Vaccine misinformation

Vaccine misinformation circulates in mass media and social media. Intentional spreading of false information and conspiracy theories have also been propagated by the general public and celebrities. Misinformation related to vaccination fuels vaccine hesitancy and thereby results in disease outbreaks. Although opposition to vaccination has existed for centuries, the internet and social media have recently facilitated the spread of vaccine-related misinformation. Unsubstantiated safety concerns related to vaccines are often presented on the internet as scientific information.

Examples

 * The eight top Pfizer and Moderna shareholders made over $10 billion last week when their stock holdings skyrocketed after the discovery of the new Omicron variant. This comes as global public health advocates warn the world will keep seeing more coronavirus variants unless wealthy nations and vaccine manufacturers do more to address vaccine inequity. “The companies that make the most are doing the least to share their technology,” says Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now U.K., which is documenting Big Pharma’s profits. “The priority is making enormous amounts of money for some of the richest people in the world.”
 * As World Confronts Omicron Variant, Top 8 Pfizer & Moderna Investors Make $10 Billion in a Week, Democracy Now!, (7 December 2021)


 * Mainstream publications and regulatory agencies have buckled to public pressure to admit the COVID-19 vaccine can cause injuries such as myocarditis and pericarditis—but until recently, they've published little or nothing about the substantial number of people suffering from autoimmune disease after vaccination. However, on July 3, the journal Science published an article confirming that COVID-19 vaccines are linked to autoimmune disorders, such as small fiber neuropathy and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS).
 * Brenda Baletti, After Long Silence on ‘Long Vax,’ Science Magazine Links Autoimmune Disorders to COVID Shots, 18 July 2023.


 * I have expressed my opinion publicly as to the precautions against the spread of so-called infectious and contagious diseases in the following words: Rather than quarrel over vaccination, I recommend, if the law demand, that an individual submit to this process, that he obey the law, and then appeal to the gospel to save him from bad physical results. Whatever changes come to this century or to any epoch, we may safely submit to the providence of God, to common justice, to the maintenance of individual rights, and to governmental usages. This statement should be so interpreted as to apply, on the basis of Christian Science, to the reporting of a contagious case to the proper authorities when the law so requires. When Jesus was questioned concerning obedience to human law, he replied: 'Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's,' even while you render 'to God the things that are God's.
 * Mary Baker Eddy, The First Church of Christ Scientist and Miscellany (1917 ed.), p. 219-220.


 * I say, 'Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's.' We cannot force perfection on the world. Were vaccination of any avail, I should tremble for mankind; but, knowing it is not, and that the fear of catching smallpox is more dangerous than any material infection, I say: Where vaccination is compulsory, let your children be vaccinated, and see that your mind is in such a state that by your prayers vaccination will do the children no harm. So long as Christian Scientists obey the laws, I do not suppose their mental reservations will be thought to matter much. But every thought tells, and Christian Science will overthrow false knowledge in the end.
 * Mary Baker Eddy, The First Church of Christ Scientist and Miscellany (1917 ed.), p. 344-45.


 * The MMR vaccine has been linked to autism, Crohn's disease, inflammatory bowel disease and other serious chronic stomach problems, epilepsy, brain damage including meningitis, cerebral palsy, pancreatitis and diabetes mellitus, encephalopathy, encephalitis, hearing and vision problems, arthritis, behavioural and learning problems, chronic fatigue syndrome, diabetes, Guillain-Barre syndrome, idiopathic thrombocytopaenic purpura, subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE), leukaemia, multiple sclerosis, and death.
 * Graham E. Ewing, "What is regressive autism and why does it occur? Is it the consequence of multi-systemic dysfunction affecting the elimination of heavy metals and the ability to regulate neural temperature?" North American Journal of Medical Sciences July 2009, pp. 28-47


 * The process of vaccination consists in injecting into the skin the liquid that is obtained by applying the discharge from the body of a small-pox patient to the udder of a cow… Vaccination is a barbarous practice, and it is one of the most fatal of all the delusions current in our time, not to be found even among the so-called savage races of the world. Its supporters are not content with its adoption by those who have no objection to it, but seek to impose it with the aid of penal laws and rigorous punishments on all people alike. ...
 * Mahatma Gandhi A Guide to Health (1921) (Part II, Chapter VI Contageous Diseases: Small-Pox) Translated from the Hindi by A. Rama Iyer, M.A.  (full text multiple formats)


 * I cannot also help feeling that vaccination is a violation of the dictates of religion and morality. [Pg 108]The drinking of the blood of even dead animals is looked upon with horror even by habitual meat-eaters. Yet, what is vaccination but the taking in of the poisoned blood of an innocent living animal? Better far were it for God-fearing men that they should a thousand times become the victims of small-pox and even die a terrible death than that they should be guilty of such an act of sacrilege.
 * Mahatma Gandhi A Guide to Health (1921) (Part II, Chapter VI Contageous Diseases: Small-Pox) Translated from the Hindi by A. Rama Iyer, M.A.  (full text multiple formats)


