Needle Phobia and Early Childhood Trauma

Not all long term adverse events are physical, some are psychological

Robert W Malone MD, MS

It is most likely the most common phobia in the USA – and yet no one speaks of it.

For some who suffer from needle phobia, the fear is so intense that they avoid doctors and dentists altogether, to the point where they will completely avoid any visit that might include a needle stick.

The issue is so prevalent that fainting from a needle stick is the cause of over half of the emergencies in dental offices.

Needle phobia affects at least 10% of the population, and yet has only recently been classified as an affliction. Since individuals with this condition often avoid medical treatment, it can pose a major obstacle in healthcare. The cause of needle phobia stems from a vasovagal reflex that causes a shock-like response when a needle puncture occurs.

For some, the fear is so intense that they will completely avoid any doctor’s visit that might include a needle stick.

Although many in the medical field used to believe that this was an inherited reflex, there is little evidence to support that hypothesis, which is based on the idea that humans are evolutionarily conditioned to fear puncture and cutting injuries. Countering that narrative is the fact that needle phobia often develops only after repeated exposure in children. That an ever larger percentage of the population, particularly younger people, are now needle-phobic. It is now generally accepted that needle phobia is due to an early-life traumatic event, often associated with vaccine administration.

Needle phobia can be severe, and people with this fear are often terrified of routine needle procedures. There is literature documenting that for some patients, the fear is so profound that they claim they would rather die than undergo a needle procedure. This intense fear can lead to health, social, and legal problems. The vasovagal response (fainting) associated with needle phobia has even caused deaths. But there is an even more sinister side to this that the medical profession doesn’t even acknowledge.

One meta-analysis of studies on needle phobia analyzed 119 original peer-reviewed research articles, “of which 35 contained sufficient information for meta-analysis. The majority of children exhibited needle fear, while prevalence estimates for needle fear ranged from 20-50% in adolescents and 20-30% in young adults. In general, needle fear decreased with increasing age. Both needle fear and needle phobia were more prevalent in females than males. Avoidance of influenza vaccination because of needle fear occurred in 16% of adult patients, 27% of hospital employees, 18% of workers at long-term care facilities, and 8% of healthcare workers at hospitals.”

Another study found that most people who experience needle phobia rate their fear as significant, with 52% of the people avoiding blood draws, and 33% avoiding vaccinations.

I queried various AIs on the subject of how much government funding has been spent on needle phobia. The answer was shocking:

There is not a publicly available record indicating large-scale, multi-million dollar government programs exclusively for “needle phobia” research; most funding is embedded within broader health, vaccine, or mental health initiatives.

The truth is that our government has spent almost nothing to determine the cause or how to manage this condition for those living with this chronic disease. It is almost as if they don’t want to know.

Why is this important?

It is postulated that needle phobia impedes both chronic and acute patient visits to medical care providers and systems. One peer-reviewed paper had needle-phobic patients on record as saying they would rather die than get a needle stick.

How many deaths occur each year because someone didn’t want to get that lump checked out because of a fear of needles? How many people suffer a cardiac event and choose not to go to the doctor because of this fear, until it is too late? How many people have unchecked diabetes because they refuse injectable medications?

Those who work with patients are fully aware that needle phobia often develops in childhood due to the often-repeated traumatic events surrounding vaccination. The following text is from a peer-reviewed paper discussing just how debilitating this phobia is:

Needle phobia without the vasovagal response has often arisen from a situation where classical conditioning has occurred. This puts it more in the realms of a specific phobia that is not B-I-I type.

For instance, a patient who recalls being held down as a child while receiving vaccinations, or undergoing anaesthetic will have learned a paired association of ‘needles plus doctors equals pain and distress’. Therefore, being back in that situation produces distress to the extent that sufferers will simply avoid the situation.

Whether caused by vasovagal reactions or a conditioned response, in its most extreme forms, I have worked with many patients who were refusing life-saving treatment, as the anxiety of a cannula or blood test was too much.

For instance, a 24-yr-old man with Hodgkin’s lymphoma was so distressed by the idea of cannulation that he refused to undergo chemotherapy. His wife was 4 months pregnant with their first child at the time and even this was not enough incentive for him to face his anxiety.

It is generally acknowledged that missed cancer diagnoses, cardiac arrests, and other life-threatening situations arise because people are so fearful of needles that they avoid seeking healthcare.

As the vaccine schedule has both increased in scope and the number of injections given at a very early age has skyrocketed, it can be surmised that needle phobia is increasing in the general population in the United States, following along with the increasingly aggressive vaccination schedule. Needle phobia generally starts in very young children, and only increases with each traumatic event.

