Yves here. While seeing some big breaks with former code of omerta about Covid side effects is welcome, this piece is still frustrating. It still recites the tired and almost certainly false trope that Covid vaccine side effects are rare.
Consider what “rare” means in medical terms in the US. This text from Johnson & Johnson is similar to that on other sites:
What makes a disease rare is how prevalent it is—that is, the number of individuals living with it. In the United States, a rare disease is one that fewer than 200,000 people live with. (In other words, 60 per 100,000 individuals.)
Around the world, rare diseases are identified and addressed differently. The European Union considers a disease rare if it affects no more than 50 per 100,000 people. The World Health Organization, on the other hand, defines a rare disease as one that strikes fewer than 65 per 100,000 people.
Other medical sites depict “rare disease” as also being a “rare disorder”.
I know four people personally (as in these are direct contacts, as opposed to members of the commentariat) who had a serious side effect from a Covid shot. One, who went to the ER for treatment, was told if she had gotten there much later, she would have suffered serious and lasting consequences.
If it takes a population of 100,000 to produce 60 cases of Covid side effects , which is what the use of the term means, then for me to know of 4 side effects, my population of personal (not extended, personal) contacts should be something like 6,667. If you merely limit the cases I know of as “severe” as in requiring medical intervention. to 3, the population would then have to be 5,000 to expect to see so many indicents. I can tell you it is in fact well under an order of magnitude lower than that. And no, my cases were neither aged nor sickly.
I suspect the data from IM Doc’s pretty large patient population (where he has sent the Covid Brain Trust many detailed examples of side effects, which were also disconcertingly varied) would be even more dramatic than my personal sightings.
A second problem not acknowledged below is that it isn’t just that discussion of Covid side effects was aggressively suppressed, but also reporting to VAERS. IM Doc again told us in gory detail about his protracted fights to get the cases he was seeing accepted by VAERS, including inevitably unsuccessful efforts to overturn the rejection. Of the 4 cases I mentioned, I am certain 2 were not reported to VAERS and highly confident the other 2 were not either (even though the ER staff in the one mentioned above volunteered that the emergency condition was the result of the Covid shot, meaning this was not the first case of this type they had seen).
Of course, the confounding problem is that the anti-vax crowd has a bias to any out-of-band health issue as the result of the vaccines, when if they do not come in pretty close proximity to a shot or fall into a confirmed category, like persistent menstrual changes to the degree that they imply changes in fertility (which the medical industry tends to blow off), they are far more likely to be the result of long-term Covid health impairment.
With the topic of Covid vaccines having become so deeply politicized, and their unacknowledged problems leading to widespread vaccine hesitancy even with old vaccines with very good safety profiles, we are sure to see the pent-up anger about Covid vaccines (the result of dubious and punitive mandates) generate full-throated criticism under Trump 2.0. But the lack of good data means the demonization won’t be factually better founded than the earlier knee-jerk defense.
By Anthony Flint, an author living in Brookline, Massachusetts. Originally published at Harvard Public Health magazine; cross posted from Undark
Three and a half years ago I contracted Guillain-Barré syndrome after getting the Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) viral vector vaccine for Covid-19. The neurological disorder has left me hobbled by numb hands and feet, staggering around imbalanced, and battling debilitating fatigue. It has also left me, and thousands of others, feeling ignored and unheard by the government and the public health establishment.
I wrote about the experience in 2021 in The Boston Globe, after the FDA attached a warning to the J&J shot, citing an unacceptable occurrence of this adverse effect. At the time, I bemoaned that it was so difficult to talk about vaccine side effects and argued that government and public health officials should just face up to them honestly. People could handle the truth, I said, and everyone would benefit because acknowledging those rare occasions when things go wrong would allow vaccine makers to design a better product.
Three years later, that still hasn’t happened. Public health officials, cowed by the anti-vax crowd, stuck to the line that Covid-19 vaccines are safe and effective. And an existing system to address people injured by vaccines, established under President Ronald Reagan, has been all but abandoned.
Of course, vaccines save lives. But the “nothing to see here” posture regarding legitimate vaccine side effects is preventing government from having our backs and following up on flaws in the products — in the same the way it does when romaine lettuce or lunch meat gets contaminated, or air bags don’t function properly.
And, as is well known in the medical profession, there really is a flaw. Several vaccines have a problem with Guillain-Barré syndrome, known as GBS. In 1976, the swine flu vaccine triggered so many cases, it had to be discontinued. Flu shots are associated with a “slightly elevated risk.” During the pandemic, the J&J shot was effectively shut down in the U.S. for triggering at least 100 GBS cases, and AstraZeneca’s vaccine was linked to many hundreds more. More recently, makers of shingles and RSV vaccines have had to issues warnings about GBS.
Intuitively, it makes sense. GBS is fundamentally an auto-immune response. Vaccines work by tricking the immune system into attacking a target, like a representation of the coronavirus. In some people, rogue antibodies take that fight too far and start attacking the body’s peripheral nervous system — a horrifying and thoroughly damaging case of friendly fire.
One would think officials wouldn’t want to sweep anything under the rug, which could stoke more suspicion about vaccines. But unlike some other countries (Canada comes to mind), the United States is not managing this problem in the straightforward and sober manner it warrants. And thousands of people — albeit a tiny fraction of the 230 million people who got a Covid-19 jab — are suffering because of it.
It doesn’t have to be this way. There’s a process in place to handle this problem. After vaccine makers were given immunity from lawsuits to encourage product development, the 1986 Childhood Vaccine Injury Act established the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, or NVICP. The program allows individuals harmed by vaccines to share what happened to them and receive compensation funded by a modest excise tax on vaccines. Eligible shots include tetanus, measles, mumps, rubella, polio, hepatitis B, and influenza. The cases are decided by special masters in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
Unfortunately, that perfectly sensible system has been eclipsed by a flawed and hastily arranged program put in place after the 9/11 terrorist attacks: the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program, or CICP. If during a public health emergency someone suffers an adverse side effect from, say, a mass smallpox vaccination, they could file claims to cover lost wages and medical costs (at the very least).
The CICP looks like common-sense liability protection, but after the greatest public health emergency of our lifetime, it has become clear that it is not up to the task. Many claims have been summarily rejected, and aside from one recent large award, administrative masters had compensated a grand total of 15 individuals for less than $60,000 — none of them for Guillain-Barré.
So why not make the Covid-19 vaccines eligible under the NVICP, the program that has worked so much better? To do so requires an act of Congress, and pandemic politics has put everything at a standstill.
Democrats, joined by the public health establishment, seemingly want to avoid anything that would cast aspersions on vaccines. Republicans, meanwhile, talk a big game about the downsides of vaccination but won’t approve the necessary excise tax on the pharmaceutical companies to fund victim compensation. The Vaccine Injury Compensation Modernization Act, which would add Covid-19 shots to the NVICP, is currently languishing alongside other legislation that would improve reporting protocols and add to the corps of special masters to adjudicate claims.
