{"id":75654,"date":"2021-07-25T15:53:04","date_gmt":"2021-07-25T19:53:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=75654"},"modified":"2021-07-25T15:56:30","modified_gmt":"2021-07-25T19:56:30","slug":"why-is-sen-ron-johnson-the-only-member-of-congress-who-is-talking-about-the-extremely-harmful-and-often-fatal-covid-19-vaccines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=75654","title":{"rendered":"Why is Sen. Ron Johnson the ONLY member of Congress who is talking about the extremely harmful and often fatal COVID-19 ‘vaccines’?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senator Ron Johnson inquires about COVID-19 vaccine safety<\/strong><\/h1>\n

by BROOKE CONRAD, Sinclair Broadcast Group<\/p>\n

HUNT VALLEY, Md. (SBG) \u2014\u00a0<\/span>Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., has stirred controversy in recent days over his concerns about COVID-19 vaccine safety.<\/p>\n

In a July 13 letter to health agency leaders, Johnson noted a press conference he recently hosted where individuals described “neurological symptoms” they said they experienced post-vaccine. Johnson wrote that he\u2019s not sure health officials are properly monitoring for vaccine safety issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, your agencies\u2019 lack of response to congressional oversight letters, combined with my discussions with agency officials and individuals who believe they have experienced vaccine injuries, leads me to believe the preauthorization safety surveillance hype does not appear to match the agencies\u2019 actual performance,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0significant number<\/a>\u00a0of Americans share Johnson\u2019s concerns about COVID-19 vaccine side effects, but many health experts say they\u2019re misinterpreting the data. Jeffrey Morris, Director of the Biostatistics Division at the University of Pennsylvania, emphasizes that it’s not easy to determine a causal link between a vaccine and a post-vaccine adverse event.<\/p>\n

What is VAERS?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Johnson points to the CDC\u2019s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a database where health workers or individuals can submit reports about adverse events occurring after vaccination, whether or not a causal link has been determined. The system has received\u00a0<\/a>6,207 reports of death following COVID-19 vaccines, according to the CDC’s\u00a0website<\/a>, along with thousands of other adverse events.<\/p>\n

Researchers can not assume that incidents reported in VAERS were caused by vaccines. Instead, VAERS can provide \u201csafety signals\u201d that researchers can study more thoroughly in other monitoring systems and estimate rates of adverse events, Morris said. Those other systems include V-safe, which involves text message check-ins from the CDC after people get vaccinated, and Vaccine Safety Datalink, which gathers medical information on over 12 million people a year from nine integrated healthcare organizations.<\/p>\n

Morris notes that health workers are\u00a0required<\/a>\u00a0to report serious adverse events to VAERS, \u201cregardless of causality.” This increases the likelihood that the database contains adverse events unrelated to the vaccine.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf people are reporting to VAERS the way they\u2019re supposed to \u2014 and, for health workers, the way they are required to \u2014 there has to be many deaths that are not caused by vaccine that should be in VAERS,\u201d Morris said.<\/p>\n

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\"\"Jeffrey Morris, Director of the Biostatistics Division at the University of Pennsylvania, emphasizes that it’s not easy to determine a causal link between a vaccine and a post-vaccine adverse event. (Photo by Mario Tama\/Getty Images)<\/h5>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Another limitation with VAERS is that researchers have no way to calibrate the system to population-wide background rates.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause we don\u2019t know who is reporting to VAERS \u2014 we don\u2019t know the subgroups of which slices of the population (the older people, younger people, sicker people, healthier people) are reporting to VAERS \u2014 we really have no way to calibrate or even begin to make an inference,\u201d Morris said.<\/p>\n

One way to analyze the death reports in VAERS is to compare them with the number of people likely to die within a few days of vaccination by random chance. That number would be upward of 10,000, Morris noted in a recent\u00a0blog post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you vaccinate a randomly selected 150 million people, a little under half the country, then you would expect by random chance that 7500 x 3 x 150\/330 = 10,000 or so to die within 3 days of vaccination by random chance alone, even if the \u2018vaccine\u2019 was a perfectly safe saline placebo.\u201d<\/p>\n

The same goes for other adverse events.<\/p>\n

\u201c[H]eart attack, stroke, Bell\u2019s palsy, embolism, miscarriages, etc. all happen at a certain rate and many will happen by random chance in the days or weeks after vaccination,\u201d Morris wrote in an email.<\/p>\n

Morris added that it\u2019s still possible some of the adverse events people experience are caused by the vaccine.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust because you can\u2019t prove causation from VAERS doesn\u2019t mean that nothing in VAERS is caused by vaccine,\u201d Morris says. “It\u2019s just about getting signals and following up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson also acknowledges the limitations with the VAERS system.<\/p>\n

\u201cI realize it doesn\u2019t prove causation,\u201d Johnson told\u00a0Sinclair<\/em>. \u201cBut it\u2019s an early warning system. It should be taken seriously, and I don\u2019t think the health agencies are taking it seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CDC\u00a0notes<\/a>\u00a0that it provides “timely updates” on “serious adverse events of interest,” including anaphylaxis, thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, myocarditis, pericarditis, and death.<\/p>\n

