board77

The Last Homely Site on the Web

Escaping the Echo Chamber

Post Reply   Page 11 of 12  [ 225 posts ]
Jump to page « 18 9 10 11 12 »
Author Message
aninkling
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Mon 19 Oct , 2020 2:48 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
It's a good quote from Dr. Balloux . But it doesn't sound like he's an infectious disease expert. He's bought into the fallacy that we ever were (or are) united in a belief that lockdowns* are a good idea or masks other than N95 are useful for anything other than splash protection, or any number of other things. Dissenting voices have simply been marginalized or silenced.
Perhaps polite as well, in some cases, not wanting to rock the boat.


*Quarantines have long been a part of disease control but only directed at individuals known to be infected. Lockdowns are not quarantines.



Quote:
Lockdowns were (probably) reasonable this spring when we weren't sure what we were dealing with
I'd say the propaganda has worked surprisingly well, that people have come to believe this.

I don't think there were many public health experts, at the beginning of this year, who would have expected uninfected people in democratic societies to accept the government dictating where they may go, who they may meet, when they must stay in their own homes, and whether they must allow their legal business to fail so that health officials may conduct a novel experiment based on the predictions of disease modelers and their notoriously weak predictions.




Don't expect government officials not to take full advantage of this in future.
All for the greater good of course.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Mon 16 Nov , 2020 6:54 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
BMJ scientific journals' editor is starting to wake up to what some of us already know:
https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m44 ... ask-study/
Quote:
Professor: Large Danish mask study rejected by three top journals

The researchers behind a large and unique Danish study on the effect of wearing a mask have great difficulties in getting their research results published. One of the participating professors in the study concedes that the still secret research result could be considered ‘controversial’.

Author: Lars Henrik Aagaard; Published: October 22, 2020
Original article: Berlingske.dk (Danish newspaper)

For weeks, media and researchers all over the world have been awaiting the publication of a large Danish study on the effect – or lack thereof – of walking with facemasks in public spaces during the corona pandemic.

Now one of the researchers involved in the study can report that the finished research result has been rejected by at least three of the world’s leading medical journals.

These are The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine and the American Medical Association’s journal JAMA....
Quote:

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Fri 12 Mar , 2021 2:30 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
With the vaccine rollout, I found an excellent article by a virologist and vaccine expert that summarizes questions and concerns about who should/ should not get the vaccines. This is especially relevant given some of the side effects that seem much, much higher with the mRNA versions (Moderna, Pfizer) than for the average vaccine.

I just saw in the news that there are also some new questions about the adenovirus-vectored versions in Europe (Johnson&Johnson, AstraZeneca) - a possible quite low but not zero association with blood clotting issues. Incidentally, I looked up the Johnson&Johnson vaccine to see if it was also an adenovirus-vectored vaccine and one of the first articles I stumbled across was one that said the FDA had decided to approve it and there were 15 clotting events in the vaccine group, zero in the controls, and they didn't think this was necessarily significant. Now this is a very small number of side effects compared to the total number vaccinated but also remember that initial vaccine trials only enroll healthy people.

I don't know anything about the site but this is a verbatim transcript of his talk so I'm not too worried about the site itself. Unfortunately, with the propaganda these conversations are being driven to odd corners of the internet instead of being out in the open where they should be:
https://dryburgh.com/byram-bridle-coron ... -concerns/
Quote:
“I would probably prefer to have natural immunity” — Dr Byram Bridle (Viral Immunologist)
Quote:
Dr. Bridle is an associate professor and viral immunologist in the Department of Pathobiology at the University of Guelph. His research interests include developing a better understanding of how the immune system responds to viral infections as well as designing immunotherapies for the treatment of cancers and infectious diseases.

He is also passionate about teaching immunology and contributing to the training of Canada’s next generation of researchers....
I have not read to the end yet (it's very long) but I've written vaccine reviews myself and so far everything he says rings absolutely true. What he says is how an actual scientist talks, complete with uncertainties. There is too much about the new COVID vaccines that's being presented as simplistic dogma/ religion.

And if anyone wants an example of what happens with widespread vaccination that doesn't completely stop spread, look no further than H5 avian influenza (bird flu) for poultry in Asia - it's turned into a major and unending "arms race" between the vaccines and the new variants they're driving. It's possible the COVID vaccines will be more efficient but it does give me concerns about vaccinating the entire human population in some countries and what will happen. This could give a much stronger driving force for new variants than just vaccinating those at high risk for serious illness, which lets the virus continue to circulate in low risk groups.


I also read in Science that the FDA has decided to allow the control group in the Moderna vaccine trials to get the vaccine. Which means that the control vs vaccine randomized trial for long term side effects could disappear. And it will make it harder to tease out what the vaccine is doing and what it isn't.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


Top
Profile Quote
Frelga
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Sat 13 Mar , 2021 9:42 pm
A green apple painted red
User avatar
Offline
 
Posts: 4622
Joined: Thu 17 Mar , 2005 9:11 pm
Location: Out on the banks
 
Quote:
Incidentally, I looked up the Johnson&Johnson vaccine to see if it was also an adenovirus-vectored vaccine and one of the first articles I stumbled across was one that said the FDA had decided to approve it and there were 15 clotting events in the vaccine group, zero in the controls, and they didn't think this was necessarily significant.
Not according to this.
Quote:
The vaccine group reported 15 cases of “embolic and thrombotic events,” or blood clots, among 14 recipients, compared with 10 in the placebo group .
These are the most common side effects from J&J’s one-shot Covid vaccine

_________________

GNU Terry Pratchett


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Tue 22 Jun , 2021 8:43 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
Frelga, you're right - either I misread 10 as 0, or the source I looked at got it wrong (typo, most likely; it was an industry news article). Still, there was a hint at a difference even then because the article said the FDA had looked at the disparity and decided it wasn't significant enough to stop emergency authorization of the vaccine. I believe there was also a stroke in a 25? 28? year old participant in another vaccine trial, which the investigator thought was related to the vaccination but the company successfully argued away. I saw that report posted somewhere but didn't keep a link and can't swear my memory is entirely accurate after a few months. I'm think it was one of the mRNA vaccines, probably Pfizer if I'm remembering correctly.




I was in two minds about whether to post this or not. It’s accurate but it might also be way too technical for the average person. I don’t think Dr. Bridle is used to writing for general audiences. But some might be able to get a fair amount of useful information out of it, especially those with a medical or biology background, and others can probably get the gist of it.
https://www.canadiancovidcarealliance.org/
Quote:
A Parental Guide to COVID-19 Vaccination
by Dr. Byram Bridle
(pdf available at the website)

I don’t see why he’s just labeled it for parents, except that he does give stats on the very low risk of SARS-COV2 for young people (in a nutshell, you’re more likely to die of drowning or getting hit by lightning than dying of COVID) and the risk/benefit equation does change greatly depending on age.

Something he doesn’t mention: Cells don’t normally pick up any significant amount of DNA/ RNA if you just inject it – basically, not a heck of a lot happens in that case except the extracellular DNA/RNA quickly breaks down. So earlier experiments with experimental DNA/ RNA vaccines forced these molecules into cells with a process called electroporation - a mild electrical current is used to temporarily make the local cells’ membranes more porous so the vaccine molecules get in. Electroporation is uncomfortable and would probably be unacceptable to use in people, so, the last time I really looked closely at research on this type of vaccine, they were looking for a different way to get it into cells in people. I assume this is where the lipid coating particles in the Moderna and Pfizer COVID vaccines come in. But the thing about electroporation is that it’s *local* and the vaccines wouldn’t be spreading throughout the body. Which also means that a lot of the past general research on DNA/RNA vaccines might not apply to the COVID vaccines.
There was a West Nile DNA vaccine for horses approved in 2005 and withdrawn by the manufacturer in 2010 due to too many side effects, but I’m pretty sure that also used electroporation.


