Peter McCullough misleads again about the benefits and risks of COVID-19 vaccines in viral interview

In October 2024, a Facebook reel with more than half a million views showed cardiologist Peter McCullough claiming that “people are dying with these [COVID-19 vaccines]”.

The reel shared a teaser of an interview between McCullough and Josh Trent for an episode of the Wellness + Wisdom Podcast about health freedom during the COVID-19 pandemic. The episode, which spanned two hours and 19 minutes, was posted on YouTube on 1 October 2024. The interview received additional engagement through McCullough’s X/Twitter account, which shared a link to the interview that received over 80,000 views.

During the interview, McCullough repeated several misleading and unsupported claims about COVID-19 vaccines and treatments that he has propagated since the start of the pandemic. We will address some of them below.

Claim 1 (Unsupported and Misleading):

“People who are taking it [the COVID-19 vaccine] in the arm, they’re dying of cardiac arrests and blood clots, they’re having all these complications”

Over the past few years, McCullough has repeatedly claimed that COVID-19 vaccines cause deaths and “unprecedented” blood clots. As Science Feedback showed in multiple earlier reviews, these claims were based on misinterpreted data and flawed analyses that contradicted the available scientific evidence.

In the interview, McCullough alleged that the harms of vaccination are evident when looking at “the crude data of counting the number of people harmed”. He was most likely referring to the number of adverse events reported to pharmacovigilance systems after COVID-19 vaccination, which he previously claimed was evidence of COVID-19 vaccine harms.

For example, in 2023 McCullough called for a recall of all COVID-19 vaccines “for excess risk of death”. His claim was based on a misleading comparison between the raw number of adverse events reported to the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and the European EudraVigilance after COVID-19 vaccination compared to other vaccines.

However, using the raw number of adverse event reports to draw conclusions about the safety of a vaccine entails several problems. First, databases like VAERS don’t establish a causal effect between the vaccine and the adverse event and contain unverified reports. Therefore, an adverse event report tells us that the adverse event might have occurred after vaccination, but on its own it doesn’t prove that the vaccine caused it.

Second, this approach fails to consider that adverse event reporting rates might not be comparable for different vaccines. For example, healthcare providers in the U.S. are required by law to report death and any other serious adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination, regardless of what caused the adverse event. This isn’t the case with other vaccines, which only require reporting of certain adverse events.

In light of the above limitations, the raw number of adverse events reported for a vaccine doesn’t represent the number of actual side effects caused by the vaccine, as McCullough implied.

All vaccines come with side effects, and COVID-19 vaccines are no exception. However, serious reactions to COVID-19 vaccines are rare. For example, viral vector COVID-19 vaccines (Johnson & Johnson and the now-discontinued Oxford-AstraZeneca) are associated with rare cases of a serious blood clotting disorder called vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VIITT).

Meanwhile, mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are associated with a slightly elevated risk of heart inflammation in young males. But such cases are also rare, relatively mild, and not associated with an increased risk of death.

As Science Feedback explained in earlier reviews, published studies show that vaccinated people aren’t more likely to die compared to unvaccinated people, contradicting McCullough’s claim^[1-4].

COVID-19 itself is also much more likely to cause blood clotting and cardiovascular problems than COVID-19 vaccination^[5-11]. The benefits of COVID-19 vaccination in reducing these risks outweigh the low risk of serious complications from vaccination.

Claim 2 (Flawed reasoning):

“The efficacy [of COVID-19 vaccines] was always theoretical. However, the harms are real”

During his interview, McCullough questioned the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines based on three arguments: 1) COVID-19 vaccines won’t provide any protection if you’re never in contact with the virus; 2) vaccine protection “may wear off in a matter of months”; 3) for people who developed immunity from infection, the vaccine “may not do anything at all”.

In other words, McCullough implied that getting vaccinated against COVID-19 is either unnecessary or useless; you might never encounter the virus, and if you do, the vaccine might not protect you anymore and you’ll develop immunity from the infection anyway.

McCullough’s narrative is highly misleading as it trivializes the benefits of vaccination while completely disregarding the risks associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection.

SARS-CoV-2 is a widespread virus that has caused almost 800 million confirmed infections globally. And this is likely a large underestimation of the true number of infections, as not everyone would have been tested. This means thatTherefore a high proportion of the global population has already encountered the virus. the chance that a person encounters the virus at some point is far from negligible.

