The press inquiry I just sent to HHS re: COVID vaccine net all-cause mortality benefit

Executive summary

I just sent a press inquiry to HHS. It’s an opportunity for the CDC to acknowledge its errors. This could be game changing.

About the recipient

Andrew Nixon is the HHS Communications Director. We’ve spoken by email. Unlike previous people in his position, he will take this press inquiry seriously and get an answer. I can’t wait.

The email

Hi Andrew,

As noted earlier, I’m a journalist who has written over 1,700 articles on the COVID vaccines and I have 1M readers worldwide. I’m also friends with several of the ACIP committee members and RFK Jr.

I have some important questions that my readers as well as I believe the ACIP members would be interested in the answers to. I’m sure RFK Jr. would love to know the answers to these questions as well.

I will share the response I get with them.

I’ve highlighted my 8 questions in blue and numbered them.

1. I’d like to know what were the KEY studies the CDC relied upon in asserting to the US public that the COVID vaccines have a net all-cause mortality (ACM) benefit and whether, in light of what I wrote below, they still stand by those studies and their opinion?

The study shown at the recent ACIP meeting was not credible. It was too short a time period, it was well in the 21-day dynamic HVE period (which depresses mortality), and it used VAERS data which is under-reported. The study didn’t adjust for the VAERS URF which a recent study by OpenVAERS found to be at least 26X.

I am familiar with:

1. Xu (2024) Mortality risk after COVID-19 vaccination: A self-controlled case series study. Vaccine. 2024 Feb 22;42(7):1731–1737. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2024.02.032

2. Xu (2021) COVID-19 Vaccination and Non–COVID-19 Mortality Risk — Seven Integrated Health Care Organizations, United States, December 14, 2020–July 31, 2021. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7043e2.htm

3. Scobie (2021) Monitoring Incidence of COVID-19 Cases, Hospitalizations, and Deaths, by Vaccination Status — 13 U.S. Jurisdictions, April 4–July 17, 2021 | MMWR which was NOT ACM, but cited an 11X lower COVID deaths in the unvaccinated.

2. Would these be the key studies or are there others that are more dispositive on the question of net ACM benefit?

None of these studies adequately controlled for Healthy Vaccinee Effect (HVE) and Non-Proportional Hazards (NPH) which are both very significant effects.

Indeed, there appear to be no COVID VEdeath studies ever done that incorporated both static HVE and NPH effects in their analysis.

Static HVE means that the non-COVID mortality rate of the unvaccinated is significantly higher than the vaccinated. For example, this paper just published, analyzing Czech data showed there is a 5X mortality difference between the vaxxed vs. unvaxxed cohorts simply based on their decision to vaccinate or not. The paper notes: “As presented above, the risk of death from non-COVID causes was up to five times lower among vaccinated individuals during periods with negligible COVID-19 mortality. This implies a risk ratio (entirely attributable to the HVE) close to 0.2, corresponding to an apparent vaccine effectiveness of approximately 80% against non-COVID mortality.” Static HVE is a well known effect and is found in the UK ONS data and the Arbel study cited below.

[ Note: there is also a dynamic HVE which is caused by the fact we don’t vaccinate people who are about to die but that effect is short lived and is mostly gone by 21 days post shot. I’m not aware of any time series plots that contradict that. For the purposes of this email, the dynamic HVE is irrelevant.]

Non-proportional hazards (NPH) refers to the fact that frail people of the same age are disproportionately more likely to die of COVID because COVID is a non-proportional hazard as noted in this meta analysis. See Figure 3 showing a 100X difference in baseline mortality has a 1000X difference in COVID mortality). The meta analysis comprised 27 studies over 34 geographic regions. There isn’t a more definitive paper than that one.

NPH is not new news. NIH Director Bhattacharya and ACIP Chair Kulldorff noted the NPH effects early in the pandemic and incorporated this into the Great Barrington Declaration: “We know that vulnerability to death from COVID-19 is more than a thousand-fold higher in the old and infirm than the young.”

The Czech paper cited above didn’t consider NPH. When you add the NPH effect, a 5X HVE becomes 5^1.5=11.18X, which is the same COVID mortality benefit found in the Scobie paper above published in MMWR.

In other words, even an 11X vaccine benefit against COVID death can be caused by a combination of HVE + NPH. A placebo shot would produce the same effect that was observed in any study that did not adjust properly for both these effects. In particular, Cox Proportional Hazards, as used in Arbel, is inadequate. The authors failed to realize that and Hoeg et al. failed to point it out.

3. Would the CDC agree with me that both HVE and NPH are both significant effects and need to be controlled for in such studies for the results to be taken seriously?

4. Is the CDC aware of any studies showing a COVID vaccine ACM benefit that controlled for both HVE and NPH? Which one(s)?

In short, it appears to me that the CDC relied on flawed studies that didn’t take into account HVE and NPH and that had these studies been done correctly, they would have found no effect, similar to what was noted in NEJM when Hoeg et al. dismantled the Arbel study claiming 90% VE against death. Note, in his response to Hoeg, that Arbel ducked the raw data question and instead resorted to using modelled data which is based on Cox PH which is flawed since COVID isn’t a proportional hazard. I wrote to Arbel to find out why he didn’t confirm the raw data and he declined to answer.

These are important questions and the implications are enormous.

I think the data is clear that the CDC made a huge error in claiming the COVID vaccines had a mortality benefit. The HVE effect can be confirmed in the Arbel study, the UK ONS data, the Czech record level data, and the Czech HVE study cited above. The NPH effect is similarly well known.

None of the studies the CDC relied on accounted for both of these effects.

5. At a minimum, will the CDC acknowledge that they might have made a critical error and that it is possible that the COVID vaccine may not, in fact, provide any ACM benefit at all?

6. Also, is there anyone in the CDC that is willing to discuss with me what the Czech record level data shows? It is consistent with what I wrote above. I realize that the CDC doesn’t comment on other people’s data, but in light of the complete lack of transparency on domestic record-level data, I’m hoping that they will make an exception due to the huge public importance of this issue. I also have US Medicare data which aligns with the Czech data showing the COVID vaccine caused a net ACM increase. If they won’t discuss the Czech data, would they be willing to discuss the US Medicare data with me? Or the record level data released from Japan?

7. Also, it appears that Pfizer fraudulently attributed one of the two COVID deaths to the placebo group. That individual received a Moderna vaccine required by work, and died shortly after his vaccination. That is a protocol violation, but the participant Subject # 10841470 was listed as a placebo COVID death in the Pfizer NEJM 6 month paper. This means that the Pfizer RCT actually found NO COVID MORTALITY BENEFIT. Is the CDC willing to publicly acknowledge this serious error which appears to be fraud? You can validate this in the published Forensic Analysis paper as well as this very detailed video (start 20 minutes into it).

My press inquiry is an opportunity for the CDC to restore trust by admitting that they made a huge mistake in asserting to the American public the COVID vaccines were beneficial.

8. Is the CDC willing to revisit the issue of COVID ACM net benefit in light of the evidence in the peer-reviewed literature cited above?

-steve

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