Covid vaccines - thread banned users in First Post

Dohnjoe

I remember people thinking that the vaccines would stop Covid in it's tracks, even some experts. It doesn't mean it's some big nefarious created "narrative", it's just what some people thought/hoped at the time.

Even if the vaccines did nothing but reduce deaths by only 20% there still would have been a world-wide push for them. It's not like their uptake hinged on being 100% effective at everything.

Unfortunately for us, the virus mutates, a lot, ergo we have to get boosters. That isn't some big "trick" either.

Some individuals have an extremely hard time coping with the fact that we don't know everything and we aren't in control of everything.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119861999#Comment_119861999

Do you have any opinion on how fringe/extreme/wacky/dangerous Ioannidis' views look with the benefit of hindsight?

His theory that initially we were overestimating the fatality rate because we were underestimating the amount of cases looks to be pretty sound in hindsight to me. Would you agree?

Because obviously either hindsight has vindicated his views or his detractors? Which is it?

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119862048#Comment_119862048

He is at least partly wrong because his figures were not age adjusted, and while his figures for specific age IFRs are correct his overall IFR is dubious.

If cases were underestimated, how does that matter in terms of actual number of fatal cases?

If people were operating on the assumption of 1% of 1000 cases, but instead it was 0.5% of 2000 cases - who was wrong? Did it make a significant difference? Or is this all 'academic' and made no difference on the ground.

If his principles of underestimation of cases is followed, does it not apply to all previous IFRs, e.g. for flu?

So in terms of benchmark of comparing the severity of diseases, he was wrong - or perhaps rather people who extrapolate from his findings to compare to other diseases are wrong.

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119862048#Comment_119862048

When we look at this Ioannidis guy, who you didn't know until he either turned up in your anti-vax feed or another anti-vaxxer mentioned him, we can be guaranteed of one thing: he'll have controversial/questionable views.

Let's just have a brief look at Wiki:

"In an editorial on STAT published March 17, 2020, Ioannidis wondered whether the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic may be a "once-in-a-century evidence fiasco" and asked for obtaining more reliable data to deal with the pandemic.[7] He estimated that the coronavirus could cause 10,000 U.S. deaths if it infected 1% of the U.S. population, and argued that more data was needed to determine how widely the virus would spread.[129][5][7] The virus in fact eventually became widely disseminated, and would cause more than one million deaths in the U.S.[130][129][5] Ioannidis expressed doubt that vaccines or treatments would be developed and tested in time to affect how the pandemic would unfold.[131] Marc Lipsitch, Director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, objected to Ioannidis's characterization of the global response in a reply that was published on STAT the next day after Ioannidis's.[132] Ioannidis later stated that early in 2020 he wrote about needing more data, without that meaning he was mocking those who worried about COVID-19, and that he was elated with the quick development of vaccines and treatments, and the scientific progress made since 2020.[133][third-party source needed]

In March 2020, Ioannidis tried to organize a meeting at the White House where he and colleagues would caution President Donald Trump against "shutting down the country for [a] very long time and jeopardizing so many lives in doing this," according to a proposal he submitted. The meeting did not come to pass, but on March 28, after Trump said he wanted the country reopened by Easter, Ioannidis wrote to his colleagues, "I think our ideas have inflitrated [sic] the White House regardless".[5]

Ioannidis widely promoted a study of which he had been co-author, "COVID-19 Antibody Seroprevalence in Santa Clara County, California", released as a preprint on April 17, 2020. It asserted that Santa Clara County's number of infections was between 50 and 85 times higher than the official count, putting the virus's fatality rate as low as 0.1% to 0.2%.[n 1][135][130] Ioannidis concluded from the study that the coronavirus is "not the apocalyptic problem we thought".[136] The message found favor with right-wing media outlets, but the paper drew criticism from a number of epidemiologists who said its testing was inaccurate and its methods were sloppy.[137][138][139] Writing for Wired, David H. Freedman said that the Santa Clara study compromised Ioannidis's previously excellent reputation and meant that future generations of scientists may remember him as "the fringe scientist who pumped up a bad study that supported a crazy right-wing conspiracy theory in the middle of a massive health crisis."[6] Ioannidis has also promoted the idea that there were financial incentives to put COVID-19 on death certificates and as such, they were unreliable during the pandemic, as well as the idea that doctors killed COVID-19 patients through premature intubations. Both of these beliefs contradict the available evidence.[140][citation needed]

