NewsGuard tries to fact check me. Here are my answers.
It's great they want to know the facts. Let's see if they take me up on any of my offers. I'm not holding my breath.
Executive summary
NewsGuard helps to guard the narrative. I just received a bunch of questions from them. Here are the questions and my response, for your viewing pleasure!
NewsGuard questions
Mr. Kirsch,
This is John Gregory, health editor at NewsGuard We exchanged emails last year when NewsGuard first published its rating of KirschSubstack.com.
We are now updating your website's rating and had additional questions regarding articles that you've published over the last year. I've attached a PDF version of your current NewsGuard rating, but keep in mind it is due for an update and is the same as the rating I sent you in August of last year.
1) Has the site made any corrections of factual errors in the past year? The only correction we could find on your website was this correction in a Nov. 2022 article:
A: Not that I recall, but happy to respond to specific questions. Or you can research them yourself.
2) An August 2024 article, headlined “New Oxford study shows ONLY the kids who took the COVID shots had heart problems and died,” said, “A new large-scale study from renowned scientists at the prestigious University of Oxford has just confirmed that myocarditis and pericarditis only appear in children and adolescents after Covid vaccination and not after infection from the virus.”
A similar July 2024 article stated, "A groundbreaking study by researchers from Oxford, Leeds, Harvard, and Bristol has confirmed that myocarditis and pericarditis only appear in children and adolescents following COVID-19 vaccination, not after infection. This extensive research analyzed official government data from over 1 million English children and adolescents, comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated subjects aged 5-11 and 12-15."
The study's own authors have said this is a misrepresentation of their work, because two of the study authors explained to NewsGuard, because the study only compared vaccinated to unvaccinated children – not vaccinated children to those infected with COVID – therefore ts results do not prove that myocarditis and pericarditis are only caused by the COVID vaccine.
“The claims are misinterpreting the study, which compared vaccinated vs unvaccinated individuals not vaccinated vs infected individuals as suggested by these claims,” Edward Parker, study co-author and assistant professor of epidemiology and population health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told NewsGuard in a June 2024 email. Another author made a similar comment to the AAP: https://www.aap.com.au/factcheck/covid-study-misrepresented-in-misleading-heart-inflammation-claim/
Moreover, multiple studies predating the May 2024 preprint have demonstrated that myocarditis and pericarditis can be caused by COVID-19 infection, as well as being a rare side effect of COVID vaccines. Examples here, here and here.
Do you stand by these articles or are corrections or retractions warranted in light of the fact that the study's own authors have said conclusions such as yours are misrepresenting their work?
A: Yes, I stand by the two articles. I only wrote one of them. Journal editor James Lyons-Weiler wrote the other you cited. Both cohorts in the study got COVID as you can verify in Table 2. Yet only the vaccinated kids got myocarditis and pericarditis even though the rate of COVID infection was lower in the vaxxed group! So that clearly means it’s the shots that are causing the myocarditis and pericarditis, not COVID. Otherwise, you’d be seeing higher rates in the unvaxxed group. So you should give those authors a very bad NewsGuard rating because they are trying to gaslight you!
3) A May 2024 article, headlined “Survey indicates sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender dysphoria are all primarily caused by vaccination,” stated, “Thanks to your help in responding to my last survey, it took less than 3 hours to answer the question as to whether sexual orientation, gender identity and gender dysphoria are influenced by vaccines. The answer to all three is yes: the greater someone is vaccinated, the more likely they are to exhibit each of these traits.”
Similarly, in a April 2024 article, you said that vaccines cause a "14.5 [times] higher likelihood of sexual orientation/gender dysphoria issues in people under age 60” and that “93% of the cases of sexual orientation issues are caused by vaccines.”
Your basis for these claims were unverified responses to a survey sent to your Substack subscribers asking for information about alleged vaccine injuries. In the survey form that NewsGuard reviewed, respondents did not have to provide their name or any proof that any of the specified vaccine side effects – which included “Sexual orientation/gender identity issues and/or gender dysphoria” – actually occurred. The survey form also included an option for respondents to submit side effects that supposedly happened to other people.
A: Why don’t you run your own survey? You’ll find the same results. The more vaccines, the greater the prevalence of these issues. It’s quite astonishing that they line up so well. Respondents had no knowledge of who was being surveyed nor the responses so far. Yet the odds ratios were super high (over 10). That CANNOT happen by chance as I’m sure you know. The best way to validate this is to run your own survey and publish the results. This is what science is about: fact checkers replicating our results. We welcome this.
In the May 2024 article, you also cited the alleged experience of an unnamed pediatric clinic: "“There is a pediatric clinic which has not had any gender/sex cases in 25 years. They’ve had over 5,000 kids and no cases. They do not vaccinate.” The article does not provide any information about the clinic or these figures in a way that would allow them to be verified.
A: We can call one of the principals of the clinic if you want so you can verify this. Let me know when you’d like to do this.
Health experts have repeatedly stated that there is no evidence that any vaccine can cause people to change their sexual orientation or develop gender dysphoria, which is a diagnosable condition of distress caused by the feeling that one’s gender and sex do not match.
“No, vaccines cannot cause sexual orientation issues,” Dr. Anna Wald, director of the Virology Research Clinic at the University of Washington School of Medicine, told NewsGuard in an April 9, 2024, email.
