Joe Rogan (born in 1967):

"Measles is an infection that everyone got when I was a kid, and what happened was, you’d get sick for a few days...If you’re dying from measles, you’re sick, you’re already compromised."

This is fraught with false & misleading statements 🧵

https://twitter.com/joeroganhq/status/2004582980958986471

Joe Rogen was born in 1967. The measles vaccine was licensed in 1963, and by the time he was in school, incidence had dropped over 95%. "Everyone got measles" describes his parents' generation, but not his. Chickenpox was actually was universal for Gen X, so maybe he's thinking of that?

But let's take the pre-vaccine era on its own terms, since that's what he's romanticizing...

About 4 million Americans got measles every year (essentially the entire birth cohort), though only 500,000 cases were formally reported. Of those, 500 died, 48,000 were hospitalized, 150,000 developed respiratory complications, 100,000 had ear infections, 7,000 suffered seizures, and 4,000 developed encephalitis. A quarter of those encephalitis cases left children permanently brain damaged or deaf.

cdc.gov/pinkbook/hcp/t…
2/

1/ On Monday, CDC adopted the recommendation to roll back the universal hepatitis B birth dose. The next day, a grant appeared in the Federal Register: $1.6 million to the University of Southern Denmark to run an RCT in Guinea-Bissau on “optimal timing” of the birth dose. 2/ The primary endpoint is “all-cause mortality” - not whether the vaccine prevents hepatitis B, but whether it affects deaths from other causes. This is the non-specific effects framework, which has been used to question established vaccine recommendations. RFK Jr. cited research using this methodology to justify cutting $1 billion to Gavi. npr.org/sections/goats…

New in @NEJM: Pfizer's mRNA flu vaccine beat the standard flu shot in a phase 3 trial. 34.5% better. Statistically superior, not just noninferior.

The timing is brutal. 🧵
nejm.org/doi/full/10.10… 2/ 18,000 adults, head-to-head against Fluzone. The mRNA vaccine reduced lab-confirmed flu by a third. If Fluzone was running around 50% effectiveness that season, the mRNA vaccine was likely in the 60-67% range.

That's exceptional for flu.

Aaron Siri says no one has identified errors in his ACIP presentation. Here are several, with citations to the primary literature. 🧵

https://twitter.com/AaronSiriSG/status/1998415514234704277

1/ THE CORE TRICK

When Siri claims a vaccine was "never tested against a placebo," he's relying on a narrow legal definition: that the specific trial submitted for the current U.S. license used an active comparator rather than saline.
He's auditing regulatory paperwork. Not science.

He systematically omits foundational placebo-controlled trials that established the safety of the antigen. Trials conducted before the current product's U.S. licensure, trials run in other countries, and trials published in journals but not listed in a specific FDA filing.

The science exists. He's looking at the wrong documents.

There are multiple issues with these statements by our FDA commissioner. 🧵

https://twitter.com/MAHA_Action/status/1993758243605110866

First, kids don't get 72 vaccines by age 18. The CDC schedule recommends 50-55 doses total, including annual flu shots. The inflated "72" figure may be intended to scare parents but it's false. I wrote about the "too many, too soon" myth here:
@statnews
statnews.com/2025/06/24/too…

Aaron Siri is misrepresenting flu vaccine evidence by selectively citing studies.

Doing this after the deadliest non-pandemic pediatric flu season on record — 280 children dead, 89% of whom were not fully vaccinated — is unconscionable.
Here’s what the data actually show. 🧵

https://twitter.com/AaronSiriSG/status/1981402475803603260

2/ First, the Cochrane review he quotes, but only selectively. Yes, the 2018 review reported “no convincing evidence” that flu vaccines reduced mortality, hospital admissions, serious complications, or community transmission in healthy children. But that reflects a basic limitation of the evidence it examined, not a verdict that vaccines do nothing. The review focused on randomized trials in healthy kids, which were designed to measure how vaccination affects the risk of getting influenza, not rare outcomes like death or ICU admission. Even with more than 200,000 children across 41 trials, you will not see enough deaths or hospitalizations to show a statistically clear difference. That is a limitation of trial size and design, not proof of lack of benefit against severe disease.

Within that framework, Cochrane found high certainty that vaccination substantially reduced lab-confirmed influenza. Inactivated vaccines reduced lab-confirmed flu in 2 to 16 year olds from 30% to 11%, about a 64% reduction. Live attenuated vaccines reduced it from 18% to 4%, about a 78% reduction. The authors estimated that vaccinating 5 children with inactivated vaccine prevents 1 case of confirmed influenza.

These are not side notes. They are the main efficacy findings of the review. The “no convincing evidence” phrase he highlights refers specifically to the lack of statistical power for rare outcomes in these randomized trials. The actual measured outcome, laboratory-confirmed influenza, showed clear benefit. Presenting the rare-outcome caveat without the primary efficacy results misrepresents what the Cochrane review actually found.

Link to the Cochrane review: cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.10…

Our systematic review on Covid-19, RSV, and influenza vaccines was just published in @NEJM. With federal vaccine guidance processes in flux, we felt independent evidence synthesis was crucial for the 2025-2026 respiratory virus season. 🧵nejm.org/doi/full/10.10… 2/ We screened 17,263 references and included 511 studies - updating the evidence base since the last comprehensive ACIP reviews. This was a massive team effort completed over 12 intensive weeks. We excluded animal studies, case reports <10 participants, and preprints.

The mRNA from COVID vaccines primarily stays local at the injection site and its draining lymph nodes. I understand why this has become controversial and confusing. There's a lot of scary information out there. I'll try to clarify a few things: 🧵 2/

In vaccine biology, "local" means the injection site muscle and the lymph nodes that drain it (your armpit for a shoulder shot). That's where vaccines are designed to work.

Regulatory studies confirm this: highest concentrations remain at the injection site. Small amounts reach the liver briefly. Brain shows only trace amounts in animal studies. The vast majority stays local.

1/ Two days of ACIP chaos: Self-described "rookies" eliminated universal COVID vaccine recommendations, added FDA-debunked theories to consent forms, and voted outside their legal authority. They literally don't know what they're doing or what they're allowed to do.🧵 2/ The damage goes beyond specific votes. They normalized treating misrepresented lab findings without clinical context as equivalent to population-level safety data. ACIP voted to add "six risks and uncertainties" to COVID vaccine consent based on claims that FDA debunked in 2023, EMA rejected in 2025, and Australia's TGA called misinformation in 2024. They literally can't distinguish between actual safety signals and manufactured doubt.

The unpublished study presented at today’s Senate hearing contains fundamental methodological flaws that explain why it remains unpublished. Most notably: it confuses healthcare utilization with disease occurrence. 🧵analyzing the evidence: 2/ At today’s Senate hearing, Aaron Siri presented an unpublished Henry Ford Health System study as evidence that vaccines harm children. This analysis, reportedly completed in 2020, has never passed peer review. Understanding why requires examining its methodology.

The primary issue is detection bias. Vaccinated children in this study averaged 7 healthcare visits annually, while unvaccinated children averaged 2. This differential creates systematically more opportunities to diagnose and code conditions in the vaccinated group.

There's a myth that "vaccines were never tested against unvaccinated kids." This is false.

In fact, the original clinical trials for many childhood vaccines depended on this direct comparison.

We've documented several in our comprehensive vaccine RCT database. Let's look. 🧵

https://twitter.com/EvanMcFatridge/status/1964851909619278225

2/ MEASLES:

Study 1: Measles (UK, 1977, The Lancet)

This was a massive undertaking. Researchers followed ~5,000 children for 12 years. A single dose of the Schwarz measles vaccine was given to one group, while another concurrent group of children remained unvaccinated for direct comparison.

Key Finding: The vaccine provided a "high level of protection" that did not wane over the 12-year period. It also showed that breakthrough measles cases in the vaccinated were "less severe," proving a dual benefit of prevention and attenuation.
Link: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/71396/

Study 2: Measles (Poland, 1971, WHO Bulletin)

This controlled epidemiological study evaluated two measles vaccine strains against a dedicated, unvaccinated control group of children over 24 months.

Key Finding: They measured efficacy precisely, finding the Schwarz vaccine was 95.1% effective at preventing measles compared to the unvaccinated group. This high efficacy was directly linked to a 97% rate of seroconversion (antibody development) in the vaccine recipients.
Link: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/5316912/

@SecKennedy says he "reviewed the science" before terminating 22 mRNA vaccine projects worth $500M.

The "data" cited? 181 pages of cherry-picked lab studies ignoring all the high-quality evidence.

The US government is citing this as its scientific basis, which is outrageous:🧵 2/ This compilation is now the official basis for ending federal funding for Nobel Prize-winning technology that has averted millions of deaths.

I've been analyzing COVID vaccine safety data since the beginning. I reviewed what @HHSGov refers to has the "science."

Here's what's actually in it - and what's missing. jamanetwork.com/journals/jama-…

RFK Jr. is misrepresenting a landmark Danish study that followed 1.2 million children over 24 years. The study found no link between aluminum in vaccines and autism or neurodevelopmental harm. Let’s fact-check his claims - using actual data. 🧵

https://twitter.com/SecKennedy/status/1951423851314946083

2/ This study represents gold-standard epidemiological research. Over 24 years, researchers tracked 1.2 million children across 50 health outcomes. Edward Belongia, leading vaccine safety expert: "the largest and most definitive observational study on the safety of vaccine-related aluminum exposure in children" ever conducted. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40658954/

As an infectious diseases physician and vaccine specialist, I need to address several serious misrepresentations, baseless assertions, and factual errors in this post. 🧵

https://twitter.com/RWMaloneMD/status/1945389226931183689

1/ Calling mRNA vaccines “genetic ‘vaccine’ products,” with “vaccine” in quotes, is a deliberate rhetorical move that undermines their legitimacy.

