7 ms·

With the risk of starting a flame war, we recently had several well-publicised clinical trials that reported 95% efficacy of some certain modality. Yet, in real

With the risk of starting a flame war, we recently had several well-publicised clinical trials that reported 95% efficacy of some certain modality. Yet, in reality, efficacy as defined in the trial turned out to be closer to 0%. Instead of investigating what in the design and execution of the trial led to such a discrepancy, the problem was handled by denying there was a problem, changing the goalposts, reporting ad-hoc hypotheses as facts, silencing all critics, and forcing the public to take the modality anyway or lose jobs, school, and freedom of movement.

taeric 3y ago
I can only guess you mean something regarding the pandemic? Do you have links to show things were "closer to 0%?" Sounds more than a touch outlandish. :( I'm confident we will know even more about things as time goes on. I'm less confident on any nefarious motivations in most of it. Reality is that a lot of people died, and everyone was trying to gain control and an advantage over the situation. Mistakes were certainly made, but I am back to low confidence in thinking that everything was a mistake.
- oldgradstudent 3y ago
  >Do you have links to show things were "closer to 0%?" Sounds more than a touch outlandish. :( Take the Pfizer vaccine. The clinical trial's main endpoint was ~95% efficacy in one thing and one thing only, prevention of symptomatic Covid. Not reduction in mortality, not reduction in serious disease, not infection, and not spread. The only thing the trial tested and reported was prevention of symptomatic Covid. This is also the sole indication in the package insert as approved by the FDA. In reality, everyone I know got vaccinated and got symptomatic Covd. I mean everyone, no exceptions. The situation is the similar in my entire country and around the world.
  - taeric 3y ago
    Do you know of any studies on the discrepancy? My understanding was that Omicron came out and basically gave the middle finger to everyone's precautions. With what seemed like literally nothing working against it.
    - oldgradstudent 3y ago
      > Do you know of any studies on the discrepancy? The discrepancy is so massive you don't need large studies. You can easily observe yourself. (a) Make a survey of the people you know and compare their vaccination status to getting symptomatic Covid. Apply a simple statistical test to test whether it is consistent with the trial results. [Spolier: it is not] (b) [advanced] what is your best estimate of the vaccine efficacy given your results of the survey in (a). The measles vaccine has 95% efficacy. You vaccinate and the disease effectively disappears. > My understanding was that Omicron came out and basically gave the middle finger to everyone's precautions. With what seemed like literally nothing working against it. That's an ad-hoc hypothesis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hoc_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hoc_hypothesis It was quite clear that the numbers are inconsistent with 95% efficacy way before Omicron.
      - taeric 3y ago
        But this is exposing ignorance of a different kind? The hopes for a sterilizing vaccine were remote, at best. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9595357/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9595357/ is a good overview of that line. Folks don't like comparing to the flu, but in this there are obvious similarities. With obviously similar outcomes on the ability of a vaccine to give sterilizing immunity. Much to your chagrin, though, I actually can say that among my contacts, getting the vaccine basically led to people not getting symptomatic covid. Folks got what they thought of as a bad cold. Almost flu like, but I know very few, if any, folks that were so bad off that they were symptomatic covid. Most wouldn't have even qualified as having a bad flu. (It is frustrating how many folks underestimate how hard the flu hits.) Contrast with family members that did not get the vaccine in time, and were hospitalized. It was truly different.
        oldgradstudent 3y ago
