Science can be misused

"Science is a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility," according to Carl Sagan. It is the best tool we have for arriving at the truth, but that doesn't mean that everything done in the name of science is accurate, or will be applied properly. Science is only as good as our ability to wield and interpret it. Throughout the last 3 years, we have been blasted with "trust and follow The Science!" at every juncture. In many cases, "The Science" was done improperly for political reasons, and/or it was used illogically to bolster the official narrative. Sagan warned about our fallibility, which is the susceptibility to be mistaken, deceived, or inaccurate. Come with me as I focus in on an example of science being manipulated to deceive.

A scientific paper was published a few days ago titled "Impact of Vaccination on Major Adverse Cardiovascular Events in Patients With COVID-19 Infection". I'm not here to discuss the merits of the study itself. It may contain methodology errors, it may have been funded by the government or pharmaceutical corporations, and it may have been conducted in such a way that it reinforces "vaccine" use. Let's put those possibilities aside. Instead, I want to look at how the study's results are being improperly used to support the pro-vaxx narrative.

The paper came to my attention in a comment section on a state media website. "Everybody needs to get a Covid vaccine immediately. A new study just proved that being vaccinated dramatically reduces a person's chance of developing heart problems!" When I requested justification for this claim, the reply was a link to that study.

So, being someone who did several years of science (biology, chemistry, physics, biochemistry, and nursing), and several more years of independent research, I had a look.

What does the study claim?

Putting aside the motive and methodology of the paper, what it concludes is "vaccination is associated with a lower risk of major adverse cardiovascular events after SARS-CoV-2 infection". Essentially, it admits the vaxxines cause serious heart problems, but finds that getting Covid is less dangerous for vaxxed people.

Interesting that the pro-vaxx side has stopped denying the injections are causing major heart problems like myocarditis, pericarditis, arrhythmia, cardiac arrest, and death. Seems the "safe and effective" mantra is looking a bit optimistic/foolish now! (Perhaps it should have been "safeR", not "safe".) It's kind of hard to keep pretending the shots aren't destroying people's hearts, with study after study coming out now showing without a shadow of a doubt that vaccinated people who don't get Covid are still dropping like flies with heart problems.

It's undisputable that putting these spike proteins into our bodies is doing serious damage, and killing people. Now, the pro-vaxx side is falling back on the hope that "it's still not as bad as Covid". In fact, as I reported here, the mainstream is blaming the sharp increase in heart attack deaths on Covid (definitely not the vaccines).

No longer able to insist the "vaccines" will prevent transmission as they promised in 2021 and early 2022, they are now saying "you're still going to get infected, but it won't be as bad".

But is that even true?

Misusing science

The study does appear to find a slight decrease in heart problems among people infected with SarsCov2 when they had been vaxxinated, over those who had not. But that doesn't necessarily mean "everybody needs to get a Covid vaccine immediately," as the commenter said. That's because the study completely failed to look at people who DON'T get Covid. It merely compared infected people who were vaxxed to infected people who weren't vaxxed. It didn't determine the rate of serious heart problems in non-infected people who were vaxxed, or non-infected people who weren't vaxxed. In short, it lacked a control group. That doesn't mean its findings were wrong. It just makes it extremely likely uneducated and/or unprincipled people are going to use it to come to illogical conclusions.

You're not guaranteed to get infected with SarsCov2, especially not at this point. The pandemic phase of Covid is officially behind us. Infections are way down. Herd immunity (either through infection and recovery, called natural immunity, or through vaxxination) has been reached, and it is increasingly difficult for the virus to rip through the population the way it did in 2020 and 2021. Yes, it's still out there, and people are still getting sick. But it's not a guarantee. Taking a shot in the hopes that you will get infected and have a better outcome only makes sense if your risk of infection is high, and the shot dramatically improves the outcome.

So, does the injection dramatically improve the outcome? Turns out, no.

Note the distance between red (vaxxed) and blue (unvaxxed) lines. This appears to show a significant advantage for the vaxxed subjects. But have a look at the scale on the Y axis (probability of being free from major heart problems). This graphic is INCREDIBLY zoomed-in. The actual difference between vaxxed and unvaxxed is somewhere in the range of 0.2%!

So even if the rest of the methodology is sound, the findings are almost not even statistically relevant. You aren't even a quarter of a percent less likely to have heart problems if you get infected after injection, than if you get infected without the injection. This is nowhere near enough of an improvement in outcome to justify the fact that in 2023 you are not guaranteed to get SarsCov2. That's probably why the writers never actually mention the actual numbers involved, preferring to offer the vague conclusion "vaccination was associated with decreased risk of myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke after COVID-19". To be intellectually honest, they should have said "with microscopically decreased risk"!

"We included patients aged 18 to 90 years who were initially infected with SARS-CoV-2 between March 1 2020, and February 1 2022."

Woops! They used old data, from when Covid was more dangerous than it is now! The latest Omicron variants (all through 2022 and now in 2023) are much less dangerous than the original Beta and Delta variants. Using old data dramatically (and artificially) bolsters the perceived danger of infection, and therefore the need to be vaxxinated and (infinitesimally) reduce the risk of serious heart problems.

Using old data also reduces the chance of serious heart problems from the vaxxines, since the latest boosters are "bivalent", meaning they have 2 formulas in the needle instead of just 1. It has been proven and even admitted by the CDC that bivalent vaccines carry additional risks. Using data from before bivalent shots rolled out reduces the apparent risk of heart problems in vaxxinated subjects.

That 0.2% reduction in risk, which already isn't enough to justify taking the shots, is probably 0% when using recent data. More likely, it's below 0%, meaning you're more likely to have heart problems when infected after injection than without injection.

"We excluded patients with ≥5 vaccine doses."

Another important detail of this study. They removed the data of anyone who had taken 5 or more shots (which is now quite a decent portion of vaxxinated people). Why would that be? If these shots are safe, and preventing heart problems, why only use data from people who haven't taken very many?

These are all important drawbacks/flaws with the study that is being used to justify the statement "everybody needs to get a Covid vaccine immediately". But the main reason the study can't back up that assertion - the way science is being misused most dramatically here - is that it lacked a control group of people who did NOT contract SarsCov2.

Imagine there's a shot that for 6 months reduces your chance of dying if you're in a car accident by a tiny amount, but comes with a potential side effect of death. Should you inject it? I think it's clear that it depends on the chance the shot will give you a stroke, and the likelihood of getting into a car accident in the next 6 months. Only with logic and reason can we use scientific data to reach conclusions that are useful in our lives. Unfortunately, even with the best of intentions and starting with good data, sometimes we can end up making bad decisions. The commenter using this study to justify continued mass vaxxination appears to be doing just that.

Let's also not forget, the Covid injections also carry other risks, such as brain damage, which don't appear to be a risk of SarsCov2 infection. (This may be because the shots put spike proteins into your bloodstream, which are small enough to cross the blood-brain barrier, while the full viral molecule seems to have trouble doing so.) So even if the specific findings of the study are accurate, which it doesn't appear is the case, it doesn't justify taking the vaxxine unless your heart health is the only aspect of your health you care about.

Science can improve and even save our lives. But if misused, it can ruin our lives or even kill us. The truth is like a needle in a haystack. Science can help us find it, but only if done with integrity, and applied with reason.

DRutter