Let's start with a few points: I'm by no means an 'anti-vaxxer' on the COVID shots, having publicly explained why I got mine in the spring of 2021, having urged my family members to do the same. I don't regret any of it. Donald Trump is right that the vaccines saved many lives. I've also opposed coercive mandates, and have interviewed many medical professionals making the case that the shots weren't necessary for otherwise-healthy young people -- and in some cases, the risks outweighed the potential benefits. For that reason, in consultation with physicians, I have declined to get 'boosted,' even though doing so likely makes sense for older people and those with various enhanced risk factors. In short, I've done my best to follow the best actual science all along the way, emphasizing the importance of data and nuance, which was too often absent from our public debate and top-down directives.
Some of the most important, rational voices calling for nuance and opposing blanket mandates were demonized, censored, and threatened. This is a scandal:
@DrJBhattacharya is a scientist who remained true to the scientific method despite intense academic bullying from an elite medical establishment (if you've ever wondered who is the medical establishment, read this incredible article and it will be clear).
— Marty Makary MD, MPH (@MartyMakary) September 13, 2023
This may also be a huge scandal, depending on evidence. One of the aforementioned, brave, valuable voices is Dr. Marty Makary of Johns Hopkins, the author of the above tweet. On Friday, he joined my radio show and absolutely shocked me with his analysis of a new COVID vaccine that has been approved by the FDA and recommended for all Americans older than six months by the Biden administration:
Was truly floored by what @MartyMakary told me about the new Covid vaccines the administration is now recommending for all Americans over the age of six months. Floored. https://t.co/pHgyrj98pF
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) September 16, 2023
They are telling every American six months of age and older to get this new COVID vaccine, but they approved it based on almost no data. There’s no human clinical trial data. Pfizer submitted data on ten mice. And Moderna, which also got a new vaccine approved. This is not an additional booster. This is an entirely newly designed COVID vaccine. They want everyone to get even if you had COVID a few months ago. They don’t care. They’re pushing it hard. And the White House bought four times as many doses for children this round as they did last fall when they had that new Bivalent vaccine. So this is a big push now of the Moderna trial. It turns out if you actually look at the data returned, they did give it to 50 people back four months ago. One of them had an adverse event requiring medical attention. Moderna won’t tell us anything else about it...Caused by the vaccine...[On the Pfizer version], we have no zero human data. Only ten mice. Hey, look, they got away with it last time with the Bivalent. They know that the regulatory process to get this approved is totally greased. President Biden was out there saying that this thing works and everyone needs to get it before the FDA even, you know, approved it. So this thing was greased.
As Spencer highlighted last week, Makary wrote an op-ed detailing these points in the New York Post:
What if I told you one in 50 people who took a new medication had a “medically attended adverse event” and the manufacturer refused to disclose what exactly the complication was — would you take it? And what if the theoretical benefit was only transient, lasting about three months, after which your susceptibility goes back to baseline? And what if we told you the Food and Drug Administration cleared it without any human-outcomes data and European regulators are not universally recommending it as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is? That’s what we know about the new COVID vaccine the Biden administration is firmly recommending for every American 6 months old and up...
Pfizer’s version, approved this week as well, also has zero efficacy data and has not been tested on humans at all. We only have data about antibody production from 10 mice. The FDA, or Moderna (frankly, it’s hard to tell the difference sometimes), should disclose what happened to the patient who took the new vaccine and had a complication that required medical attention. The public has a right to know. The last time the Biden administration approved and recommended a novel COVID bivalent booster, last fall, with no human-outcomes data, it was an epic fail. Only 17% of Americans took it (and some of those were forced to do so by their employer or school). Not foreseeing such weak public support for the booster last year, the Biden administration had prepaid pharma $4.9 billion for 171 million doses — many of which were tossed in the wastebasket. Now it is making the same mistake.
In our exchange, he went on to say that "Moderna and Pfizer are basically watching the FDA, which is supposed to be a regulator, and the CDC become their marketing department." He added, "they’re out there promoting and pushing. And I mean, you listen to the language. It is so absolute and with such vigor, they’re recommending everyone stop what they’re doing, get this vaccine." He called the whole blitz so preposterous that regulators in other advanced nations are "laughing at us," noting that Biden's new CDC Director recently appeared "on The Today Show, saying the same thing -- that it is the best way to protect you against hospitalization and death, that it reduces the risk of long COVID, and it reduces transmission. All three, you have not one shred of medical evidence. It is misinformation." It's as if the American medical bureaucracy is actively working to destroy public trust. They're doing a pretty efficient job of it, too. Listen to the full interview here:
