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CDC Will Study Possible Link Between Vaccines and Autism, Pledges to ‘Leave No Stone Unturned’
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | March 10, 2025
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed it plans to study the possible link between vaccines and autism, after Reuters reported on the plan late Friday, citing two sources inside the agency.
In response to the Reuters story, the CDC and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) provided an identical statement:
“As President Trump said in his Joint Address to Congress, the rate of autism in American children has skyrocketed. CDC will leave no stone unturned in its mission to figure out what exactly is happening. The American people expect high quality research and transparency and that is what CDC is delivering.”
The revelation came days after President Donald Trump, in an address to Congress, referred to the rising rate of autism in the U.S. Trump, citing CDC data showing that 1 in 36 U.S. children have autism, said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is well suited to lead efforts to study the increase.
“There’s something wrong,” Trump said. “So, we’re going to find out what it is, and there’s nobody better than Bobby [Kennedy] and all of the people that are working with you.”
According to The Washington Post, Trump administration officials asked the CDC to perform the study. Newsweek reported that it is “unclear” whether Kennedy is involved in the new study. However, HHS oversees federal health agencies, including the CDC.
Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., Children’s Health Defense (CHD) senior research scientist, applauded “the CDC’s newfound curiosity in vaccines and autism.” He said the U.S. “passed an inflection point” in the 1990s, where autism “went from being a rare disease to a more common one” that has been “increasing exponentially ever since.”
“When is an appropriate time to conduct a large study on vaccines and autism? Apparently, two generations later,” Jablonowski said.
Sayer Ji, chairman and co-founder of the Global Wellness Forum, called the news a “pivotal moment, not just in the scientific exploration of vaccine safety, but in the broader issue of public trust in our institutions.”
Ji said the CDC’s plan for a large-scale study “is an implicit admission that prior investigations may have been insufficient, biased or incomplete.” He said the new study “could represent a breakthrough moment” in “resolving this critical health question” and “restoring faith in the integrity of scientific inquiry itself.”
‘A seismic shift toward accountability’
According to the Post, the CDC will conduct the study using data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink, a database of patient health records. The Vaccine Safety Datalink draws on data from 13 U.S. healthcare organizations, CNN reported.
Biologist Christina Parks, Ph.D., said the study should examine the CDC’s childhood vaccination schedule.
“The cumulative effect of giving multiple vaccines at once as well as over a short period of months has not been studied as a potential contributing factor to autism,” Parks said. “Vaccines have the potential to alter a child’s immune system in ways that are unexpected.”
Parks referred to studies performed in 1970 and 1987 that found autism rates of 0.7 and 3.3 children per 10,000, respectively. “If autism were as prevalent then as it is now, we should have a large number of older autistic adults, which we do not,” Parks said.
Brian Hooker, Ph.D., chief scientific officer for CHD, suggested the CDC study should use an unvaccinated control group. Hooker cited his experience performing research using data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink, noting that the database already contains data on unvaccinated children.
A 2021 study co-authored by Hooker found that vaccinated children were significantly more likely than unvaccinated children to be diagnosed with autism.
Ji said any CDC study examining a possible vaccine-autism link should reflect Kennedy’s recent calls for “gold-standard science.”
He said:
“It must be a true gold-standard study. The methodology must be rigorous, transparent and independent, with no industry or government interference. It should be a prospective, controlled, long-term study comparing fully unvaccinated and vaccinated populations.”
Hooker said the CDC has previously not made data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink available to the public, even though it is taxpayer-funded.
“We’ve never had access to the Vaccine Safety Datalink. We’ve never had access to such a gold-standard database, and that thing takes $50 million worth of tax dollars to maintain every year. It should be open to the public,” Hooker said.
Ji said many past vaccine safety studies were flawed due to a lack of transparency.
“Historically, vaccine safety studies have been marred by selective reporting, data manipulation and redacted findings. Kennedy has long advocated for open access to government data, and if this study follows through on that promise, it would be a seismic shift toward accountability,” Ji said.
Rise in autism cannot simply be attributed to ‘better diagnosis’
Reuters attributed the rise in autism rates to “more widespread screening and the inclusion of a broader range of behaviors to describe the condition.”
Research scientist and author James Lyons-Weiler, Ph.D., said such claims are “pure disinformation.”
“No rigorous study has shown that these factors are responsible,” Lyons-Weiler said.
“These criteria cannot explain the 7% increase in autism following the removal of vaccine exemptions from California, which has 1 in 22, the highest rate among all states,” Lyons-Weiler said.
Ji said that prior studies claiming to debunk the vaccine-autism link should be called into question, noting that many such studies “suffer from conflicts of interest, flawed methodologies and a lack of truly unvaccinated control groups.”
According to Hooker, many previous studies were flawed because they focused only on a limited number of vaccines and vaccine components.
“The CDC and most of the open peer-reviewed literature focuses on one vaccine and one vaccine component, the MMR [measles-mumps-rubella] vaccine and thimerosal” — a mercury-based preservative used in some vaccines. A 2013 study found a link between thimerosal exposure and the risk of an autism diagnosis.
Recent independently performed studies have indicated a connection between vaccines and autism.
A peer-reviewed study published in Science, Public Health Policy and the Law in January found that vaccinated children have a 170% higher chance of being diagnosed with autism compared to unvaccinated children. The study also found that the autism risk increases in children with a higher number of vaccinations.
A ‘new era of openness’
Reuters quoted Dr. Wilbur Chen, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and former member of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel, who suggested the CDC’s new study could fuel vaccine hesitancy.
“It sends the signal that there is something there that is worth investigating, so that means there must be something going on between vaccines and autism,” Chen said.
But other experts suggest that such statements conceal concerns that vaccines may not be as safe as frequently claimed.
“Americans and those who receive our vaccines overseas should be able to have confidence that American products, especially biologics that are injected into children, meet the highest safety standards,” Parks said. “By addressing parent concerns, the CDC can help to reestablish trust in its guidelines.”
“If the vaccines are safe, transparency should increase confidence, not the opposite,” Ji said. “If vaccines are as safe as claimed, then the data should confirm that and bolster confidence. The fear of ‘hesitancy’ suggests a deeper concern that the results may contradict the official narrative.”
Hooker said the new CDC study is representative of a “new era of openness” and will “encourage greater faith in our institutions and their recommendations regardless of where they fall.”
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Makary, Bhattacharya Nominations Move to Full Senate Vote, But Trump Pulls Weldon Nomination to Lead CDC
The Defender | March 13, 2025
The U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions this morning canceled a scheduled hearing on the nomination of Dr. David Weldon, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Axios was the first to break the news, stating that Weldon’s “views questioning certain vaccines have garnered attention since he was nominated months ago and were sure to play a prominent role in questioning.”
The New York Times reached Weldon by phone. The former Florida congressman said he learned of the decision last night when a White House official told him that “they didn’t have the votes to confirm” his nomination.
