Summary: It’s not what the data is or isn’t, or does or doesn’t show, it’s what the official reaction to the release of the data indicates.
So, yeah, it’s sparked some controversy since its release, even in vaccine sceptic circles, with some advising that it should be treated with caution and that it has limitations (missing data) which do not allow any definite conclusions about the presence (or not) of a ‘humungous’ safety signal, others stating outright that it’s a ‘nothingburger’ and Steve Kirsch claiming that a rigorous time series cohort analysis proves beyond doubt that the vaccine is ‘killing one in a thousand people’. Who to believe if, like most, you are not an expert statistician? The answer is, believe nobody and, if you can’t verify the claims and counterclaims yourself, independently, file them in a draw marked ‘unsolved’ - but don’t slam it shut.
Children’s Health Defence has an excellent summary of the claims and counter claims regarding the NZ whistleblower data here:
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/new-zealand-covid-vaccine-deaths-data-leak/
The article is a must read. I’m just going to lift a few choice quotes in order to put this controversy into perspective because ultimately, I believe that the storm kicked up by the release of this data is no more significant than your average tempest in a bone china teacup. Why? because we know, already, from multiple sources, that there is a huge safety signal associated with both the mRNA and DNA Covid vaccines and that they are killing and injuring people in huge numbers. There is just too much other data and science out there for the New Zealand authorities to come out swinging and claim flat out that the vaccines they administered were ‘safe and effective’ and that there is ‘nothing to see’ in Barry Young’s ‘stolen’ data. Absurdly, NZ health authorities admit to only four Covid vaccine related deaths:
New Zealand authorities acknowledge only four COVID-19 vaccine-related deaths.
With 12.78 million doses administered, that must mean that the vaccines are so super safe that there should be no doubt whatsoever that they are, meaning that VAERS, EUDRAVigilance, Yellow Card and various other safety monitoring data and a multitude of research studies released over the last 3 years since the global rollout of these highly experimental, inadequately tested shots, demonstrating conclusively that they are neither safe nor effective, is all one giant conspiracy theory cooked up to discredit the Pharmacological Masters of the Universe and the scientifically enlightened saviours of mankind via their totally philanthropic and non profit-focussed development of gene-hacking wonderdrugs.
Norman Fenton had this to say about the NZ whistleblower data:
Fenton, who analyzed the data on his Substack, took a different position, telling The Defender, “The dataset is a very large subset of those vaccinated in New Zealand, and is potentially one of the most important publicly available datasets for examining COVID vaccine safety. But I don’t believe it is the ‘smoking gun’ as some have claimed.”
He noted the absence of a control group (the unvaccinated) and that “the age profile seems higher than the national age profile of [the] vaccinated, so there is some bias.”
However, he said the data “does provide some evidence of lack of safety of the vaccine, in particular supporting our own previous observations (from U.K. data) that in older age groups, all-cause mortality is higher in the vaccinated than the unvaccinated.”
“What is less clear is the claim concerning batches with exceptionally high mortality rates,” Fenton said. “The claim that these batches were especially deadly due to the contents of the vaccine or its delivery is confounded by their very different age and time of vaccination profiles,” he added.
So no ‘smoking gun’ as claimed by Steve Kirsch, but still evidence of a safety signal, confirmed elsewhere by UK data. They say anecdotal data is worth very little in science, but there sure is a lot of anecdotal data on mysterious sudden deaths, heart attacks, strokes and ‘turbo cancers’ occurring in people soon after being vaccinated and a mysterious lack of such anecdotes among those people who didn’t succumb to getting injected with the ‘safe and effective’. Come to think of it anyway, if anecdotes are not your thing, then there sure is a lot of empirical data and actual science which demonstrates, almost beyond doubt that the vaccines are neither safe nor effective. So we don’t need to go looking for a smoking gun in anecdotes or a very small subset of the global data Down Under, because it’s already there, lock, stock and two smoking barrels. Of course this does not mean that governments could not be a lot more cooperative in providing granular, record level data of Covid vaccinations, which would definitively, once and for all, prove either one way or the other whether the vaccines are safe and effective, but the NZ health authorities refuse to do this, as does every other public health authority throughout the world, as far as I am aware. Which is odd. Norman Fenton certainly thinks so:
Norman Fenton, Ph.D., a mathematician and professor emeritus at Queen Mary University of London, also examined the leaked data. He told The Defender the reaction of New Zealand’s authorities to the leak was “very strange.” He added:
“I understand that releasing confidential medical records is a criminal offense, but … the whistleblower only released an anonymized version of the data.
“Given the advanced publicity by people like Steve Kirsch about what the data revealed, I would have thought the New Zealand government would have been better advised to do nothing rather than raiding homes, arresting the whistleblower and erasing files from people who had gained access to the data. It is almost as if they wanted to get more publicity for both the data breach and what the data revealed.”
Presenting one possible reason supporting such an explanation, Fenton said:
“Not surprisingly, this has also led to conspiracy theories of which the most notable is that the government knew that this particular dataset did not contain (as some have claimed) any ‘smoking gun’ on vaccine safety and therefore it was deliberately released so it could be used to discredit ‘anti-vaxxers’ who claimed it did, and also act as a warning against any others who had access to more incriminating data to shut up.”
I thought at first the NZ data release may have been a sting operation to discredit vaccine sceptics but I’m not so sure now. The response by the NZ government is just so over the top and the reluctance to release the full data so puzzling that it would seem they are genuinely worried by this data ‘theft’.
Some analysts also pointed to official data indicating that excess deaths in New Zealand continue to be significantly above the long-term average — 17% in September and early October 2023, according to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Some also pointed to data indicating sharp increases in the incidence of heart attacks in New Zealand.
Yet, Apa said, “We assure people there is no evidence whatsoever that vaccination is responsible for excess mortality in New Zealand and that they can continue to have confidence in the vaccine,” in remarks quoted by the New Zealand Herald.
Norman again:
“They should release the data on the unvaccinated so that a full direct comparison can be made,” Fenton said. “We also need all the (anonymized) patient-level data on new health conditions/hospitalizations since 2021, for both vaccinated and unvaccinated, so that we can determine the true level of vaccine adverse reactions.”
And Steve Kirsch, Vices for Freedom and NZDSOS:
Similarly, NZDSOS said, “The best approach would be to release all the data in an anonymized form and for the Ministry of Health to discuss their analysis.”
Kirsch wrote, “Nobody will debate me on this,” adding that New Zealand authorities “should be releasing the full [12 million-person] record dataset to remove all doubt and prove to the world the vaccines are safe.”
“Clinical outcomes are never improved by keeping public health data hidden from public view,” Kirsch wrote. “Yet every health authority in the world has kept this critical record-level safety data hidden from view.”
In a subsequent Substack post, Kirsch wrote, “Health New Zealand: Where is your analysis of your data? Why aren’t you publishing it?”
Voices for Freedom called on New Zealand authorities “to be transparent with NZ’s vaccination data,” noting that “There appears to be no official denial of the accuracy of the downloaded Health NZ data set.”
But they won’t. Why? Even Dummies can hazard a guess at the likely reason.
Why would they do such a thing? "Never Attribute to Malice That Which is Adequately Explained by Stupidity..." Occam's razor?
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You are always mentally provocative Jamie.
Another word for "anecdotal data", is evidence.
That evidence does not equal proof does not mean that it should be ignored.
Evidence can, and should be, available and used in this case, as it is in ALL criminal cases.
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