A critical look at the Japanese govt's information about Covid vaccination for 5-11 year olds

The MHLW leaves parents less than fully informed

Our friends at Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) have published a pretty pamphlet to help parents of 5-11 year old children decide whether their kids should participate in the world’s largest clinical trial and take Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine despite their incalculably low risk of death or severe disease from Covid. So what does it say?

The MHLW says the jabs have been reported to be 90% effective against symptomatic Covid 7 days after the second dose for 5-11 year olds.

The clinical trial indeed showed a relative risk reduction of 90%, but the absolute risk reduction was 2% (3/1450 vs. 16/736) over just 105 days with no Covid hospitalisations in either the intervention or placebo group. The MHLW also neglects to mention all the data showing the first dose increases infection risk.

The disclaimer in smaller font at the bottom mentions this data is from before Omicron. So how effective are the jabs against Omicron?

[Source https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.02.25.22271454v1]

-41% vaccine effectiveness (VE) in just 6 weeks! The MHLW should probably tell parents to look up Original Antigenic Sin.  

Next is safety.

The box gives the percentage of kids reporting injection-site pain, fevers, etc. The text mentions the side effects were mostly mild and moderate.  So what does the MHLW mean by “mostly”?

Well, in a survey of vaccinated 5-11 year olds by the CDC, 7.4% were unable to perform normal daily activates, 10.9% were unable to attend school, and 1.1% needed medical attention within 7 days of the second dose.

The MHLW mentions the risk of myocarditis/pericarditis with its usually level of honesty. They point out that the rate of reported myocarditis/pericarditis is lower for boys aged 5-11 than for boys aged 12-17 in America.

Possibly more relevant to Japan, a study from Hong Kong estimated the rate of acute myo/pericarditis within 14 days of the second Pfizer jab to be 37.32 per 100,000 (i.e., 1 in 2680) for 12-17 year old males, 177.7 times the background rate.  Even if the rate for 5-11 year old boys is lower than this, that doesn’t make the jabs safe.

Remember that these are only the short-term side effects. No data on long-term effects exists, but the data for medium-term effects in adults is hardly encouraging.  

On the page directed at children, the MHLW tells kids that if they have chest pain, palpitations, difficulty breathing, etc. in the days following the jab, they should inform one of the grownups in their household. However, the MHLW forgets to tell the kids to also ask the adults what the hell they were thinking when they decided the jab was a good idea.

In summary then, the MHLW is asking kids to potentially come for Original Antigenic Sin and stay for autoimmunity. Now that’s what I call an offer you can refuse!