What Does a Fraudulent Vaccine Safety Study Look Like?
By Dr. William H. Gaunt | The Defender | August 26, 2024
New vaccines should be proven safe before they are accepted onto the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) vaccine schedule.
Here is what is actually happening: Vaccine companies are doing studies that claim to demonstrate the safety of new vaccines but are carefully designed and conducted to intentionally hide the toxicity of these vaccines.
To see how this is done, read on.
What does an honest vaccine safety study look like?
An honest safety study must have a test group that gets the vaccine and a control group that gets a harmless placebo. Injuries and deaths are compared in the two groups.
If the test group has many more adverse events than the placebo control group, the vaccine is not safe.
Most people would be shocked to learn that none of the vaccines on the CDC vaccine schedule have been safety tested in this way.
What does a fraudulent vaccine safety study look like?
Rule No. 1 for conducting a fraudulent study: Do not have a placebo control group. Here is where the fraud is happening: The “control group” is deliberately given something that is as toxic as the vaccine being tested. It can be an older vaccine or the vaccine ingredients minus the antigen.
The results will show that the injuries and deaths are similar in both groups. That is because they are both receiving toxic ingredients. The new vaccine is then illogically declared safe.
If there is no placebo control group, the toxicity of the vaccine is hidden. This is both clever and diabolical. Can you see it?
The public is unaware of this subterfuge
“Turtles All The Way Down: Vaccine Science and Myth” is the most thorough and brutally honest book ever written about vaccines.
The authors tell us on page 81:
“As we have seen in this chapter, vaccine trials are designed and performed in such a way as to ensure that the true extent of adverse events is hidden from the public. There is not a single vaccine in the US routine childhood vaccination schedule whose true rate of adverse events is known.”
Two examples of how unsafe toxic vaccines got on the CDC vaccine schedule
Prevnar-13 (a pneumococcal vaccine) was given to the test group of children and the “control group” was given the older Prevnar vaccine.
Severe adverse events occurred in 8.2% (one out of every 12 children) in the test group. Severe adverse events also occurred in 7.2% (one out of every 14 children) of the control group.
What percent of a placebo control group would have had severe adverse events? Probably 0% because they would have received something harmless. We can’t know because the authors of this study chose not to have a placebo control group.
The Prevnar-13 vaccine was declared “safe” and was approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). You don’t have to be a doctor or scientist to suspect that both the Prevnar and the Prevnar-13 vaccines are unsafe. “Turtles All The Way Down” covers this fraudulent vaccine safety study on pages 60 and 61.
Here is the second example, which the authors describe on pages 77 and 78:
“In one of the DTaP vaccine trials, 1 in every 22 subjects in the trial group was admitted to the hospital. A similar hospitalization rate was also reported in the ‘control group’ (which received the older-generation DTP vaccine).”
Again, there was no placebo control group. Both vaccines appear to be decidedly unsafe yet the newer DTaP vaccine made it onto the CDC vaccine schedule. DTP and DTaP vaccines contain antigens for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis.
Why is this happening?
Ultimately, the answer is greed. It is enormously profitable to get a vaccine on the CDC schedule. Vaccine companies will do whatever it takes to accomplish this. If it takes a little scientific fraud, so be it.
The vaccine companies are cheating on vaccine safety studies by omitting placebo control groups, thereby lying about the safety of vaccines. The FDA and CDC are complicit because they are doing nothing to stop this fraud.
Corporate capture or regulatory capture
The FDA and CDC are regulatory agencies. The original function of these agencies was to protect the public from dangerous drugs and vaccines.
Unfortunately, these agencies have been captured by Big Pharma. They no longer focus on protecting the public. They focus on protecting and promoting the interests of pharma companies.
Can we compare the health outcomes of vaccinated versus unvaccinated children?
Theoretically, yes but not if we expect our health authorities or pharma companies to do these types of studies. Chapter 6 of the “Turtles” book is titled “The Studies That Will Never Be Done.”
On page 207 the authors tell us:
“No study that compares the health of vaccinated children to that of unvaccinated children has ever been done by the medical establishment.”
If such a study showed that vaccinated children are healthier than unvaccinated children, it would have been published and been headlined in every newspaper and been the lead story on the nightly news. That hasn’t happened. We suspect that such a study has been done internally at the CDC.
The unwanted conclusion that they won’t allow to see the light of day is that unvaccinated children are far healthier than vaccinated children. This study has likely been done and buried instead of published. Such a study is verboten because it would be a disaster for the vaccine companies.
Private studies show that unvaccinated children are healthier
Here are two privately funded studies:
- “Relative Incidence of Office Visits and Cumulative Rates of Billed Diagnoses Along the Axis of Vaccination” by Dr. Paul Thomas and James Lyons-Weiler, Ph.D.
- “Analysis of health outcomes in vaccinated and unvaccinated children: Developmental delays, asthma, ear infections and gastrointestinal disorders” by Brian S. Hooker, Ph.D., and Neil Z. Miller.
Another great resource is the book “Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak,” by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Hooker. They report on many studies where unvaccinated children have better health outcomes compared to vaccinated children.
Science is for sale
The book “Science for Sale: How the US Government Uses Powerful Corporations and Leading Universities to Support Government Policies, Silence Top Scientists, Jeopardize Our Health, and Protect Corporate Profits” by David L. Lewis, Ph.D., tells the story of how corporate profits can frequently trump true science.
This happens in many industries, not just in vaccines. It is not unusual for government agencies to take the side of the corporations. The author was fired from the EPA for revealing details of how this happens.
The health of the public is subverted by powerful corporations in these situations. Does that sound familiar? Lewis doesn’t cover vaccines in his book except in Chapter 7 where he describes how Dr. Andrew Wakefield was unjustly crushed for questioning the safety of the measles-mumps-rubella or MMR vaccine.
Are vaccines the main cause of autism?
If the answer is yes, that would be very bad for vaccine companies. The “Turtles” authors point out on page 209 how our health authorities are trying hard not to find the correct answer to this question:
“Over the past 15 years, dozens of epidemiological studies have been conducted examining the association between vaccines and autism, but not a single one compared the rate of autism in fully vaccinated and fully unvaccinated children.”
If they actually wanted to answer this question, they would do vax/unvax studies. Such studies are easy to do but our health authorities refuse to do them.
Why do health authorities favor epidemiological studies?