“We’re entitled to a reasonable alternative remedy to litigation,” said Christopher A. Dreisbach, legal affairs director at React19, an advocacy group for some 20,000 people suffering from adverse impacts from Covid vaccines. Dreisbach, who after his Pfizer shot was diagnosed with Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy — essentially a recurring form of Guillain-Barré — said he didn’t expect much to happen in Washington before Election Day. But at least two current lawsuits assert that the existing government process for the vaccine-injured violates constitutional right; the suits might be worrisome enough for pharmaceutical companies to work more proactively with Congress and advocates on reform.
Three years after my essay calling for an honest discussion of vaccine side effects, what’s most disappointing to me is that some medical and public health professionals still refuse to acknowledge empirical truths — and thereby give lawmakers and public health officials the cover they need to do nothing. Some doctors, including one of mine at a prestigious local hospital, deny to this day that Guillain-Barré is a side effect of the J&J shot. At a conference for GBS survivors, another told the audience they should go ahead and get vaccinated without worry. When I objected — I’ve been told I shouldn’t risk getting any type of shot for the rest of my life — he looked at me with obvious disdain, as if I was an anti-vaxxer, and rattled off what seemed like prepared talking points to deal with crazy people. My fellow journalists, meanwhile, have mostly cleaved to pro-vaccine orthodoxy, the New York Times being a courageousexception.
I wear no tinfoil hat, I assure you. I believe simply that as a society, we have an obligation to be fair and transparent. I’m asking for the ability to officially document what happened to me, in hopes of contributing data that the medical establishment and pharmaceutical companies can use to make a better vaccine.
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Not to minimize the acute vaccine injury issue, but I was just thinking a couple of days ago that I hadn’t seen any recent research on the possible IgG class switch in the immune response of multi-boosted individuals, which could affect a much larger population. Have I missed something?
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10222767/
Yes, that is what worries me most.
Admittedly tiny sample, but in my household of four adults and two children, zero cases of side effects. This is with a mix of COVID vaccines to include Novavax (adults last two rounds), Moderna, and Pfizer first few rounds. FYI, the Novavax has never been approved for young children.
Flu shots (also, every year) but administered with a few weeks to a month separation.
One side effect? I became egg intolerant following the Shingle vaccine. Cause and effect? Impossible to know, but I have happily eaten eggs my entire life and immediately became allergic. Honestly? If offered compensation, $60,000 wouldn’t be enough to make up for the loss.
Anyway, we’re all different and my heart goes out to anyone affected. I think this is a good post, and long overdue a good discussion. I look forward to checking back to see what others have experienced.
Within 3 months of vaccination – two brothers-in-law with myocarditis; one daughter with autoimmune disease, a 25 year old who will now be on thyroid medication for the rest of her life. “Luckily,” son is not manifesting any injuries
My ex-girlfriend (and sigh, presumed life partner) vaccinated her two oldest children, both boys aged 11 and 13 at the time. The 11 year old developed myocarditis and effectively ended his ability to play sports as his parents were/are so terrified he’ll have a heart attack.
>“An Honest Discussion of Covid Vaccine Side Effects Is Overdue”
An understandably sensitive topic, but one I’m glad to find covered in NC. I’ve been closely following IM Doc’s comments and find his first-hand account very informative and helpful.
We have multiple doctors in our extended family. It seems they are still required to take the vaccine in order to practice. They have visible side effects they have shown to the family. They are recommending the immediate family not to keep taking booster shots.
I and my immediate family have taken about 7-8 shots so far but are becoming increasingly reluctant to take boosters this year. I wish there was a more open and thorough discussion of this topic for us to make a more informed decision.
My side effect was I was blinded for 3 days, had to go to emergency and then to a specialist opthalmologist. He commented that I wasn’t the first instance he’s seen, that it has been a common side effect, assured that in no cases he has seen has the blindness been permanent.
That was a scary 3 days for me and as a result I’m very afraid to get another shot, I stopped at #3, haven’t had the courage to get any more. I’m not saying it’s not worth getting the shot, and I still might, but I’m on the side of we should be at least acknowledging and studying these side effects, not trying to manage the narrative or deny them. Denial is not very assuring.
For every person with this kind of side effect there’s an entire family that has been a direct firsthand witness to it. Now multiply this by every family witnessing a side-effect and throw in your 6 degrees of separation. Is it any wonder there’s a large and growing contingent of anti-vaxxers? The way to manage this is transparency – it’s the science way.
You went blind… and yet you’re still considering getting further shots? I’m curious – what is the perceived benefit that justifies the risk? I’m pretty sure there is no benign mechanism by which a vaccination can cause blindness…
On balance I would rather lose my sight than become a long covid zombie, losing my brain. I know people who’ve become so fatigued they can’t do anything, but especially can’t think. And I’ve witnessed firsthand the deterioration of thinking abilities, essentially 20-30 year olds becoming senile before my very eyes. You can at least have quality of life with blindness.
There are studies by reputable institutions that find that getting vaccinated provides little protection v. long Covid. See: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/study-puts-understanding-long-covid-and-vaccination-question
My wife developed tachycardia after her first experience with the Covid vaccine. It took about 2 years for her heart rate to return to normal.
What did your ophthalmologist say caused this blindness?
Was it a problem in the eye? Optic nerve? Brain? …?
Was it a total loss of vision in both eyes, or could you still see light and dark?
Sorry Acacia for the late reply. By the time I got to the opthalmologist my vision had mostly returned so he was limited in what tests he could do, although he did conduct scans with equipment the hospital didn’t have, he wasn’t able to make any determinations by that point.
The loss of vision was both eyes and to the question of light/dark – it was bright neon electric green/blue/white lights across my field of vision, blocking my view, so unsure how to answer that.
I should say that as a kid I’d had migraines where similar lights would appear but on a much smaller scale, so this suggests to me it was to do with the brain. And I’ll also add that since then, I’ve regularly had migraines which I’ve not had since I was a kid. So the shot appears to have flipped some switch up there.
Our immediate family of half dozen, aged 41 to 79, all declined vaccines at time of covid early outbreak and have remained so for the entire time since 2019.
None of us have been ill due to covid, an occasional seasonal short (3 days) of flu has occurred without any ill effects.
We are in direct contact daily (patients and visitors) with vaccinated individuals who are constantly sick, many with debilitating brain fog, unable to perform any tasks requiring concentration. Young people also (aged 15-30). Every one of these are vaccinated and boosted.
In the immediate circle of my wife and me, we’re probably two for two as far as side effects go. My wife had a strange reaction to the first of the two covid shots (strange feeling running down her arm), and a few months after the second one she had a heart attack. My own reaction was somewhat more complex, as I had polymyalgia rheumatica two years later. I didn’t think it was related to the covid shot, but my rheumatologist mentioned that he was seeing many more such cases since the vaccine.
Neither my wife or I intend taking any covid boosters – unless perhaps a nasal spray comes along.
Politicization of a public health matter! Imagine the moral depravity of people who would and did do this. I hope RFK Jr. manages to accomplish something – in my wildest dreams, Fauci, Collins, and their minions in the dock!
I know many people think RFK jr is a crank, and he might be. What I am hoping for is an intelligent conversation about our health “care” system. Let’s get all the chips on the table and have a discussion.
>I know many people think RFK jr is a crank, and he might be.
I am having a difficult time recalling any discussion about RFK JR. on PMC radio (NPR) that was not prefaced with mentioning him being “Anti-Vaccine”. It seems to be a standard lead in.
