UKH

Ive just been sent this from an anti-vax colleague. Can someone with better skill help me intepret this please.

Fact it's an experimental trial vaccine until 2023. Gov website MHRA serious side effects and deaths. No long term trials.
346 blind
504 deaf
1,490 fatalities
...our children are next in line...

UPDATED REPORT PUBLISHED 22ND JULY 2021
MHRA Yellow Card Reporting up to 14th July 2021

* Pfizer - 20million people - 32.1m doses - Yellow Card reporting rate - 1-in-215 people impacted
* Astrazeneca - 24.7m people - 47.5m doses - Yellow Card reporting rate - 1-in-111 people impacted
* Moderna - 1.3m people received first dose - Yellow Card reporting rate - 1-in-129 people impacted

Average 1-in-142 people have reported an event.

Reactions - 256,005 (Pfizer) + 794,545 (AZ) + 29,606 (Moderna) + 2786 (Unknown) = 1,082,942

Reports - 91,567 (Pfizer) + 222.291 (AZ) + 10,109 (Moderna) + 939 (Unknown) = 324,906

Fatal - 460 (Pfizer) + 999 (AZ) + 7 (Moderna) + 24 (Unknown) = 1490

Acute Cardiac - 3759 (Pfizer) + 8682 (AZ) + 282 (Moderna) + 27 (Unknown) = 12,750

Anaphylaxis - 433 (Pfizer) + 786 (AZ) + 26 (Moderna) + 1 (Unknown) = 1246

Blood Disorders - 8332 (Pfizer) + 7154 (AZ) + 584 (Moderna) + 38 (Unknown) = 16,108

Infections - 6166 (Pfizer) + 17,408 (AZ) + 462 (Moderna) + 81 (Unknown) = 24,117

Headaches - 19,098 (Pfizer) + 82,312 (AZ) + 1534 (Moderna) + 214 (Unknown) = 103,158

Migraine - 2080 (Pfizer) + 7774 (AZ) + 180 (Moderna) + 26 (Unknown) = 10,060

Eye Disorders - 4227 (Pfizer) + 13,182 (AZ) + 307 (Moderna) + 45 (Unknown) = 17,761

Blindness - 76 (Pfizer) + 261 (AZ) + 6 (Moderna) + 3 (Unknown) = 346

Deafness - 160 (Pfizer) + 335 (AZ) + 9 (Moderna) = 504

Psychiatric Disorders - 5006 (Pfizer) + 16,345 (AZ) + 544 (Moderna) + 69 (Unknown) = 21,964

Skin Disorders - 18,335 (Pfizer) + 48,834 (AZ) + 5211 (Moderna) + 183 (Unknown) = 72,563

Spontaneous Abortions - 181 + 5 stillbirth/foetal death (Pfizer) + 152 + 2 stillbirth (AZ) + 14 (Moderna) + 1 (Unknown) = 348 + 7

Vomiting - 2824 (Pfizer) + 11,185 (AZ) + 301 (Moderna) + 39 (Unknown) = 14,349

Facial Paralysis incl. Bell’s Palsy - 590 (Pfizer) + 796 (AZ) + 31 (Moderna) + 4 (Unknown) = 1421

Nervous System Disorders - 45,672 (Pfizer) + 169,722 (AZ) + 4433 (Moderna) + 543 (Unknown) = 220,370

Strokes and CNS haemorrhages - 452 (Pfizer) + 1854 (AZ) + 10 (Moderna) + 6 (Unknown) = 2322

Guillian Barre Syndrome - 44 (Pfizer) + 358 (AZ) + 2 (Moderna) + 5 (Unknown) = 409

Dizziness - 7207 (Pfizer) + 23,685 (AZ) + 979 (Moderna) + 79 (Unknown) = 31,950

Tremor - 1101 (Pfizer) + 9549 (AZ) + 95 (Moderna) + 36 (Unknown) = 10,781

Paraesthesia/dysaesthesia (chronic burning sensation, pricking nerve pain) - 4887 (Pfizer) + 15,594 (AZ) + 500 (Moderna) + 46 (Unknown) = 21,027

Pulmonary Embolism - 302 (Pfizer) + 1447 (AZ) + 7 (Moderna) + 8 (Unknown) = 1764

Deep Vein Thrombosis - 187 (Pfizer) + 1071 (AZ) + 7 (Moderna) + 8 (Unknown) = 1273

Respiratory Disorders - 11,124 (Pfizer) + 26,558 (AZ) + 752 (Moderna) + 89 (Unknown) = 38,523

Seizures - 616 (Pfizer) + 1794 (AZ) + 75 (Moderna) + 8 (Unknown) = 2493

Paralysis - 245 (Pfizer) + 683 (AZ) + 20 (Moderna) + 4 (Unknown) = 952

Haemorrhage (All types) - 2658 (Pfizer) + 4515 (AZ) + 228 (Moderna) + 19 (Unknown) = 7420

* Haemorrhage types - cardiac, ear, adrenal, eye, gastric, mouth, tongue, gums, intestinal, injection site, brain, wounds, stoma, bladder, kidney, vaginal, uterine, post-menopausal bleeding, ovarian, penile, lung, nasal

Vertigo/Tinnitis - 2260 (Pfizer) + 5990 (AZ) + 194 (Moderna) + 19 (Unknown) = 8463

Reproductive/Breast - 12,481 (Pfizer) + 14,776 (AZ) + 1551 (Moderna) + 81 (Unknown) = 28,889
 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine-adv...

Thanks

Richard

Not sure how you counter that (without more data) other than, Worldwide

Coronavirus Cases: 200,309,511

Deaths: 4,259,714

My sister had to tell the grandson, from a house of anti-vaxers, that the phone-call he would receive from his grandmother in the next 5 minutes would probably be the last time he would speak to her!

As it turned out it was.

The rest of that link puts it into perspective (assuming they havent bodged the figures).

Key thing though is those figures arent "proved to be caused by the vaccines" but reported due to occuring at around the same time.

Correlation isnt causation and so in most cases (outside of the straightforward stuff like I got a sore arm) it needs the statisticians and clinical experts to look at the baseline figures and then try and include/exclude other factors. For example how people normally report DVT in a year?

To quote the YCS:

Part of our monitoring role includes reviewing reports of suspected side effects. Any member of the public or health professional can submit suspected side effects through the Yellow Card scheme. The nature of Yellow Card reporting means that reported events are not always proven side effects. Some events may have happened anyway, regardless of vaccination. This is particularly the case when millions of people are vaccinated, and especially when most vaccines are being given to the most elderly people and people who have underlying illness.  

The raw data on suspected side effects, which appears to be what your colleague has sent on, is more or less a random sampling of ailments in half the population of the UK.  What the MHRA then have to do is look to see if any of those are occurring more than would normally be seen.  It’s the MHRAs findings from that raw data that are important.  

Not by current JCVI guidance unless they’re very vulnerable to Covid or live with an immune compromised person.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/jcvi-issues-advice-on-covid-19-vaccinati...

I don’t think JCVI guidance is going to shift much more on this issue in the UK any time soon.

I've seen this post too.

Firstly you can't counter it because they're bampots who long ago left the path of reason.

They're interpreting the fact that data is still being gathered on the vaccines until 2023 as the vaccines are still 'on trial' or not fully approved. It ignores the extensive trials done prior to approval.

The deaths and adverse reactions data I think comes from the government Yellow Card scheme. However, the bit they miss out (and which is explained at length on the website linked to) is that the figures are people who had such reactions after being vaccinated not as a result of being vaccinated. It's a basic post hoc fallacy.

And as you seem to be the most statistically and scientifically literate on the subjects...

"The raw data on suspected side effects, which appears to be what your colleague has sent on, is more or less a random sampling of ailments in half the population of the UK.  What the MHRA then have to do is look to see if any of those are occurring more than would normally be seen.  It’s the MHRAs findings from that raw data that are important."

Do you know what the MHRA finding are on this subject?

As it stands, this raw data appears to give the nutters the official evidence that they need to spread nonsense.

It also gives the hesitant fence sitters a context-poor reason to not vaccinate.

Only if you misinterpret it!

It is worrying though. I wonder if these memes just spring from nutters or whether there are clever people constructing them to suck the nutters in.

I’m not!

More or less what they say on the link you gave in the section “Analysis of data”.

Last time I digested it, the risk to me of the vaccine was less than the drive to the pharmacy.  Certainly less than the risk from the drive back over the Dales minor “road” which was hit by an unexpected severe winter storm on the most exciting part.  Still, I was well equipped with a RWD convertible, style and panache…

 > As it stands, this raw data appears to give the nutters the official evidence that they need to spread nonsense.

Difficult one this; side effect reporting of all medication is critical and forms part of an ongoing post-initial approval monitoring system that can change the approval.  Rare side effects and adverse interactions are going to come up in mass real world usage that don’t come up in clinical trials.  As you say publishing the yellow card reports gives the nutters ammunition, but suppressing them would give them different ammunition that would be much harder to debunk.  Transparency with clear context included (as in the MHRA link) seems the best way to me.

Such is the price of a free society.  Despite the wailing of the libertarian pop up posters, we’re not China and people remain free to make their own choices over vaccination with very little consequence from the state - access to nightclubs being about it…

Other vaccines should be considered - I know MMR can viewed as controversial by some (e.g. some within my family) so maybe it's not the best example, but my daughter had her MMR when she was 12 months, and then was very ill for the next month. 3 or 4 times her temperature went over 40 degrees. Rashes etc and all sorts. Obviously I knew from the information given that these were common side affects and didn't report them or anything. It wouldn't stop me from recommending the MMR to anyone. But the point is that other vaccines have side effects too.

As others have said this is likely to be taken, rehashed and mis-represented from yellow card reporting. It's based on subjective correlation not causation. I'm not well versed enough to comment on medical issues but the figure of 21964 psychiatric disorders illustrates that it's non objective. Some folk no doubt may have been really anxious or maybe had a panic attack following their jab but it won't have been 'caused' by the contents of the syringe.!

Covid-19: ~1 in 100 fatalities, ~1 in 10 with long term problems.
It seems we are now getting much nearer to the point where individuals can make their choice on how they want to gain immunity to this virus* without the same impact on the rest of society. The incentive to bother arguing with people who insist they want the natural way is fading fast.
If someone has all the information on adverse reactions from both covid infection and from the vaccines, and is still convinced they'll have a worse reaction to the vaccine than covid, not much you can do.

* - there are 2 choices. 2 is the number of choices. You're getting the vaccine or covid (or if you're unlucky, both). There's no third option.

Put 2 more columns on there for i) unvaccinated and ii) after catching covid. That'd tell the story properly.

Something that interests me about the antivaxers and similar conspiracy theorists is at what point do they accept a medical advance? One assumes most are fine with things like penicillin but what about modern chemotherapy treatments which can have serious side effects and are not always effective?

I'm teaching a course on argumentation to 16-18 year olds next term and I think I might use this as an example of an argument that is superficially compelling, (look! Numbers!) but ultimately deeply flawed. It's dangerous stuff.

Ah, I love these guys. Do you know what else the Yellow Cards list as a reported side effect of the vaccine? Congenital Cerebral Palsy. This should tell you everything you need to know about that data.

The anti-vaxxer in my family is interesting on this point actually. I think he finds it easier to be anti-vax than admit he's scared of needles (who isn't?).

Anyway he's just come out of hospital for cellulitis where he was on IV anti-biotics and a load of meds, his wife had chemo + a whole load of fertility treatment in the past. But still he says he's not having the vaccine because he doesn't want 'a whole load of chemicals' in his body. He wouldn't let his son have the MMR. Obviously he also drinks etc.

Interesting indeed. The anti-vaxxer in my family is at least more consistent than that having refused a variety of other treatments over the years.

Even ignoring the 'side effects' that had nothing to do with the vaccine it says 1 in 142 have a side effect, mostly minor flu-like symptoms which is how a vaccine works.

Even just the fatalities from Covid are much more frequent (hard to quantify but all the reliable sources seem to be above 1%). Would he rather have temperature and a sore arm or die 

One way to argue is to say 'what would it take you to change your mind?'

If the answer is 'nothing' tell them they should probably shut up then

I wonder how many of the MMR antis have ever had childhood measles?  I have and it's enough to convince me the vaccine is a good thing - and I had it over 60 years ago( 2 weeks in a darkened bedroom hurting just to be alive and in and out of waking and suffering)  and the memory is still with me.

to the OP

please tell the friend that the "raw data" will contain a considerable number of hypochondriac reporters.

