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Excess deaths, sudden deaths, and COVID — 52 Comments

1. Well here is my two cents worth of anecdotal Covid vaccine experience.

   Got my two shots – Pfizer brand – well over a year ago and a few weeks later I developed tinnitus.
   Of course, there is no way to establish that the onset of my tinnitus had anything at all to do with Covid shots I received.

   Bumped into a neighbor of mine yesterday; he is an eye/ear/nose throat MD.
   I asked him if any of his patients mentioned developing tinnitus subsequent to being Covid vaccinated.
   He said, “yep, he has heard it often.”

   Not sure what to make of this; could all be just a coincidence.
   Then again, maybe not.

2. John Tyler:

   Anecdotal evidence has no meaning except as an impetus for research on whether the phenomenon is significant or not.

3. Straight away I am not Vaxed, Covid or any Flu ever.
   Did watch Suddenly Dead and if you seen that you will at least as I am starting to think these young athletes dropping like a sack of potatoes might have something connected.
   But so far, and seems to me something other than other occurrence is happening. But every one who does drop dead seems its a quick No idea why, bury and move on asap.
   And today normal radio listening heard a drug commercial with a list at end of side effects. What side effects have you ever heard about the Fake Vax ( it is not by definition a vaccine) and then it’s side effects? Yet plenty of commercials pushing it?

4. “…bury and move on asap.”

   Well said, Skip. It’s the modern version of “bring out your dead”.

5. I understand the need for numbers….but. The well has been poisoned by the compromise of the scientific community by their own love of power, ignoring science (masks, etc.), lack of a clear voice and corruption. The scientific institutions have proven themselves bankrupt. If nothing is really trustworthy the average person will choose anecdotal evidence. The scientific community can only blame themselves.

6. “ COVID-19 comprised 9.9% of deaths in 2020. “

   Not true. That’s a greatly inflated number.

   CDC guidelines told doctors to count deaths with Covid as deaths of Covid.

7. As with most issues nowadays … it comes down to “Don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up.”

8. Anecdotal but I now know two people with weird health problems they attribute to the vaccine. Three years ago I knew zero people with weird health problems.

   And college level statistics aren’t useful if the data is faulty. Even the economic data is fake for political reasons today.

   Understand reality by observing the world around you, not what the government says is the data. If you think inflation is insane from your grocery shopping and Joe says it is under control, believe your pocket book. Likewise look around you and tell me American health is better than three years ago.

   https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/even-jpmorgan-lashing-out-ridiculous-seasonal-adjustments-key-us-data

9. How about we apply the same standard of blame to the vaccine that was applied to the virus? You die within 30, 60, or 90 days after the jab then we must blame the jab!

   Or not. It is impossible to trust the government and corporate doctors when they make up on the fly the rules of what constitutes medical evidence.

10. The well of government Covid-19 statistics has been irreparably poisoned by the deliberate conflation of “with” and “of”. The case of the motorcycle fatality credited to Covid-19 proves beyond a doubt that this was a deliberate tactic, probably to both keep the control scam going and that sweet federal cash flowing. The probability of that 9.9% number being vastly inflated is 100%.

11. Do not underestimate the role of hubris in this Gain of Function Flu fiasco. The so-called experts, no matter what field of scientific study they are involved in, are so certain of their pronouncements, which are arrived at mathematically due to their complete reliance on a determined material worldview, that when new data is discovered or presented which refutes their prior pronouncements, they are left puzzled and grasping at straws. Sort of like the James Webb Telescope discovering large galaxies far back in time which should not exist that astronomers are scratching their heads, as their prior certainties of the formation of the universe have been shattered. Hubris’ role in these matters should not be discounted.

12. With the way they blacklisted metered even imprisoned the likes of simone gold and promoted fauci birx hotez deig ling we cant rely on any data

13. Instinct has cut in, and the herd smells something on the wind.

    Do you trust your instincts that something is wrong?

