U.S. to limit COVID boosters to over-65s or those at high risk

"Imagine if there was a death or two in the placebo group," said Offit. "I don't see how you conscience that."

What Offit is worried about is that having a real placebo will expose the shots side effects. In Pfizer's first trial, the vax group had more deaths from all causes than the placebo group, so they quickly unblinded the study and gave everyone the shot, out of "compassion".

Thank goodness the "party of small government" is in charge to make these kinds of decisions for American citizens.

So are we now allowed to talk about how ineffective and dangerous mRNA vaccines are? And how they were pushed on everyone without proper testing?

So now - finally - we get the admission that so many independent doctors, scientists, and everyday citizens were shouting from the rooftops since 2021: healthy people NEVER needed endless experimental shots.

After years of coercion, mandates, censorship, and ruined lives, the government has decided to “limit” boosters to those over 65 or those at serious risk, while requiring actual clinical trials before pushing more shots onto younger, healthier populations. Well, imagine that! - science requiring evidence. Where was this logic when teenagers were being pressured to take mRNA shots to attend SCHOOL, or when people were FIRED from their jobs for choosing bodily autonomy?

Let’s be clear: this is not a shift based on new data. The data was ALWAYS there. Healthy young people were never at significant risk from COVID, and yet they were treated like biohazards unless they submitted to repeated, barely-tested injections with unknown long-term effects. Only NOW, after the pharmaceutical industry raked in billions, after myocarditis rates in young men spiked, after pregnant women were told the shots were “safe and effective” with zero long-term studies, now the brakes go on!

Crock of hooey from a bunch of uneducated conspiracy theorists / public health menaces. There is no science backing the claims that mRNA vaccines are harmful. Not one bit of actual scientific evidence.

@Desert Tortoise

Respectfully, I don't think you know what you're talking about. The article is saying that more scientific evidence of the safety of mRNA covid vaccines is required. So logically it follows that the fact they were pushed on people without that data is itself inherently dangerous. The safety and efficacy was NOT known nor proven in 2021 when the rollout and coercion began. And it hasn't been proven yet.

This will only impact upon Americans who do not have an underlying condition. Both of them.

@GBR48

That's misinformation. All Americans have underlying conditions.

Injecting bleach and horse dewormer remain available to everyone though...the preferred MAGA treatments...

@lincolnman,

A political straw man? Come on man.

What Offit is worried about is that having a real placebo will expose the shots side effects

No, that is still completely false, the ethical argument is clear and baseless claims do nothing to refute them, this is a very clear unethical proposition.

Pfizer's first trial, the vax group had more deaths from all causes than the placebo group

Which is still irrelevant since the deaths are completely unrelated to the disease being prevented or any kind of complication identified from the vaccines, pretending that people dying from stage 4 cancer or a traffic accident 3 days after being vaccinated somehow proves something about them is just a desire to mislead people.

So are we now allowed to talk about how ineffective and dangerous mRNA vaccines are?

The medical consensus is that vaccines were hugely effective and safe, much more than what was projected. Lying about them do not make this change.

So now - finally - we get the admission that so many independent doctors, scientists, and everyday citizens were shouting from the rooftops since 2021: healthy people NEVER needed endless experimental shots.

No, that is completely false, not only is the disease vastly different now than even 3 years ago, but the vast majority of the people have been already vaccinated and have adequate protection, that means that the benefits are reduced, so the boosters can be prioritized (something that antivaxxer propaganda groups insisted bitterly would never happen and everybody would have to be boosted several times a year for life...)

After years of coercion, mandates, censorship, and ruined lives, the government has decided to “limit” boosters to those over 65 or those at serious risk

Still false, the recommendations then and now are both supported by evidence, saved lives are a huge benefit even when compared with the valid consequences of making irrational decisions by antivaxxers.

Let’s be clear: this is not a shift based on new data

Yes it is, data that is continuously being collected. Nameless people on the internet claiming otherwise without providing any evidence (much less arguments) do not change this.

Healthy young people were never at significant risk from COVID

Yes they were, for a while covid became the first pediatric cause of death from an infectious agent. Even now covid related coagulopaties and cardiac problems (and long covid) are being discussed against these recommendations by some experts.

The article is saying that more scientific evidence of the safety of mRNA covid vaccines is required.

No, it does not, two well recognized incompetent people that have been wrong several times propose unethical human experimentation on the level of leaving children with apendicitis without surgery just to see how many die.

