Twisting the Truth About Vaccines

The anti-vaxxers are so desperate to prove that vaccines are more harmful than their diseases that they will gladly twist every bit of news they see. Here's a case in point, from Salon:

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Salon
Experts raise "serious doubt" about COVID vaccine study claiming mRNA harms
Elizabeth Hlavinka
Sat, March 8, 2025 at 5:30 AM EST

"The COVID-19 pandemic is in the rearview mirror for many people, despite the fact that the virus still kills hundreds every week and could surge again if another mutated strain comes along, as witnessed multiple times in the last five years. Still, infections are at relative lows lately thanks in part to acquired immunity from infections and vaccines. Indeed, record-breaking vaccine development played a big role in keeping the SARS-CoV-2 virus at bay.

"Vaccine skeptics have long-since leveraged the rapid roll out of mRNA vaccines to add fuel to heated arguments surrounding vaccine safety. As a result, a growing share of the public is wary of getting vaccinated with both mRNA and other kinds of vaccines. Yet, despite the fact that their developmental process has been unfolding over decades and these vaccines were subject to the same safety standards as others, political figures continue to push forward unvalidated research to take aim at mRNA vaccines, with serious health consequences.

"Those sentiments are being reflected at the state level, too. Earlier this week, Iowa lawmakers advanced a bill that would prohibit the administration of mRNA vaccines, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also called for a permanent ban on mRNA vaccine mandates. Last month, Kentucky lawmakers introduced a bill that would make it illegal to give mRNA vaccines to children and would remove vaccine mandates by schools, hospitals and employers while an Idaho regional health department banned COVID vaccines in October.

"Last month, researchers from Yale University published a study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, on the preprint server medRx, which rapidly circulated online among vaccine skeptics. The study said a small group of patients reported lingering symptoms similar to long COVID — including brain fog, fatigue, tinnitus and sleep issues — after receiving the Pfizer or Moderna mRNA COVID vaccine. (Four patients also received the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine which does not use mRNA.) It was quickly circulated online and used to support anti-vaccine conspiracies and misinformation.

"But experts urged caution when interpreting these results before the study can be verified and peer-reviewed. For one, the study used a small sample size, with only 42 people (and 22 healthy control subjects) self-identifying their symptoms, explained Dr. E. John Wherry, the director of the Institute for Immunology and Immune Health at the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the research.

“When you do studies where you are comparing one cohort to another, there needs to be some rigorous criteria for who is included in a cohort,” Wherry told Salon in a phone interview. “From what I can tell, this is self-identified and it is unclear what exactly that means.”

"Because it is a preprint study that has not been peer-reviewed, the authors acknowledged in a press release that their findings needed to be validated. One author told STAT News that the data is not “ready to be used in clinical decision-making.” The corresponding authors of the paper did not respond to Salon's requests for comment.

“This study is early-stage and requires replication and validation,” they wrote in the paper. “We emphasize the critical task of discerning between meaningful results and random fluctuations in the data.”

"Sometimes, reported side effects from medical interventions do turn out to be statistical noise. During the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, for example, early research showed the risk of miscarriage seemed to be elevated among pregnant women who got the vaccine two consecutive years in a row. This was captured in safety surveillance data and further examined by other research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which found the signal in the earlier studies to be a false alarm.

"On the other hand, other safety signals that appear have led to the removal of certain vaccines from markets. For example, the first rotavirus vaccine was withdrawn in 1999 when researchers detected an increased risk of intussusception, a rare type of bowel obstruction, for children who received the vaccine.

"Any medical intervention carries the risk of side effects and vaccines, just like common medications like acetaminophen or aspirin, can sometimes harm people, said Dr. John Moore, a microbiology and immunology professor at Cornell University, who was not involved in the study. Some side effects from the COVID vaccine, like menstrual cycle changes and cardiac issues like myocarditis, have been reported in a small proportion of the population receiving shots. But it is important to weigh these risks with the protective benefits the vaccine provides as well — after all, viruses cause harm too.

“There is a generally acknowledged myocarditis side effect to the mRNA vaccines, predominantly in young men, and it's invariably in the States been non-fatal,” Moore told Salon in a phone interview. “No one disputes that, but COVID-19 infections cause far more significant and far more prevalent cases of myocarditis and pericarditis.”

"Sources emphasized how important it is for doctors and researchers to be guided by patient experience and to explore any potential symptoms that patients report after a COVID-19 vaccine. After all, many patients with long COVID, Lyme disease, and myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), among other chronic disease conditions, have fought for recognition within a medical system notorious for dismissing or ignoring their experience.

"Yet as it stands, “post-vaccination syndrome” — which the authors use to describe the symptoms reported by patients in this preprint study — is not an official diagnosis that has been recognized by medical authorities. Overall, COVID vaccines, including those that employ mRNA, are considered extremely safe.

“When you start analyzing tens of millions of vaccinations for COVID-19, you start to see side effects that pop up at the level of one in a million,” Moore said. “You have to balance that against, per some estimates, between hundreds of thousands and millions of people whose lives were saved in the United States alone by COVID-19 vaccination.”

"Still, studies like this fall into precarious circumstances, where researchers often find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place of trying to follow the data and not fuel a growing mistrust in the medical system. It is a task increasingly difficult to accomplish with political leaders like the secretary of the Department of Health & Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a known vaccine critic, encouraging vaccine skepticism.

"This preprint study recently exploded on social media, where it was shared by Joe Rogan, Alex Berenson and Elon Musk. Two of the authors, described as independent researchers in this paper, are involved with a vaccine injury advocacy nonprofit called React19. One co-author is also suing AstraZeneca over symptoms she experienced after being vaccinated.

"As Dr. Adam Gaffney, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and a pulmonary and critical care physician at the Cambridge Health Alliance wrote in a STAT News editorial, some of the co-authors seem to be motivated by a genuine desire to “give a voice to a community of patients who are experiencing real suffering.” Yet there are still too many unanswered questions to draw any conclusions about the study.

“[A] closer look at the basic approach and assumptions undergirding this research, the inclusion of vaccine critics among the co-authors, and the ‘patient-led’ paradigm from which it emerged all shed serious doubt on the study’s conclusions,” Gaffney wrote. “In this age of surging anti-vaccine and anti-science sentiment, harm will likely follow.”