This post, authored by Dr Raphael Lataster, is republished with permission from The Daily Sceptic
Many of you enjoyed the first of my three-part metacritique of six influential studies on the COVID-19 vaccines, with it somehow being added to the US Senate’s official record.
Part 1 was about the infamous Watson et al. study, which has since been further proven to be ridiculous. Now part 2 has been published, dealing with the American-focused and Big Pharma-funded Kitano et al. This is an expanded version of the much shorter article published in Oxford University Press’s American Journal of Epidemiology, and the follow-up OUP would not permit me to publish. Here are some highlights (quotations from my article unless otherwise stated).
Before we get into all the things that Kitano and colleagues (from Johns Hopkins) got wrong, a quick note on what it means if they got everything right. By their method of focusing on quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) instead of the typical lives saved:
According to their Table 1, the smallest gain was 18.7 QALYs per 100,000 people (less than two hours per person, Pfizer vaccine), and the largest gain was 939.8 QALYs per 100,000 people (less than 3.5 days per person, Moderna vaccine). While attempting to argue that COVID-19 vaccination remains worthwhile, the authors inadvertently admit that COVID-19 is now extremely benign — posing far less of a public health issue than cardiovascular disease, cancer or even tobacco use — and that the potential benefits of the vaccines are minimal.
A few hours, huh? Before we even look at all the things they got wrong, I’m not entirely sure that this ‘benefit’ is worth risking your child’s life over. I note that these paltry ‘benefits’ could even be outweighed by things like “arranging appointments, traveling to the vaccination site, waiting in line, receiving the vaccine, remaining afterward for observation, experiencing post-vaccination malaise for several days, and returning home — all of which could result in time off work, direct and indirect costs (including those borne by taxpayers), and more”, like the use of fuel in all this (aren’t they worried about climate change?) and the lack of attention given to other – potentially more serious – health issues. Not to mention little things like the destruction of our civil liberties.
Oh, and they claim that “the benefits of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines outweigh the risks across all demographic groups, including young and healthy individuals”, which can’t possibly be true, with more and more people and organisations now recognising that the risks of COVID-19 vaccines outweigh the benefits in healthy children.
Okay, let’s really get into it, overlooking the fact that this study (again!) relies on a mere model. I note “that peculiar counting windows bias the results in favour of the vaccines, particularly in estimating vaccine efficacy or effectiveness, as noted in JECP4”. I explain that this also seems to apply to adverse effects, which is particularly egregious since we know of several people dying within days of receiving the jab.
I explain that “the authors effectively assume no myocarditis deaths due to a lack of data”, and how this is absurd as we know quite a bit about myocarditis now, to the extent that one adverse effect may make the risks outweigh the benefits for a big chunk of the population.
Natural immunity in the unvaccinated is not properly accounted for. Nor is negative effectiveness.
They make many questionable assumptions and rely on estimates rather than, you know, using actual data. They even admit to “large uncertainties for some indicators in the model”. Are they for real? How can you walk away with such certainty when even one aspect of your model has such uncertainty? Makes my logical brain hurt. Oh, and they are quite fond of ignoring data from sources they cite. Hilarious.
I wasn’t the only one to have issues with the study, with a few other responses published, though one, incredibly, seemed to be part of the academic publishing scandal I’ve been harping on about for some time now.
Moving on to their response, which the journal would not let me respond to, Kitano et al. claim that they did adjust for “these confounding factors such as case counting window [sic]”, which is total BS, and they don’t offer up any further explanation. Shambolic.
On the fact that they “did not include myocarditis deaths in their analysis, the authors express reservations about using data from a Korean study in their US-focused analysis — which is perplexing, given their simultaneous use of British data”. And I didn’t realise the jab works differently in different places. ‘Tis truly a miraculous product, full of wonder and mischief! Praise be to Saint Pfauci (jab be upon him). And it’s a bit like how “the coronavirus was seemingly able to distinguish between citizens protesting police brutality and those protesting lockdowns” back in 2020. Covid is very clever and woke, you know.
They accuse me of cherry-picking data on myocarditis, which is just schoolyard BS. The data are the data. If that means the jabs aren’t so great, it’s not our fault for pointing it out. Embarrassing. Reminiscent of Democrats refusing to answer difficult questions, because they are apparently ‘gotcha questions’.
They then say that I “lack understanding” and don’t have relevant qualifications. I explain that this isn’t true and that the important thing is the data, the arguments. Big Pharma-funded Johns Hopkins team vs little old unfunded me (further persecuted for holding to uncomfortable truths). Who has the right of it? I’ll let you decide!
Dr Raphael Lataster is an Associate Lecturer at the University of Sydney, specialised in misinformation, and a former pharmacist. This article was first published in his Substack newsletter, Okay Then News. Read more on his research and legal actions, including his recent win against the healthcare vaccine mandate in New South Wales.
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After the 4th booster they died from fright finding out they tested positive.
Must of been a clot or two, or three, or four.