For Three Deaths Prevented, Two Inflicted?

Statistical analysis of vaccine safety shows COVID vaccines coming up short

"My son received the vaccine, and he died a few days later, and the only explanation that was given to me was an enlarged heart," Ernest Ramirez said at a vaccine safety rally in Austin, Texas in August of 2021. "I love the hell out of my country, but I don’t trust my government anymore." Photo via Twitter (you can follow this grieving father’s posts on Twitter: @rgvrunner01)

An original scientific paper, “The Safety of COVID-19 Vaccinations—Should We Rethink the Policy,” should have taken the world by storm when it first came out on June 24, 2021.  

The paper, published in the peer-reviewed journal, Vaccines, statistically analyzed the most current data of COVID vaccine efficacy and safety available at the time.

Its results were explosive: the international team of scientists who co-wrote it found was that for every three deaths COVID vaccines theoretically prevented, they were likely causing two deaths from vaccination.

The paper was co-written by Dr. Harald Walach, a researcher based in Germany who three doctorates: one in Psychology from the University of Freiburg, one in Clinical Psychology from the University of Basel, and a Ph.D. in the History of Science from the University of Vienna; Dr. Rainer Klement, Ph.D., a physicist who works at Leopoldina Hospital in Schweinfurt, Germany; and Wouter Aukema, an independent data and pattern scientist based in the Netherlands.

“Lack of Clear Benefit”

“This lack of clear benefit should cause governments to rethink their vaccination policy,” the authors concluded.

In a sane world, their analysis would have made national and international news, prompting government officials and policymakers to rethink their recommendations for universal vaccination.

Instead, radio silence from the mainstream media. Then several editorial board members from the journal resigned in protest. And—surprise!—the paper was then retracted.

Cancel! Retract! Censor! Silence! Problem solved.

That fixed it. Delete the paper and the dangers of the COVID vaccine magically disappear.

Oh wait.

In February 2022 the same team of scientists, Dr. Harald Walach, Dr. Rainer Klement, and Wouter Aukema, published a letter to the editor in the smaller journal, Clinical and Translational Discovery: “The risk-benefit ratio of Covid-19 vaccines: Publication policy by retraction does nothing to improve it.”

This letter explains that their original June 2021 article was accepted for publication with data from only four weeks published in an Israeli study. Given that we have more data now, the team has reviewed an additional six months’ worth of information.

What they found in analyzing this more extensive data is that if we vaccinate 100,000 people, we theoretically save five lives, while at the same time we risk causing two to four deaths from the vaccine.

If this sounds like a lot of collateral damage to you (as it does to me), the researchers also point out that theirs is likely a gross underestimate of the real damage caused by these COVID vaccines. As they explain:

1. Passive reporting systems (like VAERS) are notorious for underestimating casualties and side effects.

2. Besides death, severe side effects occur, including myocarditis, which may then lead to premature death or permanent disability that will not be blamed on vaccines.

Retraction or not, the bottom line, according to these three scientists:

“Thus, we have novel and worrying data that confirm the analysis we published in summer 2021, urging us to repeat our call for an installment of a European-wide active monitoring system that documents the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines long-term and for a rational public debate about the risk-benefit ratio of these novel vaccines.”

As we learn more about the virus, our understanding will change and evolve. But to figure out the best way forward we have to look honestly and openly at all the information we have at any given time. That’s how science works.

That said, why have a dialogue when you can just monologue? Why exchange ideas when it’s so much cozier to live in an echo chamber? And why listen to anyone who disagrees with you when canceling them is so much more fun?

Jennifer Margulis, Ph.D., is an award-winning science journalist. She graduated magna cum laude from Cornell University, earned a Master’s degree at the University of California at Berkeley, and a Ph.D. at Emory. A contributing writer at the Epoch Times, she is also the author/editor of eight books. Find out more and sign up for her private email list (oh, no, please Lord, not more emails!) at www.JenniferMargulis.net.