The ONS data on vaccine mortality is not fit for purpose

Following on from our latest report highlighting multiple anomalies in the most recent ONS covid vaccine mortality surveillance report we have written the following self-explanatory letter to the Statistics Regulator (regulation@statistics.gov.uk): 

Dear Sir/Madam,

Since the ONS began producing its covid vaccine mortality surveillance reports in 2021, we have been highlighting various anomalies in their datasets. This includes strong evidence that many of those dying shortly after vaccination were being misclassified as unvaccinated (https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.12472.42248) and systematic undercounting of deaths occurring within first two weeks of vaccination (http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.12472.42248).

We are especially concerned about the latest ONS dataset (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/deathsbyvaccinationstatusengland) and have produced a detailed analysis which highlights the multiple glaring anomalies in it.

We show that, in addition to further definitive evidence of the misclassification and missing deaths, there is: a) gross underestimation of the population proportion unvaccinated, and b) mortality rates that are both nonsensical in various categories and completely incompatible with historical rates.

We believe that there are multiple violations of your code of practice (https://code.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Code-of-Practice-for-Statistics-REVISED.pdf). In particular, the dataset breaches the Quality and Value criteria numbered: Q 1.1, Q1.4 – 1.7, Q 2.4, Q 2.5, Q 3.2 – 3.5, V 1.1, V 3.2 – 3.3.

All of the anomalies in the dataset introduce bias in favour of analyses supporting vaccine ‘safety and efficacy’. The fact that these data are being used as continued justification for the efficacy and safety of the covid vaccines is therefore now a matter of national concern and scandal. We believe that an investigation into how and why the ONS dataset is so flawed and corrupted is required. In the meantime, we call for

1. the public withdrawal of the ONS dataset and

2. the retraction of any claims made by others that are based upon it.

Yours

Norman Fenton, Martin Neil, Clare Craig and Scott McLachlan

 

A slightly updated version of our report (with more detailed reference citations than the version on ResearchGate) is here.

“Open a Public Inquiry into Covid-19 Vaccine Safety”: Response to the UK Government’s Response

 This article reproduced with the kind permission of Axel McFarlane

Our Response to the UK Government’s Response to the UK Government and Parliament Petition: “Open a Public Inquiry into Covid-19 Vaccine Safety”

By Axel McFarlane and Mike Baker

The Government response, shown in italics, has been broken up into paragraphs and followed by our response respectively:

“The Government has commissioned a public inquiry into the COVID-19 pandemic and
has no plans for a separate inquiry on vaccine safety. The safety of COVID-19 vaccines is
monitored by the Medicines Healthcare and Regulatory products Agency (MHRA).”

The government commissioned public inquiry into the COVID-19 pandemic would not appear to include any investigation into possible vaccine related causes behind the latest observed data on the various reported Adverse Events, Non-Covid Excess Deaths, the rise in Cardio-Vascular issues or the recent sudden decline in Live Birth Rates. The Terms of Reference [1] for the COVID-19 Public Inquiry do not cover vaccines at all, which highlights the need for a separate inquiry into vaccine safety. The MHRA [2] is “the executive Agency of the Department of Health and Social Care that acts on behalf of the Ministers to protect and promote public health and patient safety, by ensuring that healthcare products meet appropriate standards of safety, quality and efficacy”, so as a public body, its effectiveness in carrying out its responsibility to ensure COVID-19 vaccine safety is a legitimate subject for public inquiry.

“The MHRA has authorised COVID-19 vaccine supply following a rigorous review of their safety, quality and efficacy. The clinical trials of the vaccines have shown them to be effective and acceptably safe”

