Dear Joshua Coleman, if you hate the autism then, you hate the autistic person.

 

Dear Joshua Coleman,

Something that has always bothered me a lot about the antivax camp is how it is common for you all to not only believe vaccines cause autism but insist that you are working FOR the autistic community with this mind set. Just this week, you insisted that you love everyone, including people on the autism spectrum, but you hate the autism and want the person recovered, cured, or you want to prevent autism from happening in the first place.

You can watch the video on Twitter here and on Facebook here.

 

Newsflash: If you hate the autism, you hate the person. 

Would you like to know why I say this? Because, I have read a great deal about autism and talked for years with people on the autism spectrum. And I have a child on the spectrum. I have friends on the spectrum. I have friends with children on the spectrum. I teach children on the spectrum. I know that adults on the spectrum almost universally see their autism as part of who they are and they like who they are. They don’t want to be cured. They don’t want to be prevented from existence. They want to be accepted. I know my own child wants to be accepted for who she is. I know the children I work with want love and acceptance.  Autism is part of the very being for autistic individuals.  Science tells us vaccines do not cause autism and the autism community is telling us they want to be accepted for whom they are. Antivax ideas have been debunked again and again.  It is not for us in the neurotypical world to judge them. We must listen to them and accept them.

From an essay on The Mighty:

But in “curing” autism, they’re removing every part of me that’s autistic. Take that away, and I’m not me anymore! My autism affects every part of who I am. It colors all my experiences.

Persons on the autism spectrum do not see themselves as a person WITH autism but as an AUTISTIC person. This is why you see so many persons on the spectrum using Identity-First language.

From an essay on The Autism Self Advocacy Network website:

In the autism community, many self-advocates and their allies prefer terminology such as “Autistic,” “Autistic person,” or “Autistic individual” because we understand autism as an inherent part of an individual’s identity — the same way one refers to “Muslims,” “African-Americans,” “Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer,” “Chinese,” “gifted,” “athletic,” or “Jewish.” On the other hand, many parents of Autistic people and professionals who work with Autistic people prefer terminology such as “person with autism,” “people with autism,” or “individual with ASD” because they do not consider autism to be part of an individual’s identity and do not want their children to be identified or referred to as “Autistic.” They want “person-first language,” that puts “person” before any identifier such as “autism,” in order to emphasize the humanity of their children.

So, it is with great sadness that I say to you, Joshua Coleman: you are wrong.  You are wrong in comparing autism to cancer. You are wrong in believing your antivax protests are for the benefit of autistic persons.  You are wrong.

*****************************************************************************

For those of you who don’t know Joshua Coleman, let me introduce you. Josh lives in the Sacramento, California, USA area and has two sons. His first son, Otto, woke up paralyzed one morning at about age 12 months. At some point, Josh started to believe his son’s condition resulted from a vaccine injury. He has been an active antivax campaigner ever since.  He travelled with the Vaxxed movie team for a long time, on their bus, as a videographer.

Lately, Josh has been organizing protests to vaccines where he and his friends dress up in costumes or printed tees and use signs he created to protest at events like ComicCons or Immunization Conferences.  They also like to protest celebrities, like Kristen Bell and Jimmy Kimmel, who stand up for immunizations.  He has been to San Diego Comic-Con  and numerous other events.  He calls his protests V is for Vaccine and has set up a website to show the public how to make the protest signs.  Of course, I have already addressed how the signs not factual. 

Recently, he created a live post on Facebook where he tells us that autism is an injury and a disorder. [scroll up for links]  He tells about an encounter with a person “in the neurodiversity movement.” He says “the neurodiverse are people on the autism spectrum who believe that having autism is just like being black or Chinese.”  “It is not really an injury, it is just like, it is normal, that autism is normal.”  “I believe and most people believe that autism is, quote, a disorder, it is an injury, it is an impairment.” He goes on to say how just because he wants to stop autism from happening he does not hate autism.  Rather, he feels that autism is like his father’s cancer: you can love the person and still hate the health issue.

