2102 replies to this topic

[gamesguru]

The link between vaccines and long COVID was already established in January 2022.  What's important here is to consider the incidence from the vaccine, as compared with the incidence from COVID itself. I think you will find long COVID from vaccines is relatively rare compared to from COVID itself, and that usage of vaccines early on in the pandemic was indeed justified.

 

It's worth noting that even if "more vaccinated people" are getting seriously ill, that doesn't mean the vaccine is ineffective (see Figure 1, attached). The per capita mortality continues to favor the vaccinated (see Figure 2, attached).

Attached Files

•  Base-rate-fallacy-explanation-03-400x225.png   27.62KB   0 downloads
•  united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status.png   215KB   0 downloads

[Dorian Grey]

The link between vaccines and long COVID was already established in January 2022.  What's important here is to consider the incidence from the vaccine, as compared with the incidence from COVID itself. I think you will find long COVID from vaccines is relatively rare compared to from COVID itself, and that usage of vaccines early on in the pandemic was indeed justified.

 

It's worth noting that even if "more vaccinated people" are getting seriously ill, that doesn't mean the vaccine is ineffective (see Figure 1, attached). The per capita mortality continues to favor the vaccinated (see Figure 2, attached).

 

Mortality?  Who the heck is dying from omicron?  No one I know of.  Do you know anyone personally who has died from omicron?  

[smithx]

Mortality?  Who the heck is dying from omicron?  No one I know of.  Do you know anyone personally who has died from omicron?  

 

To hell with studies and statistics! Who needs science? Let's go purely on anecdotes!

[smithx]

Number of COVID-19 hospitalisations averted by vaccination: Estimates for the Netherlands, January 6, 2021 through August 30, 2022

https://www.scienced...264410X23005455

 

 

In the entire period, an estimated 98,170 (95 % confidence interval (CI) 96,123–99,928) hospitalisations were averted, of which 90,753 (95 % CI 88,790–92,531) were in the subperiod, representing 57.0 % and 67.9 % of all estimated hospital admissions.

 

[Empiricus]

There ought to be an interest in digging deeper.

 

I shared a diagram of Europe in post #1041. It shows that some countries are reporting lower mortality compared to pre-pandemic. Any thoughts on the idea that this may be due to chance, statistical noise which tends to even out over larger sample sizes—and that the UK is maybe just an example of one country with higher mortality?

 

 

From your chart, European countries where excess mortality declined by > 5% (order of greatest to lowest decline each month):

 

Nov 22: Romania 

Dec 22: Leichenstein, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia

Jan 23: Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Croatia

Feb 23: Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Lux, Poland, Sweden, Estonia, Czech, Hungary

Mar 23:  Latvia, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Lithuania, Estonia

Apr 23: Romania, Bulgaria, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Iceland

 

European countries with low % fully vaccinated (source: NYT):

Bulgaria = 30% 

Romania = 42%

Slovakia = 47%

Croatia = 55%

Poland = 60%

Estonia, Latvia, Czech, Hungary, Lithuania = 65-70% are fully vaccinated (that's 10-20% lower than W. Europe)

 

 

So it's apparent the countries where mortality rate actually declined are those with the lowest % fully vaccinated. 

[Dorian Grey]

To hell with studies and statistics! Who needs science? Let's go purely on anecdotes!

 

You can get anything you want...  

 

 

at Alice's Restaurant

 

(AND with government statistics & studies!)  

[gamesguru]

So it's apparent the countries where mortality rate actually declined are those with the lowest % fully vaccinated. 

 

It's important to include all data points in a regression analysis.

 

I can see the general trend in the argument you're making. Less vaccine = lower mortality. But as I said, it's important to include all data points and to perform a numerical analysis. In a hand-wavy argument there will always be ambiguities and doubt; cherry-picked data is not a sound basis to claim a negative & substantial correlation.

 

It's also important to consider all factors, and other causes of excess death. For some of the countries the vaccination rates do not differ substantially (e.g. 55% vs. 60%), it's more likely that population density, cultural & genetic factors, travel and tourism rates, stringency index (such as countries with high vaccination having lax restrictions elsewhere), mortality displacement, COVID variant distribution, and differences in medical care could explain the difference in number COVID fatalities and/or annual mortality.

 

If it's true some countries report a significantly lower mortality than pre-pandemic, could it also be mortality displacement from previous or other forms of noise? I mean what's the alternative explanation here, that by avoiding the vaccine their immune systems are overall stronger and they're not dying of old-age infections? I would need to see data—in multiple countries—backing that idea.

 

There are plenty of other countries (many of the ones you didn't mark in bold) where the opposite trend is true [1]. Lithuania is a great example where vaccination correlated with low mortality. But it's important even if correlation is established, to not assume it implies causation.

 

References

 

[1] Sobczak, M., Pawliczak, R. COVID-19 mortality rate determinants in selected Eastern European countries. BMC Public Health 22, 2088 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1...889-022-14567-x

[Dorian Grey]

Sorry, I shouldn't have been so flippant above, but seriously...  Is there any way to find out who is actually dying from omicron today?  

 

Are current deaths primarily occurring in nursing homes?  Or are healthy, working age people really catching a nasty case of omicron down at the pub, crashing into ICU a week or so later, and ending up in a fridge at the morgue?  

 

Someone on AM talk radio once asked for listeners who actually knew someone who died from COVID to call in, as he said no one in his entire family or circle of friends had died, hence the meme "scamdemic".  

 

Perhaps a poll is in order...  Anyone here know of someone who died from COVID?  Please specify if it was pre, or post omicron.  

 

I actually did hear of a pre-omicron death.  He was a musician at our local Mexican restaurant.  Senior citizen with diabetes.  Other than that, no one else I know has even gone to hospital.  

[gamesguru]

I heard of a few deaths, pre-omicron. One of my dad's friends, and a colleague's cousin (who was under 40). Also some public figures I knew of, including John Conway & Charlotte Figi. More complete list here, and yes still many deaths under 60 after 2022 Omicron days.

 

Due to the tedious requirement of complete sequencing to determine the variant of a positive PCR test, genomic surveillance is limited.

 

I've included a mortality graphic from here, it seems fairly accurate. Omicron CFR for ages 40-49 was 0.3% which seems pretty substantial still.

 

It's important to also consider the relative proportion of circulating variants, as well as the emergence of new ones (such as Arcturus XBB.1.16 which can cause pink eye and may have mutations making current vaccines less effective).

 

It's also important not to discount seniors as valuable members of society. Omicron may be more mild, but perhaps not as mild as the flu.

 

"Omicron was considered a less virulent variant with lower case fatality rates as compared with the original strain, even though, hospitalized patients with omicron variant still have a higher mortality rate than in seasonal influenza," the authors wrote. "This could be due to differences in underlying comorbidities of patients, the pathogenicity of the virus, population immunity, and host responses to infection."

Attached Files

•  Blog-images-figure-2B.jpg   82.23KB   0 downloads

[Gal220]

Here's the difference between reasonable people and those with an axe to grind:

 

Reasonable people listen to evidence.

Those with an axe to grind ignore evidence unless it suits their preconceived notions.

 

I think there are too many of the latter on this forum now and in this thread.

 

All the reporting systems(VAERs, Yellow Card, Eudra Vigilance) are showing the same thing for the covid vaccines compared to other vaccines, orders of magnitude differences in adverse events

They easily could have been pulled March 2021

 

 

The charts tell the tale

 

Barry Murrell on Twitter: "@JesslovesMJK @FreeWCH @OpenVAERS I have been charting the same data in WHO VigiBase for over 2 years now and this is the same graph. https://t.co/IUL76tFlQx" / Twitter

 

 

Jessica Rose

[gamesguru]

COVID-19 elicits a more inflammatory immune response, so it is expected the vaccine may have slightly more incidence of side effects than the flu vaccine (which is comparatively mild).

 

It's also important to consider the large number of COVID vaccine doses administered in a short period of time (50% of the planet was vaccinated in a year) which may explain why there were lots of recent reports, as well as the extra attention & opposition which has come as a result of the unprecedented scale of the vaccination effort. The openVAERs database is difficult to verify... it may include uncorroborated reports, duplicate submissions, as well as data from outside the US and minor events such as soreness at the injection site or fatigue.

 

According to the Canadian health ministry, serious events are rare compared to the fatality rates for COVID itself in the older age brackets, a demographic for whom the vaccine may still be a very wise choice.

 

A total of 98,194,601 vaccine doses have been administered in Canada as of May 26, 2023, including 8,784,275 bivalent doses. Adverse events (side effects) have been reported by 55,145 people. That’s about 6 people out of every 10,000 people vaccinated.

 

Of the 55,145 individual reports, 44,239 were considered non-serious (0.045% of all doses administered) and 10,906 were considered serious (0.011% of all doses administered).

 

Serious adverse events are rare, but do occur. They include anaphylaxis (a severe allergic reaction), which has been reported 774 times (1 report per 100,000 doses administered) for all COVID-19 vaccines across Canada.

[geo12the]

 

 

Perhaps a poll is in order...  Anyone here know of someone who died from COVID?  Please specify if it was pre, or post omicron.  

 

I actually did hear of a pre-omicron death.  He was a musician at our local Mexican restaurant.  Senior citizen with diabetes.  Other than that, no one else I know has even gone to hospital.  

