years ago, there is major underreporting for minor AEs, such as fever and pain at the injection site. Of course there is! If your child, for instance, has a fever for a day after a vaccine, are you going to bother to report it to VAERS? Probably not. However, if someone dies soon after a vaccine, you can be damned sure that it will very likely be reported, particularly given the government’s implementation of V-Safe, its text messaging system that follows up COVID-19 vaccination with text messages asking if you’ve had any symptoms since vaccination and reminding you to report them to VAERS if you did. In other words, the more serious the AE, the more likely it is to be reported to VAERS, particularly with the reminders people who opted into V-Safe have been receiving.
This doesn’t even take into consideration the innumeracy and sheer lack of plausibility behind Mercola and Rose’s claims. Mercola’s article states that underreporting of deaths due to COVID-19 vaccines ranges from between 31- and 100-fold, leading him to estimate in his article that the “actual death toll in the US could be anywhere from 278,500 to 898,600.”
By February 1, 2021 the first serious efforts by antivaxxers to misrepresent VAERS reports as showing that COVID-19 vaccines are deadly were manifesting themselves, and I discussed why they did not show this and were not evidence that COVID-19 vaccines were causing heart attacks and sudden death. At that point, there had been “only” 323 deaths and 9,845 AEs reported to VAERS. By May 2021, conspiracy theorists Michael Yeadon and Peter McCullough were helping Mercola use VAERS to spread the conspiracy theory that the vaccines were part of the “global depopulation” agenda, and by July a “holistic cardiologist” from my part of the country was joining in amplifying misinformation based on VAERS reports.
As I’ve said many times, all science denial, especially antivaccine pseudoscience, is rooted in conspiracy theory. The central conspiracy theory of the antivaccine movement consists of a claim that “they” are trying to hide the “truth” about vaccines, the “they” usually being the CDC, FDA, the medical establishment, and, of course, big pharma. So, of course, there must be a conspiracy theory to claim why “they” are not taking the dire warnings of people like Jessica Rose seriously, and, of course, there is. The CDC is covering it up, obviously!
And:
QuoteWhile the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outrageously deny that a single death can be attributed to the COVID jabs, it’s simply impossible to discount 19,532 deaths5 (8,986 in the U.S. territories alone6) reported as of November 26, 2021. As noted by Rose:
Actually, it is. I’ve discussed on many occasions now the baseline rate of e.g. deaths, which Rose either doesn’t understand or refuses to accept. Let’s go all the way back to January to see what I mean, where I will, as I am wont to do, quote Mark Hoofnagle:
Remember, this was January, and Mark was estimating over 4K deaths near the time of COVID-19 vaccination by random chance alone.
Now that it’s been over a year since COVID-19 vaccines have rolled out, we can redo the estimates that I last did in July. Our World In Data estimates that in the US as of two days ago, 494 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered leading to 202 million people having been “fully vaccinated,” or 61% of the population. (I realize that the question of boosters complicates the definition of “fully vaccinated” now, but this is a back-of-the-envelope calculation designed to give a rough estimate.) The estimate for the baseline death rate that I used back then was roughly 2.4/100,000 per day, which means that for a population of 202 million we’d expect to see an average of ~4,848 deaths per day by random chance alone. Using one year as a rough number, we’d therefore expect to have seen around ~1.77 million deaths in this time period by random chance alone, and that doesn’t even count the increase in the baseline death rate due to deaths from actual COVID-19 that has occurred.
The sheer size of those numbers makes Rose’s appeal to incredulity sound really rather silly:
QuoteJessica Rose: Nope. They are holding fast to their claim that not one of the adverse event reports of death in VAERS is because of the products. They’re holding fast. There are GPs and medical doctors and nurse practitioners who are also spouting this garbage. It’s not even statistically plausible to say that. Not one death out of the 10,000 something something were caused, it’s not scientific to say that. So actually, I’m happy when people say that because it’s really it’s going to be really easy to disprove. I think I already have. But showing causation with epidemiological or biological data, data is notoriously difficult, you can do it.
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Dr. Mercola: Oh, right. I didn’t realize it was statistically possible. But well, you know it, probably do.