It seems similar to the VAERS system of reporting in the USA. This has been used in the past to "prove" that vaccine deaths were significant and was thoroughly de-bunked. One particular one I remember was a reported vaccine heart-attack by the relative of a person. In the data the persons medical record was mentioned. They were obese with multiple underlying conditions for which they had previously declined medication. It was also mentioned that although the relative (both unnamed for data protection purposes) had reported it as a vaccine side effect there was no evidence on the medical records that the person had had a vaccine. I tried to find the link again but it seems harder to get in. This was in the early days of the vaccine

Do you mean like people dying within 28 days of having a positive PCR test?

In reply to Boomer Doomer:

ooo look a reasoned scientific reply.

Nope sorry my mistake.

She's a liability 

It's not meant to be. It just "poking" a hole in someone else's reasoning.

Burn her!

I was thinking more 'ignore her' but crack on if you want to.

More like gently bumping up against it with a few half-truths and guesswork.

Edit: I just re-read it a second time and I think I was being generous with my criticism above

In reply to Boomer Doomer:

This thread is not about trying to talk someone out of making a demonstrably bad choice over their personal risk, that's their business and a if they want to face the next 6 months with a 50x (or whatever) higher probability of dying than a vaccinate person, fine.  I'm not going to argue them out of that...

This thread is about someone sending demonstrable nonsense to their colleagues to advocate against vaccination based on their obviously and utterly wrong understanding of the YCS.  

There's a difference between making  personal choice, and using your professional resources to push demonstrable nonsense in front of your colleagues or anyone else for that matter.

I tried but it was rather long winded, repetitive, boring and didn't seem to have a point.  A bit like your comments which have no point in relation to the OP.

I read it for you. Honestly the Jaberwocky made more sense

In reply to Boomer Doomer:

Respect is earned. What you and your fellow travellers are doing, is hiding behind those who have had the jab. And, of course increasing the likelihood of it mutating into another variant which can evade our current vaccine putting us all back to square 1.

Not really. It is suggesting we should expect 100% ironclad guarantees on vaccine effectiveness at the level of the individual. Which you won't get. You won't get that about any medical matter. Or indeed pretty much anything else in life. More to the point, if any health professional ever does offer you a 100% ironclad guarantee on a medication you should probably run a mile - they are either lying or deluded. An admission of uncertainty is not a weakness or a failing and vast amounts of damage are done by those who believe it is.

But sure, carry on whinging about being in "Revolutionary China" because some people gave reasoned explanations about the limitations of that data. God forbid anyone should apply any critical thought to such things instead of parroting memes off social media.

In reply to Boomer Doomer:

I'll respect you if you tell me you had measles or had to be moved from a household around puberty because of mumps as a result of choosing to stand by your pringlesiples

plus, did you see children around you as you grew up in wheelchairs or callipers from polio?  They were all older than we were as we were among the first cohorts to have the vaccine.

Reading up on the history and science of vaccinations and antibiotics between the 1930s and the time I was an infant has really made me appreciate the vast difference in medical risk between growing up as a child in the 1930s and the early 60s.

To be fair they said they were only against "this" vaccine because, you know, for "reasons"

Actually I retract my offer to respect it.

It should be ashamed of itself

It’s when they go all Gilbert and Sullivan that I start to worry…

It's when people ask me to put aside all the effort I've put into trying to understand the situation, digging into the figures, asking myself how the figures were arrived at and if they are an accurate reflection on the situation, reading up on the way the vaccines have been constructed, what possible problems there may or may not be, balancing that against the rates of infection and the potential outcome of that, etc. and respect their opinion based on some fatuous youtube clip or some garbled argument.

Now here's a thing, Mr Doomer. I've had both jabs. One day after the first one I got symptoms (of long covid) which are still with me five months later. Despite this, I'm glad I live in an age that can produce scientific breakthroughs like vaccines that have saved thousands of lives. I'm also glad I grew up in an era where science (and not internet sh1te) was the preferred resource of the sane and infomed member of society. 

In reply to Boomer Doomer:

Yes he is an anti-vaxxer. All stemming from that MMR business that was disproven years ago.

What I haven't managed to understand is, why is it better in his mind to take his chance with Covid than take his chance with the vaccine? More people have had the vaccine, fewer long term impacts.

Note - he's also 60 and obese so fairly high risk

I just read this. 

BoomerGerDoomer won't be interested I expect, which seems a shame as it's particularly relevant to him if he's assuming he has nothing to fear from the 'coof' on account of being so gosh darned rufty tufty, but this seems an apt thread to post it in nevertheless.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/04/fit-and-healthy-man-42-from-s...

E2A (holding my nose a bit)..  Daily Mail link:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9859773/Fit-healthy-man-42-rejecte...

In reply to Boomer Doomer:

I'll say what I always say when someone punts out the vaccines are untested line. Feel free to use this for the situation described in the OP:
The covid-19 trial has been running for about 20 months now. It's still recruiting worldwide, and will be for a while yet. In fact you don't even have to contact them; you're enrolled by default unless you opt-out.  The phase 1 and 2 safety trials were skipped and it went straight to phase 3. About 1% of trial participants have died, but some people think we need more data and are still volunteering.

Quote from the article:

Batt-Rawden said it was difficult to witness the look of regret on patients’ faces when they became unwell and needed to go on a ventilator. “You can see it dawn on them that they potentially made the biggest mistake of their lives [in not getting the vaccine], which is really hard,” she said, adding that she had overheard people telling family members about their remorse  

That level of sucky emotional stuff must be the last thing medical staff need after their burden these last 15 months. 

In reply to Boomer Doomer:

But you're missing the point.  Again.

If you not taking the vaccine only affected you, I wouldn't care. Live and let live and all that.  Frankly I couldn't give a shit about the state of your health.

But it doesn't work like that, your actions affect the wider community.

If you on your "taking your chances mission" unwittingly contract the virus and come in to contact with my Mum, and her weakened immune system due to being 75 and on her 3rd round of chemo, then she'll likely die.  Because of a choice you made.  

It could be anyone's mum, daughter, father mother or brother.  Think about the people you love.  Think how you would feel if someone caused their death unnecessarily.

And that's why I'm totally fine with labelling you what you are.  Selfish. Stupid. Gullible.  Take your pick.

Final thought - you mentioned that you're not an anti vaxxer, just anti this one.

Are you telling me that for every drug or vaccine you've ever been prescribed or administered you've done a full research on how long it has been introduced for, status of trials, reported side effect instance etc?

No.  You haven't.  So why this one?

I'll bet your answer is not because it's been weaponised by the right wing and conspiracy theorists as a front in their imaginary culture war. 

Bet you say it's something to do with medical research (that you've no experience or understanding of and have never done before).

pfizer is getting full US approval next week supposedly.

And it would be pretty stupid to not continue to monitor these vaccines during this period, how long they last for, how good they are against different strains etc.  

It’s interesting that the phase 3 clinical trials for the vaccines have an order of magnitude (or more) larger than for many drugs, and given the scale of their deployment the post-approval monitoring has had data come in at I suspect a totally unprecedented rate and there’s probably more data on very rare side effects than for many drugs approved in the last decade that will only ever have been given to a small minority of people with specific illnesses; yet I suspect many refusing a covid vaccine would take one of those drugs with less real world safety data if confronted with a similar risk of death to Covid.

In reply to Boomer Doomer:

Oh by the way, I looked at your link and thought it was complete nonsense.

I looked up the author and she's a widely known crank.  https://medika.life/dr-suzanne-humphries-on-medikas-quack-scale/ 

Do not follow recommendations from this individual relating to your personal health or the health of others and be wary of any products sold or recommended by this quack.

Exactly this.

So many people have been given this vaccine that the data set is huge.  You'd expect side effects if this many people had been with sterile water ffs.

If all the deaths were 80 plus year old pensioners with multiple existing conditions, then yeah they might be dying with covid, not because of it. 

However more than half the deaths, anywhere in Europe are now under 65, non or single vaccinated people who less than 2 months ago were living active normal lives. 

You can of course play the stats, hope you are lucky, but until you catch it you just never know which statistic you'll be in 2 months time. Your call. 

Just another thought. My mates brother thought the vaccine wasn’t worth the risk. The brother then died of Covid in Wigan hospital. My mate went through hell. Said it was truly  awful the way he went. And he’s angry at him for all the grief caused. 

In fact, I could recall quite a few stories of death, grieving, long Covid. It’s been bad round here. 

A third column for the vaccinated after catching covid and a fourth for those who have had early intervention with repurposed drugs would good too 

This makes an interesting read, I'm not sure how you would verify it though or in fact whether it is being created by a Russian agent to spread misinformation? My experience is most people seem absolutely fine after the vaccine, a tiny percentage seem to suffer an adverse reaction, some of which are severe. 

https://t.me/s/covidvaccineinjuries/

Certainly has. Wigan ambulance station alone lost two paramedics to covid. They were 48 and 58. The 48 year old was described to me as a bit of a fitness freak.

Still, nothing to worry about unless you’re over 80 with multiple co-morbidities.

Apparently 

We could add a fifth column for people who deliberately submit false or misleading reports to the YCS.

Holy mother of god, what was that website?  

What was the pitch to their investors like?  "So you know, the user experience on Twitter sucks donkey balls for anyone trying to follow it seriously, and Twitter is hella popular and rad?  Well, we're going to make a platform whose user experience sucks even worse than Twitter!  We'll be even more popular than them!"

Probably explains their poor grasp of causality and why they are happy to see their platform abused by this crap...

Sometimes I look at the effort I put in to real world endeavours to both improve things out there and to hopefully enrich myself enough for my plans (*), and look at the investment landscape in the UK, then I look at crap like Telegram and see that it has raised one billion dollars.  A billion dollars. $1,000,000,000.  What're they doing with one billion dollars?  Not screening their content and not getting a single UX expert on board apparently...

(*) - a bigger bunker, an outdoor swimming pool with well insulated sides and a solid retractable roof with a waterfall, a 981 Cayman (Yellow, manual gearbox, 2.7 litre engine if anyone wants to donate - preferably from towards the end of the model's run) and let me get back to rare book collecting.

I turn 40 next week, climb regularly, go to the gym, very active etc. 5’11” and weight around 10.5 stone. I’m no runner, but I’m pretty good shape all in all…

Thing is, I’ve got a slight anomaly with my heart, it’s never affected me in any way whatsoever, but it puts me on the “underlying health conditions” list (got offered jab early).

If I got it and died, I’d have just been lumped in as another underlying health condition death, and nobody would have batted an eyelid. 

Doesn’t tell the story of a fit an active man who has just welcomed his first child into the world does it? Just another middle aged man with underlying health conditions…

Thus speaks a man with a firm grasp of the gravity of the situation and an understanding of the sorts of devastating ripple effects caused by every life cut short (be that cut short at 40 or 80).

I've met a fair few anti-masker/ anti-vaxxer/ anti-big pharmas through work. Weird thing is every single time I've met them in extremis they're all suddenly very keen on oxygen masks, have had a change of heart on vaccines and will take anything big Pharma has to offer. Odd isn't it?

Thanks!

Not really met an anti vaxxer/masker in the wild yet, not sure how I’d react?

Perhaps a bit like that time I met a load of people carrying Union Jacks on the tube, on their way back from celebrating brexit? 

Didnt go well.

In reply to TradDad:

I can't help but feel there's a very straightforward way of preventing that happening.

In reply to TradDad:

But not for you? Because....?

I’ve binned my comments. Second thoughts.  If a mod wants to bin the link too. Great. Temporary lapse in will power posting. 

Thing is, there's the other side to it which is the people who've caught covid and not done great. You don't have to go searching out a niche, unverified feed in the dankest corners of social media to read about those. The feed that covers them is just called 'news'.

That’s because most of them hang about in crack dens...

That’s crack dens cancelled then…

In reply to Boomer Doomer:

I'm only a simple engineer but in my humble opinion when you've made more than 100 million of a product and have it out in full production, millions of units a month for six months it isn't experimental any more.   They've jagged an absolute f*ckton of people with it and if the sh*t was going to hit the fan it would already have done so.

In January I was hesitant myself and wanted to see more data.  I don't like jags and I don't like making serious decisions based on trial numbers in the thousands or tens of thousands.  When it gets to a few hundred million the data is in.  You either act on it or you don't.

Right now it is very clear our leaders are going to let Covid run through the population and this delta variant is far more infectious.  We either get jagged before we catch it or catch it without a jag.  The graphs of hospitalisations and fatalities in the UK based are totally clear - if you catch it before you get jagged you are many times more likely to be f*cked.

If you don't want to be f*cked, get the jag.  It isn't even close.

Although there's no control group with a placebo to get a background reading to compare these against it is interesting how different the numbers are for different vaccines.   If it was mainly measuring background disease unrelated to the vaccine presumably they'd all be roughly the same.

