The lie of millions of lives saved by corona vaccination is perpetuated by politicians and mainstream journalism loyal to them. The pseudoscience study that gave rise to this fairy tale is based on wildly inaccurate judgments regarding both the lethality of COVID-19 and the effectiveness of experimental gene therapy drugs. The GGI initiative destroys fact-checking studies.
Fact Check Hailing Vaccination – No, Vaccination Did Not Save Millions Of Lives
Press Release of GGI Initiative on August 29, 2023
By mid-2022, a study will find that Covid vaccines have saved 15 to 20 million lives. Overall, the vaccines had little or no effect on mortality in clinical trials. The model study mentioned makes untenable assumptions. Therefore the 2021 variants may have become quite lethal; Immunity was believed to wane after infection, but was thought to be permanent after vaccination; Susceptibility to disease increased immediately after neglecting vaccination; The effect of non-pharmacological measures was not taken into account. We demand a return to objectivity and critical reporting. Unforeseen outcomes should not be used indiscriminately as a basis for political decisions.
Comments and counterfactuals
In June 2022, a study was published that, according to vaccination advocates, would end any further discussion about the benefits of Covid vaccines. Accordingly, vaccination could have saved 14 to 20 million lives from December 8, 2020 to December 8, 2021. This number was determined using a mathematical model. (1)
The principle behind this and similar studies is to calculate the difference between two scenarios. First you have the actual observations; You use these directly or you adapt a model (function or curve) to them. Any problems with classification – e.g. B. The question of whether you died of or with Corona – other than that, that’s the easy part. Then there you have it counterfactual or counterfactual, which represents a sort of alternate world. Its construction depends, among other things, on the assumptions that the modelers envision for the alternate world. how lethal a pathogen is considered to be, what effect a measure other than the intervention in question is expected to have, what secondary effects are attributable to the intervention (eg reduction of transmission among vaccinated people), etc. All these influence this counterfactual And thus the difference between observed and calculated data. You can tell there’s some scope in the alternate world.
The probability is fundamentally doubtful
The team, led by Danish health scientist Christine Ben, analyzed all clinical trials on Covid vaccines, with data up to January 2022. The consequences are serious. Overall, mRNA-based vaccines have not reduced Covid or any deaths at all. Vector vaccines (for example against Ebola or dengue fever, from AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson for corona) have reduced the overall incidence significantly, but the VE (vaccine efficacy) is not spectacular at around 60%. (2)
We’ll leave aside the fact that even the studies on vector vaccines are not perfect. Considering the overall net profit, the question arises as to how high it can be estimated. According to the COVID-19 data explorer of Our World in Data (OWID), 1.66 million people died worldwide between January 5, 2020 and December 7, 2020. (3) These registrations may be considered exaggerated, as in many countries a positive test within the period around the time of death was sufficient to count as a Covid death. Furthermore, it can be assumed that this number will reduce in the coming years due to increasing immunity and better treatment. It is also questionable whether the huge age variations in Covid mortality rates have been adequately taken into account. (4)
To save 14 or 20 million lives, the coronavirus would have to take an almost absurd turn and become at least 8.5 to 12 times more deadly practically overnight. From this reality check – which is very favorable in terms of classification as a Covid death – you can tell that the scope for arbitrariness mentioned in the first section has been extensively exploited.
Finally, we would like to point out the relatively short study period of one year. What does life saved mean in this context? At best, the study could mean that older and weaker people in particular may have a few weeks to months left to live. At the population level, this is particularly difficult because it is difficult to quantify increases in life span beyond average life expectancy. It was known that the average age of Covid deaths was more than 82 years. However, serious epidemiological studies must also take into account the number of years of life gained for each life saved. (5)
crazy and unstable ideas
The question inevitably arises as to what shaky assumptions the authors of the Lancet study made to arrive at such a devastating parallel world. Many knowledgeable people have solved this question. We describe the main errors in the following paragraphs.
