Army Tries to Bring Back Soldiers Booted for Refusing the COVID Vaccine

[SimplyMe]

I haven't had it or, if I did, my symptoms were literally so mild I didn't notice and apparently I didn't spread it to anyone. My brother, sister-in-law and mother haven't had it. I'm aware of three coworkers who have tested positive, though I only started working here in June 2021. About 35 others are either no, or unknown by me.

Count me as another person, as well as my husband, that have not had COVID.

 

[rambot]

I find it shocking that there are folks who haven't had COVID.
For those who haven't had it, can I ask a couple questions:
1) Do you have children (school aged)?
2) Do you work from home?
3) Do you go out/socialize a lot (or did that change from preCOVID times?

Every student in my class for the last 3 years has had it except for one. Every teacher in our school has had it, I think several times. It seems most of my life is teachers or teacher friends.

 

[rambot]

Quite the opposite. Shingles occurs because someone got chickenpox as a child, the virus then remains dormant and it resurfaces much later in life.

Thank you for straightening that out.

 

[USincognito]

I find it shocking that there are folks who haven't had COVID.
For those who haven't had it, can I ask a couple questions:

A couple is two, you asked three.

1) Do you have children (school aged)?

No. I'm childless and if I were on a normal timeline and not pumping out a second batch of kids like a few guys I know, mine would probably all be college aged.

2) Do you work from home?

Except for Dec 20 to Jun 21, I've worked the entire time. That said, I've worked the night shift so my workplace exposure has been very limited.

3) Do you go out/socialize a lot (or did that change from preCOVID times?

I didn't eat out at restaurants during 2020, and only got to go a few times, but otherwise my boring lifestyle didn't change. I wasn't going to Cowboys games or Taylor Swift concerts before and wasn't after.

I did grocery shop regularly all through 2020 and 2021 and went to the gym for the last half of 2020 and all of 2021.

 

[KCfromNC]

Do you understand what healthy vaccinee bias is?

Answering a question with a question reads as evasive, as does the failed attempt at a personal attack.

Do I have to ask my question yet again, or would I just be wasting my time?

 

[probinson]

At this point, all I see is a desire to attack the vaccine, etc.

Funny. At this point all I see with you is a desire to defend the vaccine.

 

[probinson]

Answering a question with a question reads as evasive, as does the failed attempt at a personal attack.

Do I have to ask my question yet again, or would I just be wasting my time?

It's cute that you're pretending that I haven't answered any of your questions.

At this point, I'm left to assume that either you genuinely don't understand what healthy vaccinee bias is, or you realize that if you acknowledge what it is it will call into question the veracity of every observational study of the vaccines efficacy.

 

[probinson]

Ah, just for fun, since you're "done" with me....

Yeah? So? Who else would write an editorial, the accountant. It's still not a scientific article, just a commentary. As for the Journal. I've never heard of it (or published in it), I'll take your word for it that it is a good journal.

You've never heard of the BMJ? Really?

BMJ started out 180 years ago as a medical journal, publishing articles on stillborn children, amputation at the shoulder and the climate of the Isle of Wight.​

​

About BMJ | Publisher of The BMJ | Our story

Since 1840, BMJ has been publishing The BMJ, one of the world's four most cited general medicine journals. Today, we are a global brand with a strong vision for a healthier world.

www.bmj.com

​

​

Besides that, you're not really disputing the point of the editorial. In summary, it basically says that the public's expectations of an "effective" vaccine is not what was being studied. An "effective" vaccine to Pfizer meant we could stop your mild cough. But that's not at all how it was presented to the public.

Cough. Cough. Cough. (and a positive test)

Ah yes. The infamous nasal swab. Do you know what cycle count was required to be considered "positive" in this trial?

Are you familiar with Nobel-Prize winning inventor of the PCR test, Kary Mullis, who said:

"Anyone can test positive for practically anything with a PCR test, if you run it long enough with PCR if you do it well, you can find almost anything in anybody. It doesn’t tell you that you’re sick."​

If you Google this statement, you'll likely end up at a USA Today "fact-check" saying this doesn't apply to COVID because the claim is "outdated" and was talking about HIV. The "fact-check" claims that the statement is "missing context" but doesn't really go on to explain what context would make this statement not applicable to COVID. You'd think the inventor of the PCR test would know better than a bunch of flunky "fact-checkers" at USA Today.