***************************************************************************

Back to you, Josh. Let’s go back to the Autism Self Advocacy Network, which is a large group of autism supporters, advocates, and actually autistic individuals, none of whom you have ever actually met.

One argument I encountered in one of the more cogently-written papers in favor of person-first language expostulates that because cancer patients are referred to as “people with cancer” or “people who have cancer,” as opposed to “cancerous people,” the same principle should be used with autism. There are some fundamental flaws with this analogy, however.

Cancer is a disease that ultimately kills if not treated or put into long-term remission. There is absolutely nothing positive, edifying, or meaningful about cancer. Cancer is not a part of a person’s identity or the way in which an individual experiences and understands the world around him or her. It is not all-pervasive.

Autism, however, is not a disease. It is a neurological, developmental condition; it is considered a disorder, and it is disabling in many and varied ways. It is lifelong. It does not harm or kill of its own accord. It is an edifying and meaningful component of a person’s identity, and it defines the ways in which an individual experiences and understands the world around him or her. It is all-pervasive.

Joshua, spend some time talking to actually autistic individuals outside your Vaxxed movement.  You will see that there is a huge difference between how antivax parents talk about their children and how autism advocates and provax persons talk about autism.  Visit the The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism and learn from people who are autistic and/or have autistic children and KNOW vaccines do not cause autism. You could also learn from the Ed Wiley Austim Library, from which the narwhals derive.

You will also see that autism is a spectrum. Sure, there are some people on the autism spectrum who have very high needs and have not been taught to use the potty and have not been afforded the benefit of assistive communication technology. Some of them use aggressive, socially unacceptable behavior as a means of communicating frustration and confusion and anger. They do this likely because nobody helped them find another way to communicate, not because this is what autism is like. With assistive technology, picture symbols, or sign language, they could learn to communicate. They could even learn to use the potty but it takes effort. It takes therapy. It takes patience. Special Education teachers, like myself, can help. Most persons on the autism spectrum don’t meet your stereotype of autism. Most persons on the spectrum can communicate and are potty trained and do not bang their heads.  (Note: these are typical stereotypes of autism commonly used in the antivax community.)

Most people on the autism spectrum fall in the levels 1 or 2.  31% of those diagnosed on the autism spectrum also have an intellectual disability. One third are non-verbal which means they have very limited verbal abilities but can learn to communicate with technology and/or sign language. Many autistic adult bloggers are “non-verbal” but communicate just fine with technology.

Source and source

Here is a look at the three levels of autism:

Most autistic persons fall in levels 1 or 2 but you seem to only talk about level three and even then you only seem to speak of the most highly disabled persons. I feel the autistics you know likely did not have very good therapies as children. That is a tragedy.  Most autistics, including my own child, are not like your stereotypes. My child requires some support, occasionally substantial support, so I would call her a 1.5. The vast majority of persons on the autism spectrum fall in levels 1 or 2.  Those in level three very often have co-morbidities (other diagnoses) which affect their abilities.

You do not speak for my child. You do not speak for the autism community.  You speak only for antivaxers who irrationally blame vaccines for autism.

Your words are hurtful.

Your words are harmful.

You hate autism. And, you also obviously hate people on the spectrum.

Please, spend some time learning what autism is like from the point of view of the actually autistic. #actuallyautistic will help you find them.

 

Learn. Grow.  Be a better person.

 

 

Kathy

 

 

Del Bigtree is stubborn

So, I took another one for the team. Happy reading.

Well, I got a bit famous this week as Del Bigtree not only seems to have read my blog but mentioned me, by name, and my blog on a recent show. The post he mentions is entitled Del Bigtree is not a scientist and is about how Del’s antivax organization, Informed Consent Action Network, wrote to the USA’s Health and Human Services department about vaccine safety concerns and the HHS reply was rather stunning.  My friend Dorit also wrote about it over at Skeptical Raptor.

