What is the Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute?

The Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute (CMSRI) was created by and is funded by the Dwoskin Family Foundation.

It provides grants to folks who will do research on “vaccine induced brain and immune dysfunction” and on what they believe are other “gaps in our knowledge about vaccines and vaccine safety”, including:

• vaccine additives, from aluminum adjuvants and mercury preservatives to other “toxins,” like formaldehyde, sodium borate, polysorbate 80, plus foreign proteins from the culture medium such as chicken embryos, monkey kidneys, cells from aborted fetal tissue, and viral DNA, etc.
• what they think is bias in the reporting of vaccine risks and benefits
• novel vaccine-associated autoimmune diseases, like ASIA syndrome and Macrophage Myofasciitis Syndrome

While they claim that they are not an anti-vaccine organization, it should be noted that  Claire Dwoskin once said that “Vaccines are a holocaust of poison on our children’s brains and immune systems.”

And while most folks talk about the many benefits of vaccines, in fact calling vaccines one of the greatest public health achievements of the 20th Century, Claire Dwoskin thinks that CMSRI funded research proves the “costs for harm caused” by vaccines and that her organization needs to raise “public awareness about the true cost of vaccines” to change “attitudes about vaccine safety.”

CMSRI Funded Scientists

The Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute funds the work of many scientists whose work is used by the anti-vaccine movement to help push misinformation about vaccines:

• Dr. Yehuda Shoenfeld – an immunologist, he now heads the Zabludowicz Center for Autoimmune Diseases, and claims to have discovered a novel vaccine-associated autoimmune disease
• Dr. Christopher Shaw – a neuroscientist in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of British Columbia, his focus is on the ALS-parkinsonism dementia complex and also on the role of aluminum as a neurotoxin
• Dr. Christopher Exley – a Professor in Bioinorganic Chemistry at The Birchall Centre, Keele University in Staffordshire, England and Honorary Professor at the University of the Highland and Islands in Scotland, he publishes a lot of papers about aluminum.
• Dr. Lucija Tomljenovic – a post doctoral research fellow that works in Dr. Shaw’s lab in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of British Columbia
• Dr. Anthony Mawson – an epidemiologist, he is a visiting professor at the Jackson State University School of Public Health and has “special interests in the evolutionary-adaptive origins of health disparities, the perinatal origins of chronic diseases, and the role of psychosocial factors in health and disease”
• Dr. Martha Herbert – a pediatric neurologist, she was once an assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital (maybe she still is, but she isn’t listed on their websites and no good response from either institution about her status), and has written a book about biomedical treatments for autism
• Dr. Stephanie Seneff – a Senior Research Scientist at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, she does research to try and show that glyphosate (Roundup) causes modern day diseases, such as Alzheimers and autism
• David A. Geier and Dr. Mark R. Geier – have long misused the VAERS database to try and show that thimerosal in vaccines causes autism
• Brian Hooker – most well known for secretly taping CDC Whistleblower and his retracted papers, he also does research with the Geiers for the CMSRI

Have these scientists changed any attitudes about vaccine safety? Certainly not among those who have really done their research about vaccines, but their studies do seem to throw fuel on whatever fire there is in the anti-vaccine movement.

It should be clear why few people take the work of these scientists seriously.

“At present, there is no evidence to suggest that ASIA syndrome is a viable explanation for unusual autoimmune diseases.”

David Hawkes Revisiting adverse reactions to vaccines

While some of their studies have been retracted, others have been published in what experts describe as predatory open access journals, have been published in journals on which the researchers may sit on the journal’s editorial board, a potential conflict of interest, or are simply poorly done.

You seem to hear the term “junk science” a lot when folks review their studies…

Most recently, the quickly retracted study on the health status of vaccinated vs unvaccinated homeschoolers, was partly funded by the CMSRI.

Many of the scientists have also been involved in lawsuits involving vaccines, sometimes testifying about the very cases that they write about in their papers!

Other CMSRI Activities

The Dwoskin Family also helps support its scientists and their work by sponsoring a number of “vaccine safety conferences,” including the:

• 2011 Vaccine Safety Conference in Jamaica that featured Andrew Wakefield
• 2012 2nd International Symposium on Vaccines
• 2013 3nd International Symposium on Vaccines
• 2016 4nd International Symposium on Vaccines

And they provided the funding for the Greater Good movie, which has been described as “Pure, unadulterated anti-vaccine propaganda masquerading as a “balanced” documentary”.

What to Know About the Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute

The Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute, through the Dwoskin Family Foundation, funds the work of many scientists that are said to be anti-vaccine, which can then used by the anti-vaccine movement to scare parents away from vaccinating and protecting their kids.

More About the Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute

• A Snapshot of the Deep Pockets of the Anti-Vaccine Movement
• Here’s the Money Behind the Anti-Vaccine Movement
• CNN: The money behind the vaccine skeptics
• Undisclosed Conflicts of Interest in Vaccine Research
• The 2011 “Vaccine Safety Conference” in Jamaica
• Methodology of paper linking vaccine to behavioral issues “seriously flawed,” says retraction
• Junk Science? Number 47: British Health System covers up vaccine dangers
• Christopher Exley: Using bad science to demonize aluminum adjuvants in vaccines
• Review – Revisiting adverse reactions to vaccines: A critical appraisal of Autoimmune Syndrome Induced by Adjuvants (ASIA)
• Editorial – A case of junk science, conflict and hype
• Junk Science and the Anti-Vaccine Fraud
• Stephanie Seneff: Following the Geiers dumpster-diving in the VAERS database
• Another anti-vaccine article – bad journal, bad data
• Dr. Mark Hyman mangles autism science on–where else?–The Huffington Post
• Can Children with Autism Recover? If So, How?
• Not all scientific articles are equal in science
• Are there 131 Papers That Support Vaccine/Autism Causation?
• Lancet editor “regrets” research claims which caused worldwide vaccine crisis