Critically Thinking about Dr. Fauci - Part 3

I know, I had said that there would only be Part 1 and Part 2…

But as I went along I thought of something that warrants an additional write-up. It’s this: one of the primary deceptions used by Dr Fauci and his minions, is to make technical references that he knows that very few citizens really understand.

One of the most frequent deceptions used is to cite statistics. For example, regarding medical issues, the decision as to whether or not a treatment is desirable comes down to two issues: Effectiveness and Safety. (After these, other matters might then come into play, e.g., cost, availability, etc.)

A “treatment” could be a vaccine, mechanical therapy (radiation), surgery, prescription medication, supplements, dietary changes, lifestyle changes, etc.

But let’s just think about COVID-19. Dr. Fauci (and other healthcare “experts”) had these treatments to evaluate: vaccine, prescription medication, supplements, dietary changes, lifestyle changes, etc

Accurately Explaining Effectiveness

How Dr. Fauci and his allies (e.g., pharmaceutical companies) portray effectiveness (of drugs, vaccines, etc.) to the public was deceptive. The “effectiveness” that was almost always shown was relative risk.

A more meaningful number would have been to show absolute risk. Here are two independent citations where others have (so far unsuccessfully) made a case for the same thing:

Example 1: This is the position stated in an important FDA advisory publication. A key conclusion (see page 60) was that the public is: “unduly influenced when risk information is presented using a relative risk approach; this can result in suboptimal decisions. Thus, an absolute risk format should be used.”

Example 2: The CONSORT 2010 Statement — Updated Guidelines for Reporting Parallel Group Randomized Trials states: “… presentation of both absolute and relative effect sizes is recommended…”

Since statistics are over most people’s heads, I’ll try to explain the difference in layperson terms. I’ll use COVID-19 vaccines as a telling example…

Here are three tables based on two studies: here and here. (If you’d like further elaboration, here is an MD’s good discussion about those two studies.)

The first table shows the relative risk reduction (relative effectiveness) of several popular COVID-19 vaccines:

Most people would say that these look like good numbers — and the ones above 90% are VERY good. That’s exactly what Dr. Fauci, etc. want us to think… Now let’s fill out the next column: absolute risk reduction (absolute effectiveness) …

Whoa! The absolute effectiveness numbers are radically different — and MUCH less! What does this mean in the real world?

A third variable might be the easiest to understand: how many people need to be treated (injected) to prevent ONE case of COVID-19?

This is called NNT (Number Needed to Treat = 1/ARR). Here are two studies (here and here) that delve into the merit of using NNT. The table below shows what NNT is for the same COVID-19 injections:

NOTE: The exact numbers here may be slightly different due to several variables, and are not important. What is significant here is to see the extraordinary differences between Relative and Absolute Risk Reductions.

NNT Observation —

Let’s look at a real-world example… If citizens realized that roughly one hundred people had to be injected before ONE case of COVID-19 was prevented, how many people would have said:

“I’m willing to risk the known potentially serious side-effects of these injections, plus accept the fact that zero long-term studies have been completed — all hoping that I’ll hit the jackpot and be the lucky one in 100± people who is prevented from getting COVID-19”?

An Even Better Analysis —

Some very smart people said let’s take the NNT data one step further — and add the treatment COST to it! In other words, if two treatments have the same NNT, but one costs 10 times the other, shouldn’t we factor that in? Look at this fabulous COVID-19 table:

Compare two popular COVID-19 early oral treatment competitors: Ivermectin and Paxlovid. To get the same end result (save one life from COVID-19) we can spend $26 for Ivermectin or $881,260 for Paxlovid!

Note also that cost and impacts of side effects are NOT taken into account here. The side-effects for taking Ivermectin are very low, while the potential side-effects for Paxlovid are rather high. In other words, the cost difference between Ivermectin and Paxlovid is likely MUCH more than what is shown in this table!

The Bottom Line - Part 3

Dr. Science (Fauci) — and his expert allies — KNEW all this information.

As such, they should have prominently shown the public BOTH Relative and Absolute numbers, as well as NNT. This is not some academic matter, as it has SUBSTANTIAL bearing on assuring that Americans are able to make an informed choice when they agree to an injection or to take a drug.

Without these facts, citizens are not only severely handicapped, but are almost totally incapable of making an appropriate decision for themselves and their loved ones. Dr. Fauci could have fixed this, but chose not to.

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PS — Here is an excellent two-minute video that explains the difference between Absolute and Relative Risk reduction…

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