About testing vaccines to see whether they stop transmission of the disease – and about COVID propaganda
There’s a big brouhaha about the admission by Pfizer executive Janine Small that the vaccine was not initially tested to see whether it prevented the transmission of the virus to others.
I have to say that the admission doesn’t bother or surprise me. I’ll explain why in a moment. But first I’ll explain what does bother me, which is that the vaccines were propagandized about in a mendacious way and used in order to control and subdue people and persecute the unvaccinated, and the effects of that were pernicious and continue to be pernicious. It was partly the health authorities that did this, partly the central and state government officials, and partly the media (including social media).
From the first, I was aghast at the lies told and the poor coverage, as well as the nefarious uses made of the pandemic itself to control people. I’m also angry that the vaccines were never explained properly, because they are not traditional vaccines but more like preventative treatments – although that fact only emerged over time.
But I’m not aghast at Small’s admission, and this is why. It is my understanding that vaccines ordinarily are developed to prevent contracting a disease, or to reduce symptoms markedly if it is contracted. It is also assumed that if a disease is not contracted by a person, then it is also not transmitted by that person. But that’s an inference. Initial testing ordinarily has to do with contracting the disease or reducing the symptoms of the disease. In the case of the COVID shots, it was made clear that they were not a complete preventative even to catching the disease, with figures of effectiveness that ranged from (I’m doing this from memory) something like 60% to 85% effectiveness. So the assumption was that it would reduce the spread but certainly not eliminate it, and it was an assumption only (as with most vaccines).
I’m not even sure how transmission would have been tested initially with COVID vaccines, prior to them being given to huge numbers of people, except through testing the viral load in vaccinated people who did contract the disease or who ended up testing positive for it. That’s not directly testing transmission, however; it’s just an inference about transmission based on viral load, which may or may not be correct.
If you want to see how vaccines are usually tested, see this. I skimmed it and it doesn’t mention testing for transmission. If there’s someone reading this who’s on expert on vaccine development and knows differently, please describe.
However – and I think this is the far more valid reason for anger – that was not explained properly to the public, probably because the government wanted people to be vaccinated and feared that if vaccines were sold merely as preventing illness or reducing the severity of illness for the individual and perhaps reducing transmission, vaccination rates would be lower. But the governments seemed to emphasize the reduction in transmission instead, the better to control people and in particular to persecute those who would not obey and get vaccinated.
NOTE: Here’s an article from January of 2022 that sheds some light on the fact that transmission rates were unknown when the vaccine was developed:
In April 2021, Pfizer chief executive Albert Bourla said early trial data showed its vaccine “was 100 per cent effective against severe Covid-19”.
“Did you expect the vaccines to be better at preventing transmission than they were?” host Freddie Sayers asked Prof Cohen.
“Yes … especially based on what we had seen in March, in April,” he replied.
“The feeling we had in Israel last Spring, we were after a deadly month of January with more than 4000 people that died, we were after our third lockdown, and suddenly we were opening and opening and opening, and cases were going down, hospitals were getting empty. I’m not joking, my colleagues, doctors were dancing in the corridors out of joy (thinking) it’s over.”
Prof Cohen said he and his colleagues “did believe at that time that vaccines can prevent transmission”.
“What we believed is that vaccines can prevent transmission perhaps shortly after (being administered) but not over a long period of time, and therefore yes, we were surprised to discover at the end of the day that no, the vaccines are not protecting us, they are not causing what we call sterilising immunity,” he said.
Health officials in countries including Australia now say that although the vaccines to not prevent the spread of Covid-19, they reduce the severity of the disease and so ease the strain on hospitals.
In particular, once variants came into play, the reduction of transmission that was initially observed pretty much ended.
I had the same take as you, neo. I wasn’t surprised for the reasons you outline. Also, it is common-sensical that if someone has milder symptoms they, at least, spread and shed virus less than someone sneezing, coughing and wheezing. Also, a briefer symptomatic period during illness reduces the days one is contagious. So, even if not tested nor proven, it’s probably true.
However, like you I was also greatly frustrated and annoyed by those stating resolutely they could not get nor transmit the disease once vaccinated and the many media and medical professionals who stated those things based on no testing nor evidence. I knew that was not known based on the lack of clinical trials. And, as someone who contracted and recovered from COVID about 6 months prior to vaccines being available; I was really frustrated by those insisting their immunity through vaccination was better than mine through disease infection, and telling me I was risking the health and lives of others by not getting vaccinated*.
*I did get vaccinated, but I waited until it was evident that all high risk individuals in my community had ample time to obtain the vaccine.
What makes me angry about this is the selling of getting the shot as virtuous and selfless, and not getting the shot was pure selfishness.
I know of people who faked co-morbidities so that they could move up to the front of the line for the vaccine, because it was going to prevent illness (or so they believed). What could be a more selfish thing to do?
But then, as the months passed, and others were not rushing to get the shot, these same people began to believe (or convince themselves) that what they did – lying to jump the line – was actually the most selfless thing and those not getting the shot were selfish Neanderthals who put others at risk!
