The following article by Dr Edmund Fordham and Dr Tess Lawrie was first published by HART and is reproduced here by kind permission.
The July 3rd episode of Tim Harford’s More or Less: Behind the Stats, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and the World Service, spread more medical disinformation with a piece entitled “Is ivermectin a Covid wonder drug?” Timed to follow publication of an article in Clinical Infectious Diseases by Roman et al on June 28th, this piece seems a clumsy attempt to discredit the landmark British study of Bryant, Lawrie et al which was published by the American Journal of Therapeutics in June and has recently appeared in the current (July) print edition.
Though published by British authors – based at Dr Tess Lawrie’s Evidence-Based Medicine Consultancy Ltd in Bath and the University of Newcastle — and despite these authors lacking any conflicts of interest, BBC Radio 4 made no attempt to contact any of the study authors for interview or ‘right of reply’, which is a fairness obligation under the Ofcom Broadcasting Code. Instead, Harford spoke to one Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, an epidemiologist at the University of Wollongong in Australia.
Bryant et al have published the world’s first Cochrane-standards systematic review and meta-analysis of available randomised clinical trials of ivermectin in treatment and prevention of COVID-19. Review of 3,406 patients in 24 randomised trials demonstrated a mortality risk reduction of 62% on ‘moderate certainty’ evidence. The documentation is meticulous and comprehensive. Its restriction was to ‘randomised’ clinical trials because non-randomised studies are typically disregarded by regulatory authorities. There was no ‘cherry picking’: all available trials at the study cut-off date were included.
Meyerowitz-Katz referred to Roman et al, with an almost identical but not the same title, which also claims to be a systematic review and meta-analysis. The study surveys only 1,173 patients over 10 studies, with the remaining known randomised trials arbitrarily excluded. Moreover, the article misreports published clinical trial data in a way that verges on falsification of data, as an Open Letter to the Editor-in-Chief has detailed. The initial misreporting while on the preprint server medRxiv included a farcical reversal of the treatment and control ‘arms’ of the clinical trial of Niaee et al, drawing protest from Dr Niaee himself which can still be found in the comments section of medRxiv. Unfortunately for Clinical Infectious Diseases, further misreporting (undetected by the journal’s peer reviewers) remains, in a way that renders the article worthless. Further background on the sources can be found here.
These facts seemed unknown to Meyerowitz-Katz, who presented it as a contrasting study arriving at opposite conclusions. In fact, even the highly-selected data offer a mortality risk reduction closely similar to Bryant et al, merely one with wider Confidence Intervals. Roman et al commit the elementary fallacy of supposing that lacking statistically significant evidence (in their highly selective survey) is the same thing as a positive demonstration of no benefit.
This is not so; all of the studies cited consistently show benefit. In addition to their selectivity and misreporting of basic data, Roman et al assert conclusions that do not follow from the evidence.
Meyerowitz-Katz attempts to discredit Bryant et al on the basis of ‘risks of bias’ and ‘certainty of evidence’ but failed to explain that this would not change any of the numerical estimates of the magnitude of the effect (e.g. on mortality, on clinical improvement, or prevention of infection, etc.). Whilst assessments of evidence ‘certainty’ do involve subjective aspects, they are all subject to strict criteria, and should be carried out independently by two reviewers. Bryant et al observed those criteria; whatever process was used by Roman et al, the result was only multiple instances of data misreporting.
Harford and Meyerowitz-Katz between them also failed to explain that, in the context of a systematic review, phrases such as ‘moderate certainty’ or ‘very low certainty’ have a precise technical meaning. These concern overall confidence in the magnitude of effects, and whether further research is expected to change the quantitative estimate. They do not refer to certainty about whether an effect exists at all.
Harford and Meyerowitz-Katz then elide such technical meanings into the much looser colloquial senses, allowing listeners to assume that Meyerowitz-Katz’ assertion of ‘low’ or ‘very low’ certainty means that it is uncertain whether ivermectin is helpful at all. The BBC has, in theory, an educational mission. In failing to explain this understandable misconception to a lay audience, the BBC has failed in a clear opportunity to educate.
