6 ms·

They also seem to have limited understanding of statistics, chasing anecdotes and ignoring results (the data eventually has tended to contradict their messagin

They also seem to have limited understanding of statistics, chasing anecdotes and ignoring results (the data eventually has tended to contradict their messaging). Unfortunately, I agree that makes them rather useless as a source for answers, and means even if they do find an anomaly, it will be lost in their self-generated noise ratio. Plus, a broken clock is right twice a day, and all that.

walterbell 5y ago
What do you think of Steve Kirsch's analysis of VAERS and his testimony to the recent FDA advisory committee meeting? https://www.skirsch.com/covid/Deaths.pdf https://www.skirsch.com/covid/Deaths.pdf > Analysis of the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database can be used to estimate the number of excess deaths caused by the COVID vaccines. A simple analysis shows that it is likely that over 150,000 Americans have been killed by the current COVID vaccines as of Aug 28, 2021 ... I’m offering a $1M academic grant to anyone who can show the analysis is flawed by a factor of 4 or more in either direction and provide a more accurate analysis to the correct number. We’ll have a panel of 3 judges decide if we disagree. Please send me an InMail on LinkedIn if you think you found I was off by a factor of 4 or more. First one to show the “correct” answer gets the $1M research grant. 2021-09-17 testimony to FDA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFph7-6t34M&t=15617s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFph7-6t34M&t=15617s Kirsch founded the C-19 Early Treatment Fund, https://www.treatearly.org/ https://www.treatearly.org/
- manwe150 5y ago
  Even if I was to accept that 150k deaths was plausible (which I don’t, since that would show up in excess deaths and other gross statistical measures), that’s still more 10x safer than being unvaccinated (we’ve vaccinated far more people than have gotten COVID, and at a much lower death rate). If the high estimates by someone openly against this vaccine still tell you it is far safer to be vaccinated, what does tell you about what I think of Steve Kirsch?
  - walterbell 5y ago
    Kirsch is advocating for the identification of high-risk groups and screening of recipients, not a blanket criticism of vaccines for all people. We are living in the era of sophisticated micro-targeting of groups via advertising profiles and machine learning. Why are our online narratives degenerating into dualistic debates, as if we can only count to two? We have the technology to perform granular, data-driven risk assessment across a wide range of variables. At a minimum, we can fund forensic investigations of the reports in VAERS, collecting whatever data is needed to trace the root cause of each injury, removing every report that is not credible. Where necessary, we can identify the need for additional data collection, e.g. baseline testing of high-risk individuals before vaccination, for comparison to post-vaccination tests. Standard scientific analysis. There are also non-public reporting systems (e.g. HMOs) for vaccine adverse events. That additional data is available to CDC.
    - manwe150 5y ago
      They aren’t permitted to delete reports, even non-credible ones. It would also likely cost far in excess of $1M to investigate these. It is a clever trick though, because it sounds like a big bounty, while being actually a joke amount (he’s proposing spending far less $10 per person to investigate their medical records or autopsy). And seems possibly in bad-faith too, as he seems to be rejecting the population statistical data that already seem to refute his claims. Advocating for identification of high-risk groups is another good smoke-screen since he’s saying nothing new, but making it sound like he’s smart and aware. Yes, there are people who need to talk to their doctor about risks, but the overwhelming majority of people aren’t in that group, but are made needlessly worried by such rhetorical tricks.
      - walterbell 5y ago
        I can't be certain what he meant, but it seemed that the bounty was for an analysis that was comparable to those in his paper, not a full forensic review of each entry in VAERS. An actual investigation could only be done by CDC, who have access to non-VAERS reports and other health surveillance infrastructure. A handful of independent autopsies have been done, they are expensive.