Anyone who has safety concerns about SOME SPECIFIC vaccines is routinely denounced as “anti-vax”. Doesn’t matter if they embrace MOST vaccines, as RFK does. That’s how it works these days.
My wife and I were noting the other day how we know more than a few people who have suffered an embolism lately. Can’t prove why of course though in a talk with a doctor, my wife was told that they were seeing the same as well in recent years. Back in 2020 through unavoidable circumstances, we had to take the initial two vaccinations of Astrazeneca but then quite taking any more. Not a confidence builder to know that Astrazeneca was yanked from the market earlier this year.
I participated in the AzraZeneca (different than mRNA) test, got the real.
I submitted to the Moderna mRNA in spring 2021.
Those are the last vaccines I will endure. Previously I had both the Zastra and Shingrix shots. Took flu vax for USAF for years.
Look at the CDC excess mortality, there were two peaks soon after spring 2021!
I recently got the shingles. Real sore shoulder for a few days. What’s Zastra?
I was very ill (not seriously enough to seek medical help) with the first 2 moderna vaccines. The last 3 vaccines I’ve had are Novavax and there have been no side effects. Thanks to NC for bringing that choice to our attention and for all the covid coverage!
With both vaccines and virus being so widespread, I’ve always found hard to discern which consequences are from the virus and and which are the vaccines, and I’ve always suspected they get conflated depending on which side of the vaccine fence people chose to be on. There’s barely no nuance here lest your tribe labels you a traitor from the other camp.
IIRC there was a 10 day window per the medical data collection convention in the U.S. where if the patient had a consequence then it could not be attributed to the vaccine(?)
In three of the four cases I mentioned, doctors designated the conditions as the result of the shots. And this is despite the pressure on the medical profession not to have done so. For the fourth, the side effect is a pretty widespread one but not widely acknowledged to be as commonly severe as it is (big changes in menstruation, in this case, the entire loss of periods way before the low end of normal menopause range).
IM Doc’s cases, which included deaths, were in very very close proximity to getting the shots. Very difficult to see any other cause.
Dr. Naomi Wolf has a new book out, written with Amy Kelly, entitled the Pfizer Papers, analyzing the 450,000 internal Pfizer documents released under court order by a successful lawsuit by attorney Aaron Siri.
“The Pfizer Papers also contains documentation of what happened in “post-marketing,” meaning in the three months, December 2020 to February 2021, as the vaccine was rolled out upon the public. All leading spokespeople, and bought-off media, called the injection “safe and effective,” reading from what was a centralized script.
Many people who took this injection, as it was launched in 2020–2021–2022 and to the present, did not realize that normal testing for safety of a new vaccine—testing that typically takes ten to twelve years—had simply been bypassed via the mechanisms of a “state of emergency” and the FDA’s “Emergency Use Authorization.” They did not understand that the real “testing” was in fact Pfizer and the FDA observing whatever was happening to them and their loved ones, after these citizens rolled up their sleeves and submitted to the shot.”
naomiwolf.substack.com/p/the-pfizer-papers-prizers-crimes
A good friend of mine who had moderate ME/CFS (she could go for walks regularly, sit up in bed much of the time, walk up and down stairs several times a day, and fix food for herself, but still suffered overall from fatigue and brainfog) was vaccinated with an RNA vaccine (I forget which). She immediately got worse, and now tells me it is probably due to the development (or worsening?) of a connective tissue disorder which she attributes to the vaccine.
Her jaw will now not align properly, causing terrible chronic pain for which, she is told, there is no cure. She can no longer go for walks, or sit up very much, or even go down the stairs to prepare a meal without intense fatigue lasting for hours after. She is in a Western Country, and at her last disability hearing they told her that because she can sit up for two non-consecutive hours a day, they expect her to work for two non-consecutive hours a day (And just who is supposed to hire her? And just how is she supposed to get somewhere on the bus without sitting or standing?). If no treatment helps her she is considering physician-assisted suicide.
In my immediate community (maybe 150 people) I know several more people injured by the vaccines. Some permanently, some not. One I don’t even know because he was quite sick before, then got much worse after the vaccine, and we’ve not heard from him since (ME patient communities are, by necessity almost all online, so there was no “going to knock on his door”).
My sample is obviously skewed by the preponderance of chronically ill people in it, but as the author states, maybe this is a reason that some people should not have gotten the covid vaccines at all.
I’ll add that I think we need to start reassessing how effective the vaccines are. A recent Cleveland Clinic study found an association between number of covid vaccinations and likelihood of catching covid: The more vaccines, the more likely one was to catch it (though once this pattern was factored out of the equation the new vaccine did modestly decrease workers’ chances of catching covid, at least in the short term).
The study was pretty big, nearly 50,000 people, all of them workers at the Clinics who were tested for Covid fairly often, with similar testing rates for the vaccinated and unvaccinated.
The chart showing the troubling association between boosters and infections is unadjusted for other factors, but the authors state in response to a question from factcheck.org that they would not have included the chart had the association not held up when adjusted.
I’ve looked for a good “debunking” of this study and all that I’ve found were arguments to the effect of “correlation is not causation”. Well sure, but the appearance of a dose-dependent relationship, plus just the precautionary principle, should give us pause and at least encourage further inquiry. Perhaps we could investigate IgG4 levels further?
https://academic.oup.com/ofid/article/10/6/ofad209/7131292
I’d be interested to know why a correlation that held up when adjusted wasn’t included. Wouldn’t it be the biggest news from the study?
These past years have taught me to regard that sort of thing as a red flag.
I don’t know but I’ll speculate a little:
This finding was accidental. They designed a good study to look at the efficacy of the latest booster vs covid infections. Part of that good design was to factor out any lingering, and presumably positive, effect from having had past covid vaccines and boosters.
Obviously they found something else entirely. And here my speculation gets even thinner and maybe someone with experience doing research can comment, but I wonder if
1) They were constrained by the protocol they had already written, which after all was not set up to investigate this correlation. Using the data simply to filter out the presumably positive effects of past covid vaccines did not require them to adjust the data, so adjusting the data was not part of the protocol.
That said, maybe expanding on these kind of findings would be seen as acceptable, I don’t really know.
2). There may have been some disagreement amongst the authors and/or editors about how to proceed with these findings. If you’ve read the study you know that the abstract states that the vaccine was 29%, 20%, and 4% effective at preventing infection depending on the dominant lineage. What they don’t say in the abstract is that that’s only if you filter out the effect of having had previous covid vaccines. The conclusions section says much the same, and doesn’t mention at all that the more vaccines participants got the more likely they were to catch covid. So to me this really doesn’t look like they went out to prove the vaccine are horrible, and it rather suggests that some of the authors or editors were really not excited to ruffle feathers by telling everyone the vaccines make you more likely to get sick. People have, after all, lost their jobs for doing so in the past few years.
In this scenario I would guess that the team decided, as a compromise, to include the unadjusted chart but not to bother to write up a whole section on the adjusted chart and what they did to adjust it.
I could of course be wrong about all of this. And if the authors were from a less prestigious institution, or were known vaccine skeptics, I would certainly be more insistent that we see those receipts. But this looks to me like an admission against interest–these findings are likely to harm the careers of the authors, unless they are substantiated and more widely believed.
