Published fake covid-19 vaccine studies withdrawn

Two studies that claimed that vaccines against the Covid-19 disease cause almost the same deaths that they prevent and that masks are dangerous for children published in the journals Vaccines and JAMA Pediatrics,  have been retracted.

The Pan American Health Organization describes misinformation as one of the most serious threats to public health, and it is most damaging when it fuels indecision about vaccines

Both articles are based on rigged calculations made by the German researcher defender of homeopathy and other pseudosciences, Harald Walach, whose last study was based on surveys of 10 Catholic Christians, and in this, he concluded that praying the rosary “can generate benefits for health”.

The studies published by the psychologist Walach quickly fueled the hoaxes in recent weeks, because in one he claimed that anticovid vaccines kill two people for every three they save, and in the other, he assured that children with masks are exposed to unacceptable levels of carbon dioxide, after taking measures in 45 minors.

Paulino Vigil De Gracia, researcher of the National Research System of t of Science, Technology, and Innovation (Senacyt), explained that in the study of vaccines, databases of success, on the one hand, and of adverse effects were used from another population.

All the discomforts or clinical findings of the patients were exclusively associated with the vaccines, although the reasons were other.

The researcher stated that in the study of the masks they used a methodology of quantification of gases eliminated and inhaled incorrectly, and the assertion of unproven damage. And the findings were not seen by clinicians in the pediatric population.

The vaccine study was published on June 24, and Vaccines retracted the study on July 2, after noting that Walach had made his calculations with a database from the Netherlands that included all the health problems observed after the vaccination, even if they had nothing to do with the injection.

The mask study was published on June 30, and the American Medical Association journal retracted the article on July 16.

Vigil De Gracia said these types of publications have always existed, but in a pandemic with an unknown disease and in need of knowledge and rapid disclosure, it is possible that they appear as a product of ill-intentioned people or with hidden interests.

With a new disease, reviewers of articles on the journal’s editorial board may miss some details that have been strategically well used by “manipulative scientists.”

According to Xavier Sáez-Llorens, infectologist, pediatrician, and advisor to the Covid-19 Panama Vaccine Research Consortium, in the scientific field, unfortunately, there are also corrupt and impostor people  Walach managed to publish two articles on the harmful effects of masks in children, on foods that strengthened the immune system to prevent Covid-19 and on some medications that improved their evolution.

However, the editors of the journals – when investigating the methodology used in their spurious investigations – found numerous falsifications of data and patients, plagiarism of all kinds, and blunders in the interpretation of results.

In addition, he described this case as similar to the one perpetrated by Andrew Wakefield in his fraudulent investigation of the relationship between autism and the measles vaccine, something that did a lot of damage to childhood immunization coverage in the world and forced the authorities to withdraw the professional suitability to the imposter.

The University of Poznan (Poland), where Walach worked, has announced that it will not renew the researcher’s contract.