Dr Peter Doshi - Editor BMJ - Everybody Knows COVID Vaccines Save Lives

Nov 2, 2021 - Dr Peter Doshi, Editor of the BMJ and Associate Professor of pharmaceutical health services research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy.

In pharmacy school I teach a course on how to critically appraise the medical literature.

We train students on how to go beyond the study abstract and start to pick apart the medical studies, not just take them at face value.

In the attitude of "Everybody Knows" has shutdown intellectual curiosity and led to self-censorship.

Everybody Knows...

"This is a Pandemic of the Unvaccinated"

If hospitalizations and deaths were almost exclusively in the unvaccinated, why would booster shots be necessary?
Why would the statistics be different in the UK where most hospitalizations and deaths are among the fully-vaccinated?
There's a disconnect there. There's something to be curious about.
There's something not adding up and we should all be asking, is it true that this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated? What does that even mean?

Everybody Knows...

"COVID Vaccines Save Lives"

In fact, we've known this from 2021, the clinical trials proved that to be the case.
But is it true? When that was penned, there had been just one death across the 70k Pfizer & Moderna trials. Today we have more data and you can see we have similar numbers of deaths in the vaccine and placebo groups. The trials did not show a reduction in death. Even for COVID deaths as opposed to other causes the evidence is flimsy. With just 2 deaths in the placebo group vs one in the vaccinated group.

My point is not that I know the truth about what the vaccine can or cannot do. My point is that those who claim the trials show the vaccine were highly effective at saving lives were wrong. The trials did not demonstrate this.

Everybody Knows...

"You should discount what Anti-Vaxxers have to say"

But does the term mean? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as quote:
"a person who opposes the use of vaccines or regulations mandating vaccination".

The second part stunned me.

There are entire countries from the United Kingdom to Japan which do not mandate childhood vaccines. Both achieve high levels of vaccination. Just not through regulations 'mandating' vaccines. There are no mandates there and I would wager that a large minority, perhaps a majority, of the worlds population, meets the definition here of an 'anti-vaxxer'.

Another definition is "Vaccine".
I am one of the academics that argues, that these mRNA products which everybody calls "vaccines" are qualitative different than standardized vaccines, so I found it fascinating to learn that Merriam-Webster changed its definition of vaccine early this year.

mRNA products did not meet the definition of vaccine that had been in place for 15 years at Merriam-Webster. (2006 - Jan18 2021)

The definition was expanded so that mRNA products are now "Vaccines".

I highlight this to ask a question.

How would you feel about mandating covid vaccines if we didn't call them "Vaccines"?

What if these inventions were called "Drugs" instead?

So here's the scenario:

We have this "Drug", and we have evidence that it doesn't prevent infection, nor does it stop viral transmission, but the "Drug" is understood to reduce the risk of becoming very sick and dying of COVID. Would you take this drug every 6 months or so possibly for the rest of your life? If that's what it took for the drug to stay effective? Would you not take this drug yourself but support regulations mandating that everybody else around you take this drug? Or would you say "Hold on a second.. if that's all the drug does, why not use a normal medicine instead? The kind we take when we're sick and want to get better? Why would you mandate it?"

The point is, just because we call it a vaccine, doesn't mean we should assume these new products are just like all other childhood vaccines that get mandated.

Each product is a different product and if people with something simply because "It's a Vaccine and we mandate 'other vaccines'", I think it's time to inject some critical thinking into that conversation and that is what I hope we're doing today, thank you.

Original Source:

Senator Johnson Expert Panel on Federal Vaccine Mandates:
https://rumble.com/vokrf7-sen.-johnson-expert-panel-on-federal-vaccine-mandates.html

Vaccine Mandates Expert Panel Highlights:
https://youtu.be/lkVN3KwDfvI

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/senronjohnson/

Press Release:
https://www.ronjohnson.senate.gov/2021/10/media-advisory-sen-johnson-holds-expert-panel-on-federal-vaccine-mandates-and-vaccine-injuries