Covid-19 and the Art of Brainwashing – Part V

The Salk Vaccine and Covid-19 – Lessons Never Learned: New Lies for Old  

Lessons Americans Never Learned

The following is a summary by Dr. Herbert Ratner of lessons Americans should have, and needed to, learn from the Salk vaccine scandal that occurred more than a half-century ago. Unfortunately, it is apparent from the Covid-19 Plandemic, that those lessons were never registered much less learned by a majority of our people. 

So let me repeat Dr. Ratner’s warnings once again:  

When an influential voluntary health organization in the U.S. launches a new vaccine in a highly touted national vaccine program, approved by government, backed by organized medicine, abetted by vaccine manufacturers, supported by legions of organized and enthusiastic volunteers, sought after by anxiety-ridden parents – and it turns out to be seriously flawed – a decision on what to do next has to be made. If it is believed that reputations and even the preservation of the organization are at stake, the pressure, and the temptation to cover up could be intense. 

In the specific case of the inadequately developed and faulty 1954 Salk vaccine and the prematurely launched 1955 national Salk vaccine program of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NF) just such a decision was faced, and deception and self-deception took over and ruled. In collusion were federal agencies, particularly the Center for Disease Control – the epidemiologic arm of the United States Public Health Service – and subservient state health departments. 

It would be less consequential if the employment of skullduggery to give failure the appearance of success, were a transitory event in the history of science and medicine. Unfortunately, it was a turning point that gave birth to rationalization, cynicism and even dishonesty in subsequent generations of physicians associated with voluntary and governmental health agencies and programs (emphasis added). To mention a few instances, such behavior was evident in government vaccination programs against the Asiatic (1957) and Swine (1976) influenza and the rubella (1969) vaccine programs. … The number of persons who view the medical scene with sophistication and skepticism, who do not servilely accept health programs generated by voluntary and governmental agencies, and who do not permit ends to justify means are rare. 

To be realistic, the success of national health agencies, and the tenure of their top administration, depends heavily on the talent of their public relations divisions and, for the most part, is measured by the amount of funds garnered from the public, or in the case of government agencies from Congress. Unfortunately, national health agencies are more like business enterprises than professional organizations. Appearance, with or without substance, frequently prevails, and activism, good or bad, premature or otherwise, becomes habitual. 

In the NF program, numerous reputations were at stake: those of the NF; the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (now Health and Human Services); the United States Public Health Service; and those of many prominent scientists and others associated with the NF’s vaccination program. 

The public finds it difficult to believe that agencies dedicated to health and life would ever knowingly jeopardize the lives of individuals, especially those of children. To the public, the notion of health as a good is sacrosanct and precludes any action by a health agency that would endanger health. The defense of the country, however, is also a sacrosanct good, yet no one has blind trust in the Pentagon: nor do many have confidence in the assurances and reassurances of safety given by atomic commissions and other regulatory agencies that deal with the environment. Integrity is a scarce commodity. Few organizations and not many scientists or administrators have immunity from the human habit of rationalizing errors to cover up mistakes. … Our purpose, here, is to unfold the untold story of the NF’s Salk vaccination program of the late fifties as experienced and documented by one health officer [Dr. Herbert Ratner] who, in discharging his duties and obligations became engulfed in a controversy of great magnitude that in fact was only the tip of the iceberg. 

The hope is that it will help correct the records of a flagrantly distorted episode in the history of modern medicine; and will help the reader become less innocent and more sophisticated in regard to the trustworthiness of mass programs sponsored and supported by national health agencies, the alleged guardians of our health.  (more...)

Covid-19 and the Art of Brainwashing – Part I    Part II    Part III    Part IV    Part V