Kulldorff is wrong

Martin injures himself as he tries to thread the needle

Let me start by saying that Martin (Kulldorff) is obviously one of the good guys. You don’t put your name to the Great Barrington Declaration back in Oct 2020 without being a good guy.

But good guys can be wrong too, and letters behind your name are no protection from poor thinking and the corrosive, biasing nature of incentives.

I think that Martin wants to keep his place within civil society, he doesn’t want to be relegated to the purgatory of Rumble, Bitchute and god forbid Telegram. He does not want his fate to be that of Yeadon and now Malone.

In other words, be wants to thread the needle but in so doing has injured himself.

This article that was published in mid Dec 2021 has really bugged me. The whole article is embedded here with my thoughts and critiques throughout:

Vaccines Save Lives

BY MARTIN KULLDORFF DECEMBER 17, 2021

It’s Dec 2021 and Martin starts off with this declaration, that “vaccines” save lives.

He knows that these jabs are not vaccines, but genetic therapeutics, but insists on using that word throughout the piece without any qualification. He is, like so many others, trying to house the current jabs, within the halo of the word. That is unbecoming on Martin.

Let us assume the statement is true, although modified here: These genetic therapeutics save lives.

But what is also true is that: These genetic therapeutics kill and maim. So, we are left with an All Cause Mortality question that Martin is silent on throughout.

With the seasonal increase in Covid infections in the Northern United States, vaccines are important to keep the death counts down. To save lives, nothing is more critical than to ensure mass vaccination of older people who haven’t yet had Covid. 

Quite a bit to unpack here.

“nothing is more critical…”, really Martin. I notice that you don’t mention early treatment once. How can dangerous untested genetic therapies be more important than widespread early treatment protocols?

“ensure mass vaccination”, there is something very interesting in Martin’s word choice. “Ensure”, who will do the “ensuring”, the state, the care home, the health insurance company? It’s yet another invitation to the removal of agency, and “mass” means pretty much everyone in his aged cohort. There is a very interesting hint at compulsion, supported in my view by the absence of the mention of the word “voluntary” anywhere in the piece.

“who haven’t had covid”, this is really interesting as Martin, being one of the good guys, knows that natural immunity is real and enduring, yet stays silent on early treatment as, we the good guys know, that is the best pathway to natural immunity.

While the protection against infection and disease wanes a few months after vaccination, the protection against hospitalization and death is more durable and wanes more slowly. Hence, we should urge all older people who have not yet had Covid to get the vaccine as soon as possible.

The missing context from this section is that although the protection against severe disease might wane more slowly, its only a few extra months. If you accept the premise that their benefit wanes, then it’s implied that you are dependent on boosters. Martin here is making a case of subscription based pharma immunity. How can that be a worthwhile goal for an aged population?

Also, one of the conclusions of the Swedish study Martin is relying on is:

“The effectiveness against severe illness seems to remain high through 9 months, although not for men, older frail individuals, and individuals with comorbidities.”. So let me get this straight, we need to “ensure mass vaccination” of the old although the “extended coverage” he yearns for does not apply to the “older frail individuals with comorbidities”. Can Martin be serious here?

When the booster shots were approved by the FDA, we knew very little about their efficacy, but a recent observational study suggests that they reduce the risk of both infection and severe disease for those without prior infection.

While anyone can get infected, there is more than a thousand-fold difference in mortality risk between the old and the young. In 2020, public health officials and the public discourse focused on lockdowns, such as school closures, business closures, travel restrictions and working from home mandates, while there was very little effort to better protect high-risk older people. 

We are now making the same mistake again. Instead of intensifying efforts to vaccinate more of our older citizens, most of whom are retired, the public discourse is focused on vaccinating children and vaccine mandates for students and working age adults, many of whom already have natural immunity after Covid recovery. 

He is consistent in his defence of natural immunity. Good.

Earlier this year, I was censored by Twitter for writing that “Thinking that everyone must be vaccinated is as scientifically flawed as thinking that nobody should. COVID vaccines are important for older high-risk people, and their care-takers. Those with prior natural infection do not need it. Nor children.”

Why is the jab important for “their care-takers”?

It’s lines like this that give comfort to the totalitarians, that bring in mandates for healthcare works, and that cause millions worldwide to lose their jobs. Martin, if the jab doesn’t prevent you getting or giving the virus, why should a young person, that looks after an old person, be forced to get it as risk of job, career, and starvation?

You already admitted that the jabs value was reduction of severe disease, what’s that got to do with a 30 year old working in an aged care facility who has no statistically meaningful risk of severe disease? Martin, please do not give comfort to the tyrants with lazy language.

