Hey texassapper, from your original post:
Since the death total from both study groups, 38, appeared “surprisingly low” to study authors — particularly during a pandemic — they undertook their own analysis based on population mortality expectations at the time.
Assuming that age-adjusted death rates for the study subjects were similar to those of the general population, they estimated that 222 subjects should have died from July 27, 2020, to March 13, 2021. The reported number, 38, is just 18% of the expected number.
Michels explained this by the large number, 4.2% of “discontinued subjects.” The most concerning of these were subjects “lost to follow-up,” which means missing scheduled visits or other required activities.
That may indicate that Pfizer and Michels are both full of shit. The study may be trash. You can't draw any conclusions from the data, because you don't know how many of the drop outs in each group died. If one of the big reasons people dropped out was because they were dead, well...
And yes, you may have a good point about Pfizer. It would be interesting to read their response to the paper.