In a statement to media, posted on X, Weldon said, “The concern of many people is that Big Pharma was behind this, which is probably true. They are probably the most powerful lobbying organization in Washington DC giving millions of dollars to politicians on both sides of the aisle.”
Meanwhile, the Senate Health committee today voted 14-9 to endorse Dr. Marty Makary to lead the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and 12-11 to endorse Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Both Makary and Bhattacharya “largely breezed through” their Senate confirmation hearings and are now set to be confirmed by a full Senate vote, according to STAT News.
Given the Republican control of the Senate, it is expected that Makary and Bhattacharya will be confirmed.
Weldon nomination pulled amid Texas measles outbreak, CDC plan to study vaccines
Weldon, 71, is a practicing internal medicine doctor and Army veteran. He represented Florida in Congress from 1995 to 2009.
The CDC has a $9 billion budget and staff of around 13,000, according to NBC.
According to the Times, Weldon said he had been excited about the opportunity to help restore the public’s confidence in the CDC and serve his country again.
Weldon had also been looking forward to working on the MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) agenda to address the proliferation of chronic diseases among U.S. Americans, particularly children.
In the days leading up to Weldon’s planned hearing, numerous media outlets ran a slew of articles highlighting Weldon’s history of questioning vaccine safety.
Reuters on March 7 broke the news that the CDC was planning a study on the possible link between vaccines and autism. Some senators “have expressed concerns over Weldon’s views on vaccines,” Reuters said.
The Washington Post confirmed that the CDC planned to “leave no stone unturned in its mission to figure out” why autism rates are soaring, including using the agency’s Vaccine Safety Datalink database to study any possible links between vaccines and autism.
The last-minute plan to pull Weldon’s nomination came against the backdrop of news reports about the CDC’s planned study and the West Texas measles outbreak. On March 10, Forbes reported, “Vaccine Skeptic Dave Weldon Is Up To Lead CDC As Measles And Flu Rage.”
According to Forbes, Weldon was a friend of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who “holds similar and, in some cases, seemingly more extreme views on some health matters.”
On March 12, STAT News reported, under the headline, “How CDC nominee Dave Weldon’s support for anti-vaccine theories runs long and deep” that Weldon in 2004 asked the U.S. House Appropriations Committee chair to fund an autism research center that would be led by Dr. Andrew Wakefield.
Wakefield was the first author of the 1998 study, published and later retracted in The Lancet, that linked the MMR vaccine to autism in certain children.
According to STAT News, Weldon requested $1.9 million in the 2005 budget for the center to study “the biological origins” of childhood developmental disorders, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, Congress chose not to fund it.
In 2007, Weldon introduced a bill “to improve vaccine safety research” that would have transferred the responsibility of tracking vaccine safety from the CDC to an independent agency within HHS.
The bill stipulated that the independent agency would:
- Conduct or support safety research and monitor licensed vaccines.
- Develop a vaccine safety research agenda.
- Evaluate means to promote compliance with federal adverse reaction reporting requirements.
- Provide a clearinghouse for vaccine studies.
- Ensure that functions relating to vaccine monitoring or research on adverse reactions are not carried out by anyone with a conflict of interest.
- Oversee the Vaccine Safety Datalink Project.
- Resolve U.S. conflicts of interest related to international agreements, partnerships, and activities.
However, the bill never made it to the House floor for a vote.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
FDA Calls Off Meeting to Select Flu Strains for Next Season’s Flu Vaccine
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | February 27, 2025
The committee that advises the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on which flu strains to target for the upcoming flu season will not meet as scheduled next month, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.
In a statement provided to CNN, the FDA said:
“A planned March 13 meeting of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee [VRBPAC] on the influenza vaccine strains for the 2025-2026 influenza season in the northern hemisphere has been cancelled. …
“The FDA will make public its recommendations to manufacturers in time for updated vaccines to be available for the 2025-2026 influenza season.”
The FDA sent VRBPAC members an email on Monday informing them of the cancellation, the Times reported. No reason was given for its cancellation.
According to CNBC, the VRBPAC meets each March to select the strains for the upcoming season’s flu shots.
Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and member of the committee, told CNBC he wasn’t sure why the meeting was cancelled.
“Who canceled this meeting? Why did they cancel the meeting? Will manufacturers now turn to the World Health Organization to determine strains for this year’s influenza vaccines?” Offit asked.
According to the FDA, VRBPAC “reviews and evaluates data concerning the safety, effectiveness, and appropriate use of vaccines and related biological products which are intended for use in the prevention, treatment, or diagnosis of human diseases.” The committee is composed of 15 voting members.
The Times tied the meeting’s cancellation to the recent confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., former chairman of Children’s Health Defense, as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). HHS oversees federal health agencies, including the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“The cancellation plays into fears among scientists who worry that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will use his position as health secretary to sow doubts about vaccines,” the Times reported.
Offit, in an interview with Inside Medicine, also connected the meeting’s cancellation to Kennedy’s recent confirmation.
“Is it part of RFK Jr.’s cleansing project of removing anyone whom he presumes to have a conflict of interest related to vaccines? I don’t know. But I feel like the world is upside down. We aren’t doing the things we need to do to protect ourselves,” Offit said.
On Monday, Offit told MedPage Today that VRBPAC members were asked to fill out conflict-of-interest forms in advance — a routine process before every meeting — “and we weren’t told the meeting was canceled.” He said members were told to set time aside for the meeting.
But late Wednesday, Offit phoned Medpage and said, “If we are not going to have the meeting, I guess it means we will be looking to the WHO [World Health Organization] for a flu shot formulation.”
Last week, a meeting of another key public health committee — the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — was postponed. The meeting was supposed to take place Feb. 26-28.
Valerie Borek, associate director and policy analyst for Stand for Health Freedom, said, “it’s not unreasonable” for an incoming HHS secretary to place advisory meetings on hold.
“We have a new HHS Secretary who has promised to expose and eliminate conflicts of interest that tend to lurk in groups like these,” Borek said. FDA and CDC advisory committees do not have final decision-making power; however, the agencies typically rubber-stamp their recommendations.
‘Time to stop pretending the flu vaccine is effective’
Offit said cancellation of the meeting could delay production of next season’s flu vaccines.
“It’s a six-month production cycle,” Offit told the Times. “So one can only assume that we’re not picking flu strains this year.”
Another VRBPAC member, Dr. Stanley Perlman, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, told Reuters that “we don’t have much time” to produce the next season’s flu vaccines.
Perlman said a separate meeting of a VRBPAC subcommittee scheduled for March was also canceled.
Door to Freedom founder Dr. Meryl Nass, who follows FDA and CDC vaccine advisory meetings and often blogs about them, welcomed the meeting’s cancellation and expressed skepticism about flu vaccines.
“The purpose for the U.S. flu vaccine program is shrouded in mystery,” Nass said. “The CDC creates models of influenza mortality and then tells us how many deaths occur from flu each year by citing its own models.”
Nass described the VRBPAC’s annual meetings to select strains for the following season’s flu vaccines as “a crapshoot.”