The safety and efficacy was NOT known nor proven in 2021 when the rollout and coercion began. And it hasn't been proven yet.

Still false, you have never disproved the conclusions by experts all over the world that said this was the case and was confirmed several times over with billions of doses.

But I wouldn't waste my breath on it. "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead".*

There are two problems with this approach.

First, some people may read the falsehoods and become anxious about vaccines without any need, worse they may invest some of their self-worth in being aware of this "truth" and become easily manipulated into antiscientific groups that will perpetuate the lies because the incapacity to accept they have been wrong.

The second is that for infectious diseases many times the victims that are more affected are not those that reject the science but those that are in close contact. Like the children of parents that reject vaccines and end up death as it already happened this year in the US with measles. RFKjr has said that it is acceptable that children with immunity problems die from preventable diseases, but actual public health experts see value in saving everybody.

This is insanity.

"We simply don't know whether a healthy 52-year-old woman with a normal BMI (body mass index) who has had COVID-19 three times and has received six previous doses of a COVID-19 vaccine will benefit from the seventh dose," they wrote.

Ridiculous logic. We don't know if it's worth it or not, so we'll just remove all access. Except for people whose doctor says that they need it - thereby tacitly accepting that the vaccine has benefits.

Also, vaccine skeptics go on and on (and on) about the need for personal choice. Now that they're in charge, they're doing all that they can to remove that choice. It's almost as if they've been acting in bad faith the entire time. But that couldn't be the case, could it?

people may read the falsehoods and become anxious about vaccines without any need,

Actually, there isa need - a very important one.

People have, and have had a right to feel anxious when pharmaceutical conglomerates and their backers have spent the last 4 spent years accusing anyone who questions them of being mentally unstable or manipulable.

So no, the need for truth is greater than ever. There’s a need to acknowledge the injuries, the censorship, the shattered public trust. There’s a need to call out the authoritarianism that masqueraded as compassion. There’s a need to stop pretending this was a clean, infallible operation when the data says otherwise.

What's truly manipulative is attempting to convince people that asking for transparency makes them a conspiracy theorist or some other.

Pfizer's first trial, the vax group had more deaths from all causes than the placebo group

Which is still irrelevant since the deaths are completely unrelated to the disease being prevented or any kind of complication identified from the vaccines,

False, the shot has been linked to myocarditis.

Except for people whose doctor says that they need it - thereby tacitly accepting that the vaccine has benefits.

Yeah, for some people, the risk from the virus might be greater than the risk from the shot. But for most of us, the opposite is true. And any protection the shot might offer disappears after a few months and turns into a negative effectiveness (increases your chance of infection).

When a person only has one argument (and that argument is wrong anyway),

So what we've gathered from that banality is you're personally very much in favor of an indefinite Covid vaccine cycle.

As someone so in favor of this, but who has now stopped taking them (which is the overwhelming majority of people) - even though Covid is still around, and will be for ever - would you like to explain this change in position?

Otherwise one might that argue that someone with those views who chooses to stop, would be a hypocrite, unless they admitted the "tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy theorists" were correct all along.

So what we've gathered from that banality is you're personally very much in favor of an indefinite Covid vaccine cycle.

I'm in favour of listening to people who know what they're talking about. That is, experts in the relevant field.

As far as I know the only person on here who seems to be in that general area is virusrex. At least he/she is the only one who tries to speak reasonably on the matter and cites actual studies, not propaganda.

Everyone else is simply projecting their fears, insecurities, and need for attention onto a subject which they likely know very little about.

You have the right to not take the vaccine. If a doctor recommends it, you likewise have the right to still not take it and accuse the doctor of being a (takes deep breath) deep state lib Marxist socialist illuminati liberal plant (releases breath). As long as you have the intellectual integrity to admit that you're not a trained virologist, then it's all fair in love and war.

Ph'el

The clinical trial data was published in peer-reviewed journals. Anyone can download it and read it. I don't want to sound harsh, but the truth is if you still think it's all a conspiracy, you're not being skeptical, you're being irrational.

Some trial data was published, but what you’re not mentioning is that Pfizer and Moderna initially attempted to withhold the full clinical trial data for 75 years. It took a federal court order to force the release of that information. Transparency was NOT offered - it was resisted. That alone should raise serious concerns for any honest person.

