This is a case update. I’ll also discuss a new video from Project Veritas featuring interviews from employees of Pfizer.

The Delta wave continues to wane in the US, with cases overall continuing to go down sharply.  This is great news, but I have to caution that last year’s Fall/Winter wave started in October, so there is a chance we will see a new wave starting in the Northern states.  In fact, cases are starting to increase right now in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Maine, while they are going down in the Southern states.

Cases are also going down in California and San Diego, although there was a spike in cases last week.  Since both regions saw the same spike, it suggests that the event causing the spike may have taken place in Southern California, but this is only speculation.

Pfizer employees discuss immunity:  I always hate making politically charged posts, but this is another occasion when I must.  Project Veritas posted another video just yesterday.  In it, 3 scientists at Pfizer discuss the v@¢¢!nes, saying among other things that natural immunity is actually better protection against the virus than v@¢¢!ne mediated immunity. This is in agreement with the data from Israel published as a pre-print a few weeks ago.

As I’ve stated many times, for at risk people, a v@¢¢!ne is very likely to be of benefit. I have recommended that at risk people get v@¢¢!nated. If you’ve already had COVID, 1 dose of v@¢¢!ne is likely to provide extra benefit.  However, if you’ve had COVID, your natural immunity is likely to provide better protection than “full v@¢¢ination”.

They also make the claim that v@¢¢!nation benefit drops over time because the antibodies gained from v@¢¢!nation drop off over time.  I would also point out that another cause may be that new variants may diverge from the original Wuhan strain enough to makes v@¢¢!nes less effective, but this point is not addressed in this video.

One person even states “I mean, I still feel like I work for an evil corporation.” I want to make a comment about this.  It’s easy for us to blame big corporations for some of the decisions they make, since most of us aren’t in that position. I worked for Quest Diagnostics, a large medical testing company.  The vast majority of the people who worked there believed in the mission of providing high quality information to our client doctors and patients.  However, as with any large organization, there were those who were focused on profit, at times over the interests of the clients.  Most often this came in the form of passing over projects that would help patients, but would not bring in a lot of income. They would argue something like “We aren’t a charity.  We need to bring in money to survive as a business.”  This is of course partially true.  Director Spike Lee once commented in an interview that the most interesting conflicts are those in which both sides are correct.

Of course, a company or an individual can cross a line after which their actions become unambiguously wrong.  This often happens because they’ve made well intentioned compromises until they have lost their moral sensitivity. But I want you to remember something important.  The Presidents and CEO of companies work most directly for the board of directors. The board of directors works most directly for the shareholders. In our modern investment environment, which includes mutual funds, many of the shareholders don’t even know they are part owners of a company!  As far as they know, they just own a mutual fund.  As far as their mutual fund goes, they only care if it’s making them money, since they don’t know what companies they hold, or what their business practices are!  So the CEOs are ultimately working for people for whom profit is the only concern.  Folks, those people are you and me!

Yes, companies that behave unethically should be held accountable.  If Pfizer has misled the public, then they should be held accountable.  But we can’t forget that anyone who holds a mutual fund that includes Pfizer has a voice in this as well.  I will tell you that I am talking to myself as well.  I currently have no idea what companies are in the mutual funds that I own. We should all take the time an find out what companies we hold the most stock in, and consider finding out what they are doing.  You can then contact your mutual fund company and make suggestions about what they can communicate to these companies, or consider selling funds with stocks you don’t like. The small choices we make every day do have an impact.

V@¢¢!ne mandates:  V@¢¢!nes will certainly benefit at-risk individuals.  In addition, it is clear that countries with large v@¢¢!nation programs have had lower fatality rates during the Delta wave than other countries.  However, I am not v@¢¢inated, and am firmly against v@¢¢!ne mandates.  It is especially counter productive for hospitals and other organizations to be letting go of highly trained people who have chosen not to be v@¢¢!nated. I hope this new information will bring some balance to the current discussion.

Don’t fear, but be smart,
Erik

This is a case update. With some trepidation, I’ll also discuss the new video by Project Veritas concerning vaccines.

It appears that the US has reached the peak of the Delta Variant, with cases clearly starting to come down.  On the other hand, as numbers start to come down in the South, we may already be starting to see increasing cases in the North, as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Iowa are experiencing increased cases right now.  If last year was any pattern, we may see large case numbers in the North as people start to spend more time indoors.

California and San Diego County are continuing to improve. LA County has “achieved” something in the last week, improving enough to give up the spot as the county with the most cases since last Winter.  2 counties in Texas, Harris (Houston) and Tarrant (Fort Worth), have had more cases in the last 2 weeks than LA County.