They were counting infections with and without the vaccine.

They were counting mild symptoms with and without the vaccine. You already confirmed that.

What? Are you denying COVID was serious?

As I recall about 1-2% of cases in the early phases (2020) DIED. That's about 10 times the fatality rate of annual flu (as opposed to the major pandemics like 1919) with 10-20 or so hospitalized per death for the flu. I don't recall the ratio for COVID19.

You're opening a whole new can of worms. The incompetent policies of sending patients infected with COVID out of hospitals and back to nursing homes to some of the most vulnerable populations all but assured that outcome. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend the PBS documentary "Fire Through Dry Grass" which chronicles just how catastrophic NYC's policies on requiring nursing homes to accept COVID positive patients was for one nursing home.

FIRE THROUGH DRY GRASS

www.firethroughdrygrass.com

These policies not only failed to protect the most vulnerable, they all but assured that mortality would be through the roof.

These studies take months and they couldn't predict where the latest outbreaks would be during the test.

And here we are again. The disease was bad. Real bad! So bad that we couldn't find a population that was large enough and sick enough to evaluate whether severe clinical outcomes would be improved. I sometimes wonder the level of cognitive dissonance one must possess to reconcile these two beliefs.

Sounds like a problem with a subset of the data, not the whole study, if accurate.

I'm sure it was just that one site. Everything was totally on the up-and-up, no doubt.

And if a subset of the data's integrity is flawed, it calls into question ALL of the data's integrity. Unless the problematic data is excluded, it's in your results calling into question the overall integrity of the data.

Because those *are* infections. The uninfected don't transmit.

Do the mildly infected transmit? We'll never know, because the study wasn't powered to find out.

No models needed. They were literally case numbers, hospitalizations, and deaths versus time plots. Once vaccines were wide spread the ratio of deaths and hospitaliztions to cases went way down. The effectiveness of the vaccinations against severe disease for the first few variants was clarly shown.

Until it wasn't. "The Pandemic of the Unvaccinated!™" was propagandized in the US until it was no longer possible to deny what nonsense that was. I'm certain you haven't read it, but I posted a study a few posts up that was talking about the "scapegoating" of the unvaccinated.

Short trials CANNOT show long-term results. So even if the mRNA shots provided an immediate benefit, it was incredibly transient. Worse, there are some studies that suggest that the more doses of vaccines you've had, the more LIKELY you are to get infected.

One particularly interesting study was done at the Cleveland Clinic that showed a perfect correlation between increased vaccine doses and increased infections.

Of course, the "fact-checkers" jumped into action after this study published claiming it didn't show what it clearly showed. But the study itself said this:

The association of increased risk of COVID-19 with more prior vaccine doses was unexpected. A simplistic explanation might be that those who received more doses were more likely to be individuals at higher risk of COVID-19. A small proportion of individuals may have fit this description. However, the majority of participants in this study were young, and all were eligible to have received ≥3 doses of vaccine by the study start date, which they had every opportunity to do. Therefore, those who received <3 doses (46% of individuals in the study) were not ineligible to receive the vaccine but rather chose not to follow the CDC's recommendations on remaining updated with COVID-19 vaccination, and one could reasonably expect these individuals to have been more likely to exhibit risk-taking behavior. Despite this, their risk of acquiring COVID-19 was lower than that that of participants those who received more prior vaccine doses.​

