Disappearance of the aluminum-free DTPOLIO vaccine: Nothing to see here, just move along!

January 27, 2023 / by E3M

The Paris Court of Appeal’s Board of Inquiry confirms the dismissal order in the DTPolio vaccine withdrawal case. E3M deplores this decision and announces its intention to appeal against it to the Court of Cassation.

Paris, 26 January 2023.

E3M deeply regrets the decision made yesterday by the Paris Court of Appeal’s Board of Inquiry in the case concerning the conditions under which SANOFI decided to withdraw the aluminum-free DTPolio® vaccine from the market and the consequences of this choice on the people who had previously contracted the Macrophage myofascitis by getting vaccinated with alternative aluminum-containing vaccines. The appeal-judges effectively just confirmed the order of dismissal that was issued on November 25, 2021.

E3M announces today its intention to appeal in cassation.

For Didier Lambert, President of E3M, this case goes far beyond the issue of the presence of aluminum salts in vaccines; it is directly related to the extension of the vaccine requirement in France (the move from 3 to 11 vaccines) and raises important issues of public interest:

• We can indeed deplore the inertia or even the guilty complacency of the Drug Agency (ANSM, Afssaps at the time) which settled for simply announcing SANOFI’s (industrially driven) choice without taking the time to check the information communicated by E3M first. Surely, the agency did not ignore the manufacturer’s true motivation (namely, its desire to permanently withdraw the aluminum-free DTPolio vaccine from the markets).
• The same thing goes for the precautionary principle: why – despite increasing warnings about this product – has there never been a serious evaluation of aluminum adjuvants in vaccines? How to explain this ‘double standard’: the indefinite retraction from the market of the aluminum-free DTPolio vaccine due to an increase in adverse reactions (whose cause has never been identified) alongside the absolute indifference when it comes to warnings about the effects associated with aluminum adjuvants?
• Is it legitimate for doubt to benefit vaccine manufacturers even though it is public knowledge that they knowingly maintain just that (cf. « Merchants of Doubt » by Oreskes and Conway)?

Doesn’t this stand taken by the criminal courts have the effect of fueling vaccine manufacturer’s sense of impunity (1)? With the vaccine market in constant expansion, the questions about whether or not the judicial system can adequately deal with cases that concern vaccine damages have become particularly acute (2).

• Finally, and without being in any way opposed to the principle of vaccination itself, it seems legitimate to question whether the country’s vaccine policy is being led by pharmaceutical companies: it is quite clear that the change from 3 to 11 vaccines in January 2018 was not motivated by public health considerations (no benefit/risk assessment was conducted) but put in place in order to align the national vaccination policy with the products that the manufacturers had unilaterally decided to place on the market (see chronology in the press kit).

Let us hope that the Court of Cassation will take full account of these issues, which are essential in a health democracy. As for members of the E3M association, they will not give up, people’s health must take precedence over vested interests.

1. Note that the State Council fully recognizes the link between vaccines containing aluminum salts and the occurrence of macrophage myofascitis. Since 2012, no less than 13 favorable legal decisions have been issued in this regard : CE – Conseil d’État (State Council) n°344561 du 21.12.2012 ; n° 345411 du 22.03.2013 ; n° 347459 du 30.12.2013 ; n° 362488 du 30.12.2013 ; n° 368150 du 11.04.2014 ; n° 366470 du 23.07.2014 ; n° 369478 du 22.07.2015 ; n° 369479 du 22.07.2015 ; n° 387694 du 11.05.2016 ; n° CE 384612 du 30.12.2016 ; n° 419329 du 13.02.2020 ; n° 435323 du 29.09.2021 ; n° 437875 du 29.09.2021.
2. “The vaccine market, which rose from $26 billion in 2011 to $32.3 billion in 2014, will jump once again to reach $80 billion in 2025” (source: Le Figaro 2016).

“Approximately 16 billion doses of vaccines, worth 141 billion US dollars, were delivered in 2021” (WHO source – 11.2022)