Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Prof Jeffrey S Morris @jsm2334.bsky.social · 5d

You are correct.

But the encephaly also tends to occur very early so likely occurred long before vaccination

Prof Jeffrey S Morris @jsm2334.bsky.social · 11d

You can ask but since they are medical records data and they did not even want this paper getting out, I wouldn’t be optimistic

Prof Jeffrey S Morris @jsm2334.bsky.social · 11d

Promise! Tell me how successful I was in my attempts to make it accessible, and (mostly) jargon-free

2 2

Prof Jeffrey S Morris @jsm2334.bsky.social · 11d

My article is aimed at the general public, so it explains these three statistical issues in accessible language while showing why they matter for interpreting the study’s conclusions.

The link to my full article follows:
theconversation.com/why-a-study-...

Why a study claiming vaccines cause chronic illness is severely flawed – a biostatistician explains the biases and unsupported conclusions

The main comparisons in the unpublished report are skewed, and it is being presented as stronger evidence than its design really allows.

theconversation.com

2 8 40

Prof Jeffrey S Morris @jsm2334.bsky.social · 11d

3. Unadjusted confounders: key factors like urban/rural setting, socioeconomic status/insurance, and air/water pollution weren’t accounted for. These influence both vaccination likelihood and disease risk, as well as how often families use Henry Ford clinics, shaping what shows up in the records

1 2 21

Prof Jeffrey S Morris @jsm2334.bsky.social · 11d

2. Detection bias – vaccinated children had far more interactions with the Henry Ford health system, giving them more chances to have conditions diagnosed and recorded.

1 1 9

Prof Jeffrey S Morris @jsm2334.bsky.social · 11d

In short, the study suffers from:

1. Surveillance bias – most children, especially the unvaccinated, weren’t followed long enough to reach the ages when chronic diseases are usually diagnosed.

1 1 9

Prof Jeffrey S Morris @jsm2334.bsky.social · 11d

I’ve written an article for The Conversation about the so-called “Inconvenient Study,” described as a landmark study demonstrating vaccines cause chronic health conditions in children, highlighting its major design flaws and statistical problems that prevent it from showing what its promoters claim

1 15 75

Prof Jeffrey S Morris @jsm2334.bsky.social · 18d

Yes.

It just eliminated the choice of getting them together.

Doesn't make much of a difference, but then that begs the question why they spent half a day on it.

Performative, not substantive.

2

Prof Jeffrey S Morris @jsm2334.bsky.social · 19d

They noticed the logical inconsistency of their vote yesterday and redid the vote to remove the choice of a single combination shot for ALL children less than 4 years for parents who want them, not just an arbitrary subset of them.

2 3 22

Prof Jeffrey S Morris @jsm2334.bsky.social · 19d

Outside of that, other children are covered by private insurance, CHIP Medicaid, Indian health service, tricare, and other programs

With ACIP recommending against combined shot for <4yrs, these programs are not guaranteed to cover it anymore.

But they voted to keep covering it for VFC kids only.

1 3

Prof Jeffrey S Morris @jsm2334.bsky.social · 19d

Yes — the VFC program covers cost of vaccines for children Medicaid-eligible, Uninsured, Underinsured (when vaccines are given at federally qualified health centers or rural health clinics), or American Indian or Alaska Native.

1 6

Prof Jeffrey S Morris @jsm2334.bsky.social · 19d

ACIP voted to drop the MMRV combo shot for kids <4 due to seizure risk.
But strangely, they blocked coverage under CMS/private plans while still allowing it under VFC.
No explanation given — even panelists seemed puzzled.
End result: parents lose an option, but only for a random subset of kids.

7 19 58

Prof Jeffrey S Morris @jsm2334.bsky.social · 25d

Ooh! I had that model!

First big purchase after starting to work and saving my own money!

1

Reposted by Prof Jeffrey S Morris

Jake Scott, MD @jakescottmd.bsky.social · 25d

A US senate subcommittee was told this unpublished vaccine study was 'the most important ever.' Henry Ford Health now confirms why it was never published: it failed scientific standards.

Here's what's actually wrong with the study:
jakescottmd.substack.com/p/why-the-senates-most-important-vaccine

Why the Senate's 'Most Important Vaccine Study Ever' Was Never Published

The fatal flaws that made this study unpublishable

jakescottmd.substack.com

12 130 310

Prof Jeffrey S Morris @jsm2334.bsky.social · 26d

Yes

2

Prof Jeffrey S Morris @jsm2334.bsky.social · 26d

12/12
Bottom line: Valuable data, but big baseline imbalances, large utilization gaps, and unequal follow-up/age distributions severely limit causal interpretation and are potentially fatal design flaws.

Better design would match on birth year/confounders and censor pairs at the shorter follow-up.

1 12

Prof Jeffrey S Morris @jsm2334.bsky.social · 26d

11/12
Sensitivity checks don’t fix it.

Restricting to ≥1/3/5y follow-up yields higher IRRs (2.48 main → 2.75, 3.38, 4.09).

But this doesn't fix the bias:
≥5y still skews older toward vax: ~13.7% of ~1,957 unvax (~268 kids) vs ~29.5% of ~18,468 vax (~5,448). >20× more vax beyond 5y.

1 9

Prof Jeffrey S Morris @jsm2334.bsky.social · 26d

10/12

Many conditions are typically diagnosed later:
behavioral 7–12y, learning ~8.4y, autoimmune ~5.5–8y, asthma ~6.6y, ADHD ~6y, autism ~4y, speech/dev delay ~3–4y.

More vax kids age into these windows; vast majority of unvax cases aren’t captured yet.

1 4

Prof Jeffrey S Morris @jsm2334.bsky.social · 26d

9/12
Concern #3: unequal follow-up/age

Median follow-up: ~2.7y (vax) vs ~1.3y (unvax).
IQR: 1.3–5.7y vs 0.5–3.0y

This means unvaccinated have 25% with <0.5y follow up, 50% with <1.3y, only 25% >3.0y

Vax: 25% <1.3y, 50% <2.7y, 25% >5.7y

Here is lognormal fit estimating follow-up distribution

1 4

Prof Jeffrey S Morris @jsm2334.bsky.social · 26d

8/12
Concern #2: utilization/ascertainment bias.

Many diagnoses need multiple visits (ADHD ~3–4).

Visits/yr: ~7 (vax) vs ~2 (unvax) → ~3.5× more chance to detect/capture codes.

Sensitivity analysis excluding zero-visit kids reduces effects but doesn’t fix the disparity.

1 4

Prof Jeffrey S Morris @jsm2334.bsky.social · 26d

7/12
Massive differencs suggest potential for unmeasured confounding (SES, prenatal exposures, parental age, pollution exposure, urban/rural).

If birth years differ, birth cohort effects can confound (diagnostics, coding, vaccine schedules).

IRRs/“raw” HRs are unadjusted → interpret cautiously.

1 4

Prof Jeffrey S Morris @jsm2334.bsky.social · 26d

6/12
Concern #1: non-comparable groups.

Baseline table: every variable differs (P<0.0001)—sex, race, birthweight, prematurity, respiratory distress, birth trauma. Crude ORs (vax vs unvax): prematurity 3.8×; resp. distress 3.2×; low BW 1.7×; birth trauma 5.9×.

1 4

Prof Jeffrey S Morris @jsm2334.bsky.social · 26d

5/12
Autism is the outlier: adjusted HR ≈ 0.6 (no increase). Few autism diagnoses—unsurprising given short follow-up.

Not discussed or highlighted -- Aaron Siri claims this result is from ADHD misclassification but this is speculative and not supported by the presented results.

1 3

Prof Jeffrey S Morris @jsm2334.bsky.social · 26d

4/12
No clear differences reported for eczema, peanut allergy, overall food allergy, cancer, mental health disorders, seizures, motor disability.

Neurodevelopmental (composite) found increase of ~5.5×

specific categories within this include: developmental delay ~3.3×, motor ~2.9×, speech ~4.5×.

1 2