NEW STUDY LINKS COVID VACCINE TO FERTILITY DECLINE, MISCARRIAGE RISKS
By Jefferey Jaxen | May 9, 2025
If you trust the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) website which states there is “no Evidence That COVID-19 Vaccines Affect Fertility,” you may be missing the bigger story.
A new study using data for the number of live births for women aged 18-39 years taken from the Institute of Health Information and Statistics in the Czech Republic found from January 2021–March 2023 the following:
“During the entire study period, SCs [successful conceptions] per 1,000 women were considerably lower for women who were vaccinated, compared to those that were unvaccinated, before SC. Furthermore, SC rates for the vaccinated group were generally much lower than expected based on their proportion of the total population.”
The table below taken from the study shows that the fertility, meaning one’s ability to have a child, of unvaccinated women (clear bar) during the study period was well above vaccinated women (shaded bar) at every single time interval.
Shockingly, this is the first study to look at the relationship between COVID-19 vaccination status and rates of successful conceptions on a population level using real-world data.
Attention CDC!
This recent Czech Republic study serves to drive home previous data points.
Confidential documents obtained via FOIA from early Pfizer clinical trials showed the lipid nanoparticles, used as the mRNA delivery system in the Covid shots, bioaccumulated primarily in the female ovaries – second only to the spleen.
Meanwhile, in 2021 as the experimental Covid shot rolled out, University of Illinois researchers decided to conduct their own survey after critical masses of women noticed an alteration in their menstrual cycle. Absent any interest from U.S. health agencies and the vaccine manufactures at the time, the grassroots research did find cycle alterations were happening.
Meanwhile, the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), which has been known to capture less than 1% of actual vaccine harms, told the real story of the Covid shot.
The world is in the later innings of a fertility crisis with the US fertility rate reaching an all-time low in 2023. While fertility rates have been declining for several decades for multifactorial reasons, adding an additional layer of a Covid shot that shows evidence of further fertility reduction does little to keep society above replacement population.
Last week, news broke of a U.S. baby bonus aimed at addressing the fertility issue as ABC New reported:
“The White House has been fielding proposals aimed at persuading people to marry and have children, an effort being pushed by outside groups focused on increasing the nation’s birth rate after years of decline.
One such proposal that has been pitched to White House advisers is a $5,000 “baby bonus” to every American mother after she gives birth.”
The Trump presidency has passed the 100 day mark while RFK Jr. leads HHS with an array of dream picks at health agency point positions. Addressing and removing the root health and toxicity causes for the reduction in fertility rates is key to the future of America.
According to reports, the CDC advisory committee looks to be removing the childhood Covid shot recommendation. Will this new administration’s CDC be bold enough to publicly address the science and evidence surrounding the Covid shot’s impact on fertility?
CHD Funds Lawsuit Against CDC Over Program That Forces Pediatricians to Give COVID Vaccines to Kids on Medicaid
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | April 28, 2025
A California pediatrician is suing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) over a federal program that requires doctors in her state who treat children enrolled in Medicaid to give those children all of the vaccines recommended by the CDC.
Children’s Health Defense (CHD) is supporting the lawsuit, filed April 25 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Santa Ana Division.
Dr. Samara Cardenas lost her medical practice after the CDC Vaccines for Children Program kicked her out of the program because she wouldn’t give COVID-19 vaccines to healthy kids.
California, like most states, requires pediatricians who treat Medicaid patients to be enrolled in the Vaccines for Children Program. The program, in turn, requires doctors to strictly follow the CDC’s childhood immunization schedule.
In late 2023, the Vaccines for Children Program informed Cardenas that her vaccine orders “were being scrutinized” for not including COVID-19 shots. She was later expelled from the program. As a result, she lost her Medicaid contract, forcing her to close her practice.
The Vaccines for Children Program primarily serves low-income populations by providing free vaccines to uninsured or underinsured children and children who are eligible for or enrolled in Medicaid. Medicaid compensates pediatricians for the costs associated with administering the vaccines.
In her first-of-its-kind lawsuit, Cardenas alleges the CDC’s Vaccines for Children Program violates the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection and due process provisions by subjecting children enrolled in Medicaid to different treatment standards and compelling doctors to act against their professional judgment.
The lawsuit also questions the safety and necessity of administering COVID-19 vaccines to children, the inclusion of COVID-19 shots on the CDC’s childhood immunization schedule and the impartiality of the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which makes vaccine-related recommendations.
In California, 3 in 7 — or about 5 million children — are enrolled in Medicaid. Nationally, about 40% of all kids — or about 29.2 million children ages 0-17 — are covered by Medicaid.
The suit names CDC Acting Director Susan P. Monarez, as the defendant. Monarez is also President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the agency.
Cardenas ‘followed her conscience and the science’
Attorney Rick Jaffe, who represents Cardenas, said this is “the first federal lawsuit challenging the CDC’s coercive use of the VFC [Vaccines for Children] program to enforce experimental, emergency-authorized COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of Medicaid access.”
Cardenas “followed her conscience and the science,” Jaffe said. “The VFC framework gave her no choice: vaccinate all kids or lose access.”
Kim Mack Rosenberg, CHD general counsel, said the lawsuit places policies that disproportionately affect Medicaid recipients under scrutiny, as the Vaccines for Children Program’s policy “essentially mandates these experimental shots for a population historically vulnerable to medical experimentation.”
Cardenas is not seeking compensatory damages. Instead, the lawsuit “seeks to compel the CDC to abandon its misguided and scientifically untethered policy, and stop the unnecessary mass vaccination of the nation’s poorest children.”
“We’re asking the court to say the government can’t make scientific compliance a prerequisite to serving poor patients,” Jaffe said.
Pediatrician Dr. Michelle Perro said that by requiring physicians to administer all vaccines on the childhood vaccination schedule, “medical autonomy is abolished” while “low-income children are left with fewer options and less continuity of care.”
Perro said many doctors are reluctant to oppose these policies. “The threat of speaking out is financial ruin and the potential loss of their ability to practice,” Perro said. “This is coercion and harassment.”
‘The unknowns are enough to never let these products anywhere near children’
In October 2022, ACIP, the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel, unanimously recommended adding COVID-19 vaccines for children as young as 6 months old to the CDC childhood schedule.
The complaint alleges that before making that recommendation, the CDC failed “to compile and analyze vaccine injury data.” It also alleges that ACIP is “compromised by conflicts of interest,” as many of its members “have financial or professional ties to vaccine manufacturers or related interests” — for which the CDC has granted conflict-of-interest waivers.
According to the complaint, by not presenting evidence of the vaccine’s clinical benefit, ACIP violated the Administrative Procedure Act, a federal law banning government agency actions that are “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.”
The lawsuit cites data from the U.S. government-run Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) showing reports of “hundreds of thousands of adverse events” related to the COVID-19 vaccines, including “serious adverse events and deaths.”
As of March 28, VAERS listed 72,924 reports of adverse events in people 18 and younger, including 6,122 serious adverse events and 201 deaths.
Albert Benavides, a VAERS expert and founder of VAERSAware.com, said the true figures are higher, as many VAERS report summaries indicate the victim’s age even if the report officially lists the age as “unknown.” His analysis of reports shows that “there is more than double the amount of dead children” — 556 in total.
According to the complaint, the CDC failed to “reevaluate or rescind its blanket recommendation for COVID-19 vaccination,” and that ACIP is instead doubling down on its COVID-19 vaccine recommendations.
The complaint cites this month’s ACIP meeting, during which the committee considered revising its blanket COVID-19 vaccine recommendation and switching to risk-based recommendations.
ACIP member Dr. Denise Jamieson opposed the proposal, claiming that the “U.S. has a history of not being able to implement such variable recommendations,” which would confuse the public.
