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Given Robert F. Kennedy Jr. current run, it's worth looking more specifically at his claims and this website is likely good to investigate a few of them.

On of his repeated talking points that he voices during podcasts, he lays out in his book The Real Anthony Fauci on page 573:

His Global Fund has poured $59 million into Lesotho to advance his priorities, which are the high-profit vaccines and drugs that enrich his pharma partners.

[...]

Like Dr. Fauci, Gates raises expectations, yet takes no responsibility and offers no convincing proof that his schemes have had a beneficial impact on morbidities, public health, or quality of life. There are meager signs of tangible benefits to the poor.

Instead, every effort to measure the health outcomes of Gates’s interventions has exposed them as cataclysmic for their beneficiaries. In 2017, the Danish Government commissioned a study of health outcomes among African children who received WHO’s flagship DTP vaccine—the world’s most popular inoculation. They found that vaccinated girls had ten times the death rate compared to unvaccinated girls.

Does the study of the Danish Government exist in the way that Kennedy described and does it support Kennedy's interpretations?

Azor Ahai -him-
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Christian
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    What is the claim that you are asking about? – Joe W Jun 16 '23 at 20:51
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    how do african children enrich anyone from "high profit vaccines"? Doesn't even make sense. – dandavis Jun 16 '23 at 21:28
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    The two questions in the Body are different from the question in the Title. They should all be a single identical question. – Ray Butterworth Jun 17 '23 at 00:33
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    @RayButterworth : From my perspective, Kennedy makes a lot of claims about vaccines and it's not easy for the average person who hears those claims to verify if some of those claims are true or aren't true. I think it makes sense to focus on specific claims but if the answer is "one study found X but it doesn't replicate" a question that's too narrow would not be good. If you have ideas of how the question would do it's task better, feel free to edit. – Christian Jun 17 '23 at 01:41
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    @Christian, I would simply change the last line to better match the question in the Title. Perhaps something like "*Was there really a Danish study that found that vaccinated girls had ten times the death rate compared to unvaccinated girls?*". ¶ If it turns out that there really was, you might then need to submit a second question, quoting that study and asking whether the results indicate a causal relationship between vaccination and death. – Ray Butterworth Jun 17 '23 at 01:48
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    @dandavis the claim is that dollars are flowing from the pockets of international donors to pharma – John Madden Jun 17 '23 at 15:58

1 Answers1

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A real meta-analysis of Africa and India

RFK is almost certainly describing a 2016 meta-analysis funded by the Danish government and showing "that DTP was associated with increased child mortality in rural Guinea-Bissau", with even higher death rates in Senegal, and similar death rates in India and Bangladesh. Some other Guinea-Bissau studies showed that unvaccinated children had a higher death rate, but they were in a minority.

The most extreme study, named as Guinea-Bissau III, showed a likely ratio of 7 times more deaths for vaccinated girls, with a 95% confidence ratio between 1.5 and 33. The meta-estimate of all studies was 2.5 times as many deaths. Kennedy is exaggerating with his claim of "10 times", but he's not making up the meta-analysis.

"Nonspecific effects"

Sometimes vaccines decrease or increase mortality in diseases unrelated to the one for which they were prepared. The reason for this is unknown:

We still need to find out exactly how the vaccines induce nonspecific effects and why the live vaccines: BCG, measles vaccine, and Vaccinia are associated with benefits, whereas the opposite is seen for DTP. It is also imperative to understand why these effects are only seen as long as a vaccine is the most recent vaccine; the effect can be reversed with a new vaccine. Also, we need to understand why these effects seem more pronounced in females. The most striking observation so far is the parallel between the epidemiological observation that BCG given to LBW neonates reduces neonatal mortality from all causes by 48%. (Benn et al. 2013)

As you can see, the most common "side effect" of vaccines is an unexpected boost to the immune system. DTP may have unexpected, deadly side effects when given to girls at specific early stages. This has nothing to do with with the diseases being vaccinated against.

Danish study recommended continuing DTP

The authors of the Danish study did not suggest discontinuing DTP, because the side effects in girls are appearing in the context of societies which are now able to protect infants against the DTP viruses: diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis. For instance, pertussis (whooping cough) is a terrifying and deadly disease. This is why DTP is so widely administered in the first place.

Instead, they wrote:

It is now imperative to vigorously examine the link between DTP and susceptibility to infection. Is a new vaccine needed, can the damage be minimized by co-administering DTP with other vaccines or by providing a live vaccine shortly after DTP?

In fact, DTP (DTP3, DTwP) is no longer common in the West; DTaP is administered instead.

Consensus against the WHO?

The Danish meta-analysis contradicts an earlier meta-analysis was done by the WHO, and the Danish article critiques the WHO's methodology. A second meta-analysis published in BMJ confirmed the Danish results. While it said that the studies analyzed were at risk of bias, it also acknowledged that the high death rate was a cause for concern.

However, more recent studies have had contradictory results.

New contradictory studies

A 2022 study found that DTP decreased mortality in girls, and accused prior studies of being full of methodological and statistical errors.

Another 2022 study said that DTP only increased mortality when it was administered long after another vaccine called BCG; when BCG and DTP were administered jointly, mortality decreased. Furthermore, the authors pointed out that the Danish and BMJ study draw on data from the 1980s through 2000s. Their own data, as well as the data of the other 2022 study, is based on vaccinations administered after 2010, when the negative nonspecific effects of DTP became widely known to doctors. They suggest that African and Asian vaccination programs have already changed the way they handle DTP.

There has not yet been a meta-analysis of these studies, but it would be nice for RFK to get on top of these new scientific developments.

Avery
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    "when BCG and DTP were administered jointly, mortality decreased" earlier you wrote that BCG alone decreases mortality. Is there a claim that BCG + DTP jointly decreases mortality more than just BCG alone? – Christian Jun 17 '23 at 15:33
  • @Christian The claim is that _when DTP and BCG are both administered_, there is an increase in mortality if DTP is administered long after BCG, but there is a decrease in mortality if DTP is administered jointly with BCG. – Nonny Moose Jun 17 '23 at 16:36
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    FWIW the Danish study explicitly states that it excluded data where BCG and DTP were administered simultaneously (haven't read carefully enough to know why, but this was pre-specified as part of the analysis plan) – Ben Bolker Jun 17 '23 at 16:43
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    Also note that the last author (Benn) is the same on the second study you reference and on the original (Aaby et al) 2006 meta-analysis that reported negative effects. – Ben Bolker Jun 17 '23 at 16:47
  • "DTP only increased mortality when it was administered long after another vaccine called BCG". And if a remote village only has some BCG vaccine? – RonJohn Jun 18 '23 at 01:49
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    And why didn't we see increased mortality in the US or Europe? – RonJohn Jun 18 '23 at 01:50
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    @RonJohn BCG vaccine against TB is not commonly administered in the US. – shoover Jun 18 '23 at 03:15
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    Another possible reason to consider is simple confirmation bias. Children who get vaccinated are more likely to live in a situation where their health and life are recorded, and so if they die their death is more likely to be recorded as well. In 3rd world countries, a lot of people (and especially children) die without there being any record of it at all. – jwenting Jun 18 '23 at 11:12
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    @jwenting This was accounted for in the meta analysis – Avery Jun 18 '23 at 11:59
  • @jwenting You assume that if no death is reported, the study would automatically assume that the subject is alive. This is such a glaring deficiency, I would venture a guess that there is a standard practice to exclude subjects for which the outcome is not known. – ventsyv Jun 30 '23 at 18:43