It was later reported that the study received $5,000 in funding from the founder of the JetBlue airline, which led to criticism over a potential conflict of interest.[141][142] In a guest opinion article in Scientific American, former colleagues of Ioannidis wrote that a legal firm had determined he had no financial conflict.[143] A review by the Stanford School of Medicine faulted the study for shortcomings including a public perception of a conflict of interest, but found "no evidence that any of the study funders influenced the design, execution, or reporting of the study".[129]

Amid controversy over his COVID-19 work and his frequent televised interviews, Ioannidis was harassed in memes and emails, including one falsely claiming his mother died of COVID-19. Some scientists and commentators voiced concerns over the backlash and the highly politicized scientific dispute in general.[129][144]

In March 2021 Ioannidis estimated the global infection fatality rate from COVID-19 at 0.15%, in an article in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation (EJCI).[145] In an article in Science-Based Medicine, David Gorski said that the EJCI article included ad hominem criticisms against a co-author of a higher estimate who had criticized his work on Twitter.[130]

In February 2022 Ioannidis co-authored a paper examining the role of indoor and outdoor air quality in the spread of SARS-CoV-2, which concluded that environmental health may be a crucial component in the prevention of COVID-19 and suggested preventive measures such as indoor CO2 monitoring and mechanical ventilation.[146]

In 2022, Ioannidis authored a paper in BMJ Open arguing that signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration were shunned as a fringe minority by those in favor of the John Snow Memorandum. According to him, the latter used their large numbers of followers on Twitter and other social media and op-eds to shape a scientific groupthink against the former, who had less influence as measured by the Kardashian Index.[147][148] The BMJ published responses to his paper, including a comment by Gavin Yamey, David Gorski, and Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz which argued that Ioannidis's paper featured "factual errors, statistical shortcomings, failure to protect the named research subjects from harm, and potentially undeclared conflicts of interest that entirely undermine the analysis presented."[149] In the same exchange of comments on The BMJ, Ioannidis addressed the concerns of Yamey, Gorski and Meyerovitz-Katz in his "Fourth set of replies", additionally stating that his "COVID-19 papers have been cited about 5 thousand times in the scientific literature by tens of thousands of scientists and were discussed by millions of people," and dismissed conflict of interest by asserting that he did not sign the Great Barrington Declaration or any other petition or signature collection on COVID-19, as he is against the notion that scientific matters and evidence could be decided by signature collections and prefers these matters be handled by heavily moderated public debates.[150]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ioannidis

And there it is. Whenever any expert speaks out or is perceived to speak out in any way against masks, lockdowns or vaccines, they immediately become a hero of the anti-vax movement, who laud them as mavericks railing against a cabal of evil scientists and mainstream media narratives.

Prior to his controversial Covid beliefs he seems to have a half decent resume and history. Perhaps he made a mistake (experts do) and has doubled-down on it since, not impossible, this does happen in the world of science, there are many egos.

The last guy you lauded turned out to be a libertarian who was a co-creator of the Great Barrington Declaration.. because of course he was.

There's plenty of bad scientists, or good scientists gone bad, or decent scientists who've made bad decisions in science - but the good thing is they generally get exposed.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119862166#Comment_119862166

Irrespective of what his wikipedia page says, would you agree with the following statement:

His theory that initially we were overestimating the fatality rate because we were underestimating the amount of cases looks to be pretty sound in hindsight to me.

Because what his wikipedia page says makes no difference to the whether the above is true or not. I am claiming that hindsight has proved him right on this. What do you think?

