There's legitimate reasons people are less trusting of the CDC these days. When a place once respected for their scientific research starts signaling their political stances in subtle but clear ways (e.g. advocating DEI, emphasizing suicide prevention for minorities but not men who are actually the highest risk group, renaming monkeypox to "mpox" out of concern it sounds racist), it undermines trust in their impartiality. I say this as someone who leans left politically too: I just want the science, enough with the politics! So when it comes to vaccine advice from the CDC or you Mr. Offit, I'm going to go with you.
Hi Mike, thanks for the correction! While the WHO appears to have recommended the change the CDC still agreed to adopt the change for the same reason.
If this was an isolated instance at the CDC I wouldn't care. But this is just one example where it appears politics is influencing this scientific institution. I don't support the CDC advocating DEI in the same way I wouldn't support them advocating MAGA either. I support them advocating their original mission of scientific research.
Your comment presupposes I dismiss everything else the CDC produces. I don't. It's why I said in my original comment it is specifically regarding vaccine advice I'm with Offit on this one.
1. Did changing from monkeypox to mpox have protect health/lives? If it helps, then I have no problem with the change.
2. Does DEI initiatives help to protect health/lives?
As I recall there is lot of historical data from white men that was used to make recommendations for everyone...that just weren't valid for women or other ethnicities.
The WHO is usually a reliable source of information, too. But my advice is to always consult multiple reliable sources. And even check out the opinions of those who oppose those sources for perspective.
thanks for that, not sure why i couldnt find it. One thing we should consider by CDC recommending vaccines insurance has to cover it for anyone who choses to get it. I am not getting it as I have the original 2 plus booster so 3 shots and dont have any comorbidities and my PCP Doctor doesnt feel it necessary. I wish people took the time to see more of the big picture and be better communicators at CDC. They are not being dishonest IMHO but I can see where people could be skeptical. Thanks for that link!
I appreciate you sharing your thoughts James. Cynicism can be self-fulfilling, so I'm inclined to give the CDC the benefit of the doubt that they just don't have great PR or the new interns are influencing what they promote as a priority. I'm currently reading "Lessons from the Covid War" from the Covid Crisis Group, and they go so far as to argue most of what happened during COVID was less conspiracy and mostly incompetence/lack of preparedness. One point they add was how much the CDC was expected to take on during COVID, much more than their role as a research facility was intended.
That is not what the Pfizer & Moderna Ph3 studies evaluated: it was not prevention of severe infection, but symptomatic infection plus a positive PCR test.
Why? Because so few people get severe Covid, especially in a young healthy patient population as was in this study. The study would have to be much bigger and in older people to show what Offit suggests it does.
Why does that matter? Firstly there’s a degree of subjectivity as to who has symptoms and whether of not a PCR test is conducted - which is especially important if the study is not properly blinded (and testimony from Brooke Jackson suggests it wasn’t).
Secondly, who cares if a vaccine stops a person getting a mild cold? Extrapolating these data to a different patient population and with a different outcome, is 2 assumptions too far.
Did anyone need the initial jabs? Yes
Did the studies conducted look for the right benefit in the patient population that matters? No
Do we know they worked then? No we do not. Everything else is just post hoc rationalisation fraught with bias, wishful thinking and butt covering.
These “boosters” are a gamble for everyone, with the stakes far higher for the healthy. Don’t risk it.
"That is not what the Pfizer & Moderna Ph3 studies evaluated: it was not prevention of severe infection, but symptomatic infection plus a positive PCR test."
It is interesting how the vaccine critics don't provide their references and when I read the references, the critics always get the basic facts wrong.....
"Major secondary end points included the efficacy of BNT162b2 against severe Covid-19. Severe Covid-19 is defined by the FDA as confirmed Covid-19 with one of the following additional features: clinical signs at rest that are indicative of severe systemic illness; respiratory failure; evidence of shock; significant acute renal, hepatic, or neurologic dysfunction; admission to an intensive care unit; or death"
Albus, thank you for providing the link to the NEJM paper. The link that Dr Offit had provided was very general and I couldn’t find the data supporting his claim about 90% effectiveness at reducing severe covid.
However, to Sophocles point, the study was underpowered to detect reduction of severe covid cases. You can see that in the last row “≥7 Days after Dose 2” of supplementary table S5.
There is 1 case of severe covid in the vaccine group and 4 cases in the placebo group. There is too few cases to draw any conclusions (look at the ridiculously wide confidence interval).
Why am I using the last row of the table? Because that’s the criteria that authors have used to judge the efficacy of their vaccine against infection elsewhere in the paper.
In other words, that study does not support the assertion that this specific vaccine reduces the risk of developing severe covid by 90%. Maybe other studies do?
It was not the primary endpoint. Do you know nothing about trial design or regulatory requirements?
And it’s not 1 vs 9 after the course is complete, is it? It’s 1 vs 4 with ludicrously wide confidence intervals BECAUSE THE STUDY WAS NOT DESIGNED TO SHOW THIS. Stop with your post hoc justifications.
"That is not what the Pfizer & Moderna Ph3 studies evaluated: it was not prevention of severe infection, but symptomatic infection plus a positive PCR test."
You are 100% wrong--they exactly evaluated severe infection. Your assertion is not functionally literate.
3. Table S5 is still in the link and your assertions are not even close to being functionally literate....and no one with 1st grade counting skills could fail to miss the obvious lunacy of your comment.
Big hint: there are more cases at the end of the trial than in a subsection of the trial.
a) since severe disease was a defined secondary endpoint that means the trial was exactly intended to evaluate for severe disease!
Clearly YOU don't have a basic understanding of clinical trials or regulatory requirements.
You are not wrong. However, is there a benefit of reduced transmission leading to fewer cases overall and reducing exposure to those at increased risk? We've promoted influenza vaccine for health care workers, especially in long term care, to protect those with poor immunity. Does that not apply to SARS CoV2 as well?
Population immunity depends on a number of factors, including how fast the virus mutates. Fast movers, like flu or COVID will be near impossible to support achieving population (herd) immunity. Preventing transmission is a more difficult topic to discuss here. That said, reducing the viral load does, indeed, reduce (but likely not eliminate) transmission. Original goals of the various vaccines were always to reduce morbidity and mortality, not to totally prevent infection nor transmission. This point has been routinely dismissed in a number of misinterpreted discussions of the vaccines. What DID happen initially was, we got incredibly lucky with ancestral SARS-CoV-2, and could markedly affect infection and transmission.
All of the countries only recommending Boosters for 65+ do recommend for health care workers and immunocompromised.
It likely doesn't matter. Third booster uptake in the EU was only 2% last year, falling from 17% from second booster. I assume almost zero people plan to get vaccinated with this one.
Which chart from OWID you using? Might be able to find the discrepancy. I suspect inclusion of Russia as Europe in OWID figure, but it's not part of the EU/EEA (statistic I referred too).
Here's the official source from the ECDC:
"Among adults (aged 18 years and older) the cumulative vaccine uptake reached -82.4% for the complete primary course..
-65.4% for the first booster dose, increasing very slowly.
-..The cumulative uptake of the second booster dose is 17.2% in those aged 18+
-...The cumulative uptake of the third booster dose is 2.1% in those aged 18+"
You are referring to the uptake of a 5th vaccine shot. No wonder it was only 2.1%, since only a small fraction of people would have been eligible for it in 2022 (specifically the severely immunosuppressed and very vulnerable)
What was the uptake among those eligible for it?
I’m looking at booster doses administered from Sept 2022 in this chart. Admittedly that may include individuals who had 2 shots in the last year, but that’s not many.
This could be interpreted that the govt regulators have lost control of the relationship between common sense public Heath and manufacturers making products for that purpose. Pharma has demonstrated repeatedly they are not above selling drugs that are not needed.
You have nothing to offer, even in light of clear examples you have been provided you come back with the same statement. Pharma tactic number, smear the people asking questions, tactic number two, regardless of the source and thoroughness of any source that opposes further promotion of additional vaccines, claim it’s misinformation. People like Christine Benn and Peter Abby that are committed to making vaccines better / safer acknowledge existing vaccines (DTP Africa study) can have unintended consequences. They were surprised to find that the vaccinated while showing lower rates of infection for items specifically targeting by the vaccines, all cause mortality of the vaccinated cohort was 5x higher than the unvaccinated. Same goes with the polio vaccine, imagine if people refused to accept there is always room for improvement - that a shot isn’t necessarily perfect, we’d still be giving shots with SV40 contamination.
