@grok verify: The one who caught a lawsuit? The one who had a preprint "study" that he marketed off as published and peer reviewed and then was found to have fabricated the results and introduced massive conflicts of interest? To the point no journal was willing to publish it? The same one the American Board of Internal Medicine recommended revoking his board certification in October 2022 and had ABIM board certifications in internal medicine and cardiovascular disease revoked in 2025? The one who wrote the same study where six of the nine authors of the review were affiliated with the holistic telehealth company "The Wellness Company"? The company McCullough just so happens to be the chief scientific officer of? Which just so happened to market supplements that allegedly protect against “vaccine injury”? The guy who is a grifter? The same guy who, as of 2025, is no longer recognized as a specialist and has been denounced, again, by the ABIM? Same one who lied under oath to the Texas State Senate Committee on Health and Human Services? The one who used a state government forum to plant fabricated health scares into official legislative records? The one who's paper was retracted by the Lancet within 24 hours? The one who was denounced by Texas A&M College of Medicine and TCU/UNTHSC School of Medicine? Same guy who had the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania issue a daubert ruling completely excluding Dr. McCullough's expert reports and opinions due to a federal judge finding that McCullough's assertions relied on unreliable, inaccurate methods and sources that failed to meet the legal and scientific standards required for court testimony, legally declaring his data unfit for a court of law? Wherein the court stated "In addition, Dr. McCullough blatantly states false facts in support of his conclusion"? abim.org/verify-physician?ty… fox4news.com/news/baylor-sco… medpagetoday.com/special-rep… perma.cc/D2P9-R7JR dallasnews.com/news/courts/2… medpagetoday.com/special-rep… govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCO…

@grok fact check and verify this Do you know why placebos aren't always used, because they already were. New drugs take over a decade on average to clear. Vaccines go through the same scrutiny if they're *new* otherwise it's ethics advised to not expose people to potentially lethal diseases. For example, COVID-19 (original), HPV, varicella/chickenpox, early polio/Salk, rubella, measles, and meningococcal vaccines all went through trials at a point utilizing an inert placebo. Things like the flu vaccine or COVID vaccine (basically any disease that experiences a high degree of mutations or possess an ability to intercross with different subspecies) also get this approval but due to the way they work (new variants are more prevalent each year) the vaccines must utilize the new variants, which makes them a "new vaccine", like I said these aren't tested against saline placebo due to the fact they contain identical ingredients and formulations but a different viral expression (I.e., H1N1 vs H3N2) hence they're new vaccines which undergo partial trials even though only one ingredient (the antigen) changes. Pfizer Saline Trial: nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NE… Moderna Saline Trial: nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NE… HPV Saline Trial: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1748… Chickenpox Saline Trial: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6325… Polio (1954 Trial): Francis, T., et al. (1955). An Evaluation of the 1954 Poliomyelitis Vaccine Trials. American Journal of Public Health, 45(5_Pt_2), 1-63. (You'll need to Google this one yourself, it's old as shit and the actual link seems to be behind a paywall, this site might work though (scispace.com/papers/evaluati…) Measles Mumps Rubella Saline Trial: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2871… pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3829… Meningococcal Vaccine Saline Trial: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2531… Basically all vaccines went through true placebo trials at their inception. That being said, in vaccinated populations diseases decline and it becomes harder to measure effects via control due to a major decrease in overall population exposure. From there, after safety is proven, we move on to comparison trials changing a single ingredient at a time and testing efficacy against the prior. I hope I explained this well. In the United States, federal regulations (45 CFR 46) restrict research in children primarily to three possible circumstances. The first is where the research does not expose the child to more than minimal risk. The second is research that is greater than minimal risk but presents the prospect of direct benefit to the individual subjects. The third is research involving greater than minimal risk and no prospect of direct benefit to individual subjects, but likely to yield generalizable knowledge about the subject’s disorder or condition. There is an important distinction between testing vaccine variant formulations or improved versions of already approved vaccines like the flu vaccine which is adjusted yearly. Testing entirely novel vaccines for diseases with no previous immunization is different. In the former case, active-controlled non-inferiority trials are both scientifically valid and ethically appropriate to avoid unnecessary harm to participants. In contrast, novel vaccines such as the first HPV vaccine in the early 2000s required placebo-controlled trials because no preventative option existed at the time. Although, as of 2025 per HHS, "All new vaccines will undergo safety testing in placebo-controlled trials prior to licensure." So even now, we can assume all vaccines will run against placebo controls once more, despite it being deemed unethical to do so.