The “Turtles” authors provide the answer on page 198:
“Epidemiological studies are the tool of choice for health authorities and pharma companies to maintain a facade of vaccine safety science. They are cheap, relatively simple to conduct, and, above all, their results are easily manipulated.”
It is entirely possible to get an epidemiological study to conclude whatever its authors want it to conclude. These types of studies are not the gold standard.
What caused the drastic decline in infectious disease mortality?
We are supposed to believe that vaccines have been our saviors. Not true. The huge decline in infectious disease mortality was largely due to sanitation, hygiene and improved nutrition (the availability of fresh fruits and vegetables year-round).
The “Turtles” authors make this clear on page 293. They reference a report by the American Institute of Medicine, which states:
“The number of infections prevented by immunization is actually quite small compared with the total number of infections prevented by other hygienic interventions such as clean water, food, and living conditions.”
The claim that vaccines alone saved us is false and our health authorities know it is false.
Below is a simple graph that causes cognitive dissonance in those who believe that vaccines saved us from high rates of infectious disease mortality.
We can clearly see that deaths from measles were reduced to near zero by the interventions mentioned above BEFORE the measles vaccine was introduced.
Similar graphs for other infectious diseases are shown in the book “Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten History” by Dr. Suzanne Humphries and Roman Bystrianyk. The mortality rate for all infectious diseases was dropping rapidly before vaccines were introduced.
Do you smell a rat?
Yes. And it has been dead for quite a while. We have been bamboozled (deceived, cheated, swindled and defrauded).
Vaccines are now doing far more harm than good by causing a huge increase in chronic diseases like autism, asthma, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or ADHD, Type 1 diabetes, learning disabilities, seizures and much more.
It is way past time to use honest unbiased science to sort it out. Imagine what will happen when honest science is applied to vaccine safety studies.
Here is how the ‘Turtles’ authors sum it up
On page 518:
“Science belongs to the people. It belongs to humanity, not to corrupt government agencies and pharmaceutical giants who collude to rewrite the principles of science in order to continue the decades-long cover-up of their crimes against humanity.
“The magnitude of these crimes is enormous — these entities are in way too deep to ever be able to admit any wrongdoing. They will do whatever is necessary to protect the great vaccine hoax. For them, it is a matter of life and death — literally. And so it is for us.”
The lie that vaccines are safe and effective and that serious adverse events are exceedingly rare is still believed by many people — yet trust in pharma and our coopted regulatory agencies is now rapidly eroding. For example, only a tiny percentage of people are continuing to take the COVID-19 vaccine boosters.
Also, the percentage of parents who are choosing to obtain an exemption to vaccines for their children is increasing. This can be done in almost all states.
It is becoming obvious to a growing number of people that we are being intentionally misled regarding vaccines and vaccine safety.
CDC USES ‘COVID SURGE’ TO STOKE FEAR
The HighWire with Del Bigtree | August 22, 2024
The CDC is using new, questionable techniques to declare a ‘COVID surge’ and stoke fears. Coincidentally, a new booster hits the market as students head back to school. Jefferey Jaxen reports.
Dr. Peter McCullough: COVID Shots for Kids ‘the Last Straw’
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | August 19, 2024
“A child today faces well over a hundred shots,” cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough told host Mat Staver on a recent episode of “Freedom Alive.” Many of those shots are for infectious diseases of the past or contemporary illnesses that don’t pose a risk to infants.
McCullough said the “inflection point” was the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, which freed vaccine manufacturers from liability for vaccine injuries. “We saw essentially a vaccine bonanza develop,” he said, and “excessive, unnecessary” vaccination could be leading to serious side effects.
Those vaccines start just after a baby is born, he said, when they are given the hepatitis B vaccine.
As a cardiologist, dealing with blood and body fluids, McCullough said the vaccine is appropriate for him, but babies are not at risk for it unless their mother has the illness or is an active IV drug user. For most babies, he said, it is a “completely unnecessary shot on the first day of life.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in October 2023 recommended newborns receive Beyfortus, the monoclonal antibody shot meant to protect babies from RSV-related illness.
“This has no safety track record,” he said. “We’ve never given a synthetic antibody to a baby ever in the history of medicine, and now it’s being given uniformly with no idea of what is going to happen to the baby’s immune system over the next several weeks or months.”
The clinical trials were inconclusive as to whether Beyfortus is safe, and evidence from France shows increased mortality among infants after the shot was introduced, he said.
McCullough said the broader safety concerns stem largely from the fact that so many are given in combination. “For some babies, it’s too much,” he said.
Excessive vaccination, he explained, sends the immune system into overdrive, which can lead a baby to develop a fever and a febrile seizure (convulsion).
Research shows febrile seizures have about a 40% chance of causing permanent neurologic injury, ranging from epilepsy to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder to autism spectrum disorder.
Staver said many parents who saw their children develop autism post-vaccination are told either that it isn’t true or it’s just a coincidence because there is no evidence of such a link.
“The direct observation by a mother and father of their child is the strongest evidence,” McCullough said, citing Dr. Andy Wakefield’s controversial 1998 study.
McCullough also cited a recent study by the Children’s Health Defense science team, which showed that combining multiple vaccines is dangerous. Spacing them out and giving them individually — rather than combining three vaccines into one shot, like the measles-mumps-rubella, or MMR, vaccine — is safer, he said.
And, he said, all children do not need all vaccines. Which vaccines a child gets should be determined on a risk basis. For example, a child with cystic fibrosis might need the respiratory illness vaccines, but healthy kids probably don’t.
Yet these vaccines are given to all children in part, he said, because the people who advise the CDC on which vaccines should be recommended for children have serious conflicts of interest — most take money from Big Pharma. Then schools enact mandates based on those recommendations, leaving parents feeling as if they have no choice.
Vaccine makers lobby state legislators to continually increase the list of mandatory vaccines.
McCullough said:
“Can you imagine if you had a product that treats an illness? You would have to treat a small number of people in a population. But if you have a vaccine, that means the whole entire population has to receive the product.
“A product that must be purchased by the entire population with no liability is an absolute boon to any purveyor of that product.”
McCullough said the CDC has turned a blind eye to vaccine safety. For example, none of the childhood vaccines have been studied for safety when given in combination.
He added that Dr. Paul Thomas reported in The Defender that pediatricians receive substantial incentives from insurance companies to vaccinate certain high percentages of their patients.
