One of the technical distinctions that the mainstream health authorities skated over in the Covid plandemic was about the exact meaning of the measure of Covid vax efficacy. The claim was made that the Pfizer Covid mRNA vax had about 95 percent efficacy. That is a big and impressive percentage, and many people would have been motivated to take the vax just because of that "impressive" number. However, that figure relates to the Relative Risk Reduction (RRR). The Absolute Risk Reduction (ARR) was less than 1 percent, a not impressive number. What does this all mean?
The Absolute Risk Reduction is a measure of different rates between the treatment group and control group and is a direct measure of the risk reduction. Thus, if a vaccine reduces the risk of disease from 10 percent in the control group to 5 percent in the treatment group, the ARR is 5 percent. The Relative Risk Reduction is the proportion of the risk reduction between the treatment group and control group, measured by the ARR divided by the control group's event rate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_risk_reduction. It is not important for the purposes of this article to grasp this exactly, but to see that there are two statistical measures, giving different numbers. The Relative Risk Reduction is often given to make medications seem more effective than they really are. This was what was done with the Covid vax. The vax, in the mainstream's own terms, via the ARR, was not very "effective" at all.
As most people were not up on the basic science, which is fair enough, so naturally they just accepted the numbers at face value. And the rest is a sorry history. Scientists should have explained this at the time, but the cowards, on the take from Big Pharma, were silent.
"Remember during the pandemic when the clinical trials concluded, and TrialSite advisor committee member Ron Brown, Ph.D. educated readers about the difference between relative risk reduction (RRR) and absolute risk reduction (ARR)? While the Pfizer mRNA COVID-19 vaccine efficacy was about 95% as measured in RRR, as for ARR, that number came in just under 1%. But neither the pharmaceutical sponsor nor government health-related agencies bothered to discuss that latter number.
Dr. Brown wasn't the only one to mention these divergent numbers. In a piece in the Lancet Microbe titled "COVID-19 Vaccine efficacy and effectiveness—the elephant (not) in the room" University of Oxford infectious disease and poverty researcher Piero Olliaro and colleagues also reiterated these figures.
It turns out that ARR and RRR are both ways to measure risk reduction, and they can be used in medical interventions and they should both be used. More on that topic below.
And this is an important point about say the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA vaccine. To speak of this reality in social media would lead to censorship, even accusations of being a conspiracy nut, a loon or even—an anti-vaxxer.
Yet so many ethical scientists, front line doctors and health-related researchers or for that matter, journalists seeking to democratize scientific communications such as at TrialSite that took on and challenged the government's narrative during the pandemic were wronged in so many ways,
To promote a big, lie a government-industry-academic medical system tripartite needs to be able to censor or gaslight anyone who has opposing views and the mainstream media machine along with big tech emerged as the vehicle for suppression during the COVID-19 crisis--with military precision--smearing anyone that questions the top-down, rigid, draconian policies and strategy.
But at TrialSite, a biomedical and health research media platform democratizing scientific communications in the biomedical and health research space, we encouraged pursuit of truth in this critically important field. In fact, we were the only media in the English speaking world that I know of that consistently reported on studies showing both the benefits of the vaccine—and there were many mostly observational studies with lots of limitations, yet showing benefit, but also the problems with the mRNA vaccines.
The mainstream media and trade press only reported on good news associated with the COVID-19 countermeasures, while groups considering themselves part of the medical freedom movement only published bad news. Today, there are numerous Substackers that literally hang out at the obituary page to connect any cardiovascular death to the vaccines. They have absolutely lost their minds in some cases. Yes, TrialSite continues to get an earful, and more from both sides.
But it turned out that when it came to Pfizer and the mainstream media, science is immutable. Yes, Pfizer claimed a 95% efficacy rate but we knew that based on the ARR the effectiveness in the real world could be far less.
