Valuable data missing from key CDC study - Analysis
“COVID-19 vaccines during pregnancy can protect babies after they’re born and lead to fewer hospitalized infants, a new study suggests.” Interesting headline in the LA Times, and this is a study that multiple mainstream sites have reported on.
Fact-check: That’s not what the study says.
At a press briefing, CDC researcher Dr. Dana Meaney-Delman was more precise.
“Until this study, we have not yet had data to demonstrate whether these antibodies might provide protection for the baby against COVID-19,” is what she said (italics added).
According to the CDC, “Infants are at risk for COVID-19-associated complications, including respiratory failure and other life-threatening complications.” They note that, “Evidence from other vaccine-preventable diseases suggests that maternal immunization can provide protection to infants, especially during the high-risk first 6 months of life, through passive transplacental antibody transfer.”
No one disputes that natural maternal immunity to disease is transferred to infants – immunity conferred by immunization, however, is another story, and one that the CDC set out to investigate.
The study was conducted in 20 pediatric hospitals in 17 states from July, 2021 through January 17, 2022. It looked at infants under the age of six months who were hospitalized for a variety of causes, dividing them into cases (COVID-19-positive) and controls (COVID-19-negative). 21 percent had “at least one underlying medical condition,” from which one can infer that the 79 percent who did not and who were hospitalized with COVID were actually in hospital due to COVID, as the study states: “Case-infants were hospitalized with COVID-19 as the primary reason for admission or had clinical symptoms consistent with acute COVID-19.”
There were 176 babies in the case group, and 203 in the control group, and the groups were matched according to a large number of parameters.
Within the groups, the status of the mothers was also noted: Among case-infants, 16 percent of mothers had received two COVID shots during pregnancy as opposed to 32 percent of mothers in the control group.
Of the 176 babies in the case group, 43 were admitted to ICU. 25 of those were critically ill and received life support (including mechanical ventilation, vasoactive infusions, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation – one baby). One infant died. 88 percent of the mothers of babies admitted to the ICU were unvaccinated, as was the mother of the baby who died and the mother of the baby who required ECMO.
Based on these findings, the study concludes that “Effectiveness of maternal vaccination during pregnancy against COVID-19 hospitalization in infants aged <6 months was 61% (95% CI = 31%–78%).”
The end.
Well, that was the end for every single article reporting on the study in the MSM.
But it isn’t – because… what happened to the control group? The study doesn’t tell us what happened to those infants. In that case, why have a control group at all? Is there something the CDC doesn’t want us to know about those infants? 32 percent of the mothers in that group received two COVID shots during pregnancy. What happened to their babies? The CDC doesn’t tell us.
All we know from this study is that the chances of an infant getting seriously ill from COVID seem to be higher if the mother did not receive the shots. It doesn’t tell us what the chances of an infant getting seriously ill in general are – and while that may appear an unreasonable expectation, it isn’t.
Pfizer (intentionally) did not include pregnant women in any of the phases of its trial studies. That means that, essentially, those pregnant women who choose to get the shots now are basically the trial group. So, the CDC had those women “in its hands” so to speak in this trial, and yet it omitted to follow up on them to see what happened to their newborn babies.