Some of the reports will be the consequences of the injection rather than the vaccine, some of it will be psychosomatic and some of it signs of a vaccine working as expected and provoking an immune response.

AZ is getting way higher numbers than Pfizer and a factor of two on a sample size of 20 million is not just noise.   Doesn't mean AZ isn't extremely preferable to catching Covid but it does mean that Pfizer is not only (I'll say arguably to placate wintertree) 20% more effective it also has half as many side effects.    You wouldn't need to be nuts to think it was a better bet.

Just wanted to mention this one as I know someone who had shingles following both jabs and was told by the nurse that this was not uncommon.

Different virus so COVID or the vaccine cannot cause shingles but the shingles virus does remain in a person and can be reactivated multiple times and it is possible that stress + vaccine could reactivate. (I had it myself some years back following a stressful time at work)

https://www.healthline.com/health/adult-vaccines/shingles-and-covid#is-ther...

However there are studies being done. A couple of papers on this

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jocd.14035

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jocd.14210

There’s a good plot here on cases and vaccination status from California…. 

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/health/story/2021-07-25/with-coro...

I’d like to see that plot for English data…. 

Wow!   That graph would scare me if I didn't have an armful of AZ.

In reply to Boomer Doomer:

Bullshit. I for one think it's understandable for people to have doubts and some poor past behaviour of big pharma and governments and mixed messaging in the pandemic have clearly fed into that (especially the disgusting experimentation on ethnic minorities in some countries, like the syphilis experiments in the US).

There is a massive difference between ordinary people with doubts (some spreading misinformation based on ignorance) and bad actors deliberately generating misinformation or knowingly spreading such, feeding on those doubts for political ends. In the modern world these bad actors can use 'freedom of speech' and poor social media regulation to spread poison. I see it as a slower version of shouting "fire" in a theatre. It takes time to fact check and sometimes that fact checking gets lost in noise and sometimes there are bogus sites pretending to fact check.  Science is distinct from the lies in always being verifiable.

Ermm no it means no such thing.  These "side effects" are not known to be side effects but simply reported as occuring close to when the jab was taken.  As such it would be best to not look at the number of people jabbed but instead the total number of doses which is substantially higher with AZ givng a lot more time for unrelated events to happen to overlap.

There is also the factor with Pfizer that its reported to be worse symptoms with the second jab vs the first with AZ. So some of the headaches/migraines etc wouldnt have been experienced yet.

I am also not sure if the feedback given on the second jab day is fed back into this or whether it was just used to check for serious symtoms.

Then there is also the factor that AZ was deployed first and used on those seen as being most at risk aka those most likely to be in ill health.

A flip side would be Pfizer being worse for "Spontaneous Abortions". Could that possibly be down to more younger people having it?

Which is the problem with throwing around raw data. Without someone good analysising it (to be clear I am not counting myself as in that category) its usefulness is extremely limited and liable to allow people to apply bias.

You don't need to say "arguably" but I do like to see the kind of efficacy qualified - for 20% you're presumably talking about "efficacy against symptomatic infection" rather than "efficacy against severe illness", with there being little measurable difference between the vaccines for the severe illness measure.

In terms of not wanting to die, you'd have to be nuts to hold out for Pfizer if over 40 IMO (and I know you didn't - but I do know at least one instance of this elsewhere).  

In terms of the better bet - it might be mixing vaccines - https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01359-3

If it was as simple as unrelated background factors around the time each dose was administered then the AZ numbers would all be roughly 1.5 x the Pfizer ones.  But they aren't the AZ to Pfizer report ratio is radically different in different categories.   In almost all cases AZ is worse and by a fair bit more than 1.5 x.

Possibly - except AZ wasn't deployed first.  They got a big order of Pfizer first, AZ didn't scale up their production as fast and the sickest people that got done in January mainly got Pfizer.

Could well be.

This isn't actually true though - both vaccines have similar levels of reports of side effects, and of effectiveness against Delta

Have I got this right? The yellow card system just records adverse health events that happen to be adjacent in time to administration of the vaccine. No causal link needed?

So in a population of 41 million ( last figure I recall seeing of folk who have had the vaccine) all adverse health events become vicariously associated with the vaccine.

I’m not a statistician but surely  the only valid measure you can derive from this pile of yellow cards is by comparison with the numbers of adverse health events experienced by a similar, but unvaccinated, population.

In a separate vein, I recall in the 50’s my mum being very scathing about folk who chose not to have their children vaccinated against polio, diphtheria (which sh e had contracted as an infant and barely survived, her wee sister didn’t), German measles, etc., etc., calling them selfish and anti social and increasing the risk for the rest of us. I’m very inclined to agree with her.

Yes its designed to record potential adverse effects of medicines and vaccines with the raw data getting analysed by the MHRA to see whether there is anything to investigate.  It got created after the thalidomide problems.

If lots of people start reporting x after they have taken the medicine or vaccine and thats above what the baseline level of x would be then researchers start looking to see if there is a casual link and if so what to do about it.

Don't slag off the vaccine and the ideology it's based upon, or even introduce a gnats chuff of doubt. Dissenter 

The utterly tragic results of people propagating disinformation on social media and the results of people believing it can be seen here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-58080116

note that the deceased was a graduate and not uneducated.

just as some people on this thread this person has been persuaded and repropagated the idea that it is "experimental" rather than a lifesaver.

"vaccine and the ideology it's based upon" 

When you go to your GP, which aspects of medicine do you discount as ideology?

Yeah, it's a dangerous ideology, that there science.

Vaccine developed in 2020 by scientists - experimental.
Virus developed in late 2019 by bats - shit yeah, gon' git me some o that.

I think the advice is to opt for the Pfizer jab if you're pregnant, was when my pregnant missus had her jab earlier this year.  Probably very few pregnant people having AZ jab.

Oh, sod off.

Scientism right, of course it's ideological. That's what the vax campaign is. Otherwise it would simply be a published fact without the fanfare of carrots and sticks, coercion and propaganda and all the other tribalism attached to it. 

Quite right.  When they uncover evidence that proves what they believe is wrong they change their minds and start believing something else that fits the evidence better instead.  They're incredibly shifty like that.

You are entirely historically illiterate when it comes to the history of vaccination if you think that ANY disease has been eradicated by science just posting the existence of a vaccine as a fact and moving on. But I don't think it's that, to be honest, I don't think you're ignorant, you just have an agenda that you are projecting through this latest sock puppet. Goodbye.

My agenda has always been to question where we are heading with this, public health ideology is a big factor, that's about it really. Unless you're aware of another agenda in my mind? I wouldn't  post unless I was bothered or addicted to abuse, which is probably a factor haha. 

In reply to Boomer Doomer:

Just so long as you stay a long long way away from me, my family, my friends, my work colleagues, my acquaintances, and indeed any of my family, friends, or work colleagues acquaintances.

Why - because I don't want YOU to infect anyone else, with all the problems that Covid might bring to them.

Better still, why don't you find a desert island, and take your fellow anti-vaxxers with you.

☝️Hate driven by ideology 

Not really. Just wise animal husbandry, you separate the infected and those that might spread it. Easier to exclude the potential virus hosts, than modify entire herd activity. 

Animal husbandry sums it up nicely 

Edit: I have discovered this fantastic article on good ‘Human Husbandry’. posted without further comment 😬

https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/18/5/372/226010

So my father-in-law is waiting for test results to confirm whether his current symptoms are relapse of his leukemia. If it is, probably back into chemo seems likely. So I would thank you kindly, and anyone else who chooses to be a potential virus carrier, to stay home! Those who can get vaccinated absolutely must to protect those who can't. He has had it, but presumably less effective for him now and it's only going to get worse. If you choose not to, please quarantine for the foreseeable future. 

Well we are just animals and viruses are just viruses. Contain, isolate, vaccinate, protect... the only option missing with humans is cull. 

We might think we are special or different, but virus really are emotion less, they just do their stuff, like bacteria they are the great survivors of the last 1.5bn years, the question is will the anti vaxers be survivors!? Me, i don't care anymore, sorry, but there's no excuse now for anybody healthy over 30 not to be vaccinated. If they die, it's just sad for the family and possible dependents they'll leave behind, through their own stupidity. If they didn't have kids, then that's a bonus for the future gene pool. 

Sadly that line of thinking is lost on them. Whenever you hear an interview, it's all about them, their freedom blah blah... pretty selfish to say the least. 

I think Boomger and his sidekick are willing participants in a spot of S&P see here: https://www.newstatesman.com/america-donald-trump-healthcare-politics-pain-...

(US based but the MO is the same here)

That is a serious statement, I'm sorry you feel like that. I've no response 

Why should I care about the fate of antivaxers, they've made their choice. That's the freedom they wanted? 

There’s a growing number of news reports quoting medical professionals who have to tell a hospitalised vaccine refuser that they must be sedated and ventilated to have a chance of surviving, and of the crushing effect the refuser’s response - typically involving deep regret for their choices - has on the medical professional.  It’s the last think I would wish on them after what they have been through and what they have done for so many.

It is a sign of just how compassionate and dedicated they all are that time after time they will all continue to do everything they can for those who have deliberately chosen a high chance of infection over vaccination.  Better people than I.

This is gibberish.

I urge you not to let doubts about the political side of this and the direction society has been heading in for quite some time cross over in to how you view the scientific and evidence driven side of the public health response.

I find the way people are behaving on all sides of this utterly grim, I want nothing more to do with it 

Why don't you read the numbers in the OP before opening your mouth, the reports of side effects are nothing like similar.   AZ is giving you a complete virus with a bit of Covid DNA and Pfizer is giving you a small amount of Covid mRNA.   It isn't at all surprising they give different side effects because they are totally different things.

Not even public health England thinks AZ is as good as Pfizer against the Delta variant https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2108891

The UK has largely shifted to the mRNA vaccines,  younger people are getting mRNA and the third dose is going to be mRNA.   They are getting ready to donate millions of doses of AZ that won't be used.   All the advanced countries are going for mRNA vaccines.  We have been subjected to a fair bit of BS in the UK trying to pretend all the vaccines were much the same.  They wanted people to take AZ because it was what they had and it is a lot better than no vaccine at all.

When it suits them it seems. This ex-nurse that seems to be a big figure is clearly ok with injecting all sorts of crap into her body, as is my neighbour (boobs and face) also anti vax born again christian who also posts pictures of clouds on facebook with comments like "See! they are at it again, no wonder the population is compliant with the tyranny! Wake up sheeple!!!"

I think in the absence of a control group it is also valid to look at the differential data between two vaccines.   Once you scale for the number of doses given the AZ and Pfizer groups will have roughly the same number of non-vaccine related adverse health effects and the same number of side effects from the injection process,  so if there is a large difference in reports between AZ and Pfizer it is something to do with the vaccines themselves.

Since the technologies are quite different there is no reason to believe they would have similar side effects.  I've always said the UK government/BBC approach of always saying 'the vaccine' was disingenuous.  They want to condition us to think they are the same because it is convenient for them.  If we start to think they are different and demand one rather than the other their logistics get messed up.

From the website:

Vaccination and surveillance of large populations means that, by chance, some people will experience and report a new illness or events in the days and weeks after vaccination. A high proportion of people vaccinated early in the vaccination campaign were very elderly, and/or had pre-existing medical conditions. Older age and chronic underlying illnesses make it more likely that coincidental adverse events will occur, especially given the millions of people vaccinated. It is therefore important that we carefully review these reports to distinguish possible side effects from illness that would have occurred irrespective of vaccination. Fatal cases associated with extremely rare blood clots with lowered platelets are described above.

Part of our continuous analysis includes an evaluation of natural death rates over time, to determine if any specific trends or patterns are occurring that might indicate a vaccine safety concern. Based on age-stratified all-cause mortality in England and Wales taken from the Office for National Statistics death registrations, several thousand deaths are expected to have occurred, naturally, within 7 days of the many millions of doses of vaccines administered so far, mostly in the elderly.

The MHRA has received 466 UK reports of suspected ADRs to the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in which the patient died shortly after vaccination, 1018 reports for the COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca, eight for the COVID-19 Vaccine Moderna and 25 where the brand of vaccine was unspecified. The majority of these reports were in elderly people or people with underlying illness. Usage of the vaccines has increased over the course of the campaigns and as such, so has reporting of fatal events with a temporal association with vaccination however, this does not indicate a link between vaccination and the fatalities reported. Review of individual reports and patterns of reporting does not suggest the vaccines played a role in these deaths.