No one is against safe vaccines, the point is there is a lot of work to be done to get them there.
1. It is fact that I have provided you with many links.
Each time you refuse to read the words and see how the anti-vaccs lied to you.
2. It is a fact that you have made assertions about data and studies, but don't provide the references when asked.
3. It is a fact that DTP (P meaning pertussis) does NOT increase all-cause mortality. And just like the other recent thread where this came up, all it takes is basic math skills to see how the anti-vaccs just keep lying about this simple fact.
4. It is a guess that no matter how many times the anti-vacc fraud/lies gets proven to you, you will just continue to ignore the facts.
Please can I ask you to not use abbreviations like DTP as they don’t necessarily mean the same thing in different countries. DTP means Diphtheria, Tetanus and Polio in the U.K., whereas I understand the P stands for Pertussis in the USA.
I’d be surprised if the vitamin market is that large, some others on here with the same complaint have indicated it is under $2B per year. The big difference of course is people do that by choice and it’s essentially food that everyone is in a big flap about. There is probably some dose level that isn’t safe I imagine too much water can kill you, but come on supplements are food, they’re safe, and really probably no less effective than the covid shots.
And it’s just one more thing that makes the economy go around (sell / buying supplements), you could argue it’s not much different than people getting scammed by marketing to pay to have hair waxed off their back. At one time just about everyone was a farmer, less than 1% feed everyone now, we need different voluntary things to give people something to get up in the morning to do. Sounds crazy but it’s about that simple.
One difference is that healthcare companies and healthcare systems pay for the vaccines and their data keeps showing that the vaccinated are healthier.
Further, you never know what you're getting. Testing have shown not only does the amount of the "vitamins and herbs" varies but also contaminates like heavy metals, fillers, and even drugs. It's unregulated industries.
People are taking the vitamins at their choice. You can’t count on regulators to keep patients / consumers safe, Look where having a regulator got us with drugs, the BMJ article, are regulators for hire does a decent job outlining the problem. OxyContin, baby powder, DNA contamination in shots. Etc. The whole system is shot.
Thank you for speaking out on this issue. FDA and CDC appeared locked into strategy of forever covid boosters, defying science and the rest of the world. Leaders are making exaggerated and false claims to support, further undermining public trust in the independence of these agencies.
The CDC would do well to adopt graded guidance for recommendations, similar to what American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association, and other medical societies do. They are effectively making a Class I recommendation for novel covid boosters for all with Level of Evidence C-EO/LD - something never done in any cardiology guidelines I am aware of. They would have done better to make new booster a 2A recommendation for high-risk groups and 2B for all others.
I GREATLY appreciate Dr Offit’s work to help us all and specifically help us be smart about vaccinations
In the Microbe.TV/BTN podcast, he mentioned that every vaccination raises the risk of an immune attack on heart tissue as a key part of his rationale of limiting potential harm
But although *I* seem to be one of 3 Americans who’ve not had COVID, isn’t it pretty much expected that essentially all of the lower-risk groups WILL get infected? How much stronger of an immune response will an actual infection generate than Yet Another Shot?
I’d also wish for even better messaging: America’s number one risk from COVID seems to be from our people being under- or non-vaccinated; any time Dr O talks about people NOT needing a shot, I wish it would be CLEARLY PRECEDED by the reminder of how important it is for the populace to acquire immunity the safest way possible
New Zealand at 30+ is lowest after Austria and US/CAN.
After that 60-65+ is standard recommendation.
Considering that only 2.1% of the EU bothered with 3rd booster, I suspect only a handful will go for the 4th anyway. The public is treating CDC/PH like Catholics regard Vatican recommendations not to use birth control.
Just to remind people, what you call the third booster is actually the 5th vaccine shot in 2 years (the third booster following a 2-dose primary series).
This many boosters were advised for a small highly vulnerable subset of people…what was the uptake rate in those eligible?
That's a good point - and I struggle on what nomenclature should be. I was trying to go backwards and record recommendations for 1st booster (3rd shot), 2nd booster (4th shot) but was having trouble finding the data - seemed I might have to hunt around in the WayBack machine. At high level seems like most places recommended the 1st Booster/3rd shot to the same groups as original series, it was the 2nd booster some countries started removing younger age groups.
It is confusing. I don’t think the powers that be are clear on what to call them.
My point is that most people had the primary 2 vax series in 2021, with a third (1st booster) dose in either fall 2021 or by spring 2022, getting their fourth shot (2nd booster) in either fall 2022 or by spring 2023, so not unexpectedly very few have got a fifth shot (3rd booster) as yet, except the very vulnerable who would get theirs closer together.
The link I shared [1] answered these questions and gave the breakout.
See the chart on page 6. Age 60 above, uptake was:
Primary Series - 91.1%
Booster 1 - 84.9%
Booster 2 - 35.4%
Booster 3 - 2.4%
As this is average of ~20 countries that reported data (appears to leave out a lot of bloc countries), the range was .1 - .38. for Booster 3 compared to .4 -. 86 for second booster.
That is 2.4% of the eligible cohort, not of total population. It varies wildly by country though (lowest country was .1%, highest country was 58% - average was 2.4%).
The report I linked from EU CDC goes in depth on these questions, though I wish it linked to the actual datasets (perhaps they were noted and I missed them) so I could see how much the "average of the average" comes into play skewing the stats.
Page 6 has a chart that really drives home my point that the population has moved on and isn't interested. The graph shows vague-ish representation of which countries went through with second booster.
Appreciate this viewpoint. I am on TNF inhibitors from severe crohns and I’m glad I have a doc that stayed on top of things during the pandemic. Sadly I was driven by fear the first few months of the pandemic and took a Moderna dose. I got Covid last year and although it was no joke I recovered well. My doc told me I’m not at huge risk at this point bc TNF inhibitors did not appear to have a difference in outcomes based on what she learned. We will all get Covid again and again and I’ll let me body do what it does at this point / no more boosters for me.
What about encouraging boosters to help prevent others (who are in our community and may be high risk) from getting it? And to help decrease spread as well. Are these not reasons to get a booster in the fall? Genuinely curious
If the vaccine prevented infection, you could argue that, but it has never been studied on how it prevents infection. In that sense the whole mandates, and arguments for them get super goofy as it is literally a personal vaccine as it only affects your person.
The vaccine induces neutralising antibodies, which provides (incomplete but still meaningful) protection against infection. The most recent bivalent vaccine iteration was around 30% protective.
This protection declined relatively rapidly, lasting 6 months or less. So, there is an argument to be made for a regular booster to help maintain a degree of protection and this is important for the vulnerable. For young and healthy individuals the protection against infection is of much less relevance, since the risk of serious disease ax a consequence is much less than for a vulnerable person.
But at least you have the choice; get vaxed if you wish to.
Literally in the link Dr. Offit linked to, they state they never tested effectiveness against infection, only 'severe disease'. VE isn't talking about infection prevention, only some sorta of protection against severe disease.
Right from the paper's conclusion:
CONCLUSIONS
In this multicenter US study, we found high and largely sustained protection against COVID-19 following receipt of 2 doses of mRNA vaccine in medically complex hospitalized
patients. These findings reinforce that even with increasing infections in vaccinated populations, vaccination continued to
provide sustained protection against severe COVID-19 resulting in hospitalization. With recurrent surges in infection and
emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants with greater immune evasion [20, 30], ongoing monitoring of VE in hospitalized patients can inform prioritizing certain populations with
additional vaccine doses or development of vaccines with updated antigens.
I’m not talking about protection from serious disease (which you refer to in your quote), but to protection from infection. I even said it twice, to drive home the point I was making.
Even the Cleveland clinic study beloved by antivaxers confirm a 29% protection rate.
Then were did you get your 30% from? Thats what i'm asking dude.
Yea again that one showed a 29% relative protection increase, not a 30% absolute reduction, and in addition they have the timeframe issue where it goes away in a matter of months.
