Do the unvaccinated have scrambled brains as NZ media today suggests?

There are two mainstream national newspapers in New Zealand, the NZ Herald, and Stuff.

Both have vigorously supported the government’s vaccination programme wholeheartedly, without reservation, and without publishing any substantive counter discussion.

It is perhaps a mark of the growing uncertainty around the efficacy and safety of Covid-19 mRNA and DNA vaccines, that Stuff today published an article by its ‘Explainer expert’ Keith Lynch, apparently seeking to justify its position entitled “Covid-19: Why the vaccines’ imperfections matter”.

The article headlines a short Stuff video on ‘confirmation bias’ which implies that information from the internet may only serve to reinforce wrong beliefs about vaccines.

Keith begins his article with the thought that “lack of certainty scrambles the human brain”.

He defers to the Vaccine Alliance Aotearoa NZ (VAANZ) (who have received $10 million funding from the NZ government).

Their Director, Dr. Fran Priddy, asserts that while the Pfizer vaccine is only partially effective, it is “very good at stopping infection, and excellently good at stopping serious illness and death”.

She laments that this stunning endorsement has not been sufficient to overcome vaccine hesitancy among a cohort of people.

The implication in the article is that the unvaccinated have scrambled brains, an allegation that Stuff must feel plays very well to the bias of its readers, about 90% of whom have presumably been vaxxed.

The article goes on to bemoan the fact that whilst the initial efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine was rated at 95%, this drops rapidly to 47% after 5 months.

It suggests that this early reporting of high efficacy was unintentionally counterproductive.

The author believes this change in certainty has confused the unvaccinated and implies that the highly infectious nature of the Delta variant may be the culprit. No worries though, a booster shot will fix that.

The Mental Health of the Unvaccinated

At this point, we have to stop and fact-check the mental health of the unvaccinated.

Are they confused by uncertainty or are they well informed about risks and averse to taking them?

After all, if you remain unvaccinated you will probably lose your livelihood and be shunned by your fellows. To take that on, you would have to have a very serious case of confirmation bias.

It is at this point that the wheels come off the Stuff article because some very disturbing facts have been omitted by the author, facts and their discussion that the NZ Herald and Stuff have left largely unreported.

Facts which most of the unvaccinated are well aware of. The rate of adverse events associated with the Pfizer vaccine is large and significant.

Between 2016 and 2020 there were 7 million doses of seasonal flu vaccine given in NZ; as a result, 1139 people reported adverse effects and there were 6 deaths proximate to vaccination.

For the Pfizer vaccine, there have been approximately the same number,—7 million doses administered, but there have been 34,107 reports of adverse reactions and 97 deaths.

Thirty times the rate of reactions compared to the flu vaccine.

To put this in perspective, prior to covid-19 if a drug under trial was associated with even 50 deaths among participants in the whole population of the USA, the trial would be stopped and usually abandoned.

But it gets worse, covid-19 vaccine adverse events are grossly under-reported.

Many people suffering serious reactions report that their GP or the hospital staff declined to report their reaction, and also were unable to offer advice about how to treat their condition.

A number of volunteer groups in NZ are keeping track of reports, the estimate of deaths proximate to vaccination they have come up with is 250+.

Now let’s put that in perspective, the worst disaster in New Zealand history outside of wartime is the Mt. Erebus crash in which 250 people lost their lives just ahead of the 185 lives lost in the Christchurch earthquake.

So here in New Zealand possibly our worst ever disaster is going unreported by the media and quietly downplayed by the Government.

Be Kind New Zealand

Bear in mind that the people suffering adverse reactions and deaths are not anti-vaxxers, but responsible citizens following the advice of the government.

So it is even more insulting that their suffering is being ignored. Contrast this with the massive outpouring of sympathy following the Christchurch mosque shooting.

But it gets worse, those people who are badly affected by the Pfizer vaccine, sometimes pluck up the courage to air their circumstances via social media.

If they do, they find themselves mercilessly trolled by people who, as a result of the lack of information in our media, believe that all people raising questions about the vaccine are liars.

The government counters claims about deaths following vaccination by suggesting that among the 97 official deaths only one can be causally related to vaccination.

