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Covid-19 vaccines and treatments: we must have raw data, now

bmj.com

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Re: Covid-19 vaccines and treatments: we must have raw data, now

#111

Post by fabian2k »

nsainsbury wrote: post #98
fabian2k wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we actually don't need the VAERS data to examine if the vaccines are better than the alternative. We do need it to provide accurate labels for side effects, but that is all. We can simply look at infection, hospitalization and death in vaccinated and unvaccinated populations. If we properly match the populations, we can determine if the vaccine saves lives, and it turns out that they do save a lot of lives.

That's true. And I agree that the vaccines have saved lives - mostly, of the old and the very sick/unhealthy. However, what is less clear today is whether there has been a net positive or negative effect of the vaccine for young healthy people. You can only come to that conclusion if you actually had high quality data and studies on vaccine side-effects, effectiveness in population groups stratified by age, health, e…

We have high-quality data on the vaccines and their side effects. We don't have RCTs with billions of people, but that is data we never had for anything and can't reasonably get.

Judging the risk/benefit ratio is the primary purpose of the regulatory agencies that approve vaccines. I don't see any reason to believe the claim that the vaccines are harmful for everyone below 50, that sounds quite outrageous to me. There have been adjustments based on new data for the vaccines a few times, e.g. younger people are generally recommended to be vaccinated with Biontech and not Moderna or AZ based on the side effects of these vaccines. That doesn't mean the risk/benefit ratio is bad there, it only means that we have vaccines with a more favorable profile for those age groups.

Re: Covid-19 vaccines and treatments: we must have raw data, now

#112

Post by dereg »

cogman10 wrote: post #100
throwawaygh wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your full name and address? Age? Weight? Height? Eye color? Blood pressure? What STDs do you have, if any? How often and how much do you drink? Smoke? Any history of drug use? Mental disorders? What about your family? Where is the bad thing in you posting this information here right now? Actually, that's not even analogous. A better analogy would be you post all this info under a pseudonym -- e.g., "rvnx" or…

I'm 36, I weigh 190 lbs, I'm 6'1. My eyes are green. Blood pressure 120/80 (last I checked). No STDs. I drink once a week about 3 servings. I don't smoke. I don't use drugs or have a history of mental disorders. Depression runs in my family. I only really hesitate to post full name and address but, frankly, I'm sure given my user handle it wouldn't be terribly hard for someone to find both of those. So tell me, what…

First, I'm guessing that what you provided is a lot less than someone would have to provide in a medical trial.

Second, demonstrating your willingness to describe yourself on a public forum is a lot different than someone expecting confidentiality when participating in medical trials. Most people do not have your level of comfort disclosing medical details. Furthermore, if a company were to break that trust, why would anybody participate in medical trials? The harm is not to you, it is to society.

Re: Covid-19 vaccines and treatments: we must have raw data, now

#113

Post by Amezarak »

ceejayoz wrote: post #95
ALittleLight wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh, trust in institutions through obscurity.

Trust in institutions through difficulty of a global cover-up requiring the cooperation of nearly two hundred countries across nearly ten billion doses administered? Sure.

There's no need at all for some kind of organized conspiracy, just the typical shoddy work covered for by similarly interested parties. I am not saying that's what happened in this case, but it's not exactly rare. The life sciences are absolutely rife with bad work - even notorious Covid research, for example, many of the computer-model based research, which was only exposed because regular everyday computer programmers looked at it after it was published - and often their criticisms led to coverups and denial!

Conspiracy theorists usually do go nuts with this stuff, but usually there's no need for an organized "conspiracy" when class or professional interests are at stake.

For example, that's one very clearly stated reason why US government officials running scientific agencies shut down scientific discussion of the lab leak theory, and why most scientists went along with it: because of the risk that the public backlash might harm their funding - the same sort of backlash that led to restrictions on gain-of-function research in the first place, that they ended up working around.

> ‘I share your view that a swift convening of experts in a confidence inspiring framework (WHO seems really the only option) is needed, or the voices of conspiracy will quickly dominate, doing great potential harm to science and international harmony…’”

People quite naturally and regularly act in a way that appears coordinated without any actual coordination.

Re: Covid-19 vaccines and treatments: we must have raw data, now

#114

Post by throwawaygh »

cogman10 wrote: post #100
throwawaygh wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your full name and address? Age? Weight? Height? Eye color? Blood pressure? What STDs do you have, if any? How often and how much do you drink? Smoke? Any history of drug use? Mental disorders? What about your family? Where is the bad thing in you posting this information here right now? Actually, that's not even analogous. A better analogy would be you post all this info under a pseudonym -- e.g., "rvnx" or…

I'm 36, I weigh 190 lbs, I'm 6'1. My eyes are green. Blood pressure 120/80 (last I checked). No STDs. I drink once a week about 3 servings. I don't smoke. I don't use drugs or have a history of mental disorders. Depression runs in my family. I only really hesitate to post full name and address but, frankly, I'm sure given my user handle it wouldn't be terribly hard for someone to find both of those. So tell me, what…

> So tell me, what harm have I done to myself by sharing this information?

None, and yet you still aren't willing to put your name behind the statement "I'm healthy as a fiddle and never use drugs except the occasional beer".

Also -- and this will apparently come as a surprise to you -- people who have STDs, abuse drugs/alcohol, or have genetic disorders in their family don't necessarily want that info shared on the internet. Shocking, right?!

Apparently pseudonymous internet griping is an essential right but participants in medical trials should -- post-facto -- have their entire medical history shared in a wy that's at significant risk of reidentification.

Re: Covid-19 vaccines and treatments: we must have raw data, now

#115

Post by rvnx »

cogman10 wrote: post #100
throwawaygh wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your full name and address? Age? Weight? Height? Eye color? Blood pressure? What STDs do you have, if any? How often and how much do you drink? Smoke? Any history of drug use? Mental disorders? What about your family? Where is the bad thing in you posting this information here right now? Actually, that's not even analogous. A better analogy would be you post all this info under a pseudonym -- e.g., "rvnx" or…

I'm 36, I weigh 190 lbs, I'm 6'1. My eyes are green. Blood pressure 120/80 (last I checked). No STDs. I drink once a week about 3 servings. I don't smoke. I don't use drugs or have a history of mental disorders. Depression runs in my family. I only really hesitate to post full name and address but, frankly, I'm sure given my user handle it wouldn't be terribly hard for someone to find both of those. So tell me, what…

In practice, the person can be bucketed in an age, height and weight group and then the problem is solved and there is a constructive dataset.

Address and name are not necessary.

- Person 30-35, living in California, has history of obesity, suffers from type II diabetes, under treatment of med A, and med B.

- first dose: Jan 2021

- second dose: March 2021

Medical outcome: ZZZ

Re: Covid-19 vaccines and treatments: we must have raw data, now

#116

Post by throwawaygh »

jjulius wrote: post #110
cogman10 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 36, I weigh 190 lbs, I'm 6'1. My eyes are green. Blood pressure 120/80 (last I checked). No STDs. I drink once a week about 3 servings. I don't smoke. I don't use drugs or have a history of mental disorders. Depression runs in my family. I only really hesitate to post full name and address but, frankly, I'm sure given my user handle it wouldn't be terribly hard for someone to find both of those. So tell me, what…

>So tell me, what harm have I done to myself by sharing this information? You're comfortable sharing it, that's cool! Is your neighbor? Your friend? Your cousin? Should they be obligated to divulge their own medical information just because you're fine divulging yours?

More to the point, he didn't even share it. The concern here is re-identification and he chickened out of sharing his identity.

Re: Covid-19 vaccines and treatments: we must have raw data, now

#117

Post by actusual »

cogman10 wrote: post #100
throwawaygh wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your full name and address? Age? Weight? Height? Eye color? Blood pressure? What STDs do you have, if any? How often and how much do you drink? Smoke? Any history of drug use? Mental disorders? What about your family? Where is the bad thing in you posting this information here right now? Actually, that's not even analogous. A better analogy would be you post all this info under a pseudonym -- e.g., "rvnx" or…

I'm 36, I weigh 190 lbs, I'm 6'1. My eyes are green. Blood pressure 120/80 (last I checked). No STDs. I drink once a week about 3 servings. I don't smoke. I don't use drugs or have a history of mental disorders. Depression runs in my family. I only really hesitate to post full name and address but, frankly, I'm sure given my user handle it wouldn't be terribly hard for someone to find both of those. So tell me, what…

> So tell me, what harm have I done to myself by sharing this information?

This is irrelevant.

The conditional probability of my willingness to post this information, given your willingness to post this information, is equal to the the probability of my willingness to post this information. P(X) = P(X|Y). This means that just because you are okay with it, I'm not...and additional people being okay with it doesn't change my opinion regardless of harm.

Re: Covid-19 vaccines and treatments: we must have raw data, now

#118

Post by throwawaygh »

rvnx wrote: post #107
throwawaygh wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your full name and address? Age? Weight? Height? Eye color? Blood pressure? What STDs do you have, if any? How often and how much do you drink? Smoke? Any history of drug use? Mental disorders? What about your family? Where is the bad thing in you posting this information here right now? Actually, that's not even analogous. A better analogy would be you post all this info under a pseudonym -- e.g., "rvnx" or…

It looks like you are trying to drift the intent and scope of the dataset disclosure. For example, having the list of symptoms, medications and even (just an imaginary example) pulmonary X-Ray or also on the chest having an open dataset of MRI pictures with the age of the patient, history of diseases would considerably help and there is no way you can link it back unless you know the history of the patient already (b…

> It looks like you are trying to drift the intent and scope of the dataset disclosure.

No. Intent doesn't matter. That's the whole point.

To wit: there's a reason that reidentification attacks are called attacks! No one intends to be hacked, and writing a program that you intend to be secure doesn't imply that the program is in fact secure. So too with anonymization.

> having an open dataset of MRI pictures

But we're not talking about MRI pictures, are we?

OP strongly believes that, in this case, there is enough information to re-identify patients. I agree.

Re: Covid-19 vaccines and treatments: we must have raw data, now

#119

Post by a45a33s »

diroussel wrote: post #36
fabian2k wrote: post #14

At this point the original phase 3 trials are pretty much irrelevant, we have so much more data now from the actual use of the vaccines. They really play no role at all now. In terms of effectivness we're three major SARS-CoV2 variants further, and for looking at rare side effects we have billions of doses now compared to tens of thousands in those trials. I'm all for putting pressure on everyone in Science to publis…

It's hard to analyse the data from treatments, as treatments don't have a control group. Trials are designed with control groups, placebos and double-blind process to gather data and then analyse it. We may have loads of data from real people being treated, but good luck trying to analyse it in a scientific way. We need effective vaccines, and we need to be able to trust them. Just treating people with a vaccine does…

the covid vaccine trials had no control groups either

Re: Covid-19 vaccines and treatments: we must have raw data, now

#120

Post by ModernMech »

cogman10 wrote: post #100
throwawaygh wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your full name and address? Age? Weight? Height? Eye color? Blood pressure? What STDs do you have, if any? How often and how much do you drink? Smoke? Any history of drug use? Mental disorders? What about your family? Where is the bad thing in you posting this information here right now? Actually, that's not even analogous. A better analogy would be you post all this info under a pseudonym -- e.g., "rvnx" or…

I'm 36, I weigh 190 lbs, I'm 6'1. My eyes are green. Blood pressure 120/80 (last I checked). No STDs. I drink once a week about 3 servings. I don't smoke. I don't use drugs or have a history of mental disorders. Depression runs in my family. I only really hesitate to post full name and address but, frankly, I'm sure given my user handle it wouldn't be terribly hard for someone to find both of those. So tell me, what…

> I don't use drugs or have a history of metal disorders.

Very happy for you, but if you did, you might have learned by now that people (and employers) can treat you very differently after they find out you're an addict or have a mental disorder, and it's best not to telegraph that information to everyone except close friends you can trust.

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