IM Doc has been particularly unhappy about the push to deploy the Covid mRNA vaccines in children under five years of age. Based on his many years working on an Institutional Review Board, he believe the bar for safety testing for children, particularly very young ones, is high, and it has not been met for these vaccines.
It turns out he is far from alone. It appears many medical practitioners are seeing vaccinating kids this young as a bridge too far and some are flat out refusing to administer them.
From IM Doc via e-mail:
I had a moment today where I realized that it may very well be the nursing and the pharmacy professions that begin the long slow pushback against the overprescription of Covid vaccines.
Two things in two different parts of the country happened.
Today in our county, which recall is over 80% vaccinated and hence has been very receptive of Covid vaccines for adults, I was called to an urgent meeting because it may be that hospital staff would need to be pulled to the Health Dept. Why? – Because the inoculation of the less than 5 is beginning – and all 3 of the Health Department nurses resigned in protest. They are simply not going to give these kids these inoculations. When a nurse on my staff was approached with filling in the deficit – her response (in my presence and that of the supervisor) – “Not only no – but FUCK no.”
It turns out the county Health Department found no nurses willing to do this. So our entire vaccine program for everyone not just kids was on hold.
After more panicked efforts, they found one nurse to give the shots. That nurse too refuses to give it to the babies. She will be there only to do the shots for 18 and up. She will not even give to teens. I am sure they will eventually find people to do it, but it is profoundly admirable of these nurses. I will be doing all I can to help them get other employment.
I had asked if the county Health Department would try to get the three nurses who had resigned to return, now that they had relented and were letting a nurse administer the Covid shots only to adults. His response:
I am pretty sure they would welcome the three back with open arms. But they will not go back because they are just not going to give to kids. I have talked to one of them this evening. As is so common in medicine and nursing now, moral injury is at play. They have put up with so much, this was just a bridge too far. They hired this other nurse in an emergency situation to make sure the place was open. They will find others in the next few days, I am sure. Although finding nurses for anything is very difficult right now. It is just the loss of seasoned employees is not good. And it will cause some chaos if they have to be pull nurses from other jobs.
Additionally, my sister has now informed me that at her health dept in a distant state, one of their nurses have refused to give to under 5. They are not fired or resigned but it has really caused an enormous delay in appointments.
Physicians are hearing that the pharmacists in the entire Publix chain of grocery stores in the SE USA were in such an uproar about it, that Publix will not be offering these vaccines to under 5 kids. The Tampa Bay Times confirmed that Publix won’t give the Covid jab to kids below 5. Good on them.
The “pharmacists refusing” isn’t yet reported the press, but I did track it down with my cousin, a Publix pharmacist in VA. He confirmed the story. Lots of pharmacy pushback because a) many do not want to give it to babies b) many do not feel adequately trained to give to babies. My cousin feels fine giving to toddlers but he too feels about as conflicted as I do that the data does not support it. “I would not give any other drug with no evidence special treatment……why should this vaccine be any different”….
Similarly, in the infectious disease conference yesterday AM (a regular and large Zoom meeting of doctors affiliated with a major teaching hospital), this topic came up. The retired infectious disease doc that has been one of my heroes stood up and had a single slide:
There have been 350 deaths of under 18 with COVID since the beginning of this pandemic – and we know that at a minimum more than half those kids died with COVID not from COVID. 350.
And when I did a VAERS search yesterday – for patients aged 0-17 – 0-3 days post inoculation this is what I found:
Death and Permanent Disability
J&J 1
Moderna 37
Pfizer 237
Total 275Hospital Admissions or ER visits
J&J 13
Moderna 266
Pfizer 5527
Total 5806So in the same time we have had a mere 350 (and probably more like half that number) of kids die from COVID – we have killed at least 275 with the vaccines, and sent 5806 to hospital or ER…….And this is moral? This is ethical? Can someone please explain to e how this is not a violation of the Nuremberg Code?
I can readily tell from my interactions with other large academic Zoom conferences and also multiple consults with tertiary docs the past few weeks that the worm is turning. The injuries these things are causing are just no longer going to be hidden. AND WE ARE DOING THIS TO TODDLERS.
I personally looked over the 37 Moderna deaths today on VAERS just to see if these seemed to be placed in the system by docs or confabulators. As a physician, you can usually tell if the medicalese is real. And most of them are signed with names and addresses. They are very likely all genuine. That is all the time I had to go over those 37 – but please realize this system is also likely very under-reported.
And he is CORRECT – this is likely the most immoral thing I have ever seen in my entire career. I will promise you right now – this is going to be a disaster of epic proportions. Biden was very proud yesterday with his statement that “We are the only country giving these shots to under 5 year old kids” The irony in that statement is enormous. My feeling is that is not going to age well – and will likely be a nice campaign ad for the GOP in about 5 months. Mark my words.
America continues to be exceptional. And with Covid, in not very good ways.
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God bless those nurses.
Will we ever get a Nuremberg trial though after this? It’s not even about justice, I just want the truth.
+1
And many thanks to IM Doc for his commentaries!
With the VAERS data being what it is, I keep wondering where this push is coming from. I can understand the vaccine makers. But whythe rest of the medical stats world and the periodicals seem to be on-board, I don’t understand. Any ideas?
I think it’s not so easy to say “no” when very powerful, persuasive, even actually dangerous entities are pushing something. Especially for people who (at least in their minds) have a lot to lose, a lot to protect- money, reputations, careers. They’ll just go with the easy path, burying conscience ever deeper. Thank god for the nurses.
I have exposure to a significant pocket of PMC bubble, and they were chomping at the bit to have their kids vaccinated, and celebrated the announcement that there was finally an approval of sorts. I think it is a combination of
1 Ideological loyalty to the infallibility of Pfizer and Fauci
2 Desperate hope making them want to believe #1
3 A new virtue signal flare to replace their fading Ukraine flags
4 The nagging inconvenience of dealing with tots who aren’t vaxxed and thus can’t just be taken to random events, like their older siblings.
Seconded.
I’ve been keeping a list of commentaries that I call IM Doc’s Greatest Hits.
And, IM Doc, if you want a copy, get in touch with the NC Powers-That-Be. They’re aware of my list and I’d be happy to share a copy with them and, via them, you.
I know that raw VAERS data is crude and there may be all sorts of confounding issues, but on the face of it, its quite shocking.
There may have been an excuse in the first year of covid for taking risks with vaccines, but at this stage we should surely be waiting for meaningful studies to be sure its safe to give these to toddlers.
PK; you call taking a substance that does no good and is known to kill a risk? Coercion to take this substance is a crime because it has become mass murder. Only lies and profit matters and the victims have no recourse.
this is genocide. If you have another word for it, please let us know.
We often blind ourselves to believe those that appear to be powerful must know better than we, but after all this time the fear should be replaced by rage to prevent any more people from being destroyed by this wicked game.
Grateful to peek inside and see an individual who responded with “Not only no – but FUCK no.”
I’ll be interested to read what reasons the nurses give to validate their flat-out refusal. Went to the colorado.gov pages to see what the public is being told:
https://covid19.colorado.gov/kids-vaccines
The wording suggests that parents can make the ‘choice’ to vaccinate their under 5 kids, but not of the consequences for declining. And something in the wording… more concern for preventing kids from spreading the virus, than protecting them from it.
I’m a large adult and I know what the combination of vaccines did to me last fall. (There will be no more boosters!) It may seriously sicken or kill kids.