14. 2 comments:

    First, in response to buddhaha: A specific example of how bad the death stats can be “from” covid. As most know I’ve been following several states since the beginning. In the last year CT death numbers follow a very strange pattern of zero deaths for 5 days, then a large number on the 6-7th day. Obviously, it’s an accumulation of reports dumped on a single day. Also, CT’s data stands out as bizarre when population is taken into account. GA’s death data follows a smooth continuous reporting. Add in that GA’s 2 week average death is around 2-3 at present. CT’s 2 week average death is 8, and CT’s population is 1/3 that of GA.

    Second, in response to John Venlet: Yes, the Webb is poking some Big Holes in the Big Bang 🙂 As an experimentalist, I find this a whole lot of fun! Theorists do tend to get overfond of their models. The two exceptions I know of were Einstein and Feynman. However, I don’t really see much hubris, at least within the physics community There are certainly exceptions, but for the most part a large percentage recognize the inherent problems within the Standard Model, the mutual exclusions of QM and GR, the ad hoc nature of inflation in the Big Bang model, the non-evidence of dark matter/energy. As such, most physicists welcome new data that puts existing theories up for revision or scrapping. Maybe it’s because we are a much older science, but I see a lot more hubris within the biology field, and their cup runneth over in the social “sciences”.

15. “Confirmation bias” doesn’t seem like the right word for what we may be seeing here. Is there a common term for the tendency to perceive an increased frequency in a type of event once the event has risen to prominence in our attention? When I learn a new word, for instance, it sometimes seems that I never noticed it before, but now I see it everywhere. Presumably it’s not really more common now, it’s just that I’m primed to notice it, whereas before I probably let it go in one ear and out the other, not knowing quite what to make of it.

    The only way I know to prevent that kind of perception bias is to go to the most reliable statistics I can find. It’s terribly difficult to sort out correlation/causation disputes in any other way.

    On the other hand, as many here already have noted, when there’s a hot dispute over this kind of thing, the best thing the authorities can do to make it lots worse is to lie a lot and try to suppress open discussion of the best statistics available.

16. I would certainly concede that we don’t know. But which side has the burden of proof? To my mind, not knowing means stay the hell away from the vax until we do. The mandates, especially for students, are an outrage.

    When some drug or other substance is shown to possibly cause cancer, we get huge lawsuits on behalf of anyone who got cancer having been exposed to the substance, even though most of the cancers likely had nothing to do with the exposure, like the J&J talc lawsuit. I don’t like that standard, but it applies equally to the vaccines.

17. We did not find statistically significant increases in deaths due to other causes, including those hypothesized to be affected by pandemic-related changes in daily life and access to health care

    I had a single undergrad stat course as part of a BSME program (TA instructor, non-native English speaker, unimpressive individual. I clearly remember him totally screwing up explaining the birthday paradox) For the record the below is out-of-my-league:
    Using Poisson regression models adjusted for age and sex …
    … using the Chiang’s life table method …

    Having said that, does anyone else get a great big record screech from the above quote? I mean months of “stay home, don’t go out” which obviously includes the doctors office to have a minor ailment looked at, which in some cases progresses to a very major ailment and death as a result of delayed discovery. How can that process be rendered a not “statistically significant increase”?

18. As a physician I believe the truth and reality about the whole COVID debacle is somewhere between the extremes. There is no question it was and remains a debacle no matter what your position. Lives were saved by the initial vaccine. Some lives were also lost as a direct result of the vaccine and many lives will never be the same because of the vaccine. Another question that may never be satisfactorily answered is were the subsequent boosters really necessary, and were they more harm than good?

    Here are a few rhetorical questions that have come to bear (rhetorical because I believe the answers are self evident). Did the government over react? Does the government have it’ s own agenda? Who does the government’s agenda generally serve? Does the government ever “cook the data” to advance its agenda? Can “Science” be trusted? Can medical science be trusted?

    Whatever your position, we have learned much from the COVID debacle, and a large portion of that is not about the disease but about humanity and it’s institutions. Tragically this knowledge came at the cost of many lives and quality of life for many more.

