In a widely circulating video, Del Bigtree claims that vaccines are unsafe, doctors don’t really understand them, most testing is too short, and that they can cause SIDS and other health problems.

Many studies show that vaccines do not cause SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome). In fact, getting vaccinated may even help lower the risk of SIDS.

When Del Bigtree talks about how long vaccine safety trials last, he is misunderstanding what he reads in vaccine inserts. These inserts are legal documents, not medical studies. Sometimes they say that people were watched for a few days to look for short-term reactions like a sore arm. But that doesn’t mean the whole safety study only lasted a few days. In reality, vaccine safety studies often last months or even years. You can learn more about how vaccine studies are done here.

Bigtree also claims that babies don’t need the hepatitis B (Hep B) vaccine because it spreads through sex or sharing needles. While that’s true, those are not the only ways Hep B spreads. Doctors give babies the Hep B shot at birth because some moms don’t know they have the virus. About 30–40% of people with long-term Hep B got it as babies or young children. Only about half of infected mothers are found before they give birth.

Even today, around 25,000 babies in the U.S. are born each year to moms with Hep B. If a newborn catches it, about 90% of them will stay infected for life. This raises their chances of liver disease and liver cancer later on.

There are many reasons why mothers don’t know they have Hep B. The test for Hep B is harder to understand than some other tests. A mom might get infected after her first test during pregnancy, but before giving birth. Tests can also be wrong sometimes, showing a false “negative.” Mistakes can happen too—like ordering the wrong test, reading the results wrong, or not sharing the results clearly.

Hepatitis B can also live outside the body for up to 7 days, even in dried blood. That means it can spread in other ways, too, like through bites in daycare, dirty needles, or bandages left in public places. This doesn’t happen often, but it’s still possible.

In a different video, Gavin de Becker claims that polio didn’t disappear because of vaccines, that most new polio cases come from the vaccine itself, and that people should decide for themselves whether to get the vaccine.

The reason polio was wiped out in the United States is mostly because of vaccines. In the 1950s, scientists made the first polio vaccine, which was a huge step forward in medicine. These vaccines worked very well to stop the spread of polio. They helped kids live normal lives again and gave parents peace of mind.

Since 1988, scientists and health organizations around the world have worked together in a global effort to end polio so that no person ever catches it again. They’ve done this by giving vaccines to millions of people and keeping close watch for new cases. Because of this work, polio cases around the world have dropped by 99%.

It’s true that not every child in the world has been vaccinated, since some people don’t have easy access to vaccines. But polio is caused by a virus, and it can only spread if someone is already infected. Thanks to the global vaccination effort, wild polio now exists in only two countries. This means that the number of deaths from polio is very low—both in vaccinated and unvaccinated people—because there are so few cases left.

Even though polio is almost gone, we still give the polio vaccine. That’s because diseases can travel fast. For example, in 2022, there was a polio outbreak in New York, showing that the virus can return if people aren’t protected.

De Becker also talks about measles, saying that the death rate is the same for vaccinated and unvaccinated people—but that’s not true. In places where most people are vaccinated, measles deaths are almost unheard of. But in 2023, there were an estimated 107,500 measles deaths worldwide, mostly among unvaccinated or under-vaccinated children under 5 years old.

Steve Kirsch, in a tweet, claims that COVID vaccination is a major cause of Bell’s Palsy, using VAERS as proof to back up his claim.

Bell’s palsy happens when the muscles on one side of a person’s face suddenly become weak or even paralyzed. Doctors aren’t sure exactly what causes it, but it may happen after the body fights an infection. In very rare cases, it has also happened after someone gets a vaccine.

Scientists have watched and studied cases of Bell’s palsy closely since the COVID vaccines came out. Observational studies show that Bell’s palsy happens about as often in vaccinated people as it does in people who haven’t been vaccinated.

Some larger reviews of many studies found a small increase in Bell’s palsy among people who got the vaccine, but the difference was very small. What’s more, the risk of getting Bell’s palsy from a COVID infection is much higher than the risk of getting it from the vaccine.
Steve Kirsch’s claims come from a system called VAERS, which stands for Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. According to the VAERS website, anyone can send in a report if they think they had a bad reaction after a vaccine. But that doesn’t mean the vaccine actually caused the problem.

VAERS is managed in part by the CDC, but the CDC only keeps the data—it doesn’t check or confirm each report. The VAERS website even warns that reports can be incomplete, incorrect, or unproven. Because of this, scientists must be very careful when looking at VAERS data and not jump to conclusions.

This interview is based on a paper that claims to have discovered an ‘off-switch’ for mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. In it, Dr. McCullough says that one solution to “detox” against mRNA vaccines is to introduce small interfering RNA (siRNA), similar to mRNA along with ribonuclease targeting chimeras (RIBOTACs)

McCullough has made multiple claims, including in his paper below, that lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) can cause injury and harm. Yet in his new procedure, both siRNA and RIBOTACs use lipid nanoparticles to enter the cells to target mRNA. If using lipids to allow siRNA and RIBOTACs to enter our cells is seen as safe, we can also assume the mRNA from vaccination is safe.

McCullough thinks this procedure is necessary because of worries about how mRNA vaccines spread throughout the body.

His idea about “systemic biodistribution” comes from misconstrued data. A study in rats looked at lipid nanoparticles after mRNA vaccine injections and their distribution in organs over time. The data show that most of the nanoparticles stayed where they were injected, and some went to the liver. In the ovaries, the highest amount of nanoparticles found was very, very small (only about 0.095% after 48 hours). This amount might be even smaller in human ovaries because the dose used in the COVID vaccine is much less than what they used in the rat study.

Would this off-switch work? We doubt Dr. McCullough’s science very much, and it is unnecessary because while tiny amounts of mRNA may persist in the body, the vast majority usually degrades within days.