Based on information released by the vaccine manufacturers, the clinical trials of the vaccines have been discovered to be flawed. In the case of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine it can be observed from Pfizer’s own clinical trials data that whilst a slight improvement in Covid-19 outcomes was observed shortly after the doses, the All Cause Mortality of the vaccinated group was worse than in the placebo group. This means that there must be fatal adverse events that lead to a net negative life saving benefit of their vaccine. The initial MHRA Emergency Use Authorisations (EUAs) were based entirely on information provided by the manufacturers (Pfizer review here [3]). As was widely-reported at the time, the Phase 3 large-scale trials were intended to last until 2023, but were curtailed after only 2 months and the participants un-blinded, violating the study protocol and making any randomised control trial analysis of medium/long-term effects impossible. This alone should have prevented rollout of the product to the wider population, considering the low risk of Covid-19 to the majority of the population and the fact that the vaccines have turned out to be not at all effective in reducing transmission. Further issues, known at the time and mentioned but dismissed in the report, include:

• 311 (1.4%) vaccine recipients vs 61 (0.3%) placebo recipients were excluded from the trial for “protocol deviations” (page 30). There is an infinitesimal probability of this happening by chance, but no explanation is given. The most likely cause, an adverse reaction causing the participant to withdraw from the trial, would have shown that the vaccine had a highly-negative safety profile.
• 78% of participants were under 65, and all were healthy (although 46% had at least one co-morbidity, it seems that very few had more than one), but the initial target demographic was elderly people with multiple co-morbidities (page 30). In fact, for individuals over 75, the vaccine efficacy confidence interval was [-0.13, 1.00], meaning that there is a significantly greater than 5% probability that the vaccine makes the over-75s more likely to catch Covid (page 48). Following standard statistical methodology, this means that the null hypothesis, that the treatment has no benefit for the over-75s, should have been accepted.
• The primary endpoint (mild Covid symptoms) was based on self-reporting, followed up by a Nucleic Acid Amplification Test (NAAT) (page 28). However, this is subject to (conscious or unconscious) bias if the researcher knows or suspects which arm (vaccine or placebo) the participant is in. This was later confirmed by the British Medical Journal’s report [4] on the whistle-blower complaint of Brook Jackson, an operations manager at Ventavia, a contractor carrying out the trials for Pfizer, describing how researchers were unblinded and patients’ adverse reports ignored or falsified.
• The secondary endpoint (severe Covid) was never reached, with 1 case in the vaccine arm vs 3 cases (and no deaths) in the placebo arm, which in itself shows that Covid-19 was not the deadly disease it was purported to be (page 32).
• The much-quoted 95% vaccine efficacy was based on 8 participants with Covid symptoms in the vaccine arm, vs 162 in the placebo arm (page 32). However, this is relative risk reduction (RRR) – absolute risk reduction (ARR), not quoted anywhere in the paper, is a less-impressive 0.88% [5].

Any of these points taken individually, but certainly in total, should have been sufficient for the MHRA to refuse an EUA at the time, until more and better data became available. Why this wasn’t done is a legitimate subject for public inquiry.

“However, as part of its statutory functions, the MHRA continually monitors the use of the vaccines to ensure their benefits continue to outweigh any risks. This is a requirement for all authorised medicines and vaccines in the UK. This monitoring strategy is continuous, proactive and based on a wide range of information sources, with a dedicated team of scientists reviewing information daily to look for safety issues or unexpected events.

The MHRA operates the Yellow Card scheme to collect and monitor information on suspected safety concerns or incidents involving vaccines, medicines, medical devices, and e-cigarettes. The scheme relies on voluntary reporting of suspected adverse incidents by healthcare professionals and members of the public. The scheme is designed to provide an early warning that the safety of a product may require further investigation.”

The scheme relies on voluntary reporting, meaning that the number of adverse incidents is likely to be significantly under-reported. A US Government-commissioned study [6] actively following up patients for 30 days after vaccination concluded that fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events were reported to VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System), the US equivalent to the Yellow Card scheme. The latest MHRA Summary [7] report repeatedly states (at least 14 times) that an adverse event may be only coincidentally related to a vaccination, yet nowhere does it even mention, let alone attempt to estimate, this Under-Reporting Factor (URF). An MHRA drug safety update from 2019 [8] estimated that only 10% of serious adverse events, and 2 to 4% of less serious events, are reported (so a URF of at least 10), indicating that they are well-aware of the issue, but have chosen to ignore it in their summary reports.

