Facebook Censors ‘Non-Specific Effects’ of mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines in Children

Do COVID-19 Vaccines Weaken Children’s Immune Systems?

On September 5, I published a Facebook post consisting of a link to an article by journalist Maryanne Demasi titled “New research shows mRNA jabs could weaken immune responses”. I accompanied the link with the following quote from the article:

In the US where they are still vaccinating young children, they should immediately do a randomised study with mRNA vaccines and investigate whether the reduced effect on cytokines translates into poorer clinical outcomes.

Those were the words of Dr. Christine Stabell Benn, a leading expert in the field of “non-specific effects” of vaccines.

The term “non-specific effects” refers to unanticipated effects of a vaccine that can either be beneficial or detrimental. An example of a detrimental non-specific effect is the finding from studies that the diphtheria, tetanus, and whole-cell pertussis (DTP) vaccine is associated with an increased rate of childhood mortality.

As Dr. Stabell Benn and colleagues explained in a study published in January 2017 in the Lancet journal eBioMedicine:

It should be of concern that the effect of routine vaccinations on all-cause mortality was not tested in randomized trials. All currently available evidence suggests that DTP vaccine may kill more children from other causes than it saves from diphtheria, tetanus or pertussis. Though a vaccine protects children against the target disease it may simultaneously increase susceptibility to unrelated infections.

Dr. Stabell Benn was not involved in the new study reported by Demasi, which was published in Frontiers in Immunology on August 25, 2023, and is titled “BNT162b2 COVID-19 vaccination in children alters cytokine responses to heterologous pathogens and Toll-like receptor agonists”.

Commenting about the new study’s findings, Dr. Stabell Benn told Demasi:

We now have two immunological studies that suggest the mRNA vaccines could suppress your ability to respond to other viruses, at least for a period of time, and it warrants urgent investigation. Especially in children, because we are talking about a population at very low risk of severe COVID‑19 disease.

The earlier study Dr. Stabell Benn is referring to is a preprint study published at medRxiv in May 2021, which found that Pfizer’s mRNA COVID‑19 vaccine “induces complex functional reprogramming of innate immune responses”.

As Demasi summarized, “The two studies are small, and the clinical outcomes were not assessed, so researchers cannot prove that mRNA vaccines increase a person’s susceptibility to ‘non-specific’ infections in the real world.”

Having read both of those studies, I found Demasi’s article to be an excellent summary that does a great job of accurately explaining the significance of the new study’s findings to readers, so I shared it on my social media.

Facebook, however, has now censored my post on the false grounds that Demasi’s article contains “False information”.

Distinguishing Between Accurate and Inaccurate Reporting about the New Study

I first learned of the new study from a Twitter post from Dr. Stabell Benn on August 30 in which she described the recent study as the first to look at “the immunological non-specific effects in children” of mRNA COVID‑19 vaccines.

I also saw a Substack article published by Igor Chudov on August 29 and titled “Pfizer’s COVID Vaccine Causes VAIDS in Children, Study Proves”. Chudov claimed that the study was “scientific confirmation that vaccination against COVID‑19 causes a marked decrease in immunity to heterologous pathogens such as viruses, bacteria, and fungi.” “VAIDS”, Chudov explained, is an acronym for “Vaccine-Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome”, which is a term used by some to colloquially refer to “decreased immunity to other pathogens”. It’s not a term used in the medical literature. (The bold and italic emphases are Chudov’s.)

Having already read the study for myself, I opted not to share Chudov’s article on my social media because the study’s findings only indicate possible immune suppression in children as a result of vaccination. As stated in the study, “There are currently no data on the clinical effects of COVID‑19 vaccination-related heterologous effects in children.”

In other words, we do not know what effect the altered cytokine responses have in terms of vaccinated children’s protection against other pathogens besides SARS‑CoV‑2. Further studies are urgently required to determine that.

A saw a second Substack article about the new study published by journalist Alex Berenson on August 30 and titled “VERY URGENT: The mRNA Covid jabs damage immune responses to other viruses in children, a new study finds”. Berenson notes that while the study authors did not themselves conclude that their findings indicate a detrimental effect of vaccination in children, several physicians who reviewed the study told him that they found the findings troubling.

