The author, all-cause mortality expert Denis Rancourt, Ph.D., argues these claims are based on "tentative and untethered models of epidemiological forecasting" that produce "unlikely results."

The models depend entirely on invalid estimates of vaccine efficacy and disease prevalence and virulence, none of which are based on real-world data concerning actual deaths, according to Rancourt.

They also fail to account for other complex factors contributing to child mortality — particularly in low-income countries, where most of these millions of infant lives are purportedly saved. These factors include nutritional deficiency, toxic exposures and poverty.

Rancourt also found that, contrary to public health claims, there are no examples in all-cause mortality data of a drop in infant or child mortality temporally associated with the rollout of a childhood vaccination program.

On the contrary, he wrote, independent observational studies have tied vaccine rollouts to increased infant or child mortality and morbidity.

In the paper, Rancourt develops an alternative model using yearly all-cause infant mortality. He estimates that childhood vaccination campaigns since 1974 may have been associated with approximately 100 million vaccine-related deaths.

However, he emphasizes that any true estimate of mortality would also have to account for other factors, such as the shifting political and economic dynamics that drive poverty and its associated health problems.

Children's Health Defense Senior Research Scientist Karl Jablonowski said, "Rancourt points out serious flaws in mainstream debates over childhood vaccination that are premised on errors in generalization and lead to childlike black-and-white thinking when it comes to vaccine safety."

Jablonowski said the paper clearly demonstrates that claims vaccines have saved millions of lives globally, "hang on a few impossible assumptions." Those include:

That no human can die from a vaccine (directly or indirectly).

That children who die from a "vaccine-preventable" pathogen were otherwise perfectly healthy.

That we understand how diseases spread in all contexts.

That all children have the same health, diet, exercise habits, access to clean water, toxin and environmental exposures, genetic disposition, etc., as the clinical trial participants.

That clinical trials accurately represent the risks and benefits of the vaccine.

That once a vaccine is developed, all other medical interventions suddenly stop working.

Rancourt said he began writing the paper to demonstrate the "ludicrous theoretical modelling exercises" behind the spectacular claims of reduced infant mortality from mass vaccination programs.

"But what I discovered is that the longstanding industry of administering vaccination programmes to save infants in low-income countries from death is scientifically baseless and a fraudulent enterprise that removes resources and attention away from urgently needed development to correct ongoing mass neocolonial exploitation," he said.