“The VRBPAC are there to give cover to U.S. government officials who do not want to pick the wrong strains,” Nass said.
Nass referred to a 2005 study published in JAMA Internal Medicine that could “not correlate increasing [flu] vaccination coverage after 1980 with declining mortality rates in any age group” and that “observational studies substantially overestimate vaccination benefit.”
A CDC report issued today found the flu shot less effective for some children this year. According to CBS News, “Effectiveness was 32% for children and adolescents, from the CDC’s U.S. Flu VE network of health care systems. That’s down from 67% in last year’s estimates.”
Biologist Christina Parks, Ph.D., said it is “time to stop pretending the flu vaccine is effective.” She added:
“The extremely low efficacy of flu vaccines call into question whether they should keep being offered at all. Studies have shown that receipt of flu vaccines over multiple years actually increases your risk of contracting a severe case of the flu and ending up in [an intensive care unit].
“The cancellation of the VRBPAC meeting suggests to me that the new Secretary for Health and Human Services understands that flu vaccines exist to line the pockets of vaccine manufacturers, not to actually protect people from getting the flu.”
According to CNBC, the cancellation comes during a “particularly brutal flu season in the U.S.” that, according to CDC data, has resulted in up to 910,000 hospitalizations since October 2024.
But Nass said those claims are overstated. She said that contrary to CDC claims of up to 52,000 flu deaths annually in the U.S., data from death certificates indicate “only about 2,000 Americans per year die from influenza.”
“I worked for many years as a hospitalist and yet it is hard for me to think of anyone who died of influenza in the hospital. They may have died of a secondary bacterial infection,” Nass said.
Discussion of flu vaccine-related deaths missing from mainstream narrative
Albert Benavides, founder of VAERSAware.com and an expert on the U.S. government-run Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), said a discussion of deaths caused by the flu vaccines has been missing from the mainstream narrative.
“There are currently 2,652 deaths associated with flu vaccines in VAERS back to 1990,” Benavides said. He noted that 697 of these deaths have been received and published in the VAERS database since January 2021, calling this development “concerning.”
Benavides said the data showed that “many elderly flu deaths are comingled with COVID-19, Pneumovax, Shingrix, Zostavax and now even some RSV and Monkeypox vaccines and in every combination,” suggesting that interactions between the vaccines may be deadly for some people.
A study published in October 2024 in the journal Scientific Reports found that 17 vaccines, including flu vaccines, were associated with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare condition that attacks the peripheral nervous system.
Nass questioned the U.S. spending of “billions of dollars” yearly. “Other countries don’t do this,” she said.
VRBPAC members ‘often team up with industry’
According to the Times, Kennedy has “repeatedly warned of ‘regulatory capture’ — the idea that federal regulators are captive to industry.”
In an interview with Fox News earlier this month, Kennedy said several public health agency panels that develop policies such as vaccine guidelines are composed of “outside experts,” almost all of whom “have severe … conflicts of interest.”
The Times acknowledged that the members of committees like VRBPAC “often team up with industry,” citing the example of Offit, “an inventor of a rotavirus vaccine that was later developed by the pharmaceutical giant Merck.”
Parks said she thinks it’s “good that VRBPAC meetings have been put on ice until the members of these advisory committees are actually properly vetted and determined not to have conflicts of interest. Currently, it appears that many members are there to rubber-stamp the agenda of vaccine manufacturers.”
The cancellation of the VRBPAC meeting came just days after HHS announced the end of the CDC’s “Wild to Mild” advertising campaign promoting flu vaccines. HHS called on the CDC to instead develop “advertisements that promote the idea of ‘informed consent’ in vaccine decision-making.”
“I am hopeful that better data on the flu and flu vaccines will help Americans make truly informed choices about whether to get flu vaccines,” Nass said.
Related articles in The Defender
- HHS Tells CDC to Yank ‘Wild to Mild’ Flu Vaccine Ad Campaign, Shift Focus to ‘Informed Consent’
- Is Kennedy’s HHS Preparing to Shake Up CDC’s Vaccine Advisory Committee?
- RFK Jr. Pushes Back on Chronic Disease, Autism and Agency Corruption
- Guillain-Barré Syndrome Associated With 17 Vaccines, Including COVID and Flu Shots
- Breaking: RFK Jr. Sworn in as HHS Secretary
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
‘Operation Outbreak’: CDC Grooming Teens, Kids to Fear Pandemics, Critics Say
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | February 6, 2025
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) educational resources for K-12 students on disease outbreaks, the transmission of pathogens and how to trace their spread, on the surface, appear well-intended.
However, critics said the materials — which include lesson plans and classroom activities titled “Operation Outbreak” and a graphic novel targeting teens — also could be interpreted as propaganda designed to encourage compliance with public health policies and initiatives.
The materials present hypothetical scenarios necessitating a public health response to the outbreak and spread of a disease with a zoonotic — or animal — origin. Students are asked to employ a “One Health” approach and methods such as contact tracing to respond to these hypothetical outbreaks.
According to the materials, “One Health recognizes that human health, animal health, and the environment are connected.”
The One Health approach “requires human, animal, and environmental health professionals to work together at the local, state, federal, and global levels to improve the health of people, animals, and their shared environment.”
Dr. Michelle Perro, a pediatrician, said the CDC’s educational initiatives “appear to be a well-intentioned educational effort under the One Health framework.” But instead, “a closer examination suggests it may also serve to acclimate students to compliance during future public health crises.”
Perro said:
“By emphasizing the inevitability of ‘the next pandemic’ and reinforcing a specific perspective on zoonotic transmission, these materials can condition naive minds to accept certain public health policies without room for opposing discussions. … This initiative prioritizes messaging over genuine scientific inquiry.”
Dr. Margaret Christensen, a clinical educator called the materials “propaganda,” that “groom the younger generation early to believe our biggest threat is from some disease jumping out of an animal, whether birds or cows or pigs, and attacking us without defense, unless we’ve been vaccinated.”
According to attorney Sheri Snow Powers, the educational resources are intended to foster an uncritical attitude toward public health authorities.
“These materials are inappropriate for teenagers and children because they promote and idolize public health authorities as heroes and saviors,” Powers said. “This is detrimental to young developing minds and conditions children to be future compliant citizens.”
CDC educational resources use ‘a fear-based narrative’
The CDC’s educational resources include material meant to teach students “about the roots of American public health,” including the history and role of the CDC in domestic and global disease outbreaks.
The materials include modules on “lessons learned” during the 1976 swine flu outbreak, the CDC’s role in food and water safety, and in responding to the “21st century public health challenge” of chronic diseases.
However, the main focus of the materials for high school students is the “Operation Outbreak” series of classroom activities, centered around a graphic novel targeting teenagers.
Featuring a cover page reminiscent of the popular series “Stranger Things,” “The Junior Disease Detectives: Operation Outbreak a novel produced in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, presents a fictional disease outbreak scenario involving teenagers and animals. It’s connected to three in-class activities focusing on “zoonotic disease prevention and response.”
