IGIDR Seminar: "Covid Vaccines: A Review of the Scientific Evidence"

Seminar by Bhaskaran Raman at IGIDR, 10 Jan 2024
Slides: https://tinyurl.com/c19vaxrev

Covid Vaccines: A Review of the Scientific Evidence

On 11 Mar 2020, the WHO had declared Covid-19 as a global pandemic, and trials on several different vaccine candidates were started. What initially started as two-doses to end the pandemic, has seen several shifts of the goalpost: on 11 Sep 2023, the US FDA approved a new booster for the latest “variant”, for everyone 6-months and older. Billions of doses of various Covid vaccines have thus far been administered, many under extreme coercion and mandates. Examining the science behind the products is thus paramount.

Were/are the various Covid vaccines based on sound scientific evidence? This question can be answered by considering the following two facts. (1) On 02 Oct 2023, the Nobel prize in Physiology/Medicine was given for the discovery which enabled the development of “effective” mRNA vaccines against Covid-19. (2) The accepted scientific proof of efficacy of a vaccine is a successful Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT). Interestingly and concerningly, not one of the different vaccine candidates, including the popular global Covid vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca, have published results on the efficacy or safety, from a completed RCT.

This talk will examine the science and data behind the claims of efficacy and safety of the Covid vaccines. This will include the timeline of waning efficacy and the corresponding shift in the narrative. The talk will also examine the various red flags related to adverse events which have been systematically ignored since early 2021, in India as well as globally. We will look at the various statistical flaws which lent the “safe and effective” narrative a flavour of science. The talk will end with possible lessons for the future.