“Up to and including 15 December 2021, the MHRA received and analysed: 145,446 Adverse Event reports (ADRs) from people who have received the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine; 240,065 UK reports of suspected ADRs to the AstraZeneca vaccine; 24,721 UK reports of suspected ADRs to the Moderna vaccine. For context, up to same date, approximately 46.4 million Pfizer/BioNTech Vaccines, 50 million AstraZeneca vaccines and 2.8 million Moderna doses had been administered as first and second doses.”

This data is now out of date. This level of Adverse Events as reported up to 15th December 2021 is very high when compared to other vaccines using traditional technology and indicates an urgent need for further investigation. From the latest MHRA summary report (page 6): “As of 13 July 2022, for the UK, 172,218 Yellow Cards have been reported for the COVID-19 Vaccine Pfizer/BioNTech, 245,903 have been reported for the COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca, 40,068 for the COVID-19 Vaccine Moderna and 1,779 have been reported where the brand of the vaccine was not specified.” – a total of 459,968 ADRs. Assuming MHRA’s very conservative URF of 10, this would mean 4 to 5 million adverse events caused by the Covid vaccines.

“The overwhelming majority of these reports relate to injection-site reactions (sore arm for example) and generalised symptoms such as ‘flu-like’ illness, headache, chills, fatigue (tiredness), nausea (feeling sick), fever, dizziness, weakness, aching muscles, and rapid heartbeat. Generally, these happen shortly after the vaccination and are not associated with more serious or lasting illness. These types of reactions reflect the normal immune response triggered by the body to the vaccines. They are typically seen with most types of vaccine and tend to resolve within a day or two.”

This paragraph hasn’t changed in six months (pages 6-7 of latest MHRA Summary report, and repeated again on page 16). The government response fails to mention deaths caused by or occurring within a few weeks of administration of the vaccine doses. While the majority of ADRs may be less serious, some are extremely serious, including 2,213 deaths (page 37), again likely under-reported by a factor of 10 or more. The 1976 US swine flu vaccination campaign was halted after 50 deaths – why has this (vastly-underestimated) figure of over 2,000 deaths not led to a halt to this one? Or as in the case of the withdrawal of Pandremix in the UK, a vaccine that was in 2009 ‘fast tracked’ out to the general public without the usual clinical trials having been completed, but was withdrawn after a reported 3807 adverse events 1138 of which were serious [9,10,11] and 47 of which were fatal.

Between 1st January 2001 and 25th August 2021, only 404 deaths were reported to the MHRA Yellow Card system for all other vaccines [12], meaning that Covid vaccine deaths are being reported at over 70 times the rate [13] of all other vaccines combined – if that isn’t a safety signal, then what is?

“The continuous review of available evidence from UK Yellow Card reports of suspected side-effects to the vaccines and other healthcare data does not suggest that the COVID-19 vaccines increase the risk of cardiovascular events such as heart attacks.”

No evidence is given for this assertion; however the most recent reports (up to 13th July 2022) of Yellow Card events [14,15,16,17] give a total of 28,843 cardiovascular ADRs, including 396 deaths. Even ignoring the URF, the number of adverse events is far higher than the background rate of 160 per million per year, or about 8,000 per year assuming 50 million vaccinees (page 35). The data strongly suggests a possible causal link between the vaccines and cardiovascular events such as heart attacks. If the government believes these adverse events aren’t caused by the vaccines, why don’t they investigate them to find the true cause?

“The benefits of the vaccines in preventing COVID-19 and serious complications associated with COVID-19 continue to far outweigh the risks in the majority of patients.”

No evidence at all is given for this assertion, which should form the crux of the government’s argument in refusing to commission an inquiry into Covid vaccine safety. However, there is an overwhelming body of evidence to the contrary. According to the most recent data [18] from the Office of National Statistics, the number of deaths in England and Wales in Week 29 (up to 22nd July 2022) was 10,978, or 1,680 (18.1%) above the 5-year average. Only 463 deaths had Covid-19 recorded as the underlying
cause, meaning that even assuming all the “Covid-19” deaths were actually Covid-19 (and excess) deaths, the weekly death rate was still (1,680 – 463) / (10,978 – 1,680) =13.1% above the 5-year average. This has been going on week after week, month after month throughout this year. The prime suspect for this elevated death toll must be the vaccines (what else could it be?), and the onus is on the manufacturers, the MHRA and the government to prove otherwise.

