Unmasking the Watson et al. Vaccine Study: A Sceptic’s View, By Brian Simpson
As a vaccine sceptic, I've long questioned the rosy narratives spun around Covid-19 jabs. One study, Watson et al., stood out like a sore thumb, boldly claiming the vaccines saved tens of millions of lives in a single year. It was a darling of the pandemic era, cited by experts, politicians, and news anchors to justify mandates and booster campaigns. But now, in a peer-reviewed medical journal, this house of cards has come crashing down, thanks to a meticulous critique by Dr. Raphael Lataster, a former Australian pharmacist turned misinformation researcher who's faced the wrath of the establishment for refusing the jab.
This blog piece looks into why the Watson et al. study was a sham, why it took so long to debunk, and what it means for those of us who've been shouting into the void about the vax and mandates, all of which have destroyed many people.
Watson et al., published in June 2022, was a cornerstone of the "vaccines are our saviour" narrative. It claimed the jabs prevented millions of deaths, based on fancy mathematical models. Sounds impressive, right? Except, as Lataster's critique reveals, it's built on quicksand. This is the first of his three-part series tearing apart six influential vaccine studies, and the flaws he uncovers in Watson et al. are a masterclass in why we should never blindly "trust the science."
The study hinges on a model, basically a simplified version of reality. As Lataster puts it, "the map is not the territory." Models are only as good as their inputs, and Watson et al. fed theirs a buffet of garbage. For starters, their vaccine effectiveness estimates are dodgy. Lataster, alongside BMJ editor Peter Doshi, previously showed how researchers exaggerate efficacy by sneaky tricks, like counting cases in the "partially vaccinated" as "unvaccinated." This can make a useless vaccine look 48% effective, or even 65%. A vaccine that increases your risk? Yes, they can make that look moderately effective too.
Then there's the claim that vaccines prevented deaths. Lataster points out the authors don't explain how they reached this conclusion. If they'd bothered with the original mRNA trial data, they'd see no significant drop in Covid-19 deaths among the vaccinated, but a statistically significant spike in serious adverse events. Oh, and total deaths? Slightly higher in the vaccinated group, though not statistically significant. Not exactly the lifesaving miracle we were sold.
The study assumes vaccines stay effective forever, which is laughable. We've all heard the booster drumbeat, every few months, they're pushing another shot because protection fades fast. Lataster goes further, citing evidence that vaccines might even increase your risk of infection or death over time. Negative effectiveness? You bet. Yet Watson et al. opted for "simplicity," pretending the jabs work like a charm indefinitely. Garbage in, garbage out.
Infection fatality rates (IFRs) are another sore spot. The authors used questionable figures without justification, inflating Covid-19 deaths to make the vaccines look better. A recent study, published just as Lataster's critique went to press, suggests deaths have been at least doubled since Omicron, thanks to the old "with vs. from Covid" trick. If you overestimate deaths, you overestimate the jabs' benefits. Simple math, shoddy science.
Here's the pointer: Watson et al. doesn't even glance at vaccine harms. What's the point of "saving" 14 million lives if the jabs kill, say, 28 million? Clinical trials showed deaths and injuries from day one, Pfizer's trial even raised red flags for potential fraud. Later studies, including Lataster's own BMJ paper, argue the myocarditis risk alone outweighs benefits in young, healthy people. Yet the study ignores this, as if the jabs are pure magic.
The authors also leaned on "estimates" for excess mortality, assuming it's all Covid-related. Never mind that vaccines do kill people, we just don't know how many. They skipped data from China (a fifth of the world's population!) and even cited an economics magazine for some figures. And get this: their own charts show deaths dropping before widespread vaccination in early 2021, only to rise after the jabs rolled out. Funny how that didn't make the headlines.
If the science is this bad, why was the study so influential? Follow the money. Lataster exposes the authors' ties to vaccine makers, the WHO, the Wellcome Trust, and Bill Gates. The research team's boss? None other than Neil Ferguson, "Professor Lockdown," infamous for wildly wrong predictions and flouting his own lockdown rules for a romantic rendezvous. This isn't just a few bad apples. The pharmaceutical industry funds journals, peer reviewers, clinical trials, and even regulators. It's a rigged game, and Watson et al. played it like pros.
Lataster pulls no punches: Big Pharma, mainstream media, and much of the system are controlled by a handful of elites. Studies like this aren't about truth, they're about pushing an agenda. And when you've got governments mandating jabs based on this "science," it's no wonder dissenters like Lataster get sidelined.
