A colleague sent me this interesting slide that was buried in an FDA VRBAC presentation. Understanding it immediately reveals a problem. These data are from Israel concerning boosters. Look the the rates of severe disease in the boosted vs. non boosted population 16 to 39. Yes, I know the confidence interval is vast, but still.
In the past week I’ve read two posts on our local mom’s group asking how soon they can get their teenage sons boosted after their recent Covid infection. “10 days? Great!” I tried quoting Paul Offit but I think they assumed he’s just some random anti-vaxxer. 😂 People have lost it.
My college is mandating boosters for spring semester. I got a waiver since I'm in an online-only program, but even then I had to jump through some hoops. Students in on-campus programs but taking online classes must still get the booster to stay enrolled. Madness.
How can a school mandate vaccines if they don't mitigate (or just barely mitigate) transmission?
If this gets borne out by the data, it's a big deal.
Btw is it only me or does it seem like a bunch of people have dropped dead after the 3rd booster? The WSJ film critic guy, the Canadian cardiologist, the NY Times Wirecutter Editor, etc. Maybe the myocarditis thing will be more than just with young men, when we take into account boosters?
Thank you for always being straightforward and honest. I feel that those who NEED to hear this directly maybe aren't reading your Substacks?! Ironic! We can only continue to share and hope! Its mind blowing that boosters have been widely recc. for ANYONE male or female who are healthy below age 40 at best. I wonder if you will be open to researching just the myocarditis incidences maybe just even in your own state of CA....from the point that boosters were recc. in a 6mo time frame? Is there a way to pick 20 major hospitals in the state or some way of gathering data on this one item from all? It would be super interesting to see records of the # of myocarditis from those ages 40 and below in all of 2018 and 2019....and then the # from when boosters were recc to the present. Blow it up! Sure some would have occurred anyway....but it would be great to see what has gone on? What was the age spread? Can we look at this in real life? Are you open to chatting with any of these folks you may find in your area who are young and endured this side effect? You can really affect booster reccs positively by continuing to raise awareness on this safety signal! Thank you!
I had to check (twice) to make sure I was reading Vinay's newsletter and not someone else's!
I'm so grateful for Vinay's ongoing advocacy for evidence-based policy and for his willingness to state that the emperor has no clothes when appropriate (which has been often in recent months).
The study referenced in this slide covered 4.6M people (~half of Israel) from 30 July - 06 October 2021 (~10 weeks). Here is a link to the preprint:
Implicit in the "even 1 in a million will tip the scale" assertion is that the harm of myocarditis in that group is roughly as serious as the harm from "severe disease" from Covid (I guess if it's half as serious then 1 in a million will balance the scale). Seems reasonable, but perhaps good to make that explicit.
Aside from the fact that all data that shows a benefit from boosting is specific to elderly and or risk factors (the large cdc study this fall showed no severe cases in those with zero risk factors) OR blends those with risks and those without risks continues to be exasperating. Risk factors matter- they may still not matter much for a 20 yr old (the evidence that has broken out risk factors from a large Israeli study showed 75% of severe cases were in people with 3 or more risk factors. Why are scientists not pushing for stratified data?
And Jan 7 cdc mmrw report- which has now been ignored by the cdc in lieu of 3 new studies that show boosters help but which includes no data on health conditions and lumps ages 18-64 and 65+. Sept Israeli data even showed that the 20x benefit of boost was mostly in 80+ (huge impact,eg I think 15% of breakthroughs were severe cut to 8%- unfortunately still not zero), large impact in age 70-79. In age 60-69 cut the risk from 2% to 1% (can argue that’s meaningful but this data had no health status so reasonable to assume based on the other studies that those are 60-69 year olds with a risk factor.
Here’s a quote from the cdc mmwr in jan “ Among 1,228,664 persons who completed primary vaccination during December 2020–October 2021, severe COVID-19–associated outcomes (0.015%) or death (0.0033%) were rare. Risk factors for severe outcomes included age ≥65 years, immunosuppressed, and six other underlying conditions. All persons with severe outcomes had at least one risk factor; 78% of persons who died had at least four.”
This should change the narrative, but when you control everything that 30-60% of the population sees, you don't need truth to be on your side.
In the past week I’ve read two posts on our local mom’s group asking how soon they can get their teenage sons boosted after their recent Covid infection. “10 days? Great!” I tried quoting Paul Offit but I think they assumed he’s just some random anti-vaxxer. 😂 People have lost it.