Unfortunately, we have entered a tug-of-war between vaccine fanatics who want to vaccinate everyone and vaccine skeptics. The biggest battlegrounds are children and work-place vaccine mandates, while the old are forgotten once again. Forgotten and left to die. 

Vaccine fanatics and vaccine skeptics have one thing in common. Together, they have contributed to a level of vaccine hesitancy never seen before in the United States. What the latter failed to accomplish over several decades, the vaccine fanatics have achieved in less than a year. How? Here are some examples:

Martin is right about vaccine fanatics, but he is wrong in the false equivalency he is framing. Yes, vaccine fanatics have helped hesitancy along, but the sceptics are sceptics for legitimate reasons, the fanatics are not fanatical for legitimate reasons.

We have known about natural immunity since at least the Athenian Plague in 430 BC, and studies show that the Covid recovered have stronger immunity than the vaccinated. People know this, and by mandating vaccines for those that are already immune, public health officials are undermining trust with the result that people are skeptical of other vaccine recommendations.

Good defence again of natural immunity.

For older people, who are at high risk of dying from Covid, the benefit of the vaccine greatly outweighs the small risks of a serious adverse event, so it is a no-brainer to be vaccinated. 

Let’s looks into this “no-brainer” for a moment.

What’s interesting about Martin’s thesis is that age alone is the basis for “ensuring mass vaccination”. Yes, age is a risk factor but it’s not THE risk factor. Poor health, also known now as co-morbidities, are THE risk factor.

Let’s look at what the Absolute Risk of dying from Covid is for a 70 year old male in normal health.

It is 1 in 3,802 (QCovid Risk Assessment).

The life expectancy in the US for a male 76. Let’s do some simple primary school maths. If you are 70 with 6 years to life, that means you have 2,190 days to live. Said another way, you have a 1 in 2,190 chances of dying today, and 1 in 2,189 of dying tomorrow.

So, 1 in 3,802 of dying from Covid and 1 in 2,190 from dying today from anything else in the world that could kill you. So, said another way, the risk of dying from Covid for the 70 year old American male is LOWER than the general risk of LIVING, yet we need to “ensure his mass vaccination”.

Remember this data does NOT distinguish death from and death with Covid, so it’s biased that way, but it’s all we have to go by for now.

Sorry Martin, you are wrong in your framing and your emphasis.

Now, onto the issue of “the small risks of serious adverse events”.

Sorry, what is the basis for the framing of the risks as “small”? Is it the CDC position that nobody has died from the jab, I am sure that Martin does not believe that.

Is it the VAERS death and injury count without considering the under reporting factor?

Martin, how do you account for the 150,000 deaths put forward by Kirsch and his team (and supported 9 different ways). Most of those deaths were in the old and the frail. How can that be “small”.

Martin, how many old people is it permissible to kill with a jab to save other old people from Covid? What would be an acceptable ratio?

The same is not true for children. Their Covid mortality risk is miniscule and less than the already low risk from the annual influenza, so the vaccine benefit for healthy children is very small. It will take a few years until we know the Covid vaccine risk profile, and until then, we do not know whether there is more benefit or harm in vaccinating children. When government officials ignore these important issues, trust in vaccines declines among everyone.

“It will take a few years until we know the Covid vaccine risk profile”.

Ok, this has to be the most galling part of this whole piece. Martin, what are you talking about!!

If you don’t know the risk profile of these genetic therapeutics, how can you advocate for “ensuring mass vaccination”?

How can you, one of the good guys, openly promote such a RECKLESS rationalisation?

Here is a novel idea, how about you go and work out what the risk profile of these genetic therapeutics is, and when you know and are confident that it is acceptably low, then come back and we can have a chat about “ensuring the mass vaccination of old people”.

There are some health risks with most drugs and vaccines. It is natural that everyone, including vaccine skeptics, want reliable data on this, and it is important to both monitor and be honest about it. 

On this we can agree.

With the exception of the Vaccine Safety Datalink project, the CDC has struggled with this during the pandemic. For example, because of some reported blood clots among younger vaccinated women, CDC put a pause on the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine that included older Americans who really needed it, despite evidence that there was no risk for those above 50. 

As another example, CDC is releasing raw counts from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) without distinguishing between counts that are above versus the same as one would expect by chance. By doing so, CDC is not properly evaluating potential adverse reactions while inadvertently inviting people to erroneously think that every reported adverse event was caused by the vaccine. 

All of this reduces vaccine confidence. 

Unfortunately, Martin is making his own contribution towards the devaluation of VAERS. He frames it thus, “inadvertently inviting people to erroneously think that EVERY reported adverse event was caused by the vaccine”.

