Some Facebook shares are pursuing a thesis of the financial journalist Robert Kogon – a character appreciated in the No vax circles – according to which the “scientists” have ascertained that a large part of the batches of mRNA vaccines against the new Coronavirus produced by Pfizer and destined for European Union were placebos, that the German government would have been aware and that all this would demonstrate the existence of a plan aimed at inventing a non-existent health emergency from scratch. This narrative is completely unfounded. Let’s see why.
For those in a hurry:
- The source of the narrative about Pfizer’s alleged placebo batches is an article by financial journalist Robert Kogon.
- Kogon cites the intervention of two scientists in an online broadcast in support of his theses: Punkt.Preradovic.
- The German scientists also cited a Danish study.
- The Danish study is actually a letter analyzing the variations in reports of serious adverse events in Denmark.
- The Danish authors do not speak of placebo, but of some never confirmed reports on some batches with reduced doses of mRNA.
- The fact that they report 32% of batches with no adverse events reported does not prove that they were placebos which can still be erroneously associated with certain effects.
- The authors of the letter speak of their preliminary observation affected by serious limitations due to the fact that the spontaneous reports to which they refer were not verified.
Analyses
Here’s how this narrative is circulated on Facebook:
Scientists have found evidence that a significant portion of Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine batches for the European Union may actually be placebos, and that the German government knew about it.
Another example:
The hypothesis that there were lots of placebo vaccines in circulation has always been aired, with simple water inside. Now we have a study that seems to support this hypothesis. At this point the questions get disturbing.
Kogon’s alleged sources
Kogon’s narrative is based on the statements of Gerald Dyker, professor of organic chemistry at the Ruhr University of Bochum, and Jörg Matysik, professor of analytical chemistry at the University of Leipzig. Both have mentioned in the online program Punkt.Preradovic a «study» (actually it is a letter) by some of their Danish colleagues, which would show «an enormous variation in adverse events associated with different lots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine». These divide the plots used in Denmark into three groups:
- Greens – with moderate levels of related adverse events (60% of the sample).
- Blue – with extraordinarily high levels of adverse events (5% of sample).
- Yellow – with zero adverse events (30% of the sample).
More precisely, the Danish authors speak of “blue, green and yellow trend lines” which included respectively “4.22%, 63.69% and 32.09% of all vaccine doses”.
The placebo effect and the limits of the Danish “study”.
«As Dyker says – continues Kogon -, “bad” observers could notice that “this is what placebos would look like”». But this Obviously it cannot be considered evidence. To understand this, it is necessary to think for a moment about the reason why the placebo effect is useful in real studies, where a group of patients is not given the real drug but a placebo, or rather a preparation without an active ingredient; this is because it is known that a number of patients will claim to have experienced benefits and/or adverse events related to the intake. After all, the Danish authors never use the term “placebo” in their letter, nor do they go to see if by chance that 30% of lots corresponded to an almost identical number of patients with severe forms of Covid-19; they don’t do any checking at all. They themselves explain the limits of their observation:
SAE’s voluntary reporting system operated by the DKMA in Denmark is a passive surveillance system similar to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) in the United States, and reports from these systems are prone to reporting errors, with the possibility of both under and over-reporting, as well as incomplete data and variable quality of reported information. […] The results suggest the existence of a lot-dependent safety signal for the BNT162b2 vaccine and further studies are needed to explore this preliminary observation and its consequences.
Conclusions
The idea that Pfizer had distributed a portion of placebo batches in Germany despite the Government being aware of it is a narrative that Kogon sets up by quoting two German professors who in turn make a free interpretation of a Danish work, which moreover it’s not even a study but a letter, where the researchers refer to leaked — and disputed — information suggesting that some of the first commercial batches of the BNT162b2 vaccine distributed in Denmark had lower-than-expected levels of intact mRNA. Then the authors focused on the variation in rates of serious adverse events between different batches of Pfizer’s vaccine and the need to closely monitor the quality and safety of vaccines during manufacturing and distribution.
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