Dispatches from the Vaccine Wars

Prof Chris Shaw is a Canadian neuroscientist, some of whose research has involved the neurotoxicity of aluminium, particularly in vaccine adjuvants, bringing him right into the fray of controversy. This trenchant, well-informed and comprehensive book analyses the history of financialisation, politicisation and polarisation of vaccinology, a field that has reached an acute and critical phase over the last three years where the stakes have been raised immeasurably. Shaw describes the whole picture and the way in which narratives have been shaped and delivered to the public, recently fuelled by psychological manipulation through fear. The book begins with an introduction and overview, moving on to vaccination history, theory and practice, the official view of health consequences, more sceptical views on vaccine safety, then neurotoxic effects of mercury and aluminium. Pro-vaccine thought leaders are described, followed by resistance to vaccine policies, then characteristics of vaccines as an ideology and religion, with consequent vicious attacks on deviants and critics. Shaw then describes the symbiotic relationship between the media, the medical establishment, the WHO, Bill Gates, the WEF and the pharmaceutical cartel. The final chapters consider the trajectory of Covid research and policy within the context of permanent states of exception/emergency expressed in war language, and the growing merger between vaccine resistance and resistance to corporate control embodied in The Great Reset.

Narrative control was and is crucial in the public domain where vaccines are touted as uniformly safe and effective on the basis of ‘settled science’ that cannot and should not be questioned. This characterisation is analysed in an original chapter on vaccine ideology and religion. Vaccinology as a scientific discipline should be subject to core scientific principles ‘of observation, hypothesis generation, experimentation, data analysis, and interpretation of results based on other research in the field.’ (p. 271) Structurally though, Shaw argues that it has come to resemble a cult or belief system with orthodoxy firmly upheld and heresy clamped down upon, as became clear to him with the reception of his research on aluminium adjuvants. Vaccine fundamentalism ‘can tolerate no deviation from the true faith’ where medicine has become a secularised religion. In his 2018 book entitled Ideological Constructs of Vaccination, Dr Mateja Cernic writes that ‘simply put, one does not question vaccination. Ever, in any way whatsoever. If one does question it, one is sanctioned and expelled immediately. Questioning vaccination is the greatest sin, the greatest taboo in modern medicine.’ (p. 280) As we have witnessed since 2020, medical apostates – however distinguished their prior track record – are repudiated and cast out, losing their positions, livelihood and even licenses courtesy of captured medical boards. The basic driver is a threat to industry profits, with earlier examples relating to other fields coming from the 2002 book Trust Us, We’re Experts. In this respect, vaccine hesitancy is framed as a threat to profitability, and one 2019 article even describes it as a threat to health using the language of national security.

The public has been asked ‘to take the safety aspect of the (Covid) vaccine on faith’ with penalties for non-compliance and the eventual rollout of digital vaccine passports where basic human rights morph into temporary privileges granted by the State. The information war is in full flow, even to the extent of preventing open and honest debate between different positions using the weaponised suitcase term ‘anti-vaxxer’ (equated with ‘anti-science’) and claiming that any engagement represents an unwarranted concession (see tactics employed by David Gorski pp. 297 ff). The real issues are power and money, as explained in Chapter 12 on the nexus between the WHO, Bill Gates vaccine investments, the WEF and various Gates-funded institutions such as the Global Vaccine Alliance (GAVI) and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).

These all sing from the same hymn sheet with overlapping goals (see chart on p. 386), and have been involved alongside intelligence agencies in various scenario planning exercises, such as the well-known Event 201 in October 2019. The keynote, as also for the WEF, is public-private partnership driven by corporate interests – witness also the UN One Health initiative, funded by the same players and supported by the same major pharmaceutical companies. Shaw quotes an incisive analysis by Vandana Shiva where she observes that health is about life and living systems, whereas existing agricultural practice represents a war against life and biodiversity. Gates ‘has created global alliances to impose top-down analysis and prescriptions for health problems’ after giving money to define those problems and then using his influence and money to impose solutions. Furthermore, Microsoft’s patent ominously numbered 060606 relates to monitoring human biological activity.

The bottom line is about the definition and nature of health within a structure of growing networked corporate power and centralisation, that uses the potential capacity of technology for control and surveillance. Shaw makes it clear that he supports the role of vaccinations in relation to infectious disease, but for the reasons he explains (p. 498), he thinks that they have been massively overused and overhyped, with the pharmaceutical interests dominating the entire medical and health system, especially in the US. We are now at acritical inflection point where we can succumb to fear and passively surrender our freedom to these predatory commercial forces, or we can resist this New World Order momentum – what Shaw calls ‘a rolling world coup d’état’ – by becoming part of the movement for regenerative agriculture and health. This resistance movement to medical fascism is beyond left and right, choosing solidarity over the corporate and government authoritarianism being implemented by public-private partnerships.