Rfk drops ball

[probinson]

From everything I've read, the answer is yes, people who have had Covid infection, should still get vaccinated. I've provided links on this.

The answer is no. Prior infection confers immunity that is as good, if not better, than vaccination.

I haven't made any misleading claims.

You're right. You've parroted misleading claims by public health authorities who should know better.

Read up on it, do some research, the answers are out there.

I know. I've shown you, but you continue to ignore it.

I have provided some links but it seems you haven't read them.

Sure I have. I know what the CDC recommends, which is what you've posted. What you've not posted is anything that demonstrates that someone who has had COVID derives any additional benefit from being vaccinated.

There is no point me telling you what I think, you don't respect what I think, and that is fair enough, I'm not an expert on contagious diseases and vaccines. But do the research.

Nor am I. And it's not a matter of me not respecting what you think. You're simply not engaging with the data and studies I've presented. The flow of this conversation has been something along the lines of, I post a study, I provide data, I articulate a concern. You ignore the study, ignore the data, and go post what the CDC recommends. But you're not actually addressing the point.

You are appealing to the authority of the CDC simply because they are the CDC. That is a logical fallacy. When presented with data that calls into question the recommendations of the CDC, you simply defer to, well the CDC said it, so it must be true, where I prefer to look at the data and methodology that goes into that recommendation.

E.g I tell you that young males are more likely to get myocarditis from the disease than they are from the vaccine and you keep coming back with stuff about young males being more likely to get myocarditis than females from the vaccine,

That's not what the study I posted found. Maybe you should take your own advice and try reading what I post.

While we both already agree this is true, we are actually trying to work out if young males should take the vaccine or not. so we should be asking, are young males more likely to get myocarditis from the vaccine or from the disease without having been vaccinated.

The problem with the study you posted is found in its methodology for determining the number of people infected.

Here is their methodology:

A de-identified, limited data set was created from the TriNetX Research Network, aggregating electronic health records from 48 mostly large U.S. Healthcare Organizations (HCOs). Inclusion criteria were a first COVID-19 diagnosis during the April 1, 2020 - March 31, 2021 time period, with an outpatient visit 1 month to 2 years before, and another 6 months to 2 years before that. Analysis was stratified by sex and age (12-17, 12-15, 16-19). Patients were excluded for any prior cardiovascular condition. Primary outcome was an encounter diagnosis of myocarditis within 90 days following the index date. Rates of COVID-19 cases and myocarditis not identified in the system were estimated and the results adjusted accordingly. Wilson score intervals were used for 95% confidence intervals due to the very low probability outcome.​

​

These are people who had a COVID-19 diagnosis. That means they had presented to a healthcare organization and received a positive test.

Now let's really think about that for a minute, using nice round numbers to illustrate why that is almost certain to overestimate the incidence of myocarditis from infection.

Let's say that 10,000 patients presented with a positive COVID test, and 100 of them are diagnosed with myocarditis. The rate of myocarditis in those patients is 100/10,000, or 0.1%. But remember, this is only accounting for people who had a positive COVID test. We already know that there were many, many, MANY cases of COVID that were not severe enough to require medical attention. In fact, these people may have had symptoms so mild, that they didn't even know they were infected. So, let's say that seroprevalence testing in that same area shows that 1,000,000 people had COVID. Now the rate of myocarditis from COVID is 100/1,000,000, or 0.01%, orders of magnitude less than the study shows.

Do you see the problem with calculating rates of myocarditis (or any condition) based only on the number of people who presented to a medical facility with a positive test? The denominator in that calculation is horribly wrong, because there are countless people infected with COVID that 1) did not have symptoms severe enough to seek medical treatment and 2) did not have myocarditis. Yet they're not being counted. Therefore, you are absolutely certain to overestimate the rate of any condition from the disease if you only look at the people who sought medical attention, which is exactly what this study does.

 

[stevil]

We really can't. The risks of vaccination for 20-year old males is vastly different than 85-year old grandmas. So while you may call this "harping", it's simply acknowledging that a one-size-fits-all recommendation is imprudent.

I've already agreed that you should compare young males getting vaccinated with young unvaccinated males getting covid. So why are you still trying to make the same point over and over and over, when we have already agreed a thousand times to this.

