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How a blunder by a respected medical journal is fueling an anti-vaccine lie

Published

2 months ago

June 11, 2024

How a blunder by a respected medical journal is fueling an anti-vaccine lie

The paper published by the respected British Medical Journal earlier this month was eye-opening, to say the least. It questioned why excess deaths in Western countries remained unusually elevated during the COVID-19 pandemic even after vaccines were introduced in 2021.

The implication seemed clear: Rather than reducing cases and deaths, the COVID vaccines had fueled the tragic tide.

That finding was picked up within 48 hours by the Telegraph, a conservative British daily. It leaped across the Atlantic Ocean to the New York Post, a part of the Murdoch media empire, one day later.

Various news outlets have claimed that this research implies a direct causal link between COVID-19 vaccination and mortality. This study does not establish any such link.

— British Medical Journal

Since then, it has been widely spread on social media by the anti-vaccination camp. The repetitions have become increasingly febrile, with some tweets blaming the vaccines for tens of millions of deaths.

Here’s what you need to know: There is no truth to this finding, or to the anti-vaccine camp’s interpretation of the BMJ paper.

The journal, which posted the paper on its Public Health webpage on June 3, has acknowledged that. In a public statement issued June 6, after the faulty interpretation began to spread worldwide, the journal observed: “Various news outlets have claimed that this research implies a direct causal link between COVID-19 vaccination and mortality. This study does not establish any such link.”

On the contrary, the journal wrote, “Vaccines have, in fact, been instrumental in reducing the severe illness and death associated with COVID-19 infection.”

Alas, the journal’s warning came too late. As I write, the Telegraph’s June 4 tweet hawking its misleading story has received 1.5 million views on X (formerly-Twitter), but the BMJ’s warning notice, only 388,000 views.

These figures are proof positive of the old saw (attributed to Winston Churchill, among many others) that “a lie can make it halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.”

Some researchers argue that the original paper, by a team of Dutch scientists, was so shoddy and inconsequential that it should not have been published at all.

Among the critics is Ariel Karlinsky, an Israeli economist and statistician whose data constituted the core of the Dutch paper. Karlinsky has written that the BMJ should retract the paper and “open an inquiry into what happened there with editors and reviewers.” The journal hasn’t responded.

The use that anti-vaccine propagandists have made of the BMJ paper underscores the dangers of disinformation in public health today.

A recent study in Science analyzed the impact of what its authors labeled “vaccine-skeptical” published content on vaccine refusal. The authors examined anti-vaccine posts on Facebook during the first three months of the COVID vaccine rollout in early 2021.

They found that posts flagged by third-party fact-checkers as false received a relatively minimal 8.7 million views in that period. Posts that were not flagged by fact-checkers but “nonetheless implied that vaccines were harmful to health — many of which were from credible mainstream news outlets — were viewed hundreds of millions of times.”

The flagged posts were more likely to inspire vaccine resistance, the authors wrote. Although unflagged posts individually had less impact on vaccine sentiment, the volume of those posts was so immense that cumulatively they did more damage to vaccine rates.

A single vaccine-skeptical article in the Chicago Tribune — headlined “A healthy doctor died two weeks after getting a COVID vaccine; CDC is investigating why” — was viewed by more than 50 million users on Facebook, more than 20% of the platform’s U.S. user base. That was “more than six times the number of views than all flagged misinformation combined.”

It’s also true that articles that may be innocuous or inconclusive at their core can be distorted and magnified into explicitly anti-vaccine messages by being passed through the anti-vax network.

Something of the kind happened with the BMJ paper. Its language alluding to “serious concerns” about the impact of vaccines and “containment measures” such as lockdowns on excess deaths was transmogrified into the Telegram’s headline stating that “Covid vaccines may have helped fuel rise in excess deaths” and similar language in the New York Post.

The anti-vaxx camp, in repeating these claims, did so after removing or minimizing most of the qualifying language. The headline on a report published by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccine organization, Children’s Health Defense, stated that the COVID vaccines “likely fueled rise in excess deaths,” attributing that conclusion to “mainstream media.”

The CHD report cited a blog post by anti-vaxx crusader Meryl Nass, republishing the Telegraph article. The Nass post was headlined “The Dam Has Broken,” suggesting that major news sources were now accepting the dangers of the COVID vaccines.

Nass, by the way, is a Maine physician who has had her license suspended and been fined $10,000 for having prescribed ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, two medicines known to be useless in treating COVID-19, to patients.