A range of other isolated or series of reports of non-fatal, serious suspected ADRs have been reported. These all remain under continual review, including through analysis of expected rates in the absence of vaccine. There are currently no indications of specific patterns or rates of reporting that would suggest the vaccine has played a role.

Says the bloke who called another poster a jobsworth c@nt for pointing out that none of his points stand up to the briefest scrutiny. 

I completely agree with this and I want to be clear that I am absolutely not advocating not getting vaccinated.   I was offered AZ and was glad to take it.     As I said on an earlier thread its a "no car, pretty good car and even better car" type decision.   In a situation where I have the choice or if there's only a couple of weeks extra wait I would personally go for an mRNA vaccine. But if I don't have the choice or there's a long extra wait I'll wouldn't think twice about taking AZ and if I lived in China I'd have whatever they are using too.

That was a personally directed insult as opposed to an unpleasant statement directed by a particular public health / government informed ideology.

Regardless you missed out ‘frothing’ 

Frothing was an important aspect of the insult 

I thought you were p1ssing off?

They've more patience than me. I've an unvaccinated 75yr old relative, who is still ranting it's a global conspiracy, rothchilds rule, covid doesn't exist, doctors are forced to write covid on death certificates and on it goes. I've given up engaging with them. But it's not going to end well for them if they do catch it. 

I've not tested it, but dying whilst suffocating in a hospital bed, despite having an oxygen tube in, is likely grim too. 

Your choice, but you need to accept it move on, quit the preaching and no one will argue back. 

How do you know there's an anti vaxer in room? They'll tell you! It's worse than vegans or happy clappers for preaching. 

Ahh, I see. So all your multiple pleas to "lay off the abuse" and "tone down the hate" or whatever wasn't referring to personal abuse? You're upset about "an unpleasant statement directed by a particular public health / government informed ideology." That makes complete sense. Poor you. It must be dreadful.

That also explains why you were unable to supply an example of the abuse aimed at you when I asked and instead replied by calling me a c@nt. 

Just out of morbid curiosity (mainly regarding the weird world you're currently creating inside your head) could you provide an example of "an unpleasant statement directed by a particular public health / government informed ideology."? You know, cos you keep whining about how much it upsets you and stuff?

Frothing ☝️

I understand that you're trolling. I understand that some sort of personal or mental health crisis is driving you in this behaviour and I understand that you need assistance in some form. All this isn't helping you, it seems to be making things worse.

Best of luck.

Ugh, no I’m not mad or an evil troll nor in crisis, and your faux concern aside, I came here to express concern about the drift towards division being created by the covid crisis and the harm that policies are creating and also that all might not be as it first seems. 
Calling out someone’s mental health is a particularly unpleasant strategy aimed at undermining anything they have to say. Yes I have insulted you, sometimes that happens between people, even friends. 
The suggestion of segregation of the vaccinated and unvaccinated is a worrying public health policy based on a collectivist ideology. I know all the arguments for everyone to have the vaccine and understand why people advocate for it. However if this happens, if there is a segregation system in place, then it will not be reversed. It won’t. 

 

Segregation is one way of looking at it, popular with those who have chosen to be that way. Fact is, EVERYONE had to stay at home and stop doing things. That's the way to address the problem in the absence of a vaccine. We now have a vaccine. So nothing is changing for the anti-vaxxers; they can carry on staying at home until the virus goes away. Which it won't. So..... I don't have a small enough violin to express my feelings. No reason for everyone else not to start moving back towards life like it was in the beforetimes.

Thankfully, as I said already, we'll hopefully get to a point soon where the decision only significantly affects the individual (and anyone who cares about them) and doesn't threaten healthcare, so I'll shortly be giving up on debating with people about this and switching to a more f&£k 'em then attitude.

Good job you don't live in a dictatorial state who require certain vaccinations before a child can start school. That would be awful. Those poor Australians are so oppressed. 

That might evoke some sympathy. More likely they are working for an arm the Russian government I'd have thought.

I thought you were flouncing off?

It's not collectivist ideology (whatever the fcuk that's all about) it's you as an individual do not get the freedom to cause me harm.

Why is that such a difficult concept? 

Don't let your petticoats get caught on the door handle as you exit the thread

Nah, there's been plenty of that but TradDad comes across more like a genuine poster who's fallen down a bit of a rabbit hole.  Stichtplate's take on it is more likely to be accurate than yours in this case imo.

Given a damned good shove down it from one of the now-banned “Rom-like” accounts and also actively encouraged to keep going by another rather familiar sounding new poster.  DubyaJamesDubya’s comments could be pretty apt for those two.

As I said to TradDad previously, voices on the internet can argue a apparently compelling case for any direction that sounds clever, if you’re too far removed from the subjects I don’t think enlightenment can be easily found through forums and YouTube etc.

Well don't be surprised if vaccinated people don't want to have anything to do with anti-vaxxers - not just now but for a very long time. This could mean all kinds of restrictions on anti-vaxxers where close contact is likely, either officially, or by being shunned.

In reply to Boomer Doomer:

Like getting covid, giving it to others and delaying our recovery from this pandemic?

If your current disposable username is reflective of your age then I genuinely wish you good luck with that.

jk

When he first started posting I would have agreed with you but I've seen a lot of his posts now and he seems to flip between 'the honest ordinary chap just trying to understand' to the 'aggressive agenda pusher' very easily. Also his profile looked made up or very incompetently put together when I had a look.

there's a bit of a meme going around about people not being willing to share a difference of opinion ...

However, these mislabelled  "differences of opinion" are sometimes things that cause actual harm to others - Brexit for example, anti vaccine campaigning, arguing for a corrupt government.

On these matters it is not a "matter of opinion" it is seeking to get your way irrespective of harm to others and there cannot be a civilised "difference of opinion.

On vaccination (and other matters) you are with us or you (the memers) are the enemy causing harm

If you also control for the demographic differences between the recipients you might expect that. In the raw numbers all you see is roughly correlated adverse events with many more AZ doses given and given to older sicker people. Without a lot of very very careful work to see if there's a signal in there it's just noise. If you're seeing patterns in it it's far more likely that's because you're wired to see patterns everywhere than because they're actually visible to a casual observer.

I couldn't give a toss. Covid was killing people in droves, wrecking families, wrecking businesses, drowning us in debt. The AZ vaccine isn't. Delaying to wait for 'better', if the mRNA options even are demonstrably better, would have cost many thousands of lives for the handful it might have saved. Your anti-AZ stance often looks more like a strange extension of your virulent nationalism than a rational position.

jk

If that's the case, poor Russia too. It's bloody amateur hour over there.

I'd say the conclusion of the supplied link says it all. 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine-adv...

Makes perfect sense to anyone looking at this rationally.

The anti-vaxxers tend to be people with a lot of time on their hands who've gone far down the rabbit hole, very emotionally invested in the nonsense. You just can't reason with them.

A bit like Brexit then

- Are you vaccinated?

"I'm not having the vaccine and I am not going to have it"

-Why not, if you don't mind me asking?

"It's experimental"

-We're something like 5 billion doses in with minimal issues. I think the vaccines are as safe as most pharmaceuticals.

"We don't know the long term effects"

-Unlikely to have any. On the other hand we're getting a good idea of the long term effects of covid and they can be widespread and pretty life limiting.

"I've read/seen otherwise on (insert bullshit source)"

-That's not a great source to be honest and you and your partner are clinically vulnerable?

"we keep ourselves to ourselves"

-But you're going to hospital for the (insert improbable number) time this year, which is ground zero for infections (and your chosen taxi firm for today is crewed by two people who come into close contact with a variety of infections hourly... not spoken out loud;  frequent flyer patient who walked onto the ambulance).

Paraphrasing an actual conversation with a middle aged patient who has a few real illnesses, a lot of made up illnesses, who hasn't worked in decades and who daily consumes enough prescription drugs to bury a Boots counter. Their main previous hobby used to be interminable battles with the DWP. Their new hobby is scamdemic and lecturing fit and healthy ambulance crews on how to stay fit and healthy, with a sideline in educating trained clinicians on healthcare.

Not an isolated incident by any means and, as far as I can tell, definitely linked to mental health.

That's the impression I get too, but I still usually give it a go.

The 12th of May was a hell of a day! :-P

I am conditioned to take Boots asprin , does this mean I am ok to take Morrisons asprin? My wife says the Morrisons one is cheaper and still as effective.

Recognising that they are in a difficult place mentally must be very hard, at least you give it a go.

And they’ve never climbed anything with less than 3 stars. A suspicious mind might wonder if they had just gone into a few ticklists and clicked “select all”. 

Sad story of someone who thought that due to his age/fitness he would be fine.  I believe he was a keen hillwalker, condolences to any who knew him:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater...

we're living in the age of electronically communicable insanity.

So sad but the very stuff of human nature. How many smokers dieing of lung cancer must wish they could turn back time? Misery and affliction are things that happen to other people.

In fact, since that incredible day in 2018 when he swept across the grit like an unstoppable force, he's logged ..... nothing! The Sad Dad of Trad, a spent force living on past glories.

It's shows the level that people or governments go to just to spread misinformation or be disruptive to society. I expect there are thousands of such accounts across all types of forum, social media etc.. 

I really doubt it's paid trolls here. There must be lower hanging fruit out there. This is for sport. This is for when they're at the top of their game and they've completed Mumsnet on expert mode. If they win here they can use it as a shiny when they go on to set up a motivational speaking business teaching people how to make extra £££ working from home as a misinfluencer.

Boots aspirin and Morrisons aspirin both have the same active ingredient acetylsalicylic acid.  Maybe the inert part of the tablet is different, maybe it tastes slightly different or one dissolves slightly faster or slower than the other but you are getting the same dose of the same drug.

mRNA vaccine is a completely different technology from a non-replicating viral vector vaccine.  In your analogy it is not another brand of aspirin, it is a completely different drug.   Pretending there is something called 'the vaccine' is total bullsh*t.

If you read the numbers in the OP it is absolutely clear cut the level of side effects is not the same and that AZ is causing far more side effects even if you scale by number of doses.  These are big differences on data from tens of millions of people, its not minor effects that could be noise.   The numbers for Moderna and Pfizer are far closer when you scale for the number of jabs.  

It is far more likely that when you have two radically different technologies you get two different sets and levels of side effects.   Nobody would be surprised if you gave one set of patients codeine and another aspirin if you got different effectiveness and side effects.   There is no reason to think mRNA vaccines would have the same properties as viral vector vaccines.

The differences are large and the sample size is large.  It isn't just a signal it is a huge impossible to miss signal.

AZ 72 million doses.  Pfizer 52 Million doses i.e. about 1.38 x as many doses of AZ

Reactions - 256,005 (Pfizer) + 794,545 (AZ) + 29,606 (Moderna) + 2786 (Unknown) = 1,082,942

Scale Pfizer number by 1.38 to normalise for the number of doses = 353,286

AZ with 794,545 reports is producing more than double the reaction reports per dose administered.

Moreover, if we want to assume that there is a significant number of reaction reports which are psychosomatic or existing conditions and we were to subtract that from both the Pfizer and AZ numbers then the ratio of reaction reports between Pfizer and AZ would *increase*.

e.g. lets assume that about half the Pfizer reports are not due to the vaccine.  So we take 353,286 / 2 = 176,643 and subtract that from both the Pfizer and AZ numbers.    There's no reason to think one vaccine would have more 'false' reports than the other.

So it now becomes 176,643 for Pfizer vs 617,902 for AZ and the ratio is 3.49

This is just an illustration: my point is the theory that a lot of the reports are background medical problems or psychosomatic actually makes the numbers look worse for AZ.

Ok, fine, I'll be the first to call bollocks

AZ was given to older people who a) can be arsed to report and b) have more shit wrong with them. And it's widely known that AZ gives nearly everyone a headache. I don't really give a shit about a headache. And it's widely known that the side effects with the mRNA ones come after the second dose, and AZ after the first, and where are we with the mRNA second doses?? Oh right, yeah. So you've oversimplified it to the point of bollocks again, rather than reading the analysis by the experts who've given it some thought. Which, by the way, is right there on the same f*king page.

Extra wtf here.

Yup.

You’re not the first person to have explained to Tom that there’re ma-hoo-sive differences between the cohorts to have received the two vaccines, and so looking at the raw YCS data is meaningless.  Which is why they have experts pour through it to look for actual red flags.  Which they discuss in the link.

This is in to proper jumping the shark territory.

Edit: also - just counting all “reactions” (as Tom does)… by that measure a very low dose vaccine would have no reactions.  Great!  Just don’t ask about the efficacy. You bloody well expect some reaction to a vaccine - that’s literally what they’re designed to evoke.  It’s another reason why actual experts will look at the raw data, and separate put expected and tolerable reactions that show the vaccine is working from bad stuff that may or may not be a side effect and go and investigate them some more.

