LC Helps Professor Clear Ethics Probe in COVID Shot Study

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EAST LANSING, MI – Liberty Counsel recently helped exonerate a Michigan State University professor after he received allegations that he had used “unethical practices” during a published COVID-19 shot study. The study highlighted a correlation between the COVID shot and nearly 300,000 nationwide fatalities. The peer-reviewed journal BMC Infectious Diseases originally published the study in January 2023, but later retracted it amid the allegations. Despite the study’s retraction, it remains in the top one percent of shared research around the world.

The study’s author, Dr. Mark Skidmore, is an economics, natural disasters, and pandemics researcher with more than 90 published papers. Liberty Counsel assisted him in reviewing the anonymous complaints and responding to the investigation to appropriately address all the concerns. In essence, the complaints alleged Dr. Skidmore did not follow the rigorous oversight procedures required for clinical studies. A “guilty” finding from the university on this type of complaint could have serious consequences for a researcher’s credibility and career, since clinical studies involving human subjects have strict oversight and protocols to ensure no harm comes to study participants.

After a seven-month ethics investigation, Michigan State University’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) cleared Dr. Skidmore of any wrongdoing stating they did not find any “noncompliance” to their protocols within the study. Dr. Skidmore’s COVID shot study did not involve clinical work, but rather involved an online survey that posed little risk to human respondents. Due to his study being a survey only, the IRB at the onset of the research determined Dr. Skidmore’s study to be “exempt” from those clinical protocols and was cleared to proceed.

While the original study remains retracted, the peer-reviewed journal Science, Public Health Policy & the Law recently published an updated version of the study titled, “COVID-19 Illness and Vaccination Experiences in Social Circles Affect COVID-19 Vaccination Decisions.” According to the study’s abstract, the primary goal was to identify what factors affect Americans in their decisions to get the COVID shot.

The study conducted an online survey in late December 2021 of 2,840 participants that match the U.S. population and compared their responses with the fatalities reported in the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). The study found that the impact of COVID shot injuries has a larger impact than the illness itself on someone’s decision to get the shot. Dr. Skidmore’s key findings include:

• “…those who know someone who had a health problem following inoculation have lower odds of being vaccinated.”
• “Twenty-two percent (612 of 2,840) of respondents indicated that they knew at least one person who experienced a health problem after COVID-19 vaccination.”
• “…57 people indicated that among the people they knew who had experienced a vaccine adverse event, the person they knew best had died.”
• Projecting from the survey findings to the U.S. population “…the total number of fatalities due to COVID-19 inoculation may be as high as 289,789.”

Dr. Skidmore concluded, “The large difference in the possible number of fatalities due to COVID-19 vaccination that emerges from this survey and the available governmental data should be further investigated.”

Since 2021, there have been several instances of publications retracting research that has identified possible causal links between COVID-19 shots and adverse reactions. In July 2023, Dr. Peter McCullough, an internist, epidemiologist, and one of the most published cardiologists in America with more than 1,000 peer-reviewed publications to his credit, was quickly censored within 24 hours after he published an article showing clear evidence that the COVID-19 shots were responsible for many deaths. Out of 325 autopsies from various global locations, the study revealed the COVID shots directly caused or significantly contributed to up to 74 percent of those deaths. The Lancet, which initially published the article, took less than 24 hours to remove it citing the study fell short of the journal’s “screening criteria” and that the study’s methods did not merit its conclusions.

Dr. McCullough has been censored before without a definitive reason. In October 2021, Elsevier retracted a different study he co-authored with molecular biologist Dr. Jessica Rose just days after it was published. The findings from that study showed myocarditis spiked in teenagers after COVID-19 injections. Despite being peer-reviewed, Elsevier never reinstated the study though it can be found through an internet archive.

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “The allegations against Dr. Mark Skidmore were baseless. Researchers with integrity like Dr. Skidmore are using rigorous scientific protocols to validate the dangers of the COVID-19 shots. Censoring scientific debate is reprehensible and our researchers need to be free to conduct proper science without fear of later being the subject of an ethics investigation because their findings contradict a certain narrative.”

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