By the age of two, a child in the USA receives almost 30 shots.

A Canadian study of over one thousand children found that 63% of those born in 2000 or later now fear needles. In a 2017 study, this increase in prevalence was again quantified. Half of preschoolers who got all their boosters on the same day, with often four or five injections all at once, were severely afraid of needles years later.

This problem is growing.

In sorting through the publications, there are almost no data on how many preventable hospitalizations and even deaths are due to needle phobias each year. It is an entirely unstudied phenomenon.

What is the risk-benefit ratio of repeatedly injecting a child with vaccines throughout their childhood? A child who then suffers the “mild” consequences of injection site pain, fatigue, hot-flashes, muscle soreness, nausea, and other vaccine-induced side effects that medical personnel consider perfectly normal? When does preventative medicine cross the line from being “preventive” to abusive?

The Butterfly effect.

Could it be that whatever gains made from the most aggressive vaccine program in the world (courtesy of the USG CDC) is making people sicker, as so many needle-phobic individuals refuse most or even all medical and even dental care because of their fear of needles?

Yet, throughout the peer-reviewed literature, it is generally accepted that the number of people who reject medical care if a needle is involved continues to grow.

It is an unfortunate truth that none of this is being measured. There are no government grants to assess the risk-benefit analysis of the most aggressive vaccine campaign in the world.

A simple shot in a child’s arm at a vulnerable age or mindset, or maybe repeated shots, could cause real psychological damage. The extent of which isn’t being measured.

A Shot in Every Arm.

A child who follows the CDC vaccination schedule from birth until adulthood typically receives between 54 and 60 vaccine doses by age 18, depending on the combination of vaccines used.

So many questions remain unanswered.

• What is the long-term mental health consequences of this aggressive vaccination regime?
• What percentage of people with needle phobia, became that way due to vaccination at vulnerable age points?
• Research has shown that children develop needle phobia during specific age brackets. What are those age brackets?
• What is the percentage of people who have suffered a significant health event or even death because of needle phobia?
• How many people are so shamed by their fear of needles that they can’t share this fear with their physicians, instead avoiding medical treatments altogether?
• Isn’t it time that government officials faced up to the fact that we don’t have the answers that they need to make informed decisions being made in the name of public health, that may actually be causing real harm.

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The Bottom Line

The fundamental idea that a true “risk/benefit” analysis of vaccination, or any other medical procedure for that matter, can be calculated is fundamentally flawed. Particularly in situations where the State intervenes to coerce, entice, and/or compel (mandate) acceptance of a medical procedure. There are too many variables, known and unknown.

At the root of modern Western “public health” is the thesis that the State has the right to mandate medical procedures to advance “the greatest good for the greatest number”, a logic that is based on socialist utilitarianism. Yet this is what three-year “Masters in Public Health” (MPH) university curricula teach. The consequence of these non-scientifically trained MPH dominating the US Public Health Service (and specifically CDC management) is that you have a cadre of trained socialists implementing mandates based on conclusions derived from imperfect and incomplete survey data compiled and analyzed by other socialists.

“A Midwestern Doctor” recently pointed out to me that at the most recent ACIP meeting, the following question was asked of a CDC official presenting data on COVID vaccine adverse events:

Question- “How are you monitoring long term side effects”

Answer- “But I think with relation to how are we thinking going forward about our safety and is it well adapted to the situation. I think we feel very confident in our safety systems in the US. We have one of the best safety systems in the world. But we are continuing to think through ways of how to improve them. And I think one thing you’re getting at is our ability to monitor long-term outcomes of vaccination. And obviously that’s very difficult. the longer you get out from vaccination, the more you can introduce confounding infections or other things that are unrelated to the vaccine and the in the ability to tease out vaccine versus other effects becomes much more challenging. But I think we would welcome input from the committee on um you know how to how to better do that.”

Which, distilled from this long-winded deflection, translates to “we are not monitoring long-term side effects because we think it is too hard to do this”.

In other words, the CDC is currently entirely unable to “calculate” risk/benefit ratio for these or any other vaccines. But this does not impede prominent “public health” officials or academics (or their dead media and captured politician allies) from cloaking themselves in “Science” and asserting that their policies and pronouncements shall not be challenged.

COVID taught us to look beyond the curtain and let us see that the “Great Oz” of “Public Health” socialists were merely pretenders.