If a person does encounter the virus, vaccination is the safest strategy for reducing the risk of severe COVID-19 and death. Although this protection starts to decrease a few months after vaccination, a booster dose with an updated vaccine version helps keep protection at its maximum.

Contrary to McCullough’s claim, this protection also benefits those who recovered from a SARS-CoV-2 infection. Substantial evidence shows that hybrid immunity—the immunity resulting from the combination of infection and vaccination—provides better protection than either vaccination or infection alone^[12,13]. New data published in the Journal of Infection in 2024 suggests that hybrid immunity may also protect against long Covid^[14].

COVID-19 has caused over seven million confirmed deaths worldwide, although estimates based on excess deaths suggest that the actual death toll might be triple this figure^[15,16]. However, death isn’t the only possible negative outcome of a SARS-CoV-2 infection. According to 2022 estimates by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), COVID-19 caused roughly three and a half million hospitalizations in the U.S. only in the first year of the pandemic^[17].

In addition, SARS-CoV-2 infection can increase the risk of potentially serious health problems even if the person had only mild symptoms. One study published in 2024 found that unvaccinated people who had a SARS-CoV-2 infection early in the pandemic had double the risk of developing cardiovascular problems, including heart attack and stroke, compared to those unvaccinated but with no COVID-19 history. Severe cases had nearly four times the risk^[18]. By reducing the likelihood of developing severe disease, vaccination against COVID-19 also helps reduce these risks.

Mathematical models suggest that COVID-19 vaccines might have saved roughly 20 million lives in just the first year of the pandemic^[19]. Therefore, contrary to McCullough’s claim, the benefits of vaccination are real and outweigh the risks.

Claim 3 (Incorrect and Misleading):

“Early treatment protocols, like the ‘McCullough protocol’, could be used and widely promulgated. So the therapeutics use when someone gets sick, that’s really the game changer, not what somebody took in the arm two years ago”

Developing effective treatments is essential for reducing the threat posed by a disease. But contrary to McCullough’s claim, a treatment can’t replace the benefits of vaccination.

Unlike treatments, vaccine protection comes without exposing the person to the potential risks of the disease. For this reason, preventing a disease is always considered a better therapeutic strategy than treating the disease once a person is infected, because doing so is safer.

This is even more true when the proposed treatment isn’t backed up by scientific evidence.

The “McCullough protocol” involves a so-called “spike protein detoxification” supplement that supposedly treats SARS-CoV-2 infections and alleged vaccine injuries by removing the spike protein from the body. The Wellness Company, for which McCullough is the chief scientific officer, sells this supplement online at a price of USD 119 per bottle.

First and foremost, there is no evidence that the spike protein produced in the body through COVID-19 vaccination causes harm. Therefore, detoxification from the vaccine is neither useful nor necessary, as Science Feedback explained in earlier reviews.

The main active ingredient in this supplement is nattokinase, an enzyme that was first isolated from natto, a traditional Japanese food made of fermented soybeans. McCullough claimed this enzyme “dissolves” the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein without harming cells.

Preliminary studies have shown that nattokinase can break down certain proteins involved in blood clotting, which might help prevent and dissolve blood clots^[20,21]. In 2022, one study by Tanikawa et al. found that nattokinase could break down spike protein^[22]. However, this study was conducted in cells cultured in the laboratory, not in people.

Other active ingredients in the supplement are bromelain—a group of pineapple enzymes—and turmeric. Studies also in laboratory cells reported that bromelain disrupted the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein^[23]. Curcumin, the active ingredient of turmeric, has been evaluated as an adjuvant in COVID-19 treatments due to its anti-inflammatory activity^[24].

However, the results for the effects of each separate ingredient in cells don’t tell us whether the supplement is safe and removes the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein from people’s bodies.

Conclusion

McCullough’s claim that COVID-19 vaccines are unsafe is misleading and based on a flawed interpretation of the number of vaccine adverse events reported to pharmacovigilance systems in the U.S. and Europe. Numerous studies show that COVID-19 vaccination isn’t associated with a higher risk of death but instead is estimated to have saved millions of lives.

Contrary to what McCullough implied, COVID-19 vaccines are also not known to cause a toxic buildup of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Therefore, people don’t need to “detox” from vaccination, especially with the supplement promoted by McCullough, the safety and efficacy of which haven’t been demonstrated.

