Exposing the rot: Journal ignores missing data on Covid vaccine safety in pregnancy
Crucial data was excluded from a key vaccine study. When experts raised the alarm, the journal turned a blind eye.
A major medical journal is under fire for refusing to act on missing data that could upend a key study used to reassure the public about the safety of Covid-19 vaccination during pregnancy.
In 2022, the journal BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth published what was billed as one of the most reassuring studies to date.
Authored by Israeli physician Dr Aharon Dick and colleagues, the study examined stillbirth and live birth rates during December 2020 and July 2021, comparing women who were vaccinated and unvaccinated, respectively, at the time of delivery.
The paper reported no increased risk of stillbirth or preterm birth among women who received Covid-19 mRNA vaccines during pregnancy compared to those who remained unvaccinated.
But not everyone was convinced.
Soon after publication, two researchers—MIT professor Retsef Levi, recently appointed to the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, and Dr Efrat Schurr, a paediatrician based in Israel—began digging into the study.
What they uncovered was troubling: the authors had quietly excluded 22 vaccinated women from their final analysis, and the outcomes of those pregnancies were never disclosed.
This wasn’t a minor omission. It was data that, if included, could have dramatically changed the study’s conclusion.