Also regarding the COVID mRNA vaccines affecting tissues throughout the body, here’s an article on the really weird stuff radiologists are seeing on mammograms post-vaccination – enlarged lymph nodes throughout the mammary tissues, which you don’t normally see after any other vaccine.
https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2 ... mammograms
It all reinforces just how little we know about these vaccines that governments and politicians are pushing everyone to get immediately, regardless of whether or not they already have immunity to COVID from an infection or are even at risk from it.


EDIT to add this.
Possibly related to the lymphocyte proliferation described above. It's unclear and, as (s)he says, this is purely anecdotal at this point but I'd be concerned if I saw this too.
Quote:
I posted this on a comment for another post regarding myocarditis but I don’t want it to get buried in there as I’m genuinely curious if anyone else has heard of this.

I made this alternate account to post about some anecdotal side effects I’ve noticed. For background, I am an RN and I work for an insurance company doing preauthorizations, including chemotherapy preauths. Part of my job includes reviewing the medical records to mostly do a double check that the dose and regimens requested meet clinical guidelines for the type of cancer, etc. I have had an alarming amount of patients lately who are all fairly young 20s-40s who were described as perfectly healthy and then became symptomatic following their covid vaccine. The notes all read the same... patient was perfectly healthy, then began to feel unwell and figured it was side effects from the vaccine but after swollen lymph nodes and fatigue, etc persist for weeks on weeks they go to the doctor and are diagnosed with lymphoma and now are getting chemo. Patients are diagnosed via biopsy showing lymphoma cells, obviously. There are articles on Google about the vaccine leading to false diagnosis of lymphoma because it causes lymphadenopathy, but once the lymphoma is biopsy proven I would say this is not a “false positive”.

Now of course this could be a coincidence, but like I said, I’m starting to see this more and more. I have not gotten the “vaccine” and have no plans to. Something does not sit right about all the bribery and peer pressure behind this.

Has anyone come across anything like this? I’m not sure if the vaccine is causing some sort of over-proliferation that’s leading to cancer development ? Again, this is all anecdotal information from my observations.

Some may find the article below of interest too. It’s a source I’m not crazy about but it’s a transcript of an interview with three actual scientists or doctors with a great deal of experience, so, oh well. And it’s the type of news the mainstream media and social media is suppressing in the interests of not encouraging what they like to call “vaccine hesitancy.” Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and media outlets have become the arbiters of “science” and “facts,” which is profoundly disturbing.
(I don’t know anything about the MP except that he speaks the truth about the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons – I’ve seen their statement elsewhere, where they threatened any doctor who said anything negative about masks, lockdowns, or vaccines.)
https://www.cabaltimes.com/2021/06/21/sloan-bridal/
Quote:
So my name is Byram and I am an associate professor of Viral Immunology at the University of Guelph. And since the Pandemic was declared, I have been trying to serve as a voice of objective scientific opinion so that the public can make the most informed decisions for themselves possible when it comes to issues related to COVID-19....
Two weeks ago, I gave an interview. It was a five minute radio interview. The company that runs the radio show did nothing wrong. The host asked me one question and she did absolutely nothing wrong. She was doing her job. The question she asked me was if I knew whether or not there could be a possible link between COVID-19 vaccines and cases of heart inflammation that have been reported around the world and young males. In this case, it was 12 young males in Israel. And I’ve been delving into the literature, uh, very deeply because I’m a vaccinologist. My entire research program is based on the development of novel vaccines. My publication record is based on publishing information about vaccines. So I have a lot of expertise in this area, and indeed I have worked along with a large number of collaborators, both within Canada and internationally. I have developed some serious concerns about the current COVID-19 vaccines.

And so I felt that I could express concern and that there might be a possible link between this heart inflammation that’s occurring, and these COVID-19 vaccines. After I did this interview, five minutes, again, trying to present to a lay audience. It was like a nuclear bomb went off in my world, and my life was thrown upside down. And I am sure my life will never be the same again. So within 24 hours, there was a libelous website that was put up using my domain name...
As some of you may know, since then even the CDC has had to admit that there have been cases of myocarditis linked to the vaccine in young people. IMO, probably in older people too, but, as with blood clots/ strokes/heart attacks, it’s harder to tease those out as vaccine-related in a group where it’s more likely to happen in general. They have convened an emergency meeting to discuss this issue in about a week.


And speaking of “vaccine hesitancy,” many people may not know that OSHA in the US said earlier that employers who mandate COVID vaccines would have to keep track of side effects as they do with other employer-mandated vaccines. I’m not sure about the legal issues but I believe this is because you can at least get compensation as a work injury if you have a bad reaction. Then OSHA later changed their minds and said they wouldn’t require it because they didn’t want to discourage employers from mandating COVID vaccines. They will revisit that decision in 2022, if I remember right.

Like a lot of things about this pandemic response, this rings an awful lot of alarm bells for me. Anyone who takes an emergency authorization vaccine (which is often people who work in labs with dangerous pathogens, so knowledgeable about science in the first place) is supposed to be given full information and no coercion, and that’s not happening.



And I'm not the only one who's increasingly bothered by what's happening with these particular vaccines:
https://trialsitenews.com/bioethics-of- ... oing-down/
Quote:
Bioethics of Experimental COVID Vaccine Deployment under EUA: It’s time we stop and look at what’s going down.
Quote:
Robert W Malone, MD, MS

I provide this brief essay for the TrialSite community because you are involved or at least interested in human subject clinical research. By way of background, please understand that I am a vaccine specialist and advocate, as well as the original inventor of the mRNA vaccine (and DNA vaccine) core platform technology. But I also have extensive training in bioethics from the University of Maryland, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, and Harvard Medical School, and advanced clinical development and regulatory affairs are core competencies for me.

Before examining the bioethical foundations of current policy and practice which underpin experimental COVID vaccine deployment in many in many western nations, allow me to begin by sharing some “real world” first-hand evidence.

I was on a call with a Canadian primary care physician last week for a couple of hours. He related the story of the six (in his mind) highly unusual clinical cases of post-vaccination adverse events that he has personally observed in his practice involving vaccination of his patients with the Pfizer mRNA vaccine product. ...

What was most alarming to me was that my clinical primary practice physician colleague told me that each of these cases were reported as per the proper channels in Canada, and each was summarily determined to not be vaccine related by the authorities without significant investigation. Furthermore, he reported to me that any practicing physician in Canada who goes public with concerns about vaccine safety is subjected to a storm of derision from academic physicians and potential termination of employment (state-controlled socialized medicine) and loss of license to practice....
Quote:
...Information, comprehension, and voluntariness. To my eyes, it appears that in many regions public health leadership has stepped over the line and is now violating the bedrock principles which form the foundation upon which the ethics of clinical research are built. I believe that this must stop. We must have transparent public disclosure of risks – in a broad sense – associated with these experimental vaccines. It is either that, or the entire modern bioethical structure which supports human subjects research will have to be re-thought....

