Nothing terribly new here, but good to see an associate editor of the BMJ calling for a return to critical thinking. (It was Doshi that first (?) reported the less than 1% absolute efficacy figure.)
Not mentioned in the presentation, but at 2.40 at the bottom of the chart, it appears that there were 4 cardiac arrests as opposed to one in the placebo group.
Sir Michael Mouse has just posted a link to this clip at The Lifeboat News:
It will be interesting to observe the [lack of] responses.
Good Heavens, there’s been a rational response!
(I honestly was not expecting that, and was even thinking of jocularly taking bets on what the response would be. I haven’t read it yet, but I’ll try to make time to do so this evening.)
From Sinister Burt:
I’ve only started to take in some of the arguments (there’s a tangled history to be unravelled), but I really must mention this beautifully twisted defensive rationalisation (thanks again to Sir Michael Mouse):
For reference:
Orwell would absolutely love all of this.
“Good Heavens, there’s been a rational response!”
Yes, though only as rational as finding the nearest science-sounding source to attack the messenger. It hasn’t reached media-analysis site TLN that critics of the vaccine program face personal flak on cue.
The thing about the Pfizer trial is that the 95% efficacy claim arose from there being (from memory) 162 covid cases in the placebo group and 8 in the vaccinated group. 8 is 5% of 162.
The 95% figure depends crucially on the exclusion of the 3400 or so symptomatic people who weren’t tested. If you start adding more numbers from this 3400 to each side in the calculation the figure (that was 95% without the 3400) tumbles rapidly. I expressed this more carefully here:
(The guy criticizing Doshi does make some other points so I’m open to correction)
There is also the question of why in a vaccine trial, thousands of people with covid symptoms were not tested for covid in the first place. The more naive of us might even be forgiven for expecting that, since the outcome being measured was positive PCR tests for covid, that they would therefore test everyone in the trial.
In fact the 95% figure from the trials is not borne out by present reality, with the vaccine seemingly not preventing covid in the vaccinated. This would support Doshi’s criticism.
Cheers
Standard for SB I’m afraid.
Less than 1% absolute efficacy or as Kennedy prefers to put it, 22,000 people needing to be vaccinated in order to save one life. Remember too, that whilst there was one heart attack in the placebo group, there were four in the vaccine group. Finally, does anybody know if the placebo was a genuine placebo or another vaccine?
Hi Jamie
Pfizer and Moderna used a saline injection - a genuine placebo.
Pfizer: “Participants were randomized 1:1 by an interactive web-based system to receive 2 intramuscular injections 21 days apart of 30 μg BNT162b2 (0.3-mL volume/dose) or saline placebo.”
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.28.21261159v1.full-text
Moderna: "…No, this is a randomized double-blind study. Randomization means that each person has an equal chance of receiving the actual Moderna mRNA vaccine or the saline injection. "FAQ | Moderna ‘COVE’ Vaccine Study | Henry Ford Health System - Detroit, MI
AstraZeneca used an actual vaccine, a meningitis vaccine, as the placebo (the one with the worst side effects, according to RF Kennedy).
"Those in the 18 to 55 age group were randomised 1:1 to either ChAdOx1 nCOV19 vaccine for Covid or the MenACWY for meningitis and septicaemia as the control. "
Link: What we know so far about the Oxford vaccine | The Spectator
“Standard for SB I’m afraid.”
At least it is a possible attempt at rationality.
Whereas Der, who is a scientist, thinks this is a perfectly worthwhile news piece, about anti-vax family members ruining Christmas.
Link: The Lifeboat News: "I dread Christmas. My husband won't get jabbed: The families split over Covid vaccines"
Link: ‘I dread Christmas. My husband won’t get jabbed’: The families split over Covid vaccines as they plan holiday gatherings | Vaccines and immunisation | The Guardian
All told from the viewpoint of the rational vaccination enthusiasts, of course.
(Where’s story number four?
“I want to have a normal family Christmas but my siblings think I’m a risk to them. I’ve told them vaccines aren’t reducing transmission and gave them links to studies but they said that was fake news or it would have been on the BBC. I’ve also told them about hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin for early treatment, as well as the more easily available quercetin and about vitamin D for prophylaxis. And also high dose vitamin C, but they tell me not to give them any of that Trump or conspiracy nonsense, and that doctors know best. I said most doctors aren’t following the studies and those who are are expressing alarm but they said at a time like this we need simple advice. …”)
Indeed, a dreadful Guardian article, passed as insightful on TLN (oh, how times have changed).
That 2nd story in particular shows how fear has taken hold of people: “I am going to meet up with them [unvaxxed parents] at Christmas for the bare minimum of time – just an hour or so – for the sake of maintaining a normal relationship. If it was any other day, I wouldn’t be seeing them, but because it’s Christmas, I feel an obligation to do so. …The reason I’m seeing him is to keep the peace and because I don’t want our relationship to die. But my dad and my seven-year-old daughter adore each other, and I worry that when they see each other, she will give him Covid.”
So this woman is destroying the relationship her daughter has with her grandfather because she’s scared on her father’s behalf (who has clearly decided he’ll take the risk).
