"To be clear: there is no question that COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective, and an important tool in protecting people from severe disease and death."
The safety of COVID vaccines can indeed be questioned. The very paper that was supposed to demonstrate Pfizer vaccine safety indicated 101 "severe" adverse events caused by the vaccine compared to 8 cases of "severe COVID-19" prevented (see Tables S3 and S5).
Beckham's analysis is on point, but his article of faith statement that "there is no question that COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective, and an important tool in protecting people from severe disease and death" undercuts his analysis. We do not have enough experience or data to affirm those claims yet, notwithstanding the political rush to approve. Little to no research is being done long term on side effect;, there is concern that issues are underreported on VAERS; there is still debate and experiment on how far apart the initial doses should be, and while it is clear that the efficacy of the mRNA vaccines wane relatively quickly, there is no data on the impact of repeated shots, or of the interaction between the vaccine and the antibody status of people who have had the disease, yet many employers are demanding mandates for vaccination, even among those with natural immunity from experience of the disease. Similar statements in many reports seem to me an attempt to maintain credibility with the establishment that is being challenged. it won't work, and we've had our thalidomide and Zantac and how many more experiences in the past were it took longer to see the problems. The political manipulation of COVID to enhance government and corporate power, and to advance an idea of safety, as defined by the corporate government axis as paramount over protection of individual rights, minority opinions, and autonomy over our own bodies is the core of this issue, not the efficacy of a vaccine.
"The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior 'righteous indignation' - this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats."
I, too, might step up for an experimental “vaccine” if my risk factors were high — 65+? Co-morbidities? I’m in, in view of the dangers of severe respiratory distress to the elderly and health-compromised. However. Mandating a vax to 74 million under-18s with a statistically zero chance of death is medical malpractice and beyond. While depriving the population of near-zero-risk growth of herd immunity. Blue states have just started these overreaching mandates fir school-age children. I suspect this may be a tipping point - many are ready to die on that hill.
Our current state of scientific inversion has sown intense division in the U.S. and threatens to rip apart the social fabric.
Basic civil, human, and economic rights have been violated under demonstrably fraudulent pretenses, and the mainstream media has been complicit. Actual legit data reveal that the sacrifices we thought we were making for the common good were sacrifices made in vain, and yet unlawful lockdowns continue to demoralize the population and ruin lives. The tragic reality is that this was, and is, all for nothing.
To begin, few take the NYT seriously. It's a partisan rag. I concede there was a time it had credibility, but no longer.
My parents are 75 and 72 and just this week I had them watch 'Manufacturing Consent' by our good friend Chomsky so we could begin to have intelligent conversations about what is happening in America, how the MSM (NYT) and other rags (CNN, MSNBC) work within a defined ecosystem to impress a narrative upon the population. I've also had them read the TIME piece about the collaboration and amplification of Biden and censoring of conservative voices in the last election.
The clear narrative from coastal liberal elites is: white, conservative (Christian) men in rural, flyover America are the enemy. Prove me wrong.
This is the narrative. The Times narrative in this case has less to do with who is dying, because really they could care less, but more to do with a reinforcement of who the enemy is.
The reason Trump won, and may win again, is because he gives voice to the voiceless. It is not farmers in rural, middle America looking down their noses at coastal liberal elites. But it is the case that liberals hold great disdain for "the heathens" in the heartland.
Up until March 2020 I would have supported the Dem Party all day long. No longer. I have never witnessed such a rapacious, evil group of people hell bent on power.
Here's the good news. All the liberal Dems masking their children are declaring them faceless and voiceless, whereas that is not the case with rational, conservative parents. In 15 years, conservatives win because the Sheep will just do what they are told. Plus, no voice, no face.
But, to the article, this resonates: "The mortality burden of COVID-19 is not randomly distributed across age groups. Indeed, age appears to be the “strongest predictor of mortality” from COVID-19..."
There is parallel aspect to all this that I wish you, or Glenn Greenwald, would cover: The continued funding of dangerous virology research with little to no demonstrable chance of societal payoff.
Honestly, when the virus first started spreading, I just didn't worry much about where it came from. In terms of dealing with the immediate crisis, that point was irrelevant, and remains irrelevant. Whatever... But it does matter if we are talking about continued research funding. Once I started seeing familiar signs of "scientists" protecting their grant money, I spent a lot of time looking at the facts of the origin stories. We will never have the "smoking gun" that the media wants (especially since China is never going to cooperate), but if we were in a murder trial, I'd say the threshold of reasonable doubt has been well surpassed: The disease came out of the WIV, funded with US money.
