The Inside Story on Gut Health

By Mark Porter

Think you're told all you need to know about gut health? Think again. Beneath all of the advice published on diet, fats, and probiotics lies a hidden menace. This rarely discussed topic comprises the most under-recognized health threat facing every person today.

 

Drawing from his 20 years of experience as an independent researcher and trainer of health practitioners, Mark Porter comprehensively unpacks this vital subject in clear, simple language. Meticulously researched and at times confronting, this book is written for readers not afraid to meet reality and take the front foot to protect their health and that of their families.

 

Why does living in a modern world bring us into closer contact with disease? What basic concept of western medicine guarantees eventual failure right from the start? How can simple wellness principles from the ages be used to protect our health?

 

As you read these pages you will be amazed as a hidden world comes into view. Knowledge is power, and pulling apart the fallacies promoted by both western medicine and the natural health industry allows a clear view of how to prosper in an increasingly hostile world for humans. Lessons from nature are drawn to equip each person with the insight they need to fortify their defences. Defences against what?

 

This book should be called the inside story on TOTAL health!

 

Everything starts with the gut. It is undoubtedly the most important book you never realised you needed to read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mark Porter
• Release date: Jun 4, 2024
• ISBN: 9781923061200

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1

HOLY COW

Medicine and science are a marriage made in heaven. Indeed, medicine is probably the field of science that we all have the most vested interest in. Who isn’t excited by announcements of the latest medical breakthrough in finding a cure for cancer? It gives us hope. It reaffirms our confidence in the science industry as the great problem-solver. The media jump all over such reports—simple stories are the ones that have the greatest impact. (They are also the easiest stories to sell.) The mass broadcasting of such simple, straightforward ‘expert’ statements through the media carry a convincing ring. ‘It’s been scientifically proven, after all!’

The Vital Role of the Medical Jingle

The medical world loves short, simple messages as well. They are easy to communicate and warmly embraced by the media. Thus, memorable, catchy phrases have become the medical industry’s preferred method of educating the masses on their health choices. These medical mantras have even infiltrated the advice given by parents to their children and by teachers to their students. They have replaced the wisdom of the ages and have taken over the mantle as time-honored truths. They become so ingrained in our psyche that they are hard to shake.

As with all matters in life though, the truth is never that simple. A nuanced message cannot be communicated through a three-word marketing jingle. How effectively does this serve the public? Seemingly well until someone actually faces an unexpected medical emergency. (Let’s face it, nearly all medical emergencies are unexpected.) It is on these desperate occasions that people are confronted with imposing medical professionals all urging a singular treatment option. And what does the patient know about the subject? Probably little more than ‘slip, slop, slap’ (or some equivalent overly simplified cliché). The choices that will govern their life and death are based on a three-word marketing slogan.

Doctors are profoundly affected by these abbreviated ideologies, too. Despite having objective scientific principles drummed into them at medical school, lessons carried forward from their earliest years are hard to shake. Often medical professionals can be found hanging on to outdated views that are based on research that is decades out of date. Life’s earliest lessons are hard to lose, and we are all human, after all. These are the experts that the public rely on for guidance, and whether they like to admit it or not, they are also subject to the simplistic messages they’ve been hearing from infancy.

The Role That Politics Plays

The advent of democracy has seen the birth of a new profession: the politician. Politicians are curious creatures. They are more dependent on popularity than achievement to survive.

Simple answers work great for politicians. Their greatest nightmare is a problem that they have no control over hanging around and causing angst among their constituents (case in point: the COVID-19 pandemic). The public lose patience. They get agitated. They then start looking for a target to express their dissatisfaction towards, and that’s when politicians know that they’re in trouble.

Politics always has a preference for quick and easy solutions to community problems. ‘Swallow this pill and you’ll feel better in the morning.’ Thus, the cherry-picking of science or other facts to support uncomplicated messages will always be the preference of democratic governments.

‘Do you feel threatened by terrorism? Let’s invade this country!’

‘Are you worried about the quality of education? We will throw more money at it.’

‘You have concerns about climate change? Don’t worry! Science can geo-engineer our earth.’

And so, matters that require a more complicated approach (or that could make members of the public squirm) are left in the shadows. As these stories are too unpalatable to be discussed in the media, they rarely see the light of day and are only discussed by industry experts in hushed tones and jargon-laden speech within their closed professional communities.