“This is not merely arrogance,” the lawsuit states. “It is government-by-committee at its most dangerous — where unelected public health advisors retain extraordinary power to shape national policy.”
Attorney Ray Flores, senior outside counsel for CHD, questioned why the CDC added COVID-19 vaccines to the childhood vaccination schedule even though they were not licensed, but only issued under emergency use authorization (EUA).
“It shocks the conscience,” Flores said. “Physicians in California must be free to exercise their best judgment, especially when it comes to administering experimental injections.”
Releasing the vaccines under EUA meant they were subject to less testing than a licensed vaccine, said Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist for CHD. “The unknowns are enough to never let these products anywhere near children. There are heavy compromises made when you skip the already insufficient regulatory steps with an emergency use authorization.”
‘Can the government tell a doctor what she must inject in order to treat the poor?’
In 2022, Sweden and Denmark stopped recommending COVID-19 shots for children. In 2023, the U.K. ended its COVID-19 booster program for healthy people ages 50 and younger. That year, the World Health Organization said healthy children and teens should be considered low priority for COVID-19 vaccines.
Several recent studies have also called the practice of vaccinating healthy children for COVID-19 into question.
A December 2024 study published in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society found that children under 5 who received the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines were more likely to become infected with COVID-19 than unvaccinated children with natural immunity.
A May 2024 preprint observational study of 1.7 million U.K. children and teenagers found myopericarditis only in the group that received Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine and that the vaccine provided only 14 to 15 weeks of protection against infection.
Pfizer documents publicized last year showed that the company quietly studied myocarditis in children a month before its COVID-19 vaccine received an EUA for children ages 5-11.
A peer-reviewed study published earlier this month in Immunity, Inflammation and Disease, found that young adults who received a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine exhibited spike protein production a year or more after vaccination — significantly longer than the spike protein was expected to remain in the body.
Jaffe said the lawsuit “isn’t about vaccine skepticism. It’s about professional freedom, patient-level nuance, and constitutional limits on administrative coercion.”
“Can the government tell a doctor what she must inject in order to treat the poor? That’s what this case asks. And the answer should be ‘no.’”
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Profanity-ridden Emails, Misuse of CDC Funds: How Big Fluoride Tries to Prevent Towns From Cleaning Up Their Water
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | April 15, 2025
When Washburn, North Dakota’s town commissioners decided in January to take up the issue of whether or not to continue fluoridating the water supply for the town’s 1,300 residents, they anticipated researching the risks versus benefits and putting the matter to a vote.
What they didn’t anticipate — but soon encountered — was evidence of a coordinated effort by state actors and a national fluoride lobby group, using federal money, to crush local efforts by small towns like Washburn to stop fluoridating their water supplies.
On Monday night, town commissioners voted 4-1 to stop adding fluoride to Washburn’s water supply — making Washburn the latest in a growing list of communities across the country to end the practice in light of mounting scientific evidence that the chemical harms children’s health and provides little or no dental benefit.
At the meeting, Commissioner Keith Hapip shared what he said was evidence of astroturfing by Dr. Johnny Johnson, president of the American Fluoridation Society; Jim Kershaw, Bismarck, North Dakota’s water plant superintendent and others.
“Astroturfing is when a group with money and power pretends to be regular folks supporting something, but it’s really a planned push from the top,” Hapip said. “Real grassroots come from the community naturally. And here, the oral health program used CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] cash to manufacture support for fluoridation in Washburn.”
Johnson phoned into the meeting to advocate for water fluoridation. In response, the commission also hosted a presentation by Michael Connett — the attorney who represented the plaintiffs who won a landmark ruling in a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the agency’s failure to appropriately regulate fluoride use in water supplies.
Dr. Griffin Cole, conference chairman of the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology, who has expertise on fluoride’s toxic effects, also made a presentation.
Interviews by The Defender with grassroots actors across the country revealed that for years, Johnson, one of the country’s foremost advocates of water fluoridation, has been intervening in grassroots efforts to end fluoridation in their communities.
He and colleagues — in this case, Kershaw — travel physically or virtually to meetings in towns across the country.
Johnson himself, along with the American Dental Association (ADA), openly celebrates this work lobbying local governments. The ADA frequently reports on Johnson’s appearances and his “success” blocking community efforts to end fluoridation on its website.
As recently as last week, Johnson reportedly bussed in dentists to a meeting in Seminole County, Florida.
North Dakota officials misused CDC funding to lobby in Washburn
On Jan. 13, Hapip brought the issue of fluoridation to the commission. He kicked off the discussion by asking some basic questions: “Is there an ethical question to medicating people without explicit consent? And, does fluoride work systemically or topically?”
Kershaw, a staunch water fluoridation advocate, traveled the 35 miles from Bismarck, a much larger city, to present information about water fluoridation.
Kershaw so adamantly pushed fluoride that one of the commissioners asked him if he was there representing “big fluoride” or some other interest. Kershaw said he was there on his own money and his own time because he simply had learned a lot and was “excited about sharing it with other people.”
“I do this on my own time, and to help colleagues like this,” he said. “I do this on my own. I do this out of my own expense for gas money and stuff.”
Hapip said he was surprised by the response. “There were people writing us letters from out-of-state regional dentist associations, people traveling from Bismarck to come to our meeting. It was like, there’s something going on here,” he said. And the letters were all strikingly similar. “They seemed very copy and paste.”
Hapip found the disproportionate response to the small-town question and Kershaw’s comments to be so strange that he submitted a public records request for communications between Kershaw and the top officials at the North Dakota Oral Health Program (OHP), including Director Cheri Kiefer and OHP Public Health Hygienist Vanessa Bopp, about Washburn.
A Jan. 6 email from Kiefer informed Kershaw — who is not an OHP employee — that the agency would fund his trip to Washburn, and a Jan. 21 email confirmed the reimbursement.
They also included an email from Kiefer wishing Kershaw success, “You’re going to be amazing Jim!! Flatten them like a pancake,” she wrote.
When Hapip read the emails, he was outraged. “OHP Director Kiefer urged Kershaw to crush us hours before the meeting. This isn’t technical assistance or education — it’s a funded intent to dominate,” he told The Defender.
Hapip said the funding for OHS comes from a $380,800 annual grant from the CDC and a $400,000 annual grant from the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA)
Both grants explicitly prohibit the use of funds for publicity or propaganda purposes or for lobbying or influencing legislation at any level, such as that being proposed in Washburn.
“These emails suggest that they’re violating their grant funding,” Hapip told The Defender. “They are directly reaching out to public health officials to come speak at our meetings. They’re providing dentists with letters — I’m not even kidding — giving them a full template.”
The template was first shared with Hapip by a city counselor, Rebecca Osowski, in Grand Forks, which is also considering ending fluoridation. Hapip and Osowski noticed they were receiving multiple letters that were strikingly similar. The records request showed the letter template, along with emails from OHP staff approving the template.
The letters from the template constituted “90% of the pushback” the council received, Hapip reported at Monday night’s meeting.
Hapip said the dentists who sent in the letters from the templates didn’t include their contact information. He looked them up and reached out to them, asking them to comment on multiple recent major studies linking fluoride to neurotoxicity in children.
Record request responses show that at least two of the dentists forwarded Hapip’s letter to Kershaw, who told them not to respond.
Hapip was outraged. “Their grant is to provide education. So that was an education opportunity. They are denying the education opportunities and only doing the activism. It’s ridiculous.”
After Hapip’s records request, Kershaw began using his personal email rather than his professional one for communications.
Hapip has filed a formal complaint with the North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services.
Johnson and Kershaw use abusive and degrading language to mock and demean opponents of fluoridation
After Kershaw’s appearance at Washburn’s meeting, Hapip reached out to ask him about several points he made at the meeting. Hapip provided evidence that Kershaw’s statements were false and asked him to respond.
