On Monday, the journal Cureus retracted the first peer-reviewed paper that presented an in-depth analysis of Covid-19 mRNA vaccine trial data and post-injection injury. The authors of the article also called for a global moratorium on vaccines.

On Monday, the journal Cureus retracted the first peer-reviewed paper that presented an in-depth analysis of Covid-19 mRNA vaccine trial data and post-injection injury. The authors of the article also called for a global moratorium on vaccines.

Dr. Peter McCullough, one of the authors of the article, called the retraction “a stunning act of scientific censorship.” He told the Defender:

“The journal and its editors had the right to reject the article at any time during the review process. Once published, retraction of an article without adequate justification constitutes a violation of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines.”

The document, published last month, describes in detail the serious potential harms of vaccines, problems in vaccine control and treatment, the mechanisms behind adverse reactions, the immunological reasons for vaccine ineffectiveness and the mortality data from registration trials.

The authors of the article concluded:

“The federal agency's approval of Covid-19 mRNA injectable products based on general population coverage was not supported by an honest assessment of all relevant registration data and by a proportional consideration of risks compared to benefits.

They also demanded that the vaccines be immediately removed from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) childhood immunization schedule and that booster shots be suspended.

The document was read more than 350 times in the month following its publication. The average Cureus article is only viewed about 000 times in an entire year.

McCullough said Tim Kersjes, head of research integrity at Springer Nature, which publishes Cureus, informed the authors last week that the journal was retracting the paper. Mr Kersjes raised eight points of concern, which Mr McCullough said the authors had already addressed through an exhaustive peer review process.

Dr McCullough told the Defender:

“I suspect Kersjes and Springer Nature were pressured by the powerful bio-pharmaceutical complex, made up of coordinated public health organizations, vaccine manufacturers and regulators, to censor our article in order to prevent the medical community from obtaining crucial information about vaccine safety.

“We have rejected the retraction, we have appealed, and we will report this unethical action to all relevant authorities, while continuing to publish elsewhere.”

Mr Nathaniel Mead, the lead author of the article, told the Defender that he had feared from day one that the journal would come under pressure to retract the article.

I knew as soon as I hit the “publish” button on Cureus on January 24, following an extensive review process and multiple resubmissions, that we were dealing with a ticking time bomb.” , Mr. Mead said.

“By citing strong evidence and exposing how industry-sponsored trials misled the public, our evidence-based article was a true indictment of the COVID-19 vaccine company.”

“Predatory Retractions” Benefit Big Pharma

John Adler of Stanford University and Alexander Muacevic of the University of Munich founded Cureus in 2009. It is an open-access, peer-reviewed online general medical journal with Publication costs are low.

Academic publishing giant Springer Nature acquired Cureus in December 2022.

Springer Nature is a publishing conglomerate founded in 2015 through the merger of Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillian, Macmillan Education and Springer Science+Business Media.

The publisher generated €1,8 billion in 2022, showing continued year-on-year growth since 2020.

Springer Nature has an internal research integrity group responsible for ensuring that the company's scientific content is “rigorously evaluated”. When questions arise that require the intervention of “research integrity experts,” the resolution team, led by Mr. Kersjes, steps in.

On February 16, Mr. Kersjes informed the authors that the journal's editors planned to retract the article, saying that the journal “had recently been informed of several concerns regarding the validity of the work.”

According to the text of the email, posted on Substack by Steve Kirsch, another of the paper's co-authors, these concerns “cannot, in our opinion, be resolved by a correction.”

Mr. Kersjes told the authors that they had the option to accept or decline the retraction, which would be indicated on the website.

They did not agree. “We vigorously reject this arbitrary and capricious decision, taken after the fact, on the part of Mr. Kersjes and his superiors at Springer,” they wrote.

Mr. Kersjes' letter raises concerns about the authors' claims about all-cause mortality data, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), the number of deaths due to vaccination compared to number of lives saved, the possibility of vaccine contamination, the claim that vaccines have not been adequately tested for safety and effectiveness, the “incorrect” statement that spike proteins remain in the body and can have harmful effects and that vaccines are gene therapy products.

In their rebuttal, the authors responded to each criticism by explaining their argument and providing supporting quotes. They noted that the paper's eight reviewers and the journal's editors found their responses satisfactory.

A few days after the initial publication, Mr. Adler, who is the editor-in-chief of Cureus, told the industry-friendly website Retraction Watch: “Our editorial response has been increased vigilance during the publication process. peer review, with 8 different reviewers weighing in on whether to publish, including a few with strong statistical backgrounds. Therefore, a credible peer review process was followed and the consequences fell as they should.

Mr Adler also said the journal would re-evaluate if “fatal flaws” were identified. “Cureus' decision-making process contrasts sharply with Elsevier's editorial decision to censor the article using ad hominem arguments.

However, a Cereus spokesperson told the Defender today: “Following publication, concerns were raised regarding a number of claims made in the article and an investigation by Cureus and the Springer team Nature's Research Integrity Charge identified several issues with the article that warranted a retraction”.

The spokesperson added: “It is preferable for such issues to be detected during peer review, but this is unfortunately not always the case. It is therefore important, as happened in this case, that when issues are raised after publication, they are addressed promptly in order to preserve the integrity of the academic record.”

The authors say in their rebuttal that most of the concerns “appear to be adapted, directly or indirectly, from the many comments made by well-known vaccine industry trolls on social media, Jonathan Laxton and Matthew Dopler,” who have frequently commented on the article on the Cureus website.

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