4 scientists in charge of work of the flu vaccine during the 1960s found it to be ineffective. Said they refused to give it to their own families. Two were transferred to other work, a third left the division.

Blast from the past... pic.twitter.com/jaXw77sFW6

— Wittgenstein (@backtolife_2023) October 16, 2022

Today, the Federal Communicable Disease Center acknowledged the flu vaccine and the recommended dosage is ineffective, while in a larger dose it can be harmful.  However, the flu vaccine is still recommended for old people and the chronically ill.  

Last month, the Senate Sub-Committee, headed by Abraham Ribokoff charged that the Federal Government wasn't doing a good enough job of informing the public of ineffective vaccines.  [Ribicoff, 1910-1998, served as President Kennedy's Secretary for Health, Education, and Welfare for 18 months from 1961-1962.]

Scientists at the Division of Biologic Standards test vaccines for their potency and safety before licensing them for public use.  However, the division does not determine the effectiveness of the vaccine.  That is left to the manufacturers.  A case in point is the influenza vaccine.  Four scientists in charge of work of the flu vaccine during the 1960s found it to be ineffective.  Said they refused to give it to their own families.  Two were transferred to other work, a third left the division.  And over the entire ten-year period, not one word of their unfavorable findings was allowed to be published.  But a more serious case involving the relationship between the leaders of the division and their scientists involves the adenoid virus vaccine, a vaccine given to thousands of American soldiers to prevent certain cold-like symptoms.  When it was shown that the vaccine contained a contaminant, which caused cancer in laboratory animals, it was taken off the market, but that was 3 years after the division's own scientists had pointed out the danger.  Dr. Murray [Dr. Frederick Murray, Division of Biologic Standard] had justified the use of the vaccine said it took 3 years to examine the evidence against it.   

It is more important to use the vaccines than to take them off the market and remove the agent.  Since the agent couldn't be removed, there was no other course [than to inject it into thousands of service members]. 

Thus, for three years, American troops were injected with a cold-preventing vaccine which was causing cancer in some of the laboratory animals.  And some of the division scientists charged that they were prevented from publishing results from experiments which showed some of the vaccines to be ineffective.  

[James Turner, 1940-2022, Consumer Lawyer] 

The control officer in 1960, who has grave doubts about the potency of the influenza vaccine.  These doubts were made known to the Director of the Division and through the proper channels . . . 

Here is a decent timeline on immunization.