19. Fauci & Co. kept insisting for years that NO alternative to the vaccine existed.

    This was a sensational, and criminal, lie; which more than any vaccine response, has led to the discombobulated social, economic, medical and political chaos—and death and destruction—that we have been witnessing and, in fact, deeply involved in.
    BY DESIGN.
    The best intentions are said to lead to hell.
    And the worst intentions?
    (Though might one wish to give Fauci et al. the benefit of the doubt: that while they were intently concerned on saving their own backsides, along with that of the Democratic Party, they NEVER IMAGINED that things would get this bad(!)…OTOH, as has oft been mentioned before, we are all aware that “the worse it gets the better it gets”…but how to account that this has become the credo of the self-same, Fauci-redeemed Democratic Party? To be sure, not everyone is surprised at this “development”…)

20. Dr. Ray

    One thing I learned about humanity is the number of people who need a looming catastrophe in their lives.

    I suppose another would be the manic insistence that something/anything must be useful because if there isn’t something, we’re helpless, and that’s too scary. So, tell us something, anything and we will BELIEVE!!

21. I’m implicitly called out here. I surmise neo looks at a glass half empty and is unmoved; I’m looking at the same glass and I’m alarmed and want further, more detailed investigations. I see some serious if I’ll defined problem(s) — others, “wha?” — just ain’t. (If you’re new to this excess mortality question, post Vax, jump down to the second link below to catch up to speed. The initial case of Australia puts it in stark relief because it, and New Zealand, had a zero Covid policy until long after the milder Omicron variant struck — and yes, NZ has similar curves.)

    I no longer track this issue, but last night I easily found new items online in past two weeks surveying THREE issues, the best known being “excess death” with a large, internationally comparative data base, Our World in Data.

    The first and last cover new problems — what looks like a “public health” campaign for euthanasia early in the pandemic in the UK, and admittedly in Sweden, apparently — as well as excess deaths, in international statistics. And finally, the third problem, anomalous fertility (as confirmed by historic, sudden absence of pregnancy) declines, with no post pandemic rise. How can these profound pandemic related events go so ignored?

    These latter two categories are coincident with widespread Covid19 Vax introduction in wealthy countries. The first, with evidence limited to the UK and Sweden, show no widespread euthanasia campaign—use the pandemic to cull the aged? Or, given the WEFs admitted Malthusian goals and closeness to the WHO, perhaps they’re more to it than we are currently allowed to know!

    THINK ABOUT IT! The early pandemic revealed that the aged and Senior population was severely threatened (a category later refined as the obese) by Covid19, the young not at all, the middle, still low by severe flu stats. IN one word, the situation cried out for “triage.” Yet none did. WHY NOT?

    THIS FAILURE OF PUBLIC HEALTH POLICY WAS OBVIOUS TWO YEARS AGO, when no rich country was doing the obvious (except perhaps the less affected East Asian countries)?

    Here John Campbell in 20 minutes correlates the dispensing of euthanasia drugs in the UK with the death rate. THIS raises more questions about policy-making (Andrew Cuoco, we know where you live). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEwktv-AGEw

    “These deaths were unnecessary” he concludes.

    HEERE IS A COMPREHENSIVE OVERVIEW OF EXCESS DEATHS after vaccine introduction issue, using the Our World in Data web site. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNT-YNLhprw&t=318s

    Excess deaths for 2022 are 10 to 20% higher than pre-pandemic, with Germany having a perhaps anomalous doubling spike, recently to over 40%.

    What would this mean? A problem NO ONE TALKS About? Campbell mentions that England and Wales suffered a 60,000 person extra loss of life last year. Just crudely upscaling this to the US, for illustrative purposes, that would be over a half million extra US deaths!

    HOW COULD PROPLE not TALK ABOUT THIS? Well, who is? (See the last link, below.)

    For the THIRD ISSUE: Epoch Times recent “Birth Rates Plunge in Heavily Vaccinated Countries” – with no return to normal.

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/birth-rates-plunge-in-heavily-vaccinated-countries_5070178.html?utm_source=share-btn-copylink

    The most startling graphic is Switzerland’s birth rate, seen near the end.
    THE SUMMARY text reads “Switzerland saw its largest drop in birth rates in 150 years, more than in each of the two World Wars, the Great Depression, and even the introduction of widely used oral contraceptives.” But why?

    The most obvious confounding variable is the Social Recession, accelerated by atomising technology and the epidemic’s anti “social distancing crusade.