“The majority of patients” is a very small subset of the total number of recipients of the vaccine doses who are all at risk from Adverse Events, some serious. ONS data shows that only a very small minority of the UK population are at risk of becoming a Covid-19 “patient” rather than just suffering a mild case that requires no treatment. Therefore the Risk / Benefit Ratio is much higher than that suggested in the government response.

“However, the MHRA has identified the rare occurrence of myocarditis and pericarditis (both inflammatory conditions of the heart) following vaccination against COVID-19. There has been a consistent pattern of higher reporting of these rare, suspected events with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine Moderna vaccine, and of these occurring more frequently in males. Following analysis combined with advice from the Commission on human Medicines, the product information for the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech Vaccines was updated to inform of these reports and advise healthcare professionals and patients to be aware of important symptoms for myocarditis and pericarditis. These reports are very rare, with the overall reporting rate across all age groups as follows: Pfizer/BioNTech Vaccine: For suspected myocarditis (including viral myocarditis) the reporting rate is 12 reports per million doses, and for suspected pericarditis (including viral pericarditis and infective pericarditis) the overall reporting rate is 8 reports per million doses.

Moderna Vaccine: The overall reporting rate for suspected myocarditis is 42 per million doses and for suspected pericarditis is 24 per million doses. AstraZeneca Vaccine: The overall reporting rate for suspected myocarditis (including viral myocarditis and infectious myocarditis) is 4 per million doses and for suspected pericarditis (including viral pericarditis) is 4 per million doses. These events reported are typically mild with individuals usually recovering within a
short time with standard treatment and rest.”

Myocarditis and Pericarditis are never “mild” conditions because the majority of patients are left with permanent damage to heart tissue that does not repair itself. Also, the exclusive focus on myocarditis and pericarditis while ignoring all other adverse events, for example blood disorders such as thrombocytopenia, is very strange, and seems to be an attempt to suggest that heart disease is the only serious negative consequence of the vaccines. This is not to downplay the deadly danger of heart disease – a canonical review [19] of the medical literature undertaken before the “fact checkers” got to work reported that “The Myocarditis Treatment Trial reported mortality rates for biopsy-verified myocarditis of 20% and 56% at 1 year and 4.3 years, respectively. These outcomes are similar to the Mayo Clinic’s observational data of 5-year survival rates that approximate 50%. Survival with giant cell myocarditis is substantially lower, with <20% of patients surviving 5 years.” So to claim that “These events reported are typically mild with individuals usually recovering within a short time with standard treatment and rest” is entirely false.

“The MHRA will continue to closely monitor reports of suspected myocarditis and pericarditis with all of the currently authorised COVID-19 vaccines, as it continues to do with any concerns that the Yellow Card Scheme might raise. Vaccines are the best way to protect people from COVID-19 and have already saved tens of thousands of lives.”

A vaccine with a negative net benefit in terms of All Cause Mortality cannot be saving “tens of thousands of lives”. No evidence is presented to show that the vaccines have saved any lives at all, and all the evidence points in the opposite direction, as demonstrated by the otherwise-inexplicable increase in all-cause mortality over the last year.

A public inquiry needs to look at all aspects of Covid-19 vaccine safety, including whether the MHRA regulators have done their job properly and effectively or whether they have failed in their statutory duties. Because the Covid-19 vaccines have not been officially licensed (not due for consideration until 2023) and have only been granted emergency authorisation, it was inadequate to use the old yellow card reporting system and that instead every individual dose administered should have been reported back on. The government are passing on their regulatory responsibilities to the MHRA and ignoring the fact that they are the ultimate regulators and have to ensure the MHRA have done every aspect of their job to the highest of standards. The government is the regulator of the MHRA yet they are not taking such responsibilities seriously.

The government’s attempted justification for refusing a public inquiry into vaccine safety simply serves to demonstrate why such an inquiry, properly-constituted with representatives and terms of reference acceptable to all sides, is urgently necessary.

