Nullius in Verba
Table of contents
Take nobody's word for it.
That's the motto of the Royal Society, adopted in 1660. It's a rejection of argument from authority. Don't believe something because an expert said it. Check the evidence yourself.
This blog is about reading vaccine safety evidence. Not summarizing it. Not telling you what to conclude. Reading it, so you can evaluate it yourself.
What This Blog Is¶
We're expecting our first child. I started looking into the vaccine schedule. Not because I was "anti-vax". I'd had every vaccine on schedule, and assumed my kids would too. I just wanted to understand what I was consenting to.
What I found wasn't what I expected.
I didn't find a conspiracy. I didn't find suppressed evidence of harm. What I found was something more mundane and more troubling: a gap between what the evidence shows and what public health authorities claim it shows.
Not lies. Not fraud. Just... imprecision. Overconfidence. Claims that outrun the data.
Regulators treat "no evidence of harm" as "evidence of no harm."
Manufacturers design trials to detect common side effects, then present them as proof of safety for rare ones.
Researchers compare vaccines to other vaccines, then describe the results as if they used placebos.
Each individual claim is defensible. Taken together, they paint a misleading picture.
What This Blog Isn't¶
I'm not telling you vaccines are dangerous. I don't know if they are. I'm trying to figure it out by writing these posts. That's the point: neither does anyone else, at least not with the confidence often claimed.
I'm not telling you what to decide. Your risk calculus depends on your situation, your values, your child's health. I can't make that decision for you.
I'm not "anti-vax." That term has become meaningless, applied equally to people who reject all vaccines and people who ask methodological questions. I'll let you judge whether the questions I raise are reasonable.
What I am is someone who reads primary sources, understands statistics, and thinks you deserve to see what the evidence actually says.
If you spot an error in my reasoning, data, or sources, tell me. I'll correct it publicly. The goal is to get this right, not to win an argument.
The Method¶
Every claim I make will be sourced. Not to news articles or summaries, but to the actual studies, regulatory documents, and data.
When I say a trial had 341 participants, I'll link to the trial registry. When I say a study used an active comparator instead of a placebo, I'll quote the methods section. When I calculate a number, I'll show the math.
You don't have to trust me. You can check.
That's the point.
What You'll Learn¶
This blog will teach you to ask questions like:
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How big was the trial? Small trials can't detect rare events. A trial of 300 people cannot rule out a 1-in-1,000 adverse event.
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What did they actually measure? If a trial tracks side effects for 7 days, it tells you nothing about effects that emerge at 7 weeks or 7 months.
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What was the comparison group? Comparing a vaccine to another vaccine tells you whether they differ. It doesn't tell you whether either is safe compared to nothing.
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What's the Number Needed to Treat? If you need to vaccinate 5,000 people to prevent one serious case, but your safety trial only enrolled 500, what can that trial actually tell you?
These aren't gotcha questions. They're basic epidemiology. The same questions you'd ask about any medical intervention.
Why Pseudonymous¶
I write under a pseudonym because I want the arguments to stand on their own.
If I told you I was a doctor, you might defer to my authority. If I told you I was a software engineer, you might dismiss me as unqualified. Neither response is what I want.
I want you to evaluate the evidence. Not my credentials.
Nullius in verba.
What Comes Next¶
The next post will introduce the core problem: the NNT-Detection Gap.
If a vaccine prevents one serious illness per 5,000 doses, you need trials of at least 5,000 people to know if you're also causing one serious harm per 5,000 doses. Most vaccine safety trials are far smaller than that.
This isn't a flaw in any particular vaccine. It's a structural feature of how vaccine safety is evaluated. Understanding it changes how you read every safety claim you encounter.
Subscribe to follow along. Check my sources. Disagree with my analysis. Just don't take my word for it.