These are real vaccines by every scientific and regulatory standard. They generate protective immunity, prevent severe disease, and have saved millions of lives. The mRNA remains in the cytoplasm, never enters the nucleus, and is rapidly degraded within hours, providing temporary instructions for cells to make a harmless viral protein that stimulates protection. cdc.gov/covid/vaccines…

If anyone claims vaccines haven’t been properly studied, show them this:

We’ve now logged 500 randomized, controlled vaccine trials into our dataset with ~7.2M participants. The vast majority of trials reported safety outcomes. Many more trials to come.
bit.ly/4le8z7D Huge thanks to the inspiration and co-leader of the project, @BradSpellberg, and to our amazing team of volunteers who have been putting many hours into this - @AliSMV7, @alejodiaz81, @DhandAbhay, @ThePharmFox, @zacroBID, @TravisBNielsen, Dr. Matthew Phillips, @SarahRawi1, @IDwithNWD, Dr. Kusha Davar, Dr. Devin Clark, and countless anonymous contributors.

1/ Tucker Carlson: “Do you think overall the COVID vaccine killed more people than it saved?”
RFK Jr: “The truth is, I don’t know.”

This is outrageous.
I do know.
The answer is: unequivocally no. 🧵 2/ RFK Jr then added:

“And the reason I don't know is because the studies that were done by my agency were sub-standard, and they were not designed to answer that question."

I cared for hundreds of COVID patients and watched far too many die - including young, relatively healthy adults who never had a chance to get vaccinated, or who declined it.

And I’ve reviewed the evidence. Many of the studies he’s dismissing are anything but “sub-standard.”

It’s not even close.

This claim about the Amish deserves correction with actual data. 🧵

https://twitter.com/rwmalonemd/status/1939373583823995361

2/ Research shows that many Amish families do vaccinate their children. Studies find that anywhere from 41% to 85% of Amish parents have vaccinated at least some of their children, depending on the community and time period.

RFK Jr's thimerosal thread is a masterclass in misinformation. Let's fact-check it line by line. 🧵 2/ CLAIM: “There are high bolus doses of mercury in flu shots.”

FACT: 96% of flu vaccines are thimerosal-free.
Multi-dose vials contain 25 mcg per dose. That’s not a “high bolus.”
fda.gov/vaccines-blood…

It’s not easy to navigate the maelstrom of misinformation. Grateful to @megtirrell and @boulware_dr for cutting through it.

Slides prepared for ACIP this week by former CHD leader Lyn Redwood cited a 2008 Neurotoxicology study on thimerosal and “long-term brain harm.”

But the study doesn’t exist. The listed author says he never wrote it and his actual research found no such effect.

Debates should be grounded in evidence, not phantom citations.

Thimerosal has been thoroughly studied for decades. Here's what the evidence actually shows🧵👇
cnn.com/2025/06/24/hea… 2/ What the evidence actually says

Thimerosal has been used in vaccines and biologics since the 1930s. It’s highly effective at killing bacteria and preventing contamination, especially in opened multi-dose vials.

Thimerosal contains ethylmercury, not methylmercury. Ethylmercury is broken down and excreted quickly; unlike methylmercury, it doesn’t build up or persist in the body.

In 1999, U.S. health agencies recommended removing thimerosal from childhood vaccines as a precaution, not because of evidence of harm. By 2003, all thimerosal-containing pediatric vaccines (except some flu shots) had expired. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10418806/

It’s understandable to have questions about aluminum in vaccines. Here are the key facts:
🧵 1⃣ Why is aluminum there?

A tiny amount of aluminum salt acts as an adjuvant - a helper that tells your immune system, “Pay attention!” This lets the vaccine work better with less antigen (the piece of virus or bacteria that trains immunity). In this sense, it's dose-sparing: less antigen per shot.

RFK Jr. went on national TV and spouted egregious, dangerous falsehoods about vaccines. As a parent and infectious diseases doctor, I couldn't stay silent. @FoxNews might not fact-check him, but I will. I've reviewed the trials. I've catalogued them. I have receipts. 🧵

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1933254404519469135

❌CLAIM 1: "97% of people on [ACIP] had conflicts of interest"

✅REALITY: Only 41% received any industry payments, mostly under $55k over 6 years
This is flatly false. Reuters reviewed all 17 voting members of the outgoing ACIP panel:
6 received $80 or less TOTAL over 6 years

7 received between $4k-$55k total over 6 years (mostly travel, meals, occasional consulting)
4 had no reported industry payments at all
That's 7/17 = 41%. Not 97%.

CDC rules require recusal for any vote tied to a relevant conflict. Meeting minutes show ONE recusal in the reviewed period.
ACIP members are unpaid volunteer experts. They don't get royalties, don't keep pharma stock, don't get flown to golf courses.
A published review found <5% of ACIP votes over the past decade involved a declared conflict.
reuters.com/business/healt…