Figures and Liars

It has been said that "figures don't lie but liars figure".

Mark Twain is also known for this quote about statistics.

The sentiment expressed in these quotes is popular because the fact is that most people have a difficult time with numbers.

Therefore, numbers and statistics can be used to manipulate people to further an agenda or narrative.

This was in evidence in the campaign of Zohran Mandami in New York City who told voters he is going to provide them with city owned grocery stores for lower prices, free public transportation, universal child care and lower housing costs.

When the question was put to him how all of this was going to be paid for he casually answered it can all be done by just taxing millionaires an extra 2%.

Let unsaid is that there are just 38,000 people that have that type of annual income in New York City out of a population of 8 million 

What he does not say is that extra 2% in tax rate actually will amount to a 52% increase in the income taxes paid by that small millionaire class.

The share of the income tax burden borne by the top 1% would increase from 40% of the total to 61%!

Source: https://www.empirecenter.org/publications/parsing-the-impact-of-mamdanis-tax-hike-plans/

Of course, all of this assumes that those high earners stay in New York City and do not move to New Jersey, Connecticut, Texas, Florida or somewhere else.

Mandami uses the absolute 2% tax rate to make the financial cost seem small when the reality is that the relative cost of the tax increase is very high.

Numbers don't lie. However, liars can make numbers misleading.

There is no area in which absolute risk and relative risk is used more deceptively than in the healthcare sector.

This was particularly true with Covid and the vaccines.

You are probably familiar with the claim that the vaccine trials were said to be 95% effective in reducing the risk of serious illness from Covid.

Bear in mind that the 95% claim was quickly conflated so that people believed the vaccine was 95% effective in preventing you from catching or transmitting Covid.

How did people get this idea?

People who were in positions of trust told them that.

The CDC Director said this at one time.

“We’re vaccinating so very fast, our data from the CDC today suggests, you know, that vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don’t get sick, and that it’s not just in the clinical trials but it’s also in real world data,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said.

President Joe Biden said this to the American people.

“You’re not going to get Covid if you have these vaccinations.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci claimed that the vaccines created a dead end for the virus.

Source: https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/553773-fauci-vaccinated-people-become-dead-ends-for-the-coronavirus/

None of these statements were true. 

Is this an example of how liars figure?

Or are these just examples of simple misinformation for purposes of "the greater good"?

The ability of the vaccines to prevent Covid or transmission of the virus was not even evaluated in the clinical trials or proven in the clinical trials. The vaccine was only evaluated on its ability to prevent SERIOUS illness. 

In fact, I pointed all of this out in October, 2020 (two months before the vaccines were first rolled out) in a blog post titled "What You Should Know About The Covid Vaccine".

Prevention of infection is the normal critical end point goal for any vaccine trial. The vaccine should be effective at preventing infection and stopping the spread of the virus. This is particularly important at this time when we have a virus that has caused a pandemic.

However, that is not the stated goal of the Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson vaccines that are currently in late stage trials with the expectation they will be ready for widespread distribution within several months.

The vaccines are to be considered a success merely if they reduce the severity of the symptoms of someone who is infected with Covid.

In effect, the clinical trials were designed to be a success merely because the bar was set so low.

However, even then, that result was framed as relative risk.

Absolute risk involves raw numbers.

It tells you the actual risk that something will happen.

The Pfizer Covid vaccine trial had 21,700 subjects in each clinical test arm.

In the vaccine arm, 8 of the 21,700 got seriously ill with Covid.

In the placebo arm, 162 out of 21,700 had the same result.

Even without the vaccine, 99.3% did not get seriously ill with Covid.

The absolute risk of catching a serious case of Covid without the vaccine was a mere 0.7% higher compared to those taking the vaccine.

However, the vaccines were marketed claiming there was a 95% risk reduction by comparing the 8 and 162.

How many people took the vaccines believing they were reducing their risk of catching Covid by 95% when the actual absolute risk reduction of serious illness was less than 1%?

It was the same with the Moderna vaccine.

It was marketed with the claim that it reduced the risk with Covid of 94%. That was relative risk.

The absolute risk reduction was only 1.2%.

How many parents vaccinated their children believing they were protecting them and others in their families from catching Covid when the actual risk reduction was effectively zero?

How many schools mandated Covid vaccination in order to attend classes when the actual risk reduction of serious illness was almost a rounding error?

This takes on added significance with the recent disclosure by the FDA's vaccine chief who stated in an internal memo that they have determined at least 10 children died as a direct result of the Covid vaccines. He also stated that the actual number is likely higher.

 

You can read the entire memo here.

I wrote this in April, 2021 (six months before the FDA gave the approval to vaccinate children).

The younger someone is the more they probably need to be concerned about any unknown longer term side effects of the vaccines since the accelerated preliminary clinical trials had no way of investigating these possible effects.

Considering the risks of Covid are practically zero for children (the chances of dying in an accident are almost 50x* more likely), and longer-term side effects of the vaccine are unknown, in my view there is no justification whatsoever for vaccinating this population.

In October, 2021, right after the decision of the FDA was made to approve the use of the Covid vaccine on children age 5-12, I wrote another blog post on the subject titled "The Biggest of Bets".

Why did I say that?

It was because the vaccines had seen very limited testing on children and the risks seemed to far outweigh any benefit. It had been known for a long time that children were at almost no risk of death or hospitalization from the virus in the first place.

What was the point of giving a vaccine to children with limited testing (especially on possible long-term effects) to prevent serious illness that we already knew from the data that they had almost no risk from?

It was the biggest of bets on something where there was essentially no upside.

All potential costs. No potential benefit. That is a really bad bet especially when it comes to children who have their whole life ahead of them.

Medical professionals directing the Covid response seemed to forget the foundational rule of medicine.

First, do no harm. 

My assessment also included looking at the relative and absolute risk that was reported in the clinical trials.

Sadly, it looks as if I was correct in everything I wrote about involving my concerns about vaccinating children and most everything else about the Covid vaccines.

In fact, former CDC Director Robert Redfield who was at the helm at the CDC when the pandemic began, and the vaccines were being developed, stated this week that the mRNA vaccines for Covid should be phased out and removed from the market because of their risk profile.

Link: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/former-cdc-director-calls-for-removal-of-mrna/id1471411980?i=1000740521213

Whether it involves raising taxes in New York City or hyping vaccines, you can see how absolute and relative numbers can be used to mislead and obscure the truth of any situation.

Anytime someone starts throwing numbers around take a step back and consider whether they are talking about absolute or relative numbers.

It is also wise to also put any numbers in context.

After all, as I often say in these pages, context is everything when assessing anything!

If you want to view a good video explaining the difference between absolute and relative risk I recommend you view the following video that will only take 2.5 minutes of your time.

Link: https://x.com/redpilldispensr/status/1986056439492657330

Now you can go figure all you want.