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There are many conspiracy theories about vaccines, and they circulate almost continuously. Some are relatively new, but most are at least a few years old. They all tend to fall into several defined types, such as the “CDC whistleblower” story, which posits that the “CDC knew” all these years that vaccines cause autism but covered it up, even going so far as to commit scientific fraud to do so. Of the many other myths about vaccines that stubbornly persist despite all evidence showing them not only to be untrue but to be risibly, pseudoscientifically untrue, among whose number are myths that vaccines cause autism, sudden infant death syndrome, and a syndrome that so resembles shaken baby syndrome (more correctly called abusive head trauma) that shaken baby syndrome is a misdiagnosis for vaccine injury, the antivaccine conspiracy theory that vaccines are being used for population control is one of the most persistent. In this myth, vaccines are not designed to protect populations of impoverished nations against diseases like the measles, which still kills hundreds of thousands of people a year outside of developed countries. Oh, no. Rather, according to this myth, vaccines are in fact a surreptitious instrument of population control designed to render people sterile, for whatever nefarious reasons the powers that be have to want to control the population.

You might recall how a few years ago antivaccinationists leaped on a statement by Bill Gates that “if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that [population] by perhaps 10 or 15 percent.” They used it to accuse Gates of being a eugenicist and that vaccines were in actuality an instrument of global depopulation. It was a ridiculous charge of course. In context, it was clear that Gates was referring to how the expected population increase from 6.8 billion to 9 billion could be blunted by providing good health care, including reproductive care and vaccines, to impoverished people in regions where the population increases are expected to be greatest. He was clearly referring to decreasing the expected population increase by 10% or 15%, meaning that instead of going up to 9 billion the population would only increase to between 7.65 and 8.1 billion. In other words, he was referring to how good health care could decrease the expected rate of population growth, not how vaccines could be used to depopulate the world. However, because of the prevalence of the myth that vaccines are sterilizing agents intended for global depopulation, the charge that Gates is a eugenicist, as obviously off base as it is to reasonable people, resonated in the anti-science world of antivaccinationists. Similar claims, namely that there is “something” in vaccines that results in infertility and sterilization, have been unfortunately very effective in frightening people in Third World countries and have played a major role in antivaccine campaigns that have delayed the eradication of polio.



Of late, there’s been a new variant of this particularly pernicious bit of misinformation going around the usual social media sources. Naturally, the first place I saw this story was on the site of über-quack and conspiracy theorist Mike Adams, who proclaimed in his usual hyperbole-filled way, “Tetanus vaccines found spiked with sterilization chemical to carry out race-based genocide against Africans“:

Tetanus vaccines given to millions of young women in Kenya have been confirmed by laboratories to contain a sterilization chemical that causes miscarriages, reports the Kenya Catholic Doctors Association, a pro-vaccine organization. A whopping 2.3 million young girls and women are in the process of being given the vaccine, pushed by UNICEF and the World Health Organization. “We sent six samples from around Kenya to laboratories in South Africa. They tested positive for the HCG antigen,” Dr. Muhame Ngare of the Mercy Medical Centre in Nairobi told LifeSiteNews. “They were all laced with HCG.”

Another such story, by Celeste McGovern (who, if you look at her articles, is obviously very antivaccine) at the ever-quacky GreenMedInfo site entitled “Vaccine Conspiracy or Racist Population Control Campaign: The Kenyan Tetanus Shot“:

When Catholic bishops in Kenya issued a press release last month questioning their government’s internationally-funded tetanus vaccine campaign directed at women and girls and warned that it might be laced with an experimental contraceptive that makes them miscarry their babies, it was barely mentioned by the mainstream media outside of Kenya. The BBC carried a brief story that dismissed the allegations as “unfounded” and suggested that even raising such questions was dangerous as it could frighten people from a “safe and certified” lifesaving vaccine.

Elsewhere, the John Rappaport has also flogged this nonsense in a story called “Depopulation vaccine in Kenya and beyond“:

“Dr. Ngare, spokesman for the Kenya Catholic Doctors Association, stated in a bulletin released November 4, “This proved right our worst fears; that this WHO campaign is not about eradicating neonatal tetanus but a well-coordinated forceful population control mass sterilization exercise using a proven fertility regulating vaccine. This evidence was presented to the Ministry of Health before the third round of immunization but was ignored.” (“Mass Sterilization: Kenyan Doctors Find Anti-Fertility Agent in UN Tetanus Vaccine,” November 8, 2014, by Steve Weatherbe, earth-heal.com) You have to understand that every promoted so-called “pandemic” is an extended sales pitch for vaccines. And not just a vaccine against the “killer germ” of the moment. We’re talking about a psyop to condition the population to vaccines in general. There is much available literature on vaccines used for depopulation experiments. The research is ongoing. Undoubtedly, we only know a fraction of what is happening behind closed laboratory doors.

This story has been popping up all over the usual antivaccine social media sites. From here in the comfortable confines of our First World nations, it’s mainly a curiosity, something that gets the antivaccine contingent here riled up, but in Kenya and other Third World countries, where neonatal tetanus is a real concern, this myth has been popping up since the 1990s, causing great harm to vaccine programs.