Furthermore you have just copied and pasted his wikipedia entry without any comment on what is there that marks him out in your eyes as either a bad scientist, or a good scientists gone bad, or a decent scientist who has made a bad decisions in science.

What is it specifically about Ioannidis that makes his opinion so laughable compared to the opinion of David Gorski for example?

It seems odd you are so confident in the consensus of experts who say one thing, and so dismissive of experts who say another, yet appear to be unable to actually explain in your own opinion why the views of those experts who question the consensus should be dismissed other than saying "Wikipedia told me so".

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119862258#Comment_119862258

I've asked you multiple times to provide details of your conspiracy, it seems you really don't want to do that.

As explained previously, 9/11 truthers trot out lines of experts who believe 9/11 was an inside job and "challenge" people into explaining why those experts are wrong. No one has to. Those experts just have to explain the conspiracy, which they can't do.

Hence I am asking about your conspiracy.

Fighting Tao

@hometruths Why have you latched into someone you only heard of yesterday? You just accept what the other poster said and rolled with it because he made some argument that you could twist into your beliefs. Not one ounce of thought invoked.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119862371#Comment_119862371

Just heard about him yesterday. That old chestnut. Ioannidis is pretty famous.

I have linked to his work on this thread before, and here on another forum in November 2021 - https://****/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=316&p=19023#p19023

He is noteworthy in the current discussion for a couple of reasons:

a) he is an excellent example of the new breed of Covid anti-vaxxers we were discussing yesterday. As I mentioned this new breed count a surprising amount of world renowned scientists amongst their number compared to the last lot.

b) he's an excellent example of why the argument that all credible experts agree with the consensus is utter nonsense. He clearly doesn't agree with the consensus, and hindsight has proved him right, so it is pretty difficult to attack his credibility, no matter how much you paste from wikipedia.

Edit - just noticed that link from November 21 is censored for some reason, here is the site:

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119862564#Comment_119862564

A) He's noteworthy to anti-vaxxers, who will latch onto anyone with credentials who appear in any way to be "on their side".

B) Gaslighting

Fighting Tao

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119862564#Comment_119862564

Maybe you could point me to your previous posts on him, and if you can identify those posts, please explain why you are trying to have the same arguments again as would have occurred back then.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119862976#Comment_119862976

Do not you believe me that I heard of him before yesterday?! Or is there some other point you're trying to make I am missing?

I am not trying to have the same arguments again. I will repeat.

He is noteworthy in the current discussion for a couple of reasons:

a) he is an excellent example of the new breed of Covid anti-vaxxers we were discussing yesterday. As I mentioned this new breed count a surprising amount of world renowned scientists amongst their number compared to the last lot.

b) he's an excellent example of why the argument that all credible experts agree with the consensus is utter nonsense. He clearly doesn't agree with the consensus, and hindsight has proved him right, so it is pretty difficult to attack his credibility, no matter how much you paste from wikipedia.

On this thread some time last month I linked to a more uptodate paper of his on the IFR, the point I was making was related the IFR in age differences. If I recall correctly it was in relation to odysseys recurring argument about Omicron and Hong Kong. I think I was using Ioannidis' age stratified IFRs to illustrate the point those who suffered in Hong Kong were vulnerable principally because of their age, rather than their vaccination status.

But the search function on here is such that I am not inclined to trawl through to find that post simply to prove to you that I heard of him before yesterday.

On the other site I posted a link to this article authored by him: How the Pandemic Is Changing the Norms of Science. 

And quoted this:

Consultants who made millions of dollars from corporate and government consultation were given prestigious positions, power, and public praise, while unconflicted scientists who worked pro bono but dared to question dominant narratives were smeared as being conflicted. Organized skepticism was seen as a threat to public health. There was a clash between two schools of thought, authoritarian public health versus science—and science lost.

Honest, continuous questioning and exploration of alternative paths are indispensable for good science. In the authoritarian (as opposed to participatory) version of public health, these activities were seen as treason and desertion.

Fighting Tao

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119863028#Comment_119863028

Ok, that’s a no then.