For lower-income kids, there is also government financial support to ensure that the vast majority of the population is vaccinated against legacy diseases like diphtheria, tetanus, polio and other diseases that are either no longer commonly circulating or for which good treatments exist.
For many, McCullough said, the recommendation that children take the COVID-19 vaccine, given its alarming safety data, was “the last straw.”
“That act was irresponsible. It triggered the World Council for Health, which is an evidence-based, consensus-driven body to recommend waiting on all the childhood vaccines,” he said.
Vaccines are not safe or effective enough to mandate, McCullough said. “Every parent and child unit should be able to make their own decisions free of any pressure, coercion, or threat of reprisal.”
Watch the interview here.
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.
Health Officials Push Whooping Cough Vaccine Amid Uptick in Cases, But Scientists Say Shots Don’t Prevent Transmission
By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D.John-Michael Dumais | The Defender | August 14, 2024
Public health officials are urging families to get vaccinated against whooping cough, citing an uptick in cases, particularly among adolescents. However, critics say the vaccine doesn’t prevent transmission and contains dangerous toxins that may harm human health.
Connecticut Department of Public Health Commissioner Manisha Juthani said that there were 111 confirmed cases of pertussis in the state so far in 2024 — nearly a 10-fold increase compared to 2023, NBC Connecticut reported this week.
Juthani told The Hour that public health officials are concerned the spread will increase when school begins in just a few weeks.
“We are raising attention to this, both to providers and to families,” she said, “so that theoretically, people can get back up to date on their vaccines before children potentially are going back to day care, are going back to school.”
Other states, including New York and Pennsylvania, have also seen an uptick in whooping cough cases this year, Newsweek reported in early June. Outside the U.S., the United Kingdom and Australia have also reported increases.
Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, is a highly infectious respiratory tract infection, according to the Mayo Clinic. Deaths from it are rare and typically occur in infants.
It’s caused by a bacteria called Bordetella pertussis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The CDC recommends that “everyone” — from babies as young as 2 months old to adults, particularly pregnant women — vaccinate against the illness by getting either a DTaP or Tdap vaccine, which also ostensibly protect against tetanus and diphtheria.
According to the CDC, the vaccine is “the best way to prevent whooping cough.”
Pertussis can be treated with antibiotics
However, Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist at Children’s Health Defense (CHD) told The Defender the pertussis vaccine may contribute to the spread of the infection — because it doesn’t prevent transmission.
“The pertussis vaccine is one of those that breaks the mold of what we think a vaccine is,” Jablonowski said. “Pertussis is probably the best case I can think of for a vaccine that does not prevent transmission.”
He added, “Every time there is a case of it, health officials will get on TV urging people to get vaccinated — wrongfully believing it will stop transmission.”
As The Defender recently reported, the CDC has been tracking changes in the prevalence of bacteria causing whooping cough for years.
Although the CDC’s whooping cough website still says the illness is caused by Bordetella pertussis, the most recent CDC data found that the Bordetella parapertussis type of whooping cough has significantly overtaken Bordetella pertussis in prevalence — and according to research published in Vaccines in March, the existing vaccines “scarcely provide protection” against this strain.
Brian Hooker, Ph.D., CHD chief scientific officer, told The Defender pertussis can be treated with antibiotics — “erythromycin and azithromycin are standard,” he said — and high doses of vitamin C.
The CDC’s website acknowledges whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics and fails to explain why the agency favors vaccination over antibiotics.
Pertussis vaccine may prevent herd immunity
Earlier this year, Jablonowski spoke on the poor efficacy and high-risk profile of the pertussis vaccine before Tennessee lawmakers as they weighed a bill to prohibit the state’s Department of Children Services from “requiring an immunization as a condition of adopting or overseeing a child in foster care if an individual or member of an individual’s household objects to immunization on the basis of religious or moral convictions.”
During March testimony before the Tennessee General Assembly Civil Justice Committee, Jablonowski cited scientific studies that debunk the notion that the vaccine is the best way to prevent whooping cough.
For instance, a 2016 review published in JAMA that reviewed more than 10,000 whooping cough cases found that more than half the cases in the five largest statewide outbreaks occurred in individuals who were partially or fully vaccinated against pertussis.
A 2019 review published in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society concluded that “all children who were primed by DTaP vaccines will be more susceptible to pertussis throughout their lifetimes, and there is no easy way to decrease this increased lifetime susceptibility.”
Another review, also published in 2019, concluded that pertussis vaccines “do not reduce the circulation of B. pertussis and do not exert any herd immunity effect.”
Jablonowski told lawmakers that not only does the pertussis vaccine not “exert” a herd immunity effect, but the vaccine “has a negative effective on herd immunity.”
He explained:
“A vaccinated person can asymptomatically carry and transmit the disease, and cannot then learn how to fight it naturally.
“If you accept that in order to achieve herd immunity 90% of the population needs to not retransmit the bacteria once exposed to it, then once you have vaccinated more than 10% of the population herd immunity becomes impossible, as the vaccinated citizens will be contracting and transmitting the disease.”
Jablonowski told The Defender the only two scenarios in which getting the vaccine might protect someone else is when it’s given during pregnancy or to a nursing mother.
According to the CDC, pregnant women should get the Tdap vaccine to provide their babies with the “best protection” from whooping cough, ideally between 27 and 36 weeks gestation. Protective antibodies pass from the pregnant woman’s body to the fetus, the agency said.
Researchers funded by the pharmaceutical company Sanofi — which sells pertussis vaccines — in 2022 published a statement saying that vaccination against pertussis during the second or early third trimester of pregnancy is “highly protective” against pertussis in young infants.
Both the CDC and Jablonowski said that vaccinating nursing mothers doesn’t appear to be effective in protecting babies from whooping cough.
A 2012 study conducted in a Houston area hospital found that giving postpartum moms the Tdap vaccine didn’t reduce the number of infections in babies when compared to prior years in which the hospital didn’t readily give the vaccine postpartum.
The hospital implemented a standing order that all new mothers get Tdap, Jablonowski said.
The researchers looked at health data from moms and babies 7.5 years before and almost 1.5 years after this standing order, he said. “Cases of infant pertussis practically doubled and the mortality rate practically tripled” after the standing order.
Vaccine contains aluminum and formaldehyde
Both of the two current formulations of the pertussis vaccine contain toxins known to harm human health, including aluminum and formaldehyde, Jablonowski told the lawmakers.
Aluminum is a known neurotoxin that can affect more than “200 important biological reactions” and cause “negative effects on [the] central nervous system,” according to a 2018 paper published in the Journal of Research in Medical Sciences.
Formaldehyde is a known carcinogen that is toxic to the respiratory system, central nervous system, optic nerve, kidney, liver, testicles and other body systems.
The pertussis vaccine, typically administered as part of combination vaccines like DTaP or Tdap, contains several other potentially harmful ingredients. These typically include inactivated B. pertussis toxin and several of its components, polysorbate 80, gluteraldehyde, 2-phenoxoyethanol and in some cases, trace amounts of mercury, according to the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC).
Some researchers suggest the chemically inactivated pertussis toxin in DTaP may retain some bioactivity, potentially inducing brain inflammation in certain individuals.
CDC didn’t follow up on 2012 report on adverse events following DTaP/Tdap vaccines
For the past 70 years, researchers have used the pertussis toxin in animal studies to purposefully trigger various physiological responses. Responses include heightened sensitivity to histamine, serotonin and endotoxins. Researchers also used the pertussis toxin to induce experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis.
The toxin’s ability to penetrate the blood-brain barrier under certain conditions has long been a concern. This property makes brain inflammation, or encephalitis, and its potential for lasting neurological damage a particularly severe complication associated with both whooping cough infection and pertussis vaccination.
According to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), from 1990 to 2024, there were 190,994 injury reports following pertussis-containing vaccines, including 3,377 deaths, according to NVIC. Over 85% of these deaths occurred in children under age 3.
While this data includes pre-1996 reports, when the whole-cell pertussis portion of the DTP vaccine formulation was changed due to its serious side effects, it’s important to note that a significant portion would be related to the DTaP vaccine given its widespread use since 1996.
Over 6,000 claims for injuries from pertussis-containing vaccines were submitted to the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) as of Aug. 1, 2024. The cases include 872 deaths and over 5,000 serious injuries. Pertussis-containing vaccines comprise the highest number of VICP death claims and the second most compensated vaccine injury claims.
A 2012 study published in JAMA found an increased risk of febrile seizures in children 3-5 months old on the day of or day after receiving the first two doses of DTaP-containing vaccines.
The Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) 2012 report, “Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality,” evaluated 26 reported adverse events following DTaP/Tdap vaccination. They included encephalopathy, encephalitis, chronic hives, autism, sudden infant death syndrome, arthritis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, diabetes mellitus, immune thrombocytopenic purpura, transverse myelitis and others.
For 24 of the 26 adverse events, the committee said there was not enough data either to support or reject vaccine-related causality, primarily due to a lack of adequate studies.
To date, the CDC has not conducted any additional studies in response to IOM’s recommendations, according to the authors of “Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak,” Hooker and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., CHD’s chairman on leave.
A 2017 study led by Dr. Anthony Mawson published in the Journal of Translational Science, compared the health outcomes of vaccinated and unvaccinated children ages 6-12. The study found that while vaccinated children had fewer cases of chicken pox and pertussis, they had significantly higher rates of other health issues.
According to the study, vaccinated children were more likely to be diagnosed with allergic rhinitis, eczema and neurodevelopmental disorders. The vaccinated group also showed higher rates of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism, learning disabilities and chronic health problems.
Additionally, the study reported that vaccinated children had a higher incidence of pneumonia and ear infections compared to unvaccinated 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.
Too Little, Too Late, Wrong Science: A Critique of Salmon et al.
40 years of failed science is enough. I’m asking Siri, Kennedy and Bigtree to make the right science happen. They can do it.
By James Lyons-Weiler | Popular Rationalism | July 11, 2024
In their recent publication in the New England Journal of Medicine, Salmon et al. finally acknowledge what many of us have known for years: the so-called comprehensive vaccine safety studies have been woefully inadequate. However, their proposed solution—relying on post-market surveillance—misses the mark entirely in a stunning manner that cannot stem from a lack of self-awareness – and raises more questions than it answers. This critique will expose the fundamental flaws in their approach and underscore the urgent need for long-term, randomized clinical trials.
Historical Context: Decades of Malfeasance and Fraud
For over three decades, the medical establishment, spearheaded by figures like Dr. Stanley Plotkin, has assured the public that vaccines are the most rigorously tested medical products using retrospective studies. Yet, Salmon et al. now concede that prelicensure clinical trials often have “limited sample sizes and follow-up durations” and that there are “no resources earmarked for post-authorization safety studies.” This admission not only undermines the credibility of these long-standing claims but also highlights a systemic failure to prioritize safety.
They ignore, however, all of the work done over the years by critics like Brian Hooker, Mark Blaxill, myself, and many, many others that not only demonstrate the fatal flaws in reliance on retrospective studies, but their intentional and therefore criminal abuse in the hands of people working in and for the CDC bent on hiding vaccine risk.
The Mirage of Distorted Retrospective Studies
Retrospective observational studies, the cornerstone of Salmon et al.’s proposed solution, are a poor substitute for robust, prospective research. These studies are rife with potential biases, including selection bias, selective reporting, recall bias, and confounding variables. The findings of such studies are highly dependent on who conducts them, the study design, and adherence to the data analysis plan. Repeated analyses and adjustments for presumed confounders often lead to the convenient disappearance of associations with adverse events via p-hacking.
The Case of Aluminum and Asthma
Consider the association between aluminum exposure from vaccines and persistent asthma, as detected and reported by Daley et al. Despite identifying a positive association, the authors acknowledge the potential for residual confounding and the small effect sizes. This illustrates the inherent limitations of retrospective studies. Moreover, Frank DeStefano’s study on his way out of the CDC linked aluminum to asthma, raising serious questions about the integrity of the surveillance data. Denialists like Paul Offit tried to arm-wave away the result, preventing the next necessary steps, and 1) Finding safe ways to help patients remove aluminum, and 2) Removing aluminum from vaccines.
Ignored Historical Evidence
Before the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) was established in 1986, adverse events like eczema were recognized following vaccinations. Post-1986, it seems there was a collective amnesia within the medical community regarding these associations. Similarly, Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) was first noticed after the swine flu vaccination campaign in 1976. It took 30 years for HHS to put GBS on the table of vaccine injuries. This pattern of intentional lost knowledge is unforgivable. These historical data points should not be ignored or downplayed, yet they have been consistently overlooked in favor of maintaining the vaccination status quo.
The Mechanistic Black Box
One of the most glaring deficiencies in vaccine safety research is the lack of understanding of the biological mechanisms underlying vaccine-related adverse events. Salmon et al. admit this gap, yet they continue to rely on epidemiological data without pushing for mechanistic studies. Yet, in my experience, in reading the literature, these claims result in appeals to ignorance. It is almost certain that knowledge exists that can link vaccines to these conditions; the same authors use argumentation and influence to cast doubt on such studies, or, again, in my experience, they ignore them altogether.
This approach is akin to trying to solve a puzzle with half the pieces missing. Without a thorough understanding of the mechanisms at play, we cannot develop safer vaccines or provide accurate risk assessments. By arguing from ignorance, they reveal their goal.
The Danger of Mandates
The insistence on full-population vaccination mandates, without adequately addressing safety concerns, puts public health and public trust at risk. The denial of potential vaccine risks and the imposition of mandates ignore the very real experiences of vaccine-injured individuals and, of course, studies that have found associations. Found associations via retrospective studies become “mere associations”, and are dismissed. In Popperian terms, the retrospective studies fail to provide a critical test. This approach not only fuels vaccine hesitancy but also undermines the credibility of health authorities. Mandating vaccines without comprehensive safety data is a reckless disregard for individual health and autonomy.
Call for Accountability
It is high time we hold those who have held the keys to databases and conducted sham studies accountable for decades of inadequate safety surveillance and research, as well as for scientific fraud. A prosecutorial investigation into potential scientific fraud at the CDC over the past 40 years is warranted. This investigation should focus on whether there has been success at efforts designed to provide systematic destruction of scientific findings via study manipulation and records destruction, a systematic failure to conduct and report comprehensive safety studies, and whether conflicts of interest have influenced vaccine policy and research. I would also investigate the VSD for data manipulation; the CDC and the vaccine industry have had exclusive control over that dataset far too long.
By exposing these issues and demanding scientific rigor, we can begin to rebuild public trust and ensure that our vaccine policies genuinely serve the best interests of public health. In a sane world, readers would be encouraged to contact their congressional representatives and the Office of Inspector General (OIG) to demand an investigation into these long-standing issues.
A New Approach: Independent, Prospective RCTs
Recognizing the failures of the current system, independents and advocates have long proposed an alternative: a large, prospective randomized controlled trial (RCT) funded by the government. I disagree. Such studies should only be done by independent research institutions funded through grassroots fundraising. These trials would run for four years and match vaccinated and unvaccinated children to avoid confounding variables and isolate the effects of childhood vaccines on chronic health conditions. This rigorous approach is necessary to provide definitive answers about vaccine safety and to restore public trust. I’m calling on well-funded individuals and organizations like those run by my friends Siri, Kennedy, and Bigtree to pull together, perhaps under the Vaccine Safety Foundation, and fund the studies needed.
We’ve built the infrastructure to do it, including independent journals and an independent IRB. Siri, Kennedy, and Bigtree have sufficient limelight to raise the millions needed to conduct these studies. Lawsuits, reporting, and campaigns are priorities, but I will never trust a study conducted by or funded by CDC. Neither should you.
Aaron, Bobby, and Del – Let’s hold a podcast and raise the funds. I’d be happy to participate in the design of the study and design of analysis.
I’ve tried for ten years to raise funds for such studies via IPAK. I’ve done my part for the sake of objectivity and science for the kids. You guys have the public’s attention. Use the systems we’ve built to safeguard objective science.
Conclusion: A Demand for Real Science
Salmon et al.’s admissions are too little, too late. Their reliance on flawed retrospective studies and post-market surveillance is inadequate. What we need are long-term, randomized clinical trials that can provide definitive answers about vaccine safety. The public deserves transparency, accountability, and a commitment to rigorous, unbiased research. Anything less is an abdication of our responsibility to protect public health.
References
1. Daley MF, et al. Association Between Aluminum Exposure From Vaccines Before Age 24 Months and Persistent Asthma at Age 24 to 59 Months. Acad Pediatr. 2023;23(1):37-46.
2. DeStefano F, et al. Childhood vaccinations and risk of asthma. Pediatr Infect Dis J. 2002;21:498-504.
3. Institute of Medicine. Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality. Washington, DC: National Academies Press; 2011.
4. McNeil MM, et al. The Vaccine Safety Datalink: successes and challenges monitoring vaccine safety. Vaccine. 2014;32:5390-5398.
5. Glanz JM, et al. Cumulative and episodic vaccine aluminum exposure in a population-based cohort of young children. Vaccine. 2015;33:6736-6744.
Two Infants Died Within Hours of Receiving RSV Shots, CDC Internal Emails Show
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | July 8, 2024
At least two infant deaths reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) as occurring after the babies mistakenly received Pfizer’s adult respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine were likely caused instead by nirsevimab, the monoclonal antibody shot approved for infants and meant to prevent RSV.
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) documents obtained by Children’s Health Defense (CHD) from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that both babies died on the day they received the shots.
According to the reports in VAERS, a 27-day-old boy died immediately upon receiving the shot in the doctor’s office and an infant girl was found not breathing by her father seven hours after receiving the shot. The infant was pronounced dead soon after.
The deaths were reported in VAERS as resulting from mistaken administration of Pfizer’s adult RSV vaccine, but the CDC internal emails obtained by CHD indicate the babies had been administered Beyfortus, the brand name for nirsevimab, manufactured by AstraZeneca and Sanofi.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the drug in July 2023 and the CDC recommended it in August 2023 for infants under 8 months or high-risk infants up to 24 months of age.
In clinical trials for the drug, 12 infants died, but an FDA spokesperson told CNBC when the drug was approved that “none of the deaths appeared to be related to nirsevimab.”
After the CDC recommended the drug, it expanded the 2024 childhood vaccine schedule and included nirsevimab for infants whose mothers did not receive the RSV vaccine — also recently approved — during pregnancy.
The CDC’s childhood immunization schedule lists the CDC-recommended shots for children from birth through age 18. Pediatricians and other clinicians typically use the schedule to make recommendations to parents, and schools use it to set vaccine requirements.