The amount of bullshit peddled during the past 3 years is incredible.
No vaccines are 100% effective in preventing transmission or reducing symptoms or 100% without side effects, up to and including death.
The question always comes down to risk vs benefit. The risks from COVID to the general population were grossly overstated. Forgivable in the first few months, but not later.
Serious side effects happen with all vaccines, and while rare, if they are more common than serious effects from the disease, it’s very simple to understand that there is no point in administering the vaccine to those people.
Especially children. A child is more likely to die in a car accident on the way to get the COVID vaccine than to die of COVID. This is not true for say diphtheria or measles or tetanus, which is why children are routinely vaccinated for these these things.
Neo: “But first I’ll explain what does bother me, which is that the vaccines were propagandized about in a mendacious way and used in order to control and subdue people and persecute the unvaccinated, and the effects of that were pernicious and continue to be pernicious.”
This is what continues to bother me as well, Neo. That they are continuing to “persecute” those who are unvaccinated.
Since I have opted to NOT disclose my vaccine status to my employer the rules for continued employment are that I had to take the covid test twice a week as well as pay a covid “tax.” They claimed that those of us who were unvaccinated/not disclosed had to prove we were not a threat to those who are vaccinated (ha! such a thought just tells you that they didn’t have much faith in the vaccine either) and they did this thru the twice a week covid test. And they claimed that being unvaccinated was just like being a smoker – you risk higher health care costs and therefore had to pay higher health insurance premiums! In my opinion, both claims are bogus.
All of that was troublesome enough; but, they got away with it and are now peddling the same BS with the annual flu shot; or at least it comes across that way by the types of “public-service” announcement we see on TV in the New York area.
Seeing how they peddled their BS and got away with it; they are now trying to peddle it in other areas too. And that is what scares me! This new “normal” seems to be accepted by so many!
Albert Bourla’s medical degree is in veterinary medicine, from a Greek university. His PhD (same school) is in reproductive biology. He left Greece at the age of 34 after he was promoted within Pfizer’s animal health products division. Up until 2010, his executive positions had to do with Pfizer’s veterinary medicine products, including the company’s acquisition of Wyeth’s animal health products division.
Bourla’s salary in 2020 was $21 million; Pfizer’s net income in 2021 was $21.98 billion. That will purchase a lot of media and political influence.
I have read that one of the polio vaccines…the original Salk vaccine, IIRC…is not very effective at reducing transmission although it is very effective at reducing disease occurrence.
It seems the vaccine has a lot of side effects, and possible long term health issues.
The degree of lies on the Covid Vax, as well as making it mandatory, are insane.
Any other vaccine, if it had this amount of side effects, would have been stopped. Swine Flu Vaccine?
Lots of people seem to have been injured due to vax. But to discuss this is “misinfomration”. Yet people still keep on having heart issues. Which is why the Florida Surgeon General has recommended males under 50 not get the jab. Lots of other countries are doing that. And yet the US is pushing the jab on babies. And what happens if the jab also impacts fertility?
If I had known, what I know now, I would not have gotten the jab. I feel I was lied to, and propagandized.
One of the greatest crimes, was telling those that already had Covid, such as my daughter, they should get the vax. And she did. Hopefully it will not impact her ability to have kids, but I am not sure.
When we got vaccinated in February 2021, we believed we were immune. Based on that, we traveled to see relatives when airline travel was still relatively light. Family and friends were all vaxxed and we went maskless, sharing meals, hugging and laughing as if we were all bullet proof. By fall of 2021 we knew it wasn’t true and were thankful we never got infected. We took the booster, hoping it would promote a milder case if we got it. Whether or not to take the bivalent booster is now the question. Can’t hurt? No one seems to really know. My personal doctor parrots the Democrat line. With the Pfizer therapeutics now available, why get boosted?
In the meantime, while billions were spent on the vaccines, nothing was spent to get therapeutics into the pipeline. Monoclonal antibodies were being used successfully in Florida and a few other places. Yet we were told not to do anything to treat the disease until we got pneumonia and then go to the hospital. In fact, all suggested treatments were immediately discouraged by most medical and political entities. IMO, this was unethical, bad medical practice, and certainly smacked of tyrannical government practices. My faith in medical care givers has been broken and may never be regained. I never had any faith in Democrat policies, so that’s not changed.
One is reminded of harry lime and his gig selling fake flu vaccine
The way he peddled this to desperate people
RaySoCal:
No, the COVID vaccine does not have more side effects than many other vaccines that were not stopped. I have written about that as well, but don’t have time at the moment to find what I’ve written.
One of the reasons people perceive that it has more side effects is that early on a center was established for reporting any problem that occurred after the COVID vaccine. That of course has little to do with actual side effects attributable to the vaccine, and had never been done for any vaccine before. Side effects and complications are not usually measured that way, but people were encouraged to call in with anything bad that happened to them within months of getting a vaccine. Obviously, there’s going to be a huge list with lots of people.