 

Before the vaccines were rolled out I had many older (and at least one not older) acquaintances die of COVID: My best friend from high schools mom, a very sweet lady who was very kind to me growing up,  a couple of my mom's older friends, my brother's wife's cousin who was in his late 30s. All before the vaccines. And many, not all, of the people I know who got sick back then got very sick. I don't know of anyone who died AFTER the vaccines were introduced. The people I know who got COVID AFTER being vaccinated all got mild cases. My anti-vax friend who refused to get vaxed and refused to wear a mask got horribly sick and almost died. My husband's elderly parents, fully vaxed and boosted, recently got COVID and it was like a mild cold. If I had to bet 1 million $, had they NOT been vaxed and boosted the outcome would have been much worse and they may have died. That is something that seems lost in these conversations where people constantly say :"LOOK LOOK vaxed people are infected with COVID! The vaccines don't work!!!" I have said this repeatedly here:The vaccines did exactly what they were supposed to do. They introduced the human immune system to COVID. Helping prevent infection, but more importantly keeping people from getting really sick and dying. It's not rocket science. 

 

Someone here said: "Who the heck is dying from omicron?". Folks there is a very simple reason people are not dying of the new variants: The collective human immune system has been introduced to COVID. Either by vaccination or infection or both. It's no longer a "new" pathogen and our collective immune system is better at fighting it. This is why less people are "dying from omicron". I don't know why this simple idea is so hard to grasp. 

[Gal220]

Sorry, I shouldn't have been so flippant above, but seriously...  Is there any way to find out who is actually dying from omicron today?  

 

The ONS data from the UK includes Covid deaths

It also includes all cause mortality, which is higher than the Pandemic atm

 

You can read about many examples if you follow this timeline back

(1) William Makis MD (@MakisMD) / Twitter

 

 

 

@geo12 I also had a childhood neighbor, age 50, die double vaxed to Delta.  The truth is in the over all numbers

Jessica Rose

 

 

 

If the most vulnerable have died off, and the shots actually work, why is there more excess death now?  It was big deal just 2 years ago..

 

Independent researchers like Josh Sterling have analyzed insurance data to conclude more shots = more death.  Health agencies have chosen to remain ignorant

Excess deaths

Edited by Gal220, 07 July 2023 - 10:56 PM.

[joesixpack]

I knew 2 adults, one healthy 75 year old, and one morbidly obese younger man who died. Both were in the first wave pre Omicron. The older one did not get vaccinated. My wife and I took the Pfizer vaccine twice. We did not get Covid. I think the vaccine helped in the first wave, maybe the second, and with Omicron was no longer needed.

 

All that being said, knowing what we know now, we refused boosters, and I wish we had not taken this dangerous vaccine at all. There was a total lack of informed consent that continues to this day. I had to inform myself, and that is not how the system is supposed to work. 

 

If there is another pandemic, I think the mistrust will be severe, and there will be maximum vaccine resistance.

[gamesguru]

I have said this repeatedly here:The vaccines did exactly what they were supposed to do. They introduced the human immune system to COVID. Helping prevent infection, but more importantly keeping people from getting really sick and dying. It's not rocket science.

 

It may not be rocket science, but it's wildly antagonistic to beliefs which have been long held by other members here. Perhaps the evidence presented by our side has not yet become overwhelming.

 

“If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.”
― Bertrand Russell

[Empiricus]

From your chart, European countries where excess mortality declined by > 5% (order of greatest to lowest decline each month):

 

Nov 22: Romania 

Dec 22: Leichenstein, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia

Jan 23: Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Croatia

Feb 23: Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Lux, Poland, Sweden, Estonia, Czech, Hungary

Mar 23:  Latvia, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Lithuania, Estonia

Apr 23: Romania, Bulgaria, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Iceland

 

European countries with low % fully vaccinated (source: NYT):

Bulgaria = 30% 

Romania = 42%

Slovakia = 47%

Croatia = 55%

Poland = 60%

Estonia, Latvia, Czech, Hungary, Lithuania = 65-70% are fully vaccinated (that's 10-20% lower than W. Europe)

 

 

So it's apparent the countries where mortality rate actually declined are those with the lowest % fully vaccinated. 

 

 

Seems health authorities have been monkeying around with criteria for excess deaths that comprises this dataset:

 

Feb 22

 

Switzerland proves that it is possible to go from 22.9% excess mortality to under-mortality in only 2 months ! (From December 2022 to February 2023) How? By adjusting expected deaths upwards We are good at "normalizing" politically damaging numbers

https://t.co/NrC6v5v9BC

 

https://twitter.com/...354505086468096

 

The images in the attached tweet show what Switzerland did. 

 

I see that regressions have already been run on this data set.  Look what they discovered:

 

Is there a Link between the 2021 COVID-19 Vaccination Uptake in Europe and 2022 Excess All-Cause Mortality?

We primarily study a possible link between 2021 COVID-19 vaccination uptake in Europe and monthly 2022 excess all-cause mortality, i.e., mortality higher than before the pandemic. Analyses of 31 countries weighted by population size show that all-cause mortality during the first nine months of 2022 increased more the higher the 2021 vaccination uptake; a one percentage point increase in 2021 vaccination uptake was associated with a monthly mortality increase in 2022 by 0.105 percent (95% CI, 0.075-0.134). When controlling for alternative explanations, the association remained robust, and we discuss the result emphasizing causality as well as potential ecological fallacy. Also, the study shows that 2021 all-cause mortality was lower the higher the vaccination uptake, but this association became non-significant when controlling for alternative explanations.

 

https://www.preprint.../202302.0350/v1

 

Someone commenting on the above study makes an interesting observation that relates to the data for low-vaccination rate countries that had caught my attention:

 

An interesting and very controversial article. As you mention, the correlation should be analysed by age cohorts. A possible explaining hypothesis could be that countries with high vaccination rates (Denmark) have vaccinated a younger strata of the population, including more young adults and children. Countries with lower rates (Bulgaria) vaccinated only the high risk population, the elderly. If negative side effects of the vaccines are more extended among the young, the vaccines might indeed have caused higher mortality.

 

 

Edited by Empiricus, 08 July 2023 - 05:53 PM.

[zorba990]

The slow painful acceptance of the truth:
Start with using the word 'rare' and goes from there:

Rare link between coronavirus vaccines and Long Covid–like illness starts to gain acceptance
https://www.science....gain-acceptance


The most painful part of the above article (for me) is this:
"Researchers studying these complications also worry about undermining trust in COVID-19 vaccines."

It's not a researchers job to worry about that. It implies the truth will be withheld or otherwise altered to
meet a specific predetermined goal or result. Instead of accurately reporting the findings. This kind of
statement is how science dies.

[Daniel Cooper]

The slow painful acceptance of the truth:
Start with using the word 'rare' and goes from there:

Rare link between coronavirus vaccines and Long Covid–like illness starts to gain acceptance
https://www.science....gain-acceptance


The most painful part of the above article (for me) is this:
"Researchers studying these complications also worry about undermining trust in COVID-19 vaccines."

It's not a researchers job to worry about that. It implies the truth will be withheld or otherwise altered to
meet a specific predetermined goal or result. Instead of accurately reporting the findings. This kind of
statement is how science dies.

 

That is as they say, "a bingo".

 

The researcher's job is to find the technical truth of an issue. That's it. Anything beyond that is outside his wheelhouse.

 

 

 

 

[gamesguru]

Rare link between coronavirus vaccines and Long Covid–like illness starts to gain acceptance
https://www.science....gain-acceptance

 

 

Nothing but old news. This was already known in late 2021, the press is just hungry for more headlines, like the posters here are hungry for anything that confirms their beliefs.

 

It's important to read the full article and interpret it in its proper context, before sharing or making claims based on it.

 

Quoting the article directly, they confirm for vulnerable age brackets long-COVID is more likely to occur through infection than through vaccination.

 

Cases seem very rare—far less common than Long Covid after infection.

[Hip]

The slow painful acceptance of the truth:
Start with using the word 'rare' and goes from there:

Rare link between coronavirus vaccines and Long Covid–like illness starts to gain acceptance
https://www.science....gain-acceptance

 
Pretty much any vaccine can trigger ME/CFS (ME/CFS has identical symptoms to the ME/CFS form of long COVID).

 

ME/CFS patients and ME/CFS researchers are well aware that full blown ME/CFS can be triggered within days of getting a vaccination for hepatitis B, influenza, BCG, tetanus, meningitis, MMR, polio, hepatitis A and typhoid vaccines. Dr Charles Shepherd of the ME Association conducted a survey on this. 

 

ME/CFS is usually caused by a viral infection, but in around 1 or 2% of cases, it is triggered by a vaccination.

 

Thus it would be entirely expected that the COVID vaccines, like any other vaccines, would also be capable of triggering ME/CFS or long COVID.

 

Of course, for people who never knew that vaccines in general can trigger ME/CFS, they might think this ability of the COVID vaccines to to trigger ME/CFS/LC is something unique to those vaccines. But it is not.

 

 

The most painful part of the above article (for me) is this:
"Researchers studying these complications also worry about undermining trust in COVID-19 vaccines."

It's not a researchers job to worry about that. It implies the truth will be withheld or otherwise altered to
meet a specific predetermined goal or result. Instead of accurately reporting the findings. This kind of
statement is how science dies.

 
I think what the researchers are trying to say is that given the general public's limited abilities to accurately quantify risk, negative stories about vaccination will play into the uncontrolled fearful emotions of the general public, and make them unduly scared of the vaccine.

 

It is the duty of researchers to tell the truth, and so when dealing with the unsophisticated and unscientific general public, researchers need to be aware that such public are not rational, but work on simple emotions, a bit like kindergarten children. So researchers need to be careful not to send out a false message by sparking more irrational fears in the public. 

 

 

 

The antivax groups have sown emotional fears in the public, so now any negative stories just fuel that fear.