A few weeks ago, Biden announced his $50 Billion program to "fight the next pandemic." Which, his advisors assure us, will almost certainly hit within the next decade. Even if there are people who still want to say we don't know where *this* pandemic came from, is it too much to ask that we stop spending money on actively creating new ones?
"To be clear: there is no question that COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective, and an important tool in protecting people from severe disease and death." -- A religious oath repeated by the faithful or the timid to avoid being labeled a heathen.
I'm disappointed in my "educated" acquaintances that swallow the shoddy analysis hook, line, and sinker. Their love of and belief in SCIENCE and how it's REAL always seems to follow their confirmation biases a little too closely.
Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc is a fundamental logical fallacy that constantly gets abused by the media and the politically motivated sociologists. Or is logic 101 not a part of scientific analysis any more?
There certainly is room for doubt about whether covid-19 vaccines are "safe and effective." As expressed, for example, in this peer reviewed journal article (Kostoff et al.) which states that "there are five times the number of deaths attributable to each inoculation vs those attributable to COVID-19 in the most vulnerable 65+ demographic."
For extra credit, he should have also have looked at the correlation between the % of blacks (who voted 95% Democrat) in a county and its (alleged) covid death rate. Simply because Trump carried the South, the correlation between county-level black population % and covid death rates will also be very high. This would further negate the NYT's "Red Covid" propaganda narrative.
….and lurking behind all of these arguments over proper statistical procedure is the widely acknowledged fact that the PCR test isn’t accurate and that there is really no strong correlation between “cases” and disease. This is akin to critiquing the methodology of a horoscope! Proper methodology or not, IT’S STILL ASTROLOGY!
The last line of the article sums up left-wing MSM: "We may not be better informed, but at least we know who to hate." This summarizes the purpose of the NYT perfectly- It is pure propaganda.
"To be clear: there is no question that COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective, and an important tool in protecting people from severe disease and death."
The safety of COVID vaccines can indeed be questioned. The very paper that was supposed to demonstrate Pfizer vaccine safety indicated 101 "severe" adverse events caused by the vaccine compared to 8 cases of "severe COVID-19" prevented (see Tables S3 and S5).
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577
Beckham's analysis is on point, but his article of faith statement that "there is no question that COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective, and an important tool in protecting people from severe disease and death" undercuts his analysis. We do not have enough experience or data to affirm those claims yet, notwithstanding the political rush to approve. Little to no research is being done long term on side effect;, there is concern that issues are underreported on VAERS; there is still debate and experiment on how far apart the initial doses should be, and while it is clear that the efficacy of the mRNA vaccines wane relatively quickly, there is no data on the impact of repeated shots, or of the interaction between the vaccine and the antibody status of people who have had the disease, yet many employers are demanding mandates for vaccination, even among those with natural immunity from experience of the disease. Similar statements in many reports seem to me an attempt to maintain credibility with the establishment that is being challenged. it won't work, and we've had our thalidomide and Zantac and how many more experiences in the past were it took longer to see the problems. The political manipulation of COVID to enhance government and corporate power, and to advance an idea of safety, as defined by the corporate government axis as paramount over protection of individual rights, minority opinions, and autonomy over our own bodies is the core of this issue, not the efficacy of a vaccine.
"The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior 'righteous indignation' - this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats."
-Aldous Huxley
I, too, might step up for an experimental “vaccine” if my risk factors were high — 65+? Co-morbidities? I’m in, in view of the dangers of severe respiratory distress to the elderly and health-compromised. However. Mandating a vax to 74 million under-18s with a statistically zero chance of death is medical malpractice and beyond. While depriving the population of near-zero-risk growth of herd immunity. Blue states have just started these overreaching mandates fir school-age children. I suspect this may be a tipping point - many are ready to die on that hill.
Our current state of scientific inversion has sown intense division in the U.S. and threatens to rip apart the social fabric.
Basic civil, human, and economic rights have been violated under demonstrably fraudulent pretenses, and the mainstream media has been complicit. Actual legit data reveal that the sacrifices we thought we were making for the common good were sacrifices made in vain, and yet unlawful lockdowns continue to demoralize the population and ruin lives. The tragic reality is that this was, and is, all for nothing.
