DEBUNKED! Landmark COVID vaccine study (Ioannidis et al) allows us to say lives saved by COVID-19 vaccines is 0 (or less)

This is a curious one. John Ioannidis is a titan in academic research, being one of the most cited scientists in the world. And he has somewhat been on the side of us ‘correct COVID contrarians’ on issues like the exaggeration of COVID’s deadliness. He just published a paper in the major JAMA Health Forum journal that seemingly helps us and hurts us. On the one hand, it effectively argues that the famous Watson et al. study (which I debunked earlier), which argued that COVID-19 vaccines saved tens of millions in just 1 year, cannot possibly be true, and pretty much acknowledges that the risks of the jabs may outweigh the benefits for the young - a worthwhile addition to the rapidly growing ‘we were right about everything’ pile. But on the other hand, it is being used to ‘prove’ that the jabs did at least save 1m+ lives, over 4 years. Did it, though?

Let’s see about that. Let’s see if we can get that number down to 0, and maybe even beyond. I contacted Ioannidis and didn’t hear back. I produced a critique and contacted the journal but they said they don’t do response pieces. They did, however, invite me to publish a comment, so that’s what we did. Source. Highlights:

• I begin by praising Ioannidis et al. for revising the absurd figures to the more conservative figures for lives saved, which are as low as 1 million, over 4 years, and for just about acknowledging that the 299 lives saved for the 0-19 year age group may not be enough for the harms caused.

• I then note that the drastic change seems solely due to the revised IFRs (infection fatality rates, basically the deadliness of COVID-19). The bulk of the other concerns I have with modelling studies like Watson et al. remain. If making this one change got us from tens of millions saved in 1 year to as little as 1 million in 4 years, well, you can see where this is going…

• [But I don’t let them off completely about their revised IFRs, wondering if they could be reduced further. No mention was made of the Greek study on the with COVID/from COVID issue.]

• So, first big issue, COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness for death (VE). They claim VE of 75% then 50% post-omicron. Citing 2 sources. The first is a non-gold-standard study of very limited scope, and which did not control for the healthy vaccinee bias (ironically something Ioannidis has done research on). Oh and it was pretty much funded by the US government. Conflict of interest, much? The second is derived from gold-standard evidence, the trials, but didn’t help, so its inclusion is befuddling. In that study it was acknowledged that for the inactivated vaccines, mRNA vaccines, and protein-subunit vaccines, the confidence intervals for vaccine effectiveness for all-cause mortality were “compatible with no effect” – meaning no statistically significant difference. LOL?

• Very weirdly, no mention is made of JECP4, the unofficial series of articles in the JECP journal that reveals how vaccine effectiveness and safety have been exaggerated from the beginning. Even though Ioannidis is on the editorial board of JECP.

• Another curious issue with the study, the authors note that the “Healthy vaccine bias is often observed”, but didn’t factor it in because “it is difficult to adjust properly for its presence”. Yep, doing your job is hard. My official response: “Very well, but then it is also difficult for me to accept their conclusions. To borrow from my erstwhile academic field of analytic philosophy, I cannot agree on the conclusion of your argument if I do not accept your premises.”

• Moving on to another critical issue, VE waning. They say they’ve already factored waning in their 75%/50% figures which just sounds like a complete cop-out, especially when there’s no transparency. The figures were already far too high if waning wasn’t factored in! Plenty of studies show VE goes to 0, and can even turn negative - negative effectiveness (which could mean lives saved are even less than 0), a phenomenon the authors completely overlook. Oh, and the studies they cite in support seem to indicate that VE wanes far more than accounted for by Ioannidis et al., even though they only cover 4-6 months, while Ioannidis et al. covers 4 years. Make it make sense. If I would state that a figure was 75% and then cited a study in support that said it was 30%, I wouldn’t get away with it. Heck, I don’t even get away with doing good science and telling the truth! They get a proper published study and I get a series of comments tacked on the end.

• They don’t factor in deaths caused by the jabs, which is typical. So let’s not pretend this is anything close to a risk-benefit analysis. This becomes extremely relevant when zooming in on the young and healthy, where the benefits are obviously slim to nothing. Recall my BMJ Open rapid response indicating that the myocarditis risk alone exceeds the ‘benefit’ of the vaccines for the young and healthy - and that used actual government data rather than unjustified estimates.

• I note that governments around the world are treading carefully around vaccinating the young and healthy, noting that there could be liability issues wth ATAGI making appropriate recommendations around healthy children not needing the jab to the Australian government several years too late. Admitting in 2025 what was true by 2022 at the latest? Yeah, if I were a parent who gave the jab to their child due to these dodgy recommendations and it caused some gnarly adverse effects, I’d be pretty mad. Like murderous rage mad. Like sue everyone in sight mad. Note: The journals still haven’t let me talk about the ATAGI debacle, so it’s nice I was able to slip it in here.

• It also looked like natural immunity for the unvaccinated wasn’t factored in, which struck me as really weird because Ioannidis has done tons of research on natural immunity. And because they did factor it in for the vaccinated, acknowledging that the vast majority of the lives saved occurred in those without natural immunity. Because natural immunity is so good.

• I note that these issues “could mean that the net lives saved by COVID-19 vaccines is 0, or even less”. But I do agree with their final recommendation: “Long-term outcomes in both vaccinated and unvaccinated people should also be examined with further follow-up.” I add: “In the absence of trials that were not powered to detect a mortality benefit we must set aside these fruitless models and continue to directly compare the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, for health outcomes concerning conditions such as cardiovascular issues, autoimmune disorders, cognitive decline, fertility, cancers, respiratory problems, and yes, even COVID-19 itself.”

But if I’m wrong about all this, getting the number down from tens of millions of lives saved in just 1 year to as little as 1 million over 4 years is huge. Somehow, with my critiques available and Ioannidis et al.’s reanalysis published mainstream news outlets like CNN haven’t rushed to issue retractions after championing studies like Watson et al. Source.

Okay then.