I’ll also just observe that these findings would corroborate what IM Doc has seen and commented on numerous times–that it is mainly the multiply-vaxxed who come down with covid time and again in his practice.
And the findings would also line up well with the (rather small) study looking at covid IgG levels in the blood of covid vaccine recipients–a problem which, as I understand it, we only knew to look for because we’ve seen it previously with a few other vaccines when boosters were given too frequently or antigen concentration was too high.
So it isn’t like this is a finding that is totally out of the blue, unpleasant though it might be.
Here is a takedown of that study by an MD. He didn’t like the study design and didn’t think the researchers were looking at the correct information. He was particularly bothered that there was no effort to assess severity of the covid cases, which you would need to do to find an immune effect, and that the people assessed in the study decided whether they would get tested or not. He does address IgG a bit at the end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prPzMfYEaWo
I think at this point, where most people have had multiple covid infections and multiple vaccinations, it is going to be very difficult to sort out what is going on without tracking infections more efficiently. This study relied on self reporting.
Also, be very careful with assuming a prestigious institution indicates quality research. Remember this guy?
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/22/business/harvard-dana-farber-cancer-institute-data-manipulation-claims/index.html
Hi J,
Thanks, I hadn’t seen this critique before. A few thoughts in response:
1). He actually points something out that I hadn’t realized–that one of the tables at the end does include some adjusted data for vaccine doses : covid cases. We don’t see the whole chart, but they do give us hazard ratios “from a multivariable Cox-proportional hazards regression model, with bivalent-vaccinated state treated as a time-dependent covariate and time-dependent coefficients used to separate effects during the period of dominance of the Omicron BA.4/5, BQ, and XBB lineages.” These hazard ratios show a dose-response relationship to that seen in the unadjusted columns.
This was my bad, I thought they hadn’t adjusted that data at all in the study. But it seems they did and just didn’t see fit to include the adjusted graph–maybe because adding time-adjusted data doesn’t make sense on a graph with one arm being “time”?
2). I absolutely agree that a prestigious institution does not guarantee quality research. (I have ME/CFS and am acutely aware of the damage done to us by researchers at, say, Oxford). The point I was trying to make (apparently not effectively!) was that given the current academic groupthink regarding vaccines, it seems to me unlikely for researchers at those institutions to set out to prove that the covid vaccines don’t work, or made up or manipulated findings to that effect. The risk:reward ratio is just not great. But as to their methods I definitely don’t want to try to argue from authority that they must be inherently good
3) His best critique of the paper is that people in different categories might have been tested at different rates. I think that’s a totally legit critique, but between the preprint and the publications the authors seem to have addressed it: “We did not find an association between the number of COVID-19 tests done and the number of prior vaccine doses…suggesting that this was not a confounding factor.”
4). Another major point he makes is valid as far as it goes: He wants to see severe illness as an outcome rather than number of infections. It feels a bit like a “chocolate vs vanilla” thing to me though. There are benefits to both, and he is right that we missed out on the insights from the path not chosen. I could further argue that both number of infections and disease severity fail to fully capture the incidence of long covid after an infection. All of these endpoints are important. But having a study limited to looking at one endpoint doesn’t invalidate what the study did find.
5). I agree that they could have divided it up by age group and clinical vs nonclinical status (but it seems they could not, due to privacy limitations set by Cleveland Clinic). I don’t see these as likely to account for the dose-response relationship but I do think it’s a valid point.
6). He criticizes the vaccine doses : covid cases chart for not taking into account when the person had gotten the bivalent vaccine, but I believe this is taken into account in the table I mention above. (“with bivalent-vaccinated state treated as a time-dependent covariate”). Maybe this wasn’t the case in the preprint though, I don’t know.
7). He then moves on to discuss theories that try to explain the alleged relationship between boosters and loss of immunity vs covid. He points out that if the boosters were suppressing adaptive immunity generally then people would get sick with all sorts of stuff more often. I’m not sure we know this isn’t the case but there’s a lot I don’t know and I don’t feel the whole thing hinges on this, since there is at least one more possible explanations for increased covid cases in the multiply-vaccinated, which he goes on to address:
He references the (small) IgG4 study that showed repeat vaccinations can increase IgG4 levels. Here I’m again a bit out of my league but my understanding was that excessive IgG4 following vaccination was not a good thing, as it taught the body not to attack an antigen. At least so I read here https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10222767/
He seems to be arguing that it is a good thing, because it would prevent an immune over-reaction to the virus. I guess I personally worry that by not attacking a virus we set ourselves up for longer infections, more chronic infections, or (maybe?) more lingering issues from the spike protein itself (which I’ve seen proposed as a cause of long covid). But it is curious that we may agree on what could be happening but just disagree on whether it constitutes something good or bad.
My vaccine experience was surreal in terms of procedure.
My first shot was Moderna and a few days after later I could “feel” the area around my heart. First time I ever experienced such a sensation, and presumably it was mild inflammation (50+ male, very physically active). I tried for J&J for the second shot they checked my history and noted the prior Moderna. I explained what occurred, and was told my only choice was a second Moderna shot since it is “safe and effective”. When I refused, I was provided a number to appeal.
When I called that number and explained the side effect, I was told Moderna is “safe and effective” and I must have a second Modern shot. I live in NY and without a vaccine card, I couldn’t do anything. After several attempts to get the J&J shot, I finally found a provider that did not check my vaccine history and gave me a J&J shot and it did not have any notable side effects.
an aside: it’s my understanding, (readers, please correct me if I’m wrong), that all the C19 jabs in the US are released under an Emergency Use Authorization, (EUA), designation, not the officially FDA approved designation. That let the jabs go to market and the public very quickly.
The wrinkle in the EUA, not the officially FDA approved designation means they are considered experimental medicines. The problem with that designation is that most private insurance companies will not cover injuries caused by voluntarily taking an experimental medicine.
Medical practices insisting everything is safe and effective and that whatever side effect you might suffer from an experimental jab will, in their interest of receiving insurance payments for treating you, cause many of them to insist whatever new malady you present with cannot possibly be associate with the jab. It’s a terrible Catch-22 for both patients and doctors, imo. Doctors want to treat patients knowing patients need the insurance company to cover the cost of treatments.
That’s my understanding. Someone, please correct me if I’m wrong.
Thank you. The facilities that insisted I receive a second Moderna shot did not appear to be affiliated with established medical providers and presumably were government-funded mass vaccination facilities. The provider that did not check my prior history and provided the J&J shot was a medical practice.
When vaccines got so much politicised it is very difficult to have a honest discussion. Apart from the side effects, those considered mild are fairly common and those more dangerous are probably rare, it is very important to discuss the wisdom of too frequent multiple vaccination which is probably doing from nothing to very little to protect and makes the risk of very adverse side effects unbearable. It should be argued for how long a vaccine pause should be recommended instead of running with the syringe like beheaded chicken. I know COVID vaccine is now recommended only for some target groups but it is all the same problem if the vaccines no longer protect them because they become vaccine-exhausted.
In other words, it is important to understand the limits of vaccination strategies.
Ignacio – you are in Europe – where your statement “COVID vaccine is now recommended only for some target groups” is absolutely correct.
