On July 31, 2021, RFK Jr. traveled to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. His goal in the heart of the COVID pandemic was to scare the Amish away from lifesaving vaccines.
“All participants were followed for at least two months after the last dose to make sure that the vaccine was safe.” I’m baffled. This is what you call a “safety study?”
Dr Offit, I note that you have misrepresented the Pfizer RCT in this article.
How come you've yet to address the fact that the Pfizer RCT tested a different product to the one that was rolled out. Don't you think it would build your credibility to address the fact that the Process 2 product has never been tested at scale in an RCT? Would you agree that the medical establishment's failure to address this sleight of hand has contributed to the public's mistrust in institutions and public figures such as yourself?
propaganda required repeated statements of falsehoods until there is confusion or suspicion about other sources of information. RFKjr is a master of dysinfo, and has made $$ from this. He is unqualified to run for the highest office in he country, and potentially liable for causing morbidity and mortality with his lies.
Just got done watching Dr. Offit on The Michael Shermer Show [1] to promote his new book “Tell Me Wen it’s Over” (My copy arrived yesterday, haven’t started it yet). I have immense respect for both Dr Offit and Michael Shermer. They have been hugely influential in my approach to science and skepticism the last 20+ years.
Unfortunately, neither appear aware of how much what they think they know about Covid is demonstrably false, as demonstrated by Dr. Offit saying several things which are not true and Michael Shermer failing to challenge his extraordinary claims.
For example, at @18:45, when arguing why GBD was wrong, Dr Offit makes the false claim that Sweden's outcome was in the "middle of Europe, but much worse than her neighbors". [2]
That is incorrect.
In terms of Excess Deaths, Sweden had a better outcome than the entire world - including her neighbors. [3]
Dr Offit must not be aware of the spikes of deaths in 2021-2022 which occurred in Finland, Denmark, and Norway?
Here is the raw mortality deaths for comparison, you can see this claim is false: https://imgur.com/a/aD05YlM
All of this can be replicated from mortality.org which is used by OWID. The Economist has their own methodology for calculating excess deaths which differs from OWID, but even their analysis puts Sweden tied with her neighbors and better than the rest of Europe. [4]
Politely Dr Offit, I know you are extremely busy, but this feels like a fact you should know. Your entire critique of GBD given to Michael Shermer hinged on this false belief. Why didn’t you feel the need to double check this claim?
____________
@23:11 When Michael asks Paul "who got it right", Dr Offit cites South Korea through their test and trace and finding hotspots.
Again, Dr Offit must not be aware South Korea was having high excess deaths in 2020 and 2021 before exploding in 2022, hitting the *highest year-over-year increase in mortality of any country in the world*, in the last 100 years.
Spring 2022 they had all-cause mortality **double* (!!), a feat no other country achieved. Why isn't Dr Offit aware of this?
The claim that South Korea did effective testing is also provably false. South Korea had one of the lowest testing rates in the entire world throughout the pandemic which is probably why they claim to only have 35K Covid deaths but have close to 170K excess deaths (through July 2024).
In last week's discussion with Sandro Gallea, Michael Shermer referenced Michele Gelfand's "Tight and Loose Cultures" as why some of these countries appeared to do so well, and I agree - a tight culture like South Korea appeared to do well because their government was effective at convincing everyone that they had everything under control, so the people didn’t panic.
Despite having one of the worst outcomes of the entire pandemic, very intelligent people like Shermer and Offit bought into South Korea's effective propaganda.
Indeed, South Korea's lauded "contact trace" protocol was built around false assumptions that the virus was not airborne and was only tracking contacts within 6 meters - again, we now know that was pseudoscience after-all, so why does Dr Offit tout this strategy as being effective - when again, it didn't stop excess death?
South Korea was able to claim they had “everything under control” in 2020 because they barely tested for Covid, and no one called them out on rising excess mortality. When they finally started testing at the rates of countries like the US, Germany, and Denmark in early 2022, they found Covid was everywhere all along, deaths skyrocketed, and they had to abandon their lauded “test and trace” program because it didn’t work after all.
