Let's recap, mhaze.

You've acknowledged the study is ecological - population-level trends, no linkage between vaccination status and individual deaths.

That matters. Ecological studies can suggest patterns. They don't, by themselves, establish individual-level causation. That's not denialism. It's a standard limitation.

Your logic is:

1. Low COVID circulation
2. Vaccination increased
3. Excess deaths increased
4. Therefore vaccines caused the deaths

That's a temporal sequence. It isn't causal identification.

To move from "after" to "because", you need more than saying other causes were "examined and rejected". You need modelling that actually controls for:

- Age structure shifts (small regions can swing with small absolute changes)
- Healthcare disruption and delayed treatment
- Cause-of-death composition
- Baseline mortality trends
- Precise timing between rollout, outbreaks and reporting lags

Otherwise "natural control group" is a description, not a design.

On the international point: listing vaccination rates next to excess mortality doesn't demonstrate a consistent relationship. The claim you're making requires that higher vaccination independently predicts higher excess mortality once infection waves and demographics are accounted for.

Where is that analysis?

If the conclusion is "near-certainty", there should be a clearly articulated identification strategy - not just temporal alignment.

So again: which part of the paper provides the causal framework strong enough to justify that level of confidence?

An update…

I've managed to get hold of a follow-up piece from the same author responding to criticisms of his paper that mhaze cited.

What's interesting is the difference in language.

As mhaze had quoted, the abstract of the original paper uses the phrase "near-certainty" that vaccines have contributed to excess mortality.

In the follow-up response, however, the framing is noticeably softer. The author explicitly acknowledges that correlation does not prove causation and describes the vaccine contribution as "plausible" and warranting further investigation.

That's a meaningful shift in evidentiary tone.

The underlying method remains ecological - population-level correlation without individual-level linkage. Ecological studies can suggest associations. They don't, on their own, justify "near-certainty".

So the question becomes: what in the methodology bridges the gap between "plausible association" and "near-certainty"?

If that bridge exists, it should be clearly identifiable.

Correction on chronology:

The Bulgarian Medicine response I referenced is from 2024, so it predates the 2026 Sage paper mhaze cited.

That’s my error on sequencing.

The substantive point still stands, though. In the author’s earlier published discussion of this line of research, he explicitly acknowledges that correlation does not prove causation and frames vaccine contribution as plausible.

The 2026 abstract’s use of “near-certainty” is therefore a strengthening of language relative to earlier framing.

So the question remains: what methodological development between the earlier correlation work and the 2026 paper justifies that escalation in evidentiary confidence?

Like everything else the extremist Trumpster/Anti Vaxxer/Sovereign Citizen believes in conspiracy theories, one being, Covid vaccination and Covid itself were a communist plot to take over the world. The truth is Covid was a deadly respiratory infection, and the vaccines, hastily developed, saved million of lives. It probably saved mhaze!

"Paul, you should consider applying for the Paralympics given the speed you showed in running away from your 'detergent' fabrications."

Paul from his last post is still running. Marathon man. But he can't far or fast enough to hide from the fables he makes up.