The ‘Control Group Cooperative Ltd‘ is a UK Company (Registration Number: 13477806) is registered at 117 Dartford Road, Dartford, Kent DA1 3EN, UK. On its website, it provides the following statement:
The Vaccine Control Group is a Worldwide independent long-term study that is seeking to provide a baseline of data from unvaccinated individuals for comparative analysis with the vaccinated population, to evaluate the success of the Covid-19 mass vaccination programme and assist future research projects. This study is not, and will never be, associated with any pharmaceutical enterprise as its impartiality is of paramount importance.
The VaxControlGroup is a community cooperative, for the people. All monies raised will be re-invested into the project and its community.
Volunteers for this study are welcome from around the world, providing they have not yet received any of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations and are not planning to do so.
So, the Vaccine Control Group (VCC) aims at recruiting people who refuse COVID vaccinations. The VCC issues downloadable and printable COVID-19 Vaccine self exemption forms that you can complete (either online or by hand) supplied by: Professionals for Medical Informed Consent and Non-Discrimination (PROMIC). The form contains the following text:
COVID-19 vaccines, that have been administered to the public under emergency use authorisation, have been
associated with moderate to severe adverse events and deaths in a small proportion of recipients. There are currently insufficient available long-term safety data from Phase 3 trials and post-marketing surveillance to be able to predict which population sub-groups are likely to be most vulnerable to these reactions. However, clinical assessments have identified a range of conditions or medical histories that are associated with increased risk of serious adverse events (see Panel B). Individuals with such medical concerns, along with those who have already had COVID-19 and acquired natural immunity, have justifiable grounds to not consent to COVID-19 vaccination. Such individuals may choose to use alternate approaches to reduce their risk of developing serious COVID-19 disease and associated viral transmission. UK and international law enshrines an individual’s right to refuse any medical treatment or intervention without being subjected to penalty, restriction or limitation of protected rights or freedoms, as this would otherwise constitute coercion.
I do wonder, after reading this, what scientific value this ‘study’ might have (nowhere could I find relevant methodological details about the ‘study’). In search of an answer, I found ‘Doctors & Health Professionals supportive of this project’. The only one supportive of the VCC seems to be Prof Harald Walach who offers his support with these words:
A vaccine control group, especially for Covid-19 vaccines, is extremely useful, even necessary, for the following reasons:
- We are dealing with a vaccination technology that has never been used in humans before.
- All studies that have planned a control group long term, i.e. longer than only 6 weeks, have meanwhile been compromised, i.e. there are no real control groups around, because those originally allocated to the control group have mostly been vaccinated now. So there are no real control groups available.
- Covid-19 vaccinations are one of the biggest experiments on mankind ever conducted – without a control group. Hence those, who are either not willing to be vaccinated or have not yet been vaccinated are our only chance to understand whether the vaccines are safe or whether symptoms reported after vaccination are actually due to the vaccination or are only an incidental occurrence or random fluctuation.
Comparing unvaccinated people and those with a vaccination history regarding Covid-19 vaccines long term is important to determine long-term safety, because in many instances in the past some problems only were seen after quite some time. This can happen, if auto-immune processes are triggered, which often occur only in very few people. Hence, it is also important to have a long-term observation period and a large number of people participating.
Prof. Dr. Dr. phil. Harald Walach
This does not alleviate my doubts about the scientific value at all. Prof Walach, promoter of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) and pseudoscientist of the year 2012, has in the past drawn our attention to his odd activities around COVID and vaccinations. Here are three recent posts on the subject:
- Prof Harald Walach is really unlucky
- Is Prof Harald Walach incompetent or dishonest?
- COVID-19 vaccinations: Prof Walach wants to “dampen the enthusiasm by sober facts”
In view of all this, I do wonder what the VCC is truly about.
It couldn’t be a front for issuing dodgy exemption certificates, could it?
17 Responses to Prof Harald Walach and the intriguing ‘Vaccination Control Group’ project
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We already have that comparison baseline: unvaccinated individuals have a far higher risk (RR=32) of dying from Covid-19 than vaccinated people.
The results are in already. The Covid-19 mass vaccination programme is a resounding success: unvaccinated people die far more often from Covid-19 than vaccinated people, and if they don’t die, they suffer far more serious symptoms.
So this ‘Vaccination Control Group’ project can close shop right away again, because their primary goals have been achieved months ago already.
Well, that was easy 🙂
Professionals for Medical Informed Consent and Non-Discrimination (PROMIC) is an umbrella group for organisations of health professionals, scientists and lawyers established in August 2021.
The founding organisations of PROMIC are the Alliance for Natural Health International and the UK Medical Freedom Alliance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_for_Natural_Health
Ok, does it smell fishy? I think so.
I’m aware that various people have been looking into these kinds of groups. It’s a huge task. There are links between many of them of eg they have members in common but how strong/formal these links are can be difficult to determine. A lot of these groups depend on social media groups to boost their message, even if those social media groups are not linked to them.
It’s surprising who some will get into bed with for “the cause”. I’m most familiar with the crossover between UK homeopathy and anti-vaxx. Those folks tend to be left of centre, pro-European, envioronmentally concerned etc. But they are happy to boost groups that are right wing nationalists – groups that would be an anathema in other circumstances.
Since this “control group” is self-selected, it will differ from any group of vaccinated individuals in ways that have nothing to do with the vaccination itself. This makes it useless in detecting any rare or small effects of the vaccine. Large effects and very common effects will still be apparent, but previous studies with proper randomised controls will have already identified those.
I would be interested to know what data this group are collecting on their subjects, whether they are obtaining informed consent and whether they are complying with any relevant legislation.
“This makes it useless in detecting any rare or small effects of the vaccine”
PRECISELY!
Pfizer vaccinated most of the Control group for their initial vaccination study, to cover up the injuries it was causing. So an independent observational study comparing vaccinated vs unvaccinated is necessary.
All those in the original vaccination studies self-selected to be in those studies. I dont think self-selecting to not take the vaccine is going to make any significant difference in the outcome of a vaccinated vs unvaccinated study. In observational studies they always have to use demographics (age, race, etc.) to compare apples to apples.
The effects that will be uncovered are not rare or small. These vaccines have killed & injured more people than all other vaccines, in the modern history of vaccines, combined. See Steve Kirsch’s study.
Roger,
How did they know it was causing injuries if they hadn’t completed the study yet?
They volunteered to be in the studies but they did not self-select whether to be vaccinated or controls. You seem to have fundamentally missed the point of why studies are randomised.
I had to look up Steve Kirsch:
https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/10/05/1036408/silicon-valley-millionaire-steve-kirsch-covid-vaccine-misinformation/
Julian,
how did the Pfizer guys know the ‘95% effective’ number, _since “they hadn’t completed the study yet?”_
In exactly the same way? Setting an arbitrary cut-off point, analysing the data so far,
and then take the steps to
1. tout “95% ewffective”
2. also destroy the control arm before the completion data of the study by injecting the control group with the product from the intervention group?
Its end date is still in the future but the data quality of that study can only get worse now?
It means not necessarily that ‘they did it in order to hide the injuries’?
It does necessarily mean that we do not have any good data on effectiveness and safety from an RCT?
How are the ongoing observational data points about ‘vaccine effectiveness’ to be valued in your eyes? Those from CDC, NHS, Israeli MOH, etc? They all are as useless as Walach’s project? If not, how exactly and why would they be better, in terms of recruitment, study population, attempts to improve the data quality and reach?
Lydia,
I am not going to take the time here to teach you medical statistics. There are plenty of student textbooks in the subject that will answer your questions.
There are standard methods for calculating the numbers of subjects that need to be recruited into a trial to have a specified probability of finding an effect of a specified size, and of estimating the power of a study in advance, taking into account the study design including whether or not it is a crossover study.
Observational data about how the vaccines are performing in the general public necessarily use quite different statistical methods from a randomised controlled trial, and answer different questions. Ultimately the purpose of the vaccines is to prevent death and serious illness. If the effect of the vaccines was small then it would be quite difficult to draw any clear conclusions from comparing vaccinated with unvaccinated populations as there may well be confounding variables influencing the decision to be vaccinated. However, the difference in outcomes is so enormous that it is hard to come up with any plausible explanation for them other than that the vaccines do what they were designed for, and do it very well.
Julian,
“I had to look up Steve Kirsch:
https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/10/05/1036408/silicon-valley-millionaire-steve-kirsch-covid-vaccine-misinformation/”
At the end of the piece it states:
“This story is part of the Pandemic Technology Project, supported by The Rockefeller Foundation”. A rather successful report back of the “2010 Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development” pièce de résistance.
Enough said here.
there were moments, Roger, when your inability to understand even the simplest of things could be seen as amusing; now it is just stupid to the extreme.
This is the US FDA and Pharma … holding hands together.
What a farce, what a mockery of justice…. whatta sham.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fda-says-it-needs-until-year-2076-to-reveal-data-pertaining-to-pfizer-vaccine-approval/ar-AAQSOWp
Perhaps someone can explain to me why this amount of time is necessary.
Never mind, I already have the answer.
FWIW
https://thezvi.substack.com/p/omicron-post-5
The Active Ingredient in the vaccines are not in the public domain. The ingredients are protected by copyright. The ingredients are protected because of the financial interests of the Manufacturers. The Manufacturers refuse to accept any liability for their product. Based on this information – nobody should be taking part in the experiment. Except.. if you are a fool who regularly behaves in a cavalier or hysterical way – far be it for me to lecture people.
Now, I would willingly provide a list of the things that several UK political parties have lied about (WMD) – to illustrate why trusting the government is a fools errand.. but why bother – probably everyone in this echo chamber is on their 3rd injection – and thus the points I make are moot for them LOL.
The entire thing is completely worthless. Anyone can register and put in the database whatever they want for fictitious people and their “dependents”.
You even get a fancy membership card…
https://members.vaxcontrolgroup.com/edit_id_card/7WNUECQEXYW7DBQ7FOMK2F
I have been a part of this study for a year and a half but found a deduction of $42.56 Aust on my Visa card!! I at no time subscribed to have money taken out return it.
are you saying the study is taking money from its participants?