Why the rush, NOW? Why not RUSH nasal/ mucosal vaccines, beyond spike-protein/ mRNA for little kids, with positive IgA, IgM & IgG immunoassay to avoid inflammatory circulatory damage (before schools reopen) and we’ve simply ignored what we’d known well before Omicron: CDC continually LIED about kids mucosal viral load, propensity to infect caregivers, teachers, loved-ones while asymptomatic or sniffy?
Maybe the rush is because they’ve recognized that SARS-CoV-2 may be responsible for the cases of pediatric hepatitis.
I think there are multiple sides to this coin, requiring more rounded-out treatment. Anecdotally, I have heard that there are parents who want to get their children vaccinated and, to their frustration, cannot get them access to a reliable appointment. Of course, other well-informed parents enrolled their children in trials. There is demand for a children’s vaccine, and we should consider why.
From what I understand, it seems the benefit to children from the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines is less than the benefit to adults — because the life threatening complications to children from the virus occur at a much lower rate (for the present), not because the vaccine is particularly more dangerous. And, given that the virus is evolving genetically, it probably is a very good thing to have a vaccine strategy in reserve for kids in case some future variant of the virus gets more lethal for them.
You might have a point with that last bit but IM Doc has been reporting for weeks all the people sick on his wards that are fully vaccinated and which the virus just blew past. If these vaccines had a proven track record with protecting children then I would consider it but the proof goes the other way. It is more risky to give those babies and young children those vaccines and as the Hippocratic Oath starts off with the principle of ‘First, do no harm’, there can be only one conclusion. Wait for a better vaccine. Ideally, a sterilizing vaccine. The fact that we are talking about this issue is a direct result of the west deciding to ignore the virus and to just let er rip’. Just in the news on Oz tonight they said that they are easing mask requirements as well as vaccine requirements. We already have evidence that this is spectacularly stupid as an idea but that is where we are at the moment. And consider too that if there is a future variant of the virus that is more lethal for them, who is to say that the present vaccines will give them any protection at all? But in darker moments, I believe that this is all about ensuring the profits of the Big Pharma corporations because they don’t make enough money – and to hell with the plebs.
The Big Pharma money spigot got a huge boost from ol’ W with his Pharma Income Giveaway program. Give away rights to negotiate drug prices, of course, why didn’t consumers think of that? Don’t those Medicare Beneficiaries feel empowered now, or just shell-shocked?
Don’t like the proposed bill economics? Just tweak assumptions and cut short the viability analysis period. Cheney told people that deficits didn’t matter, and W showed that truth didn’t matter, either. Torture the numbers until they confess, then memorialize in his own little Abu Ghraib signing ceremony. :/
I’d been avoiding TV recently. But, if you ever want to hear what the Blob needs rich white folks to buy-into, I’ll unplug my ears for a couple seconds of Colbert, maybe a minute of Jimmy? So, David Sedaris was on, and I used to really like him, right? I got through the entire segment (nothing about how swell it’ll be with Liz & Chelsea re-stocking SCOTUS & Trump hiding in Russia?) Well, it seems we’ve tragically exaggerated this whole lethal global pandemic conspiracy theory? COVID is our friend! Laugh-track & slapped base, here. If we didnt count the 143K (266K excess corpses) from Omicron & 31/32 of NYC cases went uncounted through May 8 or whatever… what’s a little cascading PASC organ damage among everyone else on the plane’s loved-ones, coworkers and random commuters or drunked-up sluggos at maskless Happy Hour? Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke!
David Sedaris!? I like his sly twisty humor. Too bad he has succumbed to the Mindscrew.
Regarding the people sick on wards, vaxed or not, just this morning in a short clip (1:00) on the Weather Chanel of all places, they mention that regardless of vax status, you’re likely to get it. It’s (too slowly) becoming common knowledge that the vax do not protect you. But of course, mandates are still in place and enforced. Amazing! Le Clip: https://weather.com/health/coronavirus/video/researchers-say-new-covid-19-subvariants-better-able-to-evade-antibodies
And no mention of the need to mask up.
They just tell everyone you’re going to get it. Not one word on precautions.
That’s because they want everyone to get it. And they hope that by convincing everyone that everyone will get it, they can get everyone to give up and give in, and stop practicing precautionary behavior, and just go ahead and get it.
People who are taking what precautionary measures they can in order to maybe not get it can hopefully learn to recognize eachother and share not-getting-it information with eachother.
There is demand for a children’s vaccine
I wonder if that has anything to do with the massive marketing campaign?
Lots of people think we all need self driving cars, but that technology doesn’t work so great either, in spite of the voluminous promises. The mRNA tech crowd wants everyone exposed for the same reason phillip morris wants to advertise to children. It’s about money first, patents, public health is a distant also ran
benefit to children from the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines is less than the benefit to adults — because the life threatening complications to children from the virus occur at a much lower rate (for the present), not because the vaccine is particularly more dangerous.
That is not what the post stated.
it probably is a very good thing to have a vaccine strategy in reserve for kids in case some future variant of the virus gets more lethal for them.
You are hopelessly wedded to mRNA tech, and all i can say is “vioxx.”
This is so obviously the reason. There was demand at one point in time for radioactive wrist watches that glowed in the dark and soda laced with cocaine. Demand for something means little in terms of actual safety
I can’t evaluate the vaccines, or the risks of covid for kids. A few days ago I came upon two Twitter threads I’ll link to below, perhaps these have since been updated, I’m not fluent with Twitter at all. These two seem like mainstream types, so I was curious what they thought. Both doctors/ medical people, both seem to support Covid vaccines for kids.
https://twitter.com/nirav_mainecdc/status/1538543385614684160
https://twitter.com/roby_bhatt/status/1538571950389436419
The other thing I think about is long-covid in kids. I recall a little video I saw some time ago from England, about an 11 year old boy who is now in a wheelchair, and an eight year old girl who vomits 50 times a day.
Perhaps those are fake news, but I don’t think it is controversial that children have gotten long-covid and their lives destroyed by it (much like polio destroyed in an earlier generation–though perhaps more frequent with Covid? How does the process used for the Covid and the Polio vaccines rollouts compare? Were there problems with the polio vaccine rollout?).
Please don’t yell at me. In any event it will likely be days before I can come back to see responses, if there are any.
The vaccines didn’t provide much protection against long Covid before Omicron, and since Omicron is highly evasive of prior infection and vaccination, the picture is probably worse now. See this study from Nature, based on a very large sample (Veterans Affairs database, through November). Only 15% protection. Way way way too low to ever be approved for that use as a vaccine.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01453-0
As to doctor opinion, the second tweet discusses data on kids 5-17 and so is not germane to this post.
The first is from a CDC director so as a part of his job he has to support official initiatives.
Nurses have all had vaccines and all had Covid. If they’re the ones saying “fuck no” maybe the rest of us should listen.
Wow! I heard myself, just the other day, in response to the announcement of shots for the 5 and under population, remark to my spouse, “If my children were in that age group, I doubt very much that I would allow them to be immunized.”
Based on what I have read about the severity of CoVid in healthy infants and toddlers, I just would not do it. And, the data provided by IM Doc reinforces my observations. And I am a strong believer in immunization programs: my cousin had polio and clumped around in an iron and leather leg brace, and my parents, deluged with photos and evening news reports of children and adults, (remember FDR) in iron lungs and wheelchairs, permanently barred me from swimming in the local pond, thereby ruining my social life! And, who wants to have a pock-marked face from surviving small pox. Assuming you survived. And, tetanus is a horrible mode of death.