Are adverse events underreported?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Adverse events may be underreported, according to studies from Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and CDC scientists. An oft-cited\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0from Harvard Pilgrim Health Care states that \u201cfewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported.\u201d Preliminary data for the study were collected between 2006 and 2009.<\/p>\n

A more recent\u00a0study<\/a>, released in November 2020 by CDC scientists, suggests the reporting rates could be much higher, specifically for anaphylaxis and Guillain-Barre Syndrome.<\/p>\n

\u201cVAERS sensitivity for capturing anaphylaxis after seven different vaccines ranged from 13 to 76%; sensitivity for capturing GBS after three different vaccines ranged from 12 to 64%,” the researchers wrote.<\/p>\n

Morris notes the latter study was published at a time when people \u201cwere not very worried\u201d about vaccine side effects. To say VAERS only captures 1% of deaths isn’t reasonable, he added.<\/p>\n

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\"\"VAERS is designed to provide health experts with \u201csafety signals\u201d that they can study more thoroughly in other monitoring systems to estimate rates of adverse events. (Photo by Daniel Pockett\/Getty Images)<\/h5>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Some COVID-19 vaccine skeptics have pointed out a massive spike in VAERS reports since the COVID-19 vaccines were authorized. Morris says it\u2019s difficult to assess the significance of this spike, partly because many more people know about VAERS now than they did before the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWould we have been talking about VAERS last year?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

Johnson says he thinks “the vast majority of people” have never heard of VAERS, noting that he hadn\u2019t heard of it until a few months ago. Johnson added that when he asked his colleagues if they\u2019d been following VAERS, \u201cthey don\u2019t know what I\u2019m talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson says some people who believe they\u2019ve been harmed by the vaccine say their doctors are \u201chighly reluctant\u201d to acknowledge that the vaccine might be causing the adverse event, as many physicians recommend the vaccine.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t like to be wrong, particularly when people\u2019s health or lives are really at stake here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He added that people are hesitant to contradict their physicians.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not doctors. Who are they to say?\u201d Johnson said. \u201cSo, there\u2019s a real reluctance to come forward and say, \u2018No, this is a vaccine injury,\u2019 when your own doctor isn\u2019t willing to admit that possibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

What did the clinical trials show?<\/strong><\/p>\n

While VAERS can\u2019t be used to assess causation, health agencies use several other tools. That includes the clinical trials providing the basis for the FDA\u2019s emergency use authorization late last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m actually surprised people don\u2019t talk about the clinical trials more,\u201d Morris said, \u201cIf you want to establish causation in terms of efficacy or safety, double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized trials are the cleanest, strongest way to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the\u00a0Pfizer<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Moderna<\/a>\u00a0trials, eight out of approximately 35,000 vaccine recipients were reported to have died, compared with 11 in the placebo groups. If researchers examined the eight deaths from the vaccine groups alone, extrapolating them to the millions who have been vaccinated so far, the result would be thousands of deaths. But the comparable number of deaths in the placebo arm indicates there’s no such cause for concern, Morris said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no higher rate of deaths in the vaccination group versus placebo,” he said. “The same is true for serious adverse events.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"\"Johnson emphasizes that he is \u201cpro-vaccine,\u201d has probably had every flu vaccine since the swine flu, and is \u201cup to date\u201d on all other vaccinations. He says charges that he\u2019s an \u201canti-vaxxer\u201d are completely false. (Photo by Greg Nash-Pool\/Getty Images)<\/h5>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Still, the clinical trials don\u2019t rule out the possibility that the vaccines are harming a minority of the population, Morris said. Serious adverse events occurring at a rate of less than one in 10,000 are unlikely to show up in the trial, with one in 50,000 being very unlikely.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis shows us that the vaccines aren\u2019t inherently dangerous for most people,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it could be dangerous for some people. There could be some minority harm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senator Johnson agrees that serious adverse events don\u2019t occur in large swaths of the population.<\/p>\n

\u201cI happily acknowledge that more than 300 million doses of the vaccine have been administered,\u201d he said. \u201cThe vast majority have been administered without adverse effect whatsoever.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesman previously said Johnson has not taken a COVID-19 vaccine, according to the\u00a0Milwaukee Journal Sentinel<\/a>. Johnson also notes that he had a COVID-19 infection, followed by an antibody test showing a prevalence of antibodies, he said.<\/p>\n

Johnson emphasizes that he is \u201cpro-vaccine,\u201d has probably had every flu vaccine since the swine flu, and is \u201cup to date\u201d on all other vaccinations. He says charges that he\u2019s an \u201canti-vaxxer\u201d are completely false.<\/p>\n

Johnson says he wants \u201cfull transparency\u201d and wants people to have as much information as possible before making a decision to get vaccinated. He also emphasized that he doesn\u2019t want the FDA to \u201cshort-circuit\u201d the approval process for the vaccine, saying this will make it more likely for vaccine mandates to be implemented.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think full FDA approval would be rushed, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s warranted, I don\u2019t think it should be done,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it opens up the possibility for a more avoidable type of harm.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CDC initially reported 6,079 post-vaccine deaths, but recalculated the total to\u00a06,207<\/a>\u00a0after finding an error on its website. This story has been updated to reflect that change.<\/em><\/p>\n

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