Occasionally there are stories where I wonder if I should weigh in because I’m a bit late to the party and worry that I missed the boat, so to speak. This story about a certain Florida Department of Health report started out as one of them, but then I remembered that I write about what interests me, and this story interested me. A lot Also, I could take advantage of Twitter threads and conversations that go into more detail than the news story that inspired this post did.
I’m sure most readers remember the report published by the Florida Department of Health last fall that concluded that for young men the risk-benefit ratio of COVID-19 vaccines compared to risks from COVID-19 itself is not favorable? As I wrote at the time when I described the study as the State of Florida making its antivax disinformation official, the study was plenty bad enough from a reporting and methodology standpoint, the study was written by authors who were not identified used bad epidemiology and science to conclude that men aged 18-39 should not receive COVID-19 vaccines, and was not peer-reviewed.
Before I even examined the actual flaws in the study, my skeptical antennae had started twitching based on seeing a health department run by a COVID-19 contrarian and antivaxxer (Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, lackey of Gov. Ron DeSantis) issue an anonymous “study” directly without anything resembling peer review. After I had read the study, I was even more convinced that this was more propaganda than science, particularly given that the study itself failed to find an increase in mortality following COVID-19 vaccination in any age group, but, oddly enough that wasn’t the finding that was hyped by Dr. Ladapo, Gov. DeSantis, and their fans. Instead, they focused on a subgroup analysis that purportedly showed that there was an increase in mortality due to cardiac causes following vaccination in younger men, specifically men age 18-39, which led to the recommendation that men this age should not receive COVID-19 vaccines.
Guess what? It looks as though whoever edited the article cooked the books, so to speak, in order to lie with statistics by omitting key context that did not support the party line that COVID-19 vaccines are more dangerous than COVID-19 for young men. I conclude this based on drafts of the report obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and published in the Tampa Bay Times last week:
Let’s just start out with the story itself:
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced in October that young men should not get the COVID-19 vaccine, guidance that runs counter to medical advice issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
His recommendation was based on a state analysis that showed the risk of cardiac-related deaths increased significantly for some age groups after receiving a vaccine. It has been criticized by experts, including professors and epidemiologists at the University of Florida, where Ladapo is employed as a professor.
Now, draft versions of the analysis obtained by the Tampa Bay Times show that this recommendation was made despite the state having contradictory data. It showed that catching COVID-19 could increase the chances of a cardiac-related death much more than getting the vaccine.
That data was included in an earlier version of the state’s analysis but was missing from the final version compiled and posted online by the Florida Department of Health. Ladapo did not reference the contradictory data in a release posted by the state.
Color me unsurprised. After all, if you want to portray the risk of cardiac complications from the vaccine in as bad a light as possible, you can’t have pesky data for cardiac complications due to COVID-19 itself mucking up your narrative. Even better, the story includes actual copies of the draft reports, so that you can read them for yourself if you don’t believe the analysis.
It turns out that there had been five drafts of the report before the report was released to the public last fall. Worse, every single draft, except for the final draft that was released as the official report, included relevant information assessing the risk-benefit ratio of vaccination versus COVID for various age groups (basically, the risk of myocarditis and cardiac death after vaccination and after COVID-19) and sensitivity analyses to assess whether differences seen were likely to be due to vaccination rather than other factors. Guess which analyses were left out of the final report? If you guessed the data about the risk of cardiac complications from COVID itself and the sensitivity analyses, you guessed right!
Examining the various drafts of the report as it was being written is exactly the sort of analysis that needed to be done, and it took several people to do it. First, Christopher O’Donnell is the Tampa Bay Times reporter who submitted the FOIA request, obtained earlier drafts of the report, and wrote the story. He was assisted by relevant experts, including Dr. Jonathan Laxton, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Manitoba; Katrine Wallace, PhD, an epidemiologist at the University of Illinois, Chicago; and Matt Hitchings, an infectious disease epidemiologist and professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida.
Helpfully, for those who like to see the actual numbers and what specific chicanery was engaged in, Dr. Laxton has provided a Twitter thread that explains in depth. I’ll embed a couple of the key images for you to look at that explain why the original study failed to show that vaccine-induced myocarditis resulted in excess deaths in young men.
Of note, Dr. Kristen Panthagani, who was a source for my post discussing the original study (a.k.a., the final draft missing information) also discussed the significance of what was left out of the final draft on Twitter. In particular, I like how she boiled down the key findings of each draft in order, to show you how the story evolved but then jarringly changed to show a higher risk of cardiac death after vaccination in young men:
Interestingly, the last version reported, in essence, the exact opposite of what the first version concluded:
What really set my skeptical antennae twitching more was the observation that the study design changed after the first version:
Exactly. When a slight change in study design yields a very different result, likely the results are not particularly robust. Moreover, when an investigator changes the study design post hoc, without a clear scientific rationale for doing so, it reeks of data dredging, p-hacking, or whatever you want to call torturing the data until they confess. As Dr. Panthagani notes in fairness, researchers sometimes do this without realizing they’re doing it. However, based on his history in Florida and before, it is not unreasonable to speculate that Dr. Ladapo wanted a study that found harm from the vaccine and would provide a seemingly scientific justification for not recommending COVID-19 vaccines to at least one large subgroup of the population. In this case, the subgroup was young Florida men (aged 18-39). Also in fairness, maybe there was a perfectly valid scientific reason to tweak the design this way. We can’t know without knowing about the discussion led to these changes in the design of the study.
As an aside, I also can’t help but point out that in the CDC whistleblower conspiracy theory, one key accusation about the CDC study at the heart of the conspiracy that found no risk of autism attributable to MMR vaccines is that the investigators changed the study protocol after the study had begun. Had this been true (it wasn’t, as I and others discussed), that would indeed have been a major scientific mistake or even constituted fraud. One wonders if antivaxxers will be equally critical of the anonymous Florida Department of Health scientists who wrote and edited this paper and apparently definitely tweaked their study protocol after the study had begun and, worse, didn’t report it. Actually, one doesn’t wonder. They won’t, because they like the results of the final version far more than they would have liked the results of the first version.
We also now know (or can suspect) why the sensitivity analyses accounting for the multidose vaccine schedule were left out of the final draft:
I realize that some of my readers don’t like it when I embed long Twitter threads; so I’ve tried to keep it to a minimum. There’s also a blog post version of the Twitter thread above, for your edification, as well as a lovely video by Dr. Susan Oliver that also explains what happened:
However, I considered these key Tweets important and excellent explanations of what appears to have happened. In any event, even if Dr. Panthagani is unwilling to accuse the writers of this Florida report and their Florida bosses to whom they report, in particular Dr. Ladapo, of p-hacking/data dredging in order to torture the data until they confess to the crime for which they want a confession, I am. I don’t know if the authors of this report wanted to engage in p-hacking. However, the choice of what was left out of the final version, combined with how a small tweak was made to the protocol design that yielded a large change in results sure does reek of data dredging. I strongly suspect that Dr. Ladapo or one of his sycophants, toadies, and lackeys in the Florida Department of Health overseeing the report kept sending it back until the scientists tasked with writing it came up with conclusions that satisfied them. I don’t blame these scientists for apparently not wanting their names associated with this dreck, either. I wonder if these likely career scientists at the Florida Department of Health tried their damnedest to analyze the data correctly and report what it actually showed but finally could not resist the meddling and editing of whatever cronies Dr. Ladapo put in charge of their department. It’s not an unlikely possibility.
Indeed, when I first wrote about this study, I really, really wanted to find out who wrote it and who was involved in designing, executing, analyzing, writing, and editing it. Now I’m less sure, as I’d hate to see the reputation of career scientists trying to do their job in a hostile environment ruined. On the other hand, I still strongly suspect involvement of some of the usual suspects besides Dr. Ladapo in this study (e.g., Tracy Beth Høeg), and that would be useful to know. Basically, I’m a bit torn.
Let’s get back to the story, though:
The state’s analysis was also criticized for not including a sensitivity analysis, a method of proving that the results remain consistent even when changing some of the assumptions used in the calculations.
A sensitivity analysis was present in three versions of the draft and suggests that the increased risk for young men from the vaccine is not significant, said Jonathan Laxton, a physician and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Manitoba.
“It’s a double check that didn’t confirm that finding,” Laxton said.
Indeed it didn’t. Also:
Matt Hitchings, an infectious disease epidemiologist and professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida, said it seems that sections of the analysis were omitted because they did not fit the narrative the surgeon general wanted to push.