The first activity, “The Outbreak Team,” focuses on the “various roles and responsibilities of the professionals involved in an outbreak response. The next two activities, “Eddie’s Story” and “Hamlet’s Story,” focus on investigating a disease outbreak and its subsequent spread from a pig (Hamlet) to a teenager (Eddie).
According to the CDC, upon completion of the activities, students should be able to “identify steps in an influenza outbreak investigation,” “identify roles and responsibilities of public health, animal health, environmental health, and other relevant professionals” and “describe why using a One Health approach … is best when investigating or preventing zoonotic diseases.”
Students are also expected to learn how to define a series of terms, including “zoonotic influenza virus,” “novel influenza virus,” and “case” — including the differences between “suspected,” “probable” and “confirmed” cases.
“Most human infections with novel influenza A viruses have occurred after close contact with infected animals,” the materials state, noting that “global surveillance” is necessary “to detect the emergence of novel influenza A viruses that could trigger a pandemic.”
The materials also state, “There are associations between zoonotic influenza viruses and pandemics.”
But according to Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, the graphic novel and activities use a “fear-based” narrative. She said the materials lack “a balanced and factual approach that pathogens, viruses and bacteria are a natural part of life that can be mostly handled by each person’s immune system.”
Vaccination also is prominently featured in the educational materials. According to the graphic novel:
“As we learned during Disease Detective Camp, our bodies’ immune system produces antibodies to fight against infection, and the safest way to get antibodies is through vaccination.
“Although the flu vaccine isn’t designed to protect against variant flu, it is still important to get, because it can help protect us from getting the flu and spreading it to others.”
One Health approach ‘subtly promotes compliance over critical thinking’
Perro questioned the CDC’s focus on the One Health approach, “due to its biased, one-sided narrative.”
“By focusing solely on zoonotic transmission, it ignores key factors like environmental toxicants, industrial farming and genetic engineering risks,” Perro said. This promotes “compliance over critical thinking” and serves as “institutional propaganda,” she said.
The materials ultimately “shape narratives about the origins of pandemics — particularly regarding COVID-19 having emerged ‘naturally’ rather than from a lab-related incident,” Perro said.
Powers said the materials “condition” children to fear specific pathogens and “to be ignorant of their own bodies’ amazing immune system, by not mentioning it.”
“Teaching children how to take care of themselves with healthy food, exercise, and sunshine is a much more valuable lesson,” Powers said.
The CDC’s focus on the flu and children is not new. Documents Children’s Health Defense obtained in 2023 through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request revealed that the agency hired an advertising firm to write “news” articles promoting flu shots for kids and the elderly.
The CDC’s “Operation Outbreak” materials appear to be unrelated to an online simulation activity by the same name, developed by the Broad Institute, UMass Chan Medical School and The Inspire Project — funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.
This simulation, introduced in 2017 and described as an “infectious way to learn,” operates through a mobile app and “unleashes a virtual pathogen through Bluetooth across participant devices, prompting a contagious outbreak that participants strive to contain.”
Related articles in The Defender
- U.S. Launches ‘One Health’ Plan Prompting Concerns About Global Power Play
- One Health: A Plan to ‘Surveil and Control Every Aspect of Life on Earth’?
- CDC Hired Ad Firm to Write ‘News’ Articles Promoting Flu Shots for Kids, Elderly, Documents Reveal
- Rockefeller Foundation, Nonprofits Spending Millions on Behavioral Psychology Research to ‘Nudge’ More People to Get COVID Vaccines
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
RFK Jr. Wins Crucial Vote, Moves One Step Closer to Top HHS Post
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | February 4, 2025
The Senate Finance Committee today narrowly advanced Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to the full Senate for a confirmation vote.
The 14-13 vote along party lines came after Kennedy secured the vote of Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that oversees HHS. Cassidy was the lone Republican considered to be a possible hold-out.
The Senate is expected to vote on Kennedy’s confirmation later this week or early next week, ABC News reported. The nomination “is likely to succeed absent any last-minute vote switches,” The Associated Press reported.
Kennedy, founder and former chairman of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), can be confirmed even if up to three Republican senators and all Democrats vote against him in the full Senate.
If confirmed, Kennedy will oversee a $1.7 trillion budget and 90,000 employees. HHS oversees 13 public health agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
During today’s committee meeting, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said, “It is time to put a disruptor” like Kennedy at the helm of the HHS. “I hope he goes wild,” Tillis said.
Shares of vaccine manufacturers and packaged food companies, including Pfizer, Moderna, BioNTech, Novavax, Kraft Heinz, General Mills, Mondelez and Hershey, dropped after today’s vote, Reuters reported.
CHD CEO Mary Holland welcomed today’s outcome. She said:
“CHD is delighted that the Finance Committee is sending RFK Jr.’s nomination to the full Senate. Given the 2024 presidential results, this seems only fitting. ‘Make America Healthy Again’ has become a worldwide rallying cry, and CHD is proud to be a foundational part of this movement.”
In a statement, Dr. Joseph Varon, president and chief medical officer of the Independent Medical Alliance, also welcomed today’s vote. He said:
“Americans demand a frank conversation about the state of our government healthcare agencies, and we’re very grateful for the Senators who responded by voting to move RFK Jr.’s nomination to the full Senate.
“RFK Jr. has been asking the tough questions, and he’s been unmoved in the face of big-corporate money campaigns against him.”
In a statement before the vote, Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), chair of the committee, said that if confirmed, Kennedy “will have the opportunity to deliver much-needed change to our nation’s healthcare system.”
Cassidy, Kennedy agree to ‘unprecedently close collaborative relationship’
During last week’s hearing in the Senate Finance Committee, Cassidy said he was “struggling” with some of Kennedy’s positions regarding vaccines.
“I’ve had very intense conversations with Bobby and the White House over the weekend and even this morning,” Cassidy posted on X earlier today. “I want to thank VP JD [Vance] specifically for his honest counsel. With the serious commitments I’ve received from the administration and the opportunity to make progress on the issues we agree on like healthy foods and a pro-American agenda, I will vote yes.”
Following today’s vote, Cassidy delivered remarks on the Senate floor, revealing the content of those discussions and the agreement he made with Kennedy to secure his vote.
He said Kennedy committed to a strong public health role for Congress and to meeting or speaking with Cassidy multiple times per month. They also agreed that Cassidy will participate in the hiring process for HHS and the public health agencies it oversees.
“He and I will have an unprecedently close collaborative relationship,” Cassidy said, noting that the hiring decisions that will follow “will allow us to represent all sides of those folks who have contacted me over this past weekend.”
Kennedy also agreed to maintain statements on the CDC website that vaccines do not cause autism and to maintain the recommendations of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Cassidy said he would also reject any attempt to remove the public’s access to “life-saving vaccines” without “iron-clad, causational scientific evidence” indicating otherwise. He also said he would carefully monitor any attempt to “wrongfully sow public confusion” about vaccines.
