Corporate Media Misleads the Public About the Polio Vaccine to Discredit RFK Jr.

Their attacks omit the irresponsible 3-day safety follow-up period upon which the current polio vaccines (IPOL) are licensed.

by Nicolas Hulscher, MPH

A Google search for 'RFK' reveals a new coordinated campaign by corporate media, leveraging fears of 'revoking polio vaccine approval.':

They source their claim from a 2022 Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) petition submitted by Aaron Siri (Kennedy’s lawyer) that calls for the FDA to revoke the approval of the IPOL polio vaccine for infants and children until a proper clinical trial is conducted. ICAN has responded to these attacks:

The petition highlights significant safety concerns about IPOL’s licensure process in 1990, which relied on trials reviewing safety for only three days post-injection—a standard that falls far short of federal requirements for vaccine approval. Contrary to public perception, IPOL is not the same vaccine developed by Jonas Salk or Albert Sabin. Instead, it is produced using new technology, including virus growth on modified monkey kidney cells, which behave similarly to cancer cells.

ICAN’s petition is a reasonable request to ensure that vaccines administered to children meet rigorous safety standards. With childhood chronic diseases increasing from 13% in the 1980s to over 50% today—many of which are immune-related—ensuring the safety of vaccines is more important than ever. Instead of addressing these legitimate safety concerns, the NYT article uses fear-based anecdotes, such as a 2022 case of vaccine-derived polio paralysis, while omitting critical context: the last wild polio case in the United States was in 1979. Moreover, according to the CDC, while inactivated polio vaccines like IPOL prevent disease symptoms, they do not stop transmission of the virus.

ICAN’s response is factual and thoroughly debunks the corporate media onslaught. A 3-day follow-up period with no placebo group as the basis for approval is gravely concerning and should most definitely be addressed with proper long-term, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials. You can see the irresponsibly short follow-up period for yourself in the IPOL package insert:

The IPOL package insert further reveals that “deaths have been reported in temporal association with the administration of IPV” and that the following adverse events were identified post-approval:

• Blood and lymphatic system disorders: lymphadenopathy

• General disorders and administration site conditions: agitation, injection site reaction including injection site rash and mass

• Immune system disorders: type I hypersensitivity including allergic reaction, anaphylactic reaction, and anaphylactic shock

• Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders: arthralgia, myalgia

• Nervous system disorders: convulsion, febrile convulsion, headache, paresthesia, somnolence, syncope

• Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders: rash, urticaria

Many corporate media narratives reference the July 2022 U.S. polio case—the first poliomyelitis case in three decades following its eradication—as a focal point for their attacks. However, Rai et al revealed that the viral sequence detected in this case was identified as vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (VDPV2), indicating its origin from the live attenuated oral polio vaccine (OPV). The study also found the following:

Wild poliovirus was eradicated from the USA 30 years ago and since then no case has been detected originally as a wild virus from USA citizens according to CDC.

Since late 1979, no case of wild-type poliomyelitis was detected in the USA and until the year 1999, only 162 cases were identified with a rate of 6 cases per year. Most of the mentioned cases (95%) in that era were vaccine-associated paralytic poliomyelitis (VAPP) derived from the Sabin strain found in the oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV).

Calling for a proper safety study of a vaccine administered to children four times (at 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, and 4 years of age) should not provoke alarm but should instead be praised. Being pro-vaccine safety appears to be incomprehensible to Big Pharma and corporate media, likely because it will hurt their profit margins.

Nicolas Hulscher, MPH

Epidemiologist and Foundation Administrator, McCullough Foundation

www.mcculloughfnd.org

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