Covid-19 News

Quote from JedRothwell

Here is yet another report of a deluded nitwit dying from his own ignorance. A leading anti-vaxxer politician in Texas named H. Scott Apley died of COVID.

There are daily posts of such cases; These are just a few from this week.

Fit and healthy former bodybuilder age 42 dies from Covid after refusing the vaccine.

Mum of three age 25 nervous and too busy to get a jab.

Anti vaxxer night club manager dies age 56 with no underlying health conditions.

Some anti vaxxers have said as Covid only kills elderly people with a few years left then masks and lockdowns are wrong.

What about people in their 50s or 40s then?

In yet another irony some of those anti mask and anti vaxx who say they are standing up for freedom then heckle and jeer those who choose to get vaccinated or wear a mask.

Seems like they think freedom only applies to some and not others.

I heard a story the other day of someone in a US store who went up to somebody wearing a mask and declared that such behaviour made her uncomfortable.

I heard another story of a US church that had a sign saying only people without masks were wellcome to worship because they trusted in their faith.

Ironically we have the science to defeat the virus. But some people prefer to rely on good old Darwinian selection.

Quote from zorud

It seems that many more unvaccinated have been killed by the virus….?

Yes most of these kids were in a Leukemia chemo..and could not get the vaccine. Here (CH) no healthy kid died also no healthy person age <35. So you must blame the hospital or relatives for not doing the proper Ivermectin prophylaxis as the poor nation of Uttar Pradesh (India) can do...

Quote from JedRothwell

He is a government employee. He is not allowed to have pharmaceutical patrons, or any other direct source of income outside of the government.

He is free masons grand master and thus responsible for the big pharma finance income... So he is kind of Hitler and Mengele in one person.

Quote from JedRothwell

Here is a photo of him. He must have weighed 300 lbs.

Be happy one dumb & fat guy less.

But 100 mio. more are waiting as the RNA treatment looses 6% power each month. So among healthy and young vaccinated people 3% get CoV-19 from Delta 3 months after the jab. This will be 24% after one year among young! What about the old ones? Look at Israel.

Quote from Bob#2

CDC says unvaccinated is twice as likely to get re-infected as vaccinated.

Israel from real data did say is 40x less likely to get a re-infection...CDC= cheating data connection.

Quote from JedRothwell

The MMWR report from Kentucky is here:

This study is made by Dr. beginners and thus is of extremely low value. Even antigen (quick test) positives were chosen and no antibody test prior to vaccination has been made. They compare old infection with new vaccines without giving any symptoms of teh PCR + . No random selections from a database have been made what would have been mandatory. So this is just a dirt cheap made up hit piece...

Quote from ZenoOfElea

Some anti vaxxers have said as Covid only kills elderly people with a few years left then masks and lockdowns are wrong.

What about people in their 50s or 40s then?

You live in a strange country (USA). Good advice is not easily given as the average education is behind many African development countries. I hope to be there once more in the future but now it looks like being on the Russian 1919 track...

It's Time For NIH Transparency on Wuhan Research Funding | Opinion

It's time for NIH transparency on Wuhan research funding | Opinion

While everyone in Washington loves a good debate, we need less finger wagging and more facts.

www.newsweek.com

The recent spats between Dr. Anthony Fauci and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) about how the coronavirus pandemic started made for good television. The head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases wagged his finger at a United States senator and called him a liar. Dr. Fauci rejected the premise of tough, evidence-based questions about our government's support of risky "gain-of-function" research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) on his watch

While everyone in Washington loves a good debate, we need less finger wagging and more facts.

The public deserves access to documents from both the Chinese government and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Communist China's secrecy is to be expected, of course, but the U.S. government ought to be more transparent and stop hiding what it knows about the virus research in Wuhan.

Public health experts agree that to stop the next pandemic, we must find out how the COVID-19 virus—which has killed more than 4 million people worldwide and 600,000 Americans—began in China. Some argue the pandemic started because of a natural virus spillover from bats or other animals to humans, while others posit that it could have started through a leak from a lab in Wuhan, China, where scientists have been collecting and studying similar viruses for years.

Members of both the House and Senate have sent multiple requests to the NIH demanding to see documents about the money American taxpayers provided to the virus lab in Wuhan, and to view reports that explain specifics about this research. By refusing to release these documents, Dr. Fauci and other NIH officials have made it impossible to learn what the NIH has funded, and what it knows about research at Wuhan.

House members recently sent the NIH a second letter, demanding transparency on documents requested months ago about funding and reports of this research at the WIV. Meanwhile, the Washington Post editorial board reiterated its call for transparency on the WIV's risky gain-of-function research.

In a recent editorial, Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs laid out what we know: the NIH funded U.S. and Chinese scientists to collect SARS viruses and study them at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. As Dr. Sachs explained, this research "included the creation of chimeric genetic recombinants of SARS-like viruses to study their capacity to infect human cells and to cause disease." In short, American taxpayers funded research at the WIV that many scientists call "gain of function," meaning it can increase the ability of an animal virus to infect and harm humans. Dr. Sachs leads a commission by a medical journal called The Lancet to investigate how the pandemic began.Last year, Newsweek reported that Dr. Fauci provided grant money that ended up supporting risky research at the WIV. In March, the Washington Post called for an independent investigation into how the pandemic started, pointing out that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had done gain-of-function experiments and had been working on viruses very similar to COVID-19. And last April, Politico reported that former acting CIA director Michael Morell noted that if the virus leaked from a Wuhan lab, the U.S. would shoulder some of the blame since it funded research at that lab through government grants from 2014 to 2019.

The NIH released thousands of pages of internal documents that the Washington Post and Buzzfeed sought through the Freedom of Information Act. But the agency heavily redacted these documents, as the government often does to hide embarrassing details.

Yet NIH director Francis Collins is on record demanding transparency from others. "I do think we should be calling on China to make an expert-driven transparent investigation possible, because there are way too many unanswered questions," he told the Washington Post. Dr. Collins also told the Post that the Wuhan researchers need to open their lab notebooks to be examined by outside experts. "If they really want to be exonerated from this claim of culpability, then they have got to be transparent."

Agreed, but the NIH should be transparent too. How can Dr. Collins demand that researchers in Wuhan open their lab notebooks when the institute he leads will not do the same? Does Collins think that the public is not smart enough to see this hypocrisy?

The NIH released thousands of pages of internal documents that the Washington Post and Buzzfeed sought through the Freedom of Information Act. But the agency heavily redacted these documents, as the government often does to hide embarrassing details.

While everyone in Washington loves a good debate, we need less finger wagging and more facts.

The public deserves access to documents from both the Chinese government and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Communist China's secrecy is to be expected, of course, but the U.S. government ought to be more transparent and stop hiding what it knows about the virus research in Wuhan.

Public health experts agree that to stop the next pandemic, we must find out how the COVID-19 virus—which has killed more than 4 million people worldwide and 600,000 Americans—began in China. Some argue the pandemic started because of a natural virus spillover from bats or other animals to humans, while others posit that it could have started through a leak from a lab in Wuhan, China, where scientists have been collecting and studying similar viruses for years.

Members of both the House and Senate have sent multiple requests to the NIH demanding to see documents about the money American taxpayers provided to the virus lab in Wuhan, and to view reports that explain specifics about this research. By refusing to release these documents, Dr. Fauci and other NIH officials have made it impossible to learn what the NIH has funded, and what it knows about research at Wuhan.

House members recently sent the NIH a second letter, demanding transparency on documents requested months ago about funding and reports of this research at the WIV. Meanwhile, the Washington Post editorial board reiterated its call for transparency on the WIV's risky gain-of-function research.

In a recent editorial, Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs laid out what we know: the NIH funded U.S. and Chinese scientists to collect SARS viruses and study them at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. As Dr. Sachs explained, this research "included the creation of chimeric genetic recombinants of SARS-like viruses to study their capacity to infect human cells and to cause disease." In short, American taxpayers funded research at the WIV that many scientists call "gain of function," meaning it can increase the ability of an animal virus to infect and harm humans. Dr. Sachs leads a commission by a medical journal called The Lancet to investigate how the pandemic began.

Last year, Newsweek reported that Dr. Fauci provided grant money that ended up supporting risky research at the WIV. In March, the Washington Post called for an independent investigation into how the pandemic started, pointing out that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had done gain-of-function experiments and had been working on viruses very similar to COVID-19. And last April, Politico reported that former acting CIA director Michael Morell noted that if the virus leaked from a Wuhan lab, the U.S. would shoulder some of the blame since it funded research at that lab through government grants from 2014 to 2019.

The NIH released thousands of pages of internal documents that the Washington Post and Buzzfeed sought through the Freedom of Information Act. But the agency heavily redacted these documents, as the government often does to hide embarrassing details.

Yet NIH director Francis Collins is on record demanding transparency from others. "I do think we should be calling on China to make an expert-driven transparent investigation possible, because there are way too many unanswered questions," he told the Washington Post. Dr. Collins also told the Post that the Wuhan researchers need to open their lab notebooks to be examined by outside experts. "If they really want to be exonerated from this claim of culpability, then they have got to be transparent."

Agreed, but the NIH should be transparent too. How can Dr. Collins demand that researchers in Wuhan open their lab notebooks when the institute he leads will not do the same? Does Collins think that the public is not smart enough to see this hypocrisy?

"It is in fact common knowledge in the US scientific community that NIH has indeed supported genetic recombinant research on SARS-like viruses that many scientists describe as [gain of function research]," wrote Dr. Sachs in his recent editorial. He added that the process for oversight of this research is weak, limiting access for outside experts to inspect virus labs, review safety reports and scrutinize funding approvals.

"All laboratory notebooks and other relevant information should be opened by the Chinese and U.S. scientists working on this project for detailed scrutiny by independent experts," Dr. Sachs wrote.

To get to the bottom of how this pandemic—which has demolished economies and destroyed millions of lives—began, we cannot rely on half measures and debates driven by politics rather than facts.

Americans funded research in Wuhan. We have a right to know what we paid for and whether it went horribly wrong. The Chinese government needs to be more transparent and cooperate with world leaders to get to the bottom of what happened in those labs. And Americans need to hold our own government accountable to an even higher standard of transparency.

Jason Foster is Founder & President of Empower Oversight Whistleblowers & Research, and former Chief Investigative Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

.Chart of the day: COVID-19 virus found in sewage and blood samples in 2019

Chart of the day: COVID-19 virus found in sewage and blood samples in 2019

Through screening of past cases, tests on blood samples and even wastewater, multiple studies found the existence of the virus elsewhere before China reported…

news.cgtn.com

A recent research paper indicated that COVID-19 could have circulated in Italy in late 2019, weeks before it was formally identified in China, raising more questions about the origins of the virus.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists from all over the world have been researching SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease.

Through screening of past cases, tests on blood samples and even wastewater, multiple studies found the existence of the virus elsewhere before China reported its first case

Quote from Mark U

As I've shared before, I'm pretty sure I already had Covid. Mild phlegm in the back of my throat when I woke up one morning in the spring of 2020, about five days after I was exposed to someone who was just back from a holiday cruise and suffering from Covid (I found out later). I think I got a booster (live, aerosolized version) about a month ago, when my throat was a little uncomfortable for a day.

So, like most, my symptoms after exposure to Covid have been very mild. Sure I could get the vaccine and probably suffer some ill effects, but why? Also, since the vaccines are experimental, we should retain some semblance of a sizeable control group shouldn't we.

