Factchecking Susan Oliver factchecking John Campbell on a case of possible vaccine injury

Is Susan Oliver right?

An image from the case report that gets discussed here. It shows spike protein (brown) in heart tissue.

Last week, I went on a livestream with Alexandros Marinos, where we discussed this video by Susan Oliver:

In that video, Susan Oliver accused John Campbell of “misinformation” and “grifting” in his video, where he discussed a case report of a man who appeared to suffer from vaccine injuries. I also covered this case report here.

Is Oliver justified in calling Campbell a “grifter”? Does Oliver have a point?

In this article I’ll cover some of the main points from our livestream, as well as some additional thoughts I’ve had on it since then.

The case report

The case report that Campbell talked about in his video was about a 76 year old man who had previously been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease (PD). He received three doses of two different COVID-19 vaccines, and suffered from adverse events after each dose, including cardiovascular side effects and worsening of his Parkinson’s symptoms.

An autopsy revealed abundant spike protein in his heart and brain tissues. Recall that spike is a protein on the surface of SARS-CoV-2, but it’s also what the COVID-19 vaccines encode for; i.e., the vaccines make your body produce spike.

The author of the case report makes the case that the spike protein in this patient’s heart and brain was from the COVID vaccines, not viral infection, because the patient had no history of having COVID-19 in the past.

The researcher also looked for another SARS-CoV-2 protein: the nucleocapsid protein, and did not find it in any of the patient’s tissues. From this, he concluded:

Since the nucleocapsid protein of SARS-CoV-2 was consistently absent, it must be assumed that the presence of spike protein in affected tissues was not due to infection with SARS-CoV-2 but rather to the transfection of the tissues by the gene-based COVID-19 vaccines.

and:

A causal connection of these findings to the preceding COVID-19 vaccination was established by immunohistochemical demonstration of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.

In John Campbell’s video, Campbell reported on the findings of this case report and strongly agreed with the author of the case report that the damage was caused by the vaccine, not viral infection.

The one good point that Oliver makes

Susan Oliver brings up one good point in her video. She brings up a paper to illustrate that it’s possible for SARS-CoV-2 infection to lead to spike protein in tissues without nucleocapsid protein: Neuropathology of patients with COVID-19 in Germany: a post-mortem case series

That paper looked at brain tissues from patients who’d tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. They found some cases where there was spike protein in their tissues, but not nucleocapsid protein:

In the 16 (40%) cases positive for SARS-CoV-2 proteins on immunohistochemistry, spike protein was detected much more frequently (14 [88%] cases) than nucleocapsid protein (seven [44%] cases).

Moreover, this was all done before the vaccine rollout, so we can’t attribute the spike protein to the vaccines.

Oliver also brings up another paper, which seems to show cases of heart tissue that had spike protein, but not nucleocapsid protein: Histologic, viral, and molecular correlates of heart disease in fatal COVID-19

The vaccination status was unclear for the patients in that paper though, so this doesn’t make as strong of a case for Oliver. However, the first paper is sufficient to illustrate that it’s possible to find spike protein without nucleocapsid protein, after infection.

So if Oliver wants to say that it’s possible that the spike protein found in the original case report was from viral infection, I can’t disagree. Yes, we can’t rule out that the patient had an undiagnosed asymptomatic or mild SARS-CoV-2 infection that led to spike protein getting deposited in his heart and brain.

But should this hypothesis have equal weight in our minds?

What Oliver leaves out

In order for that hypothesis to have equal weight, we’d have to ignore some major pieces of evidence; like the fact that the patient experienced adverse reactions soon after each dose of the vaccine he’d received, and the fact that those reactions involved the heart and brain, aka, the very tissues where we found spike protein, and inflammation.

On the day of his first vaccination in May 2021 with the ChAdOx1 (AstraZeneca) vaccine, the patient:

experienced pronounced cardiovascular side effects, for which he repeatedly had to consult his doctor.

