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Comment by bhk | Hacker News Reader

"Garbage"?

> In an FDA analysis of the Optum healthcare claims database, the estimated excess risk of myocarditis/pericarditis approached 200 cases per million fully vaccinated males 16-17 years of age and 180 cases per million fully vaccinated males 12-15 years of age. [1]

This rate is close to the findings of the Høeg study (even higher, actually). [2]

On the one side we have the FDA and multiple scholarly publications largely in alignment. On the other side, we have an internet blog article with hyperbolic language and a generally unprofessional tone.

[1] https://www.fda.gov/media/153447/download

[2] https://twitter.com/TracyBethHoeg/status/1435796382841860099

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Different data sets. The sentence preceding your quote from the FDA estimates rates of 71.5 and 42.6 per million using VAERS, vs. the garbage paper's 164 and 92 per million. i.e. less than half the incidence.

Regarding that other data set, see page 24 of this report: https://www.fda.gov/media/151733/download

Importantly, in relies on unconfirmed cases of myo/pericarditis, and concludes vaccine benefits outweigh risks even in a hypothetical worst case scenario anyway.

Hyperbolic language doesn't discredit any of the blogger's criticisms, but here's another more calmly worded one if you'd like: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/peer-review-of-a-vaers-dump...

The Hoeg findings are off by 2X from the VAERS-based numbers cited by the FDA, but Hoeg examines "probable" vs. "medical chart-confirmed" cases. A factor of 2 is small in the scheme of things considering (a) the apple-to-oranges nature of the comparison, (b) the confidence intervals, and (c) the unacknowledged uncertainties that stem from our lack of understanding of reporting rates.

This new blog article you cite points out problems with 7 of the 257 cases included by the Hoeg study -- intermixed with a healthy dose of stay-in-your-lane-bro rhetoric. It also makes unfounded criticisms, such as "The claim from the study authors is that they replicate the [ACIP analysis] and found a much higher incidence than previously reported." In fact, the paper is clear that they follow a different method, and it claims "using these broader [emphasis mine] search and inclusion criteria, we found post-vaccination rates ... that exceed the rates previously reported."

This looks like someone is nit-picking when, in the big picture, considering the general concurrence with results from other studies, including other data sets, the findings are not misleading.

One recent publication: 370 / 1,000,000 rate of acute myocarditis/pericarditis following 2nd dose of Comirnaty in male adolescents between June and September of 2021. https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article-abstract/doi/10...

It's not apples-to-oranges, it's apples-to-less-carefully-selected-apples. The Hoeg paper mentions a broader case-finding method, but "We otherwise maintained the specificity of our analysis by requiring the same objective findings of cardiac injury used by the CDC to identify probable cases (Supplement 1) and excluded cases without sufficient objective evidence of cardiac-specific injury." The 7 cases in the blog are highlighted to demonstrate that this is clearly not true; they have not excluded cases without sufficient evidence of cardiac-specific injury in line with the CDC. So no, that criticism is not unfounded.

You've dismissed as apples-to-oranges the 2x difference in numbers between the two publications using VAERS data, then linked a third paper using different data (which isn't available in full; who knows what their inclusion criteria were) that shows another 2x discrepancy as evidence that the findings are in general concurrence? Would you have me believe that's not actually an apples-to-oranges comparison? Why not this paper[1] out of Canada the gives a rate of 97/million for the group most closely matching your 370/million number? Or this one[2] out of Israel with 137/million.

[1]https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.02.21267156v... [2]https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2109730

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