There’s been a lot of excitement recently about a Danish study published as a pre-print in the Lancet that analysed trial data and claimed to find adenovirus-vector Covid vaccines such as AstraZeneca (AZ) and Johnson and Johnson (J&J) reduced overall mortality by around 63% and cardiovascular mortality in particular by around 99%. The study authors note it appears these vaccines “provide significant protection” against cardiovascular disease, and speculate this may be because the adenovirus vector, though not able to replicate, “may prime the immune system in a way similar to a ‘live’ vaccine”. How this might protect against cardiovascular disease is not explained.
The study has been reported at sceptical sites such as the Brownstone Institute, TCW Defending Freedom and Bad Cattitude. Each asks whether people have been given the “wrong vaccine”, in that while the trial data for the mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) did not show any mortality benefit, those for the adenovirus vaccines showed considerable and, importantly, statistically significant benefit.
I reported on the study earlier in the month, expressing scepticism about the supposed benefits of the adenovirus-vector vaccines for non-Covid mortality.
Medical student Santiago Sanchez has criticised the claims of the study and its commentators on Twitter in a thread that is unnecessarily laced with vitriol but nonetheless makes some helpful points amidst the bile. In particular he notes that almost all the favourable mortality data come from one trial, the J&J one, where nine people in the placebo arm died from non-Covid, non-accident causes versus just three in the vaccine arm (see below).