Then after his second dose, his Parkinson’s symptoms noticeably worsened:

After the second vaccination in July 2021 (BNT 162b2 mRNA vaccine), the family recognized remarkable behavioral and psychological changes and a sudden onset of marked progression of his PD symptoms, which led to severe motor impairment and recurrent need for wheelchair support.

Then:

Two weeks after this third vaccination (second vaccination with BNT162b2), he suddenly collapsed while taking his dinner.

He recovered from this “more or less,” but one week later, again suddenly collapsed silently while taking his meal. He died shortly thereafter.

Oliver does not bring up the timing of his adverse reactions at all in her video.

The patient probably tested negative near the time of death

Someone taking the most pro-vaccine stance might also say that the patient could have had SARS-CoV-2 infection, but was never diagnosed because he’d never been tested.

However, at the very least he was probably tested close to the time of his death. In our livestream, Alexandros Marinos brought up a video by Roger Seheult of Medcram. That video also reviewed this same case report and made similar points as Oliver, but what’s interesting is the pinned comment to the video where Seheult answers a frequently asked question:

Was the deceased in the first paper tested for SARS-CoV-2 infection?

Here was Seheult’s answer:

The paper states, "but no positive laboratory or clinical diagnosis of the infection." The paper never states that the patient received a test and the result was negative. Some have stated that as the patient was admitted to Charité Hospital in Berlin and their protocol for admission requires testing prior to admission. However, it is unclear of the current website policy was in place when the patient was admitted. Regardless, the policy states the following: https://www.charite.de/en/clinical_center/themes_hospital/main_topic_coronavirus

So the hospital where the patient was admitted to requires SARS-CoV-2 testing prior to admission, but Seheult is unsure whether that policy was in place when the patient was admitted back in late 2021.

Luckily we were able to answer that in our livestream, when Marinos looked for archived versions of the hospital’s website. Turns out that policy was in place then, at least according to an archived version of their website here.

Screenshot from here.

So for what it’s worth, if the patient had in fact been brought to Charité Hospital in Berlin near the time of his death, he probably tested negative for SARS-CoV-2.

What’s the best case scenario for the vaccines?

Of course it’s possible that he was in fact infected, but the test missed it. So let’s say that’s what happened.

That would mean that this man, despite having gotten three vaccine doses recently, still got infected, and still got spike protein in multiple tissues. In other words, the vaccine didn’t prevent spike protein from getting all over his heart and brain.

What would be the most pro-vaccine interpretation here? It would be something like: the man had a SARS-CoV-2 infection, but didn’t die of the infection, because after all, the vaccines are extremely effective at preventing death from COVID, so he died of something else, perhaps something related to his Parkinson’s, and the fact that he had spike protein in his heart and brain at the time of this death, as well as inflammation in his heart and brain, was just incidental.

Or it’s possible that the spike protein in his tissues was from an earlier infection, perhaps before he got any doses of vaccines. Sure, this is possible, but do we have any evidence for it?

Spike protein in brain and heart tissue from… asymptomatic or mild infection?

If the patient had gotten spike protein from an infection, whether it was before or after his vaccine doses, presumably it was either a mild or asymptomatic case, since the patient had never been diagnosed with COVID. That begs the question: how frequently does mild or asymptomatic infection lead to abundant spike protein in the brain and heart?

Unfortunately there isn’t much information on this since we don’t generally take heart or brain biopsies from people who have mild or asymptomatic COVID cases. But according to this study, where researchers quantified SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA in blood plasma samples from COVID patients, they found that 1 out of 9 outpatients, 10 out 19 non-ICU hospitalized inpatients, and 23 of 23 ICU patients had detectable SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA in their plasma.

So patients with more serious cases were more likely to have detectable viral RNA in their plasma.

Outpatients are patients that don’t stay overnight at the hospital while inpatients do. It’s telling that just 1 out of the 9 outpatients had any detectable viral RNA in their plasma, and that level of viral RNA was extremely small, even with an ultra-sensitive RT-PCR method.

