Robert W Malone MD, MS

A Tale of Two Narratives

The recent West Texas outbreak of Measles has become politicized and now provides a case study of how the polarization and weaponization of politics and public health in the United States results in dysfunctional public policy. Currently, there are two major competing narratives concerning US public health policy concerning vaccines.

The Dominant Narrative

The dominant narrative, repeatedly reinforced via a wide range of channels, marketing, propaganda, and censorship – particularly during the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak- is that all vaccines, including the mRNA and adenovirus genetic therapy-based vaccines, are “safe and effective.” This typically unqualified but oft-repeated phrase has characteristics of a catechism of faith repeated by “true believers” of a vaccine-promoting cult of public health officers, academics dependent on the vaccine industry, industrial vaccinologists, the vast majority of specialist physician guilds (that universally accept funding from vaccine-manufacturing corporations), and their surrogates. Surrogates include corporate media, politicians, and academic journals that almost universally also accept significant direct or indirect funding from vaccine manufacturers. Any who question any aspect of this catechism are typically attacked, censored, and ostracized by cult members.

To illustrate with a recent example, these two terms (“safe and effective”) were repeatedly deployed and reinforced in corporate media and government messaging during the outbreak without defining or clarifying what criteria were being applied to define “safe” or “effective.” The repeated deployment and repetition of terms such as these without qualification or clarification as a key component of a public messaging campaign is a psychological manipulation tool known by the terms “neurolinguistic programming,” “natural language processing or technology,” or simply “subliminal marketing”, and relies on the use of messages designed to influence subconscious thoughts and behaviors without the audience’s conscious awareness. The use of censorship, nudge technology and other psychological manipulation methods to suppress discussion of potential harms and examination of risk/benefit/harm assessment and stratification by age and risk factors was justified as necessary to prevent “vaccine hesitancy” by the general public. Quite literally thousands of federally funded, peer-reviewed academic studies and publications examined and documented means by which ‘vaccine hesitancy” in the general public could be overcome using a wide range of propaganda, censorship, and psychological manipulation methods.

A false narrative of “vaccine hesitancy” creating risks of widespread unnecessary deaths due to infection by SARS-CoV-2 was justified, supported and promoted based on two subsidiary false narratives – 1) that SARS-CoV-2 infection was associated with a 3-4% “case fatality rate” (between 3 and 4 out of every one hundred people infected by SARS-CoV-2 would die), and 2) that the Emergency Use Authorized COVID “vaccines” were sufficiently protective to enable development of “herd immunity” if a sufficient fraction of the population would accept dosing with these products.

Like the dominant “safe and effective” narrative, these subsidiary false narratives upon which the primary dominant narrative rested were also repeated until the burden of “counterfactual” evidence became overwhelming. At that point, corporate media and government messaging was shifted to assert that these products would partially protect against severe disease and death. Strategically overlooked was that reduction in risk of severe disease and death were not listed as criteria in the Emergency Use Authorization or subsequent product marketing authorization by the US FDA. Over time, additional clinical research – notably from the Cleveland Clinic, a leading US provider of clinical services- indicated that any such benefits in reduction of clinical disease, disease severity, and death were short-lived and within weeks to months post product administration the risk of these outcomes increased relative to those that did not accept the products. This is referred to as “negative efficacy.”

In the current context of weaponization of the West Texas measles outbreak for various purposes, this dominant narrative has been repurposed and continues to be actively promoted by pivoting from COVID vaccine promotion of the childhood-focused 1960s legacy combination vaccine products Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccines marketed as M-M-R II (Merck) and PRIORIX (GSK).

It has been my experience that the modern use of psychological manipulation (PsyWar), propaganda, censorship and marketing methods to reinforce this dominant vaccine narrative is so effective that most reporters and medical care providers do not even question whether this is true. It “feels” true to them, and therefore must be true.

In turn this profoundly influences both how front line journalists approach a ‘breaking news” story, and how medical care providers approach patient management. The baseline assumption being that if a patient that did not accept a “safe and effective” prophylactic vaccine develops a “vaccine preventable” infectious disease, then all clinical sequelae are the consequence of their failure to comply with the recommendation to accept the “safe and effective” vaccine product. The ultimate embodiment of this logic was that all who died with a positive PCR SARS-CoV-2 test during the COVID  crisis died of COVID (despite any confounding medical conditions) rather than having died with COVID.

