On Keeping An Open Mind

The danger of replacing one orthodoxy with another.

The appeal of embracing an ideological schema is that it reduces the complexity, contradictions, paradoxes, exceptions, and mutability of the world into a complete, easy to comprehend package. The opposite of this—keeping an open mind to new data, ideas, and solutions to problems—requires considerable mental effort.

I thought of this a few weeks ago when I saw the reactions to Dr. McCullough’s May 31, 2024 essay, BREAKING Publication--Strategic Deactivation of mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines: New Applications for siRNA and RIBOTAC Therapy.

In spite of the fact that he explicitly called “for further research into siRNA and RIBOTAC applications as antidotes and detoxication products for mRNA vaccine technology,” several Substack commentators have characterized his essay as evidence that the author had been seduced by the Dark Side of the Force.

Research of Small Interfering RNA (siRNA) Therapy began after Andrew Fire and Craig Mello published their seminal paper on RNA interference in 1998. Since then, the FDA has approved agents such as patisiran, givosiran, lumasiran, inclisiran, nedosiran, and vutrisiran. for treating rare metabolic ailments.

Commentators who have asserted that Dr. McCullough has gone to the dark side should consider that he is a working physician who sees vaccine-injured patients every day. Thus, his life is a daily quest for therapies that could help these suffering people who are desperately seeking something—anything—to help them get better.

This being the case, it would be the height of folly and irresponsibility for him to dismiss out of hand an entire category of therapeutic research solely because it falls in the general category of gene therapy. As the paper’s authors explicitly state, the apparent promise of these therapies should be thoroughly researched.

This seems like an opportune moment to remind our readers that it was Dr. McCullough’s open mind that enabled him to spot the danger of COVID-19 vaccines long before any of his colleagues in major U.S. medical centers recognized this danger. His decision to speak out about this danger proved to be deadly to his academic medical career.

I would like to remind commentators within the Medical Freedom movement of the following timeline of Dr. McCullough’s public warnings about the danger of COVID-19 vaccines:

Aug. 17, 2020: Published op-ed in The Hill, characterizing Operation Warp Speed as "a great gamble."

March 10, 2021: Testified before Texas State Senate: “People under 50 who fundamentally have no health risks, there’s no scientific rationale for them to ever become vaccinated."

Dec. 13, 2021: Stated on The Joe Rogan Experience that—judging by VAERS data—it was increasingly clear that the COVID-19 vaccines are unsafe. "We’re at 18,000 deaths. And this is just the VAERS, which is underreported." 

NOTE: Dr. McCullough began making public statements about the disturbing VAERS data in mid 2021, when the CDC admitted that 6,207 deaths of people who’d received the COVID-19 vaccine were reported to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) up to July 26, 2021.

Dec. 7, 2022: Publicly called for COVID-19 vaccines to be taken off the market at Senator Ron Johnson hearing.