Most according to the government are still ‘under investigation‘ or ‘undecided’, perhaps a comforting way of saying the government would like to avoid discussing this.

Yet that is not the normal definitive procedure when assessing whether adverse events are related to vaccination.

The normal procedure is to compare the figures to population norms.

As we saw above, this has already been done and the embarrassing result swept under the carpet—seasonal flu vaccine 6 deaths, Pfizer vaccine at least 97 deaths.

And now we come to the increasing amount of data published, not on the ‘unreliable’ internet by lying anti-vaxxers, but by for example UKHSA, the UK government Health Surveillance Agency which shows that the vaccinated over 18 years of age are two times more likely to catch Covid than the unvaccinated.

This unexpected information along with surges in Covid-19 transmission among highly vaccinated EU populations also contributes to vaccine hesitancy.

The author, Keith Lynch, quotes various psychologists and comes to the conclusion that vaccine hesitancy is due to anxiety expressing itself as “intolerance of uncertainty”.

This then leads people to search for more information “in the mistaken belief that information is the path to certainty”.

So Keith characterises ‘searching for information’ about Covid-19 as a mistake because “you can’t get 100 percent certainty in an uncertain world”.

There is absolutely no doubt this is an anti-science perspective, in other words it is far better for the public to remain uninformed.

He acknowledges that previously ‘certain’ pronouncements by our politicians about Covid-19 that later turned out to be ‘uncertain’ may have undermined public trust, but reassures us that this is a challenge our politicians are well able to navigate.

I could perhaps be forgiven for thinking our politicians are not necessarily experts, but roughly speaking members of the general public similar to ourselves, who are just as subject to confirmation bias, if not more, who have been elevated to a position for three years where they can now mandate us to agree with them—with impunity.

The final killer argument for Lynch is the decision of Justice Francis Cooke against four airline workers disputing the validity of vaccine mandates—“I am satisfied that the vaccine is safe and effective”.

Justice Cooke further dismissed as irrelevant the UK government data which shows that Covid-19 is spreading more readily among the vaccinated saying—“Such possibilities do not mean that vaccination does not inhibit transmission, it just means there are uncertainties”.

A vacuous rejection of the relevance of real-world data.

In so doing he supported the argument that the NZ government is justified in mandating the exposure of the population to unknown health risks (despite the NZ Bill of Rights), and found that it was not unlawful for the government to terminate the employment of the unvaccinated without compensation.

We could be forgiven for remembering Justice Mahon’s oft-quoted phrase in his Erebus judgment —“an orchestrated litany of lies”.

My final conclusion—as there have been no long-term trials of the effect of Covid-19 vaccines, and there are scientific indications that these could be serious, there can be no certainty of eventual outcomes.

In this situation uncertainty is the truth, not a mistaken cause of confusion. To suggest otherwise is misinformation.

In this situation, the internet is not a source of confusion, but our sole lifeline to fact-check government propaganda and uncover carefully hidden and inconvenient truths. 

This morning Dr Ashley Bloomfield hosted a press conference and explained how the government felt vaccination rates will affect outcomes.

We fact check remarks, below:

1) Dr. Bloomfield says that vaccination confers immunity on household members and reduces the chance of transmission

Ambiguous support, The initial reduction in transmission is minor. At first, the vaccine provides some protection against transmission. 

BUT a huge Swedish study cited by Bloomfield actually concludes that the protection conferred by vaccination declines rapidly.

There is a lot of data from many studies on this. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3949410

Interpretation: Vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic Covid-19 infection wanes progressively over time across all subgroups, but at different rates according to type of vaccine, and faster for men and older frail individuals.

The effectiveness against severe illness seems to remain relatively high through 9 months, although not for men, older frail individuals, and individuals with comorbidities.

2) Dr. Bloomfield says that the risk of hospitalisation and death is reduced by vaccination.

True, BUT in the long term protection from vaccination wears off as above, especially for some groups. Vaccinated individuals with comorbidities remain most at risk whether they are vaccinated or not.

UK data is ambiguous and it remains the case that Europe with its high vaccination rates, is currently experiencing a rising fourth wave of covid.

3) Professor Nikki Turner says “The side effect profile has been clearly delineated.”

False. Adverse reaction reporting is not mandatory in New Zealand and elsewhere.