The contemptible hubris of the ruling class needs to be humiliated periodically to keep them in line. Thanks for doing this.
To begin, few take the NYT seriously. It's a partisan rag. I concede there was a time it had credibility, but no longer.
My parents are 75 and 72 and just this week I had them watch 'Manufacturing Consent' by our good friend Chomsky so we could begin to have intelligent conversations about what is happening in America, how the MSM (NYT) and other rags (CNN, MSNBC) work within a defined ecosystem to impress a narrative upon the population. I've also had them read the TIME piece about the collaboration and amplification of Biden and censoring of conservative voices in the last election.
The clear narrative from coastal liberal elites is: white, conservative (Christian) men in rural, flyover America are the enemy. Prove me wrong.
This is the narrative. The Times narrative in this case has less to do with who is dying, because really they could care less, but more to do with a reinforcement of who the enemy is.
The reason Trump won, and may win again, is because he gives voice to the voiceless. It is not farmers in rural, middle America looking down their noses at coastal liberal elites. But it is the case that liberals hold great disdain for "the heathens" in the heartland.
Up until March 2020 I would have supported the Dem Party all day long. No longer. I have never witnessed such a rapacious, evil group of people hell bent on power.
Here's the good news. All the liberal Dems masking their children are declaring them faceless and voiceless, whereas that is not the case with rational, conservative parents. In 15 years, conservatives win because the Sheep will just do what they are told. Plus, no voice, no face.
But, to the article, this resonates: "The mortality burden of COVID-19 is not randomly distributed across age groups. Indeed, age appears to be the “strongest predictor of mortality” from COVID-19..."
FULL FUCKING STOP
There is parallel aspect to all this that I wish you, or Glenn Greenwald, would cover: The continued funding of dangerous virology research with little to no demonstrable chance of societal payoff.
Honestly, when the virus first started spreading, I just didn't worry much about where it came from. In terms of dealing with the immediate crisis, that point was irrelevant, and remains irrelevant. Whatever... But it does matter if we are talking about continued research funding. Once I started seeing familiar signs of "scientists" protecting their grant money, I spent a lot of time looking at the facts of the origin stories. We will never have the "smoking gun" that the media wants (especially since China is never going to cooperate), but if we were in a murder trial, I'd say the threshold of reasonable doubt has been well surpassed: The disease came out of the WIV, funded with US money.
A few weeks ago, Biden announced his $50 Billion program to "fight the next pandemic." Which, his advisors assure us, will almost certainly hit within the next decade. Even if there are people who still want to say we don't know where *this* pandemic came from, is it too much to ask that we stop spending money on actively creating new ones?
"To be clear: there is no question that COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective, and an important tool in protecting people from severe disease and death." -- A religious oath repeated by the faithful or the timid to avoid being labeled a heathen.
I'm disappointed in my "educated" acquaintances that swallow the shoddy analysis hook, line, and sinker. Their love of and belief in SCIENCE and how it's REAL always seems to follow their confirmation biases a little too closely.
Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc is a fundamental logical fallacy that constantly gets abused by the media and the politically motivated sociologists. Or is logic 101 not a part of scientific analysis any more?
This is why statistics, rather than CRT, should be part of every high school curriculum.
TL;DR - Correlation does not equal causation.
There certainly is room for doubt about whether covid-19 vaccines are "safe and effective." As expressed, for example, in this peer reviewed journal article (Kostoff et al.) which states that "there are five times the number of deaths attributable to each inoculation vs those attributable to COVID-19 in the most vulnerable 65+ demographic."
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221475002100161X
Great article by Jeremy Beckham.
For extra credit, he should have also have looked at the correlation between the % of blacks (who voted 95% Democrat) in a county and its (alleged) covid death rate. Simply because Trump carried the South, the correlation between county-level black population % and covid death rates will also be very high. This would further negate the NYT's "Red Covid" propaganda narrative.
….and lurking behind all of these arguments over proper statistical procedure is the widely acknowledged fact that the PCR test isn’t accurate and that there is really no strong correlation between “cases” and disease. This is akin to critiquing the methodology of a horoscope! Proper methodology or not, IT’S STILL ASTROLOGY!
Excellent piece. Thanks. The media sources like the NYT that scream “follow the science” do a piss poor job of it.
The last line of the article sums up left-wing MSM: "We may not be better informed, but at least we know who to hate." This summarizes the purpose of the NYT perfectly- It is pure propaganda.