So here is the basic outline of the myth that is going around this time. A group known as the Kenya Catholic Doctors Association (KCDA) has claimed to have tested several vials of tetanus vaccine. Why did the KCDA test these vaccines? Who knows? Actually, for some reason, due to the persistence of the common myth that vaccines are being used for sterilization and depopulation, this group of doctors apparently felt obligated to test this vaccine. In actuality, the KCDA is an arm of the Kenyan Catholic Church, created less than a year ago by John Cardinal Njue, Chairman of the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops, for this purpose outlined in a speech by Cardinal Njue dated Christmas Eve, 2013:

The Sanctity of Life and its fundamental principle, .[sic]Life begins at the Conception and ends with natural death‚ are under threat from worldly forces devoid of faith. The Catholic Church calls upon her faithful and all people of good will to appreciate the gift of life and safeguard it from the moment of conception to natural death. The Catholic Church will therefore continue to urge its Professionals especially in the medical and health care areas to be vigilant and to stand up for the moral principles and standards, as willed by God and promoted by the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, The perfect teacher in matters of Faith and morals[sic]

Which leads Njue to proclaim:

It is therefore a good reason to celebrate as we Launch such an Association, the Kenya Catholic Doctors Association, bringing together Catholic Doctors to enable them walk the journey of faith in their profession and in Communion with each other and the Church. The Church in the Spirit of Christ invites all the Catholic Doctors to find in this Association, an opportunity to live the invitation of Christ.

And finally:

Dear Catholic Doctors, allow yourselves to be enlightened by the Gospel so that your eyes of faith may penetrate the misleading attraction of the World that proclaims anti-life principles and courageously stand and be counted.

In other words, the Kenya Catholic Doctors Association is a recently formed, wholly owned subsidiary of the Catholic Church in Kenya, to which doctors have been recruited to uphold Catholic teachings in medicine, particularly with respect to reproductive health. No wonder the Kenyan Catholic bishops and the KCDA are working so closely together on this!

Before you can understand the why the claim that hCG is in the tetanus vaccine would produce fear that the vaccine is in reality a sterilization agent, you need to know about a previous experimental vaccine. hCG is what is commonly referred to as the “pregnancy hormone.” Pregnancy tests are based on detecting hCG, which can first be detected about 11 days after conception and whose levels rise rapidly thereafter, peaking in the first 8-11 weeks of pregnancy. In the past, attempts have been made to produce a vaccine that targets hCG and thus results in the inability to conceive a child. It is a technique that falls under the category of immunocontraception. It takes little more than a quick trip to Wikipedia (among other sources) to learn that as far back as the 1970s, hCG was conjugated to tetanus toxoid in order to make a vaccine against hCG, because hCG itself did not provoke enough of an immune response. It’s not necessary to know all the details and history. From the 1970s on, there have been clinical trials of such vaccine contraceptives using hCG, and it is possible to prevent pregnancy by this approach, although antibody response against hCG declines with time.

This brings us back to the claims being made, described in an editorial by Dr. Wahome Ngare for the KCDA that appeared in Kenya Today . According to this article, the WHO had embarked on a vaccination program against tetanus that somehow had aroused the ire and suspicion of the Catholic Church because it was aimed at girls and women. The reason, of course, is because in Kenya there is a high risk of acquiring tetanus during childbirth, but the Catholic Church saw more nefarious motives:

Our concern and the subject of this discussion is the WHO/UNICEF sponsored tetanus immunization campaign launched last year in October ostensibly to eradicate neonatal tetanus. It is targeted at girls and women between the ages of 14 – 49 (child bearing age) and in 60 specific districts spread all around the country. The tetanus vaccine being used in this campaign has been imported into the country specifically for this purpose and bears a different batch number from the regular TT. So far, 3 doses have been given – the first in October 2013, the second in March 2014 and the third in October 2014. It is highly possible that there are two more doses to go. Unlike other mass vaccination exercise, [sic] this particular WHO/UNICEF organized and sponsored tetanus vaccination campaign was launched at the New Stanley Hotel in Nairobi which is extremely unusual for a public campaign. For this reason, many people, including health professional [sic] did not know about the campaign until the matter was addressed by the Catholic Bishops.

Of course, the reason the vaccination campaign is targeted at women of reproductive age is because its primary purpose is to prevent neonatal tetanus. Targeting women of reproductive age leads to immunity in these women and the prevention of tetanus in their newborn babies. As the WHO stated in its response, these campaigns are very much targeted to districts where the highest incidence of neonatal tetanus has been observed. None of this stopped the KCDA:

With the help of Catholic faithful’s [sic] who put their own lives at risk, the Kenya Catholic Doctors Association managed to access the tetanus vaccine used during the WHO/UNICEF immunization campaign in March 2014 and subjected them to testing. The unfortunate truth is that the vaccine was laced with HCG just like the one used in the South American cases! Further, none of the girls and women given the vaccination were informed of its contraceptive effect. This proved right our worst fears; that this WHO/UNICEF campaign is not about eradicating neonatal tetanus but is a well-coordinated, forceful, population control, mass sterilization exercise using a proven fertility regulating vaccine.