For example, Hapip said he called poison control to ask if there was a safety concern if children swallowed toothpaste and was told that if a child consumes more than two ounces of toothpaste, there would be a serious medical concern, requiring treatment with calcium.
This contradicted information Kershaw had provided — via Johnson — that poison control says a child would have to swallow an entire tube of toothpaste to get sick, and that the foaming agent in toothpaste would compel them to vomit first.
Poison control told Hapip that no agent in toothpaste would induce a child to throw up on their own.
Records show that Kersaw consulted with Johnson on his response, calling Hapip a “dink.”
Johnson responded, calling Hapip a series of expletives and asked Kershaw if he could respond to him directly. Kershaw replied, “Don’t reply to him now, I have a plan.”
Commenting on the email, Hapip said he was shocked. “It’s a kind of rough start to a relationship, I guess you could say.”
At Monday’s meeting, Hapip confronted Johnson about his comments. Johnson said he was simply “blowing off steam” and that he gets “a bit disturbed” because he is constantly having his integrity and professionalism called into question.
Johnson also complained that public records requests seeking information about fluoride communications are made to “stop people from being able to have their free speech about helping public health folks.”
Johnson was referring to the many Freedom of Information Act requests that have revealed, among other things, collusion among the ADA and other lobbying groups and top public health officials to prevent scientific evidence of fluoride’s dangers from reaching the public.
Cole, who listened to the meeting, told The Defender it was clear that Johnson was tipped off in advance that Hapip planned to confront him. He said Johnson’s response was disingenuous.
“He acted like such a victim,” Cole said. “He has no idea what people like me and other people who have been doing research on fluoride’s toxic effects for years have gone through.”
”For years and years, people were being just denigrated and their careers ruined because they were simply telling the truth. They were doing the science, and saying here are the results. For that, they were blacklisted.”
Cole said that unlike Johnson, researchers concerned with fluoride’s negative effects don’t badmouth those who promote fluoridation; they simply present the facts.
Cole and Connett’s presentations followed. They presented data from research published by government agencies and in top journals showing that fluoride exposure is linked to lowered IQ in children and other negative neurocognitive effects — even at fluoridation levels currently recommended by the public health agencies, as well as recent research showing that water fluoridation has little benefit for dental health.
A few public comments were made supporting both sides of the debate. Then, the commission voted.
After the vote, the commission asked the water plant operator what would be necessary to implement the decision to stop fluoridating Washburn’s water supply. He said the fluoridation could be stopped as soon as five minutes after the meeting concluded.
Grand Forks is the next battlefield
Grand Forks, the third largest city in North Dakota, is set to discuss water fluoridation next week. The issue first came up earlier in the year as part of a broader discussion about the city’s annual bids for treatment chemicals at water and wastewater treatment plants, according to the Grand Forks Herald.
In January, the council voted 4-3 to maintain fluoridation after Osowski made a motion to remove it, but they are revisiting that decision.
Johnson and Kershaw are preparing their commentaries, according to emails released to Hapip through records requests. They continue their use of profanity to characterize public officials opposed to their position, referring to Osowski in the email below.
Emails show that since January, Bopp and Kiefer have been working behind the scenes to mobilize dentists, dental associations and others to intervene to influence the legislation in Washburn and Grand Forks.
At least one other town in North Dakota, McVille, voted to remove fluoride from its water in 2023. However, after Johnson, Kershaw, OPH employees Bopp and Kiefer, and dentists from the ADA pressured the town of 417 inhabitants — Johnson flew in for their meeting — the town reversed the decision.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Did Head of CDC Vaccine Safety Office Delete COVID Vaccine Injury Records?
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | April 11, 2025
A key official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) responsible for monitoring vaccine safety and reports of vaccine injuries may have mishandled or deleted official records subpoenaed by Congress, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) alleged earlier this week. The New York Post first reported the story on Thursday.
Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, director of the CDC Immunization Safety Office, maintained the records in question. Shimabukuro previously authored a key paper and participated in public messaging claiming the COVID-19 vaccines were safe and effective for pregnant women.
Johnson, chairman of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, requested the records in a subpoena sent in January to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The subpoena pertained to an investigation into internal COVID-19 vaccine safety communications.
According to the New York Post, the subpoena led HHS to discover “potential discrepancies” in the emails maintained by Shimabukuro.
“HHS officials recently informed me that Dr. Shimabukuro’s records remain lost and, potentially, removed from HHS’s email system altogether,” Johnson wrote in a letter he sent earlier this week to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and HHS Principal Deputy Inspector General Juliet Hodgkins.
Johnson called Shimabukuro’s possible mishandling of his official records “highly concerning.”
Journalist Paul D. Thacker, a former U.S. Senate investigator, said, “Every American should be concerned about government scientists deleting or hiding federal information to shape a political agenda. That information belongs to the taxpayers.”
Nebraska chiropractor Ben Tapper, whose questioning of the COVID-19 vaccines led the Center for Countering Digital Hate to add him in 2021 to its “Disinformation Dozen” list of the “leading online anti-vaxxers,” said he was “not surprised” by Johnson’s allegations.
“For years, I’ve seen patterns like this before regarding vaccine safety data. The public health establishment often prioritizes profits over people and continuously seems to protect the lies over the truth. The idea that critical records might vanish — whether through negligence or intent — fits a familiar playbook,” Tapper said.
California attorney Rick Jaffe said Johnson’s allegations are “troubling, but not surprising, given longstanding concerns about transparency at the CDC.”
In response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request last year, the CDC told Children’s Health Defense the agency has no records of certain internal email communications relating to the agency’s follow-up investigation of safety signals associated with COVID-19 vaccines.
HHS, CDC and Johnson’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
Missing records ‘could contain unfiltered insights’ into vaccine adverse events
Citing an unnamed aide from Johnson’s office, the New York Post said it is unclear which specific records are missing. But according to Johnson’s letter, Shimabukuro’s role included “monitoring adverse events relating to the COVID-19 vaccines.”
Tapper said Shimabukuro may have been “handling sensitive data on adverse events linked to the COVID-19 vaccines,” including data from the U.S. government-run Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and the V-safe database, as well as studies, raw data and internal communications on vaccine-related safety signals.
Tapper said:
“These records could contain unfiltered insights into side effects that were downplayed or unresolved during the pandemic. For example, I’ve seen cases in my practice where patients developed symptoms like persistent fatigue or heart palpitations post-vaccination, yet struggled to get clear answers from authorities.
“Missing records could hide similar signals, undermining efforts to validate patient experiences or refine vaccine protocols.”
Internal medicine physician Dr. Clayton J. Baker said, “Such records would likely be very damning to all CDC officials who perpetuated the false ‘safe and effective’ narrative about the COVID-19 vaccines from 2021 until the present.”
“Given how damning any evidence of ignored or falsified safety signals would be, I think it is highly likely that Biden-era officials might try to destroy such records if they could. Better to be accused of destruction of federal records than to be charged as an accessory to mass negligent homicide,” Baker said.
In an April 2023 presentation to the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, Shimabukuro claimed that surveillance conducted by international regulatory and public health partners “has not detected a safety concern for ischemic stroke following bivalent COVID-19 mRNA booster vaccination.”
Yet, a peer-reviewed study published in November 2024 found that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines pose a 112,000% greater risk of brain clots and strokes than flu vaccines, and a 20,700% greater risk of those symptoms than all other vaccines combined. The study called for a global moratorium on mRNA vaccines.
In 2021, Shimabukuro was the lead author of a study in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) on the safety of COVID-19 vaccines for pregnant women. The study concluded that “preliminary findings did not show obvious safety signals among pregnant persons who received mRNA Covid-19 vaccines.”
