Anti-vaxxers have been going wild over this paper from several HART members. But it misses a blindingly obvious explanation for the odd looking ONS data, ignores the data definitions, then manipulates the data to falsely claim the vaccines cause a (non-existent) spike in deaths!
The data oddity that caught their eyes is a bump in deaths per 100,000 in unvaccinated people in each age group, soon after that group starts being vaccinated.
But as the overall mortality rates show, there is NO spike in deaths during the vaccine rollout.
So what's going on?
The paper's authors wrongly believe the vaccines are killing us, so they present the data like this.
I replicated this graph from the raw ONS data, and it is correct. BUT it has an obvious explanation that doesn't involve claiming the ONS is deliberately miscategorising deaths!
Let's plot that graph another way. Instead of looking at the % of people in the 60-69 age group who were vaccinated each week, let's look at the % of them who are still in the unvaccinated group at the end of each week.
Here it is for 1st doses. Can you see what's going on yet?
It's even clearer for 2nd doses.
When death rates in each age group peak, the population that's taking place in is small.
Death rates in unvaccinated 60-69 year olds peaked when only 8.3% of people in that age group were unvaccinated.
For single dosed people it's 2.5% or less!
This is a relatively small and unrepresentative group, which will be biased towards people who were too ill to get vaccinated at the time.
Which probably explains why their death rates appear higher. Just 180 "extra" deaths a week produces that huge bump in death rates.
Of course, HART instead assume the data is faulty, and (having failed to read the data definitions, as usual) conclude that the vaccination status of people who die is systematically miscategorised.
In fact, the definitions show the categories do exactly what it says on the tin:
HART then go a step further though. This has Joel Smalley’s grubby fingerprints all over it, as it creates a completely artificial baseline that assumes people die at a constant rate all year (!), and arbitrarily assigns every "excess" death in the unvaccinated to the vaccinated!
This produces an alarming looking graph that claims there's a HUGE spike in non-covid death rates immediately after vaccination.
Which is, of course, complete and utter nonsense. Absolutely nothing in the ONS data they're using supports this false claim.
In fact, using the method described in the paper, I can't replicate this graph. If I conveniently ignore any negative "excess" deaths it generates, I get a close match up to about week 12, but after that they do something else to the data that isn't described in the paper. 🤔
Regardless, if you look at the REAL overall non-covid death rate for all people in this age group (the black line in my graph below), you can see there are NO spikes, even though the individual subpopulations (due to selection bias) go up and down dramatically.
No excess deaths.
Once again, Joel Smalley has conjured up non-existent excess deaths by creating a fake baseline and then manipulating the data to give the answer he wants.
This is far from the first time he's done this. Why do @MartinNeil9 & @profnfenton work with him?
Having missed an obvious explanation for a data oddity and fabricated data to fit their anti-vax narrative, the authors then accuse the ONS of systematically miscategorising deaths based on vaccination status, possibly "as a matter of policy"!
It's real tin foil hat level stuff.
It's a puzzle that @qmul continue to ignore @MartinNeil9 and @profnfenton's increasingly blatant anti-vax output and links to cranks and conspiracy nuts.
At this point they're either deliberately misleading people or just plain incompetent.
Neither is a good look for academics.
PS: they also claim the ONS's population data is wrong.
But as the paper says, "populations move between age groups as people have birthdays".
They forgot that this includes people who turned 10, who are then added to the data.
This process ends 10 years after the 2011 census:
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Aseem Malhotra has been confirmed as a speaker at next weekend's Reform UK conference. The increasingly anti-vaccine cardio crank is already Chief Health Advisor to Farage's anti-WHO "Action on World Health" campaign, and now seems to be angling for a job with Reform too. 🧵
This intersection of far right politics and anti-vaccine health contrarians in the UK is no surprise, after Reform's 2024 manifesto pandered to conspiracy theorists, many of whom helped out on their campaign or even stood as candidates for the party.
