"You can call it a lie by omission":
Florida health officials deleted key data and statistics from a state analysis on the safety of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, falsely making them appear unsafe for young men, according to draft versions of the analysis obtained by the Tampa Bay Times through public records requests.
The final analysis, which was widely criticized for its poor quality and dubious conclusions, was the basis for a statewide recommendation by Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo last October that young men, ages 18 to 39, should not receive an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. The analysis—posted on the Florida Department of Health's website with no authors listed—claimed to find "an 84% increase in the relative incidence of cardiac-related death among males 18-39 years old within 28 days following mRNA vaccination."
Ladapo, who has a history of fearmongering about COVID-19 vaccines, touted the analysis, saying in a press release at the time that "these are important findings that should be communicated to Floridians."
But according to draft versions of the analysis, the state epidemiologists who worked on the report came to entirely different conclusions.
The draft version contained data that showed that getting COVID-19 posed a far greater risk of cardiac-related deaths than that from mRNA vaccines. Specifically, the incidence of cardiac-related deaths from infection was more than 10 times higher than from the vaccine in people ages 18 to 24 and more than five times higher for people 25 to 39. This data is in line with many peer-reviewed, published studies but was omitted entirely from the final analysis announced by Ladapo.
Also omitted was a sensitivity analysis that showed that the risk of cardiac-related deaths in young men was not significant. The final version drew flak for not including a sensitivity analysis, with the core conclusion of risk in young men hinging on just 20 deaths. A sensitivity analysis is a means to essentially evaluate the robustness of a finding, and it was present in three versions of the draft analysis but not in the final one.
[...] Overall, the draft versions of the analysis written by state epidemiologists supported the use of mRNA. "The risk associated with COVID-19 infection clearly outweighs any potential risks associated with mRNA vaccination," one version states.
Matt Hitchings, an infectious disease epidemiologist and professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida, who also reviewed the drafts for the Times, told the outlet that the excluded data was akin to academic dishonesty. "You can call it a lie by omission," he said.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday April 12, @04:42PM (17 children)
Like Stephen Colbert said, they make facts based on decisions, not decisions based on facts. I keep wondering when the idiocy is going to reach such lethal levels that it can no longer be sustained. Seems COVID wasn't lethal enough to impress the idiots.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12, @05:27PM (1 child)
What's even the endgame for this nonsense? Just degrade all information to your opinion vs my opinion? Then yell louder? I don't see the attraction.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by SpockLogic on Wednesday April 12, @07:10PM
It's all about Florida Governor Ron DeFacist's imperial ambition.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pe1rxq on Wednesday April 12, @06:01PM (2 children)
I have no doubt they will reach lethal levels. But I am very afraid the rest of us will be collateral damage.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Thursday April 13, @01:11AM (1 child)
For example, if a drunk driver rams my car and injures me, but all the hospital beds are filled by anti-vaxxers, they would be causing me a problem.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday April 13, @06:38PM
Or....y'know....fucking up the entire planet for the rest of us by ignoring climate change.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Wednesday April 12, @06:40PM (9 children)
Yeah, I'm slightly ashamed to admit that I've occasionally wished for a COVID variant with something closer to a 50% death rate. Eugenics via personal choice.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RedGreen on Wednesday April 12, @11:28PM (4 children)
"something closer to a 50% death rate."
I not ashamed to admit it I have been thinking the same, though I think a 1 in 10 fatality rate would have had the assholes among us following the guidance. That and it not be killing off grandma and grandpa mostly, but the teens, 20 years olds that would have got the morons attention too.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 5, Insightful) by driverless on Thursday April 13, @10:05AM (3 children)
The antivaxxers have the luxury of 70-100 years of vaccines mostly eradicating all the old cripplers and killers so they can follow their various conspiracy theories without having to worry about suffering or dying from polio, or rubella, or tetanus, or diptheria, or ... . My neighbour still remembers classmates in iron lungs and metal leg braces because of polio, he's as pro-vax as you can get because he's seen first-hand what happens without the vaccines.
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Thursday April 13, @11:51PM (2 children)
"The antivaxxers have the luxury of 70-100 years of vaccines mostly eradicating all the old cripplers and killers"
You give them to easy an out, the older ones like that piece of shit Kennedy Jr. who is a few years older than me certainly seen it when a child.
I know I did around here though being born with a silver spoon in his mouth may have insulated him from the realities around him I do not give him or his other murdering bastards spreaders and supporters any out for the people they are killing with their garbage they spread.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 3, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Friday April 14, @03:34AM (1 child)
My 9th grade English teacher was a polio victim. Walked with a cane and looked like she was in her 60s, though she was actually in her 40s.
