Unproven technologies, unsafe ingredients and inadequate testing — fortunately, current law prohibits mandating unlicensed vaccines approved for “emergency use.”

“It works!” trumpeted the normally stoic Nature journal about Pfizer’s early release results in a Phase III trial of its vaccine for COVID-19. Pfizer stated the vaccine was 90% effective when trial participants were exposed to SARS CoV-2, the virus said to cause COVID-19 symptoms.

Not so fast. Pfizer’s study protocol states cases count even if a trial participant has a positive test and only one symptom — like a cough, chills or diarrhea — that could easily be caused by one of 1,400 human pathogens, including 200 viruses known to infect humans. Except for Hepatitis A, B, C and HIV, the study protocol is silent on testing for other infectious causes of the participant’s symptoms.

In other words, the study suffers from confirmation bias. A cough and a positive test equals COVID, even when an “alternative possible diagnosis” could be the real cause of the symptoms. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.