July 2, 2022 

To the Editors,
 
This new article from the Epoch Times is shockingly misleading:
 
"Vaccination Increases Risk of COVID-19 Infection, But Infection Without Vaccination Gives Immunity: Study"
By Marina Zhang June 21, 2022 Updated: June 22, 2022
 
That headline is an absolute lie, which is obvious if you read the study paper. Here it is:
 
Effects of Previous Infection and Vaccination on Symptomatic Omicron Infections
  

Here’s what the paper ACTUALLY reported:

 

CONCLUSIONS

No discernable differences in protection against symptomatic BA.1 and BA.2 infection were seen with previous infection, vaccination, and hybrid immunity. Vaccination enhanced protection among persons who had had a previous infection. Hybrid immunity resulting from previous infection and recent booster vaccination conferred the strongest protection.

 
(Note: BA.1 and BA.2 are Omicron variants.)
 
They did not find that "vaccination increases risk of COVID-19 infection," nor that it was "linked with negative protection," nor that vaccination was undesirable in any other way.
 
Natural immunity is longer-lasting than a two-dose mRNA regimen, but far more dangerous to acquire. The study found that natural immunity is no more effective than three vaccine jabs (i.e., one booster).
 
The Epoch Times headline, “Vaccination Increases Risk of COVID-19 Infection,” is a plain lie. The study reported no such thing.
 
It appears that whoever wrote that claim does not understand the meaning of confidence intervals like "95% CI, −16.4 to 5.4" and "95% CI, −7.1 to 4.6," and chose to ignore the verbiage (in the same sentences!) which explained it.
 
The study found that there was no statistically significant difference in risk of symptomatic disease between being unvaccinated with no previous infection and having been vaccinated >6 months earlier with no booster (median interval 270 days). However, vaccination with a recent booster reduced risk of symptomatic disease by about 50% (roughly the same as having had a prior infection).
 
More importantly, the study authors also reported:
 

Previous infection, vaccination, and hybrid immunity all showed strong effectiveness (>90%) against severe, critical, or fatal Covid-19 due to BA.1 infection, but some of the 95% confidence intervals were wide because of small case numbers.

 
and:
 

Previous infection alone, BNT162b2 vaccination alone, and hybrid immunity all showed strong effectiveness (>70%) against severe, critical, or fatal Covid-19 due to BA.2 infection.

 
There was NO circumstance under which this study found that vaccination conferred a detectable disadvantage.
 
The ONLY metric by which vaccination conferred no advantage was:
 
1. When comparing total (mostly mild) symptomatic infection rates between (1) people with neither a previous infection nor vaccination, against (2) people who had no previous infection and who had gotten vaccinated >6 months earlier (median time 9 months) (just the initial two jabs). Those rates were statistically indistinguishable.
 
Vaccination conferred a robust advantage according to all of these metrics:
 
2. Among people who had a prior Covid-19 infection, when comparing total symptomatic infection rates. Vaccination reduced their risk of another infection.
 
3. Among people who had not had a prior Covid-19 infection, when comparing total symptomatic infection rates. Three jabs (initial vacine + booster) reduced risk of symptomatic disease by about 50% compared to people who were unvaccinated.
 
4. Among people who had not had a prior Covid-19 infection. Vaccination reduced risk of severe, critical or fatal disease by >70% (BA.2) or >90% (BA.1).
 
From my quick skim it appears that they did not report by how much vaccination reduced risk of severe, critical or fatal disease among unvaccinated people who had natural immunity from having survived a previous infection. That's probably because of insufficient sample size.
 
As for Yeadon, it’s been over ten years since he worked at Pfizer, and when he did work there he had nothing to do with vaccines. Calling him a former Pfizer executive is an attempt to mislead people into thinking that he’s some sort of whistleblower, with insider knowledge. Like just about everything else anti-vax propagandists say and do, the purpose is deception.
 
There is no evidence of widespread, serious side-effects from the Covid-19 vaccines. In this study, age-adjusted all-cause mortality risk for an unvaccinated person was a whopping 3.2× all-cause mortality risk for someone (like me) vaccinated with Moderna:
 
● https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7043e2.htm
● https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7043e2.htm#T3_down
 

Please stop spreading deadly lies from the likes of Mercola, Yeadon, RFK Jr, Alex Jones, etc.. The fact is that you're far safer getting vaccinated than going unvaccinated, and vaccination is modestly helpful even if you have already survived a previous Covid-19 infection.

 
Please also correct or retract this terribly misleading article.
 

Sincerely yours,
Dave Burton
Cary, NC 27513-4941
M: 1-919-244-3316
www.sealevel.info

 

"If 1σ consumes a trend there is no trend." -Seth Cressey