 

Now, Del has replied to HHS and, in his video about it, he mentions my blog and Dorit’s.  Kinda made me giggle to be so famous so I have watched the video and read his document. You can find a copy of Del’s letter to HHS here. This is his second letter to HHS.  If you get confused, links to all letters are at the end of this post.

First of all, he thinks he did not get answers to his original questions.

HHS’s letter begins with the incorrect claim that the safety of many pediatric vaccines was investigated in clinical trials that included a placebo, and falsely implies these trials are typically longer than mere days or weeks. (Section I below). It then fails to support the safety of injecting babies with the Hepatitis B vaccine (Section II) and reaffirms HHS’s refusal to: automate VAERS reporting (Section III); research the most commonly claimed vaccine-injury pairs (Section IV); identify which children will suffer a serious vaccine injury (Section V); pause claiming “Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism” until it has the studies to support this claim (Section VI); conduct vaccinated versus unvaccinated studies (Section VII); purge itself of conflicts of interest (Section VIII); or use the Vaccine Safety Datalink and PRISM to actually improve vaccine safety (Section IX). 

Del’s first complaint is that many vaccines were tested without a placebo. What he means is that not all vaccines were tested with saline placebo. For example, the Boostrix vaccine for tetanus, pertussis, and diphtheria, a tetanus-diphtheria vaccine was used as the placebo. He goes on to list other vaccines which use an older vaccine or an adjuvant as placebo instead of saline. This is a common source of concern amongst antivaxers who don’t realize or don’t understand how placebos can be other than saline and be a valid placebo. The World Health Organization has a great document detailing the ethical framework for use of placebos in vaccine trials.

Placebo use in vaccine trials is clearly acceptable when (a) no efficacious and safe vaccine exists and (b) the vaccine under consideration is intended to benefit the population in which the vaccine is to be tested. In this situation, a placebo-controlled trial addresses the locally relevant question regarding the extent to which the new vaccine is better than nothing, and participants in the placebo arm of the trial are not deprived of the clinical benefits of an existing efficacious vaccine.

Placebo use in vaccine trials is clearly unacceptable when (a) a highly efficacious and safe vaccine exists and is currently accessible in the public health system of the country in which the trial is planned and (b) the risks to participants of delaying or foregoing the available vaccine cannot be adequately minimized or mitigated (e.g. by providing counselling and education on behavioural disease prevention strategies, or ensuring adequate treatment for the condition under study to prevent serious harm). In this situation, a placebo-controlled trial would not address a question that is relevant in the local context, namely how the new vaccine compares to the one that is currently in use, and participants would be exposed to unacceptable levels of risk from delaying or foregoing a safe and effective vaccine that is accessible through the public health system.

The World Health Organization clearly considers that saline placebos are not required or even ethical in most vaccine trials. The original response to Del from HHS mentioned that inert placebos are not required. Del is not learning.

At this point, I am able to skip over the next 17 pages of Del’s document as his argument about saline placebos is not valid.

His next concern is that hepatitis b vaccine trials were only 4-5 days long. As I pointed in my post, Hepatitis B Vaccine is safe and necessary, 

Del is concerned that the Hep B vaccine was only tested for 4 days during the pre-licensing phase. This comes from the insert, of course, and it is actually stated that children in the clinical trial were monitored for 5 days after the vaccine. Of course, we know the limitations of vaccine inserts.  Del, however, seems to be unaware of the safety and efficacy testing that is done after the insert was written. Let me give you a little research hint. If you want to find studies related to a vaccine, go to the CDC’s page for that vaccine and click on the information for providers and healthcare professionals. This is where they list the safety and efficacy studies.  The parent information section is written much more simply.  In the provider section, you can find a lot of research information, including the link to the recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization (ACIP)’s document on Hepatitis B virus and vaccination. This document has a long list of safety and efficacy data, including data analysis from the vaccine safety datalink (VSD) and the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). A great deal of safety study has been done AFTER the clinical trial.

This is exactly what the first HHS letter told Del. Del just doesn’t believe in facts. But, Del, I have to tell that you just because you don’t like the answers does not make them wrong. It makes you stubborn.

