Professor receives grant for vaccine study, then warns the public against that very same vaccine

Monday, July 18, 2016 by: J. D. Heyes
Tags: HPV vaccine, scientific study, public warning

---

(NaturalNews) It doesn't seem to make sense to apply for a publicly-funded grant to study the effects of a certain vaccine, receive the grant, and then warn everyone against that vaccine. But that's what one Canadian researcher did recently.

As reported by Canada's National Post, Montreal-based social scientist Genevieve Rail of Concordia University received a $270,000 grant to study the HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccine – and then condemned it, saying the country should establish a moratorium on its use.

Rail, who is under fire from critics along with the federal agency that gave her the grant, also said that there is little proof that HPV causes cervical cancer, despite the findings of a Nobel Prize-winning study by a German scientist five years ago that unearthed the link.

Establishment medical types are lambasting Rail's public attacks, calling them seriously misinformed. Critics also said that her remarks are bound to undermine a priority public health program in the country, while wondering aloud how the Canadian Institute for Health Research (CIHR) could provide her with grant money in the first place.

'Someone was really sleeping'

Rail, who has a doctorate in kinesiology – the study of body mechanics and movement – received the grant in order to study HPV vaccination "discourses" and how they affected teenagers, using both interviews and drawings.

"This is akin to funding research that purports to show tobacco smoking does not cause lung cancer," said Eduardo Franco, head of cancer epidemiology at McGill University, according to the Post. "And that tobacco cessation, rather than helping reduce risk, is actually causing harm ... CIHR would not fund such a study, would it?"

Dr. Marc Steben, a family physician in Montreal, and head of the Canadian Network on HPV Prevention, was even more direct.

"I don't know who was on her (grant awarding) jury," he said. "Someone was really sleeping."

It wasn't clear from the Post report whether anyone at CIHR was aware of Rail's viewpoints prior to awarding the grant some four years ago.

The controversy started after Rail and a co-author, Abby Lippman – a professor emeritus at McGill University – published an opinion piece in Le Devoir newspaper that questioned the safety of the HPV vaccine and whether it was of any real benefit. The piece also urged the Canadian national government in Quebec to end HPV vaccination until it could be fully vetted and its safety established by an independent investigatory body.

In additional to Rail, others have criticized the HPV vaccine lately as well. The criticism has come from divergent sources – from Catholic boards of education to a newspaper article that was supposedly discredited, the Post reported. However, Rail's views stand out because of her position at her university, and because she received public funds to study the vaccine and surrounding issues.

'I'm sort of raising a red flag'

Rail and Lippman voiced some of the same views at the World Congress on Public Health that was held in India in February. The pair also led a workshop that encouraged participants to be "on the offensive against the vaccine," while hinting that "politicians are paid off" by Big Pharma and other interests to put such public health policies in place.

In an interview with the Post, Rail said that she does not regret her public statements. Rather, she noted that she wants her comments to help drown out the "dominant discourse" regarding the vaccine.

She also noted that some of the parents among the 170 interviews she conducted during her four-year study into the vaccine, said they believed the shots had caused some serious medical side effects.

"I'm sort of raising a red flag, out of respect for what I've found in my own study, and for the despair of parents who had totally perfect 12-year-olds who are now in their beds, too tired to go to school," she told the Post. "Yes, we're going against the grain, and we are going against those who are believed, i.e. doctors and nurses and people in public health."

Sources:

News.NationalPost.com

RealFarmacy.com

Science.NaturalNews.com