However, a peer-reviewed study published in 2022 showed that the authors of the NEJM study performed a “statistical sleight-of-hand” that substantially lowered the miscarriage rate in pregnant women, presenting it as 12.6% instead of 82%.
In a Substack post, epidemiologist Nicolas Hulscher said Shimabukuro’s “potential involvement in the deliberate manipulation of critical safety data on COVID-19 mRNA injections during pregnancy carries grave implications — resulting in immeasurable harm to mothers and their unborn children worldwide.”
Shimabukuro ‘may have violated multiple federal laws’
According to a press release from Johnson’s office, Shimabukuro’s actions, if proven to have occurred, “may have violated multiple federal laws.”
Those laws include the Federal Records Act, which requires federal employees to preserve materials “made or received by a Federal agency under Federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business,” the New York Post reported.
Johnson wrote that the destruction of records subpoenaed by Congress may also be “grounds for contempt of Congress,” which, according to the New York Post, is punishable by up to a six-figure fine and 12 months in prison.
Jaffe said Shimabukuro may also face other penalties. He said:
“Under federal law, he could be charged with obstruction of justice or destruction of official records — risking fines, restitution and up to 20 years in prison. His federal pension could also be garnished to satisfy any judgment against him.
“Beyond criminal penalties, he faces permanent disqualification from federal service and career-ending reputational harm.”
In addition, if records relating to vaccine-injured people are missing or destroyed, impairing their legal cases, “courts could impose evidentiary sanctions or presume the destroyed records were unfavorable to the government,” Jaffe said.
Johnson’s letter also referred to Dr. David Morens, an employee of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who was a close aide of the agency’s former director, Dr. Anthony Fauci. Morens allegedly deleted emails and instructed colleagues to contact him at a personal email account to sidestep FOIA rules.
In his letter, Johnson accused HHS of a “lack of transparency” and failure to investigate the allegations against Morens.
“I had always suspected that Dr. Morens was not the sole evader of federal record-keeping requirements at HHS,” Johnson wrote. “The extent to which HHS officials systemically mishandled, deleted, or destroyed their communications, data, and other information relating to the COVID-19 pandemic and the vaccines must be thoroughly investigated.”
Johnson’s letter asks the FBI, the U.S. Department of Justice and the HHS Inspector General’s Office to investigate the matter, including whether records were intentionally destroyed to “avoid or subvert Congressional oversight or the Freedom of Information Act.”
The letter builds on Johnson’s efforts to investigate COVID-19 vaccine safety.
Earlier this week, Johnson sent letters to the heads of four COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers, requesting they turn over records related to the development and safety of the COVID-19 vaccines and their communications with Big Tech platforms about vaccine-related adverse events.
In November 2024, Johnson wrote a letter to HHS, CDC and FDA, asking the agencies to “preserve all records referring or relating to the development, safety, and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines.”
In an October 2023 letter to the then-heads of CDC and FDA, Johnson accused the agencies of an “appalling” lack of transparency regarding COVID-19 vaccine safety signals, depriving Americans of “the benefit of informed consent.”
During the Biden administration, Johnson wrote over 70 letters to HHS officials and its health agencies requesting information on COVID-19 vaccine adverse events and related communications, according to a Jan. 29 press release.
Last year, Johnson hosted a congressional roundtable to discuss the risks of COVID-19 vaccines. Medical experts, political figures, journalists and whistleblowers were among the participants.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
CDC Will Study Possible Link Between Vaccines and Autism, Pledges to ‘Leave No Stone Unturned’
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | March 10, 2025
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed it plans to study the possible link between vaccines and autism, after Reuters reported on the plan late Friday, citing two sources inside the agency.
In response to the Reuters story, the CDC and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) provided an identical statement:
“As President Trump said in his Joint Address to Congress, the rate of autism in American children has skyrocketed. CDC will leave no stone unturned in its mission to figure out what exactly is happening. The American people expect high quality research and transparency and that is what CDC is delivering.”
The revelation came days after President Donald Trump, in an address to Congress, referred to the rising rate of autism in the U.S. Trump, citing CDC data showing that 1 in 36 U.S. children have autism, said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is well suited to lead efforts to study the increase.
“There’s something wrong,” Trump said. “So, we’re going to find out what it is, and there’s nobody better than Bobby [Kennedy] and all of the people that are working with you.”
According to The Washington Post, Trump administration officials asked the CDC to perform the study. Newsweek reported that it is “unclear” whether Kennedy is involved in the new study. However, HHS oversees federal health agencies, including the CDC.
Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., Children’s Health Defense (CHD) senior research scientist, applauded “the CDC’s newfound curiosity in vaccines and autism.” He said the U.S. “passed an inflection point” in the 1990s, where autism “went from being a rare disease to a more common one” that has been “increasing exponentially ever since.”
“When is an appropriate time to conduct a large study on vaccines and autism? Apparently, two generations later,” Jablonowski said.
Sayer Ji, chairman and co-founder of the Global Wellness Forum, called the news a “pivotal moment, not just in the scientific exploration of vaccine safety, but in the broader issue of public trust in our institutions.”
Ji said the CDC’s plan for a large-scale study “is an implicit admission that prior investigations may have been insufficient, biased or incomplete.” He said the new study “could represent a breakthrough moment” in “resolving this critical health question” and “restoring faith in the integrity of scientific inquiry itself.”
‘A seismic shift toward accountability’
According to the Post, the CDC will conduct the study using data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink, a database of patient health records. The Vaccine Safety Datalink draws on data from 13 U.S. healthcare organizations, CNN reported.
Biologist Christina Parks, Ph.D., said the study should examine the CDC’s childhood vaccination schedule.
“The cumulative effect of giving multiple vaccines at once as well as over a short period of months has not been studied as a potential contributing factor to autism,” Parks said. “Vaccines have the potential to alter a child’s immune system in ways that are unexpected.”
Parks referred to studies performed in 1970 and 1987 that found autism rates of 0.7 and 3.3 children per 10,000, respectively. “If autism were as prevalent then as it is now, we should have a large number of older autistic adults, which we do not,” Parks said.
Brian Hooker, Ph.D., chief scientific officer for CHD, suggested the CDC study should use an unvaccinated control group. Hooker cited his experience performing research using data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink, noting that the database already contains data on unvaccinated children.
A 2021 study co-authored by Hooker found that vaccinated children were significantly more likely than unvaccinated children to be diagnosed with autism.
Ji said any CDC study examining a possible vaccine-autism link should reflect Kennedy’s recent calls for “gold-standard science.”
He said:
“It must be a true gold-standard study. The methodology must be rigorous, transparent and independent, with no industry or government interference. It should be a prospective, controlled, long-term study comparing fully unvaccinated and vaccinated populations.”
Hooker said the CDC has previously not made data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink available to the public, even though it is taxpayer-funded.
“We’ve never had access to the Vaccine Safety Datalink. We’ve never had access to such a gold-standard database, and that thing takes $50 million worth of tax dollars to maintain every year. It should be open to the public,” Hooker said.
Ji said many past vaccine safety studies were flawed due to a lack of transparency.
“Historically, vaccine safety studies have been marred by selective reporting, data manipulation and redacted findings. Kennedy has long advocated for open access to government data, and if this study follows through on that promise, it would be a seismic shift toward accountability,” Ji said.
Rise in autism cannot simply be attributed to ‘better diagnosis’
Reuters attributed the rise in autism rates to “more widespread screening and the inclusion of a broader range of behaviors to describe the condition.”
Research scientist and author James Lyons-Weiler, Ph.D., said such claims are “pure disinformation.”
“No rigorous study has shown that these factors are responsible,” Lyons-Weiler said.