The effectiveness of vaccines has been greatly overestimated. Data from clinical trials of vaccines and subsequent observational studies are adopted without taking into account biases and systematic errors; Furthermore, it was predicted that their effects would persist indefinitely during the study period. This was clearly proven wrong long before the modeling started. The protective effect of each vaccine wanes over time, and against Sars-Cov-2 more rapidly than others. The same applies to the effect against the transmission process; This was thought to be 50%, although such a high level of protection against transmission had never existed. (6), (7)
On the other hand, natural immunity is decreasing. Originally, based on a misinterpreted study, an immune escape rate of 27% was reported, i.e. through mutation the pathogen could escape the immune response from infection with a previous variant. During the sensitivity analysis, an immunoreactivity of 0 to 80% was assumed, specifically for the delta variant. (7) These are two fundamental weaknesses of the study. The ability of the delta variant to escape immunity was largely underestimated and the more plausible immune escape against vaccination effect was overlooked; If it did exist, it would only affect the spike protein, which is particularly susceptible to mutation.
The classification of non-vaccination or the classification for those who were vaccinated only 1 – 3 weeks ago, which is otherwise common in practically all studies – although not justified – is completely ignored here. Has gone. At the time of publication, it was already known that the risk of spreading the disease was particularly high during this period. Such effects were ignored. (6)
The infection fatality rate of the Delta variant is thought to be 1 to 1.45 times higher than that of the Wuhan variant at the beginning of the 2020 crisis. This is too much. In contrast, the delta variant is expected to have a lower mortality rate. (6)
The effect of non-pharmacological measures (lockdown, masks etc.) has been completely ignored. Its harmful effects, as well as deaths and injuries from vaccination, are disputed. In contrast, the entire global excess mortality rate is attributed to Covid. All these absurd assumptions are responsible for the fact that vaccinations allegedly caused an additional 20 million deaths, or 63% excess mortality. counterfactual The world might have stopped. (6), (8)
conclusion
The study under consideration on life-saving vaccination comes from the same background, which dramatically underestimated Covid mortality in the early 2020s using questionable modeling. (7) It is also worth noting that the (former) scientific journal The Lancet has been regularly publishing bold articles since 2020 that no longer have anything to do with serious science. Doctor and health expert David Bell exposes the latest propaganda excesses in this magazine in an article. (8th)
At this point, we call on the media to return to objectivity and critical evaluation. Such insane modeling results should not be accepted at random, but should be checked for credibility. In particular, it does not even superficially pass such tests. Quality media should not become mouthpieces of dubious science whose main purpose is to give an appearance of professional legitimacy to the interests of its sponsors.
credit
(1) Watson O & al. Global impact of the first year of COVID-19 vaccination: a mathematical modeling study, The Lancet, Volume 22(9), pp 1293-1302, 2022. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(22)00320-6
(2) Ben C & al. Randomized clinical trial of COVID-19 vaccines: do adenovirus-vector vaccines have beneficial non-specific effects? SSRN, 2022. Online: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4072489
(3) Rosner M & al. COVID-19 Data Explorer, Our World in Data, 2023. Online: https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer
(4) Coups R. Did Covid vaccines save millions of lives? Brownstone Institute, 2022. Online: https://brownstone.org/articles/did-covid-vaccines-save-tens-of-millions-of-lives
(5) Horst M. A common sense look at 20 million lives saved, Brownstone Institute, 2022. Online: https://brownstone.org/articles/a-common-sense-look-at-20-million-saved-lives
(6) Pantazatos S, Seligman H. Comment on “The global impact of the first year of COVID-19 vaccination: a mathematical modeling study”. Lancet Infectious Diseases. 2022, June 23”, ResearchGate, 2022. Online: http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.24813.26082
(7) Raman B. More flaws in the vaccine model that claims to save 20 million lives, Brownstone Institute, 2022. Online: https://brownstone.org/articles/more-flaws-in-the-vaccine-model-claiming-20-million-lives-savad
(8) Bell D. How to Model a Concussion, According to the Lancet, Brownstone Institute, 2022. Online: https://brownstone.org/articles/how-to-model-fallacy-according-to-the-lancet
