Vaccines as Religion — When Science Becomes Faith

The vaccine religion thesis: examining the argument that vaccine acceptance has become a faith-based belief system rather than a practice grounded in continuously questioned evidence.

Aaron Siri's central argument in VACCINES, AMEN: THE RELIGION OF VACCINES: that vaccinology functions as a religion — a belief system — rather than as an evidence-based science. Core safety claims are made without data, lack of evidence is treated as proof of safety, deviance from orthodoxy results in loss of funding and status, and a small priestly class controls the field through pharma patronage.

The Core Argument

Siri argues that vaccinology exhibits the following features of a religious belief system rather than a scientific discipline:

The Echo Chamber

One of Siri's clearest illustrations of the religious dynamic: the claim "With the exception of safe water, no other intervention, not even antibiotics, has had such a major effect on mortality reduction and population growth."

• This claim is made repeatedly by vaccinologists and amplified by the media
• Tracing it back, all roads lead to Plotkin's Vaccines
• Plotkin's textbook cites nothing for this claim
• When Plotkin himself cites the claim in his own writings, he cites himself — his own prior textbook assertion
• The textbook is treated as the Bible; a claim becomes "fact" simply by appearing in it

Dogmatic Safety Claims

The thesis is most sharply illustrated by the DTaP/autism exchange:

> Q: [S]tudies are possible to determine whether or not a vaccine does or does not cause autism, correct?

>

> A: They are possible, yes.

>

> Q: If you don't know whether DTaP or Tdap cause autism, shouldn't you wait until you do know?

>

> A: Do I wait? No, I do not wait because I have to take into account the health of the child.

>

> Q: And so for that reason, you're okay with telling the parent that DTaP/Tdap does not cause autism even though the science isn't there yet?

>

> A: Absolutely.

> — Plotkin Deposition 2018, p. 28

Siri characterizes this as: "it is not a data-supported claim. It is a belief."

The Creed

Siri summarizes the core beliefs of vaccinologists:

The pattern: accept favorable data at face value to support efficacy claims, but require an impossibly high evidentiary bar before acknowledging harm — and in the absence of definitive proof of causation, publicly deny any connection regardless of the volume of adverse reports.

The Gregory Poland Case

Gregory Poland's tinnitus case serves as Siri's most striking evidence for the religious nature of the field: a vaccinologist who personally suffered a serious vaccine injury, received hundreds of corroborating accounts, estimated tens of thousands similarly affected — and still said about his grandchild, "I'd encourage him to get the vaccine." Siri: "Belief runs deep among vaccinologists."

Significance

The thesis is not merely rhetorical. If vaccine safety is treated as a matter of belief rather than evidence, then:

1. No amount of contrary evidence can change the conclusion

2. The field is incapable of self-correction

3. Harms will be systematically denied regardless of scale

4. The public is lied to with good intentions ("I have to take into account the health of the child")

The Faith

Myth: "Vaccines Save Millions of Lives"

Siri argues the claim that "millions of Americans would die every year without vaccines" is "just a belief. Not a fact."

The Pre-Vaccine Chart (compiled from CDC data): Total deaths in the year before a vaccine was licensed for each disease:

Siri argues that even if vaccines get full credit for preventing all these deaths (which he disputes), the total is in the low thousands — not millions.

Pattern across all listed diseases: Mortality declined 80–98%+ before vaccines were introduced, attributable to improved sanitation, clean water, nutrition, and acute medical care.

The scarlet fever comparison: Scarlet fever was a major child killer in 1900 (9.6/100,000). No vaccine was ever developed for it. By the late 1900s, deaths were essentially zero. Siri: if a scarlet fever vaccine had been developed, it would be on the schedule today and credited with eliminating the disease.

Measles: The Core Case Study

• Measles death rate declined 98%+ between 1900 and 1962 — before the first measles vaccine (1963)
• In 1962, approximately 400 Americans died of measles — 1 per 450,000 Americans at a time when nearly every American got measles
• Siri argues the same factors causing this pre-vaccine decline would have continued

Japan prospective study (100,000 subjects, ~21 years): Those who had measles and mumps showed significantly lower cardiovascular mortality — e.g., men had 17% lower stroke risk, 20% lower cardiovascular disease risk, 29% lower heart attack risk; approximately 7% died of cardiovascular disease vs. 14% of those who never had measles/mumps (cardiovascular disease kills 900,000+ Americans/year)

Cancer associations: Studies cited by Siri:

• International Agency for Research on Cancer: those who never had measles had 66% increased non-Hodgkin lymphoma rate, 233% increased Hodgkin lymphoma rate
• University of British Columbia: never-measles → 50% increased ovarian cancer rate
• Studies showing various childhood febrile infectious diseases reduce cancer rates

If the Japanese prospective data on reduced cardiovascular mortality among those who had measles and mumps is applicable to the US population, preventing these infections via MMR vaccination could theoretically have contributed to more cardiovascular deaths annually than the pre-vaccine measles and mumps death toll combined. No study has been published showing the opposite.