Cassidy conceded that “many mothers do need reassurance that the vaccine their child is receiving is necessary, effective, and most of all, safe” and expressed his support for Kennedy’s positions on toxic foods and reforming the NIH.
“These commitments, and my expectation that we can have a great working relationship to Make America Healthy Again, is the basis of my support,” Cassidy said, noting that institutions like NIH and FDA require “reform.”
During last week’s confirmation hearings, Kennedy emphasized his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda and said he would work to tackle the chronic disease epidemic in the U.S.
Kennedy also said he would implement “radical transparency” in HHS. He also voiced support for vaccines — if backed by “good science.”
Related articles in The Defender
- Kennedy Calls for ‘Radical Transparency’ at Government Health Agencies, as Sanders Demands CHD Stop Selling Onesies
- RFK Jr. Pushes Back on Chronic Disease, Autism and Agency Corruption
- ‘True Corruption’: Agency Capture Responsible for Chronic Disease Epidemic in U.S.
- ‘An Act of War’: Big Food Intentionally Addicting Kids to Toxic Foods
- Breaking: RFK Jr. Suspends Presidential Campaign, Will Join Forces With Trump to ‘Save Millions of Children’
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Johnson Subpoenas HHS for COVID Vaccine Safety Records, Fauci Emails
By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | February 3, 2025
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) last week subpoenaed the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for COVID-19 vaccine safety records and communications about the COVID-19 pandemic, including a subset of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s emails.
HHS is required to produce the requested data and communications by Feb. 18. Johnson told The Defender it’s imperative that HHS comply promptly.
Johnson said:
“The federal government is supposed to serve the American people. Our taxes pay the bureaucrats’ salaries and fund their activities and studies. The results belong to the public and should be made available to us in a timely and transparent manner.
“Bureaucrats who withhold information only raise suspicion and reduce the credibility and integrity of their agencies.”
This was the first subpoena Johnson issued after being named chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on Jan. 21.
During the Biden administration, Johnson wrote more than 70 congressional oversight letters to HHS officials and its health agencies requesting information on COVID-19 vaccine adverse events and related communications, according to a Jan. 29 press release.
Biden HHS officials “either completely ignored or inadequately addressed” the requests.
Johnson said in a statement:
“In the waning days of the Biden administration and after years of obstructing my oversight efforts, I warned HHS officials that when I become chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, I will subpoena records and data on the COVID-19 pandemic that have been inappropriately withheld from Congress and the American people for far too long.”
The subpoena requires HHS to hand over:
- Previously withheld or heavily redacted communications about the pandemic, including Fauci’s emails, including but not limited to the approximately 50 pages of his emails that were withheld from Johnson’s office since September 2021.
- Safety surveillance data on the COVID-19 vaccines, including proportional reporting ratios and empirical Bayesian data mining.
- Unredacted records previously released through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests regarding the government’s awareness of myocarditis and pericarditis cases in post-vaccinated individuals.
- Data and records relating to COVID-19 vaccine lots associated with higher rates of adverse events.
- Order forms and receipts showing government researchers purchasing DNA sequences from a biotechnology company.
- All communications relating to HHS’ receipt of and response (or lack thereof) to Johnson’s oversight letters between January 2021 and the present.
Risa Evans, an attorney for Children’s Health Defense (CHD), applauded Johnson’s efforts.
CHD has filed multiple FOIA requests to obtain records from HHS agencies including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) relating to the agencies’ monitoring of COVID-19 vaccine safety and injuries.
“The agencies have responded to our FOIA requests with delays, denials and redactions,” Evans said, “and we’ve been forced to sue to obtain records that, in truth, should be made public as a matter of course.”
Evans called the agencies’ lack of transparency “unconscionable — especially given the federal government’s relentless promotion of COVID-19 vaccination, coupled with claims that safety is being vigilantly monitored by the agencies and denials that the shots cause harm.”
Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist at CHD, said:
“Time is washing away the knowledge of how the government’s monitoring of COVID-19 vaccine safety went wrong, and the fingerprints of the wrongdoers. Promptly responding to Senator Johnson’s subpoena may preserve enough knowledge to ensure the betrayal never happens again.”
FDA partially responds to CHD’s FOIA request
Some documents referenced in Johnson’s subpoena have already been released, Evans said. For example, on Jan. 10, the FDA posted emails about its safety surveillance of COVID-19 vaccines using empirical Bayesian data mining.
Empirical Bayesian data mining is a method of analyzing vaccine injury reports, Jablonowski said.
The FDA provided the emails to CHD and posted them on the agency’s website one day after the agency objected to a motion filed by CHD in federal court about a 2023 FOIA lawsuit. CHD sued the FDA after it failed to respond to CHD’s FOIA request for the documents.
Other groups and individuals — including Johnson, The Epoch Times and the Informed Action Consent Network — had also FOIAed the FDA for the same safety surveillance data.
On Jan. 10, the FDA sent CHD a letter explaining that it was posting the emails as a “partial reply” to CHD’s FOIA request.
In its FOIA request, CHD had asked for “records of any Empirical Bayesian data mining” that the FDA conducted and “records of any sharing or discussion of results and signals with the CDC.” The emails posted by the FDA showed some of those records.
However, CHD in its FOIA request also asked for records related to “consultations by FDA and/or CBER [the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research] with VAERS [Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System] staff within the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office in connection with any signal that was detected.”
“The FDA still hasn’t responded to other key parts of our request,” Evans said. “In particular, it hasn’t provided records of the follow-up investigation the agency said it would conduct if it detected potential safety signals.”
Emails reveal FDA failed to detect safety signals
The emails released by the FDA revealed that in the first 18 months of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, the FDA’s monitoring of VAERS showed consistent alerts for serious adverse events, including death, for the Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) vaccine.
VAERS, co-managed by CDC and FDA, is a “passive” monitoring system that accepts reports of adverse events experienced after vaccination.
Meanwhile, the FDA’s monitoring found almost no safety signals for the Moderna and Pfizer shots, failing to detect signals even for widely recognized risks like myocarditis, pericarditis and anaphylaxis.
According to Jablonowski’s analysis of the emails, the FDA and CDC were never sufficiently looking for safety signals, despite all the “posturing” the agencies did around the COVID-19 vaccines’ safety.
The FDA and CDC’s “willful ignorance” of the adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination is an “epic betrayal,” Jablonowski said.
Related articles in The Defender
- Breaking: Emails Obtained by CHD Reveal Government’s Failure to Monitor COVID Vaccine Injury Reports
- FDA Must Respond to Court’s Requests in CHD FOIA Lawsuit Involving COVID Vaccine Injury Reports
- CDC Stonewalls Requests for COVID Vaccine Safety Monitoring Documents
- Sen. Johnson Threatens Legal Action Unless HHS Turns Over Unredacted Emails on COVID Vaccine Safety
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Fact-checking Fortune: Has Polio Vaccine Saved 20 Million Children From Paralysis?
The Defender | December 23, 2024
A Dec. 13 article in Fortune called the polio vaccine used in the U.S. today “not only safe but also effective.”
