"In Vaccines We Trust"

How religious faith makes the vaccine enterprise immune to critical evaluation.

Apologies for disappearing from Focal Points for the last two weeks. Final fact-checking and proofreading for our new book proved to be more painstaking than I’d anticipated. Researching and writing a critical history of the vaccine enterprise required a deep dive into three hundred years of religious, cultural, and intellectual history. In the West, the vaccination enterprise kicked off in 1721 with a public inoculation campaign (against smallpox) in Boston. The campaign’s chief advocate was the famous puritan minister, Cotton Mather.

Over the course of three hundred years, the vaccine enterprise developed into the SCIENTISTIC religion that it is today. By scientistic, I mean the shallow, unexamined faith that all things in the world—including human health and disease—can be measured and manipulated by scientists.

The scientism of the vaccine enterprise has created a paradoxical state of affairs. While critical analysts of vaccines are constrained by the scientific method, many pro-vaccine advocates possess an unshakable faith in the beneficence of their enterprise that resists critical evaluation.

Since 2021, critics of the new generation of mRNA “vaccines” have been bewildered by the immunity of this enterprise to empirical data showing that the products are neither safe nor effective. These critics don’t seem to realize that they are challenging beliefs that are not rooted in scientific evaluation, but in faith.

The following is an excerpt from Vaccines: Mythology, Ideology, and Reality, which will be published by SKYHORSE/Children’s Health Defense on July 29, 2025. The excerpt amounts to approximately one half of Chapter 25. If you enjoy reading it, please consider ordering a copy of the book and sharing this post with your family and friends.

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CHAPTER 25: In Vaccines We Trust

After being locked down and systematically terrorized by the mass media for most of 2020, most of humanity anxiously awaited the vaccine that was heralded as their savior and liberator. As vaccine investor and enthusiast Bill Gates repeatedly stated in the spring, the world would only be able to go back to normal “when almost every person on the planet has been vaccinated against coronavirus.” This was an uncanny thing for anyone to say, but especially for the man who had, just twenty-two years earlier, been widely considered the most ruthless monopolist since John D. Rockefeller. The proclamation that “almost every person on the planet” needed to be injected with a novel substance about which they knew nothing seemed like something out of a dystopian science fiction novel.

When the emergency-authorized mRNA vaccines were rolled out in December 2020, most of humanity was apparently unaware that they were not vaccines in the traditional sense of inactivated or attenuated pathogens that would induce an immune response. The new injections were the genetic code for instructing the body to create a foreign, toxic protein. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg understood this, and he starkly contrasted with the public when, during an internal meeting with company executives on July 16, 2020, he stated:

I do just want to make sure that I share some caution on this because we just don’t know the long-term side effects of basically modifying people’s DNA and RNA to directly code in a person’s DNA and RNA. Basically, the ability to produce those antibodies and whether that causes other mutations or other risks downstream. So, there’s work on both paths of vaccine development.

Molecular biologists had been tinkering with messenger RNA since 1961, when Jacques Monod, François Jacob, and François Gros at the Institut Pasteur in Paris presented a paper about it for which they later won the Nobel Prize. BioNTech was founded in 2008 and Moderna was founded in 2010 to create methods for using mRNA to intervene in disease processes such as cancer. Creating cancer therapies was the original concept of the founders of BioNTech.

A major difference between natural mRNA—which is broken down by the body’s enzymes soon after it performs its function—and the “modified” mRNA produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, is that the latter has been chemically altered with methods created by Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 2023 for their work on these modifications. Both use N1-methyl- pseudouridine-modified mRNA encoding the SARS-COVID-19 spike protein delivered with a lipid nanoparticle (LNP) formulation. These novel and highly experimental products were repeatedly injected into billions of people in 2021. We believe this was the largest and most ambitious experiment ever conducted on humanity.

