The Truth about Vaccines Episode 1: Top Ten lies debunked

This episode is sub-titled The History of Vaccines, Smallpox, Vaccine Safety and the Current CDC Schedule. I accessed the documentary by joining the email list. From there, I got a daily email with a link to watch today’s episode free for 24 hours. After the 24 hours, the episodes are available for purchase at the Truth about Vaccines website.

 

The series is hosted by Ty Bollinger. Ty is a CPA. He runs a seemingly successful business and website telling people factoids about cancer. For clarity, I am going to refer to everyone by their first name, after introducing them.

The first guest is author Jennifer Margulis. She makes a point is that if a patient did not want an antibiotic for a viral infection, they would never be called anti antibiotic, so why do we call people who question vaccine safety “antivax?”  Now, dear readers, do you see the logical errors here? As someone who is actually allergic to two different kinds of antibiotics, I know that being unable to take certain antibiotics and asking questions about antibiotic risks and benefits does not mean one is opposed to all antibiotics. It behooves my health to double check with my doctor that any antibiotic they are prescribing to me (on the rare occasion I need one) is not related to the two types which caused me allergic reactions.  By the same token, if you had a bonafide allergic reaction to a vaccine, you would want to find out which ingredient caused the reaction and avoid that one ingredient. Asking your doctor questions about your reaction and future vaccines does not make you antivax. What makes a person antivax is, for example, assuming that everything bad is a vaccine reaction or that a minor reaction is cause to avoid all future vaccines.  Also, doctors do not prescribe antibiotics for viral infections, so Margulis’ comment doesn’t actually make a lot of sense to me.

I do agree with Ty and Jennifer that we all want our kids to be safe. As I am oft to say, there is nothing wrong with asking questions. It’s the answers that are the issue.

The documentary says many falsehoods, such as the one above. I chose to narrow it down to ten and debunk just them.

 

One: The first lie comes from Dr Paul Thomas, a pediatrician from Oregon.  Paul explains that the AAP does not investigate vaccine safety. Ty claims that the issue is that we need to entertain the vaccine safety discussion. Now, do you see the lie?  The American Academy of Pediatricians is a professional organization.  They publish several journals, including Pediatrics.  They also research pediatrician office practices and they do research issues related to immunizations. In a way, Paul is correct that the AAP does not specifically research vaccine safety but this does not mean members are not involved in vaccine safety research nor does this mean that AAP ignores vaccine safety. In the journal Pediatrics alone, there have been many vaccine safety studies published. Therefore, it is untrue that the AAP does not investigate vaccine safety.

Two: Paul brings up iatrogenic, the idea that doctors cause harm by what they do. He says that doctors have lost their way and don’t look at the harms vaccines do. He discusses the connection between autism, vaccines, mercury in vaccines, the hepatitis B dose at birth, aluminum and how, in 2008, he had to make a decision to slow down and analyze vaccines for toxicity issues. His implication is that doctors cause grave injury to children, with vaccines, but they are not interested in learning why or how. This begs the question why then are doctors reporting adverse events to VAERS, the vaccine adverse event reporting system? Why are other doctors studying the medical information related to these reports and publishing findings in the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD), a network of nine healthcare organizations across the country? Why are these findings published in journals to which doctors subscribe, such as Pediatrics, wherein they can be easily read? I have to think that Paul must be aware of these facts and is simply misleading viewers on purpose.

Three: Neil Z. Miller comes to discuss all the side effects he thinks vaccines cause but he never brings up how he got these ideas from raw VAERS data nor does he discuss issues of validity or reliability of using raw VAERS data. The problem is that anyone can report anything to VAERS and reports are made, in comes cases, without regard to proving causation. This is important because the CDC and FDA and the VSD will monitor these reports and do studies of actual medical records to see if vaccines really do cause serious issues. For example, it was the results of these kinds of studies that the first rotavirus vaccine was removed from market in 1999 for causing intussusception more often than would occur normally. Neil should know how this works but he does not have access to medical records, so his studies only look at raw VAERS reports. This is not considered valid since none of the reports have been verified by medical evidence. SIDS is an example of something that may be reported to VAERS but, in reality, is not caused by vaccines. In fact, studies show SIDS rate in USA is not only at an historical low but that vaccines cut the risk of SIDS in half.  Therefore, Neil has nothing valid to offer and it was remiss of Ty to not mention these facts.

Four: Ty then comes on to claim that the CDC states informed consent issues are, according to the 10th amendment, a state’s rights issue. Barbara Loe Fisher, NVIC founder, explains how vaccine laws are state laws. Vaccine laws are statutory, created by states. They are implying that vaccines are given to children without the parent being afforded informed consent; therefore, they argue, this is coercion. Dorit Rubinstein Reiss has written about the legalities this topic and states: “The informed consent process for vaccines is carefully regulated and thought through. A serious effort is made to provide patients with the information they need in a short, accessible format. As long as the healthcare provider performs the legal duty of providing the Vaccine Information Sheet before vaccinating, the patient – or parent – has before them the information necessary to make an informed decision.”  Therefore, patients and their parents are give informed consent and the filmmakers, again, have lied.

Five: From this point, Ty discusses how much medical education a typical doctor receives in medical school. Larry Pavelsky states vaccines are not very much discussed in medical school.  Suzanne Humphries says doctors are not taught anything at all about what is in vaccines. Paul talks about how his daughter is in medical school and she is still not being taught what is in vaccines. Shari Tenpenny says the problem is the “big ramp up in the number of vaccines.” Del Bigtree, film producer, comes on to explain that doctors entire understanding of vaccines is “just because.”   He says doctors know nothing about vaccines except that they were told vaccines are safe. This is fraud, in his opinion.  Ty spends some time going over the average medical school curriculum. He claims that only one course is offered, microbiology, which addresses vaccines at all.