These are the inside stories. They are the subjects that you rarely (or even never) hear as a member of the public, or those that are only ever presented to you as oversimplified three- or four-word marketing slogans. The details are glossed over. Others have determined that this is all you need to know.

How widespread is this practice? Surely not in open lands that favor enlightenment and freeness of speech? You may be surprised.

Following are some examples of three medical jingles, simple messages accepted as scientific truth. These are all presented as having been backed by extensive, credible science, and their veracity is taken for granted by the majority of experts and the public as undeniable truth. What happens, though, when we begin to scratch beneath the surface of the available scientific ‘evidence’? A new and unsettling world materializes, one that even we may not be entirely comfortable with.

Chapter 2

INSIDE STORIES

Inside Story No 1: ‘Saturated Fats Are Bad’

Few subjects have proved to be as controversial as the role of dietary fat since the 1950s. It was then that Ancel Keys, a professor of the Minnesota School of Public Health, embarked on a ground-breaking research project that linked the role of dietary fat, notably saturated fat, to heart disease.

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Other studies backed up these results, concluding that diets high in saturated fats and cholesterol resulted in an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

Of course, the image of arteries clogging up with cholesterol acquired from a diet rich in saturated fats grossly oversimplifies the role that digestion plays along the way. But this proved to be a simple and effective way of communicating a message to the public. Meat, eggs, and coconut oil were out, while vegetable (read here: ‘grain’) oils and carbohydrates were in. Welcome to the new age of cardiovascular vitality and free-flowing arteries!

Initially, the food industry resisted. Fat was tasty, and removing it from their products was a threat to their bottom line. The scientific evidence mounted though, and gradually the ‘diet-heart hypothesis’, as it became known, settled into official recommendations by government agencies in the United States throughout the 1970s. ‘Low fat’ became a runaway freight train that was impelled by means of its own momentum:

‘The diet-heart hypothesis remained a hypothesis [i.e. an educated guess], but, as if already proven, it became enshrined in federal public health policy in the United States and elsewhere and was promoted by healthcare practitioners, and the popular health media.’

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By 1977, reduced fat and increased carbohydrate consumption was endorsed by the official report Dietary Goals for the United States, with such august bodies as the American Society of Clinical Nutritionists, the American Heart Association, and the National Cancer Institute all echoing this recommendation.

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In the meantime, the food industry was cottoning on to the fact that sugar could be used as a replacement for fat. Slowly they understood that sugar was in fact preferable to fat—it was cheap, tasted great, and even drove addiction to (and hence over-consumption of) their products. By the 1990s, the low-fat dietary phenomenon was increasingly driven by food manufacturers. A philosophy was taking hold in the community: ‘Eat whatever you want and how much you want, as long as it is low in fat.’

An obesity epidemic ensued. Despite the steady stream of scientific studies indicating that low-fat diets reversed cholesterol and atherosclerosis, there was no affirmation in real life in any consequential numbers that eliminating fats from diet increased longevity or even reduced risk of heart disease. Some actually argued the opposite.

Logic would demand that after almost two decades of failed dietary advice resulting in a tidal wave of obesity-related chronic illness and death, the mantra of ‘fat is bad’ would be abandoned. Unfortunately, egos and commercial profits now demanded that the official position should not be discarded but merely adapted. Thus, from the early 1990s, the no fat movement began, ushering in what is often called the ‘SnackWell Phenomena’.

The timing was perfect. Government experts in the United States Department of Agriculture had just released their first food pyramid, a visual form of the wildly successful medical slogan approach. This diagram prioritized the consumption of carbs over fats and other food groups. Six to eleven servings of carbohydrates were encouraged every day, whereas fats and oils were grouped in the same class as sweets and recommended for only ‘sparing’ use.

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The perfect medical slogan

The food pyramid is one of the most enduring marketing campaigns in world history, and is still in use, although slightly modified. Here we are, well into the 2020s, and it is still displayed on official government websites, although the consumption of carbohydrates has, in some recent revisions, slipped to number two priority (below vegetables, legumes, and fruits), instead of number one, as in 1992. Notably, dietary fats are still discouraged as the least beneficial food group.

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It should be noted that neither the food pyramid nor any corroborating scientific literature of the era recommended a diet rich in sugars or other refined carbohydrates. Many official sources included advice to limit sugars and other unhealthy carbs along with fats. Nevertheless, the focus was on the dangers of fats. This was something that the food industry was able to capitalize on.