Personally I'll take a few thousand live viruses to do battle with my capable nasal mucosa rather than have tens of trillions of altered RNA bits wrapped in high tech slippery fats and stabilizers, injected directly into my tissue, blood and lymphatic systems, that coopts my body to produce a toxic protein that my body may not properly associate with a foreign, real virus.

Granted, if I was not informed about things like ivermectin, not supplementing with immunity boosting goodies, and overall not confident of my body's health and immune capability, I might well take a vaccine. But that is not me, that is someone else.

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You can check whether you have had COVID (which I agree would reduce risk a lot) with an antibody test.

Immunity boosting goodies and ivermectin should not affect the decision of a rational person - they do not necessarily work at all, but if they work will be likely a small risk reduction.

Alas when making choices about risks people are often not rational, and your reasons are pretty common. It is a personal risk for you, and replicated through society it keeps COVID rates higher for longer than needed.

My great sadness is the way that over the last 10 years irrationality (various different types of conspiracy theory) have become such a powerful populist force,

Fauci... Prophetic report in 2012

"

In his 2012 paper, Fauci warned:

In an unlikely but conceivable turn of events,

what if that scientist [conducting gain-of-function research] becomes infected with the virus,

which leads to an outbreak and ultimately triggers a pandemic?

Many ask reasonable questions: given the possibility of such a scenario—however remote—

should the initial experiments have been performed and/or published in the first place,

and what were the processes involved in this decision?

https://www.newsweek.com/its-t…ci-retire-opinion-1614824

Quote from THHuxleynew

My great sadness is the way that over the last 10 years irrationality (various different types of conspiracy theory) have become such a powerful populist force,

Yes it is very sad. Those darned conspiracy theories try to mess with our view of an ordered and ethical process of institutional governance! For instance, just look at a sample of the nonsense spewing forth from just one article,

[the CDC's] own top scientist William Thompson, has admitted that he and his colleagues colluded to obscure and then shred data (he kept copies) which showed a link between autism and the MMR vaccine. “Oh my God, I can’t believe we did what we did,” Thompson confessed in one taped telephone chat to Brian Hooker, a bioengineer professor at Simpson University and the father of an autistic child.

This conspiracy nonsense has got to stop! Someone get on the phone (avoid emails, please!) with people at Facebook and Twitter so this kind of misinformation and irrationality doesn't spread further on social media.

Quote from Mark U

Yes it is very sad. Those darned conspiracy theories try to mess with our view of an ordered and ethical process of institutional governance! For instance, just look at a sample of the nonsense spewing forth from just one article,

http://springfieldvt.blogspot.…ll-parents-speak-out.html

[the CDC's] own top scientist William Thompson, has admitted that he and his colleagues colluded to obscure and then shred data (he kept copies) which showed a link between autism and the MMR vaccine. “Oh my God, I can’t believe we did what we did,” Thompson confessed in one taped telephone chat to Brian Hooker, a bioengineer professor at Simpson University and the father of an autistic child.

This conspiracy nonsense has got to stop! Someone get on the phone (avoid emails, please!) with people at Facebook and Twitter so this kind of misinformation and irrationality doesn't spread further on social media.

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That is a great example - I'm glad you have linked it.

We could use this as an example of how to evaluate information.

Primary link (from you)

This link covers a lot of different claims, without much detail. Any naive person reading it would be highly alarmed. A scientist reading it would be interested.

I am certainly interested. I am going to go through the main claim highlighted by Mark U and provide comment. I don't expect anyone committed to a distrust of establishment view - so much that they will evaluate all scientific issues with common sense distrusting all expert analyses - necessarily to agree with me. I hope that such people can look at my decision-making - compare it with their own in detail - and reflect on why two people given the same facts can reach different conclusions. I find this difference fascinating.

Before I do that some background. This page is a classic conspiracy theory page, because for its claims to be true doctors throughout the western world must be engaged in a phenomenally large and complex coverup. The CDC must be part of this, but also medical establishments in the UK, Germany, France, Sweden, etc. Each of these countries has separate regulatory oversight (though the EU countries look to a common EU regulator, they can and do make their own decisions as well, which you can see from the varying approaches towards COVID vaccine safety). What I always find strange about this level of lack of trust is that if you trust people so little, then you cannot possibly trust the sources who provide these conspiracy theories. I am going to show (I expect - I have not done it yet) that an hour's googling throws up alternate explanations.

Mark U's highlighted claim

They still quote a 2004 Pediatrics study claiming to refute a link between autism and vaccines even though one of its authors, their own top scientist William Thompson, has admitted that he and his colleagues colluded to obscure and then shred data (he kept copies) which showed a link between autism and the MMR vaccine. “Oh my God, I can’t believe we did what we did,” Thompson confessed in one taped telephone chat to Brian Hooker, a bioengineer professor at Simpson University and the father of an autistic child.

The Thompson whistleblower case is the basis of the 2016 documentary Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe by Andrew Wakefield, the gastroenterologist who was among the first to suggest a link the MMR vaccine and autism in the late ‘90s, and who has become a symbol of how the system deals with dissenters. It’s the film the CDC does not want anyone to see.

The CDC also fails to mention that the federal government has been forced to acknowledge vaccination’s role in inducing autism and has awarded compensation to some parents of damaged children. Other courts have recognized the connection between autism and vaccination too. Besides that, there are the thousands of parents  the courts and federal government pretend don’t exist who all tell the same story over and over again: that they watched their children regress into autism following vaccination.

Given Mark U's quote is clearly presenting one side - it marshals a lot of additional claims to support its overarching idea that vaccinations are poisoning our children - I will start with a concise summary of the other side from a site which is explicitly in favour of vaccination.

https://64gbq3vj11cj33l2zkxvv10k-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Whistleblower_QA012017_updatedSept2020.pdf

I've no idea who wrote this, or its accuracy, but it seems quite detailed and provides clear evidence of the sort that can be evaluated.

In addition here is some mainstream journalistic comment, from Forbes. It is quite long, but worth reading for the conspiracy elements of the story rather than the science.

a-congressman-a-cdc-whisteblower-and-an-autism-tempest-in-a-trashcan

Forbes checks out from different media bias sites as center or center-right. As everyone here now knows, I think, the political connection with anti-vaxx conspiracy theories - of which Mark U's quote is one, is quite interesting. Mostly, the people who are attracted to these theories are extreme left or extreme right. Now I'm not saying that everyone who believes these things is extreme. Clearly 30% of the US population find these things plausible. But the main players are disproportionately likely to have extreme political views. That makes sense - extreme political actors are strongly against the current system and therefore probably inclined to distrust anything that journalists or scientists have consensus on.

I'm going to quote from the Forbes article to provide an overall story that appears coherent and rebuts the Mark U page.

In what autism-vaccine causation believers are promoting as a "bombshell," U.S. Congressman Bill Posey (R-FL), shared the following quote on the House floor last month:

At the bottom of Table 7 it also shows that for the non-birth certificate sample, the adjusted race effect statistical significance was huge. All the authors and I met and decided sometime between August and September ’02 not to report any race effects for the paper. Sometime soon after the meeting, we decided to exclude reporting any race effects, the co-authors scheduled a meeting to destroy documents related to the study. The remaining four co-authors all met and brought a big garbage can into the meeting room and reviewed and went through all the hard copy documents that we had thought we should discard and put them in a huge garbage can. However, because I assumed it was illegal and would violate both FOIA and DOJ requests, I kept hard copies of all documents in my office and I retained all associated computer files. I believe we intentionally withheld controversial findings from the final draft of the Pediatrics paper.

Now becoming widely known as the “garbage can quote,” the scenario it describes appears intended to conjure a group of people closeted in a windowless room stopping just short of building a trash fire to destroy evidence. The alleged “hard copies” in this case are related to a study published in 2004 showing no link between autism and the MMR vaccine in a population of Atlanta schoolchildren.

The person to whom the quote is attributed, William W. Thompson, is one of the authors on that study. Thompson has since said that the study showed an increased risk for autism among African-American boys who received the MMR but that the study authors decided not to publish that information.

Recent analyses of the data—which seem to have survived the garbage can—do not suggest this conclusion. As Jim Frost, the statistician who evaluated the 2004 paper and reanalyzed the data in the above links, noted:

The criticism that the study discarded data from African American subjects just doesn’t hold water. No data was discarded. For the subjects who were linked to birth certificates, the researchers performed additional analyses. In this light, I see a careful observational study that assessed the role of potential confounders.

Three of the other study authors—Frank DeStefano, Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp, and Coleen Boyle—are still with the CDC, and the remaining author, Tanya Bhasin, is no longer with the agency.

The events described in that quote occurred between “August and September '02.” In 2002—and well before that time—data and analyses weren’t retained only in hard copy versions. Indeed, hard copies of anything were and are fairly irrelevant for record-keeping, and scientists tend to rely on well-backed-up digital versions for archiving.

The idea that a group of scientists working for the US government in 2002 would somehow think that they could conceal data by discarding hard copies of anything defies belief and makes no sense given that the data were still available from the CDC. This isn't fiction film noir--it's a multilevel bureaucracy with multiple levels of data backup, archiving, and storage. Digital copies of data are absolutely critical for protecting data integrity, per the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Research Integrity.

Generally speaking, enough data should be retained so that the findings of a project can be reconstructed with ease. While this does not mean that a project needs to retain all the raw data that were collected, relevant statistics and analyses from this data should be saved, along with any notes or observations.

Protecting data integrity • Record the original creation date and time for files on your systems. • Use encryption, electronic signatures, or watermarking to keep track of authorship and changes made to data files. • Regularly back up electronic data files (both on and offsite) and create both hard and soft copies.

Indeed, in 2003, National Institutes of Health Guidelines for a data archive were that the data should be machine readable. The CDC’s 2003 policy on data records and sharing is available here and details the balance between retaining records already available elsewhere and maintaining personal privacy. This balance came into play later in the story of these data.

Let me summarise this: the mainstream view is that Thompson is interpreting that data wrong, and that multiple statisticians can look at the data and will agree Thompson is wrong. In addition, the claim by Thompson that any data has been lost (or could ever have been lost) through shredding is disputed, because all data will be stored electronically.

I might say a bit more about what I think actually happened (generally it is more likely that people misinterpret stuff than lie) later.

A decade after the 2004 paper was published, author Thompson set off an intense online controversy after unloading his concerns about this study to Brian Hooker, a bioengineer at Simpson University, and delicensed doctor Andrew Wakefield, leading to Thompson’s being dubbed the “CDC Whistleblower.” Why he turned to these two men instead of opting for the usual, federally protected channels for whistleblowers is unclear.

Hooker obtained not-destroyed-in-a-trashcan data from the CDC to analyze for himself. He subsequently published a paper purporting to support the finding of increased autism risk for African-American boys who had the MMR, in which he notes in the methods that “Cohort data were obtained directly as a “restricted access data set” from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) via a Data Use Agreement” (italics mine). That paper has been retracted.

When I reached out to Thompson for comment about the quote that Posey attributed to him, he replied only that he is having no direct communication with reporters at this time.

