EXCLUSIVE: Some Scientists, Journals Pose ‘Potential Threats to Vaccine Confidence’: CDC

CDC official who decried Epoch Times article on peer-reviewed paper admitted he did not know if research was ‘legitimate.’

Scientists and journals that conduct and publish specific research pose a problem for the federal government’s vaccination campaigns that should be addressed, according to newly reviewed emails from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Colin Bernatzky, a public health analyst with the CDC’s Immunization Services Division, highlighted a paper from scientists in the United States and several other countries that examined the effects of repeated COVID-19 vaccination in one of the missives.
Multiple doses of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines result in higher levels of antibodies called IgG4, making the immune system more susceptible, according to Vladimir Uversky, a molecular medicine expert in Florida, and his co-authors.

“The COVID-19 epidemiological studies cited in our work, as well as the failure of HIV, Malaria, and Pertussis vaccines, constitute irrefutable evidence demonstrating that an increase in IgG4 levels impairs immune responses,” one of the co-authors, Alberto Rubio Casillas, told The Epoch Times.
Vaccines published the paper after peer review.

Mr. Bernatzky took issue with the paper and the Epoch Times’ coverage of it, despite admitting that he was skeptical of its veracity.

“At the very least, it appears that there is some editorial rashness going on, especially since the end result is that this research is being regarded as legitimate and is widely circulated.” (And, if the research is genuine, it should be on the CDC’s radar),” he wrote.

Mr. Bernatzky followed up about a week later, on July 7, with more information on what he called “potential threats to vaccine confidence posed by select scientific journals and publishers.”

Mr. Bernatzky said the paper by Mr. Uversky and Mr. Casillas “has been accumulating a massive amount of attention,” with a high attention score that was “undoubtedly driven” primarily by the Epoch Times article.

“Unfortunately, the Uversky paper is part of a wider pattern of academic journals conferring legitimacy to anti-vaccine claims through their willingness to publish low-quality work (e.g., reviews with lots of conjecture rather than original research) as well as their apparant reluctance to issue retractions or disclaimers when these issues are called to their attention,” he said.

According to the CDC official, the paper was cited by Massachusetts Institute of Technology research scientist Stephanie Seneff and her co-authors in response to criticism of a paper they wrote outlining concerns about how vaccines affect the immune system.
The paper’s author list “turns out to be… a squad of vaccine skeptics that includes Peter McCullough,” Mr. Bernatzky said, referring to a U.S.-based cardiologist who has expressed concerns about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines, and “with a track record for promoting ideas about autism, vaccines, Roundup, etc.”

Mr. Bernatzky suggested addressing the “systemic issues” with certain scientists and publishers, describing the situation as “complicated.” He noted that The Lancet published a new paper by Dr. McCullough as a preprint but quickly removed it, sparking criticism.

According to other emails obtained by The Epoch Times, the email was widely distributed within the CDC, with officials focusing on the paper by Mr. Uversky and Mr. Casillas and its conclusions.

“Apparently it’s gone viral,” Sarah Meyer, another CDC official, said as she passed the email along to a colleague. She also stated that she had forwarded her concerns to the CDC’s Coronavirus and Other Respiratory Viruses Division.

The email was forwarded by Karen Broder, a colleague, to Drs. Tom Shimabukuro and John Su, two top CDC vaccine safety officials.
Mr. Bernatzky and other CDC officials did not respond to inquiries. A spokesman for the CDC declined to comment.

Mr. Bernatzky, who has a sociology degree, has written that the “anti-vaccine movement is arguably one of the more concerning social movements to have surfaced during the first two decades of the current century.” He also claims that support for former President Donald Trump is associated with “hate material.”
In its quasi-journal, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the CDC regularly publishes and promotes papers that have not been peer-reviewed. Officials used those papers on multiple occasions to craft guidance to the public on COVID-19 vaccine safety, according to the full set of emails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
The CDC’s targeted journals, Vaccines and Food and Chemical Toxicology, did not respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Casillas of Mexico’s Autlan Regional Hospital told The Epoch Times in an email that the CDC never contacted him and that the paper he helped write “must be read and interpreted for what it is: a hypothesis.”

“We developed a series of hypotheses about the possible consequences of a high concentration of IgG4 antibodies induced by repeated mRNA vaccination in our work.” It is critical that health professionals and the general public understand that we never stated categorically that, for example, such antibodies cause cancer. “If you read our work, you will notice that we used words that denote the nature of a hypothesis throughout the article,” he said.
Mr. Casillas argued that the CDC’s criticism was unjustified.

“Every one of our proposals is based on prior research.” They must be tested in order to be confirmed or refuted. It is the only way for science to progress toward safer vaccines. “We are aware that we may be wrong, but we refuse to accept that our work is being criticized solely on the basis of our opinions,” he wrote.

The paper by Mr. Casillas and the rest of his co-authors was “a very thorough review that reveals the complexity in the immune system’s reaction to antigenic exposures, and examines the potential adverse consequences of the experimentally observed high levels of IgG4 antibodies induced by repeated vaccination with the SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines.”

She stated that her opinion on the IgG4 antibody research is that the antibodies are not protective and block other, protective antibodies. She also believes that high levels of IgG4 antibodies are linked to serious problems, such as severe autoimmune disease.

“This paper is seminal, and it is not surprising that it has gone viral, due to its deep analysis of the significance of elevated IgG4 following mRNA booster shots,” Ms. Seneff wrote in an email to The Epoch Times. “I doubt that the mainstream position that these vaccines are safe and effective can survive much longer, even as they continue with aggressive efforts to retract the comprehensive review papers that reveal the true colors of these experimental therapies.”

Dr. McCullough told The Epoch Times via email that the CDC and other health agencies would benefit more from open meetings “instead of emailing gossip between each other.”

If the meetings were to occur, he said, government officials “can hear directly from the nation’s experts who learned how to treat acute ambulatory COVID-19 and who are now handling the tsunami of patients with COVID-19 vaccine injuries, disabilities, and deaths.”