This recent post on “X” illustrates one consequence of the promotion and reinforcement of the dominant narrative in the context of measles and measles vaccines. Safe and effective. Apparently a case involving a physician who self-censors to avoid professional consequences despite being present with hard evidence of a case of vaccine-associated measles due to reversion of the vaccine strain to a disease-causing variant. Not perfectly safe and effective after all.

Another example that contradicts the dominant “safe and effective” live attenuated measles vaccine narrative comes from a front-line primary care physician involved in managing West Texas outbreak-associated measles patients:

Not perfectly safe and effective after all.

The Counter Narrative

The subdominant counter-narrative to “all vaccines are safe and effective” appears to have become “no vaccines are safe and effective.” This has also become a catechism for the alternative cult, one that has developed in reaction to the heavy-handed enforcement and widespread acceptance of the dominant narrative.

It should come as no surprise that this tenant of the “medical freedom movement” has developed in this way and no surprise that those who self-identify as being “medical freedom movement” warriors often self-identify as “the resistance” and will expel and delegitimize all those who reject this simplistic binary, either-or construct. This now extends even to their former champion HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., who has recently been labeled as a traitor to the cause (e.g., cult) for his statement as HHS Secretary that the best way to prevent the spread of measles is to vaccinate. This is a true statement – no alternative methods have proven to be more effective at slowing or stopping the spread of this highly infectious, very low-mortality disease. This is not the same as stating that measles vaccination is either fully safe or effective or that breakthrough cases or reversion to measles in vaccinated persons do not occur. RFK Jr. did not say that he recommended that people have their children vaccinated for measles. Yet that is what those who have accepted the counter-narrative heard, and many of them then launched campaigns to ostracize and delegitimize the HHS Secretary. Because, like in all cults, you are either for us or against us.

It is often assumed by those promoting the counter-narrative to this dominant catechism of all those who accept this storyline that all vaccines, including the childhood Measles, Mumps, and Rubella vaccines, are safe and effective have some sort of conflict of interest (COI) and that this COI extends down to individual reporters and medical care providers. In contrast, what I observe is that, although COI is rampant, in many cases, what one encounters is more akin to unthinking acceptance of the promoted dominant narrative as unquestioned truth. Or, to be more blunt, propaganda, censorship, psyops, and marketing work amazingly well on those who do not think for themselves.

Allow me to illustrate this with a recent example.

I was on a podcast discussing the West Texas measles outbreak when a phone call came in from West Texas. I responded with an automated text message that I was busy and would call back later. I immediately got a call from the same number, and I responded with another automated text message. The podcast concluded, and I called the number back. A young reporter for a West Texas-based newspaper wanted to question me about my original substack essay reporting that the “second measles death” was a second case of medical mismanagement of bacterial pneumonia. The reporter kept insisting that the hospital was saying otherwise and that this was a measles death. We went back and forth, her seeking some insight into who had tipped me off with the information that went into my initial report and my refusal to disclose my source. All of this concluded when I reprimanded her for taking the word of the hospital communications officer at face value and rather bluntly told her to seek out what was stated on the death certificate rather than relying on hospital PR at a time when the hospital was at risk for a medical malpractice/wrongful death lawsuit. I knew that neither the reporter nor the hospital had seen the death certificate because I knew that no death certificate had been issued at this time. However, it illustrated that, just as the managing physicians in the hospital had been biased by the dominant narrative regarding measles and measles vaccination, this young reporter had accepted that narrative without questioning the facts of the case. I very much doubt either the reporter or the managing physicians had accepted Pharma dollars to promote the dominant vaccine narrative. Still, they had become inadvertent allies in advancing and reinforcing that narrative.

The Sins of Binary Thought within the State

We are living in a time when virtually all issues in politics and public health are framed as binary. There is a right way or a wrong way to think. But life, science, and medicine are not binary, but rather more of a nuanced spectrum of information, ideas, opinion and truth. When framed as either A or B, then it becomes impossible to have a productive discussion or to negotiate nuanced public policy. And as if that is not bad enough, we are also living in a time when the State has assumed a role historically played by centralized religion. The State has assigned to itself the role of being arbiter of truth, to such a degree that information collected by the State which contradicts the approved truth will be suppressed. Suppose you find this discordant with your view of the State as a fair and balanced actor. In that case, I recommend that you look into the manipulation and deletion of adverse event data associated with the COVID genetic therapy-based products by those managing the Defense Medical Epidemiological Databased (DMED) or the CDC VAERS system.