Because most of humanity did not understand what they were being injected with, the creators of this injection apparently perceived it necessary to erect something akin to a religion that deified the vaccines. This came naturally to them because many perceived that, with their new messenger RNA vaccines, they were using God’s language to direct the cellular machinery of the human body to do their bidding. In his 2006 book, The Language of God, NIH director Francis Collins begins by quoting President Bill Clinton when he announced in early 2000 that the human genome had been sequenced. In fact, about 88 percent had been sequenced at that time, but as the leader of the Human Genome Project, Dr. Collins was apparently keen to make the big announcement sooner rather than later. At a press conference in the East Room of the White House, with Dr. Collins standing next to him, President Clinton announced,

Today we are learning the language in which God created life. We are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty, and the wonder of God’s most divine and sacred gift.

Here it is worth recalling the archetypal “Scientist Playing God” whose lineage traces back to Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus about a Swiss German doctor named Victor Frankenstein who applies his understanding of chemistry and electricity to create a living creature out of the dead. While this aspiration sounded interesting in theory, Frankenstein’s creation is monstrous, and when he is rejected by society, he becomes a vengeful serial killer. Already in 1818, Shelley intuitively understood that no matter how clever a scientist may be, he cannot mimic nature with accuracy. Nowadays we often see examples of this in older men and women who have undergone cosmetic surgery. Even the most skilled of plastic surgeons cannot mimic the bloom of youth that only nature can bestow.

An apt example of the “Scientist Playing God” is the already mentioned Eldon Tyrrell in the 1982 science fiction film, Blade Runner. Risa Peoples, the daughter of screenwriter David Webb Peoples, was studying microbiology and taught her father about DNA replication. Tyrrell, whom the lead android playfully calls “Maker” and “Father,” references this in his explanation of how the lead android, Roy Batty, was created. The code of life consists of the trinity of replication, transcription, and translation. Replication creates identical DNA strands; transcription converts DNA into messenger RNA (mRNA); translation decodes mRNA into amino acids, forming proteins essential for life functions. While this is an endlessly fascinating field, the practical applications of it are still in their infancy. Anyone who claims that all potential outcomes of this experiment were understood is either delusional or lying or both.

It appears the gods of biotechnology initially expected far more resistance from the lay public to receiving the experimental shots. In October 2021, Bayer Pharmaceuticals Division President Stefan Oelrich gave a speech to the World Health Summit in which he expressed his surprise at how many people had been willing to be experimented on. As he put it:

I always like to say: If we had surveyed two years ago the public, ‘Would you be willing to take a gene or cell therapy and inject it into your body?’ we probably would have had a 95% refusal rate. I think this pandemic has opened many people’s eye to this innovation.

From the outset of the pandemic, those who were said to be working “at the speed of science” to create a new vaccine were presented as high priests of molecular biology and vaccinology. They used lots of Latin and Greek words that lay people couldn’t understand. Anthony Fauci was presented by the adoring media as the Pope of the COVID-19 vaccine program. He frequently stated the mantra “follow the science,” which consisted of his edicts, issued like papal bulls, that no one was allowed to question. On June 9, 2021, Dr. Fauci implicitly invoked the doctrine of papal infallibility when he proclaimed, “Attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science.”

Those who did question Fauci in public forums and on the internet quickly ran afoul of an army of censors who worked for various internet policing organizations that resembled the Holy Office of the Inquisition during the Counter-Reformation. Doctors who advocated treating COVID-19 with old, safe, and effective repurposed drugs like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin were branded as heretics and excommunicated from the college of physicians and from the rest of society. The safe medicines they recommended were banned as anathema that could not, under any circumstances, be dispensed, even to a patient dying in hospital to whom nothing else was being offered.

This religion wasn’t entirely new in that it appropriated existing religious iconography and symbols in the same way the early Roman Catholic Church overlaid Christian symbols and rituals onto existing religions throughout the Roman empire. We were reminded of this in 2022 when Vatican City issued a 20 Euro silver coin commemorating the COVID-19 vaccine. As the Numista catalogue describes it:

The coin depicts a doctor, a nurse and a young person who is ready to receive the vaccine. The Holy Father has repeatedly stressed the importance of vaccination, recalling that healthcare is “a moral obligation”, and it is important to “continue efforts to immunize even the poorest peoples.