Where Harford and Meyerowitz-Katz are correct is in identifying the close parallels between the media coverage of hydroxychloroquine and of ivermectin, both very cheap generic medicines on the WHO list of Essential Medicines, those ‘safe and effective’ medicines that represent the “minimum medicine needs for a basic health-care system”. These are clearly grave threats to a pharmaceutical sector expecting valuations in the hundreds of billions of dollars from ‘designer’ drugs and mass vaccination programmes. It seems an all too regular occurrence that conflicted authors and journalists now routinely denigrate any generic medicine from which no fortunes can be made.
The effectiveness of ivermectin in prevention and treatment of COVID-19 is not ultimately shown by meta-analyses of randomised clinical trials. It is now glaringly obvious from multiple observational trials and case studies from whole countries, or states within them, showing how ivermectin use crushes both case and death statistics. The uncertainties that do remain concern the quantitative metrics of benefit, not whether such benefit exists at all. Genuine research issues include matters such as dosage, frequency, adjunct medicines, and other treatments required at different stages of the complex clinical course of the COVID-19 illness. These are legitimately the subject of further clinical trials, but in the current stage of knowledge, randomisation to placebo would be unethical.
This BBC report is medical disinformation, fails in the BBC’s educational mission, and violates the BBC’s Charter obligations of both objectivity and balance. This HART bulletin aims to restore the balance that the BBC fails to provide.
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I thought thalidomide could never ever be forgotten
The figures that show the real risk of Covid vaccine in pregnancy By Sally Beck October 12, 2021
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-figures-that-show-the-risk-of-covid-vaccine-in-pregnancy/
Stand in the Park
Make friends – keep sane – talk freedom and have a laugh
Wokingham Stand in the Park Howard Palmer Gardens RG40 2HD Sundays 10am
behind the Cockpit Path car park in the centre of the town
Bracknell Stand in the Park South Hill Park Sundays 10am & Wednesdays 2pm
Telegram http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
Reading Stand in the Park River Promenade Sundays 10am
Telegram https://t.me/standindparkreading
Addendum ..
Stand in the park in Hull ..
Saturday 1pm Pearson park .. near the bandstand ..
Sunday 10am East park ..near the pavillion cafe /clock/bandstand ..
Hope you don”t mind me sticking this on your post LS
Exactly. Would the plonker who downvoted this comment like to identify him/herself and explain why? Too young, too thick, too indoctrinated, too complicit? I think we should know.
The fertility report
Female COVID-19 vaccination associates with lower fertility – America’s Frontline Doctors (americasfrontlinedoctors.org)
“Female COVID-19 vaccination associates with lower fertility”
What a sick twisted world we live in, if it isn’t bad enough that they want to jab children, they now go after the babies.
Anyone who supports this is no better than Dr. Mengele.
Again, would the dicks who downvoted this care to explain why?
This is a meaningless comparison without understanding more about the 127 non-pregnant women who died. Were they the oldest of the 914? Did they have comorbidities?
Indeed, they were likely not in the best of health anyway. Although the recommendation for pregnant woment to take the vax is only valid if it results in reduced harm across that population and their children, in the short and long term, which we don’t know yet; it’s not enough to say “COVID is bad, therefore take the vax”. Particularly in a situation where the health authorities have been refusing early treatment with drugs whose safety profile is much better known.
3! just 3 pregnant women! Is not a measly comparison, whatever you want to compare it to. Presumably these pregnant women also can have comorbidities too – certainly the ones they have wheeled out on the BBC etc so far as “warnings” have all been morbidly obese.
How many of the women in ICU caught Covid in hospital or from medical appointments?
How many have underlying conditions including obesity?
How many pregnant women overall are catching Covid in hospital?
