News/Not News?

You be the judge.

The other day, in the post regarding the Dr. McCullough interview, I suggested that the findings that appeared to associate specific vaccines with specific variants might be a signal that ADE (Antibody Dependent Enhancement) might be occurring. For example, the Dread Delta variant appears to be associated with the Sinovac vaccine, whereas the new Epsilon variant in California is associated with Pfizer, Moderna, and J&J. By "associated with" I mean that these vaccines promote the variants or mutations by pushing the virus to mutate in a particular direction. It's a bad thing--you prefer to have random mutations, which tend in a more benign direction. This is how Wikipedia explains ADE, just to refresh your recollection:

Antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE), sometimes less precisely called immune enhancement or disease enhancement, is a phenomenon in which binding of a virus to suboptimal antibodies enhances its entry into host cells, followed by its replication.^[1][2] ADE may cause enhanced respiratory disease and acute lung injury after respiratory virus infection (ERD) with symptoms of monocytic infiltration and an excess of eosinophils in respiratory tract.^[3] ADE along with type 2 T helper cell-dependent mechanisms may contribute to a development of the vaccine associated disease enhancement (VADE), which is not limited to respiratory disease.^[3] Some vaccine candidates that targeted coronaviruses, RSV virus and Dengue virus elicited VADE, and were terminated from further development or became approved for use only for patients who have had those viruses before.

I'm not a scientist, so I'm not in a position to say that ADE plays into the rise of the various variants. However, here's a tweet by Dr. Robert Malone. He's citing data reporting from the Israeli Ministry of Health. As I read his tweet, he's suggesting that the data may be signaling that ADE is a factor:

RE: Antibody Dependent Enhancement. If ADE was to be showing up, we would be seeing 1) higher viral titers in vaccinated vs unvaccinated, 2) higher percentages of previously vaccinated who are hospitalized or having serious disease or death. https://t.co/ZXo87Dtks1

— Robert W Malone, MD (@RWMaloneMD) July 27, 2021

Again, a reminder. People like Yeadon and Bhakdi (and others) have been warning that "vaxxing" during a pandemic is precisely what will lead to ADE coming into play. The point is, ADE will place those who have been "vaxxed" at greater risk. In other words, it's not the unvaxxed creating the increased risk, it's the "vax" that's creating the increased risk.

Now, consider this new article by a statistician. It's recommended by Malone for anyone who thinks that our government would never hide from us true information that's important for our health and safety. The author examines the math behind the CDC's methodology for examining VAERS data on "adverse event" data reporting for Covid. The point is to determine whether the methodology is adequately designed to identify "vaccine" safety or, from the opposite standpoint, to identify safety issues. Not only am I not a scientist, I'm not a math guy, either. However, Malone is conversant enough with math and science that I'm willing to accept his judgment that the author is making an important point.

Defining Away Vaccine Safety Signals

Will start with the author's definition of the issue, just so you can see whether I framed it correctly:

What if it turns out that vaccines are killing and crippling millions of people around the world, but that those harmed are just well enough spread out that almost nobody saw sufficient signals to build an intuition about the problem? And what if the agency most responsible for examining safety signals defines their algorithm using a nonsensical mathematical formula that hides nearly all serious problems?

My conclusion is that if this is the case, we have a major problem on our hands.

The author next discusses the importance of definitions in any mathematical or statistical undertaking. His point is simple: If the definitions are nonsensical, the statistical feedback will also be nonsensical. Importantly, he draws attention to the fact that reporting procedures for VAERS were changed for Covid:

To a mathematician, everything depends on definitions. Whatever we state mathematically, the definitions of the terms we use should be traceable back to the axioms of the field we're working in. ... No mathematician or statistician with a soul forgets the well from which they draw energy and meaning. 

What we don't do ... is lackadaisically establish definitions entirely ill-suited to a purpose. ...

Adverse Events and Safety Signals

During the past few months, many people (including myself) have learned for the first time about the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) where health care workers and patients can submit adverse events (AEs) suffered post-vaccination. While the VAERS database is understood to record an often small subset of the AEs, the information can still be used for purposes of establishing safety signals. A new influenza vaccine can be compared to other influenza vaccines, for instance. If the old ones were safe enough, and the reported AEs of a new one are in line or better than for past vaccines, then the risk-benefit analysis for the new vaccine (assuming sufficient efficacy) either remains the same or improves.

