Additionally, why am I not surprised to see Annals jumped on this bandwagon? You'd expect it from JAMA...even NEJM. But now, the ACP is getting in the "political science" ring, huh? Doesn't surprise me, as for two years now they've tried to convince me (with their "position" papers) I am a racist, homophobic physician with a penchant for opposing women's "reproductive health". Funny...my growing patient population would tend to disagree. Speaking of my patient population, it exploded when people found out I wasn't pushing boosters. I'll take that hard evidence over Topol's obfuscated, self-congratulatory pseudo-science any day.
Well yes, young men need different advice, but there's little to no advice for old women. What about the swift decline in cognitive ability in old women with dementia following the shot? Not that anyone would be concerned, given that they are and will be invisible until death. When two not so healthy people can survive covid easily at 92 years old, in under a week last July, and then an idiot insists on the shot a few months later, shouldn't this also be a concern?
So much of what was foisted as science in the last 3 years was absolutely predicated on political science and almost none on actual science. The most regrettable part of this conversation is the number of physicians who bought into the message without question or thought. I truly am sorry that our profession has such a large number of physicians(by title) who are blindly following the large amount of truly false statements and policy. Predominantly due to political preference and ideology. We need to be better than that to build up and serve our patients/population in the best way possible. Thank you for the article and the study.
Vinay provides a solid perspective but does not address an alternative solution. What about substituting the J&J vaccine or the Novavax vaccine in lieu of mRNA vaccines or instead of second dose of an mRNA vaccine. Someone should be studying it. Right now, with low virulence COVID variants, avoiding mRNA boosters for males 16-39 years of age makes sense. Please comment.
Seems clear to me that the leaders of the failed covid response (Birx, Fauci, CDC, etc) locked in on the idea at the beginning of the pandemic (and maybe before, during the pandemic "war games" planning sessions) that universal mass vaccination is the only way "out". It has been a fixed idea for them that no amount of evidence or reason will dislodge. They have lost the ability to think critically.
Please read Scott Atlas's book, A Plague Upon Our House, for fascinating insights into the values, knowledge and decisions of Birx and Fauci. Atlas is and was a well read, well informed health policy expert. Apparently Birx and Fauci were NOT open to dissenting voices and showed both resistance to and opposition to those voices, which should never be the stance of someone devoted to science and good policy.
I was skeptical about the vaccines when the CDC failed to recognize natural immunity and failed to acknowledge that children had little reason to have the vax. Not differentiating the risk/reward profile for different age groups and groups of people with different characteristics was decidedly political science and not medical science.....
As a pediatrician I’m concerned that the risk of the vaccine for teen boys may be constant, but that the risk of disease complications from the virus is lower and lower with successive, milder variants. We aren’t seeing MiS-C, whatever that was, since the first original virus. I wonder if myocarditis is similarly less with newer variants? Comparisons of virus vs. vaccine also need to be strain specific. COVID was a worse disease in 2020 than in 2023, either because of milder variants or population immunity or both.
It’s crazy to me as a pediatrician. The big cliche we constantly hear in training, from med school through residency, is “children are not little adults.” Yet Covid comes along and the AAP and mindless majorities of pediatricians treat children… like little adults. Madness!
P.s. your analysis above also reminds me of the infamous leaked “hide the decline” emails from the global warming researchers a few years back. You can’t come up with the results you need to panic the population (and increase your funding) without deliberately manipulating the figures. It’s a clear sign of a guilty conscience. These people aren’t just wrong, they’re malicious.
Adrian, I am a retired pediatrician. I do not know a single other vaccine for which we use an entirely different formulation for infants and children compared to adults, except rarely for dose administration. There is something very strange from an immunologic point of view relating to the incidence of myocarditis in young males. We need to understand this phenomenon. The human immune system evolves from infancy to the elderly state. Children are much more susceptible to allergic reactions than the elderly. For some reason, adult females are at greatest risk for autoimmune diseases. We need to keep asking questions!
With this virus, there is a marked difference in susceptibility to severe disease over the span of life but we still need to protect the immunocompromised infant and child. Keep asking good questions without casting aspersion, if you can.