It may be worth noting that there are five ECMO sites providing 15 beds that can be increased to 30 in an emergency as they were a few years back because of influenza. Of these 5 sites, one is Great Ormand Street Hospital (GOSH), which is a children’s hospital and so there are four adult ECMO sites.
So presumably there are around 12 adult ECMO beds in the whole country, so a third would be around FOUR pregnant women using these on average? In the whole country?!
I had a quick google of an ECMO set-up and it seems vastly preferable to a ventilator, since they administer it through a cannula rather than down your throat so patient can remain conscious, and presumably avoid the damage that we know ventilators cause.
So is it not perhaps the case that pregnant women are being prioritised for this treatment over ventilation, not that ventilation is necessarily insufficient, in order to provide the best chance of survival for survival for mother and baby? That would explain the high proportion, not that so many more of them are seriously ill.
Sorry I realised I got my stats slightly muddled. It’s 20% on the ecmo and 1/3 in icu in general, but I still think it applies.
The rush to ventilation turned out to be a massive error.
… as is the neglect of at-home early treatment protocols in favour of dodgy jabs.
Definitely. I think it goes without saying that the risks of ventilation must increase if you are pregnant – can’t be good for mother or baby to be placed into a coma and have a tube shoved into lungs. Not even supposed to lie on your back for more than a couple of mins.
I believe this is why there is such an increase in premature births in this clinical category – they are iatrogenic as the mothers are induced early so that they can go straight onto a ventilator.
A friend of my daughter, both are pregnant, is a nurse. The friend had an appointment with her consultant and he raised the question of the jab, she asked him if his daughter or other loved one was pregnant “Would he recommend they be jabbed” ?
Answer “NO”
clots mess up placentas
There is something very strange about the insistence that pregnant women should be injected with the mRNA products.
Historically pregnant women were not recommended to get any vaccines. It has always (until now) ben recognised that any medical product that works can also cause harm, simply because it changes the body. Therefore the potential for a negative impact always exists with any product that modifies physical processes.
This changed only quite recently. with the growing propaganda that vaccines must not be resisted, and the unmedical denial that vaccines ever have adverse effects. So there has been a campaign to get pregnant women injected with the flu vaccine, for example. This would not have occurred in the past.
But what I cannot understand is why the astounding insistence that pregnant women must be injected? It is highly risky, and what is more, any injuries to the developing foetus will be evident and undeniable.
I cannot understand why the other side want to undermine their case for “safe” vaccines in this way, it is reckless and self destructive. There is minimal profit in it for the pharma giants, the numbers of pregnant women are small in the developed world.
Why expose themselves and their programme in this way? It is madness.
They have not convinced the population – the press secretary for Biden yesterday was angry as she openly stated that 80 million Americans were still “unvaccinated”. People know they are being asked to do mad things.
Non compliance is the inevitable reaction to every extreme and crazy demand.
Discovery identifies a highly efficient human reverse transcriptase that can write RNA sequences into DNA
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210611174037.htm
Cells contain machinery that duplicates DNA into a new set that goes into a newly formed cell. That same class of machines, called polymerases, also build RNA messages, which are like notes copied from the central DNA repository of recipes, so they can be read more efficiently into proteins. But polymerases were thought to only work in one direction DNA into DNA or RNA. This prevents RNA messages from being rewritten back into the master recipe book of genomic DNA. Now, Thomas Jefferson University researchers provide evidence that RNA segments can be written back into DNA via a polymerase called theta, which could have wide implications affecting many fields of biology.
Is the RNA written back into the germline?
Something very strange to say the least. Can’t quite work out what we are witnessing. Clearly they want newborn babies to be affected by whatever the ‘vaccine’ is designed to do. The more outlandish interpretations are becoming more plausible to me by the day.
“There is something very strange about the insistence that pregnant women should be injected with the mRNA products.”
Very. It’s basic experimental protocol that you do not give treatment to a group excluded from trials.
Pregnant women were an important target for the plan from the start. The CEO of Pfizer said that when Israel’s PM rang to ask for full priority supplies of the jabs, one of the big lures for him was that he was happy to inject children and pregnant women.