VAERS, with all its issues, many of them by institutional design as I am sure Martin knows, IS STILL a signal for jab injury. He uses the strawman of “every”. Yes, “every” report is not caused by the jab, but the overwhelming majority are Martin, and you know that. If 36% of reported deaths are within 24 hours, what do you think is causing that, CO2?

You also know about underreporting, yet you don’t mention it once. The Kirsch team have put forward a convincing case for a 41x URF, if you disagree with that, put forward your own number. Or do you think it’s zero?

Globally, we still have a vaccine shortage. Many older people in the developing world are dying of Covid because vaccines are unavailable to them while young low-risk American and European students proudly post their vaccination shots on Instagram. This is disturbing. When such unethical behavior is not countered by public health officials, they lose trust; especially among immigrant communities.

Again, Martin insists on staying silent on early treatment.

“Many older people in the developing world are dying of Covid because vaccines are unavailable”. Is that why they are dying Martin? How about withholding early treatment, you know, the two drugs that shall not be named beginning with H and I. How about no country anywhere in the world mentioning Vit D, or how about “death by ventilator” or “death by Remdesivir”.

How can the unavailability of vaccines be such a highly noted reason for Covid death. Your silence on all the other issues is deafening.

Some politicians, scientists and journalists are trying to score points by labelling others as anti-vaxx. For example, in an attempt to discredit the Great Barrington Declaration, the British Medical Journal published and refused to correct false accusations that I and my colleagues are against mass vaccinations, even though I am probably the only person that has been fired by CDC for being too pro-vaccine. 

To falsely credit the anti-vaccine movement with support from professors at Harvard, Stanford and Oxford is irresponsible, as such erroneous information is eagerly reiterated by vaccine skeptics and spread on social media.

Martin does not want, under any circumstance, to be labelled as an anti-vaxxer. Telegram is not for him.

The successful use of Covid vaccines can be seen in Sweden, who aggressively prioritized vaccination by age, even firing a healthcare administrator who took the vaccine out-of-turn. Last winter, there were two distinct waves of Covid infections, peaking in January and April respectively. During the January peak, before vaccines were available, there was also a Covid mortality peak. During the April peak, after many older people had been vaccinated, there was no corresponding peak in mortality. 

This is interesting in many ways. Martin wants to hold up Sweden as a jab success story. Sweden that had one of the most ridiculous definitions of Covid death anywhere in the world, a death, for any reason within 30 days of a PCR+. Sweden might not have lost their mind on the severity of NPIs and their enforcement, but they lost their mind on plenty of other things.

But back to the point Martin is making. There was a January and April wave. His claim is that the January wave was pre jabs and had a correlating death count and the April wave was after jabs and had a lower death count. Sorry Martin, you are going to need to do better here. You know that this kills the old and frail, and you also know how “dry tinder” works. If you burn the tinder in January, there is less to burn in April, with or without jabs. This is very simple correlation without causation.

I am happy to give some credit to the jabs, but you need to make a complete adjustment for “dry tinder” and then some extra adjustment for increased natural immunity in April, and THEN give me your jab efficacy thesis. If there is ANY left, I doubt it will be worth writing about.

We should stop using vaccines as a weapon in political and cultural fights. During a pandemic, we must care about everyone irrespective of their political views and socio-economic standing. That is what a mature country does. Since we do care, we should intensify efforts to vaccinate every older American. 

Here is Martin again, giving the bad guys comfort by using the language of “INTENSIFY efforts to vaccinate EVERY older American”. He walks all the way up the language of “compulsory” and “mandate” but cannot bring himself to say it, because that would then make him a bad guy. So, we are left with Martin straddling two worlds.

Making the vaccine freely available is not enough. We must honestly explain how the vaccine can save their lives even though others, such as their younger family members, may reasonably not want the vaccine. We must especially intensify outreach to hard-to-reach Americans in rural areas and to those that are poor or homeless. 

Martin, I think making them freely available is quite enough. People can then make up their own mind about whether to take the therapy or not. And as for “honestly explain” yes, I wholeheartedly agree that you should honestly explain All Cause Mortality and All Cause Morbidity in simple numbers that people can understanding, and that that you need to explain the age stratified absolute risk of dying from Covid. Then let the chips fall wherever they fall.

Rather than forcing the vaccine on the young or those with natural immunity, we should focus on vaccinating more older Americans, as well as older people in other countries. That is what will keep the mortality numbers down. That is what will keep our country together. It may even help keep the world together. 

And lastly, he ends with a tribute to natural immunity and its importance and value but with silence on the best pathway towards it, early treatment.