“These criteria cannot explain the 7% increase in autism following the removal of vaccine exemptions from California, which has 1 in 22, the highest rate among all states,” Lyons-Weiler said.
Ji said that prior studies claiming to debunk the vaccine-autism link should be called into question, noting that many such studies “suffer from conflicts of interest, flawed methodologies and a lack of truly unvaccinated control groups.”
According to Hooker, many previous studies were flawed because they focused only on a limited number of vaccines and vaccine components.
“The CDC and most of the open peer-reviewed literature focuses on one vaccine and one vaccine component, the MMR [measles-mumps-rubella] vaccine and thimerosal” — a mercury-based preservative used in some vaccines. A 2013 study found a link between thimerosal exposure and the risk of an autism diagnosis.
Recent independently performed studies have indicated a connection between vaccines and autism.
A peer-reviewed study published in Science, Public Health Policy and the Law in January found that vaccinated children have a 170% higher chance of being diagnosed with autism compared to unvaccinated children. The study also found that the autism risk increases in children with a higher number of vaccinations.
A ‘new era of openness’
Reuters quoted Dr. Wilbur Chen, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and former member of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel, who suggested the CDC’s new study could fuel vaccine hesitancy.
“It sends the signal that there is something there that is worth investigating, so that means there must be something going on between vaccines and autism,” Chen said.
But other experts suggest that such statements conceal concerns that vaccines may not be as safe as frequently claimed.
“Americans and those who receive our vaccines overseas should be able to have confidence that American products, especially biologics that are injected into children, meet the highest safety standards,” Parks said. “By addressing parent concerns, the CDC can help to reestablish trust in its guidelines.”
“If the vaccines are safe, transparency should increase confidence, not the opposite,” Ji said. “If vaccines are as safe as claimed, then the data should confirm that and bolster confidence. The fear of ‘hesitancy’ suggests a deeper concern that the results may contradict the official narrative.”
Hooker said the new CDC study is representative of a “new era of openness” and will “encourage greater faith in our institutions and their recommendations regardless of where they fall.”
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Makary, Bhattacharya Nominations Move to Full Senate Vote, But Trump Pulls Weldon Nomination to Lead CDC
The Defender | March 13, 2025
The U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions this morning canceled a scheduled hearing on the nomination of Dr. David Weldon, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Axios was the first to break the news, stating that Weldon’s “views questioning certain vaccines have garnered attention since he was nominated months ago and were sure to play a prominent role in questioning.”
The New York Times reached Weldon by phone. The former Florida congressman said he learned of the decision last night when a White House official told him that “they didn’t have the votes to confirm” his nomination.
In a statement to media, posted on X, Weldon said, “The concern of many people is that Big Pharma was behind this, which is probably true. They are probably the most powerful lobbying organization in Washington DC giving millions of dollars to politicians on both sides of the aisle.”
Meanwhile, the Senate Health committee today voted 14-9 to endorse Dr. Marty Makary to lead the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and 12-11 to endorse Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Both Makary and Bhattacharya “largely breezed through” their Senate confirmation hearings and are now set to be confirmed by a full Senate vote, according to STAT News.
Given the Republican control of the Senate, it is expected that Makary and Bhattacharya will be confirmed.
Weldon nomination pulled amid Texas measles outbreak, CDC plan to study vaccines
Weldon, 71, is a practicing internal medicine doctor and Army veteran. He represented Florida in Congress from 1995 to 2009.
The CDC has a $9 billion budget and staff of around 13,000, according to NBC.
According to the Times, Weldon said he had been excited about the opportunity to help restore the public’s confidence in the CDC and serve his country again.
Weldon had also been looking forward to working on the MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) agenda to address the proliferation of chronic diseases among U.S. Americans, particularly children.
In the days leading up to Weldon’s planned hearing, numerous media outlets ran a slew of articles highlighting Weldon’s history of questioning vaccine safety.
Reuters on March 7 broke the news that the CDC was planning a study on the possible link between vaccines and autism. Some senators “have expressed concerns over Weldon’s views on vaccines,” Reuters said.
The Washington Post confirmed that the CDC planned to “leave no stone unturned in its mission to figure out” why autism rates are soaring, including using the agency’s Vaccine Safety Datalink database to study any possible links between vaccines and autism.
The last-minute plan to pull Weldon’s nomination came against the backdrop of news reports about the CDC’s planned study and the West Texas measles outbreak. On March 10, Forbes reported, “Vaccine Skeptic Dave Weldon Is Up To Lead CDC As Measles And Flu Rage.”
According to Forbes, Weldon was a friend of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who “holds similar and, in some cases, seemingly more extreme views on some health matters.”
On March 12, STAT News reported, under the headline, “How CDC nominee Dave Weldon’s support for anti-vaccine theories runs long and deep” that Weldon in 2004 asked the U.S. House Appropriations Committee chair to fund an autism research center that would be led by Dr. Andrew Wakefield.
Wakefield was the first author of the 1998 study, published and later retracted in The Lancet, that linked the MMR vaccine to autism in certain children.
According to STAT News, Weldon requested $1.9 million in the 2005 budget for the center to study “the biological origins” of childhood developmental disorders, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, Congress chose not to fund it.
In 2007, Weldon introduced a bill “to improve vaccine safety research” that would have transferred the responsibility of tracking vaccine safety from the CDC to an independent agency within HHS.
The bill stipulated that the independent agency would:
- Conduct or support safety research and monitor licensed vaccines.
- Develop a vaccine safety research agenda.
- Evaluate means to promote compliance with federal adverse reaction reporting requirements.
- Provide a clearinghouse for vaccine studies.
- Ensure that functions relating to vaccine monitoring or research on adverse reactions are not carried out by anyone with a conflict of interest.
- Oversee the Vaccine Safety Datalink Project.
- Resolve U.S. conflicts of interest related to international agreements, partnerships, and activities.
However, the bill never made it to the House floor for a vote.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
FDA Calls Off Meeting to Select Flu Strains for Next Season’s Flu Vaccine
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | February 27, 2025
The committee that advises the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on which flu strains to target for the upcoming flu season will not meet as scheduled next month, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.
In a statement provided to CNN, the FDA said:
“A planned March 13 meeting of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee [VRBPAC] on the influenza vaccine strains for the 2025-2026 influenza season in the northern hemisphere has been cancelled. …
“The FDA will make public its recommendations to manufacturers in time for updated vaccines to be available for the 2025-2026 influenza season.”
The FDA sent VRBPAC members an email on Monday informing them of the cancellation, the Times reported. No reason was given for its cancellation.
According to CNBC, the VRBPAC meets each March to select the strains for the upcoming season’s flu shots.
Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and member of the committee, told CNBC he wasn’t sure why the meeting was cancelled.
“Who canceled this meeting? Why did they cancel the meeting? Will manufacturers now turn to the World Health Organization to determine strains for this year’s influenza vaccines?” Offit asked.
According to the FDA, VRBPAC “reviews and evaluates data concerning the safety, effectiveness, and appropriate use of vaccines and related biological products which are intended for use in the prevention, treatment, or diagnosis of human diseases.” The committee is composed of 15 voting members.
The Times tied the meeting’s cancellation to the recent confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., former chairman of Children’s Health Defense, as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). HHS oversees federal health agencies, including the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“The cancellation plays into fears among scientists who worry that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will use his position as health secretary to sow doubts about vaccines,” the Times reported.
Offit, in an interview with Inside Medicine, also connected the meeting’s cancellation to Kennedy’s recent confirmation.
“Is it part of RFK Jr.’s cleansing project of removing anyone whom he presumes to have a conflict of interest related to vaccines? I don’t know. But I feel like the world is upside down. We aren’t doing the things we need to do to protect ourselves,” Offit said.