To bad you can't actual back up your numbers or figures and just obscure and state things that are wrong and have been.
Umm what? Ever heard of Rabbies vaccines? or small pox, or chicken pox? or measles. I'll leave it at that.
And even better, if there is no sterilizing vaccines, the original point is even more wrong and evil. your forcing someone to get a medical procedure done that doesn't affect others.
As far as I am aware the rabies vaccine is administered prophylactically rather than preventively, certainly here in the U.K. as we don’t have endemic rabies. Also the U.K. don’t vaccinate against chickenpox except in very specific circumstances, we vaccinate people aged 65+ (or 70+ if already older than 65 as the policy has recently changed) against shingles.
That is what the term prophylactic is used to mean,or certainly it is in A&E or Minor injury units. It’s to prevent illness or disease after an animal bite, whether that is rabies vaccination (very unlikely in the U.K.) or antibiotics (highly likely where the skin is broken).
Anti malaria drugs are administered before travel,also referred to as prophylaxis.
“ Offer antibacterial prophylaxis to patients with a:
cat or human bite that has broken the skin and drawn blood; or
dog or other traditional pet bite (excluding cat bites) that has broken the skin and drawn blood if it:
has penetrated bone, joint, tendon or vascular structures;
is deep, a puncture or crush wound, or has caused significant tissue damage; or
is visibly contaminated (for example if there is dirt or a tooth in the wound).
Consider antibacterial prophylaxis in a patient with:
a cat bite that has broken the skin but not drawn blood and the wound could be deep; or
a human bite that has broken the skin but not drawn blood, or a dog or other traditional pet bite (excluding cat bites) that has broken the skin and drawn blood, if it:
involves a high-risk area (such as the hands, feet, face, genitals, skin overlying cartilaginous structures, or an area of poor circulation), or
is in an individual at risk of a serious wound infection because of a comorbidity (such as diabetes, immunosuppression, asplenia, or decompensated liver disease).
Consider referral to hospital or seeking specialist advice for patients who develop an infection despite taking antibacterial prophylaxis.”
I honestly was thinking of animals vs humans on the rabbies vaccines, so yes you are correct. UK is probably better at guidance then here, as its a childhood vaccine in the us.
Historically, the vaccine has been effective in preventing smallpox infection in 95% of those vaccinated. In addition, the vaccine was proven to prevent or substantially lessen infection when given within a few days after a person was exposed to the variola virus.
I see you made an honest effort and I appreciate that.
Your error is very understandable.
Infection means two different things:
a) clinically ill
b) the pathogen is in your body and is replicating--this may or may not be clinical
No vaccine stops the second meaning.
With smallpox vaccination, you can measure virus replicating in folks that were exposed to the virus, but who don't get sick because the vaccine prevented illness not infection.
This is first year college, you can't probably figure it out if you try.....
But no vaccine is 100% protective against infection. And some are 0% effective against infection (tetanus, diphtheria) and many come in around 30% or so (pertussis, flu)
Because it doesn't decrease spread. Every country which vaccinated had cases explode, with most also having higher excess deaths (not suggesting that was due to vaccine).
Denmark is a good example to look at as they had consistent NPI (open schools, low mask use) before and after the vaccine, high testing, but only after vaccinating the population did Covid explode and excess deaths increase.
The results show that the observed number of deaths in 2020 was close to the expected number with respect to the empirical standard deviation; approximately 4,000 excess deaths occurred. By contrast, in 2021, the observed number of deaths was two empirical standard deviations above the expected number and even more than four times the empirical standard deviation in 2022. In total, the number of excess deaths in the year 2021 is about 34,000 and in 2022 about 66,000 deaths, yielding a cumulated 100,000 excess deaths in both years. The high excess mortality in 2021 and 2022 was mainly due to an increase in deaths in the age groups between 15 and 79 years and started to accumulate only from April 2021 onward. A similar mortality pattern was observed for stillbirths with an increase of about 9.4% in the second quarter and 19.4% in the fourth quarter of the year 2021 compared to previous years.
It does decrease spread, but only by around 30%, and for less than 6 months, which a highly infectious virus will overcome in terms of making inroads into a population.
I wouldn’t be so keen to imply vaccination did nothing to halt transmission and deaths in Denmark; the data don’t support that claim. According to OWID, they had a huge spike of cases in Feb 2022, which was 13 months after vaccines were introduced.
Excess mortality was high in Dec 2020 when vaccination started, soon dropping to be around 20% BELOW expected levels, and gradually climbing again. They are currently around where to expect them to be, having spiked again at the time of the surge in cases over winter 2021/22.
I'm not sure where you are getting your data on Denmark as it isn't reflected in OWID nor Mortality.org (which feeds OWID). Denmark didn't have excess deaths in 2020.
Covid is a seasonal respiratory virus. Denmark had 160K cases by the end of the first season/2020 which is when they began vaccinating and had an unremarkable number of deaths in 2020 (54,645 deaths total, lower than 2018 deaths (55,232) and in line with 3 yr average of 54,150 deaths. Even end of 2020 hitting 1259 deaths in a week was still lower than the peak flu season in 2018 (1,337 deaths) and 2014 (1,307 deaths) - in short, Denmark did not have "high excess mortality in 2020".
They also didn't start "dropping to be around 20% BELOW expected levels" once they started vaccinating. You can slice and dice their weekly data as much as you want [1], you won't be able to find this to be true.
Cases in Denmark started exploding during the 2nd season of Covid, between Sept - Dec they had 500K additional cases, by march another 2 million (the huge Spike in Feb 22 you noted), and another million by the end of 2022.
Excess mortality started to increase 2nd half of 2021 - 29K deaths against 3 year average of last 26 weeks 26,364. Repeat in 2022, another 29K deaths, including a record high weekly death count of 1421 2nd to last week of Dec 2022.
2022 saw deaths 10% higher than 3 year pre-covid average, another 4% increase in deaths - the highest 2 year mortality increase since the 1940's. Similar to Norway and Finland - all spiked in deaths 2022. (though nothing compares to what happened in South Korea)
You can see the overall excess mortality for Denmark is no higher than expected for 2020, but only because it started at a very low base preCovid of -15%. By December 2020 (when vaccination commenced) it was +17%.
It did indeed drop very low again to reach a low of -20% three months into the vax campaign.
In late 2021 the excess mortality had risen once sgain, on the back of waves of escape mutants Delta and Omicron. So, excess mortality clearly correlates positively with Covid, and negatively correlates with vaccination in general terms, but there are many variables here. But clear the vaccine is NOT the cause of high excess mortality, as you implied.
Ah, I see your error now - you are looking at data only *post* 2020, and lack the historical context of mortality in Denmark. If decent with pivot tables you should pull the weekly data from mortality.org [1] and look back 2010-2019 to understand that the dips you think are relevant are just normal fluctuations, always present.
You find a drop of 20% three months into the new vax campaign, and see correlation, but if you look at historical mortality, you'd see this wasn't anything unique. What caused a similar decrease in deaths that same week in 2019? (2018 had a record breaking 1330 deaths against expected 1160). Why did deaths in 2018 after peaking early March plummet back down below average by July? (because this is standard ebb and flows of mortality).
I assume your hypothesis is that the vaccine caused this 20% decrease in deaths Mach 2021 (as modeled with Karlinsky method - never mind it's only a -5% decrease Year over Year).
To me, that you can find same result (a valley of deaths following a plateau) going back 10 years suggest this hypothesis should be held lightly.
Next, you commit the logical fallacy of "counting your hits and forgetting your misses".
You have the hypothesis that the vax caused a drop in deaths, but when confronted with the fact deaths then increased, rather than re-think or even discard your hypothesis, you argue "well that is because of 'escape variants'".
Now your hypothesis cannot be falsified - it will always be responsible for good results, never blamed for bad results.
I am not suggesting the vaccine caused the mortality spike we saw in Australia, Canada, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Israel, Norway, New Zealand, Japan, Vermont, or South Korea.
I am suggesting that since almost every country in the world had mortality *increase* (or at least remain elevated), we may want to consider the likely possibility the Covid 19 vaccine was, at best, useless (like the 'off-year' flu vaccines Dr. Offit cited) or, at worst, caused the population to become more susceptible to Covid variants, which in turn, lead to sustained or increased mortality.