Moreover, even the outpatients probably still had enough symptoms to prompt them to go to the hospital, so their cases were probably more symptomatic than any infection the patient from our case report might have had.

So the pro-vaccine interpretation of the case report has to (1) really reach to make their story work, postulating that a mild or asymptomatic case of infection led to abundant spike protein in the patient’s heart and brain, and (2) ignore the timing of the patient’s symptoms after each dose of vaccine he received.

Corroborating evidence

It’s relevant to bring up corroborating evidence that the vaccines could cause spike protein to get into brain and heart tissues. For example, see this paper: Intravenous Injection of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) mRNA Vaccine Can Induce Acute Myopericarditis in Mouse Model

Here’s an image from the supplementary materials:

This shows mRNA vax in heart tissue in mice that had been injected either intravenously (IV) or intramuscularly (IM) with the Pfizer COVID vaccine.

Additionally, mRNA from the vax is not the only way spike protein could get into unwanted tissue. Spike protein could be brought in through the blood or by cells carrying it.

For example, this study found pieces of spike protein from the vaccines within monocytes many months post vaccination: SARS-CoV-2 S1 Protein Persistence in SARS-CoV-2 Negative Post-Vaccination Individuals with Long COVID/ PASC-Like Symptoms

It’s possible that traveling monocytes, or other cells, could carry spike protein into different tissues.

Oliver subtly tells you what she thinks should be obvious

Now, if Oliver’s only point had been to say that we can’t rule out that spike protein in the case report was from viral infection, I would have no issues with her video.¹

But she goes further than that, and what she says makes me distrust her. From her video at around 2:55 (emphasis mine):

But back to the main claim that lack of nucleocapsid protein means that spike protein came from the vaccine. To make a claim like this you first need to test tissue samples from the brains and hearts of people who are known to be infected with covid and confirm that they always contain both spike and nucleocapsid protein.

The author of the study didn’t do this, and John didn’t did pick up that they didn’t do this because he has no idea how to evaluate research.

Let’s first look at Oliver’s claim that “you first need to test tissue samples from the brains and hearts of people who are known to be infected with covid and confirm that they always contain both spike and nucleocapsid protein.”

Oliver is right that the author of the study did not in fact do this, though he did test nasal tissues infected with SARS-CoV-2 to confirm that they contained both spike and nucleocapsid protein.

But when she says that you first “need” to do this, this makes it sound like not doing this was an obvious mistake that the researcher made. And that it should be obvious that just because you could use nucleocapsid protein as a marker for viral presence in nasal tissues, doesn’t mean that you can use it as a marker in brain or heart tissues.

But is this obvious?

First of all, it’s probably difficult to obtain heart and brain tissue samples from patients who died from COVID. My guess is that this is not something that most people, including most researchers, would have easy access to.

But even while putting that aside, let’s see what appear in the literature on this topic. Here’s a “meta-study” (a study that studied studies) for context: Assessing and improving the validity of COVID-19 autopsy studies - a multicenter approach to establish essential standards for immunohistochemical and ultrastructural analyses

It evaluated multiple studies that used immunohistochemistry to look for SARS-CoV-2 from tissues in autopsies. “Immunohistochemistry” is the method that was used in our case report, and refers to using antibodies for detecting the presence of proteins you’re interested in, like spike or nucleocapsid, in tissues.

The meta-study looked at different ways of determining the presence of SARS-CoV-2 viral proteins, like using antibodies for spike, nucleocapsid, etc.:

Interestingly, anti- nucleocapsid-antibodies showed highest sensitivity. This may be since, of all SARS-CoV-2 proteins, nucleocapsid is produced at the highest levels during the SARS-CoV-2 lifecycle in cells.

And:

…we performed immunofluorescence double-staining on Vero cells, lung, and respiratory mucosa and consistently observed more nucleocapsid-positive cells than spike-positive cells. Moreover, nucleocapsid signals were evenly distributed and more abundant than spike protein within double-positive cells.