SnackWell’s were a brand of no-fat cookies launched onto the market just after the food pyramid captured people’s imagination. This wildly successful product rode high on the view that you could eat all you want as long as it contained no fat. Some commentators in the media encouraged the practice of counting fat grams and not calories; this was all that mattered. The role that sugar played in causing obesity was all but ignored by the media as they went with their oversimplified anti-fat message based on the popular science of the day.

What transpired from this overemphasis on limiting dietary fat? Did the 1990s in fact spawn an epoch of health and vitality? Quite the opposite; obesity soared, along with type 2 diabetes, abnormal lipid patterns, and metabolic syndrome (a host of risk factors leading to heart disease and stroke, including high blood pressure, excess body fat around the waist, and abnormal cholesterol levels).

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For the first time in over seventy years since the Spanish flu epidemic, life expectancy in the United States actually decreased!

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Was this a failure of science? Or, more specifically, should it be regarded as a failure of the science industry? Some skeptics rankle at blaming science for the obesity epidemic that accompanied the anti-fat trend in science since the 1950s. They claim that experts consistently recommended that sugar be limited, and that the public never actually followed these recommendations. They claim that the evidence for the link between low-fat science and the obesity epidemic is circumstantial, and that people at least have always eaten the same amount of fat as they always have, just now with more sugar. The real culprits, in their view, are not the academics but the food industry.

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The academics themselves now are not so sure. The ease with which a subjective opinion based on limited science became government-sanctioned dogma is unnerving. There was always data available along the way that demonstrated that dietary fat was not the culprit that it was made out to be. But did that get playtime in the media? No. The oversimplified message, the one that was backed by commercial interests, is the one that won out.

‘Because the scientific community had recommended the diet, people assumed there was proof that the diet worked, even though there was none.’

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What does this bring to mind? Many assign the role of faith to religion and not to science. Quite the opposite, science is hailed as a bastion of objectivity, a great leap forward in the evolution of human society from superstitious beings to reasoning and advanced thinkers. Indeed, the first central component of the scientific principle is empirical evidence. Empirical evidence is that which can be experienced (and thus confirmed) by others rather than yourself. It is repeatable and can be checked independently. It is the only evidence that (theoretically) can be used by scientists and critical thinkers to reach sound conclusions.

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How did the evidence behind the heart-diet hypothesis rank on the objectivity scale?

‘All too often, scientific results in this field have been ambiguous.’

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Ambiguous? That’s not a word that you expect to read in connection with a scientific process. How else can one describe a scientific community recommending a course for which there is little compelling proof, though? Is this ‘objective’ science? Does it meet even the basic standards of scientific principles?

This low/no fat view projected to the community, supposedly based on a sound ‘scientific’ foundation, was nothing more than blind faith. While there was credible evidence to the contrary, this did not get media airplay. Governments also set aside any contrary views, resulting in no official endorsement or promotion of any opinions that didn’t fit in with the simplistic dialogue that was currently in vogue. The lack of any evidence behind the heart-diet hypothesis became an inside story, known to a few experts who may have had the capacity to access and critically evaluate the evidence at hand, but this was a message that was lost to the community at large.

This was more than just negligence in reporting all of the facts. There were occasions when passive suppression of inconvenient scientific data took place. One such example highlights a level of scientific credulity and willingness to fall into line behind established opinions that is almost unbelievable in its scope.

From 1968 to 1973, a randomized controlled trial was conducted by Dr Ivan Frantz from the University of Minnesota analyzing the effects of a diet high in animal fats and margarine to that of a diet comprised of low-fat vegetable oil and corn oil margarine. The subject groups were all sourced from residents of state mental hospitals and nursing homes, with the meticulous recordkeeping of these institutions adding weight to the credibility of this study’s conclusions.

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Interestingly, the trial confirmed that a diet rich in vegetable oils did reduce cholesterol levels by an average of fourteen percent. Critically though, this lowering of cholesterol did not correspond to an increase in longevity. In fact, for every drop of thirty points of blood cholesterol levels, there was a twenty-two percent higher risk of death in older patients.

