Merck’s COVID ‘Super Drug’ Poses Serious Health Risks, Scientists Warn
“Proceed With Caution At Your Own Peril”
Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | October 9, 2021
As it turns out, all the scientists and doctors who insisted that Merck’s “revolutionary” COVID drug molnupiravir is extremely safe weren’t faithfully adhering to “the science” after all. Because according to a report published Thursday by Barron’s, some scientists are worried that the drug – which purportedly cut hospitalizations in half during a study that was cut short – could cause cancer or birth defects.
So much for having a “strong safety profile,” as Dr. Scott Gottlieb claimed in an interview on the day Merck first publicized the research.
It’s perfectly understandable why Merck might choose to play down this safety risk: assuming it’s approved, the drug is widely expected to be one of “the most lucrative drugs ever” – which is one reason why Merck’s shares soared into double-digit territory after the announcement.
As we reported earlier this week, Merck and its “partner” Ridgeback Biotherapeutics will profit immensely by charging customers up to 40x what it costs to make the drug, which Ridgeback originally licensed from Emory University for an “undisclosed sum”. The drug was developed with funding from the federal government.
According to Barron’s, some scientists who have studied the drug believe that its method of suppressing the virus could potentially run amok within the body.
Some scientists who have studied the drug warn, however, that the method it uses to kill the virus that causes Covid-19 carries potential dangers that could limit the drug’s usefulness.
Molnupiravir works by incorporating itself into the genetic material of the virus, and then causing a huge number of mutations as the virus replicates, effectively killing it. In some lab tests, the drug has also shown the ability to integrate into the genetic material of mammalian cells, causing mutations as those cells replicate.
If that were to happen in the cells of a patient being treated with molnupiravir, it could theoretically lead to cancer or birth defects.
In particular, Raymond Schinazi, a professor of pediatrics and the director of biochemical pharmacology at Emory who studied the drug while it was being developed, and published a number of papers on NHC, the compound that’s the active ingredient in the drug. He published a paper that showed the drug can produce a reaction like the one described above, and insisted it shouldn’t be given to young people – especially pregnant women – without more data.
Schinazi told Barron’s that he did not believe that molnupiravir should be given to pregnant women, or to young people of reproductive age, until more data is available. Merck’s trials of molnupiravir have excluded pregnant women; the scientists running the trial asked male participants to “abstain from heterosexual intercourse” while taking the drug, according to the federal government website that tracks clinical trials.
Barron’s even shared a paper published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases in May by Schinazi and scientists at the University of North Carolina which reported that NHC can cause mutations in animal cell cultures in a lab test designed to detect such mutations – something Merck claims it has tested for. The paper’s authors concluded that the risks for molnupiravir “may not be zero”.
Merck told Barron’s that it has run “extensive tests” on animals which it says show that this shouldn’t be an issue. “The totality of the data from these studies indicates that molnupiravir is not mutagenic or genotoxic in in-vivo mammalian systems,” a Merck spokesman said.
Still, scientists and doctors who have studied NHC say that Merck needs to “be careful,” and it’s not just Schinazi warning about the drug’s potential risks.
Dr. Shuntai Zhou, a scientist at the Swanstrom Lab at UNC, said “there is a concern that this will cause long-term mutation effects, even cancer.”
Zhou says that he is certain that the drug will integrate itself into the DNA of mammalian hosts. “Biochemistry won’t lie,” he says. “This drug will be incorporated in the DNA.”
Merck hasn’t yet released any data from its animal studies, but the scientists believe that it would take long-term studies to show that the drug is truly totally safe.
“Proceed with caution and at your own peril,” wrote Raymond Schinazi, a professor of pediatrics and the director of the division of biochemical pharmacology at the Emory University School of Medicine, who has studied NHC for decades, in an email to Barron’s.
Analysts are already warning that these questions about the drug’s safety suggest the reaction in Merck’s shares was a little “overblown”, to say the least. Investors apparently were so eager for a new “pandemic panacea” (now that the mRNA jabs have proven to be much less effective than advertised) that they didn’t ask too many questions about safety, or even question the paucity of data. One analyst for SVB Leerink Dr. Geoffrey Porges described investors’ reaction from Friday as “wishful thinking”.
Even once the FDA authorizes the drug, Dr. Porges believes it will come with strict limitations on who can and can’t use it. “I think it is effectively going to be a controlled substance”, Dr. Porges said, adding that the risks to pregnant women, or women who may soon become pregnant, could present thorny problems for the FDA’s advisory committee reviewing the drug.
