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Scientific Fraud and Conflict
Of Interest In Vaccine Research, Licensing & Policymaking
By Michael Belkin
Presented at The 2nd International Public Conference on
Vaccination 2000, Arlington Virginia
In Business School, (Organizational Behavior) we studied
what can happen to organizations that suffer ethical management breakdowns
(such as Johns Manville with asbestos, Owens Corning breast implants,
etc.). Nothing illustrates the syndrome of management ethical failure
more clearly than the current scandal faced by Firestone and Ford. Those
companies denied and concealed deaths and injuries caused by tread separation
and a high center of gravity in the Ford Explorer for years. Management
knew, denied and concealed that their products were defective and were
killing people -- the classic ethical breakdown.
In the vaccine industry, scientific fraud and conflicts
of interest are causing a similar (but much larger) cycle of deaths and
injuries that is being concealed and denied by regulators and vaccine
manufacturers. However, (as with Firestone
and Ford) a noose of their own making may be slowly tightening around
the vaccine scandal perpetrator's necks.
Financial conflict of
interest is a complex issue -- because few
investors (except perhaps Tibetan Monks or Jesuit Priests) are likely
to not have pharmaceutical shares in their diversified portfolios in this
day and age. But financial conflicts of interest and scientific fraud
(that lead to corrupt public policy) damage the public interest and could
eventually bankrupt vaccine manufacturers that have perverted the regulatory
process. Shareholders should investigate the issue carefully.
There's only about 100 US Deaths from Firestone
tire blowouts. There are thousands of deaths and many thousands of cases
of disability and neurological damage lurking in the FDA Vaccine Adverse
Event Reporting System (VAERS). This is
a potential legal scandal of much larger scope than the Firestone/Ford
episode.
US vaccines are licensed by the FDA and immunization
recommendations are made by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices
(ACIP), which is a committee whose members are appointed by the Centers
for Disease Control (CDC). ACIP immunization recommendations are enacted
into law by public health departments and/or legislatures at the state
level, via the energetic efforts of vaccine manufacturer sales representatives.
While the ACIP does nothing more than craft and finalize the exact wording
detailing recommended doses and ages for administration of vaccines, ACIP
recommendations are extraordinarily influential, because they get turned
into mandates at the state level.
These vaccine mandates
are despotic intrusions into personal liberty and democracy.
School districts and social service departments demand that: You must
inject these viruses and bacteria into your body (or your child's body)
or you (or your child) may not attend school, you may be charged with
child abuse and your children may be removed from your home, placed in
foster care and forcibly vaccinated.
Such intimidation is taking place with greater intensity
and frequency as more and more ACIP recommendations and subsequent state
vaccine mandates are enacted. Furthermore, parents are being wrongfully
accused and convicted of shaken baby syndrome in cases where their children
die immediately after vaccination and have swollen brains in the autopsy
report (brain inflammation is a classic vaccine adverse reaction).
The enforcement of ACIP vaccine recommendations at
the state and local level by plodding and heavy-handed health and social
service department employees is a threat to the neurological systems of
those vaccinated. Vaccine adverse reactions are defined as the same thing
as disease complications in the medical literature -- encephalitis. "Acute
disseminated encephalomyelitis (postinfectious encephalomyelitis -- see
also Acute Viral Encephalitis and Aseptic Meningitis) is characterized
by perivascular Central Nervous System demyelination, which can occur
spontaneously but usually follows a viral infection or VIRAL VACCINATION
(or, very rarely, BACTERIAL VACCINATION), suggesting an immunologic cause."
(Merck
Manual http://www.merck.com/pubs/mmanual/section14/chapter180/180a.htm)
Thousands of reports of adverse
reactions such as convulsions, brain inflammation, inconsolable screaming
syndrome, SIDS and neurological diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis, Transverse
Myelitis and Guillain-Barre Syndrome continue to flood into the FDA Vaccine
Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), where they are largely
ignored or tolerated as the cost of some mythical victory over disease.
Children and adults are developing the same encephalitic and neurological
complications after vaccination that science takes credit for eliminating
through immunization -- but the CDC, ACIP and
American Academy of Pediatrics all insist the vaccine adverse reactions
don't exist or are coincidences.
Their double standard is: You are required to receive
this vaccination so you and society don't develop encephalitic and neurological
complications from disease, but if you die or develop encephalitic or
neurological complications immediately after receiving the vaccine (which
contains the same virus or bacteria that causes the neurological complications),
then it's all in your imagination, it's a coincidence or we're still doing
studies and we'll get back to you when they are done.