And I'm not sure what to make of this, if anything. But it would be surprising if a company made a business decision without decent data. There was at least one person who claimed that antibodies against the spike protein may interfere with the establishment of the placenta due to similarities in a placental protein, but that seems unlikely to me, given that plenty of women have had mild COVID during pregnancy without a miscarriage and others have gone on to become pregnant after they recovered from COVID. (though I have heard anecdotally about miscarriages that seem to occur soon after vaccination. And some of these vaccines seem to induce a huge antibody response against a single protein, out of proportion to what happens after natural recovery from COVID) Maybe they're worried about the surprising menstrual irregularities some women are reporting post-vaccination?

https://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking ... ack-shares
Quote:
China Feihe (6185) announced it will use up to US$200 million (HK$1.56 billion) to repurchase shares ...

The Chinese infant milk formula company will finance the repurchase from...

Chairman Leng Youbin, told a forum that sales will drop sharply in the coming one and two years since many women can not bear children within six months of coronavirus vaccination, mainland media reported.
China started vaccinating well before most countries did so it makes sense they'd see things sooner.







EDIT: Time will tell on the side effects, but the heavily biased media coverage, censorship and attacks on dissenting doctors, nurses and scientists are making me furious. It's also really pissing me off that Rachel "Impending Doom" Walensky, that arrogant ass Fauci (No, criticizing you is NOT equivalent to attacking science - if you can't take criticism you should never have gotten into science in the first place) and the CDC are dismissing every concern, as they did the myocarditis cases today with "oh well, it's rare; be sure to go and get a vaccine anyway." Unless they have a damn time machine I don't know about, there is no way for them to know what we'll find out about these vaccines in the medium to long term. Especially since they eliminated the control group from the clinical trials that were only supposed to end in 2022 or 2023.

On top of it, the CDC press release on myocarditis had a bunch of bullshit pseudo-certainty about COVID causing worse effects. Like many things they and the media have said about COVID, it's smoke and mirrors. You can claim it's technically true....if you include all age groups and especially if you focus on the groups who get seriously ill, as opposed to a couple of days of mild fever and a bit of a cough. But the thing is, they did not consider healthy CHILDREN as a separate group. If they can prove to me that the very mild colds/ asymptomatic infections COVID is causing in almost all healthy children are associated with myocarditis at a higher rate than these vaccines (especially considering that only about 1% of side effects are estimated to be reported to VAERS even under normal times - and there seem to be active campaigns to discourage reporting side effects with the COVID vaccines).... well, then we can talk. But frankly, I doubt it. The myocarditis from the vaccines was at levels much higher than they expected to see in this population, and there's no reason to think SARS-COV2 infections limited to the upper respiratory tract are causing myocarditis at a higher rate than influenza, RSV and other respiratory diseases in children.

But hey, never mind, the media will obediently parrot the CDC, and at least a few young people who would have shrugged off COVID and hardly even noticed will die. At least a few have already died of myocarditis, including a college student and a 13 year old.
Note: I certainly wouldn't discourage actual high risk children from being vaccinated after a consultation with their doctor, but vaccinating all healthy children for a disease they have little to no risk from, and dismissing all concerns about side effects (in both children and adults) is IMO evil.

Seriously, we could be sending vaccines to protect the elderly in other countries but instead they're busy forcing experimental vaccines on people who don't need and/or don't want them (and Moderna is already making boosters for when the authorities decree it's time for everyone to get another shot). And they're acting as if these hastily produced experimental vaccines are the only COVID vaccines we'll ever have, and everyone MUST take one of these, rather than wait for one that's gone through adequate human and animal testing before being released.
These days, I swear I'm living in lunatic world.



btw, the CDC also pulled a neat trick lately. They no longer count cases of COVID if you've been vaccinated unless you're sick (I've also heard only hospitalized or die) but are still, as far as I know, counting asymptomatic infections in unvaccinated people. I can only assume they don't really trust the data will demonstrate the efficacy of their vaccines in reducing transmission otherwise. (In fact, there has been plenty of evidence that you can still get infected even if vaccinated. No surprise, really, and who cares as long as you're protected from severe symptoms. These wouldn't be the first vaccines to protect from disease without necessarily stopping transmission.)

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Wed 30 Jun , 2021 1:20 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
The study below was rejected by BMJ, as a number of scientific journals have been prone to do with "heresies" during this pandemic. But it's readable at the link below, so you can decide for yourself whether or not they have valid points.
Some peer reviews have openly noted that they are publishing papers that support the current government responses but rejecting equally good papers that do not support them ("We require a higher quality of evidence..."), just as they did with the only large, randomized, controlled study on masks published during the entire pandemic, the Danmask study. The scientific journals were forced to finally publish that after the Danish media got hold of the story (and translations started making their way into other languages) but, never mind, the media smeared the Danish study so badly that no one believed it anyway. Meanwhile, they heavily promoted some very weak observational studies that "proved" masks work.


https://lockdownsceptics.org/raising-t ... ccination/
Quote:
...The FDA has expressed concerns around the rate of reported myocarditis within the VAERS reporting system, especially in the young. A presentation by the FDA on June 10th 2021 compared the reported rates of myocarditis with background expected rates, with data up to May 31st 2021.12 However, the expected rates to which observed rates were compared were those expected over a 31-day period. For under-18s, 90% of cases had an onset by day five after vaccination, making comparison with expected rates over 31 days unreasonable. A further meeting on June 23rd 2021 examined the reports in a seven day window with data up to 11 June 2021. A four fold increase above baseline was evident in the seven days after the first dose for under-24 year-olds, rising to over 27-fold for the seven days after the second dose. The rate per million doses given in males 12-17 years old was 17 times higher than in men aged over 50 years seven days after the first dose, rising to 74 times seven days after the second dose. (For females the risk was 50% higher and 13 times higher respectively.)13

For over-65 year-olds, half of the reported incidences were within eight days of vaccination and 79% occurred in a 31-day window after vaccination. The expected rate for the over-65 year-old age group was 36 to 358 per million over 31 days, whereas the reported rate was 26.12 This gives an indication of the under-reporting of events in the VAERS system which is not capturing even the background expected rates. For both young and old it is not a clinically obvious diagnosis and it is likely that milder cases will have gone undiagnosed. Even for these mild cases, the long term outcome is unknown and the risks to these patients with re-exposure to SARS-CoV-2 is also unknown. ...
BMJ is also the journal that, during a discussion of mandatory vaccination for healthcare workers, first published a letter* by a British MD who expressed alarm over the vaccine-associated side effects seen in her unit, then deleted (censored) it because it was being noticed by opponents of mandatory vaccination.

You may or may not have heard that the "first" death in a 65 year old has been unequivocably attributed to unusual blood clots from one of the mRNA vaccines. I don't doubt there are others that can't be proven.




Not to single out BMJ. Several other journals have earned my disgust during this time.


*At one time Dr Polyakova's letter was available via the internet's wayback machine but it's been scrubbed even from there. I wanted to just link to it but the censors have prevented that. So here it is, reproduced in full, so you can read it for yourself and judge.
You also can't find anything much on it through most search engines, though a few obscure ones will get you several articles on it in obscure publications, with partial quotes.
Quote:
Dear Editor

I have had more vaccines in my life than most people and come from a place of significant personal and professional experience in relation to this pandemic, having managed a service during the first 2 waves and all the contingencies that go with that.

Nevertheless, what I am currently struggling with is the failure to report the reality of the morbidity caused by our current vaccination program within the health service and staff population. The levels of sickness after vaccination is unprecedented and staff are getting very sick and some with neurological symptoms which is having a huge impact on the health service function. Even the young and healthy are off for days, some for weeks, and some requiring medical treatment. Whole teams are being taken out as they went to get vaccinated together.