“This is a grave violation of research integrity,” Hitchings said. “(The vaccine) has done a lot to advance the health of people of Florida and he’s encouraging people to mistrust it.”
Tell me something I didn’t know. This is at least borderline scientific fraud in the service of a political narrative, political scientific fraud, if you will. Unfortunately, that is what Gov. DeSantis is all about, distorting science in order to achieve a political end, and Dr. Ladapo is his chosen lackey to spearhead that effort. This anonymous report was just one of many weapons used to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt about COVID-19 vaccines by lying with statistics.
70 replies on “Lying with statistics in Florida, COVID-19 vaccine edition”
Of course it’s probably purely coincidental that a few weeks ago I found- and noted at RI- that an epidemiologist named Jacob L Crosby was employed by the Florida Department of Health
I had forgotten about that. Maybe he wrote the report.😂
Looking at my source, govsalaries.com, I find that he was employed in 2021 and 2022 as an “operations consultant” for 42K USD by the health department.
IIRC, his MPH thesis included VAERS diving at GWU. Rene** DPH had details but I vaguely remember a Geier-esque air and a female GWU enabler ( I forget her name).
In 2011 ( ?), I warned Jake ( RI) that his anti-vaxx might prevent his employment : I was wrong only because anti-science/ anti-vax has taken hold in Florida and he fits right in. A reasonably good degree and BS ideas.
** I omit his full name so trolls don’t bother him
You remember correctly. There was a Geier connection. Geier was his site preceptor. I hope Dr. Najera can go deeper into what that means, but I’m not sure he’s following these comments.
I herd it on Dan Bongino months ago. He was touting the revolutionary study and warning his tens of followers off getting vaccinated. I ‘knew’ within milliseconds that it was that Lapderpo dude — who knew or would listen? Cars have stopped including AM. Maybe that will be of some short term benifit.
You’re too kind. This was a Wakefield level fraud, though sadly some doctors (vinay Prasad for example) are defending it.
Wakefield level fraud with the addition of the full force and enforcement of a state government that is one of the largest and most populous states in the United States. It’s next level Wakefield fraud.
Well they’re hardly going to stick to a basic-level Wakefield fraud, not when the glorious prize of much greater political (and hence financial) gain is so enticingly within reach. That’d be so last decade!
The ‘safe and effective’ folks are complaining about manipulating data? 😂
As I predicted, antivaxxers are fine with manipulating data, as long as the result is one they like.😏
“Unfortunately, that is what Gov. DeSantis is all about, distorting science in order to achieve a political end, and Dr. Ladapo is his chosen lackey to spearhead that effort.” Distorting science to achieve a political end explains Covid-19 vaccinations perfectly – justifications for mandates for funneling money to companies that spend heavy on lobbying and for a dry run of global fascism via ‘vaccine passports’. I’m with the guy not mandating I inject LNPs. All the stuff that has come out about the vax was largely anticipated by the studies on LNPs.
No, it wasn’t.🙄🤦🏻♂️
Go ahead: step by step, explain where the myriad of studies of the vaccines, by the scientists who created them to legitimate outside groups, had the science or data distorted.
How about unblinding the Pfizer trial and destroying the control group for starters. Overstating efficacy by using relative risk reduction instead of absolute risk reduction… Honestly, any person with a capacity for critical thinking ought to be able to construct their own list.
With obvious conflicts of interest and billions of dollars at stake, why should we trust any “science or data” at all without independent corroboration, particularly when it is bought and paid for by corporate entities with an established history of fraud? It’s a strikingly odd phenomenon that anyone’s default reaction to known liars could be one of unquestioning trust.
For those following along at home, don’t ever be tempted by this argument. It is completely unethical not to unblind a trial once it is obvious that one of the treatments is providing a very different result to the others. It is unethical to continue put patients at risk when you can take action to reduce the risk.
What a load of complete bulldust. Relative risk reduction is the only way to compare groups. Absolute risk reduction is only useful in assessing the total number of people who might benefit. Absolute risk reduction is dependent on the number of events.
You’ve never read anything more about statistics than some of the general terms used have you?
“In order to protect mRNA molecules from the body’s natural defenses, drug developers must wrap them in a protective casing. For Moderna, that meant putting its Crigler-Najjar therapy in nanoparticles made of lipids. And for its chemists, those nanoparticles created a daunting challenge: Dose too little, and you don’t get enough enzyme to affect the disease; dose too much, and the drug is too toxic for patients.