My college is mandating boosters for spring semester. I got a waiver since I'm in an online-only program, but even then I had to jump through some hoops. Students in on-campus programs but taking online classes must still get the booster to stay enrolled. Madness.
How can a school mandate vaccines if they don't mitigate (or just barely mitigate) transmission?
Just guessing......the CDC would interpret this to mean you are 6x more likely to get severe illness w/o the booster.
Yes, boosting males under 30 is NUTS.
But let's also admit that having conniption fits over pushing boosters on healthy 40-60 is also pretty pointless!
If this gets borne out by the data, it's a big deal.
Btw is it only me or does it seem like a bunch of people have dropped dead after the 3rd booster? The WSJ film critic guy, the Canadian cardiologist, the NY Times Wirecutter Editor, etc. Maybe the myocarditis thing will be more than just with young men, when we take into account boosters?
Thank you for always being straightforward and honest. I feel that those who NEED to hear this directly maybe aren't reading your Substacks?! Ironic! We can only continue to share and hope! Its mind blowing that boosters have been widely recc. for ANYONE male or female who are healthy below age 40 at best. I wonder if you will be open to researching just the myocarditis incidences maybe just even in your own state of CA....from the point that boosters were recc. in a 6mo time frame? Is there a way to pick 20 major hospitals in the state or some way of gathering data on this one item from all? It would be super interesting to see records of the # of myocarditis from those ages 40 and below in all of 2018 and 2019....and then the # from when boosters were recc to the present. Blow it up! Sure some would have occurred anyway....but it would be great to see what has gone on? What was the age spread? Can we look at this in real life? Are you open to chatting with any of these folks you may find in your area who are young and endured this side effect? You can really affect booster reccs positively by continuing to raise awareness on this safety signal! Thank you!
I had to check (twice) to make sure I was reading Vinay's newsletter and not someone else's!
I'm so grateful for Vinay's ongoing advocacy for evidence-based policy and for his willingness to state that the emperor has no clothes when appropriate (which has been often in recent months).
The study referenced in this slide covered 4.6M people (~half of Israel) from 30 July - 06 October 2021 (~10 weeks). Here is a link to the preprint:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.07.21264626v1.full.pdf
So, where is the signal then? Where are the young men on TV with heart issues? There should be dozens if not hundreds in Israel alone.
Or are those montages of athletes dropping dead all we have?
Or is the signal being suppressed and censored, lest said backlash be so terrifying that its being snuffed out at the source?
Implicit in the "even 1 in a million will tip the scale" assertion is that the harm of myocarditis in that group is roughly as serious as the harm from "severe disease" from Covid (I guess if it's half as serious then 1 in a million will balance the scale). Seems reasonable, but perhaps good to make that explicit.
Can't thank you enough for your commitment and clarity. Now we just need to get the word out about VP so that the world can get this message.
I’d like to see the unvaxxed severe disease numbers in 16-39s too. Still think one Pfizer dose - or prior recovery- ought to suffice for teen boys.
Aside from the fact that all data that shows a benefit from boosting is specific to elderly and or risk factors (the large cdc study this fall showed no severe cases in those with zero risk factors) OR blends those with risks and those without risks continues to be exasperating. Risk factors matter- they may still not matter much for a 20 yr old (the evidence that has broken out risk factors from a large Israeli study showed 75% of severe cases were in people with 3 or more risk factors. Why are scientists not pushing for stratified data?
https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2821%2902249-2
And Jan 7 cdc mmrw report- which has now been ignored by the cdc in lieu of 3 new studies that show boosters help but which includes no data on health conditions and lumps ages 18-64 and 65+. Sept Israeli data even showed that the 20x benefit of boost was mostly in 80+ (huge impact,eg I think 15% of breakthroughs were severe cut to 8%- unfortunately still not zero), large impact in age 70-79. In age 60-69 cut the risk from 2% to 1% (can argue that’s meaningful but this data had no health status so reasonable to assume based on the other studies that those are 60-69 year olds with a risk factor.
Here’s a quote from the cdc mmwr in jan “ Among 1,228,664 persons who completed primary vaccination during December 2020–October 2021, severe COVID-19–associated outcomes (0.015%) or death (0.0033%) were rare. Risk factors for severe outcomes included age ≥65 years, immunosuppressed, and six other underlying conditions. All persons with severe outcomes had at least one risk factor; 78% of persons who died had at least four.”
Law of unintended consequences.