For all the lying blither about “anti-vaxxers”, no-one has done more to damage public faith in vaccines than the Covid authoritarians. Where genuine anti-vaxxers were once a noisy fringe group, the blind fanaticism of the Branch Covidians has undermined the trust of the majority of people who previously voluntarily partook of what had been one of the greatest public health achievements in human history.
That great achievement — the widespread and voluntary adoption of cheap, safe, effective vaccines — lies in ruins now, smashed into smoking ruin by the intolerant zealotry of the Covid authoritarians.
Some of them are beginning to walk back — but it may be too late to repair the damage.
Germany’s Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach, who once claimed that COVID-19 vaccination is free of side effects, admitted last week that he was wrong, saying adverse reactions occur at a rate of one in 10,000 doses and can cause “severe disabilities.”
That’s quite a turnaround from the confidence Lauterbach once shared with the likes of former PM Jacinda Ardern.
On Aug. 14, 2021, Lauterbach said on Twitter that the vaccines had “no side effects,” further questioning why some Germans refused to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
During an interview on ZDF’s “Heute Journal” on March 12, Lauterbach was asked by anchor Christian Sievers about the claim he made in the summer of 2021, confronting the health minister with his previous tweet that stated the shots are virtually free of side effects.
Lauterbach responded that the tweet was “misguided” and an “exaggeration” he made at the time, noting that it “did not represent my true position.”
“I’ve always been aware of the numbers and they’ve remained relatively stable … one in 10,000 [are injured],” Lauterbach said. “Some say that it’s a lot, and some say it’s not so many.”
Lauterbach is at least also acknowledging what too many Covid vaccine “true believers” refuse to even acknowledge: that injuries from the Covid vaccines can be absolutely devastating.
Lauterbach’s remark on vaccine adverse events came after the German network played a segment of several Germans who’ve been seriously injured after getting the shot, including a 17-year-old gymnast who previously competed in the German Artistic Gymnastics Championships before she was hospitalized for more than one year shortly after receiving the second dose of the BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
“What do you say to those who have been affected [by vaccine injuries]?” Sievers asked Lauterbach.
“What’s happened to these people is absolutely dismaying, and every single case is one too many,” Lauterbach responded. “I honestly feel very sorry for these people. There are severe disabilities, and some of them will be permanent.”
The big question is, though, just how prevalent such injuries really are. Opponents of the Covid vaccines point to databases like VAERS — but the long-known problem with VAERS is that it sets an incredibly low bar. Anyone can lodge a supposed injury with VAERS, as Ben Goldacre once demonstrated when he reported to VAERS that a vaccine had caused him to turn into a rampaging green giant every time he got angry.
On the other hand, the volume of reports on VAERS relating to the Covid vaccine cannot be dismissed out of hand. Almost certainly, many are politically motivated, but at the same time, the sheer disproportion is staggering. Something is surely going on — finding out just what deserves more than just being dismissed out of hand or the uninformed alarmism of many vaccine opponents.
Steve Kirsch, executive director of the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, did not agree with Lauterbach, but he commended the health minister for making “progress” when comparing his latest remark to his previous comments regarding the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.
“The true rate of serious adverse events is approximately 100 times greater than the figures Lauterbach cited—’closer to 1 in 100 doses’ and ‘For death, it is ~1 in 1,000 doses,’” Kirsch said on Twitter.
Kirsch notably did not provide a source for his alarming claim. But Kirsch is also hardly the stereotypical “right-wing anti-vaxxer”: a long-time donor to Democrat funds as well as a funder of medical research.
By the end of 2021, approximately 60,679,186 Germans had received at least one Covid vaccination. By October 2022, the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut had received a total of 333,492 individual case reports on suspected COVID-19 vaccine adverse reactions or vaccine side effects in Germany. Which works out to approximately 1 in 200 adverse events. But “adverse events” covers everything from a bit of swelling, right up to death.
Perhaps the truth will shake out in the lawsuits.
As the subject of post-vaccine injuries has started to be more widely covered by some German media outlets, lawsuits have begun to roll out against BioNTech, and also against other COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers […]
“It’s true that within the framework of these EU contracts, the companies were largely exempted from liability and that the liability, therefore, lies with the German state, so to speak … with the federal states,” Lauterbach said.
Yet, in spite of this, the health minister noted that it would “definitely” be a good idea if biopharmaceutical companies would “show a willingness to help” those affected by vaccine adverse events, especially due to their profits being “exorbitant.”
“So, that wouldn’t just be a good gesture, we should expect it,” he said.
The Epoch Times
Yeah, don’t hold your breath on that one, mein freund.