Berenson quotes one anonymous physician saying:

My read on this paper is that it [mRNA vaccination] may in fact cause not just a short-term vulnerability to bacterial and viral infection in children, but it might cause a long-term immune deficiency. . . . Just see how the authors sidestep their own findings. The authors won’t even bluntly state that it appears that the mRNA shot caused a persistent immune deficiency in children.

I didn’t share Berenson’s article to my social media, either, for the same reason that the conclusion stated in his headline goes beyond the evidence presented in the study.

I had in mind to write an article of my own about the study, but then I saw Maryanne Demasi’s August 31 Substack article and decided there was no need since Demasi had done an excellent job. So, I just shared Demasi’s article to my social media.

But now I have been notified by Facebook that I have been penalized with a notice covering my post that claims the article was “Checked by independent fact-checkers” and determined to contain “False information”.

The overlay that Facebook placed on my post discouraging people from clicking the link to read Demasi’s article has a button to “See why” it was rated “False”. Clicking it opens a window saying that “Independent fact-checkers say this information has no basis in fact.”

It is only after reading the statement claiming that Demasi’s article has been “fact-checked” and determined to contain “False information” that a user can then opt to click a “See post” button to view the supposedly fact-checked content.

Facebook’s “Fact Check” Article Confirms the Accuracy of My Post

The Health Feedback article cited by Facebook as the basis for flagging my post was published on September 11 and is titled “Study didn’t show COVID-19 vaccines weaken children’s immune response, contrary to claim by Alex Berenson”.

If you click the link and read that “fact check” article, you can see how Facebook is misinforming its users about the content of my post.

Facebook claims that Health Feedback fact checked Demasi’s article, but that is untrue. Her article is not among the sources identified as having incorrectly reporting the study’s findings, and unlike those other sources, she accurately reported that the study finding could indicate a detrimental non-specific effect of mRNA COVID‑19 vaccines in children.

Ironically, the “fact check” article confirms the accuracy of Demasi’s reporting.

Health Feedback notes that the study found that “SARS-CoV‑2 mRNA vaccination decreases inflammatory cytokine responses . . . to heterologous bacterial, fungal and viral re-stimulation.” The study authors acknowledged that this finding could mean that the mRNA COVID‑19 vaccines weaken immune responses to other pathogens by telling Health Feedback, “We did not investigate the clinical consequence of these changes, which could just as easily be beneficial (e.g., by reducing harmful inflammation) as undesirable.”

Another way to say the same thing is that the decreased cytokine responses could just as easily be detrimental as beneficial. As Health Feedback put it, the finding “doesn’t necessarily translate into reduced protection against infection” (emphasis added), which is an acknowledgment that it could translate into weakened immunity.

Hence, the penalization of my post for sharing Demasi’s article along with the quote from Dr. Stabell Benn illustrates how Facebook censors factually accurate information. Facebook is itself guilty in this case of spreading misinformation by falsely claiming that Demasi’s article was “fact-checked” when it was not, and by falsely claiming that it contains the same false information when the very “fact check” article it cites confirms the accuracy of her reporting.

Disputing Facebook’s Ruling on My Factually Accurate Post

In addition to sharing the now-censored post to my page, I shared it to a private group, and I recently received a notification that it has been flagged as “False”. The notification to me as the group administrator states that this can result in a reduction in the distribution of posts to the group, and it suggests that I can avoid such penalization if I delete the post.

I’m not willing to do that since the post doesn’t contain misinformation. Clicking the accompanying “Take action” button revealed two options: “Delete post”, which it says is what “Most people do”, or “Disagree with decision”. Clicking to disagree presented me with several options to choose the reason for my dispute:

• “I corrected the information that was checked”
• “My post does not include this false information”
• “I think the notice is too harsh”
• “I think the fact-check got something wrong”
• “Something else”

I opted for the second option since my post does not include the same inaccurate reporting as the authors of the content criticized by Health Feedback.

Clicking “Continue”, I receive a notification that “Facebook will receive your feedback.” There is no indication that there will be any review of my post, much less that I will have an opportunity to explain to Facebook how they got it wrong and are themselves misinforming users and penalizing me on a false pretext.

There is no similar option for me to disagree with Facebook’s decision directly from the post on my page (as opposed to my identical post to the group), but I found the option by navigating to the “Settings” area for my page, clicking “New Pages Experience”, and selecting the “Page Quality” option from the menu.