​

Ours is not the only study to find a possible association with more prior vaccine doses and higher risk of COVID-19. During an Omicron wave in Iceland, individuals who had previously received ≥2 doses were found to have a higher odds of reinfection than those who had received <2 doses, in an unadjusted analysis [21]. A large study found, in an adjusted analysis, that those who had an Omicron variant infection after previously receiving 3 doses of vaccine had a higher risk of reinfection than those who had an Omicron variant infection after previously receiving 2 doses [22]. Another study found, in multivariable analysis, that receipt of 2 or 3 doses of am mRNA vaccine following prior COVID-19 was associated with a higher risk of reinfection than receipt of a single dose [7]. Immune imprinting from prior exposure to different antigens in a prior vaccine [22, 23] and class switch toward noninflammatory spike-specific immunoglobulin G4 antibodies after repeated SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination [24] have been suggested as possible mechanisms whereby prior vaccine may provide less protection than expected. We still have a lot to learn about protection from COVID-19 vaccination, and in addition to vaccine effectiveness, it is important to examine whether multiple vaccine doses given over time may not be having the beneficial effect that is generally assumed.​

​

In conclusion, this study found an overall modest protective effect of the bivalent vaccine against COVID-19 while the circulating strains were represented in the vaccine and lower protection when the circulating strains were no longer represented. A significant protective effect was not found when the XBB lineages were dominant. The unexpected finding of increasing risk with increasing number of prior COVID-19 vaccine doses needs further study.​

​

Effectiveness of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Bivalent Vaccine

Among 51 017 working-aged Cleveland Clinic employees, the bivalent coronavirus disease 2019 vaccine was 29% and 20% effective in preventing infection while the

academic.oup.com

​

Indeed, the "unexpected" finding in this and at least four other studies showing an increase of risk with an increase of doses does deserves further study. But who wants to be the one that comes out and says, "You know all those doses of vaccine you've been mandated to take? Yeah, each one makes you just a little more susceptible to infection than the last. But the good news is that even though you're more likely to get infected, you still have "an overall modest protective effect."

Now you're on to politics. I'm done with this and you.

Well, this is the political forum, and whether you like it or not, democrats and liberals were the ones that were vastly overestimating the risk that COVID-19 posed to most people. That's just the facts. The "desperation" you referenced was driven by the misinformation they believed and pushed concerning the risk of severe outcomes.

 

[probinson]

In other news, the COVID zealots have completely lost it. This video was published just 3 days ago in December 2023.

Ah, who doesn't love the old Christmas classic that starts...

"Twas the night before Christmas, Santa took a deep breath.
If only he'd known it would lead to his death."

Wait, what?!

 

[KCfromNC]

It's cute that you're pretending that I haven't answered any of your questions.

At this point, I'm left to assume that either you genuinely don't understand what healthy vaccinee bias is, or you realize that if you acknowledge what it is it will call into question the veracity of every observational study of the vaccines efficacy.

I guess making up stuff I never wrote only to dismiss is easier than actually stepping away from the canned talking points and actually showing they applied to the studies I posted and you may or may not have probably read sometime in the past or not.

 

[probinson]

...and actually showing they applied to the studies I posted...

Tell me you don't understand healthy vacinnee bias without telling me you don't understand healthy vaccinee bias.

Healthy vaccinee bias exists in EVERY observational study on vaccine efficacy. That's why randomization is so important, because it can help account for confounders and biases that CANNOT be accounted for accurately in observational studies.

 

[KCfromNC]

Tell me you don't understand healthy vacinnee bias without telling me you don't understand healthy vaccinee bias.

Healthy vaccinee bias exists in EVERY observational study on vaccine efficacy. That's why randomization is so important, because it can help account for confounders and biases that CANNOT be accounted for accurately in observational studies.

Even in studies you're not sure you've read, apparently. Weird how when it is convenient we can't know anything about anything which might contradict anti-vaxx talking points.

 

[probinson]

Even in studies you're not sure you've read, apparently. Weird how when it is convenient we can't know anything about anything which might contradict anti-vaxx talking points.

Let's see if you'll listen to the NIH.

