The CDC’s Criminal Recommendation for a Flu Shot During Pregnancy

Introduction

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there’s “a lot of evidence” that getting a flu shot is safe for pregnant women and their developing babies. The agency strongly encourages the practice by saying that it’s “very important for pregnant women to get the flu shot.”[1]

Yet, as we saw in part one of this series, the CDC began recommending the influenza vaccine to pregnant women during any trimester despite no randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials having been done to determine whether this is safe. To support its recommendation, the CDC instead relies on retrospective observational studies.

We also saw in part three how the CDC’s own researchers have stressed that the type of study that would be required to determine with reasonable certainty whether or not there is a causal association between influenza vaccination and serious adverse events is the randomized placebo-controlled trial. Yet because public health officials have already made up their mind about what they think is best for us and vaccination has become routine and standardized, they regard it as “unethical” to conduct such trials now! The rationale for this is that it wouldn’t be right to deny subjects the benefits of the vaccine, which is the logical fallacy of begging the question (presuming the proposition to be proven in the premise, or the petitio principii fallacy).

While no study is methodologically perfect, the randomized controlled trial is the gold standard for safety studies precisely because other study designs aren’t as well able to control for all the innumerable variables that might enter into the equation.

Retrospective observational studies have their use for testing hypotheses in situations where scientists just aren’t able to control for variables, but such studies can only help determine whether there might be an association between a medical intervention and hypothesized adverse outcomes; they can’t prove or disprove causation. There are too many variables that would need to be controlled in order to do that to any reasonable degree of certainty.

Furthermore, while such studies can offer guidance for the direction of further research, they aren’t very useful for detecting rare unforeseen harms. They don’t well enable researchers to detect harms that they aren’t looking for.

An observational study finding an association between vaccination and an adverse outcome does not prove that the factor caused the outcome. Likewise, a finding of no association does not prove that a causal relationship does not exist. Due to the inability to control variables, observational studies are prone to selection biases that can render their findings invalid.

We’ve already seen an example of this in part two, with the selection bias inherent in the studies that the CDC has relied upon to support its claim that the influenza vaccine greatly reduces mortality among the elderly. The “healthy user” bias in these studies is an example of a failure to control for a certain variable—in this case, the difference in vaccination rates between elderly people who are in relatively good health compared to those who are frail and more likely to die soon. (It wasn’t that the vaccinated were less likely to die during a given flu season, but that those who are more likely to die are less likely to get a flu shot.)

As we saw in part one, when Aaron E. Carroll in the New York Times advocated the CDC’s flu shot recommendations, he was telling pregnant women, too, to get vaccinated. He was, in other words, parroting the CDC’s implicit message that we can trust that observational studies are methodologically robust enough to rule out the possibility, with a high degree of confidence, that vaccination could cause harm to the expectant mother or her child.

Yet just a few months earlier, Carroll had reassured the public that observational studies finding a link between alcohol consumption and cancer aren’t determinative and suggested that more randomized controlled trials are needed to establish what harms and benefits are associated with drinking! As he advised Times readers in that case, “Don’t give too much weight to observational data.”[2]

So why should we treat the findings of observational studies with healthy skepticism when it comes to the risks of drinking alcohol, but accept their findings as determinative when it comes to the risks of vaccinating pregnant women? Why should we forego our skepticism when it comes to the lives and health of entire future generations of children?

Just as this type of study can’t establish causation for an observed association, neither can they establish a lack of a causal association between vaccination and possible long-term harms. They aren’t designed to.

Carroll’s credulous acceptance of the observational studies that the CDC relies upon to support its claims is another good example of the kind of institutionalized cognitive dissonance that exists when it comes to the practice of vaccination. It has become a religion, and we are supposed to believe in the safety and effectiveness of vaccines as a matter of faith.

As another example of the logical inconsistency, in the same Times article reassuring readers that they can continue enjoying alcohol in moderation without worrying that it’s going to cause cancer, Carroll offered us the additional lesson: “Don’t cherry-pick. That is, don’t focus only on some studies, or only some results. Review all the evidence for the most holistic picture possible. . . . Acknowledge the harms, as well as the benefits, of recommendations.”[3]

Yet when it comes to vaccines, we are told by the government and media that the science is settled and that there’s nothing for us to question. We are dogmatically told that “vaccines are safe and effective”, and anyone who dares to criticize or dissent from public vaccine policy is derogatorily labeled an “anti-vaxxer”, their legitimate concerns mockingly dismissed instead of substantively addressed. Within the narrow confines of the mainstream discourse, to dare to question the wisdom of government policies with respect to vaccination is practically equivalent to committing heresy.

When it comes to vaccines, we are not supposed to concern ourselves with the methodological weaknesses of the kinds of studies the CDC relies on to support its flu shot recommendation for pregnant women. We are not supposed to notice that the CDC’s statement that “there’s a lot of evidence” that it’s safe to vaccinate pregnant women also implies that there’s at least some evidence that it is not.

And this careful wording of the CDC’s statement is understandable, given the fact that the agency’s own researchers have found an association between vaccination of pregnant women and a significantly increased risk of miscarriage.

This is the fourth installment of a multi-part exposé demonstrating how the government and media routinely and systematically deceive the public about the safety and effectiveness of the influenza vaccine. In this installment, you will learn:

• How the CDC’s own researchers have found that repeated annual vaccination of pregnant women may increase their risk of miscarriage;
• How if pharmaceutical companies made the same claims that the CDC makes about the safety of vaccinating pregnant women, they could be sued for fraud;
• How the CDC grossly mischaracterizes the findings of studies it cites to support its recommendation that pregnant women get a flu shot;
• How the CDC places the goal of maintaining or increasing vaccination rates above the goal of bettering public health;
• How the CDC deliberately misinforms the public about the toxicity of thimerosal, the mercury-based preservative that’s used in some flu shots;
• How, until thimerosal’s removal from most vaccines in the early 2000s, the CDC’­s routine childhood vaccine schedule was exposing children to cumulative levels of mercury that exceeded the government’s own safety guidelines;
• How the CDC maintains that the type of mercury used in vaccines passes through the body harmlessly despite its own cited sources acknowledging that it is a known neurotoxin that can be transported across both the placental and blood-brain barriers and accumulate in the brain;
• How the CDC claims that science has proven that vaccines do not cause autism despite the biological plausibility of the hypothesis that vaccines can cause autism in subpopulations of genetically susceptible individuals and the absence of studies properly designed to actually test that hypothesis;
• How the only study designed to investigate whether getting a flu shot during pregnancy might increase the risk of having a child with autism did find an association, and why the statistical method the study authors used to make that association disappear was invalid.
• How studies have established that activation of the maternal immune system during pregnancy and the resulting inflammatory response is a risk factor for the development of autism in offspring.
• How, when it comes to vaccines, the mainstream corporate media refuse to serve the public by doing journalism and instead dutifully serve the state by colluding with the government to keep the public misinformed about what the science actually says about vaccine safety and effectiveness.

If you have not already, please be sure to read the first three installments of this series because they contain important contextual information that you will need in order to get the most benefit out of reading this fourth installment:

Part 1: Should You Get the Flu Shot Every Year? Don’t Ask the New York Times.

Part 2: How the CDC Uses Fear and Deception to Sell More Flu Vaccines.

Part 3: How You’re Being Lied to about the Risks of Getting a Flu Vaccine Annually

I am presenting the information in this third part of the series on the assumption that you already have the knowledge provided in the first three essays. So with that understood, let’s proceed.