 

If the antivax groups stoked the same fears about motor cars, that would be great, as the fear of dying on the roads would keep millions of motorists off the highways, thus greatly reducing traffic levels. 

 

Maybe if we could persuade Joseph Murky-Cola, Del Big-Bottom, or Robert Effing Kennedy Jr to direct their fear campaigns against cars instead of vaccines, we could reduce road congestion and air pollution. After all, nearly 50,000 die on the roads each year in the US alone, so there should be a lot of fear about cars.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Hip, 09 July 2023 - 04:01 AM.

[Mind]

 

 

Maybe if we could persuade Joseph Murky-Cola, Del Big-Bottom, or Robert Effing Kennedy Jr to direct their fear campaigns against cars instead of vaccines, we could reduce road congestion and air pollution. After all, nearly 50,000 die on the roads each year in the US alone, so there should be a lot of fear about cars.

 

Using slurs will not win you the argument. Robert F Kennedy Jr. raises valid rational and scientific criticism against some vaccines and the vaccine industry. Because he does this - more influential people are asking questions, as they should. 

 

The biggest point that RFK Jr. brings up - something that should astonish everyone in this forum - is that there has never been a placebo controlled vaccine study - EVER - except one, and that was the 1954 polio trial. That trial ended up a miserable failure as the placebo arm fared much better the the control arm. I will cynically suggest that the vaccine industry learned a lesson from the 1954 trial - NEVER DO AN RCT TRIAL!

 

This is probably why the vaccine industry has blanket immunity from lawsuits. They know they would go bankrupt paying out claims. Why is the vaccine industry the ONLY industry in the world with blanket immunity from lawsuits?

 

One positive aspect of the COVID "vaccine" debacle is that a lot more people are asking questions about vaccines in general. The more the vaccine industry tries to silence people (and call them names) - the more people are asking why.

[gamesguru]

Placebo-controlled trials are a standard method in vaccine research and have been conducted for various vaccines at many points in history.

 

A Placebo-Controlled Trial of a Pertussis-Toxoid Vaccine
1995
https://www.nejm.org...199510193331604

Frequency of Adverse Reactions to Influenza Vaccine in the Elderly
1990
https://jamanetwork....abstract/383075

Efficacy and safety of a recombinant hepatitis E vaccine in healthy adults: a large-scale, randomised, double-blind placebo-controlled, phase 3 trial
2010
https://www.thelance...ode=lancet-site

Safety and efficacy of MVA85A, a new tuberculosis vaccine, in infants previously vaccinated with BCG: a randomised, placebo-controlled phase 2b trial
2013
https://www.thelance...0177-4/fulltext

FREQUENCY OF TRUE ADVERSE REACTIONS TO MEASLES-MUMPS-RUBELLA VACCINE: A Double-blind Placebo-controlled Trial in Twins
1986
https://www.scienced...140673686910445

 

It's also important to consider the ethical implications of giving participants an ineffective placebo for a potentially dangerous disease, and that this may limit the number of placebo-controlled studies.

 

Most ethical guidelines for research do not address vaccine trials specifically; and, in those that do, the guidance regarding placebo use is limited. Moreover, general ethical guidelines for research – authored by both national and international bodies – offer conflicting guidance on the use of placebo controls.

 

The 1954 "Salk" polio trial was not a "miserable failure," it was, in fact, a significant success. The trial demonstrated the effectiveness of the polio vaccine in reducing the incidence of the disease, leading to its widespread use and contributing to the near eradication of polio. Rinderpest is another example, this time of an animal disease, which was completely eradicated in large part owing to the widespread vaccination efforts.

 

In the USA, there is a dedicated program called the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) that handles claims of vaccine-related adverse effects and is funded through a combination of vaccine taxes and an excise tax on vaccines

 

While the VICP provides some liability protections for vaccine manufacturers within the USA, it does not grant them blanket immunity. Manufacturers are still subject to certain legal requirements and can be held accountable for cases of willful misconduct or failure to fulfill manufacturing standards.

 

Specific legal frameworks and liability provisions vary across countries. One must consult the relevant laws and regulations of each jurisdiction to understand the extent of liability for vaccine manufacturers in different contexts.

[Gal220]

" direct their fear campaigns against cars instead of vaccines"

 

Its interesting that some on this forum lump all vaccines together as some sacred cow..

 

2 of the original "safe and effective" vaccines are no longer even available, are all the countries now anti-vax for removing them?

 

The German Health minister was compelled to walk back the "safe and effective" for the COVID vaccine, not any other.

Interview - https://rumble.com/v...ranslation.html

 

 

Many of the safety claims are in comparison to other vaccines, the Covid vaccine showing orders of magnitude adverse events in comparison

Like all medicine, sometimes the cure is worse than the disease, risk vs benefit needs to done for all age groups

Edited by Gal220, 10 July 2023 - 12:23 AM.