That is not true here in the USA – the latest booster is recommended for every single American no matter what their health – all the way down to 6 months.
There is absolutely no evidence in any way shape or form to support this. Rather, this comes from a combination of 3 things – pure greed, groupthink, and a desire to not be shown how wrong you were.
So far vaccine uptake this year is about 5-8%.
My October numbers from my practice –
And mind you – much of this data is self-reported from patients on the phone etc.
We had 231 cases in the month of October – our 2nd highest OCT – and that alone should give pause about the overall efficacy of the vaccines against COVID.
All 231 had received doses of vaccine – there was not a single unvaxxed patient or call. Only 3 of the 231 was this their first COVID infection – it is now the norm to be multiply boosted and multiply infected.
The tenacity of the infection also seems to be directly correlated to the number of lifetime boosters. I have commonly now patients who are both ill and COVID positive for weeks on end. And it is by far and away the rule for them to be have been repeatedly boosted.
I do fear for what may be happening this winter. We will see.
I am so glad about one aspect of this election – I think the days of medical censorship may be coming to an end. RFK was talking in the past few days about releasing the entire dataset from CDC and FDA – I can assure you all – having epidemiologists get out their pencils and start cracking this open may be the best thing ever for this pandemic. Free and open dialog – unhindered – is the very foundation of the scientific method – and I have great hope that we may finally be able to do so. I can make assumptions based on my own experience – and have been trained to do so since I was a kid in the absence broader numbers. The fact that this data has been hidden this long is a crime against humanity and hopefully we will soon break the crackdowns. I never in my wildest dreams as a Dem all my life would have thought it would be the Dem party that victimized the world and the GOP to break the spell – but here we are.
Fascinating (and terrifying). Do you or your colleagues have any theories as to why this might be the case? IgG4?
IM Doc, do you have any data on whether vaccinated patients in your practice received MRna vaccines or Novavax, and whether any differences were evident in the results?
Carla – I am also very interested in this and I would like to hear from anyone who has any information about how safe viral vector vaccines seem to be, compared to mRNA vaccines.
I got viral vector vaccinations (but not mRNA ones) because:
– it seemed to me that the class of technology has been around for a long time and has been tested on many people with many viruses
– I thought the worst case for a viral vector vaccine would be roughly on par with the risk of actually contracting COVID
The vast majority of my patients have received the mRNA…..about 2-3 % the J&J very early on – and I have very little experience with Novavax – as only a handful have had that.
However, for anyone who will listen who is bound and determined to be boosted, I do recommend the Novavax – and never the mRNA again.
The level of immediate illness around the shot is almost zero – and as of yet have not had even a single major problem with toxic side effects, although, again the N is very low.
I do not have enough experience to have any idea about the immune problems.
The Covid vaccines may wind up being like the flu shots.
One study found better efficacy if you get them only once every 5 years.
So it could be that very occasional boosters, with Novavax or a killed virus vaccine, does offer some benefit.
Just to give a non-US view – here in Ireland I’ve had one novavax shot for the past two years (after doing the original mRNA course). Its a struggle – no pharmacies offer it so far as I can find out, so I have to negotiate with a little misinformation to get one from the national health service here. Basically, it takes a few phone calls, and I have to tell them I had a negative reaction from the mRNA (not true) and that I’m asthmatic (partially true). Its been impossible to get the double novavax course (3 month period between) that some sources recommend – I just get a baffled look and a refusal when I’ve asked for it. I will make one more attempt via my GP this year to get a full course, but I doubt I’ll succeed.
My employer, incidentally, offers a free flu shot to all staff, but never even mentioned covid in any emails for the past 2 years.
So for now, I’ll make what I think is a ‘best guess’ for long term health – once I get to my third novavax shot I’ll just keep an eye on the science and alternate in the future between the best available covid shot and a flu shot every 2-3 years. Plus the usual non-pharmacological precautions. I’ve found that daily nasal sprays and daily antihistamine as well as avoiding high risk situations seems to have kept me infection free for most of this year (sample of one of course, not scientific). The exception was a probable infection last Spring after a flight (mask dislodged while sleeping).
On the topic of mRNA damage, I know one person who suffered long term fatigue immediately on getting the first shot. Most people, myself included, assumed she got covid the same time, and she was suffering from long covid. She is now largely recovered but occasionally relapses, and her GP has said that it was ‘probably’ the shot that did the damage. But she is not on any official list of vaccine damaged people, unsurprisingly.
Just posted this link to X. A few minutes later my account was suspended (again).
I can’t say this link is why, I was tweeting quite a bit this morning and frankly I only figure out what they are objecting to AFTER I get reinstated. They do NOT tell you why, just that you are banned.
Still no phone and the owners of the internet really hate people who don’t give them phone numbers or who use legacy browsers. At any rate, I never made it to that screen as my correct answers kept putting the challenge system into a loop: “you passed, now we’ll refresh the page and you can do it again. And again.”
I have encountered this exact situation with E-bay over the last six months or so. The two symbols used by hCaptcha there were lions or panda bears. Go figure. One successful work around for the E-bay case is to gain access to your account via a different browser. I switched from Bing, (I know, all right?) to Chrome and the “problem” went away.
I have nothing to do with Twitter/X and so do not know if this strategy will work there.
Good luck and stay safe!
What to do? What to do?
I’m 81 years old and my wife has been urging me to get the current COVID booster shot. I had the original Moderna series without effect. I have also had subsequent boosters without consequences. A couple years ago I tested positive for COVID when I had mild symptoms that lasted a day or two. So far, I have suffered from neither the virus nor the vaccine.
Could my charmed life be changed by the next booster shot or the next exposure? Who can say?
There’s a tendency for discussions of vaccine injury to focus on the novelty of the mRNA technology, to the exclusion of other aspects of the situation that differ from those we have previous experience with. This effectively assigns zero probability to, as a for instance, the role exposure to the virus prior to vaccination might play.
This is bad not only because it’s a great way to get things wrong, but also because it deflects discussion away from the most important questions regarding official culpability. Were the vaccines deployed appropriately given what was known? Did public health decision makers actually know what the hell they were doing?
Vaccination against coronaviruses has been a miserable failure for decades – in human trials and actual animal implementation. Great pause should have been given before any such attempt was made. Also listening to those who had historical expertise in this area would have been helpful. I did listen. Those in our NIH, et al – who are shareholders in Moderna did not. Grifters like Bill Gates owning mllions of shares in Bio-N-Tech did not – and indeed pressed for the silencing of anyone speaking the truth. There was shareholder value to protect, of course – and he was one of the biggest. Not only did they not listen – they went out of their way to subvert and censor and punish those who pointed out truths. Several outcomes have happened in the past with coronavirus vaccinations – what we are seeing now is one of those patterns.
And again – why on earth was Bill Gates the one who was front and center in 2020? Did anyone stop to consider how unusual that was? And what his motivations may be? OOHHH he is an altruist – I would like to have some of what you are smoking…..
As far as the mRNA – there have been 20 or so years of frantic testing of this technology in humans. It has had a real problem of causing lots of horrific side effects and has never been able to go to scale because of this. I have been on an IRB and have seen these trials cancelled again and again because of the toxicity issues.
