Out now in @AnnalsofIM👇

Our re-analysis of an observational study published in @NEJM claiming dropping school mask mandates had the effect of increasing covid cases

We show why the study's conclusion was faulty
&
How analyzing only select data can give misleading results

1/ "Misleading" and -potentially- preferred results.

Let us not forget the @AmerAcadPeds recommended children playing outdoor team sports wear masks...for their health..based on?🤷‍♀️

Just published👇 our group has compiled evidence of downsides of masking children, including data from RCTs & weighed them with...unproven benefits
1/





Was an honor to once again team up with Johanna Sandlund, @JeanneNoble18, Ram Duriseti, @ShamezLadhani & @Kelly05484118

Link to article in Paediatric Respiratory Reviews: sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

How effective was the 2023-24 mRNA covid vax vs Covid infection?

Below are data from Cleveland Clinic showing the unadjusted cumulative Covid incidence by vax status👇
Day 0=12/31/2023

🔵Vaccinated
🔴Unvaccinated

Does this appear like an effective vax vs infection to you?

1/ Some will mention that the adjusted estimated vax effectiveness was reported as 23%, but this disappears if you do not adjust for prior number of covid vax doses

This group found the more prior vax doses you have had, the higher your risk of covid infection during the study.

Something I haven't seen mentioned re the loss of trust in physicians study👇 is the irony that the paper itself could worsen the problem w/its lack of introspection, failing to cite any examples of things US "experts" got wrong & yet forced on the public during covid!

List in🧵 First, this is the authors' own #11 citation from above. Of course people should have been skeptical about "shelter in place". We still don't have evidence it improved health, yet the authors suggest the skepticism is part of the problem

Remember, the scientific process requires skepticism. So how is "science skepticism" not just part of science itself?🤔
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34646034/

There was 1 point in my conversation w/@ashishkjha on @OnPointRadio that I wanted to discuss:

It's not true that the Feb 2021 @CDCgov reopening guidelines under the Biden admin facilitated school reopening. 90% of the country was in "red" and, per CDC, shouldn't open full time🧵

https://twitter.com/jflier/status/1800949380801056965

For districts that implemented testing, middle & high schools didn't all have to be totally remote and could go back in hybrid mode in high community transmission

But only if they were 6 feet apart

& sports would still all be virtual 😬🤦‍♀️

(we were one year in at this point!)

This is a superb article by @MIT's @Ayjchan, which compiles an incredible amount of scientific evidence suggesting SARS-CoV-2 was created at the Wuhan Institute of Virology & did not come from nature.

She says:
"it is undeniable that U.S. federal funding helped to build an unprecedented collection of SARS-like viruses at the Wuhan institute, as well as contributing to research that enhanced them. Advocates and funders of the institute’s research, including Dr. Fauci, should cooperate with the investigation to help identify and close the loopholes that allowed such dangerous work to occur. The world must not continue to bear the intolerable risks of research with the potential to cause pandemics.

A credible investigation would also deter future acts of negligence and deceit by demonstrating that it is indeed possible to be held accountable for causing a viral pandemic."

‼️

I include a few key excerpts from the article below for those who don't subscribe 🧵
nytimes.com/interactive/20… We should be asking why coronaviruses were being created with a greater potential to infect humans.

(Chinese MD, PhD virologist @DrLiMengYAN1
has been outspoken about the fact she believes sars-cov-2 was a CCP bioweapon)

& why the world was cut off from the WIV database

New👇concerning study of covid vax safety in kids
All data from randomized trials
17,538 in vax group
8011 in placebo
Vax group had

◾️3.8 x⬆️risk of severe adverse events (5-17yrs)

◾️3x⬆️risk of lower respiratory infection(6m-5yrs)

We never had data to rec vax 4 all kids

https://twitter.com/StabellBenn/status/1733094332029137333

Bravo to two of my best friends, @StabellBenn & #ramduriseti. Brilliant idea for a study. 👏

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

https://twitter.com/CDCDirector/status/1705349114190295043

@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

https://twitter.com/TracyBethHoeg/status/1583303306218127361

Sigh

@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%)

Most of VRBPAC shrugged off signal as "non significant" but study underpowered🧵
investors.pfizer.com/Investors/News…
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…

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

Study should be retracted; it's an embarrassment to our profession jamanetwork.com/journals/jaman… ❌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…

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

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

This story & the one being run today in @WSJ:
How would it be possible the 3 researchers infected in November 2019 were the "1st to be infected" when serological evidence indicates covid was circulating in Europe in early fall 2019?
link.springer.com/article/10.100…
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03…

https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/1668660948532625410

My understanding from virologists is the presence of the furin cleavage site is v strong evidence covid was the result of gof research but I don't think calling these 3 scientists "patients 0" is accurate/helpful. Glad lab leak's being investigated, though
wsj.com/articles/u-s-f…

In this 🧵 I look at the evidence behind many of the statements @RobertKennedyJr made on @joerogan re vaccine safety in the first 60 minutes of the show.

