#scicheck

[kittyit]

Okay, so I looked at the paper you linked (DOI: 10.1101/2022.12.17.22283625) as well as an article about it (https://www(dot)factcheck(dot)org/2023/06/scicheck-cleveland-clinic-study-did-not-show-vaccines-increase-covid-19-risk/)! In the latter, they do point out that this is an observational survey rather than a randomized trial, which (I believe) increases the statistical impact of outside factors that could be difficult to control for (such as, whether people who got more vaccinations also behaved in more or less risky ways wrt transmission). For instance, one thing not accounted for in their analysis (according to the factcheck article) is pre-existing health issues, so it’s imaginable that the trend observed could be due at least partially to higher-risk people being more likely to get more shots. Also, there is (afaik) no currently proposed immunological mechanism by which we would expect more vaccinations to causally increase risk of infection. If you’ve already read that article then I apologize for just rehashing what was said there. To be completely honest, I can’t tell if the effect described in this study is worth factoring into your own vaccination decisions or not. Wish I had something more helpful to contribute here :/ I guess my own thinking is that I’ll probably keep getting whatever boosters are recommended by the CDC at least until I see these or similar findings robustly reproduced.

Thank you so much!! Honestly what I saw was fearmongering reporting on the study so I really appreciate an approachable explanation :) women are amazing

[frogeyedape]

Masks not effective? That would be seriously troubling if true. Let's take a look at that, shall we?

The link goes to The Jimmy Dore Show, with reliability rated as: Unreliable, Problematic (Ad Fontes Media). The dude is a known conspiracy theorist. The article he holds up as evidence that masks are 0% effective comes from Cochrane--see below.

The Cochrane study does NOT prove ineffectiveness of masking.

"Lisa Bero, Cochrane Public Health and Health Systems Senior Editor and an author on an Editorial published to accompany this review said, 'The results of this review should be interpreted cautiously, and the uncertain findings should not be taken as evidence that these measures are not effective.' "

Not convinced? Check this:

" 'Many commentators have claimed that a recently-updated Cochrane Review shows that "masks don’t work", which is an inaccurate and misleading interpretation,' Dr. Karla Soares-Weiser, the editor-in-chief of the Cochrane Library, said in a March 10 statement.

'It would be accurate to say that the review examined whether interventions to promote mask wearing help to slow the spread of respiratory viruses, and that the results were inconclusive,' she continued. 'Given the limitations in the primary evidence, the review is not able to address the question of whether mask-wearing itself reduces people’s risk of contracting or spreading respiratory viruses.' "

https://www.factcheck.org/2023/03/scicheck-what-the-cochrane-review-says-about-masks-for-covid-19-and-what-it-doesnt/

Masks work--they're not 100% effective, true, but they are significantly >0% effective, and are MORE effective when a larger % of the population 1) actually wears them, 2) wears them correctly, and 3) wears better masks. See:

This study modeled COVID transmission, and found that cloth and medical procedure masks, worn by 80% of people >=65 years and by 60% of people <65 years, are associated with a 69-78% reduction in cumulative COVID infections, and a 82-87% reduction in COVID related deaths.

Yes, there was not and is not enough being done about the continuation of COVID. At the same time, the interventions we do have ARE effective! Masking works! Vaccinations work! Both work much better with wide community use--remember learning about herd immunity protecting the few individuals who medically can't vaccinate?

By all means criticize and pressure the governments of all nations--don't spread misinformation while you're at it.

When those in power constantly lied about the little things, it isn't hard to see why people have tuned out--and even questioned whether masks were even effective against the virus.

[froggiefactchecker]

Fact Checking "COVID Isn't Real"

As I was scrolling through my X timeline, I came across a photo of a woman wearing a respirator mask for her first day of the semester, as she explains her high risk for severe COVID.

Checking the comments under the post, I spotted a fellow who objected to this claim, stating, “No, you are beyond high risk for buying into a lie.” Intriguing. 

Checking the account of the original poster, Vanessa, I could verify that she does indeed post masking advocacy content, and seems to be high-risk based on her content.

However, I want to examine the replier’s claim that it is not possible to be high-risk in general, let alone in Vanessa’s case.

