Japanese Vaccine Data: A Signal Amid the Noise of Politicised Science, By Mrs. (Dr.) Abigail Knight (Florida)
The Japanese dataset, presented by Yasufumi Murakami in June 2025 and highlighted by Michael Nevradakis on August 20, 2025, claims that COVID-19 vaccines are linked to a surge in excess deaths, with risks rising per dose and peaking 90–120 days post-vaccination. Covering 18 million vaccine doses across 40 municipalities, the unpublished study has been criticised for lacking peer review, sufficient controls, and a representative sample. However, dismissing it outright risks repeating historical errors, like the initial rejection of smoking-cancer links due to industry bias and demands for "perfect" evidence. Peer review, often seen as the gold standard, can be a gatekeeper in politicised contexts, stifling early signals. This essay re-examines the Japanese data, acknowledging its limits, but arguing for its investigation, challenging the sacred cow of institutional science that prioritises conformity over curiosity.
The Japanese Data: A Preliminary Signal
The dataset, discussed by John Campbell, Ph.D., and Yasufumi Murakami, Ph.D., claims vaccinated individuals face up to 4.5 times higher mortality than the unvaccinated, with peaks at 90–120 days post-vaccination, earlier for those with more doses. Jessica Rose, Ph.D., attributes this to the mRNA vaccines' spike protein, which may trigger inflammatory immune responses, particularly in heart cells, while Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., points to lipid nanoparticles and DNA contaminants as potential culprits. Covering 5% of Japan's vaccinations, the data lacks cause-of-death details and robust controls for age or comorbidities, limiting its causal claims.
Yet, its scale, 18 million doses, is significant, and its findings align with other signals. A 2023 JMA Journal paper noted Japan's high mRNA vaccination rate and 1,400 excess deaths per million in 2022–2023, without conclusive attribution. Albert Benavides' VAERS analysis reports 2,396 vaccine-related deaths in Japan, second only to Germany. These suggest a pattern worth exploring, even if the dataset's 40-municipality scope and lack of peer review raise questions about representativeness.
The Fallacy of Peer Review as Truth
Peer review's limitations in politicised contexts is critical. Historically, early studies linking smoking to lung cancer, like Richard Doll's 1950 British Medical Journal paper, faced scepticism due to small samples (687 cases) and industry-funded counter-narratives dismissing correlation as causation. Tobacco companies demanded exhaustive proof, delaying regulatory action for decades. Similarly, the Japanese dataset's unpublished status and methodological gaps, small municipal coverage, no age standardisation, mirror the "limited sample" critiques that stalled smoking research.
Peer review, while valuable, can be compromised by bias. A 2023 Nature study on peer review found that 44% of reviewers admitted to letting personal beliefs influence evaluations, particularly in controversial fields. The COVID-19 vaccine debate is highly politicised, with institutions like the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), funded by Pfizer and Moderna, defending mRNA vaccines despite data gaps. The AAP's lawsuit against revised CDC guidelines, as noted in The Defender (August 20, 2025), reflects institutional resistance to questioning vaccine safety, akin to tobacco industry tactics.
On X, users like @VigilantFox (August 21, 2025) argue that peer review often serves as a "gatekeeper" for dissenting voices, while @BGatesIsaPyscho (August 12, 2025) claims regulators ignore "obvious signals" due to Big Pharma influence. Demanding peer-reviewed perfection risks burying early warnings, especially when funding and politics skew priorities.
Historical Parallels and the Need for Investigation
The smoking-cancer saga offers a cautionary tale. By 1954, Doll's larger studies confirmed the link, yet regulatory delays persisted until the 1964 US Surgeon General's report, driven by industry-funded doubt. Similarly, the Japanese data, while imperfect, aligns with other signals: a 2023 Phinance Technologies analysis estimated 300,000 US excess deaths linked to vaccines, and US insurance data showed a 15.4% rise in death benefits in 2020, doubling to $100.28 billion in 2021. These suggest a broader pattern that regulators, as Campbell notes, have been slow to investigate, often focusing on immediate adverse events rather than delayed effects like the 90–120-day peak.
The dataset's limits, small sample relative to Japan's population, lack of controls, don't negate its value as a hypothesis-generating signal. A 2022 Science Advances paper on spike protein interactions with estrogen receptors supports Rose's concerns about cardiac risks, and a 2020 PLoS One study links lymphopenia, a potential vaccine side effect, to worse cancer outcomes, tying to prior discussions on immune collapse. These warrant further study, especially given Japan's transparency, praised by Campbell, compared to US data obfuscation in VAERS.
