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Comment by user743 | Hacker News Reader

2.2M+ adverse reactions in the WHO database. Of course Google, the corporate press, and "independent fact checkers" are saying it lacks context.

Most people I know, know at least a few people that had adverse reactions already; let alone ADE or long-term consequences.

http://www.vigiaccess.org/

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> 2.2M+ adverse reactions in the WHO database.

That's a big stretch.

Take everything on the site with a block of salt, given that that's exactly what they tell you to do:

> The information on this website, therefore, does not reflect any confirmed link between a medicinal product and a side effect

People have been abusing the validity of VigiAccess to make specious claims about adverse effects and it's already been debunked[1].

[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/10/15/fac...

You can't argue with anything that comes out of the corporate press.

I personally think the WHO has been comprised and don't trust them, but I used data associated with them since a lot of people do trust them still.

If you won't trust this data what will you trust?

The most trustworthy source is anecdotal but I know that's not accepted in arguments either.

The censorship is so bad you can't even Google anything anymore so where do you go?

Also, where is the block of salt for the death rate? It was already absurdly low without factoring in everyone that got sick, recovered easily, and never reported.

Happy to have my perspective changed.

If you're genuinely open to new information, I would direct your attention to excess deaths[1]. There is more likely underreporting of deaths than inflation.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid

> I personally think the WHO has been comprised and don't trust them, but I used data associated with them since a lot of people do trust them still.

> If you won't trust this data what will you trust?

Peer reviewed research, for starters. This database is like VAERS, which is likewise useless and filled with garbage reports. It's not vetted for accuracy in any way, it's a dumping ground for any random report that gets submitted.

> The most trustworthy source is anecdotal but I know that's not accepted in arguments either.

Because the plural of anecdote is not data.

> You can't argue with anything that comes out of the corporate press.

Your comment is very disingenuous. You name-drop the WHO while making an outstanding and frankly unbelievable claim, but instead of citing the WHO you point to a conspiracy theory site.

Then you have the gall to repeat the old conspiracy loon trope of the press not being trustworthy when asked to provide a source to support your claims.

Well, no one asked you to quore the press. Why not quote the WHO, for example? Or is the WHO also not trustworthy to backup claims made regarding WHO's data?

The WHO essentially says it lacks context. Read the "Important points to consider" heading in your link.

Namely "VigiAccess cannot be used to infer any confirmed link between a suspected side effect and any specific medicine."

What data on adverse reactions would you all accept?

VAERS and its like are useful data. The issue is abusing them by implying that all reports are causally linked to the vaccine. They track adverse events following vaccination, not adverse reactions to vaccines.

They exist so that professionals can comb through the data and follow up on patterns they may find.

Correlation doesn't imply causation but causation always implies correlation.

The claim that national databases of reports of symptoms occurring just days after a vaccination "cannot be used to infer" anything is just obviously not true. Of course they can be used to infer things. That's the justification for collecting the data in the first place, to enable such inferences. To believe nothing can be inferred from these databases requires you to believe that almost all the reports are spurious noise. Some are spurious for sure, just like some COVID deaths aren't really deaths from COVID. But a lot won't be, especially given that it takes quite some work and dedication to file an AER, and some databases like VAERS are moderated (that's why reports turn up in huge batches).

What's happened here is that the medical establishment has decided that vaccines are going to be considered safe no matter what, but, they have the problem that in the past there were problems and thus such databases are written into law in many parts of the world (like the USA). So they're trying to convince everyone that the databases are useless and so dominated by noise no conclusions can be drawn at all, even though in the past, that wasn't true. Additionally, no evidence for this claim is presented. So people outside the establishment go looking at the reports and this freaks out TPTB, who then insist that the public shouldn't look. It's not very convincing.

The medical establishment is not trying to convince everyone that systems like VAERS are useless. That might be a hyperbolic talking point in some circles on Twitter. The issue is misusing the systems. They exist to generate evidence of possible correlations between adverse events and vaccines, for further investigation. Not so that anyone can infer the real rate of events or causation.

>reports of symptoms occurring just days after a vaccination

To be clear: these systems are not limited to reports of events occurring just days after vaccination.

I'm afraid that's not what I've seen. So far there have been several studies by professional researchers that got published using VAERS data which were then forcibly retracted (against the will of the researchers themselves), the stated grounds being that they were "correlational". The message is clear now - you may not use VAERS or equivalent data for anything, regardless of who you are.

W.R.T. just days: indeed, they collect other reports. However within 1-3 days seems to be most common. Reports are strongly weighted towards happening quickly. See the histogram here:

https://openvaers.com/covid-data/mortality

Ya, "correlational" is a legitimate criticism of a study based on VAERS data that wasn't presented as such. Anyway, I'm not aware of studies being retracted as you describe. Certainly there have been problematic pre-prints (never published) making the rounds

It's not a legitimate criticism, it's a Kafka-esque catch 22.

If you say the analysis is merely "correlational" then the establishment says, by the studies own admission there's no evidence vaccines have anything to do with it so it must be ignored.

If you say that people dropping dead less than 24 hours after taking the vaccine were probably killed by it, then you will be told the CDC/etc don't allow the data to be used that way, that it's not valid to infer causation from a "merely" correlational data set, and that this is a retraction-worthy failure, and therefore it must be ignored.

Please. We can see through this kind of stupid mind game. "Science" has decided these databases may not be used for anything, even though they are the only way to understand side effects on a scale that the trials cannot pick up.

Examples:

https://retractionwatch.com/2021/10/17/paper-linking-covid-1...

https://retractionwatch.com/2021/07/02/journal-retracts-pape...

"Unfortunately, in the manuscript by Harald Walach et al. these data were incorrectly interpreted which led to erroneous conclusions. The data was presented as being causally related to adverse events by the authors. This is inaccurate. In The Netherlands, healthcare professionals and patients are invited to report suspicions of adverse events that may be associated with vaccination. For this type of reporting a causal relation between the event and the vaccine is not needed, therefore a reported event that occurred after vaccination is not necessarily attributable to vaccination"

Counterpoint, in my work and social circle, a group of around 50 regular contacts including several with immune issues, the worst adverse reactions that have been talked about are one had a fever for a day.

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