And:

In our study, we show that IHC using antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid yields the highest sensitivity and specificity.

“IHC” stands for immunohistochemistry.

So imagine you were a researcher who came across this information, but never came across the studies that Oliver brought up in her video. You might readily conclude that finding spike protein without nucleocapsid antibodies was a decent way to tell the difference between vaccine-induced spike vs spike from viral infection.

Now, you’d be mistaken about how full-proof that method was, but would that mean you had missed something obvious? Would this make you a bad researcher?

Recall that the meta-study found that “nucleocapsid signals were evenly distributed and more abundant than spike protein” and that “anti- nucleocapsid-antibodies showed highest sensitivity.” In fact, here was their general recommendation for detection of SARS-CoV-2 proteins using this method:

Nucleocapsid has a higher abundance in virus-protein positive cells, thus, usage of anti-nucleocapsid antibodies is recommended to increase the sensitivity of detection (see Figure 2; Supplementary Figure 4). Epitopes of nucleocapsid might show higher conservation in novel VOC and thus, produce more reliable detection in the future.

And:

Anti-spike antibodies are not recommended for detection, but are suitable as additional tools to confirm specificity in double stainings.

This is in tension with the studies that Oliver brought up. How do we reconcile them?

The meta-study focused on lung and nasal tissues. Maybe nucleocapsid is more abundant than spike protein in lung and nasal tissues, but spike protein is more abundant than nucleocapsid in brain and heart tissues?

Or maybe the antibodies that were used to detect spike in the studies that Oliver brought up, sometimes picked up proteins they shouldn’t have; i.e., there were false positives?

The point is that this issue is up for debate and not obvious. The fact that sometimes spike protein can be found without nucleocapsid protein as a result of viral infection is actually quite counterintuitive, and contradictory to some of the other information out there.

It’s certainly not common knowledge among “decent researchers,” and it’s not something you’ll find in any textbook either; it’s just too new.

By the way, contradictory findings occur all the time in research. In fact, many of the things that are reported today using currently available methods will probably be subject to “reinterpretations” at some point. Should those findings and papers therefore be called “misinformation”?

A parallel

There’s a parallel we can draw upon, which was discussed in one of my previous articles:

Does spike protein get into the nucleus of cells?

For that article, I tried to answer the question of whether spike protein could get into the nucleus of cells, and looked at several different studies that tried to determine subcellular location, or the location within cells, of spike protein whenever it was introduced or expressed within cells.

The results were conflicting; some studies found spike protein getting into the nucleus of cells, while others did not.

Moreover, it turned out that there was some literature reporting that the methods used to try to determine subcellular location of proteins within cells sometimes (perhaps often) yielded artifacts. On top of that, many researchers using these methods were unaware of the potential for these artifacts.

Does that mean that the findings of all those studies were “misinformation”? Similarly, was the information in the case report discussed here, “misinformation”?

Keep in mind also, that the point that Oliver brings up doesn’t even have to change the main conclusion of the case report; arguably it just changes the level of certainty of the conclusion.

“Dodgy” journal?

Oliver also says the case report is “dodgy” because it appears in an MDPI journal. She also implies that it “should never have been published” here:

Dr Susan Oliver (PhD) @DrSusanOliver1

Dr John Campbell’s video where he falsely claims that the vaccine caused a brain injury is a good example of how people like John who have no understanding of how to do research can be taken in by dodgy papers that should never have been published.

youtu.beDr John Campbell – Brain injury or just more grifting?Now, there has been so much misinformation this week, I had trouble deciding what to make a video about. Dr John Campbell was particularly on fire dredging u...

MDPI is a publisher of over 390 peer-reviewed, open access journals, and has sometimes been accused of being “predatory” or criticized for publishing controversial articles (more here).

