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A Jan. 25 report by the U.K government showed the risks of serious adverse effects from mRNA COVID-19 vaccines largely outweigh the benefits, according to John Campbell, Ph.D., who analyzed the U.K. data used for the report.

U.K. health officials knew about the data in October 2022, but didn’t change their recommendations for the shots until the day they released the report and announced they will no longer recommend COVID-19 boosters for healthy people under 50.

They also said they will discontinue free distribution of the primary two-shot series.

In his latest video, Campbell, a retired nurse teacher in England, summarized the results of the report, which calculated how many people had to be vaccinated in different age groups and risk profiles in order to avoid a single hospitalization.

Campbell compared the results to peer-reviewed data on serious adverse events reported following mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.

The report was based on an October 2022 UK Health Security Agency presentation to the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).

Despite the “massive shift” in vaccine risk-benefit analysis that was already clear in the October presentation, Campbell said, “the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation carried on without modification to the autumn booster program.”

“My question to the Joint Committee on Vaccination Immunisation is why?” said Campbell, who noted that the agency is 85% funded by industry.

Summary of the analysis: ‘number needed to vaccinate’ versus risk of serious adverse events

The U.K. study analyzed the “number needed to vaccinate” by age group to prevent either hospitalization or “serious hospitalization,” which is when someone needs oxygen or a ventilator — though Campbell noted that it is common, in general, to oxygenate in hospitals.

For example, healthcare providers would need to vaccinate 43,000 people in the 50 to 59 age group to prevent one hospitalization and more than 256,400 people in that age group to prevent a serious hospitalization.

Campbell compared the numbers in the report to a peer-reviewed study published in Vaccine that re-analyzed the original phase 3 trials for Pfizer and Moderna to identify serious adverse events of special interest following the mRNA vaccines.

In the Moderna trials, the risk of serious adverse events was 15.1 per 10,000 doses. In other words, 1 in 662 vaccines administered produced a serious adverse event.

In the Pfizer trials, the risk of serious adverse events was 10.1 per 10,000, which breaks down to 1 in 990 vaccines administered producing a serious adverse event.

On average, there were 12.5 serious adverse events per 10,000 people vaccinated, which is 1 in 800. That means there were a total of 1,250 serious adverse events for every 1 million people vaccinated, according to the study.

The data from the original trials weren’t age-stratified and the companies did not make participant data available.

The U.K. government study estimated the “number needed to vaccinate” for the primary vaccine (first and second doses), and for the fall booster.

Campbell provided some examples from the study’s data analyzing the autumn boosters in order to illustrate the overall findings.

For example, among 20- to 29-year-olds, 169,200 booster shots would have to be administered in the fall to prevent one hospitalization, and 706,500 boosters would have to be given to prevent one serious hospitalization.

But the risk of serious adverse events is about 1 in 800.

“So we can clearly see that the risk of an adverse event is much greater than the risk of hospitalization in this younger age group,” Campbell said.

For 50- to 59-year-olds, 256,400 people would have to be boosted to prevent one serious hospitalization. Even among high-risk people in that age group, 18,600 people would have to be boosted to prevent one serious hospitalization.

For 60- to 69-year-olds, 3,600 people would have to be boosted to prevent one hospitalization and 27,300 would have to be boosted to prevent one serious hospitalization.

For the over-70-year-olds, 800 people would have to be boosted to prevent a single hospitalization, and 7,500 would have to be boosted to prevent a serious hospitalization.

“So even in this age group, the benefits of the autumn vaccine were minimal, if anything, over the risk of an adverse event of a special interest,” Campbell said.

Campbell also examined the study’s data on unvaccinated people. Based on data from July 2022, among over-70-year-olds, 414 people per million were admitted to the hospital because of COVID-19. Among people ages 40 to 49, 14.5 were hospitalized with COVID-19 per million.

Unvaccinated people in the over-70 age group had serious hospitalization at a rate of 50.9 per million versus those who had three doses of the vaccine who had serious hospitalizations at a rate of 32 per million.

But the data also showed 1,250 serious adverse events per million vaccine recipients.

Campbell underscored the fact that although these data were released last week, the JCVI had the information last October and did not change their booster recommendations.

“I’m not saying the JCVI are wrong, I’m not allowed to do that,” Campbell remarked.

“But I do ask the question as to why they didn’t modify any of their dictates in light of this evidence that we now know they had on the 25th of October 2022,” Campbell said. “I find it difficult to explain, but there you go we’ll leave it at that.”

Watch here: