Source: Canadian Covid Care Alliance.
Whenever I post any comment or story — no matter how innocuous or carefully contextualized — that suggests Covid vaccines may cause harm, someone is bound to say it is a proven fact that the vaccines are safe and effective. A member of the Jump-Up-And-Down-I’m-Right-Read-My-Bloody-Lips set will even rehearse the canard that there is “no evidence” that Covid vaccines cause harm. It is to reach, if possible, people of such a mind set that I share the link at the top of this post.
The focus of the video is quite narrow. The subject matter concerns only one of the several approved Covid-19 vaccine products, and the scope of the discussion applies only to methodological criticisms of the product clinical trials. Based on the video one cannot say categorically that the subject vaccine is unsafe or ineffective. But one can say:
a) The clinical trials failed to demonstrate safety and efficacy to a high degree of confidence, and
b) The trials produced direct evidence of vaccine harm, including death.
These two considerations are hugely significant in a number of ways. The most important in my view concerns the ethics of informed consent. A government that promotes, even mandates, the use of a particular drug has an ethical obligation to make the real risks of usage known to the users.
Almost equally important is that the early data hinted at the probability of long-term health risks, especially risks related to blood and heart disease, or immune system compromise, that may now be showing up in current data. Should this actualization be confirmed, the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccines will have been the biggest failed biological experiment in history.
And then there’s the children. Enough said on that.
Putting aside all these considerations, I don’t fault the decision to authorize the Covid vaccines for public use, and I fully accept the proposition that the vaccines reduce the risk of infection and severe illness.
My beef is only with the know-nothings who repeat fantasy talking points. Propaganda is a worse virus than SARS-COV-2.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
This is a polemic. Not science. There have been similar screeds by anti-vaxxers for decades on just about every vaccine out there. Just like there are scientists who published papers proving that smoking is good for you or that climate change is not happening.
There are liars, damned liars, and statistics. This polemic, for example, cites data from that early study that the absolute risk for the unvaccinated is .88% while the absolute risk for the vaccinated is 0.04%. They subtract these figures and say – “Lookee here, the vaccine only improves your absolute risk by 0.84%.(0.88%-0.04%). Gee, that is not much, is it? That is BULLSHIT logic. Subtraction is not the appropriate math operation. Division is, and that shows that you are about 22x safer with the vaccine than without it. And that ratio has held as hundreds of millions of vaccinations have been delivered.
Bottom line, if you are betting your life based on this kind of baloney you are making a very bad bet.
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RE: “Subtraction is not the appropriate math operation. Division is, and that shows that you are about 22x safer with the vaccine than without it.”
The relevant comparison in the video is between absolute and relative risk calculations, not between the absolute risk for the vaccinated and absolute risk for the unvaccinated.
RE: “Bottom line, if you are betting your life based on this kind of baloney you are making a very bad bet.”
Betting your life isn’t the issue. As stated, the issue is “the know-nothings who repeat fantasy talking points.”
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“Anti-vax positions are not very bright, but one size fits all mandates are worse.”
Unless there is evidence of significant harm from the vaccine – there is none – this opinion makes no sense. The unvaccinated increase the risk to themselves. That is their business. But they also increase the risk to everyone else and should not be allowed to do so. Here is just one of countless reports confirming that truth:
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-covid-surge-shows-overwhelming-cost-of-being-unvaccinated-america/
We have had required vaccination for school attendance for decades. Join the military and a wide variety of vaccinations are part of the deal. We used to require proof of small pox vaccination to travel overseas UNTIL vaccines eliminated the threat.
What is so different about this vaccine? Nothing. It is an issue ONLY because of irrational hatred of the government and of the current President. Better that thousands die rather than let the government have a success. Shameful.
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Here are three “fantasy talking points” from this “Know-nothing”
These “fantasy talking points” are easily supported by EVIDENCE. There is NO EVIDENCE that any of them is false. In other words, these “fantasy opinions” are FACTS.
Here is an opinion for you:
If you are otherwise healthy, there is no rational reason to subject yourself and the people around you to avoidable increased risk of serious illness and death. Anyone who does so is – at best – a fool.
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RE: “Here are three ‘fantasy talking points’ from this ‘Know-nothing’…”
I agreed with the first of your three points in my post.
Your second point is a matter of much debate in my experience. I would describe it, charitably, as an unresolved issue.
Your third point appears to have been overtaken by events with the emergence of the omicron variant.
You seem to be of the opinion that you can define rationality for other people. I disagree.
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Given your agreement on point 1, it is hard to understand why you would not get vaccinated. My “know-nothing” opinion stands – it is irrational and foolish to increase the risk of illness and death for oneself, family members and others.
The comparative risk (vaccination vs infection) is not a matter for debate. It is a matter for study. Based on a massive and growing amount of evidence from hundreds of millions of inoculations the relative risks are as stated. Imaginary harm without a solid basis in evidence does not count in the calculus of risk.