 

[probinson]

I've already agreed that you should compare young males getting vaccinated with young unvaccinated males getting covid. So why are you still trying to make the same point over and over and over, when we have already agreed a thousand times to this.

OK.

So now address this.

----

The problem with the study you posted is found in its methodology for determining the number of people infected.

Here is their methodology:

A de-identified, limited data set was created from the TriNetX Research Network, aggregating electronic health records from 48 mostly large U.S. Healthcare Organizations (HCOs). Inclusion criteria were a first COVID-19 diagnosis during the April 1, 2020 - March 31, 2021 time period, with an outpatient visit 1 month to 2 years before, and another 6 months to 2 years before that. Analysis was stratified by sex and age (12-17, 12-15, 16-19). Patients were excluded for any prior cardiovascular condition. Primary outcome was an encounter diagnosis of myocarditis within 90 days following the index date. Rates of COVID-19 cases and myocarditis not identified in the system were estimated and the results adjusted accordingly. Wilson score intervals were used for 95% confidence intervals due to the very low probability outcome.​

These are people who had a COVID-19 diagnosis. That means they had presented to a healthcare organization and received a positive test.​

Now let's really think about that for a minute, using nice round numbers to illustrate why that is almost certain to overestimate the incidence of myocarditis from infection.

Let's say that 10,000 patients presented with a positive COVID test, and 100 of them are diagnosed with myocarditis. The rate of myocarditis in those patients is 100/10,000, or 0.1%. But remember, this is only accounting for people who had a positive COVID test. We already know that there were many, many, MANY cases of COVID that were not severe enough to require medical attention. In fact, these people may have had symptoms so mild, that they didn't even know they were infected. So, let's say that seroprevalence testing in that same area shows that 1,000,000 people had COVID. Now the rate of myocarditis from COVID is 100/1,000,000, or 0.01%, orders of magnitude less than the study shows.

Do you see the problem with calculating rates of myocarditis (or any condition) based only on the number of people who presented to a medical facility with a positive test? The denominator in that calculation is horribly wrong, because there are countless people infected with COVID that 1) did not have symptoms severe enough to seek medical treatment and 2) did not have myocarditis. Yet they're not being counted. Therefore, you are absolutely certain to overestimate the rate of any condition from the disease if you only look at the people who sought medical attention, which is exactly what this study does.

 

[probinson]

As a follow-up to my last post, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here's a picture I made. Please note these numbers are theoretical, but they illustrate vividly the problem with calculating rates using the wrong denominator.

 

[stevil]

Now let's really think about that for a minute, using nice round numbers to illustrate why that is almost certain to overestimate the incidence of myocarditis from infection.

Rather than you and me thinking really hard and making stuff up, why don't we instead find a study which shows either young vaccinated males with myocarditis vs young unvaccinated males infected with the disease with myocarditis. And read what their conclusions are, in which group is it more likely?

I've provided links to support my case, you say there are flaws with the study and so you won't accept the conclusion. OK, but show me studies that prove your conclusion.

 

[probinson]

Rather than you and me thinking really hard and making stuff up, why don't we instead find a study which shows either young vaccinated males with myocarditis vs young unvaccinated males infected with the disease with myocarditis. And read what their conclusions are, in which group is it more likely?

I just showed you, with a picture even, why their estimates of the rate of myocarditis in young males after a COVID infection are severely inflated. Do you dispute that?

 

[stevil]

I just showed you, with a picture even, why their estimates of the rate of myocarditis in young males after a COVID infection are severely inflated. Do you dispute that?

I was asking you to provide any links with a comparison of young vaccinated males vs young non vaccinated males and their respective risks for getting micorditis from either an infection or from a vaccination. But you keep coming back with things other than that.

 

[probinson]

The comments on the article you provided pointed out the same issue with the study that I illustrated with the picture.

The rate of myocarditis induced by COVID is based on the case rate, versus an actual infection rate based on a seroprevalence study/sample.​

​

Using a seroprevalence study/sample would result in a lager number of infections as asymptomatic would be included (as pointed out by @zega).​

​

Consequently the study has grossly over estimated the risk of myocarditis induced by COVID.​

 

[hedrick]

But how mycarditis affects people "in general" is not helpful to understand. What benefit is there in averaging rates of myocarditis from 85-year old grandmas with myocarditis rates from 20-year old college athletes?



