From the Brownstone Institute

By  Martin Kulldorff 

The only way to restore public trust in vaccination – which has taken a big hit since the lies attending the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine – is to put a well-known vaccine skeptic in charge of the vaccine research agenda. The ideal person for this is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has been nominated to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

At the same time, we must put rigorous scientists with a proven track record of evidence-based medicine in charge of determining the type of study designs to use. Two ideal scientists for this are Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Dr. Marty Makary, who have been nominated to lead the NIH and FDA, respectively.

Vaccines are – along with antibiotics, anesthesia, and sanitation – one of the most significant health inventions in history. First conceived in 1774 by Benjamin Jesty, a farmer in Dorsetshire, England, the smallpox vaccine alone has saved millions of lives. Operation Warp Speed, which rapidly developed the Covid vaccines, saved many older Americans. Despite this, we have seen a sharp increase in general vaccine hesitancy. Vaccine scientists and public health officials who did not conduct properly randomized trials made false claims about vaccine efficacy and safety and established vaccine mandates for people who did not need the vaccines, sowing suspicion and damaging public trust in vaccination.

What went wrong? The purpose of the Covid vaccines was to reduce mortality and hospitalization, but the randomized trials were only designed to demonstrate short-term reduction in Covid symptoms, which is not of great public health importance. Since the placebo groups were promptly vaccinated after the emergency approval, they also failed to provide reliable information about adverse reactions. Despite these flaws, it was falsely claimed that vaccine-induced immunity is superior to natural infection-acquired immunity and that the vaccines would prevent infection and transmission.

Governments and universities then mandated the vaccines for people with superior natural immunity and for young people with very low mortality risk. These mandates were not only unscientific but with a limited vaccine supply, it was unethical to vaccinate low-mortality-risk people when the vaccines were needed by older high-risk people around the world.

Since government and pharmaceutical companies lied about the Covid vaccine, are they also lying about other vaccines? Skepticism has now spread to tried-and-true vaccines that are proven to work.

And there are real, unanswered vaccine safety questions. Seminal work from Denmark has shown that vaccines can have both positive and negative non-specific effects on non-targeted diseases, and that is something that must be explored in greater depth. Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) scientists studying asthma and aluminum-containing vaccines concluded that while their “findings do not constitute strong evidence for questioning the safety of aluminum in vaccines…additional examination of this hypothesis appears warranted.”

While VSD and other scientists should continue to do observational studies, we should also conduct randomized placebo-controlled vaccine trials, as RFK has advocated. Since we have herd immunity for many diseases, such as measles, trials can be ethically conducted by randomizing the age of vaccination to, for example, one versus three years old, while spreading the trial over a large geographical area so that the unvaccinated are not all living close to each other.

I am confident that most vaccines will continue to be found safe and effective. While some problems may be found, that is more likely to increase rather than decrease vaccine confidence. For instance, it was found that the measles-mumps-rubella-varicella (MMRV) vaccine causes excess febrile seizures in 12- to 23-month-old children. MMRV is now only given as a second dose to older children, while the younger kids get separate MMR and varicella vaccines, resulting in fewer vaccine-induced seizures that scare parents. Although safety studies were inconclusive, it was also wise to remove mercury from vaccines. Even if we end up with fewer vaccines in the recommended vaccine schedule, that’s not necessarily a terrible thing. Scandinavia has a very healthy population with fewer vaccines in their schedules.

We won’t restore vaccine confidence by preaching to the choir. After the Covid debacle, Kennedy’s stated goal is to return to evidence-based medicine free from conflicts of interest. Letting him do that is the only way that skeptics will trust vaccines again, and those of us who trust vaccines have no reason to be afraid of that.

Attempts by the public health and pharma establishments to derail the nominations of RFK, Bhattacharya, and Makary are the surest way to further increase vaccine hesitancy in America. The choice is stark. We cannot let lopsided “pro-vaccine scientists” who clamp their hands over their ears at the mildest questions do any more harm to vaccine confidence. As a pro-vaccine scientist, and in fact, the only person ever being fired by the CDC for being too pro-vaccine, the choice is clear in my mind. To restore vaccine confidence to previous levels, we must support the nominations of Kennedy, Bhattacharya, and Makary.

Republished from RealClearPolitics

Author

Martin Kulldorff

Martin Kulldorff is an epidemiologist and biostatistician. He is Professor of Medicine at Harvard University (on leave) and a Fellow at the Academy of Science and Freedom. His research focuses on infectious disease outbreaks and the monitoring of vaccine and drug safety, for which he has developed the free SaTScan, TreeScan, and RSequential software. Co-Author of the Great Barrington Declaration.

From LifeSiteNews

By Emily Mangiaracina

Garland’s DOJ targeted Christians, including Catholics, as shown by the FBI’s infamous memo issued from its Richmond, Virginia office declaring that so-called “Radical Traditionalist Catholic Ideology” is a magnet for “violent extremists”

Pam Bondi, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, pledged Wednesday during her Senate confirmation hearing to put an end to the Department of Justice’s targeting of Catholics and of anyone for their “faith” or exercise of peaceful protest.

On the first day of the confirmation hearing for the former Florida Attorney General, Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah asked Bondi how she would “prevent the weaponization” of the DOJ against Americans, including the targeting of “Catholics attempting to practice their faith,” parents speaking out at school board meetings, and those peacefully protesting outside of abortion facilities.

“Going after parents at a school board meeting has got to stop,” Bondi said, adding that so must the targeting of Americans “for practicing your religion.”

“Sending informants into Catholic churches must stop,” she told Lee.

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri also highlighted the “unprecedented attack and campaign against people of faith” that has occurred under President Joe Biden’s DOJ, citing the “over 100 pregnancy care centers and over 300 churches that were attacked, vandalized, (and) firebombed” during Biden’s term.

“We’ve never seen anything like it before in American history. It has been one of the most disgraceful chapters in American history,” remarked Hawley, according to whom only two of these crimes were prosecuted under Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Hawley pointed out that, meanwhile, Garland’s DOJ targeted Christians, including Catholics, as shown by the FBI’s infamous memo issued from its Richmond, Virginia office declaring that so-called “Radical Traditionalist Catholic Ideology” is a magnet for “violent extremists,” and expressing interest in recruiting Catholics to spy on fellow churchgoers who attend the Traditional Latin Mass.

Asked by Hawley whether she would put an end to “abuses” like this memo, Bondi replied, “Of course,” adding, “I think what you’re talking about is the ultimate weaponization (of government),” Catholic News Agency reported.

Hawley also asked Bondi whether she would investigate the federal agents involved in the memo. She assured him she “will personally read that memo” and discuss it with Kash Patel, Trump’s nominee to head the FBI.

Bondi was Florida’s Attorney General from 2011 until 2019, serving under then-Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who is now a U.S. senator. In 2014, she took a strong public stance in defense of marriage. She has also targeted child trafficking and was floated as a possible replacement for Jeff Sessions during Trump’s first term.

In 2012, Bondi sued the Obama administration to overturn its mandate that religious employers provide contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients to their employees as part of their health care plans. She also defended Florida’s pro-life protections.

Her selection as AG nominee came after Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration when it was clear that GOP Senators Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski, and Susan Collins and Senator-elect John Curtis of Utah would not vote to confirm him.