Mandatory vaccination in this instance is stupid, unethical and irresponsible when it comes to protecting our staff and public health. We are in the voluntary phase of vaccination, and encouraging staff to take an unlicensed product that is impacting on their immediate health, and I have direct experience of staff contracting Covid AFTER vaccination and probably transmitting it. In fact, it is clearly stated that these vaccine products do not offer immunity or stop transmission. In which case why are we doing it? There is no longitudinal safety data (a couple of months of trial data at best) available and these products are only under emergency licensing. What is to say that there are no longitudinal adverse effects that we may face that may put the entire health sector at risk?

Flu is a massive annual killer, it inundates the health system, it kills young people, the old the comorbid, and yet people can chose whether or not they have that vaccine (which had been around for a long time). And you can list a whole number of other examples of vaccines that are not mandatory and yet they protect against diseases of higher consequence.

Coercion and mandating medical treatments on our staff, of members of the public especially when treatments are still in the experimental phase, are firmly in the realms of a totalitarian Nazi dystopia and fall far outside of our ethical values as the guardians of health.

I and my entire family have had COVID. This as well as most of my friends, relatives and colleagues. I have recently lost a relatively young family member with comorbidities to heart failure, resulting from the pneumonia caused by Covid. Despite this, I would never debase myself and agree, that we should abandon our liberal principles and the international stance on bodily sovereignty, free informed choice and human rights and support unprecedented coercion of professionals, patients and people to have experimental treatments with limited safety data. This and the policies that go with this are more of a danger to our society than anything else we have faced over the last year.

What has happened to “my body my choice?” What has happened to scientific and open debate? If I don’t prescribe an antibiotic to a patient who doesn’t need it as they are healthy, am I anti-antibiotics? Or an antibiotic-denier? Is it not time that people truly thought about what is happening to us and where all of this is taking us?

Competing interests: No competing interests

What all the censors forget is the old adage that cutting out a man's tongue doesn't prove what you say is right; it just demonstrates that you fear what he has to say.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Sat 03 Jul , 2021 4:24 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
It looks like they're doing the same thing with papers critical of vaccination as they did with mask studies they didn't like - redact them, make them difficult to get on the internet, or put an "expression of concern" label on them essentially saying "Nah, we don't believe this anymore because of COVID" (i.e., we can't actually refute anything in it - it's perfectly good research - we just don't like what it says)

Recently redacted paper still available here:
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/9/7/693
Quote:
The Safety of COVID-19 Vaccinations—We Should Rethink the Policy
by Harald Walach
1,2,3,*, Rainer J. Klement
4 and Wouter Aukema
5
1
Poznan University of the Medical Sciences, Pediatric Hospital, 60-572 Poznan, Poland
2
Department of Psychology, University of Witten/Herdecke, 58448 Witten, Germany
3
Change Health Science Institute, 10178 Berlin, Germany
4
Department of Radiation Oncology, Leopoldina Hospital, 97422 Schweinfurt, Germany
5
Independent Data and Pattern Scientist, Brinkenbergweg 1, 7351 BD Hoenderloo, The Netherlands
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editor: Ralph J. DiClemente
Vaccines 2021, 9(7), 693; https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines9070693
Received: 2 June 2021 / Revised: 19 June 2021 / Accepted: 21 June 2021 / Published: 24 June 2021
(This article belongs to the Section COVID-19 Vaccines and Vaccination)
View Full-Text Download PDF Browse Figure
Citation Export
Abstract
Background: COVID-19 vaccines have had expedited reviews without sufficient safety data. We wanted to compare risks and benefits. Method: We calculated the number needed to vaccinate (NNTV) from a large Israeli field study to prevent one death. We accessed the Adverse Drug Reactions (ADR) database of the European Medicines Agency and of the Dutch National Register (lareb.nl) to extract the number of cases reporting severe side effects and the number of cases with fatal side effects. Result: The NNTV is between 200–700 to prevent one case of COVID-19 for the mRNA vaccine marketed by Pfizer, while the NNTV to prevent one death is between 9000 and 50,000 (95% confidence interval), with 16,000 as a point estimate. The number of cases experiencing adverse reactions has been reported to be 700 per 100,000 vaccinations. Currently, we see 16 serious side effects per 100,000 vaccinations, and the number of fatal side effects is at 4.11/100,000 vaccinations. For three deaths prevented by vaccination we have to accept two inflicted by vaccination. Conclusions: This lack of clear benefit should cause governments to rethink their vaccination policy. View Full-Text
Keywords: SARS-CoV2; COVID-19; vaccination; mRNA-vaccine; number needed to vaccinate; safety; side effects; adverse drug reaction; fatal side effects; EMA
Note: MDPI is not my favorite source as their peer review/ quality control often seems to be weak. But I'm posting this because I won't be at all surprised if the major publishers are rejecting papers that shed a poor light on the vaccine, just as they tried to suppress the Danmask study, so where else can you publish?


A treasure trove of COVID emergency authorization vaccine related discussions/ powerpoints at the FDA. Download them while you can still get them.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210629061 ... nouncement

There are some interesting tidbits in here. For instance, there's a slide of the side effects the FDA was already looking for with these vaccines that looks like some of the things now being reported. In this document:

Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory
Committee October 22, 2020 Meeting Presentation

btw, one of the latest I heard (and not in that document) was a case report of retinitis - inflammation of the retina of the eye that seemed to be linked to the vaccine. Plausible if the mRNA that makes the spike proteins gets everywhere, which means the immune system may then attack the cells expressing those proteins.


Others:


In this document, LICENSURE AND EMERGENCY USE AUTHORIZATION
OF VACCINES TO PREVENT COVID-19:
CLINICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Quote:
Safety considerations supporting a median follow-up of 2
months after completion of the full vaccination regimen:
- Historically, uncommon but clinically significant adverse events plausibly
linked to vaccines (i.e., immune-mediated adverse reactions) generally
have onset within 6 weeks following vaccination*
So much for the widely disseminated idea in the media that side effects have to happen within a few days to be linked to the vaccine...
Quote:
Continued Evaluation after Licensure or EUA....

...Continuation of blinded follow-up in ongoing placebo-controlled trials for
as long as is feasible
So why did they unblind them so quickly, long before the 3 year follow-up in the companies' published clinical trials plans???
Quote:
Important to examine safety and effectiveness data in
previously infected individuals because pre-vaccination
screening for prior infection is unlikely to occur in practice for
COVID-19 vaccines
So why aren't we hearing anything about that specifically? Surely they have enough data already for at least a preliminary analysis. Anecdotally, people say the side effects are worse if you already had COVID.

And why are they actually encouraging people who recovered to go get vaccinated if they don't know safety and effectiveness?
This is the first time in history we've ever done this for any disease. Yeah, maybe after a couple of years when immunity wanes, but soon after infection? Hell no. Especially when studies are showing that immunity after recovery is solid and seems to be lasting.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Tue 13 Jul , 2021 4:51 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
https://unherd.com/2021/06/beijings-use ... ?=frbottom
Quote:
Beijing’s useful idiots
Science journals have encouraged and enforced a false Covid narrative
BY Ian Birrell
Quote:
Just over a year ago, I stumbled across an intriguing scientific paper. It suggested the pandemic that was ripping around the world was “uniquely adapted to infect humans”; it was “not typical of a normal zoonotic infection” since it first appeared with “exceptional” ability to enter human cells. ...