From the start, Moderna’s scientists knew that using mRNA to spur protein production would be a tough task, so they scoured the medical literature for diseases that might be treated with just small amounts of additional protein.
“And that list of diseases is very, very short,” said the former employee who described Bancel as needing a Hail Mary.
Crigler-Najjar was the lowest-hanging fruit.
Yet Moderna could not make its therapy work, former employees and collaborators said. The safe dose was too weak, and repeat injections of a dose strong enough to be effective had troubling effects on the liver in animal studies.
The drug, ALXN1540, has since been delayed, as Moderna works on “new and better formulations” that might later reach human trials, Alexion said in an emailed statement.”
https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/10/moderna-trouble-mrna/
You know what requires only “small amounts” of protein to work—and with very well? Vaccines. That’s why mRNA was such a great platform for vaccines!
ALXN1540 does not activate immune system, so mRNA must be much more stabile.
DeSantis should just go whole hog and embrace the David Byrne look with more shoulder pads. Ladapo could have epaulettes with a cord then.
[…] Unfortunately, we also live in age of charlatans who lie, lie and lie some more about […]
An update for those of you disappointed that the children’s book Melanie’s Marvelous Measles is no longer available on Amazon:
No, this highly mocked antivax book is still not listed on the site. However, a worthy successor is due out in a few months, and already has an Amazon listing. “I’m Unvaccinated and That’s OK” tells the story of young Nicholas, a boy who gains great advantage by being unprotected from dangerous infectious diseases and having the potential to infect others, including infants and immunosuppressed contacts.
https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781510778191/im-unvaccinated-and-thats-ok/
The author is listed as Dr. Shannon Kroner, who unsurprisingly is not an M.D. but rather a clinical psychologist, pro-Trumper and “Freedom Fighter” who supports the idea that Covid-19 vaccines could alter our DNA.
Might be time to contact Simon & Schuster (already under fire for distributing a Skyhorse-published book featuring HIV denial) to ask if they really think it’s good for their reputation to enable crap like this.
Shannon Kroner? Now there’s a blast from the past!
“Late to the party” or not, Orac’s discussions always go beyond news accounts in valuable ways, typically including not just more information, but the sort of normative perspective that doesn’t pass the “balance and objectivity” filter of news reporting.
And some of us who follow this blog may not be reading other sources on this stuff as widely as our host, so it’s ‘news’ to us.
@ John LaBarge
You write: “The ‘safe and effective’ folks are complaining about manipulating data?”
And just who are the “‘safe and effective’ folks”?
Give URLs to the above. The internet and social media allow for innumerable different groups. One can find QAnon, Racists, Absolute Lies about History and Current Politics, etc. Critical thinking and science requires one to base ones opinions on evidence-based science, so required to actually search for research, etc. they claim to be citing.
You write: “Distorting science to achieve a political end explains Covid-19 vaccinations perfectly – justifications for mandates for funneling money to companies that spend heavy on lobbying and for a dry run of global fascism via ‘vaccine passports’. I’m with the guy not mandating I inject LNPs. All the stuff that has come out about the vax was largely anticipated by the studies on LNPs.”
Go to FDAs website and search for just one of the COVID mRNA vaccines; e.g., Moderna or Pfizer and read through the extensive documentation. Or go to PubMed and type in search bar Moderna Covid Vaccine or Pfizer. I just did and found 2,035 published papers. Or type in Moderna Covid Vaccine Efficacy. I just did and found 354 results. Or type in Moderna Covid Vaccine Safety. I just did and found 468 results. And if you Google, you will find that not only FDA, CDC, and numerous medical schools and Public Health Institutes have published on the vaccines; but internationally, numerous other nations ran their own clinical trials and have published numerous papers on efficacy and safety.
Do you really believe that MDs, PhDs, other medical researchers working for governments, non-profits, medical schools, and public health entities, ALL distorted the science just to help a couple of companies make profits? After reviewing what I knew about mRNA, including earlier vaccine developments, I volunteered for Phase 3 Moderna Clinical trials. As a regular monthly blood donor, they did antibody tests afterwards and I, especially given my age, had high antibodies, not just first time; but even six months after last booster. And I have NEVER worked for a pharmaceutical company nor own any shares in their stocks. And I eagerly await next COVID booster as well as in September flu vaccine and finally a Respiratory Syncytial Virus vaccine, a disease especially nasty for very young and very old.