As with a great deal of health care regulation during the declared pandemic, changes were made to the VAERS system and also to safety signal analysis leading up to the experimental mass vaccination program officially targeting COVID-19.

The author draws attention to a statement that the CDC made in revising the VAERS system. Specifically, the CDC stated that it would be generating weekly reporting tables, but that it would not make those tables publicly available. That decision is baffling to say the least.

The author next discusses the math behind the proportional reporting ratio (PPR). I'm not qualified to discuss that, so I'll skip to his conclusions. He finds the methodology absurd, totally at odds with the purported goals, and then raises the interesting question: Was this have been the result of rank incompetence or could it have been by design?

Do you kinda get the sense that the PRR function is designed to hide signals of unsafe vaccines, not to identify them?

Maybe this is a matter of incompetence?

Hanlon's razor: never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

There is no doubt that governments are jam packed with incompetent people in important roles (often scattered around a handful of brilliant ones who unfortunately lend their credibility). ...

However, Hanlon's razor is one of the most oversubscribed principles of human interaction. A firm belief in its truth is an invitation for con artistry. Wherever there are concentrations of money or power, we should expect to find the fully manifest game theory of hawks and doves. 

At some point, when the potential for conflicts of interest are high and the point of failure is fundamental to the task of those doing the job, incompetence should no longer be differentiated from criminal intent. Mathematicians and statisticians worthy of the title do not miss the kind of scale invariance or mean-reversion we see embedded in the PRR---particularly not when working in a dedicated group on a serious problem. There is a pride among geeks in identifying subtle mathematical or logical flaws in a system, and this is not subtle at all. Given that even psychologists have a need to pay attention to scale invariance, this is not an easily excused mistake. In fact, a computational check of the PRR function against past data likely would have clued in a middling programmer without the fundamental mathematical training. And we're not done, yet…

OK, this next passage gets to the heart of things, but is technically dense--look to the conclusion again:

Let's look back at the definition of a safety signal (emphasis mine):

A safety signal is defined as a PRR of at least 2, chi-squared statistic of at least 4, and 3 or more cases of the AE following receipt of the specific vaccine of interest.  

Not only does the PRR need to get out of line for a safety signal to be generated, the use of 'and' instead of 'or' means that other additional criteria must also be satisfied before the CDC self-reports a safety signal! And the chi-squared criterion isn't helping the situation. Those unfamiliar with statistics will not recognize the problem, but when the different vaccines all result in similar problems (like myocarditis or blood clots, as has been noted), the chi-squared statistics will remain muted. In fact, chi-squared statistics are not even supposed to be used on data that is likely to be correlated when causal. Presumption of a negative test result is not a reasonable test standard. It's as if nobody at all thought about the possibility that the spike protein being an underlying thread among the vaccines could possibly be important. 

So, when you define away the problems on paper, they just cease to exist?

Calling this a safety system is decidedly unsafe.

In other words, the author is asserting that this is, in fact, a system that is a result of either incompetence or criminal intent. Let that sink in. That's a serious charge to put your name to. And so he concludes:

If my understanding of this situation is correct, the mass vaccination program should be immediately halted until the safety data is gathered, cleaned, and examined. We cannot tolerate a misleading statement of "vaccines are safe and effective" in the face of regulatory agencies defining away the responsibility of performing the risk analysis needed to verify safety. The CDC leadership should be immediately replaced and investigated, and independent analysts should reformulate the task of tracking vaccine safety results.

I really hope I've misinterpreted something. I stumble over ideas and make mistakes just like everybody else. Unlike the CDC, I'd like for you to share my numbers widely and invite critique. ...

I'd rather be a little embarrassed in the eyes of many if I'm wrong than to watch even one more person get sick or die and perhaps become another false COVID statistic.

Unfortunately, the last four or five years have given us no reasons to trust our government. These considerations take on added importance as the very real prospect of coercive "vax" policies increases.