Ralph Baric, the "Titan of Coronavirology", freely talked about how for a decade every SARS vaccine he tested made his mice worse off, because while it worked great against the original strain, it made them more susceptible to minor variants. He never figured out the solution to this problem, but we went ahead and mass vaccinated the population anyway, and now we are using a lot of post-hoc explanations to explain how cases and all-cause mortality increased once the vaccine was introduced - a unique phenomena for any vaccine in history (fact check me on that?)
[2] From "The Invisible Siege", by Dan Werb, fascinating pro-vaccine book written during that euphoric moment when we believed the vaccines would work, has some astonishing admissions:
You are arguing against yourself, and accusing me of what you are doing yourself, namely "counting hits and forgetting misses", by attributing rises in mortality to vaccination, but attributing decreases in mortality to "normal fluctuations".
It doesn't take a genius to see that globally the mortality rose significantly during the pandemic. The reason for this was deaths from Covid, with a contribution from deaths related to poor access to care or delayed care (because of Covid).
You are hasty in attributing rises to vaccination, when studies show vaccines improved overall all cause mortality in many countries and studies showed vaccinated individuals had vastly superior mortality outcomes than unvaccinated individuals. Without vaccines, the global mortality would have risen by many million more than we witnessed (some estimates suggest 20 million more)
How exactly does it decrease spread? Pfizer itself states it does not prevent transmission. There are/were no trials and there’s no evidence it does anything but further line the pockets of Pfizer.
On 3 December 2020, the day after the UK became the first country in the world to approve Pfizer's vaccine, CEO Albert Bourla told NBC News that the company had not investigated whether vaccinated people who became infected with the virus could pass it on to others.
If you're in a crowd of 1000 with no vaccination and therefore X percent are infected; versus in a crowd of 1000 who have been vaccinated so that an estimated only (X/10) prevent are infected, will you have lower chance of becoming infected yourself in one of those cases compared to the other?
I feel like this is a very reasonable interpretation of the evidence, but definitely plan to get a shot anyway. The problem is that
1) another round of shots is probably cost effective at an individual and societal level, because the cost of even mild illness is pretty high!
2) another round of shots is enormously less important than the earlier rounds, and it is important to maintain the credibility of the CDC for people at the margins so that when shots are REALLY important people get them.
My observation is that 34% of the US population is over 50, that risks increase linearly with age. So 25-35% of your audience should probably get a vaccine. Also that the severe cases are unpredictable. A colleague a few years younger than me gets a severe reaction, I didn't. The risks are higher than for flu and yet flu vaccines are recommended. For the crowd who says its just like the flu, then the recommendation is good, plus COVID is about 10 times riskier than the flu. Take the recommendation at face value and act according to your desired risk level - and history of infection.
Hard to judge I guess. COVID is a much more serious public health issue than is influenza. 4 or 5 times as many hospitalizations and deaths in most areas of the world....certainly is not the lesser of the problems.
As always, Dr. Offit is a humble and genius leader who speaks the truth based on the data that we have at hand at this moment. Actions like this for political gain risk another Influenza Pandemic or Measles Outbreak when there is already a shortage of Pediatricians, Pediatric sub-specialists, and Pediatric hospital beds. We also give oxygen to the charlatans on Joe Rogan who urge our families not to vaccinate and claim all pediatricians are non-thinking pharma salespersons.
Why is requiring boosters "confusing and frustrating the American public"?
I get flu vaccinations annually, tetanus vaccines every ten years or so, various other boosters at various intervals; if I'm getting a booster that I didn't really need, it's not exactly a big sacrifice, particularly when compared to getting sick when I could have avoided it. Adding a periodic Covid booster isn't confusing or frustrating me at all.
There's legitimate reasons people are less trusting of the CDC these days. When a place once respected for their scientific research starts signaling their political stances in subtle but clear ways (e.g. advocating DEI, emphasizing suicide prevention for minorities but not men who are actually the highest risk group, renaming monkeypox to "mpox" out of concern it sounds racist), it undermines trust in their impartiality. I say this as someone who leans left politically too: I just want the science, enough with the politics! So when it comes to vaccine advice from the CDC or you Mr. Offit, I'm going to go with you.
WHO renamed monkeypox “mpox”, not the CDC.
And who cares, anyway? Why would you be sufficiently triggered by that to blow off everything they do because of something like that?
Hi Mike, thanks for the correction! While the WHO appears to have recommended the change the CDC still agreed to adopt the change for the same reason.
If this was an isolated instance at the CDC I wouldn't care. But this is just one example where it appears politics is influencing this scientific institution. I don't support the CDC advocating DEI in the same way I wouldn't support them advocating MAGA either. I support them advocating their original mission of scientific research.
Your comment presupposes I dismiss everything else the CDC produces. I don't. It's why I said in my original comment it is specifically regarding vaccine advice I'm with Offit on this one.
I think the questions should be:
1. Did changing from monkeypox to mpox have protect health/lives? If it helps, then I have no problem with the change.
2. Does DEI initiatives help to protect health/lives?
As I recall there is lot of historical data from white men that was used to make recommendations for everyone...that just weren't valid for women or other ethnicities.
The WHO is usually a reliable source of information, too. But my advice is to always consult multiple reliable sources. And even check out the opinions of those who oppose those sources for perspective.
Please link your CDC recommendations in preventing suicide in minorities, I cant find it and am thinking its B.S.? Thanks Comrade.
Hi James. The CDC produced an infographic this year on it. It is linked on Richard Reeves's Substack article here: https://ofboysandmen.substack.com/p/by-far-the-biggest-risk-factor-for?utm_source=%2Finbox&utm_medium=reader2
thanks for that, not sure why i couldnt find it. One thing we should consider by CDC recommending vaccines insurance has to cover it for anyone who choses to get it. I am not getting it as I have the original 2 plus booster so 3 shots and dont have any comorbidities and my PCP Doctor doesnt feel it necessary. I wish people took the time to see more of the big picture and be better communicators at CDC. They are not being dishonest IMHO but I can see where people could be skeptical. Thanks for that link!
I appreciate you sharing your thoughts James. Cynicism can be self-fulfilling, so I'm inclined to give the CDC the benefit of the doubt that they just don't have great PR or the new interns are influencing what they promote as a priority. I'm currently reading "Lessons from the Covid War" from the Covid Crisis Group, and they go so far as to argue most of what happened during COVID was less conspiracy and mostly incompetence/lack of preparedness. One point they add was how much the CDC was expected to take on during COVID, much more than their role as a research facility was intended.
The “right” appear to not just be ignoring the real science, but are positively anti science.
You are the voice of reason. Refreshing and much appreciated, Dr. Offit.
That is not what the Pfizer & Moderna Ph3 studies evaluated: it was not prevention of severe infection, but symptomatic infection plus a positive PCR test.
Why? Because so few people get severe Covid, especially in a young healthy patient population as was in this study. The study would have to be much bigger and in older people to show what Offit suggests it does.
Why does that matter? Firstly there’s a degree of subjectivity as to who has symptoms and whether of not a PCR test is conducted - which is especially important if the study is not properly blinded (and testimony from Brooke Jackson suggests it wasn’t).
Secondly, who cares if a vaccine stops a person getting a mild cold? Extrapolating these data to a different patient population and with a different outcome, is 2 assumptions too far.
Did anyone need the initial jabs? Yes
Did the studies conducted look for the right benefit in the patient population that matters? No
Do we know they worked then? No we do not. Everything else is just post hoc rationalisation fraught with bias, wishful thinking and butt covering.
These “boosters” are a gamble for everyone, with the stakes far higher for the healthy. Don’t risk it.
"That is not what the Pfizer & Moderna Ph3 studies evaluated: it was not prevention of severe infection, but symptomatic infection plus a positive PCR test."
It is interesting how the vaccine critics don't provide their references and when I read the references, the critics always get the basic facts wrong.....
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2034577
"Major secondary end points included the efficacy of BNT162b2 against severe Covid-19. Severe Covid-19 is defined by the FDA as confirmed Covid-19 with one of the following additional features: clinical signs at rest that are indicative of severe systemic illness; respiratory failure; evidence of shock; significant acute renal, hepatic, or neurologic dysfunction; admission to an intensive care unit; or death"
Albus, thank you for providing the link to the NEJM paper. The link that Dr Offit had provided was very general and I couldn’t find the data supporting his claim about 90% effectiveness at reducing severe covid.