Given that the safety risks of the drug seem well-documented already, Wall Street’s gushing about the drug’s prospects – “it really is THAT good”, one analyst insisted – seems like an idiotic blunder in retrospect. The product of what one might call “magical thinking”.
Biden signs ‘Havana Syndrome’ law, Berlin police report new ‘cases’ blamed on mystery weapons scientists say don’t exist
RT | October 8, 2021
As President Joe Biden signed a law funding the treatment of 200-plus US officials who claim to have been affected by so-called Havana Syndrome, German police said they were looking into more possible cases.
Berlin police confirmed on Friday they were investigating an “alleged sonic weapon attack on employees of the US Embassy,” in response to reporting by the tabloid Der Spiegel. The embassy declined to comment on the investigation.
Meanwhile in Washington, Biden signed into law the Helping American Victims Afflicted by Neurological Attacks (HAVANA) Act, passed unanimously by Congress last month, providing money for the treatment of more than 200 government employees who claim to have been affected by the mystery syndrome.
“Civil servants, intelligence officers, diplomats, and military personnel all around the world have been affected by anomalous health incidents,” Biden said in a statement. “Some are struggling with debilitating brain injuries that have curtailed their careers of service to our nation. Addressing these incidents has been a top priority for my administration.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters the US government is “determined to get to the bottom as quickly as possible of the attribution and cause of these incidents,” with the intelligence community “in the lead on that.”
“They’re actively examining a range of hypotheses, but they have not made a determination about the cause of these incidents or who is responsible.”
US media and many members of Congress, however, seem convinced that the symptoms – which were first reported at the US Embassy in Cuba in 2016 – were the work of some kind of weapon, and have pointed the finger at Russia. About half of the Americans who claim to have been affected are employees of the Central Intelligence Agency.
CIA Director William Burns said in July that there was a “very strong possibility” the symptoms were caused deliberately, and pointed to a study by a National Academy of Sciences panel from December 2020 that listed “directed energy” beams as a plausible cause.
Last month, however, the State Department released a redacted version of the classified 2018 report by JASON, a scientific advisory group, that ruled out microwave or ultrasound energy, saying that the power requirements were prohibitive and pointing out that electronics were not affected.
The JASON report said that a third of the original reports were “most likely” caused by the noise made by a specific species of cricket – a conclusion a US Berkeley scientist reached independently in early 2019 – while others may have been of psychological origin.
Parents… Tired of watching your child walk? Why not let them join the 1,149 people left paralysed by Covid Vaccines?
The Expose’ | October 1, 2021
Dear Parents,
Are you aware that 86% of children suffered an adverse reaction to the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in the extremely short and small clinical trial?
(source)
Are you aware that 1 in 9 children suffered a serious adverse reaction leaving them unable to perform daily activities in the extremely short and small clinical trial? (source)
Are you aware that up to August 25th 2021, just 9 deaths associated with Covid-19 had occurred in children since March 2020? (source)
Are you aware that the risk of children developing serious illness due to Covid-19 is extremely low? (source)
Are you aware the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine is experimental and still in clinical trials? (source)
Are you aware three scientific studies conducted by the UK Government, Oxford University, and CDC, which were published in August 2021, have found the Covid-19 vaccines do not work? (source)
Are you aware that Public Health England data shows the majority of Covid-19 deaths are among the vaccinated, and the data suggests the vaccines worsen disease? (source)
Are you aware there have been more deaths in 8 months due to the Covid-19 vaccines that there have been due to all other available vaccines since the year 2001? (source)
Are you aware of the real risk of myocarditis (heart inflammation) in children due to the Pfizer vaccine? (source)
Are you aware children are dying due to the Covid-19 vaccines in the USA? (source)
Are you aware of who profits from your child getting the Covid-19 vaccine? (source)
Are you aware the Joint Committee on Vaccination & Immunisation refused to recommend the Pfizer vaccine be offered to children, and are you aware they were overruled by Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer for England? (source)
Are you aware that since teenagers were first offered the Covid-19 vaccine that deaths among 15 – 19-year-olds have increased by 47% on the previous year? (source)
If you were not aware of any of these things, then you are now. But if you still decide despite all of the above that you would like your child to get the Covid-19 vaccine then it must be because you are tired of watching your child walk, and you’d like them to join the other 1,149 people that have been left paralysed by the Covid-19 vaccines in the UK?
The latest report on adverse reactions to the Covid-19 vaccines reported to the MHRA Yellow Card scheme reveals that up to September 22nd 2021 a total of 323 reports of paralysis were made against the Pfizer mRNA vaccine.
These include 11 reports of diplegia, 41 reports of hemiparesis, 36 reports of himplegia, 1 report of locked-in-syndrome, 48 reports of monoparesis, 63 reports of monoplegia, 112 reports of full paralysis, 3 reports of paraparesis, 6 reports of paresis, 1 report of quadriparesis, and 1 report of quadriplegia.
A further 778 reports were also made to the MHRA against the AstraZeneca vaccine, including 111 reports of hemiparesis, 100 reports of monoparesis, 138 reports of monoplegia, and 324 reports of full paralysis resulting in 1 death.
The MHRA also received 42 reports of paralysis due to the Moderna vaccine, with 9 reports of monoparesis, 12 reports of monoplegia, and 11 reports of full paralsyis.
Whilst a further 6 reports of paralsyis were made to the MHRA where the brand of vaccine was not specified.
If you’re not tired of watching your child walk then perhaps you are tired of them having the ability to see? So why not let them get the Covid-19 vaccine so they can join the other 417 people left completely blind by the Covid-19 vaccines? Or the 1,075 people left with impaired vision?
If the possibility your child might be left paralysed, or lose their vision, or both, isn’t enough for you though then perhaps you just want your child to die, and join the other 1,682 people who have lost their lives due to the Covid-19 vaccines?
Including 544 people who last their lives to the Pfizer injection, alongside the 330,983 injuries that it has caused up to September 22nd.
1,091 people who have lost their lives to the AstraZeneca injection alongside the 828,941 injuries it has caused.
19 people who have lost their lives to the Moderna injection alongside the 52,344 injuries it has caused.
And 28 people who have lost their lives where the brand of vaccine was not specified in the report made to the MHRA, alongside 3,329 injuries where the brand of vaccine was also not specified.
You may not get what you wish for of course parents, as not every person is being left blind, paralysed, or losing their life due to the Covid-19 vaccines. However, with a total of 1,215,597 injuries being reported, and approximately 48.6 million people having been vaccinated, at least there is a 1 in 39 chance that your child will suffer an injury due to the Covid-19 vaccine.
A chance that is more likely 1 in 4, because just 10% of adverse reactions are reported to the MHRA Yellow Card scheme.
Reports of Serious Injuries After COVID Vaccines Near 112,000, as Pfizer Asks FDA to Green Light Shots for Kids 5 to 11
By Megan Redshaw | The Defender | October 8, 2021
Data released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that between Dec. 14, 2020 and Oct. 1, 2021, a total of 778,685 adverse events following COVID vaccines were reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). The data included a total of 16,310 reports of deaths — an increase of 373 over the previous week.
There were 111,921 reports of serious injuries, including deaths, during the same time period — up 6,163 compared with the previous week.
Excluding “foreign reports” filed in VAERS, 593.728 adverse events, including 7,437 deaths and 47,455 serious injuries, were reported in the U.S. between Dec. 14, 2020 and Oct. 1, 2021.
Of the 7,437 U.S. deaths reported as of Oct. 1, 11% occurred within 24 hours of vaccination, 16% occurred within 48 hours of vaccination and 29% occurred in people who experienced an onset of symptoms within 48 hours of being vaccinated.
In the U.S., 393.4 million COVID vaccine doses had been administered as of Oct. 1. This includes: 227 million doses of Pfizer, 152 million doses of Moderna and 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson (J&J).
The data come directly from reports submitted to VAERS, the primary government-funded system for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S.
Every Friday, VAERS makes public all vaccine injury reports received as of a specified date, usually about a week prior to the release date. Reports submitted to VAERS require further investigation before a causal relationship can be confirmed.
Historically, VAERS has been shown to report only 1% of actual vaccine adverse events.
This week’s U.S. data for 12- to 17-year-olds show:
- 21,298 total adverse events, including 1,284 rated as serious and 22 reported deaths. Two of the 22 deaths were suicides.
The most recent death involves a 16-year-old male (VAERS I.D. 1734141) who reportedly died from cardiac failure five days after receiving Pfizer’s COVID vaccine.
Other recent deaths include a 17-year-old male (VAERS I.D. 1689212) with cancer who was vaccinated April 17, tested positive for COVID on July 20, was hospitalized and passed away Aug. 29; and a 16-year-old female (VAERS I.D. 1694568) who died from a pulmonary embolism nine days after receiving her first Pfizer dose.
- 3,202 reports of anaphylaxis among 12- to 17-year-olds with 99% of cases
attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine. - 520 reports of myocarditis and pericarditis (heart inflammation) with 508 cases attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine.
- 114 reports of blood clotting disorders, with all cases attributed to Pfizer.