But even though Petrovsky has excellent credentials — professor of medicine at a prominent Australian university, author of more than 200 papers in scientific journals and founder of a company funded by the US government to develop new vaccine technologies — I was still anxious when my story went global....

Last week, however, he told me this important origins modelling paper had finally been accepted by Nature Scientific Reports after “a harrowing 12 months of repeated reviews, rejections, appeals, re-reviews and finally now acceptance”.

This acceptance is one more sign of the changing political climate as suddenly it is deemed permissible to discuss the possibility that the virus causing havoc around the world might have emerged from a laboratory. Petrovsky has had to endure what he calls “the legitimacy” of his paper as a peer-reviewed publication being denied for a critical 12 months — and he is far from alone. “I have heard all too many tales from other academics who have been equally frustrated in getting their manuscripts dealing with research into the origins of the virus published,” he said....
Quote:
...Or as another well-placed observer put it: “The game seems to be for Nature and The Lancet to rush non-peer revised correspondences to set the tone and then delay critical papers and responses.”

But why would they do this? This is where things become even murkier. Allegations swirl that it was not down to editorial misjudgement, but something more sinister: a desire to appease China for commercial reasons. The Financial Times revealed four years ago that debt-laden Springer Nature, the German group that publishes Nature, was blocking access in China to hundreds of academic articles mentioning subjects deemed sensitive by Beijing such as Hong Kong, Taiwan or Tibet. China is also spending lavishly around the world to win supremacy in science — which includes becoming the biggest national sponsor of open access journals published by both Springer Nature and Elsevier, owner of The Lancet.

One source estimated that 49 sponsorship agreements between Springer Nature and Chinese institutions were worth at least $10m last year...
It’s not just these origins discussions either. I’ve seen the same thing on practically everything related to COVID, to the point where I now throw Science in the recycle bin unopened unless there’s a research paper unrelated to COVID I want to read. Their news and general interest sections, which are mostly written by science writers, have become unreadable.





https://swprs.org/us-vaccine-deaths-increasing-rapidly/
Quote:
The latest weekly US VAERS update added a shocking 2,083 post-vaccination deaths – by far the largest weekly increase to date – raising the total of reported post-vaccination deaths to 9,048. Not all of these 2,083 deaths occurred within a week, as there is a very significant reporting backlog.

In total, close to 1,000 post-vaccination miscarriages, more than 3,000 heart attacks, about 7,500 disabilities, close to 20,000 severe allergic reactions, and close to 1,000 cases of heart muscle inflammation in people under 25 have already been reported to VAERS.

A recent analysis by researchers at Queen Mary University in London found that even in senior citizens, about 85% of deaths reported to VAERS were definitively, likely or possibly caused by the vaccine. ...

Indeed, despite very few covid deaths, there continues to be unexplained excess all-cause mortality in all US age groups below the age of 75, with all-cause mortality having reached record levels in age groups below 45 since the beginning of the vaccination campaign. ...
When something happens after vaccination, sometimes it’s just a coincidence. But looking at patterns and frequencyof events is important, i.e., are there more strokes and heart attacks in older people post-vaccination than you’d otherwise expect? How does the frequency of side effects with these experimental new platforms compare to conventional vaccines for other diseases?

I’m not even sure where this 70% vaccination rate (or the so-far only whispered hints that they actually want 90% vaccination worldwide) comes from. My guess is the mathematical modelers like Ferguson at Imperial College. By contrast, some old-fashioned epidemiologists were expecting around 40-50% immunity to be the end of the pandemic and the start of an endemic situation.

FYI, ‘endemic’ is essentially the ordinary condition, like for the other respiratory viruses we already live with. As one example, the new H1N1 virus that caused the 2009 pandemic didn’t disappear with the end of the pandemic; it just became one of the circulating flu viruses people still get every year. It’s basically a matter of enough people having some immunity that, even though these viruses keep circulating, the number of people getting sick at any time is kept down.

As an aside, if we were to run around constantly testing everyone for influenza viruses and other resp. viruses with a PCR test, like we do for COVID, symptoms or not, I’m willing to bet there’d be some “scary” numbers of asymptomatic “cases” (i.e., positive tests) for the media to scaremonger with. A while back, someone did a study like that on influenza and found out that, even though the number of people sick with flu is high only during flu season, flu viruses still circulate at some level during the summer.



The Swiss doctors’ group also mention the retracted study above, with what’s a fair analysis:
Quote:
There has been much discussion recently about an ultimately retracted paper that claimed covid vaccines kill 2 people for every 3 people they save. The two major points of criticism were that the paper underestimated vaccine protection by considering only a three-week period, and that the paper overestimated vaccine-related deaths by counting all reported post-vaccination deaths.

The first point is valid: vaccine protection should be estimated based on a near-100% population infection rate, not just a three-week window. But the second point is misguided: due to under-reporting, reported deaths are a lower bound, not an upper bound, of vaccine-related deaths.
Though they go on to say:
Quote:
... there is an even more important point to be considered: age-based risk-stratification. Below a certain age, covid-related mortality is so low that covid vaccines are bound to kill or severely injure more healthy people than they save. In the US, this age threshold may be close to 40 years, while in some Western European countries, it may be as high as 60 years (for healthy people)....


Pre-COVID, criticisms over published papers were mostly handled openly as scientific disagreements. The journal would publish letters from other scientists criticizing the analysis, then the authors of the paper would get a chance to respond, and so forth, and readers get to make up their own minds. Once the dust settles, the good stuff usually floats to the top and the weak papers sink and are ignored. Back then, papers were mostly retracted for actual misconduct, like experimental results that are fake, not weaknesses or disagreements on how to analyze something.

Nor did published stuff necessarily disappear completely. When I’m searching for something, once in a while my list will include an abstract (scientific article summary) from a paper that’s been retracted. At least in some cases, I could even read the full paper, should I want to.But it looks like some“contrary” COVID papers may actually disappear. I went looking for a retracted cloth mask study from South Korea at one point (they tested 4 people with COVID and found all of the virus outside the mask after coughing, but were criticized for various reasons, including that they didn’t have a control group socouldn’t do stats to prove their findings were statistically significant ). I couldn’t find any mention of it anywhere.It was as if it had never even existed.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Fri 13 Aug , 2021 2:56 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
https://dailysceptic.org/covid-19-vacci ... d-consent/
Quote:
COVID-19 Vaccination and the Death of Informed Consent
13 August 2021
by George Santayana*
Quote:
*George Santayana is the pseudonym of a senior executive in a U.K. pharmaceutical company
Quote:
Informed consent is one of the cornerstones of modern medicine and the foundation of the patient/doctor relationship. ... Of course, a clinician can express their opinion and offer advice as to what course of action a patient might take, but ultimately the decision to proceed (swallow the pill, take the test, have the operation) resides with the patient.

Informed consent places the individual patient at the heart of clinical practice and given that they are the person receiving the treatment and taking any associated risks that intrinsically feels like the right thing. And so it used to be for vaccinations... But then COVID-19 came along and suddenly this patient-centred view of the world was replaced by governments and the mainstream media with one where a treatment benefit was not just to the individual receiving the treatment but also to society… a change, which as I will discuss here, inexorably leads to the destruction of informed consent....