When independent analysts finally got access to the raw data, they found serious flaws: participants who experienced adverse events were quietly excluded, endpoints were changed mid-trial, safety signals were underreported, and after emergency use authorization, the placebo group was vaccinated - effectively eliminating the control arm and making long-term safety tracking impossible.

https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2635

https://ijvtpr.com/index.php/IJVTPR/article/view/23

Don't worry, you're not sounding harsh - just (respectfully) like someone clinging to a narrative that has been debunked by all but those with the most vested interest in maintaining the pharmaceutical conglomerate-approved script.

Actually, there isa need - a very important one.

The need is well fulfilled by actual professionals that actually have the capacity and experience to determine the vaccines are safe and effective, specially important is that they do not propose unethical human experimentation as the article is describing from people that have demonstrated repeatedly to lie for personal profit.

The best experts of the whole world are not wrong, the people that insist on disproved claims are the ones trying to decrease the transparency by pretending their claims have not been examined when actually all have been clearly refuted.

False, the shot has been linked to myocarditis.

Mild subclinical myocarditis in rare cases, while actually preventing much more common, important and risky myocarditis produced by the infection. Vaccines then prevent much more myocarditis than what they could produce.

Yeah, for some people, the risk from the virus might be greater than the risk from the shot. 

For everybody, including people already infected, the vaccine risks are negligible but their costs are not, so government can decide to stop recommending them not because that would be safer for the people, but because the extra risk of not having a booster is considered acceptable.

And any protection the shot might offer disappears after a few months and turns into a negative effectiveness (increases your chance of infection).

Completely false claim from antivaxxer propaganda groups that contradict the actual evidence being found, or rely in easily disproved reports from authors that commit basic statistical mistakes like the Table 2 fallacy.

As someone so in favor of this, but who has now stopped taking them (which is the overwhelming majority of people) - even though Covid is still around, and will be for ever - would you like to explain this change in position?

As previously explained, covid is not even remotely the same disease, and people have already been immunized producing long term protection that improves only limitedly by boosters. The extra risk from the much milder infection on people already immune is not at all the same as encountering the first variants without any previous immunity.

This of course is also something where the antivaxxer propaganda groups were completely wrong, always complaining bitterly that everybody would be forced to have multiple boosters every year for the rest of their lives. While the experts clearly said that this would not happen. As shown, the experts were the ones in the right, again.

You're losing credibility. Throw in the towel. You're done.

Exactly zero part of my comments depend on any personal credibility, pretending the medical consensus has no credibility is not an argument, it is at much wishful thinking from a position of deep antiscientific bias.

Some trial data was published, but what you’re not mentioning is that Pfizer and Moderna initially attempted to withhold the full clinical trial data for 75 years. 

The last time you made this claim it was demonstrated to you that it was completely false (the FDA was the one saying that without extra budget to hire people to prepare the information for the public it would take that long) yet you made the claim again fully knowing it is false. What is the point of using information you know is false?

When independent analysts finally got access to the raw data, they found serious flaws:

No they did not. Those are also completely false claims that antivaxxer propaganda groups like to repeat but can never prove.

And no, sources about problems at a single location (and where Pfizer is the victim) or an openly antivaxxer unidexed, unreviewer journal only means you could not get any actual evidence of your claims about countless reports, you could not get even one actually scientific report to support your claims.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Journal_of_Vaccine_Theory,_Practice,_and_Research

In May 2021, Seneff published a paper with co-author Greg Nigh (a naturopath)[8] titled "Worse Than the Disease? Reviewing Some Possible Unintended Consequences of the mRNA Vaccines Against COVID-19"[9] in the then-brand new journal.[10]

In October 2023, the journal published a paper baselessly implying that Pfizer had knowingly avoided reporting deaths that happened during clinical trials of its COVID-19 vaccine. The paper was cited as a source by The Epoch Times, a far-right newspaper known for promoting anti-vaccine misinformation.[2]

In September 2024, James Lawler (University of Nebraska Medical Center) said the journal is "not a real journal". He described a paper published in the journal claiming that COVID-19 vaccines contain nanobots as "a case study on how to spot disinformation", and said its content was "scientific gibberish with no basis in actual biology or the scientific method" and "relatively amateurish gibberish... that a reasonable person with a high-school level biology education should be able to easily debunk."[11]

I'm fully in favor of vaccines yet I am also in favor of multi year testing and the right to choose.

The corona vaccines were forced upon us at record breaking speed

That's my issue with this particular vaccine not with all vaccines.