This week’s U.S. VAERS data, from Dec. 14, 2020 to Oct. 1, 2021, for all age groups combined, show:
- 19% of deaths were related to cardiac disorders.
- 56% of those who died were male, 43% were female and the remaining death reports did not include gender of the deceased.
- The average age of death was 72.8.
- Of the 2,935 cases of Bell’s Palsy reported, 50% were attributed to Pfizer vaccinations, 42% to Moderna and 8% to J&J.
- 648 reports of Guillain-Barré syndrome, with 40% of cases attributed to Pfizer, 32% to Moderna and 28% to J&J.
- 1,976 reports of anaphylaxis where the reaction was life-threatening, required treatment or resulted in death.
- 158,280 reports of symptoms of anaphylactic reactions with 43% of cases attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine, 49% to Moderna and 7% to J&J. An anaphylactic reaction may include various symptoms like skin rashes, nausea, vomiting, difficulty breathing or shock.
- 9,907 reports of blood clotting disorders. Of those, 4,286 reports were attributed to Pfizer, 3,595 reports to Moderna and 1,975 reports to J&J.
- 2,737 cases of myocarditis and pericarditis with 1,733 cases attributed to Pfizer, 888 cases to Moderna and 106 cases to J&J’s COVID vaccine.
Young mother pressured to receive COVID vaccine dies of vaccine-induced blood clots
Jessica Berg Wilson, a 37-year-old stay-at-home mother from Washington passed away suddenly on Sept. 7 from vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT) — a rare, and sometimes fatal, blood-clotting condition — after receiving J&J’s COVID vaccine.
On Aug. 29, Jessica went to a Seattle pharmacy to get her COVID vaccine and was told she would be receiving J&J’s shot. She was “vehemently opposed” to taking the vaccine, “considering her stay-at-home mom status, state of good health and young age in conjunction with the known and unknown risk of an unproven vaccine,” her husband said.
But Jessica was pressured to get the vaccine due to a vaccine mandate at their child’s school requiring “room moms” who wished to serve in the classroom be fully vaccinated.
According to Jessica’s VAERS report (VAERS I.D. 1683324), she experienced blood clots in her ovarian and renal veins, and a brain hemorrhage that led to tissue damage. Although doctors tried to relieve the pressure on her brain by performing a craniotomy, they were unsuccessful.
Jessica was ultimately pronounced brain dead, removed from life support and passed away. Doctors confirmed the cause of death was VITT.
Pfizer asks FDA to authorize emergency use of its COVID vaccine for 5- to 11-year-olds
Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech on Thursday asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to authorize their COVID vaccine for emergency use for children 5 to 11 years old. The FDA advisory committee is scheduled to meet Oct. 26 to discuss Pfizer’s pediatric COVID vaccine.
FDA officials said once vaccine data for younger children was submitted, the agency could authorize a vaccine for younger children in a matter of weeks, but it would depend on the timing and quality of the data provided.
Pfizer and BioNTech submitted initial data to the FDA last month for a regimen of two 10-microgram doses in children — one-third the amount given to older patients — but had not formally requested authorization until now.
According to Pfizer’s Sept. 20 press release, the trial didn’t show the vaccine reduced hospitalizations or even mild cases. But it did reveal side effects generally comparable to those observed in participants 16 to 25 years of age.
Studies confirm Pfizer vaccine immunity wanes at 2 months
As The Defender reported, two studies published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine confirm any immune protection offered by two doses of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine drops off after roughly two months.
A prospective longitudinal study from Israel covering 4,800 healthcare workers showed antibody levels waned rapidly after two doses of vaccine “especially among men, among persons 65 years of age or older and among persons with immunosuppression.”
A second study from Qatar looked at actual infections among the nation’s highly vaccinated population, who mostly received Pfizer’s COVID vaccine. Estimated effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 infection was negligible for the first two weeks after the first Pfizer dose, increased to 36.8% in the third week after the first dose, and reached its peak at 77.5% in the first month after the second dose.
By months five five through seven, researchers said vaccine efficacy reached a low level of approximately 20%. Pfizer has consistently claimed the company’s own efficacy data demonstrate 95% efficacy against SARS-CoV-2, which was not observed in this study.
Sweden, Denmark and Finland pause Moderna vaccine over concerns of myocarditis
Sweden, Denmark and Finland will pause the use of Moderna’s COVID vaccine for younger age groups after reports of possible rare side effects, including myocarditis.
Finland on Thursday paused the use of Moderna’s COVID vaccine for younger males due to reports of myocarditis, joining Sweden and Denmark in limiting its use after a Nordic study involving Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark found men under the age of 30 who received Moderna’s vaccine had a slightly higher risk than others of developing myocarditis.
