Clinical Trials Did Not Show Covid Shots Were “Safe and Effective” ⋆ Brownstone Institute
I was a bit familiar, not very deeply, with this mRNA class in my professional work, when these products were in development for other things—severe conditions such as cancer. I knew that these products were inherently dangerous, which isn’t unusual in pharmaceutical research and development. We frequently work on things that are risky and can be toxic, such as chemo agents.
Yet, all of a sudden, our regulators were all gung-ho saying, “These are prophylactic vaccines. They can be given to children, pregnant women, and everyone else.” I became extremely suspicious about this whole situation, and that’s how I started looking into it.
Sasha Latypova, Former Pharmaceutical Executive, June 17, 2023
“Safe and effective” is not a medical term. It’s a marketing phrase. The clinical trials for Covid-19 vaccines were not testing for safety or preventing transmission. They were looking at one thing only: did the Covid-19 shots prevent infection?
Every clinical trial has a specific hypothesis being examined, which is the endpoint, or purpose, of the trial. The trial is set up with the hypothesis, a study design, procedures for the study, analysis of outcomes, and a summary of results. A good trial is clear on each of these points and also adjusts for confounding factors that could affect the trial results.
The endpoint for Pfizer and Moderna’s clinical trials of the mRNA Covid shots was not broad. The clinical trials did not test the Covid shots for whether they prevented transmission of Covid-19. They did not take into account adverse reactions to the vaccines in terms of trial results.
The endpoint for the Pfizer clinical trial was this: How many of those who displayed Covid symptoms (no matter how mild), and tested positive on a PCR test, were in the vaccinated group versus the unvaccinated group?
That’s it. The endpoint of the trial was to determine who had symptoms that were PCR-test-confirmed to be Covid-19. They did not test for safety. They didn’t test if the vaccine prevented transmission of Covid-19. They did not test for how the vaccine interacted with the body long-term. They did not test the vaccines on pregnant women, or the elderly, or those with existing health problems. They combined the second and third phases of the already shortened clinical trials. They dropped people from the trials who had serious reactions to the vaccines, largely ignored them, and minimized or deleted their data. They kept track of adverse events, but they were not made known to the public, and were not a consideration in the endpoint of the trial.
They tweaked a few numbers to come up with the claim that the shots were “95% effective,” ended the clinical trial by offering the vaccine to the control group (thereby eliminating an effective control group to follow in the months and years ahead), and started their vaccination campaign. Thus began the largest clinical trial in history, as the experimental Emergency Use Authorized Covid shots were administered to the population of the world en masse.
“95% effective” was based on mathematical deception:The public would have been far more skeptical of these products had the clinical trial results been translated into normal English.
Robert Blumen, Brownstone Institute author, “Vaccine Was ‘95% Effective How?”
To understand the misleading statement of “95% effective,” we need to understand some clinical trial legalese. In clinical trials they look at Absolute Risk Reduction and Relative Risk Reduction.
Absolute Risk is your odds of getting Covid at all. Relative Risk is your odds of contracting Covid compared to the other group in the trial. In order for people to have informed consent about taking the vaccine, they needed a good cost-benefit analysis. The Relative Risk number does not give good cost-benefit information, but that is the number used by the drug companies.
For example, in a Canadian analysis of a slightly earlier release of the Pfizer clinical trial data, Pfizer claimed the data showed the vaccine to be “91% effective,” derived from the total number of Covid infections that were confirmed by PCR testing during the trials. There were a total of 927 PCR-confirmed Covid cases in 40,000 people during the trials. Seventy-seven of those cases were in the vaccinated, and 850 were in the placebo group, the unvaccinated.
Lori Weintz has a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communications from the University of Utah and currently works in the K-12 public education system. Previously she worked as a special function peace officer conducting investigations for the Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing.