Tag: vaccines

Application Denied: Another Dive into the Failures of Military Bureaucracy and COVID-19 Mandate Relief

On September 23, 2021, an active-duty Air Force officer who has served for 18 years submitted a request for a religious accommodation for the COVID-19 shot mandate. Four and a half years later, there is still derogatory paperwork in his personnel file, leaving him ineligible or significantly disadvantaged for all career advancement and more.

This story provides an update on developments from September 2025 and March 2026, reinforcing J.M. Phelps’ assertion that the Board of Correction of Military Records (BCMR) is “ineffective” and frequently highlights the widespread “bureaucratic malfeasance” within the military institution, providing little more than a “half measure” to service members, as in the case of Air Force Captain Anthony Monteleone.

Furthermore, concerning Air Force BCMR (AFBCMR), the situation underscores how their decisions are a direct affront to the goals of President Donald Trump and Department of War (DOW) Pete Hegseth to restore the military.

Case in point: On April 3, 2026, AFBCMR issued a “finding” that flatly denied any relief whatsoever to Capt. Monteleone. Given the overwhelming mountain of evidence reviewed by J.M. Phelps and provided to the Board, one can only conclude that the Board continues to undermine the efforts of President Trump and his appointees within the Department of War. This bureaucratic obstruction appears aimed at continuing the denial of mandated relief to those who suffered under the military’s unlawfully enforced COVID-19 shot mandate, which was rescinded in January 2023.

Mr. Richard Anderson, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Manpower and Reserves, representing the AFBCMR and operating under the full delegated authority of the Secretary of the Air Force, stated that when it comes to Capt. Monteleone’s case, “the [AFBCMR] determined there was insufficient evidence of error or injustice. Accordingly, your application is denied.”

Sadly, for the author of this article, Mr. Anderson’s statement brings to mind the idiom, “If I had a dollar for every time I heard that.”

The Board’s stated reasoning behind this decision was that, although the entire mandate was ruled unlawful, the guidance from Undersecretary of War for Personnel and Readiness, Anthony Tata, to the branch BCMRs did not specifically state that all [emphasis mine] service members harmed by the entire COVID-19 mandate must be granted relief. Instead, in their interpretation [emphasis mine], his guidance indicates that only those punished for solely refusing the order to take the shot itself were eligible for remediation under the guidance.

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Appeals court upholds West Virginia vaccine mandate, denies religious exemption

A federal appeals court ruled that West Virginia can enforce its school vaccine mandate without offering religious exemptions, overturning a lower court decision that had allowed an unvaccinated student to remain enrolled in an online public school.

In a 2-1 decision, the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit found the state’s vaccination requirement does not violate the First Amendment’s protection of religious freedom.

The case was brought by Anthony and Krystle Perry on behalf of their daughter, who was enrolled in West Virginia Virtual Academy but was later disenrolled after officials determined she was not fully vaccinated. The parents argued vaccination conflicted with their Christian beliefs and sought a religious exemption, which state law does not provide.

West Virginia is one of a small number of states that do not allow religious exemptions for school vaccine requirements.

A lower court had previously sided with the family and issued an injunction allowing the child to continue attending school while the case proceeded. The appeals court reversed that decision, ruling the parents are unlikely to succeed on their constitutional claim.

Legal experts cited in the case said the ruling does not reflect what they describe as a shifting legal landscape around religious exemptions. They pointed to recent Supreme Court decisions that they say require courts to apply a higher standard, known as “strict scrutiny,” when evaluating such claims.

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Pro-Vaccine Panelists: ‘We’re Losing the PR and Communications Battle’

The medical industry is losing control of the vaccine narrative, according to participants in a webinar moderated by Chelsea Clinton and organized by Unity Consortium — a group of pharmaceutical companies and pro-vaccine organizations.

Vaccine makers GSK, Merck and Sanofi, along with Big Tech platforms Reddit and Snapchat, and Spanish-language media giant Televisa Univision sponsored Wednesday’s event: “Who Influences Young People’s Health Choices? The New Conversations About Vaccines.”