Thus, I moseyed over to Factcheck.org, specifically to SciCheck, where I searched the term “high-risk.” Fact checks regarding an array of stories, like Paxlovid and other viral treatments, did indeed confirm that it is possible to be high-risk for severe COVID infection. “The drug had posted impressive results in a randomized controlled trial, which found high-risk patients who took the pills [were able to recover]…” (SciCheck) Here, we can clearly see that medications and trials are being recommended to individuals with underlying health conditions that could worsen one’s infection, commonly referred to as high-risk conditions. Verdict: it is indeed possible to be high-risk for (severe) COVID.

However, one thing that really caught my attention was the link that the commenter added under his post. Upon clicking, I was taken to a site entitled “fluoridefreepeel.ca,” specifically an article called “217 health/science institutions worldwide all failed to cite even 1 record of “SARS-COV-2” purification, by anyone, anywhere, ever” by “Christine” (no last name).

In this article, the author refers to SARS-COV-2 in quotations, or simply as “it.” They do this presumably because of their statement that a selection of health organizations have failed to cite “purified” forms of the virus for sequencing; thus, they explain, “no one on the planet has a pure sample of the alleged virus,” and “there are no validated tests” for detecting, or proving the existence of, COVID. 

My first question was what she meant by “purified.” I searched the terms “purified,” “purified sample,” and “purified COVID” on FactCheck.org, SciCheck, Snopes, Truth Be Told and NPR Fact Check, and came up with zero results. It would seem that this phrase is not a verifiable piece of fact in the scientific community, and I could not conclude that it means anything at all. 

Further, the author stated that none of the referenced health organizations could prove, overall, that SARS-COV-2 even exists. Intrigued, I entered the term SARS-COV-2 into SciCheck’s data bases, and found not only that the virus does exist, but also that there is a wealth of information about its variants, symptoms, treatments and other traits provided by the verified scientific community.

To wrap up, I concluded that it is possible to be high-risk for COVID, and also that COVID does indeed exist, in case anyone was wondering.

[media-bias-fact-check]

Young Children Do Not Receive Medical Gender Transition Treatment

Young Children Do Not Receive Medical Gender Transition Treatment #TransgenderDisinformation #EpochTimes

SciCheck Digest Families seeking information from a health care provider about a young child’s gender identity may have their questions answered or receive counseling. Some posts share a misleading claim that toddlers are being “transitioned.” To be clear, prepubescent children are not offered transition surgery or drugs. Full Story Some children identify with a gender that does not match their…

[reportwire]

Posts Make False Comparisons Between COVID-19 Immunity From Infections and Vaccines - FactCheck.org

SciCheck Digest Vaccination and infection both provide protective immunity to COVID-19, particularly against severe disease. But gaining immunity through infection is far riskier than vaccination. Posts citing a new Lancet study omit that important context and also misleadingly claim the study shows immunity after infection is superior to vaccination immunity. A co-author of the study told…

[boreal-sea]

@subconsciousjedi

What about RFK Jr.'s policies and beliefs below do you like? What makes him a good candidate in your eyes? What makes him better than Biden and Trump?

Here is just a short list of some of RFK Jr.'s policies/beliefs:

He supports Israel. I'm putting this up top because this is the one issue everyone has decided makes Biden "hyper-corrupt", so I'm flat out letting you know that RFK Jr. supports Israel too. In fact, he considers their war against Hamas a "moral war".

He is anti-vax and thinks vaccines cause autism. He started the Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vax organization that spreads anti-vax propaganda. He helped cause a massive outbreak of measles in America Samoa that killed 83 people including children in 2018.

He believes and spreads many conspiracy theories, including that HIV might not be the only/true cause of AIDS, antidepressants cause school shootings, herbicides turn kids trans, and Wifi and 5G cause cancer.

So again, what about those policies and beliefs do you LIKE? What among those beliefs makes him BETTER than Biden?

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/rfk-jr-abortion-vaccines-housing-foreign-policy-2024-03-20/

“By the usual measures, Biden should be cruising to reëlection. Violent crime has dropped to nearly a fifty-year low, unemployment is below four per cent, and in January the S. & P. 500 and the Dow hit record highs. More Americans than ever have health insurance, and the country is producing more energy than at any previous moment in its history. His opponent, who is facing ninety-one criminal counts, has suggested that if he is elected he will fire as many as fifty thousand civil servants and replace them with loyalists, deputize the National Guard as a mass-deportation force, and root out what he calls “the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.””

— Joe Biden’s Last Campaign

[sarcasticcynic]

Back in November, Trump personally approved a formal Major Disaster Declaration for California’s devastating Woolsey and Camp Fires. Now, however, he’s pissed off that California doesn’t want his big, beautiful vanity wall along its shared border with Mexico. So President Petty announced that he has ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to stop sending disaster funds to California altogether:

“Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forrest [sic] fires that, with proper Forrest [sic] Management, would never happen. Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money. It is a disgraceful situation in lives & money!”