    As there are no agreed metrics for this variable, THUS we remain in murkie-land.

    But another study glossed here, out of Israel, claims that the vaccines produce poor quality sperm, subsequent to administration.

    There are, however, one, maybe two, outliers. From the stats summed by Campbell, we find that in South Korea, excess deaths have returned to normal. And likewise, Romania — but not 19 nations in Europe, where dat is available.l

    Another intriguing hypothesis is worth mentioning here. In the Spring of 2021, a Japanese physician proposed that the Japanese and Koreans (and other NE Asian nations) were genetically more resistant to SARS type infections. It an odd notion, but one that fits data better— yet I’ve not seen comprehensive stats on Japan, yet. I am primed to believe they did better than most nations, however.

    John Campbell has noticed that these question types have resulted in the heated questioning of Australia’s Health Ministry in their governments Senate, only days ago. Two in particular are excerpted by Campbell in his 18 minute video. Heat, yes. But light? The Minister is undermoved.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jDS4vayXK0

    So. Glass of serious pandemic and vaccination issues — half empty? Or half full?

    PLEASE VOTE, gentle readers.

22. CDC guidelines told doctors to count deaths with Covid as deaths of Covid.

    Which guidelines were those?

23. Please shout. Don’t forget your precious bodily fluids. t is the new global warming, it can do everything (bad that is).

24. TJ:

    The lowered pregnancy rate data is cherry-picked to prove the thesis the writers wish to prove. This is very typical of almost all the anti-vax data I’ve seen. I read a very good article about the pregnancy data, but unfortunately I can’t find it at the moment. However, I remember some of what it said. One thing was – as I already noted – the cherry-picking of the countries involved. Simply put, some countries had a decline during the vaccine years and some a rise, and the countries with a rise had been conveniently left out. Another thing is that there are seasonal trends in fertility, and the downtown of fertility in countries that did demonstrate it was in line with some of those recurrent seasonal trends.

    Also see this, this, and this.

25. It was in thd stimulus bill

26. Not coming up with any way to politely say this about our graciosu hostess–but Neo is utterly ass backwards on this, for reasons I can only speculate about.
    My guess–she is intent in justifying her decision to get injected multiple times, including obviously useless boosters that only DECREASE health with each injection.
    I also think someone VERY close to her keeps telling her this is all OK.
    It is NOT.
    (Your kid may be as brainwashed as mine is )

    Yes, she did take a post gradate stats class –so did almost all of us who have graduated with a degree in science. BFD.
    Ed Dowd makes his living from numbers. I trust Ed.

    https://www.amazon.com/Cause-Epidemic-Sudden-Childrens-Defense/dp/1510776397/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2OSMP3EUL25NQ&keywords=ed+dowd+died+suddenly&qid=1677352963&sprefix=ed+dowd%2Caps%2C170&sr=8-1

    The number of athletes who have died FAR FAR exceeds that of any other time in history.

    The number of both excess deaths, and disabilities since Q3 2021 FAR FAR exceeds anything we (the US) have ever experienced.

    Is it the injections?
    I am not sure we will EVER know in this country, as our data is being contained by the CDC.

    Are more people we know dying from long quiescent cancers which have come back with a vengeance?
    From strokes, MIs? malignant hypertension-, a fib- common problems post injection.
    Young people in your life dropping dead, or having MIs while running? Stuff you have never experienced before , but yes “can happen.” That is happening all around us.

    I will assure you, as an “elderly frontline provider” who has the standardized testing to show I am smarter than your average doctor–as well as the next standard deviation above the average, and into the next–these injections are toxic, useless and dangerous.

    Be done with them.

    They should have been pulled by the end of December 2021. Our FDA and CDC are what is politely being called “compromised regulatory enitities.”
    Meaning–not to be trusted. It was evident the experimental mRNA injections were creating huge problems, were damaging, for an illness that can be VERY EFFECTIVELY treated with widely available outpatient drugs.

    First, do no harm.

    Tip to the completely naive–
    –when a pharmaceutical company and the FDA want to keep data from you for SEVENTY FIVE years–something is up.

