CHD Book Club: Dispatches from the Vaccine Wars: Fighting for Human Freedom during the Great Reset

The fifth selection (June, 2023) in the CHD Book Club is “Dispatches from the Vaccine Wars: Fighting for Human Freedom during the Great Reset,” by Christopher A. Shaw, PhD.

Professor Christopher A. Shaw discovered, after a deep-dive literature search on aluminum impacts on humans and animals, that aluminum hydroxide, an adjuvant in the anthrax vaccine, had a significantly negative impact on motor functions and reflexes of patients in the literature. After that finding, he did what scientists are supposed to do and kept following the leads. However, organizations like WHO dismissed him immediately.

Those powerful organizations either knew what he knew, that aluminum vaccine adjuvants were harmful, or they simply didn’t care. In either case, two possible reasons for the lack of response became clear to Shaw and his colleagues: dogma and money.

The first had served to convince most of the world’s medical professionals that Shaw had to be wrong because, after all, “the science was settled.” And, behind much of this was the naked fact of how much money vaccines brought in to cover the pharmaceutical industry’s profit margin. The combination of those two have the fingerprints of various Big Pharma companies smudged all over the question of vaccine safety, which included the demonization of both scientists and lay scholars who raised even the tamest questions about safety and the push for vaccine mandates around the world. After these events, Shaw decided to dig deeper.

“Dispatches from the Vaccine Wars” is a comprehensive look at the origin of vaccination and the oversight of vaccines by various regulatory bodies in the United States and in Canada. The book provides not only the official view on vaccines’ safety and efficacy, but also provides a critical analysis on which such views are based. Aluminum and other compounds that may contribute to autism spectrum disorder are discussed at length.

Professor Shaw also analyzes the corporate influences driving vaccine uptake worldwide and provides an in-depth look at the push for mandatory vaccination. “Dispatches from the Vaccine Wars” evaluates the extent to which vaccinology has become a cult religion driving attempts to suppress divergent scientific opinions. Finally, the book delves into the COVID-19 pandemic and what it means for the future of us all.

Here are some thought-provoking discussion questions to think about as you read “Dispatches from the Vaccine Wars.” In addition, we invite you to view the live Monday Tea Time interview on CHD.TV airing June 12, 2023. Bring your questions!