There are indeed some bona fide complications and side effects from the COVID vaccine, as there are with all vaccines. But although I’ve looked at many articles saying it’s more than with other vaccines, I have seen nothing that has convinced me that’s it’s so, except for a slight increase in some mostly temporary and non-fatal heart problems in young men who’ve been vaccinated. Most people aren’t aware that COVID itself can cause heart problems, however.
In addition, plenty of viruses have reported long-term health issues. With them, or with COVID, it’s not clear that those issues are from the virus, however.
Miguel,
Harry Lime said a lot that seems relevant here:
and, of course,
An enormous number of documented side effects: https://openvaers.com/covid-data
That was supposed an improvised line from welles inaccurare in many ways
Chris:
Garbage in, garbage out.
That’s the sort of thing I’ve already described in my comment at 6:25 PM.
See also this.
My Wife and I both took the shots early on, and the booster too. We had too because we like to travel overseas. However, I will not take another one no matter what.
We got back from a 2 wk trip to France on 9/11, on 9/14 we came down with COVID. Hers was mild, mine a rougher but not life threatening, just not pleasant. Still seem to get tired easily, but then that could be because I will be 76 on Monday.
“But I’m not aghast at Small’s admission, and this is why. It is my understanding that vaccines ordinarily are developed to prevent contracting a disease, or to reduce symptoms markedly if it is contracted.”
I’m way more hard-core on this than neo, but this is a sensible position. It looks like Pfizer was in a hurry. They administered the Jab on volunteers, saw that spike-protein antibodies were now found in the volunteers’ blood and checked the box “Tested/Works”.
It is indeed unconscionable that people were told that masking was: to save others.
That getting Jabs and Boosts was: to save others.
That if you didn’t comply: you’d lose your job, be expelled from university, and lose other rights and privileges.
I believe that way more people were medically harmed by this vaccine than by all other vaccines added together, as such I think the issue of “informed consent” was violated in quite an evil way. Who else recalls the lady who went to her pharmacy and asked for the disclosure sheet on the vaccine and was given a blank piece of paper?
Happy 76th birthday, SHIREHOME!!
has anyone else noted the contradiction that the most feral vaxxing activists are the same feral mask nazis?
BTW , my wife and I are rewatching “The Crown” in preparation of the upcoming season in November.
In the episode ” Act of G-d” about the Great Smog of 1952, to paraphrase Churchill’s secretary asks a physician ” doesn’t masking help” to which he replies ” no, but it helps the government say its doing something”
“No, the COVID vaccine does not have more side effects than many other vaccines that were not stopped. I have written about that as well, but don’t have time at the moment to find what I’ve written.”
perhaps , but the other vaccines aren’t universally pushed. i.e infants aren’t getting pneumovax
“But I’m not aghast at Small’s admission, and this is why. It is my understanding that vaccines ordinarily are developed to prevent contracting a disease, or to reduce symptoms markedly if it is contracted.”
Vaccines are also designed to prevent transmission. many are not healthy enough to receive a vaccine but benefit from the immunization of others. the Polio vaccine was never given universally
“It seems the vaccine has a lot of side effects, and possible long term health issues.”
sounds like you are reading the European/Israeli medical literature not the American.
Every day i see a new patient with post covid vaccine symptoms often with a new set of symptoms I never saw before.
“When we got vaccinated in February 2021, we believed we were immune. Based on that, we traveled to see relatives when airline travel was still relatively light. Family and friends were all vaxxed and we went maskless, sharing meals, hugging and laughing as if we were all bullet proof.”
That’s also one of the really horrific and tragic things about the vaccine lies. Same with masks, to a degree. People thought they were safe when they really weren’t. They thought they couldn’t infect vulnerable people when they actually could. That’s a whole other thing to be angry about.
It seems that some people, at least, are starting to apologize for buying into the propaganda now that they can no longer even pretend to think that we can vaccinate our way out of Covid. But when are the people who lost their jobs going to get an apology?
avi:
You misunderstand my point. Perhaps I didn’t make my point as clear as I thought I did, so I’ll try here to make it even more clear.
Vaccines are developed and tested in order to protect the individual from infection. But it is ASSUMED as well as INTENDED that this will in turn protect those same people from infecting others, even those who are not vaccinated. But that is an assumption (although ordinarily a valid one). It is an assumption because, at least as far as I know, most vaccines are not explicitly tested prior to release to see if those who nevertheless contract the illness despite being vaccinated are able to transmit it.
The COVID vaccine was not explicitly tested for this, either, but I don’t think that would be unusual. It was assumed to reduce transmissibility, but it also had a certain failure rate, and of course people who contracted it would be assumed to probably be able to transmit it to others.
That’s why vaccinated people were told to nevertheless wear masks and practice distancing around vulnerable people. Of course, it turns out the masks didn’t matter much, either. But the issue we’re discussing is testing a vaccine for transmissibility.
