This story was originally written in Portuguese by Chloé Pinheiro, Felipe Barbosa, Pedro Belo, Thaís Manarini and Theo Ruprecht, from Podcast Ciência Suja (Dirty Science), and published to the website of Revista Questão de Ciência on August 18th, 2022. It appears here with permission, translated by John Ellis-Guardiola.
In May 2022, several anti-vaccine groups began spreading the word about the First Meeting of the Experimental Invisibles through the Telegram messaging app. The meeting, slated for July 2022 in the city of São Paulo, was meant for so-called invisibles – people who allegedly suffered severe adverse effects from COVID-19 vaccines, supposedly hidden by the authorities and the media —and, more specifically, experimental invisibles, since they believed the vaccines had been offered to the public at large as part of a clinical trial. None of these claims, of course, are true.
The digital flyers disclosed the event’s organiser, ABRAVAC, the Brazilian Association of Vaccine and Drug Victims, founded in 2021 in Rio Branco, in the state of Acre. This is Brazil’s first structured anti-vaccine organisation, with headquarters and everything. The R$35 ticket (US $7) granted access to anyone interested in watching the presentations at the meeting, either online or in person – anti-vax doctors, lawyers, filmmakers, and journalists, and the purported “victims” of the jabs would all be there. All proceeds would go to ABRAVAC.
The First Meeting of the Experimental Invisibles eventually took place on July 17th, at the Pestana Hotel in São Paulo’s Paraíso neighborhood. The hotel’s operations manager for Latin America regularly shares pro-Bolsonaro and anti-vax material on social media.
The bouncer at the entrance asked our reporter to lift his shirt up to show he was unarmed. Later on, a speaker on stage mentioned that the bouncer and the rest of the security detail were actually plainclothes police officers.
Despite being capped at 250 in-person participants, the conference hall was more than half empty. Some posters on the walls displayed photos of people who allegedly suffered severe symptoms or even died after getting the vaccine against COVID-19. Other ads carried the ABRAVAC logo and a PIX (the Central Bank of Brazil’s electronic payment platform) code for donations.
The lineup of speakers was headed by none other than the event’s star: otorhinolaryngologist Maria Emília Gadelha Serra. She runs an alternative medicine clinic in an upscale São Paulo neighbourhood, charging R$1,800 (~US $360) per consultation. Another R$1,590 (~US $318) for a “bioresonance,” performed using a “quantum bioresonance analyzer,” a device that supposedly checks the “physical and psychological state” of the patient. Upon contacting the clinic for the first time, the assistant also floats the possibility of a “vaccine reversal” procedure, which supposedly cancels the perverse effects of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine.
During the lecture, Gadelha recalled the early career that would lead her to become staunchly anti-vax activist:
At first, I decided to study forensics and, at a meeting in Brasilia, a presentation showed the case of the HPV vaccine in Acre. I had never heard of any problem with this issue in Brazil.
The doctor was referring to a case in 2015, when some teenage girls from Rio Branco, the capital of Acre, had reactions such as headaches, fainting, and spasms after getting the HPV vaccine. Researchers from the University of São Paulo (USP) investigated the case. They found that the symptoms derived from psychogenic factors – fear of being vaccinated – rather than the ingredients in the vaccine.
Since the authorities did not give the girls in question proper care or attention, the regional media outlets and politicians hyped up the story. Fear spread, and more cases began to appear. “It is what they call a mass psychogenic reaction,” said José Gallucci-Neto, a psychiatrist at USP who participated in the study. Revista Questão de Ciênciahas already covered the case in detail on their Portuguese-language website.
Gadelha visited Rio Branco in 2019. According to various sources, she introduced herself as an envoy of Damares Alves, the former minister of human rights, family, and women’s issues. Without official documents to prove her status, she used a photo of her with Damares as a credential. In addition to criticising the HPV shot, she advocated “alternative treatments” to deal with the vaccine’s supposed adverse effects. She mostly touted ozone therapy, which she happens to offer.
