A study by New Zealand’s Beverley Lawton et al. ‘proved’ that receipt of the HPV vaccine reduced preterm births.
However, when statistical sleuths questioned the data, the study was retracted, as it turned out that the findings were inverted – the HPV vaccine was actually associated with increased preterm births. The story of the retraction is quite scandalous and is worth exploring.
The study purported to provide “findings” of reductions in preterm births among HPV-vaccinated mothers.
Supposedly, vaccination “reduced” very preterm births (under 31 weeks) by 23% (77% odds ratio circled in the picture below).
However, in the retraction notice, the authors were forced to admit that the “findings were inverted,” and the data showed the opposite.
In other words, the data showed that the HPV vaccine increased the chances of very preterm births.
The authors’ retraction statement says:
This paper is being retracted at the request of the authors. The authors report that there was an incorrect interpretation of the odds ratio meaning that instead of HPV vaccination potentially being protective, there may be an associated increased risk of preterm delivery.
Then, backpedalling started:
The authors believe that an increased risk of preterm delivery is unlikely and not consistent with the evidence to date. Further, the authors have not been able to access the original source data as per protocol to check the data validity. The authors wish to repeat the study to reassure themselves that there were no data processing or other errors in the databases in order to reach definitive conclusions. [emphasis added]
Did the authors lose their raw data? It is hard to believe. Okay, what was the source of the data?
The source was not some rogue database administrator; the NZ Ministry of Health itself provided the data.
The NZ Ministry of Health had no problem initially providing the data to authors setting out to prove that the HPV vaccine was safe and effective.
When the study authors admitted that their “inverted findings” accidentally implied that the HPV vaccine increased early preterm births, the NZ Ministry of Health refused to provide those data again for reanalysis. I guess, the NZ Government frowns upon questioning vaccines, truth be damned.
One of the co-authors blamed an unspecified “stats PhD candidate” for the error:
A comment to the retraction notice questions the “inexperienced PhD candidate” explanation:
The study’s lead author, who also initiated it, Professor Beverley Lawton (pictured above), hid from editors and reviewers that she is financially sponsored by the rights holder to the vaccine.
The researchers, from New Zealand, also failed to appropriately disclose their financial ties to a company, CSL Limited, which owns the rights to the HPV vaccine in Australia and New Zealand.
The scandal happened during the peak of Covid hysterics in 2020 (the original paper was published in 2018) and would have gone unnoticed and forgotten had it not been for a friend of this blog, Arkmedic, who recently mentioned this amazing story on Telegram. (Please subscribe to Arkmedic’s Substack.)
NZ still recommends the HPV vaccine and refuses to release the data that, when appropriately un-inverted, shows an increase in the chance of very early premature births for HPV-vaccinated mothers.
Would you recommend the HPV vaccine to future mothers? Were mistakes honestly made?
This article was first published on Igor’s Substack page. Subscribe here.
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