Project Veritas released a video of a taped conversation between medical workers at a medical center in Phoenix. In it, the workers use, shall we say, colorful and scientifically imprecise language to suggest that the COVID vaccines are not performing as expected. 

There is a lot to say about this! First, let me say that available data is still insufficient to say with any certainty how many adverse effects there are, and of what kind.  I will speculate here, so keep in mind that I am mostly guessing, since I don’t have sufficient information to know exactly what’s going on.

Anecdotal evidence is based on the experiences of a few people, often relayed as a story or rumor.  This kind of evidence is an important pointer that something may be going on, but very often, it is insufficient to understand the situation with any clarity or as a foundation for policy.  At best, anecdotal evidence gives researchers the motivation to conduct a careful study of a situation so there can be more understanding.  At worst, they can cause rumors to overwhelm careful thinking, and lead to wrong conclusions in the minds of many.  This kind of evidence must be taken with a grain of salt, with final judgement reserved until more information is available.

My own thinking on adverse events has evolved a lot since the vaccines came out.  All vaccines carry risks, with a few adverse events happening with even routine vaccines like the flu.  On balance, vaccines have been extremely beneficial to individuals and society as a whole, effectively ending diseases like smallpox and polio. So when rumors of adverse reactions to the COVID vaccines first started coming out, I initially dismissed them as the standard rare event.

But then came the suggestion that the Spike protein itself was responsible for the vaccine’s toxicity.  While still not proven, this idea makes sense to me because it could explain the wide variety of reported adverse events. Increased inflammation aggravates the part of your body that is already under stress.  The Spike protein causes inflammation, so it’s no wonder that the vaccine causes strange and varying symptoms in some individuals. As someone with an auto immune disease, inflammation is a big deal for me.

Unfortunately, the vaccines cannot work without producing the Spike protein, because the protein is needed to produce a working immune response. The Spike protein is an unavoidable risk.

The recent Project Veritas video is a remarkable piece of anecdotal evidence.  It does not provide scientific or statistical evidence, but it does demonstrate that more information on adverse events is desperately needed. 

The most disturbing part of the video to me is the claim that adverse events are not being reported to the CDC VAERS system simply because the forms take too much time to fill out!  If true, this is frankly typical of a program from the CDC.  Since long before the pandemic started, the CDC has sought to keep tight control of information and guidance regarding the spread of infectious disease and related matters.  Legitimately, they try very hard to be accurate.  During a pandemic, however, information changes too quickly for this approach to be effective.  They are so careful to publish only accurate information, that information is often hopelessly out of date.  Ironically, in an effort to always be right, the CDC has usually been wrong. Nothing illustrates this better than the mixed messaging on masks.  Now almost everyone is hopelessly confused on this issue.

When there is a large vacuum of information, people will attempt to fill it with speculation. People from the federal government often complain about misinformation, but the CDC has contributed to it by leaving a huge hole for people to fill with guesses.

A form that takes 30 minutes to fill out is useless if no-one has the time to fill it out.  In response to the video, the CDC should immediately re-make the form, making it take only 5 minutes or even 30 seconds to fill out. Yes, they will be missing some information from each patient, but they’re getting nothing on them right now, so it will still be an improvement. Instead of making the necessary changes, the CDC will probably just call the video misinformation, and try to send it behind the Digital Curtain.

A note on the VAERS system: the system is meant to capture all data that may point to a vaccine producing a pattern of adverse reactions.  Any negative medical event that happens within a few days after a vaccination is recorded.  This even includes events that are unlikely to be attached to the vaccination. The hope is that patterns may be recognized by immunologists that will point to a problem with a vaccine.  For example, if you notice that a lot of people report hitting their head after a vaccination, this may suggest dizziness or disorientation.

Because of this practice not all adverse reactions are vaccine related.  Careful study of cases by a scientist may be required to notice patterns.  The data is not presented in a user friendly fashion!

Of course, the usefulness of this system is limited if a systematic problem, like a long form, is preventing events from being reported!

Vaccine rumors:  I still get questions about vaccine rumors like the following:

The vaccines will re-write your DNA
The vaccines will keep women from getting pregnant.
The vaccines will make you shed Spike protein into the environment

When addressing questions like this, I always ask “What evidence do you have that this is happening.”  Almost always, it’s just something they heard.  I can’t disprove that any of these things are happening.  Trying would take an enormous amount of time.  I can say, however, that I haven’t seen any evidence that they are. This doesn’t mean they aren’t happening! But if there isn’t any evidence for them, we don’t have to spend time and emotional energy worrying about them.

If you have any evidence, aside from persistent rumors, that any of above things or things like them are happening, please let me know.  If you see an article or blog post that argues for any of the above, they should contain actual data that supports these ideas, not just speculation.

Don’t fear, but be smart,
Erik