Category: Risk

J&J Covid-19 Vaccine Pause Driven by Risk of Mistreating Blood Clots

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/j-j-covid-19-vaccine-was-paused-over-blood-clot-treatment-concerns-11618777554

Excerpt:

U.S. health authorities came close to simply warning about a blood-clotting risk from Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine, but they decided to recommend pausing use out of concern doctors would improperly treat the condition, people familiar with the matter said.

Over the previous four weeks, U.S. health officials had become alarmed about similar blood-clotting conditions in Europe involving a Covid-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca PLC, the people said. The officials dug into a U.S. vaccine safety database and identified the cases of great concern, but they debated what action to take.

By the night of April 12, the officials resolved that urgent action was needed, the people said. Four of six women in the U.S. who developed the clots days after vaccination had initially been given blood thinner heparin, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its use could have worsened the patients’ condition, the people said.

Author(s): Thomas M. Burton and Betsy McKay

Publication Date: 18 April 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

Blood clots as prevalent with Pfizer and Moderna vaccine as with AstraZeneca’s: study

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/blood-clots-as-prevalent-with-pfizer-and-moderna-vaccine-as-with-astrazenecas-report-2021-04-15

Excerpt:

A study by Oxford University found the number of people who receive blood clots after getting vaccinated with a coronavirus vaccine are about the same for those who get Pfizer PFE, 2.43% and Moderna MRNA, 6.67% vaccines as they are for the AstraZeneca AZN, -0.16% vaccine that was produced with the university’s help. According to the study, 4 in 1 million people experience cerebral venous thrombosis after getting the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, versus 5 in 1 million people for the AstraZeneca vaccine. The risk of getting CVT is much higher for those who get COVID-19 — 39 in a million patients — than it is for those who get vaccinated. AstraZeneca’s vaccine use has been halted or limited in many countries on blood clot concerns.

Author(s): Steve Goldstein

Publication Date: 15 April 2021

Publication Site: Marketwatch

Covid 4/9: Another Vaccine Passport Objection

Mary Pat Campbell
Covid 4/9: Another Vaccine Passport Objection

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Excerpt:

I haven’t said this explicitly in a while, so it’s worth saying it again: If you are not vaccinated, the current level of risk out there is much higher than the graphs and charts naively imply. On top of that, the cost of getting Covid now is much higher than it was earlier, both because the new dominant strain is deadlier, and also because the main benefit of getting infected – that you can’t get infected again – no longer matters much since you’ll have vaccine access soon either way and things aren’t so bad out there that prevention is hopeless. You won’t even be able to skip the vaccine, due to people requiring it (plus it’s a good idea anyway, since the cost is trivial).

Not only have we vaccinated over a quarter of the population, and given one dose to over a third of the population, we’ve done so with an emphasis on those most at risk.

That means that if you’re in the remaining two thirds, not only is your risk a third higher than it looks (e.g. almost all the infections will happen to unvaccinated people) but also the risk of death is more than double what it appears, as those at risk have largely been vaccinated early.

Author(s): TheZvi

Publication Date: 9 April 2021

Publication Site: TheZvi

Rational Ignorance and the Protection Gap: Is There a Cure?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.soa.org/sections/reinsurance/reinsurance-newsletter/2021/march/rsn-2021-03-poon-affat/

Excerpt:

The phrase “coverage gap,” heard often from life insurance company executives, is defined as  “the shortfall in the amount of life insurance cover necessary to maintain the current living standards of dependents.” Life insurance companies devote extraordinary amounts of time, effort, and expense trying to educate underinsured individuals about the need to protect themselves and their families from this gap by buying more cover. Could our industry not be addressing one of the key issues leading to the lack of consumer enthusiasm for our products?

Here’s the issue: insurance products and contracts are not consumer-friendly. To the average person, life and living benefits products are at least as byzantine as Brazil’s political system, and the language of insurance contracts could almost be considered an actual dialect. Insurance is thus fertile ground for the manifestation of rational ignorance among potential customers, who are already known to be more likely to pay attention to information about it if it comes from friends and social media posts. (I pity the buyer researching concepts and options such as pure protection, accumulation, critical illness, disability income, or long-term care.)