The article also claimed that because 3 billion children have been vaccinated against polio since 1988, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, that means “20 million people who would’ve otherwise been paralyzed by polio are walking today.”
How accurate is the 20 million figure?
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) website, in 1988, there were 350,000 reported polio cases worldwide in a global population of 5.1 billion people. If, as the WHO website states, “One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis,” that would amount to 1,750 cases of irreversible paralysis linked to polio in 1988.
Using that figure — 1,750 cases in 1988 — and factoring in 1.2% annual population growth, the estimated number of cases of irreversible paralysis between 1988 and 2024 would total approximately 80,910 — not 20 million, as Fortune reported.
Here are four other facts about polio vaccines the Fortune article doesn’t address.
1. Polio vaccines used in U.S. don’t prevent infection or transmission.
According to Fortune, the polio vaccine is “safe and effective.” Here’s why that statement oversimplifies the issue of polio vaccines and leads to misleading conclusions.
There are two kinds of polio vaccines used in the world today, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). They are the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) and the oral polio vaccine (OPV).
The OPV is used for mass vaccination campaigns of children outside the U.S., as was recently done in Gaza. However, the U.S. exclusively uses IPV polio vaccines, according to the CDC.
The IPV products, which are injected, contain an inactivated — or dead — poliovirus. According to the CDC, the IPV protects against “severe disease caused by poliovirus” but “does not stop transmission.”
According to the Polio Global Eradication Initiative, the IPV also doesn’t prevent infection.
Two stand-alone IPV products are licensed in the U.S. by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Both are manufactured by Sanofi. The other five are combination vaccines that target polio plus other illnesses, including diptheria, pertussis and tetanus.
One of the two stand-alone IPV products, Poliovax, was discontinued. The FDA page on licensed polio vaccines doesn’t explain why.
That leaves IPOL as the sole stand-alone polio vaccine licensed in the U.S.
2. Global polio vaccine campaigns can lead to ‘vaccine-derived’ polio outbreaks.
As its name suggests, the “oral polio” vaccine, or OPV — used only outside the U.S. — is delivered orally. The OPV contains a weakened vaccine-virus that activates an immune response in the body, according to the WHO.
Unlike the IPV products used in the U.S., the OPV prevents transmission, according to the CDC and the WHO. However, the weakened vaccine-virus used in the OPV can cause polio variant outbreaks.
The CDC states that the U.S. stopped using OPV “to eliminate the risk of polio variants that can occur with OPV.”
According to the WHO, the continued use of the OPV “poses a risk to wiping out the disease” because the weakened vaccine-virus originally contained in the OPV can begin to circulate among people who didn’t get the vaccine.
“When this happens,” the WHO said, “if it is allowed to circulate for sufficiently long enough time, it may genetically revert to a ‘strong’ virus, able to cause paralysis, resulting in what is known as circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses.”
Vaccine-derived polioviruses were responsible for the recently reported cases of polio in Gaza and the 2022 case reported in New York.
In March 2023, seven children were paralyzed by vaccine-derived polio linked to the novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) developed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, according to health officials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi and the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.
In other words, the viral infections in these cases resulted from exposure to the vaccine-virus used in the OPV — not from exposure to a naturally occurring, or “wild,” strain of the poliovirus.
The last wild poliovirus case reported in the U.S. was in 1979, according to the CDC.
3. Risk of paralysis from poliovirus infection is roughly 0.001%.
Approximately 90-95% of poliovirus infections are asymptomatic, according to the FDA package insert for IPOL, the only stand-alone IPV product used in the U.S. The package insert also provides general information on polio, including this:
“Nonspecific illness with low-grade fever and sore throat (minor illness) occurs in 4% to 8% of infections. Aseptic meningitis occurs in 1% to 5% of patients a few days after the minor illness has resolved.
“Rapid onset of asymmetric acute flaccid paralysis occurs in 0.1% to 2% of infections, and residual paralytic disease involving motor neurons (paralytic poliomyelitis) occurs in approximately 1 per 1,000 infections.”
In other words, according to the FDA, the risk of becoming paralyzed as a result of a poliovirus infection is roughly 0.001%.
4. All polio vaccines used today are genetically modified.
Unlike the original polio vaccines developed in the early 1950s by Dr. Jonas Salk and Dr. Albert Sabin, the IPV and OPV being administered today are genetically modified.
In 2020, the WHO authorized a new genetically modified OPV for emergency use in polio outbreaks. According to a 2023 article in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, nOPV2 was developed through a global partnership between public health, governmental, philanthropic and nonprofit organizations, including the Gates Foundation.
IPOL, the only stand-alone polio vaccine used in the U.S., uses technology that involves growing the poliovirus on monkey kidney cells whose chromones were modified to cause them to multiply forever.
In 2022, attorney Aaron Siri, on behalf of the Informed Consent Action Network, petitioned the FDA to “withdraw or suspend the approval for IPOL for infants, toddlers, and children until a properly controlled and properly powered double-blind trial of sufficient duration is conducted to assess the safety of this product.”
The petition stated that modified monkey kidney cells “are susceptible to infection by dozens of viruses, including HPV, measles, rubella, reovirus, SV40 virus, and SV-5.”
According to the petition, Sanofi’s IPOL vaccine hasn’t been adequately proven safe because the clinical trials relied on for licensing the product did not include a control group and declared the vaccine safe after following the trial participants for up to only three days after injection.
The FDA has not withdrawn or suspended its approval of IPOL as requested by Siri, and the agency continues to rely on the existing clinical trials and the agency’s own safety assessment lasting only up to three days.
The CDC recommends children receive four doses of IPOL, starting at age 2 months. The second dose is given at 4 months. The third is given at 6-18 months, and the fourth is given anytime between 4 and 6 years.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
This article is part of a series of articles by The Defender responding to the latest media coverage of vaccines, triggered by the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Trump’s Picks for Surgeon General and Top Posts at FDA, CDC Earn Mixed Reviews
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | November 25, 2024
President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees to lead three key federal public health agencies “would help the incoming president shift the priorities of agencies that are linchpins in public health” — but they’re also “controversial,” according to NPR.
Trump tapped Dr. Marty Makary to head the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Dr. Dave Weldon to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and physician Dr. Janette Nesheiwat for surgeon general.
“The roles will be key to helping to enact Trump’s second term health agenda, which could include agency reform and changes to public health policies,” Axios reported.
The three agencies report to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Earlier this month, Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr., founder of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), to lead HHS.
Weldon previously criticized COVID-19 vaccines and restrictions. Makary and Nesheiwat first expressed support for vaccines and other pandemic-related policies but have become more critical in recent years.
Kim Witczak, a drug safety advocate who has worked with the FDA as a consumer representative, addressed mainstream criticism of the nominations. She told The Defender that “the pharmaceutical and medical-industrial complex is very worried.”