I won’t be going to any other site either. It’s weird that you actually want someone to visit another forum.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119863152#Comment_119863152

I don't care whether you visit another forum or not. For whatever reason you are stating that I only heard of this guy yesterday, and that thought seems to bother you. I am offering you a way to satisfy yourself that I had heard of him before yesterday, but I don't actually care whether you do so or not.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119862564#Comment_119862564

More misattributing arguments to people.

No one claimed that every scientist agreed with the consensus.

Looks like you're pushing your anti vaxx agenda on multiple forums too. Weird.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119862303#Comment_119862303

Yea. really weird how he was whinging about wanting to discuss a conspiracy that he'd been denying he believed in for a few hundred pages, but now has clammed up about it again to harp on about his pet expert.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119862303#Comment_119862303

It's not that I don't want to discuss the conspiracy, it's just that we are in a bit of a Catch 22. Ioannidis is a good example of it.

I think there is no argument that a) pre Covid he was hugely respected and influential and b) now he has been widely discredited for spreading dangerous misinformation.

Where we differ is on whether or not what he said was dangerous misinformation.

I've read what he said and I think that hindsight has proven him to be correct. I'm not sure whether you have read what he said or not, you have made no comment on it.

Given that I think he was right, to me the fact a quick 5 second search on google results in numerous sources him branding him as a misinformation spreader etc is evidence that credible experts are being discredited as quacks.

To you it is evidence that he is a conspiracy theorist darling who can be dismissed without any further consideration, irrespective of what he actually said.

My argument obviously hinges on whether what he said was dangerous misinformation or not.

The only solution to that is to discuss and debate what he actually said, why you think he was wrong, why I think he was right etc, but if you're not willing to do that, fine I am not going to badger you to do so, but then we're stuck in the Catch 22.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119864704#Comment_119864704

But you don't do any checking into these guys or any of the details of what they actually claim. We've already seen that you don't read half the things you link dump and you've shown that you don't question anything that comes from an anti-vaxx source.

You simply declare them as infallible because they have a long list of credentials that you can copy and paste.

This is because that's how the grifters you follow on twitter or whatever work.

They understand that their audience/targets don't look into things and are easily impressed by long lists of qualifications.

You don't want to acknowledge this is a thing that happens. That's fine. Everyone else understands this.

You don't believe that he's spreading misinformation because you have a blindspot when it comes to anti-vaxx propaganda.

Whenever you see it, you either attempt to justify it or completely edit it out of your reality. If anyone attempts to discuss this expert's claims you'll quickly revert to your usual "MO" of dodging and ducking and distraction.

It's also still funny that you're dismissing the opinions of the highly qualified people behind Science Based Medicine and you're accusing them of being part of a global conspiracy based on nothing at all beside that you don't like their opinion. Just displays your constant, unabashed hypocrisy.

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119864704#Comment_119864704

Regarding Ioannidis, he said that the virus might only kill 10k to 40k people in the US. In 2020 he dismissed the idea of 20% to 60% of adults catching Covid as "substantially exaggerated".

In April 2020 he said that the virus had probably peaked.

"Acknowledging for the fact that the epidemic is still evolving, and we cannot be sure whether we will hit even higher peaks in the future, although this doesn’t seem to be the case, at least for the European countries, and it seems to be that even in the US, in most states we’re very close to the peak, if not past the peak, the risk is something that should be manageable as opposed to the panic and horror stories that are circulating about."

Then in August 2020 this whopper:

"However, very few hospitals were eventually stressed and only for a couple of weeks. Most hospitals maintained largely empty wards, expecting tsunamis that never came… Tragically, many health systems faced major adverse consequences, not by COVID-19 cases overload, but for very different reasons."

Scientists make mistakes, he even acknowledged it himself, he has since done a large U-turn, but thank god he wasn't in charge of any national policy at the time.

