This season, for the first time in over 70 years, U.S. flu shots will contain no mercury. The controversial preservative thimerosal is removed under a decision by a new advisory committee after Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. replaced all the old members. This influential group has a packed agenda, and the childhood vaccine schedule in its sights, with its next meeting imminent. Today, we interview ACIP member Dr. Robert Malone, co-inventor of mRNA vaccine technology, and who opposed its use in Covid shots.

The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.

Dr. Robert Malone: So in terms of the CDC staff, I’m hopeful that we can, and FDA, that the ACIP committee can convince them that they have to change. They have to become more open and transparent. They have to become more responsive to the public and the taxpayer, and they can’t continue to exist in this little cloistered environment.

ACIP is the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

Malone: I like to call it the mouse that roared. It’s kind of had mission creep. And the way it works is that if the ACIP recommends and the CDC director agrees, then a product will get onto the Vaccines for Children’s schedule, and it will get automatically purchased and distributed.

A vaccine added to the childhood schedule often becomes a billion dollar blockbuster. The CDC markets it at taxpayer expense, without disclosing risks in ads, while vaccine makers get liability protection for any injuries under a 1986 law.

Malone: It’s a perfect cash cow because vaccines, once they’re on the schedule, essentially never get off. They’re never replaced. They’re grandfathered in forever. So that gives the ACIP a lot of kind of structural power.

It was also the ACIP that signed off on false information in 2021 about Covid vaccines, as we reported on Full Measure.

Full Measure clip, 1/31/21: CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices had just issued a high profile report authored by 15 scientists. It wrongly claimed Pfizer’s study proved the vaccine is highly effective or showed “Consistent high efficacy” for people who’d already had coronavirus—“SARS-CoV-2.”

Rep. Thomas Massie: It says the exact opposite of what the data says. They’re giving people the impression that this vaccine will save your life, or save you from suffering, even if you’ve already had the virus and recovered, which has not been demonstrated in either the Pfizer or the Moderna trial.

Nobody at the CDC or ACIP was held accountable for that misinformation.

Malone: The commission had become a rubber stamp organization for the interests of the pharmaceutical industry and also for the interests of these various physician organizations that I assert are essentially guilds. And so the Secretary decided that he would retire the existing 17 members of the committee, which triggered a harmonized cry of anguish from all corporate media, pretty much with specific attacks, especially after he nominated the initial eight, of which I was one.

The new committee’s first major recommendation in June: remove thimerosal from flu shots. Despite the CDC’s long-standing claims that this mercury preservative is safe to inject in babies and children in vaccines, it supported phasing it out two decade ago. Thimerosal lingered in about 3% of flu shots but will finally be gone this season.

Malone: But they, if you follow the schedule, your child is gonna get a flu vaccine once a year for the rest of their lives. And so the accumulated amount of mercury that they would be getting is not trivial.

At its next meeting, ACIP will address FDA’s new authorization of Moderna’s Spikevax for high-risk babies.

Sharyl: How important would you say this decision is the first decision, I guess the committee will make on a recommendation for a vaccine?

Malone: It’s crucial. It’s politically explosive. The ACIP has to say, well, now that it’s on the market, what do we recommend it be used for? And how often?

ACIP’s most significant task: reviewing the childhood vaccine schedule, which has grown from a handful of vaccines to over 70 doses. The combined effects and interactions have never been scientifically tested for safety.

Malone: So the press is, is incensed because we’re gonna take a look at the childhood vaccine schedule, which most parents would like to see somebody reevaluate the child vaccine schedule. So that was win.

Sharyl: And what is it gonna take to review the whole childhood vaccine schedule?

Malone: So we’ve got four years to crank through this. How long is it gonna take? I don’t know the answer because it has a lot to do with the obstructionism that we’re already encountering at the CDC and at the FDA. So is, is the secretary and the president going to be able to use their bully pulpit and overcome the resistance that is rampant in these agencies? Or are we going to be able to navigate some sort of a truce and, you know, with the existing bureaucracy, to where they are comfortable, that we’re not just a radical flamethrower, crazy anti-vaxxers, which is the press narrative, but are actually responsible scientists committed to data integrity and transparency, which is what we are, and that there will be a fair shake.

Watch video here.