You continue to make claims based on your unscientific (no understanding of infectious diseases, immunology, or epidemiology) ignorant bias.
While I realize you will just continue despite what Orac writes, what I write, and what others writes, I can recommend the following, which I know you won’t read:
Lauren Sompayrac’s “How the Immune System Works” about 160 pages available from amazon.com
Michael T Osterholm (2020). Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs. also available from amazon.com
So, go on, KEEP MAKING A FOOL OF YOURSELF
@ John LaBarge
You write: “The ‘safe and effective’ folks are complaining about manipulating data?”
And just who are the “‘safe and effective’ folks”?
Give URLs to the above. The internet and social media allow for innumerable different groups. One can find QAnon, Racists, Absolute Lies about History and Current Politics, etc. Critical thinking and science requires one to base ones opinions on evidence-based science, so required to actually search for research, etc. they claim to be citing.
You write: “Distorting science to achieve a political end explains Covid-19 vaccinations perfectly – justifications for mandates for funneling money to companies that spend heavy on lobbying and for a dry run of global fascism via ‘vaccine passports’. I’m with the guy not mandating I inject LNPs. All the stuff that has come out about the vax was largely anticipated by the studies on LNPs.”
Go to FDAs website and search for just one of the COVID mRNA vaccines; e.g., Moderna or Pfizer and read through the extensive documentation. Or go to PubMed and type in search bar Moderna Covid Vaccine or Pfizer. I just did and found 2,035 published papers. Or type in Moderna Covid Vaccine Efficacy. I just did and found 354 results. Or type in Moderna Covid Vaccine Safety. I just did and found 468 results. And if you Google, you will find that not only FDA, CDC, and numerous medical schools and Public Health Institutes have published on the vaccines; but internationally, numerous other nations ran their own clinical trials and have published numerous papers on efficacy and safety.
Do you really believe that MDs, PhDs, other medical researchers working for governments, non-profits, medical schools, and public health entities, ALL distorted the science just to help a couple of companies make profits? After reviewing what I knew about mRNA, including earlier vaccine developments, I volunteered for Phase 3 Moderna Clinical trials. As a regular monthly blood donor, they did antibody tests afterwards and I, especially given my age, had high antibodies, not just first time; but even six months after last booster. And I have NEVER worked for a pharmaceutical company nor own any shares in their stocks. And I eagerly await next COVID booster as well as in September flu vaccine and finally a Respiratory Syncytial Virus vaccine, a disease especially nasty for very young and very old.
You continue to make claims based on your unscientific (no understanding of infectious diseases, immunology, or epidemiology) ignorant bias.
While I realize you will just continue despite what Orac writes, what I write, and what others writes, I can recommend the following, which I know you won’t read:
Lauren Sompayrac’s “How the Immune System Works” about 160 pages available from amazon.com
Michael T Osterholm (2020). Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs.
So, go on, KEEP MAKING A FOOL OF YOURSELF
“Do you really believe that MDs, PhDs, other medical researchers working for governments, non-profits, medical schools, and public health entities, ALL distorted the science just to help a couple of companies make profits?”
Do you really believe that MDs, PhDs, and other researchers are going to risk their NIH funding? Please. The entire system is corrupt. That doesn’t mean ALL results are wrong or incorrect. It most certainly DOES mean that published results cannot be ASSUMED to be true or correct. The TOGETHER trial that investigated an ivermectin protocol that is used by no one is an example of a trial that was obviously designed to obtain a desired outcome.
Simple litmus tests for trustworthy results are reproduciblity and ability to predict real-world outcomes (consistency with empirical data/experience). When results are inconsistent with reality, a red flag goes up. If a vaccine is labeled “safe and effective” and a majority of people accept it, yet all-cause mortality rises, we have a situation that is inconsistent with expectations. That’s just one example. Sorry if information that challenges your world-view upsets you, but @LaBarge isn’t the one playing the part of the fool. Good luck with your untested, compounded boosters.
“Do you really believe that MDs, PhDs, and other researchers are going to risk their NIH funding? Please. The entire system is corrupt.”
“None but those who have experienced them can conceive of the enticements of science.”