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Jessica Rose: Yeah, you can use something called the Bradford Hill criteria, which is a set of 10 criteria that you should satisfy in order to show very strong evidence of causal relationship. And one of the most important of these is temporality, of course, because one thing has to come before the other. And the shorter the duration between those two, the higher the likelihood that there’s a causative effect. So when you’re talking about people, like percentages of people who died, having died within 24 hours of one of their jabs, let’s say you’re talking 50%. That’s kind of suspicious to me. Yeah. I’m glad you laughed, because it is funny, and they completely deny the causal effect. And I mean, yeah, it’s, it’s-
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Dr. Mercola: Just a coincidence.
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Actually, it almost certainly is “just a coincidence,” just as so many of the problems attributed to vaccines by antivaxxers misusing VAERs were long before the pandemic. My favorite example is a calculation once done over at The Logic of Science five years ago to estimate how many new diagnoses of autism would occur after certain periods of time after vaccination by random chance alone assuming no causation or correlation between vaccines and autism, concluding that, even if there is no relationship between vaccines and autism (and there isn’t such a relationship), every year we would expect to see 154 children showing the first signs of autism within a day of vaccination, 1,079 within a week, and 4,623 within a month. The same principle works here, but the numbers are much larger.
Basically, in a population this large receiving vaccines, due to the large baseline rate of deaths that occur every day, day in and day out, just because a certain small percentage of a large population will die of multiple causes every day one expects large numbers of deaths to occur after vaccination by random chance alone. One also does not expect underreporting of deaths, given V-Safe and long term findings that serious AEs after vaccination, of which death is obviously the most serious, are not underreported to VAERs by a factor of 20 or 100, as Mercola, Kirsch, and Rose claim.
It’s also rather hilarious how Mercola and Rose completely ignore the other Bradford-Hill criteria, such as plausibility, consistency, coherence between epidemiological and laboratory findings, biological gradient, and others, and cite temporality über alles. That is, of course, why raw VAERS reports are investigated and adjudicated before the CDC uses them in analyses, and even then the CDC then uses other databases, such as VSD, to test whether the safety signals identified in VAERS are reproducible using an active surveillance system.
Rose gets even worse, though. She cites an estimate by tech millionaire turned ivermectin pusher Steve Kirsch, a man who’s been falsely claiming that COVID-19 vaccines kill twice as many people as they save (wronger than wrong). Jeffrey Morris demolished (in extreme detail) Kirsch’s methodology used to arrive at his estimate of a 41-fold underreporting rate in detail so that I don’t have to. Let’s just say that Kirsch cherry picked studies and used inappropriate analyses, analogies, and comparisons to come up with this estimate, concluding about Kirsch’s underreporting rate (URR):
QuoteIt is difficult to see the plausibility of Kirsch’s URR estimate of 41x given results from these 3 studies on myocarditis/pericarditis showing URR from 2.0x-2.7x, and the estimate of 41x from the selected anaphylaxis study contrasts with a study done in November 2020 for other vaccines showing UR of just 1.3x-8x, especially problematic for him based on his claim that reporting rates are similar now as pre-pandemic. To justify the high 41x level, he would need more compelling evidence beyond his current speculative statements on why the URR would be much higher, not lower, for deaths, and why the underreporting in 2021 would be so much higher than previous years.
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If anything, given the institution of the V-Safe system and the huge publicity surrounding AEs after COVID-19 vaccination, we would expect the URR to be lower for COVID-19 vaccines than for vaccines in previous years, not higher, especially for the most severe AEs, such as death.
Rose then goes on to claim—of course!—that the nefarious CDC is “deleting” VAERS reports, particularly for children. This is a more difficult conspiracy theory to look at because there could be any of a number of reasons why VAERS ID entries are deleted. Even Rose admits that it could be because more than one report was filed for the same vaccine recipient (e.g., by the doctor and the parents) or for other reasons. A version of this conspiracy theory was going around a few months ago, and the CDC responded by explaining that some 6,000 VAERS reports had been removed from the database because they came from outside the US:
QuoteCurtis Gill, a CDC representative, told Reuters via email that the CDC is aware of an error which took place while data was being uploaded to the page.
