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Shared more than 1,700 times, the clip of Peter McCullough, an American cardiologist known for spreading misinformation about fitness, allegedly speaking before a “panel of experts” in the European Parliament (archived here).
In the footage, McCullough discusses the Covid-19 pandemic and mRNA vaccines, saying that patients did not receive proper treatment for the infection and that the vaccines caused a second “wave of injury,” in addition to the significant health effects similar to the disease.
mRNA is short for “messenger RNA” or a molecule that teaches our cells to produce a certain protein (in the case of Covid, the spike protein) that the immune formula recognizes as foreign (archived here).
The cells then begin to produce antibodies opposed to the protein, so that the system triggers a general immune reaction when it encounters the virus.
The photographs come with the McCullough logo and the newsletter titled “Courageous Speech. “
McCullough’s presentation has circulated in several languages, adding German, Swedish and Slovak.
AFP Fact Check first verified the facts of the video in Swedish and has already refuted other claims made by McCullough about Covid-19.
Although the vaccine could have unwanted side effects, the claim that it caused a widespread instantaneous surge of adverse health disorders is false.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that another 14. 9 million deaths were related to the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 (archived here).
Excess mortality is the difference between the number of deaths that occurred and the number that would have been expected if the pandemic had occurred (archived here).
The Covid-19 vaccination program, the largest in history, has administered only about 40 million doses in South Africa (archived here).
Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna have created a vaccine that contains mRNA that signals the recipient’s cells to produce the spike protein (archived here).
Other vaccines, such as those produced by AstraZeneca and Janssen, are viral vector vaccines, which also involve the genetic commands of the protein. The difference is that the genetic code is passed on to human cells by an innocent, unrelated virus (archived here). .
The European Medicines Agency (EMA), a European framework for monitoring pharmaceutical safety, has said that vaccines have saved millions of lives (archived here).
According to the researchers, they have more than halved the estimated number of deaths internationally by reducing the infection rate in the first year of vaccine rollout (archived here).
For the EMA, “there is no evidence of an increase in Covid-19 vaccination-related deaths in any age group” (archived here).
“Prior to their authorisation, the vaccines were tested on tens of thousands of participants in randomised controlled trials to verify that they met the EMA’s clinical criteria for safety, efficacy and quality,” the company told AFP Fact Check.
“With a death toll of more than 6. 9 million from Covid-19 internationally reported to the WHO. . . [and] of the as-yet-unknown long-term consequences of the disease, the human burden of herbal immunity to Covid-19 [for] allowing the virus to infect an unprotected population is tolerable.
“With a death toll of more than 6. 9 million from Covid-19 worldwide. . . Allowing the virus to infect an unprotected population is tolerable. ” – European Medicines Agency
The European Parliament reaffirmed in a July 2023 decision that vaccines authorised in the EU are effective in preventing severe illness and death (archived here).
In his remarks, McCullough says that mRNA and the spike protein, the component of the coronavirus that allows it to enter human cells (archived here), continue to circulate in the framework and that the mRNA is damaged, leading to adverse effects.
“There’s only one study that shows that messenger RNA degrades,” he says.
However, according to experts, this is true.
“The peak of protein production is very transient. . . The injected RNA and the proteins that are activated through it decay very quickly,” Frédéric Altare, from the French Institute for Health Research (INSERM), told AFP in July 2023.
In September 2023, Altare informed AFP Fact Check about recent developments related to the mRNA vaccine and spike protein.
“Some tweaks determine the lifespan of RNA and the protein it produces to increase its ability to trigger a more potent immune response,” he said.
Only fragments of the spike protein can remain in the body, he added, and studies show no negative side effects due to the prolonged presence of spike protein remnants.
As for mRNA, it’s naturally fragile, according to experts like RNA specialist Bowen Li of the University of Toronto.
“mRNA breaks down rapidly in tissues and blood, in a matter of days, due to its inherent fragility,” the assistant professor told AFP Fact Check on October 6, 2023.
However, mRNA contains lipid particles, which are necessarily small balls of fats that protect sensitive molecules (archived here).
This means that mRNA with this protective layer can be detected for longer than unprotected mRNA, which is temporarily removed by RNA-breaking enzymes, the Swedish Medical Products Agency (MPA) told AFP.
The amount of spike protein produced is so small that it is difficult to determine how quickly it is broken down.
This debunking from Health Feedback, a global network of fact-checking scientists (archived here), details several studies that suggest the vaccine’s mRNA has a shelf life.
