Comment by arcticbull | Hacker News Reader

Comment by arcticbull | Hacker News Reader

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> The other day I saw a well-known programmer tweet an "in memoriam" to his wife, who died of cardiac arrest at the age of 42 in April 2021. A bare minimum of digging revealed some of her last Twitter activity to be liking various vax booster posts. What are the odds her death was even reported as a potential adverse event?

For someone age 42 the odds of having a heart attack are about 97 in 100,000. The odds of a cardiac event due to COVID vaccine are two orders of magnitude lower.

This is the post hoc fallacy and proportionality bias. Just because one event follows another doesn't mean they're connected. Further, humans are biased to think big and impactful outcomes must have big and impactful causes. [1]

It is simply far more likely that she independently had a vaccine and a heart attack. It sucks, to say the least, but it happens.

When you give billions of people the vaccine you'll get basically everything happening after someone gets a vaccine including a death by train derailment. It's simply far more likely they're not connected at all.

You saw one anecdotal report of a bad thing that happened to someone after they took a COVID vaccine, without any evidence they were connected. I'm sure more than once someone took a tylenol and got hit by a bus. That doesn't mean taking tylenol causes getting hit by a bus.

This is why anecdotes aren't a substitute for medical research.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportionality_bias

The data point is meant to be illustrative of broader habits and behaviors which put the lie to the absurd notion that there is robust pharmacovigilance being conducted on the COVID vaccines. So if we apply your line of reasoning across the board, why would any adverse event ever be recorded, followed up, or investigated? After all, bad things happen all the time, and we're giving out billions of doses. What do you think the typical bias of the typical doctor has been since the vaccine rollout started?

Where did you get your figures for the likelihood of a cardiac event from the COVID vaccines? Were they stratified by age? Were they derived from trials conducted by the manufacturers, who we now know to have excluded cardiac events from the trial results for no apparent reason other than "couldn't possibly have been our Safe & Effective shots"?

Why have excess deaths remained persistently high in countries which saw a high degree of vaccine uptake, when they should be expected to decline after a new contagious virus runs its course and the vast majority of a population gains exposure? If the answer is "Long COVID," then a.) why were the vaccines so ineffective in protecting against long-term sequelae, and b.) how is it possible to disambiguate the causes of deaths without, again, properly placebo-controlled RCTs?

> When you give billions of people the vaccine you'll get basically everything happening after someone gets a vaccine including a death by train derailment.

This is such a tendentious, dishonest argument. As though "hey maybe these shots which are known to cause a lot of people heart problems caused this sudden cardiac arrest in a 42 year old who had just taken them, I would bet no one even looked into it at all because everyone knew to trust the Safe & Effective Vaccine" is somehow comparable to spuriously linking them to a train derailment.

> As though "hey maybe these shots which are known to cause a lot of people heart problems ..."

Let me stop you're right there. This isn't true. The rest of your argument follows from this faulty premise.

> There were 1,626 cases of myocarditis among more than 354 million primary doses given between December 2020 and August 2021. This research was published in the journal JAMA on January 25, 2022. [1]

That is objectively and subjectively not "a lot." That's 1626 out of 354,000,000. 0.00045%. 0.45/100,000.

> There were 37 cases of myocarditis among more than 81 million booster doses given between September 22, 2021, and February 6, 2022. This research was published by the CDC on February 11, 2022. [2]

That is objectively and subjectively not "a lot." That's 37 out of 81,000,000. 0.000045%. 0.045/100,000.

The reality is with 5.56B people vaccinated, if it had any effects, it would be clearly and plainly visible in population-level data.

You are wrong, the monitoring is extensive, the vaccine is safe, and this is settled science.

ergo, MSG.

[1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2788346

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7107e1.htm

The Thai prospective study of these shots in adolescents found biomarkers of cardiac disturbances in 3% of subjects who took them. That's not just a lot, it's a HELL of a lot. If the number is within even 1/100th of that for ~40 year olds it would still be 1 in 3,333, which is far higher than what used to be considered an acceptable adverse event rate.

What's even more absurd is that that kind of study was never even conducted as part of the broad clinical trials in the first place.

> The reality is with 5.56B people vaccinated, if it had any effects, it would be clearly and plainly visible in population-level data.

And indeed it is, as I've already pointed out. Excess deaths are remaining stubbornly high in highly vaccinated countries.

It's amazing to me that the CDC is leaving completely embarrassing numbers up like the ones you cite, but I suppose they have no shortage of suckers ready to believe and repeat them.

What on earth Thai study are you talking about? I provided my sources.

> Excess deaths are remaining stubbornly high in highly vaccinated countries.

That, not to put too fine a point on it, is because everyone became fat during COVID lockdowns.

> About 42% of U.S. adults reported undesired weight gain in the first year of the pandemic, with 29 pounds gained on average, a recent survey shows. [1]

An average increase of 29 pounds and a drinking problem for half the population is going to do a hell of a lot of the heavy lifting (pun intended) in regards to excess mortality.

I look forward to your theories on the moon landing, cadet ;)

Again this is all proportionality bias. Excess mortality is up because we're fatter now. Substantially. Off an already high baseline. And we drank a lot.

[1] https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2021/03/one-year-pan...

That Thai study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36006288/ Looks like the actual number was 2.33%, which is still completely godawful. Funny how you haven't heard of it! If you actually believe the CDC when they claim there have been <100 cases of myocarditis from these shots I have a bridge in New York to sell you.

Those are doses given to the entire population, not stratified by age! No shit you aren't going to see the signal when your bury it under an avalanche of old people who have heart attacks more or less every second.

37 out of 81,000,000 carries no signal. This isn't SETI.

The overall incidence of myocarditis is 10 to 20 per 100,000 so the data here is probably indistinguishable from population level noise anyways. However it's like 0.145% in actual COVID cases.

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