By Anne Dachel

Sharyl Attkisson interviewed Dr. Stephen Krahling on Sunday, March 10. He is a virologist and whistleblower who described how Merck covered up data on the MMR vaccine 25 years ago.

1:43 Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson

Sharyl Attkisson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvNCex2wPQs

We begin today with an incredible story that spans 25 years so far.

It involves the MMR vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella given to most American babies in two doses, yet you probably never heard of this controversy.

It’s brought to us by a scientist named Stephen Krahling, who worked on a project at Merck called Protocol 7 and was uniquely positioned to blow the whistle on what he learned.

In a bigger sense, his account raises questions about what can go on unknown to most of us about products injected into nearly all children.

Stephen Krahling was a published cancer researcher when vaccine maker Merck brought him onboard as a virologist in 1999.

That’s when he says he found himself embroiled in an all hands on deck, corporate emergency.

Krahling: So when I showed up to start work at Merck, they were dealing a potential product recall, and it wasn’t something that was just casually discussed. It was a sky is falling level event.

Attkisson: The crisis surrounded Merck’s blockbuster selling MMR vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella, and worries that it might be defective.

Krahling: It was the end of the world for them. Can you imagine, if they have to recall that? They have to go to the millions of parents whose kids got out of specification vaccine, let them know. They have to take the MMR vaccine off the shelves.

They didn’t have a solution. So they would have had to stop selling it, stop distributing it.

Attkisson: To understand Krahling’s part in this scandal, it helps to know something about how the vaccine is designed to work.

So the MMR vaccine is one of the vaccines that contains live virus. Not all vaccines do, but this functions, if I’m stating this correctly, with some live virus, and it triggers an immune response.

Krahling: All three viruses are live viruses.

Attkisson: And there’s a limit on both ends of how much has to be in there, but no more than whatever for it to be safe and effective.

Krahling: It’s that upper limit, the maximum amount of virus, live virus that might be in it, has to be safe, and the lowest amount has to be efficacious.

But within those parameters is where the product has to fall.

So you can’t have a lower amount of live virus, and you can’t have a higher amount of live virus.

Attkisson: Though MMR was widely given in the 1970s, the 1980s saw measles, mumps and rubella outbreaks among many vaccinated children and young adults.

For example, in 1985, 69 measles cases at an Illinois high school with a 99.7 vaccination rate. Ultimately the CDC recommended all children get a second dose of MMR.

But the tricky part for Merck came in the mid-90s when the FDA began a review of vaccines and found the potency of MMR wore off as it sat on shelves.

So the FDA instructed Merck to start putting more virus into the vaccine up front. That’s called over-filling, so it would stay potent for its two year shelf life.

Merck started doing that in early 2000, and told us it’s still doing that today.

Krahling: So the problem was that these viruses degrade over time, and Merck had to calculate backward and say, we need to had more virus so the stuff doesn’t degrade because the FDA was adamant, you cannot keep distributing that vaccine if it’s out of specification.

They had to do this thing called an overfill which is the same as if you take a glass of water, pour a lot into it until it overfills.

They added more virus, vaccine virus to the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella.

Attkisson: So that when it degraded over time on the shelf, it would still meet the lowest threshold it had to meet?

Krahling: Exactly.

Attkisson: But what if someone got that vaccine one week into it being on the shelf, before it degraded?

Krahling: They’re getting a very high amount of vaccine virus.

Attkisson: It there is too much live virus in a shot, what are the sorts of problems that could occur? That’s a potential safety risk?

Krahling: Of course.

The FDA gave Merck “warnings” for failing to report that the 23 million doses of the MMR that were on the market might not be potent.

Merck began research to show that the mumps virus didn’t lose its effectiveness. This was Protocol 7, and Krahing was a researcher. He said they could not find any proof that the MMR didn’t degrade.

Krahling said that researchers were told to falsify data to show that all the millions of MMR vaccines on doctors’ shelves were still effective,

In 2001, Krahling reported to the FDA that Merck was destroying data, and he was threatened by Merck with jail.

Krahling and another Merck scientist filed a whistleblower lawsuit against Merck in 2010, alleging that Merck misled the CDC, the largest purchaser of vaccines, and defrauded taxpayers.

14 years later, in 2024, the case was dismissed. The court said that the “CDC knew about allegations of fraud and potency, but bought the vaccine anyway.”

“. . . CDC was aware, through its own studies, that the vaccine proved less effective in the real world than the in the clinical trials, yet the CDC continued to purchase the recommend it.”

Merck denied any fraud with the MMR.

Krahling said that there have been no trials on the increased amount of virus in the MMR. There is no way to have informed consent since no one knows how much virus is in any given vaccine.

Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.