“The error resulted in what appeared to be a large spike in the number of deaths reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) after COVID-19 vaccination,” Gill said. “It happened, accidentally, because of combining foreign and domestic reports, and has been corrected.”
I really wish that the CDC would be more proactive about such incidents. Instead of waiting until questions are asked about such anomalies in VAERS data, the CDC should announce when it corrects the data. That wouldn’t stop conspiracy theories like the ones Mercola and Rose are spreading, but it could help. Likely there are other legitimate reasons for reports to be removed, but if the CDC isn’t painfully aware that antivaxxers are monitoring VAERS for the purposes of anomaly hunting by now, I don’t know what else would nudge them to do more. Such removals, which before COVID-19 were just part of the normal maintenance of VAERS and rarely noticed or commented on, even by antivaxxers, are now grist for the conspiracy mill. No doubt Rose will deny that this is what she was looking at, but there’s also no doubt that the CDC can no longer do routine quality control of the VAERS database without a lot more transparency, as conspiracy mongers like her are watching for any anomaly that they can weaponize against COVID-19 vaccines.
It’s not at all surprising that Jessica Rose would be engaging in dumpster diving of the VAERS database. What was once a common, albeit rather niche, tactic of the antivaccine movement has in the age of the pandemic been weaponized to the point that I’ve spent considerable time and effort in 2021 dealing with antivaccine propaganda and conspiracy mongering related to VAERS in a way that I had never had to do before for previous vaccines, even if I have been writing about the antivaccine misuse of VAERS since 2005. In the age of COVID-19, VAERS has become a weapon because of its very nature that makes it perfect for this purpose to antivaxxers. It is a completely open database. Anyone can submit a report of an AE after vaccination to it. The complete VAERS dataset (scrubbed of personally identifiable information, such as names) can be downloaded and analyzed by anyone, even without a protocol approved by an institutional review board.
Let’s just say that there’s a reason that you almost never see antivaxxers like Jessica Rose and Joe Mercola citing the VSD, PRISM, and CISA results to promote their conspiracy theories. They’re active surveillance systems, and, far more often than not, analysis of their data fail to support the hypotheses generated by analyses of VAERS with respect to causation.
I frequently repeat the refrains that there is nothing new under the sun when it comes to the antivaccine movement, nor are there any truly new antivaccine arguments or techniques of disinformation. Sure, the same old tropes have been tweaked a bit for COVID-19, but at their core they are no different than the same old tropes that antivaxxers have been using for years. I’m hard pressed to think of any better example than how the VAERS database has been misused and weaponized during 2021 to spread FUD about COVID-19 vaccines. Sadly, I don’t see the media or public health officials being all that much better at addressing this technique of disinformation than they were a year ago.
Display Morehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59758784
50% - 33% hospitalisation cf delta is scary or not scary according to health system capacity and infection rate peak.
Personally 50%-33% hospitalisation from delta depends on many factors - because we don't know how that splits vaccinated /unvaccinated or prior delta infection / no prior delta infection.
But it is at least mildly good news!
Yeah sure, we had a week now with that peek for UK, and the Hospitalisation cases has no clear signal yet, Sorry but infections are snake oil. Hospitalisations, ICU cases
and deaths are the reliable meassures of worry. We can start worry when UK get's spikes there as well and then see the impaklt as we are a month behind. But people are freaking
out. Actually I don't mind any mask restrictions or whatever, but numbers does not add up to this level yet.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/muzzled/
Interesting POV.
In today's internet landscape it is the boring run-of-the-mill doctors with normal views whose voice is not heard.
Damage control, IMO, after the damaging emails between Fauci and NIH Director Collins from Oct 2021, were released under a FOIA request 2 days ago.
In the emails, Collins told Fauci that he wanted "a quick and devastating public take down" of the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) authors. Fauci was more than willing to comply, and then, miraculously within the day, the "media" was instantly on the story to apply the "coup de grace".
In your article, my take is that the author starts off pretending to be neutral, and quickly goes in for the kill. It is a hit-piece, disguised as objective journalism.