Not long after the vaccine was released, there was quite a bit of testing of viral load in those who were vaccinated and tested positive for the virus versus those who were unvaccinated and tested positive for the virus. First it was reported the vaccinated had a heavy viral load, then that was revised and it was said they don’t have a heavy viral load. I wrote about that in this post.
However – and I think this is the far more valid reason for anger – that was not explained properly to the public, probably because the government wanted people to be vaccinated and feared that if vaccines were sold merely as preventing illness or reducing the severity of illness for the individual and perhaps reducing transmission, vaccination rates would be lower.
–neo
That was the rub for me. I grew up thinking vaccinations were like the polio and smallpox vaxxes — one and done, forever, or almost so.
With the new yearly flu vaxx, I realized that standard had slipped a bit, but I hoped the Covid vaxx, especially the way it was trumpeted as The Solution, would be a return to form.
Sadly, no.
huxley:
Actually – although you might accuse me of nitpicking here – neither the polio nor the smallpox vaccines were “one and done.” I had several polio boosters (I forget how many), and smallpox had to be done again after a number of years as well, until they stopped giving the vaccine because the disease had been eradicated.
to nitpick more on huxley 🙂 ,
I don’t think the flu vax released each year is the same vax or intended to treat the same flu. I believe virologists make an educated guess at what strain they believe will be most prevalent and harmful and engineer a vaccine for it, and that’s what is administered.
neo, Rufus:
Perhaps not “one and done” but I did add, “or almost so.”
It certainly wasn’t “Get’cher latest booster here!” every six months.
Yes, Rufus, I know how the flu vaxx works or sort of works.
But once upon a time, in Camelot, a vaccine was a more robust treatment than today.
“It is an assumption because, at least as far as I know, most vaccines are not explicitly tested prior to release to see if those who nevertheless contract the illness despite being vaccinated are able to transmit it.”
It’s an assumption because other vaccines actually immunizes, the covid doesn’t or does it poorly for a short while.If one is truly immunized, you dont transmit.
Most vaccine have a higher efficacy rate than the Covid, G-d forbid the Salk vaccine worked as well- people would be praising it causes only partial paralysis.
“That’s why vaccinated people were told to nevertheless wear masks and practice distancing around vulnerable people.”
Actually there was a period between the onset of the vaccine and before Delta that outside of the hospital to we began to unmask.
.
neo said: “Garbage in, garbage out.”
Well, maybe so. But even if half of those incidents are misattributed, that’s still a lot of adverse reactions. It’s even possible that the OpenVAERS database is an undercount, since hospitals and doctors have been under pressure to go along with the official vaccine narrative. And as to your cite, I guess you give a lot more credibility to Reuters and the CDC than I do, which is not much.
Chris:
It’s not even necessarily a lot of adverse reactions, even halved. Here’s why. The COVID vaccine was given to so many millions of people – far more than most vaccines. Therefore the numbers of reported adverse reactions for COVID vaccines are meaningless unless they are expressed as a percentage of the people who got the vaccine, and then compared to the percentages of such events in people getting other vaccines. Even that would tell you very little, however, because of the problem of knowing what’s an adverse reaction. It’s obvious if, for example, a person gets a shot and has an anaphylactic reaction within 15 minutes, or gets a rash that night. But in this case, people are reporting anything and everything that happened to them even much much longer after having the shot. Just to take an example, let’s say an 85-year-old man gets the shot, and a day later drops dead. Was it from the shot? You only know if you compare the death rates a day after the shot for 85-year-olds to the death rates for 85-year-olds as a whole (and even then, it’s not completely determinative, because the 85-year-olds who got the vaccine might be in poorer health to begin with compared to other 85-year-olds).
A lot of these adverse reaction numbers and reports are just noise. I’ve heard people attribute to the shot things that happened months or even over a year afterwards. Again, unless you compare the vaccinated population to a matched population who were not vaccinated, or to matched populations after they got other vaccines but not the COVID vaccine, the numbers are meaningless.
After my mother died, I discovered she had saved all of her children’s vaxx records. And sure, there were boosters, but they came to an end and I haven’t worried about smallpox and polio, as well as diptheria, tetanus and whooping cough since then.
According to wiki, diptheria, tetanus and whooping cough are packaged together in the DPT vaxx:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DPT_vaccine
It says a DPT booster is required every ten years. I suppose I’ve been jabbed somewhere along the line since my childhood on an infrequent check-up.
But still … ten years! And I’ve never gotten dip, whoop or tet, nor known anyone who has.
To me that’s a big difference from the flu and Covid vaxxes, where one could be vaxxed or boosted then take ill a month later albeit with some assurance the illness might not be as severe.
Then throw in the surprising numbers of people with Covid vaxx side-effects, sometimes lethal…
This is not the 21st Century I was hoping for.
Chris:
By the way, I don’t give any particular credit or credence to Reuters (or the CDC), nor do I automatically discredit them. I give credit to whatever site makes sense and has logical reasoning about something, on a case by case basis. I come to my own conclusions. I linked that Reuters piece because it happened to pretty well express conclusions I’ve already come to. So rather than re-invent the wheel and write a whole lengthy saga myself, I linked to it to save time.
avi:
Most vaccines don not immunize perfectly, as you know.