One of the peculiar things about vaccines as treatments is that their benefit is not the same as their effectiveness. This is because a vaccine works by generating immune “memory” of a specific pathogen. The effectiveness of the vaccine is therefore dictated by how good the immune response is to the immunisation and what type of immune memory it creates. The effectiveness is also to some extent dictated by the pathogen itself. So, for a virus like smallpox, vaccination was highly effective not least because the pathogen proved unable to evolve to evade vaccine induced immunity. In contrast, the parasites that cause malaria or sleeping sickness have evolved mechanisms to evade the immune system and so vaccinations against these pathogens have proven to be highly elusive. SARS-CoV-2 sits somewhere in the middle in that it appears susceptible to immunity from vaccination but can mutate and evolve variants that might be able to overcome this immunity.

However, having immune memory is of no benefit to the patient per se. The benefit to the patient only comes if, subsequent to vaccination, they become infected with the pathogen...

For SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, the seriousness of the disease is largely age related, meaning that the NNTV is also age-related. As a result, we might only need to vaccinate a few hundred over-60s for one to avoid having a serious case of COVID-19 while we would need to vaccinate thousands (if not tens or hundreds of thousands) of the under-20s to achieve the same outcome....

Unlike the benefit, the safety risks associated with SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations are not age dependent and include rare, serious adverse events including death. So, the balance of benefit and risk for their use also varies with age...

Vaccinations can produce herd immunity and in the case of smallpox were so effective that they led to the elimination of the disease itself. But from an informed consent perspective there is one huge difference between vaccination campaigns that have historically produced herd immunity and that being pursued for COVID-19 and that is that historically the diseases concerned were of significant risk to those receiving the vaccination. ...

Achieving herd immunity is also when vaccine effectiveness comes into play, and this is because the vaccine must not only reduce the individual’s likelihood of developing serious disease but also produce “neutralising” immunity in the sense that infected, immune individuals are not infectious to others....
One of the important things in this is the concept that vaccinations work *with your own immune system* and are only as effective as the immune system you have at this time - which includes things like your general state of health, drugs you might be taking, and so forth. Some people with poor immune responses may never generate an adequate response to these COVID vaccines. While some with good immune responses never needed them to suppress the virus.






And for a look at how actual findings get twisted into what you read in the media:

https://dailysceptic.org/2021/08/05/lat ... -vaccines/
Quote:
The report from round 13 of Imperial College’s REACT-1 Covid infection survey was published yesterday, covering the period from June 24th to July 12th, broadly corresponding to the Delta surge.

The press release led with the claim that “double vaccinated people were three times less likely than unvaccinated people to test positive for the coronavirus” (0.4% vs 1.2%). This is clearly misleading as an indication of vaccine effectiveness, however, as younger people were both less likely to be vaccinated and more likely to test positive. As the report itself admits: “These estimates conflate the effect of vaccination with other correlated variables such as age, which is strongly associated with the likelihood of having been vaccinated and also acts as a proxy for differences in behaviour across the age groups.”

Presumably, the headline was chosen by a politically savvy communications officer who did not want to draw attention to the fact that the study found a lower vaccine effectiveness than other studies such as those of Public Health England.

It found a vaccine effectiveness (vaccine type unspecified) among 18-64 year-olds of 49%. However, the 95% confidence interval ran from 22% to 67%, meaning the authors didn’t have enough positive test results to be very sure of their estimate (despite testing nearly 100,000 people, only 527 results or 0.54% came back positive). They couldn’t even be very confident it wasn’t as low as 22%.

This low certainty is probably why they didn’t try to break down the results further by age. However, without that it’s hard to see how the results can be relied upon,...




And, lastly, a piece on what we lose with masking, from the sociological end of things as much as the biological:
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/the- ... f-america/
Quote:
We should never fully return to our maskless society where only health care providers donned a mask, because judicious use of masks will continue to save lives” (emphasis added). This is not the fringe statement of some obscure crank. It is the view of two doctors at New York’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine, one of the nation’s most prestigious medical schools, writing in a New York Daily News op-ed this spring.

Now that the COVID-19 pandemic is retreating, it may seem absurd to propose further mask mandates in response to lesser—or even seasonal—viral threats. But Julia Carrie Wong, writing in the Guardian, reports that many Americans like their masks just fine. Francesca, a 46-year-old, fully vaccinated professor in New York, will not abandon her “invisibility cloak” just yet. “It has been such a relief to feel anonymous,” she explains. ...

Ostensibly, the point of wearing masks is not to furnish oneself with an emotional crutch but to prevent viral transmission. Many Americans have been taught to believe that masks work—at least a little—and that wearing them comes at a minimal cost. Nearly the opposite is true. The best scientific evidence invites a far less rosy assessment of masks’ effectiveness than is broadcast by public health officials. And the dubious health benefits of widespread mask-wearing come at an enormous social cost, which is almost never acknowledged by those writing and enforcing the mandates....


Speaking of the biological, I've heard some horrible idiots talking about making children wear N95 masks all day in school. Until this pandemic, anyone who wore a true N95 for their job was an adult who got proper mask training, which included the hazards of these particular masks. Among other things, you may pass out, and if no one is nearby to take off the mask or the bystanders are too stupid to do so....
N95s are, more than likely, the masks that killed a couple of kids in China who were exercising in them, early in the pandemic.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Tue 24 Aug , 2021 8:00 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
I doubt the news media will admit there's anything but "consensus" about the FDA decision to grant the Pfizer COVID vaccine full approval after 4 months. (normal approval for a conventional vaccine based on established technologies is years. Much less a new vaccine technology, mRNA, that's never before been tried in humans). So here's some dissent, from the British Medical Journal:

https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/08/23/do ... 9-vaccine/
Quote:
Does the FDA think these data justify the first full approval of a covid-19 vaccine?
Quote:
On 28 July 2021, Pfizer and BioNTech posted updated results for their ongoing phase 3 covid-19 vaccine trial. The preprint came almost a year to the day after the historical trial commenced, and nearly four months since the companies announced vaccine efficacy estimates “up to six months.”

But you won’t find 10 month follow-up data here. While the preprint is new, the results it contains aren’t particularly up to date....

The 20 page preprint matters because it represents the most detailed public account of the pivotal trial data Pfizer submitted in pursuit of the world’s first “full approval” of a coronavirus vaccine from the Food and Drug Administration. It deserves careful scrutiny....

Since late last year, we’ve heard that Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines are “95% effective” with even greater efficacy against severe disease (“100% effective,” Moderna said).

Whatever one thinks about the “95% effective” claims (my thoughts are here), even the most enthusiastic commentators have acknowledged that measuring vaccine efficacy two months after dosing says little about just how long vaccine-induced immunity will last....

The concern, of course, was decreased efficacy over time. ...

And so the recent reports from Israel’s Ministry of Health caught my eye. In early July, they reported that efficacy against infection and symptomatic disease “fell to 64%.” By late July it had fallen to 39% where Delta is the dominant strain. This is very low. For context, the FDA’s expectation is of “at least 50%” efficacy for any approvable vaccine.

Now Israel, which almost exclusively used Pfizer vaccine, has begun administering a third “booster” dose to all adults over 40. And starting 20 September 2021, the US plans to follow suit for all “fully vaccinated” adults eight months past their second dose.

Delta may not be responsible

Enter Pfizer’s preprint. As an RCT reporting “up to six months of follow-up,” it is notable that evidence of waning immunity was already visible in the data by the 13 March 2021 data cut-off.....



https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/06/08/wh ... this-year/
Quote:
We are part of a group of clinicians, scientists, and patient advocates who have lodged a formal “Citizen Petition” with the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), asking the agency to delay any consideration of a “full approval” of a covid-19 vaccine. The message of our petition is “slow down and get the science right—there is no legitimate reason to hurry to grant a license to a coronavirus vaccine.” We believe the existing evidence base—both pre- and post-authorization—is simply not mature enough at this point to adequately judge whether clinical benefits outweigh the risks in all populations....