This study's been out since mid-2022, so why are we only hearing about its flaws in May 2025? Lataster's journey sheds light on this. As a lone researcher with no funding, he took on this beast while battling personal persecution for refusing the jab. He's not exactly swimming in resources, and yet the "contrarian side," full of experts who nailed the pandemic's realities didn't step up either. Why? The system punishes dissent. Lataster was fired, sued, and shunned. Others likely feared the same.
Journals, cosy with Big Pharma, aren't eager to publish critiques that rock the boat. Peer review is slow, especially for controversial work. The cultural climate didn't help, questioning vaccines was branded misinformation, and outlets like The Daily Sceptic faced censorship and financial attacks. Add to that the complexity of untangling bad models and missing data (like China's), and it's a miracle this critique saw daylight at all. Lataster credits a nudge from Senator Ron Johnson, but serendipity shouldn't be what it takes to expose bad science.
The media's role is the final nail. Watson et al.'s "millions saved" claim was catnip for headlines, while critiques like Lataster's are lucky to get a whisper. He doubts his work will grace major journals or nightly news, and he's probably right. The system's built to amplify the narrative, not the truth.
Lataster wraps up with a call to action: redo these studies with real rigour. Use conservative effectiveness estimates, account for waning or negative effects, nail down accurate IFRs, and crucially cut ties with vaccine makers. It's a tall order, but it's what science demands. For us sceptics, this critique is a battle cry. We've been gaslit, told to "trust the science" while flawed studies like Watson et al. propped up mandates and silenced debate.
This isn't just about one study. It's about a system that churns out dodgy science, buries dissent, and leaves truth-seekers like Lataster to pick up the pieces. As he gears up for his next critiques, and an upcoming paper linking excess deaths to the jabs, not Covid or lockdowns, we owe it to ourselves to keep questioning. The truth doesn't come easy, but it's worth the fight.
"The hugely influential study on COVID-19 vaccines, Watson et al., which was used by experts throughout the pandemic to show that the jabs saved tens of millions of lives in one year, has been thoroughly debunked, by yours truly (a misinformation researcher now primarily focused on COVID-19, not least because of being fired for refusing the jab and winning subsequent legal cases), with the critique finally published in a peer-reviewed medical journal. This is the first of a three-part metacritique of six influential studies on the COVID-19 vaccines, with similar problems identified throughout. The same criticisms would apply to many more studies.
§I start by noting that this study (and these studies in general) have received very little scrutiny. One wonders why the Universe left this vitally important task to me, a sole former pharmacist and misinformation researcher/philosopher who was more interested in issues like the meaning of existence, with no funding, and struggling at life since being (and continuing to be) persecuted for refusing the jab. Perhaps understandable if you consider who is paying most of the medical researchers out there (and we will get to that), but still baffling when considering the amount of talent on 'our contrarian side', the side filled with experts who bucked the trend on the pandemic and pretty much got everything right. A little serendipity involved, too, as I partly did this because US Senator Ron Johnson pretty much asked me to.
§On to the study. Firstly, Watson et al. "revolves around a model which, by definition, is not truly representative of reality". Remember, people, the map is not the territory. And models are beholden to the GIGO principle: garbage in, garbage out. And when it comes to these studies like Watson et al., there's a lot of garbage to sift through.
§Then I note that their vaccine efficacy/effectiveness estimates are dodgy, bringing in 'JECP4', the published research I did alongside BMJ senior editor (and one of my intellectual heroes) Peter Doshi. They have been exaggerating efficacy/effectiveness (and safety) in a really big way by doing things like ignoring incidents in the 'partially vaccinated', or even counting them as happening in the 'unvaccinated'. Collectively, Doshi's team and I mathematically demonstrated: "Such methodology can make a completely ineffective vaccine appear 48% effective, or even around 65% effective, if cases in the 'partially vaccinated' are ascribed to the 'unvaccinated'. In fact, even a negatively effective vaccine can, in this way, be made to appear moderately effective."
§It is unclear how the authors "determined the effectiveness of the vaccines in preventing death". If they "utilised the original clinical trials of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, along with recently published reanalyses, they would have noted no statistically significant decrease in COVID-19 deaths among the vaccinated groups, a statistically significant increase in serious adverse events of special interest, and a non-statistically significant increase in total deaths".
