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    Correcting this week’s misinformation: week of November 14, 2024

    Is vaccine-promotion profit-driven?

    The Claim:

    In a new video, RFK Jr. says that doctors make a lot of money from patient visits and get bonuses from insurance companies for keeping high vaccination rates, which he claims puts money ahead of caring for each patient individually and pushes them to stick to strict vaccine schedules.

    The Facts:

    Claims like these support that doctors don’t care about children’s health and that they only vaccinate to bring in money. Besides that being absolute malarky, the money in question comes from somewhere and has a purpose.

    For-profit insurance companies make money when people pay them and then don’t need more expensive follow-on medical care. They may provide incentives to make sure their customers are vaccinated because vaccines prevent severe illness in their customers, so they won’t end up needing health care services, which would cut into the company’s profits.

    If vaccines caused injury, insurance companies would be on the hook. If vaccines caused death, health insurance companies wouldn’t have anyone paying into the system. Insurance companies would only promote an intervention like vaccines if vaccines prevented injury and death. They even offered incentives to their own associates, something that would seem an odd choice for a for-profit organization if they believed the vaccines would harm recipients.

    Do COVID vaccines cause brain clots?

    The Claim:

    A new study is gaining attention from anti-vaccine groups because it calls for stopping COVID vaccinations worldwide. The study claims that brain clots are 1,120 times more likely after a COVID vaccine than after a flu shot and 207 times more likely than after all other vaccines combined.

    The Facts:

    This study should be viewed with extreme caution due to known issues with both the interpretation of COVID vaccine data and the potential misuse of the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) by anti-vaccine activists. Remember that anyone can report anything to VAERS, even if what they report wasn’t caused by the vaccine, as noted on the VAERS website. One doctor famously submitted a report that the flu shot turned him into the Incredible Hulk. VAERS is helpful for keeping track of vaccine safety, but just because something is reported doesn’t mean the vaccine caused it.

    Claiming that brain clots are “112,000% more likely” or “20,700% more likely” after COVID-19 vaccination is misleading because the study uses Proportional Reporting Ratios (PPRs) that don’t account for the actual risk in the population. These ratios compare reported numbers without considering the context, such as the number of people vaccinated, heightened attention to COVID vaccine safety, and increased awareness about reporting adverse effects. In other words, the numbers alone don’t tell the whole story because they leave out these key pieces of background information.

    Is COVID vaccination to blame for your mood disorder?

    The Claim:

    In an interview on the Alex Jones Show, cardiologist Peter McCullough claims to have created an mRNA off-switch that can stop vaccine mRNA from working in the body.

    The Facts:

    This interview is based on a paper that claims to have discovered an ‘off-switch’ for mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. In it, Dr. McCullough says that one solution to “detox” against mRNA vaccines is to introduce small interfering RNA (siRNA), similar to mRNA along with ribonuclease targeting chimeras (RIBOTACs)

    McCullough has made multiple claims, including in his paper below, that lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) can cause injury and harm. Yet in his new procedure, both siRNA and RIBOTACs use lipid nanoparticles to enter the cells to target mRNA. If using lipids to allow siRNA and RIBOTACs to enter our cells is seen as safe, we can also assume the mRNA from vaccination is safe.

    McCullough thinks this procedure is necessary because of worries about how mRNA vaccines spread throughout the body.

    His idea about “systemic biodistribution” comes from misconstrued data. A study in rats looked at lipid nanoparticles after mRNA vaccine injections and their distribution in organs over time. The data show that most of the nanoparticles stayed where they were injected, and some went to the liver. In the ovaries, the highest amount of nanoparticles found was very, very small (only about 0.095% after 48 hours). This amount might be even smaller in human ovaries because the dose used in the COVID vaccine is much less than what they used in the rat study.

    Would this off-switch work? We doubt Dr. McCullough’s science very much, and it is unnecessary because while tiny amounts of mRNA may persist in the body, the vast majority usually degrades within days.

    Disclaimer: Science is always evolving and our understanding of these topics may have evolved too since this was originally posted. Be sure to check out our most recent posts and browse the latest Just the Facts Topics for the latest.

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