Measles vaccine: unintended consequences argued by Siri:

• Pre-vaccine: mothers who had measles conferred passive immunity to infants (highest-risk age group) for months of life
• Post-vaccine: vaccinated mothers provide only limited passive immunity
• Vaccine immunity wanes; 2–10% of vaccinated adults never develop immunity
• Result: infants and adults — historically protected by natural immunity patterns — are now potentially more vulnerable

The Oxford Professor Example

Siri cites a BMJ article by an Oxford professor calling for criminal prosecution of "vaccine disinformation" — who on the very first page falsely claims "at the start of the 20th Century, measles resulted in around 530,217 deaths per year in the United States alone." The actual CDC figure for 1900 is approximately 10,150 deaths. Siri uses this as evidence that the religion's "believers" repeat obviously false statistics without examination.

Vaccines That Increased Mortality

Siri argues three vaccine cases show mortality increased after introduction:

Hepatitis B: 294 deaths in 1980 (year before the 1981 vaccine). Today, approximately 1,700 deaths/year — a nearly 6x increase. Two different Hep B vaccines have been introduced (1981, 1986 recombinant), but deaths have not returned to pre-vaccine levels.

Hepatitis A: Fewer than 100 deaths/year in the decade before the 1995 vaccine (average 80/year). Currently: consistently more than 100 deaths/year, average of 166 deaths/year in the most recent five-year period available.

DTP in developing countries: The 2017 Study (Aaby et al., peer-reviewed in an Elsevier/Lancet-affiliated journal, funded by Denmark and the EU) reported a tenfold increase in all-cause mortality among DTP-vaccinated children in the first six months of life relative to their unvaccinated peers. The study concluded: "All currently available evidence suggests that DTP vaccine may kill more children from other causes than it saves from diphtheria, tetanus or pertussis." Children vaccinated with DTP were dying from unrelated causes (respiratory infections, diarrhea, malaria), indicating increased susceptibility to other infections. Nearly a dozen studies precede this with similar findings. The 2014 SAGE Review (WHO advisory group) found "a majority of studies indicated a negative effect of DTP." ICAN wrote to UNICEF; UNICEF pointed to the older 2014 review and never addressed the 2017 Study. After ICAN sent the 2018 Study (which confirmed the finding even among healthier children), UNICEF never responded. ICAN filed a petition with the International Criminal Court. No data or study refuting the DTP mortality findings has ever been provided.

The Asymmetric Epistemology

Siri identifies what he calls a core double standard in vaccinology: when data aligns with the expected narrative (e.g., disease decline after vaccine introduction), it is cited as proof of causation. When data contradicts it (e.g., mortality increases post-vaccination), it is dismissed as mere correlation — an asymmetric standard of evidence.

Applied:

• When deaths decline after vaccine introduction → "the vaccine caused it" (credited even when the decline was already underway pre-vaccine)
• When deaths increase after vaccine introduction → "it's just correlation" (never attributed to the vaccine regardless of evidence)
• "Heads, vaccines win; tails, vaccines win."

Covid-19 Vaccines: All-Cause Mortality

The claim "Covid-19 vaccines saved 3 million lives in the US" (CNN, 2022) was derived from a blog (Commonwealth Fund), not a peer-reviewed study, using a mathematical model built on author assumptions rather than actual mortality data.

Siri presents all-cause mortality as the cleanest test:

• 2019 total US deaths: 2,845,819
• 2020 total US deaths: 3,433,986 (+588,167 — attributed to Covid)
• 2021 total US deaths: 3,449,536 — increased further despite majority of Americans being vaccinated and high immunity levels

If vaccines prevented deaths from Covid-19, total deaths should have declined toward 2019 levels. They did not — they increased.

Additionally, official FDA documentation of Pfizer's Covid-19 trial showed 21 deaths in the vaccinated group and 17 deaths in the placebo group — more deaths among vaccinated participants. Siri notes the FDA allowed Pfizer to explain each death as unrelated to the vaccine (a qualitative judgment), while accepting a simple statistical comparison for the efficacy calculation (8 vs. 162 symptomatic cases).

Scotland's health dashboard briefly showed higher hospitalization and death rates among vaccinated individuals compared to unvaccinated; Scotland then pulled the data from public view.

See Also

Stanley Plotkin, Post-Licensure Safety Monitoring, Conflicts of Interest, Plotkin Deposition 2018, Gregory Poland, Pre-Licensure Safety Testing, Childhood Chronic Disease Trends, Polio History and Vaccine Narrative

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