    And when it comes out, and is analyzed by people who have NOTHING TO GAIN and shows HORRENDOUS problems–believe it.

    https://www.amazon.com/DailyClout-Documents-Analysis-Volunteers-Reports-ebook/dp/B0BSK6LV5D/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2M1JVYO2E0FR5&keywords=naomi+wolf+pfizer+docs&qid=1677352792&sprefix=naomi+wold+%2Caps%2C154&sr=8-1

27. Dr. Hubris (Lee) speaks again. How does Dr. Hubris prove a negative? No problem he is smarter than the average ….. But then he is no ordinary quack.

    How to politely say whatever.

28. lee:

    You are not understanding what I’m writing, or why.

    And stop the personal insults of me or you will be put in moderation or banned.

29. More concerned about long term effects.
    Neighbor, the vice principal at a private school, has had four-year old child vaxxed. How healthy will he be in his teens?

    How will now middle-aged and teens be ten years from now?

    I got the first two back when you needed proof to get in anywhere, and when it was advertised as preventing infection. After riots and Sturgis Rally, I saw no need for more boosters..

    Had to get tested prior to recently visiting a friend in hospital. Wife and I both tested positive, much to our surprise. No symptoms or down time.

30. Another take on the excess death numbers

    https://simplescience.substack.com/p/fact-or-myth-record-number-of-humans

31. Worth recalling, in this fast paced world of ours where “news” stories change as fast as an individual’s 15 minutes of fame, is that the Gain of Function Flu, colloquially known as COVID19 for narrative control purposes, is that this all began with a lie and the only way forward for those that wish to control us is to pile on more lies until there are so many lies the truth can no longer be determined.

32. Neo chooses to believe who she wishes. That is her right.

    I choose to believe who I wish. My sources haven’t compromised themselves with lies, slanders, and corrupt practices. My sources have been right about all the numerous disputes about covid from the beginning. My sources have a track record of integrity and quality science.

    Credibility matters. Choose wisely.

33. stan:

    The faithful and virtuous assistant of Dr. Hubris speaks. I thought that stan said “all science was corrupted.” stan must have his own stash of special science.

    stan may be upset by this observation.

    Okay.

34. stan:

    I don’t “believe” any sources. I look at them all and am skeptical of them ALL. They have to prove themselves to me, and the anti-vax sources don’t even get the math right. The pro-vax sources at least do that, so they are more credible in that sense.

    Everyone has an agenda. The pro-vaxxers and anti-vaxxers, both.

35. Ed Dowd:
    You can’t rationalize facts to someone whose position is based on emotion.

    https://rumble.com/v2ailv0-tucker-carlson-interview-ed-dowd.html

    Ed is a man who has made millions from his use of numbers.

    His book is free on Kindle til Monday:

    https://www.amazon.com/Cause-Epidemic-Sudden-Childrens-Defense-ebook/dp/B0BB8JTNJZ/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1677365670&sr=8-1

36. Lee:

    rationalize
    r?sh??-n?-l?z?
    intransitive verb

    1. To explain rationally.
    2. To explain or justify (one’s behavior) with incorrect reasons or excuses, often
    without conscious awareness.
    3. To dismiss or minimize the significance of (something) by means of an
    explanation or excuse.

    1, 2, or 3 Lee?

    Back to painting.

37. “I suppose another would be the manic insistence that something/anything must be useful because if there isn’t something, we’re helpless, and that’s too scary.”

    I ran into that a LOT. Somehow if you doubted the efficacy of any mandate, the only explanation is that you were indifferent to the suffering of sick people. It is one twisted way to think.

    When the vaccine first became available, I put a lot of effort into finding out where it could be obtained and sharing that information with a lot of very anxious neighbors who badly wanted it. After a month or two, everyone who really wanted it had found a way to get it. Then I detected a shift in my neighbors’ attitude to one of very strong resistance to the vaccine. At that point I quit talking about it; there seemed to be almost no way to have a reasonable discussion.

    At every stage, of course, I had absolutely no use for mandates. We’re all entitled to make up our own minds. What a severe breakdown in society this was. People just lost their minds under the stress.