Yep, but here we are. The wtf was more about the logic there. If I potificate that two numbers contain the same proportion of numbers that aren't due to the vaccine, and I subtract the same number from each, the ratio changes? Really? Who knew?

Thanks for proving my point. You sound like a zealot or someone who is petrified with fear.

From what I've heard, the vaccine doesn't stop you from getting it, doesn't stop you from spreading it, doesn't stop new mutations from occurring, it's designed to lessen the effects of the worse cases.

As an extremely fit fifty-something year old, I'll take my chances and as you've (presumably) had your vaccine, you got nothing to fear. However, if you're so scared of me, why don't you find a desert island for you and your family to live on? That way you will be "a long long way away from me", but by the sounds of it, I wouldn't wanna be anywhere near you anyway. 

BTW, if you read my post properly you will see that I'm not an "anti-vaxxer". (I'm not Big Ger either).

Seems like you've been hearing a lot of shit, to put it bluntly, and filing a lot of shit in your head without going to any minimum effort to check if its shit.  I'd rather you didn't promulgate the shit in the middle of a pandemic.

I could spend a lot of time finding evidence to counter much of what you've said, but I'm going to just pick on a single example to make my point that you are spewing forth shit.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/one-dose-of-covid-19-vaccine-can-cut-hou...

You literally are.  You are spreading obvious lies about the vaccines in the middle of a global health crisis where the vaccines are directly saving tens of thousands of lives in our country alone.

I fear for the over-worked nurse who may have to have the conversation with you knowing there's a good chance they're the last person you are ever going to speak with.  I'd give no tosses if you'd sign a waiver that you will not request any medical treatment if you catch Covid.  Actually, I will happily pony up my own money for a solicitor to produce such a waiver if you're interested in putting your life behind the shit you're coming out with?  Luckily for you, the majority of people are engaging with vaccination and they're protecting you.  

Are you as fit as John Eyers was?

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-fit-and-healthy-man-42-killed-by-corona...

From what I've heard a motorcycle helmet doesn't stop you dying in a crash, doesn't stop you from crashing.....

Like all the other antivaxxers who have recently made the news when they take it all back on their death bed?

Just saying.... Trad Dad is a real person who has an impeccable climbing CV.... some of us identified him almost immediately from the similar posts on the other channel.

In many ways your attitude just proves some of his argument. IMHO what I regard as a very clear scientific position simply isn't totally obvious  to the general public, thanks to mixed messages from leading western nations (esp the US and UK). I think Trad Dad is right that compulsion and incentives can work against the truth by feeding conspiracy. I also know the big pharma, government, medical establishment linkage does have a lot to answer for in modern times (especially the US opioid epidemic). Given some terrible past public health responses and government lies not being properly called out, when we add in social media giants allowing dangerous  lies to freely circulate, we have a major social communication problem. My view is for anyone who really believes in science it's simply best to just point to actual evidence and not insult genuine climbing posters (UKC deal with the troll accounts pretty quickly).

Someone else pointed to the brexit link...very apt in my view as the poorest in society were left behind and insulted when they raised concerns with the unfair status quo. The comfortable rich racists and europhobes were always going to support brexit but the establishment helped get the vote over the line by poor messaging and insults of the poor.

Disingenuous to the point of dangerous misinformation.  I can't respect you for purveying that harmful and possibly fatal attitude to others. It is a miss-summary almost to the point of lying.

The vaccine isn't GUARANTEED to stop you getting it and if you get it you have a chance of spreading it.  But it is GUARANTEED to stop a LOT of people getting it and those people will CERTAINLY not spread it.

You are effectively alleging that a chain reaction cannot be stopped by graphite rods because you can't guarantee that any given specific reaction will not happen.  Of course it is possible to guarantee the statistical effect of neutralising enough reactions to stop a chain reaction.

Please keep your views to yourself, as very, very fit people in their 50s have decided to take the chance you want to take and have expressed deathbed regrets at a choice that has robbed them of a future.

I'm not guaranteeing that this will happen to you, but I guarantee it has and will happen to some people who are doing as you are specifically because of the choice you are all making.

But please don't kill others or encourage them to kill themselves. Now keep your harmful self and advice away

Please have a good look at yourself and see if you can really justify your posts morally.  Of course you needn't do this if you are a bad cyber actor as all of my above comments simply have no effect except to show the flaws and dishonesty in the lines to which I replied.

Yeah of course

The first vaccine to be used in volume was Pfizer, e.g. in Scotland the very first delivery was 470k doses of Pfizer, which would correspond to 4.7 million doses in the whole UK.  The first couple of months when they were doing the really old the Pfizer and AZ numbers weren't that different.  And from what I remember AZ has production problems so I am not sure they actually got the planned deliveries of AZ on this schedule.

https://twitter.com/fatweegee/status/1351583237454389249/photo/1

Headache is even broken out as a cause: Headaches - 19,098 (Pfizer) + 82,312 (AZ) + 1534 (Moderna) + 214 (Unknown) = 103,158

That is a pretty small number of headaches reported if it is just 'nearly everyone gets a headache' and they've given out tens of millions of doses.   Looks to me that it takes something a fair bit worse than a normal headache to get log on this system.

Assumes facts not in evidence.  How about a citation with some numbers.  This is what you need to explain:

* Pfizer - 20million people - 32.1m doses - Yellow Card reporting rate - 1-in-215 people impacted
* Astrazeneca - 24.7m people - 47.5m doses - Yellow Card reporting rate - 1-in-111 people impacted

When you read the individual diseases/symptoms many of them are more than 3x worse for AZ than Pfizer and a couple are getting on for 5x worse.   That isn't noise and it is far more than the relative ratio of doses.  That is one vaccine being much worse than the other.

No, I have read the numbers and said what any sensible person would say.  They AZ numbers are not just a little bit worse they are massively worse.   

The UK government is biased when it comes to AZ, their Brexit / UK world leader narrative had too much influence on their purchasing decisions and there are too many personal ties between ministers, civil servants and advisers to Oxford University.   I don't blame them for buying a bunch early on before the data was in but I think they also moved too slowly towards mRNA vaccines when the numbers became clear because they let politics get in the way.

Your comment on this is getting beyond facial Tom.  You're clearly not a fool and I do wish you'd at least read and address what several other posters (not just I) have raised.

The demographics of each vaccine's cohort are very different.

Are you alleging that the MHRA are incompetent in their evaluation of the YCS data?  That's what this boils down to IMO.

Looking at the numbers in the table and going "look x is bigger than y as a ratio of doses given" is not science, it's not medicine, its noise.  What needs to be done is to compare the rate of reported incidences in a way that accounts for the different demographics of the two vaccine cohorts.

Neither you, nor I, nor I suspect any other contributor to this thread have the information to do that.  

This is egregiously bad analysis.

I agree with another poster that this does not look like a rational position.

Arguing over nth degree of side effects, when both are good vaccines, just because one is tenuously more British than the other could be considered childish. 

How many people will actually report low grade side effects?

I felt shit for a day after my first AZ jab. I didn't report it. I expected to feel shit after receiving a vaccine, because, well, most vaccines do that, and almost everyone I knew who had had the AZ vaccine before me said they felt shit for a day or so.

....... However, if you're so scared of me, why don't you find a desert island for you and your family to live on? That way you will be "a long long way away from me", but by the sounds of it, I wouldn't wanna be anywhere near you anyway. ....

As for the point above; the percentage of people (over 18) who have had the vaccine has been WAY over 50% for some time - and getting bigger by the day. This means that YOU are in the minority, and as such YOU (and your kind) would be the ones to be isolated, not the majority.

As for everything else, I think Wintertree put it best (at 10.29 Saturday), and I can do no better than invite you to read and re-read what he said.

As for you - you're just spouting lies. You may believe them, you may no longer believe them all but are embarrassed to admit it. But one thing is for sure - what you're spouting is dangerous, and I dearly wish that the law could be used to stop your bilge in the same way that encouraging/helping suicide is an offense, because that is effectively what you're doing.

More English is the 'problem', I think...

I'm not a fool.  I am looking at two different vaccine technologies and I am seeing very different numbers of side effect reports and also clear differences between various side effects i.e. it isn't uniformly worse for AZ, there's a couple which are worse for Pfizer.  The obvious explanation is that the two vaccine technologies have different side effects.   Why is it surprising that giving someone a complete virus causes more side effects?

Anyone who wants to argue against the obvious interpretation of the data should be showing some numbers.

According to this Nature article in the US there are around 372 reports of side effects for every million doses of mRNA vaccines but in the UK it was 4,000 reports per million doses of AZ.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00290-x

OK - not directly comparable numbers and the article is a few months old but it is based on millions of doses and it is an order of magnitude different.

I hear people asserting that.  I don't see them giving numbers for different age ranges or using it to explain the side effect data.   Recently Pfizer has been used mostly for young people but it was also the first vaccine to become available in volume and the oldest and sickest in January and February were getting Pfizer.

The obvious difference here is not the demographics it is the vaccine technology.  That's where the suspicion should be until proved otherwise.

I'm not a fool.  I am looking at two different vaccine technologies and I am seeing very different numbers of side effect reports and also clear differences between various side effects i.e. it isn't uniformly worse for AZ, there's a couple which are worse for Pfizer.  The obvious explanation is that the two vaccine technologies have different side effects.   Why is it surprising that giving someone a complete virus causes more side effects?

Anyone who wants to argue against the obvious interpretation of the data should be showing some numbers.

According to this Nature article in the US there are around 372 reports of side effects for every million doses of mRNA vaccines but in the UK it was 4,000 reports per million doses of AZ.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00290-x

The original clinical trials show there are double the side effect reports in the vaccine group than the placebo group so this is not just about background medical issues. 

https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577

I hear people asserting that.  I don't see them giving numbers for different age ranges or using it to explain the side effect data.   Recently Pfizer has been used mostly for young people but it was also the first vaccine to become available in volume and the oldest and sickest in January and February were getting Pfizer.

The obvious difference here is not the demographics it is the vaccine technology.  That's where the suspicion should be until proved otherwise.

Science doesn't consist of one person declaring what is "obvious".

You could be right, or you could be barking up the wrong tree.

I repeat myself: "Neither you, nor I, nor I suspect any other contributor to this thread have the information to do that."

Demographic conflation is a clear and obvious factor when interpreting the raw YCS data.  

You don't have the data to understand it.  I don't have the data to understand it.

In the absence of data to understand it, I'm certainly not going to make a lot of noise that a vaccine in "worse" based on what I consider "obvious" in the midst of a global health crisis where one of the remaining problems  is ~12% of adults not engaging with vaccination, and where the reports are clear that the majority of people going to hospital and dying are unvaccinated.

Nuance.  

Even if you are right you are talking about a noticeable difference in lowish frequency side-effects between two vaccines wth excellent efficacy; and where any side-effects are on average considerably less bad than getting covid (aside from killing people it has caused blood clotting of a different type, alongside a plethora of serious effects on various organs). I don't mind the politicians saying AZ will be a gift to the world it being much cheaper and OK to store in an ordinary fridge.

True. If it had been a Herriot Watt / AZ vaccine, Tom think differently. 

In the US oranges weigh about a kilogram but in the UK, where there's a special system set up with an easy to use website where people can report the weight of fruit, apples weigh only 500g.

Science also doesn't consist of pretending large differences across large datasets are not significant.   The reasonable working assumption is that two completely different vaccine technologies have different side effects. 

Maybe there is a more complex explanation but the onus is on the people who want to push that  to justify it with numbers because there is a simple way of explaining the data  i.e. the whole virus vaccine is causing more side effects than the mRNA one. 

That is always true in science.  It is a question of probability and the most likely explanation.   There is no reason to expect two different types of vaccine to have the same side effects.   Nobody expects aspirin to have the same side effects as paracetamol or codeine.

It is a possible factor.  I doubt whether the differences in the demographics is sufficient to explain the scale of the differences in reports.   The ratio of reports is different for different symptoms, which looks more like different side effects from different medicines.  

So until someone finds data to support that hypothesis or a biological argument as to why mRNA vaccines should have the same side effects as whole virus vaccines we should stick to the obvious explanation.

We both agree that vaccination is far preferable to non-vaccination and both AZ and Pfizer have benefits which far outweigh the side effects.   That doesn't mean they are equivalent and it doesn't mean that the residual risk of vaccination couldn't be further reduced.  We need to be able to have a scientific argument about data without worrying how anti-vaxxers will misinterpret the discussion.

Are these oranges obese or genetically modified?