To back up his claims, McCullough also refers to the “Castruita” articles showing “mRNA circulating for a month. “
Although he cites an express article, a keyword search shows this study written by “Castruita et al” and published in March 2023 in APMIS, a journal of pathology, microbiology, and immunology (archived here).
The researchers discovered “sequences or complete sequences of SARS-CoV-2 spike mRNA vaccine sequences” in the blood of 10 out of 108 samples from patients with chronic hepatitis C up to 28 days after receiving the Covid-19 vaccine.
However, according to one of the paper’s co-authors, the effects can’t be used for McCullough’s argument that mRNA doesn’t leave the body.
“There is no long-term patience,” Henrik Westh, a clinical professor at the University of Copenhagen, told AFP on September 29, 2023.
Westh explained that the policy (or the amount of traceable vaccine) is “high immediately after vaccination, decreases over time, and wears off after 28 days in our patient cohort. “
“There is no knowledge about the side effects related to our findings. I think it may simply be a merit for the immune reaction to the Covid vaccine,” he said, referring to the prolonged presence of mRNA.
McCullough goes on to say that the vaccine’s spike protein causes cardiovascular problems, in addition to myocarditis, an inflammation of the core muscle.
However, experts say that Covid-19 infections (and other viral illnesses) carry a higher risk of cardiovascular disease than vaccines.
While myocarditis and pericarditis, or inflammation of the central lining, are discussed as conceivable side effects in Pfizer and Moderna’s product data (archived here and here), the European Medicines Agency classifies them as “very rare. “
“It’s true that there are rare cases of myocarditis and pericarditis after mRNA vaccines and they’re a little less unusual with Moderna than with Pfizer early on and in young men,” Peter Liu, clinical director of the University of Ottawa’s Heart Institute, told AFP. . Fact checking.
“The incidence is still very, very low — less than 8 per million. “
Mats Börjesson, a professor specializing in sports cardiology at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, said the threat of myocarditis exists for all viral diseases.
“And while Covid doesn’t pose as wonderful a myocarditis threat as, say, an influenza infection, there have been many cases of myocarditis around the world. . . because many have gotten sick,” he said.
“The risk of myocarditis in case of Covid infection is higher, which generally leads to a reduction in the risk of myocarditis if you are vaccinated. “
Börjesson also showed that myocarditis after vaccination would be “a milder form” than that caused by an infection.
A May 2022 Nordic study found that among older men aged 16 to 24, nine to 28 out of every 100,000 people developed myocarditis after the Moderna vaccine and four to seven out of every 100,000 after the Pfizer vaccine (archived here).
The cases were “very rare” and the maximums were mild.
However, McCullough cited a paper he co-authored, in which it allegedly appeared that 100 percent of deaths from suspected myocarditis were due to the vaccine.
AFP Fact Check described the article as a purported preprint published in 2023, examining 28 post-mortem cases with “Covid-19 vaccine-induced myocarditis as a conceivable cause of death” (archived here).
Preprints are reports of initial studies that have not been peer-reviewed. As a result, their quality and reliability would possibly vary.
Stuart Ray, a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University who specializes in virology, pointed out several with a preprint (archived here).
“This is full of misstatements about Covid-19 vaccines and misleading quotes from sources,” he told AFP Fact Check on October 4, 2023.
“[The report] is full of misstatements about Covid-19 vaccines and misleading quotes from sources. “- Stuart Ray, Professor of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University
“Retrospective investigation of the report of 28 autopsies performed at an epoch related to one billion vaccine doses provides no evidence of a causal link between vaccination and cardiovascular complications,” he added.
Liu, of the Ottawa Heart Institute, added that many of the cases cited in the article involved patients in the older age group. Age diversity is at odds with vaccine-associated myocarditis, he said, because it’s more likely to occur among younger people. people.
McCullough also claimed that vaccine-induced myocarditis was linked to cardiac arrests in young athletes.
AFP Fact Check has debunked several claims in the past.
Liu explained that some of the other headaches McCullough mentioned (adding central seizures and arrhythmias) are reported after vaccination.
But those are not unusual situations and any deal with vaccines has been incidental.
Börjesson, of the University of Gothenburg, said it remains debatable whether vaccines, like the infection itself, can also cause other serious cardiovascular events.
“There is a lack of population-based studies to prove this,” Börjesson said.
“One study showed that myocardial infarction did not accumulate after vaccination, while the study showed a decreased risk of myocardial infarction [heart attack] after Covid-19 in fully vaccinated people. When it comes to stroke, the effects are mixed. “
Johns Hopkins’ Ray echoed this.