Unity Consortium lists Pfizer, Merck, GSK and Sanofi among its members. Vaccine inventor Dr. Paul Offit is a member of its board of directors.

During the hour-long conversation, Clinton and the panelists criticized the growing number of parents and teens who are starting to question the safety of vaccines. They blamed the trend on increased access to what they characterized as online “misinformation” — and on organizations like Children’s Health Defense (CHD).

“What’s different today … is that people have access to a lot more information,” said Dr. Margot Savoy, chief medical officer of the American Academy of Family Physicians. “The part that makes me nervous is that, more and more, we’re getting into this odd space where people are feeling a little more polarized.”

Jessica Steier, founder and CEO of Unbiased Science and author of “The Playbook Used to ‘Prove’ Vaccines Cause Autism,” said pro-vaccine voices are “losing the PR and communications battle.”

Elisabeth Marnik, Ph.D., executive director of The Evidence Collective and author of “I Grew Up Unvaccinated. Now I’m an Immunologist,” said the circulation of and public access to such information is “one of the hardest parts about social media.”

“The more somebody sees these false claims circulating, the more likely they are to start to question their own understanding. And that’s one of the dangers of social media,” Marnik said. She said that parents’ decisions not to vaccinate their children are “a product of [this] information ecosystem.”

Clinton suggested that the ecosystem acts as a barrier to sustaining trust in the medical profession and public health. “The algorithms are part of the challenge of both … the corrosion of trust and … the barriers to replenishing and sustaining that trust,” Clinton said.

According to Marnik, the public health establishment is losing public trust because “public health and science aren’t always good storytellers.” The “anti-vaccine side” is “really good at spreading these stories that are really compelling and very scary and [that] can motivate people in ways that are harmful.”

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There are no exemptions to informed consent

On 16 March, Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and President of the National Vaccine Information Centre (“NVIC”), gave a presentation on informed consent ethic to Florida Department of Health employees. 

Titled ‘The Informed Consent Principle: A Guide for Public Health Policy and Medical Ethics’, Loe Fisher began her presentation with a video of a debate she had with a medical doctor from Johns Hopkins University about mandatory vaccination in 1997.

The text of her presentation has been published on the NVIC website HERE. The following are some highlights from the presentation.

The 1997 debate Loe Fisher had with a medical doctor was the first time the subject of informed consent to medical risk-taking was discussed on national television.  It was also the first time it was suggested that there is a possible link between the administration of multiple vaccines in early childhood and increases in chronic disease and disability among children.

The US vaccine safety and informed consent movement was launched in 1982 by parents of DPT vaccine-injured children.  The world of vaccines has changed dramatically since 1982: there are more college-educated parents today who conduct their own research and so are aware of the risks of vaccination, particularly during the response to the covid pandemic, where they were exposed to lockdowns, mandatory masking, online censorship about the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and mandatory use of an mRNA biological product that was labelled a vaccine.

The covid vaccine not only failed to prevent infection, but it is also associated with an enormous number of suspected injuries.  The covid vaccination campaign resulted in over 1.6 million covid vaccine adverse event reports, including heart and brain inflammation and death, being made to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (“VAERS”), Loe Fisher said.

Despite this, many doctors still dismiss vaccine reactions as “normal” or “coincidental” and unrelated to the vaccination just given.

It’s no surprise then that there isa serious crisis of trust in public health policy and law, with public perception of the safety and effectiveness of vaccination and the wisdom of mandatory vaccination laws being challenged at the grassroots level.

It’s not just covid vaccines that are being eyed by the public with scepticism.

“There are questions about whether atypically manipulating the immune system to mount inflammatory responses over and over again by giving multiple doses of vaccines in early childhood and throughout life could be an important co-factor in the rise in chronic disease and disability in our society,” Loe Fisher said.

“There are unresolved issues discussed in the medical literature, such as asymptomatic infection and transmission of pertussis and measles in highly vaccinated populations that give evidence for waning immunity and also the evolution of microbes into vaccine-resistant strains.

