Medical quackery is everywhere
When we moved to Rhode Island, we chose the location to be near high end healthcare. In addition to being only an hour from Boston, we were close to clinicians affiliated with Brown University, the local Ivy League university. But that affiliation is no guarantee against quacks:
“A population-based retrospective study from South Korea is being touted as evidence that COVID-19 vaccines may cause cancer, but epidemiologists were quick to highlight the study’s numerous flaws and caveats.
“Over the weekend, Wafik El-Deiry, MD, PhD, of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, who is a member of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) workgroup on COVID vaccines, shared the study from Biomarker Research in a post on X
“But several experts said El-Deiry should have known better than to promote a study that has several flaws, including not controlling for confounders such as healthy user bias.”
That’s not the only problem with the study.
“In a similar vein, vaccine studies can lead to unmasking, where “someone comes in for a vaccine but a doctor runs a test and may find [something else],” Robert Bednarczyk, PhD, an epidemiologist at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta, told MedPage Today.
“So it may look like something arises after vaccination, but it’s just that sheer act of going in for medical care, for the vaccine, that can lead to unmasking something that was already there,” he added.
“Becky Smullin Dawson, PhD, an epidemiologist at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania, said another red flag in the study is that it didn’t measure confounders typically assessed in a cancer study, such as family and screening history.
“In addition, there was “only 1 year of follow-up for a cancer study, which is bonkers,” she said.
“Bednarczyk agreed that assessing a risk at 1 year was odd, “knowing that cancers take a long time to develop.” The researchers also examined outcomes after just 1 month, “which feels biologically implausible,” he said.”
Dr. El-Deiry should be fired from ACIP for gross incompetence. As for Brown University docs, as St. Ronnie says: “Trust, but verify.”
Doc cites quack research
“A population-based retrospective study from South Korea is being touted as evidence that COVID-19 vaccines may cause cancer, but epidemiologists were quick to highlight the study’s numerous flaws and caveats.
“Over the weekend, Wafik El-Deiry, MD, PhD, of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, who is a member of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) workgroup on COVID vaccines, shared the study from Biomarker Research in a post on X
“But several experts said El-Deiry should have known better than to promote a study that has several flaws, including not controlling for confounders such as healthy user bias.”
That’s not the only problem with the study.
“In a similar vein, vaccine studies can lead to unmasking, where “someone comes in for a vaccine but a doctor runs a test and may find [something else],” Robert Bednarczyk, PhD, an epidemiologist at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta, told MedPage Today.
“So it may look like something arises after vaccination, but it’s just that sheer act of going in for medical care, for the vaccine, that can lead to unmasking something that was already there,” he added.
“Becky Smullin Dawson, PhD, an epidemiologist at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania, said another red flag in the study is that it didn’t measure confounders typically assessed in a cancer study, such as family and screening history.
“In addition, there was “only 1 year of follow-up for a cancer study, which is bonkers,” she said.
“Bednarczyk agreed that assessing a risk at 1 year was odd, “knowing that cancers take a long time to develop.” The researchers also examined outcomes after just 1 month, “which feels biologically implausible,” he said.”
Dr. El-Deiry should be fired from ACIP for gross incompetence. As for Brown University docs, as St. Ronnie says: “Trust, but verify.”
Doc cites quack research
Joel:
At my age and with issues, I am a gold mine to some clinics. I go for one thing and suddenly they want to do this and that. Things which were already done elsewhere and could be obtained by requesting the information or I could do so.
I am leery of coding. After one experience I was to make another appointment. In thurn I just left without doing so.
What would El-Deiry’s interest be in promoting the idea that COVID vaccines may cause some cancers?
I can understand Big Pharma’s interest in overlooking side-effects…$Billions, if not $Trillions are at stake. But where is the financial gain in exposing harmful side-effects?
@John,
The same interest as RFK Jr has in the crackpot ideas that COVID vaccines and gestational acetaminophen cause autism–liars gotta lie. There are zero documented side effects from COVID vaccines to expose. Promoting bad science isn’t exposing harmful side-effects, it’s just promoting bad science.
Hope that helps.
Sorry, Joel. Sure, RFK can spout off unfounded opinions, because he is a prominent person with a bully pulpit. It costs him nothing.
But El-Deiry referenced, “A population-based retrospective study from South Korea.”
Sorry, John. You obviously didn’t read my post or my link. The SK post El-Deiry referenced is bullshit for the reasons stated in the link.
If you continue to ignore the facts and evidence I provided, I can only conclude that you’re trolling. We don’t allow trolls on AB.