Very interesting. Either you or ES could strengthen the argument (or not) by looking carefully at the relative cancer death rates by age subsequent to the beginning of vaccination. Vaccinations in states like FL were given by age cohort, starting with the oldest and most vulnerable. In such states, the April 2021 uptick should be exclusively on those 65+ with younger cohorts having delayed increases due to delayed vaccination. I also seem to recall very low early vaccination rates in some populations and communities and you should see a reduced cancer death increase for those populations
Yes - I'm not sure unfortunately if the deaths by cause AND by age cohort are available nationally. Will have to check or see if that may be available on a state by state basis.
One other thing I was thinking I'll look at is whether the increase in cancer deaths by state is correlated with vax uptake by state. This would also help us get closer to proving causality.
Yes that might work. Also consider varied early vax rates by race: whites and Asians significantly higher than blacks and hispanics. If the death data has race that would be extremely persuasive .
Thanks for this breakdown. TES is often well over my head.
To what extent is the rate of excess cancer deaths accelerating? From my very limited understanding of TES's recent work, it seems that the rate just keeps increasing, perhaps exponentially.
As a related point, what do you make of TES's work on the rate of heart related deaths? The rate seems to be on an exponential takeoff. That's extremely concerning and hard to square with what I thought was the generally accepted idea that most heart deaths come within a couple months of vaccination. Even with the purported cumulative effect of boosters, booster uptake is super low, so I wouldn't expect an uninterrupted exponential curve.
No, it's a fair question! And I didn't explicitly address it, but the key to me is the timing of when the increase occurred. If Covid caused cancer, you'd expect some increase in deaths during 2020. But 2020 cancer deaths are entirely unremarkable/the same as past years.
But the increase is quite sudden and around April of 2021, so it is reasonable to expect that the cause of that jump is fairly close to that timeframe. Also, if it was Covid causing it, we'd expect a more gradual increase as the arrival of Covid was gradual relative to vaccinating much of the country in a month or two. But the increase in cancer deaths is sharp: similar to the pace at which we vaccinated.
I don't think the "fairly close" timeframe is a reasonable expectation. If I die of cancer it isn't something that I just got a week ago, it takes a while. A year between covid and cancer death makes more sense. However I agree that the rate increase doesn't match, so I don't have a better answer.
Very interesting. Either you or ES could strengthen the argument (or not) by looking carefully at the relative cancer death rates by age subsequent to the beginning of vaccination. Vaccinations in states like FL were given by age cohort, starting with the oldest and most vulnerable. In such states, the April 2021 uptick should be exclusively on those 65+ with younger cohorts having delayed increases due to delayed vaccination. I also seem to recall very low early vaccination rates in some populations and communities and you should see a reduced cancer death increase for those populations
Yes - I'm not sure unfortunately if the deaths by cause AND by age cohort are available nationally. Will have to check or see if that may be available on a state by state basis.
One other thing I was thinking I'll look at is whether the increase in cancer deaths by state is correlated with vax uptake by state. This would also help us get closer to proving causality.
Yes that might work. Also consider varied early vax rates by race: whites and Asians significantly higher than blacks and hispanics. If the death data has race that would be extremely persuasive .
https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-by-race-ethnicity/
https://genervter-substack-com.translate.goog/p/warum-erwarten-wir-das-schlimmste?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp
If you find the time...
You'll scream cause they already had the clues in 2021 (preprint appeared) when they did this gene analysis for 5 BNT162b2 pricked...
Thanks - I'll take a look!
Thanks for this breakdown. TES is often well over my head.
To what extent is the rate of excess cancer deaths accelerating? From my very limited understanding of TES's recent work, it seems that the rate just keeps increasing, perhaps exponentially.
As a related point, what do you make of TES's work on the rate of heart related deaths? The rate seems to be on an exponential takeoff. That's extremely concerning and hard to square with what I thought was the generally accepted idea that most heart deaths come within a couple months of vaccination. Even with the purported cumulative effect of boosters, booster uptake is super low, so I wouldn't expect an uninterrupted exponential curve.
What about covid causing the cancer, not the vaccine? (Forgive my ignorance, it’s been years since I took a statistics course.)
No, it's a fair question! And I didn't explicitly address it, but the key to me is the timing of when the increase occurred. If Covid caused cancer, you'd expect some increase in deaths during 2020. But 2020 cancer deaths are entirely unremarkable/the same as past years.
But the increase is quite sudden and around April of 2021, so it is reasonable to expect that the cause of that jump is fairly close to that timeframe. Also, if it was Covid causing it, we'd expect a more gradual increase as the arrival of Covid was gradual relative to vaccinating much of the country in a month or two. But the increase in cancer deaths is sharp: similar to the pace at which we vaccinated.
I don't think the "fairly close" timeframe is a reasonable expectation. If I die of cancer it isn't something that I just got a week ago, it takes a while. A year between covid and cancer death makes more sense. However I agree that the rate increase doesn't match, so I don't have a better answer.