The COVID vaccine immunized fairly well – although not perfectly – against the initial variant, and less so against later variants. That is certainly the case for flu vaccines, for example. It is true for most vaccines to varying extents:
As I wrote elsewhere, when the vaccines came out we were informed they were between around 60+% effective and 85% effective, depending on the brand. That is less than most vaccines (the higher figure being similar to the chickenpox vaccine) but it was certainly better than nothing. I think that most people failed to understand that this meant they were not perfectly protected, and I think for various reasons the government wanted to foster the idea that the vaccines were better than they actually were.
And then, as I’ve said previously, with new variants the vaccines were less effective at preventing transmission.
huxley:
I had to get a whooping cough booster to visit my grandkids when infants.
Tetanus and diphtheria boosters are recommend every 10 years, or after 5 years if a person gets a deep and dirty wound. See this.
avi:
We were told to mask around vulnerable people even long after the vaccine was out. I still do if they request it.
For example, I have a friend who has advanced cancer, and one who cannot be vaccinated for health reasons. I wear a mask (particularly indoors with them) if anyone requests it, out of respect for their wishes.
I think that most people failed to understand that this meant they were not perfectly protected, and I think for various reasons the government wanted to foster the idea that the vaccines were better than they actually were.
neo:
I think most people, such as moi, just heard the magic word “vaccine” and thought I’ve had vaccinations — smallpox, polio, DPT — and it was great. No worries! Or, more precisely, almost no worries.
We didn’t stick around for the fine print and the government wasn’t particularly interested that we do so.
Sure, it was better than nothing, but it wasn’t anything like the gold standards of the earlier vaccines.
Tetanus and diphtheria boosters are recommend every 10 years, or after 5 years if a person gets a deep and dirty wound. See this.
neo:
Yes. I mentioned the ten-year booster interval in my earlier comment and cited wiki as a source.
The COVID vaccine immunized fairly well – although not perfectly – against the initial variant, and less so against later variants. That is certainly the case for flu vaccines, for example. It is true for most vaccines to varying extents:”
Actually it never immunized well. It developed a short term organ immunity without a mucosal immunity-hence why people still transmitted and the then a negative immunity. Plus the vaccine rollout coincided with this dissipation of the original lab leak alpha variant.
as for masks, after the first year, it became quite informative as it has exposed the cowards amongst us .Most vote Dem.
or as the Romans would say -“Timidus in unum, ignivous in omnibus”
It looks like Covid — the Wuhan Flu until such appellation got one cancelled — is rebounding against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with a vengeance.
Serves ’em right.
One may persist in believing Covid was an unlucky virus spillover from animals to humans, rather than a leak from a Chinese biowarfare lab only a few miles from the suspected market, but the fact remains that China restricted internal airflights when Covid emerged, but let international flights rip, thereby spreading Covid for certain to the rest of the planet.
In addition to China’s other problems — ponzi scheme finances, demography, drought, blowback from Ukraine sanctions — China is still pursuing its Covid Zero policies.
Which means mega lockdowns and consequent crippling of its manufacturing output, which means killing supply chains, which means Western companies getting the puck out of China, which means killing Chinese GDP.
And if the Chinese GDP declines, that means the natives get restless. Maybe they go on long walks, i.e. Long Marches together, and the CCP is in big trouble.
Couldn’t happen to nicer folks.
However, sorry to the Chinese people.
avi:
If you don’t give links to your information, it is impossible for anyone to understand the evidence you’re referring to and react to it.
As far as the Alpha variant and the timing of the vaccine rollout in relation to it go, in the US the rollout began in December of 2020. A hundred million doses had been administered by mid-March of 2021, and two million by mid-April of 2021 (see this). Meanwhile, the Alpha variant was quite dominant in the US through June of 2021 in terms of percentages of diagnosed cases that were tested for variant (see this).
You write, “the vaccine rollout coincided with this dissipation of the original lab leak alpha variant.” It depends, however, what you mean by “coincide.” There were many many vaccinated people when Alpha was still quite active and Alpha sharply declined after a couple of months of widespread COVID vaccinations. Was it at least partly a natural evolution of the virus? Perhaps. Was it at least partly a result of the vaccinations? Perhaps. If you look at charts of COVID cases and deaths in the US during that period, you can see a sharp decline in both. Then it starts rising again with the new variants, but deaths never again reached the same heights, even though with Omicron case numbers went even higher.
It’d be interesting to hear Zaphod’s hot take these days on Communist China. Not that I miss Zaphod or question neo’s decision.
He had been singing China’s praises for Covid Zero — aparently he was mostly correct on that count — and for China being a bold new civilization on the upswing, while the US was a sad, corrupt empire in decline.
One may read old newspapers and discover that the US has been in decline since 1776 or name your date.