There is a very real niche for this technology in things like cancer. Where the risks may very well be worth it. Because of the insane way this roll out occurred, it has tainted the technology and this is likely going to be very difficult to overcome even in the areas where the risk/benefit is good.
Ignoring seasoned physicians’ observations that the vaccine did seem to be responsible for injuries they were seeing is not a good look – but they were not just ignored, they were demonized. Now it is so obvious that all can see there are issues. But no one in our health apparatus did a thing to investigate this for going on 4 years now – again a crime against humanity. This is not just a civil issue – this is criminal – and needs to be handled as such. Did they know what they were doing when they put Biden in front of the American people – with the your jab or job schtick? – Why yes they did – by the time that September had rolled on – it was obvious to anyone paying attention that these vaccines were non-sterilizing – and that mandates were going to do NOTHING. Accountability please.
I am now left with multiple deceased patients from injuries. With all kinds of people whose lives were changed from these incredibly immoral mandates, and hosts of people whose immune systems seem forever altered.
I have been commenting on this for 4 years now. I took all kinds of barbs, insults, and downright threats early on in the vaccine era. But you stand with truth on your side – and things tend to be OK. Many of our federal officials did not – and their reputations are now in tatters. The other thing that was on my mind all the time – My elders were taking German bombs on D-day for this country – I can handle a few insults. I was too silent for too long. And for that I will always be deeply remorseful.
Well said. The insults you forget over time but remorse lingers.
I think coronavirus vaccines can be said to have had utility for confinement rearing of swine and poultry. The jokes almost write themselves.
Thanks for your reports on here, I always read them with great interest. Your honesty is refreshing. As you’ve no doubt noticed there’s space opening up for discussion of these things – slowly – and many previously ardent Pfizer-fans seem to be coming round to the idea that taking these products was not a great idea. In talking with these people I’m invariably amazed at the capacity for delusion / selective memory with respect to their original enthusiasm. Without fail they’ll cite coercion or some other external factor as the reason behind their lining up, when I remember full well that they couldn’t wait to get this stuff into their arms. This seems to me one of the reasons why we still can’t have a full and frank discussion – many people seem unable to accept that they were effectively duped / made a grave error of judgement.
“Vaccination against coronaviruses has been a miserable failure for decades…”
Thanks Doc. I remember well the original discussions here at NC around the experimental vaccines. The idea that no one had ever cured the common cold really resonated with me.
I had no interest in getting vaxed, and never would have, but my sister was dying in Montreal, and I had to get across the border. So, I opted for the J&J as the most seemingly benign option. I wanted to continue seeing her so I had to get the booster. No ill effects, but one bout of mild Covid about one year ago.
IM Doc, I remember you saying this at the very beginning of the epidemic, and everything that has unspooled since jibes with your account. You mentioned that medical textbooks stated the case on coronaviruses and anybody paying attention to the science really should have known the claims that the mRNA shots would be sterilizing were likely hype.
I’m not an MD, but it would be great to have a citation on hand that I could spring on any deniers (i.e., to a medical textbook on coronaviruses). I’ve found that there’s nothing quite like citing a text to silence PMC, as they do believe in homework and thus it’s hard for them to wave off a hard citation.
Personally, I’ve been extremely fortunate, not yet having SARS-CoV-2, foregoing any boosters, and just taking precautions like masks, spray, and good ventilation. This is anecdotal, I know, but: one friend has been in the ER twice with myocarditis symptoms, right after receiving mRNA booster shots. Second time, he was told that he received the booster “too soon” after an actual COVID infection. Another friend’s father had a stroke the same week he got the mRNA shot, and nobody in the hospital would even entertain the idea that there might have been a connection.
Hi Acacia, IIRC the medical textbook he cited was, ”Mandell, Douglas and Bennetts Principles and Practices of Infectious Disease.” Check the section on coronavirus, should say somewhere in there that there is no long term immunity to this type of pathogen. I have not personally read the text this is just from foggy memory of NC comments I read years ago. Hope this helps
It is important when discussing these issues to base conclusions on robust statistical data, and anecdotal evidence, even from a practice seeing thousands of patients should not be used to draw conclusions unless it has been subject to rigorous statistical analysis. Are any commenters aware of large scale studies covering the incidence of side effects, and whether these occur at a rate over 60/100k?
I’m not aware of any studies in the US or the UK, although I haven’t followed closely. My impression is there are some things the govt/med establishments in both countries do not want to study, do not want to investigate, for whatever reason. See also the way the US VAERS system was downplayed.
Robust statistical data seems to be unavailable. This leaves one with the option of perusing existing government/healthcare data. I have done this in British Columbia and made numerous FOI requests. So far not one request has been answered satisfactorily. I asked for the number remdesivir patients along with their mortality and received the total number of paloxovid prescriptions. I’ve asked for all cause mortality data and vaccination status and received nothing except for the health ministry to claim that that information would be detrimental to the government as well as impact current investigations. Funny that, our chief medical doctor was able early on in the vaccination program was able to tell us that this was a “ pandemic of the unvaccinated.” I have since asked for a review of my FOI request. My most recent request is ED admissions for heart related events in the under 40 year old cohort. Given the information out of NZ this seems like it may lead to valid information. See here: https://hatchardreport.com/staggering-new-data-from-health-new-zealand-and-others/
If governments around the world would freely provide open data sources which they are able to this conversation would not be happening.
This is utterly disingenuous.
If you had read the post with care, you would know damned well that your “robust statistical data” is an unattainable standard.
So we are to deny widespread anecdata, of MANY MANY people AND doctors having personal knowledge of multiple cases of severe vaccine injuries, which is statistically impossible to be “rare” at this frequency?
First, we said clearly that there is no good data on the frequency or severity of side effects because the overseers of VAERS have rejected many reports from doctors. IM Doc has recounted the absolutely appalling pretenses used by non-medically-trained administrators to reject his report. One was because he named a particular type of shingles (a particularly nasty one). They said they did not accept that as a side effect, even though they did shingles, and would not allow him to modify or resubmit. Others were just as bad but longer to recount.
Second, it would be possible (but I am not going to bother to work out) how statistically unlikely it is for me to have the sightings I did, or IM Doc, if he compiled the total among his vaccinated patients (and he also has good records on vaccinations, while just about no US researchers do, since they rely on EHRs, which among other things do not capture vaccinations at pharmacies). I am confident that the odds of us having these results randomly are very small, and both of us together, vanishingly so.
The burden of proof lies with those looking to impose the intervention. It is for vaccine manufacturers to show that the intervention is safe, not for others to disprove this. The manufacturers have failed to demonstrate safety, either with their original clinical trials, or since. What should have happened as a bare minimum is prolongation of the original randomised clinical trials so that we could gradually get a clearer picture of the associated risks – I’m not aware of anything like this from the manufacturers, and the fact that this wasn’t mandated is criminal in itself, if you ask me. Instead we need to make do with poor quality observational studies.
https://catalogues.ema.europa.eu/system/files/2024-06/C4591021%20Interim%205%20Study%20Report%20Abstract%20_0.pdf
This is a recent post-authorization study from Pfizer. It’s very limited in the scope of its analysis but it does find widespread elevated cardiovascular risk, amongst other things, reaching statistical significance in some datasets.