All four countries said they would instead give Pfizer’s vaccine to men born in 1991 and later, despite research that shows a similar risk of myocarditis associated with Pfizer’s vaccine.
Fully vaccinated patient sparks COVID outbreak among vaccinated population
A paper published Sept. 30, in Eurosurveillance showed a fully vaccinated patient in a hospital setting rapidly spread COVID to fully vaccinated staff, patients and family members — despite a 96% vaccination rate and use of full personal protective equipment.
Of the 42 cases diagnosed in the outbreak, 38 were fully vaccinated with two doses of Pfizer and BioNTech’s Comirnaty vaccine, one had received only one vaccination and three were unvaccinated.
Of the infected, 23 were patients and 19 were staff members. The staff all recovered quickly. However, eight vaccinated patients became severely ill, six became critically ill and five of the critically ill died. The two unvaccinated patients had mild COVID cases.
The authors said the study challenges the assumption high universal vaccination rates will lead to herd immunity and prevent COVID outbreaks, as 96.2% of the outbreak subjects were vaccinated, infection advanced rapidly and viral load was high.
Fully vaccinated countries had the highest number of new COVID cases
In a study published Sept. 30 in the peer-reviewed European Journal of Epidemiology Vaccines, researchers investigated the relationship between the percentage of population fully vaccinated and new COVID cases across 68 countries and 2,947 U.S. counties that had second dose vaccine, and available COVID case data.
The study found “no discernible relationship” between the percentage of population fully vaccinated and new COVID cases. In addition, the most fully vaccinated nations had the highest number of new COVID cases, based on the researchers’ analysis of emerging data during a seven-day period in September.
Children’s Health Defense asks anyone who has experienced an adverse reaction, to any vaccine, to file a report following these three steps.
Megan Redshaw is a freelance reporter for The Defender. She has a background in political science, a law degree and extensive training in natural health.
© 2021 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.
My suspicions about the flu jab and ‘Plan B’
By Lynne Collings | TCW Defending Freedom | October 9, 2021
WHY did I have my first flu jab? I think it might have been because I saw a sign in the surgery or was told about the sessions via the ‘Patient Participation Group’ who send out an e-newsletter a couple of times a year. My husband, as a mild asthmatic, had had the jab for several years but I found myself faintly reluctant to have one myself. I had no good reason other than something that I can’t put my finger on but which makes me stay away from surgeries and hospitals.
Or perhaps it was because I remember the flu jab sessions run by the surgery I worked in which were wonderfully happy and funny occasions where the elderly of the town lined up in the large waiting room, some sitting, some leaning on sticks but all with a sleeve rolled up expectantly. They were having an outing where they laughed and joked amongst themselves, especially when the doctor passed down the line with a massive syringe using the same needle which he inserted into each arm – yes, it was that long ago. After the session many were reluctant to leave. So how did having a flu jab change from something that was given to the elderly for what had always been assumed to be their own benefit into something you did so that you didn’t ‘kill your granny’, the very people whom the flu jab was supposed to benefit in the first place?
Hear what Dr Fauci said on September 28 on CNN: ‘Everyone who’s at least six months old should get a flu vaccine. Not only will getting a flu shot help protect you and those around you from potentially life-threatening flu complications, doing so will also keep the limited supply of hospital beds available for COVID-19 patients who need them right now.’
Telegraph headline yesterday: ‘Flu deaths could hit 60,000 in worst winter for 50 years, say experts’. The story says that more than 35million people will be offered flu jabs after warnings from health chiefs that lockdowns and social distancing have led to a drop in immunity. There is concern that the combination of Covid-19 and flu could cripple health services, increasing the risk of another lockdown, or ‘Plan B’ measures such as compulsory masks, vaccine passports or a return to working from home.
Did I really just read that ‘lockdowns and social distancing have led to a drop in immunity’? What can this mean? That they have finally come to their senses about the negative health effects of lockdown, so it will never be repeated? No, I don’t think so.
They are simply using this terrible truth to bolster, indeed double down on their next fear mongering project. Which is to tie us into a controlled system of repeat vaccination (whether for flu or Covid) as the price of our supposed freedom from more lockdown.
An advertising campaign will urge those eligible for the flu vaccine and Covid-19 booster jab to book their appointments as soon as possible.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid in the Telegraph article: ‘This year we are rolling out the largest flu vaccine programme in our history, alongside the new Covid-19 booster vaccine rollout; both are important to provide vital protection not only to yourself, but also your loved ones while also helping to ease pressure on the NHS.’