Are the reporting structures comparable?

The other major factor we need to consider is that all this argument is really academic; we simply did not have enough Pfizer vaccine to vaccinate everybody. We did have some Pfizer and some AZ. They were used accordingly. Once it was realised that there was a minor risk of a serious blood clotting side effect (the only one that seems to be a significant problem), AZ use for low risk individuals (the young, essentially) was deprecated; the risk/benefit balance swung away from AZ to Pfizer.

I really don't see the benefit of arguing the toss about which vaccine is better; we are where we are, and, as a result of the vaccination programme, we are now in a much better place.

We could not have predicted which would be the more effective vaccine, or which would have fewer side effects, when we poured money into developing and buying them.

No, not even close

Third possibility; he doesn't believe any of it, but is just being a contrarian dickhead. For shits and giggles.

You're behaving like one.

Nobody expects or claims they'll be the same. But, nor can we say from just the data in the OP which is better or worse.

You're not looking at side effects, you're looking at some reports of coincident events, some of which are almost certainly, given the vast numbers of doses and individuals involved, side effects.

And when they control for the different demographics receiving those jabs?

Almost universally young people didn't get Pfizer in the UK. Older people tend to be sicker, much sicker, they also tend to be more engaged when it comes to reporting things. They predominantly received AZ. The yellow cardsare not reports of side effects, they are reports of events coincident with vaccination. Older people have medical events more frequently than the young.

Yes, briefly in low volume for the oldest and likely sickest but there are millions of aging, ailing over 40's got AZ and millions of generally much weller under 40's got other jabs.

Given the difference in demographic profile of the different groups (AZ vs Pfizer) would be expected to account for a big difference in the underlying health of each group and the conditions I really don't see how you dismiss it so glibly. You're properly off down the rabbit hole here Tom.

jk

I did sort of raise it previously when querying TIE anti English warm up post.

They asked me about first jab side effects when I had my second jab and made a note. So it is possible they fed those back or maybe they didnt do anything with it beyond making the note "nothing serious reported so no need to say go and speak to a doctor before having the second".

As Wintertree says none of us have the knowledge to turn this raw data into something properly meaningful. Anything that we could spot and be confident in saying thats definitely dodgy I expect would have had the particular vaccine shelved (at least for any of the serious things and not a headache for a day or the utter surprise that my arm hurt a bit for a day).

TIE is pretty much doing exactly the same as the antivax nuts but just targeting the AZ one since he hates the English.

It suggests to me that 

1) if after the best part of 50 million doses of vaccine only 2000 people have strokes it should be mandatory as that is a fantastic improvement over the normal rate  

2) Anti vaxxers are not very good at sums n such.

Edit to the above post: Almost universally young people didn't get AZ in the UK

Edit to the edit: Given the difference in demographic profile of the different groups (AZ vs Pfizer) would be expected to account for a big difference in the underlying health of each group and the conditions those groups would expect to be suffering from vaccine or not, I really don't see how you dismiss it so glibly.

That was a well bungled post!

The powers that be want you to believe in oranges in order to control you. 
 

Do some independent research and you’ll find so called oranges are just small grapefruit with a good tan.

Only a paid shill of big fruit would say that.  It’s self evident that they’re lemons which have been swollen with sugar water and painted orange.

I met someone down the pub who said they were specially created in order so that we would have the colour orange. Before then we just had red or yellow for it and so had to stick the grapefruits under a 5g emitter in order to create the fruits so we would have the colour.

So how are you going to paint something orange when the word came from the fruit eh? Are you small fruita trying to confuse things?

I gave the numbers for the first few months for Scotland in one of my earlier posts.  Assuming the UK number is 10x the Scottish one - which is extremely reasonable since it was a UK purchase - there were 4.7 million doses of Pfizer in the first order in January and there were weekly smaller Pfizer orders in Jan/Feb as well.   In England the policy was not to hold back vaccine for second doses so that's over 5 million first doses.   Those first doses will all be matched by now, so you are looking at in excess of 10 million doses of Pfizer going into the oldest and the sickest.   If you remember in Q1 AZ had all kinds of production problems and batches failing QA.

I don't think the 'AZ was used for the oldest' narrative is true: more like Pfizer was used for the oldest (because it was the first vaccine available in volume) and the youngest (because by the time the youngest people's turn came there were concerns about AZ) and AZ for those in the middle.

If it was just coincident events then the report numbers would scale with the numbers of doses.  The noise sources are going to affect both AZ and Pfizer groups pretty much the same. 

In the clinical trials they had a placebo group and it had about half the reports of the Pfizer group.  It's not perfect because they were reporting less serious effects but it gives a first cut estimate on how many of the reports are 'coincident events' or due to the vaccination process rather than what was vaccinated.

Well obviously back then it was called a “stummy beige” but the unionists rewrote the dictionary and forced new era colour names on all the schools…

I don't know.  The US is an advanced country and spends a fortune on health care, I assume its reporting system is pretty good, maybe even better than ours.  10x is a lot to explain with differences in reporting system between advanced countries.

I think this is exactly what is going on.  The UK government is being selective with information to nudge people into the behaviour it desires (i.e. using up the available vaccine rather than requiring them to buy a different balance of vaccines) and to prevent embarrassment.   What I see happening here is much the same as when the first reports of the blood clotting side effects came out.  I got trashed on here then as well for saying that the EU countries reporting them knew what they were about and there was probably an actual problem. 

From the numbers in the OP the UK government had collected the same data on clots but we didn't hear about it until other countries started to report problems. 

Pulmonary Embolism - 302 (Pfizer) + 1447 (AZ) + 7 (Moderna) + 8 (Unknown) = 1764

Deep Vein Thrombosis - 187 (Pfizer) + 1071 (AZ) + 7 (Moderna) + 8 (Unknown) = 1273

It seems clear to me from the numbers in the OP there are a ton of other symptoms which are happening more frequently in AZ than Pfizer.  The UK has changed policy on which vaccines it uses but it isn't being honest about the size of the problem because it would be embarrassing.

That's true.  But I think the UK stuck with AZ longer than necessary because it got tied into political narrative.   They really did not want their vaccine success story to turn into a story of being supplied by the EU. 

All I’m going say is Orange Order/ New World Order.

Coincidence? I think not. Wake up sheeple!

Ah aside from the Orange Order has a different source from the fruit. You are clearly an agent of Celtic water gods trying to hide their involvement in implanting us all with chips to believe in them again and so go back to polytheism.

This is an interesting article on a pathologist in Germany who has been funded to perform autopsies on victims of Covid, identifying microvasular damage as a significant problem early on in the pandemic. He has recently been performing autopsies on people that have died within 2 weeks of the vaccine and has come under fire for this. 
 

https://m-augsburger--allgemeine-de.translate.goog/panorama/Corona-Chef-Pat...

There is no if, that is all the yellow card reports are, coincident events, some inevitably are also side effects because all treatments have them but unless you consider who is filing each of them they cannot be compared treatment for treatment where very significantly different cohorts received different interventions. They certainly can't be compared directly in raw form with another country's reporting! It's just a nonsense, it doesn't even deserve to be called bad science.

While some Pfizer jabs went to the oldies, basically no AZ went to the young.

At this stage you're basically saying off the back of your jaundiced squinting at incomplete raw data that the people who have had full access to the associated demographic data are corrupt and or incompetent. This isn't our obviously corrupt, incompetent government we're discussing, it's professionals at the MHRA for whom this is the day job. It's a big claim.

jk

Why not?

We have VAERS? https://vaers.hhs.gov/

How is that not even close to the UK system? 

I thought both were user generated? (so should be heavily scrutinized).

Much as I despise Johnson et al, I still think it was for a far more prosaic reason; we had AZ vaccines. So we used them. Some was UK production, some was Indian production (my first dose was Indian). If there was an EU element to not using Pfizer as much, it may have been down to various EU countries threatening to embargo deliveries to the UK, and the complaints about EU based countries delivering to the UK preferentially, and not meeting the EU orders; remember all the fuss about who ordered what and when, and whether we should or shouldn't have joined an EU-wide order agreement...?

I think you are kidding yourself.  We are talking large numbers of cases and large multiples between AZ and Pfizer.   In some of these symptoms it is nearly 10x more.   There's a reasonable biological explanation for this - the vaccine technology is completely different.

A lot of Pfizer jabs went to the oldest and sickest.  At least 10 million of the 30 million (they got about 5 million doses in January and used them for first doses).   I know some middle aged people who got Pfizer so it isn't as simple as all the 40-70s getting AZ.  Maybe there's an argument to be made about demographics but it isn't going to explain the size of some of the differences and it isn't going to explain why the numbers vary so much from side effect to side effect.

My view is when the boss is corrupt and incompetent the organisation has a problem.   The boss decides what spin gets put on things, what information gets released and people who want to keep their job watch what they say. 

When government continually lies and dissembles I stop completely trusting government agencies.  If they want me to believe that AZ has roughly the same number of side effects as Pfizer when the raw numbers are in the OP then they need to prove it.  Otherwise I go for the obvious explanation - two different medicines and one has more side effects than the other,

Even if there is a small percentage(as in 0.00...something) more side effects, vaccinating the population as quickly as possible has saved many many more lives, than not, or slowing or delaying for your favourite non English connected vaccine.  

The Western world which is in the main in northern hemisphere have maybe 1-2 months to get the last few jabbed before the weather cools, doors and windows close, people head inside. 

There are enough anti vaxer idiots without you aiding their arguments. Everyone should be encouraging the unvaccinated to be jabbed for the sake of those who are vulnerable, on chemo etc etc.  

You do know that Pfizer  has just whacked up its price to the EU and is making bundles of profit.  Where as  the AZ is essentially non profit. 
 

You do understand that the likes of Van Tam are saying that vaccines have so far saved in 60,000 plus lives etc etc.

I really think you are missing the big issues. You have got lost in some anti Tory quagmire. 
 

Turn it round and ask the obvious question. What would have happened without the AZ vaccine?

Look at the numbers, it isn't 0.00...something   For all reactions it is 1.6% per dose for AZ and 0.7% for Pfizer.

* Pfizer - 20million people - 32.1m doses - Yellow Card reporting rate - 1-in-215 people impacted
* Astrazeneca - 24.7m people - 47.5m doses - Yellow Card reporting rate - 1-in-111 people impacted

Reactions - 256,005 (Pfizer) + 794,545 (AZ) + 29,606 (Moderna) + 2786 (Unknown) = 1,082,942

Right - and the western nations are pretty much going with Pfizer and Moderna now.

We don't need a narrative about AZ being as safe as Pfizer to persuade the unvaccinated in the UK to get vaccinated because they'll be getting Pfizer anyway.  

No, it’s not. Because those numbers are not confirmed side effects or reactions to the vaccine. That’s been pointed out several times, and it’s getting to the point where it looks like very intentional misrepresentation when you keep claiming that the data is solely vaccine “reactions”.

Not that it matters hugely given the above, but I’m struggling to get my head around your maths - how have you reached the conclusion that 1/111 people is equal to 1.6% of doses? If they only had one dose each, 1/111 is 0.9% and many have had 2 doses.

So what?   Pfizer have a good product, they spent a lot of money and put a lot of good people on the project, they deserve to make some money.

Quite often when companies give stuff away it is a business tactic to establish a market position with a product that would otherwise be uncompetitive.

Yes, but it is irrelevant.  Nobody is saying the risks outweigh the benefits for adults.  You don't need to make a bogus argument that a medicine is 100% safe to make the case that people should take it.

The only issue I am talking about is the relative level of side effects of AZ vs Pfizer/Moderna and all I am doing is reading the numbers. 

What's that got to do with anything.  I'm not saying we shouldn't have used it.  I took it myself and am glad to have had it.   *BUT* if there is plenty of Pfizer and Moderna and I can have one of those I would go for that in preference.   And that position is the exact same as that of the UK government, it is clear they'll be using mRNA vaccines for the 3rd jag and for the young people who aren;t yet done.

If you want that consideration to affect the ratio of AZ to Pfizer reactions in a way which looks better for AZ you would have to show that for some reason there were more 'false' reactions for AZ than Pfizer.  If it is roughly the same ratio of 'false' reports to jags then it actually makes it worse for AZ.  

I divided the number of reactions by the number of doses because people were complaining that counting people was unfair to AZ since there had been fewer second jags with Pfizer.

I assume the reason the 1/111 number doesn't match is because some people had a reaction with both doses.

What I will say is that looking at the number of reports it becomes easier to understand why the JCVI is being cautious about extending vaccination to younger age groups.   It's about more than just the clots that have been discussed before.

Seconded.  (Fifthed?)

