The Vaccine Program: Betrayal of Public Trust & Institutional Corruption—Part 2 of 7
Note from the World Mercury Project Team: Following
is Part Two in a seven-part series of Vera Sharav’s in-depth exposé of
the complex and widespread corruption that exists in the vaccination
program. Her investigation has uncovered decades-long fraudulent
activity that has permeated the vaccine industry. Sharav’s research is a
must-read by those in our community because it explains the intricate
groundwork that has led us to the debacle we are now living with – an
epidemic of sick children.
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You can read part one here.
Principal reports authored by scientists
at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and
CDC-sponsored reports published in the most influential medical journals
are shown to be the product of scientific fraud and malfeasance by
high-level CDC officials. The internal CDC documents include emails,
memoranda, and transcripts of meetings and conference calls, are an
irrefutable record revealing how key CDC studies and CDC-commissioned
studies[12] were
shaped by use of illegitimate methods, including data manipulation,
selective inclusion, and deletion of data from the published reports.
To begin with, as a senior CDC scientist, Dr. Tom Verstraeten pointed out in an email that the Danish population studies – that compared Danish vs. US autism prevalence rates – used non-comparable populations:
- By 1992, Sweden, Norway & Denmark had eliminated the use of Thimerosal from childhood vaccines, due to safety concerns; Japan followed suit; the U.S. did not.
- Danish children were subjected to far fewer vaccines at different
schedules, and exposure levels to the mercury preservative, thimerosal,
was 75% lower than children in the U.S.
- These significant disparate differences –by any standard – render the Danish epidemiological studies irrelevant to the US. Verstraeten scoffed at such studies as a comparison of “apples to pears”.
As will be documented below, mainstream
academics accepted the published claimed findings of the CDC-sponsored
Danish epidemiological studies without further examination. However,
astute, skeptical, independent critics – both scientists and others –
reviewed those pivotal studies in detail. These critics reported that
the scientific integrity of those studies was undermined by statistical
manipulation through which the MMR and thimerosal were exonerated as a
causal contributor to autism.[13],[14]
- Indeed, the Cochrane reviewers confirmed that the scientific integrity of the studies was undermined by: “bias in the selection of controls”; “lack of a properly constructed causal hypothesis”; “extensive under-counting of autism cases in the MMR group”; “unequal length of follow-up”; “missing 14% to 20% of original birth cohort”; “between 11% and 20% of adverse event data was missing”; and in CDC’s 2004 study (Pediatrics,) “more than a third of cases were excluded”. (Cochrane MMR Reviews, 2005; 2012.)
- Internal CDC correspondence, confirms that relevant findings
documenting an increased risk of harm were deliberately omitted from the
published and widely cited reports and even when scientists requested
the full dataset of CDC’s own epidemiological study for independent
analysis, CDC claimed that the data was “missing.”
- Psychiatrist Poul Thorsen, MD, who was the principal Danish investigator of the Danish series of studies commissioned by CDC, failed to obtain ethics committee approval for key CDC-sponsored epidemiological studies – as is required under US and Danish law. Newly obtained internal CDC documents provide evidence of collusion and malfeasance by public health officials who attempted to cover-up those violations of legally mandated ethics committee review and approval.
- A recently updated report by the World Mercury Project issued August 2017, includes many additional details documented in newly obtained CDC documents. The documents show that CDC officials took no action to evaluate the veracity of the data – even after they were informed in January 2009 about the missing CDC funds managed by the principal investigator.
“when CDC officials including Coleen Boyle, Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp, Joanne Wojcik, and Diana Schendel became aware in 2009, that Poul Thorsen failed to obtain legally required permission for the autism biological and genetic data projects, these CDC employees participated in a cover-up with the Danish grantees.”
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- CDC suppressed the findings of its large-scale 1999 study documenting a causal relationship between exposure to the vaccines containing Thimerosal (ethylmercury) and autism. The study found that exposure to Thimerosal during the first month of life increased the relative risk of autism 7-fold (7.6).
- CDC also suppressed the original findings of another of its own studies that found a 340% (3.6) relative increased risk of autism for African American male babies following MMR vaccination in accordance with the CDC-recommended Childhood Vaccination Schedule.
- CDC scientists worked in concert with CDC-commissioned Danish scientists to conceal the significantly reduced cases of autism in Denmark following the removal of Thimerosal in 1992.
