COVID Vaccine May Lower your Risk by Only 1%

Let me start by saying I'm generally in favor of vaccines: I got a tetanus shot when I fell off my bike onto the pavement; I got a flu shot last year because I didn't think I could fight off both the flu and COVID if I was unlucky enough to get both. But one reason I haven't gotten a COVID shot is because there's no way of knowing the long-term effects, if any, of the new technology it uses.

Now I have another reason. For people like me (not old, diabetic, overweight or suffering from heart disease), the clinical trials of the vaccines showed a reduced absolute risk of getting COVID of...wait for it...around 1%.

Regular readers probably know about absolute risk vs. relative risk. Reducing your relative risk of something by 70% or 95%, as the vaccines do for symptomatic COVID infections, sounds like they are extremely effective. But when your risk of something is low enough to start with, reducing it further may not mean much. This graphic of a hypothetical vaccine trial illustrates relative vs. absolute risk. Absolute risk reduction (ARR) is 1%, while relative risk reduction (RRR) is 50%. One less person out of a hundred got sick with the vaccine--but that's half as many as got sick with the placebo. That's how you can say "50% risk reduction!" with a straight face.

Hypotethical example of a vaccine clinical trial (1)

The author of the article where this graphic appears notes that vaccine trials are supposed to report absolute risk, since reporting only relative risk can lead people to make suboptimal decisions. But "the manufacturers [Moderna and Pfizer] did not report a corresponding absolute risk reduction..."

If relative vs. absolute risk is still confusing, the article helpfully states the number needed to vaccinate to avoid a symptomatic case of COVID: 142 people for the Pfizer vaccine; 88 for the Moderna vaccine.

Sebastian Rushworth likewise reports the Astra Zenica vaccine offers an absolute risk reduction of 1.2% and notes their trial had some problems: two arms of the trial didn't use a real placebo but meningococcal vaccine instead; there were relatively few elderly people in the trial (the people most at risk from COVID); and people with a variety of health conditions were also excluded. So between that, the short length of the trial, and the size of the trial, there's a good deal of uncertainty around the safety of the vaccine. He says he would not take the vaccine (even though he's a junior doctor who presumably sees patients) because he's young and healthy and has a low risk of getting COVID. (2)

Sources:

"Outcome Reporting Bias in COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Clinical Trials" by Ronald B. Brown. Europe PMC, February 26, 2021.

COVID: Why Most of What you Know is Wrong by Sebastian Rushworth. Karneval Publishing, Stockholm. 2021, pp. 112-131.

Comments

Winning! Read some good news!

The good news keeps on coming. After four years of the country being in the biggest mess that most of us have lived through, it feels like spring is here early. The cold wind is refreshing, the snow is sparkling, and the days are getting longer. Photo from Pixabay . If you're getting this post by email, click here to see embedded videos from X. Trump bans the chemical and surgical mutilation of children in the name of "gender affirming care." This is just an executive order, which the next president could overturn; we need Congress to pass a law. The CIA admits COVID was mostly likely a lab leak after all. "The CIA analysis supporting lab origin of COVID was completed and published internally during the Biden administration. It was withheld from the public by the Biden Administration in violation of the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023, which mandated release," said Richard H. Ebright on X. The CIA now says lab leak is the most likely explanation for COVID-19. R...

Not Only Cheaper, But Easier

A while back, I wrote about saving money on break time coffee and snacks. I haven't done very well putting it into practice. But a post by James Clear today got me thinking about it again: Warren Buffett uses a two-list system to prioritize things. Check it out --and follow the instructions. Using Buffett's two-list system, two of the goals I ended up with were taking care of myself and saving $400 more per month than I already am. As I said, I've been wanting to save money, and the system made me really focus on this. I came up with 11 money-saving ideas, six of which had to do with food. Buying hamburger in bulk. Ranch Foods Direct sells one-pound packages of 80% lean pastured ground beef in bundles of 20 for a lot less than Whole Foods. Sprouts only carries super-lean beef that's grass-fed, and it's more expensive, too. Not driving to Whole Foods. Whole Foods is out of my way, and saving a weekly trip saves gas. Coffee at home, tea at work. Tea is fr...

Let's Grow Vegetables from Seed

MAHA may be a great idea, but what you do at your house is more important for your health than what's happening at the White House. Growing your own vegetables provides food that's fresher and tastes better than store-bought and helps you get some fresh air, sunshine and exercise. If you grow enough, you can even can your own sauces and soups that don't have any franken-food ingredients. My first time growing celery from seed. Here in central Indiana, it's time to plant celery from seed since the average last frost date is 10 weeks away. In a few weeks, it'll be time to plant tomatoes. There are a couple of ways to figure out when to start various seeds where you live: You can find out when it's time to plant things by 1) looking up your average last frost date, 2) getting a seed packet and looking at the instructions for starting the seeds indoors, and 3) counting backwards on a calendar by the number of weeks indicated. You could also ask Grok (X's AI fea...

Blog Lineup Change

Bye-bye, Fathead. I've enjoyed the blog, but can't endorse the high-fat, high-carb Perfect Health Diet that somehow makes so much sense to some otherwise bright people. An astrophysicist makes some rookie mistakes on a LC diet, misdiagnoses them, makes up "glucose deficiency," and creates a diet that's been shown in intervention studies to increase small LDL, which can lead to heart disease. A computer programmer believes in the diet and doesn't seem eager to refute it because, perhaps, scientists are freakin' liars and while he's good at spotting logical inconsistencies, lacks some intermediate knowledge of human biology. To Tom's credit, he says it's not the right diet for everyone, but given the truckload of food that has to be prepared and eaten, impracticality of following it while traveling (or even not traveling), and unsuitability for FODMAPs sufferers, diabetics and anyone prone to heart disease (i.e., much of the population), I'm...

This Just In: Yogurt Doesn't Improve Health

A recent study from Spain finds "In comparison with people that did not eat yogurt, those who ate this dairy product regularly did not display any significant improvement in their score on the physical component of quality of life, and although there was a slight improvement mentally, this was not statistically significant," states López-García. Most yogurt is pretty much pudding with a little bacteria . Pudding is a sugar bomb. Hard to believe the stuff doesn't improve health outcomes, isn't it? But as usual, researchers are calling for...more research. "For future research more specific instruments must be used which may increase the probability of finding a potential benefit of this food."

Pain, Pain, Go Away!

Search This Blog