“Shame On Them.” Doctor Condemns Gov’t For Keeping COVID Vax Data Secret, Fears CDC Vote Will Increase Vaccine Hesitancy

If there’s one sure way to create an entire generation of vaccine hesitant parents, it’s for the government to hide the data about a vaccine that might be dangerous or ineffective for healthy kids, then try to force parents to administer it to their healthy kids. Even parents who weren’t vaccine hesitant before COVID might start to wonder if they can trust the other “recommended” vaccines on the childhood schedule. They’ll start to wonder if they can trust the government agencies and health care professionals who are recommending them, when they are clearly willing to recommend a minimally tested, minimally effective, and potentially dangerous (to healthy kids) vaccine with no available clinical data to back up the recommendation. That’s what Dr. Marty Makary of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine fears, and he’s not wrong.

The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted unanimously Thursday to recommend that the COVID-19 vaccine be added to both adult and childhood vaccine schedules starting in 2023. This will be the first time a vaccine has been added to the CDC’s recommended vaccine schedule list without making the supporting clinical data available to the public. They’re officially recommending it without letting anyone see the data supporting their recommendation, which certainly doesn’t bolster confidence, especially amid serious myocarditis and “sudden death” concerns.

Dr. Makary postulates that the move will do “unintended harm” and lead to greater vaccine hesitancy overall. He told Fox News,

“It threatens the credibility of MMR and polio and many other vaccines for which it has taken 50 years to build public trust.”

An important thing to remember is that this vote by the CDC is in no way legislative, and individual states retain the power to dictate childhood vaccine requirements. Officially, the CDC has no enforcing power over childhood vaccine requirements, but their official recommendation certainly carries significant weight. We saw it most during COVID when the CDC’s policy recommendations, while in no way locally legislative or enforceable, were generally accepted without second thought by state officials who DID have the power to enforce them. So while the CDC wasn’t the one officially making the rules, they still kind of were, because their recommendations were as good as law. Of this phenomenon, Makary told Fox News,

“We saw the same thing with school policy. The CDC argued they did not close schools, they just sent out the guidance. But local authorities will often blindly follow whatever the CDC does and if the CDC is truly putting this on the vaccination schedule as they just voted to do, this will be the first-ever vaccine where there is no evidence to show a reduction in disease in the community.

Right now, parents are asking where is the clinical data to support this vaccine in young healthy children. For the new omicron vaccine, which is the current vaccine that is being recommended, the human trials were never made public. Instead, Pfizer and Moderna gave a top-line announcement in a press release, the underlying data is top secret.”

He went as far as to say of CDC Director Walensky, FDA Commissioner Califf, and White House COVID Response Coordinator Jha,

“Shame on them. That data should be public information. Why is it top secret? We believe it’s because it’s similar to the baby vaccine data, which was not favorable, it showed no clinical benefit. So, 94% of Americans have said no to this new omicron vaccine because the clinical trial data is not public.”

Before this vote, Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel brought up the fact that the COVID vaccine is unable to prevent spread of infection like other vaccines currently on the recommended childhood vaccine schedule.

“Nobody questions a hepatitis vaccine or measles, mumps, rubella vaccine for school, because it really prevents spread. The rub with this vaccine — it doesn’t prevent spread.”

And that’s a shame because subsequent vaccine hesitancy will undermine vaccines that are actually vaccines and not simply lucrative therapeutics, like the COVID-19 vaccines. Will we see a spike in truly preventable diseases due to parents not trusting effective vaccines after the government cheapened the meaning of the word “vaccine” and poisoned public trust in the health and science community?