Axel McFarlane
Mike Baker
4th August 2022

[1] https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Covid-19-Inquiry- Terms-of-Reference-Final.pdf

[2] https://yellowcard.mhra.gov.uk/information

[3] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attach ment_data/file/997584/COVID-19_mRNA_Vaccine_BNT162b2__UKPAR___PFIZER_BIONTECH_ext_of_indication_11.6.2021.pdf

[4] https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2635

[5] (162/17511 – 8/17411)*100 = 0.88% (from figures on page 32 of report) [6] https://digital.ahrq.gov/sites/default/files/docs/publication/r18hs017045-lazarusfinal- report-2011.pdf

[7] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attach ment_data/file/1093243/Coronavirus_vaccine_-_summary_of_Yellow_Card_reporting_DLP_13.07.2022.pdf [8] https://www.gov.uk/drug-safety-update/yellow-card-please-help-to-reverse-the-decline-in-reporting-of-suspected-adverse-drug-reactions

[9] https://www.bmj.com/content/362/bmj.k3948.full [10] https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2017-03-08/debates/438e7ae2-6025-4772-85be-76920bdf8be5/pandemrixvaccinecompensation

[11] https://www.contagionlive.com/view/high-rates-of-adverse-events-linked-with-2009-h1n1-pandemic-vaccine [12] https://expose-news.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/FOI-21-907-Response- 1.pdf

[13] (2213 deaths over 19 months) / (404 deaths over 248 months)

[14] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1093230/COVID-19_Pfizer-BioNTech_Vaccine_Analysis_Print_DLP_13.07.2022.pdf

[15] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1093231/COVID-19_AstraZeneca_Vaccine_Analysis_Print_DLP_13.07.2022.pdf

[16] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1093232/COVID-19_Moderna_Vaccine_Analysis_Print_DLP_13.07.2022.pdf [17] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1093233/COVID-19_Brand_Unspecified_Vaccine_Analysis_Print_DLP_13.07.2022.pdf [18] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages /deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending2 2july2022

[19] https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.105.584532

How Wikipedia defames and delegitimizes anybody raising concerns against the WHO narrative on Covid

Meet Alex Brown ("Alexbrn" on Wikipedia - this is his own profile picture on twitter). 

 

He is a retired Computer programmer who has a PhD in English. But apparently that is sufficient to make him the ultimate arbiter of the ‘truth’ on Covid-19. He is the key member of a very small clique of Wikipedia ‘editors’ responsible for ensuring that any member of the public looking to Wikipedia for information on the many legitimate concerns about the ‘official’ covid narrative will find nothing other than smears against those raising such concerns. This clique act as ‘gatekeepers’ of the covid narrative, and have free reign to edit these personal pages. Not only do they insert complete lies, but they then delete any attempts to correct the lies and are able to block all attempts by others to provide corrections.

The full story and how Alexbrn hacked Norman Fenton's Wikipedia entry is here.

 

A critique of the BBC2 documentary “Unvaccinated”

Before this programme was screened on 20 July 2022 promotional material from the BBC and in newspaper articles such as this suggested it was going to be extremely biased and inaccurate.

 

Based on this publicity material we already wrote articles first criticizing the claim that only 8% of the UK adult population was unvaccinated and then highlighting the fact that the publicity material failed to reveal the blatant conflicts of interest of the key ‘experts’ used in the programme to convince the seven unvaccinated participants to get vaccinated.

Our pre-screening articles and tweets about the forthcoming programme were very widely read and one of the participants Nazarin contacted us to express her serious concerns about the way the programme was made – and how it might be edited – and to confirm that the participants were indeed not informed of the experts’ conflicts of interest (this is covered well in this article by threadsirish).  (Note: see update below on the thoughts of another participant who contacted us).  Her subsequent tweets, such as the following, made clear her extreme concerns about the programme even before it was screened:

 

The programme turned out to be every bit as bad and biased as feared.

Many of the problems have been highlighted by the especially vocal participants Nazarin and Vicky (see their interviews with Dan Wooton and Sonia Poulton). Below we summarise our key concerns and what was missing.