The consequence of this simplistic, binary way of thinking, combined with the State assuming the role of being the ultimate arbiter of truth, is a sort of mass groupthink that creates barriers to effective policy decision-making in all aspects of political life. The consequences in public health are particularly stark and visible, but the same forces extend across the entire range of public policy.

Is There Another Way?

Both the pro-vaccine and the anti-vaccine cults will launch a withering social media firestorm on anyone who takes this position, but the inconvenient truth is that vaccines are helpful in some situations and not valuable for others. All vaccines, like all drugs, have side effects. In many cases, most if not all authorized vaccines have some degree of efficacy against the disease or infections they are purported to prevent. The issue should not be a binary argument between pro- vs anti-vaccine. This real issues are:

1. What are the actual data supporting or refuting the usefulness of each individual vaccine? The true safety, effectiveness, and risk/benefit/harm analyses of each product stratified by age and co-morbidity. The only way to determine this is with solid, unbiased data, analyzed by people and processes that are free of bias. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, the COVID crisis has revealed and documented that open, transparent collection and analysis of the necessary public health and clinical trial data describing key safety and effectiveness characteristics of virtually all vaccines are not available. Furthermore, solid data on the true incidence and risks of virtually all “vaccine preventable” diseases are not available. Data gathered in compliance with modern standards, and with availability of modern medical care norms such as antibiotic treatment of secondary bacterial infections. Without such data, a valid assessment of risk/benefit stratified by age and co-morbidity is impossible. And so any statement that a given vaccine is either “safe and effective” or the contrary is invalid.
2. Does the State have the right to impose a medical procedure on an individual without informed consent? Speaking personally, this is the issue that really got me fired up at the beginning of the COVID genetic therapy-based intervention campaign. I was under the illusion, reinforced by decades of training as a clinical researcher, regulatory specialist, and bioethicist that this had been decided by the post-WWII Nuremberg trials, US Belmont report, and the rich literature of modern clinical research bioethics. But this body of legal precedent, public policy, and academic study was thrown in the ash can at a moment’s notice in the face of the promoted false narrative of a severely inflated infectious disease threat. When this issue has been referred to the US Judiciary in various forms, it has predominantly acted to support the Murray Rothbard thesis that the role of the Judiciary is to support and legitimize the State. The Judiciary has not acted to ensure justice for those harmed, and it has not acted to support fundamental constitutional tenants concerning the rights of individuals. This issue must become a major focus of political discourse, but the constant framing of any related discourse as either pro- or anti-vaccine prevents this from happening.

In Conclusion

My advice? Take a step back and take a deep breath. Don’t get distracted by the chaos and promoted binary narratives. These artificially promoted cult-like positions primarily act to maintain stasis and prevent effective policy discussion and decisions. In other words, developing and driving cult-like behavior in support of extremist positions primarily serves to maintain status quo. This is likely to be intentional in a world where PsyWar techniques and technologies have become the norm.

The way out of the woods is to allow and enable objective, unbiased data to be gathered and analyzed. Then, make public health policy decisions based on those data. The current data are biased in various ways, and the interpretation of those data has not been objective or free of COI. In the meantime, neither trench warfare nor circular firing squads will permit or support effective public health policy decisions.

By the way, that happens to be the position taken by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to the best of my knowledge. We need more data, we need time to gather and analyze those data, and in the interim, we need to avoid exacerbating and inflaming the situation by yet more hasty, arbitrary, and capricious decision-making.

And we need the Judiciary to step up and defend the Constitution and individuals’ rights to bodily autonomy in a non-partisan manner.

Two staffers bragged about their op in an Ottawa bar. No one got fired. Liberal party denies involvement.

Let’s stop pretending. Let’s not sanitize this. Let’s not call it a “prank” or a “gag gone too far.” This wasn’t some intern-run-amok moment of political comedy.

This was a coordinated smear campaign. And it tells you everything you need to know about the people running the Liberal Party of Canada under Mark Carney.

