The CDC issues a blockbuster "teen Covid vaccine efficacy rate" report. Is it real-world data, or a statistical fairy tale? And why should we even care?
After over a decade of reading nutrition studies and statin studies, I've learned to be very wary of statistical manipulation. So much of it is pure obfuscation. The words "relative risk" should set a flashing red lights in your mind. A useful number is NNT, number needed to treat. I really appreciate the baby bird analogy.
Apparently it was Disraeli who said "“There are three types of lies—lies, damn lies, and statistics.” I always thought it was Mark Twain, but turns out Twain's quote is just as good “Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable.”
I agree, focus needs to be 100% always on NNT - the children who get vaccinated for no benefit to prevent X. This cuts straight to the ridiculousness of our modern approach without having to "well actually" it to death with counter-stats.
I checked the CDC covid database about a week ago and the deaths for kids by covid in the US across both 2020 and 2021 was something like 518. Over almost two years. One death for all October 2021 as of the time I read it. The data is hidden in plain sight and yet people are panicking because most people skim news headlines or watch TV and don't both to go read the data for themselves.
and even if it was 1 death, are there any clues as to extenuating circumstances / comorbidity.
I hate to bash Australia but they recently decried the death of the youngest COVID patient at 15 years of age, only to have that unforunate girl's auntie lash out at the media and the government as the girl had had cancer complications for years and only been diagnosed with covid, but obviously died of cancer. Such a disgusting display by the media + gov't.
Nosocomial infections are well known. Someone constantly stuck in hospital is almost guaranteed to test positive and become an unwilling propaganda talking point.
Its funny - but if I had written this trash science in medical school, my mentors would have ripped me a new one. The flagrant manipulation of the analyzed populations is a joke. And why they would want all these kids vaxed - its just beyond me. But I tell you Brian. This is the result of the total lack of competition and accountability in medicine. My discipline is surgery. We live in a world of outcomes and analysis of complications. As you can see, the rest of the medical world lives in a different place. And surgeons more and more so. Success is no longer defined as a patient doing well. Its defined as did you do what we told you to do? We have shifted from making patients well to blaming the patient. Horrible.
And pediatric hospitals, I have always intuited, are merely warehouses for nonprofit marketing materials. I myself had a childhood friend who suffered from brain cancer. I meant to weave him into this article, but in the end the story didn't fit. Spoiler alert: Modern medicine did not save him. But I am sure he has been used by "medical research" to advocate for investment / donations well beyond whatever was spent on his treatment.
Unfortunately, the truth is that the average hospital practicing average medicine is really pretty bad, and the trend has gone from bad to worse. Hospitals only focus on productivity, quality and outcome just dont matter - because there is no pay in that. Its pretty much what happens in all markets that are run by monopolies. Cost goes up, services go down....
Brian - here's a riddle: what do Ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine and wormwood all have in common? Answer: all function and succeed as Covid (coronavirus) prophylactics/treatments. Do you think we should re-visit the whole definition of a virus? I saw on Mercola.com today that wormwood (an ancient anti-parasitic) is now showing results as a treatment for Covid. Very familiar with Ivermectin and wormwood, as a holistic dog parent. Had to look into H - the French used to buy it OTC in advance of their North Africa vacations. It is very interesting that they all help to alleviate Covid. A theory: we are all riddled with parasites that affect our immune systems. Ever kissed your dog? Growing up with a dog is proven to boost your immune system. Are we actually fighting the wrong frontier?
The question of how parasites affect the immune system is intriguing. Brian Ardis claims to be able to cure lupus by going after chronic parasites in the spleen, for example. But I grew up partially in Bermuda. Kids walked into school with roundworm bumps. No one had lupus. I think healthy immune systems can probably acclimate to worms just as they do to other bugs. But I could be totally on the wrong side of that bet. Your theory might be the smart money. Imagine a parasite release into the Catskill Aqueduct...!
This would lead to a bit of a problem - Ivermectin could not have displayed efficacy in India via suppression of a parasite unless a parasite was capable of spreading to everyone in the first place (Kerala and Maharashtra being the states where SARS-CoV-2 seems to be proving capable of doing so).
There are probably lots of bacterial "defense molecules" that work against certain viruses (but, potentially help others) (just like mold uses penicillin against bacteria, all these little creatures like to ward off competition). Ivermectin being just the first one we've gotten around to potentially discovering.
Only in the last 20 years have we been offered "how would you like your duck/lamb cooked?" And sushi/sashimi should be eaten with Sake, according to the Japanese. Western "Civilization" is only in the past 20 years exposed to potential worms. I am so jealous you grew up in Bermuda :) but I grew up in Ireland and remember the thorough cooking of ALL meat: cook until falling apart , pour gravy on to substitute the lack of normal juices, add greens.....
I am intrigued by your "bacterial vs. viral" defense wars. What if we are chasing "virus" shadows, when the reality is immune system weakness from other ancient warmongers?