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How did the community or the media respond when the astounding results of this trial were released? They never saw them. This study resulted in only a single published paper in 1989 stating that replacing saturated fats with vegetable oils did not reduce the risk of coronary heart disease or death. Little else was said. It was only after some investigative work, including digging around in storage rooms by clinical investigator Christopher Ramsden, that the original data saw the light of day, finally being published in 2016.

‘Findings from the Minnesota Coronary Experiment add to growing evidence that incomplete publication has contributed to overestimation of the benefits of replacing saturated fat with vegetable oils rich in linoleic acid.’

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Why were the results of this study not originally published in full? One can only wonder. A factor, though, may be that the co-leader of this study was Minnesotan academic Ancel Keys, the ‘father’ of the anti-saturated-fat movement himself.

Head researcher Ivan Frantz’s son, Ben Frantz, is himself a respected scientist. He reflects, ‘The idea that there might be something adverse about lowering cholesterol [via vegetable oils] was really antithetical to the dogma of the day.’

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While this may be an accurate statement, it is undeniably an outrageous one. The suggestion that scientific data be withheld from publication because it discredits the dogma of the day is something that most people would ascribe to the 14th century, not an age of objective, scientific truth and enlightenment.

Have there been consequences to this careful framing of the public discussion on dietary fats?

‘A balanced appraisal of the diet-heart hypothesis must recognize the unintended and unanticipated role that the L[ow]F[at]=H[igh]Carb diet may well have played in the current epidemic of obesity, abnormal lipid patterns, type II diabetes, and the metabolic syndrome.’

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In other words, the public who were following government advice and media reports on supposedly settled science have potentially paid for their faith with their health and their lives. They were sold on a message that was meant to guarantee their welfare, but it was all a mirage. Unfortunately, specialinterest considerations either skewed the research or cherry-picked what was presented through the media.

Some recent commentators have been scathing on the role that the science industry has played in misleading people. Dr Aseem Malhotra wrote an indictment of the science/ medical industry’s role in misleading the public on saturated fats in a piece published by the BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal) in 2013:

‘The mantra that saturated fat must be removed to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease has dominated dietary advice and guidelines for almost four decades. Yet scientific evidence shows that this advice has, paradoxically, increased our cardiovascular risks … Indeed recent prospective cohort studies have not supported any significant association between saturated fat intake and cardiovascular risk. Indeed saturated fat has been found to be protective … It is time to bust the myth of the role of saturated fat in heart disease and wind back the harms of dietary advice that has contributed to obesity.’

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Will the science industry learn from these mistakes? No. Research continues to be misapplied. In the United States, for example, there is a vast disproportion of research funding spent on treating diet-related chronic disease rather than researching nutrition. What a great idea—study the symptoms and not the cause!

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In fact, in 2015 the National Institutes of Health spent $900 million dollars on obesity research. Is this an adequate sum? Hardly! This figure is approximately the same as that spent on the cost of getting just a single drug to market.

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‘The public health approach to obesity remains focused on advice that has changed little in the last century.’

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And for the final word on progress:

‘Replacing foods that are high in saturated fat with healthier options can lower blood cholesterol levels and improve lipid profiles … You should replace foods high in saturated fats with foods high in monounsaturated and/or polyunsaturated fats. This means eating foods made with liquid vegetable oil but not tropical oils … The American Heart Association makes dietary recommendations only after carefully considering the latest scientific evidence.’

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Eating a lot of saturated fat increases your blood cholesterol, in particular, the bad (LDL) cholesterol … Coconut oil is 92% saturated fat, and recent reviews of evidence show that coconut oil consumption raises your total blood cholesterol (both good HDL and bad LDL). High LDL cholesterol increases your risk of heart disease … Swap butter for a margarine spread made from canola, sunflower, olive or dairy blends.’

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Yeah, right!

Inside Story No 2: ‘Vaccines Are Safe’

A sure-fire way to kill any party is to raise the topic of vaccines. Watch and wait for the impassioned and increasingly aggressive responses from those in the room. Do they work? Are they safe? Why are they so heavily promoted? What conspiracies are involved? Is there a cost/benefit reason to get yourself, or your loved ones, vaccinated?

Usually, all such arguments end in a plea for both sides to go and ‘do their own research’. This is nothing short of a brilliant idea. So how does one go about this? Speak to a doctor? Is that doing ‘your own research’? What about reading government health websites? Are these reliable authorities? Or perhaps social media provides a more reliable and unbiased source of information?