Our petition doesn’t argue that risks outweigh benefits—or that benefits outweigh risks. Rather, we focus on methods and processes, outlining the many remaining unknowns about safety and effectiveness—and suggest the kinds of studies needed to address the open questions.

If the FDA listens to us, they won’t give serious consideration to approving a covid-19 vaccine until 2022. Our first request is that the FDA require manufacturers to submit data from completed Phase III trials—not interim results. Trials by vaccine manufacturers were designed to follow participants for two years, and should be completed before they are evaluated for full approval, even if they are now unblinded and lack placebo groups. These Phase III trials are not simply efficacy studies; they also are necessary and important safety studies (as the study titles say), and all collected data remain invaluable.

We also call on FDA to require a more thorough assessment of spike proteins produced in-situ by the body following vaccination—including studies on their full biodistribution, pharmacokinetics, and tissue-specific toxicities....We call on data demonstrating a thorough investigation of all serious adverse events reported to pharmacovigilance systems....


Universities and employers already started vaccine mandates and coercion while all the vaccines were still under emergency authorization and the Biden administration is pressuring them to do even more. See also France, Australia, Canada for the push to make everyone including children and young adults take these vaccines and show their vaccine records to participate in ordinary life activities.

Universities have been big on vaccine mandates for faculty, staff and students. UVA just expelled 300+ students for refusing the vaccine and others are making life increasingly difficult. For example, some (e.g., Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, at least one Maryland state university) are cutting unvaccinated students off access to school computers and even wireless computer access to the university system.
I've read that some people are organizing a global strike/ walkout on Sept 1 to support doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers who won't get the vaccine (often because they've already had COVID or been exposed - how quickly healthcare workers went from heroes to village idiots in media coverage!), other people facing employer mandates in a variety of industries, and students. But I don't know anything more about it.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


Top
Profile Quote
LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Tue 24 Aug , 2021 9:04 pm
The Grey Amaretto as Supermega-awesome Proud Heretic Girl
Offline
 
Posts: 21756
Joined: Thu 24 Feb , 2005 3:46 pm
 
Quote:
I've read that some people are organizing a global strike/ walkout on Sept 1 to support doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers who won't get the vaccine (often because they've already had COVID or been exposed - how quickly healthcare workers went from heroes to village idiots in media coverage!),
I'm sorry, but the vast majority of healthcare workers I know personally (so take my anecdotal evidence fwiw) who are refusing the vaccine and protesting are doing so because they are afraid of the vaccine for various reasons and/or they are upset about what they perceive as infringements upon their liberties. And they are mostly conservative Republicans and/or Trump supporters, fwiw. Some *have* possibly already had COVID, and our hospital system is allowing people to opt out of the vaccine if they have antibodies verified through testing. They have to be tested no less than every 3 months. I think that is a reasonable concession. Of course, there are religious and medical exemptions just as with the flu vaccine, the MMR vaccine, and the Hepatitis B vaccine (all already required by the network).

I'm of a mixed mind on mandates. I truly get that people are afraid. I am angry about misinformation and conspiracy theories. I don't love it when an employer or a government puts out mandates. BUT...the vaccine is still our best option for beating this virus. I realize you may disagree. However, as a healthcare worker, it is my damn job to help people get better and to not get them sick. Also, I would like to not get sick, maybe die, maybe be permanently disabled, and not be the reason any of my friends and family suffer any of these fates. I am also dealing with fear, of course, as we all are. I just believe my risks with COVID FAR outweigh my risks from the vaccine.

I just saw someone do the math on this.

Tl;dr? "...the vaccine would have a fatality rate of 0.0068% compared to the Covid fatality rate of 1.67%."

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using Tapatalk

_________________

[ img ]


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Wed 25 Aug , 2021 2:03 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
Quote:
because they are afraid of the vaccine for various reasons
Are you surprised? Take a good long look at VAERS, the UK's Yellow Card system and the EU system for collecting reports of vaccine injuries, then compare the side effects of the COVID vaccines to the flu vaccine, which is also widely taken. Estimates suggest VAERS collects roughly 10% of serious side effects and 1% of side effects overall.

Yeah, you'll probably get lucky. But if you end up with persistent damage from a stroke or anaphylaxis or myocarditis or other serious side effects, no one is coming to your rescue and taking care of your family. As one MD said, you can't untake the vaccine. And the vaccine manufacturers have zero liability, ever. Whether your employer will, with mandates, is another question.
Quote:
and/or they are upset about what they perceive as infringements upon their liberties.
So am I. There might have been some justification for mandatory vaccination in healthcare workers, who work with the vulnerable, before we found out how leaky these vaccines are (no sterilizing immunity. No surprise to those of us who actually know about vaccines and the intricacies of the immune system). But for everyone, as a condition of everyday life? Hard pass from me.

btw, One well-known consequence of such "leaky" vaccines work is that a vaccinated person who's protected from symptoms might unknowingly be walking around shedding similar amounts of virus as an unvaccinated person showing symptoms. Or did Tony Fauci forget to tell you guys this? Oops, guess he forgot about that too.




Well, enjoy your q 6-8 month subscription to the Pfizer/Moderna vaccine plan, because SARS-CoV2 is never going away, any more than any other endemic respiratory virus, and these vaccines are not looking great at this point.
Doubt you'll get access to Novavax - I hear it's being reserved for the global south - and adenovirus vectors generate immunity to the vector component which can be an issue with efficacy of later doses, so boosters with J & J are probably out.


btw, if you've been working in a hospital and think you haven't been, at a minimum, exposed to COVID already, I suspect you are seriously mistaken. Nosocomial transmission of COVID has been shown to account for a significant number of cases. At least in places where they haven't buried their heads in the sand and said "Nuh uh, our masks protect us."

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


Top
Profile Quote
LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Wed 25 Aug , 2021 5:26 pm
The Grey Amaretto as Supermega-awesome Proud Heretic Girl
Offline
 
Posts: 21756
Joined: Thu 24 Feb , 2005 3:46 pm
 
I'm not going to seriously argue or debate with you, inky. I just felt like sharing my views related to one thing you said. One reason I don't want to deeply engage with you is because I've found that people firmly entrenched in some of the views you express here just don't really want to hear anything else. Perhaps you're different; I have no idea, but I'm tired. I've read your posts. I've investigated some of your claims. I find them, for the most part, lacking. More importantly (because I'm not an expert in this field, just more qualified than most), so many other people--actual experts--have addressed these claims and found them lacking, and I don't have the time or energy to repost it all here or, even more time-consumingly, rephrase or summarize it. So that's where I will place my shaky trust because, in the end, the risks of COVID absolutely outweigh the risks of the vaccines.

Also, I am tired and worn out from all of this. Pretty sure I've said that already a few times. [ img ] (Working in a hospital this past year and a half has not been for the weak!) I hope, if you don't want to get the vaccine, that you're not forced to. I hope you and yours don't get ill and/or die from COVID. I hope we all get that privilege and good fortune, vaccinated or not. And I hope we all see brighter days soon.

Also, good summaries on major anti-vaxx claims can be found literally everywhere, but I like this one I saw this morning:

Obviously, you can read or disregard at your will.

Have a great day!