I do not understand how anyone has determined efficacy in the population for these vaccines. Our testing is flawed. Our reporting is flawed. You cannot determine whether a specific 12-18 year old was aided by the vaccine when you do not know what their baseline reaction would have been from infection- would they have even gotten infected in the first place? We all know of the 'perfectly healthy' 30 year old who was hospitalized and a 90 year old who barely had the sniffles. Granted, who knows if they truly had the virus or if their PCR test was a false positive, or if the hospital reported it as C19, but wasn't. We are making decisions based on unknowable data. We simply do not have enough reliable data across a long enough time period to infer anything.
Exactly why so many "vaccine efficacy" studies have to essentially conjure their control group out of the ether - using patients in for other issues, or even using the vaccinated as their own controls (!), etc. They want the numbers; but the numbers are too hard to come up with, so they invent the numbers.
The government has dumbed down the failed education system for several generations, guaranteeing a dwindling population able to understand the math. They are confident their statistics fraud will go unchallenged by most people. They're confident their incitement to panic will be heeded by most people. They're the real "domestic terrorists."
When I was a kid, a popular joke had a kid sitting on the curb snapping his fingers. Another kid asked why. First kid said keeping elephants away. Second kid said there's no elephants around here. First kid said it works, doesn't it. Probably most kids these days wouldn't understand that joke.
When I was a kid, my grandmother had a conch shell with the tip cut off that she would blow like a trumpet every two weeks. She said it was to keep elephants away, and it worked.
And the "PMC" doesn't select for intelligence, either; but since they have a higher trust in authority, they are even easier to swindle and brainwash with statistics than the Deplorable who knows that half of what is on the news is a lie. I never was good enough at math to get statistics, myself.
Well, now I finally know what that clip Couey uses is from. It is exactly the feeling of the times.
And the absurdity of the "let up" narrative - in some regions (LA for instance) last summer was a bonanza of freedom compared to this one. Certainly, in the "reality" curated by the media, that is the case.
He's mostly repeating / refining his points, now. I still watch every time I can, just for the fresh air of hearing someone else who understands what natural immunity is doing.
It's up - https://www.twitch.tv/gigaohmbiological/videos - twitch just scrubs videos after 14 days by default and doesn't even keep the URLs pointing at the channel, apparently. Too bad because even though he repeats a lot of points he chops nuance from some in the name of having a unified message
After over a decade of reading nutrition studies and statin studies, I've learned to be very wary of statistical manipulation. So much of it is pure obfuscation. The words "relative risk" should set a flashing red lights in your mind. A useful number is NNT, number needed to treat. I really appreciate the baby bird analogy.
Apparently it was Disraeli who said "“There are three types of lies—lies, damn lies, and statistics.” I always thought it was Mark Twain, but turns out Twain's quote is just as good “Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable.”
I defer to Byrne
"Facts are simple and facts are straight
Facts are lazy and facts are late
Facts all come with points of view
Facts don't do what I want them to
Facts just twist the truth around
Facts are living turned inside out"
I agree, focus needs to be 100% always on NNT - the children who get vaccinated for no benefit to prevent X. This cuts straight to the ridiculousness of our modern approach without having to "well actually" it to death with counter-stats.
I checked the CDC covid database about a week ago and the deaths for kids by covid in the US across both 2020 and 2021 was something like 518. Over almost two years. One death for all October 2021 as of the time I read it. The data is hidden in plain sight and yet people are panicking because most people skim news headlines or watch TV and don't both to go read the data for themselves.
and even if it was 1 death, are there any clues as to extenuating circumstances / comorbidity.
I hate to bash Australia but they recently decried the death of the youngest COVID patient at 15 years of age, only to have that unforunate girl's auntie lash out at the media and the government as the girl had had cancer complications for years and only been diagnosed with covid, but obviously died of cancer. Such a disgusting display by the media + gov't.
Nosocomial infections are well known. Someone constantly stuck in hospital is almost guaranteed to test positive and become an unwilling propaganda talking point.
Its funny - but if I had written this trash science in medical school, my mentors would have ripped me a new one. The flagrant manipulation of the analyzed populations is a joke. And why they would want all these kids vaxed - its just beyond me. But I tell you Brian. This is the result of the total lack of competition and accountability in medicine. My discipline is surgery. We live in a world of outcomes and analysis of complications. As you can see, the rest of the medical world lives in a different place. And surgeons more and more so. Success is no longer defined as a patient doing well. Its defined as did you do what we told you to do? We have shifted from making patients well to blaming the patient. Horrible.
And pediatric hospitals, I have always intuited, are merely warehouses for nonprofit marketing materials. I myself had a childhood friend who suffered from brain cancer. I meant to weave him into this article, but in the end the story didn't fit. Spoiler alert: Modern medicine did not save him. But I am sure he has been used by "medical research" to advocate for investment / donations well beyond whatever was spent on his treatment.
Unfortunately, the truth is that the average hospital practicing average medicine is really pretty bad, and the trend has gone from bad to worse. Hospitals only focus on productivity, quality and outcome just dont matter - because there is no pay in that. Its pretty much what happens in all markets that are run by monopolies. Cost goes up, services go down....