“These facts are being debated even as efforts by-industry backed corporations to censor those conversations in the digital public square continues in this country and in Europe.”

She then explained why measles vaccines are ineffective and unnecessary, which we haven’t gone into here.  You can read about this beginning with the section of her presentation titled ‘Reported Cases of Measles: There’s More to the Story’.

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Biden FDA Knew About COVID Vaccine Stroke Risk And Kept Americans In The Dark

Senate investigators spent months reviewing roughly 2,000 pages of federal records. What they found is damning. FDA and CDC officials under the Biden administration identified a significant stroke risk tied to Pfizer’s COVID-19 bivalent booster in seniors – and never breathed a word to the public.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), chairman of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, sent a formal letter to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. laying out the evidence. He wasn’t speculating. He was citing the government’s own files.

“HHS records show that as early as October 2022, federal health officials identified a potential connection between the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 bivalent booster and ischemic stroke for individuals over the age of 65,” Johnson wrote.

An ischemic stroke means a blockage of blood to the brain. Between November 2022 and March 2023, seven separate analyses of incoming data flagged the same stroke signal — specifically in adults over 65. CDC data cited by Johnson shows 226 stroke cases reported between August 2022 and February 2023, with additional cases surfacing throughout 2023 and 2024.

Despite the risk, the Biden administration issued no formal warnings. No Health Alert Network message. No changes to booster recommendations for seniors. Nothing.

Instead, in February 2023, HHS quietly hired a private contractor, Lukos LLC, to conduct a deeper internal investigation, dubbed “The Stroke Project.” Publicly, officials kept insisting the vaccines were safe.

“From the initial detection of the safety signal in late 2022 … health officials continued to say the vaccine was safe while simultaneously searching for evidence to support that assertion,” Johnson said.

It gets worse. Federal officials drafted a communications plan about the stroke risk that included a “Tough Questions and Answers” section prepared for President-ish Biden and his White House team. During final edits, the description of the stroke signal was quietly changed from “moderately elevated” to “slightly elevated.” Who made that change? Nobody knows. The language softened, the edit went unattributed, and the public remained in the dark.

The pattern is consistent. Senate investigators previously established that Biden officials also downplayed the risk of vaccine-induced myocarditis and kept that from the public. This wasn’t a one-time failure. It was a system.

Here’s what makes this cover-up even more infuriating. The Biden administration showed it was more than willing to pull the plug on a vaccine when it wanted to. 

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New York Times does it again, pushing pro-vaccine narrative over journalism

A recent New York Times article examining Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and developments at the CDC is drawing criticism over what some describe as one-sided vaccine coverage.

The article, published March 23, relied heavily on interviews with former CDC officials and presented commonly cited claims that vaccines are safe and effective, while offering little perspective from those who question that view.

It also highlighted Kennedy’s work and advocacy, including claims that he has spread misinformation about vaccines.

The coverage pointed to a 2025 measles outbreak in a Texas community with low vaccination rates, attributing reported deaths to measles. Other accounts cited by Children’s Health Defense have raised questions about those conclusions.

The article also addressed statements about vaccine ingredients, including the use of fetal cell lines in some vaccines. Kennedy has raised concerns about the presence of human DNA fragments, which some individuals cite as a religious or ethical issue.

On autism, the article echoed the widely held view that rising diagnosis rates are largely due to expanded screening and reporting. Critics argue that explanation does not fully account for the increase.

The article further referenced concerns about what it described as “spurious harms” linked to vaccines. However, federal data show billions of dollars have been awarded through the vaccine injury compensation program.

It also cited public health positions on issues such as fluoridated drinking water and routine vaccination schedules recommended by major medical organizations.

The broader debate over vaccine mandates and informed consent was also raised, including whether individuals should have the right to decline vaccines for religious or personal reasons.

The discussion comes as vaccination rates for some vaccines have declined, religious exemptions have increased, and lawmakers consider changes to vaccine policy, including liability protections and exemption laws.