 * I have no doubt in my mind that vaccination is a filthy process, that it is harmful in the end and that it is little short of taking beef.
 * Mahatma Gandhi chapter 01. Independence Pledge ( 1930 ),


 * I don't trust the vaccine. The whites don't like us. They want to kill us with vaccines in which they have slipped in illegal products.
 * Ramos Fears, suspicion cloud vaccine takeup in Cameroon (December 1, 2021)


 * Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn't feel good and changes - AUTISM. Many such cases!
 * Donald Trump, Twitter, 11:35 PM · Mar 28, 2014


 * I am totally in favor of vaccines. But I want smaller doses over a longer period of time. Same exact amount, but you take this little beautiful baby, and you pump--I mean, it looks just like it's meant for a horse, not for a child, and we've had so many instances, people that work for me. ... [in which] a child, a beautiful child went to have the vaccine, and came back and a week later had a tremendous fever, got very, very sick, now is autistic."
 * Donald Trump according to 30 of Donald Trump's wildest quotes said during the CNN GOP debate in September 2015

About

 * * Jose Maria Fernandez Sousa-Faro, president of European pharmaceuticals giant PharmaMar, has been charged by police with being falsely vaccinated against Covid-19. Dr. Sousa-Faro has been caught up in a scandal in Europe involving people being added to the National Immunization Registry in exchange for large sums of money, with many of them familiar faces and household names.
 * Baxter Dmitry, Police Charge Big Pharma Boss With Falsifying His Covid Vaccination Status, NewsPunch, 26 May 2022


 * "Vaccine scares" have existed ever since the first smallpox vaccine was developed. Religious beliefs and distrust in medicine dissuaded some from inoculations; others believed they violated their personal liberty. Legally mandating vaccines in the mid-19 century galvanized these objectors into anti-vaccine movements, members of which claimed the right to make their own decisions about their children's bodies and their own. The autism variant of these historical conspiracy theories started in 1998 with a report in a prestigious medical journal suggesting that 12 children developed autism shortly after they received the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine. But the findings were plagued with problems: The research of the lead scientist was funded by a lawyer suing a vaccine manufacturer, while the researcher himself held a patent for a new MMR vaccine. He altered the children's medical histories to boot. Since then, scores of medical research findings have invalidated the report, and the researcher's license was revoked.
 * Lior Brimberg,, “NBC News”, (January 4, 2021).


 * ADE figures must be presented in the context of the risk averted by vaccination, which in the overwhelming majority of cases is going to be much higher. During the COVID-19 pandemic, ADE was identified as a significant driver behind vaccine hesitancy, when in reality the least effective vaccines were quite significantly beneficial, even when accounting for ADE.
 * Chris von Csefalvay, on the overstated risk of antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) as part of the anti-vaccine rhetoric during COVID-19, "Modeling the control of infectious disease: Pharmacological and nonpharmacological interventions", Computational Modeling of Infectious Disease (2023).


 * If you are vaccine-hesitant, information that asserts that there is an association between vaccination and autism may stand out to you more readily than information about vaccines saving lives.
 * Melanie Doupé Gaiser, Ph.D., MPH, MA, It's Flu Season! What's Up with the Vaccine Controversy? (December 19, 2017).


 * Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ...is part of this campaign to attack the institutions committed to reducing the tragedy of preventable infectious diseases. He has helped to spread dangerous misinformation... and is complicit in sowing distrust of the science behind vaccines. ...[H]is and others’ work against vaccines is having heartbreaking consequences. ...[M]any people are more afraid of the vaccines than the diseases, because they've been lucky enough to have never seen the diseases and their devastating impact. But that’s not luck; it’s the result of concerted vaccination efforts over many years. ...Those who delay or refuse vaccinations, or encourage others to do so, put themselves and others, especially children, at risk. It is in all our interests to make sure that immunizations reach every child on the globe through safe, effective and affordable vaccines. Everyone must communicate the benefits and safety of vaccines, and advocate for the respect and confidence of the institutions which make them possible. To do otherwise risks even further erosion of one of public health’s greatest achievements.
 * ,, "RFK Jr. Is Our Brother and Uncle. He’s Tragically Wrong About Vaccines." (May 8, 2019) Politico Magazine.


 * Vaccine misinformation appears globally, it appears in all countries and cultures.
 * Matt Halprin, the global head of trust and safety at YouTube "YouTube to remove misinformation videos about all vaccines" (September 29, 2021).