Putting percentages and ratios out there without any attempt to understand or control for conflating factors is not science, it’s not stats and it has no place in a discussion about vaccine choice IMO.

It’s just a nuanced version of the abuse of data by anti vaccination types the OP was enquiring about.  It would be peculiar data that is controlled enough to support one argument and not the other.

I don’t want it to affect your ratios in any particular way. I do think it would be helpful if you were honest about what was being measured though. It is a fact that this database isn’t a measure of side effects - that fact has nothing to do with what you or I would like the data to show.

I also think the actual rates do matter, and you are knowingly presenting them as inflated. 10% to 20% and 0.000001% to 0.000002% both represent a doubling. However, in terms of actual risk to me I’d be much less concerned about doubling the smaller number.

As Vallence said every vaccine is needed. 1 vaccine is simply not enough.

You need multiple vaccines from different sources. 

If we were relying on Pfizer we would be way behind and so would other countries. 

You can also argue that Pfizer is an overpriced product when there is an equally good one available.

it’s like arguing the plane is crashing and arguing over what brand of parachute to use. 

I had a reaction to Pfizer, headache, fever, etc.. lasted about 24hrs over day 3. But, it's not really a reaction to the drug, it's my body's immune system ramping up to fight the pretend infection. A great number of people have no idea how any vaccine works, what symptoms are caused by disease versus our own responses etc... me reporting my symptoms as a reaction when it's really a sign the vaccine has triggered an immune response would be wrong, what criteria is your data gathered through?  

I'm sure you are an intelligent nice guy, but your politically stance is clouding your view and not doing you any favours. 

If you want another view on the profiteering associated with Pfizer etc have a read of this from Oxfam 

https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/vaccine-monopolies-make-cost-vaccin...

Tom - the factor you are missing is that there is very likely a significant difference in the reporting rate between the two vaccines.

The rate at which self-reported possible side effects are reported in clinical trials is significantly effected by both pychological factors (e.g. ongoing news stories about a treatment) and physiological factors (longer lasting trivial-but-noticable side effects such as a sore arm are likely to increase reporting of possible side effects by repeatedly reminding the patient of the treatment).

How big can these effects be?: These effects will be more significant for more delayed and more minor side effects. However it is easy to find cases of clinical trials which suggested a >40% miss-rate of serious side effects (strokes) suggesting that the scope for these factors modifying the numbers is easily able to accomodate the differences in self-reporting numbers you are highlighting

Are these effects likewly to be different between different vaccines? Yes - see examples chosen above. They are also likely to be different across different countries, or even social sub-groups

Can you or I as non experts determine if these effects have a significant effect on the data presented? No - this is what experts with enough time to look at each case in-depth are for.

And the reason for this is that UK scientific advisors considered that Pfizer was safer than AZ.

And the reason you will all be getting a booster dose of Pfizer is that these same advisors consider that it is also more effective.

Not quite sure why Edinburry Tom is getting such grief for following the science...

Since when has posting anecdotal evidence been a good way of garnering likes on a UKC Covid thread? Would this have worked if Mr Eyers had died of a post-vaccine blood clot?

It would be nice to have some consistency on here.

Are you really not sure?

I've seen a remarkable range of posters all give clear critiques with Tom's deeply flawed interpretation of raw data and misunderstanding or misrepresentation over what that data comprises.

I hope the other posters don't mind that I've complied their comments in to a table below, it's in chronological order.  Apologies to any other posters whose comments I have missed.

That's five separate takes from five separate people with a strong common theme.

The issue appears to be that Tom is not following the science, he he performing what many other posters consider to be a thoroughly non-scientific analysis of some raw data that smells to the science types on here like it's based around pre-conceptions and not questioned assumptions.

I know at least two people in the list below will have reviewed many scientific papers.

So, are you really "not quite sure" why there is such a consistent and clear pushback on the claims under discussion here?   

Longsufferingropeholder

• https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/covid_adverse_affects-737732?v=...
• AZ was given to older people who a) can be arsed to report and b) have more shit wrong with them.

wintertree

• https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/covid_adverse_affects-737732?v=...
• Demographic conflation is a clear and obvious factor when interpreting the raw YCS data.    You don't have the data to understand it.  I don't have the data to understand it.

jkarran

• https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/covid_adverse_affects-737732?v=...
• Almost universally young people didn't get Pfizer in the UK. Older people tend to be sicker, much sicker, they also tend to be more engaged when it comes to reporting things. They predominantly received AZ. The yellow cards are not reports of side effects, they are reports of events coincident with vaccination. Older people have medical events more frequently than the young.
• https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/covid_adverse_affects-737732?v=...
• There is no if, that is all the yellow card reports are, coincident events, some inevitably are also side effects because all treatments have them but unless you consider who is filing each of them they cannot be compared treatment for treatment where very significantly different cohorts received different interventions. They certainly can't be compared directly in raw form with another country's reporting! It's just a nonsense, it doesn't even deserve to be called bad science.

Stuart Williams

• https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/covid_adverse_affects-737732?v=...
•  I do think it would be helpful if you were honest about what was being measured though. It is a fact that this database isn’t a measure of side effects - that fact has nothing to do with what you or I would like the data to show.

Paul Baxter

• https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/covid_adverse_affects-737732?v=...
• The rate at which self-reported possible side effects are reported in clinical trials is significantly effected by both pychological factors (e.g. ongoing news stories about a treatment) and physiological factors (longer lasting trivial-but-noticable side effects such as a sore arm are likely to increase reporting of possible side effects by repeatedly reminding the patient of the treatment).

It's a very small sample, n=1, but it's evidence not 'anecdotal evidence'.  You knew that though, your misuse of the term was not an honest mistake.  It's beyond reasonable doubt that the unvaccinated Mr Eyers was hospitalised with Covid and there's absolutely no subjective wiggle room involved in gauging how bad the outcome was for him.  Alive/dead is very much a binary thing.

He didn't, so we don't know.  Perhaps you could run a quick experiment to find out by posting a link to a credible news story about another middle aged physically fit man in the UK who did.

In my imaginary study of death caused by housing, I've checked the  type of deaths split according to bungalow or multiple story house.

There were significant deaths of heart disease, stroke, dementia and cancer in bungalows. Way more than you might expect given that there arent so many bungalows.

However while there were only a small number of fatal falls, they were almost exclusively in multi story buildings. 

So can I conclude from this that bungalows are the more dangerous type of house?

I think this bears closer analysis, it could be very important if he is right 

There seems to be a fair degree of consistency in response to your posts.

What is happening here is an English gang up on someone who is basically presenting the international consensus.   Every advanced country in the world has ditched or is in the process of ditching AZ for Pfizer and Moderna.  Including the UK which is setting up to donate millions of excess doses of AZ and is using Pfizer and Moderna for young people and third jabs.   When you look at the numbers in the OP and the numbers on effectiveness and you pretend there's no difference between the products it is getting laughable.

Which is sh*t.  Pfizer was used for the oldest and sickest in January and February.  I posted numbers for the vaccine deliveries.  AZ couldn't make the stuff in volume at that time.   I imagine the really old and sick in care homes have medical staff making the reports so 'can't be arsed' doesn't come into it.

How many people actually know about the yellow card reporting website?  I certainly didn't until today.  My guess is what happens is that people who feel really sh*tty or have a bad reaction get in contact with their GP and that's where the reports mostly come from - either the GP filing or the GP telling them about the website.   A lot of things on that list from the OP are stuff that requires a medical diagnosis.

Because the government aren't making the data on who got what vaccine available.   But I don't see any argument that this demographic effect is large enough to explain the very large effects in the data.   

The real problem is you are starting from an assumption that the vaccines would have roughly similar side effects and trying to find a way that could still happen despite the crazy large differences in reported side effects.  As I keep saying there is no reason to expect two completely different technologies to have the same level of side effects.   

For many of these symptoms nobody is going to find this website and report it unless they think it is vaccine related.  Why would you?

The 'old people got AZ' thing is not true.   Really old people mainly got Pfizer because it was available first.  Probably 40-70 year olds got  more AZ than Pfizer but there's no data on how much more and there was certainly some Pfizer used in this age group. 

The 'events coincident with vaccination' argument is not sufficient to equate AZ and Pfizer.  In fact subtracting the same level of unrelated events from both numbers would make AZ relatively worse.  It is just speculation that for some reason AZ was getting more false reports.  That speculation is based on the false premise that AZ and Pfizer are equivalent so there must be some other mechanism to explain the data.  There is zero reason to expect the side effect numbers to be equivalent when the mechanisms of the vaccines are different.

If you were looking for a small effect 10% or 20% then obviously you shouldn't be comparing with data collected under a different scheme.   But when you see a 10x different result between vaccines based on data from different countries you can legitimately think something is going on.  In the real world the US chose not to use AZ so there is no AZ data to match directly against US data on Pfizer.  We need to work with the statistics that are available to form a working hypothesis because there are decisions to make now, not after someone goes away and sets up a carefully constructed research program and reports back.

It is interesting that the English see absolutely no problem with comparing drug deaths reported in different countries according to different criteria and even in different years in order to show Scotland has the highest drug deaths in Europe.    But they seem to have a real problem with UK to US comparison on vaccine side effects.

OK.  But sore arm is a very common side effect of the Pfizer jag.   It is on all their material.  So to make this credible you'd need to find some factor which is different between the jags which would lead to more 'spurious' reporting for one than the other.

This is searching for explanations which could avoid the obvious explanation and underlying it is the assumption that the reporting rates should be much the same.  But there's no reason why they should be much the same except that it would be convenient emotionally for people invested in the 'UK world beating vaccine' narrative.

Isn't this an area where Occam's Razor would be suitable to guide the approach.

I'll leave you combatants to properly argue about which hypothesis should be initially favoured but once that's done the questions should be:

• What assumptions are being made so that this hypothesis works?
• Can we test those assumptions?
• If testable and the assumptions are verified then this strengthens the "current" hypothesis.
• If testable and the assumptions are "overthrown", then modify the hypothesis or swop to an alternate hypothesis.
• If not testable then either accept the hypothesis with caveats, or modify the hypothesis or swop to an alternate hypothesis (which may then fail and lead back to the original being more "ok").
• Repeat until everyone is happy.

IMO "the different vaccines produce different side effects" is a simpler hypothesis than "the differences are due to demographics or other population/sampling factors". So I would actually select Tom's hypothesis first BUT the main assumption (and it is a big un) is "assuming that there are no other factors which would skew the results".

So what are those possible "skew" factors - and from what's been said it seems that the first one to test (and therefore "remove" from the data - effectively modifying the hypothesis) is the "some of the data is coincident rather than causal" - surely this should be possible to deal with from pre-Covid statistics about the various "symptoms" - maybe previous yellow card data, maybe other sources.

The second possible "skew" factor (& possibly the biggest) is that the "age demographic of both populations is not taken into account". BUT - can this be tested - it seems like the relevant data is not available - and IMO this is why the thread has got stuck and is going round in circles. 

With the alternate hypothesis of "the differences are due to demographics or other population/sampling factors", the big assumption is "the vaccines actually produce similar side effects". Is this testable? - is there data (other than that in the OP) that would show that for similar populations, the vaccines produce similar (or different) side effects. It may be preferable to select this as the initial hypothesis if this is testable, since it may actually lead to an answer rather than an impasse.

Please stop going round in circles.

Could be some data is coincident. Also very likley to be most. I have no idea at all. I'd be surprised if Tom does. What proportion of the blind people went blind due to the vaccine? There's certainly a possibility it was zero. Yet Tom is using this valueless information to back in his assertion that the English vaccine is worse.

I'd agree.

So we have a list of injuries that may or may not be related to a population that we know little about.

Tom is arguing from this position of ignorance that AZ is worse. Everyone else is saying there we don't have sufficient information, and that it would not be surprising if Tom's anti English bent means he reached a conclusion first, then made the data fit. 

It makes not one jot of difference to me what the answer to this question is...I neither work for AZ or Pfizer, and both work extremely well, so whatever the real answer is I couldn't give a toss.

Maybe, but my posts aren't even controversial, just inconvenient! Inconvenient truths are never popular but someone's gotta say them

There are a number of credible news reports from reputable media outlets (BBC, FT, Guardian) with stories about individuals dying from blood clots linked to vaccines but I'm not going to post them because they're anecdotal and shouldn't be used to influence people. Easy enough to find them if you're interested. While you're at it you can check what 'anecdotal evidence' means.

There are some 181 countries using AZ versus 112 using Pfizer- an interesting statistic.

And in years to come there will be numerous business MBA's researching how Pfizer were able to make huge profits on the back of your narrative which still fails to recognise that the AZ vaccine does what it says on the tin so to speak.

