[Offwidth]

A look at the statistics of blood clots with respect to the Astra Zeneca vaccine.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/15/evidence-oxford-vaccine-blood-clots-data-causal-links

[Oldmanmatt]

Ok.

Yesterday I wrote a reply to Dan, in a few stolen moments.
It got swallowed by the Aether. Dunno.

Anyway it’s sunny, the kids ate all back at school. Mrs OMM is at work. I can’t climb (finger still in a splint. 5 more weeks. Harrumph), however I can hit the beach and play silly buggers with the dogs and crank out a couple hours training in the Bunker.

So, CBA on the refutation game today.

Just this:

Dan, what will you do, when this apocalypse doesn’t happen?

Will it all be a “cover up”? Will it all have been faked?

I went to visit the wife’s grave yesterday. We do that fairly regularly. Over the years we have watched that field fill, row by row.
Lili’s grave was two rows in from the newest, last Mothers day. They have added four rows in the course of 2020 (or, double the number of the preceding 7 years). Exmouth took a battering, too many over 70’s in one community.

I’ll ask a relative to let you know if the vaccine kills me.

[Loos3-tools]

Dan, what will you do, when this apocalypse doesn’t happen?

Breath a huge sigh of relief that Geert was wrong.

[kelvin]

A look at the statistics of blood clots with respect to the Astra Zeneca vaccine.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/15/evidence-oxford-vaccine-blood-clots-data-causal-links

Seems reasonable to me and I happily had the AZ vaccine this morning.

[Fiend]

I had the AZ vaccine the other week and don't seem to have had any issues with blood clotting. I'm on Apixaban anti-coagulants twice daily and have been on some form of anti-coag for 12 years. Hope that's useful 

[duncan]

I was waiting for an event like the blood clotting issue (?) to happen, I’m quite surprised it’s taken this long. Given ~17 million people (~11 million in the UK) have had the Oxford-AZ vaccine it would be amazing if there were not some clusters of some kind of problem that, superficially, could be associated with the vaccine. Study millions people for a couple of months and all kinds of medical problems will befall them because... shit happens.

(I have run clinical trials and chaired trial steering committees and safety committees so I know a little bit about how adverse events are dealt with. Whenever something bad happens that, even tangentially, could be associated with the treatment or medicine the process rolls into action. The first trial I ran was into exercise for people with back pain. When we were following-up people we learned one had died and another was now in Brixton prison. The study safety committee duly met and concluded the death had nothing to do with the treatment and we could carry on. They did not consider if getting banged-up was a possible adverse event.)

It’s possible the blood clotting is a very unusual side effect in which case it will have to be weighed against the much more likely serious effects of contracting Covid (climbers should be good at relative risks but this doesn’t always seem to be the case). Some counties are being ultra cautious here. Probably unnecessarily so purely from a science perspective, but if they are dealing with a cautious/hesitant population they may feel this is the best thing to do. 

My other half had the AZ vaccine on Thursday. We talked about these reports and we were both happy for her to go ahead with it. 

[sxrxg]

I had the AZ vaccine Friday and am totally happy with my choice. As reported i had a banging headache and some side effects on Saturday, after an easy day though i felt ok on Sunday and had a board session in the evening. Unfortunately i needed to cut the board session short as the left shoulder where i had the injection felt very achey and i was worried about potentially injuring myself, it wasn't noticeably weaker during the session more that i was concerned about prolonging the pain in the muscle or making it worse. I am hopeful that by the middle of this week things will be back to normal.

[SA Chris]

Seems the same as the Bell's Palsy "link" a while back.

My brother developed BP spontaneously a few years back and never fully recovered, he's just been vaccinated, wonder if it will cure him fully now

[andy popp]

I had the AZ vaccine Friday and am totally happy with my choice. As reported i had a banging headache

My son had it Saturday and reported only a bit of headache. Mind you, I haven't heard from him since.

[HaeMeS]

I was waiting for an event like the blood clotting issue (?) to happen, I’m quite surprised it’s taken this long. Given ~17 million people (~11 million in the UK) have had the Oxford-AZ vaccine it would be amazing if there were not some clusters of some kind of problem that, superficially, could be associated with the vaccine. Study millions people for a couple of months and all kinds of medical problems will befall them because... shit happens.

4 people in the studie (N=12.000) had blood clotting issues, 8 in the control group (N=12.000). In the Netherlands the governments decision to stop vaccinating with the AZ vaccin is 2 days before the election... you do the math.

As shared by well known Belgian virologist Marc van Ranst:
https://www.facebook.com/679627380/posts/10159006112447381/

    

[User deactivated.]

Seen loads of people catching onto this blood-clotting idea on social media - the usual suspects - you know the types. Hilarious really when I know for a fact that many of them spend an average weekend getting coked up on pub-grade gear and their weekdays juicing up on stedz from a back-street gym, with seemingly no qualms about their source, purity or side effects. I'm not knocking their choices, they can do what they want to do, but at least show some consistency!

[tomtom]

Its funny the AZ shot gets so much flack (both for this and for other issues....) - when I believe its the only one being produced on a not for profit basis.
 
Strange that.

[BrutusTheBear]

I had the AZ shot yesterday at around 4pm and was happy to do so despite blood clot reports. Of course I like the fact it is a not for profit endeavour. Had a fairly rough night with aching muscles/joints, temperature and headache.  Didn't go to work this morning and have had a very chilled day today. Starting to feel a little more human now.  A small price to pay.

[Loos3-tools]

Geert’s website.

https://www.geertvandenbossche.org/

I’ve not been able to find any critique of this yet. Has anyone else?

[Stu Littlefair]

Dan, it’s very easy to argue against his position from first principles.