And yes, “standard for SB” is pretty accurate. Bombarding with acres of text to shoot the messenger while ignoring the main point (changing definition of vaccine), and then that weird word salad about the lab leak hypothesis and gain-of-function research " …The stuff about Fauci etc all seems a bit of the usual six degrees of Kevin bacon level stuff, but I’m open to more evidence." Yeah – check out the Real Tony Fauci.
Yes what happened to “Dump the Guardian”.
I must admit I got the impression the stories were concocted, they looked like perfect advertising role models. And presenting three stories out of three in this manner shows too much of their slip. That second story actually finished with this:
“I have almost come to accept that he will get ill and die, before it’s happened. There are loads of cases at her school.”
An all too perfect, don’t-let-them-kill-grandad fear planting. IMO, a giveaway.
But that’s a good point - whether true or not she is taking his medical decisions for him and destroying a good relationship. This makes the message to grandad loud and clear!
Jamie, critical thinking…?
There are now huge numbers dropping dead from the jabs. In the UK we are now above 2000 (Yellow Card scheme stats - these are government statistics), In America, the VAERS reporting system shows more than 10,000 dead. In the EU the EudraVigilance database reports that as of July 3, 2021 there are 17,503 deaths from vaccines.
Now, you can ban me, you can call me an arsehole, but everything I’m telling you is fact (go look it up).
What we are witnessing is mass murder on a scale never seen before.
The hardest thing to get people to understand is the level of evil we are dealing with here.
Nobody’s going to ban you for posting facts Rob. Just don’t indulge in the sort of idiot slagging that’s become standard on the - unmoderated - Hulk. Hear that conversation between Chris Martenson and Mattias Desmet to which I linked yesterday. Excellent exposition on the factors which make mass-psychosis formation possible, even inevitable: loneliness in life, pointlessness of work and life generally, unfocussed general anxiety, unfocussed general belligerence, all getting suffered by many people in their daily lives. It’s just that inappropriately-aimed belligerence which causes friction. By all means aim it against the perpetrators of the scam. Just be friendly to your friends here - which means pretty well all of us, I think. See all my ‘like’ signals. They mean what they say. 
Der isn’t a scientist, Evvy. He’s a rabid doctrinaire anarchist who likes scientism, and who also suffers from that cliched stereotype of an over-quick Irish temper. Very low quality standard of quiet, reasoned argument from that quarter.
I wish you all well in your occasional baths in the Hulk’s bilges. Personally, I feel well out of it…
@Evvy_dense Thank you for that. Of course the trials’ results should be dumped for a whole variety of reasons (and their instigators brought to task), but the wholly nefarious use of vaccines as placebos is, I would have thought, something that just about anybody could get their head around. I’ve just read in the Kennedy book for example, that during the trials for Nevirapine, they used AZT as a placebo!
Bloody hell, that article. Only just read it. Real stories? Bollocks, it’s out and out propaganda. Ot at least the first one is, couldn’t be bothered to read the rest.
Right, Olivia.
Let’s set the scene, the backstory: She’s a child of an anti-vaxxer, i.e., the child of a nutter.
Let’s confirm that the anti-vaxxer is a nutter: Nutter given nothing positive to contribute to argument/narrative and indeed, believes even nuttier things, like virus shedding.
Continue backstory: Nutter is divorced from sane, pro-vaccination father. No prizes for spotting the implied suggestion of who brought about the marriage breakdown. (Divorce also allows for difficult, conflicting positions regarding Covid in narrative.)
Move onto vaccine propaganda: Vaccinated brother has had Covid and feels invincible; for that read, even if you’ve had Covid, still get the jab and you’ll be invincible. (Ignore info to the contrary.)
and
Olivia vaccinated and so personal risk is low. (Ignore info to the contrary.)
They’ll all do lateral flow tests actually reads, my unvaccinated sisters are the primary risk. (Ignore info to the contrary.)
No pre-existing medical conditions; i.e., don’t mix with those that do because you’ll kill them.
Olivia glad not to be spending Christmas with parents as it’s all too much. That is, don’t discuss complex issues and it’s okay folks, let’s divide families for no damn good reason and let’s not feel too bad about it. Tough decisions must be made!
Only rational, pro-vaxxing Olivia and her father’s (sympathetic characters both) feelings really taken into account; not the two-dimensional, nutty, anti-vaxxing mother’s.
Unvaccinated sisters may as well not exist other than as a cypher.
I could also add that it buys into sexist norms; the unvaccinated, i.e., the ‘irrational’ are all women (given to emotional thinking as they are), whilst most (2/3) of the ‘rational’ family members are male.
I usually like his posts, he has a sense of humour that doesn’t come straight out of his ego. He is a professional scientist (whatever that means). However all his views on the vaccines stem from the assumption that they are indisputably safe. If you’re surrounded by the faithful, it’s a bit harder to avoid going with the flow.
That may well be true. I just took the stories at face value, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they were made up. Perhaps I hadn’t really considered it because I know people who actually think along such lines. One particular family (all double-jabbed) still remain within their `bubble’ and refuse.to socialize in person.