In 1976 the U.S. had a swine flu outbreak. Vaccine development was immediately started and Congress approved a liability exemption for the manufacturers at the request of President Gerald Ford. Then a mass vaccination campaign was kicked off. As Gerald Posner describes in his book Pharma – Greed, Lies and the Poisoning of America, it later turned out there never was any swine flu outbreak. Instead, one soldier in an army barracks in Texas caught a respiratory disease that killed him, but it was not a virus, but bacteria originating from contaminated water, a disease known as Legionella or Legionnaires’ disease. However, before the truth came out, over 40 million people had been vaccinated.
On October 12th 1976, the New York Times reported that the vaccination programme had been halted in nine states after three elderly patients had died following the flu shot. A direct link had not been established though.
On December 17th the programme was put on hold nationwide as 94 cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome were being investigated. Fifty-one of the patients had received the vaccine, the New York Times reported on December 17th 1976.
At that time, as no actual swine flu cases had yet been verified, the lack thereof contributed to the decision. However, as reported by the New York Times, this was not the main reason:
The decision to suspend the swine flu program was announced in Washington by Dr. Theodore Cooper, Assistant Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. Dr. Cooper said that he was acting “in the interests of safety of the public, in the interest of credibility, and in the interest of the practice of good medicine”.
Now to Iceland. In the winter of 2019-2020, around 70,000 people were vaccinated against influenza. Nine cases of adverse events were reported, none of them serious, the Icelandic Medicines Agency confirmed to me via email on November 1st 2021.
On January 12th 2022, when just under 290,000 people had been vaccinated against COVID-19 (out of a population of 370,000), 5,968 cases of adverse events had been reported. This is a massive 160-fold increase per million against the 2019 figures.
268 cases were classified as serious. 171 patients needed hospitalisation, and out of those, 38 cases were classified as life-threatening. 35 deaths had been reported. This compares to 39 deaths reported with Covid to date.
It is generally expected to have one to two cases of serious adverse events for every million vaccinated against influenza. The number of reported serious adverse events is thus 500 to 1,000 times higher per million among those vaccinated against Covid. We know of course, not all reported adverse events turn out to have been caused by the vaccine; in many cases a different cause can be established. We also know from previous research that many cases never get reported. I know of a few myself. But if we assume all those cases are due to the vaccination and there are none unreported, we have a 500-1,000 fold increase. If half of the cases can be shown to have other causes (assuming they were being investigated, which isn‘t the case) we would have a 250-500 fold increase. Even if 90% were due to other causes we would still have a 50-100 fold increase.
As we’ve seen, in 1976 it was about safety and good medicine. Remember, when they abandoned the vaccination programme they had vaccinated 40 million people and received a meagre 51 reports of Guillain-Barré syndrome in the vaccinated. That is one report in every 800,000 vaccinated. And those reports had not even been verified. But they stopped. This is what you do if you care about safety and good medicine.
Now, what were the Icelandic vaccination figures again? 260 reports of serious adverse evens per 290,000 vaccinated? That’s one report of a serious health issue per 1,000 people vaccinated. So we have 800 reports per 800,000 in 2021, against one per 800,000 in 1976 – an 800-fold increase. And remember, those vaccines are not only being offered to people who are in actual danger should they catch COVID-19. They are offered to everyone, down to the age of five – to people who have absolutely no need for them, and now even against a new strain, for which they don‘t even prevent infection, as has been demonstrated already. And the authorities use restrictions and mandates in order to force people to accept them.
Still, we‘ve known all along those vaccines are not designed to prevent infection, and it became clear months ago they will never give us herd immunity; they simply reduce the risk for vaccinated individuals of serious illness. We already know the huge difference in COVID-19 lethality by age-group.
So, what happened to safety and good medicine? Why are no questions being asked when we witness such a huge surge in reports of adverse events?
This is a question that will be asked after the panic subsides.
Thorsteinn Siglaugsson is an economist who lives in Iceland. This article was first published on his blog.
