Vaccine Disinformation Moves To Congress

 “War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”
―George Orwell, in 1984

“Anecdote is science.”

That silly notion can now be added to the Orwellian Newspeak Catechism thanks to those who prefer confirmation bias over empirical data to determine their “alternative facts.” This seems to include several  members of Congress.

The war on objective science recently spilled over to Congress where a group of anti-vaccine Congressmen and women and one Senator held an impromptu meeting to confirm their disinformation about so-called injuries caused by the COVID mRNA vaccines (note: the technology just won the Nobel Prize for Medicine). This was not a meeting called by a regular committee but an ad hoc gathering of some committed anti-vaccine rogues. It was held in a tiny back room in the Capitol and was poorly attended, poorly staffed, poorly equipped, and, thankfully, poorly publicized. It was described as a meeting of the “shadow Congress;” accurately named as it dabbled in the penumbra of truth.

Leading this November 13 meeting was Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R, Georgia). Greene, no stranger to fantasy, has previously claimed that Jewish space lasers caused recent wildfires in California, that the shootings in Parkland, Sandy Hook and Las Vegas were staged, and that 9/11 was an inside job. Because of these and other extremist reflections, the House sensibly stripped Greene of several committee assignments.

Others on the “committee” included Congressmen Clay Higgins (R, Louisiana), Thomas Massie (R, Kentucky), Warren Davidson (R, Ohio), and Andy Biggs (R, Arizona). Also attending was Senator Ron Johnson (R) from my own State of Wisconsin who has been a vaccine dissembler for a while, claiming, for instance, that the vaccines have killed many people. I recently contacted the Senator’s office and asked why he believed that. They quickly responded and sent me to a web site that was very professional looking and had very many graphs and tables claiming to show that the vaccines caused hundreds of thousands of deaths. The problem is that the data they used to put said graphs and tables together were bogus. The statistics were fraudulent (for example to test the site, an MD submitted a claim saying that the vax turned him into the Incredible Hulk. His claim was accepted!). Anti-vaccine crusaders with radio and blog platforms have urged their audiences to post false information on the site, and the website itself had been debunked numerous times by the investigative press and in science journals for incorrectly reporting the data. I pointed this out to Sen. Johnson’s office and never heard back, in contrast to their earlier quick response. Go figure.

Back to the Shadow Congress Committee meeting: Three people testified: A lawyer, an obstetrician-gynecologist, and a scientist. A summary of the testimony of each, with my comments follows.  

The lawyer. Forty-six-year-old Thomas Renz, went first. He passed the Ohio bar exam in 2019 after five tries and since has made a name for himself, along with the MyPillow guy, Mike Lindell and others, as a COVID conspiracy buff. Renz made three unsupported claims enumerated below: 

1. First, Renz declared without any evidence, that it is vaccinated people who are dying. However, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that in 2021, unvaccinated adults were 12 times more likely to be hospitalized and in 2022, that they were 6 times more likely to die after infection. Science shows that COVID vaccines have been estimated to have saved the lives of more than 3 million Americans. Renz’s says otherwise. Who are you going to believe, science or the lawyer, Renz?
2. The lawyer also claimed, again without proof (a lawyer without evidence?), that “COVID is not as bad as SARS or MERS but about as dangerous as a bad flu season.” Well. The first human coronavirus outbreak, SARS-1, was identified in Asia in February 2003. It infected a tad more than 8,000 people, killing ~800. By July 2003, the outbreak was contained without a vaccine. The second coronavirus outbreak, called MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome), appeared in June 2012, in Saudi Arabia. That virus infected >2,500 people, killed about 900 and also was contained in a short while without a vaccine. Compare those numbers to SARS-CoV-2, which so far has killed almost 2 million people in the United States and 7 million people in the world. And four years later it continues; it is not contained even though we have several vaccines. Except for the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed more than 50 million people worldwide (that was before flu vaccines) COVID is worse than any other flu in history and much worse than SARS or MERS. Renz’s lawyerly opinion is bunk. Why is he even testifying on a medical matter?
3. Renz saved the best for last. With the help of an “unnamed whistleblower,” Renz claimed, without proof, of course, that "something suspicious" happened in November 2014 at Fort Riley, Kansas, when the Department of Defense (DOD) and the CIA, in collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, created SARS-CoV-2 virus. Not in the Wuhan lab mind you, but in Kansas in 2014! To support his claim, Renz offered nothing! It was just his opinion. Renz also asserted that Tony Fauci, the CDC, FDA, and the DOD played a part in a massive cover-up of all this (so how in the world does HE know?). He unbelievably stated that Hunter Biden was also involved (why not?). Funny how the FBI hasn’t picked up on any of that. Renz knows because he says he does. Trust him, he’s a lawyer without evidence. But that is good enough for the Shadow Congress.
   

