The Dengue Vaccine Experiment
December 17, 2020
Former Philippines President Benigno Aquino III attends the launch of the dengue vaccine in 2016. Credit: Malacañang Photo Bureau
“A GOOD example of a rushed vaccine was the dengue vaccine experiment — which actually increased the risks of dengue fever. Dengue fever is a common disease in more than 120 countries and, like coronavirus, has been the target for a vaccine for many years. The development and licensure of Dengvaxia® vaccine by Sanofi spanned more than twenty years and cost more than 1.5 billion US dollars. But the development of the vaccine turned out to be difficult. Dengue vaccine antibodies often made the infection worse — called “disease enhancement in vaccine-speak — especially in infants and children. When the vaccine was administered to thousands of children in the Philippines, at least six hundred died. The Philippine government has permanently banned the vaccine from the country.”
— Thomas Cowan and Sally Fallon Morell, The Contagion Myth: Why Viruses (including “Coronavirus) Are Not the Cause of Disease; pp. 133-34. Skyhorse Publishing, 2020.
Dengvaxia® was approved by the FDA for use in the United States in May, 2019.