Whistleblowers in the USA from within the VAERS system have said adverse effects are grossly underreported.

Reports within NZ and overseas indicate that many doctors are dismissing adverse reactions without reporting them.

No long term testing of vaccine adverse effects has been completed. The public has been given a completely false impression of vaccine safety.

4) Dr. Bloomfield says that “vaccination of the under 12s would be a really good opportunity to protect our children”

False. The UK medical advisory committee on vaccination recommended against vaccinating 5-12-year-olds, the risks of serious illness are negligible, but the risks of serious adverse reactions to vaccination are relatively high, especially for males.

The ongoing studies in the USA cited by Bloomfield are very short and small, and crucially incomplete. According to safety standards previously used for childhood vaccinations, studies are liable to remain incomplete for a long time. 

5) Professor Nikki Turner says “from the more recent data over 50 percent still have symptoms up to six months later.”

False A study published in the Lancet shows that in a down under setting 80% of those infected recovered within a month, but only about 5% continued to experience symptoms 3 months later.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanwpc/article/PIIS2666-6065(21)00102-4/fulltext

Science Update: Are the vaccinated more vulnerable to catching covid than the unvaccinated?

The latest European covid figures contain a cautionary message for our government. Yesterday’s media reported that Gibraltar, with 100% of its population vaccinated (plus booster shots), is currently experiencing a covid wave that promises to cancel Christmas.

Is that just a statistical outlier?

We analysed the latest UK covid statistics and reached some unexpected conclusions.

An article in The Conversation says that scientific research shows that if you are unvaccinated the risk of catching Covid is ten times greater for the unvaccinated making you 20 times more likely to pass it on to the vaccinated.

The UK population is 60 million. 45 million are fully vaccinated. The ratio of vaccinated to unvaccinated 3: 1.

If the unvaccinated are ten times more likely to catch covid, you would expect to see the ratio of cases to be 3:10 (3 vaccinated breakthrough cases for every 10 unvaccinated cases).

The latest official UKHSA data from their Vaccine Surveillance Report for Week 44, covering weeks 41 to 43 of 2021 (second half of October) records 491,078 covid cases among the vaccinated and 413,112 cases among the unvaccinated (see Table 2 page 16).

Taking account of the ratio of vaccinated to unvaccinated (3:1) in the whole population, this shows that the unvaccinated are 2.5 times more likely to catch covid, not 10 times as suggested by the authors in The Conversation piece.

Well, you might say, even though the protection offered by the vaccine is 4 times less than that suggested by The Conversation, it still seems well worth getting vaccinated.

However, breaking the UKHSA figures down by age group (which is suggested by UKHSA as the best option to extract useful conclusions) gives a completely different answer to this question.

Among under 18-year-olds, there were 336,893 unvaccinated cases and just 36,813 vaccinated cases, showing that in this age group the protection offered by vaccination is significant—there are 9 times more cases among the unvaccinated. Why is that?

This age group is the most recently vaccinated. The large effect is likely to be because of two reasons:

1. Pfizer advises that two weeks after vaccination protection is very high, of the order of 90% (yes, the figures support this) and
2. it is known that, in general, young people have a strong immune system response to all vaccinations.

However we must add that this age group is least at risk from serious covid and therefore will benefit from vaccination the least, and importantly they are the most vulnerable to serious adverse reactions such as myocarditis (heart inflammation) and its complications.

Now, look at the remaining cohort—ages 19 and up.

There were 454,265 cases among the vaccinated and 76,219 among the unvaccinated.

Even taking account of the ratio of vaccinated to unvaccinated (3:1) in the population as above, this shows that vaccinated people over 18 years old are twice as likely to catch Covid than the unvaccinated.

This is very puzzling and completely at odds with the narrative reported in The Conversation.

The obvious unanswered question is why are the vaccinated in this age group two times more vulnerable to catching covid?

We know that the vaccine will offer significant protection against severe symptoms and hospitalisation, but we also know that the protection conferred by the vaccine wears off rapidly.

These latest official UK government figures released by UKHSA suggest that not only does the protection wear off, but eventually leaves individuals more vulnerable to catching covid than before.

This raises huge questions concerning how the pandemic will evolve among the vaccinated. It suggests that personal immunity from covid rapidly enters negative territory after vaccination protection wanes.