However, to Sophocles point, the study was underpowered to detect reduction of severe covid cases. You can see that in the last row “≥7 Days after Dose 2” of supplementary table S5.
There is 1 case of severe covid in the vaccine group and 4 cases in the placebo group. There is too few cases to draw any conclusions (look at the ridiculously wide confidence interval).
Why am I using the last row of the table? Because that’s the criteria that authors have used to judge the efficacy of their vaccine against infection elsewhere in the paper.
In other words, that study does not support the assertion that this specific vaccine reduces the risk of developing severe covid by 90%. Maybe other studies do?
1 in active group, 9 in placebo group. VE 88.9%, and despite the low numbers, still statistically significant.
You are most welcome.
Please reread table S5.
Overall, after one dose, there was a highly significant 88.9% reduction in severe covid.
The subgroups were too small--but not as important as the overall group--to demonstrate significance.
Thus study was not underpowered.
That’s a secondary endpoint. What was the benefit there?
You asserted that severe infection was NOT evaluated and that is NOT true.
Why didn't you just correct your error and move on?
It was not the primary endpoint. Do you know nothing about trial design or regulatory requirements?
And it’s not 1 vs 9 after the course is complete, is it? It’s 1 vs 4 with ludicrously wide confidence intervals BECAUSE THE STUDY WAS NOT DESIGNED TO SHOW THIS. Stop with your post hoc justifications.
Stop scraping. Your precious jab is useless.
1. Yes I do have a decent understanding of both.
2. Your words are still here for all to read:
"That is not what the Pfizer & Moderna Ph3 studies evaluated: it was not prevention of severe infection, but symptomatic infection plus a positive PCR test."
You are 100% wrong--they exactly evaluated severe infection. Your assertion is not functionally literate.
3. Table S5 is still in the link and your assertions are not even close to being functionally literate....and no one with 1st grade counting skills could fail to miss the obvious lunacy of your comment.
Big hint: there are more cases at the end of the trial than in a subsection of the trial.
a) since severe disease was a defined secondary endpoint that means the trial was exactly intended to evaluate for severe disease!
Clearly YOU don't have a basic understanding of clinical trials or regulatory requirements.
https://www.fda.gov/files/drugs/published/Multiple-Endpoints-in-Clinical-Trials-Guidance-for-Industry.pdf
b) The risk of severe covid disease in the vaccinated group after one vaccination:
vaccine effectiveness: 88.9%
Confidence interval: (20.1-99.7) That is highly statistically significant.
More facts:
-the trial exactly evaluated for severe disease,
-the vaccine was demonstrated to be highly effective at preventing severe disease
-anyone that has taken stats 101 knows that doing breaking the sample space down into subgroups will cause the CI to get large.
Bottom line: you got basically everything about the trial, its design, the data and its interpretation wrong.
You have no idea what you are talking about!
4. "Your precious jab is useless."
I take great comfort from the fact that anyone that can count and read knows that is a lie.
So you given up even the pretense of being honest....
You are not wrong. However, is there a benefit of reduced transmission leading to fewer cases overall and reducing exposure to those at increased risk? We've promoted influenza vaccine for health care workers, especially in long term care, to protect those with poor immunity. Does that not apply to SARS CoV2 as well?
From what I’ve read, vaccinations are not doing much to prevent transmission. I’ve read that flu shots also have not produced herd immunity.
Population immunity depends on a number of factors, including how fast the virus mutates. Fast movers, like flu or COVID will be near impossible to support achieving population (herd) immunity. Preventing transmission is a more difficult topic to discuss here. That said, reducing the viral load does, indeed, reduce (but likely not eliminate) transmission. Original goals of the various vaccines were always to reduce morbidity and mortality, not to totally prevent infection nor transmission. This point has been routinely dismissed in a number of misinterpreted discussions of the vaccines. What DID happen initially was, we got incredibly lucky with ancestral SARS-CoV-2, and could markedly affect infection and transmission.
All of the countries only recommending Boosters for 65+ do recommend for health care workers and immunocompromised.
It likely doesn't matter. Third booster uptake in the EU was only 2% last year, falling from 17% from second booster. I assume almost zero people plan to get vaccinated with this one.
I have booster uptake in late 2022 as 5% of Europe’s population according to our world in data.
Which chart from OWID you using? Might be able to find the discrepancy. I suspect inclusion of Russia as Europe in OWID figure, but it's not part of the EU/EEA (statistic I referred too).
Here's the official source from the ECDC:
"Among adults (aged 18 years and older) the cumulative vaccine uptake reached -82.4% for the complete primary course..
-65.4% for the first booster dose, increasing very slowly.
-..The cumulative uptake of the second booster dose is 17.2% in those aged 18+
-...The cumulative uptake of the third booster dose is 2.1% in those aged 18+"
https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/COVID-19-vaccination-strategies-march-2023.pdf
You are referring to the uptake of a 5th vaccine shot. No wonder it was only 2.1%, since only a small fraction of people would have been eligible for it in 2022 (specifically the severely immunosuppressed and very vulnerable)
What was the uptake among those eligible for it?
I’m looking at booster doses administered from Sept 2022 in this chart. Admittedly that may include individuals who had 2 shots in the last year, but that’s not many.
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?uniformYAxis=0&country=OWID_EUR~European+Union&Metric=Vaccine+doses%2C+people+vaccinated%2C+and+booster+doses&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Color+by+test+positivity=false
Dunno why you choose this forum to talk in vague assertions to an audience that follows the details much more
So why not give us clear evidence that flu vaccines aren’t “doing what what you suggest here,” whatever you mean by that
This could be interpreted that the govt regulators have lost control of the relationship between common sense public Heath and manufacturers making products for that purpose. Pharma has demonstrated repeatedly they are not above selling drugs that are not needed.
What you have repeatedly demonstrated is the absence of any facts to back up your assertions!
You have nothing to offer, even in light of clear examples you have been provided you come back with the same statement. Pharma tactic number, smear the people asking questions, tactic number two, regardless of the source and thoroughness of any source that opposes further promotion of additional vaccines, claim it’s misinformation. People like Christine Benn and Peter Abby that are committed to making vaccines better / safer acknowledge existing vaccines (DTP Africa study) can have unintended consequences. They were surprised to find that the vaccinated while showing lower rates of infection for items specifically targeting by the vaccines, all cause mortality of the vaccinated cohort was 5x higher than the unvaccinated. Same goes with the polio vaccine, imagine if people refused to accept there is always room for improvement - that a shot isn’t necessarily perfect, we’d still be giving shots with SV40 contamination.
No one is against safe vaccines, the point is there is a lot of work to be done to get them there.
Fact are stubborn.
1. It is fact that I have provided you with many links.
Each time you refuse to read the words and see how the anti-vaccs lied to you.
2. It is a fact that you have made assertions about data and studies, but don't provide the references when asked.
3. It is a fact that DTP (P meaning pertussis) does NOT increase all-cause mortality. And just like the other recent thread where this came up, all it takes is basic math skills to see how the anti-vaccs just keep lying about this simple fact.
4. It is a guess that no matter how many times the anti-vacc fraud/lies gets proven to you, you will just continue to ignore the facts.
I keep offering facts and you keep hiding from them.
That entirely reflects upon you......
Please can I ask you to not use abbreviations like DTP as they don’t necessarily mean the same thing in different countries. DTP means Diphtheria, Tetanus and Polio in the U.K., whereas I understand the P stands for Pertussis in the USA.
Are you sure?
It appears that DTaP means pertussis.....
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-complete-routine-immunisation-schedule/the-complete-routine-immunisation-schedule-from-february-2022
The pertussis is part of the 6 in 1 in infants.
Pertussis is included with polio, tetanus and diphtheria in the pre school booster.