In lieu of a response from the other authors who remain at the CDC, CDC spokesperson Tom Skinner provided me by email with the following comment:

CDC is aware that employee Dr. William Thompson has raised concerns regarding an article he co-authored that was published in 2004 in Pediatrics. Consistent with CDC’s existing policies and procedures, the agency, through its Office of the Associate Director for Science (ADS), and in coordination with the HHS Office of Research Integrity, is reviewing these concerns. The agency will provide further information once the review is completed.

In response to my follow-up question about when the review might be completed, Skinner replied, “in the coming weeks or months.”

Because of considerable online speculation regarding the source of the quote Posey cited on the House floor, I also reached out to the Congressman’s media relations office. Posey spokesperson George Cecala confirmed that the source of the quote is a set of documents that Thompson provided through his attorneys to Posey’s office last August, around the same time that Thompson’s attorneys released a widely disseminated statement that has been interpreted in wildly different ways. According to Cecala, “those are Thompson’s words,” quoted from the materials that Thompson’s attorneys provided Posey.

Cecala says that the documents in question will be distributed only to members of Congress and will not be made available otherwise until if and when a hearing is held.

The reasons for Posey’s specific interest in this issue are murky. David Gorski, who blogs at Respectful Insolence, suggests:

Posey is a man who has been on the side of the antivaccine fringe for quite some time. Heck, he even appeared at the antivaccine quackfest Autism One in 2013 as part of a “Congressional panel”! He even introduced legislationthat’s gone nowhere requiring the CDC to do a retrospective “vaccinated vs. unvaccinated” study. As I put it, Posey appears to be vying to take over the title of most antivaccine legislator in the U.S. Congress since Dan Burton retired. Not surprisingly, he has received not-insubstantial donations from prominent members of the antivaccine movement...

When I reached out to the four authors who are still at the CDC, the only response was the statement from the agency’s press office and Thompson’s statement. I have been told, however, in the course of my outreach to various involved parties, after describing the quote and its apparent implications:

That’s not how they do things at the Centers for Disease Control.

Or anywhere else outside of a trashy 1950s crime novel.

From Shots to Clots: Science shows COVID vaccines cause blood clots.

From Shots to Clots: Science shows COVID vaccines cause blood clots.

Note that views expressed in this opinion article are the writer’s personal views and not necessarily those of TrialSite. Joel S. Hirschhorn Americans who

trialsitenews.com

Joel S. Hirschhorn

Americans who have taken COVID vaccine shots and those who have refused to capitulate to the coercion and propaganda are ill-informed about blood clots. This article provides summaries of key recently published research on two types of observed blood clots – microscopic and relatively large size – that merit serious attention and concern. One inevitable conclusion is that the FDA with support from big media is not doing its job to ensure truly informed consent by those taking vaccine shots.

Canadian physician reports high levels of clots

Dr Charles Hoffe has been practicing medicine for 28 years in a small, rural town in British Columbia, Canada, and recently gave a long interview. He has given about 900 doses of the Moderna experimental mRNA vaccine to his patients. So, contrary to some critics, he is no anti-vaccine doctor.

The core problem he has seen are microscopic clots in his patients’ tiniest capillaries. He said “Blood clots occurring at a capillary level. This has never before been seen. This is not a rare disease. This is an absolutely new phenomenon.”

Most importantly, he has emphasized these micro-clots are too small to show up on CT scans, MRI, and other conventional tests, such as angiograms, and can only be detected using the D-dimer blood test. Using the latter, he found that 62% of his patients injected with an mRNA shot are positive for clotting. He has explained what is happening in bodies. The spike proteins in the vaccine become “part of the cell wall of your vascular endothelium. This means that these cells which line your blood vessels, which are supposed to be smooth so that your blood flows smoothly now have these little spikey bits sticking out. … when the platelet comes through the capillary it suddenly hits all these COVID spikes and it becomes absolutely inevitable that blood clots will form to block that vessel.”

He made an important distinction: “The blood clots we hear about which the media claim are very rare are the big blood clots which are the ones that cause strokes and show up on CT scans, MRI, etc. The clots I’m talking about are microscopic and too small to find on any scan. They can thus only be detected using the D-dimer test…The most alarming part of this is that there are some parts of the body like the brain, spinal cord, heart and lungs which cannot re-generate. When those tissues are damaged by blood clots they are permanently damaged.”

This is his pessimistic, scientific view: “blood vessels in their lungs are now blocked up. In turn, this causes the heart to need to work harder to try to keep up against a much greater resistance trying to get the blood through your lungs. This is called pulmonary artery hypertension – high blood pressure in the lungs because the blood simply cannot get through effectively. People with this condition usually die of heart failure within a few short years.”

All these medical views have been suppressed by big media., but it was covered well in another alternative news site. And the doctor got some attention by submitting an open letter to the provincial Ministry of Health. A key point in that is this: “It must be emphasised, that these people were not sick people, being treated for some devastating disease. These were previously healthy people, who were offered an experimental therapy, with unknown long-term side-effects, to protect them against an illness that has the same mortality rate as the flu. Sadly, their lives have now been ruined.”

The concept of micro blood clots has also been invoked for the serious impacts of COVID itself. The eminent Dr. Peter McCullough noted “So, this is a very different type of blood clotting that we would see with major blood clots in the arteries and veins. For instance, blood clots involved in stroke and heart attack. Blood clots involved in major blood vessels in the legs. This was a different type of clotting and in fact the Italians courageously did some autopsies and found micro blood clots in the lungs. And so, we understood in the end, the reason why the lungs fail is not because the virus is there. It is because micro blood clots are there. … When People can’t breathe, the problem is micro-blood clotting in the lungs. …The spicule on the ball of the of the virus itself which damages blood vessels that causes blood clotting.” He has also openly stated that none of the COVID vaccines are safe for most people at little risk from COVID.

If spike protein is the cause of micro blood clots in COVID it is also reasonable to see the same phenomenon in vaccinated people impregnated with spike proteins, as Dr. Hoffe as explained.

As to the Canadian situation, The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) in July estimated the rate of vaccine-related blood clotting in Canadians who have received the AstraZeneca vaccine and said there have been 27 confirmed cases to date in Canada, with five deaths among those cases, a rather high death rate.

But this is consistent with 6 out of 28 blood clot cases reported by Yale University for the J&J vaccine in the US Also noted was that these were a particularly rare and dangerous blood clot in the brain, known as cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST), because it appears in the brain’s venous sinuses Also noted that there were abnormally low platelet levels in their blood, an unusual situation also found for those impacted by the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Wall Street Journal and Nature Journal

To its credit, the Wall Street Journal published a long article in July on the COVID vaccine blood clot issue. Here are highlights from it.

“Canadian researchers say they have pinpointed a handful of amino acids targeted by key antibodies in the blood of some people who received the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, offering fresh clues to what causes rare blood clots associated with the shot.”

“The peer-reviewed findings, by a team of researchers from McMaster University in Ontario, were published …by the science journal Nature. They could help doctors rapidly test for and treat the unusual clotting, arising from an immune-driven mix of coagulation and loss of platelets that stop bleeding.”

“The blood clotting, which some scientists have named vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia, or VITT, has also been linked to Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 shot, though incidents have occurred less frequently with that shot than with AstraZeneca.”

“Though rare, the condition has proven deadly in more than 170 adults post-vaccination in the U.K., Europe and U.S., according to government tallies. Many were younger adults who appeared healthy before vaccination, researchers and drug regulators say.”

“The total number of cases after first or second doses in the U.K. was 395 through June 23…Of the 395, 70 people have died. European officials said this month that they have seen 479 potential cases of VITT out of 51.4 million AstraZeneca vaccinations…Far fewer potential cases—21 …followed J&J vaccinations in Europe. Of those cases, 100 deaths occurred after AstraZeneca vaccination and four after Johnson & Johnson, European regulators said.”

“U.S. health officials said in late June that they have identified 38 confirmed cases of the blood-clotting syndrome out of more than 12.3 million people who received the J&J vaccine…The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in May that three cases had been fatal and evidence ‘suggests a plausible causal association’ between the combination of low platelets and clotting and the vaccine.”

As to what is going on inside the body: “[In] rare cases, vaccinated people have experienced an autoimmune reaction in which antibodies bind with unusual strength to a blood component called platelet factor 4, or PF4, forming distinct clusters resembling a bunch of grapes. This so-called immune complex, a molecular formation in the blood, activates more platelets, ‘like putting a match to gasoline,’ said John Kelton, an author of the Nature paper and researcher at McMaster University. The process accelerates, he and other researchers say, triggering simultaneous bleeding and clotting, sometimes in the brain, stomach and other areas that can in rare cases be deadly. ‘We think these antibodies are incredible amplifiers, in a bad way, of the normal coagulation system,’ says Dr. Kelton”

Interestingly, this article did not mention at all the previously discussed case of the Canadian doctor and his findings about microscopic blood clotting.

New York Times

In April, there was limited coverage of stoppages of some vaccines: “First it was AstraZeneca. Now Johnson & Johnson. Last week, British regulators and the European Union’s medical agency said they had established a possible link between AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine and very rare, though sometimes fatal, blood clots. The pause in the use of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine in Europe over similar concerns threatens to hurt a sluggish rollout that was just starting to gain momentum.” Also noted was that states paused use of the J&J vaccine after a US advisory.

“Regulators have asked vaccine recipients and doctors to look out for certain symptoms, including severe and persistent headaches and tiny blood spots under the skin.”

New England Journal of Medicine

In April this journal published three research articles on blood clotting related to COVID vaccines and a long editorial by two physicians reviewing all the work. Here are highlights from the latter.

“The Journal has now highlighted three independent descriptions of 39 persons with a newly described syndrome characterized by thrombosis and thrombocytopenia that developed 5 to 24 days after initial vaccination with [the AstraZeneca vaccine]. … These persons were healthy or in medically stable condition, and very few were known to have had previous thrombosis or a preexisting prothrombotic condition. Most of the patients included in these reports were women younger than 50 years of age, some of whom were receiving estrogen-replacement therapy or oral contraceptives. A remarkably high percentage of the patients had thromboses at unusual sites — specifically, cerebral venous sinus thrombosis or thrombosis in the portal, splanchnic, or hepatic veins. Other patients presented with deep venous thrombi, pulmonary emboli, or acute arterial thromboses. … High levels of d-dimers and low levels of fibrinogen were common and suggest systemic activation of coagulation. Approximately 40% of the patients died, some from ischemic brain injury, superimposed hemorrhage, or both conditions, often after anticoagulation.”

“Better understanding of how the vaccine induces these platelet-activating antibodies might also provide insight into the duration of antigen exposure and the risk of reoccurrence of thrombosis, which will inform the need for extended anticoagulation and might lead to improvements in vaccine design.”

“Additional cases have now been reported to the European Medicines Agency, including at least 169 possible cases of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis and 53 possible cases of splanchnic vein thrombosis among 34 million recipients of the [AstraZeneca] vaccine, 35 possible cases of central nervous system thrombosis among 54 million recipients of the Pfizer–BioNTech mRNA vaccine, and 5 possible (but unvetted) cases of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis among 4 million recipients of the Moderna mRNA vaccine. Six possible cases of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (with or without splanchnic vein thrombosis) have been reported among the more than 7 million recipients of the Johnson & Johnson/Janssen vaccine.”

Here is the final conclusion; “The questions of whether certain populations can be identified as more suitable candidates for one or another vaccine and who and how to monitor for this rare potential complication will require additional study.”