The Ob/Gyn. Next up was Kimberly Biss, MD, a well credentialed obstetrician and gynecologist practicing in Tampa Bay and St. Petersburg, Florida, which makes her testimony all-the-more-difficult to understand.

She claimed that after receiving COVID vaccines, an unspecified number of women in her practice suffered unsubstantiated menstrual cycle irregularities including severe, persistent bleeding. However, the only way to reliably determine whether COVID vaccines caused these  changes in menstruation is to compare the symptoms in women who got the vaccine to women who did not. She didn’t do this. Anecdotal observations like these offered by Biss usually don’t include both groups, which is why medical science considers anecdotes to be unreliable and instead rely on controlled clinical trials to base medical science opinions.

Furthermore, real scientific comparisons between vaccinated and unvaccinated women have been done but these were not entered into evidence at the Shadow Congress Hearing. A study of more than 1,100 women performed by the Boston School of Public Health found that there was no association between COVID-19 vaccination and cycle irregularity, bleed length, heaviness of bleed, or menstrual pain. So, which is more credible, Biss’s personal uncontrolled anecdote on an unknown number of patients whose medical history is unknown vs a controlled scientific study on over 1000 patients with carefully documented medical histories and compared to a comparable cohort of unvaccinated menstruating women?  

Biss further testified that in her practice miscarriage rates went up in vaccinated women, again without indicating the number of patients she saw and without providing any medical documentation. She again failed to note the miscarriage rates in unvaccinated women (why does she always leave out the data from unvaxed women?). Another scientific study of 40,000 pregnant women showed that vaccination was not at all associated with an increased risk of premature births. And other controlled studies have shown that COVID vaccination during pregnancy does not increase the risk of birth defects. Again, what would you believe, Biss’s anecdotes or several well controlled peer-reviewed and published science studies?

Biss continued her misleading anecdotal testimony by claiming that it was unsafe for vaccinated women to breastfeed because she "heard" it caused myocarditis in babies in Scotland. She failed to provide any substantiation for her wild claim that no one else seems to have heard. Not only has breastfeeding proven to be safe in women who have received COVID vaccines, newborn infants benefit from vaccine-induced antibodies in breast milk. This provides newborns with their initial protection against COVID as they develop their own immune system. That is a normal part of the maternal-fetal immune system that newborns immensely benefit from. That is basic immunology.  

Finally, and most outrageous was Biss’s stance on vaccinating children. She advised against vaccinating kids falsely claiming that only “three in one million children will die from COVID.” One wonders where she gets her facts like this and like those about myocarditis in breast fed babies in Scotland. As of January 2023, COVID was the leading cause of infectious disease deaths in children. Contrary to Biss’s claims, the COVID death rate for children less than one year of age was 43 per million. Hundreds of young children have died from COVID and many, many more have been hospitalized long term with the very serious condition called multisystem inflammatory syndrome, or MIS, which I have written about in these pages. COVID is much more serious than the flu for kids. None of those deaths or serious illnesses in kids are acceptable. Her claims to the contrary are simply irresponsible for a physician to make.