        > Folks got what they thought of as a bad cold. Symptomatic Covid is simply a positive Covid test + any flu-like symptoms. What you're describing is symptomatic Covid. This is what was measured and reported in the trial. You might say that's not very interesting because it doesn't measure anything of importance. You would be right. That is exactly what critics say before the trials. https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4037 https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4037 The trials were never meant to test whether there would be any mortality benefit, any reduction in serious disease, any reduction in hospitalization, or any effect on infection or transmission. What they did meausre, turned out to be inconsistent with reality, though.
  - YPCrumble 3y ago
    At first I didn't believe this could be true but the link is here: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2034577 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2034577 It seems that Pfizer basically rammed the vaccine through because it prevented covid with 95% efficacy for a couple months and made the case that it was too effective to continue the study. We now know that antibodies from Pfizer decrease significantly and quickly after a couple months, so it seems very likely that Pfizer knew this as well and decided that after two months was the perfect time to conclude their study and start selling vaccines.
    - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
      >selling vaccines To the governments, who have no money but from tax payers. This I think was the most egregious marketing lie in recent history. That everyone who was jumping up and down for their vaccine was under an impression it was free. The same people rabbling all day about "transfer of wealth" saw no issue there. I don't have a stance on covid or vaccines that is terribly unique. But that most people overlooked the massive economic reasons to move in the direction that it did, annoys me.
    - LorenPechtel 3y ago
      No. The trial was intended to conclude when they had sufficient data to get an acceptable confidence interval. It was to be periodically reviewed to see how it was faring against that yardstick. They ended up tossing one of the intermediate reviews because it was overtaken by events--the objective was met, spend the time on analyzing that data rather than the now-irrelevant intermediate review. The test did nothing towards establishing how long the protection lasted--they can't have rushed it through based on that being short because they had no measurement of it then. You simply can't measure time effects in medicine other than by observing them. If you want to know what protection is like after a year you have to wait a year and then measure it. (This is also why we saw repeated changes to the shelf life of the vaccine--the vaccine makers simply didn't have the time to establish what the true shelf life was and thus could only claim what they had measured. Note that this is pervasive in medicine--stored properly most drugs are effective far beyond the stated shelf life. It's just the manufacturers have no reason to spend the money to certify this.) And in blaming Pfizer you show your bias--why did every vaccine maker do the same thing at the same time?? If anything I'll blame Pfizer for making a weak vaccine. Moderna chose to go with a higher dose that appears to provide slightly more protection at the cost of more side effects at the time.
  - sonicshadow 3y ago
    Downvoted for not parroting Democratic Bay Area values. We will be contacting all FAANG companies and everyone listed in Crunchbase to let them know your an anti-vaxxer.
    - Madmallard 3y ago
      hahahahaha
      - sonicshadow 3y ago
        Repeat after me: GET ALL COVID BOOSTERS WEAR A MASK AT ALL TIMES VOTE FOR BIDEN FOR 2024, 2028, 2032, 2036
- oldgradstudent 3y ago
  > I'm confident we will know even more about things as time goes on. I'm less confident on any nefarious motivations in most of it. Reality is that a lot of people died, and everyone was trying to gain control and an advantage over the situation. It's not a matter of being nefarious. They (CDC, FDA, health authorities all over the world) really though it was important, but they've used unacceptable means to enforce their beliefs. Science dies when PR takes over reality. If reality disagrees with the trial, you have to debug the rial, and find what in the design or exection went wrong. > Mistakes were certainly made, but I am back to low confidence in thinking that everything was a mistake. Silencing critics by health authorities is not a mistake. It is an intentional act to enforce your views.
Thoeu388 3y ago
[flagged]
sonicshadow 3y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
lost_tourist 3y ago
You should post them so we can do a peer review of your statements :)