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A Critique of the “17 Million Deaths Caused by the Vaccines” Claim

I am a physician-epidemiologist who has consistently questioned the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines. In the summer of 2021, I was the lead author on the first major study pointing out the risks of post-Pfizer vaccination myocarditis in adolescents. We found that the potential benefits of full vaccination did not appear to outweigh the risks in healthy adolescent males just looking at post-vaccination myocarditis risks alone. Not long after, I was senior author of another analysis published in BMJ-Journal of Medical Ethics that found the harms of the booster dose in college age students likely outweighed potential benefits by at least 18-fold. What is more, I have written multiple times about the COVID-19 vaccines being implicated in numerous deaths and have a related peer-reviewed paper hopefully coming soon. Finally, I have most recently voiced my concern about the production process of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine and the potential risks of DNA plasmid contamination to the Public Health Integrity Committee.

But if you want to bring attention to safety issues with the mRNA vaccines or other pharmaceutical products, using biased publications or prematurely jumping to conclusions is not the way to do it. We can’t complain about the pharmaceutical industry publishing biased research if we turn around and promote equally, if not more biased research about vaccine side-effects. Not only do we need scientists who are not captured by pharma, we need scientists who are not captured in general – by any ideology. We need scientists who are critical thinkers and can acknowledge limitations in data and identify inappropriate methods and causal inference.

Furthermore, avoiding inappropriately scaring people – be it about Covid or the vaccines – is good public health.

17 million deaths due to the vaccines?

Bret Weinstein (in his fascinating interview) on Tucker Carlson said he “saw a credible estimate of 17 million [deaths] globally from this technology”, meaning the vaccines. Now, this was a bit confusing since they were discussing mRNA vaccines at this moment and it was unclear if he meant all types of Covid vaccines. But I immediately thought: 1) Woah… what percent of vaccinated people would have died and how many people would that mean would have died in little, highly-vaccinated Denmark? (For those who don’t know, I am a Danish citizen). Then I thought: 2) What confounded dataset did he use to get this estimate?

But I also want to point out I found it interesting Bret did not give any sort of range in terms of potential numbers of people killed, how this estimate was arrived at or what kind of residual uncertainty there was about the estimate. 

To answer the second question so you are not scrolling ahead, I quickly learned Bret was referring to this analysis by Rancourt, Baudin, Hickey and Mercier, J.: ‘COVID-19 vaccine-associated mortality in the Southern Hemisphere.’

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The CDC Was Ordered to Prove the DTaP Vaccine Didn’t Cause Autism… but Their Only Study Showed it Did

For decades, the question of whether vaccines are linked to autism has remained one of the most contentious and widely debated issues in public health.

While major health agencies have maintained that vaccines are safe, critics have continued to scrutinize the data, pointing to gaps, unanswered questions, and the historical record of how these concerns were first investigated.

A video circulating online features attorney Aaron Siri discussing the historical roots of vaccine-related debates, focusing specifically on the pertussis vaccine rather than the more commonly cited MMR vaccine.

According to the caption, Siri traces the issue back to the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, which directed the Secretary of Health and Human Services to study a list of injuries that had been frequently reported in connection with the pertussis vaccine. Among those listed for investigation was autism.

In the clip, Siri describes how the Institute of Medicine (IOM) was tasked with reviewing available research on the topic. He notes that in 1991, the IOM concluded it could not determine whether the pertussis vaccine caused or did not cause autism due to a lack of sufficient studies.

He then points to a later review commissioned by the CDC and HRSA in 2012, stating that the IOM reached a similar conclusion after examining the broader body of scientific literature.

According to Siri, the IOM reported that it could not find studies demonstrating that the pertussis vaccine does not cause autism, and that the only study identified showing an association was ultimately excluded because it did not include an unvaccinated comparison group.

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RFK Jr. Updates Guidelines for CDC Vaccine Advisory Panel to Include Risk Assessment

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on April 9 issued a revised charter for a key vaccine advisory panel, expanding its role to emphasize vaccine safety risks and widening the criteria for membership selection.