I had the two Pfizer shots, plus a booster, and was out of commission for a couple of days. But, at age 80, maybe better than weeks of intubation or death. OTOH, I am healthy and active, so maybe I would have escaped with ‘cold’ symptoms. Who knows. And, I am still considering the second booster; maybe n the fall, as activities move indoors. And, unless this virus completely disappears, I will be masking once the colder weather hits.
Again, we hear people using the word “immunization” with regard to these ‘vaccines’. I don’t think it means what you think it means.
Deep, deep respect and gratitude to those nurses. And to IM doc for supporting them materially by helping them find work.
everything seems to be about money. revolving doors between the CDC and big pharma, is just as blatant as the same between the MIC and department of defense. 10 billion US already to the industry for monkey pox vaccines………. with hundreds of bi-o labs all around the world mucking with these diseases who knows what is coming down the tube.
The depravity of the Biden Administration and especially the CDC is breathtaking.
ANYONE involved in giving these “Vaccines” to toddlers and small children should spend the rest of their lives in a Supermax prison.
NO!.
Not just No!, Tom…
These are still Emergency Use (EUA) experimental vacs. I can’t understand the push to give experimental vacs to pregnant women and small children. Pregnant women and children? The officially announce end date of the safety trials was supposed to be in 2023. What’s going on? (At this point I’ve lost all trust I once had in the CDC and the FDA. That’s saying something.)
Some day there might be a documentary about all the alleged saline injections given during the staged vaccine theater. How many of those officials violated what was left of public trust?
Not holding my breath for that after seeing how witnesses to another recent atrocity, Epstein et al, won’t come forward due to whatever reasons.
If there is a documentary, it won’t be housed on youtube and will likely see limited viewership on Rumble o some other “trumpian” outlet. According to many of my (post) friends, I am now a tumpette because I don’t “believe” in the vax.
It will be interesting to see come Fall what happens when parents are faced with the prospect of no daycare because the state or local government has mandated that the kids be vaccinated.
These are still EUA (Emergency Use Authorization) vacs, not fully FDA approved yet.
Federal law prohibits employers and others from requiring vaccination with a Covid-19 vaccine distributed under an EUA
https://www.statnews.com/2021/02/23/federal-law-prohibits-employers-and-others-from-requiring-vaccination-with-a-covid-19-vaccine-distributed-under-an-eua/
The Federal Government last fall mandated their own employees get vaxxed. I think it was because somehow Pfizer was seemingly officially approved.. but now that doesnt seem to be the case? There’s enough muddy water at this point to do just about anything, but the political consequences are starting to reverberate for acting so rashly
An FDA EUA approval of a still experimental vacs is not an FDA fully approved vacs. An EUA is a temporary approval for emergency use only. MSM reporting on this point is very muddy.
At this point, I grow unsure how much I might trust fully FDA approved Corona vaccines.
The approved vaccines are biologically identical to the EUA ones, yet Pfizer and Moderna are continuing to sell only the EUA version in the US. IM Doc believes (remember he served on Institutional Review Boards that review clinical trials) that it’s because if they sold the approved version, they’d have to publish a full list of side effects.
Timely article written by JHK describing this subject as a sign of the ultimate depravity of our leaders. The US has gone rogue against its own people, nevermind the rest of the planet.
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/when-the-wicked-try-to-flee/
Should have I hidden the link because of the profanity?
Alexander Gintsburg, Gamaleya Center head, on vaccinating children younger than 5: “Nasal spray form of Sputnik vaccine would work best to vaccinate children younger than 5. This is what the Gamaleya Center is going to suggest”
Most of Cuba’s youngsters got their shots months ago … The Cubans relied on a more traditional approach. They created subunit vaccine conjugates, which include harmless parts of a virus that stimulate the immune system to make antibodies. That technique had been used “in hundreds of millions of doses of vaccines for children in the world,” said Vérez. He strongly believed it was effective — and safe.
I have zero medical qualifications so can only say that intuitively, the old-school Russian & Cuban vaccines, which are merely variations of a type of vaccine that has been around for a long time, seem like a safer bet. If they were available in the U.S., I would take them. I had very unpleasant reactions to all 3 Moderna jabs.
Here in Germany very big news re the vaccines. It started three month ago when the CEO of a small (150 000 members) health insurance company took the vaccine injury data from his company and extrapolated to all of Germany. He arrived at 2,5 million vaccine injuries. He demanded a thorough investigation of this danger signal and was fired the next day. Yesterday he was vindicated. The PEI (our equivalent of the FDA) was forced to publish the data that was coded “vaccine injury”.
2020 there were roughly 30 million inoculations with any vaccine and 76 000 injuries as billed by Doctors.
2021 there were 170 Million covid inoculations and 2,5 millions injuries.
Therefore the ratio of injury to inoculation was one out of about 400 in 2020 and now it is one out of 68.
So roughly 6 times more injuries per shot and a lot more shots. I am willing to bet that before long people will go to jail for all of that.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/02/bankruptcy-for-moderna-definitely-pfizer.html/
“…(Former Blackrock Executive and investment adviser) Edward Dowd foresees an avalanche of lawsuits coming as the insurance industry continues to uncover the legions of mounting deaths coming from the complications of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. Dowd teamed up with an insurance industry analyst and researched the life insurance claims. They found that since OneAmerica shocked the world by announcing a 40% rise in non-COVID deaths in younger working-class employees, multiple other insurance companies worldwide have seen the same thing – massive rises in non-COVID deaths. And the evidence inescapably points to the vaccines as the cause.
Meanwhile, the funeral company stocks have outperformed the S&P. “Funeral Home companies are growth stocks. They had a great year in 2021 compared to 2020, and they outperformed the S&P 500. The peer group of Funeral Home stocks was up 40 plus percent while the S&P was up 26 percent – and they started accelerating price-wise in 2021 during the roll-out of the vaccines – You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to connect the dots here.”
Other insurance companies have reported the same or worse death numbers as OneAmerica. For example, “Unum Insurance is up 36%, Lincoln National plus 57%, Prudential plus 41%, Reinsurance Group of America plus 21%, Hartford plus 32%, Met Life plus 24%, and Aegon – which is a Dutch insurer – saw in their US arm plus 57% in the 4th quarter – in the 3rd quarter they saw a 258% increase in death claims.”
“They raised (mortality) expectations 300,000 for 2022 over 2021 due to COVID plus ‘indirect COVID,’ which I think we know what that’s code for… They (Aegon) did a $1.4 billion reinsurance deal with Wilton Reinsurance…what they were reinsuring were high face amount individual policies from 1 million to 10 million… (So) I think there is an asymmetric information situation going on in the insurance industry where some people have figured out something’s going on. They are off-loading their risk – they are not going to say what it is as they don’t want that information to get out as they unload the risk.”.
“Someone is going to be the bag holder here.” And Dowd is confident it won’t be the insurance industry…”
In a sane world, it would be time to tell the mRNA experimenters to go kick rocks.
I recall reading a presentation by a Canadian Doctors Association on the Pfizer trial data (at least what had been published at that time). All cause mortality was around 40% higher in the vaccinated group versus the control group. Deaths due to COVID were 2 in the control group and 1 in the vaccinated cohort. To be fair, I did not check the veracity of the presentation, but seems to back up the German and Insurance company claims.