Author(s): Ronald Poon-Affat

Publication Date: March 2021

Publication Site: Reinsurance News at the Society of Actuaries

A Primer on Insurance Policies and Genetics

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.soa.org/resources/research-reports/2021/primer-ins-policies-genetics/

Full report: https://www.soa.org/globalassets/assets/files/resources/research-report/2021/primer-ins-policies-genetics-report.pdf

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Excerpt:

A new subset of Somatic non-blueprint information is the growing field of Epigenetics, defined as changes ‘above
the genetics,’ where it has recently been found that lifestyle choices also induce non-heritable physical or chemical
changes directly on a person’s DNA after birth, and can be measured by isolating the DNA and revealing these
features. The U.S. Center for Disease Control states: “Epigenetics is the study of how your behaviors and
environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work. Unlike genetic changes, epigenetic changes
are reversible and do not change your DNA sequence.” (9)


An example of the latter is a finding that the tips of our chromosomes – called telomeres – can shorten or lengthen
in correlation with health status and ‘biological aging,’ a finding that was the subject of a 2009 Nobel Prize (10). An
additional example of epigenetics is in tobacco use, shown below, and generally discussed at the 2020 SOA Health
Conference by Dr. Brian Chen at this link https://webcasts.soa.org/products/actuarial-innovation-and-technologyupdate-on-recent-research#tab-product_tab_speaker_s.

Author(s): James Timmins

Publication Date: March 2021

Publication Site: Society of Actuaries

Quick-Takes: Mortality Update, Meep’s Math Matters, and a Few Bailout Reactions

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/quick-takes-mortality-update-meeps

Excerpt:

A few remarks — the total public pension unfunded liability (using the discount rates they themselves use, that is, too high, and thus valuing the unfunded liability too little) is the same size as the full American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 — that is, $1.9 trillion.

That is not how much is getting shoveled to the various state and local governments.

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Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 21 March 2021

Publication Site: STUMP at Substack

Ethics and use of Data Sources for Underwriting ft. Neil Raden and Kevin Pledge -NSNA(Ep.4)

Mary Pat Campbell

Video:

Description:

The video features Neil Raden who is the author of ethical use of AI for Actuaries. Alongside him , it features Kevin Pledge who is CEO of Acceptiv , FSA,FIA and chair of Innovation and Research Committee of SOA. We discuss about the issue of ethics and about the use of new data sources in the recent Emerging issues in Underwriting Survey Report by IfOA.

Authors: Harsh Jaitak, Kevin Pledge, Neil Raden

Publication Date: 17 March 2021

Publication Site: TBD Actuarial at YouTube

Pausing AstraZeneca COVID-19 Shots Is a Bad Risk/Benefit Call

Mary Pat Campbell
Pausing AstraZeneca COVID-19 Shots Is a Bad Risk/Benefit Call

Excerpt:

Last week Austria, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland all suspended the administration of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, citing reports of blood clots occurring in a few folks who had been inoculated with it. Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Thailand, and the Netherlands have now joined them.

“There is no causal effect established or anything like that yet,” Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin told CNBC, “but as a precautionary move in line with the precautionary principle and in an abundance of caution, our clinical advice was to pause the program whilst the EMA does a review of this.”

The precautionary principle is an ideological construct that eschews risk-benefit evaluations and essentially requires that all new technologies be somehow proved entirely risk-free before they can be used.

Author(s): Ronald Bailey

Publication Date: 15 March 2021

Publication Site: Reason

The Tyranny of Experts

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://tinyletter.com/acs171/letters/known-unknowns-44

Excerpt:

It is a miracle anyone ever listens to us. Honestly, sometimes they shouldn’t. Other than the theory of comparative advantage, I can’t think of any correct economic insights that defy common sense. Economists, or experts in any field, are meant to offer a framework to weigh costs and benefits, help us see risks, and understand how the economy and people respond to shocks and policy. This helps people make choices that are right for them. If someone is pushing something totally counterintuitive, whether in economics or public health, we should be skeptical.
 