When a “public health official” presumes to represent “The Science” and acts to manipulate the public into accepting an intervention based on imperfect data, “The Science” is being used as a pretense to justify authoritarian actions that are based on ideology and politics, not on an actual rigorous scientific assessment. And as the issue of needle phobia illustrates, in most cases the full spectrum of “Public Health” benefits, risks, and harms cannot be known and therefore risk/benefit ratio calculations (or quality adjusted life year calculations) become fictional propaganda.

By their own admission, CDC leaders are incapable of accurately and comprehensively assessing risk and benefit of any of their utilitarian interventions. There will always be unknown and in many cases unknowable variables. This applies to mask use, social distancing, lockdown policies, school closures and vaccine mandates. Therefore they are ill suited to make and attempt to enforce “public health policy”. And are completely unqualified to advocate for State-endorsed enticement, coercion and compulsion of any medical procedure or social intervention.

In a representative democracy governed by a constitution and bill of rights, policy must be made by elected officials. And in the case of medical procedures, that policy must be guided by the fundamentals of medical ethics, which do not provide the State with a special exemption for expediency. People, and specifically patients, have rights. And these rights do not allow the majority to force the minority to accept medical procedures. And they certainly do not provide an exception for a priesthood of Scientism to dictate what medical procedures they are to receive on the basis of socialist-utilitarian logic rooted in incomplete and imperfect data analyses.

Mandy Cohen, former CDC Director, was talking and laughing about how she made policy decisions during COVID. Her approach? She would ask friends, “Well, what are you planning to do?” And they would casually agree on some policy on the phone and then do that.

This is the definition of arbitrary and capricious authority. This is Scientism, not science.

Six Principles of Medical Ethics

1. Beneficance. Physicians must act in the best interests of the patient. Singular. One specific patient. Not in the best interests of society. Not to advance the greatest good for the greatest number. The patient in front of them at that specific point in time.
2. Non-Malfeasance. In short, do no harm. This does not mean you can do some harm to some patients for the good of the many.
3. Autonomy. The PATIENT has the right to choose whether to accept a medical procedure or intervention. Not Society, and certainly not some “Public health official” has the right to make a determination for a patient. THE PATIENT gets to choose. The physician and the “public health official” can provide honest truthful, unbiased information to the patient about risks and benefits, but THE PATIENT gets to decide on whether to accept the procedure. That is called INFORMED CONSENT, and if you disagree with that then you have no right to be involved in any way with the medical enterprise. There is no special “vaccine exclusion” or “exemption” for this fundamental human right.
4. Justice. There should be no “tiered” or “special” medical care for some that is withheld from others. Treatment options should reflect the merit of the illness. No discrimination based on whether or not a patient has accepted or rejected some other medical procedure. Like withholding organ transplantation from those that refused a COVID genetic vaccine, for example.
5. Dignity. Both Physician (or other medical care provider) AND THE PATIENT have the right to be treated with dignity. As opposed to hostile arrogance, for example.
6. Truthfulness and Honesty: Patients deserve to know the whole truth about both illness and treatment to the best of the ability of the physician or medical care provider. No lies about mask or social distancing or lockdown effectiveness. No cover ups of adverse events. No lies about biodistribution, pharmacokinetics, lot variability, adulteration.

How to Deal With Needle Phobia?

There are several solutions that can help deal with needle phobia:

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT): CBT is a type of talk therapy that can help you identify and change negative thoughts and beliefs related to needles and injections. A therapist can help you develop coping strategies and exposure techniques to gradually overcome your fear.

Systematic Desensitization: This is a technique that involves gradually exposing yourself to the source of your fear, in this case needles or injections, in a safe and controlled environment. This exposure is done gradually and incrementally until you are able to tolerate the object of your fear.

Relaxation Techniques: Techniques such as deep breathing, meditation, or muscle relaxation can help calm the body and mind and reduce anxiety related to needles.

Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy: This type of therapy involves using virtual reality technology to simulate exposure to needles and injections in a controlled environment.

Medication: In some cases, medications such as anti-anxiety medications or beta blockers may be used to help reduce anxiety and physical symptoms related to needle phobia.

Distraction Techniques: Using distraction techniques such as listening to music, watching a movie, or engaging in other enjoyable activities can help redirect your attention away from the fear of needles.

These symptoms can be so severe that they interfere with a person’s ability to seek necessary medical care or receive important treatments. It’s important to seek help from a healthcare provider or mental health professional if your fear of needles is interfering with your ability to receive necessary medical care or if it is causing significant distress or impairment in your daily life. With the right treatment and support, it is possible to overcome needle phobia and manage your fear.