38. I never used to think too much about vaccines in general, tho’ I did refuse the Hib vaccine for my daughter 35 years ago. In the small hospital I worked as a microbiologist, we had 2 babies who were vaxed in the last month who got Hib and one died. My dr. at the time said he’d do the same, but he was required to recommend.
    I’ve had family members with adverse rxns to the Covid shot – one had covid, back at work, took the shot as it was required for work in 12/2020. Hasn’t been back since. Large famous cline diagnosed it as vaccine injury. I saw the MRec screenshot. I won’t enumerate the others – tho’ one was a death.
    I have since looked more carefully at the vaccines. Did you know the HepB vaccine given to newborns was tested on 147 children aged 0-10 for 5 days??? It’s on the CDC/FDA (don’t recall which as it took awhile to find)… it’s up there. My kids got a hadful of shots (maybe 5-6). Now kids get dozens.
    Follow the $$
    Anyway, my 2 cents worth.

39. Wendy,
    I must be a mean-spirited person, because I also saw, I think, a grim satisfaction in seeing people being made to do stupid, pointless stuff.

40. I think—actually, I’m fairly certain—that when they originally used the term “vaccine” in connection with Covid, the word was understood as meaning a regular type of vaccine. That is—I really should speak for myself—I connected the term “Covid vaccine” with “regular type of vaccine”.
    But as it turned out, it wasn’t a regular type of vaccine. It was an mRNA vaccine.
    Then the CDC decided they really ought to CHANGE THE DEFINITION of “vaccine”….
    Oh…
    Huh?….

41. Steve Kirsch has analyzed Medicare data. He has links to it so others can as well, and asks that any errors in his analysis be shared with him.

    https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/game-over-medicare-data-shows-the

    My quick read brings to mind the DOD data that was quickly taken down after being presented at a hearing held by Senator Johnson to be “revised,” as it was showing much the same thing, along with injuries and big increases in miscarriages and cancers, and definitely is evocative of the data out of UK, Israel, Iceland , Gibraltar in late summer 2021, when those countries were still transparently posting their data.

    I strongly agree with what he wrote:

    The bottom line is this:

    When there is no data transparency, there is a high chance that the government is lying to you.

    After all, if the data supported their narrative, they’d be tripping all over themselves to release the data. When it doesn’t support the narrative, they simply never talk about it and pretend it doesn’t exist and tell the press never to ask about it.

    Our CDC has NEVER released Covid data openly.
    Their justification–“It might create vaccine hesitancy.”
    They mean–it might create educated decision making –informed consent– about an experimental, inadequately evaluated mRNA injection (which the FDA and Phizer wanted to keep the outcome data on for SEVENTY FIVE YEARS) which neither prevents infection or transmission that the CDC is choosing to call a “safe and effective vaccine” (though it is not) that would likely lead to wide spread rejection based on cost/benefit analysis by individuals, particularly as repeated injections cause increased likelihood of infection likely due to its disruption of the IgG3/4 balance, coupled with the innate and cellular immune response suppression it causes.

    FL State Surgeon General issued a health alert last week on the mRNA injections based on FL VAERs statistics as well as cites numerous peer reviewed journal articles on the effects of the injections with links:

    https://www.floridahealth.gov/newsroom/2023/02/20230215-updated-health-alert.pr.html

42. Neo,

    I totally agree with this comment, but it’s actually worse:

    “The government has certainly lied about a lot of things, so I think that attitude is somewhat understandable.”

    The medical research industry has been corrupted through grants / money. Either do the politically acceptable research, or no money for you. And the censorship by the internet giants, often at the government’s request. And for others sites, either censor or get demonetized. Newsguard did this to Prager University.

    And there is probably an effort to discredit the anti vaxers, seeding obviously wrong information, disinformation, in the data. And probably also use of sock puppets (fake Twitter Dr. For example), and even the infiltration of organizations. The amount of fbi informants in the Whitmer kidnapping makes me believe the fbi would do something similar to any organization / movement they see as anti the establishment.

    My go to sources are El gato malo on substack and Twitter, and Dr. Malone.