Brian - here's a riddle: what do Ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine and wormwood all have in common? Answer: all function and succeed as Covid (coronavirus) prophylactics/treatments. Do you think we should re-visit the whole definition of a virus? I saw on Mercola.com today that wormwood (an ancient anti-parasitic) is now showing results as a treatment for Covid. Very familiar with Ivermectin and wormwood, as a holistic dog parent. Had to look into H - the French used to buy it OTC in advance of their North Africa vacations. It is very interesting that they all help to alleviate Covid. A theory: we are all riddled with parasites that affect our immune systems. Ever kissed your dog? Growing up with a dog is proven to boost your immune system. Are we actually fighting the wrong frontier?
Check out helminthic therapy.
The question of how parasites affect the immune system is intriguing. Brian Ardis claims to be able to cure lupus by going after chronic parasites in the spleen, for example. But I grew up partially in Bermuda. Kids walked into school with roundworm bumps. No one had lupus. I think healthy immune systems can probably acclimate to worms just as they do to other bugs. But I could be totally on the wrong side of that bet. Your theory might be the smart money. Imagine a parasite release into the Catskill Aqueduct...!
This would lead to a bit of a problem - Ivermectin could not have displayed efficacy in India via suppression of a parasite unless a parasite was capable of spreading to everyone in the first place (Kerala and Maharashtra being the states where SARS-CoV-2 seems to be proving capable of doing so).
There are probably lots of bacterial "defense molecules" that work against certain viruses (but, potentially help others) (just like mold uses penicillin against bacteria, all these little creatures like to ward off competition). Ivermectin being just the first one we've gotten around to potentially discovering.
Only in the last 20 years have we been offered "how would you like your duck/lamb cooked?" And sushi/sashimi should be eaten with Sake, according to the Japanese. Western "Civilization" is only in the past 20 years exposed to potential worms. I am so jealous you grew up in Bermuda :) but I grew up in Ireland and remember the thorough cooking of ALL meat: cook until falling apart , pour gravy on to substitute the lack of normal juices, add greens.....
I am intrigued by your "bacterial vs. viral" defense wars. What if we are chasing "virus" shadows, when the reality is immune system weakness from other ancient warmongers?
I do not understand how anyone has determined efficacy in the population for these vaccines. Our testing is flawed. Our reporting is flawed. You cannot determine whether a specific 12-18 year old was aided by the vaccine when you do not know what their baseline reaction would have been from infection- would they have even gotten infected in the first place? We all know of the 'perfectly healthy' 30 year old who was hospitalized and a 90 year old who barely had the sniffles. Granted, who knows if they truly had the virus or if their PCR test was a false positive, or if the hospital reported it as C19, but wasn't. We are making decisions based on unknowable data. We simply do not have enough reliable data across a long enough time period to infer anything.
Exactly why so many "vaccine efficacy" studies have to essentially conjure their control group out of the ether - using patients in for other issues, or even using the vaccinated as their own controls (!), etc. They want the numbers; but the numbers are too hard to come up with, so they invent the numbers.
Another impressive report. Thanks.
The government has dumbed down the failed education system for several generations, guaranteeing a dwindling population able to understand the math. They are confident their statistics fraud will go unchallenged by most people. They're confident their incitement to panic will be heeded by most people. They're the real "domestic terrorists."
When I was a kid, a popular joke had a kid sitting on the curb snapping his fingers. Another kid asked why. First kid said keeping elephants away. Second kid said there's no elephants around here. First kid said it works, doesn't it. Probably most kids these days wouldn't understand that joke.
When I was a kid, my grandmother had a conch shell with the tip cut off that she would blow like a trumpet every two weeks. She said it was to keep elephants away, and it worked.
She lived in Indiana.
And the "PMC" doesn't select for intelligence, either; but since they have a higher trust in authority, they are even easier to swindle and brainwash with statistics than the Deplorable who knows that half of what is on the news is a lie. I never was good enough at math to get statistics, myself.
In the peds ER where I work, so many things are now, “because of covid.” And rest assured nothing will ever be because of the vaccine.
For example, the supposed RSV surge, “well we let up on covid measures and people stopped wearing masks as much.”
Another case, Kawasaki disease though rare, does occur. Think anyone codes for it now? Nope. MIS-C is the money shot.
Everyone is wearing covid tinted glasses now. The selection bias is through the roof.
Me, I feel like I’m wearing those glasses that Roddy Piper had in “They Live.”
That was a great B movie....
Yes it is!!
Well, now I finally know what that clip Couey uses is from. It is exactly the feeling of the times.
And the absurdity of the "let up" narrative - in some regions (LA for instance) last summer was a bonanza of freedom compared to this one. Certainly, in the "reality" curated by the media, that is the case.
Thanks for reminding me, I intend to get back to Couey and hear some more of his talks.
He's mostly repeating / refining his points, now. I still watch every time I can, just for the fresh air of hearing someone else who understands what natural immunity is doing.
I notice his Twitch channel is not up anymore. Any word on why?
It's up - https://www.twitch.tv/gigaohmbiological/videos - twitch just scrubs videos after 14 days by default and doesn't even keep the URLs pointing at the channel, apparently. Too bad because even though he repeats a lot of points he chops nuance from some in the name of having a unified message
thanks - just caught up on his latest.