If you’re wondering whether vaccine safety is being compromised in America, the answer appears to be a resounding yes. According to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who’s about to take the reins of the Senate’s top investigative body, the government’s vaccine safety system is riddled with conflicts of interest, secrecy, and regulatory capture. Shocking? Not really. Infuriating? Absolutely.
Johnson argues that the current system—led by the FDA and CDC—has become more of a corporate playground than a protector of public health. He’s not wrong. A Harvard study pre-COVID found that only 1% of vaccine side effects are reported to the VAERS database. One percent, that’s not just a statistical oversight; that’s a systemic failure. And yet, these are the agencies we’re supposed to trust with our health.
Drug companies fund their own safety studies, control their data, and cozy up to regulators with the promise of lucrative post-government careers. It’s the classic fox guarding the henhouse scenario, but instead of chickens, it’s the health of millions of Americans at stake. “When you pay for science, you get the results you want,” Johnson said, cutting to the heart of the problem. He’s calling for independent oversight and transparency, a sentiment that should be uncontroversial. But you have to wonder whose side they’re really on when regulators are busy playing defense for Big Pharma—like the FDA trying to hide Pfizer’s trial data for 75 years. Johnson claims that “if you want evidence of the corruption … it was the FDA that went to court to protect the trial data on the mRNA injection for 75 years now,” not Pfizer.
It gets better (or worse, depending on how much faith you have left in government). Johnson is also targeting the liability protections vaccine makers have enjoyed since the 1986 law that essentially shielded them from accountability. Originally, this wasn’t supposed to grant blanket immunity, but surprise, it turned into exactly that. Johnson’s push to restore some level of accountability makes sense: if your product causes harm, you should answer for it. That’s just basic fairness.
The senator’s frustrations with federal agencies go beyond policy failings. Johnson’s efforts to obtain unredacted vaccine data have been met with what he calls “the middle finger.” Agencies refuse to cooperate, and without subpoena power—they’ve gotten away with it- until now. That’s about to change as Johnson vows to force transparency, a promise long overdue.
If the safety system tasked with protecting Americans is broken, what does that say about us for tolerating it? Public health shouldn’t be a backroom deal between regulators and corporations, yet here we are. Maybe it’s time we all start asking some hard questions before it’s too late.