Similarly, Rachel Levin, a biology and neuroscience professor at Pomona College in California, told FactCheck.org in June 2023, “There is no scientific evidence that adding anything to someone post birth could ‘cause’ them to be transgender. Rather, gender identity is assumed to be developed in utero.”
Do you stand by these articles or are corrections or retractions warranted?
A: The health authorities are wrong. You can validate this with your own survey. That’s what a fact checker is supposed to do: find the truth. Engage a third party polling firm and ask the same questions I asked. You’ll make history showing the experts are wrong.
4) Another August 2024 article, titled "Did the COVID shot kill former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki?," suggested that Wojcicki's cancer could have been caused by COVID vaccines.
Your article stated, "Of the 50 cases of NSCLC reported in VAERS, nearly all of them are associated with the COVID shots. So we really can’t rule out the possibility that Susan Wojcicki died as a result of side-effects of the vaccine she promoted on YouTube."
Your article did not mention that VAERS reports are unverified, can be made by anyone without providing a name or contact info, and do not prove causation. Moreover, as cancer organizations have repeatedly stated, there is no evidence that COVID vaccines can cause cancer of any kind.
https://www.mskcc.org/coronavirus/covid-19-vaccine
Is there a reason why your article did not mention any of the limitations of VAERS or reference the lack of evidence that COVID vaccine can cause cancer?
A: Sure, because VAERS is the official adverse event reporting system of the US government. Knowingly submitting a false VAERS report is a federal crime in the United States. It is punishable by fines and imprisonment. See 18 U.S. Code § 1001. So what’s the motivation for reporting false NSCLC reports? Did your experts answer that question? Did they identify any false NSCLC reports? Please let me know if they did. VAERS reports are all scrutinized by HHS before they reports are published. The people telling you the reports are unreliable need to identify what % of the NSCLC reports are fictitious. Why don’t you ask them for that number and publish it? It’s time to expose these people for spreading misinformation.
5) A July 2024 article, titled "AND LIKE THAT, THE CLAIM VACCINES ARE THE WORLD’S BEST STUDIED PRODUCT DIES," said, "Wow. After decades of Dr. Stanley Plotkin and his vaccinologist disciples insisting vaccines are the most well studied products on the planet, they just penned an article admitting precisely the opposite. They just admitted vaccines are not properly studied—neither pre-licensure nor post-licensure."
In fact, the commentary argued for additional funding for vaccine safety studies following a vaccine’s approval or authorization by health regulators, in order to more quickly understand rare side effects that would not be captured in a clinical trial. Rather than saying there is a lack of vaccine safety studies, the commentary noted that it took years for multiple studies to be conducted that disproved claims that vaccines cause autism.
In a July 13, 2024, email to NewsGuard, Plotkin said “that the studies of vaccine safety we suggest are not that we doubt the overall safety of vaccines, as implied by Mr. Siri, who profits financially by opposing vaccines. It is because as scientists we are willing to study even rare putative reactions to determine if they are really related to the vaccines or occur by chance in large populations that receive vaccines. This does not question the overall high benefit-risk ratio of vaccination.”
Another co-author of the NEJM commentary, Dr. Robert Chen, scientific director of the Brighton Collaboration, a global vaccine safety nonprofit, also told NewsGuard in a July 15, 2024, email that Siri was not accurately representing the NEJM article. “Available vaccines are highly safe and effective for the vast majority of people,” Chen said. “Post-licensure studies have been done, are currently being done, and have shown vaccines are safe and effective for the great preponderance of people vaccinated. Our goal is to move that research to the next level to look at the very rarest of adverse reactions to vaccines in order to prevent even those events in the future.”
Do you stand by this article or are corrections or retractions warranted, in light of the fact that the study's own authors have said the article published on your site was misrepresenting their commentary?
A: First of all, if you look at the article, you will see I cross posted it. I didn’t write the article. But I agree with the sentiment. There’s very little post-marketing safety that is done. For example, there were over 770 safety signals triggered for the COVID vaccines, yet the CDC didn’t say a word to the public. So how is that safe? The COVID vaccine caused 8% of people to see medical attention post shot per the CDC V-safe system. That’s NOT SAFE. That’s a train wreck. What makes you think 8% seeking professional medical attention is safe? Even Google AI which is pro-narrative admits this “Serious AEFIs: For most licensed vaccines, serious AEFIs occur in less than 1 in 100,000 doses. Some vaccines have an even lower risk.” These vaccines are a train wreck. Do the math. The serious adverse event rate for the COVID vaccines is nearly 10,000X higher than “safe.”
Here’s another EASY way to tell who is telling you the truth. Let them know about my million dollar bet with Saar Wilf on whether the COVID vaccines killed more people than they saved. Ask your experts what side of the issue they are on. Then ask them how much they will wager that they are right in our scientific debate. You’ll find they are willing to risk $0. What does that tell you about their confidence in their beliefs? Why don’t you find someone who will match my $1M wager on this issue. You can’t because nobody actually believes they are safe.
Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions.
A: No problem. Looking forward to your replicating my survey results! And ask yourself why you can’t find a counterparty for my bet including yourself.
"NewsGuard"... how Orwellian can they get?
What they are doing to Steve is borderline defamation.
What Steve is saying is provably true, he has the facts and numbers to prove everything he says.