Put it all together, and the evolution of the BMJ paper into a brief claiming that the COVID vaccines are harmful to health plays into the most extreme anti-vaccine disinformation in circulation — such as the incredibly ignorant and dangerous recommendation by Joseph Ladapo, the anti-vaccine quack appointed as Florida surgeon general by Gov. Ron DeSantis, that no one under 65 take a COVID vaccine.

The medical and immunological communities have overwhelmingly concluded that the COVID-19 vaccines have massively reduced hospitalizations and death from the disease. A December 2022 report card by the Commonwealth Fund concluded that after two years of administration, the vaccines had prevented more than 18 million additional hospitalizations and more than 3 million additional deaths.

This is the progress placed at risk by the torrent of anti-vaccine propaganda purveyed by RFK Jr.’s organization and other vaccination opponents.

That brings us back to the BMJ paper and its manifest flaws.

“Excess deaths,” the metric purportedly examined by the Dutch authors, is simply the number of deaths in a country during a given period over and above those that would have been expected “under normal conditions,” based on historical patterns.

In more than 40 Western countries during the three peak years of the pandemic, the authors reported, there were 1.033 million excess deaths in 2020, about 1.26 million in 2021 and 808,000 in 2022.

The authors expressed perplexity about why excess deaths actually rose in 2021, despite the arrival of the vaccines and the implementation of social anti-pandemic measures, and remained elevated the following year. “Government leaders and policymakers,” the authors wrote, “ need to thoroughly investigate underlying causes of persistent excess mortality.”

The authors further commented that “consensus is also lacking in the medical community regarding concerns that mRNA vaccines might cause more harm than initially forecasted.” That’s a gross misrepresentation.

The consensus in the medical community is indisputably that the vaccines are safe and effective. Although they do cause occasional side effects (as do all vaccines), the health threats caused by COVID-19 itself are immeasurably more hazardous.

The truth is that the factors causing elevated excess mortality throughout the pandemic are not mysterious, but well-understood. Statistical data scientist Jeffrey S. Morris of the University of Pennsylvania put his finger on some of the most important.

One is that far more people were exposed to COVID-19 in 2021 than in 2020. By the end of 2020, according to the World Health Organization, there were about 10,000 cases and about 238 deaths per million population; one year later, there 35,186 cases and 683 deaths per million. Furthermore, the COVID variants that appeared in 2021 — the Delta and Omicron waves — were far more transmissible and virulent (causing more hospitalization and death) than the initial variants.

Also in 2021, many of the most stringent anti-pandemic measures implemented in 2020 — school closings, lockdowns, business closures, mask mandates — were getting lifted by local authorities. This raised the level of exposure to the virus in the general public.

As for the vaccines, the Dutch authors seemed to conjecture that vaccination happened as if with the turning of a switch in January 2021. Of course that’s untrue.

Figures compiled by the independent statistical clearinghouse Our World in Data — which were used by the Dutch researchers — show that the vaccines were rolled out only gradually through 2021. By mid-year, only about 20% of the population of countries that submitted figures had received even a single dose; by the end of 2021, nearly 50% were still unvaccinated.

“Even with a 100% effective vaccine, we would have seen high levels of morbidity and mortality from COVID-19 in 2021, leading to high number of excess deaths,” Morris observes.

Statisticians have shown that the peaks and valleys of excess mortality during the pandemic coincide almost exactly with the emergence and peaks of Delta, Omicron and other variants of concern, indicating that excess deaths are almost certainly the result of COVID, not the COVID vaccines.

One other data point: As the British actuary Stuart McDonald points out, of the 47 countries surveyed by the Dutch researchers, the 10 with the lowest rates of excess deaths are those with the highest vaccine uptakes, such as Canada (83% vaccination rate in 2022 and only 5% excess deaths in 2020-22) and Germany (76% vaccinated and 6% excess deaths). By contrast, those with the lowest vaccination rates tended to have the most excess deaths, including North Macedonia (40% vaccinated at 28% excess deaths) and Albania (45% vaccinated, 24% excess deaths).

Is there a remedy for claptrap like the BMJ article? Sadly, very little. Qualified scientists and epidemiologists have risen up almost as one to expose the flaws of the BMJ paper. But the first line of defense against disinformation must be scientific journals themselves. In this case, if not for the first time, the BMJ has failed its responsibility for being a gatekeeper of sound science.

Business

FAA clears SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket for launch after malfunction

Published

2 hours ago

July 27, 2024

Press Room

FAA clears SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket for launch after malfunction

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket has been cleared by the Federal Aviation Administration to resume launch operations after the company determined the cause of an engine failure earlier this month.