Shoot first and ask
questions later.
Unelected, unregulated and unaccountable ACIP medical
bureaucrats have blatant financial conflicts of interest and are committing
scientific fraud by recommending administration of vaccines that have
not been tested for safety in the age groups or populations targeted.
Dr. John Modlin, current Chairman of the ACIP (Merck Immunization Advisory
Board 1996-present, Merck shareholder) gave his definition of scientific
validity in a March 1999 University of New Hampshire debate:
"Has the information withstood the test of peer
review? Has the information been published in a respected medical or scientific
journal? ... this is the standard that you should hold me to today ...
has the information been published in a scientifically reputable journal?"
One month earlier at the February 1999 ACIP meeting
Chairman Modlin lobbied for the ACIP to recommend the Rotavirus vaccine
for premature infants, although no safety studies had been done, much
less peer reviewed or published:
".. available data are insufficient
to fully establish the safety and efficacy of rotavirus vaccine in premature
infants ... there is a section under Adverse Events that details what
little information there actually are with respect to premature infants
... To my knowledge we don't have data from a clinical trial specifically
... Some bit of information from Seattle, as I recall, that had suggested
that was a slight increase in relative risk for hospitalization for premature
infants ... Obviously a situation where we have to make a judgment in
the absence of data, and with a vaccine that has not yet been tested in
the group ..." (ACIP transcript, pages 102-112)
Modlin then held a vote and the recommendation for
premature infants passed nine to one -- Modlin voted yes.
Shoot first and ask
questions later.
As a member of The Vaccines and Related Biological
Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) and Chairman of the Rotavirus working
group, Modlin had data showing a risk of intussusception (life threatening
bowel obstructions) in clinical trails of Rotavirus vaccine before that
February 1999 ACIP meeting. The
Rotavirus vaccine was withdrawn from the market in October 1999 after
113 cases of intussusception. One
premature baby died after getting rotavirus vaccine in a vaccine cocktail
and another five-month-old infant died after developing intussusception
five days after receipt of the vaccine.
By ACIP Chairman Modlin's own definition, the ACIP's
recommendation was scientifically invalid. I'll go one step further and
say the ACIP Chairman committed blatant
scientific fraud by issuing an ACIP recommendation that Rotavirus vaccine
be given to premature newborns without scientific proof that it was safe
to do so. And what was the penalty? Modlin was apparently reappointed
to another term as ACIP Chairman by the CDC. Commit scientific fraud that
causes death and grievous injury -- and get reappointed. That is the incentive
system in the US vaccine regulatory system.
Another case suggesting scientific
fraud is the still-existing 1991 ACIP recommendation that every newborn
baby receive the hepatitis B vaccine in the hospital within hours of birth.
Samuel L. Katz, MD, who instituted that policy when he was ACIP Chairman
in 1991 has admitted they had no peer-reviewed, published studies showing
that it was safe to give to newborns when the ACIP made that recommendation.
(Katz is former Chairman Committee on Infectious Diseases of the American
Academy of Pediatrics, former Chairman of the Public Policy Council of
the Infectious Diseases Society of America).
When I asked Katz in the question/answer session after
his April 12, 2000 NY/Cornell Medical School lecture on "Vaccines
in the New Millennium" what peer-reviewed, published safety study
he used when he was ACIP Chairman to recommend at-birth immunization of
newborns in 1991 he answered: "you are quite right there
was no published peer-reviewed study" (tape and transcript
available). Newborns have negligible risk of contracting the hepatitis
B virus, unless the mother is infected. That risk can easily be determined
by a maternal blood test. No US vaccine had ever been mandated for newborn
babies before. But Katz and the ACIP decided it was safe to vaccinate
not-at-risk for hepatitis B newborns without any proper safety study.
Shoot first and ask
questions later.
The results of that uncontrolled experiment are in:
upwards of 36,000 adverse reactions and more than 440 deaths (VAERS).
My daughter died after receiving the hepatitis B vaccine. Katz also admitted
that vaccine adverse reactions are the same thing as neurological complications
from disease when I pressed him if he disagreed with that definition from
the Merck Manual saying "with measles vaccine it
is possible that maybe one out of 150,000 children who get the vaccine
may get something that mimics measles encephalitis."
Parents report their children were perfectly normal
until receiving the MMR measles/mumps/rubella vaccine, at which point
the children became autistic after a neurological adverse reaction to
the MMR vaccine ("something that mimics measles encephalitis").
The incidence of measles disease
may be down to about 100 cases annually in the US, but the rate of Autism
has soared hundreds of percent -- a disease historically called "post-encephalitic
syndrome."
