Subject: A personal plea to end children's vaccine mandates in Boston Date: February 11, 2022 Dear Mayor Wu, Seeing the articles in the Globe about the protests in front of your home and reading about how they are affecting your family and your neighborhood community, we can only imagine how intense this period has been for you personally. It feels uncomfortable to us to see people expressing their anger and frustration at you in front of your home, while you and your family are there, and yet, we believe that they are moved to express their anger so personally because the vaccine mandates being imposed will negatively impact their own families in the most personal and intimate ways possible.
That's a wonderful letter. Unfortunately, the people you're dealing with cannot be reached through objective, rational argumentation.
"Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear."
Also Zac -- do we actually have studies that vaccinations of _children_ fail to prevent covid spread to adults? Or are you jumping from the claim (which actually imo isn't really confirmed yet, given all the confounds) that since vaccines given to adults are not stopping covid-spread in adults, vaccination of children also will not affect spread among adults? Remember the natural experiment involving mandatory flu vaccination of children in Japan, where the vaccination resulted in a reduction of "37,000 to 49,000 deaths per year, or about 1 death for every 420 children vaccinated," almost all of elderly adults? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11259722/
Don't you think we should have affirmative evidence that vaccinating children will do some kind of good before we coerce children into getting a vaccine with a bad short term side effect profile and no long term safety testing whatsoever?
I don't think it's entirely clear that vaccines are completely worthless for reducing the rate of spread. That's an open question. But, it is clear that they are at least mostly ineffective across age groups. They're certainly not stopping the spread, and probably won't prevent anyone from being exposed. So, why in the world are we coercing children without any evidence whatsoever that doing so will save lives?
Precautionary principle, based on Japan's experience with flu, says otherwise, provided the vaccines are safe for the kids. In Japan over quite a few years mandatory flu vaccination of kids saved about one life per year for every 420 kids vaccinated that year, adding up to hundreds of thousands of lives in the end.
So, you're just going to ignore the main issue then?
Like I said, "Don't you think we should have affirmative evidence that vaccinating children will do some kind of good before we coerce children into getting a vaccine with a bad short term side effect profile and no long term safety testing whatsoever?"
And on the safety issue, what you cite as "one large study [showing] that many children are at greater risk of hospitalization due to serious illness from vaccine side effects than due to Covid," looks pretty weak when you read in its first comment that its "authors have badly miscalculated the COVID19 hospitalisation risks for children conditional on comorbid status," and when you find later in the comments that a coauthor of the paper failed to disclose his relationship with a Covid-contrarian group ...
I disagree with the commenter about the supposed miscalculation. But this is particularly amusing: "coauthor of the paper failed to disclose his relationship with a Covid-contrarian group".
Based on that criteria you could discount half the studies out there for not disclosing affiliation with Covid alarmist groups.
Again, your ad hominems are not interesting. Nor is your ability to dig up negative comments without grasping the substance of those comments. Every study has negative comments and criticisms.
The only thing that matters is the evidence, not ad hominems.
If you want safety evidence, why not go with the nih review article that pretty much concludes that our existing multiple studies show vaccination to be safe for kids down to around ages 3 to 5? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8763337/
I will cop to having animus against NFIB over their positions on health care, going way back. I do not cop to using ad hominems. The study co-author should disclose his relevant affilations -- that's the principle, not who he's affiliated with. And my criticism of you is that you give us links to studies that really don't look very good -- why lead with the non-peer-reviewed Danish study and not mention the many confounds noted in comments? I am presuming that you're offering the best evidence you can find, and my takeaway is that you don't have very good evidence.
btw, when I try to find the studies about vaccine effectiveness other than the Danish one, I land on the NFIB's Amicus brief in the OSHA case. It has studies in its bibliography, but which of those do you actually see as supporting the view that studies from "Germany, The United Kingdom and Canada show that protection against infection for Omicron is actually negative (meaning vaccines increase chances of infection) after roughly 90 days"?
Remember, my argument is based on the precautionary principle, the fact that we know that vaccinating kids against the flu virus saved lots of non-kid lives in Japan, and that our best evidence is that the vaccine is safe for kids. Your claims that the vaccination after a few months promotes the virus really don't look supported to me (if that's happening, via what mechanism?)
