Replies to post #372333 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

dropdeadfred, Fact Check-VAERS data does not prove thousands died from receiving COVID-19 vaccines

By Reuters Fact Check April 3, 20211:35 AM Updated 25 days ago

Updated to correct repeated clause and quotation in paragraph 12.

Viewed more than 21,000 times on Facebook, a video showing data collected by the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) claims that thousands of people died from receiving COVID-19 vaccines. The video, which fails to mention that anyone can report events to VAERS and that the database contains unverified information, describes reported deaths of individuals who died after receiving the vaccine as deaths caused by the vaccine, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has so far found no evidence that vaccinations led to patient deaths.

https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-vaers-deaths-idUSL1N2LV0NY

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Pick any number you want to attribute to the vaccine. Whatever.
Now say the vaccines haven't saved more than they have killed.

Melbourne doctors under review for promoting discredited Covid treatment

The drug regulator says a group of doctors is being investigated for promoting hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the virus, against all scientific evidence


Australia’s TGA has not approved hydroxychloroquine as a Covid treatment, meaning
doctors are breaking the law if they prescribe it for that purpose.
Photograph: AlexSava/Getty Images

Margaret Simons @MargaretSimons Mon 22 Feb 2021 03.30 AEDT

Last modified on Mon 22 Feb 2021 08.24 AEDT

Trust the experts, we are told. Believe the science. But what happens when it is a group of eminent doctors who are behind the misinformation – and they back their claims with a superficially convincing bevy of peer-reviewed academic journal articles?

These are the questions raised by the existence of the Covid Medical Network – a company run by three Melbourne doctors that has been promoting the use of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid-19 in defiance of the public health authorities, the World Health Organization and most expert medical opinion.

The CMN also casts doubt on the reliability of tests for Covid – because they only tell you whether you are positive or negative for the presence of the virus, not whether you are infectious – as well as the need for and efficacy of the vaccines, and says wearing masks can be harmful to your health.

Australia’s medical goods regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, has told the Guardian that the doctors are “under review” for possible breaches of consumer laws and the Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code that prohibit misleading advertising and advertising of prescription medicines. This is because the CMN promotes a cocktail of prescription drugs – including hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin – that are not approved for use to treat Covid-19 . The penalties can be severe.

[...]

Drug shows ‘no benefit’ against Covid

The core hydroxychloroquine claim of the CMN is that it is an effective treatment in the very earliest stages of infection when used with Zinc, Vitamin D, Vitamin C and a cocktail of other drugs.

The key reference providing support to this assertion is this article, the lead author of which is Dr Peter McCullough, vice-chief of internal medicine at Baylor University Medical Centre in Dallas, Texas. Zelenko is one of his 56 co-authors.

The article should be taken seriously, says Mathieson, because it is “peer reviewed”. The evidence is “now virtually beyond dispute,” he says.

But a check of the credentials of the journal in which it appeared – Reviews in Cardiovascular Medicine .. https://rcm.imrpress.com/EN/2153-8174/home.shtml – reveals that McCullough himself is the editor-in-chief of the journal in which he has published.

On top of that, the peer review process was astonishingly quick. The paper was submitted on 28 November, accepted after revisions on 15 December and published just a fortnight later.

Baylor Scott and White Health, which runs the medical centre where McCullough holds his position, told me that the article “does not reflect the views of Baylor Scott and White Health”.

The article argues for each of the component parts of the recommended cocktail of drugs in turn.

The main support for the use of hydroxychloroquine is a paragraph that claims “a continuously updated synthesis of studies” showed convincing benefits from hydroxychloroquine, including benefits in 63% of cases when administered in hospital treatment, and benefit in all cases where it had been used in early treatment.

Four other studies are cited in support of this claim. There are problems with at least three of them, and only one talks about early treatment.

The first, an observational study .. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971220305348 .. of patients hospitalised with Covid, examined a range of risk factors and concluded that hydroxychloroquine was associated with lower death rates – but this study was sharply criticised in letters to the editor of the journal where it was published. An expert in the field described .. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971220306020 .. it as “just not plausible”, methodologically flawed and its conclusions therefore “invalid”.

Another of the cited studies .. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-020-05983-z/ .. was described by a later systematic review .. https://academic.oup.com/jac/article/76/1/30/5919602?login=true .. as having “a moderate or serious risk of bias”. The authors of this study did not respond to emails seeking comment.


Randomised control trials have demonstrated hydroxychloroquine has no benefit for
reducing Covid outcomes, says US researcher Eli Rosenberg.
Photograph: John Locher/AP

But most shocking of all, yet another of the cited studies .. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2766117 .. concludes the opposite of what McCullough claims it says. Based on a study of 1,438 patients in New York, it found no benefit from hydroxychloroquine. The very small benefits detected were concluded to be statistically insignificant.

The lead author of this study, associate professor Eli Rosenberg of the University at Albany, has confirmed that it is “incorrect to reference our study as supportive of Hydroxychloroquine benefit”.

Since he published that paper, he says, randomised control trials had demonstrated that “hydroxychloroquine has no benefit for reducing Covid-19 outcomes” at any stage of treatment, including people not hospitalised and those at risk of infection. “The sum of the evidence indicates that researchers and providers should spend little energy on this drug, in favour of therapeutics that show actual benefit or promise for benefit.”

Yet on this shaky foundation, McCullough recommended an “urgent pivot” to his recommended regime of drugs, and has promoted this view widely.

McCullough’s article has also been published on the website of the worthy-sounding Association of American Physicians and Surgeons – which is in fact an interest group with links to the Trump administration. The Trump-appointed head of the Department of Health and Human Services, Tom Price, is a member, as was Republican senator Rand Paul. The AAPS is well known for campaigning against President Barack Obama’s affordable care act.

It has previously published articles questioning the safety of the measles vaccine and falsely suggesting that women who have abortions are at a higher risk of breast cancer. The AAPS site currently promotes a booklet that gives a “step by step” guide to home-based Covid treatment as something that could “save your life”, as well as an article by its lawyer suggesting the recent US election was “tainted beyond repair”.

Approached by the Guardian for comment, McCullough said the issue in which his article was published was a special, prompted by the “urgency of the crisis”. It had an independent guest editor and “all papers … underwent peer-review in the full and usual extent and the paper was published after suitable revisions”.

It is true that the relevant issue of the journal had three guest editors – all of them sit with McCullough on the editorial board, and they are experts in exercise and sports medicine. The identity of the peer reviewers is confidential.

As for the doubts about the cited studies, McCullough suggests that is because of bias. He says “studies demonstrating therapeutic benefit have been under heavy criticism by those who espouse therapeutic nihilism, that is, offering no care for high-risk patients with Covid-19 and allowing them to suffer, succumb to hospitalisation and death.”

Asked specifically about his use of the Rosenberg study, he did not respond directly but referred the Guardian to another article, of which he was one of four co-authors, which has not yet been subjected to peer review. This article studied five randomised trials of hydroxychloroquine and concluded there was a 24% reduction in infection, hospitalisation and death. The criteria by which the five studies were selected for review was not described. The lead author declared .. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.30.20204693v1 .. past consulting work for manufacturers of hydroxychloroquine.

McCullough says: “The larger body of observational data for [hydroxychloroquine] in outpatient use is strongly positive and continues to accrue daily.”

The Lancet changes editorial policy after hydroxychloroquine Covid study retraction
Read more > https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/22/the-lancet-reforms-editorial-policy-after-hydroxychloroquine-covid-study-retraction

Back in Melbourne, Mathieson has in his sights the National Covid-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce .. https://covid19evidence.net.au/ , which brings together peak health professional bodies across Australia to assess emerging research and advise government. He claims its reasons for ignoring the McCullough paper and other evidence in favour of hydroxychloroquine is “difficult to fathom”. He says it is out of date, and fails to pay attention to observational studies.
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The executive director of the taskforce, associate professor Julian Elliott, responded that it considered all reliable Covid-19 treatment evidence produced and published anywhere in the world, regardless of healthcare setting or phase of treatment. “We are not aware of any reliable evidence to support the use of hydroxychloroquine combination therapies … The taskforce maintains daily surveillance of Covid-19 research and rapidly updates the national guidelines as new evidence becomes available.”

Meanwhile, the TGA has not approved hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid, meaning doctors are breaking the law if they prescribe it for that purpose.

McCullough claims this is an “illegal interference” in the relationship between doctors and patients.

The Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency, which is responsible for regulating the medical profession, says “it is vital that health practitioners only provide information about Covid-19 that is scientifically accurate and from authoritative sources, such as a state, territory or Commonwealth health departments or the World Health Organization”.

Meanwhile, the TGA says more robust, well-designed clinical trials are required before any drug can be considered an appropriate treatment option.

There is no sign of that happening, and no sign that evidence, expertise or science will prevent dubious studies being published, or change the minds of Mathieson, the doctors who follow him and the media figures giving him oxygen.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/22/melbourne-doctors-under-review-for-promoting-discredited-covid-treatment

[blackhawks]

'Thousands of deaths' my ass. They pull J&J's vax for a few blood clots, but not whichever vax is killing thousands and hospitalizing 10's of thousands?

You've outdone yourself freddy; really buried the needle on the stupidometer.

[DragonBear]

COVID Vaccine Killing Huge Numbers, Warns Leading Doctor

Scenario 1: Someone with a humpty dumpty BMI, a LDL/HDL cholesterol reading of 4.0+ has a heart attack 5 days after being vaccinated. Freddy would proclaim... see see sea the vaccine causes heart attacks!

Scenario 2: One of the good ole Proud Boys has SteatoHepatitis of the liver, due to a slight over consumption of alcohol, through most of his drunken life. Two weeks after getting vaccinated he dies of acute liver failure. OMG Freddy screams: "The vaccine kills livers!".

Scenario 3: Pick an affliction! Someone gets vaccinated, and dies of an affliction 6 months later. Freddy bounces off the wall.

"Dr. McCullough, a professor of medicine" should be tested for Alzheimer disease.