 

In reality, doctors spend a great deal of time learning about everything to do with the human body, disease, prevention, treatment, and more. As you can see from the schematic above, which is from Stanford University’s s 2016-2017 MD Program, doctors learn about immunology, microbiology, diseases, systems, and more. What those opposed to vaccines really mean, when they say doctors don’t learn about vaccines, is that doctors do not learn the ingredients to vaccines. This is true. There is nothing on this curriculum list about pharmacology. Do you know why? Because pharmacists learn about pharmacology, not medical doctors. Medical doctors don’t memorize the ingredients to the drugs they look up. They can look up ingredients and side effects on their laptop. If you want to discuss drug ingredients, find a pharmacist.

Six: Barbara Loe implies that all manner of pediatric health issues are all on the rise and, therefore, must be related to the increase in vaccines. She states that the worst public health report card in history coincides with the increase in vaccines. But let’s take a look at the actual data. This report, from AAP, noted that the prevalence of disability increased 16.3 percent from 2001-2002 to 2009-2010 with more children today having a disability than a decade ago, and the greatest increase is among kids in higher-income families. But, “while neurodevelopmental and mental health-related disabilities increased, those due to physical conditions decreased.” “The survey did not break out autism, but we suspect that some of the increase in neurodevelopmental disabilities is due to the rising incidence or recognition of autism spectrum disorders,” Dr. Houtrow said. ”

We also know, from my research project last summer, that shifting diagnosis codes is responsible for the increase in autism diagnosis. And, we know that increases in special education funding and programming have resulted in more children being diagnosed with learning disabilities who would have been ignored in past generations.

We also know that SIDS and infant mortality rates are at all time lows, in USA.

Therefore, it is a lie to say that pediatric health issues are on the rise.

Seven: Paul brings up how doctors were promoting cigarettes in the 1950s and implies vaccines are similarly waiting for studies to be done on them. This is a bit silly but since it is brought up often by those opposed to vaccines, I am going to give it some time. As you can tell from this 1956 Atlantic Article, science knew a great deal about how cigarettes were related to cancer, even back as far as the 1930s. “The year 1950 saw the publication of four independent statistical studies, each of which established a significantly higher percentage of heavy cigarette smokers among lung cancer patients than among any other group. There have now been more than fourteen similar studies, and without exception they arrive at this same conclusion.” So, why did doctors promote cigarettes in the 1950s? Well, because they were fake doctors in advertisements. The tobacco companies were not yet required to list warning about cigarettes and advertisers were allowed to lie back then. Laws changed in the 1960s. The Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act was not enacted until 1965. So, it is a lie to say that doctors were promoting cigarettes and there was not science about them being health hazards.

Eight: Paul comes back on to talk about how doctors don’t know what to look for, with regard to vaccine reactions. He says no one has looked at whether the unvaccinated have febrile seizures or die of SIDS.  He talks about how there are more allergies, more ADHD, etc and they have not been studied in relation to vaccines. (Does he really not know that these questions have been answered already? See #2)   Here is some information about febrile seizures. A lot is known about how they connect with vaccines. Some vaccines can cause a fever which could cause a febrile (fever) seizure. This is not epilepsy and it is not a vaccine issue, per se, but that some toddlers are prone to a seizure with a fever. An illness could also cause the seizure. We also know that vaccines cut risk of sids in half and that sids rate is at an all time low, in USA. 

Nine: Barbara  brings up how vaccines are unavoidably unsafe. Toni reiterates this point. Toni claims that judges don’t understand this point when she discusses it with them. Unavoidably unsafe refers to a legal case Bruesewitz v. Wyeth. Dorit Rubinstein Reiss explains that it means “these products are beneficial enough that society wants to encourage their manufacturing. Therefore, while strict liability would be applied to most products, a manufacturer that prepared a drug or vaccine carefully and warned consumers of its risks should not have to pay for the side effects of a drug or vaccine whose benefits outweigh the risks unless that manufacturer can be shown to have been negligent.” Therefore, vaccines are not unsafe.

Ten: Mike Adams, the Health Ranger comes on to claim that vaccines are advertised as 100% risk-free, that the vaccine risk are ignored. He claims the vaccine injury wants us to ignore the risk-benefit ratio. He does not explain why he thinks the risk from vaccines is “very very high.” I am sure Mike knows that vaccine information sheets fully state the risks and that disease risks are much higher. Therefore, he is lying to viewers.  Here is a great explanation of risks of diseases versus vaccines from the National Center for Immunisation in Australia.

Sidebar to #10: Ty brings up the vaccine injury awards paid out. He mentions the risks but does not qualify them. We know that 5200 claims of vaccine injury have been compensated, along with attorney fees, in 30 years. We also know that we’ve given out 3 billion (at least) vaccines in those 30 years. Why does Ty not mention that makes vaccines 99.999984% safe?

 

As you can see, there were a great many mistruths and outright lies told in this first episode of The Truth about Vaccines. I hope this information helps you to debunk the film. Look for episode 2 debunking soon!

Some information about Ty Bollinger

Official biography

Woman following his protocol died unnecessary death

Ty Bollinger’s pseudoscience

 

As always, remember to think for yourself.

 

Kathy