[Hip]

Using slurs will not win you the argument. 

 

So why do you use slurs?

 

You implied on the ivermectin thread in this post the FDA and CDC have been lying all the way through the pandemic. That's a serious slur.

 

And in this post, I asked you to provide supporting evidence for this claim about the FDA and CDC lying. But so far I see no supporting material.

Edited by Hip, 10 July 2023 - 07:38 PM.

[Hip]

2 of the original "safe and effective" vaccines are no longer even available, are all the countries now anti-vax for removing them?

 

All vaccines have side effects. There is no such thing as a completely safe vaccine. Just as there is no such thing as a completely safe drive down the road: there is always a chance you will be involved in a fatal car accident, which happens to nearly 50,000 Americans every year.

 

Yet most people would consider a car ride as a safe activity, and do not think twice about getting in the car to do some shopping or to visit friends.

 

So when we use the phrase "this medicine is safe", means your chances of a serious adverse effect are very small, just like your chances of being killed in a car accident when you drive to the shopping centre are very small. But saying it is safe does not mean that there are zero chances of a serious or fatal side effect.

 

It's incredible that these things need to be spelled out. But this is what I am getting at, that much of the general public don't know enough mathematics to be able to calculate or understand risk statistics. 

 

 

 

These adenovirus-vector vaccines proved not as safe as the mRNA vaccines, so were discontinued.  

 

However, if there had not been any safer mRNA vaccines available, you can be sure that the adenovirus-vector vaccines would have continued to have been offered, because in spite of causing fatal blood clots now and then, for the COVID high risk groups, they would save far more lives than they kill.

 

 

 

If we want to discuss vaccine safety in general, note that many vaccines are capable of triggering the life-destroying disease of ME/CFS. And that includes the COVID vaccines. This is rare, but about 1 or 2% of the 17 million people worldwide who have ME/CFS had their illness triggered by a vaccine. 

 

So that makes about 255,000 people worldwide suffering the life-long misery of ME/CFS because of vaccines. 

 

We should acknowledge and investigate these adverse effects of vaccines. But we always need to balance the pros and cons of vaccination.

 

 

Edited by Hip, 10 July 2023 - 08:06 PM.

[Hip]

Why is the vaccine industry the ONLY industry in the world with blanket immunity from lawsuits?

 

This question was previously covered on these COVID threads.

[Hip]

By the way, I was banned from Longecity for 45 days for marking people's posts with red ratings such as "Ill Informed". The reason given for my 45 day ban was "unhelpful use of the rating system".

 

Yet you guys constantly mark my posts in red all the time, but do not receive a ban. 

 

 

I would like to see fairness in Longecity moderation, and have people banned for constantly marking my posts in red. 

 

If you look at my profile, I have a huge number of red marks on my posts, over 2200 red marks, all from you hostile guys on the COVID threads. By comparison, Mind's profile shows less than 471 red marks, joesixpack shows 72 red marks, Gal220 shows 150. All a lot less that the red marks I've received.

 

So come on Longecity mods, let's see some justice, and let's ban some of these people here who are constantly marking my posts in red. 

 

The mods here have the ability to see who is dishing out the red ratings. So they know who has been hitting me hard with these red marks.

 

 

 

 

[Mind]

Placebo-controlled trials are a standard method in vaccine research and have been conducted for various vaccines at many points in history.

 

 

It's also important to consider the ethical implications of giving participants an ineffective placebo for a potentially dangerous disease, and that this may limit the number of placebo-controlled studies.

 

 

The 1954 "Salk" polio trial was not a "miserable failure," it was, in fact, a significant success. The trial demonstrated the effectiveness of the polio vaccine in reducing the incidence of the disease, leading to its widespread use and contributing to the near eradication of polio. Rinderpest is another example, this time of an animal disease, which was completely eradicated in large part owing to the widespread vaccination efforts.

 

In the USA, there is a dedicated program called the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) that handles claims of vaccine-related adverse effects and is funded through a combination of vaccine taxes and an excise tax on vaccines

 

While the VICP provides some liability protections for vaccine manufacturers within the USA, it does not grant them blanket immunity. Manufacturers are still subject to certain legal requirements and can be held accountable for cases of willful misconduct or failure to fulfill manufacturing standards.

 

Specific legal frameworks and liability provisions vary across countries. One must consult the relevant laws and regulations of each jurisdiction to understand the extent of liability for vaccine manufacturers in different contexts.

 

Thanks for pointing this out. I should have put the qualifiers in there before posting - too hasty.

 

The claim is that there are no long-term randomized "true" placebo-controlled studies with all-cause mortality as an end-point.

 

One problem is that the vaccine industry has created a talking point that it would be unethical to NOT give everyone vaccines - so they have set-up a system where high quality studies are virtually absent and we end up with rushed and fraudulent (well-documented fraud) trials like the COVID injections - which blew up the controls just a couple months after beginning.

 

Still, there are ways to gauge all-cause mortality in vaccinated vs. unvaccinated individuals. There are several religious groups that forgo vaccination. There are tens of thousands of unvaccinated children and adults in many western nations as well. According to the vaccine industry, they should all be dead and or diseased by now. They aren't - which is why you should ask a few questions and not blindly accept what the vaccine industry says all the time.

[Dorian Grey]

I recall Del Bigtree talking about vaccines frequently trialed for safety using a "comparator" vaccine, typically something like meningitis vaccine.  

 

The rationale for this was, many vaccines produce a brief spike in temperature, sore arm, or other fairly universal symptoms; and a true saline placebo would produce none of these, thus compromising the blinding of the trial.  

 

By using an approved vaccine as a comparator, you get fairly universal mild side effects, and can then compare the safety of the new vaccine to the approved comparator blindly.  

 

It's a bit of a dirty work-around, as these comparators are often called "placebo" in the literature, when in fact they are an alternate vaccine.  The give-away for this is often when you see substantial side effects in the placebo arm.  A true placebo should produce zero side effects.  

 

We live in interesting times!  

Edited by Dorian Grey, 10 July 2023 - 10:30 PM.

[gamesguru]

Thanks for pointing this out. I should have put the qualifiers in there before posting - too hasty.

 

The claim is that there are no long-term randomized "true" placebo-controlled studies with all-cause mortality as an end-point.

 

One problem is that the vaccine industry has created a talking point that it would be unethical to NOT give everyone vaccines - so they have set-up a system where high quality studies are virtually absent and we end up with rushed and fraudulent (well-documented fraud) trials like the COVID injections - which blew up the controls just a couple months after beginning.

 

Still, there are ways to gauge all-cause mortality in vaccinated vs. unvaccinated individuals. There are several religious groups that forgo vaccination. There are tens of thousands of unvaccinated children and adults in many western nations as well. According to the vaccine industry, they should all be dead and or diseased by now. They aren't - which is why you should ask a few questions and not blindly accept what the vaccine industry says all the time.

 

Yes thanks for entertaining the discussion, and bringing some of these concerns to my attention.

 

Afaik neither the researchers nor subjects knew if they were receiving the true vaccine. Arguably there would be a lack of side effects, but this isn't as obvious as trying to placebo-control something like a Psilocybin study (where subjects know within a few hours what they've gotten).

 

I think research bias is definitely a problem in a lot of areas today, including vaccine providers pushing their product & funding self-serving studies. I haven't heard plans to force everyone to get ongoing vaccinations. COVID is faster mutating than originally thought, and the vaccines do not provide any sort of lasting immunity (beyond 6-12 months). It would be a hard case to make at this stage.

 

Religious groups like the Amish and Hutterites cannot be compared to Western controls in terms of lifespan, due to profound differences in genetics and lifestyle. Tens of thousands is not that large of a number either, and with any given analysis it's possible to see bi-directional deviations within the bounds of statistical significance. Perhaps there is some association of autoimmune disease with heavy childhood vaccination, hard to say.

 

I do not think being unvaccinated for childhood diseases in the Western world would be immediately fatal. Most everyone else here is vaccinated and so the disease is not endemic. There is a tipping point in epidemiology—when 15-30% of people are unvaccinated. That's when community spread happens. And we saw that for example in 2019 Ukraine with Measles, due to strong anti-vaccination sentiments. Measles is not generally a fatal or crippling virus, but that does not mean that its proliferation is good for society or for individual health.

 

Measles cases have tripled in Europe, fueled by Ukrainian outbreak
With more than 54,000 cases in 1 year, Ukraine tries to encourage vaccination
https://www.science....ainian-outbreak

12 FEB 2019

Measles cases more than tripled across Europe in 2018, and one country drove much of the surge: Ukraine. Nearly 83,000 cases of measles were reported in the World Health Organization's (WHO's) European Region in 2018, compared with some 25,500 in 2017, WHO, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, announced last week. Ukraine had more than 54,000 cases in 2018, its government says. Last year, 16 Ukrainians died of the extremely contagious viral disease, which is easily prevented with a vaccine.

"The current epidemic is the most massive in the entire postvaccine period," says Nataliya Vynnyk, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Children's Clinical Hospital in Kyiv. With more than 15,000 cases and seven deaths between 28 December 2018 and 1 February, according to the country's Ministry of Health (MOH), the epidemic continues to worsen.

Ukraine's government is taking action. "It's egregious to have people have measles in the 21st century in a European country," says Ulana Suprun, a physician who has been Ukraine's acting minister of health since August 2016. She blames a decade of corruption, war, a lack of political commitment to vaccination, and antivaccine sentiment.

Different vaccines don't all confer immunity for as long. Mutation rate appears to be a major factor. Measles has a moderate spontaneous mutation rate, but is virtually stable... while COVID and the flu are constantly mutating their spike protein.

