As with any medical intervention-The real question is does it help people live healthier and longer lives? Most medical interventions simply target a disease or disorder instead of focusing on promoting overall health. Christine Stabell Benn has interesting research that highlights non-specific effects of vaccines (both good and bad effects).
Unfortunately, vaccines are not evaluated for their effect on overall health just if they address a particular disease endpoint, which, many times, is a surrogate or antibody level. The medical community needs to move away from treating disease towards helping people be healthy.
Yes, I am using parts of the book Ending Medical Reversals and Dr. Makary's book Blind Spots with my nursing students. Thank you for your work.
I agree we need to study the affects of wellness based interventions, and your comment about all cause mortality, sick days and all cause mortality is very very important. most, alternative/complimentary/nutritional interventions focus on wellness and not specific disease end points. As a physician boarded in Osteopathic Manipulative medicine, I know that when we have tried to design studies of our craft, the PhDs and MDs who sit on IRB boards, and funding mechanisms have no construct to view the studies within. They demands changes to study design that interfere with the main modality. We know placebo affect, belief affect, and a supportive doctor patient relationship alone are powerful factors in wellness. I often explain to patients that RCTs for specific conditions, are the gold standard in choosing a medical intervention specific to a disease process, we need to value their place in management once a disease process has presented itself. What the wellness based interventions should be doing is preventing the need to utilize those modalities as often. The only way we will get the data we need on those wellness based modalities, is to study all cause morbidity, missed day of school/work, and all cause mortality.
As a clinical pharmacist with infectious disease background, I am skeptical of any respiratory viral vaccine working effectively (as we have seen recently from Cleveland Clinic and the lack of efficacy of flu efficacy - (or just review efficacy rates over the years with flu which usually are not great ) due to the nature of resp virus's rapidly mutating. However, my bigger concern here is not vaccination in general (as if its not super effective but is pretty non toxic its a no brainer), but how and what we are administering as "vaccines" . The MRNA technology has not gone through the FDA rigor of genetic product testing (which it jumped over bc of the EUA and has never had to go back and do) and there are many unanswered questions about the safety of this specific technology and also the QA of manufacturing such technology (fragments of dna etc that shouldn't be in the final product). Lastly, the choice of using a product that,instead of the protein being in our bodies for a few days like traditional vaccines, produces the protein for up to and over 700 days ,as demonstrated in studies, increases its risk for toxicity including side effects of spike protein itself (clotting etc) ,autoimmune reactions from our body creating antibodies to all of those spike proteins sticking out of and attached to all of our cells , and various other toxicities we are starting to see including increased risk of infections from IG4 reprogramming.. To sum up -- really hard to vaccinate against RV in real time, and the most common covid vaccines in US are using a technology that currently provide a lot of evidence of significant toxicity. If we really think it's useful to vaccinate RV we should try a safer technology.
How would you design such a study in people that would definitively answer your question about the safety of mRNA technology? Assume that you have no budgetary constraints but are restricted to subjects within the US, need the answer within 5 years of starting the study, and are not allowed to compel participation. What would you give volunteers and what would the eligibility criteria be?
First step is going back and taking these products through the required genetic safety requirements already in place at the FDA before any further investigations are done. We have a lot of information in VAERS that can be utilized for toxicities but as these have some limitations it is more appropriate to start at the beginning where all genetic products are supposed to.
I'm not an anti-vaxxer, but I am skeptical of the COVID vaccine. By "skeptical" I *don't* mean that I believe in any conspiracies about it; I am not against it per se, but I want to be convinced by data. This study provides good evidence that a booster is effective for those >65 y/o, at least for a limited number of months.
Am I reading the subgroup analysis right? For <65 yr, the confidence intervals for Risk per 10,000 Persons overlap, and thus there isn't a statistically significant link (or there is at most a weak link) between COVID vaccine uptake and better COVID-related health outcomes at 6 months for those under 65?
If so, I think this study supports my exiting belief: a booster is demonstrably helpful for >65 yr and should be carefully considered by those >75 yr and/or those with underlying conditions; a booster is *possibly* helpful for those < 65 yr; a booster is likely of no benefit to people under, say, age 50. (I would be happy to reevaluate the last of these three claims with a good study like this one aimed at <50 yr; this study was silent on a younger cohort.)
You're totally right. The only thing to remember is that the < 65 population in this study was very small, so the study is way underpowered for that group.
Thoughtful piece; while I still trust doctors such as yourself and some others, I’ve come to the view that ‘medicine’ and ‘science’ should not really touch human existence if humans are eating sensibly, exercising, managing their health and living a constructive life (family, faith, purpose). This should minimise the demand for and reliance on the industrial complex of both sectors.
No scientific conclusions can be drawn from the covid episode because the data are completely unreliable.
As with any medical intervention-The real question is does it help people live healthier and longer lives? Most medical interventions simply target a disease or disorder instead of focusing on promoting overall health. Christine Stabell Benn has interesting research that highlights non-specific effects of vaccines (both good and bad effects).
