Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Breitbart; The BBC and British Medical Journal has accused the New York Times of getting their facts wrong on Coronavirus vaccines, but the NYT appears to have doubled down on their original mistake.
The original NYT article;
Britain Opens Door to Mix-and-Match Vaccinations, Worrying Experts
If a second dose of one vaccine isn’t available, another may be substituted, according to the guidelines.
By Katherine J. Wu
Jan. 1, 2021Amid a sputtering vaccine rollout and fears of a new and potentially more transmissible variant of the coronavirus, Britain has quietly updated its vaccination playbook to allow for a mix-and-match vaccine regimen. If a second dose of the vaccine a patient originally received isn’t available, or if the manufacturer of the first shot isn’t known, another vaccine may be substituted, health officials said.
The new guidance contradicts guidelines in the United States, where the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has noted that the authorized Covid-19 vaccines “are not interchangeable,” and that “the safety and efficacy of a mixed-product series have not been evaluated. Both doses of the series should be completed with the same product.”
Some scientists say Britain is gambling with its new guidance. “There are no data on this idea whatsoever,” said John Moore, a vaccine expert at Cornell University. Officials in Britain “seem to have abandoned science completely now and are just trying to guess their way out of a mess.”
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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/01/health/coronavirus-vaccines-britain.html
The response from the BBC;
Coronavirus: BMJ urges NYT to correct vaccine ‘mixing’ article
The editor of the British Medical Journal has asked the New York Times to correct an article that says UK guidelines allow two Covid-19 vaccines to be mixed.
The US publication reported that UK health officials would allow patients to be given a second dose that is a different vaccine to their first.
Fiona Godlee pointed out in her letter to the NYT that it was not a recommendation.
She said the NYT’s headline claiming UK guidelines say such substitutions “may happen” was “seriously misleading”.
The UK has approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab – but both require two doses which are now to be administered 12 weeks apart
Ms Godlee said the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) does not make any recommendation to mix and match – in other words, having a shot of one vaccine and then a different one 12 weeks later.
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Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-55519042
Breitbart points out not only did the NYT ignore the BBC and BMJ’s demand for a correction, they doubled down with a second article repeating their original mistake.
Even the Guardian noticed that British medical figures were objecting to the NYT’s claims. But the NYT apparently ignored everyone and just bulled ahead with their original mistake.
Anyone can make a mistake. But in my opinion, to double down on a mistake and apparently ignore urgent advice from multiple parties to correct just seems plain incompetent.
via Watts Up With That?
January 6, 2021 at 04:59AM
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