Selling Vaccine Snake Oil

This article exposes Turtles All The Way Down's hard-hitting claims, decades of potential fraud and corruption in vaccine science, questioning institutional trust, and demanding rigorous scrutiny.

A fierce examination of deception in vaccine science: A review of the book—Turtles All The Way Down

Turtles All The Way Down: Vaccine Science and Myth takes readers on a deep dive into the world of vaccines, pulling back the curtain on what the authors describe as an under examined and deeply flawed system. The book opens with a bold assertion: the very foundations of vaccine clinical trials are far shakier than most people realize. From the outset, the authors set out to challenge the dominant narrative around vaccines, questioning the rigor of the clinical trials that are supposed to guarantee their safety.

One of the book’s central themes is the belief that vaccine trials often do not live up to the standards necessary for evaluating long-term safety. The authors argue that many trials use questionable methodologies, often failing to include proper control groups or placebos. Instead of providing clear-cut evidence of safety, these trials, according to the authors, tend to obscure potential risks, particularly over the long term. This questioning of clinical trials sets the tone for much of the book, which repeatedly asks readers to reconsider what they think they know about vaccine safety.

The authors then move into a critique of the systems that monitor vaccine safety after vaccines are released to the public. Focusing on the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), they paint a picture of a system that is woefully inadequate. The book contends that VAERS is underused, with the majority of vaccine-related adverse events going unreported. This, the authors argue, creates a significant blind spot, making it difficult to truly gauge the frequency and severity of vaccine injuries. They suggest that the under reporting in systems like VAERS may mean that vaccine risks are far greater than what is typically acknowledged.

The book doesn’t stop at clinical trials and reporting systems—it delves into the world of epidemiology, criticizing how vaccine studies are designed and interpreted. The authors question the biases they believe are baked into epidemiological studies, asserting that many of these studies are constructed in ways that favour vaccine safety. According to the book, these biases prevent researchers from fully understanding—or even acknowledging—the potential risks associated with vaccines. It’s a critique that underscores the authors’ broader concern: that the science supporting vaccines is, in their view, incomplete and sometimes misleading.

One of the most provocative sections of Turtles All The Way Down is its discussion of herd immunity. The authors challenge the conventional wisdom that vaccines must be widely administered to achieve community protection. They suggest that the concept of herd immunity has been overstated and used as a tool to justify mandatory vaccination policies, even when the evidence supporting such measures, they argue, is less than conclusive. This section of the book calls into question one of the most commonly cited reasons for widespread vaccination, pushing readers to think critically about the justifications for public health policies.

The book also takes a deep dive into the history of vaccines, particularly focusing on the case of polio. Here, the authors suggest that the role of vaccines in eradicating the disease has been overstated. They argue that improvements in sanitation and nutrition likely played a larger role in reducing polio’s prevalence than vaccines did, a claim that runs counter to the mainstream historical narrative. This revisionist history asks readers to reconsider how much credit vaccines deserve for eliminating some of the world’s deadliest diseases.

In the final chapters, Turtles All The Way Down zeroes in on what the authors see as the shortcomings of current public health guidelines. They claim that vaccine recommendations are often based on incomplete science and that the one-size-fits-all approach to vaccination may not be appropriate for everyone. Instead, the authors advocate for more personalized vaccine schedules, considering individual health histories and risks rather than relying on blanket recommendations.

Perhaps the most striking argument in the book is the call for studies that have never been done: large-scale, long-term research comparing the health of fully vaccinated children with those who have never received a single vaccine. The authors claim that such studies have been deliberately avoided because they might undermine the current public health narrative. They argue that these studies could reveal important insights into vaccine safety that remain hidden behind the lack of comparative data.

Turtles All The Way Down is not merely a critique; it is an unrelenting exposé of what the authors imply to be a far-reaching deception, perpetrated by institutions we trust to safeguard public health. The book doesn't just suggest oversight or error—it insinuates that fraud, both subtle and overt, has woven itself into the fabric of vaccine science for decades. Through meticulous dissection of clinical trials, adverse event reporting, and public health policy, the authors build a case that the very foundation of modern vaccination programs may be built on manipulated data, conflicts of interest, and deliberate omissions. They argue that these institutions—entangled with pharmaceutical interests—are complicit in obscuring the true risks of vaccines, leading the public to believe in a safety narrative that, they claim, is far from certain. This isn't a simple call for more studies—this is a demand to confront what the authors see as a widespread betrayal of public trust, an institutional cover-up masquerading as science.

The most damning assertion throughout Turtles All The Way Down is the book's accusation that entire populations, particularly children, have been subjected to mass medical experimentation under the guise of "protection." The authors argue that far from being innocuous or benevolent, public health policies may be orchestrating a silent epidemic of vaccine-related injuries, with adverse events systematically under reported and minimized. They allege that data has been manipulated, dissenting voices silenced, and inconvenient studies shelved—all in the service of maintaining a vaccination regime that prioritizes profit and compliance over transparency and genuine public safety. This book challenges readers to reconsider everything they think they know about vaccines, urging them to question whether they’ve been told the full story or merely the version deemed acceptable by those in power. The stakes are high: if even a fraction of the claims in this book hold water, the implications for public health are staggering, demanding nothing less than a complete re-examination of vaccine science as we know it.

Turtles All The Way Down is a recommended read.

Though the book doesn't directly address COVID, it becomes clear that the methods it critiques—used by vaccine companies over the years—were amplified during the COVID era, enforced more aggressively with strong backing from governments and the media. The parallels are striking, as the same concerns around data manipulation, rushed approvals, and the suppression of dissent took on a heightened urgency, raising questions about transparency, influence, and the broader impacts on public trust.