The company’s primary commercial rocket was lifting a payload of 20 internet Starlink satellites into orbit on July 11 when the second-stage engine misfired, leaving the satellites in a lower orbit than intended. They later fell to earth and were destroyed in the atmosphere.

SpaceX said Friday the cause of the misfire was a liquid oxygen leak in a line leading to a pressure sensor. The company — whose founder Elon Musk recently announced plans to move the company’s headquarters from Hawthorne, Calif., to the outskirts of Brownsville, Texas — said the leak developed when the line cracked due to a loose clamp.

The FAA said it authorized SpaceX to resume launches on Thursday since the mishap did not endanger the public, but the investigation remains open.

The Falcon 9 has been critical in establishing SpaceX’s Starlink satellite broadband network. It also handles commercial payloads and launches the company’s Dragon capsules, which carry cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station.

The Falcon 9, which has a reusable first stage, has launched a total 352 missions, according to SpaceX. The company said the first stage used in the failed launch returned to Earth safely. Prior to the mishap, the Falcon 9 had not failed in more than 300 flights.

The rocket last failed in flight in June 2015 when it was carrying out an uncrewed cargo resupply mission to the space station. A Falcon 9 exploded on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in September 2016 during fueling while carrying a satellite payload.

The importance of the rocket to NASA’s space program has been underscored this month by the troubles experienced by Boeing’s Starliner capsule, which is on its third test flight to the space station.

The capsule, intended to give NASA another vehicle to reach the station, launched its first human flight June 5 for what was expected to be an eight-day mission. But it has remained docked to the station for seven weeks due to helium leaks and a malfunctioning of its thruster engines.

NASA and Boeing officials said Thursday that Starliner could be cleared to return the astronauts to earth as soon as next month, but there has been speculation that a Dragon capsule launched by a Falcon 9 may have to retrieve them.

Business

From Heisman Trophy to SUV, O.J. Simpson property auction approved to pay off civil claims

Published

9 hours ago

July 27, 2024

Press Room

From Heisman Trophy to SUV, O.J. Simpson property auction approved to pay off civil claims

O.J. Simpson’s Heisman Trophy, golf clubs, high-end sports utility vehicle and even his driver’s license will soon be sold to pay off a debt the infamous football star carried beyond his own death.

A Nevada probate judge agreed Friday to a proposal by legal representatives of Simpson’s estate to auction “unique and high-profile” personal property, according to attorney’s representing the estate. It is not clear how much money the auction will raise, but it is intended to help pay a portion of a civil claim by the family of murder victim Ron Goldman.

Thomas Grover, who represents Simpson estate attorney Malcolm LaVergne, said the estate was already “beginning the process to auction the items soon.”

The action comes a day after Fred Goldman, father of slain waiter Ron Goldman, filed a creditor claim in Clark County District Court for $117 million against Simpson’s estate.

Michaelle Rafferty, lead attorney for Goldman, said there were no objections from the Goldman family over the auction.

“Our hope is that Mr. LaVergne will use very reputable auction houses and that those funds will come back to the estate,” Rafferty said Friday afternoon.

Both sides are expected back in court next month.

Ron Goldman’s family won a wrongful death civil case against Simpson in 1997, which found him liable for the murders of Goldman and Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson. The family was initially awarded $8.5 million in compensatory damages.

The jury later awarded $25 million in punitive damages to be split between Nicole Brown Simpson and Goldman family members.

The civil victories came after Simpson’s famous acquittal in the double murder criminal case, known as the “Trial of the Century,” in October 1995.

The 76-year-old Simpson died in April of prostate cancer.

Fred Goldman and daughter Kim lamented that “true accountability has ended” with Simpson’s death. However, Fred Goldman continued pursuing civil collections.

LaVergne was, at first, hostile to the idea of paying off the civil judgment, telling the Las Vegas Review Journal in an interview two days after Simpson’s passing that the Goldman family would “get zero, nothing.” “I will do everything in my capacity as the executor or personal representative to try and ensure that they get nothing,” he said.

LaVergne mellowed, however, and vowed in an interview with The Times to “handle this thing in a calm and dispassionate manner.”

LaVergne’s retraction did not surprise Rafferty.

“The situation changes dramatically with a death,” she said. “Mr. LaVergne was representing his client personally, and now it’s about the estate, proceedings and addressing creditors.”