‘I prefer to listen to the professionals,’ many say. But what do the experts really say, and are they all in such agreement, as commonly believed? Is there an inside story lurking among the data in vaccine science?

The purpose of the information that follows is not to endorse one approach on vaccination or another. The sole intent is to alert you to the presence of credible, reliable scientific studies that have been published in peer-reviewed journals that suggest there is more to the story than the simplistic one-liner approach repeated through the media ad nauseam: ‘Vaccines are safe!’

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Completely safe and effective?

If you ever raise the safety of vaccines, then one chronic condition will immediately come to mind—autism, or ASD. Much of this agitation dates back to a 1998 paper published in The Lancet that ‘investigated a consecutive series of children with chronic enterocolitis and regressive developmental disorder’.

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This is the famous ‘debunked’ study that supposedly linked the MMR shot with an onset of autism. This study has since been set in stone as the perfect example of fraud in the history of scientific discovery.

It is interesting to review what is actually stated in this paper:

‘We did not prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described. Virological studies are underway that may help to resolve this issue … We have identified a chronic enterocolitis in children that may be related to neuropsychiatric dysfunction. In most cases, onset of symptoms was after measles, mumps, and rubella immunisation. Further investigations are needed to examine this syndrome and its possible relation to this vaccine.’

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So, there was no causal link suggested between the onset of autism, or neuropsychiatric dysfunction, as it is called in this paper. The possibility of a link was raised though, along with the standard ‘further research is required’ disclaimer that finalizes almost all scientific papers.

Strangely, the media got hold of and ran with the story. This highly unusual circumstance, almost unheard of in the history of the 20th-century media, eventually consigned the principal author of the study, along with any possibility of follow-up research on this subject, to the scrap heap of history and public opinion.

In 2010, The Lancet, after at least one previous review and more than a decade of enduring pressure from myriad expert dissenting views, ran a one-paragraph retraction of this article. This means the findings of the study should no longer be quoted or even used in any follow-up research. More importantly, it meant that a massive public relations campaign could be unleashed to discredit the original findings with a scientific stamp of approval. This article had been debunked, and any suggested link between MMR and autism was now scientific fraud.

This is the information you are most likely to read on official health or government websites or through mainstream media: Vaccines are safe!

‘There is no connection between vaccines and autism… So how did the idea that vaccines play a role get started? Much of the blame lies with a study published in 1998 that suggested that the MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine, or infection with the naturally occurring measles virus itself, might cause autism. Since then, numerous scientific studies have shown that there is no link between vaccines — or any of their ingredients — and autism. And the research used in that study was found to be false, the doctor who wrote it lost his medical license, and the medical journal that published it retracted the paper (this means that they believe it never should have been published).’

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Nevertheless, the phenomenon of vaccine hesitancy, a reluctance or refusal to vaccinate either one’s self or one’s children, was declared one of the top ten global health threats by the World Health Organization in 2019.

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Is this really a battle of opinions between the scientific thinkers and the uneducated masses, between evidence and hearsay, between reason and ignorance?

In 2018, members of the European Parliament forged a strategy at the top level to tackle the ‘worrying phenomenon of vaccine hesitancy’ among their populations.

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Their report condemned ‘the spread of unreliable, misleading and unscientific information on vaccination aggravated by media controversies’.

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Is this true? Are accounts of dangers associated with vaccines ‘unreliable, misleading and unscientific’? This is a broad, sweeping statement that implies that anything that suggests the contrary falls into the realms of pseudoscience.

Surprisingly to many, there is credible, compelling, and scientific research that confirms that vaccines are not completely safe, or as safe as official opinions state. Take for example the claim quoted above from the Kids Health website in 2019: ‘There is no connection between vaccines and autism.’ This is completely untrue.

In 2011, a paper was published following an extensive research project into a possible link between the ‘battery’ of childhood vaccinations and the onset of autism or speech language impairment (SLI). This study reviewed records on a state-by-state basis in the United States, cross-referencing the early vaccination records of children (under two years of age) with the onset of autism or SLI.

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‘Most studies that were not able to establish a link focused on a single vaccination or vaccine ingredient and did not consider the interaction among vaccinations … Evidence presented in this paper suggests a possible link between susceptible children receiving a battery of vaccinations and developing autism or speech disorders … Enhanced exposure to aluminium via vaccines may be associated with an increase in the prevalence of neurological disorders such as autism, especially if an aluminium-containing vaccine is administered along with a measles-containing vaccine.’