But I say we’ve got more lives than a cat.
@ huxley > “It’d be interesting to hear Zaphod’s hot take these days on Communist China. Not that I miss Zaphod or question neo’s decision.”
Ditto ditto.
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-america-out-loud-network-27945748/episode/for-so-many-departures-an-irish-103131470/
Dr Peter McCullough interviews Dr Tenpenny on “the history of the pediatric and adult vaccine schedules, how it all happened”.
If a vaccine manufacturer can get their vaxx on the list req’d for children, they acquire substantial legal protection not just lots of new customers. In a number of cases, claims Dr Tenpenny, evidence of efficacy and safety can be flimsy.
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-america-out-loud-network-27945748/episode/for-so-many-departures-an-irish-103131470/
The television ads for various pharmaceuticals list numerous side effects, some quite frightening. As in…you might even die.
Never heard a word about the wuflu vax side effects. As a matter of lying by omission, they didn’t have any. First in forever, or at least since these stupid ads are garbaging up some television show.
I have to laugh that anyone would accept assertions by Big Pharma of their study results at face value. How many lies will it take?
Neo, you seem to be particularly invested in a desire to believe. Given the demonstrated dishonesty, incompetence and corruption of all of the establishment players, why are you so willing to trust? I would think that skepticism is more appropriate. Especially so when the institution of science has been shown to be fundamentally broken.
I read the LI post on this, and the Daily Caller one (via Bongino aggregation), and watched the clip of the exchange. The question asked was whether or not Psizer tested the vaccine regarding stopping transmission; the answer addressed “stopping administration” and the answer were was “no”. She did NOT mention transmission in her answer. These stories are based on what people “think she meant”, not on what she actually said.
I take transmission to mean passing from one to another, contagious; and administration to mean giving or providing the vaccine. I don’t think they are interchangeable terms.
[I only read about half the above comments, so I may have missed someone mentioning this.]
Regarding adverse reactions, I went out for my two-mile walk the day after vaccination and collapsed three times on the road. For a long time I couldn’t dig a hole in the garden without falling over. I now have an affected nerve in my face for which I take medicine. So I don’t care about national numbers; I have to act on my own experience. I’m done with the vaccine.
I do recall endless PSA on TV by “ordinary” people saying they’re getting vaxxed to protect other people. That would imply the stuff having an effect on transmission.
Mac. That’s horrifying.
I miss Zaphod.
I guess my tolerance level for disagreement verging on disagreeable is high.
stan:
It’s always an available argument to claim studies are lies. But that reflects your own unsupported opinion, and as an argument it leads nowhere. In fact, it’s not even an argument – it’s a refusal to even deal with the facts as best we can ascertain them.
Obviously, if the facts as best we can ascertain them are lies, then there’s nothing more to be said.
In addition, what I said in this thread about the VAERS data about adverse reactions is simply logic. And pointing out the way vaccines are traditionally tested involves the history of vaccines, not some preconceived notion of mine.
It is you who start with the preconceived notion, and then you reject as lies whatever doesn’t agree with it.
So I don’t care about national numbers; I have to act on my own experience. I’m done with the vaccine.
Mac Siccar:
That’s another thing.
I’ve never had an adverse reaction to previous vaxxes. I knew it was possible, but rare. Nor have I known anyone, to my knowledge, with an adverse reaction to those vaxxes.
But with the Covid vaxx, I didn’t get myocarditis, but I sure got bushwhacked with fatigue on the booster and it seemed a common enough response when social conversation got around to it.
Which is to say, the Covid vaxxes seem a ways down from previous vaxxes in the risk/benefit ratio.
In this 21st Century we didn’t get flying cars nor did we get Covid vaxxes like those for smallpox and polio.
Richard and Huxley: Because of my symptoms, they put me in a long haul covid program, through which I saw 14 doctors in 2021, and only one did anything that helped: A neurologist gave me gabapentin for my facial nerve. I have other lingering effects, such as something on my liver, that are still being explored.
So I talked to a lot of doctors, and I was never sure what they advised was accurate and whether they were under pressure to be pro-vaccine.
That’s where we are now: We can’t trust our own doctors, because they are being watched, especially if they’re in a hospital system. See Dr. Aseem Malhotra’s journal article in which he discusses this: https://www.biznews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Curing-the-pandemic-of-misinformation-on-Covid-19-mRNA-vaccines-Part-1.pdf
I propose that it is time stop repeating The Narrative that the mRNA injections were even “preventative treatments.” We have NO WAY of assessing that, in that the treatment protocols use by the vast majority of institutions and hospital corporations were ineffective or even contra-effective. There is no way to evaluate if getting mRNA injected would have had any benefit to a person who had their Covid treated properly with the proven effective outpatient treatments that existed since the first month of the pandemic. The Brazil study showed treatment with IVM resulted in a 92% reduction in deaths. Had that been used here, we may have seen the morbidity from the injections earlier.