The omicron variant has not falsified the third point. The unvaccinated are MORE prone to becoming infected. MORE prone to develop virus-spreading symptoms. MORE prone to crowd others out of hospital beds. It remains a fact that unvaccinated people are endangering others, not just themselves.
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RE: “Based on a massive and growing amount of evidence from hundreds of millions of inoculations the relative risks are as stated.”
When I hear people say something like that, I am totally amazed.
Yesterday I shared an actuarial report from an insurance company that showed a 40% surge in deaths from all causes in Indiana. Since the death surge is statistically impropable, not caused by the virus, and happens to correlate temporally with the vaccine rollout in that state, the report is surely part of the “massive and growing amount of evidence” you mention. But you don’t want to include it in your risk assessment. You insist, instead, that pre-existing risk assessments remain valid despite new evidence.
This is the type of close-mindedness I wrote the post to address.
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Correlation is not causation.
The actuarial report from that insurance guy is NOT evidence that the vaccines are deadly. Not even close. He blamed the pandemic and concluded that its effects are being under-reported. THAT you simply dismiss even after citing him.
There is such a thing as being too open-minded, too eager to find evidence in support of pre-conceived ideas. When it comes to justifying shirking the responsibility to get vaccinated, you display such over eagerness repeatedly. The hypothesis that some mysterious, unidentified side effect of the vaccines is killing off 18-64 year-olds with no known causal mechanism does not stand up to scrutiny on any level. And doubly so after hundreds of millions of inoculations without this mysterious mechanism being evident or discovered.
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RE: “The actuarial report from that insurance guy is NOT evidence that the vaccines are deadly.”
I never said it was. I even said it wasn’t.
RE: “The hypothesis that some mysterious, unidentified side effect of the vaccines is killing off 18-64 year-olds with no known causal mechanism does not stand up to scrutiny on any level.”
I never said anything like that, either.
Today’s video speaks in part to the claim you made yesterday that there is “no evidence” that Covid vaccines cause harm. In fact, Pfizer’s own clinical trial data provides direct evidence of increased illness and death among vaccine recipients in the trial. This evidence is sufficient to formulate the hypothesis that the vaccines cause harm, including death, but the clinical trial — for various reasons given in the video — was insufficient to test the hypothesis.
The hypothesis of vaccine harm is to my mind unresolved and needs to be revisited in light of current data. It is hard for me to imagine why saying this should bother anyone.
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LOL!
You still are baffled by the words that YOU write.
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LOL = Too hard, didn’t think.
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“LOL = Too hard, didn’t think.”
Uh, no it means that it is pretty funny when somebody clearly writes something and then denies what he wrote.
I guess I will have to remind you what YOU wrote so listen up.
You write. . .
“RE: “The actuarial report from that insurance guy is NOT evidence that the vaccines are deadly.”
I never said it was. I even said it wasn’t.”
Uh, no. You just chastised me for my mind being closed to this very evidence. Re-read your post at 8:50am
You also write. . .
“RE: “The hypothesis that some mysterious, unidentified side effect of the vaccines is killing off 18-64 year-olds with no known causal mechanism does not stand up to scrutiny on any level.”
I never said anything like that, either.”
Uh, Yes. You did.
When you speculate that vaccines may be the cause of the increase in deaths reported by that insurance man, THAT is a hypothesis. And since you do not state how that would work, it is a mysterious unidentified side effect.
Now, your turn. Try THINKING this time.
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RE: “Re-read your post at 8:50am”
OK. It says that the actuarial data needs to considered in revisiting the vaccine risk assessment. Is that not reasonable? It doesn’t say that the actuarial data needs to be included in a new risk computation.
RE: “When you speculate that vaccines may be the cause of the increase in deaths reported by that insurance man, THAT is a hypothesis.”
What were my exact words expressing the speculation you infer?
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Uh, you have lost track of the discussion.
You denied saying that the actuarial data was evidence of vaccine danger. I said that you DID say that. Now you are saying that you did say that.
As for your exact words? Huh? You offered a hypothesis. Period.
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RE: “Now you are saying that you did say that.”
No. I said and say again the actuarial data is surprising for a variety of reasons. It needs to be evaluated to determine whether it is relevant to the hypothesis that vaccines cause harm. Then and only then could it be used to support a new formal risk assessment.
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An antigen is not a toxin. The spike protein provokes a response form the body’s immune system. but that is what it is supposed to do.
Vaccination should not be mandated for anyone. I don’t believe the claims made by the Canadian Covid Care Coalition, and I can’t find any information on the organization. The decision on vaccination should be a personal one based in your own risks profile.
For someone like me, 72 and with comorbidities, the benefits heavily outweigh the risk. For a 10 year old kid, probably not,
When Paxlovid supplies are adequate, that will change the equation again.
Anti-vax positions are not very bright, but one size fits all mandates are worse.
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RE: “An antigen is not a toxin. The spike protein provokes a response form the body’s immune system. but that is what it is supposed to do.”
As I understand it:
There is a hypothesis that the spike protein of the vaccine does, too.
The hypothesis is, at present, unresolved.