The new charter came after a judge ruled last month that previous votes from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) were invalid and blocked its new vaccine schedule for children.

The ACIP is a federal advisory committee that provides recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the use of vaccines to control diseases and helps establish immunization schedules for children and adults in the United States.

In the updated charter, signed by Kennedy on March 31 and published on April 9, the panel’s tasks now include advising the CDC on “gaps in vaccine safety research including adverse effects following vaccination.”

The charter says the ACIP will consider the “cumulative effects of vaccines and their constituent components” and engage in “re-analysis of vaccine safety and efficacy” as gaps are identified.

The new charter broadens the membership criteria of potential panelists beyond those with expertise in the use and research of vaccines and immunization practices, specifically adding toxicology and data science.

It states that members “shall be selected from authorities who are knowledgeable in the fields of medicine, vaccines, immunization practices, immunology, toxicology, pediatric neurodevelopment, epidemiology, data science, statistical analysis, health economics, recovery from serious vaccine injuries, or public health; have expertise in the use of vaccines or other immunobiologic agents in clinical practice or preventive medicine, have expertise with clinical or laboratory vaccine research, or have expertise in assessment of vaccine safety and efficacy.”

Ronald G. Nahass, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, said the revised charter appears to shift ACIP’s focus toward vaccine safety and adverse events, rather than maintaining its traditional approach that considered “the full scope of vaccine data.”

“These changes suggest that routine immunization is unsafe — adding to confusion and increasing vaccine hesitancy,” Nahass said in a statement, warning that the updated charter could lead to lower vaccine uptake.

In an emailed statement to The Epoch Times, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services said, “The ACIP charter renewal and its publication are routine statutory requirements and do not signal any broader policy shift.”

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End of Federal Childhood Vaccine Incentives

Doctors will no longer receive financial rewards tied to childhood vaccination rates under key government programs. The announcement, first detailed in a December 30 memo from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), states that the agency “does not tie payment to performance on immunization quality measures in Medicaid and CHIP [the Children’s Health Insurance Program] at the federal level.” CMS urged states to discontinue similar incentives and eliminated mandatory reporting of childhood immunization data, though voluntary reporting remains an option. The memo also signaled efforts to strengthen informed consent and accommodate religious exemptions.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. welcomed the directive, posting: “Government bureaucracies should never coerce doctors or families into accepting vaccines or penalize physicians for respecting patient choice. That practice ends now.” Advocates such as Children’s Health Defense CEO Mary Holland called it a welcome step toward treating vaccines like other medical interventions, free from metric-driven pressure. Pediatrician Dr. Michelle Perro noted that tying compensation to specific decisions can erode trust in care.

Promoting Preventive Care or Distorting Judgment?

This change comes after years of scrutiny over financial incentives in pediatric medicine. An October 2025 clip from Dr. Suzanne Humphries on The Joe Rogan Experience claimed some doctors could lose up to $250,000 annually by not meeting vaccination targets, including for Covid shots in infants. These incentives stemmed from value-based payment models under Medicaid, CHIP, and private insurers. Practices received bonuses or higher reimbursements for hitting coverage benchmarks (e.g., percentages of patients vaccinated). One analysis of an Oregon pediatric practice projected more than $1 million in annual losses for declining CDC-scheduled vaccines, largely from administrative fees. Roughly 40 percent of U.S. children are on Medicaid, amplifying the program’s reach. During Covid, specific per-dose payments (around $45 plus administration fees) added to the structure.

Proponents of the incentives argued they promoted preventive care and reduced disease outbreaks, with insurers — not pharmaceutical companies — providing payments to lower long-term costs. Critics, however, contended the metrics distorted clinical judgment and pressured families, contributing to eroded trust and reports of patients being dismissed for declining shots.

The CMS policy applies only at the federal level; some states or private insurers may retain incentives. It is telling that pediatric organizations are pushing back against broader vaccine-policy shifts under the current administration.

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