The same goes for debt. I heard someone say MMT has become an accepted theory – that is simply not true. And there is nothing new here. If you look at the history of debt cycles and financial crisis, they often featured some convoluted justification for why taking on tons of leverage isn’t so risky after all because this time was different – we are so much more clever now. Guess what, you might use some big words that tell you otherwise, but debt is always risky. Sure, some of the time it works out and juices higher growth, but when it doesn’t, things get really nasty. 

Author(s): Allison Schrager

Publication Date: 15 March 2021

Publication Site: Known Unknowns on TinyLetter

Nudge Off: The pandemic has exposed the flaws in the belief that people need to be manipulated into making smarter choices.

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.city-journal.org/pandemic-has-undermined-our-sense-of-risk

Excerpt:

Perhaps most damaging, however, has been the idea arising in the last few years that people simply can’t be trusted to make sensible risk assessments—that they must be guided or even manipulated into making smarter choices. The idea that we need to be “tricked” into good behavior was pervasive throughout the pandemic. First, we were told masks weren’t effective, in what turned out to be an attempt to protect supplies for health-care workers. Last spring, we were told that coming into contact with others in just about any environment was unsafe, despite data showing the risk of outdoor transmission was very low. Over the holidays, rather than telling people that they should reduce their risks at holiday gatherings by taking steps like getting a test beforehand, public-health officials said that we should all just stay home, because tests can’t guarantee safety. Even today, the FDA refuses to approve cheap, at-home rapid tests without a prescription because the government doesn’t trust individuals to assess risks based on good, albeit imperfect, information.

The worst, most consequential failure in risk communication concerns the current vaccine rollout. The media constantly instruct us that, even weeks after receiving the second shot, it’s still not safe to socialize without masks. President Biden and Anthony Fauci have warned that we may not be able to resume “normal” life for another year. Fauci recently counseled against vaccinated people eating in indoor restaurants or playing mahjong together. Public-health officials today gave the green light for vaccinated people to gather together—but only after weeks of confusing and contradictory guidance.

Author(s): Allison Schrager

Publication Date: 8 March 2021

Publication Site: City Journal

Group Wants Life Underwriters to Post COVID-19 Standards

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2021/03/01/group-wants-life-underwriters-to-post-covid-19-standards/

Excerpt:

The Consumer Federation of America says life insurers should voluntarily disclose the changes they are making in life insurance underwriting procedures and standards as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Washington-based federation says life insurers ought to at least answer basic questions, such as whether they will require applicants to use COVID-19 vaccines, what kinds of tests and test results they’ll require and whether and how standards might vary by applicant age.

Author(s): Allison Bell

Publication Date: 1 March 2021

Publication Site: Think Advisor

Remembering Allan McDonald: He Refused To Approve Challenger Launch, Exposed Cover-Up

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.npr.org/2021/03/07/974534021/remembering-allan-mcdonald-he-refused-to-approve-challenger-launch-exposed-cover

Excerpt:

On Jan. 27, 1986, Allan McDonald stood on the cusp of history.

McDonald directed the booster rocket project at NASA contractor Morton Thiokol. He was responsible for the two massive rockets, filled with explosive fuel, that lifted space shuttles skyward. He was at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the launch of the Challenger “to approve or disapprove a launch if something came up,” he told me in 2016, 30 years after Challenger exploded.

His job was to sign and submit an official form. Sign the form, he believed, and he’d risk the lives of the seven astronautsset to board the spacecraft the next morning. Refuse to sign, and he’d risk his job, his career and the good life he’d built for his wife and four children.

“And I made the smartest decision I ever made in my lifetime,” McDonald told me. “I refused to sign it. I just thought we were taking risks we shouldn’t be taking.”

Author(s): Howard Berkes

Publication Date: 7 March 2021

Publication Site: NPR