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Yeah, I asked it in a negative way, probably because I hold the view that Africa is the dumping ground for unethical behaviour/products. Just 2 months ago we we

Yeah, I asked it in a negative way, probably because I hold the view that Africa is the dumping ground for unethical behaviour/products. Just 2 months ago we were outraged at Nestle putting sugar in baby foods [0] in Africa. We have 2 kids, the eldest of which is addicted to sugar. As a South African, I appreciate that we're also the most unequal country in the world (by Gini coef). So, some of what was going on in my mind as I read the Bloomberg piece, was: * did they choose people at random, because the high HIV rate is obviously skewed towards vulnerable groups (think a young woman who's financially dependent on her boyfriend, who has multiple partners) * just because the HIV rate is prevalent, doesn't mean that young sexually active people would have multiple partners, so how do they account for situations where we were sexually active, but with 1 or safe partners * condoms are freely available in clinics and often public toilets, and we've generally gone past the fear of asking for them. So how does safe sex affect their study [0] https://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/opinion/2024/2024-04/sugar-in-baby-food-why-nestle-needs-to-be-held-to-account-in-africa.html#:~:text=As%20the%20Public%20Eye%20investigation,the%20same%20product%20has%20none https://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/opinion/2024/2024-04....

mlyle 2y ago
> So, some of what was going on in my mind as I read the Bloomberg piece, was: did they choose people at random They chose around 5000 people; they randomized them to either try the new shot, or one of two existing PREP drugs. Of the 2000 people in the lenacapavir group, 0 got HIV, while dozens got HIV in the existing PREP groups. When you have that many people and shuffle them, the groups end up pretty similar. You'd have to be really unlucky to get all the promiscuous people in the PREP groups. PREP is already pretty effective; to have such a crushing result over PREP is a breakthrough.
- genewitch 2y ago
  i'm gunna bury this here, but pfizer said their tests in africa were 100% effective for the sars-ncov-2 vaccines. It is in their interest to ... fudge the truth a little. Now pfizer did this a different time by removing 2/3rds of the treatment group, and only counting "infections" if they occurred after all doses/boosters were administered. If you compare actual results to what pfizer published and claimed, you see that it was 7 infections in the placebo group and over 100 in the test group. they claimed <7 in the treatment group (i don't think it was 0, but it was like 2), and 7 in the placebo, saying "see, reduced infections by 80%!" Well, yeah, if you don't count infections and remove 2/3rds of the people who would have counted as infections possibly. which means, and you don't even have to squint very hard, that the vaccine was actually increasing the chances of infection. A lot of us are completely burned out and therefore wary on multinationals, regardless of their vertical. Pharma has a lot to answer for. Nestle has a lot to answer for. Chevron (et al) have a lot to answer for.
  - kgc 2y ago
    Interesting. Could you drop a link to the document you’re talking about?
    - mlyle 2y ago
      He's talking about the Pfizer multi-national trial (which included a lot of enrollees in South Africa), and greatly distorting it. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577#t2 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577#t2 Yes, the primary endpoint shown in here was comparing 7 days after dose 2 of the vaccine to 7 days after dose 2 of the placebo group. (table 2): https://www.nejm.org/cms/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577/asset/619bcb14-245e-4b0e-80d8-b9d803517af6/assets/images/large/nejmoa2034577_t2.jpg https://www.nejm.org/cms/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577/asset/619bcb1... However, figure 3 breaks down the efficacy vs. time, and it shows no effect like he describes: https://www.nejm.org/cms/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577/asset/fe40d074-355a-416e-957c-0bb69ef30bfc/assets/images/large/nejmoa2034577_f3.jpg https://www.nejm.org/cms/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577/asset/fe40d07... Instead, the vaccine and control groups were about the same until roughly day 10-12 after the first dose, and then dramatically diverged (though not as decisively as after dose 2).
    - genewitch 2y ago
      unfortunately the source eludes me for my paragraph, but this https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10810638/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10810638/ is some light reading although it has been retracted. however, it mentions a bit about it (such as moving people from placebo to treatment cohort and using those people in the data for the treatment cohort.) I never made the statement that this was their South Africa (or africa) study. It isn't difficult to find the CEO of Pfizer saying their vaccine was "100% effective" in africa on twitter (there was a video, as well). that was my first claim. Then i said "Now pfizer did this a different time ..." edit: the source eludes me because i originally saw it on my cellphone in a video (the paper) and the bullet points were being read by an asian female. I failed to bookmark/save the video, and i have a hard time chasing down research that is this controversial without a DOI or PMC due to the ... tens of thousands of papers containing the same keywords. I'm not claiming it's "buried" or "being kept from us" or anything conspiratorial, but it never got any play on mainstream media and would obviously get shadowbanned on any large site with funding from pfizer (et al) because of the "fact checkers want you to know that the vaccine has been proven safe and effective!" modal. this has the 2/3rds participants excluded https://www.fda.gov/media/159195/download https://www.fda.gov/media/159195/download but i am done for today, i have to crack some hydrogeology textbooks so i hope this stays up so i have my own reference for the next time i mention this