None of these charges are new. This is a conspiracy theory that’s been around at least since the 1990s and appeared in nations such as Mexico, Tanzania, Nicaragua, and the Philippines. No evidence of mass-sterilization was ever found, but these rumors did adversely impact vaccination programs in those countries.

It also sounds like an awful lot of cloak and dagger on the part of the KCDA just to get their hands on some tetanus vaccine. Much is made of the reluctance of WHO/UNICEF to provide the Catholic Church with vials of vaccine to test, but given the unreliability and dissembling demonstrated by the KCDA, it’s hard to imagine why the WHO would not want to provide vials of vaccine for them to test. Moreover, every vial wasted in this process would be one less potentially-lifesaving vial that could be administered to a Kenyan woman to prevent neonatal tetanus in her baby. In any case, somehow the KCDA obtained vials to test. It’s not clear how they got them or even whether they actually did get them, but they claim to have obtained six vials. The test they subjected them to appears to be the same test used to measure hCG in blood samples for pregnancy tests. If one takes Dr. Ngare’s story at face value, it sure sounds damning. The Kenyan government is even launching an investigation.

There’s just one problem.

The WHO has investigated already and found nothing wrong. Ngare’s claims are, to put it bluntly, completely without merit. As it pointed out:

There is a situation where ant- β-HCG antibodies can be produced by the body and that can act as a contraceptive, however, this requires the administration of at-least 100 to 500 micrograms of HCG bound to tetanus vaccine (about 11,904,000 to 59,520,000 mIU/ml of the same hormone where currently less than 1 mIU-ml has been reported from the lab results.

As UNICEF also points out, there is no laboratory in Kenya capable of accurately making these sorts of measurements on non-human samples (such as vaccines):

The tests were done in hospital laboratories in Kenya. The staff in these laboratories could not however tell whether the samples were vaccines or not, as this was not declared to the testing laboratories by the Catholic Doctors Association. The laboratories tested the samples for hCG using analyzers used for testing human samples like blood and urine for pregnancy. There is no laboratory in Kenya with the capacity to test non-human samples like vaccine for hCG.

It’s also been noted that these values might have been the results of a reaction between the preservatives in a standard tetanus toxoid vaccine and a serum/urine HCG test kit. Also, the vaccine in which hCG was linked to the tetanus toxoid is 20 years out of date. Indeed, in an e-mail interview, the original scientist who developed the hCG-tetanus toxoid vaccine even said that a different carrier, LTB, has been used, to avoid the very misinformation that has been associated with the valuable tetanus vaccination. Also, as the WHO and others responding to this rumor have noted, contraceptive vaccines based on hCG don’t last very long. Antibody titers against hCG decline rapidly after around three months.

In other words, there’s no evidence to support the claims of the KCDA, and they aren’t even plausible, given what is known about the history of vaccines using hCG coupled to tetanus toxoid. Quite simply, such vaccine linking hCG to tetanus toxin are basically history, long abandoned. They didn’t even work very well as long term contraceptive, with their effect fading after three months, much less as permanent inducers of sterility. The Catholic Church and the Kenya Catholic Doctors Association are thus engaging in fear mongering. They might believe they are doing good, but they are engaging in activity that could very well lead to the preventable deaths of Kenyan babies, as young women are frightened away from receiving the tetanus vaccine by their rhetoric and highly dubious laboratory results.

None of this, of course, has stopped Mike Adams from proclaiming this “vaccination genocide” and “medical crimes against humanity”:

What is happening in Kenya is a crime against humanity, and it is a crime committed with deliberate racial discrimination. Normally, the liberal media in the United States would be all over a story involving racial discrimination and genocide — or even a single police shooting of a black teenager — but because this genocide is being committed with vaccines, the entire mainstream media excuses it. Apparently, medical crimes against black people are perfectly acceptable to the liberal media as long as vaccines are used as the weapon. As this story clearly demonstrates, “vaccine violence” is very real in our world.

No, what this story clearly demonstrates is how utterly out of touch with reality many of the people making these claims in the US are. If you doubt me, just take a look at some of Adams’ other claims, namely that there are five vectors for what he calls the “science-based genocidal assault on humanity”:

Vaccines Viruses Food Water Chemtrails (i.e. atmospheric deployment of chemicals)

Chemtrails? Yes, chemtrails. If you want any further evidence of just how far gone the cranks who argue that the tetanus vaccination program in Kenya is a racist depopulation program are, look no further.

Lest you think that this obsession over vaccination as a cause of infertility is limited to Kenya and other Third World countries, consider this. The very same theme frequently appears in antivaccine rants against Gardasil, which has been blamed without evidence for premature ovarian failure. Another favorite antivaccine trope is that polysorbate-80, which is used in some vaccines, causes infertility. Yes, we in the “advanced” First World nations are nearly as prone to falling for this sort of misinformation as Kenyans. Never forget that.

Also, never forget just how far antivaccine activists like Mike Adams and John Rappaport will go to demonize the object of their hatred: Vaccines.