A recent article1 by M. Skidmore describes a representative health survey of 2840 US adults in December, 2021. About half (51%) were vaccinated for COVID-19. The survey is interesting, because it gathers pandemic data without relying on a medical establishment that is likely to have inescapable conflicts of interest.
Despite the many contemporary warnings about the Delta variant, respondents indicated proportionately twice as many health issues after vaccination (205/1448) as after COVID (188/2840). For COVID health issues, the denominator is 2840, because nobody knows when they will get sick and all respondents were at risk. For vaccine issues, the number at risk is 51% of 2840 or 1448.
Respondents also had 3.3 times the risk of severe health issues after vaccination (27/1448) vs. after COVID (16/2840). Further, vaccination did not reduce COVID health issues, although this could be due to vaccinated individuals being older and therefore more vulnerable.
As time goes on, more people will experience COVID and more will receive vaccine boosters. The balance of resulting health issues may shift.
The survey data agree with the earlier randomized safety trial that showed several times more severe adverse vaccine events than cases of severe COVID (see also here). So from two angles (survey and randomized trials), net benefit from COVID-19 vaccination is absent. Observational studies disagree, but they are strongly confounded by doctors’ pro-vaccine sentiment. If this sentiment were justified, one would expect more favorable survey results.
The Latin phrase aegrescit medendo comes to mind - it worsens with healing.
The study notes a caveat:
Direct respondent experiences regarding the COVID-19 illness or the COVID-19 vaccine are informative but incomplete because potential respondents who are very ill or died due to COVID-19 illness or the COVID-19 vaccine could not participate in the survey.
Nevertheless these would be small numbers, primarily causing the severe categories to be underreported. Even though social circle questions about friends and relatives are the focus of Skidmore’s article, I am ignoring them because they amount to third-hand information.
Please keep comments on topic.
This article was later retracted, for unclear reasons and with disagreement from the author. However, the raw survey results (discussed here) were not put into question.
Based on the following statement, posted at the beginning of the linked BMC article by Skidmore, the powers that be aren't happy with the data/conclusions:
"26 January 2023 Editor's Note: Readers are alerted that the conclusions of this paper are subject to criticisms that are being considered by editors. Specifically, that the claims are unsubstantiated and that there are questions about the quality of the peer review. A further editorial response will follow the resolution of these issues."