Some of you may already know that for antivaxers the center of the vaccine universe is the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The mothership of the pro-vaccine movement is ACIP or the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Led by Dr Amanda Cohn, of the CDC, this committee makes the official recommendations on vaccine practices to the US Government.
This week, antivaxers descended on the ACIP meeting, as part of a coordinated effort called Inundate the CDC ACIP meetings. Apparently, they believe if they attend these meetings and wake up the ACIP “sheeple,” then all will be well in the world. A lot of very active antivax mums (and one guy) attended.
ETA: Here is one of the videos I watched of their testimony.
In this picture, you can see Denise Marie, who thinks her daughter’s teenage depression is a side effect of HPV vaccine. You can see Hillary Simpson, the #crazymothers who thinks her son’s tummy troubles are a vaccine reaction. There is Jamie Juarez who thinks her son’s autism is a vaccine reaction. Susie Corgan who also thinks her son’s autism is a vaccine reaction. Jaclyn Gallion, who seemingly has no reason to be in attendance. And so on. This is a gallery of women and one man who is a chiropractor, who decided that they needed to tell the committee their vaccine injury stories. Only, none of their stories are actually vaccine injuries. So, it is highly likely the ACIP committee members half listened politely, knowing these are #crazymothers.
SIGH
So, what did they want? They wanted to tell their stories and ask questions, only ACIP members don’t answer questions during public comment periods. So, what did they say? Well, I watched the video on the Inundate Facebook page and here is what they said:
Susie Corgan, in the sleeveless black dress in back, who is on the board of Informed Choice Washington, spoke about how her son is autistic because of vaccines. Except vaccines don’t cause autism. She asked if the ACIP members are listening to their stories? My question is why would they listen to something irrational?
Tia Severina also has a son with autism and a daughter on the autism spectrum. She does not believe the rise in autism is due to better diagnosis. She is the mom in the red jacket in front. She believes the bad science in books saying that vaccines cause autism. She believes genetics cause 1% of autism and the rest is environmental. She believes the vaccine safety studies are missing. She believes the cherry picking.
Next up was Teresa Berg from Michigan. She claims that we, as a society, accept ADHD, autism, ASD, speech delays, cancer, and or as normal. I am not sure where she got this idea. She believes vaccines cause all these childhood issues and doctors ignore vaccine reactions. She believes because there are no safety studies on the entire schedule then vaccines cannot possibly be safe. But there are many safety studies.
LeeAnne Johnson has two “severely autistic little boys.” One of her children has seizures and the other has GI spasms. Of course, these can be comorbid with autism but they are not symptoms of autism. However, she believes these symptoms are all vaccine injuries and it is “very unfair.” She believes her children’s case is exactly like Hanna Poling‘s case and should have been compensated by Vaccine Court.
Jaclyn Gallion, of Washington State, spoke about how suicides are related to unvaccinated children who are excluded from outbreaks due to being unvaccinated. She claims that when children are quarantined they become depressed and attempt suicide. This is really a stretch. When you turn in a vaccine exemption form, you read that your child will be excluded during an outbreak. So, it is your responsibility, as a parent, to make sure your excluded child is cared for during the quarantine at home. Really, her point is completely irrational. She wants us to expose unvaccinated children to outbreaks because it might help their self-esteem to not have to stay home? Good lord.
Erin Marie RN (Erin Olszewski) came from Florida feels ACIP should protect our country as their number one priority. She was very teary when explaining that she was speaking for vaccine injured who have parents who could not attend this meeting. Her son, at 12 months, regressed into autism after MMR. She believes ACIP is not helping people, that vaccines are not helping people.
I wonder what we can do, as a society, to help these women understand regression can happen with genetic disorders. I believe these moms need support and we need to advocate for families who are suffering while trying to help a disabled child. If we truly supported them, perhaps they would not be so angry and blaming vaccines?
Jamie Lynn Juarez testified that her son has severe autism which she believes is really viral encephalopathy and vaccine injury. She claims to have two unvaxed healthy children and another daughter she claims is vaccine injured and recovered. She believes vaccines do injure and she claims to have testified in thousands of legal cases for vaccine injured, as a counselor. She believes there is fraud in CDC, as per JB Handley’s book. She thinks CDC should do more studies and should prescreen babies for potential vaccine injury.
