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"Immunity Debt"? Established 2021

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"Immunity Debt"? Established 2021

The term didn't exist before 2021

Counter Disinformation Project
Oct 6, 2022
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"Immunity Debt"? Established 2021

counterdisinformationproject.substack.com

Since 2021 Immunity debt has been used to explain why people, in particular children should be exposed to infectious diseases, the concept is that not being regularly exposed to pathogens their immune systems are unprepared when they do encounter them. The concept has been cited as a lockdown harm and as a reason why masks and in some cases even ventilation and clean air should not be used as mitigation measures in schools. It has been argued by some paediatricians in the UK and elsewhere that due to immunity debt infections don’t just catch up but overshoot.

Immunity debt is a form of extension of hygiene dogma, in practise it looks a lot like an extension of the thinking that supported herd immunity by infection as a strategy to handling the pandemic.

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It is worth noting that those who raise concerns about immunity debt are generally the same people who initially claimed children were considerably less likely to be infected and didn’t contribute significantly to transmission. These are also generally the same people who still claim the majority of covid infections in children occur outside of schools. This is despite contact tracing and testing studies demonstrating the direction of transmission, the latest being a comprehensive study from Italy.

Twitter avatar for @rdmorris
Bob Morris, MD, PhD 🇺🇦 @rdmorris
This comprehensive Italian contact tracing study shows clearly that -COVID spreads far more easily in the schools than in the community. -Household spread was a major amplifier of childhood infection. H/T @dgurdasani1 demo2.dropcite.com/articles/3b4e0…
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8:42 PM ∙ Oct 4, 2022
3,043Likes1,509Retweets

Although there had been some reporting in May 2021, immunity debt entered the public lexicon late June 2021 after a Wall Street Journal article went viral.

Post-Covid-19, World Risks Having to Pay Off ‘Immunity Debt’

Many people had little exposure to common viruses during social distancing, meaning bugs could spread more quickly once countries reopen. By Miho Inada

https://www.wsj.com/articles/post-covid-19-world-risks-having-to-pay-off-immunity-debt-11624863679?mod=e2tw

Robert Cohen, a professor at a pediatric research center near Paris called Activ, calls this “immunity debt.”

Cohen quoted a paper from December 2020.

The impact of COVID-19 nonpharmaceutical interventions on the future dynamics of endemic infections

Rachel E. Baker, Sang Woo Park, Wenchang Yang, Gabriel A. Vecchi, C. Jessica E. Metcalf, and Bryan T. Grenfell

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7720203/

In the next few weeks a number of news outlets around the world published their own version of the Wall Street Journal article citing the same sources. Various experts and professionals with large platforms online also drew attention to the articles treating immunity debt as a well established concept.

But there’s a problem with this, before 2021 no one had used the term immunity debt.

Several people have gone in search for the origins of immunity debt.

PubMed is a searchable database of scientific papers, a reliable resource used across the globe.

Twitter avatar for @TRyanGregory
T. Ryan Gregory @TRyanGregory
PubMed search for "immunity debt". 10 results. None published before August 2021. This idea was made up specifically for the COVID pandemic.
PubMed search for immunity debt returns only 10 results, all of them 2021 or 2022.
4:08 AM ∙ Oct 4, 2022
2,639Likes705Retweets

This thread comes with the evidence of a thorough search for use of the term immunity debt. Full details of searches are provided for proof if you read the full thread, I’ve cut this down to the narrative.

