Vaccines for COVID-19: Censorship or Misrepresentation of the Data - Part 1

It has been a while since I wrote in this blog. Figured I should post this because I want to understand what is being said, claimed, and argued about in a YouTube video I just watched.

This showed up in my YouTube recommendations:

Never hear of her, but she's an MD and was apparently duped by some paper on something (spoiler alert: no she was not!).

"I reviewed a paper about Covid-19 on this channel that's been retracted..."

Well that's worth a listen to.

I may write about what she said, but what I want to do first is understand what the retraction is all about. Let me take a look at the link she provides...

Yeah, so after listening to her video and wondering why she does not really address the Journal's issues with the paper and instead goes over the paper and its findings, I can see where her opinions on the validity of the Editor's reasoning for the retraction are coming from.

And this is confirmed by reading the comments all supporting the same vaccines are bad and they want to cover it up group think. I want to keep an open mind on this, as with any claims made by researchers. However, I - WE - need to go where the data takes us, not where we want it to take us to fit our 'feelings' on the topic. 

Let's get into the weeds about this claim of censorship through retraction.

The paper [being retracted] called for a halt in COVID-19 mass vaccination based on a valid evaluation of the evidence. It topped >330,000 views/reads/downloads in a month as compared to an average Cureus-promoted paper which has only ~2700 in a year.

Right there we have one of those logical fallacies we read about. The fact that the paper was viewed 330,000 times means nothing in terms of its validity of its findings and conclusion. The article doubles down on this by stating:

A rating of >9.2 is considered “excellent” and “groundbreaking” appropriately characterizing this extensively cited paper with 293 references (average paper has 30

References cited are just references cited. It's how they are used to support the claims of the paper that matter. The article then goes on to make the argument that if the paper was not rejected during the peer review process "Once published, it is a violation of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Guidelines to retract paper without adequate justification."

The censorship claim, it appears, is that there is not adequate justification to retract it and the publication is just outright wrong in their reasons to do so. This is something I was hoping that Dr. Boz was going to address on why she was duped, or. more importantly for her - why she was not - that the paper stands as valid and the retraction is unjustified.

Because she did not, I now have to for myself, because I want to make sure that how I 'feel' about this is sound. I know how she feels about it, how her audience feels about it, and how the authors and Courageous Discourse feels about it. What I want to understand better is should I feel the same and be moved to consider the authors of the paper's claims as valid even though I hate the logical fallacies used and their claims of 'Censorship!" and "Violation!"

The issue with the retraction starts with a letter to the authors by Tim Kersjes, the Journal's Research Integrity Advisor.

Courageous Discourse includes their rebuttal to Mr. Kersjes letter, writing:

The statements made by Kersjes are false, misleading, and unsupported by evidence. Several claims were also arbitrary and capricious. Most of the statements appear to be adapted, either directly or indirectly, from the numerous comments made by the well-known vaccine industry social media trolls, Jonathan Laxton and Matthew Dopler...

 This response is an entertain read if you like drama and childish name calling. Entertaining, but distracting from the question of are the eight statements made by Kersjes "false, misleading, unsupported by evidence," and/or "arbitrary and capricious?"

I may decide to write about all eight of them, but that takes a bit of research for me to understand if the claims are indeed unfounded. For now, I want to focus on two of them.

Let us look at Kersjes (No. 2) claim:  We find that the article appears to be misrepresenting VAERs data...

“Based on a query of the MedDRA code ‘Autoimmune disorder’ in the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), there was an 803% increase in autoimmune disorders per million doses administered when comparing the administration of Influenza vaccines from 2018 to 2020 with COVID-19 vaccinations from 2021 to 2023 (Figure 5) [173]. This represents an immense safety signal.”  All eight reviewers agreed with this wording and interpretation.

Notice the "803% increase" and then "This represents an immense safety signal."

I have made this comment before. Numbers used to convey how you want the public to see your findings is disingenuous because it is done purposefully to support the claim the authors want to see. 803% is not a false statement. And the term "immense" is subjective as all get out because the authors did not define what they mean by immense.

Is it immense because its an 803% increase or is it immense in terms of the number of people impacted by autoimmune disorders once they receive the vaccine? Context matters here. I have a very difficult time giving a pass to anyone who wants the research published. The authors new what they wanted that 803% to convey and they knew that the peer reviewers could find no fault with it because its a factual number. They should have taken issue with the term 'immense' but because they did not, the authors an claim it was appropriate.

Context...

What does an 803% increase actually mean?

 

The devil is in the details. If person A makes $10.00 per hour and receive a raise up to $20.00 per hour that's a 100% increase. If person B makes $100.00 per hour and gets a 100% increase they now make $200.00 per hour.

Both received a 100% raise, which one got the bigger impact? Context matters here.

When you look at their 803% graph, you see that autoimmune disorders (adverse effects [AE]) for the influenza vaccine was 0.1 per million doses. If I am reading this correctly, this means that will be one AE for every 10 million doses.

The COVID-19 vaccine showed 10 AEs for every 10 million doses.

There is an increase here, but I am unsure if  'immense' was the appropriate word to use to describe it.

Context...

Claim No. 2 for Figure 5 seems valid. Point goes to Mr. Kersjes for retraction. Figure 7 does not present the same type of misleading statements as Figure 5. There is also research to be found that shows a spike in heart issues for teenage boys. If that spike is reason to halt COVID-19 mass vaccination is debatable so reporting it to support their claim - in my opinion - is not, by itself, false or misleading. 

Now on to Part 2.