Zachary Stieber of EPOCH IMO has been one of the only 'true' COVID Freedom Fighter reporters (I know him, no stooge water-carrier); reported on CELL publication (April 2023) Benn et al. who are WRONG

Benn et al. pooled mRNA technology & adenoviral vector data; their conclusions are WRONG as i) event numbers are too small to be interpretable ii) Pfizer hid data iii) RRR used & NOT ARR iv) FRAGILITY

SOURCE:

https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(23)00810-6

Is a live attenuated replication competent vaccine such as the adenovirus vector (e.g. ability of the vaccine induced antibodies to bind to the target antigen more strongly etc. and thus allow for ‘fuller affinity and maximal binding to the target antigen) more optimal than an inactvated or better term ‘killed’ germ vaccine or in this case the synthetic mRNA technology platform?

‘Previous research, including a 2013 paper from Benn and Aaby, has suggested that some vaccines provide non-specific effects, or increased protection against unrelated pathogens. They posited that the adenovirus-vector COVID-19 vaccines might “prime the immune system in a way similar to a ‘live’ vaccine,” while noting that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines increase inflammation, which could lower the immune system’s protection against other illnesses.’

Stieber reported:

‘The Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines did not impact overall mortality, a reanalysis of clinical trial data found.

The two vaccines, both based on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, protected against deaths from COVID-19 but that effect was offset by vaccinated trial participants being more likely to die from cardiovascular problems, Christine Stabell Benn, a health professor at the University of Southern Denmark, and other researchers reported in April in the Cell journal.

On the other hand, vaccines that utilized adenoviruses, such as the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, had a favorable impact on both COVID-19 mortality and overall mortality, according to the reanalysis.

The research analyzed data from randomized clinical trials (RCTs) reported by the companies that manufacture the vaccines.

“In the RCTs with the longest possible blinded follow-up, mRNA vaccines had no effect on overall mortality despite protecting against some COVID-19 deaths. On the other hand, the adenovirus-vector vaccines were associated with lower overall mortality,” researchers said.

“The differences in the effects of adenovirus-vector and mRNA vaccines on overall mortality, if true, would have a major impact on global health,” they added later.’

Benn et al. reported in CELL:

‘We examined the possible non-specific effects of novel mRNA- and adenovirus-vector COVID-19 vaccines by reviewing the randomized control trials (RCTs) of mRNA and adenovirus-vector COVID-19 vaccines. We calculated mortality risk ratios (RRs) for mRNA COVID-19 vaccines vs. placebo recipients and compared them with the RR for adenovirus-vector COVID-19 vaccine recipients vs. controls. The RR for overall mortality of mRNA vaccines vs. placebo was 1.03 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.63–1.71). In the adenovirus-vector vaccine RCTs, the RR for overall mortality was 0.37 (0.19–0.70). The two vaccine types differed significantly with respect to impact on overall mortality (p = 0.015). The RCTs of COVID-19 vaccines were unblinded rapidly, and controls were vaccinated. The results may therefore not be representative of the long-term effects.’

My sense is this and why Benn et al.’s findings while tantalizing, are incomplete and wrong IMO because…

1)the outcome events of death are too small in number and makes interpretation of the COVID vaccine trial results problematic from day one.

In fact, I said we could never interpret unless the trials were run to sample size with more events that could off-set the impact of fragility (fragility index) where a change of just one outcome event can actually reverse the estimate of effect and finding.

Fragility index is a concept I have worked on at McMaster with the guru Michael Walsh:

‘A review of RCTs in high-impact medical journals that reported a statistically significant result for at least one dichotomous or time-to-event outcome in the abstract. In the group with the smallest number of events, we changed the status of patients without an event to an event until the P-value exceeded 0.05. We labeled this number the Fragility Index; smaller numbers indicated a more fragile result.

Results: The 399 eligible trials had a median sample size of 682 patients (range: 15-112,604) and a median of 112 events (range: 8-5,142); 53% reported a P-value <0.01. The median Fragility Index was 8 (range: 0-109); 25% had a Fragility Index of 3 or less. In 53% of trials, the Fragility Index was less than the number of patients lost to follow-up.

Conclusion: The statistically significant results of many RCTs hinge on small numbers of events. The Fragility Index complements the P-value and helps identify less robust results.’

2)the data showed us that the vaccine group was at increased risk of death, no matter how you play with the words

3)Fragility Index is a huge concern for if we modelled by moving one event across trial arms the estimate of effect could be reversed; in short, the estimates of effect in all the COVID trials are and were ‘suspect’, unstable, and were very fragile to small changes and thus at high risk of biased estimates of effect

4)Use of relative risk reduction (RRR) to report the trial results and not the absolute risk reduction (ARR) was an effort by the vaccine makers Pfizer and Moderna and the FDA, yes, the FDA conspired with the vaccine maker and CDC and NIH to lie to you the public and the medical system, to deceive you; they knew the effect was very very modest if at all, at about ARR of 0.7% at best 1.0% combined; when you consider the ‘costs’ against the ARR of 0.7% e.g. burden, toxicity, harms etc., then a reasonably informed person would have decided based on their values and preferences, that the costs outweighed the small uncertain benefit and would have said NO SHOT, placing more value on avoiding the potential harms; but instead you were bulldozed with 95% RRR by corrupted media and CDC and FDA officials and medical doctors (shame on them) and no indications of the harms, yet the RRR of 95% was in reducing mild COVID symptoms, NOT the hard objective patient-important outcomes of hospitilization, ICU and death etc. that really mattered.

5)We know that Pfizer hid 3,000 subjects and removed them from analysis and never gave us an accounting for why; this is a fact in Pfizer documents from FOIA; if we back calculate and impute the 3000 best-case worse-case scenarios, no matter how you model, the 95% RRR which was fraudulent to begin, drops below the 50% threshold that was imposed; in other words, by removing the 3000, the vaccime maker was able to get FDA to give the fraud EUAs; they, CDC, NIH, FDA, vaccine makers, doctors etc. were already lying to the public that no effective treatments existed when we knew we had effective anti-virals and anti-inflammatories and anti-coagulants etc. (multi-drug sequenced combined overlapping therapeutics) that were potent certainly on the early more virulent, with indivual therapeutics showing signals of benefit

6)outcome event numbers were always too small (plaged by lack of randomization or subversion of the randomization effect as per Risch) and likely trials were stopped early for benefit and were plagued by being stopped at a ‘random high’ and had they been run to course, the benefit would have dissappeared

It is for these reasons and more, that I say Benn et al. did a nice study, elegant etc. but this meta-analysis pooling is suspect and not interpretable. This is my surface blush and will write more later. IMO, no platform, mRNA or DNA viral vector, is and was safe for humans, as the end result is the spike protein to induce the immune response and this protein is deadly, toxic and the entire field of mRNA technology for sure should have been suspended and not funded, ever! IMO those involved in mRNA technology are criminals and must answer for bringing a field that early showed was deadly. They knew it! This was about money, bragging, nobels etc. Never was to help the public. Never ever. I was a researcher too and worked with the top researchers globally, I know the mindset and what drives them. Few are benevolent, few think of YOU. COVID has emerged and crystalized the underbelly filth fraud of research, medicine, government in that all of these beasts do one thing in common, pimp and suck off the tax-payer funds to enrich themselves. To derive a cushy life. Follow the $.

Great job Zach and Benn et al.