Twitter avatar for @amorvincitomnia
C̶͚̃a̵̯͠s̸͌͜s̷̜̎ả̵̻n̵̥͑d̸̓ͅr̶̦̽a̵̛̠ Complex̸̗́ @amorvincitomnia
What if I told you "Immunity Debt" as a concept doesn't exist before 2021? Because it doesn't. I looked. Earlier in June I sought origin of "Immunity Debt". I was pretty generous w/ my timeframes: 1970*-2019 & 2020-6/8/2022 *With some platform limitations as follows
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8:10 AM ∙ Jun 20, 2022
109Likes29Retweets
Twitter avatar for @amorvincitomnia
C̶͚̃a̵̯͠s̸͌͜s̷̜̎ả̵̻n̵̥͑d̸̓ͅr̶̦̽a̵̛̠ Complex̸̗́ @amorvincitomnia
The only pre-2020 finding seems clearly incidental. This is a test from 2018 covering the immune system. There's a section about AIDS. One of the clearly wrong answers is "Actual Immunity Debt Syndrome". There's only so many wrong acronyms someone can cook up with 4 letters 🤷‍♀️
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8:10 AM ∙ Jun 20, 2022
Twitter avatar for @amorvincitomnia
C̶͚̃a̵̯͠s̸͌͜s̷̜̎ả̵̻n̵̥͑d̸̓ͅr̶̦̽a̵̛̠ Complex̸̗́ @amorvincitomnia
Google Search Results (1/1/1970-12/31/2019). It's false hits about finance. Or data corruption. So, the twitter posts from 2012? I checked those ppls profiles in app. I wayback machined them. Nothing. Some of the backdated twitter posts are referring to current events.
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8:10 AM ∙ Jun 20, 2022
Twitter avatar for @amorvincitomnia
C̶͚̃a̵̯͠s̸͌͜s̷̜̎ả̵̻n̵̥͑d̸̓ͅr̶̦̽a̵̛̠ Complex̸̗́ @amorvincitomnia
Who is Gouri Rao (G.R.) Passi? runs a pediatric neurology clinic in Choithram Hospital and Research Centre in Indore, India. She’s been there since 1997. Her “current interest is diagnosis and management of inborn errrors(sic) of metabolism.” according to Research Gate.
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8:56 AM ∙ Jun 20, 2022
Twitter avatar for @amorvincitomnia
C̶͚̃a̵̯͠s̸͌͜s̷̜̎ả̵̻n̵̥͑d̸̓ͅr̶̦̽a̵̛̠ Complex̸̗́ @amorvincitomnia
Nothing, zilch, nada anywhere official-- that is, until August 2021. Found this citation for a Passi, G.R. that leads to a news brief in Indian Pediatrics Volume 58, Number 08. Kinda weird that it’s only a citation on PubMed and Google Scholar. Ok. Let’s see where this leads.
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8:56 AM ∙ Jun 20, 2022
Twitter avatar for @amorvincitomnia
C̶͚̃a̵̯͠s̸͌͜s̷̜̎ả̵̻n̵̥͑d̸̓ͅr̶̦̽a̵̛̠ Complex̸̗́ @amorvincitomnia
She hasn't written about immunity debt anywhere else in so far as I could dredge up tonight. Nor does she have anything on Research Gate that alludes to there being more. But I did find where that August 2021 citation leads. Full PDF. Jump to page 103
8:56 AM ∙ Jun 20, 2022
Twitter avatar for @amorvincitomnia
C̶͚̃a̵̯͠s̸͌͜s̷̜̎ả̵̻n̵̥͑d̸̓ͅr̶̦̽a̵̛̠ Complex̸̗́ @amorvincitomnia
It's a news brief. She invokes the name Gray (no further citation) whose work in the 1980s documented children “develop repeated asymptomatic infections with various strains of S. Pnemoniae
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8:56 AM ∙ Jun 20, 2022
Twitter avatar for @amorvincitomnia
C̶͚̃a̵̯͠s̸͌͜s̷̜̎ả̵̻n̵̥͑d̸̓ͅr̶̦̽a̵̛̠ Complex̸̗́ @amorvincitomnia
So what’s next? The next 4 papers all cite one paper published online in May 2021. In print Aug 2021. Here’s the thing. It uses the term “Immunity Gap”. That seems to be pretty well represented in research papers covering measles, rubella, e. coli, and malaria.
8:56 AM ∙ Jun 20, 2022
Twitter avatar for @amorvincitomnia
C̶͚̃a̵̯͠s̸͌͜s̷̜̎ả̵̻n̵̥͑d̸̓ͅr̶̦̽a̵̛̠ Complex̸̗́ @amorvincitomnia
Alright. So. The next pulled papers all cite this one published online in May 2021. In print Aug 2021 when referring to immunity debt. Even tho it covers immunity gap. Another layer to unpack b/c it seems like an odd choice. tinyurl.com/yk929hf9
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8:56 AM ∙ Jun 20, 2022
Twitter avatar for @InspiredAquaCA
Inspired Aquariums @InspiredAquaCA
@AbundantLandUse @rdumont99 @DGBassani @UbakaOgbogu Interesting. The earliest ref I found is this paper. It appears to be about a theoretical problem to watch out for. Then there's an explosion of news articles starting Jun 28 & on into July. Some say it was coined by Drs in France, others say NZ. Fishy.
ncbi.nlm.nih.govPediatric Infectious Disease Group (GPIP) position paper on the immune debt of the COVID-19 pandemic in childhood, how can we fill the immu…Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, reduced incidence of many viral and bacterial infections has been reported in children: bronchiolitis, varicella, measles, pertussis, pneumococcal and meningococcal invasive diseases. The purpose of this opinion ...
6:10 AM ∙ Jul 30, 2021
20Likes1Retweet

The French paper from May does appear to be the beginning point of the immunity debt story.