"why lead with the non-peer-reviewed Danish study and not mention the many confounds noted in comments?"
Because I disagree that the criticisms are strong, every study can have bogus criticisms lobbed by critics who don't like the conclusions, and there are 3 other studies showing the same thing.
I'm happy to examine with you the whole body of evidence re vaccine effectiveness at preventing spread if you wish, but we should do so in an organized and efficient manner. Email me if you wish to do so. (Comments section is too cumbersome for in depth examination.)
"btw, when I try to find the studies about vaccine effectiveness other than the Danish one, I land on the NFIB's Amicus brief in the OSHA case. It has studies in its bibliography, but which of those do you actually see as supporting the view..."
Did you try looking in the table of contents?
The section "III.Vaccines Are Ineffective At Preventing Omicron Infections" has the info you're looking for.
"If you want safety evidence, why not go with the nih review article"
Because they are basing their conclusions on ZERO studies demonstrating the long term safety of the mRNA Covid vaccines (and ignoring the evidence that the short term side effects are much more dangerous than for other vaccines).
Zac is pretty careless imo. Just look, for instance, at all the confounds suggested regarding the non-peer-reviewed Danish study. For instance Bat9991 on the Danish study, at its preprint site:"This is a faulty study, and will be either corrected or retracted once peer reviewed!
You cannot exclude "Previously SARS-CoV-2 PCR-positive individuals" and correlate VE against the same cohort you just removed a significant percentage of them!
You are skewing your test data significantly towards the unvaccinated cohort (which has much higher rate of PCR positive than the vaccinated cohort)'
There are arguments that could be made on both sides re criticism of that study. No study will be perfect. But, what about the other three studies I pointed out which found the same thing? The evidence is accumulating...
Why lead with the not-so-great-looking Danish study, if you actually have a good study? And then you toss in an Amicus brief funded by the vile NFIB and written, as far as I can see, by lawyers not scientists. Looks weak, man.
The only relevant question is what the evidence shows. Your ad hominem's against me or NFIB are not interesting. I don't agree that the Danish study is weak, but regardless 4 separate sources show vaccines have extremely low (in fact NEGATIVE) efficacy for preventing spread with the new variants. We could argue in depth regarding the Danish study, but there are three others showing the same thing and not much in the way of quality evidence to the contrary.
That's a wonderful letter. Unfortunately, the people you're dealing with cannot be reached through objective, rational argumentation.
"Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear."
Also Zac -- do we actually have studies that vaccinations of _children_ fail to prevent covid spread to adults? Or are you jumping from the claim (which actually imo isn't really confirmed yet, given all the confounds) that since vaccines given to adults are not stopping covid-spread in adults, vaccination of children also will not affect spread among adults? Remember the natural experiment involving mandatory flu vaccination of children in Japan, where the vaccination resulted in a reduction of "37,000 to 49,000 deaths per year, or about 1 death for every 420 children vaccinated," almost all of elderly adults? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11259722/
Don't you think we should have affirmative evidence that vaccinating children will do some kind of good before we coerce children into getting a vaccine with a bad short term side effect profile and no long term safety testing whatsoever?
I don't think it's entirely clear that vaccines are completely worthless for reducing the rate of spread. That's an open question. But, it is clear that they are at least mostly ineffective across age groups. They're certainly not stopping the spread, and probably won't prevent anyone from being exposed. So, why in the world are we coercing children without any evidence whatsoever that doing so will save lives?
Precautionary principle, based on Japan's experience with flu, says otherwise, provided the vaccines are safe for the kids. In Japan over quite a few years mandatory flu vaccination of kids saved about one life per year for every 420 kids vaccinated that year, adding up to hundreds of thousands of lives in the end.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11259722/
Also, surprisingly, with the new variants and big numbers of vaccinated older adults, the covid death distribution by age cohort does not appear to be skewing younger -- see https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2022/02/who-are-the-unvaccinated.
"provided the vaccines are safe for the kids"
So, you're just going to ignore the main issue then?
Like I said, "Don't you think we should have affirmative evidence that vaccinating children will do some kind of good before we coerce children into getting a vaccine with a bad short term side effect profile and no long term safety testing whatsoever?"