Here’s my response to that:

1. Research should be evaluated based on the actual research instead of heuristics about the type of journal, or type of or lack of peer review, or other type of “approval” it has received. Science was done for centuries before the invention of peer reviewed journals, and we don’t discount all the findings from back then.

2. It’s also easy to imagine that papers that are critical of the COVID vaccines are especially hard to get published in the “best” journals.

“Red flag”?

Oliver also says it’s a “red flag” that the case report only had one author. She says that this is “highly unusual, particularly when it’s normal to get at least two researchers to review images in studies to make sure there is agreement on findings.”

Sure, it makes sense that any researcher would want another set of eyes “to review images.” But you can get that without that other set of eyes being a co-author on the paper.

Generally people only become co-authors if they actually performed some of the lab work or wrote some of the manuscript. Usually, giving comments or feedback on images does not warrant becoming a co-author on a paper.

The case report also has this:

Maybe the people being thanked helped “review images.”

Also, how “unusual” is it to find case reports with only one author? Most case reports do have more than one author, but it’s not hard to find lots that have only one author:

Acute myocarditis associated with anti-COVID-19 vaccination

Cerebral Venous Sinus Thrombosis After Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 (BNT162b2) Vaccination

Relapse of Immune Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura Following Vaccination with COVID19 mRNA Vaccine

Severe relapsed autoimmune hemolytic anemia after booster with mRNA-1273 COVID-19 vaccine

Unusual arm vein thrombosis after the Moderna (mRNA-1273) COVID-19 vaccination-a case report

Venous thrombosis after Covid-19 vaccination

Myocarditis after COVID-19 mRNA vaccination

COVID-19 BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine induced myocarditis with left ventricular thrombus in a young male

I could have listed more, but you probably get the point.

Gate-keeping

When Oliver says things like “To make a claim like this you first need to…” she wants to make it seem like the author of the case report missed something obvious that any decent researcher should know, the implication being that this person is incompetent as a researcher.

When she says things like, “John didn’t did pick up that they didn’t do this because he has no idea how to evaluate research,” she’s telling you that people like John are incompetent and not to be listened to, because he was “taken in” by a shoddy researcher.

When she says that the journal the case report was published in was “dodgy” and that it was a “red flag” there was only one author, the implication is: this study is not to be taken seriously, and therefore you can discount its findings and conclusions.

The implication is that Oliver does have the relevant expertise, because she knew about these two studies that call into question the air-tightness of the methodologies. And she can protect you, the lay person, from being duped by these shoddy researchers and misinformation spreaders, and lead you onto the correct path of scientific truth.

Accusations of grifting

In her video, Oliver also assumes that Campbell has seen tweets that were addressed to him, which had pointed out some of the studies that Oliver brought up in her video. Campbell never replied to those tweets, as far as I know, so I can’t say whether he has seen any of them.

Oliver, however, is sure that he has seen them, and the fact that he hasn’t deleted his “misinformation” video, which is monetized on YouTube, means that he’s a “grifter.” Make of that what you will.

Should you trust Susan Oliver?

I won’t tell you whether you should trust Susan Oliver. But here’s what I observed from her video:

• She leaves out important evidence from the case report, like the timing of the patient’s adverse reactions after each dose, or the fact that we have no evidence he ever had COVID. She does not engage in the totality of the evidence that would have factored into the conclusion that the author of the case report made.

• One can make a good case that the main point that Oliver brings up, at most, changes the confidence level of the conclusion reached in the case report. Yet Oliver makes it seem like this means the the paper contained “misinformation” that “should never have been published.”

• She implicitly accuses the researcher of the case report of missing obvious things, but those things are actually counterintuitive, not commonly known, and in tension with some other published work.

• She assumes that Campbell has seen tweets that were addressed to him, and based on the fact that he didn’t respond to those tweets, or take down his YouTube video, which is monetized, she calls him a “grifter.”

We could probably go on here, but it’s hardly worth it.

What do you think? Do you think Oliver is trustworthy? Leave your comments below.

1. Aside from aesthetic issues, that is.