Blaming a supposed lack of “proper Forrest [sic] Management” was false when Trump tweeted it in November, and it’s false now:

“Trump’s claim that forest management is solely or even largely responsible for these fires is false. Experts told us neither of the wildfires are true forest fires, and wind was a presiding factor that quickly spread the flames. Dry, hot conditions — both of which are exacerbated by climate change — made the fires possible and gave them extra life.”

Additionally--as the California Professional Firefighters (and many others) told Trump in November--over 90% of California’s forests are not under the state’s control, and in fact the federal government is responsible for managing the majority of them:

“The president’s assertion that California’s forest management policies are to blame for catastrophic wildfire is dangerously wrong. Wildfires are sparked and spread not only in forested areas but in populated areas and open fields fueled by parched vegetation, high winds, low humidity and geography. Moreover, nearly 60 percent of California forests are under federal management, and another one-third under private control. It is the federal government that has chosen to divert resources away from forest management, not California.”

But Trump’s skull is impervious to facts.

(And to spelling.)

[columbia-canaille]

Fact Checkers Funded by the Vaccine Industry

The fact-checkers at Factcheck.org are indirectly funded by Johnson & Johnson. 

The fact-checkers are funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), who holds almost $2 billion of stock in Johnson & Johnson. 

Richard Besser, the president and CEO of RWJF, was also Director of the CDC in 2009.

The foundation was also originally founded by the late Robert Wood Johnson II, who was president of Johnson & Johnson from 1932 to 1963.

https://rumble.com/vkryik-fact-checkers-funded-by-vaccine-industry.html

https://www.factcheck.org/2021/04/scicheck-and-our-committment-to-transparency/ 

The fact-checkers claim to be independent, but are funded by an organization that holds over $1.9 billion of stock in a vaccine company, is run by a former director of the Center of Disease Control (CDC), and was founded by a president of Johnson & Johnson. 

[ink-dreams-ffxiv]

Something to be aware of, and this is based on my personal experience. Not all States and it's communities are "Covid Friendly". A large majority of the population latched onto much of the misinformation regarding Covid. Idaho for instance attempted to pass a bill (multiple times) that would make any Medical Worker who administered the Covid Vaccine within the State, whether the patient requested it or not, a criminal offense.

https://www.drugtopics.com/view/idaho-bill-looks-to-criminalize-administration-of-mrna-vaccines https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2023/02/18/new-idaho-bill-would-criminalize-anyone-administering-covid-19-mrna-vaccines/?sh=18e503383ba8

I have come very very close to being Violently Physically Assaulted for wearing a mask in public. I have had people walk up and spit on me in public (Yes, this constitutes assault, but the likely hood of an arrest or prosecution in this state is laughable, even with video). This creates it's own issues. I have already had Covid 3 times, in all three cases, I have ended up with Long Covid symptoms. Because the third time, I was still heavily into the Long Covid symptoms from the second infection, just gotten back to a manageable level, I was hit even harder than ever before. Bad enough, that the "threat" of being hospitalized with the last two cases, very nearly became a reality. Being detained at Doctor visits until my O2 stats came back up became the norm. One doctor wanted to send me home with an O2 monitor, but insurance wouldn't cover it, and I didn't have the money or resources to get my own, because, let's face it, six months of no pay, when your pay is already low makes it really difficult. Here is an Idaho/Washington Doctor who is part of the Idaho Regional Medical Board, who recently had his Medical License Restricted in Washington because of Covid Misinformation, but, is still part of the Idaho Board. https://www.factcheck.org/2021/04/scicheck-idaho-doctor-makes-baseless-claims-about-safety-of-covid-19-vaccines/

https://www.idahopress.com/news/local/washington-regulators-restrict-medical-license-of-idaho-doctor-who-spread-covid-19-disinformation/article_af434252-b49c-11ee-b2a3-b7a4b5e2cdb8.html Because so many points of Contact in Idaho are ignored, wearing a mask is no guarantee of protection, and comes with the additional threat of bodily harm, it just isn't safe to wear one depending on where you have to go in public. Personal space is completely ignored, especially when wearing a mask. People, not just males, but women as well, will clearly and intentionally make physical contact with you, and claim it was an accident. The point of all this? Depending on where you live, it just might not be safe to wear a mask in public, even though, you are doing the right thing, not just for yourself, but for others as well. Btw, before you ask me "Why don't you just move!" that would require money, I don't have, and a place to move to, that again, I don't have, and the prospect of a job, which, I still have long covid, who is going to be willing to hire me?

know someone who enjoys horror stories? share this one! it's true!

hahahahahahahahahaha aarrggghhhhhhhhhh 3,000,000 deaths due to COVID-19 last year. Globally. Three million. Case rates higher than 90% of the rest of the pandemic. The reason people are still worried about COVID is because it has a way of quietly fucking up your body. And the risk is cumulative.

