The COVID Response: What We Got Wrong.

The Impact of Vaccines on Mortality 

A large meta study of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) reported by vaccine manufacturers found that the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines did not impact overall mortality.

As reported in the latest issue of the journal iScience, the two vaccines, both based on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, protected against deaths from COVID-19. But that effect was offset by vaccinated trial participants being more likely to die from cardiovascular problems.

“In the RCTs with the longest possible blinded follow-up, mRNA vaccines had no effect on overall mortality despite protecting against some COVID-19 deaths. On the other hand, the adenovirus-vector vaccines were associated with lower overall mortality,” the researchers said.

The researchers compared the overall deaths in the vaccinated groups with the placebo groups. They also broke deaths down into different categories: those attributed to COVID-19, to cardiovascular problems, to other non-COVID-19 causes, to accidents, and to non-accident, non-COVID-19 causes.

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, they found, were associated with lower COVID-19 mortality but higher cardiovascular and non-accident, non-COVID-19 mortality. There was no difference in overall mortality between the vaccinated and the placebo groups.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine was associated with lower overall mortality and with lower non-COVID-19 mortality, with no effect on COVID-19 mortality. AstraZeneca’s shot, never authorized in the US but cleared in some other countries, performed well against overall mortality and other categories across several trials, except for one trial where slightly more vaccinated people died from non-COVID causes or non-accident, non-COVID-19 causes.

Interesting: The study was published ahead of peer review in 2022, but the authors struggled to find a journal that would accept the paper. Several rejected it without explaining why, causing a delay in publication.

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