The doctor even managed to get a hearing at the State Legislative Assembly to present her ideas and lobbied local politicians on behalf of ozone therapy. “She didn’t offer it directly, but she made a case for it. And she said she would confirm the negative effects of the HPV vaccine but didn’t show any data,” said Alysson Bestene, Acre’s Secretary of Health at the time.
Socorro Martins, head of Rio Branco’s epidemiological surveillance unit, seconded, “I remember a doctor who came to try to use ozone therapy as a treatment to reverse young girls’ condition.”
Interest of their own and that of others
In her anti-vaccine crusade, Gadelha insists that many pediatricians have conflicts of interest when defending vaccines since they own vaccination clinics and speak at events sponsored by pharmaceutical companies.
Gadelha has close ties to one of Brazil’s leading manufacturers of ozone generators. In 2005, she founded the Brazilian Society of Ozone Technology with cardiologist Edison de Cezar Philippi, owner of Philozon in Santa Catarina. Philippi died soon after, but the company continued to thrive under the management of his daughter, pharmacist Leticia Phillippi, with revenue topping R$ 35 million (US$ 7 million) in 2021, according to a report in Exame magazine. Today, Leticia Phillippi is the secretary director of the Brazilian Association of Ozone Therapy (ABOZ), while Gadelha directs the Brazilian Society of Medical Ozone Therapy, SOBOM. Both have lobbied together for ozone therapy at Brazil’s Congress, state legislatures, and Brazil’s Federal Council of Medicine (CFM).
The two even traveled to Portugal together in 2019 at the behest of Brazilian members of Congress who wanted to learn more about the practice of ozone therapy in Portugal. The trip was partially paid for with public funds, since the lodging and air ticket costs showed up in the expense reports of members of Congress and of Brazil’s National Health Surveillance Agency, ANVISA.
“I am going let you in on a dream that represents a boon for Brazilians: that one day the CFM will regulate ozone therapy so that we can make the technique available to even more people,” Phillippi told Jovem Pan news radio station in a May 2022 interview.
For now, the CFM considers ozone therapy to be experimental. In theory, it can only be applied by dentists and physical therapists, despite the lack of evidence of efficacy and safety. There is no scientific evidence supporting this technique for medical treatments, and it has been banned in the United States for medicinal purposes since 2003. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA)warns that “ozone is a toxic gas with no known useful medical application in specific, adjunctive, or preventive therapy.” The scientific literature reports that the procedure can trigger pulmonary embolism, among other adverse reactions.
Gadelha has gained some notoriety for her anti-HPV-vaccine zeal. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she soon voiced her opposition to vaccines for the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. She used the Experimental Invisibles event to stage her (baseless) claim that the pharmaceutical industry, together with billionaires Bill Gates and George Soros, were plotting to push vaccines through the pipeline. This stance only circulated her name further, especially in pro-Bolsonaro circles. There is a photo of her next to the current president, and she is a regular at demonstrations supporting Bolsonaro.
In 2021, Gadelha helped to found ABRAVAC. “I keep thinking about how I landed in Acre and all the change that got underway. So much change led to the founding of ABRAVAC, which is now better structured and organized,” she said during the event.
Currently, Dr. Gadelha is running for a seat in congress to represent the state of São Paulo as part of the PRTB, the Brazilian Renewal Labor Party. Her social media posts include campaign images with the ABRAVAC logo.
A Trip to Rio Branco
Our crew visited the capital of Acre to get a first-hand sense of the bearing the anti-vaccine movement, spurred by Gadelha, has had on the state’s vaccination rates. With about 420,000 inhabitants, Rio Branco has the third smallest population among state capitals in Brazil.
In the aftermath of the mass psychogenic reactions, vaccination coverage against various diseases plummeted. “Just to give you an idea, we only managed to reach adequate coverage for the BCG vaccine [against tuberculosis] because children don’t usually leave the maternity hospital without it,” sighed Socorro Martins from the epidemiological surveillance.