And neo–you are ill informed as to the complications of the mRNA injections, and it is incorrect to repeat the misinformation that they are no more dangerous than those of other, real vaccines. That is absolutely not true. There has never been a vaccine that has had the morbidity and mortality that this one has. A Harvard VAERS study from years ago showed that VAERS grossly UNDER reports by a factor of at least ten.
It is complete BigPharma BS propaganda that people are making up things in massive numbers–there is NO EVIDENCE AT ALL of that. What is true is that Big Tech SUPPRESSES reports of damage–that is being found out in discovery of multiple state’s AG legal suits, showing collusion between Biden administrators and FB, Google, and Twitter.
And it is not just the self reported data from this country that shows the injections dangers; the EU data, which is reported by medical personnel, confirms the deaths and morbidity as well. See Scotland’s stillbirth rates. Are you aware that Denmark ceased its program recently? No more shots. A number of other countries have stopped them for the masses.
It is a fantasy to think for a second that only young men get myocarditis from MRNA spike making injections; what is easy to measure is young men getting myocarditis–the signal. The thousand of older people having MIs and arrhythmias and strokes and nearly uncontrollable hypertension for months after injections aren’t showing up because NOBODY IS LOOKING. Nobody is doing this analysis; CDC won’t even freely release the VAERS data, and hospital personnel are discouraged from reporting. It takes nearly an hour to do so; nobody is paying them to report.
Could your uncharacteristic acceptance of the implausible assertion that these shots are no worse than others be deeply invested in rationalizing your having gotten injected? The fact that you got snookered into voluntarily doing something that has proven to be not safe, that your medical providers have lied to you about its safety and benefit, that you did not get (were not given) adequate informed consent, and now you are living with the unknown long term consequences of having suppressed your cellular and innate immunity, and have set yourself up to be more easily infected with Covid, as well to be hospitalized and die, depending on how many boosters you have received? (You are so not alone!)
As of July 20, 2021–when the Provincetown Covid outbreak was reported—with 80% of the hospitalized having been double vaccinated–any analytically thinking person should have begun questioning just what benefit these injections had. Before anybody got a booster. A month later, the data started coming in from Europe showing the more shots, the more likely to get Covid, and be hospitalized. (The death thing didn’t show up til December.). Alex Berenson knew. That’s how/why he got kicked off Twitter, from sharing that info. “They” didn’t want that out. “They” wanted boosters! (I knew then too, as did massive numbers of hospital workers who “declined the opportunity” to get boosters last fall. CMS never enforced the mandate, nor did any hospital system I know of.)
It appears you are unaware of the Covid experience in unvaccinated countries, their death rates from the various strains of Covid, the massive amount of data that now is showing huge increases in disability and death among highly vaccinated workers 18-64. You will find Steve Kirsch on his substack hugely informative. Ed Wood is who initially reported the Q3 and Q4 historic increased death numbers from insurers, recently confirmed by an article by The Society of Actuaries. Read what Naomi Wolf is publishing from her analysis of the early Phizer study results–released only because a judge ordered them to do so, never forget– especially as far as fetal loss and pregnancy complications. Far more people have died from this vaccine than any other ever given. Anyone involved with the acute care of hospitalized patients has seen the strokes, clots, and neurological damage they cause. Pneumovax doesn’t do that. Shingrix doesn’t do that.
They have real morbidity that should concern most people and based on the current data freely shared by Israel, Iceland, Denmark, UK–the more shots, the more morbidity and mortality. The more people injected, the HIGHER the rate of Covid in a community or country!
I can’t imagine anyone thinking the risks of the bivalent one is going to be worth taking for a virus that is currently a problem comparable to a cold.
Of what benefit is it to cause your body to manufacture spike proteins that cause vascular damage? For some antibody response that neither prevents infection or transmission, and its claim of “decreasing illness” was a DAY less of symptoms–sore throat, runny nose, fatigue, headache. For that, you would risk death?
You would suppress your cellular immunity??? (Which can increase your risk of other infections and cancer. ?Why so many multiple injected have had shingles despite having the Shingrix vaccine; ?why so many of our friends are being treated for cancer right now. Anybody with a reasonable wide social circle is seeing this for themself.)
These shots actually turn people into carriers–the multiple injected have higher viral loads, for more days, with less symptoms. (See the Biden relapsers, the Moderna CEO with his monthly infection. All the “multiple boosted , so not sick , but I have Covid” politicians and celebrities on Twitter.)
The multiple injected are who is going to “kill granny”.
They become incubators, cooking up the next variant.
There are scores of reliable scientists, physicians, statisticians, data analysts you could be reading to get the full picture on this; it appears to me that you don’t want the information.
You are repeating The Narrative the academic physicians have spun to try to give themselves cover for the crimes against humanity that have been perpetrated the past two and a half years as they chose to look away, rather than speak out against the ineffective and dangerous policies that have been forced on a far too compliant citizenry–at a MASSIVE cost. 92% of a million deaths–920,000 could have been preventive in this country by dirt cheap prophylaxis, like in Brazil.