Lori Ciminelli, a retired medical assistant, spoke about how, in her time, children only got 6 vaccines and now her grandchildren get 72. (Sidebar: I am forever unsure why antivaxers think protecting children from more serious diseases is a bad thing. Also, they are very bad at math as children do not get 72 shots.) She also made some appalling statements about adults with severe needs. She asked why were there no adults in diapers in the malls when she was a child? Well, Lori, there were few malls when you were a child and the special needs adults were in institutions. Nobody took them on day trips. They were warehoused like cattle. She also asked why there was no special education in her childhood. Well, Lori, special education laws were first enacted in the USA in 1975, that is why. Before then, no one with any special needs was afforded any rights. Your child who had reading trouble, was failing math, was fitchety and getting sent to the Principal’s office a lot? None of them were treated with any consideration. Your child who could not keep up with the class? He repeated the grade or was kicked out of school. Prior to 1975, the schools did not have to teach anyone who could not keep up with their peers.
Elijah Bunch, who’s son Christopher Bunch died recently and he blames HPV vaccine, spoke about his son and Brandy Vaughn, of Learn the Risk, spoke for him. She claims that HPV vaccine is linked to ADEM and paralysis. She claims she has 50 studies that verify her claims. She claims there are serious issues following HPV vaccination, all over the world. She claims there are 432 deaths related to HPV vaccine. She believes that any other pharmaceutical drug would have been removed from the market by now if those many deaths were related to it. She claims that pharmaceutical companies are not studying reports of adverse events and are not studying vaccine safety. She claims that HPV vaccine has caused thousands of deaths. She is a master cherry picker who does not understand chemistry one iota, so I have no doubt there is not much to her “evidence.”
Hillary Simpson, the #crazymothers, believes vaccine injury can be healed without pharmaceuticals. Note that she believes her son was injured by rotavirus vaccine. She asked a few questions. 1. Who thinks it is okay to recommend 72 doses of vaccines without doing a single cumulative study? 2. Who thinks it is okay to not do a vaccinated versus unvaccinated study so they can assess risk? 3. Who thinks it is okay that 54% of our children are suffering from a chronic illness? And 1 in 36 is autistic. 4. What are you, ACIP, doing to protect the children and the vaccine-induced autism epidemic? (note: Hillary is a former actress and remarkably dramatic) 5. When is ACIP going to start working towards resolution of this massive problem? (big sigh from her) 6. And when are they going to stop hiding behind “we don’t know why?” Because the #crazymothers know and they are healing their babies.
LeeAnne Anita spoke last, in my viewing. She started off with a quote from Dr Paul Offit about how one cannot really say that MMR causes autism (my take: because that is not the way science speaks) but you should get used to saying that MMR does not cause autism because otherwise, people hear a door being left open when there should not be a door left open. What Dr Offit means by this is telling people the evidence does not support vaccines as causing evidence is confusing to the average person. So, instead of say vaccines do not cause autism. It is more simple and gets to the point. But, she believes the door has been busted open because only thimerosal has been studied in relation to autism and only MMR has been studied. So, she believes vaccines could still cause autism. She does not understand why aluminum adjuvants are used as a placebo, why hep b is given to babies, why inserts say no safety studies have been done on pregnant women, and why recommendations for vaccines are only based on pharma studies. (of course, that is completely false). She wants an immediate change to the vaccine schedule and believes that Robert Kennedy Jr is correct, as quoted in the JB Handley book, that there is fraud at the CDC.
Another thing that happened this week, in conjunction with this meeting, is this group approached Dr Paul Offit and somehow convinced him to have lunch with them, off the record. I am shocked he did this but proud of him for making an attempt to hear their concerns.
Of course, they could not resist mocking him afterward and being nasty. They really don’t have any self-control. During LeeAnn’s testimony, when she was quoting Dr Offit, he was caught on video a “shoot me now” gesture towards his head. #crazymother Hillary, and the others took offense.
It was fascinating reading all their comments to each other, all over Facebook. They eventually recognized that it is likely their testimony did nothing at all to sway the committee but they hope parents will hear them and stop vaccinating. They believe the science is on their side and all provaxers are bought by pharma. It is really quite fascinating to observe them from afar. I am quite glad I was not there in person.
UPDATE: You can find all the videos to watch here.
Remember to think for yourself! Vaccines do not cause autism.
Kathy
Thanks for watching and annotating, Kathy.
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Thanks for doing that. I think Hillary Simpson also thinks her child’s autism is from vaccines, at least, that what I got from her overdone initial video.
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She thinks her son started regressing into autism. She “caught it” and was able to detox him. She has said he’s now neurotypical. His “autism” was never diagnosed by a professional.
My take is that it’s all in her head.
I love the description of each mother! Thanks for this post, I laughed when I read the part about Hillary’s dramatic reading.
