The egg, Corona and some news about vaccinations

Posted On 22/06/2021

A year ago, a remarkable article appeared in the British Medical Journal [1]. I wrote about it in more detail in my column in Karger Compass Pneumonology. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health rehabilitated the egg as a food after more than 50 years of research. No: eggs are not to blame for heart attacks. No: eggs do not raise cholesterol in the blood, even if they themselves contain a lot. Why? Because, as we have known for a long time, the body keeps cholesterol within narrow limits and dietary cholesterol is not involved in raising blood cholesterol. Now we finally know with scientific certainty what we have actually always known. After 33 large cohort studies, 5 million person-years of more than 200,000 people, the longest study running since 1976, we know for sure. The connection between egg consumption and heart attacks is zero.

Ancel Keys had put forward the cholesterol-heart attack hypothesis in the 1950s and promoted it aggressively, including with false data, or more precisely with a targeted selection of data. The relationship between fat consumption and coronary heart disease (CHD) was measured in 22 countries. The correlation was barely existent. But Keys cleverly selected 6 countries with which a perfect correlation could be shown and claimed that the link was thus proven [2]. Two statisticians showed the entire data set a few years later and pointed out that Keys’ statement was due to a typical error, selective data selection [3]. 

Only, by then no one took any notice of it. Because the fat-cholesterol thesis was on its way to becoming mainstream opinion. This was helped along by a little money from the sugar industry, which commissioned other researchers to review the literature, not without hinting at what would be the best outcome if more money was to flow. I have written about this at length. So the whole thing was a colossal scientific error, brought about by the following factors:

1. Some science matadors with very big egos and very bad data aggressively asserted themselves.
2. One industry – in this case the sugar industry – smelled that this could be quite useful to them and jumped on the slow-moving bandwagon, thereby accelerating it.
3. Finally, politics was worked on through skilful lobbying. Hearings, panels and finally parliamentary working groups cast regulations in concrete, so that today our mineral water bottles must say: contains 0% fat.
4. This was all done on the basis of extremely bad data, a bit of scientific cosmetics and with a lot of narcissistic investment capital.
5. It became extremely complicated to get rid of the nonsense. It is not difficult to install false opinions. You only need enough chutzpah to do it. But it is extremely difficult to get rid of them again. You need very good data to do it. In the egg case, this took 50 years and consumed an estimated 3-digit million sum in research funds.

I think we will discover – hopefully not for another 50 years – that we are dealing with a similar mix with the Corona crisis. Every myth has a basis in reality – the egg contains a lot of cholesterol, that was not a lie, and in a small group of people who have a family genetic predisposition to it, a lot of cholesterol in the diet also leads to elevated levels in the blood. 

This is also the case here: the SARS-CoV2 virus is there, too, and in some people who are immunologically susceptible to it, it also leads to severe illness, and in some cases to death. But it by no means does this to everyone and the numbers, as I have pointed out several times, are no more alarming than in a severe flu epidemic. The meta-analysis by John Ioannidis estimates the Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) across all countries at 0.15% or 1.5 per thousand [4]. According to the CDC, influenza accounts for 0.015% and the historical overview by Doshi comes to 0.01% [5].

Thornley and colleagues point out that the true IFR in the case of Covid-19 is most likely overestimated by at least an order of magnitude compared to influenza: through poorer case definition, increased counting of deaths and underestimation of infection rates. From this point of view, I think it is quite justified to compare the two in terms of IFR. There are clearly differences: it is mainly the elderly who die from covid-19 and the burden on the health system is higher due to ventilation.

I have already pointed out that a large part of the problem comes from the fact that we were initially presented with unstandardised case numbers that gave the impression of increasing momentum. Then came the apparently standardised something-per-100,000-inhabitants incidence, which was not justified or justifiable by anything at all, because it is based on pure biochemistry and not on clinical symptoms or reliable figures.

Why all this? Because of a new myth in the style of the egg myth, namely that of the potential danger of asymptomatic PCR-positive test persons. I’ll say a few words about that in a moment.

These two apparent facts, the apparently 10-fold higher IFR of Covid-19 compared to influenza and the dangerousness of the asymptomatic positive, play the same role in the case of Covid-19 as Ancel Key’s data selection: not quite wrong, but not quite right either. It was through this selective perception that the train started rolling. It was accelerated by the potential breakthrough in vaccine RNA technology. And now it is rolling. The question is how long it will roll and how many it will run over. I hope that at some point it can be stopped by common sense.

The myth of the asymptomatically contagious

The testeritis is due to the concern that SARS-CoV2 positives could be overlooked and then pass the disease on to others without knowing or wanting to. Up to now, the rule in virology, if I understand it correctly, has been: Only symptomatic patients can pass on infections. Now, for the first time, that seemed to be undermined. The data basis for this is weak. An early meta-analysis [6] found abnormalities in lung CTs in more than half of asymptomatic cases. What apparently did not surprise the authors, but did surprise me, is the fact that this finding was reported in only three of 7 studies. So the finding was by no means universal and could therefore well have been due to some peculiarities. 

Early tracing studies, such as the first cluster from Japan [7], came to the conclusion that asymptomatic people are hardly infectious. They assumed that transmission occurs similarly to symptomatic people – this is very important to understand – and calculated a factor of 0.28 on this basis, i.e. about a quarter of the risk of infection. This is also calculated by others in this way. But is the assumption correct? In the meta-analysis by Yanes-Lane [8], the data basis is also narrow: five of seven studies with 18 of 96 persons, i.e. 19%, documented the passing on of an infection in asymptomatic patients. 

The only study that was rated high quality showed no transmission of infection by asymptomatic people. 

All studies that found such asymptomatic transmission reported a 100% infection rate. All of them were from China. The two studies that found no transmission were from Korea and Taiwan; I had already cited these studies several times [9] because they included all close contacts. In the meantime, I have come across a new study that is not included in the meta-analysis [10]. It comes from Wuhan and states that no transmission of infection by asymptomatic people was found. So what do we have to back up the story of the danger of asymptomatic people being certified as having Covid-19 disease with a highly sensitive PCR test, even though they do not have or develop any symptoms? We have a handful of small studies, all from China. The methodologically better studies, and strangely enough the ones that are not from China, do not show this asymptomatic transmission. Maybe there are genetic differences?

An earlier study comes from Singapore [11]. There, all PCR-positive persons found in a cluster and their contacts were quarantined, a total of 628 persons and their 3790 contacts. 89, i.e. 2% of these developed Covid-19, more precisely, tested positive. And half of those again, 50, were contacts of asymptomatic people. So the number is not large and we are talking about PCR-positive tested people. So: a very small number, about 1%, of the contacts of people who have tested PCR-positive but are asymptomatic, will also test PCR-positive after a while. 

However, this does not mean that they are sick, they have only tested positive. And according to all the later published literature that I quoted above, such people are rarely active carriers of the disease. They probably do exist, in a very small fraction. But is this fraction relevant? Can one derive from it such massive measures as closures of all kinds of institutions, compulsory masks for children, etc.? Actually, only if you buy into the double narrative of the killer virus and the delusion that you can keep a society free of it. You can. Namely, if you erase everything that constitutes the essence of a society.

In any case, this part of the story rests on very weak legs. But this is precisely the argument for the test rage.

The quick tests

This is where the practical rapid tests come into play. This is a really great invention, it seems. Every child is appointed chief laboratory assistant here. Because anyone can do such quick tests. I’ve already done one, had to do one, when I was at a conference where you weren’t allowed in without one. You push a stick into your nostrils, as far up as possible without penetrating the brain, rub it off and put the stick into a reagent solution. There are antibodies bound to gold nanoparticles in it, which then indicate with the help of a reaction on a band whether one has positive IgA, i.e. mucosal antibodies against SARS-CoV2 and thus an acute immune reaction against this virus. Sounds kind of good and plausible. And because they are so fast, every pub, every hairdresser and every supermarket can now claim them.

The Bundestag has kindly asked Prof. Bergholz to submit a risk analysis. It can be found on the internet [12], but not yet as a Bundestag printed paper, which will probably take some time. I have asked the author himself about the details and procedures. The report comes to a devastating conclusion: the rods are vapourised with ethylene oxide, which is classified as carcinogenic. This is used for disinfection and continues to evaporate for a long time. Bergholz quotes other data, according to which about 149 micrograms per gram of rod continue to evaporate from such rods for a long time. This is not irrelevant because we take these sticks deep into the nose and thus very close to the brain, apart from the fact that the evaporation also happens beforehand. Why do we use this substance of all things, I asked Mr Bergholz? Because it is cheap. Less dangerous methods, such as irradiation with X-rays, or perhaps UV light, are obviously more expensive. And now we are exposing ourselves and above all our children to this substance, which is known to be carcinogenic and is labelled as such in official guidelines, in order to banish a vague danger, namely the potential infectivity of asymptomatic test positives?

I have not yet said a word about the gold nanoparticles and the other substances contained in the reagents, which will eventually end up in the household waste if the hamster or the children do not swallow them first. They are mildly toxic and should actually be classified as hazardous goods … but let’s not go there, read for yourself. It is worthwhile, but not suitable as bedtime reading.

Once again: Vaccinations

At one point it was said that vaccination would end the pandemic. Various readers wrote to me in response to my blog, in which I discussed the costs and benefits of vaccines. I then analysed the data again with two colleagues, Rainer Klement and Wouter Aukema, and got help with the calculations so that no errors could creep in. Wouter Aukema is a data analysis specialist and has found out that the most careful reporting morals in Europe are in Holland. There, more than 5 times as many side effects are reported than the EU average. Germany reports only a third of the side effects of the EU average. If we assume that vaccinations are equally good or bad in all European countries and produce roughly the same number of side effects everywhere, then this means that the German authorities and doctors have a poor reporting system. The Dutch authorities also manage the EMA’s ADR database on Covid-19 vaccines, Wouter Aukema has found out. And the serious cases reported there are all checked again by doctors for causality and correlation.

We used this data for a new paper that is currently under peer review at a journal that did not want to put the paper on their preprint server before the end of peer review. So it will still take a little while. But I want to report briefly here:

We are currently seeing 4.11 deaths per 100,000 vaccinations caused by the vaccines. We save somewhere between 6 and a maximum of 33 lives from the vaccines. We also produce 700 side effects, 16 of them severe for every 100,000 vaccinations. If we were dealing with the plague or Ebola, one could understand that. But with this pathogen? There is not a single other vaccine on God’s wide earth that has such a poor risk-benefit balance. This, by the way, mirrors US data. They find 3.4 deaths per 100,000 vaccinations [13]. One should not forget: such databases suffer notoriously from a lack of reporting morality. Empirical studies have found that the so-called “underreporting” of adverse drug reactions is as high as 95 % [14, 15].

The most dangerous side effects are thrombotic events. This creates blood clots that block vessels and, in the worst case, can lead to strokes, embolisms or heart attacks. Those who want to read up on this and know English will find good explanations on the blog of the English cardiologist Malcolm Kendrick. In brief: The inner walls of blood vessels, the epithelium of the vessels, also have relatively many ACE2 receptors. This is not surprising, because the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) is important for the regulation of blood pressure, which is also regulated by the tension of the vessels.

Recently, it was also proven that Covid-19 is actually a vascular disease because the virus affects the ACE2 receptors in the vessels [16]. Now researchers from Ulm have found out why this is the problem, especially with all vector vaccines, such as those from AstraZeneca: namely, these produce soluble spike mimics, i.e. mimics of the very spike proteins that the virus uses to dock with the ACE2 receptors [17]. This explains why thrombotic events suddenly become a problem, at least with vector vaccines: The soluble spike mimicrys that circulate dock here and there at ACE2 receptors, just like the real spike proteins of the virus do, trigger an autoimmune reaction there, because the immune system now attacks these cells, and ready is the inflammatory process that leads to a thrombotic blood clot. Except that it was not the virus, but the vaccine. The authors emphasise that this is probably not true for the mRNA vaccines. But who knows what will happen if these nanoparticles with the RNA of the spike protein do not just stay in the cytosol of the cell as intended, but also get into the bloodstream?

A colleague who works at a prestigious foreign university told me that he wanted to commission a laboratory to do a molecular genetic study of the ingredients of the mRNA vaccines. He would have paid for it. No laboratory wanted to accept the order. Now he is searching in Germany. Why is this? Initial investigations have shown that the vaccines are anything but clean. In the vector vaccine from Oxford, quantities of impurities have been found, mainly from human and other proteins [18]. Among them are many so-called heat shock proteins. These are proteins that cells produce when they are under stress and which then trigger cascades of protective reactions. This could explain the problem of the frequent autoimmunological reactions with these vaccines.

Sometimes people ask me if I would get vaccinated or if I am already vaccinated (yes, I am vaccinated: against tetanus, yellow fever and a few other things). Then I usually say in relation to Covid-19: I’m not insane after all. Because I do feel that what is happening here is collective madness. They have managed to sell the worst-tested vaccine of all time, which also has the worst risk-benefit profile of all vaccines – these are not claims, please, but we have generated the data on it and hopefully it will be published soon – as if it were the saviour in syringes that will save humanity from all evil. And the people are running up the gauntlet to the vaccination centres.

There was Ancel Keys with his 6-country study, which should have been a 22-country study, and his little retouching, a novice data freshener. Here we are dealing with a massive silicone injection. And when you use silicone to enlarge lips or breasts, it only looks nice to some, and quite often becomes a problem later on.

Sources and literature

1. Drouin-Chartier J-P, Chen S, Li Y, Schwab AL, Stampfer MJ, Sacks FM, et al. Egg consumption and risk of cardiovascular disease: three large prospective US cohort studies, systematic review, and updated meta-analysis. BMJ. 2020;368:m513. doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m513.
2. Keys A. Atherosclerosis: A problem in newer public health. Journal of Mount Sinai Hospital. 1953;20:118-39.
3. Yerushalmy J, Hillboe HE. Fat in the diet and mortality from heart disease. A methodologic note. New York State Journal of Medicine. 1957;57:2343-54.
4. Ioannidis JPA. Reconciling estimates of global spread and infection fatality rates of COVID-19: an overview of systematic evaluations. European Journal of Clinical Investigation. 2021, in print:e13554. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/eci.13554.
5. Doshi P. Trends in recorded influenza mortality: United States, 1900-2004. American journal of public health. 2008;98(5):939-45. Epub 04/01. doi: https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2007.119933. PubMed PMID: 18381993.
6. Kronbichler A, Kresse D, Yoon S, Lee KH, Effenberger M, Shin JI. Asymptomatic patients as a source of COVID-19 infections: a systematic review and meta-analysis. International Journal of Infectious Diseases. 2020;98:180-6.
7. Nakajo K, Nishiura H. Transmissibility of asymptomatic COVID-19: Data from Japanese clusters. International Journal of Infectious Diseases. 2021;105:236-8. Epub 02/19. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2021.02.065. PubMed PMID: 33618004.
8. Yanes-Lane M, Winters N, Fregonese F, Bastos M, Perlman-Arrow S, Campbell JR, et al. Proportion of asymptomatic infection among COVID-19 positive persons and their transmission potential: A systematic review and meta-analysis. PLOS ONE. 2020;15(11):e0241536. doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0241536.
9. Cheng H-Y, Jian S-W, Liu D-P, Ng T-C, Huang W-T, Lin H-H, et al. Contact Tracing Assessment of COVID-19 Transmission Dynamics in Taiwan and Risk at Different Exposure Periods Before and After Symptom Onset. JAMA Internal Medicine. 2020. doi: https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.2020.
10. Chen F, Fu D, Yang Q, Geng Z, Xia J, Wang Z, et al. Low transmission risk of 9 asymptomatic carriers tested positive for both SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid and serum IgG. Journal of Infection. 2020;81(3):452-82. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2020.06.034.
11. Sayampanathan AA, Heng CS, Pin PH, Pang J, Leong TY, Lee VJ. Infectivity of asymptomatic versus symptomatic COVID-19. Lancet. 2021;397(10269):93-4. Epub 12/18. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32651-9. PubMed PMID: 33347812.
12. Bergholz W. Gefährungsanalyse: Durchführung von Covid-19-Schnelltests durch Laien. Berlin: Deutscher Bundestag, 2021.
13. Rose J. A report on the U.S. vaccine adverse events reporting system (VAERS) on the Covid-19 messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) biologicals. Science, Public Health Policy, and the Law. 2021;2:59-80.
14. Alatawi YM, Hansen RA. Empirical estimation of under-reporting in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS). Expert Opinion on Drug Safety. 2017;16(7):761-7. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14740338.2017.1323867.
15. Moore TJ, Bennett CL. Underreporting of Hemorrhagic and Thrombotic Complications of Pharmaceuticals to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration: Empirical Findings for Warfarin, Clopidogrel, Ticlopidine, and Thalidomide from the Southern Network on Adverse Reactions (SONAR). Semin Thromb Hemost. 2012;38(08):905-7. Epub 21.10.2012.
16. Lei Y, Zhang J, Schiavon Cara R, He M, Chen L, Shen H, et al. SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein Impairs Endothelial Function via Downregulation of ACE 2. Circulation Research. 2021;128(9):1323-6. doi: https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.121.318902.
17. Kowarz E, Krutzke L, Reis J, Bracharz S, Kochanek S, Marschalek R. „Vaccine-Induced Covid-19 Mimicry” Syndrome: Splice reactions within the SARS-CoV-2 Spike open reading frame result in Spike protein variants that may cause thromboembolic events in patients immunized with vector-based vaccines. Research Square. 2021. doi: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-558954/v1.
18. Krutzke L, Roesler R, Wiese S, Kochanek S. Process-related impurities in the ChAdOx1 nCov-19 vaccine. Nature Portfolio. 2021. doi: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-477964/v1.