The Sacred Cow of Institutional Science
The dismissal of the Japanese data reflects a sacred cow: the belief that institutional science, sanctified by peer review, is the sole arbiter of truth. This dogma, prioritises conformity over inquiry. The AAP's funding from vaccine makers and its resistance to revised CDC guidelines, mirror the tobacco industry's influence, delaying scrutiny of potential harms.
The Japanese data, though not peer-reviewed, merits urgent investigation. Independent, transparent studies should analyse larger datasets, controlling for age, comorbidities, and vaccine types, to test the 90–120-day mortality peak. Regulators must adopt a precautionary approach, as Jablonowski suggests, assuming potential harm until proven otherwise. Public engagement demand accountability, can pressure institutions to act. Japan's openness should inspire global data-sharing, avoiding the gatekeeping that delayed smoking-cancer recognition.
The Japanese dataset, despite its limits, is a signal that cannot be dismissed in a politicised scientific landscape. Peer review's biases, as seen in historical delays over smoking, highlight the risk of ignoring early warnings. The sacred cow of institutional science must be challenged with open inquiry, ensuring potential vaccine risks are investigated without fear of industry or political backlash. By wielding reason over dogma, we can uncover the truth behind the data, protecting public health.
'The More Doses You Get, The Sooner You are Likely to Die': Japanese Data Suggest COVID Vaccines Led to Surge in Excess Deaths
People who received COVID-19 vaccines had a significantly higher risk of death in the first year after vaccination compared to the unvaccinated, according to an analysis of a Japanese database of 18 million people. The data, not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal, is impressive in size, but requires further analysis, said CHD Senior Research Scientist Karl Jablonowski.
People who received COVID-19 vaccines had a significantly higher risk of death in the first year after vaccination compared to the unvaccinated, and the risk increased with each additional dose, according to an analysis of a Japanese database of 18 million people.
Medical commentator John Campbell, Ph.D., examined the data on his YouTube show this week. The data were originally released in June as part of a roundtable discussion, which was streamed online and led by Yasufumi Murakami, Ph.D., vice director of the Research Center for RNA Science at the Tokyo University of Science.
"The more doses you get, the sooner you are likely to die, within a shorter period," Murakami said during the roundtable.
In his analysis, Campbell said deaths in the vaccinated group were up to four-and-a-half times higher than in the unvaccinated group. The data also showed that deaths among the vaccinated peaked between 90-120 days after vaccination, with the peak occurring sooner as the number of doses increased.
"If someone had had three doses, the peak might be after about … 120 days," Campbell said. "But if they had four or five doses, the peak in deaths would be earlier, maybe about 90 days."
The risk of death in vaccinated people remained elevated for the first year following vaccination, "significantly so for the first 240 days," whereas for unvaccinated people, "no peak forms, which is the expected" outcome, Campbell said.
Japanese data indicate causal link between vaccinations, excess deaths
In his presentation, Murakami said the data show a clear causal link between vaccinations and excess deaths. Campbell agreed, noting that the excess deaths were "probably due to the vaccine's influence, with adverse reactions occurring leading to death."
"If the vaccine had no toxicity or didn't induce death, there wouldn't be a peak. That's the point," Campbell said.
According to immunologist and biochemist Jessica Rose, Ph.D., the spike protein in mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, such as those produced by Pfizer and Moderna, is likely a contributing factor to the higher death rate among the vaccinated.
She said:
"The spike protein is highly inflammatory and induces powerful immune reactions against affected cells. Cells transfected and producing spike protein are targeted for destruction, and since the lipid nanoparticles assure any cell can be a spike-producer, including heart cells, it explains much of cardiac-associated deaths."
Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist for Children's Health Defense, agreed.
"The spike protein is a toxic component of SARS-CoV-2, and unanimously the antigen of choice for all mRNA vaccines," he said. "The mRNA technology has many components that may be a driving force for increases in excess deaths."
According to Rose, lipid nanoparticles, which help deliver mRNA throughout the body, can also cause blood clotting, contributing to adverse health events and deaths.
"Many components of the mRNA platform can facilitate disease and death," Jablonowski said. This includes DNA contaminants that have been identified in the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, which he said "may trigger a deleterious immune response."
