Retracted NZ Study Proved HPV Vaccine “Reduced Preterm Births” – By INVERTING THE DATA
A study by New Zealand’s Beverley Lawton et al. “proved” that receipt of the HPV vaccine reduced preterm births.
However, when statistical sleuths questioned the data, the study was retracted, as it turned out that the findings were inverted. The story of the retraction is quite scandalous and is worth exploring!
The study purported to provide “findings” of reductions in preterm births among HPV-vaccinated mothers.
Supposedly, vaccination “reduced” very preterm births (under 31 weeks) by 23% (77% odds ratio circled in the picture below).
However, in the retraction notice, the authors were forced to admit that the “findings were inverted,” and the data showed the opposite!
In other words, the data showed that the HPV vaccine increased the chances of very preterm births!
The authors’s retraction statement says:
This paper is being retracted at the request of the authors. The authors report that there was an incorrect interpretation of the odds ratio meaning that instead of HPV vaccination potentially being protective, there may be an associated increased risk of preterm delivery.
Then, backpedaling started:
The authors believe that an increased risk of preterm delivery is unlikely and not consistent with the evidence to date. Further, the authors have not been able to access the original source data as per protocol to check the data validity. The authors wish to repeat the study to reassure themselves that there were no data processing or other errors in the databases in order to reach definitive conclusions.
Did the authors lose their raw data? It is hard to believe. Okay, what was the source of the data?
The source was not some rogue database administrator; the NZ Ministry of Health provided the data.
The NZ Ministry of Health had no problem initially providing the data to authors setting out to prove that the HPV vaccine was safe and effective.
When study authors admitted that their “inverted findings” accidentally proved that the HPV vaccine increased early preterm births, NZ MOH refused to provide that data again for reanalysis. I guess, the NZ government frowns upon questioning vaccines, truth be damned.
A Nonexistent Person Blamed
One of the co-authors blamed an unspecified “stats PhD candidate” for the error:
A comment to the retraction notice questions the “inexperienced PhD candidate” explanation:
Conflict of Interest
The study’s lead author, who also initiated it, Prof. Beverley Lawton, hid that she is financially sponsored by the rights holder to the vaccine from editors and reviewers.
The researchers, from New Zealand, also failed to appropriately disclose their financial ties to a company, CSL Limited, which owns the rights to the HPV vaccine in Australia and New Zealand.
The scandal happened during the peak of Covid hysterics in 2020 and would have gone unnoticed had it not been for a friend of this blog, arkmedic, who mentioned this amazing story on telegram. Please subscribe to Arkmedic’s substack!
NZ still recommends the HPV vaccine and refuses to release the data that, when appropriately un-inverted, shows an increase in the chance of very early premature births for HPV-vaccinated mothers.
Would you recommend the HPV vaccine to future mothers? Were mistakes honestly made?
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Igor Chudov owns a popular math website and is the author of Igor’s Newsletteron Substack.
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