She added:
“The pharmaceutical and food industries have faced little resistance from regulators and Congress. The strong pushback we’re seeing now suggests they fear what might happen under an administration willing to challenge the status quo.”
Dr. Joseph Varon, president of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, told The Defender, “Leadership in these agencies is critical for fostering trust in public health and ensuring evidence-based policies. We hope the nominees are committed to transparency, innovation and addressing the ongoing challenges in healthcare, particularly the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Makary: U.S. government the ‘greatest perpetrator of misinformation’
Makary, a public health researcher and surgeon at Johns Hopkins University, developed the surgical safety checklist, adopted by the World Health Organization and credited with saving many lives. Makary worked with the first Trump administration, including on surprise medical billing, NPR reported.
Earlier this year, Makary published “Blind Spots: When Medicine Gets it Wrong, and What It Means for Our Health.” The book highlighted evidence that many modern-day health crises in the U.S. were caused or hastened by the medical establishment.
According to The Gateway Pundit, “Makary was initially an advocate for the COVID vaccine but changed his perspective as more data became available.” NPR noted that Makary “voiced support for lockdowns early in the pandemic and encouraged universal masking” but later “became increasingly outspoken” against such policies.
In 2021, Makary called the Biden administration’s CDC “the most political CDC in history” for not being forthcoming with the public about COVID-19 and the vaccines. According to the New York Post, he criticized the CDC and Biden administration for their “unsupported claims” about COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness.
Makary has also been vocal about the potency of natural immunity to COVID-19, criticizing the medical establishment’s “complete dismissal of natural immunity.”
In May, he criticized The New York Times for being slow to report on the thousands of people injured by the COVID-19 vaccines.
Last year, Makary said during congressional testimony that “public health officials have made many tragic mistakes during the pandemic.” Those mistakes included ignoring natural immunity, dismissing the possibility of COVID-19 originating from a lab leak, closing schools, masking toddlers and “pushing boosters for young people.”
In September, Makary appeared alongside Kennedy at a congressional roundtable hosted by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) on the chronic disease epidemic. During the roundtable, Makary said, “The greatest perpetrator of misinformation has been the United States government.”
In his announcement, Trump said Makary would work with Kennedy to “properly evaluate harmful chemicals poisoning our Nation’s food supply and drugs and biologics being given to our Nation’s youth, so that we can finally address the Childhood Chronic Disease Epidemic.”
Brian Hooker, Ph.D., CHD’s chief scientific officer, told The Defender Makary has a “steep learning curve regarding vaccines in general” but has taken “encouraging stances late in the pandemic about the COVID vaccine and countermeasures.”
Scott C. Tips, president of the National Health Federation, said Makary represents “a mixed bag of mainstream medicine and outside-the-box thinking.” He credited Makary for opposing “mandatory COVID-19 injection boosters” and criticizing the FDA’s rejection of natural immunity.
Epidemiologist and public health research scientist M. Nathaniel Mead praised Makary’s nomination. “You’d be hard-pressed to find a physician with a deeper understanding of what ails our healthcare system and what’s needed to restore integrity to the FDA after six decades of regulatory capture.”
“Makary seems uniquely positioned to bring meaningful change,” Witczak said. “He understands the systemic harm caused by overmedicalization and the corporate capture of healthcare. His history of challenging mainstream narratives during COVID shows he isn’t afraid to speak out.”
Weldon sponsored bill to ban mercury from vaccines
Dr. Dave Weldon is an Army veteran who served as a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives between 1995 and 2009.
In a statement, Kennedy praised Weldon’s experience, saying he “will bring the truth and transparency needed to restore the public’s confidence” in the CDC.
In 2007, Weldon sponsored a bill that would have banned mercury from vaccines, expressing concern about “an enormous inherent conflict of interest within the CDC,” because the agency promotes vaccination while assessing their safety.
According to Politico, Weldon also “raised concerns about the safety of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and Gardasil, Merck’s papillomavirus virus, or HPV vaccine.
While in Congress, Weldon also introduced legislation outlawing human cloning and helped secure a deal that banned patents on human organisms, including genetically engineered embryos, according to The Associated Press.
According to NPR, Trump said Weldon would “proudly restore the CDC to its true purpose, and will work to end the Chronic Disease Epidemic,” and “prioritize Transparency, Competence, and High Standards.”
John Gilmore, executive director of the Autism Action Network, said Weldon “was sounding the alarm on failures in the vaccine system 20 years ago.” He said Weldon attended conferences like Defeat Autism Now and listened to mothers of vaccine-injured children, which is “not a behavior many doctors are inclined to do.”
Hooker said he was “very encouraged” by Weldon’s nomination, and that he’d like to know more about Weldon’s position on “the bloated vaccine schedule as well as COVID-19 countermeasures.”
He credited Weldon with helping independent thimerosal researchers gain access to the Vaccine Safety Datalink, a collaborative project that monitors vaccine safety and conducts studies on vaccine side effects.
Hooker, who participated in that project, said “Our access to the VSD was rescinded months later because [the CDC] didn’t like our results, which included a definitive link between thimerosal and autism. Weldon indeed will need to implement myriad changes to the flawed and fraudulent process.”
Weldon is the first nominee for CDC director who will face a Senate confirmation process, due to legislation passed in 2022, NPR reported.
Nesheiwat: ‘egregious unethical & harmful’ to add COVID shots to childhood schedule
Nesheiwat, Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, is a medical contributor to Fox News and medical director at CityMD, a network of urgent care centers in New York and New Jersey.
Nesheiwat previously promoted the benefits of getting vaccinated against COVID-19 and other infectious diseases, NPR reported. According to The Gateway Pundit, Nesheiwat has since changed her position and her “recent statements indicate a significant shift in her perspective.”
In October 2022, Nesheiwat tweeted, “If CDC approves a COVID vaccine addition to the routine schedule of vax for kids, it will mark the most egregious unethical & harmful decision to children. No mandates. Especially for a vax that can’t prevent disease.”
Nesheiwat has also questioned the efficacy of the COVID shots, tweeting in February 2023, “Covid vax does not prevent disease like we once thought it did per the cdc /Pfizer etc.,” and has tweeted in support of natural immunity.
In a statement, Trump called Nesheiwat an advocate for preventive medicine and praised her “commitment to saving and treating thousands of American lives.”
Mead said Nesheiwat’s about-face on vaccines “shows she has the ability to think critically,” which could help her “serve as a bridge builder at a time of deep division.”
A ‘historic opportunity to shake up the establishment’
Calling healthcare in the U.S. “horribly broken,” Hooker said the three nominees will face several challenges if confirmed because federal public health agencies require reforms.
Hooker said:
“Corporate influence, including the corporate capture of these agencies, is the biggest problem to be tackled. First and foremost, we need to protect children … from the highly flawed policies of these agencies.
“All influences from Big Pharma, Big Food and Big Ag need to be completely rooted out and the whole edifice should be rebuilt brick-by-brick to include only those policies that help and never harm children.”