Questions for Discussion

1. The author of “Dispatches from the Vaccine Wars,” Christopher Shaw, is a neuroscientist by training and profession. Shaw says that he got into controversial vaccine research accidentally and that when he began he had no opinion on vaccines other than what he was taught, that they were “uniformly safe and effective.” For anyone who has thought about this issue much, that belief seems laughably naïve; after all, what other pharmaceutical products can be said to be “uniformly safe and effective”? But many, if not most of us, started out with similar beliefs. Why do you think smart adults so frequently have such a naïve viewpoint on vaccines?
2. Dr. Shaw frames the vaccine debate as the “Vaccine Wars.” What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of framing the discussion in that manner? Does it add to his arguments or detract from them?
3. Dr. Shaw states in the introduction that he has chosen to “go back to basics to see what history and science actually tell us about vaccine safety.” In doing so, he says, he expects to “find opponents from both camps.” His feeling is that “getting vitriol from both sides is the right place to be.” After reading the book do you agree with that assessment? Why or why not?
4. Dr. Shaw likens the struggles of the citizens of Rojava, Syria, to parental struggles in several US states to retain the right to refuse vaccination: “Removal of freedom of choice about one’s body, or the bodies of one’s children, had all the hallmarks of totalitarian­ism even if the iron fist of the government was cushioned by the velvet glove of what has been described as “evidence-based medicine.” Do you agree with such a comparison? If not, what do you believe sets the two apart?
5. Dr. Shaw does his best in “Dispatches” to represent the science fairly, without bias, but expresses the fear that for some vaccine proponents it doesn’t matter how fairly he presents what he learned: “For some people, any critique to any vaccine under any circumstances was proof that I was an ‘anti-vaxxer’ and that I would remain so regardless of what the science actually showed.” Do you think Shaw’s impression is correct? If so, how likely do you think such people would be to have “follow the science!” as one of their slogans?
6. Vaccine proponents frequently complain that vaccine skeptics “move the goalposts” when it comes to scientific evidence regarding any link between vaccines and autism. Dr. Shaw heartily disagrees with that assessment, saying that such shifts in hypotheses are to be expected when following the science. He provides an example of similar hypothesis testing and shifting as scientists worked to try and understand what was causing the cluster of ALS and Parkinson’s neurological disorders found on Guam. Do you agree with Dr. Shaw that such shifts are inherent in doing science that sheds light on the mystery of causation? If so, do you think the people making the “moving goalposts” argument are honestly misunderstanding how science is done or that they are deliberately misrepresenting the situation? Can you think of any reasons they might do that?
7. The chapter on aluminum toxicity compares Dr. Christopher Exley’s assessment of the threat posed by aluminum with an assessment by Wilhite, et al., and concludes “If one has to choose a credible narrative, I’d be inclined to trust a scientist like Prof. Chris Exley with forty-plus years of bench science behind him over those with ties to the aluminum industry or those who confuse routes of administration. As in many things, the ‘devil is in the details’….” Such “confusion” of details seems to occur quite often in articles supporting vaccine safety. After reading this discussion, will you be more or less likely to accept the conclusions of scientific studies at face value? Will you be more inclined to seek out the “details” that support those conclusions?
8. In the chapter “Vaccine Ideology and Religion,” Dr. Shaw says, “trusting a company, any company, to do honest due diligence on their own products is likely an overly optimistic take on human behavior, especially corporate behavior in a capitalist society.” Do you agree that that is an “overly optimistic” expectation? If so, what remedy can you suggest to improve the odds for consumers’ health?
9. Dr. Shaw describes how the shift of pharmaceutical research to publicly funded universities has changed the pharmaceutical business model: When universities became able to sell off the discoveries of their scientists to companies, it essentially acted as a huge financial benefit to the pharma, which could buy these discoveries for pennies on the dollar in cash or royalties, or both. Yes, they did have to pay something, but they no longer needed to maintain the same level of research infrastructure in people and material. As [former editor-in-chief at the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine Marcia] Angell described [in her book, “The Truth About the Drug Companies, How They Deceive US and What We Can Do About It”] when the pharma claims that the exorbitant prices they charge the public for their drugs are due to research and development costs, what they are really talking about is the cost of buying up publicly funded discoveries and then advertising the drugs that arise from these same discoveries. Those same companies’ deceptive advertising practices have resulted in huge fines for all of them in recent years. Do Angell’s observations change your perception of pharmaceutical companies, in general, and/or vaccine manufacturers, in particular?
10. Vaccine proponents have refused to debate vaccine skeptics in recent years. Their argument as Dr. Shaw expresses it is “there really is no debate to have because, after all, as already cited numerous times, the ‘science is settled.’” Dr. Shaw spends much of “Dispatches” dispelling the idea that the science on the subject could possibly be considered “settled.” Thus, Shaw says, “[T]he refusal to engage others with different views is not a sign that those who advocate such with­drawal can comfortably relax since the other side has nothing worth discussing. Rather, it seems, at least to me, a sign that those making this argument are not confident enough in their position to survive an intellectual encounter with those who feel differently.” Do you think Shaw’s assessment is accurate, or do you believe that vaccine proponents honestly believe their science is solid?
11. Vaccine skeptics have long advocated studies comparing health outcomes in fully vaccinated children with outcomes in unvaccinated children. As Dr. Shaw says, “[T]his experimental comparison of vaccinated and unvaccinated children might well be the way to resolve the basic question of whether vaccines are, on average, beneficial, harmful, or neutral to a child’s health. The powers that be should welcome such a study, fund it adequately, and get it done as expeditiously as possible so that they can demonstrate conclusively that vaccines make children, and thus maybe all of us, healthier. The fact that they don’t . . . illustrates what many interpret as a fear of what the studies might show.” Do you agree with Dr. Shaw that the results of such studies would be valuable? Do you agree with his conclusions regarding why health agencies are not conducting such studies?
12. So called “science bloggers,” including David Gorski [Orac] and Michael Simpson [Skeptical Raptor], have a great deal of influence over public opinion and even peer-reviewed journal publications these days. These bloggers purport to base their arguments on sound science, but when Dr. Shaw analyzed Gorski’s posts through the lens of Carl Sagan and Ann Druyen’s “baloney detection kit,” he concluded that Gorski violates so many of the “baloney detection” points that he should more rightly be called a “pseudoscience blogger.” Does that conclusion surprise you? Why or why not? What qualifications do you think someone must have to be considered a “science blogger” to the mainstream media and/or pharmaceutical cartel?