I wish Norway would release this information, assuming they have it. I believe, but can’t prove, that I was injured by the vaccines- pulmonary embolism, arrhythmia -(hospitalized on New Year’s with pulse of 190).
Caught Delta on pulmonary unit late last November.
Double vaccinated last Spring, last dose May 13, everything started going south in early June and on and on…
Haven’t had a booster, loath to take it but really wondering if I should.
My wife caught Covid from me but had a much milder case. She’s not boostered either.
thank you tom67 for your interesting anecdote from germany.
do you have a link where it is reported in the news?
source in original german is fine.
thank you!
Here please:
https://corona-blog.net/2022/06/23/2-487-526-menschen-haben-nach-einer-covid-impfung-einen-arzt-aufgesucht-und-das-sind-lediglich-die-zahlen-bis-ende-2021/
I’m curious if these children’s parents have to sign an EUA absolving the vax makers of any liability?
No
I’m pretty sure you ae wrong.
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-authorizes-moderna-and-pfizer-biontech-covid-19-vaccines-children
8 days ago — For the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, the FDA amended the EUA to include use of the vaccine in individuals 6 months through 4 years of age.
You are incorrect, the only version of the Pfizer and Moderna drugs sold in the US is the EUA version.
Just try calling your pharmacy and asking if/when they will have Comirnaty, the FDA approved version of Pfizer. I guarantee they still have no date.
EUA drug = waiver has to be signed.
Well I didn’t at my pediatricians office for whatever reason
He was remiss. I am pretty confident any hospital or pharmacy chain administering the vaccine would.
If this is the case, your pediatrician is seriously setting himself up for liability. Despite the fact these were approved in August, they are still using the EUA version. There is no explanation on offer. This is very alarming behavior.
I believe the Publix issue has to do with their pharmacy staff not being trained to give small children injections rather than a principled stand on injecting young children with the covid vaccine. I imagine that’s probably the case at many large chain pharmacies.
Sometimes one thing stands for another. That is, someone may not want to take an overtly principled stand because of the (sometimes) very high social cost of having principles. So one says, “I’m sorry, I just don’t know how to do this.” One must pick one’s battles.
Interestingly, the Publix corporation is refusing to comment on this issue. If it were as simple as that, you would think it would be easy to just say so.
My cousin the pharmacist did allude to that – see his point b above. It is an entirely different thing to give inoculations to little kids. They squirm a lot and the anatomy is different. So I understand there may be some reluctance to get involved here. But I also got the the distinct impression from my cousin that there was just a lot of concern about safety issues going forward.
I think I should explain what I mean by “moral injury” and what is going through the minds of these nurses and pharamcists.
Some months ago, when the inoculations were opened up to the over 6 crowd, we had a vaccine injury incident with a young child that ended up on the front page of the paper. It was severe, and it has ended up being life changing for this young man. It is hard for big city dwellers to understand, but in a small town, we all know one another, we see each other all the time, we are part of each other’s lives.
The nurse that gave that kid his shot happens to be my patient as well. Words cannot describe the agony this person has been through. They believe they were the one who destroyed this kids’ life. They gave them the shot. There has been absolutely zero indication that anyone but the nurse thinks this, including the family and the patient, but they will likely have months and years of recovery. It is still awful to see them struggling with this. It will likely change their life too.
Picture the other employees in that office. Now we are giving this to babies. What if this happens to one of the babies I am giving a shot to? Am I going to be able to live with myself…..They say it is rare and these are perfectly safe – but look what just happened to so and so.
This is moral injury. This is as intense as it gets, but there are so many other examples that have occurred with multiple facets of this pandemic. America does not realize the precarity of their health care work force right now.
Back when I was a young doctor, when medical ethics and principles still had some sway unlike now, the professors who taught me about medical statistics and research were very keen on harming even one individual with a drug. Our first rule after all is First Do No Harm. And I remember all those years ago, in a medical statistics class of all places being asked to read this short story.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Omelas
It is ever more important today. The moral question being hammered into our heads by our professors back then is even more important today.
Just how many people is it worth to save for one child to be killed or maimed? How many make it worth it?
I have been haunted by this question and by my professors and classmates struggling with this question for weeks now.
Although Ursula K Le Guin is a terrific author, I would say that the original for this story line came from Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov. This was the argument that he used to completely pummel and bring into the light the absolute cruelty of an all powerful “loving” God that offered eternal bliss in heaven but allowed the torturing and suffering of children. His statement was to the effect that even if only one such child were required, then better to spend eternity in hell. So yes, the bar is rightfully set very high on the suffering of children, at least in ethics if not so much in reality (see Yemen for eg)
How does the “slide” support IM Doc’s concerns about vaccinating children under 5? Assuming he is correct that there have been 175 US deaths of children under 18 since the start of the pandemic, the VAERS raw data suggests that there have been 275 deaths post-vaccination of people under 18 — but with no causal connection established between the vaccine and those deaths, just a temporal correlation. As IM Doc might put it, we know those 275 deaths occurred “following” the vaccine but we do not know if they were “because” of the vaccine.
Then the slide totals up the VAERS hospital/ER visits of people under 18 within 3 days of the vaccination (5,806), but there is no similar US hospital/ER visits total for COVID infected people under 18 since the pandemic started.
Perhaps IM Doc’s insight into VAERS data is beyond my ken, but I thought VAERS data is notoriously raw and requires a deep dive and many follow-up controlled studies to develop a high degree of confidence in what it means. I also recognize that some VAERS results are so extraordinary to militate stopping things right away. What have those circumstances looked like in the past and how do they compare to this situation?
I agree that the entire analysis is fraught where the under 18 vaccine recipient cannot knowingly consent to the inoculation, the profit motive can deeply distort Big Pharma’s testing protocol and study conclusions, and “politics” can put its thumb on the government scale of what vaccines are useful and to whom should they be administered.
But, again, are IM Doc’s data conclusions and the resignations of the three nurses justified here — based on the data cited? Where is the discussion of the data the vaccine manufacturer supplied?
Maybe the nurses are heroes and IM Doc a truthsayer, but is the data contained in the slide he relies on as compelling as he suggests, and where is the vaccine manufacturer’s data?
The entire premise of this comment is incorrect. VAERS is “Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System”. Its purpose is to record bad outcomes from vaccines. These reports are initiated both by doctors and patients, that’s why IM Doc looked to see if he could determine what proportion were patient-submitted.
IM Doc has discussed privately multiple cases of vaccine injuries that he submitted to VAERS that were rejected, including one for a particular type of shingles (a known bad outcome) that the non-medially trained person processing the submission rejected because it wasn’t recognized as an effect (as in IM Doc using a more specific designation got it rejected). Similarly, IM Doc himself suffered a serious vaccine injury that required treatment at a tertiary medical center and took a long time to resolve. The specialist there immediately agreed it was vaccine-induced, said he’d already seen 400 cases like that, and VAERS refused to take them.
First of all, the nurses did not resign based on this dataset. They resigned because they, like many of us, are suffering from moral injury and this was the last straw. I have left an extensive comment elsewhere here today to further elucidate what I mean by that. Maybe you could put yourself in their shoes. I really wish we would all do that more often than we have been.
