In a November 12, 2021, blog post, Maryanne Demasi, Ph.D., reviews how the benefits of the COVID-19 shots have been exaggerated by the drug companies and misrepresented to the public by an uncritical media. She has previously given many lectures on how the drug companies conflated absolute and relative risks for statin drugs.
Demasi was a respected Australian science presenter at ABC television until she produced a Catalyst report on the dangers of Wi-Fi and cellphones. In the wake of the controversy it raised, she and 11 of her staff members were axed and the episode retracted. That was 2016. Today, Demasi is one of the few professional journalists seeking and publishing the truth about COVID-19.
By Maryanne Demasi, PhD
In February, Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt boasted that AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine offered “100% protection” against death in the primary analysis of phase III trials.
It was repeated by the CEO of AstraZeneca and uncritically reported by the mainstream media in what seemed to be an impressive achievement.
The published study in The Lancet, however, revealed a more nuanced picture.
In the trial of 23,848 subjects across the UK, Brazil, and South Africa, there was one death in the placebo group and no deaths in the vaccinated group.
One less death out of a total of one, indeed, was a relative reduction of 100% but the absolute reduction was 0.01%. (1/11,724 – 0/12,021)
Similarly, in February the CDC director Rochelle Walensky co-authored a publication in JAMA, which stated unequivocally:
“Clinical trials have shown that the vaccines authorized for use in the US are highly effective against COVID-19 infection, severe illness, and death.”
However, there were too few deaths recorded in the controlled trials at the time to arrive at such a conclusion.
The 6 month follow up data from the blinded Pfizer trial found there were 15 deaths in the vaccine group and 14 deaths in the placebo group. (see table S4)
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https://maryannedemasi.com/publications/f/covid-19-vaccine-benefits-exaggerated-say-experts