Mary Shelley in Frankenstein Or, The Modern Prometheus
@ Chaos Infusion
First, only a small percentage of doctors work on NIH grants and you also ignore what I wrote about medical and public health professionals around the world. All that you, John La Barge and others do is question based on biased beliefs without valid data. Yep, of course one can always find corrupt individuals.
In psychology there is a defense mechanism called “projection”. Basically, someone who is in denial about some flaw in their character projects, sees it in others. So, maybe you, John La Barge, and others are the ones who are dishonest and just project it on others, with, of course, finding a few who fit your projected selves.
Cause of mortality rise may not be vaccines.
Non US scientists are not funded by NIH, neither are foreign governments. ONS (UK statistical agency) publishes data about non COVID deaths among vaccinated and unvaccinated.
@Aarno
I just love, love how succinctly you demolish these yahoos!
“Do you really believe that MDs, PhDs, and other researchers are going to risk their NIH funding?”
Must be expensive for NIH to fund every medical scientific study and trial in the entire world.
Dimwit.
There are hints that the studies (which are representations of science, not science – an important distinction that Orac leaves out with his de-nuanced ‘science-denier’ term) are mostly biased, particularly those relied on by the US institutions. 1) in the US there is no mention of prior infection as a reason to not recommend the vaccine (other countries have this) 2) the demonization of any treatment other than the vaccine with studies designed specifically to get to a negative outcome 3) relatedly the large number of retracted studies 4) the whole mask pseudo science pushed by the folks here 5) US still recommends the vax for kids when there is no statistical benefit – certainly not in relation to the greater risk of myocarditis.
Now if you want more than a hint that the science folks are bent, a billboard sized hint, then you need only look at mortality rates in heavily vaccinated countries post vaccine. This big picture reveals the vax as a failure and its counties recommendation sinister.
Another thing I hear from vaxligous folks all the time is similar to Joel’s contention that so many scientists etc would can’t all be so corrupted. The same group arguing this though are also arguing for stripping credentials from anyone who disagrees. So is it really any wonder that most folks either fall inline with the medical fascism or stay quiet? See the excess mortality – you can hide but you can’t run.
Give us a name a single antivaxxer who has lost his academic credentials. It is not done
Republican senators will support them, too
Thank you John. Once again you’ve shown that, at the base of all anti-vax science, isn’t science but the assumption that your opinions must be correct so everyone else must be dishonest.
You fail to realise that the way to win at science is to eliminate all of the competing scientific arguments.
Why do you say that? [Given your zero-level of understanding of statistics and science, this should be entertaining, in a “good lord he’s stupid” kind of way.]
I suspect that he’s blundered into credulously reenacting the Sokal hoax.
No evidence as usual. Here are a couple relevant studies.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2797451
So they are just as safe as other childhood vaccines that have been in general use for years.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7135a3.htm
And on the other hand we have 729 deaths in children age 0-4 from Covid-19 so far and even more in the 5-18 range.’
https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Deaths-Focus-on-Ages-0-18-Yea/nr4s-juj3
1) Vaccinating people that have had COVID just gives more protection, like booster. What is prolem with that ?
2) Other that vaccines exclude FDA accepted antivirals, I presume. But of course you mean ivermectin. So go to RCTs and tell us how they are planned to fail.
@ John La Barge
You write: “I’m with the guy not mandating I inject LNPs. All the stuff that has come out about the vax was largely anticipated by the studies on LNPs.”
What studies on LNPs? Give references, URLs. I found several reviews on Lipid Nanoparticles and ones used with mRNA quite safe, here’s one:
Xucheng Hou et al. (2021 Dec). Lipid nanoparticles for mRNA delivery. Nature reviews. Materials; 6(12): 1078–1094 [available free online]
See also Britannica. Nanoparticle applications in medicine
Covid vaccines cause myocarditis.
“But covid causes myocarditis also”, say vaccine advocates.
Well, if Covid vaccine prevented Covid, then perhaps it could be an important factual addition.
But since Covid vaccines do not prevent Covid, vaccinated people risk myocarditis with every “safe and effective” vaccine shot, then with every Covid infection and reinfection they suffer from.
So Florida was quite correct to take out that specific section out.
Not stopping 100% of COVID infections is not the same as not stopping any COVID infections. This has been pointed out to you multiple times, yet you persistently repeat your claim that they are completely ineffective.