• Claim of 4 million UK adults unvaccinated: Despite us alerting the BBC to this error (which led them to change their website description) this claim (i.e. that only 8% of adults were unvaccinated) was right up front. It set the context suggesting that this was only a tiny crazed minority.  But what was really interesting is that the presenter Hannah Fry stated that, as part of the programme research, they did a survey of 2,500 people about their views on vaccination and she was surprised to discover that 600 were unvaccinated. If the sample was representative of UK adults (and there was no suggestion it was not) then that means 24% of UK adults are unvaccinated, which is even higher than the figure we estimate, and blows apart the BBC’s ludicrous 8% claim. (UPDATE @NakedEmperorUK points out that the survey was indeed representative of the population and that the actual number never vaccinated was 664 out of 2570 - i.e. 26%. This provides further evidence of what we have claimed for a long time: The ONS is massively underestimating the proportion of unvaccinated.)
• Failure to disclose the Pfizer links of the two key experts (Finn and Khalil) on the programme: As feared the programme did not inform either the participants or the viewers of the major conflicts of interest of the key experts. Prof Adam Finn (Bristol University) was the expert chosen to explained what the vaccines were and why they were safe; but he is the leader of the Pfizer Centre of Excellence for Epidemiology of Vaccine-preventable Diseases - set up with an initial £4.6 million investment in May 2021. He even implied he was independent when he said (about the US pharma companies Pfizer and Moderna) that he ‘acted as a buffer between them and the public’.  Asma Khalil was the expert chosen to explain why it was important for pregnant women to get the vaccination. But Asma Khalil is the PI of the Pfizer covid vaccination in pregnancy trial. Another expert, psychologist
  Clarissa Simas has had many Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) grants.
•  Failure to disclose background to FullFact.org: The CEO Will Moy was brought in to claim that vaccine hesitancy was all due to online ‘misinformation’. But fullfact have received massive funding by organisations like Google and Facebook to present precisely the biased narrative that all the covid ‘misinformation’ is coming from ‘antivaxxers and conspiracy theorists’ and they have shown no interest in pointing out the far greater volume of misinformation put out by governments, the pharma companies and their supporters. They only ‘fact check’ information that counters the ‘standard narrative’ and avoid checking obvious misinformation claims of vaccine efficacy and safety. For some background on how bad fullfact are see this article.
  
•  No challenge to the many explicit false claims made: Among the most outrageous and demonstrably false claims that went unchallenged were: 1) Adam Finn claimed that people had stronger immunity from the vaccination than from having been infected; 2) Asma Khalil claimed the vaccination was not only completely safe for pregnant women but actually reduced the risk of miscarriage by 15% (but look at what was in the Pfizer trial with more here).
• The jellybeans game: Hannah Fry tried to create the impression that only 1 in 33,000 had a serious adverse reaction by mischievously picking that number as the incidence of myocarditis, which she claims was by the most common serious adverse reaction.  Showing what 33,000 jellybeans looked like – only one of which was ‘bad’ – was supposed to show how ‘rare’ adverse reactions to the vaccines were.  But the most recent relevant data (from the German government) actually suggest as many as 1 in 300 serious adverse reactions per dose after the vaccine. Assuming independence between doses this means that a triple vaccinated person has an approximate probability of 1 in a 100 of getting a serious adverse reaction and for a person doubled  boosted this rises to 1 in 75. And, as somebody on twitter said “what if all the bad jelly beans were in one big batch and all the others weren’t ‘good jelly beans’ – we just didn’t know yet”.
  
• No mention of the failure of the vaccination to stop infection or transmission of covid
• Failure to humanize any actual vaccination victims. The programme spoke about actual unvaccinated people dying from covid, but used the bad jelly beans to represent vaccination victims. Why didn’t they mention actual victims like the BBC’s own Lisa Shaw? or Vicky Spit's husband Zion?
  