Salk Institute

In April, the Salk Institute promoted coverage of research conducted by a number of people associated with it. The chief finding was that the spike protein associated with the COVID virus and with vaccines was connected to strokes, heart attacks and blood clots.

“The paper, published in Circulation Research, also shows conclusively that COVID-19 is a vascular disease, demonstrating exactly how the SARS-CoV-2 virus damages and attacks the vascular system on a cellular level. … the paper provides clear confirmation and a detailed explanation of the mechanism through which the [spike] protein damages vascular cells.”

A subsequent article in May examined this work and made several important observations. Here is its perspective, as relevant to the COVID vaccines. “The prestigious Salk Institute…has authored and published the bombshell scientific study revealing that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein used in the Covid jabs is what’s actually causing vascular damage. Critically, all three of the experimental Covid vaccines currently under emergency use authorisation in the UK either inject patients with the spike protein or, via mRNA technology, instruct the patient’s own body to manufacture the spike protein and release them into the blood system.”

“The Salk Institute study proves the assumption made by the vaccine industry, that the spike protein is inert and harmless, to be false and dangerously inaccurate.”

“The research proves that the Covid vaccines are capable of inducing vascular disease and directly causing injuries and deaths stemming to blood clots and other vascular reactions. This is all caused by the spike protein that’s engineered into the vaccines.”

Report by 57 Medical Experts

This May report was prepared by nearly five dozen highly respected doctors, scientists, and public policy experts from across the globe. It went public and was urgently sent to world leaders as well as all who are associated with the production and distribution of the various Covid-19 vaccines in circulation today. The report demanded an immediate stop to COVID vaccinations. Dr. McCullough was one of the signatories.

“Despite calls for caution, the risks of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination have been minimized or ignored by health organizations and government authorities,” said the experts.

On the issue of blood clotting in vaccinated people the report said this:

“Some adverse reactions, including blood-clotting disorders, have already been reported in healthy and young vaccinated people. These cases led to the suspension or cancellation of the use of adenoviral vectorized [AstraZeneca] and [J&J] vaccines in some countries. It has now been proposed that vaccination with ChAdOx1-nCov-19 can result in immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT) mediated by platelet-activating antibodies against Platelet factor-4, which clinically mimics autoimmune heparin-induced thrombocytopenia. Unfortunately, the risk was overlooked when authorizing these vaccines, although adenovirus-induced thrombocytopenia has been known for more than a decade, and has been a consistent event with adenoviral vectors. The risk of VITT would presumably be higher in those already at risk of blood clots, including women who use oral contraceptives, making it imperative for clinicians to advise their patients accordingly.”

Conclusions

Supporters of the COVID vaccines are quick to emphasize that relatively few recipients have experienced post-vaccination blood clotting. True, except for the findings of the Canadian physician about microscopic blood clots in most of his patients that major news media have ignored. Also ignored are the findings from the Salk Institute which provide a rationale for seeing spike proteins as causing clots. Even vaccines not directly including spike proteins – the AstraZeneca and J&J adenovirus vector vaccines – pose a problem because they send genetic instructions into cells to produce the spike protein of the coronavirus.

Even a June case study of one patient who died from clotting after taking the second dose of the Moderna vaccine and not related to anything else stressed the use of “safe” COVID vaccines. This was also stressed in an accompanying editorial that mentioned: “The highest reported incidence is 5 cases among about 130,000 Norwegian recipients of the [AstraZeneca] vaccine.” This statistical view of the medical establishment was expressed as: “any potential risks of vaccination must be interpreted in the context of the overall morbidity and mortality of COVID-19 itself.” It also stressed blood clots in hospitalized COVID patients. It cannot be emphasized enough that the vast majority of COVID victims could have been saved through early home/outpatient treatment as detailed in Pandemic Blunder. The proven treatments can stop COVID infection in its early virus replication phase and, therefore, prevent blood clots.

The public also needs strong information about the many advantages of natural immunity, from prior COVID infection or life exposure to various coronaviruses. This is far better than vaccine induced artificial immunity that does less to protect against COVID variants and makes people susceptible to breakthrough infections. For most people the benefits of COVID vaccination do not outweigh the risks.

On the issue of whether all COVID vaccines pose a blood clot threat consider an April study by Oxford University that found the number of people who receive blood clots after getting vaccinated with a coronavirus vaccine are about the same for those who get Pfizer and Moderna vaccines as they are for the AstraZeneca vaccine. And as already cited the J&J vaccine has also been implicated for clots.

What needs attention by FDA, CDC and NIH is the need to do more testing of vaccine victims to discover through blood testing or autopsies the nature and extent of blood clotting.

For those wanting to see many examples of COVID vaccine negative health impacts this website is recommended. The mission is: “This website is dedicated to sharing the truth about these people and their testimonials. Watch for yourself and make up your own mind. Is it worth it to risk life-changing and even fatal side effects from a vaccine for a disease that is survived by 99.98% of people under 70?”

Of course, the risk of getting serious blood clots is much higher for those who get a serious case COVID-19 then it is for those who get vaccinated. They tend to be acute, near-term impacts amenable to various treatments, though sadly not lifesaving in all cases.

More insidious, in the longer run, however, perhaps years after the shots, are the microscopic blood clots noted by Dr. Hoffe and Dr. McCollough that may impact the lives of many people, perhaps millions.

Dr. Joel S. Hirschhorn, author of Pandemic Blunder and many articles on the pandemic, worked on health issues for decades. As a full professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, he directed a medical research program between the colleges of engineering and medicine. As a senior official at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the National Governors Association, he directed major studies on health-related subjects; he testified at over 50 US Senate and House hearings and authored hundreds of articles and op-ed articles in major newspapers. He has served as an executive volunteer at a major hospital for more than 10 years. He is a member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, and America’s Frontline Doctors.

Antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 Remain Stable, or Even Increase, Seven Months after Infection

The SEROCOV study also provides evidence that pre-existing antibodies to common cold coronaviruses may be protective

Antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 Remain Stable, or Even Increase, Seven Months after Infection

The SEROCOV study also provides evidence that pre-existing antibodies to common cold coronaviruses may be protective

www.isglobal.org

The levels of IgG antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein remain stable, or even increase, seven months after infection, according to a follow-up study in a cohort of healthcare workers coordinated by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), an institution supported by “la Caixa” Foundation, in collaboration with the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona. The results, published in Nature Communications, also support the idea that pre-existing antibodies against common cold coronaviruses could protect against COVID-19.

In order to predict the pandemic’s evolution and develop effective strategies, it is critical to better understand the dynamics and duration of immunity to SARS-CoV-2 as well as the possible role of pre-existing antibodies against the coronaviruses that cause common colds. With this goal in mind, the team led by ISGlobal researcher Carlota Dobaño followed a cohort of healthcare workers at the Hospital Clinic (SEROCOV study) from the beginning of the pandemic, in order to evaluate the levels of antibodies against different SARS-CoV-2 antigens over time. “This is the first study that evaluates antibodies to such a large panel of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies over 7 months,” says Dobaño.

The research team analysed blood samples from 578 participants, taken at four different timepoints between March and October 2020. They used the Luminex technology to measure, in the same sample, the level and type of IgA, IgM or IgG antibodies to 6 different SARS-CoV-2 antigens as well as the presence of antibodies against the four coronaviruses that cause common colds in humans. They also analysed the neutralising activity of antibodies in collaboration with researchers at the University of Barcelona. The study had funding from the European innovation network EIT Health.

The results show that the majority of infections among healthcare workers occurred during the first pandemic wave (the percentage of participants with SARS-CoV-2 antibodies increased only slightly between March and October – from 13.5% to 16.4%). With the exception of IgM and IgG antibodies against the nucleocapsid (N), the rest of IgG antibodies (including those with neutralising activity) remained stable over time, confirming results from other recent studies. “Rather surprisingly, we even saw an increase of IgG anti-Spike antibodies in 75% of the participants from month five onwards, without any evidence of re-exposure to the virus,” says Gemma Moncunill, senior co-author of the study. No reinfections were observed in the cohort.

Regarding antibodies against human cold coronaviruses (HCoV), the results suggest that they could confer cross-protection against COVID-19 infection or disease. People who were infected by SARS-CoV-2 had lower levels of HCoV antibodies. Moreover, asymptomatic individuals had higher levels of anti-HCoV IgG and IgA than those with symptomatic infections. “Although cross-protection by pre-existing immunity to common cold coronaviruses remains to be confirmed, this could help explain the big differences in susceptibility to the disease within the population,” says Dobaño.

Reference

Ortega N, Ribes M, Vidal M, et al. Seven-month kinetics of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies and protective role of pre-existing antibodies to seasonal human coronaviruses on COVID-19. Nature Communications. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-24979-9

Nothing new but I'm willing to bet that healthcare is somehow tied to mortality. But just a guess!!!!

Stunning new report ranks US dead last in health care among richest countries—despite spending the most

“If health care were an Olympic sport, the U.S. might not qualify in a competition with other high-income nations.”

Stunning new report ranks US dead last in health care among richest countries—despite spending the most

“If health care were an Olympic sport, the U.S. might not qualify in a competition with other high-income nations.”

thehill.com

Story at a glance

The report analyzed 71 health care performance measures under five categories.

Norway, the Netherlands and Australia were the top-performing countries overall, with the U.S. coming in dead last.

The U.S. ranked last on access to care, administrative efficiency, equity and health care outcomes despite spending 17 percent of GDP on health care.

The U.S. health care system ranked last among 11 wealthy countries despite spending the highest percentage of its gross domestic product on health care, according to an analysis by the Commonwealth Fund.

Researchers behind the report surveyed tens of thousands of patients and doctors in each country and used data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Health Organization (WHO).

The report considered 71 performance measures that fell under five categories: access to care, the care process, administrative efficiency, equity and health care outcomes. Countries analyzed in the report include Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the U.S.

Norway, the Netherlands and Australia were the top-performing countries overall, with the U.S. coming in dead last.

The U.S. ranked last on access to care, administrative efficiency, equity and health care outcomes despite spending 17 percent of GDP on health care, but came in second on the measures of care process metric. The nation performed well in rates of mammography screening and influenza vaccination for older Americans, as well as the percentage of adults who talked with their physician about nutrition, smoking and alcohol use.

Half of lower-income U.S. adults in the report said costs prevented them from receiving care while just more than a quarter of high-income Americans said the same. In comparison, just 12 percent of lower-income residents in the U.K. and 7 percent with higher incomes said costs stopped them from getting care.

The U.S. also had the highest infant mortality rate and lowest life expectancy at age 60 compared with other countries.

America is changing faster than ever! Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news.

Researchers said several key factors set the high-performing nations apart from the U.S.: universal coverage, the removal of cost barriers, investment in care systems to reduce inequities and investing in social services for children and working-age adults.

"If health care were an Olympic sport, the U.S. might not qualify in a competition with other high-income nations," Eric Schneider, the lead author behind the report and senior vice president for policy and research at the Commonwealth Fund, told Changing America.

"The U.S. has two health care systems. For Americans with the means and insurance to have a regular doctor and reported experiences with their day-to-day care are relatively good, but for those who lack access, the consequences are stark," Schneider said.

The poor performance is nothing new, as the U.S. has landed in last place in all seven studies the Commonwealth Fund has released since 2004.

Part 2 of my reply to Mark U's anti-vax link making claims from the William Thompson / Hooker controversy.