I'm going to say that again: the risk is cumulative.

It's not just that a lot of people get bad long-term effects from it. One in seven or so? Enough that it's kind of the Russian Roulette of diseases. It's also that the more times you get it, the higher that risk becomes. Like if each time you survived Russian Roulette, the empty chamber was removed from the gun entirely. The worst part is that, psychologically, we have the absolute opposite reaction. If we survive something with no ill effects, we assume it's pretty safe. It is really, really hard to override that sense of, "Ok, well, I got it and now I probably have a lot of immunity and also it wasn't that bad." It is not a respiratory disease. Airborne, yes. Respiratory disease, no: not a cold, not a flu, not RSV.

Like measles (or maybe chickenpox?), it starts with respiratory symptoms. And then it moves to other parts of your body. It seems to target the lungs, the digestive system, the heart, and the brain the most.

It also hits the immune system really hard - a lot of people are suddenly more susceptible to completely unrelated viruses. People get brain fog, migraines, forget things they used to know.

(I really, really hate that it can cross the blood-brain barrier. NOTHING SHOULD EVER CROSS THE BLOOD-BRAIN BARRIER IT IS THERE FOR A REASON.) Anecdotal examples of this shit are horrifying. I've seen people talk about coworkers who've had COVID five or more times, and now their work... just often doesn't make sense? They send emails that say things like, "Sorry, I didn't mean Los Angeles, I meant Los Angeles."

Or they insist they've never heard of some project that they were actually in charge of a year or two before.

Or their work is just kind of falling apart, and they don't seem to be aware of it.

People talk about how they don't want to get the person in trouble, so their team just works around it. Or they describe neighbors and relatives who had COVID repeatedly, were nearly hospitalized, talked about how incredibly sick they felt at the time... and now swear they've only had it once and it wasn't bad, they barely even noticed it.

(As someone who lived with severe dissociation for most of my life, this is a genuinely terrifying idea to me. I've already spent my whole life being like, "but what if I told them that already? but what if I did do that? what if that did happen to me and I just don't remember?") One of its known effects in the brain is to increase impulsivity and risk-taking, which is real fucking convenient honestly. What a fantastic fucking mutation. So happy for it on that one. Yes, please make it seem less important to wear a mask and get vaccinated. I'm not screaming internally at all now.

I saw a tweet from someone last year whose family hadn't had COVID yet, who were still masking in public, including school.

She said that her son was no kind of an athlete. Solidly bottom middle of the pack in gym.

And suddenly, this year, he was absolutely blowing past all the other kids who had to run the mile. He wasn't running any faster. His times weren't fantastic or anything. It's just that the rest of the kids were worse than him now. For some reason. I think about that a lot. (Like my incredibly active six-year-old getting a cold, and suddenly developing post-viral asthma that looked like pneumonia.

He went back to school the day before yesterday, after being home for a month and using preventative inhalers for almost week.

He told me that it was GREAT - except that he couldn't run as much at recess, because he immediately got really tired. Like how I went outside with him to do some yard work and felt like my body couldn't figure out how to increase breathing and heart rate.

I wasn't physically out of breath, but I felt like I was out of breath. That COVID feeling people describe, of "I'm not getting enough air." Except that I didn't have that problem when I had COVID.) Some people don't observe any long (or medium) term side effects after they have it.

But researchers have found viral reservoirs of COVID-19 in everyone they've studied who had it.

It just seems to hang out, dormant, for... well, longer than we've had an opportunity to observe it, so far.

(I definitely watched that literal horror movie. I think that's an entire genre. The alien dormant under ice in the Arctic.)

(oh hey I don't like that either!!!!!!!!!) All of which is to explain why we should still care about avoiding it, and how it manages to still cause excess deaths. Measuring excess deaths has been a standard tool in public health for a long time.