On Monday, Offit told MedPage Today that VRBPAC members were asked to fill out conflict-of-interest forms in advance — a routine process before every meeting — “and we weren’t told the meeting was canceled.” He said members were told to set time aside for the meeting.
But late Wednesday, Offit phoned Medpage and said, “If we are not going to have the meeting, I guess it means we will be looking to the WHO [World Health Organization] for a flu shot formulation.”
Last week, a meeting of another key public health committee — the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — was postponed. The meeting was supposed to take place Feb. 26-28.
Valerie Borek, associate director and policy analyst for Stand for Health Freedom, said, “it’s not unreasonable” for an incoming HHS secretary to place advisory meetings on hold.
“We have a new HHS Secretary who has promised to expose and eliminate conflicts of interest that tend to lurk in groups like these,” Borek said. FDA and CDC advisory committees do not have final decision-making power; however, the agencies typically rubber-stamp their recommendations.
‘Time to stop pretending the flu vaccine is effective’
Offit said cancellation of the meeting could delay production of next season’s flu vaccines.
“It’s a six-month production cycle,” Offit told the Times. “So one can only assume that we’re not picking flu strains this year.”
Another VRBPAC member, Dr. Stanley Perlman, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, told Reuters that “we don’t have much time” to produce the next season’s flu vaccines.
Perlman said a separate meeting of a VRBPAC subcommittee scheduled for March was also canceled.
Door to Freedom founder Dr. Meryl Nass, who follows FDA and CDC vaccine advisory meetings and often blogs about them, welcomed the meeting’s cancellation and expressed skepticism about flu vaccines.
“The purpose for the U.S. flu vaccine program is shrouded in mystery,” Nass said. “The CDC creates models of influenza mortality and then tells us how many deaths occur from flu each year by citing its own models.”
Nass described the VRBPAC’s annual meetings to select strains for the following season’s flu vaccines as “a crapshoot.”
“The VRBPAC are there to give cover to U.S. government officials who do not want to pick the wrong strains,” Nass said.
Nass referred to a 2005 study published in JAMA Internal Medicine that could “not correlate increasing [flu] vaccination coverage after 1980 with declining mortality rates in any age group” and that “observational studies substantially overestimate vaccination benefit.”
A CDC report issued today found the flu shot less effective for some children this year. According to CBS News, “Effectiveness was 32% for children and adolescents, from the CDC’s U.S. Flu VE network of health care systems. That’s down from 67% in last year’s estimates.”
Biologist Christina Parks, Ph.D., said it is “time to stop pretending the flu vaccine is effective.” She added:
“The extremely low efficacy of flu vaccines call into question whether they should keep being offered at all. Studies have shown that receipt of flu vaccines over multiple years actually increases your risk of contracting a severe case of the flu and ending up in [an intensive care unit].
“The cancellation of the VRBPAC meeting suggests to me that the new Secretary for Health and Human Services understands that flu vaccines exist to line the pockets of vaccine manufacturers, not to actually protect people from getting the flu.”
According to CNBC, the cancellation comes during a “particularly brutal flu season in the U.S.” that, according to CDC data, has resulted in up to 910,000 hospitalizations since October 2024.
But Nass said those claims are overstated. She said that contrary to CDC claims of up to 52,000 flu deaths annually in the U.S., data from death certificates indicate “only about 2,000 Americans per year die from influenza.”
“I worked for many years as a hospitalist and yet it is hard for me to think of anyone who died of influenza in the hospital. They may have died of a secondary bacterial infection,” Nass said.
Discussion of flu vaccine-related deaths missing from mainstream narrative
Albert Benavides, founder of VAERSAware.com and an expert on the U.S. government-run Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), said a discussion of deaths caused by the flu vaccines has been missing from the mainstream narrative.
“There are currently 2,652 deaths associated with flu vaccines in VAERS back to 1990,” Benavides said. He noted that 697 of these deaths have been received and published in the VAERS database since January 2021, calling this development “concerning.”
Benavides said the data showed that “many elderly flu deaths are comingled with COVID-19, Pneumovax, Shingrix, Zostavax and now even some RSV and Monkeypox vaccines and in every combination,” suggesting that interactions between the vaccines may be deadly for some people.
A study published in October 2024 in the journal Scientific Reports found that 17 vaccines, including flu vaccines, were associated with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare condition that attacks the peripheral nervous system.
Nass questioned the U.S. spending of “billions of dollars” yearly. “Other countries don’t do this,” she said.
VRBPAC members ‘often team up with industry’
According to the Times, Kennedy has “repeatedly warned of ‘regulatory capture’ — the idea that federal regulators are captive to industry.”
In an interview with Fox News earlier this month, Kennedy said several public health agency panels that develop policies such as vaccine guidelines are composed of “outside experts,” almost all of whom “have severe … conflicts of interest.”
The Times acknowledged that the members of committees like VRBPAC “often team up with industry,” citing the example of Offit, “an inventor of a rotavirus vaccine that was later developed by the pharmaceutical giant Merck.”
Parks said she thinks it’s “good that VRBPAC meetings have been put on ice until the members of these advisory committees are actually properly vetted and determined not to have conflicts of interest. Currently, it appears that many members are there to rubber-stamp the agenda of vaccine manufacturers.”
The cancellation of the VRBPAC meeting came just days after HHS announced the end of the CDC’s “Wild to Mild” advertising campaign promoting flu vaccines. HHS called on the CDC to instead develop “advertisements that promote the idea of ‘informed consent’ in vaccine decision-making.”
“I am hopeful that better data on the flu and flu vaccines will help Americans make truly informed choices about whether to get flu vaccines,” Nass said.
Related articles in The Defender
- HHS Tells CDC to Yank ‘Wild to Mild’ Flu Vaccine Ad Campaign, Shift Focus to ‘Informed Consent’
- Is Kennedy’s HHS Preparing to Shake Up CDC’s Vaccine Advisory Committee?
- RFK Jr. Pushes Back on Chronic Disease, Autism and Agency Corruption
- Guillain-Barré Syndrome Associated With 17 Vaccines, Including COVID and Flu Shots
- Breaking: RFK Jr. Sworn in as HHS Secretary
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
‘Operation Outbreak’: CDC Grooming Teens, Kids to Fear Pandemics, Critics Say
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | February 6, 2025
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) educational resources for K-12 students on disease outbreaks, the transmission of pathogens and how to trace their spread, on the surface, appear well-intended.
However, critics said the materials — which include lesson plans and classroom activities titled “Operation Outbreak” and a graphic novel targeting teens — also could be interpreted as propaganda designed to encourage compliance with public health policies and initiatives.
The materials present hypothetical scenarios necessitating a public health response to the outbreak and spread of a disease with a zoonotic — or animal — origin. Students are asked to employ a “One Health” approach and methods such as contact tracing to respond to these hypothetical outbreaks.
According to the materials, “One Health recognizes that human health, animal health, and the environment are connected.”
The One Health approach “requires human, animal, and environmental health professionals to work together at the local, state, federal, and global levels to improve the health of people, animals, and their shared environment.”
Dr. Michelle Perro, a pediatrician, said the CDC’s educational initiatives “appear to be a well-intentioned educational effort under the One Health framework.” But instead, “a closer examination suggests it may also serve to acclimate students to compliance during future public health crises.”
Perro said:
“By emphasizing the inevitability of ‘the next pandemic’ and reinforcing a specific perspective on zoonotic transmission, these materials can condition naive minds to accept certain public health policies without room for opposing discussions. … This initiative prioritizes messaging over genuine scientific inquiry.”
Dr. Margaret Christensen, a clinical educator called the materials “propaganda,” that “groom the younger generation early to believe our biggest threat is from some disease jumping out of an animal, whether birds or cows or pigs, and attacking us without defense, unless we’ve been vaccinated.”
