Set forth below is a partial transcript of Attorney Ron Jenkins’ cross-examination of Dr. Nirav Shah at the hearing for a Temporary Restraining Order on Friday, October 8, 2021 with regard to the vaccine mandate rule and investigations Dr. Shah may or may not have conducted regarding reports to VAERS. While I may have missed a word here and there, I stand by the transcript being accurate as to the substance of the questions and answers.
The last question to Dr. Shah I caught from the State’s Assistant Attorney General, Thomas Knowlton was,
Dr. Shah, how many people are currently admitted in Maine hospitals have reported side effects from Covid 19 vaccines?
SHAH: As far as I am aware,
Zero.
CROSS BY ATTORNEY RON JENKINS REGARDING VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System)
JENKINS: Good afternoon Dr. Shah. Thank you for your time today.
SHAH: Good afternoon.
JENKINS: You were speaking earlier about the VAERS system and I believe you said that the data produced by the VAERS system is not really about causation it’s more of a signal sending mechanism. Is that correct?
SHAH: That’s correct. JENKINS: Did you hear the testimony of Dr. (Peter) McCullough regarding VAERS? SHAH: I did. JENKINS: Okay, I just want to read a bit to you from his Declaration regarding VAERS just very very briefly. He says in his Declaration: This total safety reports in VAERS for Covid 19 vaccines alone for the approximately 9 month period commencing December 2020 and ending September 24, 2021, is 752,801. In the prior 30 years leading up to that date, the total number of reports was 16,320. That’s an (unable to get number) increase. Now without commenting on the causal connection, between the vaccination and the event being reported would you not agree with me that that’s a signal that there’s a problem with the vaccine?
SHAH: I would agree. No, I would
not agree with what you said. I would agree that it is a signal as any piece of
data is a signal. However, in light of the fact that 400 million doses of the
vaccine have been administered in the United States each of which could be an
opportunity for an individual to submit a VAERS report. I don’t know. I
disagree that it is a problem. I do agree that it is a signal. Again, every
piece of data is a signal but I do not agree that it is a problem in light of
the fact that there have been 400 million doses that have been administered.
Nor do I believe that the increase in the number of VAERS reports, the 100%
increase that you noted, I don’t know whether that is of any moment because in
order to answer that question we would need to know how many vaccines were
being given in the United States prior to the arrival of the Covid 19 vaccines.
JENKINS: Are you aware of any other vaccine that has generated that number of precipitous reports in the VAERS system ever in our country’s history?
SHAH: Let me be clear. I’m not aware of any other vaccine where we’ve had 400 million doses in 10 months.
JENKINS: That’s not the question I asked you.
SHAH: Could you restate your question?
JENKINS: Are you aware of any other vaccine generating that same number and magnitude of adverse event reporting in the VAERS system?
SHAH: I do not know. Ah, I’m not aware but I would want to know
what the number of administered doses is.
JENKINS: Is it true to say that there have been fully licensed and approved FDA products that have been yanked from the market after as few as 5 unexplained deaths? Is that true or false?
SHAH: I have no basis to know whether it is true or false.
JENKINS: Now you said that the VAERS system was meant to send a signal and you’ve agreed with me that it is sending a signal but you’re not sure it’s a problem. Isn’t is your responsibility as a public health official to find out whether it’s a problem?
SHAH: It is the responsibility of public health officials (NOTE: the S in officials was emphasized in the audio) to find out and they are in fact doing so.
JENKINS: Well in this State of Maine is there any other public health official, Dr. Shah, other than yourself?
SHAH: Yes.
JENKINS: Who is that?
SHAH: We have a team of hundreds of people at the Maine CDC.
JENKINS: You have a team?
SHAH: to say nothing about public health officials at the county level and the local level.
JENKINS: Okay but you have a team. They’re your team. You’re in charge. You’re the director of the Maine CDC, correct?
SHAH: That is correct.
JENKINS: So, have you done any studies or investigations? Not into all of the VAERS reports. Why don’t we limit it to just the ones related to people in this state? Have you investigated and done any of your quote-unquote deeper studies into those reports that you mentioned?
SHAH: Could you explain what you mean by quote-unquote deeper studies?
