The Vaccine Thread

[spopepro]

Disclaimer: Study funded by Moderna and Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (Bill Gates).

Yes, well, that’s how medicine development works, you know? The companies do their own work, document it thoroughly and publicly report.

You should pick apart the methodology if there are flaws. The funding source alone is not a flaw.

[Octave]

Disclaimer: Study funded by Moderna and Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (Bill Gates).

Per the previous adage: It's good to be the person who asks for an explanation as to why the anvil might be heavy, who determined it is heavy, and why we should care that it is heavy, rather than the person who simply accepts that the anvil is heavy and may hurt their feet.

That being said, nearly all pharmaceutical research is funded by the pharmaceutical companies developing the drugs. I've worked in both academic labs which perform contract work for pharmaceutical companies and I've worked for the companies themselves. Both of these environments include people with confirmation bias and people seeking to disprove hypotheses, as per the scientific method. Such is the nature of research. In my experience, bias is no more common within pharma than within the labs that independently research developing drugs. The purpose of publication and peer review is to control for potential bias. This is a pretty basic facet of scientific research.

[echappist]

Disclaimer: Study funded by Moderna and Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (Bill Gates).

I get that the materials used in the study (as in actual vaccine doses) are provided by Moderna, and that the manufacture of those doses per se are partially funded by Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation ("CEPI"); what I'm not seeing is anything saying that CEPI (or Gates himself) directly funded the study. The actual disclosure from the article (list taken from the article, bold emphasis original, underlining + italics added) is reproduced below, and it contradicts at least the part of your statement re: "Study funded by Moderna and Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (Bill Gates)." (emphases added).

This work used samples from the phase 1 mRNA-1273 study (NCT04283461) (9, 28). The study was conducted in collaboration with ModernaTX and funding for the manufacture of mRNA-1273 phase 1 material was provided by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation. We would like to thank E.O. Saphire for providing the spike plasmids and the LJI Clinical Core for healthy donor enrollment and blood sample procurement. Funding: The mRNA-1273 phase 1 study was sponsored and primarily funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, MD; in part with federal funds from the NIAID under grant awards UM1AI148373, to Kaiser Washington; UM1AI148576, UM1AI148684, and NIH P51 OD011132, to Emory University; NIH AID AI149644, and contract award HHSN272201500002C, to Emmes. This work was funded by the NIH NIAID under awards AI142742 (Cooperative Centers for Human Immunology) (A.S., S.C.) and NIH contract Nr. 75N9301900065 (D.W., A.S.). This work was additionally supported in part by LJI Institutional Funds and the NIAID under K08 award AI135078 (J.M.D.)

In other words, the contribution by CEPI (to which Gates contributes a minority amount, see below), is already wholly present in the contribution of materials from Moderna; and the actual study (as opposed to the materials used) is financially supported by federal government grants.

Then again, you have mentioned your distrust of Bill Gates on one other occasion, so perhaps it's illustrative to clarify what CEPI is (taken from an archived page of its website).

CEPI was founded in Davos by the governments of Norway and India, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, and the World Economic Forum.
To date, CEPI has secured financial support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust, the European Commission, and the governments of Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Ethiopia, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Norway and the United Kingdom.
Additional investment from sovereign governments, the private sector and philanthropic foundations has also been provided to support our urgent call for $2 billion to support our COVID-19 vaccine programmes.
In response to call the Governments of Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, European Commission, Finland, France, Greece,Germany, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Norway, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Serbia, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, alongside private sector companies and donations through the UN Foundation COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, have pledged financial contributions $1.4 billion towards the $2 billion CEPI urgently needs.

From an article by CBS in 2017 (time of founding of CEPI), the funding of CEPI up to the current pandemic as follows:

So far, CEPI has an initial investment of $460 million from private, public and philanthropic organizations. Norway plans to invest around $120 million in the initial five years, Japan will invest $25 million a year for a total of $125 million, and Germany will initially commit $10.6 million. Additionally, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Wellcome will invest $100 million each over the next five years.

I've seen reports that Gates donated an additional $20 million to CEPI directly in response to COVID. So that's $120 million to date, as compared to billions from national governments. Perhaps you have evidence stating that Gate's involvement is more nefarious than what is publicly known, but until you produce such documents, your inclusion of Gates himself in your objection to this study is a) not based on any evidence and b) nothing more than a red herring.

[classtimesailer]

100 of the 460 million start up dollars for CEPI was Gates money.
You can dive deep into CEPI's coordination group and find Gates all over it. You can be fine with that. I will object to anything Gates touches. He is a bad guy.

From the CEPI web site.
"The current members of the Joint Coordination Group include: WHO, GAVI, EMA, FDA, MSF, UNICEF, IFRC, AVAREF, NIBSC, and Wellcome."