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Many people, including scientists and medical professionals, would be surprised that conclusions such as these actually do exist in print in peer-reviewed journals. The temptation might be to rationalize that a single published study flying in the face of overwhelming scientific opinion is nothing more than a peculiarity, a research glitch drawing a skewed conclusion. This study is not the only instance of science calling into question the safety of vaccines, though.

In 2014, a large-scale study was conducted to investigate ‘a previously overlooked, universally introduced environmental factor, fetal and retroviral contaminants in childhood vaccines’.

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A little-known fact is that some vaccines are produced by growing viruses or other pathogens in cells that are harvested from aborted human fetuses. Some of these include Hepatitis A; rubella, varicella, or chickenpox; zoster or shingles and the less widely administered adenovirus type 4 and type 7 oral; and rabies vaccines.

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It was these such vaccines that were the subject of this study.

This 2014 study analyzed all data available from government sources for every child born since 1971 in the United States, United Kingdom, Denmark, and Western Australia diagnosed with autism disorder. It cross-referenced the introduction of three childhood vaccines produced from human fetal cells, namely measles, varicella, and Hepatitis A, with autistic disorder ‘change points’, or abrupt variations in the levels of autism diagnoses in these countries. Allowances were made for ‘diagnosis relaxation’, or the broadening scope of the definition of autism over the time of the review. What conclusion did this massive study reach?

‘Change points in these countries corresponded to introduction of or increased doses of human fetalcell line-manufactured vaccines … Further, linear regression revealed that Varicella and Hepatitis A immunization coverage was significantly correlated to autistic disorder cases … Autistic disorder change points years are coincident with introduction of vaccines manufactured using human fetal cell lines … Thus, rising autistic disorder prevalence is directly related to vaccines manufactured utilizing human fetal cells.’

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Powerful stuff, indeed! The authors of this study spelled out their conclusions that ‘rising autistic disorder prevalence is directly related to vaccines’ of this type.

Did you ever read about this study in any news media? I would bet my every last dollar on your answer being an emphatic ‘No’!

Another study published in 2017, comparing vaccinated with unvaccinated children, found that the vaccinated ‘were less likely than the unvaccinated to have been diagnosed with chickenpox and pertussis, but more likely to have been diagnosed with pneumonia, otitis media [middle-ear infection], allergies and NDD [neurodevelopmental disorder including ADHD, autism spectrum disorder and/or a learning disability]’. Combining the effects of vaccination and pre-term birth increased the chances of a child developing NDD by 6.6 times! An association between childhood vaccines and a higher rate of allergies was also established.

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Three studies are hardly convincing proof that the narrative on vaccine safety is wrong. They do, however, dispel the myth that discussion about the potential harm of vaccines is ‘unreliable, misleading and unscientific’ and that ‘there is no connection between vaccines and autism’. These overly simplistic blanket statements are misleading, and the absence of any credible debate in the media covering both sides of this topic raises alarm bells.

Why have these studies not been publicized in the media? Obviously, the 1998 Andrew Wakefield experience has taught the special interest groups a valuable lesson. Keep the cat in the bag.

Vaccines have attracted criticism in scientific literature over possible links to other conditions as well.

In 2016, the American College of Pediatricians wrote an open letter urging caution over the use of a particular vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV). In this communication, they raised concerns about the possibility of this vaccine being associated with premature ovarian failure (POF), or premature menopause, taking a swipe at the quality of the studies done to establish the safety of this vaccine and noting an increase of POF or prolonged amenorrhea (missing menstrual periods) since its introduction to the market.

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Corroborating these concerns over the HPV vaccine was a study published in 2018 that identified a possible loophole in earlier studies that demonstrated the effectiveness of HPV vaccine. A careful review of existing studies in conjunction with a substantial increase in the incidence of invasive cervical cancer in Sweden during 2014–15 demonstrated that some groups targeted for vaccination actually have an increased risk of cervical cancer following this vaccination.

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Unfortunately, the author of this study was outed as a fake and the article was retracted as another example of scientific fraud. Apparently, the author published this paper under a pseudonym, citing fear of reprisal as their motive. The traditionalist popular media jumped all over the story, heralding another ‘fake anti-vaccine researcher publishes worthless HPV vaccine article’

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and the like.