I appreciate the reply, and agree with the strangeness! I need to be better about casting aspersions, we should strive to put the best formulation on the motives of others, but at some point you have to call a spade a spade. For example, as the very kind and moderate Dr Prasad notes often, you can’t just look the other way at the amount of money pharma makes and how that corrupts doctors. When faced with researchers deliberately conflating statistics of 90 year olds and 18 year olds, the only apparent explanations are incompetence or some deliberate funny business. If they want to plead incompetence, they are free to do so : )
As for pediatric vaccines, I would say there are more differences beside formulation if you think about it. We give rota vaccines to 2 month olds but can’t start the series anymore if a kid is 4 month olds. That’s just a 2 month difference! But the cost/benefit changed significantly enough that you’re no longer supposed to give it. Similarly, you can give mmr to a 12 month old but it won’t count a few months earlier. And even though it’s supposedly very safe and effective, nobody in my clinic ever gets the yellow fever vaccine! I know I’m stating the obvious, but risk/benefit varies by age and location and a million other factors. Mandating Covid shots on children given the known risk/benefit at the time, let alone now, cannot be explained charitably, in my honest opinion.
Adrian, I totally agree with you about the advisability of COVID vaccines for most infants and children today. Exceptions might include a one year old whose sibling had a liver transplant last year and children who spend a lot of time with their elderly grandparents. The calculations of risk and benefits need to be individual.
Nice paper -- but not a single surprising finding. Most of us have known this since the beginning...really, the signals have been there all along if one looked. Thrilled to have it laid out in a more rigorous fashion that, while not unexpected, is pretty unassailable.
And it is clearly politics, not ignorance, that has driven this entire conversation for several years. Topol (whom I have come up against several times -- all unpleasantly) will say anything he thinks will advance his career. There is not a scientific bone in his body. It is an embarrassment that he puts himself forth as a knowing doctor. There are a handful like this that have captivated the government-endorsed-doctor-pool...shameful. I cannot wait until they are replaced by real doctors and real scientists who are driven by patient care, not politics.
Thank you for adding one more brick to the foundation to send these people away. And amnesty is NOT in my vocabulary these days. These have all been bad actors for reasons unrelated to health and health care, sadly.
Additionally, why am I not surprised to see Annals jumped on this bandwagon? You'd expect it from JAMA...even NEJM. But now, the ACP is getting in the "political science" ring, huh? Doesn't surprise me, as for two years now they've tried to convince me (with their "position" papers) I am a racist, homophobic physician with a penchant for opposing women's "reproductive health". Funny...my growing patient population would tend to disagree. Speaking of my patient population, it exploded when people found out I wasn't pushing boosters. I'll take that hard evidence over Topol's obfuscated, self-congratulatory pseudo-science any day.
You have helped to bring sanity back, Vinay!
Tufts University is no longer going to require the bivalent booster on its students. The dominoes begin to fall.
Seems like scientific cherry picking continues. I’m almost bored with it all. Comments below much more succinct than mine!
Well yes, young men need different advice, but there's little to no advice for old women. What about the swift decline in cognitive ability in old women with dementia following the shot? Not that anyone would be concerned, given that they are and will be invisible until death. When two not so healthy people can survive covid easily at 92 years old, in under a week last July, and then an idiot insists on the shot a few months later, shouldn't this also be a concern?
So much of what was foisted as science in the last 3 years was absolutely predicated on political science and almost none on actual science. The most regrettable part of this conversation is the number of physicians who bought into the message without question or thought. I truly am sorry that our profession has such a large number of physicians(by title) who are blindly following the large amount of truly false statements and policy. Predominantly due to political preference and ideology. We need to be better than that to build up and serve our patients/population in the best way possible. Thank you for the article and the study.
Vinay provides a solid perspective but does not address an alternative solution. What about substituting the J&J vaccine or the Novavax vaccine in lieu of mRNA vaccines or instead of second dose of an mRNA vaccine. Someone should be studying it. Right now, with low virulence COVID variants, avoiding mRNA boosters for males 16-39 years of age makes sense. Please comment.
Seems clear to me that the leaders of the failed covid response (Birx, Fauci, CDC, etc) locked in on the idea at the beginning of the pandemic (and maybe before, during the pandemic "war games" planning sessions) that universal mass vaccination is the only way "out". It has been a fixed idea for them that no amount of evidence or reason will dislodge. They have lost the ability to think critically.
Please read Scott Atlas's book, A Plague Upon Our House, for fascinating insights into the values, knowledge and decisions of Birx and Fauci. Atlas is and was a well read, well informed health policy expert. Apparently Birx and Fauci were NOT open to dissenting voices and showed both resistance to and opposition to those voices, which should never be the stance of someone devoted to science and good policy.
