Official figures and sources, side by side. You decide.
Down the rabbit hole: claims not covered by official sources
This page is different from the rest of the guide.
The rest of the guide only shows official figures and links to where they come from. This page doesn't. These are people with real credentials who make claims that official sources don't cover, or that official sources dispute.
I don't know whether they're right. I think they should be heard, so here is who they are and where to find them. Next to each one I have also said where their claims have been fact-checked, disputed, retracted or taken down, with a link, so you can see both sides. Where I couldn't check something, it says so.
The most serious claims come first. Each entry shows the person's credentials, what they say, where to find them and what has happened to the claims. The guide has not verified their claims and is not endorsing or rejecting them.
Look for yourself.
Dr Peter A. McCullough
Cardiologist and epidemiologist
Credentials
BS Baylor (1984), MD UT Southwestern (1988), MPH University of Michigan (1994); internal medicine residency at the University of Washington, then cardiology. Wikipedia
Former vice chief of internal medicine at Baylor University Medical Center; now Chief Scientific Officer of The Wellness Company and President of the McCullough Foundation. his siteFoundation
Co-author of a 2020 paper in the American Journal of Medicine proposing early outpatient treatment for COVID-19. paper
Board status: his website says “Board-Certified: Internal Medicine & Cardiology”, but ABIM revoked both certifications (its lookup reads “Not Certified, Revoked”; see Status). The two sources disagree, so both are shown.
What he says
He says COVID-19 vaccines are dangerous and have killed many people, that the spike protein they make damages cells, that VAERS reports show thousands of deaths, and that early treatment with repurposed drugs was suppressed. These are the claims Science Feedback lists from his December 2021 Joe Rogan interview. Science Feedback
His foundation says it has published more than 20 scientific studies on vaccine injuries and early treatments. Foundation
Science Feedback found multiple false or unsupported claims in his December 2021 Joe Rogan interview. Science Feedback
An autopsy review he co-authored (Hulscher et al.) was published in Forensic Science International on 21 June 2024 and withdrawn by the journal in August 2024, then republished in November 2024 in a different journal. FactCheck.org says its finding (nearly 74% of the 325 autopsies reviewed counted as vaccine-related, judged by three of the authors, McCullough among them) is unreliable. FactCheck.org It is listed with the other retracted papers in this guide. FactCheck.org keeps a page of its checks of him. all checks
ABIM recommended revoking his certifications in 2022 and, per Wikipedia citing MedPage Today, revoked both by January 2025. report of the revocationWikipedia
Removed or censored: January 2022 reports said YouTube removed uploads of both his and Dr Malone’s Joe Rogan interviews. I could confirm only Dr Malone’s removal from a news report, so McCullough’s is not confirmed. news.com.au
Dr Robert W. Malone
Physician and biochemist
Credentials
MD, Northwestern University (1991); MS biology, UC San Diego; BS biochemistry, UC Davis. Wikipedia
Early mRNA work at the Salk Institute: first author of a 1989 paper on RNA transfection with liposomes. PNAS paper Nature’s history of mRNA vaccines describes it as one early step among many. Nature
Named to the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee (ACIP) in June 2025; in March 2026 he said he was stepping away. BBCRoll Call
Not verified: his current employer or university post.
What he says
He says the spike protein the vaccines cause the body to make can be toxic, that vaccine harms have been under-reported, and that regulators and media have suppressed debate and informed consent.
In a Joe Rogan podcast interview of 31 December 2021 he described “mass formation psychosis”, saying about a third of the population had been “hypnotised”. The Independent
He promotes repurposed drugs such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine (per his Wikipedia page).
FactCheck.org (August 2021) found his claim about Pfizer approval and liability misleading; he later said he was wrong on the liability point. FactCheck.org
Psychology experts told the AP there is no evidence for “mass formation psychosis” (reported in The Independent). The Independent
Removed: the Rogan interview was taken down from YouTube on 10 January 2022, and his Twitter account was removed (The Independent; Wikipedia dates the suspension to 29 December 2021 and says it was reversed in December 2022). The Independent
In March 2026 a US federal judge, in a preliminary order, said the only evidence in the record of his vaccine experience was early mRNA research in the 1980s and 1990s, and that it could not conclude this was the expertise ACIP needs today. The order stayed the appointments of the challenged ACIP members. court order
Dr Michael (Mike) Yeadon
Former Pfizer research executive (allergy and respiratory)
Credentials
PhD, University of Surrey, 1988: thesis on opioid-induced respiratory depression in the rat. thesis record
About 16 years at Pfizer; Vice President and chief scientist of Pfizer’s allergy and respiratory research unit in Sandwich, UK, until 2011. Not a vaccine role. SnopesTheJournal.ie
Later co-founder and CEO of the biotech Ziarco, acquired by Novartis. Wikipedia
Not verified: his current employer; Wikipedia describes him as retired.
What he says
He says COVID-19 vaccines were unnecessary, inadequately tested and unsafe.
In December 2020 he and Dr Wolfgang Wodarg wrote to the European Medicines Agency asking for vaccine trials to stop, over a concern about the placental protein syncytin-1 and fertility. Wikipedia
He also argued that lockdowns and masks did not work.
Full Fact (April 2021) rated his claims that masks do not work, that lockdowns never slow transmission and that the vaccines are inadequately tested and dangerous as false. Full Fact
Snopes and TheJournal.ie fact-checked other claims, including fertility and asymptomatic spread, and note that his VP role was in the allergy and respiratory division only. SnopesTheJournal.ie
Removed or censored: not verified. The only leads I found were a state-linked outlet and a paywalled report I could not read, so none is linked.
Dr John Campbell
Retired nurse educator and YouTuber (his “Dr” is a PhD, not a medical degree)
Credentials
Nursing diploma (University of London), BSc (Open University), MSc (Lancaster), PhD in nursing education (University of Bolton, 2013). Worked as a nurse educator at the University of Cumbria. Wikipedia
The BBC describes him as a retired nurse educator. BBC
Not verified: his thesis and employer pages; I used Wikipedia’s summary.
What he says
On 20 January 2022 he released a video that, per the BBC, described ONS figures as a “huge story” and suggested Covid deaths were “much lower than mainstream media seems to have been intimating”. The BBC and the ONS dispute that reading (see Status). BBC
In a reply video he said he had not said that figure was the total death toll (as I understand it; I did not re-watch the video, and YouTube blocks my link checker). his reply
What he says about excess deaths is also summarised in this guide, from his own videos: excess deaths.
BBC, 29 January 2022: the ONS described the “only 17,000 died of Covid” figure as “factually incorrect and highly misleading”; the true toll, it said, is more than 140,000. The BBC names Dr Campbell’s video as one of the ways the claim spread. BBC
Science Feedback reviewed his video on historical and COVID vaccines. Science Feedback
Full Fact reviewed his video on children and vaccines in Singapore. Full Fact
Removed: YouTube took down his April 2023 interview with MP Andrew Bridgen and gave him a strike; he says his appeal was rejected and re-uploaded the video to Substack. his account
A section of its own
Dr Andreas Noack
Andreas Noack has his own section because what he said cannot be verified. But it is important enough that people should be free to see it. Freedom of speech and freedom of information mean we can look for ourselves.
During the lockdowns he did a lot of live streams on his own theories about graphene oxide and graphene hydroxide. I watched them. The specific graphene claim in this video was his final one.
I remember police coming into his home during his live streams. The one I can find a record of is on 18 November 2020, during a live stream: armed Bavarian special police came into the room on camera and asked his name. He was not arrested. The police said the operation was not aimed at him, and Berlin prosecutors said it was part of a search for another person. Lead Storiesdpa via SZ
He died three days after posting that video, on 26 November 2021. At the time it was claimed that he had been violently attacked. On 27 November his partner said in a Telegram video that he was "heavily, heavily attacked" and that "the assault was extremely sneaky and unexpected". On 29 November she said in another video that he had not been attacked but had died of a heart attack at the hospital, which she said was caused by microwaves; Lead Stories says she gave no proof of that, and that her two videos contradict each other on how and when he died. Police told Lead Stories that a doctor ruled natural causes and that prosecutors had found no sign of a crime. Lead Stories
Either way, he died just days after posting this.
This is my view: some people, me included, think there is a decent chance his death was connected to what he said. That cannot be proven, and he is now dead, but I think it is right to keep it here in case what he said is true.
Opens on Rumble. It is a Spanish-language, 18-minute upload that Rumble dates 11 February 2025, posted by an account called oroyplatamdz, not by Dr Noack. The guide has not watched or transcribed it, so cannot say whether it is the same 17-minute video that fact-checkers say he posted on 23 November 2021. I checked that the page loads; it does.
Who he was
German chemist with a doctorate in chemistry from TU Darmstadt in 1995. Lead Stories
Founded several companies; filed patents (mostly for membranes) for Blue Membranes GmbH; on the board of Vinna AG (mineral supplements) until 2012. Lead Stories2007 talk flyer
Lead Stories says it found no evidence that he had published research on graphene or nanotechnology.
Not verified by this guide: the title of his doctoral thesis. In his video he says his doctorate converted graphene oxide to "graphene hydroxide" (as reported by Raskrinkavanje). I could not find the thesis to check.
What he says
He says the vaccines contain "graphene hydroxide", which he describes as nano-sized "razors", and that this could explain heart attacks and strokes after vaccination. Raskrinkavanje
He cites microscopy work by Dr Pablo Campra Madrid of the University of Almeria on graphene oxide in vaccine samples, as summarised by Raskrinkavanje.
Graphene oxide in research
Graphene oxide is being studied in research labs as a vaccine adjuvant and delivery carrier:
Xu et al., Nanoscale, 2016: graphene oxide coated with PEG and PEI used as an adjuvant with a model antigen (urease B of H. pylori). In mice it gave stronger cellular immunity than the same antigen with alum. PubMed
Meng et al., ACS Nano, 2016: ultrasmall graphene oxide with carnosine as an adjuvant for a model antigen (ovalbumin) in mice. The authors say plain graphene oxide causes oxidative stress and inflammation at the injection site, and that the carnosine reduced this. PubMed
Yin et al., Nano Letters, 2021: an injectable graphene oxide and polyethylenimine hydrogel that releases mRNA nanovaccines (model antigen ovalbumin) over about 30 days, tested in mice as a cancer immunotherapy. PubMed
Di Santo et al., Applied Physics Letters, 2019: graphene oxide sheets coated with a cationic lipid layer, used to carry plasmid DNA into human HeLa cells in a dish. The authors report it transfected cells about as well as Lipofectamine 3000 with less toxicity. paper (DOI)
These are laboratory or animal research papers. They do not show that graphene oxide is in any approved vaccine, and none of them tests an approved vaccine. The ingredient lists on this guide's Ingredients page, taken from official leaflets, do not include graphene oxide. I did not find a paper that puts graphene oxide into the lipid nanoparticles used in approved mRNA vaccines; the lipid paper above is the other way round (a graphene oxide sheet with a lipid coat). A 2023 review of the field says graphene oxide injections can cause significant oxidative stress and inflammation, which is why researchers modify it review. Noack's own claim was about "graphene hydroxide", a name the chemists quoted by Raskrinkavanje say does not refer to a real compound; graphene oxide is a different, real material.
His own channels
The Rumble video above. He posted on a Telegram channel, which his partner took over; I did not find a live copy, so none is linked.
Status
Chemists quoted by the Bosnian fact-checker Raskrinkavanje say "graphene hydroxide" does not exist as a compound and that the method he cites cannot tell those chemical groups apart; they rate the claims "fake news and pseudoscience". Raskrinkavanje
His death: Carinthia police told Lead Stories he died on 26 November 2021 on the way to hospital in Wolfsberg; a doctor ruled natural causes and the Klagenfurt prosecutor had closed a preliminary investigation by 7 December 2021 after finding no sign of a crime. His partner said in a Telegram video on 29 November 2021 that it was a heart attack, and offered a cause that Lead Stories says she gave no proof for. Lead Stories
Removed or censored: not found.
Dr Aseem Malhotra
Consultant cardiologist, London
Credentials
MBChB, MRCP, as signed on his testimony to the US Senate; listed there as Consultant Cardiologist, HUM2N Clinic, London. Senate testimonyhearing page
Medical degree from the University of Edinburgh. Wikipedia
Author of a two-part 2022 paper in the Journal of Insulin Resistance (now Journal of Metabolic Health). Part 1Part 2
Not verified: his GMC register entry.
What he says
He says the evidence supports pausing COVID-19 mRNA vaccination. His 2022 paper, a narrative review, says re-analysis of the trials suggests a greater risk of serious adverse events from the vaccines than of hospitalisation from COVID-19, and that consent was not fully informed. Part 1
On 3 June 2026 he told a US Senate subcommittee that, in his view, millions of people in the US and elsewhere “may be in clear and present danger of suffering premature cardiovascular disease and cancer”, and asked for open scientific debate. He also said he believes two doses likely caused a “massive acceleration in atherosclerosis” leading to his own father’s sudden death; the testimony says post-mortem findings showed severe coronary artery disease. his written testimony
Full Fact has checked him four times (2021 to 2025) and found some claims unevidenced or misleading, for example that the vaccines were “a likely contributing factor” to UK excess deaths. Full Fact
Science Feedback also lists reviews of his claims. Science Feedback
Removed or censored: none found.
Professor Norman Fenton
Emeritus Professor of Risk and Information Management, Queen Mary University of London (a statistician, not a medical doctor)
Credentials
Emeritus Professor of Risk and Information Management at QMUL; research in risk assessment and Bayesian networks; says he has published 7 books and over 300 refereed articles. QMUL profile
Co-author with Martin Neil of the 2024 book Fighting Goliath. his page on it
What he says
He and co-authors say that many COVID-19 vaccine efficacy studies miscategorise vaccine status (for example, counting people as unvaccinated for a period after a dose), which they say can inflate apparent efficacy even for a placebo or a harmful vaccine. A systematic review in the preprint reports finding such practices in 38 studies. preprint
In the book he says the official COVID-19 account was based on flawed data and statistics (the publisher’s synopsis).
The miscategorisation paper is a preprint (not peer-reviewed). I did not find a published fact-check of it, so none is linked.
In January 2023 the Office for Statistics Regulation replied to Fenton, Neil, Craig and McLachlan about the ONS deaths-by-vaccination-status figures. It said that dataset is not suitable for judging vaccine effectiveness or safety, and that it saw no evidence ONS had undercounted early deaths. OSR letter
Removed or censored: none found.
Professor Retsef Levi
Professor of Operations Management, MIT Sloan (a management scientist, not a medical doctor)
Credentials
J. Spencer Standish (1945) Professor of Operations Management, MIT Sloan; BSc Mathematics, Tel Aviv University (2001); PhD Operations Research, Cornell (2005). MIT bio
Named to the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices in June 2025; the MIT page notes it. BBC
What he says
Peer-reviewed paper (Scientific Reports, 2022, with Sun and Jaffe): Israeli ambulance calls for cardiac arrest and acute coronary syndrome in 16-39-year-olds rose about 25% in January to May 2021 and tracked vaccine-dose rates but not COVID-19 case rates. The authors say it does not establish cause. A 2023 and a 2026 correction have been published. paperMIT copy
April 2025 preprint (medRxiv, not peer-reviewed, with Florida Department of Health authors): a matched study of 1.47 million Florida adults reporting higher 12-month all-cause mortality among Pfizer recipients than Moderna recipients (847.2 vs 617.9 deaths per 100,000). The authors call it suggestive of different non-specific effects. preprintScienceOpen copy
In the Science Feedback review below, his own post is quoted as saying mRNA vaccines cause serious harm including death, especially among young people.
No personal channel found; he publishes through MIT and journals.
Status
Science Feedback reviewed his January 2023 post saying mRNA vaccines cause “serious harm including death, especially among young people” and rated it inadequately supported, noting the Israeli study had no vaccination status for the patients with heart problems. Science Feedback
In March 2026 a US federal judge, in a preliminary order that stayed the appointments of challenged ACIP members, noted that on the record before the court Levi had published only two papers on vaccines, both months before his appointment, which “likely does not rise to the level of ‘expertise’” ACIP’s rules call for. court order
Removed or censored: none found.
Dr Mikolaj Raszek (the Merogenomics channel)
Biochemist; presents the YouTube channel Merogenomics
Credentials
PhD in Biochemistry, University of Alberta, June 2012. Thesis: “Study of calcineurin interaction with inhibitor-1 and natural products. Towards novel calcineurin inhibitors”. thesis record
Honours degree in Genetics (University of Alberta); founder and managing director of Merogenomics Inc., a genome-sequencing company in Edmonton, Canada. his company page
His thesis was on drug inhibitors of an immune enzyme, not on vaccines or epidemiology, and I did not find a vaccinology or clinical post.
Not verified: any current academic or clinical affiliation.
What he says
Video #183, “UK Mortality by Vaccination Status”: he says UK ONS all-cause mortality data (April 2021 to May 2023) show strong early protection from vaccination, especially in older people, that faded over time, and that in some age groups later periods show a higher all-cause death rate among the vaccinated. He adds that the data can be read more than one way and that the study authors suspect bias. video
Video #145, “Do Vaccines Really Reduce Hospitalization and Mortality?”: he reviews a Frontiers in Immunology study comparing survival after hospitalisation. video
Video #148, “Cancer types post mRNA vaccines”: he discusses a case report of cancer after vaccination and says the trials did not test for cancer risk and ended early because most volunteers were then vaccinated. video
These summaries are from the video transcripts. What he says about excess deaths is also summarised in this guide: excess deaths.
Science Feedback reviewed the study on DNA contamination in vaccine vials that he covered in a video, and found no evidence the vaccines can alter DNA in people. That is a review of the study, not of his video. Science Feedback
Removed or censored: none found; the channel and the videos above are live.
Worth seeing
Bill Gates: “Innovating to zero!” (TED, February 2010)
“The world today has 6.8 billion people. That's headed up to about nine billion. Now, if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by, perhaps, 10 or 15 percent.”
He said this while explaining his equation for CO2 emissions: the number of people, times the services each person uses, times the energy for each service, times the CO2 for each unit of energy. He said that for emissions to reach zero, one of those factors has to get close to zero.
Listen for: “Now, if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by, perhaps, 10 or 15 percent.”
Starts at 4:08 of TED’s official video, just before the quote (about 30 seconds). It then plays on to the end of the talk. If the player does not load, use the YouTube link above and skip to 4:08.
My view: I find it a strange thing to say about vaccines, and many people have questioned it. Watch it and decide for yourself.
The common explanation. The fact-checks linked here do not dispute that he said it. Reuters and USA Today say it was taken out of context. USA Today says it was one factor in a talk about CO2, and that he meant slower population growth, not people dying. The explanation given is that when fewer children die, parents choose to have fewer children. USA Today points to the Gates Foundation’s 2014 annual letter, which says parents plan differently once they expect their children to live. Snopes rates the claim that he admitted vaccines are designed to depopulate the world as False. Reuters fact checkUSA TodaySnopesGates annual letter 2014
Stories that have been reported
These are separate stories about vaccines in Africa and Asia. Each says what was claimed and what official bodies or inquiries found. Some involve the Gates Foundation, usually as a funder, and some do not. Each one says which.
Pakistan: attacks on polio workers, sterilisation rumours and the CIA. More than 60 polio workers and security staff were killed between December 2012 and April 2014. BBC Militants spread claims that the drops sterilise Muslim children; VOA, Reuters and NBC call these false. VOAReutersNBC The “spies” fear has a real basis: in 2011 the CIA ran a fake hepatitis B vaccination campaign in Abbottabad to find bin Laden, and in 2014 the White House said the CIA had stopped using vaccine programmes. Guardian The Gates Foundation says it has backed polio eradication since 2007, including campaigns in Pakistan; these sources do not link it to the CIA campaign. Gates Foundation
Kenya, 2014: the bishops’ tetanus vaccine claim. Kenya’s Catholic bishops said a tetanus vaccine for women contained the hormone beta-hCG, which they said causes sterility, and cited lab tests they had commissioned. Bishops WHO and UNICEF said the vaccine was safe. A joint government and bishops’ committee tested 59 vials: 3 (open vials supplied by the bishops) were positive, 56 were negative, and it concluded the programme was safe. The bishops repeated their claim in 2015. WHO/UNICEFNCR This was a WHO/UNICEF campaign; the Gates Foundation is not named in these sources.
India, 2009 to 2010: the HPV vaccine project. PATH, funded by the Gates Foundation, gave an HPV vaccine to about 24,000 girls in two states; ICMR suspended it after seven girls died. Nature India ICMR’s 2011 enquiry found the deaths “most probably unrelated to the vaccine” (cause not certain in every case) and no major ethical violation. ICMR A 2013 parliamentary committee found consent was inadequate and that PATH ran trials under the label of a demonstration project; it did not conclude the vaccine caused the deaths. CommitteeThe Hindu PATH rejected the findings, saying ICMR approved an observational study with parental consent. PATH
Africa: vaccine-derived polio. The oral polio vaccine uses a weakened live virus that, where too few children are vaccinated, can spread and change back into a form that paralyses. WHO’s July 2025 emergency committee reported it still spreading in Africa, with cases falling overall over two years. WHO The Gates Foundation says the same, and that it funded a newer vaccine less likely to cause this. Gates Foundation
About this page
The Simple Man's Vaccine Guide does not verify, endorse or promote the claims on this page. Listing a person here is not a recommendation. Their qualifications are given as found in the sources linked, and each Status line links to where a claim has been fact-checked, disputed, retracted or removed. Nothing on this page is medical advice. Talk to your own doctor about your own health.