Twitter avatar for @lisa_iannattone
Dr. Lisa Iannattone @lisa_iannattone
The “immunity debt” hypothesis was introduced into the literature (aka invented) in 2021 by the same doctor that previously said kids don’t spread covid to adults and hypothesized that it’s because they’re short so their coughs are too low to reach us. How did that one turn out?
3:05 AM ∙ Oct 4, 2022
5,770Likes1,244Retweets

The paper itself is far from conclusive.

Twitter avatar for @jmcrookston
Jonathan Mesiano-Crookston 🌬️🔅#COVIDisAirborne @jmcrookston
So, this article on "immunity debt" recognized, at the bottom of its one Figure, that it has no clue what the effect of "immunity debt" could be. And that it might in fact be nothing at all. I don't even know what to make of this ... ?!
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1:04 PM ∙ May 13, 2022
28Likes3Retweets
Twitter avatar for @jmcrookston
Jonathan Mesiano-Crookston 🌬️🔅#COVIDisAirborne @jmcrookston
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P… I am really stuck on this one. The article premise is this is a problem, but the Figure says it could result nothing at all.
ncbi.nlm.nih.govEuropean Pediatric Societies Call for an Implementation of Regular Vaccination Programs to Contrast the Immunity Debt Associated to Coronav…
1:07 PM ∙ May 13, 2022
Twitter avatar for @jmcrookston
Jonathan Mesiano-Crookston 🌬️🔅#COVIDisAirborne @jmcrookston
I suppose perhaps it is a preventative worry. So then how did it get quoted as a known principle? This is ridiculous.
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1:09 PM ∙ May 13, 2022
Twitter avatar for @jmcrookston
Jonathan Mesiano-Crookston 🌬️🔅#COVIDisAirborne @jmcrookston
@PMGPSC Hrm self cites a lot ...
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1:47 PM ∙ May 13, 2022
5Likes1Retweet

Next in June there was a paper (published in September) from Rabia Agha a paediatrician in Brooklyn, while not using the term immunity debt, this is one of the papers quoted by other papers that came later.

Agha is quoted in the Wall Street Journal article that introduced the term into the public debate.

It’s worth noting the Wall Street Journal article began by saying French doctors are “calling it immunity debt”.

Just over a week later the Guardian published a story about immunity debt in New Zealand.

Once again it is the media outlet coining the term immunity debt not those being interviewed, besides reference to the French May 2021 paper.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/08/new-zealand-children-falling-ill-in-high-numbers-due-to-covid-immunity-debt

The next day the Independent ran the same story.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/nz-children-covid-immunity-debt-b1880753.html

And so did the Express.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1460236/New-Zealand-news-covid-lockdown-immunity-debt-virus-children-hospital-RSV

And the Evening Standard, all on the same day.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/new-zealand-coronavirus-higher-rate-ill-children-b945030.html?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1625843457-1

12 July the Independent ran another story and the BBC’s Newsnight had a section on immunity debt. 14 July Sky News ran the story and on the 16 July Global News raised immunity debt in Canada.

This is how one unconvincing paper and the Wall Street Journal seeded the idea of immunity debt which was then repeated and amplified by other media sources. From being mentioned in a single paper released in May, by mid July immunity debt was being treated as a well established and well known part of scientific literature.

It’s astounding that the same people who dismiss so many studies as lacking rigour or not being valid because there isn’t a RCT were so quick to adopt immunity debt when you consider the time it took for covid to be accepted as being airborne, how long some have continued to debate masks, and how air filtration is still not accepted as a means to reducing transmission. The high standards required to justify measures in schools dissipated like a puff of smoke when a concept to argue against measures in schools was encountered.

Clare Craig of HART, Pandata, PCRclaims…

Was wrong again.

Although some disagree.

After July 2021 immunity debt had become an established fact, letting children get infected by a range of diseases was now to be celebrates as paying back the debt early and the analogies with financial debt continued with talk of paying back with interest. Immunity debt was treated as a balance against any measures to reduce covid, a narrative developed suggesting immunity debt might be more of a concern than covid. When concerns were raised regarding hepatitis cases in children immunity debt was suggested as a cause.

Meanwhile the evidence base for immunity debt remains debateable.

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"Immunity Debt"? Established 2021

counterdisinformationproject.substack.com
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Zonker
Dec 5, 2022

Come up with any possible explanation for something and most people will see it as the only possible explanation

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Woody
Nov 14, 2022

So then like the photographs, fading immunity is only a function of aging and not because the immune system wasn't regularly being 'exercised'? Why then repeat Covid-19 booster shots using original Wuhan mRNA and BA.1 mRNA, neither which are currently circulating?

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