• The ludicrous and misleading MMR vaccination anecdote: In response to the 9-page Pfizer report of adverse reactions, Hannah Fry used a bizarre anecdote to downplay its impact. This imagined a Doctor about to give the MMR jab to a child when the phone rings; there is a 50:50 chance he picks up the phone before giving the jab. He picks up the phone and during the call the child has a fit. Saying there was a 50:50 chance the doctor picks up the phone or gives the jab deliberately creates the false impression that there is also a 50:50 chance any adverse reaction after a vaccination is purely coincidental.
• No challenge to the powerful claim that 20 out of 21 ICU patients at St Georges’s hospital in Dec 2021 were unvaccinated: all evidence of national ICU data suggests vaccinated are now disproportionally hospitalized with covid, so this claim was either false/exaggerated or an unbelievable outlier. Much more likely, the ‘unvaccinated’ were defined as ‘not fully boosted’ rather than ‘never vaccinated as was implied.
• Failure to mention reported data on adverse reactions: Systems like VAERS in the US and YellowCard in the UK make it difficult to report adverse reactions and so are widely believed to massively underestimate true numbers. Yet, in VAERS alone (mainly US) as of 8/7/22 there were 1,341,605 covid vaccine adverse reactionsof which 29,460 were deaths. In all 32 years of VAERS reporting a total of only 9,754 deaths (and 878,053 adverse events) were recorded for ALL OTHER vaccines combined. So, in just 18 months, 3 times as many deaths for covid vaccines have been recorded than in 32 years combined for all other vaccines.
• No mention of the true risk of covid based on world wide data: Except for those with multiple comorbidities (who are not given appropriate early treatments) Covid poses very little risk of hospitalization and death. Young people are at essentially zero risk of dying due to Covid.
• No mention of the way covid data are by definition fixed to exaggerate cases numbers, hospitalizations,  deaths as well as vaccine efficacy and safety. Specifically: any person admitted to hospital who had a PCR positive within 14 days prior  – or who tests PCR positive after hospitalization’ – is classified as a covid hospitalization even if the reason for hospitalization was unrelated to covid; any person who dies within 28 days of PCR positive test  is classified as a covid death irrespective of the true cause of death; any person who contracts covid or who suffers adverse reaction inside 14 days of vaccinaion is classified as ‘unvaccinated’.
• No mention of lack of long-term safety data:  In particular, the failure of the Pfizer trial to provide this was glossed over suggesting that their people were so dedicated that the worked much faster than for any previous vaccine to ensure a high quality and safe product.
• No mention of all the protocol violations now known in the main Pfizer trial. Even with the violations, Pfizer’s their own data showed more deaths in vaccine arm than placebo arm and  the risk of serious adverse event in the vaccinated was greater than risk of covid hospitalization in the unvaccinated.
• No mention of international data showing strong evidence the vaccine is neither effective nor safe: Countries with lowest vaccination rates have lowest covid death rates; spikes in all-cause deaths happen after vaccination dose rollouts; countrieswith highest vaccination rates have highest covid rates and are experiencing non-covid excess death increases; and falling birth rates.  There is no reliable evidence anywhere in world that vaccinated people have lower all-cause mortality than unvaccinated.
• What was Hannah Fry’s involvement in the stat/maths modelling: Near the start of the programme Hannah stated that she had been involved in the stats/math modelling that ‘helped get us out of lockdown’. This was a surprising claim. It’s the first we had heard that such modelling was formally used to get us out of lockdown. If she was involved in such modelling, she was presumably also involved in the modelling that took us INTO lockdown (curiously nobody wants to be associated with that any more given we know it was so wrong with disastrous consequences). What exactly was her involvement in this modelling – are there papers describing it other than this one?

 

Update 25 July 2022: One of the other participants of the documentary, Mark Dabbs, has contacted us wishing to make his views about the experience public. Mark is the person whose allegations he was inappropriately touched by former deputy chief whip Chris Pincher contributed to Boris Johnson's resignation. He told us the following:

"I saw the reviews on the show we did and you know the crux of it was correct. Being one of the seven I agree somewhat with some of the people who said the show was hi-jacked by two of the more outspoken participants – I know because I was there doing it and with them for five days. 