Admittedly I too had the same instant thought “nah, that´s anecdotal”.
But of course, if nobody does the job to gather the data so we can move beyond the “anecdotal” we won´t get anything done. We have to start somewhere. And by now – this is true for Germany too – so much “anecdotal evidence popped up – that quantity ha turned into quality. (As a German proverb goes.)
p.s. But in Germany even doctors like Hans-Dieter Kolenda in alternative media – someone who would argue against government positions in most matters (also a member of doctors against nuclear war) – as late as summer 2023 did not see enough data to support the claim of serious side effect issues beyond what usually with vaccines has been regarded as acceptable. So what is a reader who is extremly critical but does like to have solid data think? Sometimes things need a little time.
I don´t know what Kolenda would say now.
Yes. The Veterans Administration did a study in 2021, comparing the safety profile of the Pfizer and Moderna shots, with over 200,000 people in each arm. Published in JAMA Internal Med in 2022
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35696161/
Look especially at Table 2:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9194743/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9194743/table/ioi220025t2/
(I hope I’m linking these correctly)
For Pfizer (relevant to my household of two), 1 in 36 experienced arrhythmia; 1 in 79 suffered kidney injury.
We two had our Pfizer shots in April and May 2021. Within 7 weeks, I went into heart palpitations of a sort I’d never experienced before, culminating in a heart attack in September 2021. My partner, whose kidney labs had been just fine in 2018 and 2019, the last time they were checked before she went into near isolation at home during the shutdown, went for a regular checkup in 2022, and was told she was now stage 4 chronic kidney disease. In the report on a biopsy done at the time, we have this gem: “An anatomic basis for the patient’s quickly progressing kidney dysfunction is not readily identified in this biopsy.” Things continue on a downward trajectory, including a heart attack three months ago. Odds are very high she’ll become a dialysis patient.
Neither of us got Covid until late July 2024 – she tested positive for it at the time of the heart attack, me a few days later.
I make a point of recounting this history to every doctor either of us sees. Could we win a lawsuit for injury damages? Probably not. But the timing is incredibly suspicious, especially when that large VA study shows that cardiac and kidney issues are very common. Her nephrologist, besides recounting his own loss of hearing for a few days after his shots, says his colleagues are struck by how many patients they now have on their board awaiting dialysis.
This really is the greatest medical scandal of our time.
Back in January the person who tweets as @Jean_Fisch wrote a thread about excess mortality in New Zealand at the time of the vaccine rollout. Their conclusion was that any vaccine-caused mortality was subsumed by the fall in mortality produced by anti-pandemic measures.
This was of interest because apparently New Zealand’s vaccination campaign preceded widespread infection there. I’ve been hoping I might at some point find myself with the energy to take a critical look at this (It feeds straight into my confirmation biases regarding prior exposure to the virus playing a role in vaccine injury.) but I doubt that’s going to happen. I’d be interested to hear what anyone else makes of it.
It is the old argument between public health and personal health. A numbers game, how many died and disabled from necessarily rushed vaccines versus how many would have been killed and disabled without any intervention or even a later intervention.
They were always going to force us back to work and good vaccines take decades to perfect and even the proven vaccines still harm a few. Public health can’t focus on individual health too much or it becomes useless.
Thanks, Raymond. I agree that the order of infection / vaccination likely matters – original antigenic sin tells us that the nature of the first exposure is important – but my feeling was always that it works in the opposite way to what you’re describing (prior infection is protective against vaccine harms), at least for immune dysfunction. I believe IgG4 class switch is less pronounced (and maybe non-existent) in those who experienced infection before vaccination. And perhaps an initial infection allows proper training of innate immunity before vaccinal antibodies come to dominate the response, although this is unproven as far as I’m aware.
There are major complicating factors at work: This virus goes after the immune system, big time – and it persists.
I remember how relieved I was when, about a year into the pandemic it became clear that people who’d been infected were eventually developing something like competent immunity (cue the variants).
An on-point anecdote: talked to a neighbor yesterday. Brother-in-law had latest booster roughly 6 weeks ago. Two days after the booster, contracts COVID. Two days after the COVID diagnosis, starts having numbness in extremities. Goes to hospital and is diagnosed with a “rare” form of Guillain-Barré syndrome (“rare” was neighbor’s term, not mine). Sufficiently debilitating that the BIL has been in ICU for 30 days on a respirator as he is unable to breathe.
Now is it the vaccine? COVID? Something else? No way of knowing but it’s suspect timing.
There is a great YT discussion between Weinstein and Kevin McKernan-an genomics guru (he invented some tools used in the human genome project) -about the covid measures, including vax development. Some fascinating stuff, invalidity of some PCR testing, Pfizer fraud (changing manufacturing process AFTER getting the EA. McKernan comments, “In biologics the process IS the product”. McKernan was the one who discovered the DNA contamination in the Pfizer vax. This by accident as he was using some as test for one of his tools. The DNA contamination has been independently verified by others. Long discussion of what the DNA might do, and how likely it might be to integrated into human cells. SV40 promoter.
Lots of info, and Weinstein is very good at restating McKernan’a geek into stuff I could understand. Well worth a listen at 1.5X
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORW2uPR24w
I was a fit older man. About 3 years ago, I started having unaccountable attacks of pain and weakness in tendons all over my body. Quad,, then ankle, then shoulder, then feet. Eventually my ankle rendered me entirely unable to walk. An orthopedist threw up his hands and referred me to a physical therapist.
It was actually a podiatrist who thought to pursue the possibility of a an immune disorder, being afflicted with a rare arthritis since his own Moderna shots, and after yeat more tests and yet more doctors, it was concluded that Moderna had overactivated my immune system to the point where, to this day, my blood markers are wildly abnormal for producing antibodies against my own cellular proteins.
My very capable PCP (so few people have one anymore!) is treating it with a mild immunosuppressant. You may have heard of it: hydroxychloroquine. She tried to report the case per industry protocol, but here experience mirrored IM Doc’s—she said nobody is even compiling them, nobody wants to know.
Yikes. That is really worrisome. I am sorry about your case, and now I have one more thing to look for in people I know who got the vax.
I know an older man whose body starting producing proteins against GAD which brain cells use to communicate with each other. A few months after his two Moderna mRNA boosters he started to notice becoming forgetful and tired and doing weird things. His first two shots were Astra Zeneca (not mRNA).
No previous family history of neurological problems.
He is on an ongoing regime of IVIg and a chemotherapy drug. Now a lifelong condition but the treatments have stopped him from hallucinating all the time and having epileptic fits. He now has most of his life back.
His doctors don’t disagree when he says he thinks it was the boosters that did it.
Our government told us we should take the vaccine to protect others, so the government should ensure that injuries are fully compensated. Social protection for contribution to social good.
Leaving aside that the claimed social good was largely a false pretense, and young people should never have been forced to take a known but not fully known risk for marginal personal and social benefit.
Great topic, great discussion. Last I looked, this is 2024 and we have the latest and greatest technology even known to mankind. Yet, we don’t have good data on a multi-year pandemic.
Only in America.
Rather than describe health issues, I’ll share that I like to compete in competitions that are in the Olympics. I’ll never make the US team cut-offs, but I can track performance.