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Detox is such BS. We have livers for a reason.
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I am speechless. Thanks for doing this, so that we do not have to.
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That (and one guy) you mentioned looks like the living embodiment of Stockholm Syndrome.
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Yeah, really! LOL These women are fascinating, in a scary way.
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It’s Erin Olszewski
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thanks!
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What about the Nurse who spoke about the IOM vaccine injury pairs that has fallen on deaf ears? Or the HPV quote from Susie?? Did you forget about those?
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I could have written a very long post with quotes from everyone but I chose just to highlight a few.
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Are you meaning the lady who spoke about the “IMO” and vaccine injury pairs? She was pretty rambly. She seems to think children in USA are sicker than ever when they are healthier than ever. Just because there is more special ed services doesn’t mean children are sicker.
I do not remember Susie saying anything about HPV.
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This comment is PRICELESS. 🙄 Do you actually read what you type? 😂
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Asthma and ADHD are higher amongst children living in poverty. What was the ADHD rate in 1960. Compare to today. Discuss differences in diagnosis trends.
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https://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/pages/Percentage-of-U-S–Children-Who-Have-Chronic-Health-Conditions-on-the-Rise.aspx
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Be sure to tell the ICW ladies I blogged about them! https://vaccinesworkblog.wordpress.com/2018/11/11/antivaxers-are-mean-girls/
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That abstract indicates it is more to do with poverty: “The study found more significant increases in asthma and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) among children living in poverty, as compared to their wealthier counterparts.”
and: “Among children who had public health insurance, significant increases were seen among all the chronic diseases studied.”
Do you even read the links you post?
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No, I don’t think she read what she posted.
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Rambly!?!? She was concise and coherent. Perhaps you have no answer to the lack of science regarding vaccine injury pairs found by the IOM.
Susies HPV comment was the last comment of the entire ACIP meeting.
How convenient you left them out.
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I guess Susie’s comment was not on the video I uploaded. Feel free to link to it and I will watch it and comment.
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I went back and watched Patricia Neuenschwander’s comments and I do think they are rambly. I updated this blog to put a link to the video I watched. If you have other videos you would like me to watch and comment on, please do link.
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Hey be sure to tell the ICW gals I blogged abut them! https://vaccinesworkblog.wordpress.com/2018/11/11/antivaxers-are-mean-girls/
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The only cherry picking that I know of is the IOM’s refusal to read the animal studies because they did not have a free weekend, oh, and the AAP list of studies sent to POTUS, which left of a ton of studies on vaccines and autism, and on thimerosal, oh, and the CDC website, which also does not list an unbiased literature, oh, then there’s Paul Offit’s papers, which fail to cite the balance of the literature, and Peter Hotez, who conveniently cannot find the extensive literature even though I’ve sent him the studies personally. When a person authors a book to show the studies that were ignored, that’s not cherry picking. That’s setting the record straight. These ladies who showed up have class, and they know gaslighting when the see it.
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What kind of dressing do you want on that word salad, James? That is just one of the many reasons no one takes you seriously anymore:
https://respectfulinsolence.com/2018/10/19/adventures-of-a-science-based-mole-at-an-antivaccine-crankfest-conclusion/
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Hi Jack. I noticed, from screenshots of Jaclyn’s page, that you were headed this way. You would think you, being a master cherry picker yourself, would understand what I mean by “master cherry picker.”
Yes, when a person authors a book full of bad studies and ignores that they are not valid, they are a master cherry picker.
Those ladies do not have class. Classy people don’t poke fun at how others look and they don’t make videos of themselves giving doctors the finger. There is no class in that group at all.
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Please do tell Jaclyn I enjoyed reading her thread https://vaccinesworkblog.wordpress.com/2018/11/11/antivaxers-are-mean-girls/
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Thank you for this summary. Unfortunately these people think they are significant and they have relevance. They do not. I couldn’t make it past the first speaker.
Who is funding their travel and expenses?
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I am not sure how they paid for their travel. Some of them do have non profit organizations.
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Jamie Juarez was prosecuted by the Board of Behavioral Sciences to have her therapist license revoked due to significant mental health issues, drug usage, very bizarre behavior, and she was arrested and charged for exposing her genitals to children at a school. Ultimately, her license was suspended for a year and she is now on probation for several more years. She has a documented history of grandiose statements and making false statements. And she is continuing this behavior. She recently made grandiose and misleading statements on a public video. I think that she is a sick person who feels the need to portray herself as bigger than she is, precisely because she is in fact incompetent.
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Holy cow! I know she also recently lost custody of her autistic son. Wow.
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