43. mRNA vaccines, continued:
    “Pharma Exec: …mRNA is gene therapy”—
    https://covidreason.substack.com/p/pharma-exec-we-lied-to-the-public
    https://twitter.com/aginnt/status/1499567294770565121

44. Now kids get dozens.

    Which kids and which vaccines?

45. “mRNA is gene therapy”–I think that’s an awfully loose way of speaking. “Gene therapy” generally connotes making changes to one’s DNA, a somewhat scary proposition. Injecting short-lived bits of mRNA that are expected to swim around for a while producing a particular protein is not at all the same thing, even if a Pfizer executive expressed himself badly. It’s not functionally different from a time-release capsule in the drug-delivery context. If the protein is a problem, then fine, we should talk about that, but the method of delivering the protein in this case doesn’t strike me as nefarious.

    Not that I oppose gene therapy, either, but I would expect a robust and transparent debate over any particular proposed gene therapy, considering the risks as we feel our way through this new technology.

46. Richard Aubrey: “I must be a mean-spirited person, because I also saw, I think, a grim satisfaction in seeing people being made to do stupid, pointless stuff.”

    I got that vibe sometimes about distant strangers who expressed themselves very . . . oddly . . . online. I can’t say that’s the impression I got from my own neighbors and relatives who believed fervently in masks and mandates. They genuinely believed those measures would work and were essential. I think they made a horribly wrong judgment about trading off the supposed efficacy against respect for others’ right to make their own medical decisions, but I don’t think they were cackling and rubbing their hands together over the chance to bully people.

47. @Art Deco – In response to your question of “which kids and which vaccines” see the link, below, of the CDC vaccine guidelines, which covers from birth to age 18. And though the CDC may say they are only “recommended,” how many parents will simply acquiesce to the child’s doctor stating that it’s time for this or that vaccine, rather than questioning the actual need or risk associated with declining a vaccine?

    https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/child-adolescent.html

48. I thought it has been established by recent studies that those who have been vaxxed have had their immune-system antibody composition changed radically? Four types of antibodies were measured (IgG 1,2,3, and 4) should have consistent ratios, with IgG4 being by far the lowest percentage. That’s because IgG4’s function is actually to dampen the aggressive attack functions of other types of IgG, because while you need lots of antibodies destroying foreign substances by various means, you also need to avoid your antibodies being in constant attack mode so IgG4 then comes into play.

    The recent research showed levels of IgG4 has increased from just a few percentage points of a healthy IgG balance, to over 20%! The ratio changes in direct relation to the number of jabs one has had.

    Now the dreaded personal anecdote (and yes I totally get the limitations thereof): I have had a relatively reclusive lifestyle for the past few years for a variety of reasons. Beginning last year after the birth of our grandson, I have been flying to Texas on a regular basis and thus exposed to a lot more contagious diseases than I had been. I traveled there in early November and caught something that gave me immediate total laryngitis plus some cold symptoms. Took me weeks to get over it. I then got the Commie Crud (for the first time) in December after a night out at a local bar—ironically that was the least symptomatic of my recent illnesses. Back to Texas in early February, where I caught some kind of URI that has absolutely floored me: I have a sinus infection, ear infection, fatigue, sore throat, and unrelenting cough. I began antibiotics last week and am better but still coughing and am functionally deaf due to fluid remaining in ears. But wait, there’s more—as the last infection began to wane this week, my husband brought home another virus that begins with painfully swollen sore throat, and now I have that!

    Tell me I’m wrong to suspect that there’s a not-insignificant chance that my immune system has been greatly weakened by SOMETHING; perhaps by a so-far-as-researchers-know permanent change caused by the two initial and one booster doses I’ve gotten of the mRNA treatment.

49. RigelDog:

    You are reasoning from confirmation bias about the cause of your problems. You yourself say you’ve been more exposed to viruses lately; and of course you’re also older. I’ve had mild viruses and severe viruses all my life and not really tracked them, but I have had them before COVID and after COVID.

    You write, “thought it has been established by recent studies that those who have been vaxxed have had their immune-system antibody composition changed radically?” No, it has not. I could spend hours showing you article after article on this. I’m not going to spend hours, though. I’ll just cite this one.