Of course, there is more than misinformation behind Brazil’s dwindling vaccination coverage. In 2021, 51% of Brazilian children completed the measles vaccination schedule, which is very little. The coverage goal for preventing outbreaks is 95%. In Acre, however, the coverage attained was 25%.
Consequently, HPV vaccine coverage is even worse. In 2014, when Brazil began administering the vaccine, over 90% of adolescents in the state of Acre took the first dose. Two years later, in 2016, when the case of the alleged vaccine victims was escalating, the rate dropped to around 10%. And in 2019, coverage plummeted to a staggering 1%. Of 3,439 nine-year-old girls and boys eligible to take the vaccine in Rio Branco, only five were fully immunized (0.15%).
HPV vaccine coverage rates in Brazil are 55% for girls and 36% for boys. These are dismal numbers, but much better than the situation in Acre, since this virus causes every case of cervical cancer, a disease that claims the lives of 5,000 Brazilian women each year. Gallucci-Neto repeated that, besides the fear, the HPV vaccine is a victim of Brazilian conservatism. Since HPV is sexually transmitted, many people believe that the vaccine might stimulate early sexual initiation. Studies have already ruled out this hypothesis.
“The HPV vaccines are expiring at the clinics,” says Martins. And unfortunately, this has also occurred due to resistance from health professionals and those administering the vaccine in the region. In a visit to three of Rio Branco’s Basic Health Units (BHU) in July 2022, we found that only one of these clinics offered the shot. Public agents at the other two centers alleged that the vaccine was unavailable. Daíla Timbó, manager of the Special Immunization Reference Center (CRIE) in the city, found this excuse strange. According to her, there are doses to spare—the clinic only needs to place an order to replenish its inventory.
Osvaldo Leal, a doctor, working at CRIE, witnessed an even more blatant case of resistance by professionals who, on paper, have the responsibility to promote and administer inoculations. A vaccinator – an acquaintance – tried to convince him not to vaccinate his daughter against HPV. “She was experienced, but eventually, this lie seduced even the employees. After all, they are part of society, too,” he points out.
In this sense, Gallucci-Neto signals that the current federal government, which has already adopted an anti-science discourse on multiple occasions, encourages this kind of situation. “We never imagined that a ministry would call on members of the antivaccine movement to speak at public hearings on an equal footing with scientists. They managed to forge ‘bothsideism’ on vaccination.”
The psychiatrist recalls the public hearing on COVID-19 vaccines for children convened by the Ministry of Health in early 2022. In his view, this kind of debate can hook those who feel most vulnerable—spot on, pseudoscience’s prime target.
Back in Rio Branco, in the aftermath of the national media attention drawn by the case of the psychogenic reaction in the young girls, the Tucumã neighborhood’s polyclinic came up with a new protocol to address this issue. A staff of neurologists, psychiatrists, and psychologists was available to any adolescents dealing with these symptoms. But the demand evaporated. “There was an exodus,” said Ocimar Sales Júnior, the public prosecutor who handles health-related cases at the state level in Acre. He took office last year, replacing Gláucio Oshiro, who took on, organised, and investigated what is now known as the “Acre girls’ case” and prevented suspending vaccination when the crisis broke out.
People interviewed at the polyclinic said that Gadelha even held a meeting there to try to bring ozone therapy into the mix of the girls’ care procedure. Currently, only two girls get their care there—for reasons that have nothing to do with the psychogenic reaction. Even so, the staff’s schedule still has times blocked off just in case dozens of girls show up with such symptoms.
Inside ABRAVAC
Even though it has been around for a little over a year and charges its members monthly dues of R$20 (US $4) (in addition to accepting donations), ABRAVAC’s headquarters are in an affluent neighborhood of Rio Branco. The space is a recently renovated house near the Acre Regional Council of Medicine, universities, and Ceará Avenue, one of the main thoroughfares in the city.