For vaccine manufacturers -- the ACIP is a gold mine.
ACIP recommendations are a license for vaccine manufacturers to use state
governments, school systems and social service systems as a marketing
department for their products. With an ACIP recommendation in hand, vaccine
manufacturers use the government to say "you must buy my product
and inject it into your body, even if it kills you or causes brain damage."
This is a huge Anti-Trust
violation. The Orwellian spectacle of monopolistic and oligopolistic
pharmaceutical manufacturers subverting government agencies to ram unsafe
products down children's veins is a violation of the basic principals
of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Our forefathers said "No Taxation Without Representation"
to their British oppressors. I say "No Vaccination Without Representation"
to the corporate tyrants at Merck, Smithkline and other vaccine manufacturers
who have so utterly subverted the US vaccine regulatory process.
Dr. John Modlin must be removed as Chairman of the
ACIP and the scientifically invalid newborn hepatitis B vaccine policy
instituted without safety studies by Dr. Katz must be revoked. The investors
and directors of vaccine manufacturers such as Merck and Smithkline must
recognize that those companies are conducting the classic ethical blunder
of selling products that are killing and injuring people -- and then concealing
and denying the evidence.
A Canadian doctor who treats hepatitis B vaccine adverse
event victims told me when he called Merck, they told him he was the first
one who had ever called them with such a problem. There are upwards of
36,000 reports in VAERS and I would be delighted to provide them to anyone
who cares to investigate the issue for themselves, sorted by deaths,
convulsions, screaming syndrome, liver disorder and neurological damage
-- median onset one day after vaccination.
This is the CDC's
Mission Statement
"To promote the health and quality of life
by preventing and controlling disease, injury and disability." "CDC
pledges to to be a diligent steward of the funds entrusted to it."
"CDC pledges to base all public health decisions on the highest quality
scientific data, openly and objectively derived." CDC Core values:
Accountability -- we ensure that our services are based on sound science
and meet real public needs ..."
That's What They
Say, Here's What They Do
The CDC misallocated funds that were targeted for chronic fatigue syndrome
(a vaccine adverse event) to some other non-vaccine related pet project.
The ACIP Chairman recommended the Rotavirus Vaccine for premature infants
without any data whatsoever showing that it was safe. The
ACIP recommended the hepatitis B vaccine for newborns without any public,
peer-reviewed, published study showing it was safe. The head
of epidemiology of the CDC presented a slide showing serious reactions
to the hepatitis B vaccine were approximately 10 times higher than for
other vaccines at the February 1999 ACIP meeting. The CDC has ignored
FOIA requests for the scientific data used to justify the 1991 newborn
hep B vaccine mandate.
The CDC has violated its own mission statement and
current leadership needs to be replaced. Most people don't realize that
the CDC is a quasi-Military organization that takes great pride in dressing
up in uniforms and strutting around one day a week.
Dr.
James M. Hughes, CDC Director Why are public health
officials (doctors) wearing uniforms?
That might be part of the problem. If they were just
dressing up and playing soldier marching around their compound in Atlanta
and not harming anyone than they would just be comical figures like Colonel
Klink of Hogan's Heroes.

Colonel
Klink (Hogan's Heroes)
But it's not funny -- the reality is that these
vaccine mandates are being rammed down the US public health system by
the CDC and ACIP and are being imposed at the local level like the US
is ruled by some Vaccine Gestapo. The agenda for recent CDC and vaccine
industry conventions has had numerous panels on "How Can We Communicate
Our Message to the Public More Effectively." Obviously the CDC, ACIP
and National Immunization Program (NIP) are extremely concerned with brainwashing
the public to keep vaccinating no matter how defective the vaccines are
and how many kids die or become autistic.
Personally I think that's
the wrong message and they ought to stop killing people and destroying
lives. But if the CDC wants to communicate their message more
effectively, as a management consultant I have a suggestion. They need
a more charismatic front man. I suggest they get someone like Joseph Goebbels
-- propaganda chief of the Third Reich to go out and carry the CDC-ACIP-NIP
message to the airwaves.
Shoot First and
Ask Questions Later!

Joseph
Goebbels - Nazi Propaganda Chief -
Third Reich
Proposed New Media Relations Manager
- CDC, ACIP and NIP
Michael Belkin
is President of Belkin Limited, a financial and economic forecasting firm
in New York City.
This is dedicated to Lyla Rose Douglas Belkin,
who died hours after receiving the hepatitis B vaccine. May other innocents
be spared her tragedy.
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