Monoclonal antibodies are not technically vaccines. Vaccines stimulate the individual’s immune system to trigger an immune response. Monoclonal antibodies are proteins cloned in a lab that act like antibodies, seeking out antigens in the body to destroy them just like people’s own antibodies do, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
When the CDC expanded the 2024 vaccine schedule, it changed the description of the schedule to be for “vaccines and other immunizing agents,” before adding the RSV monoclonal antibodies to the list.
Even professionals confused about how to report injuries related to infant RSV shots
When people experience vaccine injuries, they can report them to the CDC using VAERS, a passive surveillance system available to anyone — including doctors, other vaccine administrators and the public — for reporting adverse events.
The CDC also has other systems for monitoring vaccine safety. It monitors COVID-19 and adult RSV vaccines through the V-safe system, a different voluntary reporting system, and most vaccines through the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD), which analyzes healthcare data, often investigating concerns initially raised in VAERS.
However, according to the internal emails obtained by CHD, and reported by the CDC to its advisory committee, the CDC doesn’t monitor injuries from medications that are not vaccines. The FDA recommends those injuries be reported to MedWatch, the FDA’s adverse event reporting system.
That means adverse events from all medical treatments on the immunization schedule are not monitored through the same system. This can generate confusion, even among medical professionals, who treat monoclonal antibodies as vaccines.
For example, even people at the CDC in internal emails referred to the monoclonal antibodies as the “RSV (Sanofi Pasteur) Vaccine.”
Data analyst and VAERS expert Albert Benavides told The Defender this also presents a challenge to people who want to report nirsevimab injuries, because VAERS does not have a category for the drug, so people have submitted their claims as “unknown vax type” or selected one of the existing RSV vaccines, which are different drugs.
In analysis, they may fall through the cracks or be underreported, rather than forwarded to the FDA’s MedWatch system.
The emails obtained by CHD support Benavides’ claims that there is confusion between RSV vaccines approved for adults and RSV monoclonal antibodies approved for infants.
For example, Carol Ennulat, VAERS project coordinator, on March 21 emailed Pedro Moro, M.D., M.P.H, who headed up the accidental infant RSV vaccination study, informing him that one of the infants — a 1-month-old girl in Texas — died after receiving the “RSV (Sanofi Pasteur) Vaccine,” which is actually Beyfortus, the monoclonal antibody.
She told Moro the baby had been misclassified and therefore mistakenly assigned to the adult RSV project.
Moro forwarded the email to others and said the FDA was following up on nirsevimab reports, so they should take no action on the report.
In a second email the following day, Ennulat informed Moro that a second infant death — a 27-day-old New York boy — was misclassified as having received the Pfizer Abrysvo vaccine according to documents that had become available.
“The case was misclassified,” Ennulat wrote. Although the sentence indicating what drug he received was redacted, she added, “I assume FDA follows this,” which would indicate the drug administered to the infant and then reported to VAERS was likely also nirsevimab.
500 pages of FOIA documents largely redacted
CDC researchers in May published an article in Pediatrics reporting that at least 34 babies were mistakenly given the RSV vaccine — made by either Pfizer or GSK and authorized for adults — and one of those babies was hospitalized.
Thirty-one of the children under age 2 identified in the study who were mistakenly vaccinated between Aug. 21, 2023, and March 18, 2024, were less than 8 months old. Seven reports described adverse health events including fevers, vomiting, coughing and injection site swelling.
One baby was hospitalized for cardiorespiratory arrest within 24 hours of receiving the GSK RSV vaccine. The baby had a history of congenital heart disease and was hospitalized at the time of the VAERS report.
When the paper was published, The Defender worked with Benavides and identified at least two other babies in the VAERS system reported to have received the RSV vaccine and died within hours of vaccination.
The Defender reached out to the CDC in a series of emails inquiring about why the babies were not included in the study, but the CDC declined to provide details about its knowledge of the reports.
The agency said only that the VAERS reports were mistaken — neither infant had received the shot.
In response, CHD filed FOIA requests with the CDC for communications related to the two reports.
The CDC recently responded to the request, sending 556 pages of largely redacted response materials. Redactions included portions of emails sent by The Defender to the CDC and the agency’s responses — which CHD clearly already had in its possession.
Two largely unredacted emails included in the documents, however, did pertain to the babies’ deaths.
No mention of infant deaths in CDC advisory committee meeting
In the last research presentation session of the June 26-28 meeting of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, the RSV work group presented data on nirsevimab, touting its effectiveness — how well it prevents disease under real-world conditions — with limited discussion of safety issues.
The CDC reported in the presentation that 41% of eligible infants received the nirsevimab shot as of March 2024, 24% of parents indicated they would definitely get the shot for their children and 23% indicated they would probably get it or were unsure. Twelve percent indicated they would never give their children the shot.
The agency also said it was meeting with manufacturers to ensure they would ramp up production for the coming year after shortages of the drug were reported last year.
The committee presented a range of different effectiveness numbers from different observational studies. Overall, real-world data found the shot was “well above 50%” effective against RSV infection. Committee members said this corresponded to the European published literature that found effectiveness against hospitalization of 70-89% and against emergency room visits of 55-88%.
They said observational data showed the duration of protection was unknown.
In the presentation on nirsevimab safety, the CDC’s Dr. Jefferson Jones informed the committee that VAERS is not the primary system for monitoring the drug’s safety, because it is not a vaccine, so the data had not been previously presented. Instead, he said, adverse events should be reported to MedWatch.
Same-day events are reported to VAERS, he said, and then reviewed by the FDA.
He did, however, review the adverse events reported to VAERS.
Jones said the most frequently reported adverse events were RSV breakthrough infections. He also said, “Cases of serious hypersensitivity reactions with nirsevimab were identified and the product labeling was updated in February 2024” to indicate that.
The reactions include hives, shortness of breath, low blood oxygen levels causing blue skin, lips and nailbeds and muscle weakness. “And no additional safety signals have been identified at this time,” he said.
Jones did not mention the two infant deaths that the FOIA documents obtained by CHD reveal happened immediately following the shots.
The committee did emphasize several times that newborn deaths reported to VAERS “is of course devastating for that family, but reporting to VAERS does not necessarily mean that vaccine caused that.”
However, in that case, they were discussing neonatal death associated with the maternal RSV vaccine.
Jones concluded that the RSV work group was “very happy and pleased with the evidence that shows nirsevimab to be highly effective.”