It is interesting to read what the editors of the peer-reviewed journal that published this article said about their thinking at the time that the deception came to light:

‘On verification of his identity, the editor confirmed that (a) the author had the necessary qualifications, expertise and research experience on the subject of the article; and (b) the author did face a credible threat of harm, making it necessary not to be named publicly … the article used publicly available data with a simple statistical method; made a fair attempt to report a possible association of the increased incidence of carcinoma cervix with HPV vaccination; and suggested more research.’

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One of the more interesting comments in this retraction statement is in reference to the pressure that was brought to bear on the publishers to retract the article:

‘Following our decision, we received valuable advice from our editorial board and other well-wishers, emphasising that there should be zero tolerance towards the author’s deception, irrespective of the content of the paper. While our assessment of the science of the article may be correct, we have concluded that tolerating the author’s deception and retaining the article was an error of judgement. We express our deep gratitude to them and have accepted their advice.’

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I’m sure that I am not alone in smelling the sarcasm of the above statement and wonder who the ‘well-wishers’ that the publishers referred to were. Yes, we agree that deception in the science industry should not be tolerated and all attempts at fraud should be expunged. But common sense should prevail in some way when a committee of qualified peers actually verifies the integrity of the science in an article. It seems that the bureaucracy of scientific ethics can manoeuvre unsettling evidence aside by simply shooting the messenger, a la Andrew Wakefield.

Other uncomfortable studies have cropped up over the years, chipping away at the ‘set in stone’ image mainstream science has presented over the safety and efficacy of vaccines. The one most commonly showing in the crosshairs is the influenza vaccine.

It is noteworthy that our knowledge of the immune system is elementary at best. The human immune system may rightly be called one of the most complex mechanisms in the known universe. The elaborate interplay between white blood cells, antibodies, the lymphatic system, the spleen, the thymus, and trillions of beneficial bacteria accomplishes what can only be described as truly amazing. We are far from getting a grasp on how it all really works.

Vaccines may thus be described as an oversimplified approach to assisting the immune system. This has been alluded to in published studies analyzing flu vaccines over the years.

In 2011, a study analyzed the effect of the flu vaccine on the development virus-specific CD8+ T-cells.

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These cells are a critical component of the immune system to recognize and respond to future infections of the same (and similar) pathogens. By not stimulating this critical element of the immune system, seasonal flu vaccines failed to induce immunity to future infections of other virus subtypes. What does all of this mean?

‘Annual vaccination against influenza is effective but may have potential drawbacks that have previously been underappreciated and that are also a matter of debate … This may render young children who have not been previously infected with an influenza virus more susceptible to infection with a pandemic influenza virus of a novel subtype.’

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In other words, flu vaccines may protect against the immediate influenza threat but may also cripple the immune system’s ability to respond to potentially more dangerous infections in the future.

A different study in 2012 observed that children administered a trivalent inactivated flu vaccine (TIV) had an increased risk of non-influenza viral infections: ‘Being protected against influenza, TIV recipients may lack temporary non-specific immunity that protected against other respiratory viruses.’

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Corroborating these findings was another study published in 2014, which found that children who were vaccinated for the flu were 1.6 times more likely than unvaccinated children to have a non-influenza ILI (influenza-like illness):

‘Recipients of influenza vaccines had about 1.6 times more ILI episodes than did unvaccinated children and although this may be at least partly explained [by] a healthcare service-seeking bias, further investigations are warranted into whether influenza vaccine increases the risk of non-influenza ILI, as healthcare-seeking behavior did not predict ILI in a regression model.’

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It is important to note the caution in these studies about annual flu shots rendering subjects (‘children’, according to the context of each of these) more susceptible to ‘influenza-like illness’, or ‘pandemic influenza viruses of a novel subtype’. The world has recently grappled with SARS-CoV-2 virus, the infectious agent behind COVID-19, which is presented as the greatest pandemic in over 100 years. Could some of the unpredictable infectious behavior of this virus be attributed to this critical fail in annual flu vaccines? Will any studies follow up this research on the implications for the human immune system response to novel virus infections following annual flu vaccination? Or will the idea that there might be something adverse about flu vaccines be considered antithetical to the dogma of