1/V
Quick thread on another reason why I don't trust Vinay Prasad.
I'm an immunologist, and one of the main reasons I first came to Twitter 4 years ago was to debunk vaccine denialism.
2/V
To be blunt, I know more about immunology and vaccines than Prasad. This is not his field of expertise.
The study he cites does not support the claim he made:
science.sciencemag.org/content/371/65…
And the John Snow memo is pretty good:
3/V
There were good reasons for thinking COVID-19 vaccines would induce a better immune response than infection.
I was not the first to point this out (h/t @drjenndowd).
4/V
So I responded to Prasad's thread by going over some of the reasons he was wrong.
In reply, he blocked me, without addressing what I said. He's fairly notorious for blocking to evade criticism.
5/V
So let's check some recent evidence on immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 vaccines vs. infection.
page 32:
medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
page 24:
fda.gov/media/144246/d…
6/V
More evidence on immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 vaccines vs. infection:
figure 1C, and:
"[...] post-vaccination neutralization titers were equal to or exceeded the titers found in the high responder convalescent group"
medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
7/V
FYI:
Neutralizing antibodies bind to SARS-CoV-2 to prevent it from infecting cells.
Vaccines can not only increase them more initially without infection, but also increase them after infection.
biorxiv.org/content/10.110…
science.sciencemag.org/content/early/…
8/V
So @VPrasadMDMPH's claim on vaccines failed.
Maybe he should spend more time honestly listening to criticism, as opposed:
- to running from it
- sub-tweeting his critics
- messing up more on COVID-19 vaccines for kids?
9/V
FYI:
Saying 'infection is better than vaccination' is a standard trope of vaccine denialism, as is peddling anti-vaxxers' misleading/false tropes while claiming to be pro-vaccine.
Let's not fall for it.
10/V
Twitter's blocking part 6/V for some reason.
So here's the information in it:
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