- The internal documents obtained by Robert Kennedy Jr and the World Mercury Project, provide evidence that high ranking CDC scientists committed massive fraud to protect CDC’s Childhood Vaccination Schedule to ensure high vaccination rates.
- The other authoritative sources include the U.S. Grand Jury’s criminal indictment of Dr. Poul Thorsen (2011) on 13 counts of fraud and 9 counts of money laundering. Thorsen was the principal CDC-commissioned psychiatrist in the Danish epidemiological studies. In addition to his failure to obtain ethics approval for studies published by The New England Journal of Medicine (2002), and by the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (2010), Thorsen’s studies are shown to have been manipulated through fraudulent means. What’s more, he was criminally indicted by a US Grand Jury (2011) on 22-counts of fraud – including document forgeries – theft, embezzlement, and money laundering.
- A detailed confidential report (2012) submitted by GlaxoSmithKline to the European Medicines Authority (EMA) documents the hazardous effects following vaccination with GSK’s 6-in-1 Infanrix Hexa vaccine. The report includes concealed sudden infant deaths.[17] [See Appendix 8]
The Challenges That Threatened Vaccine Orthodoxy & The Financial Interest Of Vaccine Stakeholders:
- Dr. Wakefield lent validity to growing distrust in government assurances that all childhood vaccines and vaccination schedules are proven safe, by publicly expressing concerns about the safety of the MMR.
- CDC scientists documented evidence of more than a 7- fold increased risk of autism for infants exposed to thimerosal. This finding had the potential of blowing the lid off the entire children’s vaccination schedule.
- In 1999, the US Public Health Service and the American Academy of
Pediatrics (AAP) issued a joint statement calling for the elimination of
Thimerosal from all vaccines in the US.[18]
- In 2001, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) review[19] of the evidence, regarding whether vaccines laced with thimerosal posed a risk for children, concluded that the idea that thimerosal caused neurological disorders was “biologically plausible”. The committee made a series of recommendations, but CDC never implemented these recommendations:
“the use of thimerosal-free DTaP, Hib, and hepatitis B vaccines … case-control studies examining the potential link between neurodevelopmental disorders and thimerosal-containing vaccines… further analysis of neurodevelopmental outcomes… research on how children, including those diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders, metabolize and excrete metals, particularly mercury… research to identify a safe, effective, and inexpensive alternative to thimerosal”
CDC responded by stating the agency was
“gravely troubled by the recommendation” of the PHS and the AAP, and
ignored the IOM recommendations.[20] CDC
dithered, and continued to recommend vaccines containing mercury,
exposing millions of infants and children in the US to massive doses of
thimerosal. CDC officials did so, with the endorsements of the FDA
Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and the Immunization
Safety Committee of the Institute of Medicine. (See CDC Thimerosal Timeline 1999-2010)
In 2000, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) authorized
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set regulatory policy for
the disposal of medications that are known environmental hazards. These
are called hazardous pharmaceutical wastes. These include: “pharmaceutical with heavy metals, including the preservative thimerosal.”
An EPA-sponsored biological study (2005)[21] by Dr. Thomas Burbacher and
colleagues at the University of Rochester compared the biological
(toxicokinetic) effect of consumed methylmercury to the effect of Hg
(inorganic mercury) in vaccines containing thimerosal in infant monkeys.
The seventeen monkeys assigned to the thimerosal group were vaccinated
in accordance with the typical CDC recommended vaccination schedule.
Those 17 infants retained “a much higher proportion of inorganic Hg in the brain (up to 71% vs. 10%) [compared to infants who ingested mercury]:
“A higher percentage of the total Hg in the brain was in the form of inorganic mercury for the thimerosal-exposed infants (34% vs 7%). There was a much higher proportion of inorganic Hg in the brain of thimerosal infants than MeHg infants (up to 71% vs. 10%).
Absolute inorganic Hg concentrations in the brains of the thimerosal-exposed infants were approximately twice that of the MeHg infants. Interestingly, the inorganic fraction in the kidneys of the same cohort of infants was also significantly higher following i.m. thimerosal than oral MeHg exposure (0.71±0.04 vs. 0.40±0.03). This suggests that the dealkylation of ethylmercury is much more extensive than that of MeHg.”
