Court case may puncture the ‘facts’ about mumps shot

Outrage: Did Merck lie about this vaccine?

Whenever there are cases of mumps, measles or chicken pox you’ll always hear people saying that it’s the fault of all those crazy “anti-vaxxers.”

“Anti-vaxxers” are parents, grandparents and others who won’t just take the FDA’s or the CDC’s or Big Pharma’s word on how “safe” these shots are. (And with good reason.)

But what if these vaccines aren’t really all that “effective” to begin with?

That would kind of change the whole picture now, wouldn’t it?

Well soon, a federal court in Pennsylvania is going to hear a lot about just how effective one of these vaccines really is.

Because Merck and its mumps shot are going to trial. In jeopardy is the very house of cards Merck’s vaccine empire is built on.

And it might take just one judge to blow it all down.

Merck’s mumps shot has been taken to court almost a thousand times. But to a special place called the “vaccine court.” That’s the only court where claims against vaccines can be heard.

Injuries from the MMR shot (mumps, measles and rubella), are third on the list for numbers of cases filed there.

But this is a different kind of lawsuit.

It’s not about kids who died or were injured after getting the MMR vaccine.

It’s all about money. Specifically, how much money Merck may have cheated the federal government out of.

You see Merck has had control over the mumps vaccine since 1967. It’s the only drug company that has an FDA license to make it. And it sells tons of it to the CDC. In turn, the CDC sells those shots at a reduced price to places — like state health departments — that it has a contract with.

Merck claims its mumps shot is 95 percent effective in preventing the illness.

And that’s what this lawsuit is all about. Because it looks like it isn’t. And exactly how effective this shot really is, nobody knows.

The plaintiffs are two whistleblowers who worked for Merck as virologists.

They say that they witnessed fraudulent testing of the mumps vaccine. They say that Merck used some special, tricky ways to get that “prevention” number up to 95 percent.

And that when the tests results didn’t come out to the company’s liking, they were trashed, and different, sneaky ways to study the vaccine were devised.

Now, these two Merck employees first told their story to the FDA.

And the agency paid Merck a visit. But the FDA saw — and did — nothing.

The only change was that after the FDA’s stopped by, those whistleblowers were assigned to different jobs. And Merck, they say, went right on with its fraudulent testing.

Since the FDA refused to do anything, the whistleblowers finally managed to get a federal judge to hear them. Of course, Merck tried to get it dismissed, but the judge didn’t buy the company’s reasons.

Look, we already know these shots aren’t safe. If they were, there wouldn’t be so many settlements made by that “vaccine court.”

But if this trial can get it on the record that they’re not even all that “effective,” that might put a stop to the nonsense we keep hearing about the wonder-working preventive power of these shots.

And it might also put a stop to people trying to place the blame for occasional cases of mumps on parents who refuse to place the health and safety of their children on the altar of Big Pharma profits.

Sources:
“Judge: Merck must fight claims that it lied about mumps vaccine benefits” Carly Hefland, September 9, 2014, FiercePharma, fiercepharma.com