The VAERS system is notoriously inaccurate. It is so underwhelming in its ability to perform the function asked of it that it has become a national tragedy. As I have repeatedly stated, the VAERS system is a good way to pick up signals. I have used it for years when the flu shot season begins and through those months to monitor if there is a sudden increase in reports. It is very helpful in this way. Unfortunately, because of massive under-reporting, it is completely unreliable as way to find out exactly what level of VAE we are having. I tend to view what is on VAERS as the basement with the ceiling unknown. As I stated yesterday, it is clear to me that the Moderna death and permanant disablity reports were almost assuredly all valid. They were not written by confabulators. I have spoken with the VAERS employees a few times during this and I get the strong impression that the ridiculous fake ones that are clearly a hoax are removed as soon as that is recognized. Many of these are clearly related to medical problems that are widely known now to be directly related to these vaccines. Young kids do not routinely get DVTs and other things that are reported there. At some point we are going to have to come to terms with the fact that these vaccines are indeed causing some of these issues. I have also reported here in the past and I will report again that the current system is not even close to the manner in which severe issues were dealt with in the past. In previous times, if I as a physician, called in a death or serious complication report to a federal agency, it was taken care of with the utmost of care. That has not happened a single time I have called them during this whole affair. That is another reason I feel these numbers are probably on the low side. I have heard similar stories from peers.
The vaccine manufacturer’s data? You must be kidding. They have not been forthcoming with anything. You really must not be paying attention. We would ALL love to have the vaccine manufacturer’s data. It would help us answer so many questions. But it will be coming out in a drip drip drip format for the next decades. Nowhere near fast enough to help us answer so many vital questions…..Why are our politicians not demanding it to be released immediately? Why are they not by executive order demanding it be done?
This new paper came out this month.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4125239
It has among its authors Peter Doshi one of the editors of the BMJ, Robert Kaplan, the Chief Science Officer for AHRQ and Sander Greenland of UCLA – who writes the best textbook about medical epidemiology we have right now. What I am saying – these are not poseurs.
Because the federal agencies and the pharma companies are refusing to collate and release data, these researchers did the backyard approach through other means. It is a fascinating piece of work. What they found is that more patients were suffering excess severe adverse events with both Pfizer and Moderna vaccines than were being saved from hospital admissions. You heard that correctly – more people had severe side effects than people being kept out of the hospital. The numbers were particularly tragic for Pfizer. The authors absolutely admitted that this was the best they could do with the available numbers. BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT AGENCIES and BIG PHARMA HAVE REFUSED TO RELEASE DATASETS. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY TRAGIC IN ITS UNETHICAL BEHAVIOR. They ended the study with a plea to release the data and given their findings, the urgent need to break out the risk/benefit ratios for different demographics. ie do old people have a satisfactory risk profile while young people do not, etc etc etc. I will reiterate – none of these authors are slouches. They are in the top tier of folks in their fields. This has to be taken seriously.
We all know these vaccines do nothing to prevent transmission or infection. That is by now I hope evident to all. Therefore, the “killing grandma” excuse no longer has merit. If anything, the vaccinated seem more cocky and inclined for risky behavior. No, the only thing right now on the table is the individual risk mitigation for each individual child. And the numbers just do not add up for the BENEFIT of these which studies tell us is basically zero to take on the risk. This is especially so in this 0-5 age group. This is a critical time for the development of the thymus and T-cell immunity and we just do not know what these novel agents are going to do for sure.
It gets back to the question I placed in another comment today – that has been haunting me. How many people need to be saved for one child to bear death or disablement? It is a profoundly important question and one I have been wrestling with for weeks. We are not going to find that answer in medical statistics or databases. We are going to find that in our own hearts. And we better quickly start the process of examining our own hearts – this may rapidly become the issue of our time.
And yes Yves has revealed my own struggle this past year. I have been not inclined to discuss it because I did not want that to really influence anyone’s personal decision. I do believe the time has come to be forthcoming. My medical issues with the vaccine are on a continuum. It affects most people very mildly but some have a severe problem. I ended up with the more severe issue, but not the worst. This has been going on for more than a year. I did end up with one of my old students as my physician specialist at a major center. And he did tell me he has seen many people with this problem all over that continuum. The vast majority of them were mild unlike mine. Under his care, I am doing better but this has not been without issues this year. Just in the past month, I have begun to feel normal again. Fortunately, unlike so many others who have had a vaccine problem, I have not been gaslit. But my physician did share with me the same frustration I have with VAERS and our agencies. They just do not seem to be too interested in problems.
It is very clear to me that the dam is breaking in regards to the promises and the perils of these vaccines. I watched the questioning of Dr. Birx in the US House yesterday long enough to realize that the evasion and deception and misdirecting are soon to be over. I heard with horror as she described why they so missed the fact that these vaccines were not sterilizing because they had “hope” in them. We are all about to find out that hope should never be the sole determinant in any of these things. We “hoped” they worked – so we went about coercing vast swaths, ruining people’s lives and jobs, because we “hoped” they worked. This is absolutely not the medicine I know and love. I am so sorry that my profession is behaving like this. I would have never dreamed it possible.
Obama’s hope and change come to mind. Hope won’t get you a cup of coffee.
I commented below but should have replied here.
If Moderna has only just been approved for kids, how can there be 37 death/serious disability reports in three days?
I replied below, maybe you should take a look.
Reading comprehension problem?
tegnost quoted the infectious disease doc’s slide from the post, which stated:
Thank you for this IM Doc. Your honesty and integrity is much appreciated, from several thousand miles away, as is your mention the Doshi paper – unreported in my local MSM and most everywhere else. Not surprising, but still shocking.
One of our epidemiologists who was at the forefront of the anti-IVM drive and the pro-mRNA push seems to have gone to ground a bit lately, but I found a recent paper he has co-authored:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35682466/
From the abstract:
Central to a successful population vaccination program is high uptake of vaccines. However, COVID-19 vaccine uptake may be impeded by beliefs based on misinformation. We sought to understand the prevalence and nature of misbeliefs about COVID-19 vaccines, and identify associated factors, shortly after commencement of Australia’s national vaccine rollout. A cross-sectional survey was administered to unvaccinated young adults (n = 2050) in Australia aged 18-49 years (mean age 33 years), 13 July-21 August 2021. This sample was previously under-represented in COVID-19 research but shown to have less willingness to vaccinate. Two thirds of participants agreed with at least one misbelief item. Misperceptions about COVID-19 vaccines were found to be significantly associated with lower health literacy, less knowledge about vaccines, lower perceived personal risk of COVID-19, greater endorsement of conspiracy beliefs, and lower confidence and trust in government and scientific institutions. Misbeliefs were more common in participants with less educational attainment, in younger age groups, and in males, as per previous research.
Stuff like this seems to me absolutely indefensible given what is now known. Offensive too… conspiracy beliefs! Haw, it would be vastly amusing if it wasn’t so terrifying.
This comes not long after something else I read which indicated that at least two Australian universities were setting up ‘centres’ for the ‘study’ of misinformation – about terrorism mainly, but oh just by the by, vaccines too. I looked at the one at Curtin and could find no indication of funding sources, but would bet my right arm a certain large foundation was involved in one way or another. Certainly the epidemiologist concerned, whose Uni is in receipt of large amount of funding from that foundation, would be a candidate for a nice fat sinecure at such a venture. I am wondering if its wrong of me to hate such people? Just as public health and journalism have lost many of us and will soon lose most, so too the Universities – and for the same reason.
