This new JAMA study is worth discussing. It found that, this winter, vax effectiveness in 12-15 yos dropped to 0% after 3-5 months & vaccinated were MORE likely to test+ at month 7. May be confounded (see🧵)
But I don't see this as good reason for boosters jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/…
I think the most likely confounder here which could lead to the calculated negative effectiveness is higher amount of immunity from prior infection in the unvaccinated group. It could also be related to different behaviors in the two groups. Need randomization to sort this out
Remember, we have seen the same pattern of negative effectiveness in 5-11 year olds in NY so I don't think what we are seeing in the JAMA study is limited to 12-17 year olds
Also, remember, this is only looking at infection rate and not severe disease rate
Some have suggested negative effectiveness may be due to imprinting leading to an increased risk of infection among vaccinated over time, but until randomized data or other more convincing data are available I'm not ready to latch onto that theory, though it's hard to rule out
Almost all kids are very low risk from this disease & especially since protection against infection wanes quickly, we need risk benefit analyses of protection against severe disease vs vaccine adverse events for each dose, esp since >3/4 of kids have immunity from prior infection
Re imprinting: some data we have so far to support this are randomized moderna data showing vaccinated less likely than unvax to develop anti-nucleocapsid antibodies after infection (40-50 vs >90%) but I don't think we know what this means clinically yet medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Bravo to two of my best friends, @StabellBenn & #ramduriseti. Brilliant idea for a study. 👏
I need to clarify these are not NEW trials but a new analysis/study of the original randomized trials
At least some of these trials were done using process 1 and not process 2. I know @joshg99 has more details about the processes used in the initial children's trials than I do.
Our @CDCDirector is reciting US govt propaganda
-omitting incidental hospitalization rates
-omitting better @JAMACardio data finding post vax myocarditis 6-28x higher than post covid in 16-24 yo males
-omitting the fact no European countries recommend the new vax for healthy kids
@CDCDirector @JAMACardio Here is the study in @JAMACardio with better data from the Nordic countries about post vaccination myocarditis and my tweet going over the math
Here's the piece of propaganda she's citing
They take an unrepresentative sample of covid+ people w/diagnoses in the US electronic health record system & compare them w people who didn't have a covid dx in the EHR & pretend that=infected vs not infected🤦♀️ cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/7…
@US_FDA just approved Pfizer vax ABRYSVO in pregnancy to protect infants against RSV despite a 20%! higher rate of preterm birth in vax group (5.7%) vs controls (4.7%)
Here's the MATISSE study, the basis of the VRBPAC approval
Table above from this (non open access) study
Pfizer in the VRBPAC meeting said all they would've needed to determine if preterm birth signal real was enroll 5,000 instead of 3,600 in each arm🤦♀️ nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…
Four VRBPAC members voted against recommending it due to safety concerns (including @DrPaulOffit & my favorite Hana El Sahly)
It will be extremely difficult if not impossible to determine if this signal is real with post marketing surveillance/studies in the US
Just...wow. How is this @JAMANetworkOpen article on supposed "misinformation" spread by physicians not parody?
I outline in this🧵9 of the more egregious false claims made by the authors
❌Here the article cites the flawed Data Tracker for death count that doesn't use death certificates & has repeatedly overcounted deaths in children, as we described in our paper ()
CDC Wonder put deaths from (not with COVID) at around 980,000 as of 7/2023. https://t.co/v3hCpuZgbjpapers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
I am working on another article right now w @KelleyKga & @VPrasadMDMPH specifically discussing Data Tracker vs Wonder for covid deaths, so if I get any details wrong, please lmk.
I do know enough to say the Data Tracker has proven itself to be unreliable for covid death counts.
Our correspondence is out in @njem written w @VPrasadMDMPH & Ram Duriseti
We show v strong evidence of healthy vaccinee bias in an Israeli study of Pfizer booster vs covid death, which wasn't disclosed
Could explain ALL reported benefit of the booster🧵
https://t.co/b29YQ0lblhnejm.org/doi/full/10.10…
This bias may apply to all similar studies from Israel's Clalit Health Services
This
Highlights the importance of data transparency (their data aren't made publicly available, thus findings can't be re-analyzed)
&
Highlights the importance of providing data on all cause deaths
The authors concede to "a strong, unexplained association between the use of the booster and lower mortality not related to Covid-19"
We have a full paper coming soon where we will be able to respond thoroughly to their response +more on Clalit (not giving away details..)
Is @CDCMMWR a reliable journal for informing health policy?
In a new paper Alyson Haslam @VPrasadMDMPH & I analyze 77 MMWR reports pertaining to masks
Our results were concerning
>75% concluded masks were effective
w/only 30% testing masks
0 were RCTs🧵
https://t.co/PwL1pcdlhVmedrxiv.org/content/10.110…
We show select additional characteristics of the studies in Figure 1
None cited randomized studies of masks
98.8% did not cite conflicting evidence re masks
>75% concluded masks were effective w/<15% having statistically significant results
Over 50% used causal language
We give examples of causal statements here👇
All instances of causal statements were inappropriate given methodology, with the exception of a mannequin study, with unknown relevance for human health.