Why are UKHSA obfuscating data on stillbirths by vaccine status: just another statistical illusion?
(See 22 April Update below)
In the latest UKHSA Feb 2022 Covid-19 vaccine surveillance report, Figure 8 suggests that there is no increased risk of stillbirth from vaccination:
This seems like good news but, as pointed out by Hamish Soutar, women vaccinated prior to pregnancy are included in "no doses in pregnancy".
This is an outrageous piece of obfuscation. Even though the rest of the report contains quite a lot of detailed raw data, there is no raw data provided to answer the simple question:
is the stillbirth rate higher for those unvaccinated than those vaccinated (before or during pregnancy)?
As implied by Hamish, Fig 8 does not answer this question. To give a feel for how easy it is to arrive at figure like that even if stillbirth rates were significantly higher in the vaccinated, consider the following hypothetical example for women whose pregnancies ended, say, between April 2021 and Feb 2022 (UPDATE see video below for visual explanation):
Suppose 10,000 women received at least one jab pre-pregnancy and 10,000 women received no jabs pre-pregnancy, and that these further break down into the following 4 categories:
Cat 1. (unvaccinated pre pregnancy and unvaccinated during pregnancy): 2000
Cat 2. (unvaccinated pre pregnancy but at least one jab during pregnancy): 8000
Cat 3. (at least one jab pre pregnancy but unvaccinated during pregnancy): 8000
Cat 4. (at least one jab pre pregnancy and at least one jab during pregnancy): 2000
Suppose the stillbirth numbers are:
Total women
Number of stillbirths
Stillbirth rate
Cat 1
2000
20
1%
Cat 2
8000
96
1.2%
Cat 3
8000
104
1.3%
Cat 4
2000
28
1.4%
So we are assuming in our purely hypothetical example that the stillbirth rate is higher in each of the categories containing vaccinated women. Then we can present the results as follows:
Total
Number of stillbirths
Stillbirth rate
Never vaccinated (Cat 1)
2000
20
1%
Vaccinated at least once (Cat 2+Cat 3+Cat 4)
18000
228
1.27%
..which answers the earlier question and clearly shows the increased risk of stillbirth in the vaccinated.
...Or, we can do what UKHSA have done in their Figure 8, which ‘shows’ that there is no increased risk of stillbirth from vaccination:
Total
Number of stillbirths
Stillbirth rate
Unvaccinated during pregnancy (C1+C3)
10000
124
1.24%
Vaccinated at least once during pregnancy (C2+C4)
10000
124
1.24%
All women (C1+C2+C3+C4)
20000
248
1.24%
In fact, it is not hard to produce hypothetical examples in which (with the same stillbirth rates assumed above but different numbers in the categories) the vaccine appears to reduce risk of stillbirth using the UKHSA ‘method’.
UPDATE: Here is a 4 minute video explaining the above:
22 April 2022 Update:
The latest (21 April 2021) UKHSA covid surveillance report continues with the same obfuscation. As a very timely example of the problems with the UKHSA reporting, today one of Britain’s leading athletes who won gold at the Tokyo Olympics in August 2021 revealed she suffered a miscarriage in November 21 and an ectopic pregnancy in mid January 2022. She says (in the comment attached to her latest photo)
“Since the Olympics we haven’t had much luck and it’s been the hardest few months I’ve ever had to go through. Jason and I fell pregnant immediately after the games and we were absolutely chuffed to bits. But unfortunately in November when commentating at the track champions league I miscarried our baby at 9 weeks. I’ve never felt so lost and sad. It felt like a part of me had been torn away. I grabbed for my safety blanket, bike riding! I found myself back in my happy place training again. I then caught Covid in mid January and found myself feeling really very unwell. I didn’t have typical covid symptoms and I just felt I needed to go to hospital. A day later I found myself in A&E being rushed to theatre because I was having an ectopic pregnancy. Scared doesn’t even come close. I lost a falopion tube that day. I’ve always known I was tough, but sometimes life pushes you to an unbearable limit."
She would have to have got double vaxxed shortly before the games to be allowed to take part. While there may be no reason to suspect the vaxx had anything to do with these two unfortunate outcomes, both would be classified in the UKHSA "no doses in pregnancy" category