We know how many people usually die from all different causes, every year. So we can tell if, for example, deaths from heart disease have gone way up in the past three years, and look for reasons. Those are excess deaths: deaths that, four years ago, would not have happened. During the pandemic, excess death rates have been a really important tool. For all sorts of reasons. Like, sometimes people die from COVID without ever getting tested, and the official cause is listed as something else because nobody knows they had COVID. But also, people are dying from cardiovascular illness much younger now.

People are having strokes and heart attacks younger, and more often, than they did before the pandemic started. COVID causes a lot of problems. And some of those problems kill people. And some of them make it easier for other things to kill us. Lung damage from COVID leading to lungs collapsing, or to pneumonia, or to a pulmonary embolism, for example. The Economist built a machine-learning model with a 95% confidence interval that gauges excess death statistics around the world, to tell them what the true toll of the ongoing COVID pandemic has been so far.

Total excess deaths globally in 2023: Three million.

3,000,000.

Official COVID-19 deaths globally so far: Seven million. 7,000,000. Total excess deaths during COVID so far: Thirty-five point two million. 35,200,000.

Five times as many.

That's bad. I don't like that at all. I'm glad last year was less than a tenth of that. I'm not particularly confident about that continuing, though, because last year we started a period of really high COVID transmission. Case rates higher than 90% of the rest of the pandemic. Here's their data, and charts you can play with, and links to detailed information on how they did all of this:

Here's a non-paywalled link to it:

https://archive.vn/2024.01.26-012536/https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-estimates

Oh: here's a link to where you can buy comfy, effective N95 masks in all sizes:

Those ones are about a buck each after shipping - about $30 for a box of 30. They also have sample packs for a dollar, so you can try a couple of different sizes and styles.

You can wear an N95 mask for about 40 total hours before the effectiveness really drops, so that's like a dollar for a week of wear.

They're also family-owned and have cat-shaped masks and I really love them. These ones are cuter and in a much wider range of colors, prints, and styles, but they're also more expensive; they range from $1.80 to $3 for a mask. ($18-$30 for a box of ten.)

[conservativecathy444]

https://www.factcheck.org/2021/07/scicheck-viral-claim-gets-bidens-covid-19-travel-and-immigration-policies-wrong/

[mushpamensa]

Pledge Truth

The news needs to be true. You can help make truth possible by checking out Factcheck.org as a starting point. Let yourself get lost in finding the truth and then spread it all over that wondrous world wide web. Factcheck.org sister sites include FlackCheck.org, which provides resources to help you recognize flaws in arguments in…

[mycroftrh]

That is not true.

https://www.factcheck.org/2021/07/scicheck-viral-posts-misrepresent-cdc-announcement-on-covid-19-pcr-test/

If you don't care to read the link, what the CDC actually said was "now that there are more tests available, we're not handing out our own anymore, theirs can get results more quickly".

Some of the OTHER tests, that the CDC is saying to use now, test (INDEPENDENTLY) for both COVID and flu, and that is one of the reasons the CDC is saying to use them instead. You only get swabbed once, and then they give you an answer for if you have COVID, and, separately, if you have flu.

The part about testing for both COVID and flu:

a) Is not about the CDC's test. It is about other tests.

b) Does not say that the other tests can't distinguish, but that they are able to test for both, and get separate answers, without having to swab twice.

The CDC PCR test does not give positives for flu. It tests only for COVID.

when reading statistics like 99.5% of recent covid deaths are unvaccinated people please keep in mind that this is not a population of petulant assholes who refuse to be vaccinated. every person who cannot be vaccinated for legitimate medical reasons counts in that statistic.

disabled people are still actively being punished for misinformation pushed by science denialists. don’t forget them

[immigrationnewsdigest]

A Pfizer document recently released by the Food and Drug Administration describes adverse events reported following vaccination and attests to the continued safety of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine. Social media posts distort the document. #scicheck https://t.co/vnGS97ASkp

— FactCheck.org (@factcheckdotorg) Mar 18, 2022

[media-bias-fact-check]

Viral Tweet Misrepresents NOAA Report on Rising Global Temperature

Viral Tweet Misrepresents NOAA Report on Rising Global Temperature

SciCheck Digest The warming trend in global temperature continued in 2022, which was the sixth-warmest year on record, according to a recent report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. But a viral tweet — using just a small segment of a NOAA graph — wrongly claimed the agency had announced a “global cooling” trend. Full Story The sixth-warmest year on record was in 2022, the…