Again, for being a leading voice that people like me look up to, why don’t you know any of this? That’s alarming to me.
[2] As an aside, even if it were true that "Sweden did worse than her neighbors" (which was true only up through 2020), Norway, Finland, and Denmark all had among the weakest Covid measures in the world - all had returned children to school Spring 2020 (largely unmasked), the had among the shortest "lockdowns" in the world, and the lowest masking rates worldwide. The fact that all these countries were so successful doing very little should have caused us to rethink our hysteria. Also, why is Sweden only ever allowed to be compared to her neighbors? Why can we compare Florida to California, Delaware to South Dakota, the US to South Korea, but Sweden's success always has to be restricted to a 500 km radius?
[3] Output of STMF from Mortality.org with 2 ways of calculating excess deaths:
Why does the age of the link make a difference since it dealt with data that occurred before? Your comment is stupid and shows you are unable to read and understand science very well. It and other data I linked to clearly showed that Sweden didn't even have the best data among Nordic countries. Grow up.
RFKjr’s lack of awareness regarding the huge impact Hep B used to have is highly worrisome. For someone who pretends to know about childhood infections he’s incredibly ignorant.
I am glad Dr Offit included a link to the excellent RFK Jr article in the Lancaster Patriot. I encourage everyone to read it. You have to scroll down to read the each page 1,4,21
More than passing strange that a man of “science” with such humbling responsibility and accountability for the health and welfare of millions of Americans would display such hubris and passion publicly by “condemning” so outlandishly a candidate for President. Scary…
“All participants were followed for at least two months after the last dose to make sure that the vaccine was safe.” I’m baffled. This is what you call a “safety study?”
Dr Offit, I note that you have misrepresented the Pfizer RCT in this article.
How come you've yet to address the fact that the Pfizer RCT tested a different product to the one that was rolled out. Don't you think it would build your credibility to address the fact that the Process 2 product has never been tested at scale in an RCT? Would you agree that the medical establishment's failure to address this sleight of hand has contributed to the public's mistrust in institutions and public figures such as yourself?
propaganda required repeated statements of falsehoods until there is confusion or suspicion about other sources of information. RFKjr is a master of dysinfo, and has made $$ from this. He is unqualified to run for the highest office in he country, and potentially liable for causing morbidity and mortality with his lies.
Just got done watching Dr. Offit on The Michael Shermer Show [1] to promote his new book “Tell Me Wen it’s Over” (My copy arrived yesterday, haven’t started it yet). I have immense respect for both Dr Offit and Michael Shermer. They have been hugely influential in my approach to science and skepticism the last 20+ years.
Unfortunately, neither appear aware of how much what they think they know about Covid is demonstrably false, as demonstrated by Dr. Offit saying several things which are not true and Michael Shermer failing to challenge his extraordinary claims.
For example, at @18:45, when arguing why GBD was wrong, Dr Offit makes the false claim that Sweden's outcome was in the "middle of Europe, but much worse than her neighbors". [2]
That is incorrect.
In terms of Excess Deaths, Sweden had a better outcome than the entire world - including her neighbors. [3]
Dr Offit must not be aware of the spikes of deaths in 2021-2022 which occurred in Finland, Denmark, and Norway?
Here is the raw mortality deaths for comparison, you can see this claim is false: https://imgur.com/a/aD05YlM
All of this can be replicated from mortality.org which is used by OWID. The Economist has their own methodology for calculating excess deaths which differs from OWID, but even their analysis puts Sweden tied with her neighbors and better than the rest of Europe. [4]
Politely Dr Offit, I know you are extremely busy, but this feels like a fact you should know. Your entire critique of GBD given to Michael Shermer hinged on this false belief. Why didn’t you feel the need to double check this claim?
____________
@23:11 When Michael asks Paul "who got it right", Dr Offit cites South Korea through their test and trace and finding hotspots.
Again, Dr Offit must not be aware South Korea was having high excess deaths in 2020 and 2021 before exploding in 2022, hitting the *highest year-over-year increase in mortality of any country in the world*, in the last 100 years.
Spring 2022 they had all-cause mortality **double* (!!), a feat no other country achieved. Why isn't Dr Offit aware of this?