Perhaps my own situation is colouring my view – I lost my job (at a medical college!) because I wouldn’t be vaxed, as did my daughter (child care). My wife (public library, 32 years) cannot enter the premises as a staff member (though she is free to do as a member of the public – go figure) and has been forced to take one day per week off in unpaid leave, with no diminution of duties and the threat of another day removed soon. Our household is trying to get by on 4 days pay per week, down from 15 in early 2020. My teenage son has missed out on the sporting, social and work opportunities most of his vaccinated friends have enjoyed in the last 2 years and has become withdrawn.
Meanwhile a surge of apparently inexplicable ill-health across all of my family and social network – not affecting our unvaccinated corner – seems to have vindicated our (fairly vocal) doubts. No-one is acknowledging this and you can’t blame them. In fact many seem to have firmed in their decision not to have much to do with us and that is understandable too, though quite depressing.
So it goes. I hope you continue to mend and to contribute to the valuable forum this blog provides.
The Hill is reporting that parents — and their kids — are staying away in droves. Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJThW26T11w&t=21s
Biden with his announcement, that testing is open for children 5 and under, has single-handedly destroyed any (remaining) trust parents have in the traditional, real vaccines that provide true protection for children and society at large. I’m sure the anti-vaxxers are ecstatic in how Biden handed them a major PR coup and will no doubt swell the coffers of these charlatans.
I used to trust completely in vaccinations. But now I wonder. About four years ago our family doctor recommended our then 12 year old daughter get a shot against cervix cancer. Back then I wondered whether it was a good idea as you get that kind of cancer at a very ripe age and how would they know the effects of the vaccine decades from now? But I trusted the Doctor. Now I don´t anymore. He boasted to me that he was inoculating kids as young as 5 years old with Pfizer as the vaccine was “completely safe”. I happen to know as well that the Doctor still has to pay off his practise and now I wonder whether his enthusiasm then and now was due to getting good money for little work. With the Covid shot I know. He gets 28€ a shot. More than twice as much as minimum wage here in Germany. Little bread crumbs from the table of big Pharma and corrupt politicians. But still…
As the parent of a toddler, I am very interested in comparative studies of the risk of disability due to the vaccine vs the risk of disability due to long covid. Latest study I saw has the vaccine reducing the risk of long covid by 50% for adults.
Nobody can tell you that. It is the very first time an Mrna based vaccine is employed and nobody can know the long term consequences. My wifes cousin died 4 weeks after a pfizer shot from multiple thrombosis and his sister (who is a Doctor) cannot forgive herself for having recommended getting the shot. He “officially” died not from the vaccine but from a bad “disposition”. He was 47 years old and healthy and his sister is convinced it was the vaccine. I have no words for the pharmaceutical industry. 1947 Dr. Mengele was sentenced to death for having subjected people to medical experiments without their consent. In consequence the world adopted the Nuremberg principles. Now more than a billion people were subjected to a vaccine without being told that this vaccine was unsufficiently tested. I am against the death penalty but Mengele deserved it. How many people have died and will die so some executives can buy themselves another mansion in the Hamptons? To my mind they deserve to rot in jail forever.
I don’t have the study to hand but the latest figure from research a couple months ago and rather widely recited now is 15% reduction of LC risk for adults. Better than nothing but nowhere near good enough (that 50% figure dates back to last year if I recall correctly). How that translates to children I’m not sure. It’s also an open question whether vaccination would mitigate the risk of juvenile hepatitis for under-5s, highly likely to have been caused by Covid infection, that’s been in the news the past couple of months. Not sure about MIS-C.
Data about efficacy for the vaccines in under-5s seems extremely underwhelming, and there have also been suggestions of Pfizer favouritism which of course casts the whole process into disrepute. At the same time, we collectively have very few protections against this disease, and the picture of what this virus can do to infectees is becoming less pleasant by the day and that’s not something you can really hide from parents; communities will also have more and more anecdata to go on as time goes on. Even masks are harder for under-5s to use due to issues with fit and the child compromising the seal of the mask by fiddling etc. I don’t think there’s anything to suggest that constantly reinfecting school-age kids with an ACE2-binding SARS virus by sending them to schools with few or no mitigations in place and doing knack-all else to control transmission outside of schools is going to go very well at all. So in this context, it’s no wonder that some parents (who are still alert to the problem and haven’t been conned into thinking SARS2 infection is ever and always no big deal for children) are pretty desperate to try anything that might help, especially if it bears an official seal of approval – which still carries weight for some people, alas. The whole situation is pretty miserable.
Yes, just using my freedom to make a private risk assesment of disability since public health no longer exists.
Good luck :(
1) From an epidemiological point of view vaccinating de toddlers doesn’t make any sense when you have removed all restrictions and when vaccination as we already know is anything but sterilizing (not to mention mostly useless against existing VOCs). Even for children up to 12 or so.
2) the only concern should be safety of the very same subjects you want to vaccinate and to be sure only in very special cases that could be considered vulnerable it might make sense. Even if the putative risks from infection are somehow higher than risks from vaccination you never, never want to put babies at risk.
The risk/benefit here is too high and the main reason is that there is very little benefit if any.
Babies are already at risk of infection, re-infection, disability and death due to the failure of governments to put in place effective measures to contain Covid.
Also, how many of these severe vaccine side effects have no known treatment? Long covid is not treatable if you can even get a diagnosis. Although I read something about filtering micro clots out of a long covid patient as promising.
This is far from my wheelhouse, but assuming the vaccines were safe, wouldn’t you want one that was based on the omicron variant for a naive population? It is my understanding that an omicron-specific booster was not used for adults since it just generated more of the original antibodies – the antigenic priming issue – but if this is your first exposure, wouldn’t you want it to be closest to what’s currently going around?
I’d vaccinate my little one, if mine were still little. That multisystem inflammatory syndrome sound worse than the vaccine side effects to me. MIS-C is rare but nasty for kiddos. VAERS captures everything that happens to you, vaccine related or unrelated
Your last statement is completely false. VAERS is a voluntary system, to report “vaccine adverse events” and IM Doc and other docs report more than a few cases they were highly confident were vaccine induced that the non-medically-trained admins taking the reports rejected. You are at best confusing it with VSAFE, the phone app. Two very different beasts.
I didn’t report my vaccine injury to VAERS even though it four trips to New York and two outpatient treatments (one in an outpatient OR = pricey) to get it resolved.
Dr. Birx believes our government relied on hope that the vaccines would work. It’s repugnant what we did to people asking questions. This is why public health officials have lost most of the country’s trust.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5021092/dr-birx-knew-natural-covid-19-reinfections-early-december-2020
I have long conjectured that the government has been stuck (no pun intended) with a surfeit of these vaccines that they can’t give away anymore, thus the push for giving them to younger populations. I agree with someone who stated that if they had a child, that with the utter lack of research, you couldn’t get me to vaccinate them with this stuff. I’m immune suppressed and I’ll pass on a second booster. I swear I’ve been more exhausted since the vaccines and one booster. And I’m not messing around with one of these new (I think) disease modifier injections (I call them “mabs” because they all have “mab” in their names) they’re recommending at the cancer center. There’s too little research. Look to the money/profit for pharma.
Sue – Those drugs ending in “mab” are all Monoclonal AntiBodies, a particular type of genetically engineered pharmaceutical.
I think many of them are immune suppressants, but don’t quote me on that.
Yes, the ones ending in -mab are monoclonal antibodies. Some of them take the brakes off of the immune response in order to help the (exhausted) immune system better fight cancer and kill the cancer cells, and contribute to generating a lasting memory response. Others are for autoimmune diseases, though, and modulate the immune response by putting the brakes on. I was working on PD1 and PDL1 20+ years ago, my first job out of college. They can be a big help to cancer patients.