On top of that he strongly supports the vaccines

"John Ioannidis (JI): We know that the vaccines that have been used are very effective, in the range of 95%. However, nothing is 100% in reality. So, this means that one still has to be cautious when there is an active epidemic wave. With the current wave, it’s not possible to tell how it will look even a week down the road. Whatever we have been saying about trying to protect yourself and others during the pandemic still makes sense. It’s not something to panic about, but we just need to hold onto that perspective."

You sure you are hitching your wagon to the right horse here?

All of this is just a deflection from the fact that you very openly do not want to discuss your own conspiracy. on a conspiracy forum. It seems very obvious you want to hint at the conspiracy but never detail it, all the while indulging in endless vaccine contrarianism.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119864959#Comment_119864959

Guess he's part of the conspiracy now he's claiming that the vaccines are safe and effective.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119864978#Comment_119864978

Is avoiding the question about whether or not he was right about the early estimates of IFR, and googling for better examples of when he was proved wrong an admission of the fact he was right about the IFR?

Regarding Ioannidis, he said that the virus might only kill 10k to 40k people in the US. In 2020 he dismissed the idea of 20% to 60% of adults catching Covid as "substantially exaggerated".

In April 2020 he said that the virus had probably peaked.

"Acknowledging for the fact that the epidemic is still evolving, and we cannot be sure whether we will hit even higher peaks in the future, although this doesn’t seem to be the case, at least for the European countries, and it seems to be that even in the US, in most states we’re very close to the peak, if not past the peak, the risk is something that should be manageable as opposed to the panic and horror stories that are circulating about."

Any chance you can provide a link for this so we can all see the context? I tried googling it but found nothing.

Then in August 2020 this whopper:

"However, very few hospitals were eventually stressed and only for a couple of weeks. Most hospitals maintained largely empty wards, expecting tsunamis that never came… Tragically, many health systems faced major adverse consequences, not by COVID-19 cases overload, but for very different reasons."

I ddi find a reference to this on the Science Based Medicine Blog. But exactly is the whopper here? Anecdotally, I thought this was true, but I may be wrong, where is the evidence that this is a whopper?

Scientists make mistakes, he even acknowledged it himself, he has since done a large U-turn, but thank god he wasn't in charge of any national policy at the time.

Again, any chance of a link so we can see the details of his U-turn. Because as far as I am aware he has stood by his initial concerns that implementing policy decisions based on overestimating the IFR in April 2020 would cause more damage than the pandemic itself.

"John Ioannidis (JI): We know that the vaccines that have been used are very effective, in the range of 95%. However, nothing is 100% in reality. So, this means that one still has to be cautious when there is an active epidemic wave. With the current wave, it’s not possible to tell how it will look even a week down the road. Whatever we have been saying about trying to protect yourself and others during the pandemic still makes sense. It’s not something to panic about, but we just need to hold onto that perspective."

You sure you are hitching your wagon to the right horse here?

Contrary to your suggestion that I am casting about for any expert that agrees with me, I am not hitching my wagon to any particular horse, I am citing him as an example of a credible scientist who was wrongfully discredited because he questioned the narrative and remains so.

On vaccines I do agree with him that a) the risk reward case for vaccinating children is not clear cut and b) authoritarian attitudes to "trust the sciene" rather than allowing it to be questioned will fuel vaccine hesitancy.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119865170#Comment_119865170

Lol

Dodging and avoiding questions as normal.

Your man there just said that he believed that the vaccines were effective.

You believe that people only push this misinformation because of a conspiracy.

Thus now you have to conclude that your expert is part of the conspiracy.

snowcat

https://www.sgst.com.au/news/dangerous-vaccines-to-blame-for-higher-death-rate-says-broadbent-mp

Australia having huge excess deaths as well. I guess its the heatwave.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119870595#Comment_119870595

Summing up, he claimed “international groups of medical specialists are attributing most of these excess deaths to the synthetic mRNA gene technologies. This is the proverbial elephant in the room,” he says.