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using Tapatalk


_________________

[ img ]


Top
Profile Quote
Frelga
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Wed 25 Aug , 2021 7:45 pm
A green apple painted red
User avatar
Offline
 
Posts: 4622
Joined: Thu 17 Mar , 2005 9:11 pm
Location: Out on the banks
 
VAERS collects all adverse events following the vaccination, whether or not they were related to the vaccine. There's an explainer on the site.

Californian data shows vaccine efficacy of about 84% - 51 cases per 100K in the unvaccinated vs. 7.6 in the vaccinated.

Meanwhile in Florida.

Broward Health Medical Center adds temporary mortuary facility
Quote:
In a statement late Saturday afternoon, the hospital told the South Florida Sun Sentinel, “We, like other health systems across the region, have had to use temporary mortuary coolers, an unfortunate result of the loss of life experienced these past months from COVID-19.”
And that concludes my participation in this thread until at least September 16.

_________________

GNU Terry Pratchett


Top
Profile Quote
yovargas
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Fri 27 Aug , 2021 1:12 pm
User avatar
Offline
 
Posts: 14774
Joined: Thu 24 Feb , 2005 12:11 pm
 
"One well-known consequence of such "leaky" vaccines work is that a vaccinated person who's protected from symptoms might unknowingly be walking around shedding similar amounts of virus as an unvaccinated person showing symptoms. Or did Tony Fauci forget to tell you guys this? Oops, guess he forgot about that too."

If by "shedding" you mean, like I have heard some say, that you people who have been vaccinated can spread the disease because the vaccine injects you with the virus, then no, it can't because the vax doesn't contain the virus. Since it isn't the virus, it can't reproduce and therefore can't spread and infect.

If by "shedding" you simply mean that it's still possible for vaxd people to get infected, and therefore it's possible they can still spread the disease, nobody forgot to tell anyone that. It was made explicit to everyone from day one when they said the vaccine is about 95% effective, instead of 100% effective.

Though perhaps you meant something else entirely and I misunderstood your intent. Though I would bet good money that regardless of what you meant, nobody "forgot" to mention it.


Top
Profile Quote
aninkling
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Thu 09 Sep , 2021 3:04 pm
Offline
 
Posts: 2048
Joined: Fri 10 Aug , 2012 4:42 pm
 
Yup, yovargas, it's the latter - shedding virus if you get infected. I posted some general information on vaccine science last year before the propaganda took off, if you want to look a page or two back. I knew at the time they had plans to restrict information to what's "approved" by the government in order to lead people where they want them to go, though I never thought they'd go as far as the current insanity. This IMO is also why Fauci et al are giving you guys only what information about microbiology and immunology that they want you to know at the time, not the full picture.

The 95% effective has zip to do with virus shedding or asymptomatic infections. In the Pfizer trials, there were 95% fewer mild to moderate symptomatic cases in vaccinated people than unvaccinated people - that's what it refers to. They did not measure virus shedding. In fact, they can't even technically say anything about deaths - there were 2 in the unvaccinated vs 1 in vaccinated - too few to say it's statistically significant (though you'd of course hope that the reduction in symptoms leads to fewer deaths). What may also interest you is that all this is from roughly 200 symptomatic cases total out of about 40,000 trial participants, which says something about COVID as well.
Perhaps you might actually read the BMJ editor's editorial. You might learn something.




Just FYI and what I really stopped by to say - here's something to keep in mind when the media tells you boosters are "not needed at this time," as Canadian media is saying right now. I assume they got backlash and are treading water, just like when they first introduce the idea of vaccine passports, say they're not going to happen, reintroduce them later and they do happen....

https://www.canada.ca/en/public-service ... VID19.html
They've ordered enough vaccines for twice the Canadian population through 2023 with an option for 2024. I'm sure other countries have done the same.

Though I suppose this is just old news and it's possible they're realizing these are basically not great vaccines. But I'm not holding my breath. Either this isn't about a relatively mild respiratory virus anymore or they've pushed unscientific ideas and public hysteria to the point where they don't know how to stop this runaway train.




btw, trust me, Lali, my professional qualifications to discuss this don't hinge on your opinion of me ;) I just thought some of you guys might find some of this information useful and/or it might open some eyes that the "consensus" is forced (seriously, any time the media and politicians say all scientists are in agreement about something, especially things that are abrupt 180 degree turnarounds from accepted science just a short time earlier, you ought to start having questions.). I hope you all remember this in 10 years or so, like the "weapons of mass destruction" stuff everyone swallowed, then years later it seems no one remembers supporting it...

Sometimes I wonder if you all even realize how unusual it is for 2 senior FDA officials, one with 30+ years with the FDA, to step down immediately after approving a vaccine.

_________________

Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


Top
Profile Quote
yovargas
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Thu 09 Sep , 2021 4:58 pm
User avatar
Offline
 
Posts: 14774
Joined: Thu 24 Feb , 2005 12:11 pm
 
One key difference between the old WMD narrative and this: the info for WMDs was coming almost entirely from the Bush administration, whereas the decisions about Covid are being made and reviewed by a huge number of experts and governments around literally the entire world, and nearly all of them are in agreement.

Too many people who talk like this is all some mad conspiracy from US media or gov seem to completely forget that there are a couple hundred other countries out there and almost all of them are in agreement that everyone should get vaccinated asap.


ETA - out of curiosity I went and checked and it looks like there are currently 98 countries where at least 50% of the population has received a vaccine dose.

Also, this mild respiratory virus has now caused over 4.5 million mild deaths.


Top
Profile Quote
LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Fri 10 Sep , 2021 2:46 pm
The Grey Amaretto as Supermega-awesome Proud Heretic Girl
Offline
 
Posts: 21756
Joined: Thu 24 Feb , 2005 3:46 pm
 
The points yovi makes are extremely valid and have been persuasive in my discussions with others who are not deeply entrenched in conspiracy theories but are having doubts because they're surrounded by others who are (e.g., my parents and my brother, respectively). Anyone who has worked on a group project should realize how completely absurd it is to think that the vast majority of the world governments could somehow work together to mislead their populations. And for what purpose? So that people don't die? The majority of people who are dying now are the ones who think this is all a conspiracy or "not that big of a deal." I mean, was that the point of the conspiracy?

As of September 7th, 98% of people currently hospitalized in Ohio for COVID are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated. Or is that all lies too?

_________________

[ img ]


Top
Profile Quote
Frelga
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Wed 22 Sep , 2021 11:57 am
A green apple painted red
User avatar
Offline
 
Posts: 4622
Joined: Thu 17 Mar , 2005 9:11 pm
Location: Out on the banks
 
Covid-19 death rate more than 4 times higher in least vaccinated states than in most vaccinated

In California, infection rates among vaccinated vs. unvaccinated population show vaccine efficacy between 84-87%, both on statewide and county data all through the Delta surge. California tracks all infections in vaccinated people.


_________________

GNU Terry Pratchett


Top
Profile Quote
LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Escaping the Echo Chamber
Posted: Wed 22 Sep , 2021 1:45 pm
The Grey Amaretto as Supermega-awesome Proud Heretic Girl
Offline
 
Posts: 21756
Joined: Thu 24 Feb , 2005 3:46 pm
 
That's great news about the efficacy!

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using Tapatalk

_________________

[ img ]


Top
Profile Quote
Display: Sort by: Direction:
Post Reply   Page 11 of 12  [ 225 posts ]
Return to “The Symposium” | Jump to page « 18 9 10 11 12 »
Jump to: