This story is about a very brave researcher at Columbia University who co-authored a paper on risks associated with COVID vaccination (“vaccine-induced fatality rate”), in October 2021.
The researcher’s name is Spiro Pantazatos, Ph.D. He is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Neurobiology (Psychiatry) at Columbia University. He is also Research Scientist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. The title of his paper (a preprint) is “COVID vaccination and age-stratified all-cause mortality risk”:
“Accurate estimates of COVID vaccine-induced severe adverse event and death rates are critical for risk-benefit ratio analyses of vaccination and boosters against SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in different age groups. However, existing surveillance studies are not designed to reliably estimate life-threatening event or vaccine-induced fatality rates (VFR).
Here, regional variation in vaccination rates was used to predict all-cause mortality and non-COVID deaths in subsequent time periods using two independent, publicly available datasets from the US and Europe (month-and week-level resolutions, respectively).”
Currently Dr. Pantazatos is trying to fund a home for this paper but all journals where he submitted it have declined so far.
Dr. Pantazatos was interviewed for the “Perspectives on the Pandemic” series, and in my opinion, the interview came out stunning (with a disclaimer that the topic is gruesome, so it’s a stunning interview about a horrible thing). Dr. Pantazatos’ presentation is so graceful and even-headed that it could be “the” video to send to your friends who have been calling you crazy all this time!
Dr. Pantazatos’ Initial COVID Position Was 100% “Mainstream”
Early in the pandemic, Dr. Pantazatos was very moved by the vivid images that the media was feeding us — and, as a result, he became terrified of the virus. His initial plan was to lockdown inside his house until the vaccines came out.
What Compelled Him to Get More Skeptical
But then he started looking at data presented by scientists like John Ioannidis, for example, and he quickly realized that the situation was different from the one painted by the media.
Then Dr. Pantazatos’ co-author on this paper, Herve Seligmann, came up with an analysis of European data showing a consistent trend where a vaccination campaign seemed to be accompanied by an increase in all-cause mortality during the month following the vaccination campaign.
Dr. Pantazatos didn’t like that conclusion very much as it implied the unthinkable, and so he decided to do his own analysis based on the U.S. data (vaccinations and all-cause mortality), published by the CDC. And when he did his analysis using the U.S. data, it showed the same trend. His analysis of the CDC data showed that following a vaccination campaign in a given locality, there was an increase in all-cause mortality during the following month, followed by a decrease.
In Dr. Pantazatos’ opinion, the risk associated with COVID injections is comparable to the risk associated with getting COVID — if the risk associated with COVID is assessed at the high, early-in-the-pandemic level. And given that the two risks are comparable, and the injection risks seem to increase with each subsequent does — and the pharma companies are pushing for boosters from here into the horizon — he believes that we really need to discuss the VFR.
Why Rejection From the Journals Then?
Interestingly, Dr. Pantazatos mentioned in the interview that even before 2020, he was well aware of the fact that the process of getting scientific works published in prestigious journals was tainted. He referred to the 2005 article in “PLOS Medicine” called, “Medical Journals Are an Extension of the Marketing Arm of Pharmaceutical Companies” that talked about how exactly the journals are incentivized by pharma companies.
Furthermore, scientists themselves have developed a habit of trading total integrity of research for the prestige and benefits of having their works published — and so even before 2020, it was not uncommon for researchers to “massage” the angle etc. in order to fit in. From myself, I would like to add the following quote from the Lancet:
“Much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness,” wrote Richard Horton, the Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet in 2015.
Incidentally, I wrote an article about corruption in the medical establishment last year, in case you are curious.
The Importance of Speaking Out
Dr. Pantazatos is not shy at all about sharing his analysis, and he is also tremendously graceful and humble when presenting it. Personally, I am very impressed by Dr. Pantazatos’ scientific integrity and his ability to actually “follow the science” — as well as by the grace with which he presents this rather ugly topic.
He believes the issue is important, and speaking out is crucial. His message for other scientists is to find their voice and stop being silent.
Full transcript of the interview.
About the Author
To find more of Tessa Lena’s work, be sure to check out her bio, Tessa Fights Robots.