Now for the science. BTW doing this I've just realised why anti-vax memes are so powerful. Mark U can give a one-sentence sound-bite that appears good. In order to work out what is going on you need to actually look at all the information properly and collate it - that is pages and pages. Anti-vaxx propaganda spreads so well because most people do not have the patience to read that. Just a few sentences and a disposition (form other life experience) to distrust authorities - be they government, medical, scientific.

from my other link above.

Q: Who is Dr. William Thompson?
A: Dr. William Thompson is a psychologist employed by the CDC. He was a co-author on a number of
vaccine safety studies published by the CDC including the study that, he claims, omitted a correlation
between autism and vaccines: DeStefano F, Bhasin TK, Thompson WW, Yeargin-Allsopp M, Boyle C., Age
at first measles-mumps-rubella vaccination in children with autism and school-matched control subjects:
a population-based study in metropolitan Atlanta. Pediatrics. 2004 Feb;113(2):259-66. PMID 14754936.

Q: Who is Brian Hooker and what is his association with Dr. William Thompson?
A: Brian Hooker is a biochemical engineer who has a son with autism. He believes his son’s autism was
caused by vaccination. Hooker published an article in October 2014 in Translational Neurodegeneration
based on Thompson’s claims. This paper was retracted by the publication

Q: What did Brian Hooker’s reanalysis of the CDC paper claim to show?
A: Hooker concluded in his paper: “The present study provides new epidemiologic evidence showing
that African American males receiving the MMR vaccine prior to 24 months of age or 36 months of age

are more likely to receive an autism diagnosis.”

Two new things here:

1. Brian Hooker is not exactly a disinterested and objective party

2. The disputed data, as re-processed by Hooker, shows a correlation in a subset of the data.

The claimed effect is therefore surprising. it is odd that a specific ethnic group is adversely affected by a vaccine, when the whole population shows no such effect. Not impossible, but odd. It leads the enquiring mind to ask whether there is some conflating factor that applies juts to this group that makes the answer wrong.

I go to retractionwatch (of course) for both sides of the issue when a paper was retracted. This was some time ago so let us hope it was going then.

Journal takes down autism-vaccine paper pending investigation

An article purporting to find that black children are at substantially increased risk for autism after early exposure to the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine has…

retractionwatch.com

An article purporting to find that black children are at substantially increased risk for autism after early exposure to the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine has been shelved.

Although we don’t know if the events are related, the move comes amid claims that a CDC whistleblower has accused health officials of suppressing information about the link.

Not surprisingly, the prospect that the CDC has been sitting on evidence of an autism-vaccine connection for more than a decade has inflamed the community of activists wrongly convinced that such a link exists.

BioMed Central, which publishes the journal, declined to comment while the inquiry is ongoing. We’ve made the open access paper available here, and Science-Based Medicine has a thorough overview of the case. Here’s the abstract of the paper:

Quote

Background: A significant number of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder suffer a loss of previously-acquired skills, suggesting neurodegeneration or a type of progressive encephalopathy with an etiological basis occurring after birth. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectof the age at which children got their first Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine on autism incidence. This is a reanalysis of the data set, obtained from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Protection (CDC), used for the Destefano et al. 2004 publication on the timing of the first MMR vaccine and autism diagnoses.
Methods: The author embarked on the present study to evaluate whether a relationship exists between child age when the first MMR vaccine was administered among cases diagnosed with autism and controls born between 1986 through 1993 among school children in metropolitan Atlanta. The Pearson’s chi-squared method was used to assess relative risks of receiving an autism diagnosis within the total cohort as well as among different race and gender categories.
Results: When comparing cases and controls receiving their first MMR vaccine before and after 36 months of age, there was a statistically significant increase in autism cases specifically among African American males who received the first MMR prior to 36 months of age. Relative risks for males in general and African American males were 1.69 (p=0.0138) and 3.36 (p=0.0019), respectively. Additionally, African American males showed an odds ratio of 1.73 (p=0.0200) for autism cases in children receiving their first MMR vaccine prior to 24 months of age versus 24 months of age and thereafter.
Conclusions: The present study provides new epidemiologic evidence showing that African American males receiving the MMR vaccine prior to 24 months of age or 36 months of age are more likely to receive an autism diagnosis.

Here is a comment from Gorski - the Dawkins-style (analytical, detailed, correct, but emotionally is single-minded and insensitive as an AI algorithm) ScienceBasedMedicine blogger:

Quote

There is, however, a granddaddy of conspiracy theories among antivaccinationists, or, as it’s been called, the central conspiracy theory of the antivaccine movement. That conspiracy theory postulates that “they” (in the U.S, the CDC) have known for a long time that vaccines cause autism, but “they” are covering it up. In other words, the CDC has, according to this conspiracy theory, been intentionally hiding and suppressing evidence that antivaccinationists were right all along and vaccines do cause autism. Never mind what the science really says (that vaccines do work don’t cause autism)! To the antivaccine contingent, that science is “fraudulent” and the CDC knew it! Why do you think that the antivaccine movement, in particular Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., went full mental jacket when Poul Thorsen was accused of financial shenanigans (i.e., fraud) with grant money from the federal government? It was a perfect story to distract from the inconvenient lack of science supporting the antivaccine view that vaccines cause autism. More importantly, from the antivaccine standpoint, it was seen as “validation” that the CDC studies failing to find a link between autism and vaccines were either fraudulent or incompetently performed. Why? Because Thorsen was co-investigator on a couple of the key studies that failed to find a link between the MMR and autism, antivaccinationists thought that his apparent financial fraud must mean that he committed scientific fraud. They’re the same thing, right? Well, not really. There were a lot of co-investigators, and Thorsen was only a middle author on those studies.

However we are following the scientific process here, not making sociological commentary on anti-vaxxers. Still, I recommend it if you are interested in the CDC conspiracy angle.

Retraction watch always publishes the (after investigation) stated by journal reasons for retraction, and the reply from the authors.Before that: a comment from Thompson noted by retractionwatch:

I regret my co-authors and I omitted statistically significant information in our 2004 article published in the journal Pediatrics. The omitted data suggested that African American males who received the MMR vaccine before 36 months were at increased risk for autism. Decisions were made regarding which findings to report after the data was collected, and I believe that the final study protocol was not followed. I want to be absolutely clear that I believe vaccines have saved and continue to save countless lives. I would never suggest that any parent avoid vaccinating children of any race. Vaccines prevent serious diseases, and the risks associated with their administration are vastly outweighed by their individual and societal benefits. My concern has been the decision to omit relevant findings in a particular study for a particular sub-group for a particular vaccine. There have always been recognized risks for vaccination and I believe it is the responsibility of the CDC to properly convey the risks associated with the receipt of those vaccines. I have had many discussions with Dr. Brian Hooker over the last 10 months regarding studies the CDC has carried out regarding vaccines and neurodevelopmental outcomes including autism spectrum disorders. I share his belief that CDC decision-making analyses should be transparent. I was not, however, aware that he was recording any of our conversations, nor was I given any choice regarding whether my name would be made public or my voice would be put on the Internet.

Now the investigation by the journal (as reported by retractionwatch):

A little more than a month after removing a highly criticized article that claimed the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine increased the risk of autism in African American boys, Translational Neurodegeneration has officially retracted the paper. Here’s the notice, dated yesterday: The Editor and Publisher regretfully retract the article [1] as there were undeclared competing interests on the part of the author which compromised the peer review process. Furthermore, post-publication peer review raised concerns about the validity of the methods and statistical analysis, therefore the Editors no longer have confidence in the soundness of the findings. We apologise to all affected parties for the inconvenience caused. We’ve contacted publisher BioMed Central for details, particularly the “undeclared competing interests,” and Brian Hooker, the author of the paper, for more information, and will update with anything we learn.

AAPS - which published this paper - are a small and very political group of US doctors. Background article on AAPS here.

This is unsatisfactory, but not surprising. Wakefield's MMR/Autism original claims were and are highly influential in making the anti-vax conspiracy theories that run today. His original claims have been refuted again and again, and he has been shown to have falsified data (a cardinal sin) and continued to lie about this.Luckily the article from Hooker got republished elsewhere - so we can follow it there.https://apnews.com/article/8a3c81fd61037a24b54a6004d3533926

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons might sound like another boring doctors’ group politely debating telehealth legislation. But AAPS is a small yet vociferous interest group. Like Zelig with a stethoscope, it has popped up in nearly every major health-care debate for decades, including the Affordable Care Act and opioids, and it wields a surprising amount of influence. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky was outed as a member in 2010. (A Paul spokesperson told me that while the senator is no longer a member, he is supportive of AAPS’s fight against Obamacare.) When Representative Tom Price of Georgia was nominated to lead President Donald Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services, several newspapers pointed out that he, too, was a member. (At the time, an HHS spokesperson said that not all doctors in a group believe the same thing.)

Though AAPS often takes positions that are associated with conservative groups, it sometimes goes even further, pushing fringe views that most mainstream conservatives do not endorse, such as the belief that mandatory vaccination is “equivalent to human experimentation” and that Medicare is “evil.” Over the years, the group seems to have coalesced around an ethos of radical self-determination and a belief that mainstream science isn’t always trustworthy. It’s the most curious of medical organizations: a doctors’ interest group that seems more invested in the interests of doctors, rather than public health.

Comment

I am really pleased that Hooker's paper was published elsewhere. I have always pointed out that you can find a journal to publish pretty well anything - and this is good for the scientific process. Even way-out views can be considered and referenced. the original retraction looks face-saving and political. It was also necessary for that journal. Why? The peer review process was deficient - as it sometimes is. Normally that is not a problem. In this case, with this anti-vaxx row, it becomes very embarrassing.

Even though i am pleased with this, and enjoy looking at things, I am afraid that anti-vaxx memes work like minor celebrities: any news is good news. It does not matter if you highlight why an anti-vax meme is wrong. The people who are going to belive it will not pay attention to a cast-iron case showing why it is wrong, but then a few such will have attention drawn to it who maybe otherwise were not aware.

So Mark U should be thanking me for these two posts - I am spreading the anti-vaxx word.

What to make of this 2018 paper?

The problem here is that we are now down to science. Hooker's analysis using the extra data was perfectly valid. The question is why that data (that was not used in the initial published study) if flawed. or not. If not then this is real evidence for the anti-vaxx cliams that Afro-Americal ethnic group is uniquely and adversely affected by MMR vaccine.

Gorski's take on it (he is very upset)

Recall, back in August, that biochemical engineer turned antivaccine activist and epidemiologist wannabe, published a study, recently retracted, that basically provided strong evidence that Andrew Wakefield was wrong about the MMR vaccine being associated with autism. When I first saw Hooker’s study, even I recognized how utterly incompetently it was carried out, and I’m not even an epidemiologist or statistician. After all, it’s pretty obvious that data collected for a case control study should not be analyzed as a cohort study, but that’s just what Hooker did. When I first read the study, I was actually not as hard on it as I should have been. The more I’ve read, and the more I’ve found out, the more I’ve realized just how badly done it was. Contrary to what Hooker apparently believes, simplicity is not beauty in statistics, particularly when you fail to control for obvious confounders and analyze data incorrectly. The result was a “finding” that there was a 3.4-fold increased risk of autism associated with MMR in African-American boys. Never mind that the numbers of this subgroup were tiny and the data incorrectly analyzed. Never mind that the rest of the data were negative as negative could be for even a whiff of a hint of a correlation between vaccines and autism for any other subgroup and that the vast majority of the leaders of the antivaccine movement are your basic affluent white people who never showed much in the way of an interest in the problems of African-American children before. Suddenly, this finding was being likened to the Tuskegee syphilis experiment by Andrew Wakefield himself!