Court documents from 2015 show the family has received about $132,000 of the total liability.

The $117 million claim includes three renewed judgments against Simpson from 2015, 2016 and 2022 along with interest. Statutory interest alone from June 3, 2022, to July 25, 2024, accounted for an additional $20.7 million. Goldman is also claiming a daily amount of accrued interest of at least $16,638.73.

It’s unknown what type of memorabilia or possessions remain on Simpson’s property.

Rafferty said she had not received an inventory from LaVergne and does not know ultimately how much the Goldman family will collect.

She said LaVergne was obligated to give notice about the intended auction houses, assets and opening bid prices.

“We’ll look it over and we’ll have two weeks to object,” she said.

Business

After 57 years of open seating, is Southwest changing its brand?

Published

17 hours ago

July 26, 2024

Press Room

Jim Kingsley of Orange County, who recently flew Southwest on a two-leg journey from Minneapolis to Los Angeles, likened the budget-friendly airline to In-N-Out Burger.

Both brands are affordable, consistent and more simplistic compared with competitors, Kingsley said.

“They’re not trying to offer all the things everybody else offers,” he said, “but they get the quality right and it’s a good value.”

Change, however, is in the air.

Southwest, which since its founding nearly 60 years ago has positioned itself in the cutthroat airline industry as an easygoing, egalitarian option, upended that guiding ethos this week with word that it would get rid of its famous first-come, first-seated policy in favor of traditional assigned seats and a premium class option. They will also offer overnight, red-eye flights in five markets including Los Angeles.

Experts say the changes, especially the switch to assigned seating, are a smart move and will appeal to many as the company tries to stabilize its precarious finances that included a 46% drop in profits in the second quarter from a year earlier to $367 million. But it remains to be seen whether Southwest will pay an intangible cost in making the moves: Will it be able to hold on to its quirky identity or will it put off loyal customers, and in doing so, become just another airline?

“You’re going to hear nostalgia about this, but I think it’s very logical and probably something the company should have done years ago,” said Duane Pfennigwerth, a global airlines analyst at Evercore.

“In many markets away from core Southwest markets, we think open seating is a boarding process that many people avoid,” he said.

That is all well and good, but “I didn’t ask for these changes,” Kingsley said. “Cost and quality is what I care about.”

Open seating has its pros and cons, Kingsley said, though he’s generally a fan. On his trip to Los Angeles, his group wasn’t able to get seats all together. But he likes that preferred seats are available on a first-come, first-served basis, instead of being offered for a high price.

Eighty percent of Southwest customers and 86% of potential customers prefer an assigned seat, the airline said in a statement.

“By moving to an assigned seating model, Southwest expects to broaden its appeal and attract more flying from its current and future customers,” the airline said.

An even bigger draw of Southwest, according to Kingsley, is its policy of including two free checked bags per ticket. This perk often makes Southwest a better bargain, especially for longer trips or bigger groups, he said.

The free bags are a big deal to customers, experts said, and contribute to the airline’s consumer-friendly brand. The airline hasn’t indicated they plan to change their bag policy.

“Southwest has always had a really good, positive vibe,” said Alan Fyall, chair of Tourism Marketing at the University of Central Florida’s College of Hospitality. “It’s free bags, good prices and point-to-point routes. That’s what they stand for and that’s what people love about them.”

Southwest’s change to assigned seating doesn’t mean they’re no longer a budget-friendly airline, Fyall said, but it does differentiate them from the lowest-cost, lowest-amenity options such as Frontier and Spirit.

The move will also require Southwest to update all or a portion of its fleet to include first-class seats. Currently, all seats on a Southwest flight are identical. Fyall said it’s worth the investment.

It’s an appropriate time for Southwest to make adjustments, said Chris Hydock, an assistant professor at Tulane University’s Freeman School of Business.

“They’ve not been profitable the last couple of quarters and they’ve had some activist investor pressure to increase their revenue,” he said.

Costs such as wages and maintenance have risen across the airline industry even as travel increased after the pandemic. Southwest saw a net loss of $231 million in the first quarter of 2024. Wall Street analysts estimate that assigned, premium seating could boost revenue by $2 billion per year.

“This is one of the options where they could potentially increase their revenue and do something that a lot of consumers have a strong preference for anyway,” Hydock said.

For Southwest’s changes to pay off, it has to stick to its roots when it comes to its culture and brand, experts and travelers agreed.

“I love Southwest being different,” Kingsley said. “If they’re trying to be like the other airlines, I think they’re shooting themselves in the foot.”