The claim that South Korea did effective testing is also provably false. South Korea had one of the lowest testing rates in the entire world throughout the pandemic which is probably why they claim to only have 35K Covid deaths but have close to 170K excess deaths (through July 2024).
Go compare South Korea to any other country and see for yourself: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/full-list-cumulative-total-tests-per-thousand?country=KOR~USA
In last week's discussion with Sandro Gallea, Michael Shermer referenced Michele Gelfand's "Tight and Loose Cultures" as why some of these countries appeared to do so well, and I agree - a tight culture like South Korea appeared to do well because their government was effective at convincing everyone that they had everything under control, so the people didn’t panic.
Despite having one of the worst outcomes of the entire pandemic, very intelligent people like Shermer and Offit bought into South Korea's effective propaganda.
Dr Offit, could it be that you read state sponsored propaganda pieces like this: https://ourworldindata.org/covid-exemplar-south-korea
And didn't take the time to evaluate the claim?
Indeed, South Korea's lauded "contact trace" protocol was built around false assumptions that the virus was not airborne and was only tracking contacts within 6 meters - again, we now know that was pseudoscience after-all, so why does Dr Offit tout this strategy as being effective - when again, it didn't stop excess death?
South Korea was able to claim they had “everything under control” in 2020 because they barely tested for Covid, and no one called them out on rising excess mortality. When they finally started testing at the rates of countries like the US, Germany, and Denmark in early 2022, they found Covid was everywhere all along, deaths skyrocketed, and they had to abandon their lauded “test and trace” program because it didn’t work after all.
Again, for being a leading voice that people like me look up to, why don’t you know any of this? That’s alarming to me.
_____________________
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by67kv1_VnA
[2] As an aside, even if it were true that "Sweden did worse than her neighbors" (which was true only up through 2020), Norway, Finland, and Denmark all had among the weakest Covid measures in the world - all had returned children to school Spring 2020 (largely unmasked), the had among the shortest "lockdowns" in the world, and the lowest masking rates worldwide. The fact that all these countries were so successful doing very little should have caused us to rethink our hysteria. Also, why is Sweden only ever allowed to be compared to her neighbors? Why can we compare Florida to California, Delaware to South Dakota, the US to South Korea, but Sweden's success always has to be restricted to a 500 km radius?
[3] Output of STMF from Mortality.org with 2 ways of calculating excess deaths:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1klmb3_vdhClF3Js2RdugsoY83L2moAI-ae2Rgb3F5mw/edit?usp=sharing
[4] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-estimates
Please tell us your point.
Why does the age of the link make a difference since it dealt with data that occurred before? Your comment is stupid and shows you are unable to read and understand science very well. It and other data I linked to clearly showed that Sweden didn't even have the best data among Nordic countries. Grow up.
Article brought to you by Pfizer thru a donation to Offit the quintessential bribe taker.
RFKjr’s lack of awareness regarding the huge impact Hep B used to have is highly worrisome. For someone who pretends to know about childhood infections he’s incredibly ignorant.
Let's hear from parents, all those who share their toothbrushes with their toothless infants.
Paul, your bias is showing with these terribly weak arguments. Hilarious and shameful
I am glad Dr Offit included a link to the excellent RFK Jr article in the Lancaster Patriot. I encourage everyone to read it. You have to scroll down to read the each page 1,4,21
https://www.thelancasterpatriot.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/21-210810_TheLancasterPatriot-Final.pdf
Give it a chance, just listen to the "BS"
https://open.substack.com/pub/rwmalonemd/p/psychological-and-cognitive-warfare?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=15g3ru
More than passing strange that a man of “science” with such humbling responsibility and accountability for the health and welfare of millions of Americans would display such hubris and passion publicly by “condemning” so outlandishly a candidate for President. Scary…
Sen. Ron Johnson Roundtable on Feb 26, 2024 | National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) https://www.nvic.org/newsletter/feb-2024/sen-ron-johnson-roundtable-on-feb-26,-2024
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/21/tax-records-reveal-lucrative-world-covid-misinformation/
Pure HOGWASH!!!