Let us ignore the indignation and look at the problem. The official complaint from Hooker etc was:

We write to report apparent research misconduct by senior investigators within the National Immunization Program (NIP), Battelle Memorial Institute at the Centers for Public Health Evaluation (CPHE), and the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD), and to request an immediate investigation.

The Analysis Plan dated September 5, 2001 [Exhibit 2] set forth the objective of the research reported in the above-titled article, to compare ages at first MMR vaccination between children with autism and children who did not have autism, and to test the hypothesis that age of first MMR vaccination is associated with autism risk.

The research team, headed by Dr. Frank DeStefano, MD., (NIP) including Dr. William Thompson Ph.D., (NIP) Dr. Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp, MD (NCBDDD), Dr. Tanya Karapurkar Bashin (CPHE), and Dr. Coleen Boyle, Ph.D., (NCBDDD) (collectively referred to by Dr. Thompson as “The Group”) found statistically significant associations between the age of first MMR and autism in (a) the entire autism cohort, (b) African-American children, and (c) children with ‘isolated’ autism, a subset defined by The Group as those with autism and without comorbid developmental disabilities.

We’ve heard this before, albeit not exactly in this way. The central charge is that the investigators altered the research plan after the study was under way. The charge basically goes this way. The CDC planned a case control study examining the age of receiving the MMR vaccine and whether it correlated with an increased risk of autism using data from the Metropolitan Atlanta Developmental Disabilities Surveillance Program (MADDSP). Seeing a result they didn’t like, they allegedly altered the plan in order not to report the “inconvenient” result that the MMR resulted in a 3-fold increased risk of autism among African-American boys. Explaining from scratch why this is BS would take a post of truly Gorski length in and of itself.

Gorski goes on to excoriate this claim. He is very very indignant. I am sympathetic. But I prefer myself most of the time to keep feelings separate, so instead here is a more dispassionate analysis of the scientific failings that Gorski links.

The Statistics (a more dispassionate look from Matt Carey)

Those who do not like following details might wish to go to the summary conclusions in blue at the end of this post.

A look at the analysis plan for DeStefano’s MMR study: no evidence of fraud

Andrew Wakefield and Brian Hooker have been making claims that the CDC are involved in misconduct in autism research. In case you haven’t followed the story,…

leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk

Andrew Wakefield and Brian Hooker have been making claims that the CDC are involved in misconduct in autism research. In case you haven’t followed the story, it basically goes like this:

1) the CDC planned on a study of MMR and autism using the MADDSP data.

2) That the CDC created a research plan.

3) That the CDC found results they didn’t want to report: an calculated odds ratio for African American boys. So the CDC team allegedly deviated from that plan and didn’t report that result.

4) That the CDC introduced a new analysis after the plan: that they would include birth certificate data. While the CDC rationale for this new analysis was to provide more data (confounding variables) for the analysis, the allegedly real reason was to dilute the sample set and make statistically significant results disappear.

Here’s a paragraph from one of the press releases about the Hooker study:

Quote

According to Dr. Thompson’s statement, “Decisions were made regarding which findings to report after the data was collected.” Thompson’s conversations with Hooker confirmed that it was only after the CDC study coauthors observed results indicating a statistical association between MMR timing and autism among African-Americans boys, that they introduced the Georgia birth certificate criterion as a requirement for participation in the study. This had the effect of reducing the sample size by 41% and eliminating the statistical significance of the finding, which Hooker calls “a direct deviation from the agreed upon final study protocol – a serious violation.”

Or so goes the story. But as is often the case with Andrew Wakefield and Brian Hooker, the facts don’t match the claims.

In a recent video, Mr. Wakefield shows us the research plan the CDC had drafted. One red flag with Mr. Wakefield’s approach so far has been how he tries to tightly manage the flow of information. He has not shared the analysis plan in total and only now has he provided us with a couple screenshots. Begs the question: what are they hiding?

Here’s one screenshot from that video. This one is where he gets the idea that the plan was to report race for the entire sample.

Here’s the full text, in case that’s difficult to read:

Quote

Statistical Analysis
We will use conditional logistic regression stratified by matched sets to estimate the odds ratios for association between age at MMR vaccination and autism. In the main analyses, we will include all autism cases.
Potential confounding variables will be evaluated individually for their association with the autism case definition. Those with an odds ratio p-value < 0.20 will be included as covariates in a conditional logistic regression model to estimate adjusted odds ratios for the association between age at vaccination and autism. The only variable available to be assessed as a potential confounder using the entire sample is child’s race. For the children born in Georgia for whom we have birth certificate data, several sub-analyses will be carried out similar to the main analyses to assess the effect of several other potential confounding variables. A recent case control study (CDC, 2001) carried out with a subset of the autism cases from this study found that age matched cases and controls differed on several important background factors including maternal age, maternal education, birth type, and parity. The variables that will be assessed as potential confounders in this study will be birth weight, APGAR scores, gestational age, birth type, parity, maternal age, maternal race/ethnicity, and maternal education. (See Table 2 for how variables will be categorized.)

There are two interesting points in the above. First, the sentence Mr. Wakefield highlights doesn’t say what he claims. The only variable available to be assessed as a potential confounder using the entire sample is child’s race. The plan doesn’t say that they will test and report race. Consider the context: this is a section of the plan called “statistical analysis”. Put in context with the entire paragraph, this sentence is clear: the full dataset is limited because it only has one variable available.

The CDC didn’t deviate from the plan when they didn’t report on race for the total sample because that was never in the plan. If you want more evidence of this, the end of the paragraph says “See Table 2 for how variables will be categorized”. Table 2 is titled “Descriptive Statistics for Children Born in Georgia with Birth Certificate Records”. The variables will be categorized in the birth certificate sample.

The second interesting point from the paragraph Mr. Wakefield has shown us is this: the CDC plan included a birth certificate sample.

Here’s a screenshot of the analysis plan from that new video, showing the front page of the analysis plan:

Shown with this voice over by Mr. Wakefield (while the screenshot above is shown going up in flames…very dramatic)

Quote

“Over the ensuing months, after the data after the data had been collected and analyzed, and strictly forbidden in the proper conduct of science, the group abandoned the approved analysis plan, introducing a revised analysis plan to help them deal with their problem.”

So, in case you were thinking, “that’s an analysis plan, how do we know it’s the analysis plan”, well, you have Mr. Wakefield’s word on it. This is the “approved analysis plan” that the CDC allegedly had to revise.

What interests me about this as that’s the same plan that I have and was preparing to write about. It’s nice now to be able to be able to say that this is, indeed, the same document that Mr. Wakefield and Mr. Hooker are working with.

We’ve already seen two big mistakes by the Wakefield/Hooker team: first that the analysis plan doesn’t include a call to report on race separately in the total sample (the group without the birth certificates), second that the CDC “approved analysis plan” included analysis of a subset with birth certificate data.

So, what were the objectives of the study as in the plan?

Quote

Objectives:
We did not have information regarding onset of symptoms for most cases in this study and this limited our ability to do certain types of analyses such as case series analyses. In addition, a totally unexposed group (i.e., never received the MMR vaccine or other measles containing vaccine) was not available since measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination are required for school attendance in Georgia. The following objectives are considered the primary objectives for this study.
1) To determine if case children were more likely than their matched controls to have been vaccinated with MMR before 36 months of age. DSM-IV criteria for autism require that onset of symptoms occur before 36 months of age. Therefore, the 36-month cut-off is one that by definition can be used to classify a definitely “unexposed” group.
2) To determine whether there was a difference between cases and controls in the proportion of children exposed to their first dose of MMR vaccine before 18 months of age. This objective is based on the research that suggests the timing of first parental concern for the development of autism appears around 18 months of age (Taylor et al, 1999). In addition, Cathy Lord has reported that the range of first parental concern for regression was between 12 and 23 months of age with a mode of 19-21 months.
3) To determine whether the age distribution for receipt of the MMR vaccine differs between cases and controls.

They showed the data for the 36 and 18 month cutoffs. Age distribution was covered in Table 2.

Quote

Analysis of Autism subgroups
The IOM (2001) specifically recommended additional research regarding autism subgroups and MMR. We will examine several subtypes of autism in this study. Data from the Metropolitan Atlanta Congenital Defects Program will be included in the sub-analyses to identify particular sub-groups. The following sub-group analyses will be conducted:
1) Analyses excluding cases with an established cause for autism or a co-occurring condition suggesting an early prenatal etiology (e.g., tuberous sclerosis, fragile X, or other congenital/chromosomal anomalies.)
We propose to conduct a case-control sub-analysis looking at cases without an established or presumptive cause for autism, such as tuberous sclerosis, fragile X, and other congenital/chromosomal anomalies. The purpose of doing this analysis is to create a more homogeneous case group that may be more likely to be impacted by the timing of the MMR vaccine. The objectives from the primary analyses will be replicated in this sub-analysis.
2) Analyses of Isolated versus Non-isolated Autism.
Isolated autism cases are cases with no other co-morbid developmental disability while non-isolated cases do have a co-morbid developmental disability. Previous research suggests that the majority of non-isolated cases have a co-existing developmental disability of mental retardation (CDC, 2001). Both isolated and non-isolated cases will be compared separately to controls. The objectives from the primary analyses will be replicated in this sub-analysis.
3) Analyses examining Gender Effects
Males are at substantially higher risk for autism and may be more vulnerable to the exposure associated with the MMR vaccine. We will analyze males and females separately and replicate the main objectives of the primary analyses as well as examine the potential confounders available from Georgia birth certificates.
4) Analyses excluding autism cases with known onset prior to 1 year of age.
For a subset of autism cases, we were able to identify the timing of parental concern. This sub-analysis will exclude all cases excluded with an established or presumptive cause for autism (e.g., tuberous sclerosis, fragile X, and other congenital/chromosomal anomalies.) and children for whom we have been able to identify first parental concern prior to 12 months of age.

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Just in case anyone reading this is one of the few that has been following Mr. Wakefield’s video releases: in a new video Mr. Wakefield is trying to claim that the isolated autism subanalysis was not done. Except that it was. They made a minor change to autism without MR, which gave essentially the same result that Mr. Wakefield claims was hidden.

Autism without MR has an odds ratio of 2.45 with a 95% confidence interval of 1.20 to 5.00. I’ll write about this new video soon as there’s much sleight of hand going on, but Mr. Wakefield is claiming that a result of odd ratio = 2.48 with confidence interval of 1.16 to 5.31 was not reported. Besides ignoring the fact that the data were reported by the CDC, Mr. Wakefield ignores the fact that these are raw-data results. Total sample, unadjusted analysis. In the adjusted analysis the result does not suggest an association.

But, getting back to the main point: the claims of fraud are just not founded on fact. The two main claims of “fraud” are just wrong. The analysis plan did not state that they would do a subanalysis by race for the total sample. The addition of the birth certificate data is in the plan, not in some sort of revision. And Mr. Wakefield and Mr. Hooker knew this.