Not an expert, but it’s less manufactured than harvested. The only source for human antibodies is human blood. Icky, but to my (limited) knowledge fine.
If your white cell counts are shot, I think its good stuff. Multiple layers of testing and verification involved on each batch. The us blood banks are one of our few functional institutions.
Have a think, read up, and ask the oldest nurse you can find. The pharma folks will patent it, but it is not as manufactured as they would have you believe, I have reason to believe.
Thank you, petal, for the clarifications. That’s pretty much what I was thinking.
It’s experimental!
Would it surprise you to learn they tinkered with the mRNA to make it last longer in the body by replacing one nucleotide (uracil) with an artificial uracil (pseudouridine) and then released it without any pharmacokinetic studies?
Rather surprised Robert Malone, inventor of the mRNA tech.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YbzVaokxQuc
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oGRlRZ0PRXI
“long lived single stranded polynucleotide”
“synthetic mRNA”
Correct me if I am wrong, but Moderna has only _this week_ been approved for use in children. So how can there _possibly_ be 37 deaths or serious injuries from Moderna in kids?
read the post
And when I did a VAERS search yesterday – for patients aged 0-17 – 0-3 days post
I come away with these personal Conclusions:
1.The Vaccines may alleviate my personal symptoms. (75% effective, or less?
2.The Vaccines do not suppress the spread of Covid
3. The Vaccines have several bad , low probability side effects (10 % ?)
I conclude the are as useful as cold, medicines.
Are they worth the risks?
Hi! Pediatrician of 25 years here. I’m sympathetic to the political leaning of this site, and had to jump in and say that the idea that there is mass hesitation or that “the worm in turning” in the medical community against protecting our children from covid with these vacccines is not correct. I’m willing to say “anything is possible” wrt the specific experiences shared here by the author of this post, but the idea that there is a movement among *medical professionals* (especially ID docs!!) against toddler vaccination against Covid is frankly laughable and makes me give a bit of side eye to the rest of this post. I had to share this reality check.
I work in a suburban purple area and of course among families, there is some vaccine hesitancy, but the medical professionals including all of the injection nurses are are strongly in favor of these vaccines and their potential to save lives. No one is resigning- we are *thrilled*. Covid has been the #4 or #5 cause of death this last winter among the ages 1-5 yr. It has killed more/mo than RSV or Influenza ever does. Your pediatric nurses and doctors are very happy that we finally have the chance to reduce this impact.
My professional recommendation is for god sake’s, please protect your child from Covid. Advocate for better public policy wrt ventilation and masking, etc, but PLEASE also take this simple and safe step.
I don’t mean to come down hard on you, but just because a situation is bad (having toddlers get Covid) does not mean a particular proposed remedy is good. But your comment comes off as if your need to be able to Do Something has blunted your critical thinking.
First, IM Doc spent 15 years on an Institutional Review Board, five years as its chair, and so he is intimately familiar with the drug approval process and the statistical reviews. He is adamant that these vaccines are being used when previous vaccines, like the one for swine flu, were pulled off the market at a far lower level of deaths and complications.
Second, it appears you completely ignored the information from the infectious disease specialist. With the 0-5 injection only having just started, meaning comparatively few toddlers have actually gotten the shots, they have killed more 0-5 year old children than Covid has over the entire history of the disease! How can you be in favor of them in the face of data like this?
Third, I expect IM Doc to address this himself, but I am highly confident his data set is bigger than yours. He was formerly a professor at a major teaching hospital, participates religiously in their various Zoom grand rounds and other information-sharing, as well as keeps up with his students, many of whom are at tertiary medical centers, and can give readings on what is happening there.
Fourth, if nothing else, you are ignoring Publix’s refusal to administer the vaccines to 0-5 year olds. They have over 1000 pharmacies. They can’t get enough of their staff to administer the shots to offer them.
Fifth, your geolocation belies your claim to live in a purple area. 4 of the services say you are in San Francisco. One says Boulder Creek, which is in the general area of Silicon Valley and blue. The last is Pittsburgh, where the city is a bit less blue but still rated as liberal, than Allegheny County.
There have been interesting further developments in the story since the last writing. They thought they were going to have an enormous demand for baby vaxxes – but apparently the appts were only filled for one day and a few into the next. Now it is crickets. In other words, the parents seem to be deciding en masse to give this a rest for now. It seems very likely that the nurses will have their jobs back, because there will be no baby vaxxes in this county – or just sparingly, so that the supervisors can handle the babies if needed.
I am hearing similar reports all over the country – there is very little demand in the first week other than the very large cities.
This comment pretty much encompasses the talking points of the CDC. These issues the commenter brings up are similar in tone to how the CDC is describing the situation. Interestingly, there are entire states where there has just been a handful of kids in the hospital with COVID for the whole time. There are many towns like my own where we have never had a kid hospitalized through this whole time. Certainly not minimizing this – but I think we have to take a cold hard look at data as we were trained to do and really assess risk benefit ratios.
I am not going to write this all out – Vinay Prasad MD has 2 videos that I think spell it all out. I have but minor quibbles with what he says. Here is the thing – Do I agree with everything Dr. Prasad says? Oh no. But I am a student of science enough to know that he is doing these expositions from a good place – and he happens to be very congruent with my own reading of the literature. Unlike the CDC. The horror of horrors was earlier this year in the Supreme Court when a Justice used obvious bad data and misinformation to vote to maintain the vaccine mandate. This is an example of where bad science and repeating misinformed talking points can cause real harm.
Dr. Prasad discusses the obvious lies and distortions meant to scare parents into vaccinating kids – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykwMAur0RTM And here in this video he goes through the evidence of benefits and risks to these kids from 0-5 for vaccination – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJnOn6Phzfo. As a member of an IRB for 20 years – and a journal club attender for more than 30 – I can find nothing in these analyses that is invalid. If you are so intent on vaccinating the 0-5 – and so sure the benefits would outpace the risks – I would love to hear why.
I would ask your commenter another very important question – Why is it that countries all over Western Europe have had their medical regulating agencies say NO? – in a big way? Would this commenter engage with me – and go down the list of the FDA committee members that made this decision – and see how many of them may be corrupted with other arrangements with Big Pharma? – Is even one of them a truly independent adviser without conflicts of interest?
With regard to the worm turning and doctors not being concerned about this……a few things indicate that I am not just making shit up as implied here –
This is from Marty Makary MD – MPH – of Johns Hopkins Univ
This is his tweet in response to one of the above Dr. Prasad videos –
https://twitter.com/MartyMakary/status/1539616084139151360
There it is in black and white – he is guessing fully 40% of peds in rural areas will not be recommending this to their patients. That includes our pediatrician – who was vehemently telling us not to vaccinate our own kids – who are older than 5 months ago. And he was making very good sense when doing so.
And then this letter came out this weekend from a group of doctors including both Dr. Prasad and Dr. Makary – and as you can tell there are multiple signatories who are peds or ID docs urging a relook or reframing of the entire vaccination of babies scheme. I cannot say I agree with everything in that letter – but I certainly agree with the vaccination issue.
https://www.urgencyofnormal.com
I am not just making this “worm turning” up. There are literally thousands of American docs who have signed this letter. When I looked through just the first few dozen – there were multiple peds and ID docs. ID docs are indeed questioning this issue, regardless of what you say. I spoke with one personally on Friday.
