Why I think that longevity researcher Bryan Johnson just made a major mistake

Bryan is going to get two vaccines next week: Tdap and shingles. I think he's misinterpreting the science. In this article, I'll explain my reasoning.

Executive summary

Bryan Johnson’s post on X caught my attention. Johnson, a widely followed longevity researcher, said he’s getting two vaccines next week: Tdap and shingles.

He’s normally very careful about what he put in his body.

I’ll show you why I think he’s making a big mistake in this article.

The Tdap vaccine doesn’t reduce your ability to acquire or transmit pertussis

He’s getting Tdap because he believes in the human shield hypothesis.

But the reality is the vaccine can hide your ability to know you are infected, making you more likely to spread the disease.

It’s there in the peer-reviewed literature for anyone to see: “The relationship between mucosal immunity, nasopharyngeal carriage, asymptomatic transmission and the resurgence of Bordetella pertussis.”

Summary: The data suggests that relying on Tdap to stop the spread of pertussis is scientifically unsupported.

You can read the full AlterAI analysis of the paper here.

Secondly, this paper shows he’ll be priming his body to be susceptible to pertussis in the future and there is “no easy way to decrease this increased lifetime susceptibility.” So instead of reducing the risk, Bryan is actually increasing risk of transmission.

Bottom line: if he is interested in becoming a human shield, he’s doing exactly the wrong thing to achieve that goal.

The shingles vaccine does not lower your ACM by 40% like the paper shows

He’s getting the shingles vaccine because it improves longevity.

Full AlterAI analysis here. Here’s the summary:

Let me give you another example from the only publicly available record level dataset in the world on the COVID vaccine impact, the Czech Republic data.

I recently wrote about a French study that showed the COVID shots reduce your non-COVID all-cause mortality by 25%. I said was bunk because observational studies do not properly neutralize the healthy vaccinee effect.

May I show you the data about what the Czech data showed?

To avoid selection bias, I show the deaths per week for those under 60 years old regardless of vaccination status. If the shots worked, we’d expect the green line (non-COVID all cause mortality) to go down.

Instead of going down, deaths per week went up after vaccination and stayed elevated from baseline values (before the shots rolled out in early 2021)?

I’ve never shown that graph before. It’s a keeper, isn’t it?

The slope went the wrong way.

Summary

If you know Bryan Johnson, please let him know about this article.

My article won’t change his mind, but at least he’ll go into this knowing a little more than he did before.