I got immunity to chicken pox the hard way. Had there been a vaccine back then, I so would have taken that over the week of misery the disease put me through. The 4th day was the worst. Spent that day naked on my hands and knees, because standing up was more exhausting. I was feverish, aching, dog tired, brain fogged, and the thought of food was nauseating. I so wanted to sleep, but couldn't thanks to even the softest sheets aggravating the maddening itchiness. Hands and knees I found the best compromise that kept as much of my skin as possible out of contact with cloth in combination with being the least tiring and easiest position. No, soaking in the tub did not help relieve the itchiness. Slathered calamine lotion on myself over and over, more to keep my hands occupied so I wouldn't scratch at the pustules and scar myself for life. Its help in soothing the itches was minimal. I couldn't even play video games or read, as that took more concentration than I could muster, and as for TV, there weren't hundreds of channels back then. The last thing I wanted to watch was some horrible daytime soap opera.
Perhaps the young anti-vaxxer deserves a very little sympathy, but the older anti-vaxxer person is the sort of imbecile who can somehow forget how crappy it was to lose a week or more to severe illness, even thought they personally suffered through it. Chicken pox was regarded as a light weight among the childhood diseases because it rarely killed or left a person disabled for life. The rest of them, such as polio, are not trifles and often did kill or disable.
(Score: 3, Informative) by RedGreen on Friday April 14, @05:00AM
I had what I like to call the year from hell. In grade seven it started with a sprain of the ankle so bad I could not walk for a month, the teachers sent the school work home so I could do it from there. Then the diseases started the mumps not once but twice because the side of my neck that was not swollen from the first infection got jealous and decided it was its turn. The came the measles and not to be outdone the German measles had to have its turn, next onto to scarlatina and of course the chicken pox like you, plus there were a couple of others I have forgotten now along with the usual colds and flus. I missed over half the year of school and more than a few times I was sitting in a desk in the hall when there as the teachers did not want to take the chance I was still infectious. It was a fun time. And a few years ago while getting my heart fixed I got to relive the chickenpox episode by having it reappear as the shingles every bit as painful and annoying as the first time around with that god damn rash you get.
These sub-human morons who go out of their way to have people suffer these painful preventable diseases deserve to be shot and pissed on and treated like the fucking piece of murdering garbage they are. And their slimy apologists bastards who make excuses for them to continue on their ways deserve it too, I have lost all tolerance for any of the shit they spew. They want to murder off the people fine let us kill them first before they get their chance to do it to us with all that foolishness.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Thursday April 13, @12:55AM (1 child)
There's precautions and monitoring that should be taken. But the anti-vax idiots have a point. It's not that big a problem for most people. And politicians weren't treating this as a real emergency either.
I think we have reason to be concerned that these same people would sabotage society's response to a much more lethal disease, but covid isn't that disease.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday April 13, @01:56PM
Well, except for the ~20% of infected who go on to develop long COVID, which is a miserable energy drain that can go straight to hell. That's a pretty invisible problem to everyone else though. At least unless you're looking at productivity numbers.
A lot of politicians weren't taking it seriously, though many were. But that's *always* been the case with pandemics - check out the political response to e.g. the Spanish Flu.
Treating them as the threats they are would immediately hurt their (donor's) profits, so a lot try to play it off as no big deal. At least until things get so bad it can no longer be denied (and, presumably, their smarter donors have had a chance to prepare themselves for the economic impacts) - at which point it's become a huge protracted problem that's directly affected lots of people, guaranteeing that the fear lingers once things are under control, causing economic recovery to lags dramatically.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Thursday April 13, @05:31AM (1 child)
Don't forget that a higher mortality rate can reduce the spread of a disease: the carriers may die off before they can infect others.
What scared many healthcare organisations was that Covid patients could be treated - but it required long hospital stays, overfillling hospitals. If your proposed increased mortality killed them off quicker, there might not have been the same concerns about overflowing wards.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday April 13, @02:06PM
True, but not as relevant to COVID, which is at it's most contagious in the days immediately before symptoms develop.
Also, increased mortality rate does not necessarily translate to increased mortality speed.
However, increased mortality rate would tend to dramatically increase the hospitalization rate, as a lot more people's survival would be in doubt.
And of course, overflowing hospital wards increase the mortality rate dramatically, as the limited available assistance must be rationed to only those with the best chance of recovery.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Gaaark on Wednesday April 12, @10:04PM
I'm hoping that 'they' go extra extreme-far-right-nutters that finally only the stupid will follow what they say and the rest will finally decide 'they' ARE nutters and stop supporting 'them'.
What we need is a disease that acts fast and kills near 100%: then 'they' will all die quickly because someone will tell them they should wear masks, so of course 'they' WON'T no matter what (unless it's Trump-dileicious, then they'll wear masks with a hole in them so they can blow Trump-dileicious. Then, maybe sanity will return.