- jlebar 5y ago
  Do you take seriously the proposition that more than 100k Americans could die from the vaccine without us noticing? This would easily put it in the top 10 causes of death in America. And presumably this w would be happening worldwide, at an even greater scale. More than 2 billion people have gotten a vaccine worldwide. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. VAERS is self-reported and (as this shows) not reliable data. Honestly I think you're proving the need for this ban on YouTube. You seem to be trying to get it right, but you've been hoodwinked by the misinformation. It is indeed hard to get it right, and this is killing people.
  - walterbell 5y ago
    A successful (somewhere between millionaire and billionaire) entrepreneur has put his credibility on the line with those extremely astonishing claims. He put $1M of his own money into an institution to investigate early treatment for Covid, using existing drugs. Donors to CETF include Marc Benioff, Elon Musk Foundation & Vint Cerf, i.e. reputable tech entrepreneurs, https://www.treatearly.org/donors https://www.treatearly.org/donors. The work of CETF was endorsed by staff at Johns Hopkins, Columbia, UCSF, Yale & others, https://www.treatearly.org/testimonials https://www.treatearly.org/testimonials. He provided a 30 page document referencing the analysis of other doctors, explaining the rationale for those estimates. He has further offered $1,000,000 dollars to anyone who can show that the estimate is off by a factor of 4X, i.e. making the task easier for the person challenging his extraordinary claims. His claims are so far from anyone's expectations that it should be trivial to disprove, right? There's a bug bounty of $1M dollars available to anyone. Why is no one bothering to claim it?
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > His claims are so far from anyone's expectations that it should be trivial to disprove, right? There's a bug bounty of $1M dollars available to anyone. Why is no one bothering to claim it? Because no one who would be interested in disproving it trusts the person offering the bounty to be doing so in good faith.
      - 5y ago
- CallMeJim 5y ago
  (non-American) what does it mean to be "flawed by a factor of 4"? Is he referring to being off by 4 or more orders of magnitude?
  - walterbell 5y ago
    As a non-affiliated, random reader of his document, I interpreted that as a linear multiple, i.e. show that deaths are less than 150,000 / 4 = 37,500. If I were going to invest effort into a challenge, I would first contact Kirsch and obtain written clarification on terms.
- fokinsean 5y ago
  There is a lot of shoddy methodology and data interpretation in Kirsch's testimony. https://www.covid-datascience.com/post/do-pfizer-vaccines-kill-2-people-for-every-1-saved-evaluating-viral-social-media-reports https://www.covid-datascience.com/post/do-pfizer-vaccines-ki...
  - walterbell 5y ago
    Thanks for posting this detailed analysis.
incrudible 5y ago
The FDA estimated hundreds of thousands of vaccine doses in that age group to save one life, accepting dozens of cases of Myocarditis in the process. That is assuming literally no one dies from the vaccine. Let us say the vaccine kills one in 100,000, that would be easily dismissed as chance. None of the trials could capture this. Yet, it would make the vaccine worse than the disease for that age group.
- manwe150 5y ago
  So your hypothesis is that the FDA correctly identified dozens of mild cases of myocarditis through their surveillance and reporting, while simultaneously failing to notice hundreds of deaths? Do you see why that sounds implausible?
  - incrudible 5y ago
    The Myocarditis cases aren't all mild, they have led to heart failure and at least some of them are likely to lead to premature death. Consider that the JCVI (UK) does not recommend the second vaccine dose for children, due to this risk. Secondly, I'm not saying that this has happened, there is no way for me to know. I'm saying that it is possible to identify such cases and still dismiss them. Sudden cardiac death in youth isn't that rare and even hundreds of excess cases could fall under the radar. I'd also argue that the incentives are such that a dismissal is likely, now that the CDC has recommended the vaccine for children. The CDC used VAERS data in this assessment, which is incomplete to some degree and the window within which a possible side-effect is considered is small (two weeks).