I am reminded of a quote from an ABC News article recently

Quote

“There are always going to be those people at the edges of science who want to shout because they don’t want to believe what the data are showing,” said Dr. Margaret Moon, a pediatrician and bioethicist at Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. She said she thought the study author “manipulated the data and manipulated the media in a very savvy and sophisticated way.”
“It’s not good. It’s not fair. It’s not honest. But it’s savvy,” Moon said.

—

By Matt Carey

Following Mark U's link, there are really two separate issues, both of which are science not politics, and both of which have open (not censored) arguments on both sides. But the anti-vaxx side argument is much less detailed - because when you add the details it falls down.

(1) Did the original 2004 paper fudge things by omitting data or analysis it should have included according its pre-published analysis plan.

(2) Does (all) the data support the idea that MMR vaccine causes higher levels of Autism in Afro-American ethnic subgroup?

I'd like Mark U to engage with the scientific argument on both of these issues by looking at the refutation of the Hooker claims and showing where it is wrong?

I realise I did not give the republished Hooker articke URL - AAPS journal is really difficult to find:

Journal of the American Physicians and Surgeons

The issue with Hooker's paper

Journal of the American Physicians and Surgeons - Vol. 23 No. 4

The paper itself

THH

Andrew Wakeman's legacy (from The Atlantic)

Consider the widespread fear of childhood vaccinations. In 1998, the physician Andrew Wakefield published a study in The Lancet linking the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism. This study has since been judged to be an ‘elaborate fraud,’ and Wakefield’s medical license has been revoked.

The consequences of Wakefield’s dishonesty would have been bad enough. But the legacy effect of other big lies has thus far made it impossible to remedy the damage he has caused. Given the fact that corporations and governments sometimes lie, whether to avoid legal liability or to avert public panic, it has become very difficult to spread the truth about the MMR vaccine. Vaccination rates have plummeted — especially in prosperous, well-educated communities –and children have become sick and even died as a result.

An unhappy truth of human psychology is probably also at work here, which makes it hard to abolish lies once they have escaped into the world: We seem to be predisposed to remember statements as true even after they have been disconfirmed.

Quote from Fm1

From Shots to Clots: Science shows COVID vaccines cause blood clots.

https://trialsitenews.com/from…ccines-cause-blood-clots/

Joel S. Hirschhorn

Americans who have taken COVID vaccine shots and those who have refused to capitulate to the coercion and propaganda are ill-informed about blood clots. This article provides summaries of key recently published research on two types of observed blood clots – microscopic and relatively large size – that merit serious attention and concern. One inevitable conclusion is that the FDA with support from big media is not doing its job to ensure truly informed consent by those taking vaccine shots.

Canadian physician reports high levels of clots

Dr Charles Hoffe has been practicing medicine for 28 years in a small, rural town in British Columbia, Canada, and recently gave a long interview. He has given about 900 doses of the Moderna experimental mRNA vaccine to his patients. So, contrary to some critics, he is no anti-vaccine doctor.

The core problem he has seen are microscopic clots in his patients’ tiniest capillaries. He said “Blood clots occurring at a capillary level. This has never before been seen. This is not a rare disease. This is an absolutely new phenomenon.”

Most importantly, he has emphasized these micro-clots are too small to show up on CT scans, MRI, and other conventional tests, such as angiograms, and can only be detected using the D-dimer blood test. Using the latter, he found that 62% of his patients injected with an mRNA shot are positive for clotting. He has explained what is happening in bodies. The spike proteins in the vaccine become “part of the cell wall of your vascular endothelium. This means that these cells which line your blood vessels, which are supposed to be smooth so that your blood flows smoothly now have these little spikey bits sticking out. … when the platelet comes through the capillary it suddenly hits all these COVID spikes and it becomes absolutely inevitable that blood clots will form to block that vessel.”

He made an important distinction: “The blood clots we hear about which the media claim are very rare are the big blood clots which are the ones that cause strokes and show up on CT scans, MRI, etc. The clots I’m talking about are microscopic and too small to find on any scan. They can thus only be detected using the D-dimer test…The most alarming part of this is that there are some parts of the body like the brain, spinal cord, heart and lungs which cannot re-generate. When those tissues are damaged by blood clots they are permanently damaged.”

This is his pessimistic, scientific view: “blood vessels in their lungs are now blocked up. In turn, this causes the heart to need to work harder to try to keep up against a much greater resistance trying to get the blood through your lungs. This is called pulmonary artery hypertension – high blood pressure in the lungs because the blood simply cannot get through effectively. People with this condition usually die of heart failure within a few short years.”

All these medical views have been suppressed by big media., but it was covered well in another alternative news site. And the doctor got some attention by submitting an open letter to the provincial Ministry of Health. A key point in that is this: “It must be emphasised, that these people were not sick people, being treated for some devastating disease. These were previously healthy people, who were offered an experimental therapy, with unknown long-term side-effects, to protect them against an illness that has the same mortality rate as the flu. Sadly, their lives have now been ruined.”

The concept of micro blood clots has also been invoked for the serious impacts of COVID itself. The eminent Dr. Peter McCullough noted “So, this is a very different type of blood clotting that we would see with major blood clots in the arteries and veins. For instance, blood clots involved in stroke and heart attack. Blood clots involved in major blood vessels in the legs. This was a different type of clotting and in fact the Italians courageously did some autopsies and found micro blood clots in the lungs. And so, we understood in the end, the reason why the lungs fail is not because the virus is there. It is because micro blood clots are there. … When People can’t breathe, the problem is micro-blood clotting in the lungs. …The spicule on the ball of the of the virus itself which damages blood vessels that causes blood clotting.” He has also openly stated that none of the COVID vaccines are safe for most people at little risk from COVID.

If spike protein is the cause of micro blood clots in COVID it is also reasonable to see the same phenomenon in vaccinated people impregnated with spike proteins, as Dr. Hoffe as explained.

As to the Canadian situation, The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) in July estimated the rate of vaccine-related blood clotting in Canadians who have received the AstraZeneca vaccine and said there have been 27 confirmed cases to date in Canada, with five deaths among those cases, a rather high death rate.

But this is consistent with 6 out of 28 blood clot cases reported by Yale University for the J&J vaccine in the US Also noted was that these were a particularly rare and dangerous blood clot in the brain, known as cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST), because it appears in the brain’s venous sinuses Also noted that there were abnormally low platelet levels in their blood, an unusual situation also found for those impacted by the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Wall Street Journal and Nature Journal

To its credit, the Wall Street Journal published a long article in July on the COVID vaccine blood clot issue. Here are highlights from it.

“Canadian researchers say they have pinpointed a handful of amino acids targeted by key antibodies in the blood of some people who received the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, offering fresh clues to what causes rare blood clots associated with the shot.”

“The peer-reviewed findings, by a team of researchers from McMaster University in Ontario, were published …by the science journal Nature. They could help doctors rapidly test for and treat the unusual clotting, arising from an immune-driven mix of coagulation and loss of platelets that stop bleeding.”

“The blood clotting, which some scientists have named vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia, or VITT, has also been linked to Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 shot, though incidents have occurred less frequently with that shot than with AstraZeneca.”

“Though rare, the condition has proven deadly in more than 170 adults post-vaccination in the U.K., Europe and U.S., according to government tallies. Many were younger adults who appeared healthy before vaccination, researchers and drug regulators say.”

“The total number of cases after first or second doses in the U.K. was 395 through June 23…Of the 395, 70 people have died. European officials said this month that they have seen 479 potential cases of VITT out of 51.4 million AstraZeneca vaccinations…Far fewer potential cases—21 …followed J&J vaccinations in Europe. Of those cases, 100 deaths occurred after AstraZeneca vaccination and four after Johnson & Johnson, European regulators said.”

“U.S. health officials said in late June that they have identified 38 confirmed cases of the blood-clotting syndrome out of more than 12.3 million people who received the J&J vaccine…The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in May that three cases had been fatal and evidence ‘suggests a plausible causal association’ between the combination of low platelets and clotting and the vaccine.”

As to what is going on inside the body: “[In] rare cases, vaccinated people have experienced an autoimmune reaction in which antibodies bind with unusual strength to a blood component called platelet factor 4, or PF4, forming distinct clusters resembling a bunch of grapes. This so-called immune complex, a molecular formation in the blood, activates more platelets, ‘like putting a match to gasoline,’ said John Kelton, an author of the Nature paper and researcher at McMaster University. The process accelerates, he and other researchers say, triggering simultaneous bleeding and clotting, sometimes in the brain, stomach and other areas that can in rare cases be deadly. ‘We think these antibodies are incredible amplifiers, in a bad way, of the normal coagulation system,’ says Dr. Kelton”

Interestingly, this article did not mention at all the previously discussed case of the Canadian doctor and his findings about microscopic blood clotting.

New York Times

In April, there was limited coverage of stoppages of some vaccines: “First it was AstraZeneca. Now Johnson & Johnson. Last week, British regulators and the European Union’s medical agency said they had established a possible link between AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine and very rare, though sometimes fatal, blood clots. The pause in the use of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine in Europe over similar concerns threatens to hurt a sluggish rollout that was just starting to gain momentum.” Also noted was that states paused use of the J&J vaccine after a US advisory.

“Regulators have asked vaccine recipients and doctors to look out for certain symptoms, including severe and persistent headaches and tiny blood spots under the skin.”

New England Journal of Medicine

In April this journal published three research articles on blood clotting related to COVID vaccines and a long editorial by two physicians reviewing all the work. Here are highlights from the latter.

“The Journal has now highlighted three independent descriptions of 39 persons with a newly described syndrome characterized by thrombosis and thrombocytopenia that developed 5 to 24 days after initial vaccination with [the AstraZeneca vaccine]. … These persons were healthy or in medically stable condition, and very few were known to have had previous thrombosis or a preexisting prothrombotic condition. Most of the patients included in these reports were women younger than 50 years of age, some of whom were receiving estrogen-replacement therapy or oral contraceptives. A remarkably high percentage of the patients had thromboses at unusual sites — specifically, cerebral venous sinus thrombosis or thrombosis in the portal, splanchnic, or hepatic veins. Other patients presented with deep venous thrombi, pulmonary emboli, or acute arterial thromboses. … High levels of d-dimers and low levels of fibrinogen were common and suggest systemic activation of coagulation. Approximately 40% of the patients died, some from ischemic brain injury, superimposed hemorrhage, or both conditions, often after anticoagulation.”

“Better understanding of how the vaccine induces these platelet-activating antibodies might also provide insight into the duration of antigen exposure and the risk of reoccurrence of thrombosis, which will inform the need for extended anticoagulation and might lead to improvements in vaccine design.”

“Additional cases have now been reported to the European Medicines Agency, including at least 169 possible cases of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis and 53 possible cases of splanchnic vein thrombosis among 34 million recipients of the [AstraZeneca] vaccine, 35 possible cases of central nervous system thrombosis among 54 million recipients of the Pfizer–BioNTech mRNA vaccine, and 5 possible (but unvetted) cases of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis among 4 million recipients of the Moderna mRNA vaccine. Six possible cases of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (with or without splanchnic vein thrombosis) have been reported among the more than 7 million recipients of the Johnson & Johnson/Janssen vaccine.”

Here is the final conclusion; “The questions of whether certain populations can be identified as more suitable candidates for one or another vaccine and who and how to monitor for this rare potential complication will require additional study.”