Note that the formulation “a young person who is ready to receive the vaccine” is identical to the formulation for a communicant “who is ready to receive the host”—in Italian “pronto a ricevere l’Eucaristia.”

The obverse of the coin bears the name Franciscus, the year 2022 (“Anno MMXXII”) and the Coat of Arms of Pope Francis. With this commemorative silver coin, issued in the name of Francis, the Holy Father officially endorsed the COVID-19 vaccine and bestowed upon it his sub- lime authority and prestige, thereby suggesting that the vaccine is some- thing like the Savior of Mankind. On February 10, 2024, Pope Francis appointed Katalin Karikó as a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, which had been founded in 1994 by Pope John Paul II “to represent the various branches of the biomedical sciences and those that are most closely related to problems concerning the promotion and protection of life.” . . . . [chapter continues].

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Reviews

“Dr. Peter McCullough and John Leake have done the near-impossible: cutting through the noise and contemporary dramas around the issues of vaccines, they have produced a page-turning history and a gripping analysis of vaccines as myth and social ideology. This astute combination of intellectual and medical history, cultural analysis, and hard-hitting medical and scientific exposition could not have been accomplished by any other team. Vaccines will change the way you think about medical history, and how the collective mind, shaped by powerful interests, may propagate illusions out of thin air. This is an essential book for navigating our frenzied times with knowledge and insight, and it is one that will outlast us—a beautifully written classic of medical history and the history of ideas.” —Dr. Naomi Wolf

“The appeal of vaccines that can prevent disease and death is obvious. Unfortunately, blind faith in vaccines has replaced critical thinking and robust cost-benefit analysis. Dr. Peter McCullough and John Leake provide both as they recount the history of vaccination in their must-read book.” —Senator Ron Johnson

“A sweeping historical investigation that presents objective and competent guidance to the promise, folly, and dangers of vaccines—an industry that clearly needs a reset in light of evidence.” —Jeffrey Tucker, Brownstone Institute

“John Leake and Peter McCullough, MD, separate fact from fiction in their telling of the 120-year history of the modern vaccine era. The most recent myth they expose is that new technologies can change the rules of biology—a false proposition that culminated with untested mRNA ‘vaccines,’ whose champions aspired to inject everyone with their new product. Vaccines challenges this con that threatens the health of humanity.” —Robert Clancy, emeritus professor of immunology, University of Newcastle

“Dr. Peter McCullough led ‘the 500 doctors who saved the world’ from covid and was destroyed for saving lives and telling the truth. Now comes his second fearless book with Renaissance journalist John Leake. Vaccines is a withering scientific analysis of the ultimate public health myth/racket/humanicide. It’s a book that everyone must read who can read and is willing to fight for their family, their friends, humanity, and the truth.” —Michael Capuzzo, New York Times bestselling author and Pulitzer-nominated science writer

“Dr. Peter McCullough and his co-author John Leake have demonstrated that the pen can be mightier than the syringe. This new expose on “Vaccines” will build on their well-established reputations for standing up to Big Pharma and otherwise, relentlessly striving to make America medically informed and healthy again.” —Frank J. Gaffney, President, Institute for the American Future

“What if the vaccine debate was never settled science? In the wake of COVID-19, mRNA injections were rushed to market and declared safe and effective—no questions allowed. In this bold and timely book, Leake and McCullough trace the long history of vaccine development and challenge the dogmas that hardened during the pandemic. Combining historical insight with medical expertise, they expose how censorship, coercion, and both government and corporate influence distorted public health—and why honest debate is now more urgent than ever. “Science advances through scrutiny—not silence.” —Christine Anderson, Member of the European Parliament

PRAISE for Peter McCullough, MD, MPH

“Dr. Peter McCullough. . .was right all along.” —Joe Rogan

My old friend Dr. Peter McCullough is probably the most knowledgeable person alive on the treatment of COVID-19. —Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Dr. Peter McCullough … has a long and fairly famed history in medicine … but more to the point, he's treated Covid, a lot, and knows a lot about it. —Tucker Carlson