[tuesdaynight]

I'm probably misunderstanding something, but if the overall population risk for myocarditis is bigger than 4/100,000, wouldn't that indicate that mRNA vaccinated people have a lower risk? The number I found for the global population is 10~20/100,000. If taking the vaccine increases the risk, wouldn't the risk be bigger than 10~20/100k?

[trimethylpurine]

If the risk went down the term for that is "inverse correlation." In that case it would be preventative, rather than causative. Here we are seeing a correlation and we have a known mechanism of action that's driving that (described in the Stanford study).

Is that making more sense?

In part though, you are right to be noticing that the Pfizer study and the Stanford study disagree on the risk profile.

Why might that be?

Well, for one thing, if you look up the peer reviewers for the Pfizer study, it's the same list of names as the ones that performed the research, and each one of them is a Pfizer employee. Unsurprisingly, the lower risk profile was found in a study conducted by the same drug company that stands to profit from a lower risk profile. And it's not peer reviewed. Typically we rely on peer reviewed research in the world of science and medicine. Without it, it becomes very difficult to differentiate a science article from advertising, and pseudoscience.

Conversely the Stanford study was done by various researchers from various schools with no conflict of interest and no apparent profit from Pfizer, as best I can tell. And as we'd expect, they found not only a causal link, not only a higher incidence rate, but also the mechanism of action that drives it.