You reference the ID doctor that made the comment in that conference. Please note – he is a dean of Infectious Disease in this country. As a young man, I saw him take up the armor when similar things were happening during the AIDS pandemic. He tolerated no bullshit from the CDC or Fauci or manipulating data. That is an understatement. He tolerated no bullshit from anyone when it came to patient care. What he did the other day – I would have expected nothing less. He is one of this country’s legends. But a key word is RETIRED. He has freedom. He does not need to be worried about being fired or punished. That is the problem. We cannot have a rational discussion about these issues other than the CDC talking points. Thank you for kindly reiterating them. It is now time for my generation to pick up the armor. As I discuss above – the uptake of the vaccines is apparently way lower than expected in many places in this country and that is because of the abysmal performance of our federal agencies. The trust in them in this country is cratered and will likely take years/generations to fix. This latest turn with the baby vaxx is no different. Unless we immediately began to demand complete transparency and a cessation of the propaganda, our entire profession and the health of this nation are at grave risk.
I didn’t realize posting an opinion to the comment thread that didn’t fall in line with the group majority would result in an attempt at doxxing. I didn’t think that’s what this site was about.
I think the author of the post will agree that your assertion in point #2 above is incorrect even if you take that slide at face value. According to that slide, how many children age 6mo-4yr have supposedly died of covid vaccine? The one we just started providing last week? The only children in that age range that have received the vaccine so far are the ones in the trials. Are you seriously suggesting that more children 6mo-4yr died during the trials (btw– NONE did), than have died of Covid disease itself?
I don’t usually use confrontational language like this, but I’m reacting to the tone of your response. I’m a pediatrician who considers themself quite anti-Big Pharma. I counsel honey over Robitussin. I dissuade families for falling for Pharma marketing of “toddler formula” (totally unnecessary btw– it’s just the drug companies creating and marketing a made up product you don’t need). But being against Big Pharma doesn’t mean I never prescribe a medication. Or recommend a safe life-saving vaccine.
Fwiw, i stand by my characterization of the town I work in (though it is literally the least relevant part of my comment- just some background).
You may be all you claim to be. Still, something seems off to me, something sort of ad-speak sounding about your comments. Maybe it’s just enthusiasm. But it does sound like a sales pitch. Probably just my quirky parsing of what I read. I’m not a medico.
First, it is false and an attack on this site to say you were doxxed. We did not publish your name, your phone number, your home or work address, or your e-mail. We found three different places from which you might have made your comment. Even if we take the one that is the best fit with your claim of purple (Pittsburgh), it has 4,900 doctors. The ratio of pediatricians to doctors nationally is about 6.5%. Applying that to 4,900 says there are over 300 pediatricians in Pittsburgh (and that is assuming you actually were in the city and not practicing somewhere else in the county). In other words, it is impossible to identify you personally based on what we said.
The comment about you being in a purple voting area was not “some background”. It was to try to undermine IM Doc’s using his experience in his very blue and very vaxxed county as not representative by presenting yourself as being in a less Democrat leaning area that was nevertheless toddler-vaccine-gung ho. So that was part of your argument, not ancillary information.
IM Doc in his reply to your earlier comment provides additional substantiating information that shows that many doctors and parents are skeptical of using this vaccine on toddlers.
And as for your effort to critique a slide from a former and highly esteemed Dean of Infectious Diseases, you appear to have a reading comprehension issue. The information came from the VAERS database. VAERS does not include clinical trial results, it is to report adverse results on vaccines in use. IM Doc said he even checked the 37 death and permanent disability reports about Moderna to see if they looked to be MD submitted or from patients. Their doctor-like use of medical terminology and writing style strongly suggested they were provided by doctors.
These deaths and other bad outcome are in the 0-17 age group in VAERS, which given that there are unlikely to be any adverse reports in the database from the shots that started last week, this effectively means it covers next older aged cohort, 5-17. You could look it up on VAERS yourself. They are almost certainly less fragile than toddlers. There’s no reason to expect better outcomes on average and good reason to worry about worse ones.
And the number of vaxxed 5 to 17 year olds is also likely to be lower than total toddlers exposed to Covid since it spread in a big way in the US (say early March 2020; by contrast, the Pfizer vaccine was not authorized for use on 12-15 year olds until late August 2021 and for 5 to 11 year olds, until the very end of October 2021. So we have less than a year with these vaccines for these populations, versus two years plus of Covid risk for toddlers. That means the time/population corrected level of bad outcomes is even worse than the simple comparison suggests.
I strongly suggest you reconsider your vaccine-for-babies enthusiasm.
I think the ID doc’s point is that we have had less than 350 kids who have lost their lives to this virus and we have had the 250 deaths reported in VAERS at the same time in a much shorter time. No they were not 0-4 they were the older kids. He never suggested this was babies. Nor did I.
I tend to be on the very safe side with babies. So did the FDA in the past. See the story of Frances Kelsey MD to understand what I mean. How many pharma dollars did Dr. Kelsey have coming in on the side when she stood up for the kids of America? How many current members of the committee in the FDA that approved this are free of conflict? Should not the American people and certainly our kids have the assurance for this grave a matter that those in charge are free of conflicts?
As I stated, I looked through some of this deaths and they appear to be genuine. This is the next closest age range to whom we are dealing with here. There clearly are a lot more deaths than I am comfortable with. And have never seen any IRB be comfortable with that trade off.
And this safety is unresolved…..I will say once more that we had a severe safety issue in my community that all knew about. Never addressed in any way by the authorities and massive distrust was the result. And now they want us to vaxx babies with a minimal at best efficacy with that risk signal out there. Unfortunately, these are babies, and repeatedly saying the vaccines are 100% safe etc is just not going to cut it with the parents of America. The trust has been severely affected. I deal with this every day of my life like no other time in my career.
As I have stated before, it is leading to my own moral injury.
I would like for him and any others to listen to that Dr. Prasad video and point out their differences. That is where the debate should be had.
That is the issue at hand.
Then again ….
Important to note that both Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech Omicron (BA-1) booster shots had 3-fold lower neutralizing antibody response to BA.4/5 than to BA.1
[Pfizer data just put out this morning)
This consistent finding reflects the immune escape property of BA.4/5. We don’t yet know the clinical impact of the Omicron booster, directed vs BA.1, which is genetically and antigenically distant/distinct from BA.4/5
https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1540704984081174530
Anywho … how many months before a new variant kicks in and all the boosters and previous vaccinations are moot … I’m with GM on this one.
I don’t know about others, but, I’m never confidant about those that approach a multidisciplinary problem set from such a singular point – vaccinations – considering the players involved and the increased politicization of public institutions from the corporatist sphere. Especially after health care in the U.S. was turned into an assembly line for billables and after the fact corporations like to kill their customers slowly with chemical laden food[???], don’t know if I can think of another nation with such an underlining general health problem and then pop Covid on top of all it ….
This post is puzzling. The docs and scientists who treat the SARS virus with respect and advocate for the precautionary principle are mostly pro-vaccine and have eagerly awaited approval to vaccinate small children. This blog features them in links regularly. Yet here, and in an earlier article on adverse effects of the vacccines, the blog has expressed skepticism about the vaccines’ safety and the cost-benefit ratio. It seems there is some cognitive dissonance happening.
In any event, our in-house experts should respond to this post on Twitter, among others, which questions this paper.