There is a special desire to get this into the next generation. They could force them to have medical digital ID anyhow.
I have never known how Doctors can say with certainty that the stab is safe…for anyone, never mind pregnant women. It should ALWAYS have a caveat such as, as ‘far as we know’, or ‘studies presently show’. This would be much more honest.
Pfizers own latest safety update says, “Available data on Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine administered to pregnant women are INSUFFICIENT to inform vaccine-associated risk in pregnancy.
(Verbatim from the study, my capitals)
So for future reference can we have a list of names of the ‘experts’, and exactly which studies they are quoting when they say it is perfectly safe?
Since doctors earn quite a bit for injecting people, don’t hold your breath.
I haven’t been to see a doc for a few years but I don’t remember ever being warned about the side effects of the medicine they prescribe.
Anyone administering the injection has presumably read the caveats and must be held responsible for any consequences if they fail to pass the information on.
This even though there is a known issue with menstrual cycles. I wonder what this vaccine does to the hormones.
Yet another case for further studies.
Saw this story playing out on BBC News silently from a giant wall mounted TV in a petrol station yesterday and felt a terrible sense of dread. Knew it would be complete bullshit. Some sinister BBC Spook, Nick Triggle I think pretending to look really concerned. I can’t even express the evil at work here, but look forward to the war crime tribunals very much.
“… look forward to the war crime tribunals very much.“
I wouldn’t pile further disappointment onto the situation.
More evidence that the authorities are desperate for everyone to get the jab. Even though the epidemic has been over for at least six months – arguably 16 months. Why so desperate? Why push pregnant women to have it? They only have to wait a few months until they are not pregnant.
Anyone who thinks they don’t have an ulterior motive for pushing the vaccine so hard needs to take themselves off to a quiet room with no tea and no biscuits and give themselves a disciplinary hearing.
“nearly 20% of the most critically ill COVID-19 patients are pregnant women who have not been vaccinated”
This is almost meaningless without some context. At the very least we need to know two other pieces of information before we could even begin to make comparisons. Firstly, what percentage of the most critically ill COVID-19 patients are pregnant women who have been vaccinated? Secondly, What percentage of pregnant women have been vaccinated?
Any observational study without context is liable to be propaganda and misleading. As far as the observed proportion of pregnant women in ICU compared to women of childbearing age who are not pregnant there is a most important confounder which is stated on the RCOG website:
https://www.rcog.org.uk/en/guidelines-research-services/guidelines/coronavirus-pregnancy/covid-19-virus-infection-and-pregnancy/
Ah, yes. Since ECMO machines are very scarce, it is likely that they are disproportionately allocated to pregnant women by clinicians. A major confounder!
And then if vaccine uptake in pregnancy is ‘low’ (or ‘very low’ as reported in Scotland), neither is it any great surprise to find that most of the pregnant women on ECMO machines are unvaccinated.
And thus, without any context, and without accounting for all the major confounders, the statement that “nearly 20% of the most critically ill COVID-19 patients are pregnant women who have not been vaccinated” becomes raw, despicable propaganda.
Shame on the RCOG.
How can we get this shared further? It makes me so angry that this is headline news and people are just lapping it up.
100% agree.
Business as usual ECMO capacity in England (possibly England Scotland and Wales) is 15 beds so it’s probably 5 women in that age group and 1 of them has tested positive for CONVID but hasn’t visited a jabbatoir. There’s the 20%. The onus is on the people manufacturing this fear porn to provide the data to contextualise it.
I saw the reporting of this on TV last night at my parent’s house. As you would expect these days, the media is not sitting on the fence on the issue. Their description of the fake vaccine as a critical ‘life-saving’ medication was laughable. But not humorous at all in the context of them talking in deathly tones, showing images of pregnant women on ventilators (which ordinarily is not unusual) and dramatically exaggerating everything they could in favour of influencing the public to allow them to inject the clot shot into women and by extension, unborn babies.
The government/pharma could not have pulled off this scam without the collaboration of the mass media. Their role has been intrinsic in brainwashing the putty-brained public.
Simple test of faith in the vaccine and : withdraw the protection from liability
As always Rick, we can be confident the opinion will be much more nuanced once they have” Skin in the Game”
Same narrative in Ireland coming from what looks like the same group. Just a coincidence
https://amp.rte.ie/amp/1252925/
The Chair of the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has said more effort must be made to reach out to pregnant women who are not taking up the offer of a Covid-19 vaccination.
Dr Cliona Murphy, obstetrician at the Coombe Hospital in Dublin, said the virus is a significant risk to pregnant women and this risk has become worse over the pandemic waves
This charity Pregnant Then Screwed – who are supposed to advocate for women(!) have got a massive ‘rona boner for this stuff. It makes me sick.
They’ve even made a “pregnancy and vaccines helpline” that you can or WhatsApp – 07521 770 995 which is actually a directline to FullFact – no joke. Feel free to send them some pertinent questions!
It says
The latest ICNARC report (October 8) shows 14 ‘currently pregnant’ patients in critical care with confirmed Covid, and thus there cannot be more than 14 unvaccinated pregnant women in critical care with Covid.
If that constitutes 1 in 6 of all people in critical care with Covid then we would expect around 84 persons in critical care with Covid.
But the actual figure is around 1000, as can be seen from the same ICNARC report (see chart).
So, that’s around 1 in 70, which makes the claim an atrocious lie.
Far more useful than spreading such lies would be to investigate the cause of the sharp increase in admissions of pregnant women to critical care since the vaccine rollout. From around 5% of women aged 16 to 49 last year, before there was any vaccination of pregnant women, to around 15% now.
They are trying to fudge this by referring to “the most critically ill covid patients” (rather than those in intensive care per se) while conflating this with treatment rather than some other more appropriate measure of illness severity. What I find staggering – and I know I’m sounding like a broken record here – is that 10 months after the vaccine programme started rolling out, ICNARC still aren’t including vaccine status in their patient characteristics, so we can’t see what proportion of intensive care covid-positive patients are vaccinated and what proportion aren’t. If this story about unvaccinated pregnant women really had some teeth – indeed if the ICUs were full of unvaccinated covid patients of any gender, age or any other characteristic – then surely the government and media would be delighting in showing us that data. But instead it’s hidden from the public. Question is, do they have something to hide? Also, what about all the other people in ICU who haven’t tested positive for covid? Any chance they are disproportionately represented by the vaccinated? (My guess is “yes”).
“Out of all women between the ages of 16 and 49 on ECMO in intensive care, pregnant women make up almost a third (32%)”…
But how many are there in total? Because if it’s only 3, 1 of them being pregnant isn’t really that drastic.
Jaqueline Dunkley Bent, chief midwife, claiming in the Torygraph that “vaccination can keep you, your baby and your loved ones safe and out of hospital”. She’s NHS, it’s her job to pimp the vaccines. And she’s also ex Imperial.
I see Carrie is pimping for the injecting of pregnant women too. Had her second jab and feeling great, apparently.
Hospital or ICU admissions are not necessarily a good measure of how ill a patient is. Pregnant women are treated much more precautionary and more likely to be admitted out of an abundance of caution for observation or due to the availability of trained staff.
There is NO clinical evidence that Covid-19 vaccines are safe for pregnant women.
Never in history, has any vaccine been advised for pregnant women or children that hasn’t completed long-term safety and efficacy studies and achieved full FDA-approval. We need studies completed, the results published in peer-reviewed journals, the risks and benefits carefully analyzed, and evaluated by objective reviewers, medical professionals and the public.
Young people, and even more so females, are at extraordinarily low risk from Covid-19, approaching zero. Pregnant women are more likely to have no symptoms at all, compared to nonpregnant women, a review of over 67,000 pregnant women found. There is even no good evidence that pregnant women hospitalized for Covid-19 have a higher risk of dying, and, in fact, appear to even have lower risks.