[echappist]

100 of the 460 million start up dollars for CEPI was Gates money.
You can dive deep into CEPI's coordination group and find Gates all over it. You can be fine with that. I will object to anything Gates touches. He is a bad guy.

From the CEPI web site.
"The current members of the Joint Coordination Group include: WHO, GAVI, EMA, FDA, MSF, UNICEF, IFRC, AVAREF, NIBSC, and Wellcome."

That’s moving the goal post, isn’t it? Your original post (pun intended) strongly suggested that Gates was integral to CEPI and to the study reported in the article (the real point of your post); it can be inferred that you think Gates had an influence on the study itself, b/c out of all of CEPI’s founders and donors, you picked only him. The instant post certainly doesn’t detract from that interpretation (e.g. “ You can dive deep into CEPI's coordination group and find Gates all over it”). In case it isn’t clear, the authors conducting that study did not receive grants from Gates, full stop.

Besides, you still haven’t bothered to correct or amend your original statement. Nor have you produced evidence of why his involvement in vaccines is bad. A lot of this involvement was in direct response to pharmaceutical companies gutting or selling off their vaccine units, b/c those are not revenue generators. The 2014 Ebola outbreak was a major reason precipitating the creation of CEPI, b/c there’s very little financial incentive for vaccines whose intended recipients are mostly very poor.

What you have shown here is a level of critical reasoning not befitting of a high school educator. Just because the word “critical” is in “critical reasoning” does not mean that any type of criticism (such as the tangential and spurious ones in your post) constitutes a form of critical reasoning.

[vertical_doug]

I will add to Echappist here. Some aspects of Bill Gates are bad. His association with Epstein was one. But not all aspects of Bill Gates are bad.

Most of what you are objecting to here is not Bill Gates, but the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Gates Foundation did not invest in Moderna since that was founded in 2010 and AstraZeneca saw the value in that and became the lead. However, as Echappi says, after Ebola, Bill Gates became a believer in the need for vaccines, and invested in both CureVac and BioNtech. They also invested in VIR which works on monoclonal antibodies. All are owned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. So far, the foundation has made like 169 biotech/tech investments.

The Foundation also contributed to pandemic/cancer/polio research/eradication. Doesn't seem like a bad thing.

Because Melinda wants to advance Women's reproductive rights/ family planning, they also have investment in various technologies to try to advance women's health. I see this as a good thing.

Like any big organization, they make some really stupid decisions which have unintended consequences like the malaria nets which were used by local fishermen in the African Lakes region to net bait fish. (And the nets were so good, they started ot impact the fish populations in the lakes. )

The foundation is trying to give away 49 billion dollars while simultaneously investing some of the money into technology to help advance science in those areas. If they hit a winner like BioNtech, they will just have more money in the foundation to give away eventually. They are trying to give away 5% per year as to not be a evergreen charity which many donor directed ones are and these are a bit of a scam.


I do not think the sum total of Gates can be classified as simply good or evil... It's a rich ecosystem of good and bad.
Also as a teacher, I could see you having some animosity to the guy since more than a few Gates Foundation initiatives for education have not been teacher friendly.

[classtimesailer]

Well, we agree that much of the covid response would not exist without Gates money and I hope it ends well. And while I'm obviously rhetorically outclassed, I've been around a little while and for close to 3 decades watched helplessly as the likes of Carnegie, Rockefeller, Ford, Anderson, and Gates have decided how best to prepare my students, who are mostly poor and not white, for their future. It looks pretty bleak.

[vertical_doug]

I've been around a little while and for close to 3 decades watched helplessly as the likes of Carnegie, Rockefeller, Ford, Anderson, and Gates have decided how best to prepare my students, who are mostly poor and not white, for their future. It looks pretty bleak.

You get no pushback on this statement from me.

[beeatnik]

Post 203

Odd Bedfellows

GOP Rep. Madison Cawthorn 'Agrees With Black Lives Matter' on Vaccine Mandates
https://www.newsweek.com/gop-rep-mad...ndates-1631750

Vaccine Mandates Put Black Lives Matter Activists on Collision Course With Democrats
https://www.newsweek.com/vaccine-man...ocrats-1631612

Black people are less likely to be vaccinated against COVID-19, even though the pandemic has taken a disproportionate toll on them. Racial breakdowns of vaccination data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show Black Americans are lagging far behind other groups with only around 30 percent fully vaccinated.

This means vaccine requirements disproportionately impact the Black community, Hawk Newsome, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter Greater New York told Newsweek. His group is not affiliated with the Black Lives Matter Global Network.

Newsome, who organized a protest outside Carmine's earlier this week, pointed to recent data showing that less than half of the city's Black residents between the ages of 18 and 44 are vaccinated. "That means that you're excluding a tremendous amount of Black New Yorkers, from engaging in everyday actions," he said.