You are a bad faith actor.
Perhaps you understand this: everyone not buying your product does not mean that nobody is buying it. If most of people were buying, this would be a
very satisfactory result.
@ Igor Chudov
You ignore that the rate of myocarditis from the vaccines is much much lower than from actual covid and studies have found usually milder, shorter duration.
And you are wrong. Covid vaccines do prevent covid in many people; but in others reduce severity of disease, risk of hospitalization, when hospitalized shorter duration and lower chance of intensive care and lower death rates. In your continued stupidly ignorant bias you attack vaccines because they don’t prevent 100%. Well, seatbelts only prevent ca. 50% of serious injuries and deaths, so why don’t you attack laws mandating seatbelts since seatbelts only protect individual; but vaccines, though not perfect, but reduce not only individual; but transmission to others.
KEEP MAKING A FOOL OF YOURSELF, YOUR FORTE
These studies are designed to get that outcome. Mostly peaceful myocarditis, please.
OK, now you’re just trolling. You can’t be that stupid can you?
They can.
@ ldw56old
Yep, he is that stupid! ! !
Read the study and tell us how they are designed to give a certain result.
John doesn’t need to read the study, he just knows…
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.122.059970 biases for sever Covid infections throwing out most of the denominator.
It does not discard denominator nor divisor, it gives percentage of people getting myocarditis. You do not know that to calculate percentage, you need both denominator and divisor ?
There are no bias, it is just that most cases were mold
Let’s start with the definition of ‘vaccinated.’ The study here looks at vaccinated versus unvaccinated, but myocarditis happens before the patient is considered fully vaccinated. Since it’s a meta-study it’s also unclear whether the same classifications are used in the studies it looks at. There is already extensive research into recording vaccine injury as due to covid when the patient isn’t the requisite 2 weeks after the shot.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcvm.2022.951314/full
This is but one slight of hand that is used.
To cite:
Risk of myocarditis was increased in the 1 to 28 days after a first dose of ChAdOx1 (incidence rate ratio, 1.33 [95% CI, 1.09–1.62]) and a first, second, and booster dose of BNT162b2 (1.52 [95% CI, 1.24–1.85]; 1.57 [95% CI, 1.28–1.92], and 1.72 [95% CI, 1.33–2.22], respectively) but was lower than the risks after a positive SARS-CoV-2 test before or after vaccination (11.14 [95% CI, 8.64–14.36] and 5.97 [95% CI, 4.54–7.87], respectively).
Risk of every shot were evaluated separatel, you notice. Vaccination of course means full vaccination.
@ johnlabarge
You write: “These studies are designed to get that outcome. Mostly peaceful myocarditis, please.”
Are you an expert in research designs? I doubt it, so, basically anything or anyone who disagrees with your ignorant unscientific bias is wrong, dishonest, etc.
You really are a stupidly dishonest biased individual who ignores what Orac, I, and other write, especially point by point refuting your comments and, as I pointed out, given the internet and social media one can find anything and everything that supports even the most outrageous positions.
Just curious, do you believe in QAnon? Wouldn’t put it past you.
[…] true that anti-vaccine data manipulators like Dr. Joseph Ladapo and the sheltered, contrarian doctors who defend his fraud have confused parents by creating the […]
Or this one – compare the abstract : “Myocarditis is more common after severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection than after COVID-19 vaccination, but the risks in younger people and after sequential vaccine doses are less certain.”
With the conclusion : “Overall, the risk of myocarditis is greater after SARS-CoV-2 infection than after COVID-19 vaccination and remains modest after sequential doses including a booster dose of BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine…”
It appears that they actually looked at Hospitalized patients. But the vast majority of people who contract Covid are not hospitalized. Indeed it would be difficult to obtain the data for those with mild cases. As a result, every ‘study’ that claims myocarditis is more prevalent from covid infection than vaccines also biases for severe Covid (sometimes explicitly as in this abstract). This allows the study to toss out the vast majority of Covid infections (shrink the denominator) to conclude what it was designed to conclude.
It is difficult to evaluate number of mild myocarditis cases caused by COVID, too. For comparison purposes, hospitalisations are good enough.
You will notice that bias is actually for severe myocarditis, because mildest cases are excluded.
