“Safe and effective” – the hollow chant that should’ve sunk Big Pharma decades ago
The phrase “safe and effective” was not robbed of its credibility when the COVID-19 vaccines caused adverse events and deaths that embodied its antithesis. The duplicitous history of “safe and effective”, a phrase that has essentially become synonymous with another insidious slogan, “FDA approved”, goes back decades. On average, the FDA has recalled 1,279 drugs per year since 2012. Thalidomide, a sedative drug that was used to treat morning sickness in the 1950s, and Vioxx, a painkiller that was often prescribed to treat arthritis pain, are two of the most notorious drugs recalled by the FDA. Both were promoted to the public as safe and effective with tragic consequences. This article by Gavin de Becker, bestselling author of The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence whose work in the prediction and prevention of violence has earned him three presidential appointments, astutely assesses the absurdity of the FDA and CDC’s continued promotion of COVID-19 vaccines, as well as the utterly irrational trust still placed in Big Pharma when their track record provides endless reasons not to.