I do wonder if AZ was a non profit vaccine and AZ charged a similar market price to Pfizer whether there would be this sort of anxiety.

I have also held the if you like " business" view that there is some very clever and sophisticated marketing against a non profit vaccine which will come out in future years.

Sure.  Different vaccines > different rates of side effects is an entirely sensible thing to test for.   A scientific test will account for conflating factors, and we don’t have the data to do so.  Therefore any “conclusion” we can draw is nothing but noise.  I don’t feel that now is a good time to be making noise against any of the vaccines.

I was not going round in circles, I was summarising the points our “new” poster oureed missed when saying he didn’t understand why Tom was getting a hard time.

Anyhow, tom just broke the circle:

“What is happening here is an English gang up on someone who is basically presenting the international consensus.”

I wasn’t aware of an international consensus that the raw data from the YCS was representative of symptoms; if there was I think all vaccines would have a major problem.  But beyond that, surprise surprise the crux of their defence comes down to blaming the “English”.  That’s not a scientific rebuttal of what they’re claiming is an informed analysis.  Warning lights are flashing down at quality control. I don’t know that all the posters raising concerns are English, I think at least one is not.   I care very little about which has worse side effects so long as their probability is much much less than the probability of a compressible or worse level of harm from the virus.  I care very much about their continued utter abuse of the uncontrolled, raw submissions to the YCS.  That’s not far removed from the tactics anti vax types are using - if this data was solid enough to support Tom’s argument it would support theirs…

I'll stick with the SAGE/BMJ analyses thanks!

No, your posts aren't inconvenient,  they are simply selectively misleading and result in people making poor choices. Your conscience is clearly OK with that, so that's fine.

Deepsoup took the time to explain to you earlier why this claim of yours was wrong, did you miss their post?  I'll not repeat it, but I've linked it for you to read, and added the OED definition of "anecdotal"

Oxford English Dictionary: Anecdotal  - adjective - (of an account) not necessarily true or reliable, because based on personal accounts rather than facts or research.

Deepsoup's post: https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/covid_adverse_affects-737732?v=...

A credible news report is not anecdotal, it is n=1 evidenced data.

Only, right now in the news, it isn't n=1, it's n=lots and fast rising as the surviving family of vaccine refuser after vaccine refuser try and salvage some good out of their love one's death by using their tragedy to show others an "inconvenient truth", as it were.

MHRA's for me, but sounds like we're arguing for similar. The point that everyone chiming in is universally trying to make is that Tom's analysis is asinine. So you might be violently agreeing with everyone here.

Yup. Normally his anti English bigotry is just sad and I find it amusing baiting him as I suspect others do but in this case he is actively doing his best to undermine a vaccine just because he thinks it is associated with the English.

Excellent work,  it seems my summary post of the point all the other posters were making to Tom has got you on board with what we we saying, and you now understand why he has been getting so much stick.  (The point being that a proper analysis is needed by domain experts with access to the full longitudinal data, and not some random numerical Gish Gallop over some uncontrolled raw data.)

Although I'm a bit confused at your mention of "BMJ analyses" - the BMJ is a journal, not a domain expert in analysing vaccine side effects.  The MHRA are the regulator of choice here.

It's going to go in to meltdown over the Valneva VLA2001 vaccine.  

Tom has invented this bizarre "old tech/new tech" framework for comparing AZ and Pfizer; both are really quite new technology and I think the Oxford/AZ platform has a great future ahead of it - with the science coming out on what was likely causing the very low probability clothing issues and how to address it.  

By their old tech / new tech take, VLA2001 is very "old tech" because it's a whole, inactivated virus and it's got much more stuff in it that Pfizer (this being another argument against AZ), but... it's being made in Scotland.  Does not compute.  Bzzzzztttt Pffftttt.  

For example: https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1088

I did, before I posted.  Just to double check I wasn't about to make an arse of myself.  Consequently I'm pretty happy that I'm not the one making an arse of myself here. 

I also had a brief look for "credible news reports from reputable media outlets", didn't find any.

E2A:
In my response to Big Boomer Gerdoomer above, I though it best just to make the one point and leave it at that.  But since I've jumped in with both feet now, just another thing about that post..

The trope about fear.  Particularly his dig at another poster for being "petrified".  It's *really* tiresome macho bollocks.  And, perhaps unsurprisingly, a favourite bit of rhetoric for would be 'strongman' right wing political types.  Trump, Bolsonaro etc.

I'm pretty fit for my age too (though nowhere near as fit an John Eyers was before he became ill), and even before I was vaccinated probably would have been ok.  Fancying your chances is no reason to voluntarily roll the dice though.  If you roll a pair of dice and a double six means you'll die, you have a 97.2% chance of survival.  A single round of Russian roulette gives you 83.3%.  Dunno about you, but with no reward to offset the risk I wouldn't fancy playing anyway.

But much as it's beneficial to me personally, that wasn't the main reason I chose to get vaccinated ASAP.  We only get herd immunity (from any vaccine) when a large percentage of the population has been vaccinated, and at that point the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and we all benefit enormously.  (Especially those who, for whatever reason, cannot take or benefit from the vaccine personally.) 

We had arrived at that point with measles before the anti-vaxxers managed to push us back, to the detriment of their children more than most but everybody else's children too.

I got my jabs mainly out of a sense of social conscience.  Same reason I'm still popping on a mask on the way in to the supermarket, mostly for the protection of others.

You might just as well turn that ridiculous childish accusation about being a scaredy cat back the other way.  BoomerGerDoomer fancies his chances with Covid.  If he's so damned rufty tufty, why is he so scared of taking a little iddy biddy vaccine then?  Frightened of a little prick and a bit of a hangover is he?  Chicken.

Take the Saltaire tinted specs off and read again, none of us are arguing one is better or worse than the other or that they're equal. We're arguing you cannot say either way from the yellow card reports alone. That's all. That's where you've gone wrong.

I'm Manx by the way and very much an internationalist.

Sorry but that shows.

Yet the people with the missing part of the data, professional statisticians, regulators and data scientists, they apparently do.

No, the problem is assuming you can say either way from the data you have. I fully expect the side effects, the signal, will be different but I also know they're so deeply buried in the noise that without much more information and expertise I simply can't say which is which, I have to rely on professionals with access to the data and that expertise.

If you stopped digging and bothered to understand what people were saying, nobody disagrees. They disagree with your methodology and they suspect your motivation.

You wouldn't. Doesn't mean you'd be right to make the connection though, nor that you'd be wrong to report the event because you might be right. Things happen.

If you're sick, you pray, then you get well. Did god do it? Your god or someone else's? We're not very good at intuition really.

Yes but basically no young people got AZ, that skews things dramatically.

And it's a total nonsense because the cohorts are different, they would be expected to suffer unrelated medical events at a different rate.

They're not false. They're just correlated reports. Some will be side effects of the vaccine, some will be side effects of the vaccination process, some will be coincidental. The ratio of those will differ for both the vaccine used AND the different cohorts.

Nobody does expect that. We just can't say from the partial data in the OP.

If you want but you should expect to be wrong.

If the control measures applied to make the data sets comparable were declared and reasonable I don't think you'd be getting much pushback. Comparing raw numbers is a nonsense.

Like young people not getting AZ?

There is no such assumption.

I'm not English and I despise this government and its tub thumping bullshit with every bone in my body. That's my motivation dealt with and I still think you've followed your politics into a rabbit hole.

jk

Okay, so I'll just helpfully explain some details here to aid in communication.

The British Medical Journal (BMJ) is a journal - this is like a magazine but for scientists, and it does not produce its own content, but sources it from the community.  The community produces scientific analysis, and the journal attempts to quality control what is published by getting other community members to peer review the submitted content.  This checks the content to make sure that the analysis is appropriate and that there are no howling mistakes in it.  The earlier post of mine that you seem to be in total agreement with is perhaps forshaddowing what a peer review would look like for TiE's analysis - except I doubt a single editor at the BMJ would even let it get as far as being sent out for peer review.

The link you have provide is to a study from individuals at 7 public health agencies and universities.  I might in a pinch call it a "PHE analysis" but it is not a "BMJ analysis".

It's really interesting that the authorship list on that study requires so many statisticians from so many experienced public health bodies - it's almost as if you can't just look at raw data and draw conclusions based on comparing ratios.

So, it seems you are now in an excellent position to understand the answer to your questioning statement: "Not quite sure why Edinburry Tom is getting such grief for following the science..."

Pleased to have been of service.

Edit: Almost forgot.  To quote from the abstract on the study...

Objective To estimate the real world effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 and Oxford-AstraZeneca ChAdOx1-S vaccines against confirmed covid-19 symptoms (including the UK variant of concern B.1.1.7), admissions to hospital, and deaths.

Given their stated objective, I don't think you're going to find much of direct relevance to the issue under discussion - actuations side effects vs the YCS raw data.  A quick text search did not turn up any permutation of "side effect", "yellow" or "YCS" in the document.

Edit 2: Ridge beat me to it.

Here's other definitions:

"Anecdotal evidence is usually based on individual experiences or observations, as distinct from probabilistic evidence that gives estimates of how likely something is to occur based on experience with large numbers of people."

"An anecdote is a brief, revealing account of an individual person or an incident"

From your link:

Objective:

To estimate the real world effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 and Oxford-AstraZeneca ChAdOx1-S vaccines against confirmed covid-19 symptoms (including the UK variant of concern B.1.1.7), admissions to hospital, and deaths.

What this study adds:     

A single dose of either BNT162b2 or ChAdOx1-S provides significant protection against covid-19 and further protection against severe disease lasting at least six weeks, including against the UK variant of concern (B.1.1.7)     

BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1-S offer similar levels of protection in adults aged 70 and older

Not sure what your point is?

Circles - not you particularly, the thread as a whole seemed to be stuck.

Tom doesn't do himself any favours by not separating his scientific and his political arguments. He appears to always be assuming causality (from "English" political decisions) when it may well be merely coincident.

I think it's quite worrying that we are fearful of saying things that might be taken out of context or twisted and then used as ammunition by anti-vaxers to push misinformation.

I wonder whether we are being subtly manoeuvred into self-suppressing reasonable debate by this fear.

As for the data in the OP, too many factors (whose magnitude is basically being guessed at) to be able to say anything with certitude. Would be a good starting point for a student research project (MSc level once Pandora's box has been opened?)

The point is you arent supposed to actually check the link but simply allow them to muddy the waters. See this random link which completely supports my case (I have actually chosen it since its semi relevant here).

https://xkcd.com/552/

"Anecdotal evidence is usually based on individual experiences or observations, as distinct from probabilistic evidence that gives estimates of how likely something is to occur based on experience with large numbers of people."

• Top tip, picking a sentence from a random book from 15 years ago and lying to the audience by presenting it was a definition is bullshit troll territory.
• Society operates and de-facto standardised definitions of common words for a reason.  We collect them in books called dictionaries.

Your second - edited in - reference is to a general wikipedia page with a somewhat literary bent.  The page on "anecdotal evidence" is more relevant and the key point here is that the news reports on unvaccinated Covid deaths are rapidly moving from n=1 to n=lots territory.  

Not really. It depends on whether its something you can have a reasonable debate about. In this case you cant really without lots of additional information and then getting a bunch of subject matter experts to review.

Yes which is what people have been pointing out repeatedly. As for student research project personally I would prefer it to be studied on an ongoing basis by qualified professionals who are looking for abnomalies in the figures to determine whether a particular medicine has some side effects which werent picked up in clinical trials.

Luckily that is the case. 

To be clear, IMO what Tom is doing here is making the same false assumptions of the YCS data that the anti-vax people do; it's much more direct and blunt than your take that discussion is limited out of fear our words could be misrepresented.  The same false precepts are required to support both Tom's claims and the anti-vax claims.   

I don't think this has been a reasonable debate; as others have said nobody denies the question at the heart of this - it would be odd if two vaccines so different had identical side effects - but the quality of the case made to support what seems to be a pre-determiend conclusion.

I think there will be a couple of dozen epidemiologist and medical statisticians pouring through this data already in the UK alone, across a range of institutes.  Controlling the data is that involved.

The link was to a comparative report on the effectiveness of AZ/Pfizer vaccines published in the British Medical Journal!

And its relevance to the Yellow card reports is.....

Yes, we understand that.

What was your point, caller?

Interesting comments all.

I thought I would also unreservedly apologise for the thread title saying 'affects' rather than 'effects' which I noticed after the editing window had ended.

Surprised someone else didn't remind me though. This is UKC after all.

Is John Ioannidis considered a reasonable person of science here? Just want to check before posting any links