Jablonowski said the Japanese dataset, which has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, requires further analysis:
"Though 18 million is an impressive number, the size of the dataset doesn't make it good science — the control does. Without detailed data, it is impossible to distinguish between vaccination-induced death or death of those more likely to be vaccinated."
But if the dataset includes data for "millions of people within the same narrow age range, the same comorbidity grouping and no difference in confounders" and shows elevated death rates for these groups, then the Japanese data would be enough to "sink the mRNA platform worldwide," Jablonowski said.
Albert Benavides, founder of VAERSaware.com, has analyzed the Japanese data on his Substack page and in an online dashboard he developed. He said the data "appears to be very sound and in line to what appears and what does not appear in VAERS."
VAERS is the U.S. government-run Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.
"Japan (2,396 deaths) sits at second place, only behind Germany (2,709 deaths), as the foreign country with the most COVID-19 deaths in VAERS," Benavides said.
Data 'enough to raise questions in the minds of all regulators'
The Japanese data are "enough to raise questions in the minds of all regulators for all mRNA products," Campbell said, though he doesn't expect it will.
Many researchers have focused their examination of vaccine-related adverse events on the first days following vaccination, he noted. "When it's been 90 days, 120 days, they kind of lost interest and don't make the link anymore."
Yet, the Japanese data confirm findings of other studies that examined the longer-term effects of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.
In a March interview, Campbell spoke with Robert Clancy, Ph.D., emeritus professor at the University of Newcastle's School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy in Australia, who is reviewing data from a separate dataset that indicates a peak in excess deaths three months after vaccination.
In a May analysis, Campbell examined excess death figures from Our World in Data for 20 countries. The data showed that excess deaths remain high in most Western countries — where mRNA COVID-19 vaccines were widely administered — but are lower in countries where mRNA vaccines were less commonly used.
A 2023 analysis by Phinance Technologies found that, in the U.S., COVID-19 vaccines caused more than 300,000 excess deaths, injured 26.6 million people, disabled 1.36 million people, and cost an estimated $147 billion in damage in 2022 alone.
According to a 2023 report in InsuranceNewsNet, U.S. insurance companies expected higher-than-normal payouts from excess deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Insurers saw death benefits rise 15.4% in 2020, the biggest one-year increase since the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic, followed by a record $100.28 billion — nearly double the historic norm — in total death benefits paid out by the industry in 2021.
A paper published in April in the JMA Journal, the official peer-reviewed journal of the Japan Medical Association, found that Japan had "the world's highest rate" of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine doses per capita — and "a significant increase in excess deaths in 2022 and 2023."
"Although several hypotheses have been proposed to explain these phenomena, the truth remains to be established because sufficient studies and data disclosures have not been conducted to adequately investigate the possible contribution of mRNA vaccines," the paper stated.
'Incomprehensible' that mRNA vaccines continue to be administered
Campbell praised Japanese scientists and officials for their "greater openness" regarding COVID-19 vaccine-related adverse events and deaths compared to other countries.
"Japan has been more transparent and vocal than most countries in mainstream and alternate media," Benavides said. "Japan's data is breaking through the data obfuscations and gatekeepers within VAERS."
Campbell said it's "incomprehensible" that mRNA vaccines continue to be administered with the "data that's around now."
"Regulators are going to have to answer for this sooner or later," he said.
Rose said the Japanese data strengthen recent calls by scientists and physicians to suspend or withdraw the mRNA vaccines, but said what's preventing such a ban "is the egregious demonstration of intentional harm to infants and children" by medical organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).
Rose criticized the AAP for "continuing to recommend the COVID shots for infants and children, which is in direct contrast to current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] recommendations."
The AAP, which represents 67,000 pediatricians, is the recipient of substantial funding from Big Pharma — including vaccine makers — and the federal government.
"Their largest donors, as can be seen on their website, are Moderna, Pfizer, Merck and Sanofi," Rose said. "Follow the money. This isn't about health."
Last month, the AAP and five other medical organizations sued U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other public health officials and agencies over changes to the COVID-19 vaccination recommendations for children and pregnant women, which led to new CDC COVID-19 vaccine guidance for these populations.
Jablonowski said, "A reasonable approach to regulation is to assume 'harmful until proven otherwise,'" but the opposite has been true for mRNA vaccines. "The burden of proof should never fall on those with safety concerns, but on those who assert there is no concern for safety," he said."
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