JENKINS: Well when you testified on direct examination, you said that these were signals and that what they did is they created a responsibility to conduct deeper studies to find out what the significance of the signal was. Have you done that?
SHAH: Yes.
JENKINS: Tell me about that. What studies did you do?
SHAH: We have an ongoing set of analyses around breakthrough cases and we’ve also worked in partnership with clinicians in Maine to investigate certain reports. For example, of reports of myocarditis.
JENKINS: So you’ve investigated some myocarditis?
SHAH: We’ve investigated cases
that have been reported.
JENKINS: Have you investigated any of the other adverse events that have been reported?
SHAH: Not to my knowledge.
JENKINS: Okay.
SHAH: It is generally, chiefly, the responsibility of the US CDC to conduct those investigations under what’s called the Enhanced Surveillance System.
JENKINS: It’s not true (unintelligible).
SHAH: The states are often partnered with the US CDC if the US CDC requests assistance. If and only if the US CDC requests assistance. In this situation, the one time where they have requested assistance was with respect to the analysis of reported myocarditis cases. Independent of that because we are concerned about the possibility of breakthrough cases, we have been conducting our own analysis of breakthrough cases. Those are not necessarily adverse events, however.
JENKINS: Dr. Shah, I just want to make sure I am understanding your answer to my question. You’re telling the people of this state that you’re mandating…mandating to thousands of people that they be injected with these vaccines and if they’re not the result will be that they lose their hard-earned livelihoods. You went to medical school. You invested a lot of money and time and effort to become a doctor. If there were a vaccine that you didn’t want to take but you had to take it in order to keep your job, would you not feel threatened?
SHAH: I can’t speculate.
JENKINS: Okay but if you’re going to mandate vaccines don’t you think you should investigate all of the reports of adverse effects at least as to people of Maine? The population of Maine for whom you are responsible for their public health.
SHAH: I believe those reports should be investigated and they are.
JENKINS: Not by you.
SHAH: By federal health authorities to whom they are submitted.
JENKINS: Can you give me the name of the federal health authority who is investigating those Maine cases?
SHAH: The individual who is in charge, for example, of the
myocarditis investigation is named Dr. Thomas Chiminpakora (there’s no way I
could get the spelling but this is what it sounded like, my apologies).
JENKINS: Who is investigating all of the other adverse events that are listed…did you, did you hear the testimony of Dr. McCullough? You did. You were listening, correct?
SHAH: Yes I did.
JENKINS: And he talked about the Medicare and Medicaid data and there’s a slide that he looked at and we talked about it. Slide #10 in that slide pack and that slide pack says there have been 661 deaths of Mainers within 28 days of vaccination. Now you’ve testified that you are not concerned about that because a lot of people die in Maine every year. 15,000 or some odd but 661 deaths within 28 days of the vaccination? Isn’t that a signal that you should investigate?
SHAH: Sir, you indicated that I…you put words in my mouth saying that I was not concerned about that…
JENKINS: Okay.
SHAH: I never used that phrase so I respectfully ask that you not to characterize my testimony accordingly. Secondly, those processes to the extent they are reported are investigated and evaluated at the US CDC level.
JENKINS: 661 purported Maine deaths within 28 days of vaccination. As a percentage of the total deaths caused by Covid 19 in this state, what is that 60%?
SHAH: That’s not an accurate comparator.
JENKINS: Let’s assume for a moment that all of those deaths, those 661 deaths, were caused by the vaccination.
SHAH: Why would we assume that?
JENKINS: Because I am going to ask you a question. Just assume it for the sake of argument. If it’s true that 661 people have died as a result of the vaccine, and only 1,070 people have died in this state as a result of Covid 19, wouldn’t that be a cause of concern for you?
SHAH: That’s an if. I won’t answer a question based on premises I disagree with.
JENKINS: Don’t you think you should investigate the 661 deaths and
find out about it pretty quickly since you are asking thousands of people to be
injected by October 15?
State’s attorney KNOWLTON interrupts,
Your honor, this is the 3rd or 4th time that Mr. Jenkins has asked these questions and Dr. Shah has answered them. I would ask him to move on. Objection.
The follow-up video is equally excellent. Dr. Jenkins is doing great work.
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