mlyle 2y ago

> So, some of what was going on in my mind as I read the Bloomberg piece, was: did they choose people at random They chose around 5000 people; they randomized them to either try the new shot, or one of two existing PREP drugs. Of the 2000 people in the lenacapavir group, 0 got HIV, while dozens got HIV in the existing PREP groups. When you have that many people and shuffle them, the groups end up pretty similar. You'd have to be really unlucky to get all the promiscuous people in the PREP groups. PREP is already pretty effective; to have such a crushing result over PREP is a breakthrough.

genewitch 2y ago
i'm gunna bury this here, but pfizer said their tests in africa were 100% effective for the sars-ncov-2 vaccines. It is in their interest to ... fudge the truth a little. Now pfizer did this a different time by removing 2/3rds of the treatment group, and only counting "infections" if they occurred after all doses/boosters were administered. If you compare actual results to what pfizer published and claimed, you see that it was 7 infections in the placebo group and over 100 in the test group. they claimed <7 in the treatment group (i don't think it was 0, but it was like 2), and 7 in the placebo, saying "see, reduced infections by 80%!" Well, yeah, if you don't count infections and remove 2/3rds of the people who would have counted as infections possibly. which means, and you don't even have to squint very hard, that the vaccine was actually increasing the chances of infection. A lot of us are completely burned out and therefore wary on multinationals, regardless of their vertical. Pharma has a lot to answer for. Nestle has a lot to answer for. Chevron (et al) have a lot to answer for.
- kgc 2y ago
  Interesting. Could you drop a link to the document you’re talking about?
  - mlyle 2y ago
    He's talking about the Pfizer multi-national trial (which included a lot of enrollees in South Africa), and greatly distorting it. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577#t2 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577#t2 Yes, the primary endpoint shown in here was comparing 7 days after dose 2 of the vaccine to 7 days after dose 2 of the placebo group. (table 2): https://www.nejm.org/cms/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577/asset/619bcb14-245e-4b0e-80d8-b9d803517af6/assets/images/large/nejmoa2034577_t2.jpg https://www.nejm.org/cms/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577/asset/619bcb1... However, figure 3 breaks down the efficacy vs. time, and it shows no effect like he describes: https://www.nejm.org/cms/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577/asset/fe40d074-355a-416e-957c-0bb69ef30bfc/assets/images/large/nejmoa2034577_f3.jpg https://www.nejm.org/cms/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577/asset/fe40d07... Instead, the vaccine and control groups were about the same until roughly day 10-12 after the first dose, and then dramatically diverged (though not as decisively as after dose 2).
  - genewitch 2y ago
    unfortunately the source eludes me for my paragraph, but this https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10810638/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10810638/ is some light reading although it has been retracted. however, it mentions a bit about it (such as moving people from placebo to treatment cohort and using those people in the data for the treatment cohort.) I never made the statement that this was their South Africa (or africa) study. It isn't difficult to find the CEO of Pfizer saying their vaccine was "100% effective" in africa on twitter (there was a video, as well). that was my first claim. Then i said "Now pfizer did this a different time ..." edit: the source eludes me because i originally saw it on my cellphone in a video (the paper) and the bullet points were being read by an asian female. I failed to bookmark/save the video, and i have a hard time chasing down research that is this controversial without a DOI or PMC due to the ... tens of thousands of papers containing the same keywords. I'm not claiming it's "buried" or "being kept from us" or anything conspiratorial, but it never got any play on mainstream media and would obviously get shadowbanned on any large site with funding from pfizer (et al) because of the "fact checkers want you to know that the vaccine has been proven safe and effective!" modal. this has the 2/3rds participants excluded https://www.fda.gov/media/159195/download https://www.fda.gov/media/159195/download but i am done for today, i have to crack some hydrogeology textbooks so i hope this stays up so i have my own reference for the next time i mention this