Del’s next concern is that because saline placebos are not used he feels HHS has abandoned this duty by not requiring long-term placebo-controlled clinical trials. Without such trials, the actual safety profile of each pediatric vaccine, or any combination thereof, cannot be determined before they are – pursuant to HHS’s childhood vaccine schedule – injected into millions of American children. Once that happens, HHS becomes utterly conflicted from funding or conducting research that may find that a vaccine HHS previously licensed and recommended does, in fact, cause significant harm to more than a few children.

This is again an example of Del not liking the answers he gets. But, that does not make him right. Vaccines go through a minimum of 10-15 years of testing at many levels, but Del focuses only on the clinical trial phase.  There is a great deal more to vaccine safety study, including post-licensure monitoring of vaccines. You can read more about all the stages here. 

Del’s next questions are about VAERS, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. (note that Del calls it the “report” system, misspelling it.)  In the original response to Del, he was told the recent improvements HHS had made to VAERS. HHS tells Del that they are studying and exploring options to link VAERS with health centers around the country. Del implies, in his second letter, that HHS refused to cooperate with a health system called Harvard Pilgrim. Del feels vaccine safety efforts should be moved forward swiftly but connecting a government database to medical center databases around the country seems like such a huge job to me that I can see why HHS is moving slowly.

Again, Del is criticizing the answers he is getting. That does not make the answers wrong.

A good bulk of the next part of letter 2 is about more criticisms of vaccine safety. Del believes vaccines have not been studied enough and HHS disagrees.

The next section of Del’s letter is about HHS not funding enough research to determine who is at risk for vaccine injury. HHS gave him two links to read but he is not satisfied with them and he finds pharmaceutical funding linked to one of the scientists involved thus, in his mind, tainting the findings. Del’s concern is that Between 2015 and 2017, HHS spent over $14 billion purchasing and promoting the universal use of HHS recommended vaccines. 281 During this same time period, HHS certainly could and should have funded more than two studies seeking to identify which children should be excluded from receiving one or more vaccines in order to prevent a serious vaccine injury.282 This research should also not be conducted by individuals who receive funding from the pharmaceutical company whose vaccine product is being reviewed. 

I will say that it could go further to appease antivaxers if HHS did conduct more than two studies in this area and if they helped to fund a study from a large health organization of vaccinated versus unvaccinated patients and health outcomes. I don’t agree with Del that the science is lacking nor do I think 10,000 studies would change his mind but a few more would be good. Vaccine injury is very rare but if we knew more about it antivaxers might feel better.

Del’s 9th concern is that the vaccine-autism connection has not been fully studied. He wants HHS to study the connection between DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis vaccine) and autism. He also feels the hepatitis b vaccine given at birth should be studied for a relationship to autism. His latter concern is based on a very badly done “study” which correlated hep b vaccine with autism. This is a very weak study that has been widely discredited. Apparently, Del missed that memo. Del did not specify why he wants DTaP studied but my guess is the aluminum adjuvant, which is widely touted by antivaxers as causing autoimmunity and autism. Of course, that has also been widely discredited. You can find info on that here and here and here.  Del also brings up the long-ago debunked “cdc whistleblower” nonsense. Seriously Del? We are all getting pretty tired of that dead horse. If you want more reading on that dead horse, you can go here and here.

I guess Del has a minor point here that saying vaccines do not cause autism isn’t 100% valid as not all vaccines have been studied. Perhaps we needed a better way to put it that vaccines have been extensively studied and enough evidence has been found that unvaccinated get autism and that MMR (measles mumps rubella vaccine) is not linked with autism that it is time to move on from the idea that vaccines cause autism. Antivaxers first thought mercury caused autism. When thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative was removed from pediatric vaccines, autism rate did not drop. They then moved on to blaming MMR because of the timing of the most notable symptoms of autism. That has been debunked so now they want to blame aluminum adjuvants. This comes from Claire Dwoskin whose Dwoskin Foundation funds the Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute (CMSRI).  CMSRI is the funding agent behind most of the recent (shoddy) research linking aluminum to autism. You can read about that here here here and here.

