When Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all 17 Biden-appointed members of the CDC vaccine advisory panel, CNN practically went insane — or inane — from fury. However, Kennedy quickly undermined their false and hysterical claims with detailed scientific evidence and hard facts.
It will be no surprise to you to hear that CNN is not a reliable source when it comes to science and healthcare — or anything else. Of course, that is partly because all the major networks receive a significant amount of money for Big Pharma ads (around 75% of evening news ad revenue is from pharmaceuticals). And in a very detailed X post on Tuesday, Kennedy addressed CNN’s emphatic claim that routine vaccines have been tested for decades with placebo-controlled studies. Spoiler: they haven’t.
Kennedy said that instead of appointing vaccine advisors who are explicitly self-defined as anti-vaxxers, he will be appointing “highly credentialed physicians and scientists who will make extremely consequential public health determinations by applying evidence-based decision-making with objectivity and common sense.” He also promised more details on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ (ACIP) corruption in the past. But the main purpose of his post was to explain exactly how CNN was being mendacious and deceptive with its vaccine study claims.
Related: Shot of Sanity: RFK Ousts CDC Vaccine Panel
ACIP has not prioritized the safety of Americans, particularly children, by insisting on adequate safety testing for routine vaccines, Kennedy explained. In 1986, babies received three shots, and children received 11 shots, but the number of routine vaccines for minors has increased to between 69 and 92 in 2025. Many of these new vaccines are actually unnecessary, and the overwhelming majority of them have not been properly tested, according to the HHS secretary. Indeed, each of these shots has been recommended by the vaccine advisory panel without requirements for placebo-controlled tests for any of them.
CNN screeched that 257 placebo-controlled studies were conducted for the approval of routine vaccines.
“CNN is wrong. No routine injected vaccine on CDC’s schedule was licensed for children based on a placebo-controlled trial. In instances where a vaccine was used as a control, it too was never licensed based on a placebo-controlled trial. That is not conjecture. It is a fact based on FDA’s clinical trial data,” RFK wrote.
In reality, Kennedy continued, 236 of the studies cited by CNN did not use an “inert” substance or placebo control safety comparator in a trial in order to license an injected routine vaccine for kids now listed on the CDC’s schedule.
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Of the remaining studies, nine also did not really have a placebo control:
• RCT 251, 252 (Varivax) injected an antibiotic, neomycin – not inert.
• RCT 84, 97 (HPV-16 and 16/18) injected aluminum adjuvant – not inert.
• RCT 215 (Almevax) injected another vaccine – not inert.
• RCT 55 (Lyophilized PedvaxHIB) injected lactose, aluminum adjuvant, and thimerosal – not inert.
• RCT 197 (Salk vaccine) injected 199 solution, synthetic tissue culture, ethanol, phenol red, antibiotics, and formalin – not inert.***
• RCT 168 (Dow’s MMR) injected full vaccine minus virus, including all stabilizers, antibiotics, diluent, preservative, and buffers – not inert.****
• RCT 189 (Menveo) injected Tdap+saline or Menveo+saline – not inert.
As for the remaining 12 studies, while they did use inert substances, none of them were trials “relied upon to license a routine vaccine on CDC’s childhood schedule.” Unfortunately, since vaccine companies are not held liable except in rare circumstances because of problematic law, there is no incentive for the companies or the government to be rigorous in safety testing, until now.
Fake news funded by Big Pharma lied to us — who could have predicted that?
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