“Vaccination to save Covid-19 is rarely linked to cardiovascular headaches, and the latter are more related to Covid-19,” he said.
McCullough also states that the cardiovascular damage caused by the vaccine “is more noticeable than anything else in cholesterol, high blood pressure, and diabetes. “
The Global Cardiovascular Risk Consortium published an article in the October 2023 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine identifying five common risk points for cardiovascular disease (archived here).
“High blood pressure is the leading cause [of cardiovascular disease], followed by high cholesterol, and diabetes is the leading contributor to cardiovascular mortality worldwide,” said Liu, of the University of Ottawa’s Heart Institute, referring to the study’s findings.
He added that heart attacks and strokes are noticeable in the numbers that would be expected if they were linked to vaccines.
Similarly, Johns Hopkins’ Ray stated that “with the exception of rare cases of myocarditis, which are more strongly linked to Covid-19 infection than vaccines, there is no rigorous evidence to suggest that mRNA vaccination to save Covid-19 carries a risk of cardiovascular [complications] comparable to high cholesterol, high blood pressure or diabetes. “
McCullough also claims that the mRNA vaccine causes “blood clots like never before noticed,” claiming that the spike protein is “the highest thrombogenic protein ever observed in human medicine. “
Clotting headaches have been linked to viral vector vaccines and mRNA vaccines (archived here).
“Some adenovirus vector-based Covid-19 vaccines have rarely been linked to more serious blood clotting complications,” Ray said.
“Severe blood clotting-related headaches are strongly related to mRNA vaccination. “
Liu added that there is a very small risk, more common in middle-aged women, of blood clots forming in the brain, “associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is a more classic viral vaccine” (archived here).
He explained that blood clotting in Covid-19 patients would be connected to the ACE2 receptor, with which the virus enters cells.
Ray supported him. ” A striking feature of the first wave of Covid-19 clotting headaches, and the available evidence suggests that the mRNA vaccine to save you from Covid-19 is far less related to blood clotting than the disease that saves you. ” he said.
Börjesson said there is “no evidence” to describe the spike protein as the maximum thrombogenic protein.
AFP has in the past verified claims about vaccines and blood clots.
McCullough also claims a litany of the vaccine’s alleged neurological and immunological effects.
He cites a variety of neurological disorders, from strokes to headaches.
However, while studies are underway on the possible links between vaccines and many pathologies, no causal links have been established between mRNA vaccines and most of those pathologies.
AFP Fact Check showed the list of McCullough’s alleged adverse reactions to the MPA, Sweden’s watchdog agency.
It showed that those and many others had been tested for an imaginable causal link to Covid-19 vaccines.
“For the types of occasions where causal dating is plausible, they are classified as side effects and indexed in the product information,” they said, adding that other cases are being monitored.
Of the situations indexed by McCullough, only headaches are discussed in Pfizer and Moderna’s production briefing documents under the heading “very common side effects. “
“It’s vital that those vaccines have been administered to a huge number of Americans around the world (millions) and that many of those Americans had other ailments prior to vaccination and/or were affected by a (worsened) disease at some point. . point after vaccination, even if there is no causal relationship,” the MPA said.
Liu agreed, saying that “it’s about distinguishing between cases that occur after vaccination and those caused by the vaccine. “
While rare effects have been reported, the causal dating between the vaccine and many of the severe situations indexed by McCullough is unclear, he explained.
The EMA’s Safety Committee has reviewed cases of multisystem inflammatory syndrome reported after Covid-19 vaccination, but at the time of publication, there is insufficient evidence to show a conceivable link between the two (archived here).
It should be noted that some of the situations reported through McCullough have been linked to non-mRNA Covid-19 vaccines.
Product data for the Janssen and AstraZeneca vaccines, whether viral vector vaccines, list Guillain-Barré syndrome and thrombocytopenia as “very rare” effects (archived here and here).
Guillain-Barré syndrome is a rare syndrome in which the immune formula mistakenly attacks the nerve formula (archived here).
The EMA lists those two situations as rare side effects of either viral vector vaccine.
McCullough bases his claims on several dubious quotes. These come with an article by “Schmeling and colleagues from Denmark,” which purportedly claims that 30 percent of vaccinated people have no side effects, 70 percent have moderate side effects, and 4. 2 percent have severe side effects, according to the group.
Through a keyword search, AFP Fact Check uncovered only one conceivable applicable document: a study letter published in the March 2023 issue of the European Journal of Clinical Investigation (archived here).
It looked at rates of suspected adverse events among other batches of the Pfizer vaccine administered in Denmark.