Known safety Issues with nirsevimab/Beyfortus
RSV is a common respiratory virus that usually causes mild cold-like symptoms but can lead to hospitalization and, in rare cases, death in infants and the elderly.
By age 2, 97% of all babies have been infected with the RSV virus, which confers partial immunity, making any subsequent episodes less severe.
Yet last year as the media hyped a dangerous “tripledemic” of COVID-19, flu and RSV, new RSV vaccines were approved and recommended for pregnant women and older adults, and nirsevimab was approved for infants.
The Biden administration rushed to work with Sanofi and AstraZeneca to make hundreds of thousands of doses of the antibodies available.
According to the CDC, approximately 58,000 to 80,000 children younger than age 5 are hospitalized due to RSV infection annually and 100 to 300 deaths occur annually in that group.
Those numbers are also disputed within the CDC’s own data.
In an Aug. 4, 2023, Substack post, Dr. Meryl Nass, an internist and biological warfare epidemiologist, cited 2021 CDC data showing that over 12 years, on average 25 babies up to age 1 die annually in the U.S. from RSV.
Although RSV can be a serious event for infants, with so few deaths among that age group, both researchers and practitioners have raised questions about administering vaccines to pregnant mothers and monoclonal antibodies to babies, especially given the serious risks evident in clinical trials, and now, in post-trial follow-up.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, reactions to monoclonal antibody treatments are common and occur during or shortly after they are administered. There are also “more serious but less common risks linked to unwanted immune system reactions, such as acute anaphylaxis, cytokine release syndrome (CRS) and serum sickness.”
Nass noted that no monoclonal antibody product has ever been given on a mass scale to children. She also said that the Beyfortus label doesn’t provide information about side effects and don’t address the infant deaths in the clinical trials.
Of the 12 infants that died in the nirsevimab trials, “four died from cardiac disease, two died from gastroenteritis, two died from unknown causes but were likely cases of sudden infant death syndrome, one died from a tumor, one died from Covid, one died from a skull fracture and one died of pneumonia,” CNBC reported.
“Most deaths were due to an underlying disease,” the FDA’s Dr. Melissa Baylor said.
According to the drug’s label, no drug interaction studies — that, for example, might identify safety risks if the antibodies are given with other vaccines — have been done for Beyfortus.
Researchers have been trying and failing to develop an RSV vaccine for children for 60 years, but have encountered serious safety issues. One version developed in the 1960s worsened symptoms for children. In that case, when two infants died, the vaccine distribution was stopped.
Beyfortus is being promoted for babies by governments globally, particularly in Europe, where it was first approved in November 2022.
French independent scientist and author Hélène Banoun, Ph.D., and French statistician Christine Mackoi found that data from France’s National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies indicates an improbably high rate of deaths of babies between 2 and 6 days old in France during September and October 2023.
Those dates correspond with the introduction of Beyfortus in French hospitals, which began on Sept. 15, 2023, The Defender reported.
Beyfortus costs $519.75 per dose for 50-milligram (mg) and 100-mg doses and $1,039.50 for a 200-mg dose. That doesn’t include administration costs.
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.
Informed Dissent
Medical Dissidents, Agency Capture, and Dr. Mary Talley Bowden’s Battle with the FDA over Ivermectin
BY M.C. ARMSTRONG | HONEST MEDIA | APRIL 18, 2024
Dr. Mary Talley Bowden recently sued the FDA for stepping beyond their charter, defaming Ivermectin prescribers, and, thereby, interfering with the doctor-patient relationship. Last month, Dr. Bowden resolved her suit, receiving a substantial undisclosed settlement from the government agency.
Dr. Pierre Kory has been an early and staunch defender of the use of Ivermectin to treat COVID-19 in humans. Kory believes the FDA settled this case with Bowden because they had likely hired the PR firm Weber Shandwick to create the now infamous “horse dewormer” campaign (detailed below) to smear Ivermectin and its proponents. If true, once Bowden’s lawsuit went into the phase of discovery then this information would have been revealed, but we will never know since the case is now settled. Weber Shandwick lists the CDC, Pfizer, and Moderna as their clients.
Honest Media covered Ivermectin and the “horse dewormer” controversy in a letter sent to the Associated Press documenting the lies the AP published about the drug. We have also recently received a trove of emails between Dr. Bowden and the Arizona Mirror, an outlet that smeared Dr. Bowden and her colleague, Dr. Peter McCullough. After reviewing them, we can say that these documents illustrate the media’s contempt for medical dissidents.
But why this fear of letting dissenting doctors speak? There has been virtually no coverage of Dr. Bowden’s case. Where there is documentation, like with Jen Christensen’s reporting for CNN, nobody gives voice to the victor and victim, Dr. Bowden. Why?
Dr. Bowden, a Stanford-trained ear, nose, and throat doctor from Houston, has treated more than 6,000 patients suffering from COVID. She is a strong and intelligent woman of science speaking truth to power. Here, in Dr. Bowden, is that “gutsy woman” who Americans were told to admire by leaders like Hillary Clinton. But there’s an implicit caveat in the cult of Clinton’s “gutsy woman:” Such women are to be ignored (and even pilloried and censored) if they challenge the orthodoxies of the Democratic Party or the DNC-aligned Big Pharma industry.
For prescribing Ivermectin and dissenting against the dominant COVID narratives, Dr. Bowden was forced to resign from Houston Methodist Hospital. And she wasn’t the only doctor to face such consequences. Dr. Robert Apter and Dr. Paul Marik, two other Ivermectin physician-advocates, joined Dr. Bowden in her suit against the FDA. Marik, for his part, was forced to resign from Eastern Virginia Medical School as well as Sentara Norfolk General.
Last month, Dr. Bowden traveled to the Supreme Court to stand in solidarity with activists as SCOTUS listened to Murthy v. Missouri. The Murthy case concerns the suppression of medical dissidents, specifically, and online censorship, more broadly. Dr. Bowden addressed the crowd of protesters about her four-year battle with the captured government agency:
How many COVID patients did they examine? How many histories did they take? How many prescriptions did they write? Zero. None of them have cared for a single COVID patient, but because they had the full support of Big Pharma, the government, and, most importantly, the media, they became the scientific authority on a novel disease they had zero first-hand experience in treating.