Clicking to go to “Page Quality”, I am presented with a similar warning that Facebook can reduce my page’s distribution as a result of having shared Demasi’s article. This means that Facebook can manipulate its algorithm to suppress my page content by not presenting my posts to other users when its unmanipulated algorithm would otherwise show it to them.

How Facebook Denies Users a Legitimate Appeal Process

Clicking the “Take action” button, I selected the same option to notify that “My post does not include this false information”. Simply being given an option to merely “disagree” with Facebook, though, is not satisfactory to me, so I sought a further way to dispute Facebook’s faux “fact check” of my post.

Specifically, I looked for an option to notify Facebook of its mistake in a way that enabled me to explain precisely how Facebook had gotten it wrong, which is to say that I wanted to find out whether Facebook offered a legitimate appeal process or just makes users jump through hoops to create the illusory pretense of having such a process.

After clicking the button to “See why” my post was rated “False”, there is a link to “Learn more” about Facebook’s efforts to ostensibly “stop the spread of false information.” Clicking that brings you to a page about how Facebook is collaborating with so-called “independent fact-checkers” like Health Feedback. Near the bottom of that page, it provides this option:

Appeal a fact-checker’s rating on your content: Let fact-checkers know if you corrected the content they rated or you think a fact-check got something wrong about your content.

Clicking that link next brings you to a page where Facebook says you can request a review by either the “fact-check” partners or Meta, which is the company that owns Facebook. The first paragraph states,

Fact-checkers can only process appeals for content they directly rated.

Demasi’s article was not directly rated by Health Feedback, so that option is out for me. It next states,

Meta will process appeals for any content it has enforced due to the content being identical to what fact-checking partners have already debunked.

Of course, that is precisely Facebook’s error: Demasi’s article does not contain an identical claim as the one made by Berenson. The page tells me I have two options: I can issue a correction or dispute Facebook’s rating. It says,

To dispute a rating, you must clearly indicate why the original rating was inaccurate. Include a link to a source that supports your explanation for why a rating is inaccurate.

The page also states,

Make sure to include all relevant information in your appeal so fact-checkers or Meta can process your appeal and avoid delays. Meta will automatically reject appeals after 14 days if they have not been processed.

Providing “all relevant information” is precisely what I would like to do since that option was not available to me by going through the process of disputing Facebook’s rating from the “Page Quality” page.

So, wishing to proceed, I looked for instructions about how to do that. The page states,

To appeal fact-checked content you can use the in-product appeals feature and follow the guidelines below. The in-product appeals feature on Facebook and Instagram is available to everyone.

However, clicking the link to learn more about the “in-product appeals feature on Facebook” lands you on a page where Facebook self-contradictorily says,

To request a review of fact-checked content from a Page you’re the owner of, go to Page Quality.

Consequently, Facebook is on one hand saying that I need to provide “all relevant information” about why I think its “False information” rating is incorrect, including any links to sources that support my explanation, while on the other hand, the process it tells me to go through in order to submit my appeal offers me no option to provide that requested information.

This leads to a situation in which Facebook indicates that failing to provide a detailed explanation for why you are disputing its rating will lead to your appeal will be rejected, while at the same time Facebook has made it impossible for you to provide a detailed explanation.

The help article for submitting appeals says that I can check the status of my appeal by going to “Page Quality” in my page settings. At this time, there is nothing on that page indicating that I have disputed Facebook’s rating. There appears to be no way to check on the status of my appeal. I received no emails acknowledging submission of my appeal. The only “receipt” I have is the screenshot I took of the message that I “disagreed with the decision”.

At this point, there appears to be nothing further I can do but wait and check back later to see if Facebook is still saying my page “has some issues” because of my post being falsely flagged as containing misinformation.

I will provide an update if I receive any update from Facebook about the status of my post.

In the meantime, I encourage you to read Demasi’s excellent explanation of the study’s key finding so you can understand why Dr. Stabell Benn has called for immediate randomized studies to “investigate whether the reduced effect on cytokines translates into poorer clinical outcomes.”

Of course, we shouldn’t hold out any hope that such studies will be done since the pharmaceutical industry and the “public health” establishment have an incentive not to ask questions they don’t want to know the answers to.

The fact that the government has colluded with and pressured social media companies like Facebook and Twitter to censor factually accurate information that does not align with its policy goal of increasing vaccination rates is clear proof that “public health authorities” serve the pharmaceutical companies and not the public interest.