Our heroes of Team Reality, Tracy Høeg, Ran Duriseti, and Vinay Prasad, have a letter today in the New England Journey of Medicine entitled: Potential “Healthy Vaccinee Bias” in a Study of BNT162b2 Vaccine against Covid-19.”
They point out a crucial statistical issue in a prominent study by Arbel et al., which reported a 90% decrease in Covid-19 related mortality among participants who received a Pfizer–BioNTech booster shot. In their letter, the authors call out unadjusted confounding factors that may have influenced the study's results, skewing the perception of booster effectiveness.
Using the data from the study and a subsequent letter, the authors calculated the mortality not related to Covid-19 among the booster and non-booster groups. Surprisingly, they found a 94.8% lower mortality unrelated to Covid-19 among the booster group, implying a substantially healthier cohort than the non-booster group.
The similarities in mortality reduction, both Covid-19 related and unrelated, in the booster group raises questions about potential "healthy vaccine bias" that might have confounded the results. Simply put, healthier individuals who are less likely to die, to begin with, might be the ones receiving the booster shots, which could lead to an overestimate of the vaccine's effectiveness.
These findings underscore the importance of considering and adjusting for confounding factors in observational studies. Moreover, they highlight the need to include mortality not related to Covid-19 as an essential context in all observational Covid-19 vaccine studies. Hence, while boosters could indeed be beneficial in the fight against Covid-19, it's crucial to interpret their impact accurately to make well-informed decisions.
Check it out! https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2306683
What a colossal mind fuck this whole shit show has been!
Anyone who died within 7 days of receiving the booster was included in the non-booster group. Therefore - the entire study is fit for little more than the rubbish bin.