I'd go find the studies and post the links to them, but I am fully convinced you wouldn't read them anyway.



I've already addressed the CDC table and why it overstates the efficacy. You haven't addressed any of those points. Start with healthy vaccinee bias to understand why vaccine efficacy is overstated in most of those studies.



There was a brief period of time where doctors considered not treating patients at all if they refused the COVID vaccine. This carries immense ethical concerns and thankfully was a short-lived phenomenon as it became clear that the vaccine didn't prevent you from getting COVID anyway.



This is a disingenuous argument. People were told "get vaccinated or lose your job". That's not a "choice" and anyone who contends it was is not being intellectually honest.



That's true. But when the government colludes with social media to censor any "contrarian" viewpoints and punishes doctors who hold different viewpoints, it's easy to manufacture the appearance of consensus. That is what happened with COVID.



Nor do I. That's why I remain skeptical of any doctor that still advocates for masking. It is apparent to me that such doctors do not deal in evidence-based measures and, as you so succinctly put it, prefer "junk" instead.



Why do you always qualify these statements with "right-wing"? You're trying to tell me medicine shouldn't be political, but you undermine your point every time you insert politics into this discussion.

And I say kudos to any doctor that stands against foolhardy measures like masking and social distancing which have no scientific basis.



Why? Remember that both of my parents had already had COVID and recovered, just a few months prior. It was known, even then, that protection conferred by natural immunity was as good, if not better, than immunity from vaccination. So why on earth would you complain about a doctor acknowledging the medical truth that my parents had already had COVID and acquired immunity from the infection and therefore did not need the vaccine?



Yes. Pause to really think about that for a minute.



But what that doctor recommended to my parents was not political in nature. It was an evidence-based recommendation that because they had acquired natural immunity from prior infection that a vaccine would confer no additional benefit. That is absolutely true.

Consider that I've never had a chickenpox vaccine. Do you know why? Because when I was six, I had chickenpox, and therefore I do not require a chickenpox vaccine. It would provide no additional protection to me since I've already acquired immunity from that childhood infection.

I'm not sure when the world went completely wonky into vaxx-zealotry, but I'm pretty sure it was right around the same time governments and public health authorities started mandating a vaccine of questionable efficacy to people who did not need it.



Listen to yourself. We're not talking about what doctors "believe in". You've made science into nothing more than a religion. Dr. Mike spoke of this in the video. Science is a process by which we prove and disprove hypotheses. It's not about whether you "believe in" COVID vaccines. It's about whether or not the evidence shows that vaccination after an infection confers any additional benefit (spoiler alert: it doesn't). So if the vaccine provides those people no benefit, you are simply introducing them to unnecessary risks.



Can you point me to one study conducted by the CDC where they debunked their own recommendations?



That's true.



If all a doctor is going to do is tell people what the practice or the health authorities say, then why do you even need to go see that doctor? Do you not think that treating patients as individuals is important? Do you not think that there are different risk/benefit ratios for different groups of people? Do you not think that what may be the best treatment for one may be different for another?



Agreed. That's why when I see studies with "unexpected findings" (such as the Cleveland Clinic study that showed a perfect correlation between increased vaccine doses and increased infections) I pay particular attention to those. Why? Because when a study finds something different than the original hypothesis, it's a sign that their intent in the research wasn't simply to arrive at a predefined conclusion, but to objectively analyze their findings and report them honestly, even if it was contrary to what they expected to find.

Here is a review of studies on the effects of vaccination, including studies that are and are not stratified by age, sex, etc. For comparison they talk about myocarditis from Covid infection. Those numbers are for males in the two relevant age groups. They are not using figures for the general population I either case. COVID‐19 vaccine induced myocarditis in young males: A systematic review - PMC

As I recall, this was known during the epidemic. Some people recommended giv8ng only one shot to young maLes, as the major risk was with the second.

 

[stevil]

RFK and the incompetence of HHS under his lead.
I hope they can be sued for this level of incompetance, they are going to be killing people.

1. RFK has no idea who he is firing.
2. He is firing very important people/functions e.g. infectious disease, mental health, addiction and child vaccination and adolescent diabetes.
3. During the ongoing measles outbreak, RFK Jr touts some Drs as extraordinary healers, promotes their use of steroids and an antibiotic against the virus of measles. BTW antibiotics aren't made to combat viruses, neither are steroids, these "treatments" don't work. Steroid inhibit the immune system and so hamper the body from combating the virus. One of those Drs was promoting the use of the steroids for Covid 19 (a virus) and claims he realised it's potential through divine intervention. The other dr RFK is endorsing is a rising star in the anti vax movement, he has said mass infection by measles is god's version of measles immunisation. He promotes using natural remedies and prayer to combat a viral infection.
This same guy, while he was sick with measles, he still turns up to the clinic.


Under RFK, unproven or disproven alternative "medicines", prayer and negligence is valued and promoted by RFK.

 

[probinson]

Here is a review of studies on the effects of vaccination, including studies that are and are not stratified by age, sex, etc. For comparison they talk about myocarditis from Covid infection. Those numbers are for males in the two relevant age groups. They are not using figures for the general population I either case. COVID‐19 vaccine induced myocarditis in young males: A systematic review - PMC

As I recall, this was known during the epidemic. Some people recommended giv8ng only one shot to young maLes, as the major risk was with the second.

Thank you for the link. I posted this same study earlier in the thread.

The first issue with studies of myocarditis after infection was this:

The calculation for estimating the incidence of myocarditis after SARS‐CoV‐2 infection is more challenging to obtain because the total number of people who have had an infection is likely unknown and unattainable. Studies typically rely on documented infections, which likely suffers the flaw of undercounting the total number of infections because not everyone with the infection has a documented positive test. Thus, the incidence may be inflated and inaccurate. Using seroprevalence data as opposed to documented infections would better capture the total number of infections in a given population, and would more accurately estimate myocarditis post infection.​

This is precisely what I illustrated with this image.

If you only study documented infections (i.e, the people in the black rectangle who sought medical care), you will ALWAYS undercount the actual number of people who were infected, because not everyone who gets infected seeks medical care. This will result in a wildly inaccurate denominator for your calculations that renders any result essentially meaningless for determining any risk that results from infection. Yet there are still people pointing to these studies, claiming that they "prove" that myocarditis after infection was more prevalent than myocarditis after infection.

The second problem is that only 25% of the studies looking at rates of myocarditis bothered to age-stratify their results:

Only one in four articles reporting myocarditis used four stratifiers, and men younger than 40 receiving a second dose of an mRNA vaccine are at greatest risk.​

​

These are the results of failing to stratify the results by age:

If the risk of myocarditis is not stratified by pertinent risk factors, it may be diluted for high‐risk and inflated for low‐risk groups.​

​

You are also correct that some people suggested giving only a single dose to young, healthy men. But nuanced recommendations were determined to be "garbled" messages, so they made the same blanket recommendation for everyone from age 6 months to age 106. As I showed earlier in the thread, the reasons for this were not medical, nor were they about protection. They were about bureaucracy. How could we enforce a vaccine mandate and exclude people from society if we didn't have any way to confirm that they complied with the mandate? The result was almost certainly a net harm. Administering vaccines to people who derive virtually no benefit only introduces them to unnecessary harms.

These are some of the reasons trust in our public health entities is at historical lows.

 

[probinson]

I know when I want objective reporting, my first stop is always the entertainment "news" of Rachel Maddow.

 

[stevil]

I know when I want objective reporting, my first stop is always the entertainment "news" of Rachel Maddow.

I understand she is biased. She doesn't ever criticism democrats. But is there anything inaccurate in that clip?

 

[essentialsaltes]

Kennedy sidesteps vaccine questions: ‘I don’t think people should be taking medical advice from me’​

You and me both, but here we are.

Public health experts also pushed back on Kennedy’s response.

While Kennedy has no medical training, “the problem is that the top line of his job description is the nation’s chief health strategist,” Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said during a call with reporters Wednesday. “His job is to give people the best advice that he can.”

“I wonder what it would be like if the transportation secretary refused to answer a question about whether he would fly,” said Dr. Marissa Levine, a professor of public health practice at the University of South Florida said on the same call.