His case is that widespread deployment of vaccines creates evolutionary pressure that will lead to highly infectious new strains.

There is one major counterpoint - vaccines also greatly reduce the amount of circulating virus.

So pressure to mutate goes up, but the number of viruses that can mutate goes down.

Whether the risk of new strains goes up or down depends on the balance of those two, but it’s not inevitable as he portrays it.

He also neglects the fact that virus mutation is not a one-sided risk - ie it does not automatically lead to more dangerous strains, even if selection prefers more infectious strains. That’s because selection also prefers strains that don’t kill the host.

So the scenario he paints is not impossible but it’s not likely either.

No-one has certainty about what the future holds, but comparing the low possibility of a vaccine apocalypse to the certainty that many hundreds of thousands will die without widespread vaccination makes the right choice now a bit of a no brainer.

It’s a bit like being chased by a mugger, and opting not to dive into the nearest McDonald’s to escape, on the off chance that it’s full of murderers.

Which is why you’re not seeing anxious discussions of this amongst virologists and public health workers.

[Loos3-tools]

Ah thanks Stu, well explained. I do wonder about the motives of people that stick their necks out sometimes

Although on reflection your point about vaccines greatly reducing circulating virus is the basis to his argument. That these specific vaccines do not reduce the amount of circulation as vaccinated individuals are hosting the virus?

[Stu Littlefair]

Yes, that’s what he claims but it’s not necessarily true. In fact there’s plenty of evidence now that the vaccines do reduce transmission, and so the amount of circulating virus.

They guy seems genuine in his motivation and has great credentials. Every academic can tell you there’s a big jump from there to “right”.

[Loos3-tools]

The other point he makes is one of asymptomatic transmission and vaccinating an otherwise healthy population including children. Many of which are likely to have had covid or one of its strains. He claims by vaccinating this population mid pandemic with a prophylactic vaccine you are increasing the chances of hosting more dangerous mutating variants?

Ps sorry if this has already been covered or appears a daft question.

[mrjonathanr]

Text seemed poorly composed to me but English is not his first language. That said, it’s probably the first language of every journal he’s ever been published in.

The idea that acquired immunity can impede natural immunity was new to me. There was no reference to validate this- or is it so basic that everyone in that field would take it as a given?

The biggest problem for me was that he did not address what will happen if we don’t vaccinate with currently formulated vaccines.

There was a lot of science there was just asserted so  I have no way of knowing whether it’s maverick or total orthodoxy, so was left a bit nonplussed.

[Loos3-tools]

He did describe the development of an alternative type of vaccine based on NK response but like you said that is way beyond any understanding a lay person like myself might have. Maybe the most hopeful option if they do go for full populations vaccines will be a 2-3 per year top up vaccination with vaccines adjusted to deal with any new mutations? This would mean signing up for an ongoing program

See the second to last paragraph

https://mcusercontent.com/92561d6dedb66a43fe9a6548f/files/bead7203-0798-4ac8-abe2-076208015556/Public_health_emergency_of_international_concert_Geert_Vanden_Bossche.01.pdf

[Loos3-tools]

Lots of people between jobs currently, but maybe not do much for  vaccine

Here’s a link to his CV tees tub. I haven’t been through it with a fine tooth comb yet, but I’m sure you can find something? Maybe a racist or sexist remark made whilst drunk circa 1975

https://37b32f5a-6ed9-4d6d-b3e1-5ec648ad9ed9.filesusr.com/ugd/28d8fe_ee3268cae3624827813d352f63b2088d.pdf

[IanP]

It's difficult to evaluate the scientific side of sort of thing from a laymans perspective but a few things about his approach appear a bit strange (to say the least).

- His letter appears poorly written with lots of hyperbole; it starts ,in block capitals, 'To all authorities, scientists and experts around the world, to whom this concerns: the entire world population.'  and continues in similar vein with talk of ' disastrous consequences', 'a wild monster' and 'now threatening humanity'.
- Similarly his tweet linking the letter has in caps 'THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY OF INTERNATIONAL CONCERN. '
- He talks about completing a scientific manuscript but says 'the publication of which is, unfortunately, likely to come too late'
- On the publication front I'm no expert on tracking scientific publication but this link https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/G-Vanden-Bossche-2067145614 shows very little and nothing even vaguely recent.  Are links available to a more comprehensive overview of his publication history/scientific credentials. 
- Overall it seem quite hard to find much about Geert at all via a quick search - most things link back to this letter/statement.
- On twitter he says 'for serious scientific debate go to my LinkedIn page' - a quick look on there doesn't show much sign of such a thing, certainly I didn't find any significant debate between people with real expertises in the relevant area.
- He also says on LinkedIn 'we've put together a web site to gather all information, scientific documents and interviews I've posted on this public health emergency' https://www.geertvandenbossche.org

Overall I find little justification as to why I should take his position more seriously that the scientific consensus around the world - maybe he is the maverick scientist who sees something everyone else is missing but it doesn't feel like there's much evidence for that at the moment.


 

[Loos3-tools]

Yes he’s certainly no Fauci.

[teestub]

Here’s a link to his CV tees tub. I haven’t been through it with a fine tooth comb yet, but I’m sure you can find something? Maybe a racist or sexist remark made whilst drunk circa 1975

https://37b32f5a-6ed9-4d6d-b3e1-5ec648ad9ed9.filesusr.com/ugd/28d8fe_ee3268cae3624827813d352f63b2088d.pdf

Thanks Loos3-tools(Dan) 16 pages!

[Nails]

A quick bit of Google based research results in some important facts on Geert and his academic record. He has never published any research on vaccines, and hasn't published an academic article since 1995. I think I might just press on and have the vaccine when I get the opportunity. Geert can get his coat and I'll get my sleeve rolled up.