Gilmore said public health agencies should publicize “all the data they have available.” He also called for a ban on vaccine mandates. “We have to be able to sue in a real court for vaccine injuries,” he added.
Varon called for independent clinical trials and for “independent scientific inquiry and reducing undue influence from corporate or political pressures.” He also called for promoting early treatment protocols for emerging diseases and giving physicians “the flexibility to treat patients with evidence-based approaches.”
“This moment represents a historic opportunity to shake up the establishment,” Witczak said. “After years of feeling like leaders were paying lip service — or working against the public — I finally see hope for meaningful reform. It’s time to restore these agencies’ missions to serve the public, prioritize safety, and act with integrity.”
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Corporate Media Meltdown Over Trump’s CDC Director Pick Dr. Dave Weldon
A look a the possible changes ahead for the CDC under his leadership
By Jefferey Jaxen | November 25, 2024
Former seven-term congressman Dr. David Weldon was chosen by President-elect Donald Trump going into this past weekend to serve as director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Amidst the flurry of possible appointments grabbing headlines, Dr. Weldon has the opportunity to change the way America has handled public health for decades.
The Washington Post described Dr. Weldon in the second sentence of its breaking news article as “… a strong critic of the CDC, especially its vaccine program.” The reporting meant the sentence to be a negative, ironically, it’s probably now a breath of fresh air for most Americans post-COVID.
“… increasingly we talk only to a certain elite. More and more, we talk to ourselves” wrote Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, less than a month ago when admitting most people don’t believe corporate/legacy media anymore. It’s like WAPO’s recent reporting on Weldon already forgot this warning.
The New York Times claimed that Dr. Weldon was “skeptical of vaccine safety,” a designation that would have worked to neutralize his voice in years past when the outlet still garnered attention and respect.
STAT News wrote, “The former Florida congressman sponsored legislation that would have carved out the CDC’s vaccine safety research…”
The Vaccine Safety Bill to ‘carve out research’ Dr. Weldon introduced in 2007 wanted to establish an independent agency within the Department of Health and Human Services to handle the nation’s vaccine safety. His reasoning at the time was that the CDC had an inherent conflict of interest being responsible for both vaccine safety and promotion—an issue unchanged to this day.
In Weldon, the public also finds a rare leader who has been willing to ask politically forbidden questions about links between vaccines and autism along with the greater questions about health outcomes of children receiving HHS’s childhood vaccine schedule compared with children who had not been vaccinated. In addition to why there’s been limited investigation to determine what children may be as risk of being harmed by vaccines.
“The thing I continue to find extremely disturbing is the fact that the CDC still does not allow researchers access to the vaccine safety data… The best way to get answers on the vaccine safety data is to open it up and let objective scientists come in and look at it.” – Rep. Dave Weldon at the Vaccines & Autism House Government Reform Committee 2002
One of the key data tranches Weldon is referring is vaccine safety datalink or VSD. A monitoring system using electronic health record data from health sites around the country to assess vaccine safety and detect adverse events in near-real time. Also a system that the public and independent researchers are blocked from accessing.
Besides the possibility of allowing the sunlight of independent researchers to comb through once-hidden vaccine data while dedicating resources to health-affirming tools outside of one-size-fits-all shots, Dr. Weldon will have veto power over the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).
ACIP makes recommendations about which vaccines are added to the U.S. schedule, among other decisions. The committee needs final approval from the director of the CDC to implement their calls. Dr. Weldon would hold a power position over a committee who unanimously rubber-stamped every COVID vaccine and booster from infants to the elderly, among other questionable call throughout the years leading to reduced public trust.
Another approach long-called for, and even once implemented by the CDC, would be to automate their Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) to instantly detect and report potential safety issues with the shots they promote.
In 2006 this was attempted through a $1M HHS grant to create a spontaneous reporting system to VAERS at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. The researchers found that “fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported” yet predictably, the CDC never followed up.
As many new to this conversation are rushing the gates to further their careers or gain influence and power on the back of the rapid political change we find ourselves at the beginning of, there have been those holding a strong space with little fanfare. Dr. Dave Weldon is one such individual.
His decades-long hopes to reform the CDC and, more importantly, protect American children and families from unrestrained harms brought upon so many by liability-free injectable pharmaceutical products which have enjoyed a privileged position away from full public and scientific scrutiny may soon see the light of day.
To the readers, is the CDC even salvageable at this point?
What other major areas of reform could help rapidly transform public consciousness around health and healing?
Trump names RFK Jr. to cabinet position
RT | November 14, 2024
US President-elect Donald Trump will nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be his Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), declaring that the former Democrat will ensure that “everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals [and] pollutants.”
Trump announced his choice in a social media post on Thursday evening. “For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to public health,” he wrote.
“HHS will play a big role in helping ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming health crisis in this country,” he continued. “Mr. Kennedy will restore these agencies to the traditions of gold standard scientific research… to Make America Great and Healthy Again!”
The New York Post claimed the previous day that some of Trump’s closest advisers were pushing for Kennedy to be given an advisory position, but that the former Democrat was “stubborn” in demanding control of HHS.
If confirmed, Kennedy would oversee the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other sub-agencies. Kennedy has been vocally critical of all of these agencies, and vowed to enact sweeping reforms if placed in charge of them.
A long-time vaccine skeptic and proponent of organic agriculture, Kennedy has promised to “get processed food out of school lunch immediately,” to recommend that fluoride be removed from the water supply, and to crack down on the use of chemical pesticides and herbicides in farming.
Kennedy announced last October that he would run for the presidency as an independent candidate, ending his bid to challenge President Joe Biden in the Democratic Party’s primary elections. He suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump in August, citing Trump’s support for free speech, his promise to end the Ukraine conflict, and his willingness to tackle what Kennedy called “the chronic disease epidemic” afflicting American children.
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Israeli Historian Discovers ‘6 Million’ Holocaust Figure Was Invented at Zionist Conference In 1944
By Eric Striker | National Justice | April 30, 2020
Boston University’s director of the Elie Wiesel archive, Bar-Ilan University’s Institute of Holocaust Research historian Joel Rappel has discovered the origin of the infamous “6,000,000” number: a 1944 meeting of Zionist pioneering organizations in what is now known as the state of Israel. … continue
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- Regional Cooling Since The 1980s Has Driven Glacier Advance In The Karakoram Mountains
- Greenland Petermann Glacier Has Grown 30 Kilometers Since 2012!
- New Study: Temperature-Driven CO2 Outgassing Explains 83 Percent Of CO2 Rise Since 1959
- Climate Extremists Ordered By Hamburg Court To Pay €400,000 In Damages
- More Evidence NE China Is Not Cooperating With The Alarmist Global Warming Narrative
- Ecological Impacts Of Offshore WindParks Are Worse Than Expewcted, New Study Finds
- Turbo Cancer & Sudden Death: The Facts On The Table
- 1880-2020 Trends In Ocean Heat Uptake, Thermal Expansion Challenge Human Forcing Claims
- A Sobering Reality: Global Fossil Fuel Demand Continues to Rise
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