The DTP is administered to teenagers as their diphtheria, tetanus and polio 3 in 1 vaccine, brand name Revaxis
DTP is also the prophylactic vaccine given in A&E when a patient has a tetanus prone wound.
https://bnf.nice.org.uk/treatment-summaries/immunisation-schedule/
https://bnf.nice.org.uk/drugs/diphtheria-with-tetanus-and-poliomyelitis-vaccine/
Sorry, I am outside of the UK so your link doesn't work for me.
But what you say is not consistent with the Gov.uk site:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-complete-routine-immunisation-schedule/the-complete-routine-immunisation-schedule-from-february-2022#fn:2
Revaxis appears to be Td/IPV not DTP.....
In the U.K. (as everywhere) DTP means Diphtheria, Tetanus and Pertussis.
" Pharma has demonstrated repeatedly they are not above selling drugs that are not needed."
So has the $100 billion vitamin/herbal wellness industries.
What is your evidence that the natural supplements do not benefit the health of those who take them?
I’d be surprised if the vitamin market is that large, some others on here with the same complaint have indicated it is under $2B per year. The big difference of course is people do that by choice and it’s essentially food that everyone is in a big flap about. There is probably some dose level that isn’t safe I imagine too much water can kill you, but come on supplements are food, they’re safe, and really probably no less effective than the covid shots.
And it’s just one more thing that makes the economy go around (sell / buying supplements), you could argue it’s not much different than people getting scammed by marketing to pay to have hair waxed off their back. At one time just about everyone was a farmer, less than 1% feed everyone now, we need different voluntary things to give people something to get up in the morning to do. Sounds crazy but it’s about that simple.
One difference is that healthcare companies and healthcare systems pay for the vaccines and their data keeps showing that the vaccinated are healthier.
Oh wait, you refuse to look at the data......
I have not seen such a low figure but a couple sources indicate it's much more.
https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/us-corporate-wellness-market#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20corporate%20wellness%20market%20size%20was%20valued,rate%20%28CAGR%29%20of%203.87%25%20from%202023%20to%202030.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/491362/health-wellness-market-value/
Further, you never know what you're getting. Testing have shown not only does the amount of the "vitamins and herbs" varies but also contaminates like heavy metals, fillers, and even drugs. It's unregulated industries.
People are taking the vitamins at their choice. You can’t count on regulators to keep patients / consumers safe, Look where having a regulator got us with drugs, the BMJ article, are regulators for hire does a decent job outlining the problem. OxyContin, baby powder, DNA contamination in shots. Etc. The whole system is shot.
Vitamins are regulated by.......the FDA!
Thank you for speaking out on this issue. FDA and CDC appeared locked into strategy of forever covid boosters, defying science and the rest of the world. Leaders are making exaggerated and false claims to support, further undermining public trust in the independence of these agencies.
The CDC would do well to adopt graded guidance for recommendations, similar to what American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association, and other medical societies do. They are effectively making a Class I recommendation for novel covid boosters for all with Level of Evidence C-EO/LD - something never done in any cardiology guidelines I am aware of. They would have done better to make new booster a 2A recommendation for high-risk groups and 2B for all others.
I GREATLY appreciate Dr Offit’s work to help us all and specifically help us be smart about vaccinations
In the Microbe.TV/BTN podcast, he mentioned that every vaccination raises the risk of an immune attack on heart tissue as a key part of his rationale of limiting potential harm
But although *I* seem to be one of 3 Americans who’ve not had COVID, isn’t it pretty much expected that essentially all of the lower-risk groups WILL get infected? How much stronger of an immune response will an actual infection generate than Yet Another Shot?
I’d also wish for even better messaging: America’s number one risk from COVID seems to be from our people being under- or non-vaccinated; any time Dr O talks about people NOT needing a shot, I wish it would be CLEARLY PRECEDED by the reminder of how important it is for the populace to acquire immunity the safest way possible
Thanks again
I put together a spreadsheet tracking recommendations by country here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oJusZ0yAve1cCCSS5MGjp1XYjNc7qJffqJsz7ARlnLg/edit?usp=sharing
US, Canada outliers at 6 mo+
Austria at 12+ is outlier in EU.
New Zealand at 30+ is lowest after Austria and US/CAN.
After that 60-65+ is standard recommendation.
Considering that only 2.1% of the EU bothered with 3rd booster, I suspect only a handful will go for the 4th anyway. The public is treating CDC/PH like Catholics regard Vatican recommendations not to use birth control.
https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/COVID-19-vaccination-strategies-march-2023.pdf
Just to remind people, what you call the third booster is actually the 5th vaccine shot in 2 years (the third booster following a 2-dose primary series).
This many boosters were advised for a small highly vulnerable subset of people…what was the uptake rate in those eligible?
That's a good point - and I struggle on what nomenclature should be. I was trying to go backwards and record recommendations for 1st booster (3rd shot), 2nd booster (4th shot) but was having trouble finding the data - seemed I might have to hunt around in the WayBack machine. At high level seems like most places recommended the 1st Booster/3rd shot to the same groups as original series, it was the 2nd booster some countries started removing younger age groups.
It is confusing. I don’t think the powers that be are clear on what to call them.
My point is that most people had the primary 2 vax series in 2021, with a third (1st booster) dose in either fall 2021 or by spring 2022, getting their fourth shot (2nd booster) in either fall 2022 or by spring 2023, so not unexpectedly very few have got a fifth shot (3rd booster) as yet, except the very vulnerable who would get theirs closer together.
The link I shared [1] answered these questions and gave the breakout.
See the chart on page 6. Age 60 above, uptake was:
Primary Series - 91.1%
Booster 1 - 84.9%
Booster 2 - 35.4%
Booster 3 - 2.4%
As this is average of ~20 countries that reported data (appears to leave out a lot of bloc countries), the range was .1 - .38. for Booster 3 compared to .4 -. 86 for second booster.
[1] https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/COVID-19-vaccination-strategies-march-2023.pdf
Your data is sound, but recall that very few have reached the scenario last fall when they needed 3rd booster (5th shot).
If only 5% of the entire population was deemed eligible for it, and 2.4% did get it, then that means uptake was 50%.
So we need the denominator of those eligible.
That is 2.4% of the eligible cohort, not of total population. It varies wildly by country though (lowest country was .1%, highest country was 58% - average was 2.4%).
The report I linked from EU CDC goes in depth on these questions, though I wish it linked to the actual datasets (perhaps they were noted and I missed them) so I could see how much the "average of the average" comes into play skewing the stats.
Page 6 has a chart that really drives home my point that the population has moved on and isn't interested. The graph shows vague-ish representation of which countries went through with second booster.
Thanks for putting together the very useful spreadsheet!
Appreciate this viewpoint. I am on TNF inhibitors from severe crohns and I’m glad I have a doc that stayed on top of things during the pandemic. Sadly I was driven by fear the first few months of the pandemic and took a Moderna dose. I got Covid last year and although it was no joke I recovered well. My doc told me I’m not at huge risk at this point bc TNF inhibitors did not appear to have a difference in outcomes based on what she learned. We will all get Covid again and again and I’ll let me body do what it does at this point / no more boosters for me.
What about encouraging boosters to help prevent others (who are in our community and may be high risk) from getting it? And to help decrease spread as well. Are these not reasons to get a booster in the fall? Genuinely curious
If the vaccine prevented infection, you could argue that, but it has never been studied on how it prevents infection. In that sense the whole mandates, and arguments for them get super goofy as it is literally a personal vaccine as it only affects your person.
The vaccine induces neutralising antibodies, which provides (incomplete but still meaningful) protection against infection. The most recent bivalent vaccine iteration was around 30% protective.
This protection declined relatively rapidly, lasting 6 months or less. So, there is an argument to be made for a regular booster to help maintain a degree of protection and this is important for the vulnerable. For young and healthy individuals the protection against infection is of much less relevance, since the risk of serious disease ax a consequence is much less than for a vulnerable person.
But at least you have the choice; get vaxed if you wish to.
Where are you getting your 30% number from?
Literally in the link Dr. Offit linked to, they state they never tested effectiveness against infection, only 'severe disease'. VE isn't talking about infection prevention, only some sorta of protection against severe disease.
