Med Journal Pushes Flawed COVID Vax Studies to Doctors

MEDPAGE TODAY headlined 3 studies associating COVID shots with reduced cardiac events. But they are loaded with methodological flaws that mislead doctors and could endanger patients.

Below I explain the studies’ worst flaws, why they are serious, and why doctors still believe them.

COVID Shots Tied to Lower Risks of Heart Attack, Cardiac Death

- MEDPAGE TODAY

Who is MEDPAGE?

From their website, MEDPAGE TODAY is considered the “definitive authority” in clinical journalism. It reaches over 930,000 physicians, 420,000 NPs and PAs, and more than 100,000 pharmacists.

It is also one of our nation’s biggest vaccine apologists.

Their recent upbeat report on 3 tortured studies illustrates that, no matter how irresponsible the work, repetition irons false information into the fabric of the medical community until it becomes the standard.

From the article -

“Taken together, these reports offer convincing evidence that the cardiovascular benefits of vaccination for COVID-19 are much greater than the risks, demonstrated or potential, that have been identified,” former FDA Commissioner Robert Califf MD, of Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina added.

As you’ll see, there is no convincing evidence.

Study #1

2024-2025 COVID-19 Vaccine and Major Adverse Cardiovascular Events Among US Veterans

In this study, over 1 million veterans who received the 2024-2025 COVID vaccine, showed vaccine effectiveness was 37.7% for preventing COVID-associated MACE (Major Adverse Cardiac Events).

According to the authors, “our study findings show that vaccination continues to provide protection against associated cardiovascular outcomes.”

Actually, the study doesn’t prove anything. Here’s why…

The problem

Fundamentally different groups. The major flaw that negates the entire study is revealed in the study’s Supplemental Online Content which unfortunately, most ignore.

The observational study created 2 groups (vaccinated and unvaccinated) to compare results. Each group must be similar. If not, as people get sick or remain well, there is no way to tell if the vaccine was the cause.

With a group of 1 million subjects, expect about the same number will die in each group. After vaccination any wide variants in deaths or illness can be attributed to the vaccine. Again, as long as the groups have nearly the same characteristics.

The chart shows very different characteristics.

By day 10 the non-vax group already had more deaths from all causes.

And by the 5^th week, the MACE numbers in the same non-vax group separated and kept separating.

It is biologically impossible for the vaccine to have caused these events because the shots had no time to act. (A shot you got last Tuesday doesn’t prevent you from dying of a heart attack by next Friday.) In addition, vaccine benefits wane over time, but this separation keeps growing. The deaths were because the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups were completely different populations from day zero—before the vaccine had time to work.

With 2 such vastly different groups, this paper should never have passed peer review or journal reviews. Dr. Vinay Prasad offers more details.

Study #2

Estimated Effectiveness of 2024-2025 COVID-19 Vaccines in Adults

The study claims the vaccines caused a 35% reduction in COVID-19 associated hospitalizations from 7 to 299 days after vaccination.

It took 3 deceptions to get to that 35% number.

The Problems

Test negative design. This is a test negative design (TND), which has been used for years to support vaccines effectiveness claims. HHS recently outlined the problems with TNDs.

How TND works:

Patients with COVID symptoms arriving at clinics or hospitals were tested and became part of the study. Those testing positive were “cases” and those testing negative became the “control” group.

According to NIH and KFF this is the Gold Standard because it minimizes bias since everyone had symptoms and received similar treatment and is cost-effective.

But a 2025 JAMA study shows TND studies are only effective “in an ideal setting that lacks the confounding, missing data, and misclassified data prevalent in many post marketing TND studies.”

In other words, TND does work, but only under perfect conditions that did not exist in this study. The study fail catastrophically in adjusting for the data.

Here are the key confounders the study didn’t adjust for:

• Failed to adjust for prior COVID infections —From the study - “this analysis did not adjust for the number or timing of prior SARS-CoV-2 infections or vaccinations, which can influence estimates of VE.” This is a study-killing omission. Natural immunity from prior infection provides robust, durable protection. If the unvaccinated control group had higher rates of prior infection, the VE estimates are artificially inflated.

• Healthy vaccinee bias —people who get vaccinated tend to be healthier, more health-conscious, and have better healthcare access. These are the same people less likely to be hospitalized for any reason.

• PCR misclassification —As we saw with COVID, PCR tests have known false-positive issues, especially at high cycle thresholds. A “case” might not actually be a COVID case.

Relative Risk. The 35% reduction in hospitalizations is a Relative Risk number and does not mean a 35% reduction in your personal risk. While there is insufficient information to precisely calculate the Absolute Risk , using the most generous calculations, it is between .5% and 1%. Meaning you would have to treat between 100 and 200 people for one person to prevent hospitalization. At best the study is inconclusive and requires further study.

Absurdly wide 7-to-299-day window.

If you report VE honestly using the study’s time window, you get a table that looks like this:

By the second month the effectiveness had already dropped to an unimpressive 28%.

Here’s the stunt the authors pulled.

By averaging the vaccine’s effectiveness over a longer period (45% initially to a non-significant 5% later), journalists, media, agencies, and experts get to say there is a sustained benefit of 35% RRR when the vaccines in the study only worked modestly (±1% ARR) for about two months, then faded to nothing.

Study #3

COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness Among Older Adults

A European case-control study published in JAMA Network Open showed that overall, the 2025-2026 COVID vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease was 59% (95% CI 14-83)

Here’s the sneaky trick that pumps up the perceived benefit.

Problems

Based on 7 cases. This primary care study claims the vaccine is 59% effective in preventing a positive COVID test among older adults. But this is based on embarrassingly small 7 cases!

It gets worse!

Absurdly wide confidence interval of 14-83. The confidence level measures the uncertainty about the results of the study. The authors are saying this could be anywhere from a low confidence of 14% to a high of 83%. Because the range is 69 percentage points wide, the results are too broad to draw a firm, reliable conclusion.

Relative Risk. As in the case above, the 59% is only a Relative Risk number. Using the most generous population figures from the study, the ARR is somewhere between 1.4% and 3%.

In other words, the study shows a patient has, for 4 to 8 weeks after treatment, a roughly 1.4% to 3% absolute risk reduction against testing positive and feeling sick. The shots then continue to wane.

Why so many doctors fall for this.

The truth is, you don’t need a PhD to find these disqualifying flaws.

The people pushing these studies are betting that few will read past the headline conclusions and perhaps the abstract. Doctors lack the time to research articles and journals are overflowing with similar fabricated studies. Doctors graduating from med school today learn it is acceptable to use relative risk reduction rather than absolute risk even though the former can be highly misleading and despite FDA warnings against promoting RRR with patients.

Then there’s the feedback problem. Associations lack the incentive to dive into research and journalists are not going to open supplementary materials to check case counts. The public hears “59% effective!” on the evening news and prods doctors to know more. Nearly 100% of what they hear from med school, seminars, experts, journals, and their own patients conforms to the falsehoods.

The only voice left is we the public. It’s up to us to learn and share the truth, even when it may upset some.

After all, it’s not about vaccine hesitancy, it’s about putting your body first.

Next up

As devastating as these flawed studies are, while researching one of the above studies revealed a series of connections that exposed a virtual criminal enterprise in promoting faked studies. I’ll share that story next. Truth Monster