Reform's links to anti-vaxxers in the UK go back years. Richard Tice was in contact with ivermectin pusher Tess Lawrie and pandemic denier Jonathan Engler in 2021 and several Reform / Brexit Party veterans were involved in the covid conspiracy movement.
Advance UK recently announced its committee, which includes anti-vax data mangler Norman Fenton, racist conspiracy theorist Jim Ferguson, climate change denier Paul Burgess, and conspiracy theory website editor Kathy Gyngell. 🧵
Paul Burgess was environment spokesman for the far right For Britain Movement (a UKIP splinter group which, like Reform splinter group Advance UK, was backed by Tommy Robinson). He's also appeared on GB News as a "climate commentator".
Kathy Gyngell is the editor of Conservative Woman, a right wing website which during the pandemic went from attacking gay and trans rights and other culture wars nonsense to spreading anti-vaccine propaganda, covid conspiracy theories and AIDS denialism.
The co-founder of "Operation Raise the Colours" (the recent spate of people putting English flags on lamp posts) is an old friend of Tommy Robinson who says he's been "16 years by his side", and had breakfast with Robinson after his release from jail earlier this year. 🧵
Tommy Robinson's mate Andy Saxon and his "Operation Raise the Colours" have also had support from UKIP leader / Turning Point UK COO Nick Tenconi (recently seen giving what looked like a Nazi salute), far right Britain First Party and its co-leader / ex BNP member Paul Golding.
Before his "Operation Raise the Colours" gained momentum recently, Saxon posted support for Britain First and its "remigration" campaign to remove immigrants from the UK, as well as offensive and sometimes threatening Islamophobic content.
🧵 Kate Shemirani's daughter sadly died last year, after refusing chemotherapy for her cancer, in favour of the kind of extreme quackery promoted by her mum.
Refusing to take responsibility, Kate accused the NHS of homicide and subjecting her daughter to medical experimentation.
Kate Shemirani and her ex-husband issued a statement after their daughter's death, wildly claiming that it was part of "a systemic pattern of state-sponsored medical homicide and institutional cover-up" by the NHS, and suggesting that she was part of an "unregulated drug trial".
Inevitably, Kate Shemirani and her allies are using the tragedy to raise money, claiming "they have taken her daughter". Their target is up to £100,000 to challenge the outcome of an inquest that hasn't even happened yet. So far they've only raised £2,455 from gullible followers.
Dilbert creator Scott Adams has sadly got prostate cancer. After going down a rabbit hole during the pandemic though, he turned to Canadian quack William Makis who (as always) recommended ivermectin and fenbendazole. Which did not work. Now they're in an unseemly row over it. 🧵
Ivermectin pusher William Makis responded to Scott Adams' post by claiming he didn't follow his "protocol" (which Adams denies), his cancer was "probably" caused by covid vaccines, and that he "didn't discount the possibility" that Adams was part of a plot to discredit him. 😬
Unsurprisingly Scott Adams is giving short shrift to Makis and other quacks and their followers, who are trying to blame his cancer on covid vaccines or encourage him to try anti-parasitics, vitamins, fasting, diets and other dodgy "cures" for his cancer.
This week sees the second "ARC Forum" in London, a right wing talking shop with overtones of Islamophobia, transphobia and climate change denial, funded by Paul Marshall and Legatum, who are also behind GB News.
Unsurprisingly there are a lot of familiar faces there... 🧵
Alan Miller from anti-lockdown turned anti-everything group Together is on a panel.
He was interviewed at ARC Forum by right wing channel Newsmax Australia, and was apparently "shocked to learn" that, according to them, Australia has no free speech and supports trans people. 🤷♂️
Toby Young founded Daily Sceptic, which like Together started out as anti-lockdown but then branched out into culture war outrage farming and omni-contrarianism.
It's still edited by a member of anti-vax misinformation group HART, who laundered their work through the site.