Practicing clinicians face a substantial challenge when attempting to interpret data from observational studies that report the effects of prevention on patient health outcomes. Numerous high-profile descriptive studies of preventive screening tests, behaviors, and treatments have reported dramatically reduced mortality or improved health outcomes. However, many of these findings were later thrown into question when randomized controlled trials (RCTs) indicated contradictory results. In some cases, the flawed observational studies were the source of evidence for broad practice recommendations.1 While it would be a mistake to ignore all evidence from observational studies—there are many questions that will never be answered by RCTs—clinicians must be careful when interpreting observational studies demonstrating what seem to be surprisingly large beneficial effects of preventive therapy.​

​

Healthy User and Related Biases in Observational Studies of Preventive Interventions: A Primer for Physicians

The current emphasis on comparative effectiveness research will provide practicing physicians with increasing volumes of observational evidence about preventive care. However, numerous highly publicized observational studies of the effect of prevention ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

​

​

It's not like I'm talking about some obscure, unknown issue. This article from the NIH was published in 2011 and warns of the effects of "healthy-user bias"

The healthy user effect The healthy user effect is best described as the propensity for patients who receive one preventive therapy to also seek other preventive services or partake in other healthy behaviors.18Patients who choose to receive preventive therapy may exercise more, eat a healthier diet, wear a seatbelt when they drive, and avoid tobacco. As a result, an observational study evaluating the effect of a preventive therapy (e.g., statin therapy) on a related outcome (e.g., myocardial infarction) without adjusting for other related preventive behaviors (e.g., healthy diet or exercise) will tend to overstate the effect of the preventive therapy under study.​

I'm not sure what's so hard to understand here. This is well-established, and if you take the time to read the article, you'll see there are many examples of observational studies significantly overstating the effects of preventive therapies. I already posted an article earlier in the thread that shows how health vaccinee bias overstate the efficacy of flu vaccines in ridiculously implausible ways. I'm not sure what makes you think observational studies about COVID vaccination are immune to this well-established phenomenon.

 

[probinson]

Let's take a peek at what's happening with COVID vaccines elsewhere in the world.

At least 215 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines purchased by EU countries at the height of the pandemic have since been thrown away at an estimated cost to the taxpayer of €4 billion, an analysis by POLITICO reveals. And that's almost certainly an underestimate.​

​

https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-bonfire-covid-vaccines-coronavirus-waste-europe-analysis/​

​

This equates to a €4 billion handout to the pharmaceutical companies on the taxpayers dime... FOR NOTHING.

And Pfizer wants to force them to keep buying more, even as they throw HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of doses in the trash.

Countries were locked into buying doses even as the pandemic subsided, while efforts to donate excess jabs to third countries were thwarted by falling demand and logistics issues. ​

​

The repercussions are more than financial. Questions around how the big Pfizer contract was negotiated have dogged Commission President Ursula von der Leyen ever since the New York Times reported that the EU chief had exchanged messages with Pfizer's CEO in the run-up to the deal. ​

​

The contract has already been renegotiated by the European Commission under pressure from EU countries suffering from a vaccine glut. Both Poland and Hungary stopped accepting vaccines and are being sued by Pfizer for non-payment. In Romania, prosecutors want to lift immunity for its former prime minister and two former health ministers, claiming excessive vaccine purchases caused more than €1 billion in damages to the state.​

​

In the meantime, the jabs will keep coming, with the revised contract with Pfizer locking European countries into buying vaccines until at least 2027.​

Pfizer wants to continue to force these countries to buy their vaccines until 2027 despite the fact that nearly no one wants them any more. Not exactly the altruistic picture some people have suggested. Pfizer needs to make money, and they're willing to sell products that government will literally throw in the trash if need be.

 

[KCfromNC]

I'm not sure what's so hard to understand here.

Why you think it is relevant. You seemed to bring it up in response to studies which disproved your assertions about the covid vaccine - studies you still haven't come clean on whether or not you actually read. And instead of explaining why they somehow change the outcome of those studies in a way which salvages your claims, we keep seeing posts trying everything but that.

 

[KCfromNC]

Let's take a peek at what's happening with COVID vaccines elsewhere in the world.

At least 215 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines purchased by EU countries at the height of the pandemic have since been thrown away at an estimated cost to the taxpayer of €4 billion, an analysis by POLITICO reveals. And that's almost certainly an underestimate.​

​

https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-bonfire-covid-vaccines-coronavirus-waste-europe-analysis/​

​

This equates to a €4 billion handout to the pharmaceutical companies on the taxpayers dime... FOR NOTHING.

Perhaps stories pushing to try and make it seem like the vaccines are ineffective might have something to do with that problem? For example, there are even posts in this very thread claiming that the vaccines are "known to not prevent infection and disease transmission".

 

[probinson]

Why you think it is relevant.

I've already explained this multiple times. It's relevant because healthy-user bias exists in ALL observational studies on vaccination, I've provided you multiple links to show you this, which you've continually ignored. But it doesn't change the fact that ANY observational study of ANY vaccine is going to be affected by the healthy user effect.

 

[probinson]

Perhaps stories pushing to try and make it seem like the vaccines are ineffective might have something to do with that problem?

Or, and I know this might be hard for you to grasp, maybe much of the rest of the world has woken up to the fact that the COVID vaccines simply do not do what they were sold to do.

For example, there are even posts in this very thread claiming that the vaccines are "known to not prevent infection and disease transmission".

Fact check: TRUE.

COVID vaccines do a very poor job of preventing infections and they were never even studied for their ability to prevent disease transmission. Pfizer's own data from their original phase 3 trial demonstrated that it takes ~130+ people to be vaccinated to prevent just ONE infection. Moreover, there is a mountain of data that demonstrates that any protective benefit of the COVID vaccines is incredibly transient. There is even data that suggests that multiple dosing could potentially actually make one MORE susceptible to future infections.

There's plenty of legitimate reasons to question the efficacy of the COVID vaccines. That's probably why Pfizer has had to revise their financial forecast down three times in three months due to cratering demand for COVID vaccines.

 

[Tuur]

COVID vaccines do a very poor job of preventing infections and they were never even studied for their ability to prevent disease transmission. Pfizer's own data from their original phase 3 trial demonstrated that it takes ~130+ people to be vaccinated to prevent just ONE infection. Moreover, there is a mountain of data that demonstrates that any protective benefit of the COVID vaccines is incredibly transient. There is even data that suggests that multiple dosing could potentially actually make one MORE susceptible to future infections.

There's plenty of legitimate reasons to question the efficacy of the COVID vaccines. That's probably why Pfizer has had to revise their financial forecast down three times in three months due to cratering demand for COVID vaccines.

Several issues:

Yes, the vaccinated can still pass along COVID-19. When you think about how vaccines work, that shouldn't be surprising. Vaccines "train" your immune system to mount a response to a disease. That's not like an invisible shield repelling the disease; rather it's allowing your body to fight off infection before you become ill or seriously ill. Whether or not the disease causing organism can multiply enough to pass along is an open question. Vaccination seems to decrease the likelihood a person can pass along a disease, but not all the way to zero. Note that prior to COVID-19, caregivers were urged to take some vaccines in part to reduce the chance of passing along the disease. The concept that a vaccinated person can still pass along the illness may be something new.

Another is the lack of understanding in the press on how the human immune system works. Most of the decrease in effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine has covered the drop in antibodies in the body. But the human body doesn't maintain active antibodies of every disease it encounters. If it did, our blood would become sludge. Instead, it learns how to produce antibodies on demand. A vaccinated person encounters the disease; the body detects it and starts producing antibodies.

More significant is infection rate among the vaccinated X months after full vaccination. That tells the tale. Even there, you have to ask the question did the person contract the exact illness they were vaccinated for, or did they contract a mutation.

There are also some diseases where protection wains though the disease causing organism remains the same. That's why some diseases require boosters.

Finally, I think the declining mortality from COVID-19 variants is having a greater impact on continued vaccination than any claims about efficacy. Anecdotally, those who had a strong reaction to the vaccine are looking at the declining mortality and going "Nope."

 

[Pommer]

Or, and I know this might be hard for you to grasp, maybe much of the rest of the world has woken up to the fact that the COVID vaccines simply do not do what they were sold to do.

To me they were sold to be a “good fit” for the coronavirus, to offer some measure of protection without the two-to-ten year waiting time for a “traditional“ vaccine to “come online”.

As a “proof-of-concept” they nailed it, now comes the tweaking.

(There’s a reason the Wright brothers didn’t design a Boeing 747 in 1903)