Right from the paper's conclusion:
CONCLUSIONS
In this multicenter US study, we found high and largely sustained protection against COVID-19 following receipt of 2 doses of mRNA vaccine in medically complex hospitalized
patients. These findings reinforce that even with increasing infections in vaccinated populations, vaccination continued to
provide sustained protection against severe COVID-19 resulting in hospitalization. With recurrent surges in infection and
emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants with greater immune evasion [20, 30], ongoing monitoring of VE in hospitalized patients can inform prioritizing certain populations with
additional vaccine doses or development of vaccines with updated antigens.
I’m not talking about protection from serious disease (which you refer to in your quote), but to protection from infection. I even said it twice, to drive home the point I was making.
Even the Cleveland clinic study beloved by antivaxers confirm a 29% protection rate.
Then were did you get your 30% from? Thats what i'm asking dude.
Yea again that one showed a 29% relative protection increase, not a 30% absolute reduction, and in addition they have the timeframe issue where it goes away in a matter of months.
To bad you can't actual back up your numbers or figures and just obscure and state things that are wrong and have been.
Have a great day!
I cited the Cleveland clinic study. Too bad you think it isn’t “evidence”!
Enjoy your day!
No vaccine can prevent infection, they are not sterilising. They can only prevent serious illness.
Umm what? Ever heard of Rabbies vaccines? or small pox, or chicken pox? or measles. I'll leave it at that.
And even better, if there is no sterilizing vaccines, the original point is even more wrong and evil. your forcing someone to get a medical procedure done that doesn't affect others.
As far as I am aware the rabies vaccine is administered prophylactically rather than preventively, certainly here in the U.K. as we don’t have endemic rabies. Also the U.K. don’t vaccinate against chickenpox except in very specific circumstances, we vaccinate people aged 65+ (or 70+ if already older than 65 as the policy has recently changed) against shingles.
There are a few people that take it prophylactically because they have some high risk for exposure generally due to their occupation.
My understanding is that it almost always used a post-exposure therapeutic.
That is what the term prophylactic is used to mean,or certainly it is in A&E or Minor injury units. It’s to prevent illness or disease after an animal bite, whether that is rabies vaccination (very unlikely in the U.K.) or antibiotics (highly likely where the skin is broken).
Anti malaria drugs are administered before travel,also referred to as prophylaxis.
“ Offer antibacterial prophylaxis to patients with a:
cat or human bite that has broken the skin and drawn blood; or
dog or other traditional pet bite (excluding cat bites) that has broken the skin and drawn blood if it:
has penetrated bone, joint, tendon or vascular structures;
is deep, a puncture or crush wound, or has caused significant tissue damage; or
is visibly contaminated (for example if there is dirt or a tooth in the wound).
Consider antibacterial prophylaxis in a patient with:
a cat bite that has broken the skin but not drawn blood and the wound could be deep; or
a human bite that has broken the skin but not drawn blood, or a dog or other traditional pet bite (excluding cat bites) that has broken the skin and drawn blood, if it:
involves a high-risk area (such as the hands, feet, face, genitals, skin overlying cartilaginous structures, or an area of poor circulation), or
is in an individual at risk of a serious wound infection because of a comorbidity (such as diabetes, immunosuppression, asplenia, or decompensated liver disease).
Consider referral to hospital or seeking specialist advice for patients who develop an infection despite taking antibacterial prophylaxis.”
I honestly was thinking of animals vs humans on the rabbies vaccines, so yes you are correct. UK is probably better at guidance then here, as its a childhood vaccine in the us.
None of your examples prevent infections!
Historically, the vaccine has been effective in preventing smallpox infection in 95% of those vaccinated. In addition, the vaccine was proven to prevent or substantially lessen infection when given within a few days after a person was exposed to the variola virus.
https://www.cdc.gov/smallpox/vaccine-basics/index.html
Can you click on the link above, use your eyes to read the words, and then apologize?
Thank you,
I see you made an honest effort and I appreciate that.
Your error is very understandable.
Infection means two different things:
a) clinically ill
b) the pathogen is in your body and is replicating--this may or may not be clinical
No vaccine stops the second meaning.
With smallpox vaccination, you can measure virus replicating in folks that were exposed to the virus, but who don't get sick because the vaccine prevented illness not infection.
This is first year college, you can't probably figure it out if you try.....
But no vaccine is 100% protective against infection. And some are 0% effective against infection (tetanus, diphtheria) and many come in around 30% or so (pertussis, flu)
Because it doesn't decrease spread. Every country which vaccinated had cases explode, with most also having higher excess deaths (not suggesting that was due to vaccine).
Denmark is a good example to look at as they had consistent NPI (open schools, low mask use) before and after the vaccine, high testing, but only after vaccinating the population did Covid explode and excess deaths increase.
Estimation of Excess Mortality in Germany During 2020-2022
link: https://www.cureus.com/articles/149410-estimation-of-excess-mortality-in-germany-during-2020-2022#!/
"
Results
The results show that the observed number of deaths in 2020 was close to the expected number with respect to the empirical standard deviation; approximately 4,000 excess deaths occurred. By contrast, in 2021, the observed number of deaths was two empirical standard deviations above the expected number and even more than four times the empirical standard deviation in 2022. In total, the number of excess deaths in the year 2021 is about 34,000 and in 2022 about 66,000 deaths, yielding a cumulated 100,000 excess deaths in both years. The high excess mortality in 2021 and 2022 was mainly due to an increase in deaths in the age groups between 15 and 79 years and started to accumulate only from April 2021 onward. A similar mortality pattern was observed for stillbirths with an increase of about 9.4% in the second quarter and 19.4% in the fourth quarter of the year 2021 compared to previous years.
"
Why do you think that continuing to make arguments that insult the math skills of a 10 year old is a good idea?
It does decrease spread, but only by around 30%, and for less than 6 months, which a highly infectious virus will overcome in terms of making inroads into a population.
I wouldn’t be so keen to imply vaccination did nothing to halt transmission and deaths in Denmark; the data don’t support that claim. According to OWID, they had a huge spike of cases in Feb 2022, which was 13 months after vaccines were introduced.
Excess mortality was high in Dec 2020 when vaccination started, soon dropping to be around 20% BELOW expected levels, and gradually climbing again. They are currently around where to expect them to be, having spiked again at the time of the surge in cases over winter 2021/22.
I'm not sure where you are getting your data on Denmark as it isn't reflected in OWID nor Mortality.org (which feeds OWID). Denmark didn't have excess deaths in 2020.
Covid is a seasonal respiratory virus. Denmark had 160K cases by the end of the first season/2020 which is when they began vaccinating and had an unremarkable number of deaths in 2020 (54,645 deaths total, lower than 2018 deaths (55,232) and in line with 3 yr average of 54,150 deaths. Even end of 2020 hitting 1259 deaths in a week was still lower than the peak flu season in 2018 (1,337 deaths) and 2014 (1,307 deaths) - in short, Denmark did not have "high excess mortality in 2020".
They also didn't start "dropping to be around 20% BELOW expected levels" once they started vaccinating. You can slice and dice their weekly data as much as you want [1], you won't be able to find this to be true.
Cases in Denmark started exploding during the 2nd season of Covid, between Sept - Dec they had 500K additional cases, by march another 2 million (the huge Spike in Feb 22 you noted), and another million by the end of 2022.
Excess mortality started to increase 2nd half of 2021 - 29K deaths against 3 year average of last 26 weeks 26,364. Repeat in 2022, another 29K deaths, including a record high weekly death count of 1421 2nd to last week of Dec 2022.
2022 saw deaths 10% higher than 3 year pre-covid average, another 4% increase in deaths - the highest 2 year mortality increase since the 1940's. Similar to Norway and Finland - all spiked in deaths 2022. (though nothing compares to what happened in South Korea)
________________________
[1] Weekly Deaths 2010-2023, Denmark, Extracted from mortlality.org weekly death data, Data > STMF https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uOvIdaKSsjLz0M_TCZYXDiZNlz96MfuMELDLQacFvJs/edit?usp=sharing
This is OurWorldinData source:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-p-scores-projected-baseline?country=~DNK
You can see the overall excess mortality for Denmark is no higher than expected for 2020, but only because it started at a very low base preCovid of -15%. By December 2020 (when vaccination commenced) it was +17%.
It did indeed drop very low again to reach a low of -20% three months into the vax campaign.
