Jan 24 2023: Landmark Skidmore paper published

Includes estimate of vaccine mortality rate in US, based on December 2021 survey of 2840 people

I have been reading away on the subjects of fraud, misinformation, due diligence etc., hence the long silence. Also, there are incisive and humourous analysts who are covering the ground that I might otherwise take. However, it is nice to “scoop” once in a while.

This paper was published today, and I learned of it via a Danish news aggregator. It was initially submitted for publication in July 2022, and its peer review history can be found here.

One clear implication of this paper, written by economics professor Mark Skidmore, is that there is a rational basis for foregoing covid vaccination on the part of some individuals - namely, that they know someone in their social circle with a severe health event that is perceived to be consequent to covid vaccination.

It will be interesting to see how this paper moves through social and mainstream media. Presumably it will be widely disseminated in social media within the next 48 hours, and eventually appear in mainstream media several weeks later. Depending on the amount of attention generated, it may generate a “fact-check” type article.

I corresponded briefly with the author on January 24, 2023 via LinkedIn - he was surprised that the paper was permitted publication and anticipated that it might be retracted. According to Altmetrics, the paper has already been viewed/tweeted about more than 2000 times as of 6pm EST on January 24.