--

Curiously, on that latter point...

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy Changed His Wife’s Flight to Avoid Newark Airport​

Duffy was asked Tuesday morning on CNBC about Newark Airport specifically and appeared rather confident that it was safe.

“It’s safe and that’s because we have numerous redundancies in place at the FAA,” Duffy told CNBC host Andrew Ross Sorkin.

[But on Monday...]

Duffy made the startling admission to David Webb, a conservative radio host, during his SiriusXM show on Monday. And it’s a shocking thing to hear from the guy who’s supposed to make sure American air travel is safe.

“My wife was flying out of Newark tomorrow. I switched her flight to LaGuardia,” Duffy told the host of The David Webb Show as they discussed the recent problems at the airport.

 

[essentialsaltes]

The Trump administration’s ‘MAHA Report’ cites nonexistent scientific studies​

There's new evidence that the White House's “The MAHA Report: Making Our Children Healthy Again” relied in part on scientific research that doesn't exist.

“The document echoes talking points Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has championed for decades.”

That was among the obvious red flags surrounding the report. Kennedy is, after all, notorious for pushing unscientific conspiracy theories and claiming, among other things, that Wi-Fi causes “leaky brain.” Any document reflecting his ideas related to health care policy should reflexively be treated with skepticism.

 

[Desk trauma]

The Trump administration’s ‘MAHA Report’ cites nonexistent scientific studies​

There's new evidence that the White House's “The MAHA Report: Making Our Children Healthy Again” relied in part on scientific research that doesn't exist.

“The document echoes talking points Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has championed for decades.”

That was among the obvious red flags surrounding the report. Kennedy is, after all, notorious for pushing unscientific conspiracy theories and claiming, among other things, that Wi-Fi causes “leaky brain.” Any document reflecting his ideas related to health care policy should reflexively be treated with skepticism.

More policy by chatGPT.

 

[essentialsaltes]

At least two research journals -- the American Academy of Pediatrics and the JAMA Pediatrics, one of the journals of the American Medical Association -- have also confirmed to ABC News that they were not able to find certain papers within the MAHA report in their publications despite being cited as such.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday that the mistakes were due to "formatting issues," and that they were being corrected and "the report will be updated."

An updated version did remove mention of at least some reports that did not exist, replacing them with other sources. The new version also appeared to soften some language to accommodate the citation changes.

For instance, a section about direct-to-consumer advertisements initially claimed the ads "led parents to overestimate ADHD prevalence and to request ADHD drugs inappropriately." The updated version claims that the ads "potentially" have that impact.

 

[Hans Blaster]

The Trump administration’s ‘MAHA Report’ cites nonexistent scientific studies​

There's new evidence that the White House's “The MAHA Report: Making Our Children Healthy Again” relied in part on scientific research that doesn't exist.

“The document echoes talking points Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has championed for decades.”

That was among the obvious red flags surrounding the report. Kennedy is, after all, notorious for pushing unscientific conspiracy theories and claiming, among other things, that Wi-Fi causes “leaky brain.” Any document reflecting his ideas related to health care policy should reflexively be treated with skepticism.

WiFi disease is a very 90s conspiracy theory just like his core conspiracy theory on autism and vaccines.

 

[essentialsaltes]

RFK Jr. removes all members of CDC panel advising U.S. on vaccines​

• Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday said he is “retiring” all 17 members of a crucial government panel of vaccine advisors.
• Kennedy is removing all members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 

[essentialsaltes]

RFK Jr. removes all members of CDC panel advising U.S. on vaccines​

• Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday said he is “retiring” all 17 members of a crucial government panel of vaccine advisors.
• Kennedy is removing all members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

CDC vaccine advisers who were removed from committee by RFK Jr. speak out in JAMA editorial​

The 17 members of a federal vaccine advisory committee, who were ousted last week, argued their abrupt dismissal has "left the U.S. vaccine program critically weakened."

The group, speaking collectively for the first time since Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismissed them, said his actions "have stripped the program of the institutional knowledge and continuity that have been essential to its success over decades" in an editorial published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

In an unprecedented move last week, Kennedy dismissed each of the 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, noting in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal that "a clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science."