In late 2021 the excess mortality had risen once sgain, on the back of waves of escape mutants Delta and Omicron. So, excess mortality clearly correlates positively with Covid, and negatively correlates with vaccination in general terms, but there are many variables here. But clear the vaccine is NOT the cause of high excess mortality, as you implied.
Ah, I see your error now - you are looking at data only *post* 2020, and lack the historical context of mortality in Denmark. If decent with pivot tables you should pull the weekly data from mortality.org [1] and look back 2010-2019 to understand that the dips you think are relevant are just normal fluctuations, always present.
You find a drop of 20% three months into the new vax campaign, and see correlation, but if you look at historical mortality, you'd see this wasn't anything unique. What caused a similar decrease in deaths that same week in 2019? (2018 had a record breaking 1330 deaths against expected 1160). Why did deaths in 2018 after peaking early March plummet back down below average by July? (because this is standard ebb and flows of mortality).
I assume your hypothesis is that the vaccine caused this 20% decrease in deaths Mach 2021 (as modeled with Karlinsky method - never mind it's only a -5% decrease Year over Year).
To me, that you can find same result (a valley of deaths following a plateau) going back 10 years suggest this hypothesis should be held lightly.
Next, you commit the logical fallacy of "counting your hits and forgetting your misses".
You have the hypothesis that the vax caused a drop in deaths, but when confronted with the fact deaths then increased, rather than re-think or even discard your hypothesis, you argue "well that is because of 'escape variants'".
Now your hypothesis cannot be falsified - it will always be responsible for good results, never blamed for bad results.
I am not suggesting the vaccine caused the mortality spike we saw in Australia, Canada, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Israel, Norway, New Zealand, Japan, Vermont, or South Korea.
I am suggesting that since almost every country in the world had mortality *increase* (or at least remain elevated), we may want to consider the likely possibility the Covid 19 vaccine was, at best, useless (like the 'off-year' flu vaccines Dr. Offit cited) or, at worst, caused the population to become more susceptible to Covid variants, which in turn, lead to sustained or increased mortality.
Ralph Baric, the "Titan of Coronavirology", freely talked about how for a decade every SARS vaccine he tested made his mice worse off, because while it worked great against the original strain, it made them more susceptible to minor variants. He never figured out the solution to this problem, but we went ahead and mass vaccinated the population anyway, and now we are using a lot of post-hoc explanations to explain how cases and all-cause mortality increased once the vaccine was introduced - a unique phenomena for any vaccine in history (fact check me on that?)
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[1] Previous post I extracted this for you, but here is link again - this is filtered just to Denmark, https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uOvIdaKSsjLz0M_TCZYXDiZNlz96MfuMELDLQacFvJs/edit?usp=sharing
[2] From "The Invisible Siege", by Dan Werb, fascinating pro-vaccine book written during that euphoric moment when we believed the vaccines would work, has some astonishing admissions:
https://i.imgur.com/y071HQH.jpg
You are arguing against yourself, and accusing me of what you are doing yourself, namely "counting hits and forgetting misses", by attributing rises in mortality to vaccination, but attributing decreases in mortality to "normal fluctuations".
It doesn't take a genius to see that globally the mortality rose significantly during the pandemic. The reason for this was deaths from Covid, with a contribution from deaths related to poor access to care or delayed care (because of Covid).
You are hasty in attributing rises to vaccination, when studies show vaccines improved overall all cause mortality in many countries and studies showed vaccinated individuals had vastly superior mortality outcomes than unvaccinated individuals. Without vaccines, the global mortality would have risen by many million more than we witnessed (some estimates suggest 20 million more)
How exactly does it decrease spread? Pfizer itself states it does not prevent transmission. There are/were no trials and there’s no evidence it does anything but further line the pockets of Pfizer.
"Pfizer itself states it does not prevent transmission."
I bet you can't provide an example where Pfizer said that.
BTW: google is still your friend...try searching for covid vaccine transmission study........
On 3 December 2020, the day after the UK became the first country in the world to approve Pfizer's vaccine, CEO Albert Bourla told NBC News that the company had not investigated whether vaccinated people who became infected with the virus could pass it on to others.
Still having problems today?
Thank you!
Marilyn:
"Pfizer itself states it does not prevent transmission. "
Pfizer:
"....had not investigated whether vaccinated people who became infected with the virus could pass it on to others."
Thanks again for proving my point that one can't be functionally literate and believe the anti-vaccs!
If you're in a crowd of 1000 with no vaccination and therefore X percent are infected; versus in a crowd of 1000 who have been vaccinated so that an estimated only (X/10) prevent are infected, will you have lower chance of becoming infected yourself in one of those cases compared to the other?
That's how exactly it decreases spread.
I feel like this is a very reasonable interpretation of the evidence, but definitely plan to get a shot anyway. The problem is that
1) another round of shots is probably cost effective at an individual and societal level, because the cost of even mild illness is pretty high!
2) another round of shots is enormously less important than the earlier rounds, and it is important to maintain the credibility of the CDC for people at the margins so that when shots are REALLY important people get them.
My observation is that 34% of the US population is over 50, that risks increase linearly with age. So 25-35% of your audience should probably get a vaccine. Also that the severe cases are unpredictable. A colleague a few years younger than me gets a severe reaction, I didn't. The risks are higher than for flu and yet flu vaccines are recommended. For the crowd who says its just like the flu, then the recommendation is good, plus COVID is about 10 times riskier than the flu. Take the recommendation at face value and act according to your desired risk level - and history of infection.
The IFR of Covid is about 10 times that of flu.
You’ve been unable to prove anything I’ve said is false. I merely tell people the facts. You are just here to troll.
The average flu mortality in the US including those dying from pneumonia post flu is estimated to be 23k per year.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20798667/
Over 1 million have died from Covid, giving an annual mortality of 350k.
Which number is bigger, and by how much?
Hard to judge I guess. COVID is a much more serious public health issue than is influenza. 4 or 5 times as many hospitalizations and deaths in most areas of the world....certainly is not the lesser of the problems.
I trust your advice. Thank you for clear explanations.
As always, Dr. Offit is a humble and genius leader who speaks the truth based on the data that we have at hand at this moment. Actions like this for political gain risk another Influenza Pandemic or Measles Outbreak when there is already a shortage of Pediatricians, Pediatric sub-specialists, and Pediatric hospital beds. We also give oxygen to the charlatans on Joe Rogan who urge our families not to vaccinate and claim all pediatricians are non-thinking pharma salespersons.
Why is requiring boosters "confusing and frustrating the American public"?
I get flu vaccinations annually, tetanus vaccines every ten years or so, various other boosters at various intervals; if I'm getting a booster that I didn't really need, it's not exactly a big sacrifice, particularly when compared to getting sick when I could have avoided it. Adding a periodic Covid booster isn't confusing or frustrating me at all.
I’m so fed up with the lies we’ve been told about the Covid-19 vaccines. With all the facts that have been surfaced, how can anyone trust the captured FDA, NIH and CDC, let alone the Biden Administration and the “influencers” paid to deceive the public. I’ve read over 900 articles about this vaccine, almost 300 research reports from peer reviewed journals and listened to MDs on both sides of the argument. There’s so much data on the corruption I can’t believe anyone would stand in line for these new jabs. https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/forensic-analysis-of-deaths-in-pfizer-biontechs-early-mrna-vaccine-trial-show-significant-inconsistencies-5487136?utm_source=healthnoe&src_src=healthnoe&utm_campaign=health-2023-09-12&src_cmp=health-2023-09-12&utm_medium=email&est=JL9c2kmfAk1QCwo%2BViizjvDYXv9%2BEa%2FzdbxADzZXLdx3CsbHS8yIlCsNi%2BT3p3iR
And I’m fed up with the lies people like you (and the Epoch Times) tell about vaccines.
As usual, while the anti-vaccs rant and rave and mindlessly name-call....
Folks with integrity are using their basic reading skills to see that the story is just stupid anti-vacc lies!
https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202309.0131/v1
I inform people of the facts, with the backup of scientific evidence. You, OTOH, are merely an antivax troll.
"I’m so fed up with the lies we’ve been told about the Covid-19 vaccines"
You should be!
And if you make a tiny bit of effort you can easily see that it is your link that is full of lies.