Reaffirming a Positive Correlation Between Number of Vaccine Doses and Infant Mortality Rates: A Response to Critics

Cure US ^ | 01/07/2023 | Gary S. Goldman, Neil Z. Miller

[Jan_Sobieski]

Abstract

Introduction

In 2011, we published a study that found a counterintuitive, positive correlation, r = 0.70 (p < .0001), demonstrating that among the most highly developed nations (n = 30), those that require more vaccines for their infants tend to have higher infant mortality rates (IMRs). Critics of the paper recently claimed that this finding is due to "inappropriate data exclusion," i.e., the failure to analyze the "full dataset" of all 185 nations.

Objective

In the present study, we examine various claims postulated by these critics and the validity of their scientific methods, and we perform several investigations to assess the reliability of our original findings.

Methods

The critics select 185 nations and use linear regression to report a correlation between the number of vaccine doses and IMRs. They also perform multiple linear regression analyses of the Human Development Index (HDI) vs. IMR with additional predictors and investigate IMR vs. percentage vaccination rates for eight different vaccines. We perform odds ratio, sensitivity, and replication analyses.

Results

The critics' reanalysis combines 185 developed and Third World nations that have varying rates of vaccination and socioeconomic disparities. Despite the presence of inherent confounding variables, a small, statistically significant positive correlation of r = 0.16 (p < .03) is reported that corroborates the positive trend in our study. Multiple linear regression analyses report high correlations between IMR and HDI, but the number of vaccine doses as an additional predictor is not statistically significant. This finding is a likely consequence of known misclassification errors in HDI. Linear regression of IMR as a function of percentage vaccination rates reports statistically significant inverse correlations for 7 of 8 vaccines. However, several anomalies in the scatter plots of the data suggest that the chosen linear model is problematic…

[Jan_Sobieski]

Conclusions

A positive correlation between the number of vaccine doses and IMRs is detectable in the most highly developed nations but attenuated in the background noise of nations with heterogeneous socioeconomic variables that contribute to high rates of infant mortality, such as malnutrition, poverty, and substandard health care…

[spintreebob]

Infant & Maternal illness & death are complex with many factors. Clearly alcohol, drugs, STDs as a group are the major external factor in the US. Age is the major internal factor. Women at either extreme of the age range and their babies have many more problems than women in the prime of the child bearing age range.

Any legit study is going to compare alcoholic babies with alcoholic babies, heroin babies with heroin babies, and keep them separate from moms and babies with no external factors.

The role of the father is also very important. A woman who has a undependable, irresponsible sperm donor has internal chemical reactions... defenses.... that are translated to the baby... often what is translated is that the baby is not wanted, the baby is a nuiance on the career or social life of the mom.

The topic is complex,

[Jan_Sobieski]

In a day of antibiotics, Antiparasitics, and vitamins, there is no need for vaccines

[coloradan]

Oddly, when considering whether gun ownership correlates with firearms homicide rates (but not overall homicide or violent crime rates) the gold standard, at least according to the gun grabbers, is apparently to consider only certain cherry-picked “western industrialized democracies”, thereby excluding Mexico, Honduras, Venezuela and a host of other countries with gun prohibitions and yet also with firearms homicide rates, not to mention overall homicide and violent crime rates, far higher than the US has. So it’s telling that they insist on including all countries here for the study of infant mortality vs. numbers of vaccinations.

[ChildOfThe60s]

Apparently it is not uncommon to have a bunch of different vaccines in a single shot. Considering how (real) vaccines work, that is counter intuitive. They are overloading the infant’s developing immune system.

The bundling of vaxes and giving multiple bundles close together is a BAD idea.