- More than 165 studies have found Thimerosal to be harmful; 37 scientific published reports found a link between Thimerosal exposure and developmental disorders, including autism.[22]
- More than 150 physicians and scientists who have published research demonstrating possible safety issues with vaccines (or ingredients in vaccines) are listed here.
Despite a body of scientific evidence, CDC continues to broadcast its reassuring, but untenable claim:
“There is no evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines, except for minor reactions like redness and swelling at the injection site.” Thimerosal contains ethylmercury, which is cleared from the human body more quickly than methylmercury, and is therefore less likely to cause any harm.” (CDC website)
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CDC and its bevy of vaccine stakeholders
ignore the scientific evidence and the fact that most of the consumed
mercury in fish is excreted.[23] The
documented risks of Thimerosal – especially for young children and
unborn neonates – who are at increased risk of neurological brain
damage/autism – led to the eventual removal of Thimerosal from childhood
vaccines – although CDC never conceded that fact.
However, some influenza vaccines contain 250 times the mercury level that EPA uses to classify hazardous pharmaceutical waste.[24] What’s
more, since 2002, CDC expanded its recommendation for the flu vaccine.
In 2010, CDC recommended the flu shot for very young infants (6 and 7
months old), and an annual flu vaccine for everyone – including children
and pregnant women.[25]
The authors of a recently published review, Thimerosal: Clinical, Epidemiologic and Biochemical Studies (2015)[26] point
out, that despite the existence of approved, effective preservatives,
Thimerosal continues to be used in some vaccines administered to
infants, children, and pregnant women.
As a consequence of CDC recommendations,
the cumulative exposure of US children to Thimerosal remains relatively
high. In developing countries, the amount of Thimerosal in childhood
vaccines has not been reduced and the harmful consequences are
documented.[17]
How Vaccine Safety Assessments & the Channels of Information Re: Vaccine Safety Are Tightly Controlled By Stakeholders to Ensure High Utilization of Vaccines
The CDC Verstraeten study findings were
concealed from all but a small circle of scientists. CDC officials
conspired to overturn the evidence of the thimerosal-autism risk
documented by its own scientists.[27]
- CDC commissioned an IOM review to exonerate thimerosal and the MMR;
- CDC outsourced a series of dubious (incompatible) epidemiological studies that were designed to exonerate thimerosal as a causal link to autism;
- CDC initiated multiple international collaborative consortia to control the assessment standards of vaccine safety; to set the agenda for vaccine safety research, and to control the content of information about vaccine safety.
Evidence of Institutional Corruption at the Institute of Medicine
A transcript of a January 2001
closed-door meeting of the IOM Immunization Safety Review Committee
(obtained in 2011 during Court proceedings)[28] records
the discussion centered on the content of a CDC draft report before the
IOM committee ever examined the evidence. The chair of the committee,
Dr. Marie McCormick, of the Harvard School of Public Health, and IOM
scholar, Dr. Kathleen Stratton, the study director, specified to
committee members what conclusions they were expected to sign off on –
no matter what the evidence shows:
“CDC wants us to declare [sic] these things are pretty safe on a population basis.” [p33] “We are not ever going to come down that [autism] is a true side effect.”
Dr. Kathleen Stratton: “The point of no return, the line we will not cross in public policy is to pull the vaccine, [or] change the schedule. We could say it is time to revisit this, but we would never recommend that level. Even recommending research is recommendations for policy. We wouldn’t say compensate, we wouldn’t say pull the vaccine, we wouldn’t stop the program.” [p74]
The influential IOM committee backed
away from its 2001 recommendations and delivered the report that CDC had
dictated and stressed that raising questions about the safety of
vaccines poses the danger of rejection of vaccines:
“The committee concludes that the body of epidemiological evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism. The committee also concludes that the body of epidemiological evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism…
“Using an unsubstantiated hypothesis to question the safety of vaccination and the ethical behavior of those governmental agencies and scientists who advocate for vaccination could lead to widespread rejection of vaccines… ” Immunization Safety Review: Vaccines and Autism (2004)
The “body of evidence” that the IOM
review relied on was 5 CDC-funded fatally flawed epidemiological
studies; several of these were found to be fraudulent. [29] Another study relied on the UK General Practice Research Database (GPRD) whose reliability is in doubt.[30]
All of these studies reiterated the uniform, pre-determined conclusion:
“there was no evidence that thimerosal
exposure via DTP/DT vaccines causes neurodevelopmental disorders.” The
IOM reviewers failed even to consider FDA’s risk assessment: An
Assessment of Thimerosal Use in Childhood Vaccines (2001) which
cautioned:
“some infants may be exposed to cumulative levels of mercury during the first 6 months of life that exceed EPA recommendations. Exposure of infants to mercury in vaccines can be reduced or eliminated by using products formulated without thimerosal as a preservative.”
Furthermore, the IOM committee refused to review pre-publication drafts of rigorous biological studies.[31] These included scientists from Columbia University (Molecular Psychiatry, 2004); University of Arkansas (NeuroToxicology, 2005); Northeastern University (Molecular Psychiatry, 2004); a U.S. epidemiological study by Johns Hopkins University (Pediatrics, 2005); Harvard University (Neuroscientist, 2005); and the University of Washington (Environmental Health Perspectives, 2005).
The committee rushed to issue its report
exonerating Thimerosal. The IOM report lent validity to irrelevant
epidemiologic studies, government vaccination policies, and provided the
National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP) with the rationale
against compensation for autism. The conclusions reached by the IOM
Committee were pre-determined, as were the studies upon which it relied.
The committee delivered the findings that it was commissioned and paid
to deliver.
This dishonest review by the IOM
panel demonstrates the lack scientific integrity of a report issued by
the Institute of Medicine, further validating public distrust of
“authoritative” government and quasi-government medical institutions.
Nevertheless, the influence of this flawed report extends far and wide.
Dr. Robert Chen, Chief of Vaccine Safety for CDC’s National Immunization Program (NIP) initiated the Brighton Collaboration.[32] It
was launched in 2000, by members of the Cochrane Collaboration: Tom
Jefferson, Harald Heijbel, Ulrich Heininger, Elisabeth Loupi, with
funding obtained from the CDC and the WHO.
In an editorial in the BMJ Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health Online
(June 2000), Dr. Jefferson urged the UK government to launch a
computerized vaccine exposure and outcome database such as the one the
US CDC maintains (i.e., Vaccine Safety Datalink, VSD) in order to
rapidly counteract public concern.
“Since the publication of the Wakefield study on 28 February 1998, public concern fueled by extensive media coverage caused a steady decline in MMR coverage in parts of the United Kingdom, with a subsequent risk of a decline in herd immunity and resurgence in morbidity.”
“As usual with vaccine “scare stories,” there was a delay between publication of the initial case series and that of population-based causal assessment study. During this time, declining coverage took place.”“The impact on parents of a perceived causal link with a chronic disease that could threaten the life and wellbeing of their children is understandably great. Inevitably, in a proportion of cases the worry and emotion spills over into a threat of legal action against governments, manufacturers or individuals. This has the effect of taking the matter outside the scientific and healthcare arena and into the realm of the judiciary.” [33]
It would appear that Dr. Jefferson was unaware of the Verstraeten Vaccine Safety Datalink population-based study:
- The objective of that singular CDC study was to determine whether the adjuvant thimerosal contained in most childhood vaccines at the time, posed a risk of harm to infants.
- CDC researchers found a 7-fold increased risk of autism caused by exposure to thimerosal, a risk which CDC has continued to conceal from the public while proclaiming that no evidence of an autism risk exists.
- The causal link that “just won’t go away”, was more than a perception; it was science-based evidence.
WMP NOTE: This concludes Part Two. Part Three of the Seven-Part series is entitled: Gaining Control of Vaccine-Related Information: Establishing an Infrastructure. Previously published articles: Sharov’s Introduction outlined
her well-researched and documented belief that, “Public health
officials and the medical profession have abrogated their professional,
public, and human responsibility, by failing to honestly examine the
iatrogenic harm caused by expansive, indiscriminate, and increasingly
aggressive vaccination policies.” Part Onefocused
on how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the
vaccine industry controlled vaccine safety assessments, controlled the
science of vaccines and controlled the scientific and mass channels of
information about vaccines.
More about the author:
Vera Sharav is a Holocaust survivor and a fierce critic of the medical
establishment. This article was originally published at www.ahrp.org. Stat news recently published an article about her and her work.
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