From the same article: ‘Earlier this week, Professor Neil Ferguson . . . said the UK did not have much “headroom” for rising Covid-19 cases before the NHS becomes “heavily stressed”.’
Earlier this year I signed up for the NHS app via my iPad because my surgery suggested it as an aid to the reorganisation that is being undertaken while we are out of the way. I had already the two Covid jabs as I understood they would help release everyone else, and there they were, dates and code numbers, popping up on the app. Aha, I thought, here is the Covid passport of the future.
Now if I look at the app it tells me that my first two jabs will no longer be relevant after November 7, and that I have my own QR code which will let me use a Domestic Covid Pass ‘at places that have chosen to use the service’. The dreaded Covid passport that I had foolishly thought to avoid by not travelling around with the app on my iPhone was there on my iPad which I use only at home. I have considered deleting the app but a warning is issued: ‘After you have deleted this app they might keep some information about you’. Who are ‘they’ and what on earth might they keep about me? I have an awful feeling it is likely to be the facial recognition process that I went through in order to sign up to this app.
Once you have the app the NHS prefers to contact you via text message, and I have been offered a flu jab. What will happen in future if I need treatment and it is found that I ‘declined’ the flu jab? I have declined at the moment but if I do decide to go ahead, as I have in the past, I will go to a pharmacy as it will be my decision which I hope to keep off the app. Is this being foolish? I really don’t know. All I know is it seems that the rolling out of Covid passports is where we are headed like it or not, together with the dreaded Plan B. Please tell me I am wrong. Why would Public Health England be renamed the UK Health Security Agency if the intentions were otherwise?
I believe the emergency powers are to be voted on in the House of Commons on October 19. Is all this leading up to an extension of these powers for another six months allowing Plan B to be implemented with as little as one week’s notice? Just see how many firework displays are now planned via Zoom. I believe local authorities have known of the likelihood of Plan B for some time, and what would give a big boost to ‘Health Security’? Why, the banning of dangerous firework displays.
Fact-Checking the Fact Checkers
By Will Jones • The Daily Sceptic • October 8, 2021
One of my recent posts on the Daily Sceptic was the subject of a ‘fact check‘ by Full Fact, which self-importantly describes itself as “the UK’s independent fact checking organisation” but is in fact funded by Google, Facebook and George Soros, among others, to help them suppress unapproved news and views. Even U.K. broadcasting regulator Ofcom has said it relies on the organisation to tell it what to censor regarding COVID-19, so unfortunately the dog has teeth and can’t just be ignored as one more absurd website with excessive faith in its own infallibility.
The post in question, from September 10th, simply reported on Public Health England’s latest Vaccine Surveillance report, which included infection rates by vaccination status for the previous month so allowed the calculation of an unadjusted estimate of vaccine effectiveness. Full Fact, however, took exception to the idea that vaccine effectiveness can be estimated in this way, because it wasn’t adjusted for confounders. Or used the wrong population data. Or because the article included the (entirely accurate) claim that the PHE report showed higher infection rates in the vaccinated in some age groups. Or because the heading didn’t include ‘caveats’. Or something. In any case, it was ‘incorrect’.
Here follows my correspondence with them, attempting to explain that the factual errors lay entirely in their ‘fact check’, not in my piece.
September 27th 2021
To: The Editor
Incorrect claim that report from Public Health England shows COVID-19 vaccines have “negative effectiveness” in the over-40s: Full Fact correction request
I’m writing to you from Full Fact, the U.K.’s independent fact checking organisation. I have seen an article you published on Friday September 24th so I know you are already aware of a fact check we published earlier last week, but I wanted to send an email to explain why we wrote that fact check.
The article you published on September 10th had the headline “Vaccines Have NEGATIVE Effectiveness in the Over-40s, as Low as MINUS 38%, Shows New PHE Report”
This headline falsely claims that a report from Public Health England (PHE) shows COVID-19 vaccines having “negative effectiveness” in the over-40s. It is not true that the PHE report shows this.
You note in your article that PHE says its data cannot be used on its own as a reliable measurement of vaccine effectiveness. However your headline makes a claim about vaccine effectiveness based on it.
As you will know we have published a fact check on these claims which is available on our website here:
“Vaccines do not raise your risk of catching Covid”
We are asking that you issue a correction on this article in line with the above. We would also ask that you bear this in mind when writing future articles about this data, including the one you published on Friday. We hope our fact check is helpful in this regard.
Please let me know if you’d like to discuss this further.