And on the safety issue, what you cite as "one large study [showing] that many children are at greater risk of hospitalization due to serious illness from vaccine side effects than due to Covid," looks pretty weak when you read in its first comment that its "authors have badly miscalculated the COVID19 hospitalisation risks for children conditional on comorbid status," and when you find later in the comments that a coauthor of the paper failed to disclose his relationship with a Covid-contrarian group ...
I disagree with the commenter about the supposed miscalculation. But this is particularly amusing: "coauthor of the paper failed to disclose his relationship with a Covid-contrarian group".
Based on that criteria you could discount half the studies out there for not disclosing affiliation with Covid alarmist groups.
Again, your ad hominems are not interesting. Nor is your ability to dig up negative comments without grasping the substance of those comments. Every study has negative comments and criticisms.
The only thing that matters is the evidence, not ad hominems.
If you want safety evidence, why not go with the nih review article that pretty much concludes that our existing multiple studies show vaccination to be safe for kids down to around ages 3 to 5? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8763337/
I will cop to having animus against NFIB over their positions on health care, going way back. I do not cop to using ad hominems. The study co-author should disclose his relevant affilations -- that's the principle, not who he's affiliated with. And my criticism of you is that you give us links to studies that really don't look very good -- why lead with the non-peer-reviewed Danish study and not mention the many confounds noted in comments? I am presuming that you're offering the best evidence you can find, and my takeaway is that you don't have very good evidence.
btw, when I try to find the studies about vaccine effectiveness other than the Danish one, I land on the NFIB's Amicus brief in the OSHA case. It has studies in its bibliography, but which of those do you actually see as supporting the view that studies from "Germany, The United Kingdom and Canada show that protection against infection for Omicron is actually negative (meaning vaccines increase chances of infection) after roughly 90 days"?
Remember, my argument is based on the precautionary principle, the fact that we know that vaccinating kids against the flu virus saved lots of non-kid lives in Japan, and that our best evidence is that the vaccine is safe for kids. Your claims that the vaccination after a few months promotes the virus really don't look supported to me (if that's happening, via what mechanism?)
"why lead with the non-peer-reviewed Danish study and not mention the many confounds noted in comments?"
Because I disagree that the criticisms are strong, every study can have bogus criticisms lobbed by critics who don't like the conclusions, and there are 3 other studies showing the same thing.
I'm happy to examine with you the whole body of evidence re vaccine effectiveness at preventing spread if you wish, but we should do so in an organized and efficient manner. Email me if you wish to do so. (Comments section is too cumbersome for in depth examination.)
"btw, when I try to find the studies about vaccine effectiveness other than the Danish one, I land on the NFIB's Amicus brief in the OSHA case. It has studies in its bibliography, but which of those do you actually see as supporting the view..."
Did you try looking in the table of contents?
The section "III.Vaccines Are Ineffective At Preventing Omicron Infections" has the info you're looking for.
"If you want safety evidence, why not go with the nih review article"
Because they are basing their conclusions on ZERO studies demonstrating the long term safety of the mRNA Covid vaccines (and ignoring the evidence that the short term side effects are much more dangerous than for other vaccines).
Zac is pretty careless imo. Just look, for instance, at all the confounds suggested regarding the non-peer-reviewed Danish study. For instance Bat9991 on the Danish study, at its preprint site:"This is a faulty study, and will be either corrected or retracted once peer reviewed!
You cannot exclude "Previously SARS-CoV-2 PCR-positive individuals" and correlate VE against the same cohort you just removed a significant percentage of them!
You are skewing your test data significantly towards the unvaccinated cohort (which has much higher rate of PCR positive than the vaccinated cohort)'
There are arguments that could be made on both sides re criticism of that study. No study will be perfect. But, what about the other three studies I pointed out which found the same thing? The evidence is accumulating...
Why lead with the not-so-great-looking Danish study, if you actually have a good study? And then you toss in an Amicus brief funded by the vile NFIB and written, as far as I can see, by lawyers not scientists. Looks weak, man.
The only relevant question is what the evidence shows. Your ad hominem's against me or NFIB are not interesting. I don't agree that the Danish study is weak, but regardless 4 separate sources show vaccines have extremely low (in fact NEGATIVE) efficacy for preventing spread with the new variants. We could argue in depth regarding the Danish study, but there are three others showing the same thing and not much in the way of quality evidence to the contrary.