Researchers Found Unvaccinated Children Healthier Than Vaccinated, Didn’t Publish Findings

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Researchers from a large health care system in Michigan found that vaccinated children were more likely to develop a chronic health condition, but never published the findings, according to a copy of the study obtained by The Epoch Times.

Henry Ford Health System, whose employees carried out the study, said it was deficient.

Dr. Marcus Zervos, an infectious disease specialist at the Henry Ford Health, and colleagues studied 18,468 children born between 2000 and 2016 who were enrolled in the health system’s insurance plan, drawing data from medical, clinical, and payer records and supplementing with information from Michigan’s immunization registry.

After 10 years, 57 percent of the vaccinated children had a chronic health condition such as asthma, compared to just 17 percent of the unvaccinated children.

“This study found that exposure to vaccination was independently associated with an overall 2.5-fold increase in the likelihood of developing a chronic health condition, when compared to children unexposed to vaccination,” the authors wrote. “This association was primarily driven by asthma, atopic disease, eczema, autoimmune disease and neurodevelopmental disorders. This suggests that in certain children, exposure to vaccination may increase the likelihood of developing a chronic health condition, particularly for one of these conditions.”

The study was first reported by Aaron Siri, managing partner of Siri & Glimstad LLP, this month in his book, Vaccines, Amen: The Religion of Vaccines.

Before receiving a copy of the study, The Epoch Times asked Zervos and his coauthors for it and questioned why it was never published.

Zervos responded to questions about the study by asking in an email, “Can you tell me what book this appeared in.” When told, he did not respond further.

Co-authors did not return inquiries.

A spokesperson for Henry Ford Health acknowledged that researchers there carried out the study.

“This report was not published because it did not meet the rigorous scientific standards we demand as a premier medical research institution,” a spokesperson for Henry Ford Health told The Epoch Times in an email. “Data has consistently shown vaccinations are a safe and effective way to protect children against potentially life-altering diseases.”

‘The Only Real Problem’

Siri, who has worked with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., represents a group called the Informed Consent Action Network. He and Del Bigtree, the group’s CEO, say they met with Zervos in 2017 and proposed that he compare the health of vaccinated and unvaccinated children.

They initially proposed obtaining data from a federal network called Vaccine Safety Datalink, but Zervos suggested utilizing the health data from Henry Ford Health, Siri wrote in his book.

Siri requested that the researchers publish the results of the study, regardless of what it showed.

“Dr. Zervos looked us right in the eyes and assured us that he was a man of integrity and would publish the results, whatever the finding,” Siri said.

Siri received a copy of the study in 2020. He and Bigtree say that Zervos and a coauthor told them that superiors at Henry Ford Health did not want it submitted for publication and that they were concerned they could lose their jobs if they submitted it.

“The only real problem with this study—and why it didn’t get submitted for publication—is that its findings did not fit the belief and the policy that ‘vaccines are safe,’” Siri said during a Senate hearing in Washington on Sept. 9. “Had it found vaccinated children were healthier, it no doubt would have been published immediately. But because it found the opposite, it was shoved in a drawer.”

Previous research comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated children has returned mixed results. A German study published in 2011, for instance, found that unvaccinated children were more likely to suffer diseases targeted by vaccines. An American study published in 2020 found vaccinated children had higher odds of suffering from developmental delays, asthma, and ear infections in their first year of life.

Dr. Jake Scott, an infectious disease doctor at Stanford University’s School of Medicine, told the hearing that he reviewed the study and found it problematic. One issue was how vaccinated children visited doctors during the study period more often than unvaccinated children, according to Scott.

“When diagnoses require doctor visits, children seeing doctors more often will inevitably have more recorded conditions,” he said. “This is classic detection bias that inflates risk estimates without reflecting true health differences.”

Even after excluding unvaccinated children whose parents never took them to the doctor following birth, the vaccinated group still had an increased risk of developing a chronic health condition, the researchers stated, according to Zervos and the other researchers. They also analyzed the data at one, three, and five years following birth and found that the vaccinated children were still more likely to develop a chronic health condition. “Therefore, our findings do not appear to be due to differential use of health resources,” they wrote.

The researchers also said that their findings “cannot prove causality and warrant future investigation.”

The hearing was held by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the panel, said during the hearing that the study was “high-quality” and “suspiciously withheld by the authors.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), its ranking member, questioned why it has taken five years following completion for the study to be disclosed to the public.

“My hope has always been that the scientists would publish it,” Siri said. “And we’ve tried to persuade them many, many times, so it could go through the normal, peer-review process.”