ACIP Presentation on COVID Vaccines “Smoke and Mirrors, Designed to Cause Fear”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Defend Public Health called today’s attempt by officials under the direction of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. using this week’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meeting to cast doubt on the safety of COVID-19 vaccines a “smoke and mirrors” exercise designed to stir up needless fears of vaccines that have saved millions of lives.

Elizabeth Jacobs, Ph.D., Professor Emerita of Epidemiology from the University of Arizona and a member of DPH’s Coordinating Committee, pointed to questionable data and flawed interpretation by ACIP members that ran through the entire meeting. “This is all smoke and mirrors, designed to generate fear of COVID19 vaccines, with no actual evidence of harm,” she said. “The claim that the safety of these vaccines has not been adequately studied by the CDC is an egregious falsehood. The United States has at least eight separate but complementary vaccine safety surveillance systems that routinely evaluate safety and effectiveness. I have never personally witnessed more dangerous misinformation presented at a putative scientific meeting in my entire life. We need to recognize this for what it is, a frantic effort to justify their completely unnecessary restrictions on access to COVID vaccines, which have been rightly condemned.”

James Alwine, Ph.D., virologist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania and also a DPH Coordinating Committee member, was particularly critical of the discussion related to the SV40 virus, a tiny fragment of which has been used in the creation of some COVID vaccines. Alwine, who studied this virus extensively, said, “They tried to leave the impression that this tiny fragment caused a cancer risk, but with zero real biological or epidemiological evidence. This presentation insulted real scientists.”
 

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Defend Public Health is an all-volunteer network of public health researchers, healthcare workers, advocates and allies fighting to protect the health of all from the Trump administration's cruel attacks on proven, science-based public health policies. We believe that everyone has the right to what they need for a healthy life, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender or gender identity.
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