Importantly, we should use both ARR and RRR when interpreting clinical trials results. Both ARR and RRR should be used when presenting the results of a clinical trial. Each measure provides different information and can be useful for different audiences:
1.Absolute Risk Reduction (ARR):
oDefinition: ARR is the difference in the event rates between two groups (e.g., treatment group and control group).
oImportance: It gives a direct measure of the reduction in risk attributable to the treatment. This can be more intuitive for clinicians and patients to understand the actual benefit of a treatment.
oExample: If a drug reduces the incidence of a disease from 10% in the control group to 5% in the treatment group, the ARR is 5%.
2.Relative Risk Reduction (RRR):
oDefinition: RRR is the proportionate reduction in risk between the treatment group and the control group. It is calculated by dividing the ARR by the event rate in the control group.
oImportance: It expresses the reduction in risk relative to the baseline risk, often making the treatment effect appear more impressive. This can be useful for comparing the effectiveness of different interventions. It's used frequently in marketing communications.
oExample: Using the same numbers, if the drug reduces the incidence from 10% to 5%, the RRR is 50% (since 5% is half of 10%).
Why Use Both Measures?
- Comprehensive Understanding: Using both ARR and RRR provides a more complete picture of the treatment's effectiveness.
- Communication: Different stakeholders (e.g., clinicians, patients, policymakers) may find one measure more intuitive or useful than the other.
- Contextual Clarity: ARR helps understand the real-world impact, while RRR can highlight the effectiveness in relative terms, especially when the baseline risk is low.
Additional Considerations:
- Number Needed to Treat (NNT): This is another useful measure derived from ARR, indicating how many patients need to be treated to prevent one additional adverse event.
- Context of the Study: The baseline risk and the clinical context should be considered when interpreting and communicating these measures.
Overall, presenting both ARR and RRR helps ensure that the information is clear, transparent, and useful for making informed decisions in clinical practice.
Now, if we look at some recent data, or for that matter dozens of real-world studies reviewed at TrialSite over the past couple years, that 95% effectiveness rate has gone way, way down. In fact, so far down after a few months its performance starts to look like that initial ARR.
One recent The Lancet Regional Health paper states: 'Compared to a waned third dose, fourth dose vaccine effectiveness was 24.0% in the first two months post-vaccination, reducing to 10.3% and 1.7% at two to four and four to six months, respectively'.
If we take wide confidence intervals, the waning numbers could easily wane to below zero.
And remember those Cleveland Clinic studies authored by Shrestha et al.? They found each vaccine dose was associated with a higher number of infections, with those on zero doses doing better than the others.
Study after study covered by TrialSite, published in the New England Journal of Medicine to the MMWR reports from the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention we see in real time how effectiveness has dramatically dropped, including for severe COVID, with in some cases the previously infected and unvaccinated having lower infection rates than those double doses and never infected.
One British study according to social and medical entrepreneur Sir Ray Avery revealed the effectiveness of one to two doses of AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines dropping to zero, and turning negative, after only two to three months.
Then just days ago, TrialSite covered the latest piece from Australian academic researcher Raphael Lataster BPharm, Ph.D., Associate Lecturer, FASS, University of Sydney. Published in the Australian Journal of General Practice (AJGP) Lataster addresses COVID-19 vaccine negative effectiveness (where the vaccine according to this assessment boosts one's probability of not only COVID-19 infection, but also hospitalization and yes in some cases even death.
As New Zealand based Sir Ray, an important figure few know about here in America recently inserted in a LinkedIn post, "There comes a point where labelling these respected authors as conspiracy theorists just doesn't wash."
His point, and this author in this opinion piece at this moment in history has to concur, that at best case, this is not a vaccine that provides long term immunity against Covid-19 and there is a decent probability now that for many cohorts the vaccine could be doing more harm than benefit. And that's based on the unfolding science. Meaning any government discussion to the contrary is propaganda, a spin to try to keep a story going as long as possible to figure a way out.
Did the COVID-19 vaccines help, especially early on in the pandemic? Yes, they did especially elderly people at higher risk of acute COVID-19 infection. And hundreds of studies we have reviewed suggest a benefit. But has their performance waned materially? Absolutely. Is that conspiratorial to admit? Absolutely not."