(Trump-dileicious/Ron-de-sanctimonious.... same piece of poo, different asses.)
Can't believe anyone can actually watch/read Fox news. It's like the Toronto Sun: low-brow 'news' for the poorly educated.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday April 12, @10:36PM
Specifically, it was survivable enough that a large percentage of the population believed they'd be able to survive it, and the people dying would be somebody else who could be safely dubbed "unworthy", "weak", "evil", "expendable", etc. They'd believe that right up until the point where they were dying.
What Covid actually should have taught you is how many people exist out there that are perfectly willing to have other people die horribly to avoid any slight inconvenience to themselves. They are perfectly fine with the barista dying just so they can have a latte. And bosses were perfectly fine with their employees dropping dead just so they could wander through the office watching everybody fearfully trying to look busy.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday April 12, @05:10PM (5 children)
Show me a young man in Florida...
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12, @06:04PM (1 child)
> Show me a young man in Florida...
Navigate to: https://www.google.com/search?q=Florida+man [google.com] then click on "Images".
At least half of the men that come up for me look subjectively "young".
Of course all of them are doing something inane, or worse.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday April 12, @08:37PM
It could be far more less worser if you searched for Arkansas man, then click on Images.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday April 12, @10:26PM (1 child)
"Florida Man" is usually fairly young. Either that, or that small 2-digit number in the news story is their IQ, not their age.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday April 13, @06:40AM
Why can't it be both? As "Florida Man" ages (assuming they're not recipients of posthumous Darwin Awards), he gains more experience. So a Florida Man at age 40 is twice as smart as one at age 20. But given that the average is 100, that doesn't say much for him, even at age 80.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday April 13, @06:49PM
They make up 100% of the population so long as we omit all the old people!
(Score: -1, Troll) by darkfeline on Wednesday April 12, @06:52PM (12 children)
So basically, their first point is that because covid causes more cardiac issues, people should be told to get the vaccine which causes fewer cardiac issues. Well, at least that's more conscionable than forcing people.
Their second point is the lack of data. Presumably you'd have to go beyond Florida citizens to get enough data for a significant result. I wonder if studies like this one are better:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35613761/ [nih.gov]
To be clear, they did not delete data from their study, they removed text from their analysis that goes against their conclusion. God forbid anyone word things to suit their agenda, like claiming a study deleted data when it did not. After all, "deleting data" means a very specific thing in the context of studies, and we wouldn't want people to misunderstand any criticisms of a study, now would we?
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(Score: 4, Informative) by Tork on Wednesday April 12, @07:03PM (11 children)
umm...
Perhaps you weren't parsing the draft vs final nuance.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 2) by crm114 on Wednesday April 12, @07:20PM
Both are correct:
They did not *delete* data
They *omitted* data
Same result, but different (technical) techniques.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by darkfeline on Wednesday April 12, @07:30PM (9 children)
Stop playing coy. Of course words have multiple meanings and you could always pick a meaning to suit your narrative. Omitting a period is also "deleting data".
In the context of studies, deleting data means removing data points from your raw data set. For example, doing a study on whether getting shot kills you and "conveniently" removing the people who actually died and keeping the survivors. Failing to mention that not getting shot leads to a higher death rate from heart attack is not "deleting data". Assuming that it is relevant to keep the analogy going, it should have been included. But it is not deleting data.
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(Score: 5, Touché) by Tork on Wednesday April 12, @07:33PM
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12, @07:37PM (2 children)
(Score: 1, Troll) by darkfeline on Wednesday April 12, @08:15PM (1 child)
Most likely, either the Space key, the Backspace key, or the Control and X keys.
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(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12, @11:42PM
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday April 12, @08:17PM (4 children)
So let's say I do a study on the efficacy of vests. I dutifully record all of the instances where someone is shot, if they were or were not wearing a vest, and if they died or not. I then encase that data in concrete and sink it in the ocean. Then I write a final report mentioning only people wearing vests who died. Conclusion, wearing a vest can result in death. You maintain I did NOT delete data?
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12, @10:47PM (3 children)
Nuance. We can agree to disagree on the facts. Next question.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 13, @01:09AM
This is just a silly semantics argument. It doesn't rise to a disagreement about the facts. Given that the data was in the draft and deleted from the complete report, that supports a valid use of "deleted data". And the data was also omitted, supporting the use of "omitted data". Let's save the drama for a serious problem.
(Score: 3, Informative) by epitaxial on Thursday April 13, @05:09PM (1 child)
Lying by omission.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday April 13, @06:54PM
Nope, just lying.
Lying by omission would be to simply not mention the data one way or the other. To remove the data and base a conclusion on data you know is false is just normal lying.