Unfortunately, vaccines are not evaluated for their effect on overall health just if they address a particular disease endpoint, which, many times, is a surrogate or antibody level. The medical community needs to move away from treating disease towards helping people be healthy.
Yes, I am using parts of the book Ending Medical Reversals and Dr. Makary's book Blind Spots with my nursing students. Thank you for your work.
I agree we need to study the affects of wellness based interventions, and your comment about all cause mortality, sick days and all cause mortality is very very important. most, alternative/complimentary/nutritional interventions focus on wellness and not specific disease end points. As a physician boarded in Osteopathic Manipulative medicine, I know that when we have tried to design studies of our craft, the PhDs and MDs who sit on IRB boards, and funding mechanisms have no construct to view the studies within. They demands changes to study design that interfere with the main modality. We know placebo affect, belief affect, and a supportive doctor patient relationship alone are powerful factors in wellness. I often explain to patients that RCTs for specific conditions, are the gold standard in choosing a medical intervention specific to a disease process, we need to value their place in management once a disease process has presented itself. What the wellness based interventions should be doing is preventing the need to utilize those modalities as often. The only way we will get the data we need on those wellness based modalities, is to study all cause morbidity, missed day of school/work, and all cause mortality.
As a clinical pharmacist with infectious disease background, I am skeptical of any respiratory viral vaccine working effectively (as we have seen recently from Cleveland Clinic and the lack of efficacy of flu efficacy - (or just review efficacy rates over the years with flu which usually are not great ) due to the nature of resp virus's rapidly mutating. However, my bigger concern here is not vaccination in general (as if its not super effective but is pretty non toxic its a no brainer), but how and what we are administering as "vaccines" . The MRNA technology has not gone through the FDA rigor of genetic product testing (which it jumped over bc of the EUA and has never had to go back and do) and there are many unanswered questions about the safety of this specific technology and also the QA of manufacturing such technology (fragments of dna etc that shouldn't be in the final product). Lastly, the choice of using a product that,instead of the protein being in our bodies for a few days like traditional vaccines, produces the protein for up to and over 700 days ,as demonstrated in studies, increases its risk for toxicity including side effects of spike protein itself (clotting etc) ,autoimmune reactions from our body creating antibodies to all of those spike proteins sticking out of and attached to all of our cells , and various other toxicities we are starting to see including increased risk of infections from IG4 reprogramming.. To sum up -- really hard to vaccinate against RV in real time, and the most common covid vaccines in US are using a technology that currently provide a lot of evidence of significant toxicity. If we really think it's useful to vaccinate RV we should try a safer technology.
How would you design such a study in people that would definitively answer your question about the safety of mRNA technology? Assume that you have no budgetary constraints but are restricted to subjects within the US, need the answer within 5 years of starting the study, and are not allowed to compel participation. What would you give volunteers and what would the eligibility criteria be?
What outcomes would you measure?
First step is going back and taking these products through the required genetic safety requirements already in place at the FDA before any further investigations are done. We have a lot of information in VAERS that can be utilized for toxicities but as these have some limitations it is more appropriate to start at the beginning where all genetic products are supposed to.
I'm not an anti-vaxxer, but I am skeptical of the COVID vaccine. By "skeptical" I *don't* mean that I believe in any conspiracies about it; I am not against it per se, but I want to be convinced by data. This study provides good evidence that a booster is effective for those >65 y/o, at least for a limited number of months.
Am I reading the subgroup analysis right? For <65 yr, the confidence intervals for Risk per 10,000 Persons overlap, and thus there isn't a statistically significant link (or there is at most a weak link) between COVID vaccine uptake and better COVID-related health outcomes at 6 months for those under 65?
If so, I think this study supports my exiting belief: a booster is demonstrably helpful for >65 yr and should be carefully considered by those >75 yr and/or those with underlying conditions; a booster is *possibly* helpful for those < 65 yr; a booster is likely of no benefit to people under, say, age 50. (I would be happy to reevaluate the last of these three claims with a good study like this one aimed at <50 yr; this study was silent on a younger cohort.)
You're totally right. The only thing to remember is that the < 65 population in this study was very small, so the study is way underpowered for that group.
Thank you for sharing this. I'm curious what you think of this study. https://biomarkerres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40364-025-00831-w?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
I will write about it...
While we are at it what about this study which indicates a protective effect of MRNA vaccines against various types of cancers?
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09655-y?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Thoughtful piece; while I still trust doctors such as yourself and some others, I’ve come to the view that ‘medicine’ and ‘science’ should not really touch human existence if humans are eating sensibly, exercising, managing their health and living a constructive life (family, faith, purpose). This should minimise the demand for and reliance on the industrial complex of both sectors.
I doubt many (any?) medical providers would disagree! We are all ears on how to convince humans to live the healthy lifestyle you outlined.
Very well said.