According to attorney Sheri Snow Powers, the educational resources are intended to foster an uncritical attitude toward public health authorities.
“These materials are inappropriate for teenagers and children because they promote and idolize public health authorities as heroes and saviors,” Powers said. “This is detrimental to young developing minds and conditions children to be future compliant citizens.”
CDC educational resources use ‘a fear-based narrative’
The CDC’s educational resources include material meant to teach students “about the roots of American public health,” including the history and role of the CDC in domestic and global disease outbreaks.
The materials include modules on “lessons learned” during the 1976 swine flu outbreak, the CDC’s role in food and water safety, and in responding to the “21st century public health challenge” of chronic diseases.
However, the main focus of the materials for high school students is the “Operation Outbreak” series of classroom activities, centered around a graphic novel targeting teenagers.
Featuring a cover page reminiscent of the popular series “Stranger Things,” “The Junior Disease Detectives: Operation Outbreak a novel produced in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, presents a fictional disease outbreak scenario involving teenagers and animals. It’s connected to three in-class activities focusing on “zoonotic disease prevention and response.”
The first activity, “The Outbreak Team,” focuses on the “various roles and responsibilities of the professionals involved in an outbreak response. The next two activities, “Eddie’s Story” and “Hamlet’s Story,” focus on investigating a disease outbreak and its subsequent spread from a pig (Hamlet) to a teenager (Eddie).
According to the CDC, upon completion of the activities, students should be able to “identify steps in an influenza outbreak investigation,” “identify roles and responsibilities of public health, animal health, environmental health, and other relevant professionals” and “describe why using a One Health approach … is best when investigating or preventing zoonotic diseases.”
Students are also expected to learn how to define a series of terms, including “zoonotic influenza virus,” “novel influenza virus,” and “case” — including the differences between “suspected,” “probable” and “confirmed” cases.
“Most human infections with novel influenza A viruses have occurred after close contact with infected animals,” the materials state, noting that “global surveillance” is necessary “to detect the emergence of novel influenza A viruses that could trigger a pandemic.”
The materials also state, “There are associations between zoonotic influenza viruses and pandemics.”
But according to Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, the graphic novel and activities use a “fear-based” narrative. She said the materials lack “a balanced and factual approach that pathogens, viruses and bacteria are a natural part of life that can be mostly handled by each person’s immune system.”
Vaccination also is prominently featured in the educational materials. According to the graphic novel:
“As we learned during Disease Detective Camp, our bodies’ immune system produces antibodies to fight against infection, and the safest way to get antibodies is through vaccination.
“Although the flu vaccine isn’t designed to protect against variant flu, it is still important to get, because it can help protect us from getting the flu and spreading it to others.”
One Health approach ‘subtly promotes compliance over critical thinking’
Perro questioned the CDC’s focus on the One Health approach, “due to its biased, one-sided narrative.”
“By focusing solely on zoonotic transmission, it ignores key factors like environmental toxicants, industrial farming and genetic engineering risks,” Perro said. This promotes “compliance over critical thinking” and serves as “institutional propaganda,” she said.
The materials ultimately “shape narratives about the origins of pandemics — particularly regarding COVID-19 having emerged ‘naturally’ rather than from a lab-related incident,” Perro said.
Powers said the materials “condition” children to fear specific pathogens and “to be ignorant of their own bodies’ amazing immune system, by not mentioning it.”
“Teaching children how to take care of themselves with healthy food, exercise, and sunshine is a much more valuable lesson,” Powers said.
The CDC’s focus on the flu and children is not new. Documents Children’s Health Defense obtained in 2023 through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request revealed that the agency hired an advertising firm to write “news” articles promoting flu shots for kids and the elderly.
The CDC’s “Operation Outbreak” materials appear to be unrelated to an online simulation activity by the same name, developed by the Broad Institute, UMass Chan Medical School and The Inspire Project — funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.
This simulation, introduced in 2017 and described as an “infectious way to learn,” operates through a mobile app and “unleashes a virtual pathogen through Bluetooth across participant devices, prompting a contagious outbreak that participants strive to contain.”
Related articles in The Defender
- U.S. Launches ‘One Health’ Plan Prompting Concerns About Global Power Play
- One Health: A Plan to ‘Surveil and Control Every Aspect of Life on Earth’?
- CDC Hired Ad Firm to Write ‘News’ Articles Promoting Flu Shots for Kids, Elderly, Documents Reveal
- Rockefeller Foundation, Nonprofits Spending Millions on Behavioral Psychology Research to ‘Nudge’ More People to Get COVID Vaccines
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
RFK Jr. Wins Crucial Vote, Moves One Step Closer to Top HHS Post
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | February 4, 2025
The Senate Finance Committee today narrowly advanced Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to the full Senate for a confirmation vote.
The 14-13 vote along party lines came after Kennedy secured the vote of Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that oversees HHS. Cassidy was the lone Republican considered to be a possible hold-out.
The Senate is expected to vote on Kennedy’s confirmation later this week or early next week, ABC News reported. The nomination “is likely to succeed absent any last-minute vote switches,” The Associated Press reported.
Kennedy, founder and former chairman of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), can be confirmed even if up to three Republican senators and all Democrats vote against him in the full Senate.
If confirmed, Kennedy will oversee a $1.7 trillion budget and 90,000 employees. HHS oversees 13 public health agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
During today’s committee meeting, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said, “It is time to put a disruptor” like Kennedy at the helm of the HHS. “I hope he goes wild,” Tillis said.
Shares of vaccine manufacturers and packaged food companies, including Pfizer, Moderna, BioNTech, Novavax, Kraft Heinz, General Mills, Mondelez and Hershey, dropped after today’s vote, Reuters reported.
CHD CEO Mary Holland welcomed today’s outcome. She said:
“CHD is delighted that the Finance Committee is sending RFK Jr.’s nomination to the full Senate. Given the 2024 presidential results, this seems only fitting. ‘Make America Healthy Again’ has become a worldwide rallying cry, and CHD is proud to be a foundational part of this movement.”
In a statement, Dr. Joseph Varon, president and chief medical officer of the Independent Medical Alliance, also welcomed today’s vote. He said:
“Americans demand a frank conversation about the state of our government healthcare agencies, and we’re very grateful for the Senators who responded by voting to move RFK Jr.’s nomination to the full Senate.
“RFK Jr. has been asking the tough questions, and he’s been unmoved in the face of big-corporate money campaigns against him.”
In a statement before the vote, Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), chair of the committee, said that if confirmed, Kennedy “will have the opportunity to deliver much-needed change to our nation’s healthcare system.”
Cassidy, Kennedy agree to ‘unprecedently close collaborative relationship’
During last week’s hearing in the Senate Finance Committee, Cassidy said he was “struggling” with some of Kennedy’s positions regarding vaccines.
“I’ve had very intense conversations with Bobby and the White House over the weekend and even this morning,” Cassidy posted on X earlier today. “I want to thank VP JD [Vance] specifically for his honest counsel. With the serious commitments I’ve received from the administration and the opportunity to make progress on the issues we agree on like healthy foods and a pro-American agenda, I will vote yes.”
Following today’s vote, Cassidy delivered remarks on the Senate floor, revealing the content of those discussions and the agreement he made with Kennedy to secure his vote.
He said Kennedy committed to a strong public health role for Congress and to meeting or speaking with Cassidy multiple times per month. They also agreed that Cassidy will participate in the hiring process for HHS and the public health agencies it oversees.
“He and I will have an unprecedently close collaborative relationship,” Cassidy said, noting that the hiring decisions that will follow “will allow us to represent all sides of those folks who have contacted me over this past weekend.”
