Stanley Plotkin, the “Godfather of Vaccines,” in 2018 Deposition About Vaccine Safety
Stanley Plotkin, the “Godfather of Vaccines,” in 2018 Deposition About Vaccine Safety
by Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN)
source from ICAN newsletter
February 23, 2021
Dr. Stanley Plotkin was deposed in January 2018 in the context of a family law dispute. He was questioned for 9 hours by attorney Aaron Siri on video, which you can see here. During that deposition, Dr. Plotkin made a number of admissions regarding vaccine clinical trials and gaps in safety data related to vaccines. Following that deposition, Dr. Plotkin put a number of wheels in motion, however none of those actions actually addresses the true concerns of many parents and patients.
Four months after his deposition, Dr. Plotkin sent a written statement to the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Infectious Disease Vaccine Subcommittee as well as Amanda Cohn, the CDC liaison to the committee. In this statement, Dr. Plotkin explains that his deposition “covered an enormous number of subjects” which “exhausted” him. Instead of learning from and then addressing any of the valid safety, efficacy, and ethical concerns that were addressed during the deposition, Dr. Plotkin said “more important, [he] realized that the anti-vaccination people are much better organized and financially supported than we are, and that the pro-vaccination camp must be better organized.” He then laid out the steps he had taken at that point “to fight back.”
These steps included:
· Making materials available for “pro-vaccination lawyers and witnesses” that would “disprov[e] the usual anti-vaccination accusations;”
· Contacting the FDA and vaccine manufacturers to add “missing information on safety and efficacy” in vaccine package inserts;
· “Lobbying the Gates Foundation to support pro-vaccine organizations and meetings on vaccine safety;” and
· Lobbying AAP, IDSA and PIDS to “support training of witnesses” in future trials so that “experts such as [himself] do[] not go unprepared unto an adversary situation.
Dr. Plotkin felt that these were the best steps to take to “help defend vaccines against attack by…clever…lawyers.” Dr. Plotkin expressed that he felt threatened by groups like ICAN because “their access to the legal system is a clear and present danger, which we ignore at our peril.”
In his attempt to crush out anyone questioning vaccines, Dr. Plotkin arranged a conference call with the AAP’s Vaccine subcommittee to discuss next steps. He also arranged what was meant to be a secret meeting in England, the Wellcome Trust Vaccine Safety meeting, in May 2019, to discuss topics of vaccine safety. ICAN’s attorneys found out about this meeting as the result of a FOIA request and are following up to seek further information.
If all of these organizations, groups, and people would expend the same resources and energy on conducting proper trials and studies of vaccines; understanding and acknowledging the safety, efficacy, and ethical concerns raised; and developing safer vaccines, we would likely see a much more fruitful outcome. Instead, Dr. Plotkin’s defensive response is indicative of the very problems highlighted within his deposition: a lack of data and transparency, which leads to a lack of trust in vaccines and in the medical professionals that refuse to address valid concerns and instead blindly and religiously push and defend vaccination.
To Dr. Plotkin’s chagrin, ICAN will continue to exhaust “experts” in the vaccine and infectious disease worlds, will continue to be “clever” and organized in their questioning, and will access the legal system in order to achieve much-needed transparency and increased safety with regard to vaccine products.