taeric 3y ago

I can only guess you mean something regarding the pandemic? Do you have links to show things were "closer to 0%?" Sounds more than a touch outlandish. :( I'm confident we will know even more about things as time goes on. I'm less confident on any nefarious motivations in most of it. Reality is that a lot of people died, and everyone was trying to gain control and an advantage over the situation. Mistakes were certainly made, but I am back to low confidence in thinking that everything was a mistake.

oldgradstudent 3y ago
>Do you have links to show things were "closer to 0%?" Sounds more than a touch outlandish. :( Take the Pfizer vaccine. The clinical trial's main endpoint was ~95% efficacy in one thing and one thing only, prevention of symptomatic Covid. Not reduction in mortality, not reduction in serious disease, not infection, and not spread. The only thing the trial tested and reported was prevention of symptomatic Covid. This is also the sole indication in the package insert as approved by the FDA. In reality, everyone I know got vaccinated and got symptomatic Covd. I mean everyone, no exceptions. The situation is the similar in my entire country and around the world.
- taeric 3y ago
  Do you know of any studies on the discrepancy? My understanding was that Omicron came out and basically gave the middle finger to everyone's precautions. With what seemed like literally nothing working against it.
  - oldgradstudent 3y ago
    > Do you know of any studies on the discrepancy? The discrepancy is so massive you don't need large studies. You can easily observe yourself. (a) Make a survey of the people you know and compare their vaccination status to getting symptomatic Covid. Apply a simple statistical test to test whether it is consistent with the trial results. [Spolier: it is not] (b) [advanced] what is your best estimate of the vaccine efficacy given your results of the survey in (a). The measles vaccine has 95% efficacy. You vaccinate and the disease effectively disappears. > My understanding was that Omicron came out and basically gave the middle finger to everyone's precautions. With what seemed like literally nothing working against it. That's an ad-hoc hypothesis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hoc_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hoc_hypothesis It was quite clear that the numbers are inconsistent with 95% efficacy way before Omicron.
    - taeric 3y ago
      But this is exposing ignorance of a different kind? The hopes for a sterilizing vaccine were remote, at best. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9595357/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9595357/ is a good overview of that line. Folks don't like comparing to the flu, but in this there are obvious similarities. With obviously similar outcomes on the ability of a vaccine to give sterilizing immunity. Much to your chagrin, though, I actually can say that among my contacts, getting the vaccine basically led to people not getting symptomatic covid. Folks got what they thought of as a bad cold. Almost flu like, but I know very few, if any, folks that were so bad off that they were symptomatic covid. Most wouldn't have even qualified as having a bad flu. (It is frustrating how many folks underestimate how hard the flu hits.) Contrast with family members that did not get the vaccine in time, and were hospitalized. It was truly different.
      - oldgradstudent 3y ago
        > Folks got what they thought of as a bad cold. Symptomatic Covid is simply a positive Covid test + any flu-like symptoms. What you're describing is symptomatic Covid. This is what was measured and reported in the trial. You might say that's not very interesting because it doesn't measure anything of importance. You would be right. That is exactly what critics say before the trials. https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4037 https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4037 The trials were never meant to test whether there would be any mortality benefit, any reduction in serious disease, any reduction in hospitalization, or any effect on infection or transmission. What they did meausre, turned out to be inconsistent with reality, though.
- YPCrumble 3y ago
  At first I didn't believe this could be true but the link is here: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2034577 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2034577 It seems that Pfizer basically rammed the vaccine through because it prevented covid with 95% efficacy for a couple months and made the case that it was too effective to continue the study. We now know that antibodies from Pfizer decrease significantly and quickly after a couple months, so it seems very likely that Pfizer knew this as well and decided that after two months was the perfect time to conclude their study and start selling vaccines.
  - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
    >selling vaccines To the governments, who have no money but from tax payers. This I think was the most egregious marketing lie in recent history. That everyone who was jumping up and down for their vaccine was under an impression it was free. The same people rabbling all day about "transfer of wealth" saw no issue there. I don't have a stance on covid or vaccines that is terribly unique. But that most people overlooked the massive economic reasons to move in the direction that it did, annoys me.
  - LorenPechtel 3y ago
    No. The trial was intended to conclude when they had sufficient data to get an acceptable confidence interval. It was to be periodically reviewed to see how it was faring against that yardstick. They ended up tossing one of the intermediate reviews because it was overtaken by events--the objective was met, spend the time on analyzing that data rather than the now-irrelevant intermediate review. The test did nothing towards establishing how long the protection lasted--they can't have rushed it through based on that being short because they had no measurement of it then. You simply can't measure time effects in medicine other than by observing them. If you want to know what protection is like after a year you have to wait a year and then measure it. (This is also why we saw repeated changes to the shelf life of the vaccine--the vaccine makers simply didn't have the time to establish what the true shelf life was and thus could only claim what they had measured. Note that this is pervasive in medicine--stored properly most drugs are effective far beyond the stated shelf life. It's just the manufacturers have no reason to spend the money to certify this.) And in blaming Pfizer you show your bias--why did every vaccine maker do the same thing at the same time?? If anything I'll blame Pfizer for making a weak vaccine. Moderna chose to go with a higher dose that appears to provide slightly more protection at the cost of more side effects at the time.
- sonicshadow 3y ago
  Downvoted for not parroting Democratic Bay Area values. We will be contacting all FAANG companies and everyone listed in Crunchbase to let them know your an anti-vaxxer.
  - Madmallard 3y ago
    hahahahaha
    - sonicshadow 3y ago
      Repeat after me: GET ALL COVID BOOSTERS WEAR A MASK AT ALL TIMES VOTE FOR BIDEN FOR 2024, 2028, 2032, 2036
oldgradstudent 3y ago
> I'm confident we will know even more about things as time goes on. I'm less confident on any nefarious motivations in most of it. Reality is that a lot of people died, and everyone was trying to gain control and an advantage over the situation. It's not a matter of being nefarious. They (CDC, FDA, health authorities all over the world) really though it was important, but they've used unacceptable means to enforce their beliefs. Science dies when PR takes over reality. If reality disagrees with the trial, you have to debug the rial, and find what in the design or exection went wrong. > Mistakes were certainly made, but I am back to low confidence in thinking that everything was a mistake. Silencing critics by health authorities is not a mistake. It is an intentional act to enforce your views.

Thoeu388 3y ago

[flagged]

sonicshadow 3y ago

[flagged]

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

lost_tourist 3y ago

You should post them so we can do a peer review of your statements :)