Salk Institute

In April, the Salk Institute promoted coverage of research conducted by a number of people associated with it. The chief finding was that the spike protein associated with the COVID virus and with vaccines was connected to strokes, heart attacks and blood clots.

“The paper, published in Circulation Research, also shows conclusively that COVID-19 is a vascular disease, demonstrating exactly how the SARS-CoV-2 virus damages and attacks the vascular system on a cellular level. … the paper provides clear confirmation and a detailed explanation of the mechanism through which the [spike] protein damages vascular cells.”

A subsequent article in May examined this work and made several important observations. Here is its perspective, as relevant to the COVID vaccines. “The prestigious Salk Institute…has authored and published the bombshell scientific study revealing that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein used in the Covid jabs is what’s actually causing vascular damage. Critically, all three of the experimental Covid vaccines currently under emergency use authorisation in the UK either inject patients with the spike protein or, via mRNA technology, instruct the patient’s own body to manufacture the spike protein and release them into the blood system.”

“The Salk Institute study proves the assumption made by the vaccine industry, that the spike protein is inert and harmless, to be false and dangerously inaccurate.”

“The research proves that the Covid vaccines are capable of inducing vascular disease and directly causing injuries and deaths stemming to blood clots and other vascular reactions. This is all caused by the spike protein that’s engineered into the vaccines.”

Report by 57 Medical Experts

This May report was prepared by nearly five dozen highly respected doctors, scientists, and public policy experts from across the globe. It went public and was urgently sent to world leaders as well as all who are associated with the production and distribution of the various Covid-19 vaccines in circulation today. The report demanded an immediate stop to COVID vaccinations. Dr. McCullough was one of the signatories.

“Despite calls for caution, the risks of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination have been minimized or ignored by health organizations and government authorities,” said the experts.

On the issue of blood clotting in vaccinated people the report said this:

“Some adverse reactions, including blood-clotting disorders, have already been reported in healthy and young vaccinated people. These cases led to the suspension or cancellation of the use of adenoviral vectorized [AstraZeneca] and [J&J] vaccines in some countries. It has now been proposed that vaccination with ChAdOx1-nCov-19 can result in immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT) mediated by platelet-activating antibodies against Platelet factor-4, which clinically mimics autoimmune heparin-induced thrombocytopenia. Unfortunately, the risk was overlooked when authorizing these vaccines, although adenovirus-induced thrombocytopenia has been known for more than a decade, and has been a consistent event with adenoviral vectors. The risk of VITT would presumably be higher in those already at risk of blood clots, including women who use oral contraceptives, making it imperative for clinicians to advise their patients accordingly.”

Conclusions

Supporters of the COVID vaccines are quick to emphasize that relatively few recipients have experienced post-vaccination blood clotting. True, except for the findings of the Canadian physician about microscopic blood clots in most of his patients that major news media have ignored. Also ignored are the findings from the Salk Institute which provide a rationale for seeing spike proteins as causing clots. Even vaccines not directly including spike proteins – the AstraZeneca and J&J adenovirus vector vaccines – pose a problem because they send genetic instructions into cells to produce the spike protein of the coronavirus.

Even a June case study of one patient who died from clotting after taking the second dose of the Moderna vaccine and not related to anything else stressed the use of “safe” COVID vaccines. This was also stressed in an accompanying editorial that mentioned: “The highest reported incidence is 5 cases among about 130,000 Norwegian recipients of the [AstraZeneca] vaccine.” This statistical view of the medical establishment was expressed as: “any potential risks of vaccination must be interpreted in the context of the overall morbidity and mortality of COVID-19 itself.” It also stressed blood clots in hospitalized COVID patients. It cannot be emphasized enough that the vast majority of COVID victims could have been saved through early home/outpatient treatment as detailed in Pandemic Blunder. The proven treatments can stop COVID infection in its early virus replication phase and, therefore, prevent blood clots.

The public also needs strong information about the many advantages of natural immunity, from prior COVID infection or life exposure to various coronaviruses. This is far better than vaccine induced artificial immunity that does less to protect against COVID variants and makes people susceptible to breakthrough infections. For most people the benefits of COVID vaccination do not outweigh the risks.

On the issue of whether all COVID vaccines pose a blood clot threat consider an April study by Oxford University that found the number of people who receive blood clots after getting vaccinated with a coronavirus vaccine are about the same for those who get Pfizer and Moderna vaccines as they are for the AstraZeneca vaccine. And as already cited the J&J vaccine has also been implicated for clots.

What needs attention by FDA, CDC and NIH is the need to do more testing of vaccine victims to discover through blood testing or autopsies the nature and extent of blood clotting.

For those wanting to see many examples of COVID vaccine negative health impacts this website is recommended. The mission is: “This website is dedicated to sharing the truth about these people and their testimonials. Watch for yourself and make up your own mind. Is it worth it to risk life-changing and even fatal side effects from a vaccine for a disease that is survived by 99.98% of people under 70?”

Of course, the risk of getting serious blood clots is much higher for those who get a serious case COVID-19 then it is for those who get vaccinated. They tend to be acute, near-term impacts amenable to various treatments, though sadly not lifesaving in all cases.

More insidious, in the longer run, however, perhaps years after the shots, are the microscopic blood clots noted by Dr. Hoffe and Dr. McCollough that may impact the lives of many people, perhaps millions.

Dr. Joel S. Hirschhorn, author of Pandemic Blunder and many articles on the pandemic, worked on health issues for decades. As a full professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, he directed a medical research program between the colleges of engineering and medicine. As a senior official at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the National Governors Association, he directed major studies on health-related subjects; he testified at over 50 US Senate and House hearings and authored hundreds of articles and op-ed articles in major newspapers. He has served as an executive volunteer at a major hospital for more than 10 years. He is a member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, and America’s Frontline Doctors.

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TSN - yet again - is spreading uncritically anti-vax propaganda - from a writer Joel S Hirschhorn with clear political intent (read his books on Amazon).

Testing by Canadian doctor does not prove Covid-19 shots cause clots

A Canadian physician claims in a video clip shared on social media that most people who receive widely-used Covid-19 vaccines will experience blood clots. But…

factcheck.afp.com

Basically - the doctor quoted here (Hoffe) thinks high D-dimer test levels => blood clots. They do not, and therefore his evidence of clotting is not that...

"I'm still trying to accumulate more information, but on the ones I have so far, 62 percent of them have evidence of clotting, which means that these blood clots are not rare. It means that the majority of people are getting blood clots that they have no idea that they're even having," Hoffe says in the video.

But experts told AFP that, contrary to Hoffe's claim, elevated D-dimer levels alone are not proof of blood clots.

A D-dimer test can be prescribed by a specialist when a blood clot is suspected. But a high D-dimer level in vaccinated patients would not necessarily be worrying.

"When you are vaccinated, there is often inflammation: you have a little fever, aches and pains... it proves that the vaccine works," Marie-Antoinette Sevestre-Pietri, president of the French Society of Vascular Medicine, said on July 15. "An inflammatory reaction will result in an elevated D-dimer level, but this does not mean that thrombosis will occur."

Dr Nicolas Gendron, a physician in the hematology department of the Georges-Pompidou Hospital in Paris, agreed.

"Having a high D-dimer level doesn't mean that you have a thrombosis," which is the formation of a blood clot in the heart or in a blood vessel, he said on July 20.

It means that "additional examinations, such as a CT scan, will be necessary to confirm it," he added.

The French Society of Hematology said on July 19 that D-dimer levels "increase with age, in pregnant women and in many pathological situations such as bacterial or viral infections, even benign ones."

Unpublished, unverified

Experts contacted about Hoffe's claim emphasized that he did not describe the process he used to reach his conclusions, and that his results have not been peer-reviewed.

"The experiment reported by Dr Hoffe is not a scientific study, and does not fall under the heading of 'evidence-based medicine.' Therefore, no credit can be given to these results," the French Society of Hematology said.

Sevestre-Pietri agreed, saying: "We don't know how he chose his sample among his patients: if he took six patients from his practice who are over 75 years old, they will necessarily have a high D-dimer level."

She added that, "The scientific method used is not described and the results are not published."

Contrary to the Canadian doctor's claims, a June 2021 study found that of all the participants who received the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, which uses mRNA technology like Moderna's, "none developed symptomatic thrombotic events during the study period. None of the parameters showed clinically relevant variations at different time-points before and after vaccination."

Did you know, the best thing about being in a mafia (apart from the decadence and debauchery) is the network of foreign friends in high places that you can call on for favours?

Yesterday the thought struck me that "65 years old" is a rather odd number to just pluck from the air, when considering whether it is best to get vaccinated or not. Its almost certain that a person saying such things is just rounding up their own age to the nearest five years, in order to justify to themselves the wacky decision to not get vaccinated.

Turns out I was right - of course. There are few things in life more predictable than human beings, and oddly enough, the wackier the person, the more predictable...

So happy birthday in advance! 63 years 'young' this October. A year older, a year wiser? Hopefully, although, I won't be holding my breath

Quote from Zeus46

Did you know, the best thing about being in a mafia (apart from the decadence and debauchery) is the network of foreign friends in high places that you can call on for favours?

Yesterday the thought struck me that "65 years old" is a rather odd number to just pluck from the air, when considering whether it is best to get vaccinated or not. Its almost certain that a person saying such things is just rounding up their own age to the nearest five years, in order to justify to themselves the wacky decision to not get vaccinated.

Turns out I was right - of course. There are few things in life more predictable than human beings, and oddly enough, the wackier the person, the more predictable...

So happy birthday in advance! 63 years 'young' this October. A year older, a year wiser? Hopefully, although, I won't be holding my breath

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You realise, if COVID remains endemic, that strategy will no longer work in two years time.

Still, anti-vax holdouts for COVID are self-correcting - they end up getting COVID, one way or another, after which the (real) evidence of benefit from vaccination is still there, but much less compelling.

Quote from Fm1

"All laboratory notebooks and other relevant information should be opened by the Chinese and U.S. scientists working on this project for detailed scrutiny by independent experts," Dr. Sachs wrote.

This is mirror fighting. The Chinese (female) lab chief has been arrested and hidden for more than 6 months. The peoples army did take over and destroy all samples, lab notes etc...They also managed to delete virus DNA data in US database servers.., what is a much more interesting path to follow up.

Quote from Fm1

COVID-19 virus found in sewage and blood samples in 2019

This - blood sample in Tokyo area - was just a matter of time. We have been in Japan 2019 and my wive had a strong = long lasting corona infection. I guess this was the first round of virus planting with a prototype virus. Would be nice to see how good the anti bodies match with CoV-19 - "0"-antibodies!

Quote from Fm1

Is it worth it to risk life-changing and even fatal side effects from a vaccine for a disease that is survived by 99.98% of people under 70?”

As an investor I say yes. Big money always did kill people to multiply it... But 99.98% is the same figure I get from the most recent delta data....

Quote from THHuxleynew

You realise, if COVID remains endemic, that strategy will no longer work in two years time.

Well the thing is, rationalisations (the term psychologists use for ‘fooling yourself’) are by defintion normally irrational: There’s nothing to stop the subject from updating their beliefs in 2 years time. It is almost necessary, in fact.

This may, if they have some level of self-awareness, require a further step of rationalisation to justify this u-turn, but let’s not put the cart before the horse…