The exact numbers McCullough mentioned are not in the letter, but it says 4. 22% of all vaccine doses came from the most suspected adverse reactions.
Therefore, 4. 22 percent does not refer to the proportion of people with serious side effects, but to the vaccine with the highest rates of suspected side effects.
The remaining 63. 69 percent and 32. 02 percent came from batches with higher frequency and least suspected adverse reactions, respectively.
In addition, the letter points out as one of its limitations that the knowledge comes from the Danish Medical Agency, which uses the so-called passive reporting formula to control adverse reactions.
This means that data are provided voluntarily through clinicians and patients and are “subject to information biases, with the possibility of under- or over-reporting, as well as incomplete knowledge and variable quality of reported data. “
The authors conclude that, as a result, “signals detected through those systems. . . they can’t be used to identify causation. “
In this Danish press article, experts also point out several errors in the strategies and statistical insights used in (archived here).
The MPA told AFP Fact Check that it had not found any evidence to support the conclusions drawn that some batches would cause more adverse effects than others.
McCullough also claims that as a co-author of the “largest autopsy ever conducted on deaths following Covid-19 vaccination worldwide,” he found that 73. 9% of deaths following vaccination were caused by the vaccine.
AFP verified the facts in July, interviewing experts who pointed to methodological flaws and doubts about the credentials of the authors.
The preprint first appeared on a server related to the famous medical journal The Lancet, but was deleted because its method did not match its findings (archived here).
McCullough discusses remedies for Covid-19.
He argues that only an early remedy and herbal immunity can save him from hospitalization and death.
“Most hospitalizations and deaths could be prevented in patients at maximum threat through early intervention,” he says, recommending nasal sprays and gargles, as well as intravenous and oral medications administered at home.
However, as the MPA explains, it is safer to be vaccinated than infected.
“Covid-19 has proven to be a serious and unpredictable disease, generating new diagnoses in the healthcare field, such as long Covid,” he said.
While herbal immunity is effective, it wanes over time and carries a threat of severe disease, the EMA told AFP Fact Check.
The decline also occurs with vaccines, but “it increases the body’s ability to expand resistance to disease without having to re-expose itself to potentially serious consequences of disease,” he says.
At the start of the pandemic, AFP Fact Check debunked early on claims that gargling was a way to prevent Covid-19.
The EMA and MPA said there are currently no virucidal nasal sprays available for the treatment of Covid-19.
At the end of his speech, McCullough mentions that the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) and the World Council for Health (WCH) are advocating for a ban on Covid-19 vaccines.
The AAPS is a nonprofit medical organization, while the WCH describes itself as a “global coalition of health-focused projects and civil society groups. “
AFP Fact Check has already debunked incorrect vaccine information shared through the AAPS and the World Council for Health.
In March 2023, the AAPS called for a “moratorium” on what it described as “mandatory Covid-19 vaccines and gene shots,” while the World Council for Health said in 2021 that the vaccines were “unsafe. “
Facebook refers to McCullough’s speech as an “expert hearing” in the European Parliament.
A keyword search for “a McCullough expert in listening to the European Parliament” leads to that of Christine Anderson, Member of the European Parliament (MEP) (archived here).
Its website announces a so-called specialized hearing titled “Health and democracy under the new regulations proposed by the WHO” that was held in an assembly hall of the European Parliament on September 13, 2023.
Several speakers are grouped together with five MEPs organising the event. On the back right of the leaflet, you can see the logo of the organization Identity and Democracy (ID).
The identification is of far-right MEPs (archived here).
The interview involving McCullough was not an official hearing of the European Parliament.
A parliamentary committee is allowed to hold a hearing with experts “essential to its work on a specific topic,” according to the Parliament’s report (archived here).
“Most committees hold regular hearings because they allow them to hear from experts and discuss key issues. “
The lists of all committee hearings and none were released by Sept. 13, 2023, when McCullough’s presentation took place.
The convention “is not an official event of the European Parliament and is not organised or funded through the European Parliament,” the parliament told AFP Fact Check in an email sent on September 28, 2023.
In his remarks, McCullough also notes that he moderated a consultation in the U. S. Senate on Dec. 7, 2022, in which the panel concluded that all Covid-19 vaccines deserve to be withdrawn.
A keyword search brings the press to a panel discussion hosted by Sen. Ron Johnson on the same day, with a video of the event on the Johnson’s Rumble channel showing McCullough in attendance.
Other speakers included Robert Malone, who AFP had already fact-checked in the past for false claims about Covid-19 vaccines.
AFP also verified other claims made at Johnson’s roundtables.