The CDC’s Covid-19 Pregnancy Registry Team published its preliminary findings of the vaccine in pregnant women in the New England Journal of Medicine on June 17th. It found (see Table 4) that 96 out of 104 spontaneous abortions occurred before 13 weeks gestation (during the first trimester) – 92.3% of spontaneous abortions occurred in the first trimester!
So, what did they conclude? They stated they saw no indications of “any obvious safety signals with respect to pregnancy or neonatal outcomes associated with Covid-19 vaccination in the third trimester of pregnancy.” This deception should anger everyone who cares for mothers and babies. Yet, even after knowing this identified risk, it is more disturbing that subsequent studies have not carefully separated the data according to weeks of pregnancy or trimester.
They knew. Just as any virology and immunology and responsible medical professional would, and decades of medical literature have shown, the risks of mRNA vaccines.
VAERS [“vaccine adverse events reporting” system of the CDC and FDA] has recorded 1,969 cases of babies lost during pregnancy (fetal deaths, premature abortions, etc.) as of Sept 24th.
· Yet, young women of childbearing age are being pushed to get the vaccine, a vaccine that is still not FDA-approved, and these women and their families are not given full disclosures and informed consent.
The warning about ECMO is nugatory and probably mendacious.
Guardian reported 15 ECMO beds in England can be used simultaneously, flexing to 30 for seasonal flu surges.
There are 5 ECMO hospitals in England plus 2 more surge hospitals. A further surge site is in Aberdeen.
March 2020 Hilary Benn asked a Parliamentary Question on the number of ECMO beds. DHSS didn’t know.
20% of pregnant women in that age band who’ve tested +ve for CONVID is likely to be 1 of only 5 people on ECMO in that demographic or possibly 2 out of a total of 10.
None of the articles specify if they caught CONVID in hospital or if they’re wholly and exclusively in intensive care or hospital because of CONVID. After all, a high % are meant to be asymptomatic.
We’re also not told for comparison how many non-pregnant women in that age group are on ECMO and how many have been to a jabbatoir or how many pregnant ones are on ECMO who have been to a jabbatoir.
All of the ECMO warnings can be safely disregarded unless more information is made available.
1: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/feb/27/coronavirus-england-only-has-15-beds-for-worst-respiratory-cases
2.
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2020-03-13/29202
3.
https://www.acprc.org.uk/resources/critical-care/ecmo-physiotherapy-network/
I meant the 32% on ECMO not the 20% for ICU overall which could be just 3 women in the age bracket on ECMO in the entire country and 1 is a pregnant woman who tested +ve for CONVID and who hasn’t been to the jabbatoir. That would be 33.3% recurring though, not 32%.
Closest I can get to 32% is 31.6% (6 out of 19).
In the RCOG article under “notes to editors”:
Tell that to the approximately 600 British women who reported spontaneous abortions following the vaccination to the yellow card system.
A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in July revealed that when pregnant women are given COVID vaccines during their first or second trimesters, they suffer an 82% spontaneous abortion rate, killing 4 out of 5 unborn babies.
So, in addition to wiping out a big slice of the elderly and giving a record number of young people heart problems, this latest Big Pharma snake oil is now demonstrably aborting, as well as sterilising, would-be mothers.
Vaccines king Bill Gates and eugenicists the world over must be laughing all the way to the bank.
Aren’t they likely to adopt some version of the precautionary principle and admit pregnant women to ICU more readily than non-pregnant women, given that two lives are at stake in the latter situation? I have no idea but, if so, then the higher relative frequency of admission is inevitable, as is the ultimate better outcome.
As Dr Mike Yeadon says, any doctor who recommends a pregnant woman receive the covid vaxx, should lose their license to practice medicine immediately. The reason is simple. There is no safety or efficacy data for the woman nor for the fetus. No long term data either.