In light of the recent hysteria over anyone who questions the safety and efficacy of present-day vaccine policy, the campaign to censor those people, and the push for mandatory vaccination, it is more important than ever for us to remember that vaccines are not dropped from heaven by angels, but are pharmaceutical products created by fallible, flawed humans, in an environment ideal for the unchecked growth of corruption and fraud. One tragic instant of fraud happened when Merck’s pain medication Vioxx was recalled in 2004 after being on the market for 5 years. Vioxx greatly increased the risk for fatal heart attacks and strokes, with some estimates that the drug killed over 55,000 U.S. citizens in the 5 years it was on the market. More damning was the revelation that Merck knew in 1999, before Vioxx was available to consumers, that the drug increased the risk for fatal heart attacks, but fudged the research in order to fast-track the drug.
Worldwide, over 80 million people used Vioxx during the five-year window that it was available, meaning that the deaths could exceed hundreds of thousands. This is the same corporation that manufacturers, with complete legal immunity, the MMR and Gardasil vaccines. How can we trust anything that Merck produces? And how can we trust a medical establishment that can’t even bring itself to send to prison the executives that knowingly killed as many Americans as died in Vietnam?