Many thanks,
Bethan Davies
Policy and Impact Manager
Full Fact
October 5th 2021
Good afternoon,
I just wanted to follow up on an email I sent last week about a fact check we have written on an article you published on 24th September. I will be updating this fact check on our website this week with details of what action we have taken so I wanted to check in with you before I do this. If you are planning to amend this article I’d be very grateful if you could let me know.
Many thanks,
Bethan
October 5th 2021
Dear Bethan
Thank you for your email.
Apologies – I appear to have missed your first email.
As you are aware, I have written in response to your piece ‘fact-checking’ my article of September 10th (here and now also here).
Your piece wrongly implies that people had been confused by PHE’s report as it “seemed to show for the month in question (August 9th to September 5th) that people in their 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s were more likely to test positive for Covid if they had been vaccinated than if they hadn’t”. However, the report doesn’t “seem” to show that, it plainly does show that. Can you explain why your piece attempts to cast doubt on this correct understanding of the data in PHE’s report, and thus misinform the public about the infection risk among vaccinated and unvaccinated people during that month? Will you be amending your piece to ensure it does not confuse or mislead in this way and makes clear that in fact the PHE report does show that vaccinated people in those age groups were more likely to test positive for Covid during that period?
Your piece’s discussion about population estimates is interesting but I hope you will agree that people are entitled to present data and make calculations based on the population data PHE presents in its reports?
You say in your email: “PHE says its data cannot be used on its own as a reliable measurement of vaccine effectiveness.” Those are your words, not theirs. They say: “The vaccination status of cases, inpatients and deaths is not the most appropriate method to assess vaccine effectiveness…” (emphasis added).
However, regardless of what PHE say is the “most appropriate method”, the fact is that vaccine effectiveness is defined as the reduced risk of infection in the vaccinated compared to the unvaccinated (see here). I am clear in the piece that the VE figures given are unadjusted (though they are controlled for age). I explain the limitations of the estimates and address the reason PHE gives for the sample being biased. This is a perfectly valid approach to presenting an estimate of vaccine effectiveness, provided the limitations are clear. It also needs to be kept in mind that studies which do attempt to adjust for various confounders can come with significant problems of their own (see e.g. this and this).
A study in the Lancet published yesterday confirms that vaccine effectiveness has been declining fast against Delta and over time – and that study used data only up to the start of August. This indicates that the VE figures you quote in your ‘fact check’ to counter mine are out of date. The point of estimating unadjusted VE from real-world data is to try to keep up with how vaccines are faring now, not six months ago. We are not trying to denigrate vaccines – that’s why we are sure to make clear their continued effectiveness against serious illness and death. We are only interested in reporting up-to-date factual information about them.
My question for you is why you appear to be attempting to cover over the fact that infection rates in the vaccinated are very high – on PHE data, higher than in the unvaccinated, with the gap increasing week-on-week? Would fact-checking energies not be better spent on those who continue to claim that the vaccines are highly effective against infection, a claim which looks less and less accurate with each passing week?
I would be grateful for confirmation that you have amended your piece to ensure it does not mislead about current infection rates in vaccinated people (according to PHE data) and about the latest vaccine effectiveness estimates.
Kind regards
Will
Will Jones
Associate Editor – Daily Sceptic
October 7th 2021
Dear Will,
Thank you for your response to my email.
We disagree with your point that we have misunderstood the PHE report.
We acknowledge in our fact check that your article mentions PHE’s caveats, but our fact check and the email we sent you initially are related to your headline, which has no caveats in it.
We are happy with information we included on vaccine effectiveness and we have made it clear to readers where this came from.
We very much appreciate you setting out your position. In conclusion however, after consideration, we will not be amending our fact check.
Kind regards,
Bethan
October 7th 2021
Dear Bethan
Thank you for your reply.
You say your ‘fact check’ is related to our headline. Please can you spell out more precisely for me what you object to in the headline? Is it because it doesn’t include the word ‘unadjusted’ before ‘vaccine effectiveness’? Or is it something else? Unadjusted vaccine effectiveness is still a form of vaccine effectiveness so the headline is not inaccurate on that point (and the caveats are explained in the piece). Part of the problem is that you seem to regard vaccine effectiveness as something which can only be calculated in a formal study, rather than a quantity representing the reduced proportion of infections in a vaccinated group versus an unvaccinated group which may be calculated on any such data set (with limitations acknowledged). It is therefore not ‘incorrect’, as you claim, for me to calculate vaccine effectiveness from population data and report on it.
I appreciate that you are happy with the information you have included on vaccine effectiveness. However, the important point is it is not valid to claim that an article using more up-to-date data on real-world infection rates among vaccinated and unvaccinated groups is ‘incorrect’ by citing out-of-date estimates from studies using data from earlier periods, even if they come from government sources. You can point out that the new estimates disagree with the old estimates, but that doesn’t invalidate the new estimates or make them ‘incorrect’. What you are doing amounts to attempted censorship of reporting on emerging data, rather than ‘fact-checking’.
