Ron Johnson’s “vaccine round table” does little to actually help patients.

The Republican senator from Wisconsin convened a round table with people who were active in the anti-vaccine movement to increase awareness of vaccine injury. This is not the first time he has done such a session, however the way that this session was put together doesn't help actual patients on their way to recovery. The purpose of this is to tell the reader how Sen. Johnson used his December 2022 Roundtable to push his agenda.

There is a video on the internet. Del Big tree has a logo. The antivax doctors who we have met before are shown in the video.

There are a couple of themes in the presentation.

1. The speakers seem to think that when they have been shown to be wrong, that equates to censorship – this is a perennial feature of the antivax ecosystem; antivaxxers much older than the speakers have been using this tactic since the early years of the antivax movement. This is just categorically false. In the courtroom of science, when you do an experiment that shows your hypothesis was wrong, you generally close up shop on that hypothesis and investigate the biological question from another perspective. You don’t try to tell everyone you were censored. I clearly remember the time when I made a mistake with a DNA gel electrophoresis and have the blank gel sharply imbedded in my mind. I owned up to my mistake and apologized to my mentor – I did not seek out Senator Ron Johnson.
2. The whole point of the presentation was to raise awareness for vaccine injury – why didn’t they include speakers who are actually doing projects on vaccine injury?
3. Normally Senate commitee members have their fact-checkers and interns on hand to advise the actual senators, so that people who testify can have their findings challenged live (and allow the person testifying to also challenge the senator). Senator Johnson has access to all the fact checking he wants, but makes little to no effort to do this. Instead, he just expresses his approval.

They are on their way to their claim.

Claim: The number of claims on VAERS has increased therefore all the COVID vaccines are bad

The people in the antivax system have told their followers to create fake reports. The VAERS website says to not use the website data in a way that Liz is doing. There are reports on the size of genitalia. What should you do with it? I have followed VAERS personally and done research in collaboration with other centers on the issue of post-vaccination myocarditis. Other researchers used it to find and treat vaccine-related diseases. Other researchers have used it to describe the menstrualIrregularities

Claim: The Vsafe system not immediately releasing all available data is evidence of intentional deception

It isn't. The V-safe system was created for the COVID-19 immunizations because the previous systems were not able to track people over time. V-safe tries to get more survey participation by delivering survey questions directly to the end users. After completion of the first dose, the system will send survey questions at a number of times. While it is true that V-safe data are not released in full for the general public, any researchers interested in conducting a formal project can contact the system adminstrators. The way in which the data is displayed to the public is misleading. The total number of people reported to have needed medical care is over 800 000. Over 10 million people were registered. Most medical problems reported are due to the immunization and occur within the first two months. The data dump doesn't control what the medical care actually was. It's less likely that you seek medical care if you're further away from a vaccine. I would be worried about a case of Guillain-Barre, but I wouldn't be so worried about a case of a patient getting Motrin in the ER.

Claim: Vaccinated people in the UK are dying at a rate 26% higher than the unvaccinated

The base rate fallacy is not understood by this person. The number of people who die from causes other than vaccine-related ones is going to decrease when the number of vaccine-eligible individuals decreases. It doesn't mean that vaccinations cause more deaths.

Claim: alarming increases in disabling conditions for the US Army were reported right after vaccination was mandated, and COVID vaccine deaths are higher than COVID disease deaths

This claim is thought to originate from an orthopedist. There were 20 deaths due to COVID19, and 80 cases of myocarditis at the time of her death, she claimed. Time travel hasn't been invented yet, she misinterpreted a myocarditis study in a very special type of adult myocarditis, and COVID immunization myocarditis skews to be a milder type of myocarditis. She picked the figure because it was bigger, for rhetorical effect, not because she was good at epidemiology. The US military reported 165 deaths due to COVID as of June 2022. According to the United States Department of Defense, there have been 670 deaths due to COVID. No data is provided to back up any verified military service member deaths due to a vaccine injury. The US military is likely to have similar rates of myocarditis. The disease course was similar to what happened in the population as a whole. The rate of myocarditis in the US military has been reported to be 22%. There is a misrepresentation of the Defense Medical Epidemiology database that leads to the increase in disabling conditions.

Claim: A largely vaccinated public drives the virus to mutate even faster

This is playing magic tricks to get you to ignore them. The coronaviruses ability to check for errors isn't as good as in human cells. Changes that decrease fitness are eliminated and changes that allow immune evasion are perpetuated. The more people catch the virus, the more it can be changed. The act of immunizations isn't the main factor here.

Claim: Vaccine mandates can only be justified for vaccines that lower risk of transmitting the virus

The speaker has not done his homework on the classical vaccine schedule, which contains vaccinations that decrease transmission to varying degrees. Classical vaccine schedules are still mandated in most countries. The advent of Omicron made the vaccine's effectiveness against transmission worse than it already was. The antivaccine actors collaborated with spin doctors to say that the epidemiologists lied to them. Vaccinations do decrease the transmission of Omicron, but this doesn't make them meaningless.

Claim: early treatment has always been our best line of defense

Is there an effective antiviral against the rhinoviruses and enteroviruses? No, that's not true. It was a good idea to look for early treatments for COVID, but clinical proof is needed. Many candidates have failed when it comes to designing effective antivirals. The speaker is a fan of ivermectin and should give the user a better outcome than if they did nothing. Many trials have shown that this is not the case. Is it possible that some people improved here and there? You can't generalize the findings to everyone if a medication doesn't help the majority of the population. New treatments are always proposed by physicians. You should attend any professional medical society meeting if you don't believe this. Shut the project down and try another line of inquiry when clinical trial data says your hypothesis isn't right. The promotion of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin was done with financial interests in mind. It's worse when some of the studies back then.

early treatment were found to have major statistical issues. While it is true that remdesivir has legitimate renal clearance issues in those with poor kidney function, it is a gross misrepresentation to say it does nothing, or to say its only role is to hurt kidneys.