[…] true that anti-vaccine data manipulators like Dr. Joseph Ladapo and the sheltered, contrarian doctors who defend his fraud have confused parents by creating the […]
[…] true that anti-vaccine data manipulators like Dr. Joseph Ladapo and the sheltered, contrarian doctors who defend his fraud have confused parents by creating the […]
[…] true that anti-vaccine data manipulators like Dr. Joseph Ladapo and the sheltered, contrarian doctors who defend his fraud have confused parents by creating the […]
[…] as more dangerous than COVID-19 in the young. (It’s a study that also turns out to have been highly spun, with “inconvenient” data left out in order to make the vaccines look as bad as […]
[…] true that anti-vaccine data manipulators like Dr. Joseph Ladapo and the sheltered, contrarian doctors who defend his fraud have confused parents by creating the […]
[…] true that anti-vaccine data manipulators like Dr. Joseph Ladapo and the sheltered, contrarian doctors who defend his fraud have confused parents by creating the […]
The failure of this study should be infuriating to Floridians who expect (presumably) their
public officials to protect them from such obvious harm. You know, risk reductions please,
from salmonella, from violence in general, from this and other known viruses, the water to drink,
and open conversation about it all. Do these news reporters get special treatment now because Ron
is shown to be offensively wrong with this corrupt study? Getting the Disney treatment?
Perhaps Ron felt there was some cause for concern for the vaccine to be shown in a study.
History now shows (again) Florida’s public officials will scrub to a serious degree results
that don’t comport with some desired outcome. I’d call it fraud if there was some monetary
swindle but not yet sure there is. If this is some how used as evidence in the ongoing grand
jury investigation, there’s still a chance. Speaking of that investigation, it now should be
well noted that the current government of Florida is no longer concerned with the truth or value
of scientific inspection.
@ johnlabarge
You write: “It appears that they actually looked at Hospitalized patients. But the vast majority of people who contract Covid are not hospitalized. Indeed it would be difficult to obtain the data for those with mild cases. As a result, every ‘study’ that claims myocarditis is more prevalent from covid infection than vaccines also biases for severe Covid (sometimes explicitly as in this abstract). This allows the study to toss out the vast majority of Covid infections (shrink the denominator) to conclude what it was designed to conclude.”
As I wrote, if a vaccine only protects me against severe disease, hospitalization, or death, but I still get mild symptoms, I will get it. If someone not hospitalized then means not severe, so mild covid and/or mild myocarditis still means vaccine worked except in your continuously sickly stupid intellectually dishonest mind. I don’t live in a make believe world of black and white, 100% anything.
KEEP MAKING A FOOL OF YOURSELF, WHAT YOU ARE AN EXPERT AT! ! !
@ johnlabarge
You missed the following, so the authors conclusion is not even close to scientifically certain; but, of course, if it fits your ignorant bias then you cite only parts of the paper, so, what about the following:
“vaccination reduced the risk of infection associated myocarditis by approximately half, suggesting that the prevention of infection associated myocarditis may be an additional longer-term benefit of vaccination.”
“First, the number of people vaccinated with mRNA-1273 was small compared with those receiving other types of vaccine, which reduces the precision of our estimates. Second, the average age of those receiving this vaccine was younger at 32 years compared with other vaccines where recipients were in their mid-40s and 50s. The observed excess risk related to mRNA-1273 may in part be a result of the higher probability of myocarditis in this younger age group.”
“There are some limitations to consider. First, the number of people receiving a booster dose of ChAdOx1 or mRNA-1273 vaccine was too small to evaluate the risk of myocarditis.”
Martina Patone et all (2022 Sep 6). Risk of Myocarditis After Sequential Doses of COVID-19 Vaccine and SARS-CoV-2 Infection by Age and Sex. Circulation; 146(10): 743-754.
As I’ve written several times, you give NO indication you understand the basics of science, of immunology, of microbiology, of vaccine-preventable diseases, including their histories, of research design, or of epidemiology. Your comments display simply your stupidly ignorant unscientific biased belief system.
[…] iterations personally overseen by Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo and clearly designed to make the vaccines look worse than the disease.) They shouldn’t have been. Publishing academic research articles as a form […]
[…] the life of every human on the planet. Meanwhile, threatened scientists are on the run while anti-vaccine doctors who manipulate data are promoted to high places and defended by the likes of Dr. […]