"A Giant Problem": Experts Address "Massive Epidemic of Vaccine Injury"
“Vaccine injuries dwarf the benefits of vaccines."
This article originally appeared on The Defender and was republished with permission.
Guest post by Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D.
The U.S. must address the “massive epidemic of vaccine injury,” according to scientists, doctors, lawyers and medical freedom activists who convened today in Washington, D.C., at a round table hosted by the MAHA Institute. “I want people to understand that vaccine injuries are common and they’re all around, and vaccine injuries dwarf the benefits of vaccines,” said MAHA Institute President Mark Gorton.
The U.S. must address the “massive epidemic of vaccine injury,” according to scientists, doctors, lawyers and medical freedom activists who spoke Monday in Washington, D.C., at a roundtable hosted by the MAHA Institute.
MAHA Institute President Mark Gorton told The Defender that the massive epidemic of vaccine injury — MEVI, for short — is a “giant problem.”
“I want people to understand that vaccine injuries are common and they’re all around, and vaccine injuries dwarf the benefits of vaccines,” Gorton said.
Monday’s event, the “MEVI Round Table: Massive Epidemic of Vaccine Injury,” featured over a dozen speakers and panelists, including Children’s Health Defense (CHD) CEO Mary Holland, Informed Action Consent Network CEO Del Bigtree, Brownstone Institute Fellow Toby Rogers, Medical Genomics Chief Scientific Officer and Founder Kevin McKernan, CHD Chief Scientific Officer Brian Hooker, and Brown University Associate Dean for Oncologic Sciences at the Warren Alpert Medical School Wafik El-Deiry.
Discussion topics included the scale of current vaccine injuries, the link between vaccines and autism, how the number of routinely recommended vaccines skyrocketed after vaccine makers were granted liability protection, negative health impacts of the COVID-19 vaccines, and pediatricians’ perspectives.
Holland told The Defender she was grateful to the MAHA Institute for convening the event. “People need to understand the devastating extent of vaccine injury.”
The event’s strong showing signals that “the medical coercion paradigm that enforces mass vaccination is falling apart,” she said. “Whether the powers that be recognize it or not, we thankfully are coming to the end of the era of forced medicine.”
According to its website, the MAHA Institute focuses on “reforming the political, regulatory, and legislative environment to end corporate capture of government and restore its focus on the health of the American people.”
‘The dam that has held back the massive vaccine injury is breaking’
During his opening remarks, Gorton said most U.S. families have suffered from vaccine injuries.
“But most people don’t know this because we’ve never clearly named this epidemic. … Saying ‘massive epidemic of vaccine injury’ is a mouthful. We need something catchier, hence MEVI,” he said.
In addition to serving as its president, Gorton is a Wall Street executive who founded Tower Research Capital. He’s also the creator of LimeWire and a CHD board member.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has commissioned more than 100 studies on vaccine injury, Gorton said. “The dam that has held back the massive vaccine injury is breaking.”
Already, the Henry Ford study, discussed in the film “An Inconvenient Study,” found vaccinated children were far more likely to develop chronic disease than unvaccinated kids, Gorton said.
The Ford study involved over 18,000 children enrolled in Henry Ford Health system’s insurance plan in Michigan. The results showed vaccinated children had 4.29 times the rate of asthma, 3.03 times the rate of atopic disease (a group of allergic conditions), 5.96 times the rate of autoimmune disease, and 5.53 times the rate of neurodevelopmental disorder.
The findings were statistically significant — even when accounting for gender, race, birthweight, premature birth, and respiratory distress or trauma at birth.
In a U.S. Senate hearing in September 2025, attorney Aaron Siri testified that the study authors — staunch vaccine supporters — refused to publish their results. They were concerned about losing their jobs or reputations because their findings contradicted the official public health narrative and vaccine policy.
Gorton said several state governors and hospital systems are now willing to do their own analyses that will likely replicate the Ford study’s findings.
Applause broke out when Gorton called on mainstream media outlets to acknowledge the scope of vaccine injuries.
“Until your publications acknowledge the reality of the massive epidemic of vaccine injury, you will be complicit in sickening the families of the people who trust you the most. “
Senate must ensure we don’t repeat COVID mistakes
Holland spoke on the “absurdity” of the COVID-19 era and urged audience members to sign the COVID Justice Resolution.
The petition calls on the U.S. Senate to “affirm the permanent lessons of the COVID-19 response, to repudiate certain emergency measures as incompatible with constitutional liberty, and to establish binding principles for any future public-health emergency.”
Rogers said that U.S. society is in “upheaval” as we shift from a paradigm that implicitly trusts medical authorities when they claim vaccines are safe and effective to a new and better paradigm. “Paradigm shifts are painful,” he said.
Rogers emphasized personal stories as an effective way to navigate the paradigm shift. For example, he was strongly affected by a conversation he had with the father of a vaccine-injured child.
Holland agreed that personal narratives of vaccine injury are powerful.
“There is no better repository of these personal accounts than CHD.TV’s ‘The People’s Study LIVE.’ It matters that we share these accounts,” she told The Defender.
Is RFK Jr. ‘coming for your vaccines?’
The roundtable took place as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory panel is gearing up to discuss and possibly make recommendations related to COVID-19 vaccine injuries at its meeting next week.
David Gorski, M.D., Ph.D., a surgical oncologist at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, wrote in an op-ed in Science-Based Medicine that the roundtable’s agenda was proof that “RFK Jr. is definitely coming for your vaccines.”
Gorton told the audience he wants the childhood vaccine schedule “eliminated” and all vaccines removed from the market until proven safe and effective.
Bigtree pushed back on the claim that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would remove people’s access to vaccines.
Bigtree spent a lot of time with Kennedy while serving as his director of communications during his presidential campaign, he said. Kennedy “has no intention of erasing the vaccine program from existence,” Bigtree said.
What’s important is informed consent and that people have the right to choose whether or not they want to vaccinate, he said. According to Bigtree:
“There will be people here today who would love to see vaccines erased from existence, and they’ll explain all the reasons why. I don’t think that’s realistic.
“I also don’t think it would be fair to move from a place where we’re being forced to inject our children with products even after we’ve done our own research and recognize that we have issues with them, to then turn around and say, ‘I’m going to force you to never use a vaccine because of my perspective of the science.’”
The Defender asked HHS to comment on its efforts to address vaccine injury, but did not receive a response by the deadline.
Related articles in The Defender
COVID Vaccine Injuries to Take Center Stage at Upcoming ACIP Meeting
Exclusive: OSHA Admits It Told Healthcare Employers Not to Report COVID Vaccine Injuries
‘Maybe We Ought to Look at This System’: Senate Hearing on Vaccine Injuries Sparks Talk of Reforms
Over 1.5 Million People Who Reported COVID Vaccine Injuries Shut Out From Applying for Compensation
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