Nope that is a pack of lies

The excess deaths differences between countries does not track with their vaccination rate. Other factors - aging population, covid and long covid, delayed diagnoses, health service overload and heatwaves - are the primary factors.

snowcat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119862303#Comment_119862303

There is no conspiracy if it can be proven as false. Which may be impossible after the event. We probably will never know if mRNA have caused the massive excess deaths that we are seeing now where millions are dying above historical norms. There is a reasonable correlation with the rollout of the mRNA injections and the increase in excess deaths. But like climate change we will never have proof but assume certain factors have consequences, We now have a fair guess that CO2 is causing global warming but cannot give proof. The evidence is now mounting that mRNA is causing excess deaths but cannot give proof. I would assume its true but cannot give proof same as CO2 and global warming.

snowcat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119870604#Comment_119870604

I said i assumed it was the heatwave..

Basically we will never know what have caused this massive spike in excess deaths but if I was doing the sums I would be asking what has changed radically here in the last 2 years. And if number 1 is Covid and they have not died from it what the feic has caused them to die now.

@hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119870669#Comment_119870669

Lol looks like you're are as ill informed in climate science as you are in medical science.

There is not a reasonable correlation between the vaccines and excess deaths and you have zero evidence to connect the two.

You know this, which is why you have use your smart arse deflecting about "heat waves" and climate change.

That joke wasn't funny the first time you tried it (and more likely stole from Twitter.)

It's not going to become funny after the 3rd or 4th time you use it.

And no doubt @hometruths is once again suddenly blind cause of this misinformation you're posting.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119870604#Comment_119870604

Weird how he can't point to any of these "international groups of medical specialists" and has to link to yet another obscure local news source that he just happens to read every day.

And weird that he's not calling the vaccines vaccines but rather "synthetic mRNA gene technology". Really trying to make it sound scary for the ignorant and uninformed

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119870669#Comment_119870669

There is no conspiracy if it can be proven as false. Which may be impossible after the event.

This is the great problem that hindsight is now presenting with the idea that there was no conspiracy to silence dissenting views by discrediting those who voiced them.

Obviously the no conspiracy explanation is these guys were just loons, inarguably they were just plain wrong. So wrong they were a danger to public health and this should be branded as such to protect us all.

That was the "consensus" in March 2020.

Obviously the no conspiracy explanation only holds true if two and half years later hindsight proves these guys were so wrong they were a danger to public.

If hindsight suggests that these guys might not have been so crazy after all, then the conspiracy theory is back in play.

Hence the desperate attempt to pour over all of the utterances to find any quotes that shows the loons were wrong about something, anything will do, no matter how tenuous.

And that's how you wind up with nonsense like this:

Then in August 2020 this whopper:

"However, very few hospitals were eventually stressed and only for a couple of weeks. Most hospitals maintained largely empty wards, expecting tsunamis that never came… Tragically, many health systems faced major adverse consequences, not by COVID-19 cases overload, but for very different reasons."

These guys have to cling to the original explanation that anybody, including the likes of Ioannidis, who questioned the "consensus" were spreading dangerous mis/disinformation.

As long as people stick to the script that people like Ioannidis are spreaders of dangerous misinformation, then there is no conspiracy theory. But deviate from that script even slightly, and you risk opening a Pandora's box of awkward questions.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119871045#Comment_119871045

OK cool.

Will take this to mean that you argee with the notion that the vaccines are causing all thos excess death.

That's not misinformation according to yourself.

snowcat

https://www.rte.ie/news/health/2022/1115/1336309-sperm-count/

Prescribed medicines are in there. The pro drug vaccine fanatics will be mentioning show me the proof on fertility. The proof is there and we all know it. You might see results in 6 months or a year but over time it is fairly incontravertible that most synthetic drugs affect fertility where as the mRNA one's..that is just a minefield for a couple of years down the line. Or as excess deaths are showing maybe sooner.

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@snowcat this thread is about Covid Vaccines. The link you posted has nothing to do with Covid Vaccines. You have already been asked on this thread to stick to the topic and stop making up claims not mentioned in your links.

Do not post in this thread again.