(And no, never ever have physicians been told to wait for RCTs before treating people with safe, cheap, widely available and used drugs in the face of a pandemic, let alone had physicians’ licenses threatened if they did so.)
Lee:
I am not the least bit underinformed about COVID vaccine complications. I have written many posts and comments here on the subject, loaded with information. I have neither the time or the inclination to recap it all here for your edification if you’ve missed or misunderstood it.
I’ve already explained what’s wrong with VAERS as well.
In addition, as I’ve also mentioned, an exception to the typical after-effect profile of vaccines that the COVID vaccine demonstrates involves some temporary and mostly self-limited cardiovascular effects in young men, which happen less often than the cardiovascular effects of COVID itself in the population who have contracted COVID.
And I decided to get a COVID shot knowing that it had been developed very quickly and the long-term effects were unknown. It wouldn’t have surprised me either way if there were a lot of bad effects or none, but at the time of decision I made what I thought and still think was the best one for me. I have followed the data very closely since, and I have discovered that most of the so-called evidence for terrible after-effects are actually not proof of that. The “disinformation” comes very often from the anti-shot side as well as the pro-shot side.
Lee:
Oh, and about that Provincetown study that you mention, I wrote a lengthy post about it at the time. You can find it here.
Sorry I don’t have links, but as to the VAERS, many of those whose substacks I follow have discussed this system re: the CCP virus adverse reports. According to those sources and their data, the percentage of those vaccinated who have reported serious side effects exceeds by orders of magnitude the percentage of those reporting problems with prior vaccines. And prior vaccines were pulled completely when even a faint signal was detected.
They may be right, may be wrong. Would that there were multiple reliable mainstream sources that would examine these questions in a robust and neutral way.
This information obtained from Alex Berenson’s suit against Twitter gives dates of when Phizer director Gottlieb was working to remove Berenson from Twitter for his factual tweets about the injections:
https://amgreatness.com/2022/10/14/report-pfizer-board-member-scott-gottlieb-played-major-role-in-convincing-twitter-to-ban-vaccine-critic-alex-berenson/
Dr. Paul Alexander posted this today, from PANDA:
https://www.pandata.org/review-covid-vaccines-oct2022/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Their conclusion:
Whilst some make a case for the careful voluntary use of the Covid-19 vaccines with fully-informed consent in the most vulnerable groups, this should be based on solid evidence of overall health benefit for each individual.
These products should have been contra-indicated for the vast majority of the population for whom the overall net benefit-risk ratio is either zero, or limited and short-lived, with efficacy versus the risk of infection becoming negative after six months and an unknown longer-term safety profile.
The steps taken to mandate or coerce populations to receive the injections were completely unjustifiable from a public-health and human rights view-point, and suggest a politically-driven or profit-driven agenda.
There was insufficient justification for the emergency rollout of these products to the general population.This represents a massive failure of regulatory oversight and changes are needed to ensure this cannot happen again.
SPECTACULAR review by Harvard Medical School, Mayo trained doctor re: his “journey” re the jab. Fully documented.
https://drturner.substack.com/p/losing-my-vaccine-religion-a-doctors
And so many doctors reporting they and colleagues threatened with termination and career blackening if they don’t toe the line.
Not.
Good.
Agree this is no big deal, a red herring. I see this kind of vaccine talk as right-wingers at their most ignorant. You test whether individuals get sick with the virus after being vaccinated for it. The data you get back from this randomized controlled trial is very high quality, and takes relatively little time to determine. To calculate the vaccine’s effect on transmission through the wider population takes much more time to play out, and is much lower-quality retrospective data. But you don’t need this kind of data in a pandemic where people are dying in large numbers and afraid to leave their houses, because it’s very safe to assume anything that prevents the virus from flourishing in your body and making you sick, also prevents it from jumping over to other bodies and making them sick too. (It’ll vary a bit, but large correlation between the two.) I was very dismayed as the vaccines started to roll out, hearing some friends of mine, firmly convinced they believe in science, insist that despite the vaccines’ success at preventing illness, they don’t prevent transmission. No, it was just that in those early days we did not yet have longer-term data to confirm the strong effect on transmission rate. But even if the vaccine were ineffective at preventing spread of the disease, who cares if it reduces your chance of getting sick & dying from it at 95%?
sierra:
You probably also would have thought objections to the original Wuhan gain-of-function research was “a big red herring” prior to the COVID pandemic.
The point, as I wrote in my previous comment on this thread, is not whether there is some possible advantage to the research. There is. The point is that it’s a risk/benefit ratio question – and the risks of this sort of thing are very very high, as we’ve already discovered.
who cares if it reduces your chance of getting sick & dying from it at 95%?
It was never that effective and the virus wasn’t a danger to persons under 45 bar those with peculiar medical problems. It wasn’t much of a danger to anyone under 60 bar those with a high BMI (or peculiar medical problems). The closest analogue to these vaccines at roll out was the seasonal flu shot. After the Delta virus pushed out the earlier variants, they weren’t worth squat.