Wouldn't expect the national leadership of BLM to get behind this...


TH, what's your take on high voltage ionizers

https://4478e646-071e-4235-b5fd-24ce...5b04db4819.pdf

[zetroc]

Post 203

Odd Bedfellows

GOP Rep. Madison Cawthorn 'Agrees With Black Lives Matter' on Vaccine Mandates
https://www.newsweek.com/gop-rep-mad...ndates-1631750

Vaccine Mandates Put Black Lives Matter Activists on Collision Course With Democrats
https://www.newsweek.com/vaccine-man...ocrats-1631612

Black people are less likely to be vaccinated against COVID-19, even though the pandemic has taken a disproportionate toll on them. Racial breakdowns of vaccination data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show Black Americans are lagging far behind other groups with only around 30 percent fully vaccinated.

This means vaccine requirements disproportionately impact the Black community, Hawk Newsome, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter Greater New York told Newsweek. His group is not affiliated with the Black Lives Matter Global Network.

Newsome, who organized a protest outside Carmine's earlier this week, pointed to recent data showing that less than half of the city's Black residents between the ages of 18 and 44 are vaccinated. "That means that you're excluding a tremendous amount of Black New Yorkers, from engaging in everyday actions," he said.

Wouldn't expect the national leadership of BLM to get behind this...


TH, what's your take on high voltage ionizers

https://4478e646-071e-4235-b5fd-24ce...5b04db4819.pdf

Madison Cawthorn is literally a Neo-Nazi who should get zero airtime on this website. Further, Newsweek has been sold several times and is no better than the Daily Mail or Fox News at this point. They have lost all credibility and should be lent no credence in anyone's mind.

[beeatnik]

Those articles are not providing analysis. They're reporting an incident in NYC and how a GOP "Neo-Nazi" is responding to it. The titles are clickbait. But you can say that about the majority of established, mainstream news sources online. More interesting is the CDC number on vaccination in the black population. Much lower than anyone would have predicted...I think. The real (and troubling)question is will those numbers ever go up, surges and mandates aside.

[zetroc]

Those articles are not providing analysis. They're reporting an incident in NYC and how a GOP "Neo-Nazi" is responding to it. The titles are clickbait. But you can say that about the majority of established, mainstream news sources online. More interesting is the CDC number on vaccination in the black population. Much lower than anyone would have predicted...I think. The real (and troubling)question is will those numbers ever go up, surges and mandates aside.

They don't provide anything except clickbait-y attempts at gotcha journalism. Newsweek has no journalistic integrity or credibility anymore, and to base your arguments on their articles only shows your hand.

[Octave]

Those articles are not providing analysis. They're reporting an incident in NYC and how a GOP "Neo-Nazi" is responding to it. The titles are clickbait. But you can say that about the majority of established, mainstream news sources online. More interesting is the CDC number on vaccination in the black population. Much lower than anyone would have predicted...I think. The real (and troubling)question is will those numbers ever go up, surges and mandates aside.

So is the implication that, because voluntary vaccination rates in the black community are lower than the general population, the vaccine mandates are therefore unfairly impacting black people? Seems like a circuitous argument to me.

X is available freely for 9 months to both A and B. A shows high voluntary uptake rates, B shows low voluntary uptake rates. X becomes mandated. B is unfairly targeted by the mandate.

Sub "liberal Democrat" for A and "conservative Republican" for B. Or sub "Age 50-64 (72% fully vaccinated)" for A and "Age 18-24 (50.5% fully vaccinated)" for B.

[beeatnik]

Didn’t you state that Malcolm Gladwell can be intellectually honest because he’s connected to the auto industry. Would you apply that scrutiny or bias to Scott Gottlieb. Come on, man, this isn’t an argument on journalistic integrity. If you want to deconstruct those articles line by line, or correct non-factual issues, all good. This isn’t about the source. When I was a kid Newsweek was a better news source. That’s changed, ok. Next time I come across one of their articles I’ll spend twice the time fact checking it. As for argument, again, I’m not trying to convince you of anything except to stop being emotional and allow the complexities and “contradictions” to be discussed.

[zetroc]

Didn’t you state that Malcolm Gladwell can be intellectually honest because he’s connected to the auto industry. Would you apply that scrutiny or bias to Scott Gottlieb. Come on, man, this isn’t an argument on journalistic integrity. If you want to deconstruct those articles line by line, or correct non-factual issues, all good. This isn’t about the source. When I was a kid Newsweek was a better news source. That’s changed, ok. Next time I come across one of their articles I’ll spend twice the time fact checking it. As for argument, again, I’m not trying to convince you of anything except to stop being emotional and allow the complexities and “contradictions” to discussed.

I don't know who Scott Gottlieb is, but yes, I did say that about Malcolm Gladwell. What's your point?

