The COVID vaccine placebo problem

In Hollywood scripts, writers can drop plotlines without consequences. For example, in the first two installments of the Rocky film franchise, Rocky’s decade-long boxing career left him with significant damage to his right eye and partial blindness. Any future fights — let alone a bout against the world champion — were portrayed as high risk long shots. Then suddenly, Rocky wins the heavyweight title, racks up 10 title defenses, and achieves fame and fortune.

The COVID scriptwriters pulled something similar.

Health authorities told us that the newfangled mRNA molecules were so sophisticated — and fragile — that Pfizer vaccine vials needed to be stored at -94F for every trip from a manufacturing facility to the pharmacy/doctor’s office. The specifications also said that once a vial is opened, the entire contents had to be used within 6 hours(!). As the COVID franchise played out, the writers ignored the shortage of -94F freezers along the vaccine supply chain. Then, at the point of consumption, indifferent vaccinators kept injecting people with mRNA whether the vial had been open for hours, days, or weeks.

In the real world, we don’t know whether the improper storage and handling of the vaccines rendered the mRNA inert — which ironically would have improved the safety profile of the vaccine. We do know, however, that specific batches of the vaccine were tied to terrible outcomes.

About a year ago, a group of researchers reviewed reports of suspected adverse effects for Pfizer vaccine batches administered in Denmark. Publicly available data made it possible to match cases of adverse events with specific vaccine batches. The researchers found that rates of adverse events varied considerably between vaccine batches. Some batches were associated with a reporting rate as high as one suspected adverse event for every six doses. On the other hand, about 30 percent of the batches were associated with exactly zero adverse events.

A group of German scientists took the study one step further. Again based on publicly available information, they discovered very strange behavior from the regulatory agency responsible for oversight of the EU’s Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine supply. While this agency followed normal quality control testing procedures for the problematic batches, it failed to test any of the harmless batches. This revelation suggests that the regulatory agency had inside knowledge of where to deploy its resources. In other words, government officials were told which batches were blanks … or control group placebos.

I have some theories about why certain batches were known to be duds.

Theory 1: Hot lots

I wrote in January 2023 about the hot lots problem. In the giant vats used to make the vaccines, the lipids that contain the mRNA molecules float to the top. Because mRNA is so delicate, the vats cannot be stirred. Vials are filled from the bottom of the vat, so people whose dose came from a vial filled at the beginning of the process received no mRNA. On the other hand, people whose vial was filled as the vat emptied got an enormous load.

Pfizer insiders who understood the inconsistency of the mRNA manufacturing process could know which lots were drawn from the top or bottom of the vat.

Theory 2: Shipping saline

Keen observers have pointed out that, setting aside the Hollywood script, Pfizer couldn’t possibly have manufactured enough mRNA solution in 2020 for a billion people. The screenplay says that from a standing start in March 2020, during global lockdowns, Pfizer secured the facilities, raw materials, and labor to roll out internationally in just nine months a new type of vaccine — all while transporting the solution globally in freezers kept colder than the surface of Mars. Realistically, Pfizer just started shipping saline to keep up with demand. The company reasoned that no one would notice since the jabs didn’t work anyway.

Insiders would know which batches were fake.

Theory 3: True placebo

The story of the vaccine is governments around the world enrolling their citizens in a global medical experiment while waiving their citizens’ legal rights without their consent. In country after country, officials engaged in secret negotiations with Pfizer where Pfizer was absolved of any liability in exchange for access to the vaccine. (India is a notable exception that refused to give Pfizer liability protection, and as a result, the mRNA vaccine was not available in the world’s second most populous country.) In January 2024, the European Members of Parliament voted to defeat a transparency measure in order to keep its contract with Pfizer and other drug companies secret. In Israel, the Ministry of Health claimed for a while that the government’s Pfizer vaccine contract had been lost. When the documents were finally found, they revealed that the Israeli government had pursued population-sized supplies of the vaccine not only prior to Emergency Use Authorization from the United States Food and Drug Administration, but before Pfizer had even begun its Phase 3 trial in July 2020. One attorney in Israel noted, “Under such circumstances, it is very difficult to take seriously the claim that this is not a real human experiment.” Former president Barack Obama said as much at a presentation in April 2022, stating: “We’ve essentially clinically tested the vaccine on billions of people worldwide.”

If placebos were part of this experiment, insiders would know which batches were from the control group. (Adverse reactions to the Pfizer vaccines seemed to directly correlate with sequential lot numbers, suggesting a large scale dose-response study was conducted after the vaccines hit the market.)

Commentators have noted that since the 2024 race for U.S. president is shaping up as a contest between two champions of COVID interventions, there will be no accountability ever for this civilizational catastrophe — from lockdowns to the vaccine. Regardless, there is a tweet I came across in March 2023 that I think about often and which I believe expresses the appropriate point of view: “Daily reminder that your anger for what they did to us in 2020 should be immeasurable, frightening, and terrible to behold.”