My performance/scores took a nosedive after being vaccinated and I have barely reached the same performance level three years later. J&J with lingering effects.
Matt Taibbi on this issue, sort of, in a paywalled new piece.
So here the entire non-paywalled excerpt:
Begin the Deprogramming: There Was No “Pandemic of the Unvaccinated”
A note on Jimmy Kimmel, Howard Stern, Joe Biden, Stephen Colbert, and others
https://www.racket.news/p/begin-the-deprogramming-there-was
“(…)
A few readers of this afternoon’s column on Jimmy Kimmel took exception to the line, “We now know the vaccine didn’t really work.” Writes “Blissex”:
And here Matt Taibbi jumps the shark as high as he can and states something outrageous: the vaccines really worked well, with few and rare side effects and reasonable ability to suppress the virus, and it was very necessary to reduce the number of deaths, hospitalizations and even mild sicknesses, to allow the scaling down and end of the lockdowns.
I got the shot the first time. Then I got Covid. Then I learned, in part during work on the Twitter Files, that officials like Anthony Fauci misled the public about natural immunity (here’s Fauci in May, 2021 suggesting two doses of mRNA vaccine offered up to “ten times” more protection than natural antibodies), overhyped risks to healthy adults and children, and severely downplayed Covid’s infectiousness. It came out in congresional testimony that Fauci essentially made up guidances about social distancing, that the policy “sort of just appeared” and was not based on studies, because “that would be a very difficult study to do.”
I agree with defamed reporter Alex Berenson: this medicine is more like a “therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect profile that must be dosed in advance of illness.” For people in a high-risk category, it can be useful, lifesaving. But it’s a substance you stick in my arm that allows me to get the targeted disease almost immediately, and doesn’t stop me getting it from or giving it to my kids. If that’s a “vaccine,” I’m a Chinese jet pilot.
More to the point, I’m struck by the thematic consistency of the lies about the shot, which somwhow all served the same propagandistic purpose. I’d bet good money that if the incoming administration digs in the right places, they’ll find it in writing somewhere that winding up nitwits like Kimmel to sadistic J’Accuse! routines was an expected consequence of the “pandemic of the unvaccinated” campaign:
(…)”
And this from Taibbi/Kirn´s show from last night:
They watch Jimmy Kimmel and how he reads a childrens´ book about getting the vaccine against the will of irrational parents.
starts at TC: 01:50:00 – 1:53:40
https://www.racket.news/p/america-this-week-friday-november
This appearance of Kimmel IS indeed a bit embarassing (but I assume this is normal for his kind of humour).
I know that humour with children might work differently than for adults. But that doesn´t mean you have to turn it into state propaganda demeaning the parents and introducing the real Fauci as a character of a fictional story.
Of course what I find most disturbing is the complete lack of irony of the overaching narrative structure of that sketch. It is affirming rules, submitting to power which is the opposite of what comedy makes comedy (as Kirn said in the recent show about Harris on SLN).
Or to put it in Classic movie director Howard Hawk´s words, when he talked about a scene in “Bringing Up Baby” (1938):
Humour means not that the sentences are written in a funny way but that the context of the entire scene is funny. Then the sentences within that scene will automatically be funny even if they contain no funny lines as such but mere “facts”.
He spoke about this scene:
Bringing Up Baby (3/9) Movie CLIP – 30 Pounds of Sirloin Steak (1938)
2 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiWjwS4lqLY
(Forgive me for bringing up such an old example but for the problem age is secondary.)
In comparison Kimmel is inverting: The context is not funny, only the lines are supposed to be. However there you lack the safety of a well built whole idea. Instead you are dependent on each phrase to deliver a punch line. If that doesn´t work you have to switch to laughter to fill in for the flaws. Which is second-rate work.
My big family in Indonesia took the Chinese vaccines, and so far everyone seems to be hale and healthy. As to whether it was really effective, well an uncle of mine got Covid afterwards and had to be hospitalized. Family members were not allowed to visit because he was placed in a sterile environment where only people wearing biohazard suits were allowed to enter. This uncle of mine has always been a heavy smoker and had all sorts of ailments when he contracted Covid. He’s still alive today eating all sorts of good stuff while taking his medications. QC was much better back in the days. I was stuck in America but didn’t take any of the vaccines on offer and till now I am still unvaccinated.
Does IM Doc have general current prophylactic infection-avoiding Covid advice? (I know not specific medical advice. Pls keep in mind most primary PCP physicians will likely just point to the same US medical establishment “line” IM Doc/NC criticizes, like the no-mask wearing, many mRNA booster dose-taking CDC director Cohen)
N95 mask in indoor public buildings?
Novavax booster or no booster?
nasal rinse?
vitamins including Vitamin D, “Vitamin I”?
Do any foreign CDC-equiavlent orgs have good current prophylactic anti-Covid advice? Perhaps New Zealand or China, who seemed to be Covid policy world leaders before even they flip-flopped from Zero Covid to Let It Rip/Because Markets?
German alternative news site multipolar on new poll by FORSA institute – 19 percent had vaccine side effects, 40 percent demand investigative committee
fom October 15, 2024
p.s. On Oct. 15th FORSA wrote to multipolar (this is in the end of the article but I quote it here for better context):
“Correction 15.10., 13:00: The title and introduction of the article initially mentioned a survey “commissioned by Multipolar and the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung”. On 15.10. at 10:00, Multipolar received a letter from a lawyer commissioned by Forsa, requesting that it sign a cease-and-desist declaration by 13:00 and stop claiming that the survey had also been commissioned by Multipolar. In fact, Multipolar had initiated the survey and suggested the questions to be asked, which were then formulated in consultation with the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung. However, the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung was the only one who formally commissioned the survey. The text has been changed accordingly.”
German original
https://multipolar-magazin.de/artikel/forsa-umfrage-1
Engl.:
According to a representative survey, the number of critics of the corona measures has increased sharply – apparently also due to the publication of the RKI protocols. According to the survey, the number of vaccination side effects is far greater than previously stated. 40 percent of those surveyed are now calling for a committee of inquiry, 29 percent for legal investigations against the politicians responsible.
https://archive.is/7v2KZ
Graphics are still German though.
A few bits from the text:
“The publication of the RKI protocols appears to be partly responsible for the significant increase in criticism. According to the current survey, only 28 percent of Germans are still aware of these protocols, but almost half of them, 12 percent of all respondents, are now “more critical” of the measures since they learned about the protocols. An estimated eight million citizens have therefore become more skeptical after learning about the documents”
“90 percent of those surveyed have received a corona “vaccination” . This corresponds to the figures from the RKI, according to which 87 percent of people aged 18 and over in Germany have received at least one injection of the mRNA preparations.”
“17 percent of all respondents (19 percent of those vaccinated) reported a side effect after the vaccination. This extent is in stark contrast to the statements of the Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI), whose last published safety report from March 2023 only registered “1.77 suspected case reports per 1,000 vaccinations”, or 0.177 percent. Since most people have received several vaccinations (an average of three ), the rate per vaccinated person is correspondingly higher, but is not reported separately by the PEI. The rate is based on the more than 300,000 suspected case reports received by the PEI as part of the spontaneous reporting system .”