The whole time we were there it was like being taken over by a couple of people who seemed to take things so personally. 

It was me who participated in eating the dog food from the dog food tin – omitted, ate from the dirty nappy – omitted, when we were asked to take a flo test six of them baulked and I volunteered to do it straight away, as in the hospital I have encountered this sort of lethargy before and that was what we got. None of that was used, so why get us to do it? 

I got to thinking why did some of them come if they were not going to participate.

The whole fact checker furore ended up in a big fight and we all stormed off – I went for a run to clear my head and headed to the church across the way when I had finished. Two others had sought sanctuary there too!

After the big fight we were all interviewed separately and after that I swore a lot – they cut that bit too!!

I felt terrible for Hannah and when I saw her cancer journey a month later I was even more sad for what she had to put up with."

 

 

Why did Frontiers publish a flawed study massively exaggerating Covid risk to children?

<Note: Before publishing this article we sent it to the Editors of Frontiers in Pediatrics asking if they wished to correct any inaccuracies or provide any updates, giving them several days to respond. They did not acknowledge or respond.>

In September 2021 Frontiers in Pediatrics published this article by members of the Indonesian Pediatrician Association (IDAI) claiming that the case fatality rate (CFR) for children with ‘suspected’ Covid in Indonesia was 1.4% (i.e. 1 in 71) with a CFR of 0.46% (1 in 217) for those with ‘confirmed’ Covid. No such high Covid fatality rates for children have been observed elsewhere in the world. In fact, worldwide the infection fatality rate was estimated (at the time the IDAI paper was published) to be 1 in 37,000  for those aged under 20.

The IDAI authors also made the startingly claim that, of the 175 ‘confirmed Covid deaths’ of children in their study, 62 had no existing comorbidities.  But again,  elsewhere in the world cases of covid death in children without serious comorbidities are almost unheard of. For example, in the UK in the whole of 2020,  a deep analysis of ALL child deaths with Covid (there were 28 in total) revealed only 8 were confirmed as likely caused by Covid and that all 8 had a comorbidity recorded, seven of whom had a life-limiting condition.  

An article by Ted Hilbert written shortly after the IDAI article was published highlighted the major problems with the study.  While the claims in the paper were startling, in June 2021 the IDAI (through its chairman) exaggerated the paper’s findings even further, claiming to the media that Indonesia has the highest child mortality rate (CFR) in the world, 3% to 5%. This article  provides the full details of the obviously fraudulent claim and includes the police report that was filed in response.

However, the massively exaggerated claim was used by IDAI to justify vaccinating children in Indonesia, and indeed a recommendation letter from IDAI to the government, based on the flawed study and claims about it, has been used as the main justification by the Indonesian government to issue the EUA and related policies for vaccinating children.

In the paper, the IDAI authors did not provide the raw data from which their conclusions were drawn, so Hilbert wrote to them requesting it. He received no reply (despite a statement by the authors that “The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation”) and so wrote to the Editors of Frontiers on 23 Oct 2021 to request the data. The Editors finally replied on 11 Nov 2021 stating that they would contact the authors requesting the data and finally on 30 Nov 2021 the “Research Integrity Specialist” at Frontiers sent this link to the data.

After analysing the data with other experts including pathologists, a group of authors wrote an 8-page detailed response to Frontiers on 15 Dec 2021 pointing out multiple flaws in the study and inaccuracies in the data.

Hilbert has been promised several times that a review by the editors will take place but (as of today 14 July 2022) this has never happened despite several follow up requests by Hilbert.  The paper, with its flawed conclusions that have led to Indonesia’s child vaccine policy, remains published and unchanged.

It is worth pointing out that Frontiers can hardly be accused of not responding to complaints about papers on Covid treatments. But it seems only complaints against papers showing benefits of alternative treatments are taken seriously. In May 2021 Frontiers in Pharmacology published an abstract of a study by Pierre Kory on ivermectin for COVID-19 that had passed peer review with an expert panel of reviewers including senior reviewers from the FDA; but shortly before the full paper was due to be published in a special issue edited by Robert Malone - it was pulled due to a third-party complaint,with no chance for resubmission.