This article represents Part I of a two-part series on mumps. Part II will delve further into the mumps vaccine’s spillover effects on fertility.

By Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Chairman of the Board, Children’s Health Defense

Across the country, frenzied legislators are responding to the pharmaceutical industry’s orchestrated fear campaign around measles by seeking to impose further mandating of Merck’s measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Although ongoing mumps outbreaks involving thousands of at-risk adolescents and young adults completely dwarf the number of measles cases, no one is covering the mumps story—because it will expose the fact that Merck has been in court for over eight years due to scientists blowing the whistle on Merck’s fabrication and falsification of the effectiveness of the mumps component of its MMR vaccine. Instead of punishing Merck for its chicanery, legislatures are rewarding the company by making it impossible to refuse Merck’s profitable vaccine, subjecting a generation of American children to the risk of serious complications from mumps infection at an age that nature never intended.

When younger children experience mumps, the virus is relatively harmless; infected children often exhibit no symptoms. When mumps strikes adolescents or adults, on the other hand, the infection can cause far more serious adverse effects, including inflammation of various organs (brain, pancreas, ovaries and testicles)—as well as damage to male fertility.

Inflammation of one or both testicles (a condition called orchitis) occurs in approximately one in three post-pubertal men who get mumps and can contribute to sperm defects and subfertility as well as impairing the function of cells that produce testosterone. An estimated 30% to 87% of men with bilateral orchitis induced by mumps experience full-blown infertility—a major cause for concern given the significant declines in male fertility observed over the past several decades. Thus, it appears that Merck’s vaccine, instead of protecting children, not only delays onset of disease to later age cohorts but has the potential to cause serious and permanent injury.

Merck and mumps vaccines

Let’s look at a quick history of mumps and MMR vaccination in the United States. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) licensed Merck’s initial mumps-only vaccine in 1967. In 1971, Merck introduced its first combination MMR vaccine, followed by the MMR-II vaccine in 1978 (which repurposed the rubella component) and the MMR-plus-varicella (MMRV) ProQuad vaccine in 2005. Since the initial 1967 vaccine, Merck has enjoyed a unique monopoly position in the U.S. market for mumps and MMR vaccines, with combined sales of MMR-II and ProQuad bringing in over $720 million in 2014 alone. Merck consistently places in the top five pharmaceutical companies globally, and the market valued its stocks at a seven-year high as of late 2018.

In order to score the lucrative MMR monopoly, Merck needed to satisfy the FDA that all three components of the combination vaccine could achieve 95% efficacy, but the mumps portion was bedeviling. In fact, as alleged in a lawsuit filed by two senior Merck scientists in 2010 under the False Claims Act, the company has known since the late 1990s that the mumps component of the MMR is “far less” than 95% effective. A 2005 study published in Vaccine estimated the effectiveness of mumps vaccination to be closer to 69%, and the authors noted that their results were consistent with other studies.

The two whistleblowers assert in the lawsuit—which is reportedly headed to trial sometime this year—that Merck has “willfully and illegally maintained its monopoly” through “ongoing manipulation” and by “representing to the public and government agencies a falsely inflated efficacy rate for its Mumps Vaccine.”

Specifically, the two scientists claim that Merck executives ordered them to use “rigged” methodologies, including taking antibodies from rabbits and adding them to human blood vials, in order to gull regulators into assuming an antibody response robust and durable enough to merit licensing. When those “enhanced” tactics did not achieve Merck’s “fabricated [95%] efficacy rate,” the whistleblowers allege, the company resorted to simply falsifying the test data and engaging in other fraudulent activities.

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