Interview: Science vs. the Vaccine Religion

On August 20, I was interviewed by Nate the Voluntaryist for his podcast about the topic of vaccines. I discussed how the science differs from dogmatic proclamations we are constantly inundated with by adherents to what I call the “vaccine religion”. Here are notes on topics we covered:

• Origin of vaccine skepticism
• False claim vaccine-autism hypothesis started with 1998 Lancet study
• What the government and media say science says vs. what the science says
• Clarifying a misunderstanding about Bill Gates’ depopulation agenda
• Vaccines not studied for long-term effects including mortality prelicensure
• DTP vaccine associated with increased rate of childhood mortality, a “non-specific effect” (NSE)
• Prelicensure studies criminally inadequate
• Synergistic effects and absence of studies into long-term effects of vaccinating according to the CDC’s schedule
• Non-live vaccines generally associated with increased childhood mortality
• Toxicity of ingredients, i.e., aluminum and mercury
• Opportunity costs of vaccination
• Measles vaccine associated with beneficial NSEs, but measles infection is also associated with lower mortality and a decreased risk of much more serious diseases later in life including cancer and cardiovascular disease
• Getting flu shot can increase risk of illness
• Population level effects, e.g., how measles vaccine has shifted the risk burden in the event of exposure onto those at higher risk
• The claim that “vaccines safe and effective” is meaningless; an individual risk-benefit analysis is required
• Mandates are gross violation of the right to informed consent
• We’re all indoctrinated into a propaganda version of history, a reflection of the “vaccine religion”; but 90% of decline in infectious disease mortality occurred before there were vaccines that could possibly help explain it
• How the Leicester method helped eradicate smallpox
• What is needed are randomized controlled trials comparing health outcomes between vaccinated and unvaccinated children; observational studies are prone to selection bias
• The problem of “healthy user bias”, e.g., in studies on flu shots and elderly mortality and a 2015 MMR-autism study
• Vaccine-conferred vs natural herd immunity
• The idea that science is “settled” and of a “consensus” on vaccines is delusional
• There’s no serious discussion about vaccines in the mainstream discourse; every article always follows the same script
• John Walker-Smith, coauthor with Wakefield on the 1998 Lancet study, appealed and was reinstated
• Media and government do policy advocacy not education and journalism; they never address legitimate concerns but instead falsely caricature dissenters and critics as not having any
• Elimination of exemptions and even medical exemptions in California; Richard Pan views doctors as not practicing medicine but performing an administrative function for the state
• US children are chronically ill, and the idea that a product specifically designed to alter the functioning of the immune system and that children receive upwards of 72 doses of by the age of 18 has nothing to do with this is ludicrous
• To determine causality, you have to do the science, which they refuse to do
• Overturning of scientific “consensus” is called scientific advancement!
• Bill Maher clip on chronic illness; the need for a paradigm shift away from drugs as solution to health problems; the influence of pharma on the practice of medicine
• The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and legal immunity for vaccine manufacturers; the elimination of the key incentive to develop safer and more effective means of disease prevention
• The need for a paradigm shift
• Where are all the studies into why a small proportion of children died from measles to develop targeted interventions rather than implementing a one-size-fits all, indiscriminate mass vaccination policy?
• Why doesn’t the CDC recommend maintaining vitamin D sufficiency during winter to prevent severe flu?
• Why do some people get infected with SARS-CoV-2 and not get COVID-19? Why is the focus entirely on developing a vaccine, which is the endgame of lockdown measures?
• Lockdown measures violate fundamental rights; individuals need to be able to assess their own risks
• Lockdown advocates are narrowly focused on preventing COVID-19 deaths, refusing to consider harms from the measures; the need to assess harms in terms of quality adjusted years of life lost
• Lockdown measures prevent low-risk people from getting on with their lives and developing herd immunity
• Sweden’s success and failure; lockdown measures, too, failed to protect those at highest risk in nursing homes
• Irrational use of masks, e.g., running alone outdoors in a mask; universal masking not evidence-based; shortcomings of mask studies
• Prolonged close contact required for transmission to occur; irrational fear of passing someone in a supermarket aisle, hiking outdoors, etc.
• For those under 65 and healthy, the risk of severe COVID-19 is negligible
• School closures don’t make sense; policies based on fear not data; lack of consideration for harms and weighing risks rather than futilely trying to eliminate risk
• New York ordered nursing homes to accept COVID-19 discharged from hospitals
• Liberty is the answer; e.g., government deciding what businesses are “non-essential” is Orwellian
• We can prevent as many deaths as possible without destroying the economy and doing more harm than good
• Jim Jordan vs Fauci clip on racial justice protests and Fauci’s inconsistency and hypocrisy in saying people “can draw your own conclusion” when it comes to joining crowds of protests and insisting he won’t express opinion on limiting people’s freedoms while having advocated lockdown measures including business closures due to risk of transmission
• How Fauci was instrumental in persuading policymakers to implement lockdowns with his deceptive claim that SARS-CoV-2 is ten times deadlier than influenza
• William Thompson, CDC whistleblower, on how they manipulated data to conceal an increased risk of autism; how that whole episode is dismissed as a “conspiracy theory” despite him being on tape admitting to having done so
• How even advocating informed consent is now being equated as “anti-vaccine”, which is in turn falsely equated with “misinformation”
• Censors direct social media users to the CDC, but the CDC lies, which can be shown by looking at its own sources, e.g., “Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism” page
• CDC vaccine advisory committee corruption, e.g., Paul Offit
• CDC and FDA serve the industry not public health
• The medical establishment has utterly and abysmally failed with disease prevention and is itself a leading cause of death
• Doctors are limited in their practice by the system; my personal experience with leaky gut and how the one good doctor I had retired because “I can’t practice medicine”
• Our experience getting kicked out of a dental clinic for declining fluoride treatment and my confrontation with the dentist
• The need to do one’s own research
• How we learned to stop listening to doctors and trust our own judgment
• Bill Maher vs. Bill Frist clip on 2009 swine flu vaccine; Maher correctly notes it wasn’t a very serious flu; Frist expresses faith in vaccines and falsely claims flu shots are 98% effective; Frist says we should look at the science while telling pregnant women to get the pandemic flu vaccine, which studies later associated with an increased risk of miscarriage; studies associated flu shots with increased risk of that pandemic strain
• The CDC’s fear marketing strategy
• Media’s false characterizations of the 1998 Lancet study; Wakefield never credited for pioneering research in to relationship between gut disorders and autism
• How media lie about why parents don’t vaccinate and how to immunize yourself against vaccine propaganda