(LifeSiteNews) – A new Israeli study found that the protection against infection offered by fourth doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine begins to wane after just four weeks in the latest indicator the shots are not the long-term pandemic solution originally advertised.
Published April 5 in the New England Journal of Medicine, the study by a team of Israeli researchers reviewed more than a million vaccinated Israelis between January 10 and March 2, all of whom were age 60 or older, meaning their potential risks from COVID were higher than the overall population.
Results appeared promising for the prevention of serious health problems, but not for the prevention of infection itself.
“Rates of confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection and severe Covid-19 were lower after a fourth dose of BNT162b2 vaccine than after only three doses,” the authors wrot. “Protection against confirmed infection appeared short-lived, whereas protection against severe illness did not wane during the study period.”
The findings follow multiple Israeli researchers, including Professor Cyrille Cohen of Bar Ilan University and Professor Gili Regev-Yochay of Sheba Medical Center, stating the vaccines were not up to the task of stopping the Omicron variant of COVID-19. Previous reporting indicates that the country struggled against earlier variants, as well, with The Daily Beast reporting last August that Israel experienced a “massive surge of COVID-19 infections,” attributed to the delta variant, despite Israel’s aggressive vaccination efforts.
Last month, Israel ended the use of its “Green Pass” system for making access to public venues contingent on proof of vaccination.
The new study is far from the first indicator of the vaccines’ weaknesses. Studies have found that vaccine-induced COVID protection wanes around six months (or potentially sooner). Last October, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) announced it was expanding emergency-use authorization for booster shots six months after the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, and two months after the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
By contrast, an October Yale study projected that natural immunity from prior infection would last three times longer, at 17 months. The conservative Brownstone Institute has compiled 150 research studies finding that natural immunity “is equal to or more robust and superior to existing vaccine.”
Accordingly, data indicates that the a strategy focused on mass vaccinations and increasingly frequent boosters has failed to end the pandemic in exchange for these risks. The U.S. federal government considers more than 218 million Americans (over 65% of the eligible) to be “fully vaccinated” (a moving target given the vaccines’ temporary nature), yet data from Johns Hopkins University reported last October shows that more Americans died of COVID-19 by that point in 2021 (353,000) than in all of 2020 (352,000). The Moderna vaccine has been available throughout all of 2021; the Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson shots were made available in late February.
Additionally, many continue to harbor reservations about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines, which were developed under the Trump administration’s “Operation Warp Speed” initiative in a tenth of the time vaccine development usually takes and a quarter of the time it took the previous record-holder, the mumps vaccine.
In late February, during a COVID-19 vaccine hearing held by Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, attorney Thomas Renz presented medical billing data from the Pentagon’s Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) showing that 2021 saw drastic spikes in a variety of diagnoses for serious medical issues over the previous five-year average, including hypertension (2,181%), neurological disorders (1,048%), multiple sclerosis (680%), Guillain-Barre syndrome (551%), breast cancer, 487%), female infertility (472%), pulmonary embolism (468%), migraines (452%), ovarian dysfunction (437%), testicular cancer (369%), and tachycardia (302%).
In a statement to left-wing “fact-checking” outlet PolitiFact, Defense Health Agency Armed Forces Surveillance Division spokesperson Peter Graves confirmed the existence of the records but claimed that a conveniently timed “data corruption” glitch made the pre-2021 numbers appear far lower than the actual numbers of cases for those years, which PolitiFact took at face value.