Kennedy also agreed to maintain statements on the CDC website that vaccines do not cause autism and to maintain the recommendations of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Cassidy said he would also reject any attempt to remove the public’s access to “life-saving vaccines” without “iron-clad, causational scientific evidence” indicating otherwise. He also said he would carefully monitor any attempt to “wrongfully sow public confusion” about vaccines.
Cassidy conceded that “many mothers do need reassurance that the vaccine their child is receiving is necessary, effective, and most of all, safe” and expressed his support for Kennedy’s positions on toxic foods and reforming the NIH.
“These commitments, and my expectation that we can have a great working relationship to Make America Healthy Again, is the basis of my support,” Cassidy said, noting that institutions like NIH and FDA require “reform.”
During last week’s confirmation hearings, Kennedy emphasized his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda and said he would work to tackle the chronic disease epidemic in the U.S.
Kennedy also said he would implement “radical transparency” in HHS. He also voiced support for vaccines — if backed by “good science.”
Related articles in The Defender
- Kennedy Calls for ‘Radical Transparency’ at Government Health Agencies, as Sanders Demands CHD Stop Selling Onesies
- RFK Jr. Pushes Back on Chronic Disease, Autism and Agency Corruption
- ‘True Corruption’: Agency Capture Responsible for Chronic Disease Epidemic in U.S.
- ‘An Act of War’: Big Food Intentionally Addicting Kids to Toxic Foods
- Breaking: RFK Jr. Suspends Presidential Campaign, Will Join Forces With Trump to ‘Save Millions of Children’
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Johnson Subpoenas HHS for COVID Vaccine Safety Records, Fauci Emails
By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | February 3, 2025
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) last week subpoenaed the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for COVID-19 vaccine safety records and communications about the COVID-19 pandemic, including a subset of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s emails.
HHS is required to produce the requested data and communications by Feb. 18. Johnson told The Defender it’s imperative that HHS comply promptly.
Johnson said:
“The federal government is supposed to serve the American people. Our taxes pay the bureaucrats’ salaries and fund their activities and studies. The results belong to the public and should be made available to us in a timely and transparent manner.
“Bureaucrats who withhold information only raise suspicion and reduce the credibility and integrity of their agencies.”
This was the first subpoena Johnson issued after being named chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on Jan. 21.
During the Biden administration, Johnson wrote more than 70 congressional oversight letters to HHS officials and its health agencies requesting information on COVID-19 vaccine adverse events and related communications, according to a Jan. 29 press release.
Biden HHS officials “either completely ignored or inadequately addressed” the requests.
Johnson said in a statement:
“In the waning days of the Biden administration and after years of obstructing my oversight efforts, I warned HHS officials that when I become chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, I will subpoena records and data on the COVID-19 pandemic that have been inappropriately withheld from Congress and the American people for far too long.”
The subpoena requires HHS to hand over:
- Previously withheld or heavily redacted communications about the pandemic, including Fauci’s emails, including but not limited to the approximately 50 pages of his emails that were withheld from Johnson’s office since September 2021.
- Safety surveillance data on the COVID-19 vaccines, including proportional reporting ratios and empirical Bayesian data mining.
- Unredacted records previously released through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests regarding the government’s awareness of myocarditis and pericarditis cases in post-vaccinated individuals.
- Data and records relating to COVID-19 vaccine lots associated with higher rates of adverse events.
- Order forms and receipts showing government researchers purchasing DNA sequences from a biotechnology company.
- All communications relating to HHS’ receipt of and response (or lack thereof) to Johnson’s oversight letters between January 2021 and the present.
Risa Evans, an attorney for Children’s Health Defense (CHD), applauded Johnson’s efforts.
CHD has filed multiple FOIA requests to obtain records from HHS agencies including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) relating to the agencies’ monitoring of COVID-19 vaccine safety and injuries.
“The agencies have responded to our FOIA requests with delays, denials and redactions,” Evans said, “and we’ve been forced to sue to obtain records that, in truth, should be made public as a matter of course.”
Evans called the agencies’ lack of transparency “unconscionable — especially given the federal government’s relentless promotion of COVID-19 vaccination, coupled with claims that safety is being vigilantly monitored by the agencies and denials that the shots cause harm.”
Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist at CHD, said:
“Time is washing away the knowledge of how the government’s monitoring of COVID-19 vaccine safety went wrong, and the fingerprints of the wrongdoers. Promptly responding to Senator Johnson’s subpoena may preserve enough knowledge to ensure the betrayal never happens again.”
FDA partially responds to CHD’s FOIA request
Some documents referenced in Johnson’s subpoena have already been released, Evans said. For example, on Jan. 10, the FDA posted emails about its safety surveillance of COVID-19 vaccines using empirical Bayesian data mining.
Empirical Bayesian data mining is a method of analyzing vaccine injury reports, Jablonowski said.
The FDA provided the emails to CHD and posted them on the agency’s website one day after the agency objected to a motion filed by CHD in federal court about a 2023 FOIA lawsuit. CHD sued the FDA after it failed to respond to CHD’s FOIA request for the documents.
Other groups and individuals — including Johnson, The Epoch Times and the Informed Action Consent Network — had also FOIAed the FDA for the same safety surveillance data.
On Jan. 10, the FDA sent CHD a letter explaining that it was posting the emails as a “partial reply” to CHD’s FOIA request.
In its FOIA request, CHD had asked for “records of any Empirical Bayesian data mining” that the FDA conducted and “records of any sharing or discussion of results and signals with the CDC.” The emails posted by the FDA showed some of those records.
However, CHD in its FOIA request also asked for records related to “consultations by FDA and/or CBER [the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research] with VAERS [Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System] staff within the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office in connection with any signal that was detected.”
“The FDA still hasn’t responded to other key parts of our request,” Evans said. “In particular, it hasn’t provided records of the follow-up investigation the agency said it would conduct if it detected potential safety signals.”
Emails reveal FDA failed to detect safety signals
The emails released by the FDA revealed that in the first 18 months of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, the FDA’s monitoring of VAERS showed consistent alerts for serious adverse events, including death, for the Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) vaccine.
VAERS, co-managed by CDC and FDA, is a “passive” monitoring system that accepts reports of adverse events experienced after vaccination.
Meanwhile, the FDA’s monitoring found almost no safety signals for the Moderna and Pfizer shots, failing to detect signals even for widely recognized risks like myocarditis, pericarditis and anaphylaxis.
According to Jablonowski’s analysis of the emails, the FDA and CDC were never sufficiently looking for safety signals, despite all the “posturing” the agencies did around the COVID-19 vaccines’ safety.
The FDA and CDC’s “willful ignorance” of the adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination is an “epic betrayal,” Jablonowski said.
Related articles in The Defender
- Breaking: Emails Obtained by CHD Reveal Government’s Failure to Monitor COVID Vaccine Injury Reports
- FDA Must Respond to Court’s Requests in CHD FOIA Lawsuit Involving COVID Vaccine Injury Reports
- CDC Stonewalls Requests for COVID Vaccine Safety Monitoring Documents
- Sen. Johnson Threatens Legal Action Unless HHS Turns Over Unredacted Emails on COVID Vaccine Safety
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
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Book Review
In 2007, Michael Parenti Called Out The Greater Israel Project
The Dissident | January 28, 2026
In my last article, I covered the left-wing scholar Michael Parenti- who passed away at the age of 92 this week- and his prophetic writings on the Ukraine proxy war in 2014.
Parenti’s writings on the Israel lobby and the greater Israel project were equally prophetic.
In his 2007 book “Contrary Notions” Parenti called out “Israel First” Neo-cons and Israel’s role in the Iraq war, and predicted to a tee the future Israeli/American wars in the Middle East in service of Greater Israel and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
In a section of the book aptly titled “Israel First”, Parenti wrote… continue
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