 

Some Vaccines Last a Lifetime. Here’s Why Covid-19 Shots Don’t.
Sept 2021
https://www.wsj.com/...ont-11631266201

Why don’t Covid-19 vaccinations last longer?

Measles shots are good for life, chickenpox immunizations protect for 10 to 20 years, and tetanus jabs last a decade or more. But U.S. officials are weighing whether to authorize Covid-19 boosters for vaccinated adults as soon as six months after the initial inoculation.

The goal of a vaccine is to provide the protection afforded by natural infection, but without the risk of serious illness or death.

“A really good vaccine makes it so someone does not get infected even if they are exposed to the virus,” said Rustom Antia, a biology professor at Emory University who studies immune responses. “But not all vaccines are ideal.”

The three tiers of defense, he said, include full protection against infection and transmission; protection against serious illness and transmission; or protection against serious illness only.

The effectiveness depends on the magnitude of the immune response a vaccine induces, how fast the resulting antibodies decay, whether the virus or bacteria tend to mutate, and the location of the infection.

The threshold of protection is the level of immunity that’s sufficient to keep from getting sick. For every bug, it’s different, and even how it’s determined varies.

 

    Windows of immunity for selected vaccines

   

“Basically, it’s levels of antibodies or neutralizing antibodies per milliliter of blood,” said Mark Slifka, a professor at Oregon Health & Science University.

(T-cells also contribute to protection, but antibodies are easier to measure.)

A threshold 0.01 international units per milliliter was confirmed for tetanus in 1942 when a pair of German researchers intentionally exposed themselves to the toxin to test the findings of previous animal studies.

“One of them gave himself two lethal doses of tetanus in his thigh, and monitored how well it went,” Dr. Slifka said. “His co-author did three lethal doses.”

Neither got sick.

A threshold for measles was pinned down in 1985 after a college dorm was exposed to the disease shortly after a blood drive. Researchers checked antibody concentrations in the students’ blood donations and identified 0.02 international units per milliliter as the level needed to prevent infection.

Recent studies have shown that the effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines is decreasing, though experts say the shots still work well. WSJ explains what the numbers mean and why they don’t tell the full story. Photo illustration: Jacob Reynolds/WSJ
With these diseases, the magnitudes of response to the vaccines combined with the antibodies’ rates of decay produce durable immune responses: Measles antibodies decay slowly. Tetanus antibodies decay more quickly, but the vaccine causes the body to produce far more than it needs, offsetting the decline.

“We’re fortunate with tetanus, diphtheria, measles and vaccinia,” Dr. Slifka said. “We have identified what the threshold of protection is. You track antibody decline over time, and if you know the threshold of protection, you can calculate durability of protection. With Covid, we don’t know.”

Historically, the most effective vaccines have used replicating viruses, which essentially elicit lifelong immunity.

Measles and chickenpox vaccines use replicating viruses.

Non-replicating vaccines and protein-based vaccines (such as the one for tetanus) don’t last as long, but their effectiveness can be enhanced with the addition of an adjuvant—a substance that enhances the magnitude of the response.

 

Why Some Vaccines Last A Lifetime and Others Don't
https://www.cedars-s...e-boosters.html
Nov 29, 2021

Ever wonder why some shots last a lifetime while other vaccines need a booster dose a few months or years later?

We're advised to get a tetanus shot every 10 years, Shingrix needs a booster 2-6 months after the first jab and the Hepatitis A and B vaccine comes in a 2-dose series administered over six months. Why is that?

"The more variants emerge, the harder it is to make a vaccine that will create lasting immunity, because the target keeps moving."


The mutant factor

All vaccines trigger immunity, but how long it lasts depends on several factors. One of them is the rate at which a virus replicates, says Hai Tran, associate director of Cedars-Sinai's Pharmacy Services.

"If a virus replicates quickly, it has a chance to produce more mutations, also known as variants. The more variants emerge, the harder it is to make a vaccine that will create lasting immunity, because the target keeps moving," she explains.

Ethan Smith, a pharmacist at Cedars-Sinai, agrees: "If a virus is stable, that gives us a big advantage. Measles is an example of a stable virus that is unlikely to replicate, so scientists could predict that immunity would last a long time, which it does." Smallpox and polio, highly contagious viruses that were almost eradicated through vaccination, are also stable with low mutation rates.

Viruses that replicate fast and mutate a lot, like influenza, pose a challenge for vaccine makers. "Every year there are multiple new strains of flu, which is why you should get a flu shot every year," says Hai. "This season's flu vaccine offers protection against four different strains, but next year, there likely will be new ones."

Attached Files

•  Screenshot 2023-07-10 at 23-38-12 Some Vaccines Last a Lifetime. Here’s Why Covid-19 Shots Don’t.png   21.71KB   0 downloads