I was skeptical about the vaccines when the CDC failed to recognize natural immunity and failed to acknowledge that children had little reason to have the vax. Not differentiating the risk/reward profile for different age groups and groups of people with different characteristics was decidedly political science and not medical science.....
As a pediatrician I’m concerned that the risk of the vaccine for teen boys may be constant, but that the risk of disease complications from the virus is lower and lower with successive, milder variants. We aren’t seeing MiS-C, whatever that was, since the first original virus. I wonder if myocarditis is similarly less with newer variants? Comparisons of virus vs. vaccine also need to be strain specific. COVID was a worse disease in 2020 than in 2023, either because of milder variants or population immunity or both.
It’s crazy to me as a pediatrician. The big cliche we constantly hear in training, from med school through residency, is “children are not little adults.” Yet Covid comes along and the AAP and mindless majorities of pediatricians treat children… like little adults. Madness!
P.s. your analysis above also reminds me of the infamous leaked “hide the decline” emails from the global warming researchers a few years back. You can’t come up with the results you need to panic the population (and increase your funding) without deliberately manipulating the figures. It’s a clear sign of a guilty conscience. These people aren’t just wrong, they’re malicious.
https://gaty.substack.com/
Adrian, I am a retired pediatrician. I do not know a single other vaccine for which we use an entirely different formulation for infants and children compared to adults, except rarely for dose administration. There is something very strange from an immunologic point of view relating to the incidence of myocarditis in young males. We need to understand this phenomenon. The human immune system evolves from infancy to the elderly state. Children are much more susceptible to allergic reactions than the elderly. For some reason, adult females are at greatest risk for autoimmune diseases. We need to keep asking questions!
With this virus, there is a marked difference in susceptibility to severe disease over the span of life but we still need to protect the immunocompromised infant and child. Keep asking good questions without casting aspersion, if you can.
I appreciate the reply, and agree with the strangeness! I need to be better about casting aspersions, we should strive to put the best formulation on the motives of others, but at some point you have to call a spade a spade. For example, as the very kind and moderate Dr Prasad notes often, you can’t just look the other way at the amount of money pharma makes and how that corrupts doctors. When faced with researchers deliberately conflating statistics of 90 year olds and 18 year olds, the only apparent explanations are incompetence or some deliberate funny business. If they want to plead incompetence, they are free to do so : )
As for pediatric vaccines, I would say there are more differences beside formulation if you think about it. We give rota vaccines to 2 month olds but can’t start the series anymore if a kid is 4 month olds. That’s just a 2 month difference! But the cost/benefit changed significantly enough that you’re no longer supposed to give it. Similarly, you can give mmr to a 12 month old but it won’t count a few months earlier. And even though it’s supposedly very safe and effective, nobody in my clinic ever gets the yellow fever vaccine! I know I’m stating the obvious, but risk/benefit varies by age and location and a million other factors. Mandating Covid shots on children given the known risk/benefit at the time, let alone now, cannot be explained charitably, in my honest opinion.
Adrian, I totally agree with you about the advisability of COVID vaccines for most infants and children today. Exceptions might include a one year old whose sibling had a liver transplant last year and children who spend a lot of time with their elderly grandparents. The calculations of risk and benefits need to be individual.
Nice paper -- but not a single surprising finding. Most of us have known this since the beginning...really, the signals have been there all along if one looked. Thrilled to have it laid out in a more rigorous fashion that, while not unexpected, is pretty unassailable.
And it is clearly politics, not ignorance, that has driven this entire conversation for several years. Topol (whom I have come up against several times -- all unpleasantly) will say anything he thinks will advance his career. There is not a scientific bone in his body. It is an embarrassment that he puts himself forth as a knowing doctor. There are a handful like this that have captivated the government-endorsed-doctor-pool...shameful. I cannot wait until they are replaced by real doctors and real scientists who are driven by patient care, not politics.
Thank you for adding one more brick to the foundation to send these people away. And amnesty is NOT in my vocabulary these days. These have all been bad actors for reasons unrelated to health and health care, sadly.
You can tell by Topol's Twitter picture (a self-aggrandizing headshot) he doesn't believe his solid waste to be malodorous...to put it tactfully.