Both "sides" may be surprised by my conclusions

Though we sometimes disagree, I like RFK, Jr

Let me know what I got wrong ✅The Danish study mentioned by @RobertKennedyJr of the DPT vax & infant mortality (note my friend, @StabellBenn an author) was IMO a very convincing natural experiment.
DTP vax WAS associated with 5x higher mortality in infants; 10x higher in girls. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

Well, here we are📍

Obs study, but even adjusting for testing & most recent infection, healthcare employees who had received a bivalent booster (in pink, by testing propensity) were more likely to test + for COVID(XBB) than those who hadn't

& some still want vax mandates?
See🧵 twitter.com/i/web/status/1… Link to study: medrxiv.org/content/10.110…

I see I need to clarify:

In addition to the 8 SCD due to post-vax myo in the Korean study, there were 13 additional deaths due to fulminant post-vax myo
=21 total post-vax deaths+ 1❤️ transplant

I modified their table to show this
Of the 13, 7 female, 5d1, 5d2, 6 post pfizer twitter.com/i/web/status/1… More about the 13 clinical myo deaths
Ages 24-95
2 were booster doses!
3 after AZ

I realized even though I said there were 21 total deaths in my thread yesterday and I focused on the 8 autopsy proven SCD due to myo, many thought the total post-vax myo death count was 8.
Sorry!

Preparing my congressional testimony & I'm curious if anyone can provide me w/statistics & a reference/references about what % or $ amount of CDC's funding comes from the pharmaceutical industry.
Grateful to @akheriaty who was the first one to teach me about the CDC Foundation.

https://twitter.com/akheriaty/status/1519004863169896450

@akheriaty I heard my friend @RobertKennedyJr mention @US_FDA gets 50% of its budget from pharma on @unherd. Was wondering what his source was for this & Robert, do you or your fact checkers know the amount of $ @CDCgov *receives* from the pharmaceutical industry?
unherd.com/2023/05/robert…

Just published
🇰🇷Korean nationwide study reports 8 cases of "sudden cardiac death (SCD) attributable to VRM [vaccine-related myocarditis] proved by an autopsy"
All developed<1 week post mRNA vax
2 females, 6 males
3 post dose 1, 5 post dose 2
All <46 yo
academic.oup.com/eurheartj/adva… Note these deaths were not limited to males or dose 2.

This was of a total of approximately 23.5 million people vaccinated in the 12-50 age group, but around 28% of vaccinated received non mRNA & no autopsy proven VRM deaths were due to non-mRNA vax

Next week I'm returning to DC to testify before congress about systemic problems within the CDC, their process for developing public health guidelines, errors made & the scientific integrity of MMWR

The goal is to improve US public health

I'm seeking thoughts, ideas & receipts Was 2 months ago I was in DC testifying about school closures in the US. I'm thrilled by the conversations it started

I owe so many of you a thank you for your input in that written and spoken testimony. I honestly believe I looked at everything you sent & posted here on Twitter

Who else is concerned about premature birth risk from new Pfizer RSV vax just recommended by VRBPAC?

Premature births >20% higher in vax arm: 5.7% vs 4.7% p=0.09 (I calculated); underpowered to say if real!

But⬆️also seen w/all 4 formulations (See 2b data right) & GSK RSV vax🧵 Absolutely🤯when Pfizer said all they would have needed to do to determine whether safety signal was real was enroll 5,000 instead of 3,700 in each arm.
What the heck? Why would FDA not make them expand the trial?
(also annoyed this isn't avail to public)
nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…

These 2 lines (🟠&🔵) I think show why the zoster vax-dementia study finding (⬇️es dementia in ♀️ only) is unconvincing & likely spurious

My🟠line shows the age-dependent trend of dementia dxs looks unaltered
My🔵line=what we'd expect if discontinuity were real but we DON'T see

https://twitter.com/PGeldsetzer1/status/1661776682993463297

Thanks to @beenwrekt for pointing out the linear fit for the entire population (men & women) looks better than the regression discontinuity. I wanted to see if this applied to women too and I think it does.

https://twitter.com/beenwrekt/status/1662090133771010048