50. I appreciate your thoughtful reply, Neo. I don’t think that you and I disagree, really. I am skeptical in all ways, which means that I try to be always open to new information and leery of making conclusions prematurely. I tried to express this in my post but perhaps I didn’t qualify/specify enough.

    I could have specified, for instance, that of course I understand that I am being exposed to more viruses now—but that’s why I included the fact of my relative non-exposure to viruses until about six months ago. My immune system like everyone else’s has not gotten a normal amount of exposure for the past three years and that makes me more vulnerable to catching anything.

    Also, I was careful to couch my conclusion in very tentative terms: given the vicious unending viral infections I have suffered from in the past four months, am I wrong to even SUSPECT that my immune system may be compromised by something? I don’t conclude that my system is damaged, and I don’t conclude that if it has been compromised, it’s definitely caused by mRNA vaxes.

    Thank you for the link to a research paper discussing some of the data and misinformation around the mRNA vaxes and hypothesized damage therefrom. I read the paper and as far as I could tell as a non-expert layperson, it didn’t deal with the study I had read about.

    The study I was thinking of came out just late last month in PubMed. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36548397/

    From the abstract: “Here, we report that several months after the second vaccination, SARS-CoV-2-specific antibodies were increasingly composed of noninflammatory IgG4, which were further boosted by a third mRNA vaccination and/or SARS-CoV-2 variant breakthrough infections. IgG4 antibodies among all spike-specific IgG antibodies rose, on average, from 0.04% shortly after the second vaccination to 19.27% late after the third vaccination. This induction of IgG4 antibodies was not observed after homologous or heterologous SARS-CoV-2 vaccination with adenoviral vectors.” (the last bit you probably already know means that this “class switch” in antibodies was not observed in non-mRNA vaccines such as the AstraZeneca). The conclusion of the paper: ” Because Fc-mediated effector functions are critical for antiviral immunity, these findings may have consequences for the choice and timing of vaccination regimens using mRNA vaccines, including future booster immunizations against SARS-CoV-2.”

    I think this is a troubling finding and hope that science will follow up on this vigorously. My mind is open.

51. Rigel Dog:

    I don’t know why the finding troubles you. I read the link you gave, and the authors say that the mRNA COVID vaccines, “are efficient preventive measures to combat the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic”. They also wrote: “In conclusion, repeated vaccination improved antibody effector functions mediated through the variable domain.” They add, at the end of the abstract:

    Importantly, this class switch was associated with a reduced capacity of the spike-specific antibodies to mediate antibody-dependent cellular phagocytosis and complement deposition. Since Fc-mediated effector functions are critical for antiviral immunity, these findings may have consequences for the choice and timing of vaccination regimens using mRNA vaccines, including future booster immunizations against SARS-CoV-2.

    What they mean there, in my opinion, is not about generalized immunity to viruses, but about immunity to COVID, and it only has to do with the “choice and timing” of vaccine regimens, and only possibly (“MAY have consequences”). In the body of the study they talk about whether a different timing of vaccines might lead to even stronger immunity. There is no suggestion that there is some problem with immunity (generalized immunity or immunity to COVID) in vaccinated versus UNvaccinated individuals.

    They add:

    In a cohort of vaccinees with breakthrough infections, we did not obtain any evidence for an alteration of disease severity, which was mild in almost all of our cases.

    There is nothing in the entire article to suggest anything alarming other than the fact that there might be (accent on the “might”) a kind of diminishing return with more boosters. And even that isn’t as compared to unvaccinated individuals; it’s just that boosters aren’t all they were initially cracked up to be.

52. Thank you again for your thoughtful consideration of my post and of the recent study.

    I agree that the study doesn’t make any further predictions or extrapolations—which is as it should be.

    Why do I have any concerns? (Let me emphasize: my concerns are mild; I just think the findings are unsettling but my mind is very much still open). This study shows that the novel mRNA vaccine/treatment has been shown to change the immune system in a way that the traditionally-developed Covid vaxes do not. Why is that? I don’t know and neither does anyone else. Maybe it’s the best thing since sliced bread and the invention of the cherry Popsicle; maybe it’s neutral; or maybe it’s an unexpected finding that will have negative consequences.

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