walterbell 5y ago

What do you think of Steve Kirsch's analysis of VAERS and his testimony to the recent FDA advisory committee meeting? https://www.skirsch.com/covid/Deaths.pdf https://www.skirsch.com/covid/Deaths.pdf > Analysis of the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database can be used to estimate the number of excess deaths caused by the COVID vaccines. A simple analysis shows that it is likely that over 150,000 Americans have been killed by the current COVID vaccines as of Aug 28, 2021 ... I’m offering a $1M academic grant to anyone who can show the analysis is flawed by a factor of 4 or more in either direction and provide a more accurate analysis to the correct number. We’ll have a panel of 3 judges decide if we disagree. Please send me an InMail on LinkedIn if you think you found I was off by a factor of 4 or more. First one to show the “correct” answer gets the $1M research grant. 2021-09-17 testimony to FDA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFph7-6t34M&t=15617s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFph7-6t34M&t=15617s Kirsch founded the C-19 Early Treatment Fund, https://www.treatearly.org/ https://www.treatearly.org/

manwe150 5y ago
Even if I was to accept that 150k deaths was plausible (which I don’t, since that would show up in excess deaths and other gross statistical measures), that’s still more 10x safer than being unvaccinated (we’ve vaccinated far more people than have gotten COVID, and at a much lower death rate). If the high estimates by someone openly against this vaccine still tell you it is far safer to be vaccinated, what does tell you about what I think of Steve Kirsch?
- walterbell 5y ago
  Kirsch is advocating for the identification of high-risk groups and screening of recipients, not a blanket criticism of vaccines for all people. We are living in the era of sophisticated micro-targeting of groups via advertising profiles and machine learning. Why are our online narratives degenerating into dualistic debates, as if we can only count to two? We have the technology to perform granular, data-driven risk assessment across a wide range of variables. At a minimum, we can fund forensic investigations of the reports in VAERS, collecting whatever data is needed to trace the root cause of each injury, removing every report that is not credible. Where necessary, we can identify the need for additional data collection, e.g. baseline testing of high-risk individuals before vaccination, for comparison to post-vaccination tests. Standard scientific analysis. There are also non-public reporting systems (e.g. HMOs) for vaccine adverse events. That additional data is available to CDC.
  - manwe150 5y ago
    They aren’t permitted to delete reports, even non-credible ones. It would also likely cost far in excess of $1M to investigate these. It is a clever trick though, because it sounds like a big bounty, while being actually a joke amount (he’s proposing spending far less $10 per person to investigate their medical records or autopsy). And seems possibly in bad-faith too, as he seems to be rejecting the population statistical data that already seem to refute his claims. Advocating for identification of high-risk groups is another good smoke-screen since he’s saying nothing new, but making it sound like he’s smart and aware. Yes, there are people who need to talk to their doctor about risks, but the overwhelming majority of people aren’t in that group, but are made needlessly worried by such rhetorical tricks.
    - walterbell 5y ago
      I can't be certain what he meant, but it seemed that the bounty was for an analysis that was comparable to those in his paper, not a full forensic review of each entry in VAERS. An actual investigation could only be done by CDC, who have access to non-VAERS reports and other health surveillance infrastructure. A handful of independent autopsies have been done, they are expensive.
jlebar 5y ago
Do you take seriously the proposition that more than 100k Americans could die from the vaccine without us noticing? This would easily put it in the top 10 causes of death in America. And presumably this w would be happening worldwide, at an even greater scale. More than 2 billion people have gotten a vaccine worldwide. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. VAERS is self-reported and (as this shows) not reliable data. Honestly I think you're proving the need for this ban on YouTube. You seem to be trying to get it right, but you've been hoodwinked by the misinformation. It is indeed hard to get it right, and this is killing people.
- walterbell 5y ago
  A successful (somewhere between millionaire and billionaire) entrepreneur has put his credibility on the line with those extremely astonishing claims. He put $1M of his own money into an institution to investigate early treatment for Covid, using existing drugs. Donors to CETF include Marc Benioff, Elon Musk Foundation & Vint Cerf, i.e. reputable tech entrepreneurs, https://www.treatearly.org/donors https://www.treatearly.org/donors. The work of CETF was endorsed by staff at Johns Hopkins, Columbia, UCSF, Yale & others, https://www.treatearly.org/testimonials https://www.treatearly.org/testimonials. He provided a 30 page document referencing the analysis of other doctors, explaining the rationale for those estimates. He has further offered $1,000,000 dollars to anyone who can show that the estimate is off by a factor of 4X, i.e. making the task easier for the person challenging his extraordinary claims. His claims are so far from anyone's expectations that it should be trivial to disprove, right? There's a bug bounty of $1M dollars available to anyone. Why is no one bothering to claim it?
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > His claims are so far from anyone's expectations that it should be trivial to disprove, right? There's a bug bounty of $1M dollars available to anyone. Why is no one bothering to claim it? Because no one who would be interested in disproving it trusts the person offering the bounty to be doing so in good faith.
    - 5y ago
CallMeJim 5y ago
(non-American) what does it mean to be "flawed by a factor of 4"? Is he referring to being off by 4 or more orders of magnitude?
- walterbell 5y ago
  As a non-affiliated, random reader of his document, I interpreted that as a linear multiple, i.e. show that deaths are less than 150,000 / 4 = 37,500. If I were going to invest effort into a challenge, I would first contact Kirsch and obtain written clarification on terms.
fokinsean 5y ago
There is a lot of shoddy methodology and data interpretation in Kirsch's testimony. https://www.covid-datascience.com/post/do-pfizer-vaccines-kill-2-people-for-every-1-saved-evaluating-viral-social-media-reports https://www.covid-datascience.com/post/do-pfizer-vaccines-ki...
- walterbell 5y ago
  Thanks for posting this detailed analysis.

incrudible 5y ago

The FDA estimated hundreds of thousands of vaccine doses in that age group to save one life, accepting dozens of cases of Myocarditis in the process. That is assuming literally no one dies from the vaccine. Let us say the vaccine kills one in 100,000, that would be easily dismissed as chance. None of the trials could capture this. Yet, it would make the vaccine worse than the disease for that age group.

manwe150 5y ago
So your hypothesis is that the FDA correctly identified dozens of mild cases of myocarditis through their surveillance and reporting, while simultaneously failing to notice hundreds of deaths? Do you see why that sounds implausible?
- incrudible 5y ago
  The Myocarditis cases aren't all mild, they have led to heart failure and at least some of them are likely to lead to premature death. Consider that the JCVI (UK) does not recommend the second vaccine dose for children, due to this risk. Secondly, I'm not saying that this has happened, there is no way for me to know. I'm saying that it is possible to identify such cases and still dismiss them. Sudden cardiac death in youth isn't that rare and even hundreds of excess cases could fall under the radar. I'd also argue that the incentives are such that a dismissal is likely, now that the CDC has recommended the vaccine for children. The CDC used VAERS data in this assessment, which is incomplete to some degree and the window within which a possible side-effect is considered is small (two weeks).