You say you disagree that you have misunderstood the PHE report. But you clearly imply that the PHE report does not show infection rates higher in the vaccinated than the unvaccinated. To quote:
This data had already caused widespread confusion, because it seemed to show for the month in question (August 9th to September 5th) that people in their 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s were more likely to test positive for Covid if they had been vaccinated than if they hadn’t. In particular, a chart displaying the data seemed to give this impression.
This is a patently misleading section as you completely fail to acknowledge that the report plainly does show infection rates higher in the vaccinated in these age groups and instead attempt to make it sound like it does not and that this was a matter of ‘confusion’ on the part of others. The PHE report even explicitly states: “In individuals aged 40 to 79, the rate of a positive COVID-19 test is higher in vaccinated individuals compared to unvaccinated.”
I urge you again, as a matter of professional integrity and for the sake of the credibility of your site, to amend the ‘fact check’ so that it is not misleading in this way and makes clear that the PHE report is correctly understood as showing infection rates higher in the vaccinated in these age groups during this time period.
Kind regards
Will
Will Jones
Associate Editor – Daily Sceptic
‘Superspreader of misinformation’: NYT corrects story that exaggerated child Covid-19 hospitalizations by over 90%
RT | October 8, 2021
The New York Times had to issue a doozy of a correction on an article by its Covid-19 reporter Apoorva Mandavilli, who somehow inflated the number of US children hospitalized with the virus to 14 times the actual level.
Mandavilli claimed in her article, published on Tuesday, that nearly 900,000 Covid-infected children had been hospitalized in the US since the pandemic began. As the Times admitted on Thursday, the available data shows that the correct figure from August 2020 to October 2021 was more than 63,000.
The inaccuracies didn’t stop there. The correction also noted that contrary to Mandavilli’s reporting, Sweden and Denmark haven’t begun offering single-dose vaccines to children. The newspaper added that the story misstated the timing of an upcoming FDA meeting regarding proposed use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in children as young as five years old.
The scale of the erroneous hospitalization figure was reminiscent of gaffes by President Joe Biden, such as saying 120 million Americans had died from Covid-19 and 150 million had been killed by gun violence. It’s not clear how the blunder occurred, but the mainstream media has been accused of hyping the severity of the pandemic. A hidden-camera investigation by Project Veritas in April purported to show a CNN technical director saying the outlet purposely stoked fears of Covid-19 to boost ratings.
Ironically, the Times itself has decried Covid-19 misinformation. For instance, the newspaper posted an article earlier this week vilifying Dr. Joseph Mercola as “the most influential spreader of coronavirus misinformation.” In August, the Times said ‘Russian disinformation’ was being spread to suggest that the Biden administration would impose a Covid-19 vaccine mandate. A month later, Biden ordered that healthcare facilities, federal contractors and businesses with more than 100 employees force their workers to be inoculated, taking the choice over getting the jab away from about 100 million Americans.
While the Times and other mainstream outlets have billed themselves as the arbiters of truth, Mandavilli’s error-laced article is only the latest in a long line of inaccurate reporting by the newspaper. For example, the newspaper falsely claimed that Russia had offered bounties on American troops in Afghanistan and that police officer Brian Sicknick was murdered by pro-Trump rioters at the US Capitol.
“The New York Times is a superspreader of misinformation,” said Christina Pushaw, press secretary for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Mandavilli stirred anger among conservatives in May, when she said the theory that Covid-19 leaked from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology had “racist roots.” She later deleted her Twitter post, lamenting that the pushback to her remark had been “ridiculous.”
“Someday, we will stop talking about the lab-leak theory and maybe even admit its racist roots,” Mandavilli said in the original tweet. “But alas, that day is not yet here.”
It’s not clear why the reporter was rooting for the lab leak theory to go away, as even chief White House medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci said it should be investigated after previously trying to squash the notion.
The Wall Street Journal had reported two days earlier that three scientists at the Wuhan lab had been hospitalized with Covid-19 symptoms in the fall of 2019, near the time when the first cases of the virus were reported in China.
The Times’ former lead reporter on Covid-19, Pulitzer Prize nominee Donald McNeil Jr., resigned under pressure in February after co-workers campaigned for his firing. His sin was responding to a high school student’s question about a classmate’s use of the N-word by repeating the slur when he asked for context on how it was used. He had worked for the newspaper since 1976.