4 ms·

EDIT: I wasn't kidding when I said I can play numbers and statistics all day. When you say "VAERS notoriously undercounts", I think you're probably referring t

• ckw 4y ago
  When I say VAERS notoriously undercounts, I’m referring to the literature on the subject. For example, the Harvard report Electronic Support for Public Health - Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (ESP:VAERS) https://digital.ahrq.gov/ahrq-funded-projects/electronic-support-public-health-vaccine-adverse-event-reporting-system https://digital.ahrq.gov/ahrq-funded-projects/electronic-sup...: Adverse events from drugs and vaccines are common, but underreported. Although 25% of ambulatory patients experience an adverse drug event, less than 0.3% of all adverse drug events and 1-13% of serious events are reported to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Likewise, fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported. Low reporting rates preclude or slow the identification of “problem” drugs and vaccines that endanger public health. New surveillance methods for drug and vaccine adverse effects are needed. Barriers to reporting include a lack of clinician awareness, uncertainty about when and what to report, as well as the burdens of reporting: reporting is not part of clinicians’ usual workflow, takes time, and is duplicative. See also ‘The reporting sensitivities of two passive surveillance systems for vaccine adverse events’ https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.85.12.1706 https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.85.12.... Regarding VAERS: Sensitivities ranged from 72% for poliomyelitis after the oral poliovirus vaccine to less than 1% for rash and thrombocytopenia after the MMR vaccine. Regarding your speculation that deaths associated with the Covid-19 vaccines are probably reported at rates higher than that of other vaccines: I have a hard time believing that the report rate is higher than poliomyelitis after the oral poliovirus vaccine which is itself underreported. And regarding the protestation that correlation does not imply causation, it’s not on me to prove that the treatment is harmful, and otherwise it’s safe and thus administered—-it’s on you to prove that it confers an all cause mortality benefit. I am aware of no evidence to suggest that such a benefit obtains in children, and suggest that this dearth of evidence explains the failure to approve the vaccines for children in many European countries.
  • xracy 4y ago
    I mean, there is no standard of proof that will convince you that the vaccine is better than the virus. But also, I'm not really trying to convince you of anything. I'm just stating why your sources don't say what you think they do. As well as explaining confounding variables that your reference doesn't take into account for what that means. None of your sources are accounting for how politically embroiled this vaccine is, and how much of a difference that would make in who/what gets reported. Just in case, I will make this point. If you had a loved one get a covid vaccine, and then die 20 days later, would you report it to VAERS?
    • puffoflogic 4y ago
      > I mean, there is no standard of proof that will convince you that the vaccine is better than the virus. So... what you're saying is that the vaccine is not better than the virus? Because that is the simplest and best explanation for this observation.
      • xracy 4y ago
        lol, the deep cut on the logic. Unfortunately, no, I mean that the person is being irrational in their standard of proof.
    • ckw 4y ago
      I personally experienced a week of heart palpitations following my second dose of Moderna, as well as an acute visual aura, having never had a migraine. Not only did I fail to report this to VAERS, it only occurred to me as a vague possibility that the vaccination might be related, so I didn’t think twice about getting the booster. After her second dose of Moderna my sister developed a migraine (having never had one previously) that lasted a week, culminating in an emergency room visit, for which no VAERS report was made. My mother recently intimated that ever since her second Moderna shot she periodically experiences heart palpitations, and especially when ingesting caffeine, whereas before this was not the case. Again, no VAERS report. Knowing what I know now, were a family member to die 20 days after a vaccination I would certainly submit a VAERS report, but I find this question incredible: are you really disputing multiple studies that conclude that VAERS underreports adverse events by appealing to your nebulous feeling that family members surely would not neglect to file a VAERS report after the death of a family member? Does the fact that only a tiny minority of the population even knows VAERS exists provoke doubt? How about what HHS has this to say about the matter (https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/dataguide.html https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/dataguide.html): “Underreporting" is one of the main limitations of passive surveillance systems, including VAERS. The term, underreporting refers to the fact that VAERS receives reports for only a small fraction of actual adverse events. The degree of underreporting varies widely. Further, even if I granted that literally every death due to the vaccines was reported to VAERS, there still remains the extant signal which logically admits the possibility that children 0.5-5 suffer a higher rate of death to the vaccine than they do the disease. As for the insulting claim that no standard of proof would convince me that the vaccine is better than the virus: all I require is a sufficiently powered RCT with a genuine placebo in the control, full disclosure of patient level data, and all cause mortality as the primary endpoint. It baffles me that you don’t demand the same.