Finally, the scientist. Perhaps the silliest testimony in front of MTG’s “shadow” committee came from a scientist and physician named Robert Malone who recently has gone around claiming he “invented” the mRNA vaccine. He did not. In the late 1980s and early 90s, labs around the world were fixated with the idea of trying to express genes in cells via transferring DNA into cell cultures. The technique was called “transfection.” It promised to be a powerful tool for studying the function of genes in cells, but proved enormously difficult as I wrote about earlier. My own lab considered trying it, but discarded the idea in favor of another approach, viral-based gene transfer, which we often used to study gene function, and which some might call routine gain-of-function research as I also described earlier in these pages.

Meanwhile, Malone was a small part of the “transfection” bandwagon and in the late 80s published two papers showing it was possible to transfect fragile mRNA protected by a lipid micro-bubble into cells (most labs transfected DNA, which was easier to work with than mRNA). Undoubtedly, his research represented a stepping stone on the path to developing the vaccines, but he had no role in vaccine development. He was one of very many scientists who contributed incremental advances that ultimately made the vaccines possible. He is now way overselling his role. The technology that produced the mRNA COVID vaccines recently won a Nobel Prize and Malone was never mentioned in the invention. He is only a giant in his own mind.

More to the point, Malone testified that the vaccines are contaminated with fragments of DNA and dangerous. He argued, without evidence and contrary to all other science, that these DNA fragments alter cellular DNA of vaccine recipients, causing cancers, autoimmune diseases, and a variety of other disorders. For pregnant women, Malone further opined, again without a shred of proof and contrary to common science, that these DNA fragments could cross the placenta and cause birth defects. Furthermore, according to Malone, the FDA, the CIA, and other government agencies know about this DNA contamination but are covering it up (is Hunter involved in this too??). Again, he offered no evidence at all for this allegation. But, maybe we can excuse him, because there is no evidence to offer.

The idea that the vaccines are contaminated with DNA detritus is old news. All vaccines contain DNA of different sorts, which has never caused any harm as long as vaccines have been given. In fact it is biologically impossible that miniscule amounts of DNA detritus could mess up our cellular DNA. It is irresponsible, and scientifically ignorant of Malone to simply throw this out without elaborating. He didn’t elaborate because to do so would have ruined his “Frankenscience” innuendo that seemed to duly impress the scientifically naïve Shadow Congressional audience he spoke to.

The mRNA used in the vaccine is produced from a DNA strand. The DNA strand is then digested with an enzyme called DNase which chews up all DNA strands, leaving only the DNA building blocks, or remnants of it behind; DNA detritus. It is like taking a large building and demolishing it into its bricks. The large mRNA molecules are then easily biochemically separated from most of the DNA detritus. Even if there were miniscule traces of DNA detritus left over, it is biologically impossible for it to damage cellular DNA. It simply is recycled and reused by our cells. Our cells do that all the time.

But, maybe larger, intact DNA fragments could mess up our cellular DNA? We are exposed to large fragments of DNA all the time with no adverse effects. Consider the following two points: 1) we eat foreign DNA from plants and animals all the time and that DNA enters our blood stream in intact pieces much larger than the digested detritus we have been talking about. Yet, we are totally unaffected by this. 2) We also get vaccinated with whole DNA virus vaccines and have no concern that they affect our cellular DNA. Studies have shown that there is NO genotoxic effect of any of the vaccines.

Finally, consider the inherent conflict in Malone’s position. On the one hand he goes around promoting himself as the inventor of the vaccine technology. He even laments that he has not been given his due credit for the invention. Then he tries to discredit the same invention as something very dangerous and that should not be given to people because it causes enormous harm.

Which is it? Do we laud Malone as he would like for discovering a lifesaving vaccine, or pillory him for creating the dangerous vaccine he says it is? The man is as confused as his testimony.

This is what some of our Congress people spent their time doing last November. The Congressional Flake Caucus wasting their time and our money on a "hearing" without a single reputable testimony. At least it received the very little attention it deserved.

Last word. In an earlier post in these pages I asked the question if it was criminal to intentionally mislead people about lifesaving vaccines. That question is worth raising again, now.