Here’s what actually happened — not the spin, not the statement, not the sugarcoating.

On Friday night, in Ottawa — the beating heart of the Canadian political swamp — Two Liberal Party staffers — highly-paid operatives, not summer interns fetching lattes — snuck into a conservative political conference, the Canada Strong and Free Networking Conference. What did they do? Did they show up to learn something? Ask questions? Challenge policy?

No. They planted buttons. Buttons. Little propaganda trinkets designed to mock Pierre Poilievre and his supporters — and to equate everyday conservatives with American-style insurrectionists.

Why? Because that’s all the Liberal brain trust can come up with in 2025. That’s their campaign strategy: petty sabotage with novelty pins and hope the press catches wind.

This wasn’t subtle. It wasn’t accidental. They distributed these buttons in places they knew attendees would find them. It was brazen political sabotage. And then — here’s the kicker — they went to a bar, D’Arcy McGee’s, just a stone’s throw from Parliament Hill, and bragged about it.

This wasn’t behind closed doors. It wasn’t whispered in secret. It was out loud, at a public bar, with other Liberal staffers — including war room personnel — present. One of the staffers involved even identified himself as part of the opposition research team. He said it, plainly, within earshot of a journalist.

He knew he was talking to the press. He didn’t care. Because this is the kind of culture that now exists inside the Liberal Party — smug, unaccountable, totally convinced the rules don’t apply to them.

And what happened when he realized CBC was going to report it?

He backtracked. He lied. He denied it. Because that’s the second half of the Liberal playbook: if exposed, deny everything. Gaslight the public. Blame the other side. And hope the media plays along.

But — to CBC’s credit — they didn’t this time. For once, they did their job.

So what did the Liberal Party do?

Statement From Bryan Passifiume @BryanPassifiume

Let’s not waste time pretending this statement is anything other than what it is: a prewritten excuse for premeditated political sabotage — dressed up in hollow slogans about “positive campaigning.”

“This is the most important election in a generation…”

Yes, and your response to that historic moment is to sneak into your opponent’s conference and scatter cheap smear buttons like you’re running a middle school prank war. They invoke the economy as if that justifies juvenile political sabotage. What does placing fake “Stop the Steal” buttons at a conservative event do to lower grocery prices or stop carbon taxes from hollowing out rural communities?

Answer: nothing.

“It’s been reported that Liberal campaigners had created buttons poking fun… which regrettably got carried away.”

Hold it right there.

Let’s not pretend this was spontaneous. These buttons didn’t magically appear in the hands of two bored staffers looking for something to do. They had to be designed, produced, and delivered. That takes time. That takes planning. That takes sign-off from someone higher up. This wasn’t some joke that “got carried away” — it was a deliberate, coordinated, premeditated attack.

This is not what “regrettably got carried away” looks like. This is what an organized political dirty trick looks like.

“While it is worth noting that many materials being shown online have nothing to do with members of our team…”

Nothing to do with members of our team… Did they really just run with that. Beacuse this didn’t happen in a vacuum. It happened in Ottawa, the swampiest part of Canada, where everyone knows everyone. The press, the staffers, the strategists, the spin doctors — they all eat at the same bars. They all go to the same parties. They all protect each other when it counts.

So when the CBC says, “a Liberal staffer identified himself,” let’s be real: they already knew who he was. That’s how it works in Ottawa. If you’re in the bubble, you’re protected. Unless — like now — it becomes politically impossible to ignore.

To the CBC’s credit, they did report it. And for that, they deserve a rare tip of the hat. But let’s not pretend this was some anonymous tip they had to dig for. This scandal practically unfolded over cocktails in front of their own reporters. This wasn’t Woodward and Bernstein. This was a Liberal staffer too arrogant to realize he was caught.

And still, after all that, the Liberal Party thinks you’re dumb enough to buy their story.

That you’ll believe this was all just a “prank.”
That no one at the top knew.
That the campaign of Mark Carney — the man selling himself as the adult in the room — is shocked, just shocked, that his team would stoop to this.

This was premeditated. This was planned. And the only reason it’s “regrettable” now is because they got caught.

So I’ll ask the question again: Do you think we can do better than this?

Because the answer is yes. And come April 28, Canadians might finally show the Liberal Party what accountability actually looks like.