Comment by schrodingersCat | Hacker News Reader

Comment by schrodingersCat | Hacker News Reader

schrodingersCat

This article is an ouroboros of self-citation and speculation. The lead author, McCullough, is a known proponent of Hydroychloroquine, denier of asymptomatic spread of covid, and a paid, invited speaker at right wing and anti-vaxx conferences (see his Wikipedia for citations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_A._McCullough). This "research" paper offers lots of speculation, and very little data. The number of times these authors made unfounded and spurious confusion spurious is too high to mention all of them. I'll call out one example -"There were 3,657 cases of anosmia (loss of smell), clearly demonstrating that the SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein from the injec- tion in the arm was reaching the olfactory nerve." None of the authors are qualified to make this claim, the authors made no attempt to rule out confounding factors like prior Covid-19 infection, and no direct evidence for thistle claim was presented. Tl;Dr - the article is bad science and should be ignored

From wiki "McCullough has contradicted public health recommendations ... by suggesting that healthy persons under 30 had no need for a vaccine".

How many people do you knew personally under 30 and dead because of covid? According to official statistic in my country, it is 0,0048% dead people under 30 with positive PCR (not necessary dying only because of covid). 48 dead people under age 30 in 2 years of pandemic. So this wiki text is irrelevant and McCullough has data for his statement.

Can we hold the rushed and botched safety trials that “prove” that the vaccine is safe and effective to the same standards as this article is being held to?

The trials were not botched, and we have an absolutely enormous amount of information about the safety of the vaccines now from many different studies.

The control group was lost: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/02/19/9691430...

There is also no proof that the mRNA vaccines are safe for pregnancy. Look at what the CDC website has to say about the topic: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/planning-...

They have studies that fertility is not effected in the short term, but that is it. Nothing about how the pregnancies actually progressed.

Basically their evidence they have for the vaccines safety for pregnancy is lack of evidence of harm (which is not even true as there are studies that indicate the mRNA might be harmful in this regard). This is completely backwards. They should be on the hook for proving safety, not the other way around.

I personally cannot trust the safety data of the mRNA vaccines. I anecdotally know a handful of people that have suffered harm after vaccination. This on it's own means nothing, but the part that bothers me is that all their doctors don't want to entertain the idea that their problems were caused by the vaccine, because the vaccine is "safe and effective". None of their issues were even entered into VAERS. This is completely backwards.

>The trials were not botched

They intentionally nuked the control groups. How do you properly do a trial without a control group?

Yeah, we actually do that. Here's the Phase III trial for Pfizer's vaccine where they did a RCT of 43,000 people. They published their efficacy and safety end points (as well as criteria for stopping the trial if they found safety issues) before enrollment and show the results as well. They're following the same patients for two years to assess long-term safety as well:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577?articleTo...

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