Vaccination is the best strategy to reduce the risks of COVID-19, including severe illness and death. While all vaccines, including COVID-19 vaccines, carry a certain risk of side effects, serious reactions to vaccination are rare. This risk is also much lower than the risk of developing complications from SARS-CoV-2 infection. On balance, the benefits of COVID-19 vaccines outweigh their risks.

REFERENCES

• 1 – Liko et al. (2024) Assessment of Risk for Sudden Cardiac Death Among Adolescents and Young Adults After Receipt of COVID-19 Vaccine — Oregon, June 2021–December 2022. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
• 2 – Tu et al. (2023) SARS-CoV-2 Infection, Hospitalization, and Death in Vaccinated and Infected Individuals by Age Groups in Indiana, 2021‒2022. American Journal of Public Health.
• 3 – Bilinski et al. (2022) COVID-19 and Excess All-Cause Mortality in the US and 20 Comparison Countries, June 2021-March 2022. JAMA.
• 4 – Xu et al. (2021) COVID-19 Vaccination and Non–COVID-19 Mortality Risk — Seven Integrated Health Care Organizations, United States, December 14, 2020–July 31, 2021. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
• 5 – Douillet et al. (2021) Risk of symptomatic venous thromboembolism in mild and moderate COVID-19: A comparison of two prospective European cohorts. Thrombosis Research.
• 6 – Raisi-Estabragh et al. (2022) Cardiovascular disease and mortality sequelae of COVID-19 in the UK Biobank. Heart.
• 7 – Knight et al. (2022) Association of COVID-19 With Major Arterial and Venous Thrombotic Diseases: A Population-Wide Cohort Study of 48 Million Adults in England and Wales. Circulation.
• 8 – Hippisley-Cox et al. (2021) Risk of thrombocytopenia and thromboembolism after covid-19 vaccination and SARS-CoV-2 positive testing: self-controlled case series study. BMJ.
• 9 – Xie et al. (2022) Long-term cardiovascular outcomes of COVID-19. Nature Medicine.
• 10 – Patone et al. (2022) Risk of Myocarditis After Sequential Doses of COVID-19 Vaccine and SARS-CoV-2 Infection by Age and Sex. Circulation.
• 11 – Barda et al. (2021) Safety of the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine in a Nationwide Setting. New England Journal of Medicine.
• 12 – Lasrado et al. (2023) SARS-CoV-2 Hybrid Immunity: The Best of Both Worlds. The Journal of Infectious Diseases.
• 13 – Zheng et al. (2024) Meta-analysis of hybrid immunity to mitigate the risk of Omicron variant reinfection. Frontiers in Public Health.
• 14 – Mikolajczyk et al. (2024) Likelihood of Post-COVID Condition in people with hybrid immunity; data from the German National Cohort (NAKO). Journal of Infection.
• 15 – Paglino et al. (2024) Excess natural-cause mortality in US counties and its association with reported COVID-19 deaths. PNAS.
• 16 – COVID-19 Excess Mortality Collaborators (2022) Estimating excess mortality due to the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic analysis of COVID-19-related mortality, 2020–21. The Lancet.
• 17 – Couture et al. (2022) Estimating COVID-19 Hospitalizations in the United States With Surveillance Data Using a Bayesian Hierarchical Model: Modeling Study. JMIR Public Health and Surveillance.
• 18 – Hilser et al. (2024) COVID-19 Is a Coronary Artery Disease Risk Equivalent and Exhibits a Genetic Interaction With ABO Blood Type. Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology.
• 19 – Watson et al. (2022) Global impact of the first year of COVID-19 vaccination: a mathematical modelling study. Lancet Infectious Diseases.
• 20 – Urano et al. (2001) The Profibrinolytic Enzyme Subtilisin NAT Purified fromBacillus subtilis Cleaves and Inactivates Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor Type 1*. Journal of Biological Chemistry.
• 21 – Kurosawa et al. (2015) A single-dose of oral nattokinase potentiates thrombolysis and anti-coagulation profiles. Scientific Reports.
• 22 – Tanikawa et al. (2022) Degradative Effect of Nattokinase on Spike Protein of SARS-CoV-2. Molecules.
• 23 – Akhter et al. (2020) In vitro study of BromAc on SARS-CoV-2 spike and envelope protein shows synergy and disintegration at modest concentrations. BioRxiv. [Note: This is a preprint that has yet to be peer-reviewed at the time of this review’s publication.]
• 24 – Rattis et al. (2021) Curcumin as a Potential Treatment for COVID-19. Frontiers in Pharmacology.