The ‘Great Vaccine Scare’ — When Politics Take Priority Over Public Health

By  Dr. Joseph Mercola

The topic of vaccines has always been controversial, but it reached a fever pitch during the COVID-19 pandemic when it became sacrilegious to speak out against vaccines, or even question their safety and efficacy.

 Story at a glance:In 2021, investigative journalist Paul Thacker became a target of what he calls “the Great Vaccine Scare — hysteria about any and all vaccine criticism.”Thacker wrote an article published in The BMJ titled “COVID-19: Researcher blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer’s vaccine trial.”The article was thorough and accurate, but labeled as “misinformation” by a Facebook fact checker anyway.Dr. Aseem Malhotra was also harassed for sharing science relating to COVID-19 shot side effects.Former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson was also a victim of vaccine hysteria; his Twitter account was suspended when he posted scientifically accurate information that cast a negative light on COVID-19 shots.

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In 2021, investigative journalist Paul Thacker became a target of what he calls “the Great Vaccine Scare — hysteria about any and all vaccine criticism,” after he wrote an article published in The BMJ titled “COVID-19: Researcher Blows the Whistle on Data Integrity Issues in Pfizer’s Vaccine Trial.”

The article, it should be noted, was thorough, accurate and “based on dozens of internal company documents, photos, audio recordings and emails.”

It was so well done that it earned Thacker a nomination as a finalist for the Steve Connor Award for Investigative Science Journalism, presented by the Association of British Science Writers (ABSW).

An ABSW judge described the article as, “A very good story on a sensitive issue that was reported responsibly, it very clearly spells out why the story mattered.”

Fact-checkers pounce, label factual info ‘misinformation’

Thacker’s investigation details a series of problems with laboratory management and quality control checks by Pfizer subcontractor Ventavia Research Group, which was testing Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.

Regional director Brook Jackson, formerly employed by Ventavia, said she witnessed falsified data, unblinded patients, inadequately trained vaccinators and lack of proper follow-up on adverse events that were reported.

After notifying Ventavia about her concerns repeatedly, she made a complaint to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) — and was fired the same day. Other former Ventavia employees spoke of similar issues.

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Soon after Thacker’s investigative piece was published in BMJ, it was “fact checked” by a group called Lead Stories, which referred to the investigation as a “hoax alert” in the related URL.

Along with “correcting” statements that Thacker did not make, Lead Stories disparaged the investigation for “missing context,” but as investigative reporter Matt Taibbi explained, “‘Missing context’ has become a term to disparage reporting that is true but inconvenient.”

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Harassment for voicing vaccine concerns now commonplace

Anyone who dares to question or criticize vaccinations is at risk of being harassed in today’s climate. Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a consultant cardiologist and chairman of public health collaboration in the U.K., is among those targeted for sharing science relating to COVID-19 shot side effects.

Malhotra has earned some notoriety for speaking about the underlying factors that make certain people more vulnerable to COVID-19 — namely lifestyle-related diseases driven by poor diet.

This aspect of prevention via a long-term healthy lifestyle, which could save lives in future pandemics, is another tenet that’s ignored by the dominant narrative. However, in June, Malhotra was invited to speak at a “side event during a meeting of the British Medical Association.”

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The talk was based on the importance of evidence-based medicine and included information about historical corruption in the pharmaceutical industry.

The talk was not about vaccine side effects, per se, but Malhotra did mention a preprint article that found Pfizer and Moderna mRNA COVID-19 shots are associated with an increased risk of serious adverse events of special interest.

The excess risk of these adverse events exceeded the risk reduction for COVID-19 hospitalization compared to the placebo group.

Malhotra received praise for his talk, and the next day was presented with a Champion of Preventive Medicine award by the chair of the BMA, who had also attended Malhotra’s talk. Soon after, the harassment started.

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Inconvenient science silenced by Twitter

Former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson was also a victim of vaccine hysteria.

His Twitter account was suspended when he posted this scientifically accurate information:

“It doesn’t stop infection. Or transmission. Don’t think of it as a vaccine. Think of it — at best — as a therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect profile that must be dosed IN ADVANCE OF ILLNESS. And we want to mandate it? Insanity.”

Berenson filed a lawsuit against Twitter for labeling the tweet as misleading and canceling his account. The case has since been resolved, with Twitter acknowledging that the tweets should not have led to a suspension.

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Dr. Meryl Nass was similarly censored by Twitter after she tweeted the findings of a preprint study by Israeli scientists, which looked into the immunogenicity and efficacy of a fourth COVID-19 mRNA shot.

It showed that while antibody titers were high, efficacy was low — “strong evidence,” she tweeted, “that titers are useless at predicting efficacy.”

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“Oddly enough, former CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] Director Tom Frieden made this exact same point  last September to The BMJ, ‘We don’t know that antibody level is what determines protection.’”

Politics put ahead of science in booster rollout

In another disturbing example of the narrative taking priority over science, Dr. Marion Gruber, director of the FDA’s Office of Vaccines Research & Review and deputy director Dr. Philip Krause both left their positions near the end of 2021, citing frustration that the CDC is involved in decisions that should be left up to the FDA, and that the White House announced booster shots were coming before the FDA had finished its reviews of the booster shots.

Both Gruber and Krause were authors of an article published in The Lancet, which stated, “the currently available evidence does not show the need for widespread use of booster vaccination in populations that have received an effective primary vaccination regimen.”

Harvard professor Martin Kulldorff, a member of the FDA’s Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee, was also punished by the CDC — which removed him from its advisory committee on vaccines — when he stated a COVID-19 clinical trial should not have been paused.

Twitter then censored him when he tweeted that people with prior natural COVID-19 infection and children do not need COVID-19 shots.

Steve Kirsch, executive director of the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, has also been vilified for speaking out against vaccines, and he has proof, in the form of a timeline of changes made to his Wikipedia page, which went from describing him as a “good guy,” including his 2003 humanitarian award, to painting him as a “menace to society.”

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Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/politics-covid-policy-vaccines-public-health-cola/