Covid vaccines - thread banned users in First Post

King Mob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119472054#Comment_119472054

That would be a great question for medical forums and science forums where the implications of conspiracy theories behind the vaccines aren't welcome.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119472068#Comment_119472068

The cause of these excess death is currently unexplained, and as such perfect fodder for speculation on a conspiracy theory forum.

King Mob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119472101#Comment_119472101

But if you want an actual answer or actual plausible speculation, you're not going to get it here.

So I'm a bit confused again what you're expecting to get out of asking a science question here.

I think it's because you're only interested in answers that result in a conspiracy or result in something that says the vaccine is bad.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119472130#Comment_119472130

Currently, as I’ve mentioned before, I do think it’s plausible speculation that the vaccines are a contributory factor.

King Mob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119472144#Comment_119472144

That's nice. But that's not the view held by the majority of experts.

Nor have you explained how it could be plausible. Or why you suspect it might be plausible given the complete lack of any evidence to support such an idea.

But that doesn't really make sense as an explanation.

Even if you believe that the vaccines are plausible as a cause, and you aren't willing to listen or ask about other explanations in science forums, why would you think that you'd get any plausible or rational answers or input in a conspiracy theory forum?

What do you expect to hear here?

Again, I think it's just because you want explanations that confirm your own views and nothing else.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119472160#Comment_119472160

I post here in the hope that other posters will join and offer plausible explanations and discuss and challenge my views on the wide range of issues relating to the vaccine under discussion. I am interested in debate in other words.

A good example is the cause of the excess deaths, or indeed why the shift in attitude on coercive vaccination policies.

For now it seems like the best I can hope for is a denial that these things are even happening. But I am confident that will change in time.

Big Bag of Chips

@Igotadose

Do not post in this thread again.

King Mob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119472223#Comment_119472223

But no conspiracy theorists are going to offer you other plausible explanations.

They are only going to tell you that the excess deaths are due to the vaccines and there's a big cover up behind it.

Likewise with the notion of the explanations about covid policy.

So how can they be challenging you when they will only be confirming your beliefs?

Or they will express beliefs that you have said were too silly to bother with responding to?

Big Bag of Chips

@King Mob the clue is in the name of this forum - Conspiracy Theory.

I am going to ask you for the last time to amend your style of posting in this forum.

So I'm a bit confused again what you're expecting to get out of asking a science question here.

Any question/theory can be posed in this forum. You don't get to dictate what other posters can ask or say.

Next time I have to address you on this thread will be a thread ban.

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119471960#Comment_119471960

20% increase over what time scale?

If it's year on year id expect a much bigger percentage, and it's probable that the COVID vaccine is actually helping to counteract some of the more day to day illness, which is a win win all round, expect for those who didn't take the vaccine

kernkraft500

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119471825#Comment_119471825

no, it is directly related to vaccines... because the opposing argument is the vaccines are 100% at fault

this spike in deaths was called out before the first lockdown happened as an argument against it.. you have leading oncologists and heart doctors agreeing, but no, it must be completely the vaccine...

I'll let you in on a secret...if you post fact based information, people can't accuse you of misinformation

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119472317#Comment_119472317

How might the covid vaccine be counteracting some of the more day to day illnesses?

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119472541#Comment_119472541

The same way they are causing excess deaths, I suppose.....

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119472541#Comment_119472541

Vaccines may have wider benefits to immune response - unclear if this would also apply to mRNA vaccines or just attenuated vaccines such as AZ.

https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-innovation/en/horizon-magazine/qa-how-vaccines-can-strengthen-immune-response-beyond-specific-disease

Big Bag of Chips

A number of offtopic posts deleted. Do not speculate on the thread about re-regs. If you believe someone to be a re-reg of a banned poster let me know directly. Any poster is entitled to close their account and re-reg a new one. Only previously banned posters circumventing a ban are an issue.

patnor1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119472317#Comment_119472317

Since when can 20% increase be called "counteracting" and win/win? I thought increase means there is more of something...

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119472811#Comment_119472811

Did you find out yet what scale the 20% increase is based upon?

Surely you've checked before posting stats like you did

snowcat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119472542#Comment_119472542

This is interesting. A claim that Covid vaccines may be reducing illness and deaths from other causes. While certainly not implausible it seems a bit unlikely with the spike in PE clots strokes and sudden deaths and ultimately excess deaths. Must inform our government and we have a solution to the trolley situation. We just need to get those final 20% vaccinated and we will be fine. If they were all going down it would make some sense.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119472738#Comment_119472738

Very interesting article, thanks for posting. From my understanding Professor Christine Stabell Benn is saying that the wider benefits would be more likely from "live" vaccines rather than "non-live" vaccines eg mRNA:

We have seen these beneficial nonspecific effects for live vaccines, but we have consistently seen that the non-live vaccines (like many of the frontrunner candidates for a coronavirus vaccine) do not have these effects.

She seems to be a lot less upbeat about non-live vaccines in general:

The net result is that if you take a Dutch woman and you vaccinate her with DTP (a non-live vaccine), and three months later, you take her (immune system) cells in a petri dish and you challenge them with various stimulants, then the cells are more lazy. So, you can train the innate immune system but you can also misdirect it, and we don’t know yet exactly how that happens.

Presumably a vaccine that misdirected an immune system could result in negative efficacy - i.e over time the vaccinated become more susceptible to infection than the unvaccinated. We have seen evidence that this is happening.