Bowden has a point. The FDA’s campaign against doctors such as herself gained purchase with the public, in part, because the agency’s claims were amplified by a mainstream media that is shaped and funded – captured – by Big Pharma. Due to the massive influx of advertising dollars and the perfect storm of misinformation and disinformation summoned by Russiagate, the 2020 election, and the COVID-19 pandemic, the American public’s trust in the mainstream media has reached record lows. Bowden’s case reveals another example of why the public is justified in its skepticism.
Let the Doctors Speak
I recently spoke with Dr. Bowden about her fight with the government.
“This was a war on Ivermectin,” she said. “But it was also a war on the doctor-patient relationship.”
I asked her what precipitated the suit against the FDA. Dr. Bowden told me that never before in her career had she witnessed interference with the doctor-patient relationship from the FDA or her local pharmacies. When I asked about prescribing a drug that wasn’t FDA-approved, she told me that she’d often prescribed off-label in the past, with no problems, and that she approached Ivermectin, initially, with hesitancy and skepticism. She said she preferred prescribing monoclonal antibodies at the beginning of the pandemic, but sought new options when access to these treatments became restricted.
“I was nervous to start using it,” she said. “Before I started, I looked at the FDA’s website and the toxicity data. Once I was assured that it worked (maybe not as quickly as monoclonal antibodies), I started offering it to patients.”
Not only did Dr. Bowden prescribe Ivermectin to her patients and witness positive results, but she used it herself. She’s had COVID three times. And in every instance of Ivermectin treatment, both with herself and her patients, she observed either efficacy or minimal side effects.
“I haven’t lost one patient due to Ivermectin,” she said.
In 2015, the Nobel Committee for Physiology honored the discovery of Ivermectin with a Nobel Prize. The NIH lauded this “multifaceted drug,” which was largely unknown in American public discourse prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Then, suddenly everyone and their grandmother was an expert on the dangers of Ivermectin. Seemingly overnight, the American people absorbed a viral propaganda campaign from the very government agency (the FDA) that they supported with tax dollars. And if you were a doctor or patient seeking this low-cost, award-winning therapeutic treatment, you were suddenly in the crosshairs of the “war on Ivermectin.” This policing of the poor and the independent all started, according to Dr. Bowden, “with the horse tweet.”
On August 8, 2021, the FDA weaponized its social media account to stigmatize physicians like Dr. Bowden and skeptical and underprivileged patients seeking affordable alternative care. The agency issued a tweet with two images: a veterinarian outdoors caring for a horse, coupled with a physician in an office caring for a masked human. The text for the tweet reads: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.” This tweet, with its careful use of the colloquial and the second person, supplemented with a juvenile binary logic, became the most popular tweet in FDA history.
Hate wins clicks. Fear creates fog. Shortly after the tweet’s publication and viral propagation, Dr. Bowden’s life came undone.
“I never had a pharmacy deny a prescription before,” she said.
Dr. Bowden’s struggle with the pharmacy was just the tip of the iceberg, revealing the stranglehold Big Pharma now has on health care in America. Dr. Bowden suffered (and still suffers) from vicious attacks online, as well as alienation from her peers. She was forced to resign from her workplace, Houston Methodist Hospital. She explained to me that the “war on Ivermectin” was more vitriolic than anything she’d ever seen before in the discourse on public health. And whereas most doctors bent the knee, stayed silent, and complied with government mandates, Dr. Bowden (and others) fought back. Her case represents what one might call a scientific profile in courage.
What does fighting back look like? Well, for starters, perhaps it begins with telling the truth in public and revealing the whole story of Dr. Bowden’s struggle, along with that of fellow medical dissidents like Dr. Kory, Dr. Robert Malone, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya (co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration), and Dr. Peter McCullough.
In Dr. Bowden’s and Dr. McCullough’s recent email exchanges with the Arizona Mirror, one can see, firsthand, a publication that ignores the opportunity to correct factual errors. The Mirror instead willfully litters its reporting on Dr. Bowden and Dr. McCullough with misinformation, ad hominem attacks, bizarre references to Qanon, constant allusions to shadowy conspiracy theories, and the slanderous insinuation that Dr. McCullough is antisemitic.
The Association Fallacy
One of the most recurrent disinformation patterns we have witnessed in studying the defamation of populist voices, broadly, and Dr. Bowden’s case, specifically, is what scholars of rhetoric call the association fallacy. In short, the association fallacy describes claims where even oblique social connection to a stigmatized individual or organization (like QAnon) is used to poison the claims of the targeted speaker. Simply associating the terrifying name of the poisonous organization with the speaker scares the reader and creates an irrational – fallacious – connection.
What’s troubling, in the case of the Arizona Mirror reporting, is that Dr. Bowden and Dr. McCullough have no ties to QAnon. Furthermore, Dr. Bowden and Dr. McCullough both reached out to Jim Small, the paper’s editor, and politely asked that these fallacies be removed from the Mirror’s articles.
For example, Dr. Bowden and Dr. McCullough called attention to the Mirror’s repeated use of the ad hominem “anti-vaxxer” to label Dr. McCullough and associate the doctor with the world of “anti-vaxxers.” In their email exchange, Dr. McCullough confides in Small that he has “accepted dozens of vaccines during the course of my life.”
But the Mirror refused to mirror the truth and remove the slur. The Mirror refused to interview these doctors, refused to correct their reporter’s mistakes when alerted by the victims, and, furthermore, sought to defame the doctors through ad hominem attacks and the association fallacy.
To witness how the association fallacy works, consider the following sentence about Dr. Bowden’s colleague, Dr. McCullough, from the Arizona Mirror’s Jerod Macdonald-Evoy: “McCullough has become a darling to those in both Qanon and the broader conspiracy world, appearing regularly on shows like the one hosted by antisemite Stew Peters, who said the COVID vaccine is a bioweapon.”
In one sentence, the reporter has accused the doctor (without directly accusing him) of antisemitism and conspiracy theory simply by virtue of association with other human beings, mostly unnamed, who populate “the broader conspiracy world.”
What is happening to people like Dr. McCullough and Dr. Bowden rarely happens to those in power. It happens to those who challenge power.
The Arizona Mirror and CNN should be ashamed. They punished informed dissent. They refused to contextualize Dr. Bowden’s struggle as part of a subculture of dignified scientists and physicians. They erased and defamed Dr. Bowden and her colleagues. They published fear porn and called it journalism. They left out this gutsy woman’s voice. Honest Media has chosen a different path. We let the doctor speak.