Conclusion:

Not only is vaccination not a stand-alone solution, but since it only has emergency approval (after short testing times), the extent of its potential downstream risks are as yet unknown.

These risks are becoming clearer as time goes on and new data can be analysed.

The Skegg report indicated that their recommendations should be re-examined in November.

That time has now arrived and it should be made an urgent priority.

Good data is everything in this situation, political positions are worthless without it.

I spent this afternoon browsing the numerous reports and videos on the internet of harm from mRNA and DNA covid vaccines. If you have been there, you will no doubt agree that they are harrowing.

Many of us have friends who have been on the receiving end. It was particularly noteworthy that in most cases the attending physician showed little interest in the problem or had no idea what might be done to alleviate it.

The level of adverse effects from the mRNA vaccines in New Zealand appear to be as much as 50 times greater than the most dangerous of traditional vaccines. Their intensity can be devastating for some and even fatal in cases.

Are such adverse events just the sad but inevitable consequence of promoting a social good or could some people be misinforming us or even be at fault?

It Was a ‘Never Again’ Situation

My wife’s sister died after vaccination years ago, something my mother-in-law has never forgotten.

Medical misadventure has a long history.

In the 1950s the prescription of thalidomide to pregnant women suffering from morning sickness affected 10,000 babies, half of whom died.

It took five long years to find out the source of the birth defects and deaths. It was a ‘never again’ situation. As a result, reporting of adverse effects was facilitated and widened.

Drug testing was extended in scope and duration. Drugs marketed to pregnant women had to have evidence of safety during pregnancy.

It was expected that doctors would be fully informed of side effects and share information so that they could protect their patients.

Thalidomide has faded in the public memory and the drug safety net instituted after the tragedy no longer seems so immediate. The regulations and safeguards in New Zealand have drifted in their impact.

Five Factors Particularly Affect Our Capacity to Patrol the Safety of Vaccines:

1. In 2004 ACC minister Ruth Dyson removed the requirement to find who or what was at fault before a patient subject to medical misadventure could claim ACC compensation.

Bronwyn Howell writing in the Victoria University Law Review offered the opinion that this removed incentives to either medical practitioners, their patients, or third-party administrative agents, to take appropriate levels of care to avoid mistakes and identify causes.

2. Vaccine manufacturers have no liability in New Zealand and most other countries. They are exempt from civil and criminal action. It is probable that such a guarantee formed a part of our government’s agreement with Pfizer.

3. Reporting of adverse effects from vaccination is not mandatory in New Zealand. This appears to be because prior to covid vaccines testing regimes were lengthy and the adverse effect profile was small and well understood.

This is not the case with covid vaccines which have emergency approval only after short trials.

4. A dangerous criteria is being used by Medsafe to categorise most of the numerous reported adverse reactions to covid vaccines as ‘unrelated’ or ‘unresolved’.

Medsafe will only accept adverse reactions as ‘related’ if there is an ‘accepted’ mechanism to connect the specifics of the adverse reaction with our very limited and nascent understanding of what an mRNA vaccine might cause (more on this in my next post).

This has meant that the growing tsunami of adverse reactions can be safely ignored, leaving vaccine recipients uniformed of significant risks. This is precisely the mistake that was made in the case of thalidomide, a mistake that led to a disaster.

5. Finally, parliament and the government have no liability for mistakes except at the ballot box, while citizen rights inscribed in the NZ Bill of Rights are advisory only and are seldom enforceable in the courts.

So tough luck anyone who thinks the law is on their side, it has been emasculated.

How Long Will Our Government Continue to Ignore the Long-term Detrimental Effects

I have written several times to the government and their advisors and formally asked for an explanation of why the prolific adverse reactions are being ignored, the silence has been deafening.

Our medical system is asleep at the wheel relying on the comforting use of the word ‘vaccine’.

Meanwhile, the latest UK health service data confirms that immunity from vaccination wanes sharply.

Moreover, the figures feed a suspicion that there are long-term detrimental effects of covid vaccines on health that need to be investigated.

It’s a loud wake-up call, but one our government would rather ignore. They are planning to lock up the unvaccinated and allow the vaccinated to roam freely.