Despite undermining vaccine coverage by fearmongering on the HPV case, ABRAVAC as an institution barely has weight in Acre. “The association ended up not having much of an impact around here these days,” said Martins. Officially, ABRAVAC, Brazil’s first anti-vaccine association, was created by mothers of young people who showed psychogenic reactions after getting the HPV vaccine. But information obtained by our team suggests that Gadelha has used ABRAVAC as a platform for her political career.
The association’s social media channels brandish videos and photos of her. In a speech at an anti-vax demonstration on Paulista Avenue on July 31, she flaunted the ABRAVAC logo on her clothes. The same logo appears on one of the campaign pieces for her run for Congress.
Additionally, one of the videos on the ABRAVAC website shows that the institution’s headquarters has offices that look like hospital rooms, including stretchers, an unusual piece of furniture in a patients’ association. The group’s social networks reveal that members can access services like aesthetic procedures and… ozone therapy.
Our crew questioned the association’s board of directors about whether they had a permit or official authorisation for operating a medical clinic at the headquarters, their funding sources, and the group’s connection to Maria Emília Gadelha Serra. After promising to answer the questions, they never got back in touch. And just for good measure, the journalists’ contact information was shared with other anti-vax groups mapped out by the reporting team—the same modus operandi adopted by Gadelha when she criticised fact-checking agencies during the Experimental Invisibles event.
Furthermore, ABRAVAC has broadened its attacks to target vaccine mandates and COVID-19 vaccines, especially for children—just as Gadelha has done.
In 2022, a child had gastrointestinal symptoms after taking the coronavirus vaccine in Brasileia, a small city in Acre. Photos of her were posted on social media platforms. An audio recording making the rounds featured a male voice, identified as a “friend” of ABRAVAC, stating that the girl’s liver had “melted” and that she was in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and in need of donations. The state technical committee’s investigation into the matter stated that the child’s reaction had nothing to do with the vaccine. And there is not even an ICU in the city.
This kind of fake news, however, can have repercussions. “Among Acre’s 5-to-11-year-olds, only 40.76% got the first dose. As for the second dose, the number is no more than 14.32%,” according to prosecutor Sales Júnior’s calculation.
Complaints falling on deaf ears
In February 2020, respected doctors and public health managers joined forces to file a complaint against Gadelha at the Regional Council of Medicine (CRM) of Acre. Our crew gained access to the complaint, which details Gadelha’s anti-vaccine lobbying activities backed up by emails sent to managers and fake news spread on Acre’s news outlets.
The petitioners are calling for Gadelha’s medical registration to be suspended and for an investigation into Gadelha for:
- Providing false information to the press, family members, and politicians.
- Encouraging parents and guardians not to vaccinate their children.
- Violating two articles of the Code of Medical Ethics, which deal with the patient’s right to choose and protecting a patient’s privacy.
In May 2020, the CRM of Acre referred the complaint to the São Paulo CRM, CREMESP, where Gadelha is registered. This was an unusual move, given that according to the Code of Medical Ethics, any complaint should be investigated in the place where the breach allegedly occurred. CREMESP stated that the process is confidential. Two years later, the internal inspection bodies of the medical profession have yet to decide on the accusation’s merit.
Meanwhile, the health professionals involved in the story had some takeaways from the case. Osvaldo, the CRIE physician, mentioned the importance of properly investigating and responding to post-vaccine adverse events. “You can’t simply say that these things are unrelated. You have to seek accurate answers about what actually happened to that person,” he said.
In the case of Acre, the symptoms presented by the girls were neglected at first, which led to a sense of dissatisfaction that Gadelha and other anti-vaccine doctors seized upon to further their own interests.
Our crew sent an e-mail to Gadelha—doctor and candidate—to ask her about the exact nature of her ties to ABRAVAC and the criticism she gets from her colleagues, but our questions went unanswered.
This report is the result of a partnership between the Instituto Questão de Ciência and the podcast Ciência Suja, which discusses cases where science has been misrepresented or misused. There is an episode about such a case already available wherever you listen to podcasts.