[zetroc]

As for argument, again, I’m not trying to convince you of anything except to stop being emotional and allow the complexities and “contradictions” to be discussed.

https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

[beeatnik]

Limited knowledge of constitutional law and public health codes preclude me from positing an argument on the fairness of vaccine mandates vis a vis minority populations. And at the risk of offending some with sociological jargon, the reasons for low uptake in the younger black population is a mystery to me. Tho, it appears that many experts with good intentions oversimplify the issue. I have a theory about the Latino community. I'm convinced that in states where nearly half of Latinos were infected and more than 70% of under 60 deaths were Latinx persons, Covid-19 has been normalized. There's a type of acceptance not fatalism that few are unfortunate but many are not. We can call it apathy in the young.

So is the implication that, because voluntary vaccination rates in the black community are lower than the general population, the vaccine mandates are therefore unfairly impacting black people? Seems like a circuitous argument to me.

X is available freely for 9 months to both A and B. A shows high voluntary uptake rates, B shows low voluntary uptake rates. X becomes mandated. B is unfairly targeted by the mandate.

Sub "liberal Democrat" for A and "conservative Republican" for B. Or sub "Age 50-64 (72% fully vaccinated)" for A and "Age 18-24 (50.5% fully vaccinated)" for B.

[thollandpe]

TH, what's your take on high voltage ionizers

https://4478e646-071e-4235-b5fd-24ce...5b04db4819.pdf

Thank you for that. This is a bike forum and I'm gonna throw out some opinions.

Being that I may have specified similar gizmos in my professional life, I will tread carefully. The American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) states, "Convincing scientifically-rigorous, peer-reviewed studies do not currently exist on these emerging technologies; manufacturer data should be carefully considered." (Ref. https://www.ashrae.org/technical-res...n-disinfection) But this certainly looks like a scientifically rigorous test by a third party. Links below to the actual reports from EPA.

I've been careful to follow ASHRAE's guidelines, and have only recommended technologies like this as a third-tier defense, behind outdoor air ventilation and filtration (MERV-13 or better). ASHRAE also says, "Systems may emit ozone, some at high levels. Manufacturers are likely to have ozone generation test data." We only specify stuff that meets UL867 or UL2998 for ozone (the latter is stricter).

Disclosure, I did buy a unit for my house. I've taken it with me when I've had to travel overnight for business and rent a room.

I've also seen a lot of pushback given to clients who have put in this stuff, and some of it comes from people affiliated with competing technologies. It's disappointing to see that kind of predatory reverse marketing bullshit, particularly in this arena at this time.

Note that EPA also tested a three-stage device designed for public transit vehicles, it’s got an electrostatically-charged filter, UV-C light, and bipolar ionization. They did test the stages individually, and the data seems to show a reduction for bipolar ionization alone.

And my usual caveat: the most effective way to combat an aerosolized pathogen is to keep it in your damn head and out of the room to begin with. Masks on and masks up!

Aerosol Treatment Technology Evaluation - EPA

Results for Aerosol Treatment Technology Evaluation with Cold Plasma Bipolar Ionization Device - EPA

Results for Aerosol Treatment Technology Evaluation with the Knorr 3-Stage Air Filtration and Purification System - EPA

[beeatnik]

As always, great info.

A friend who works with HVAC systems informed me that there's pushback against the use of HEPA air purifiers in the UK, especially in the school setting. He said it's a question of efficacy which I was surprised to hear. He thinks that if they can figure out the ozone issue they may start using the high voltage ionizers.

[vertical_doug]

Limited knowledge of constitutional law and public health codes preclude me from positing an argument on the fairness of vaccine mandates vis a vis minority populations. And at the risk of offending some with sociological jargon, the reasons for low uptake in the younger black population is a mystery to me. Tho, it appears that many experts with good intentions oversimplify the issue. I have a theory about the Latino community. I'm convinced that in states where nearly half of Latinos were infected and more than 70% of under 60 deaths were Latinx persons, Covid-19 has been normalized. There's a type of acceptance not fatalism that few are unfortunate but many are not. We can call it apathy in the young.

No shoes, no shirt, no service. A young man comes in, isn't wearing a shirt, you throw him out of your shop. Doesn't matter what race he is. He chose not to wear a shirt.
No vaccination , no service. Doesn't matter what race, because again you chose not to be vaccinated. Particularly in NY, the issue is not access to vaccination. Heck , I was vaccinated on a Saturday in the Bronx. CVS open 7 days a week, just walk in. That's what I did.

The discrimination argument is bullshit.

If those women can travel from Texas to NYC, they surely can walk into a CVS to get a jab. And if the vaccination cards aren't fake, show those to the police as evidence in the case. The Carmine owner released the entire tape of the incident. If you have a problem with the staff, speak to the manager. Once you physically assault someone, you are the criminal. Full stop.