But of course the only way you could be sure if that was happening or not then would be to have a long term study. Without such a study any such real world data could be affected by behavioural issues rather than any specific vaccine effect. Something the author acknowledges:

The system for testing vaccines has been overtaken by our new understanding of how (the nonspecific effects of) vaccines work and how the immune system functions. We only look in the phase three (advanced) trials for specific effects of the vaccine and then in the first 14 days for plausible adverse events.

You could have a woman receiving this vaccine, and then three months later succumbing to bacterial pneumonia, and nobody in the world would ever count that, with the current system, as a side effect.

What I’m trying to advocate in Denmark is to roll out (a new coronavirus vaccine) in a randomised way. Let’s do it in a way where half of the target group gets the vaccine and the other half doesn’t get it and we can do some long-term follow-up, because that’s the only way to be sure.

Long term adverse events after 14 days? Nobody in the world would ever count that, with the current system, as a side effect.

Just because it doesn't get counted as a side effect, it does not mean it is not a side effect.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119473381#Comment_119473381

If your "evidence that this is happening" is the difference of 50 cases in the AZ in the Swedish study after 8 months from AZ.

Versus the 15000 cases it prevented in the study...

Then your cherry picking of 'evidence' is rather blatant.

And how could it be misdirecting the immune system when every study shows durable protection provided from the vaccines (mRNA or attenuated) against severe covid?

hometruths

A little bit of further reading on Christine Stabell Benn suggests she is eminently sensible. She is against vaccinating children for covid as the risk/reward does not favour it. And she has been censored by social media, often a good sign of somebody talking sense:

When her content is also subject to censorship, it has gone too far, she believes.

- The problem is that the only thing that eventually gets through the filter is the message that vaccines are effective and safe. Everyone knows it's not just that simple. This censorship is the most toxic. It risks at the same time creating more mistrust of vaccines and hindering a healthy and nuanced scientific conversation about vaccines, which is ultimately crucial to ensuring effective and safe vaccines, says Christine Stabell Benn.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119473438#Comment_119473438

Last time I checked, every country that was still publishing Covid case rates by vaccination status pro rata showed higher rates in the vaccinated vs the unvaccinated - negative effectiveness - and this was happening regularly. Harder to keep track of now because most countries just stopped publishing the data once it no longer showed a pandemic of the unvaccinated.

But that's not the only evidence - yes of course the study showing negative effectiveness at 8 months is also evidence of negative effectiveness.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119473471#Comment_119473471

And did these rates account for risk? That people who are vaccinated are also likely to be concentrated in health care etc etc?

Or in older demographics who are more likely to be vaccinated? And are more likely to be tested due to more health care involvement?

And do you think therefore that this is a balanced comparison?

And you think in the weight of evidence, that 15000 cases prevented over the lifetime of the study, you place zero value on?

Or the evidence from the study showing the durable effect of protection against severe covid.

After all, if you accept the study, you must accept these findings also.

Yet you place zero value on all those studies and continually focus on one finding with a much smaller sample from and ignore the confidence interval? This is not a balanced assessment of the evidence but represents cherry picking.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119473493#Comment_119473493

And did these rates account for risk? That people who are vaccinated are also likely to be concentrated in health care etc etc?

Or in older demographics who are more likely to be vaccinated? And are more likely to be tested due to more health care involvement?

This is relevant to the point Professor Bell is making - we'll never know for sure now. Because the trials were unblinded and the placebo group were vaccinated.

Which is suboptimal to put it mildly.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119473571#Comment_119473571

Where does Professor Bell say this in the article you linked?

Where does Professor Bell say that the trial should not have been unblinded and for how long should the vaccine have been withheld?

https://nyheder.tv2.dk/samfund/2021-08-24-professor-undsiger-mette-frederiksen-og-brostroem

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119473626#Comment_119473626

Here we go again. Is this another "she never said that exactly thus you are wrong" deflection?

Fighting Tao

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119473649#Comment_119473649

She did not say it and so you can’t say that she said it or meant it. If she wanted to say it then the paper is the place she would have said it. You can have all the fantasies you want about what you want people to have said, but if they don’t say what’s in your head then you are wrong. It’s quite simple.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119473649#Comment_119473649

The article you linked was about vaccination in children as far as I could establish from google translate.

Where does she say anything to the point that "This is relevant to the point Professor Bell is making - we'll never know for sure now. Because the trials were unblinded and the placebo group were vaccinated."

So perhaps you can share where in the text she says this, or perhaps you intended to link another article.

Or withdraw you attribution of this point to the professor.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119473754#Comment_119473754

Ok let's not get into a Yes she did say that, no she didn't say it, yes she meant that, no she didn't. Totally pointless waste of time.

What do you think of the point?

Is it fair to say one of the unfortunate consequences of the trials being unblinded and the placebos vaccinated within weeks of the approval is that any future findings of vaccine efficacy etc can be confounded by behavioural biases?

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119473776#Comment_119473776

I don't agree with either premise.

You attributed a point to an expert, the article you linked contained no such point either directly or indirectly. It's entirely valid to question that or people can make anything they want up. If you don't want to get into games of he said, she said, if you are attributing a point to an expert be specific about whether it is a point they have made, or a conclusion you have drawn from reading their work.

You cannot withhold vaccine from the trial participants during a pandemic indefinitely. However long the vaccines had been withheld for, we'd have someone saying they should have been withheld longer. They are human beings in a pandemic, not guinea pigs.

... everybody else who had the placebo shot went ahead and got the actual vaccine. So now Fierro has essentially no comparison group left for the ongoing study. "It's a loss from a scientific standpoint, but given the circumstances I think it's the right thing to do," he says.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/02/19/969143015/long-term-studies-of-covid-19-vaccines-hurt-by-placebo-recipients-getting-immuni