I couldn’t find any information on the Canadian Covid Care Coalition, either, which I googled before posting the video. I pulled the link from Robert Malone’s substack, which I regard as credible.
https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/
Malone is an outspoken critic of the public health bureaucracy in the U.S. and the decisions it has made and keeps making with respect to the Covid-19 vaccination program.
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I’m not a fan of Malone. He has grossly exaggerated his contribution to the development of mRNA vaccines. That is not relevant to this issue, but self promotion in a scientist is never a good sign.
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RE: “He has grossly exaggerated his contribution to the development of mRNA vaccines.”
Maybe. I’ve known lots of people who own patents for one thing or another. Merely repeating the facts that support the patent application can sound like bragging. My father, for example, invented a paper clip. To hear him talk about it, you might think he invented THE paper clip.
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I have a patent too. For a dental office safety device that allows you to remove and replace the cap on a dental syringe needle with one hand(avoiding needle sticks,) It was far better than any other similar device,
That’s how I learned that marketing is harder than inventing.
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RE: “That’s how I learned that marketing is harder than inventing.”
So true!
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“For a 10 year old kid, probably not,”
BUT when that 10 year old kid lives with, or spends a great deal of time with, someone like you, he/she becomes a threat to “someone like you”.
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While we were waiting for the vaccine it was a valid argument to force kids to sacrifice to protect the elderly and compromised, but now, and especially when Paxlovid becomes readily available it really isn’t. Those who choose to remain unprotected cannot ask children to lay down their childhoods for them.
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What sacrifice?
Kids are already required to be vaccinated for a variety of illnesses. How is adding one more a “sacrifice?” It protects them, their teachers, their parents, and grandparents.
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First, it is not my place or yours to demand a child be vaccinated against their parent’s will for a disease that does not pose a risk to the child or his peers.
But even if we did have the data to support long term safety for children, which we don’t, it doesn’t ever stop there. Teachers are demanding masks even when vaccinated and quarantine on exposure. Children have to be tested to return to school and many areas are returning to virtual learning on a few days notice making parents’ scheduling impossible.
No recess, no lunch room no playground.
We’re making them inmates, not children.
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“. . . a disease that does not pose a risk to the child or his peers.”
Even if your categorical statement were true – it isn’t – maybe you are forgetting that this child has parents, grandparents, teachers, ministers, etc., etc. , etc. All of whom are put at greater risk if children around them are not vaccinated.
And, I wonder, what part of about a million dead and still counting have you forgotten? This is still a public health crisis. It must be fought on every front. Vaccinating every potential victim and carrier is an especially important part of that fight.
What you are really doing is grasping for a political issue to hammer the Democrats with. How dare they make my child wear a mask! Oh, the humanity! Oh, the lost childhood. Damn those uppity teachers!
No sale with me. My two grandsons – in different parts of the country – are coping very well with vaccination, mask wearing, social distancing, and testing when sick. Their childhood is going just fine. Your talk of “sacrifice” and “inmates” is hyperbolic partisan baloney.
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Does Paxlovid prevent reinfection at a later date. In other words, if you party and then get symptoms, take the regimen of Paxlovid, can you party a month or two later or will you just repeat the regimen each and every time.
If the point of prevention is to avoid treatment, then wouldn’t the vaccines still be a much better route?
I wonder once the Paxlovid gets to be commonly available, COVID would just keep spreading and mutating except people may not need to be hospitalized because the symptoms are very mild.
I am not against therapeutics, but it seems prevention, or even mitigation, by vaccination is still the best route. Then use the pills in cases of breakthrough, particularly by the vulnerable.
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Paxlovid does not prevent you from developing antibodies. That process has already been triggered.
In fact, it works with the immune system. It basically slows the virus down enough for the immune system to get ahead of it. In the end, it is the immune system that ends the infection, not the therapeutic.
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RE: “In the end, it is the immune system that ends the infection, not the therapeutic.”
As I understand it, infection itself is a “one and done” deal. Peter McCullough, for example, claims there are no documented cases of Covid-19 reinfection. If true, then infection and therapeutic rcovery are a sound methodology for stopping the spread of SARS-COV-2.
On the other hand, breakthrough infections occur with vaccination. If you are vaccinated you may still need therapeutic treatment if you become infected. But that, too, becomes a “one and done” deal for the patient.
The way McCullough explains it, you need both therapeutics and vaccination (plus some other things) in a comprehensive public health policy strategy.
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“As I understand it, infection itself is a “one and done” deal. Peter McCullough, for example, claims there are no documented cases of Covid-19 reinfection. ”
Apparently Mr. McCullough and yourself don’t understand reality.
From the CDC website. “Cases of reinfection with COVID-19 have been reported, but remain rare.”
Rare, but not Zero.
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…”cannot ask children to lay down their childhoods for them.”
My entire family is fully vaccinated and boosted with one exception: the 3 year old grandson. He has no issue when told to wear a mask and has not “lay down” his childhood in any way shape or form. Kids who have issues tend to have parents who think their liberty extends to my nose.
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