§Another big problem is static vaccine effectiveness estimates, with the researchers assuming that the vaccine happily continues being as effective as ever, for 'simplicity', which we now know is complete nonsense. They're literally spruiking boosters every few months! Remember the GIGO principle. Opt for nice things like 'simplicity' in your models, and this is the trash you will get in return.
§I note that not only do the jabs become ineffective really quickly they even seem to become negatively effective – yeah you heard me, apparently increasing your chance of COVID-19 infection, and even death.
§They also made big assumptions on infection fatality rates (IFRs). They didn't even bother to justify (or even perhaps disclose) their preferred figures. If you're exaggerating COVID-19 deaths, and they do, as they all do, you're eventually going to be exaggerating the benefits of the jabs. A super important study came out just as this critique was in publishing. Looks like they've been (at least) doubling Covid-deaths since Omicron, the old with/from Covid debate.
§Did the benefits outweigh the risks? Surprisingly, from this hugely influential study, you'd never know. They don't seem to care about "the deaths and injuries caused by the vaccines". What's the point of saving 14 million lives if you've killed, say, 28 million? Bit of a missed opportunity, don't you think? It does appear the jabs do injure and kill people, which was obvious even from the beginning, from their own clinical trials. Perhaps there were more in the Pfizer trial, with (published) questions over potentially fraudulent activity. Later studies show way more side effects, and I've argued in a BMJ journal that the myocarditis risk alone outweighs the 'benefits' of the jab in young healthy people.
§They also did things like using 'estimates' of all-cause excess mortality because they didn't actually have the data. And note the assumption that excess mortality is all due to COVID-19, rather than, oh I don't know… the jabs. They don't even acknowledge the possibility, even though we know for a fact that the vaccines have killed people – what we can dispute is the number.
§With unjustified figures, made-up data, omitted data (e.g. China, which has a huge chunk of the world's population), and even data collected from non-academic sources (like an economics magazine!), the authors actually admit to "wide uncertainty". Somehow that wasn't expressed when all the experts, politicians and newsreaders were proclaiming the study's earth-shattering conclusions.
§Funnily enough, their own charts "reveal that deaths were already declining before widespread vaccination (January–February 2021), only to rise again after significant vaccine uptake (August 2021)". While we're on excess mortality, a few researchers have noted that this is occurring even though the pandemic is over, and some (hi there) have even noted a correlation with the COVID-19 vaccines. (I have another excess deaths article coming out later that definitively shows it isn't COVID-19, it isn't the lockdowns, it's the jab. Just waiting on publishing.)
§Finally, we move on to financial and political conflicts of interest. Read every word of this bit. The study's authors have financial links to vaccine manufacturers, the WHO, the Wellcome Trust, and our old friend, the one expert we all had to see as an expert despite him not having a single earned academic degree, Bill Gates. Politically, the boss of the research team is none other than Neil Ferguson, 'Professor Lockdown', also known as the moron that was wrong about everything, and who "was caught violating the very lockdown measures he had advocated by having an affair with a married woman during the restrictions". Not a righteous dude. This is going to be a theme in this three-part series. The people behind the research on the jabs tend to be funded by the manufacturers and governments that approved, encouraged and even mandated the vaccines. I even go a little further, explaining that Big Pharma, the mainstream media and just about everything else is effectively owned or controlled by a handful of very rich people.
§I also summarise some of the research demonstrating that "the pharmaceutical industry funds and arguably influences major medical journals that publish favourable studies by these same scientists, as well as the peer reviewers for these journals — just as it sponsors clinical trials of its own products, which predictably yield results more favourable to its interests compared with independent studies". Oh, and don't forget that it funds its own regulators. What fun!
§I end with the customary recommendations: "To accurately assess the number of lives truly saved by these vaccines, Watson et al. and others should repeat their analysis using more rigorous and transparent methods: incorporating conservative estimates of vaccine effectiveness, given recent concerns about counting-window methodologies; accounting for rapidly waning and potentially negative effectiveness; using accurate, clearly disclosed IFRs and CFRs; giving preference to available evidence over speculative estimates; and ideally, conducting the research independently, without financial ties to vaccine manufacturers, their shareholders, or organisations that promote and mandate these vaccines."
Well, there you have it. Maker sure you, um, Trust the Science, and all that. Especially when that dodgy science spreads everywhere in a heartbeat and takes a good three years to be debunked. Somehow I don't think this takedown will be featuring in the big journals and the nightly news – they've already said 'no'.
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