The slow retreat of the public health experts from epistemic heresy

We have known for a long time that most of the public health policy response to Covid-19 was ill-considered and unsupported by either historical experience or the scientific data.  Despite what our public health "experts" said at the time.  We have known that there should be some sort of institutional or public reconciling of what went wrong; some acknowledgement that the institutions of public health were wrong and the suppressed voices were right.  We need that for the health of our republic as well as the future health of our citizens. 

One of the lingering questions has been just how extensive are the ancillary damages from the mRNA vaccination forced on such a high percentage of the public.  The old institutions are still largely claiming that there are no, or little chance, of side effects.  Some though are beginning to acknowledge some of the more well-documented and notorious side-effects.  But again -  there is no real public discussion or acknowledgement.

But the ground seems to be shifting.  From The fiercest vaccine advocates are starting to admit the truth about the mRNAs by Alex Berenson.  The subheading is I am as shocked as you are.  

Berenson was one of the more vocal critics at the time and one of the voices who attracted the most explicit governmental efforts to suppress his speech.  It is not too surprising that there is a note of triumphalism.

Even the New York Times can’t hide reality about the mRNA jabs forever.

Last week, the Times published an article headlined, “Should You Get Another Covid Booster?”

The article’s subheadline noted “Britain and Canada have authorized another round of booster shots,” implying the United States has somehow been negligent in not doing so.

And the piece was written by Apoorva Mandavilli, among the worst Covid reporters. So I assumed the article would be filled with the usual nonsense, especially since the first person Mandavilli quoted was Dr. Celine Gounder, who has loudly pushed mRNA jabs.

[snip]

So I was stunned that Gounder offered the most tepid possible recommendation for further mRNA doses to Mandavilli.

Most people should not have boosters, even once a year, she said. She endorsed regular shots only for “immunocompromised people and people in nursing homes.”

The real tell there is “nursing homes.”

In mentioning them, Gounder was not suggesting that everyone over 65 - or even 85 - should get more shots. Nursing homes are effectively hospices for most residents. About one-third of their residents die each year, a 2018 study found; a 2010 study had even grimmer findings, reporting a median survival of five months after admission.

What Gounder was saying that only the very frail - who likely have little risk or benefit from the shots (or, in reality, any medical intervention) - should still receive them regularly.

In contrast, in October, Gounder offered very different advice, recommending boosters for everyone over age 50 “as soon as possible.”

Gounder is not the only one backing away from earlier fervid commitments to mRNA vaccination.

Mandavilli also talked to Dr. Paul Offit. No one will ever confuse Offit with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - he is director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

In April 2021, Offit had this to say about the mRNA jabs:

Certainly, no one would have predicted that these mRNA vaccines would have worked as well or been as safe as they are… I don’t think you could have devised a vaccine that appears to be more perfect.

Less than two years later, Offit rejected more doses of those “perfect” vaccines.

For everyone. Even the immunocompromised.

But even more stunning than Offit’s rejection were the words he used:

“Given the lack of data, I don’t think it’s fair to say to people, ‘Inject yourself with a biological agent,’” said Dr. Paul Offit.

Berenson was broadly right and the public health experts were broadly wrong.  The government used every mechanism they could to suppress Berenson's free speech to stop word from spreading.  

And now, in dribs and drabs, the public health experts are all beginning to back away from the wonder vaccination with which they were so misguidedly enamored.  

We are still a long way from a public accounting for the massive epistemic failure and the drastic abrogation of constitutional civil rights which occurred.  But it is worth noting the retreat by the public health experts.