Del is further concerned that HHS has supposedly ignored something from a Dr. Andrew Zimmerman about autism and vaccines. Del claims that Department of Justice lawyers misled Vaccine Court by presenting a report from Dr. Andrew Zimmerman in which he stated MMR and thimerosal-containing vaccines do not cause autism, even though Dr. Zimmerman has told them that there are exceptions in which vaccines may cause autism. However, as my friend Dorit explains here, there is no new evidence that vaccines cause autism so Dr. Zimmerman’s words mean nothing.

The rest of Del’s second letter is about how he feels HHS has bias and they should study children’s health issues with regard to vaccines more. This is all his opinion and it comes from a place of passionately believing children would be 100% healthy if we had no vaccines at all. People like Del believe all children’s health problems stem from vaccines and are vaccine injuries. Rising rates of autism, learning disabilities, special services, allergies, and you name it are all the fault of vaccines, to Del. This is irrational and there is no reason for HHS to take his complaints seriously.

The stated purpose of vaccination is to improve the overall quality of health of Americans and reduce mortality. Yet, the increase in HHS’s childhood vaccine schedule over the last 30 years from 8 vaccine injections to 50 vaccine injections (plus 2 injections during pregnancy) has occurred in lockstep with the increase in the rate of autoimmune, developmental and neurological disorders in children from 12.8% to 54%. HHS has no explanation for why U.S. children today are plagued with a chronic disease and disability epidemic. 

This 54% claim comes from a study of referrals to insurance companies for services. This study was originally published on the Age of Autism blog in 2011 and has since become a huge part of the antivax rhetoric machine. You can read the full study here.  Someday, I am going to write a blog post just about this study but the gist is here in this figure.

 

Most of the children in the study who required special services are obese. 43.2% as of May 2011 when this study was published.  That has nothing whatsoever to do with vaccines. Risk of developmental delay is likely linked to the number of premature babies surviving birth and the number of drug-addicted babies surviving birth, not vaccines. This study was conducted with children born before vaccines were recommended in pregnancy so there is no link there. Allergies and asthma have been proven not to be caused by vaccines and are more likely resulting from the late introduction of solid foods, air pollution, and over cleaning (the hygiene hypothesis). When I was a child in the 1970s, there were definitely children who should have been treated for what we now call learning disabilities, ADD, ADHD, autism, anxiety, depression, Asperger’s, PDD, and Tourette but they were ignored. There was no special education!  The first special education law was enacted in 1975 in USA and took decades and numerous lawsuits to get to where we are today. These things are not new. We are just only now defining, diagnosing, and treating them.  High school graduation rate in USA has gone up from 41% in 1960 to 89% in 2017.  Why don’t antivaxers pay attention to that statistic? Between 1980 and 2009, premature infant birth rate rose 36%, but again antivaxers don’t pay attention to details.  They just want to blame everything on vaccines because that sounds easy. They passionately want to believe that humans would be perfectly healthy if we had clean water, flush toilets, some CBD oil, some Plexus Pink drink, a small fortune in supplements, weekly chiropractic adjustments, and some magic crystals. (I am not kidding, that is the impression I get from them)

But infant mortality and SIDS rates are at all-time lows in USA. I blogged about that here and linked to the data. Child hospitalization rates are down.  Child cancer rate has not changed much since 1970 but the cancer survival rate is higher.

Why don’t antivaxers pay attention to these statistics?  From the perspective of this mom, autism mom, special education teacher, and informed human, LIFE IS BETTER NOW THAN EVER. (aside from Trump but that’s another topic)

 

Del’s final plea to HHS is that he wants an independent board to review vaccine safety. He does not agree that the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) or the Institute of Medicine (IOM)  groups are good enough for the American people. He thinks the Vaccine Safety Datalink studies are not good enough because when a VSD study is conducted by HHS, in violation of basic scientific standards and process, the underlying raw data is almost never available for inspection by the public and other scientists.  Refusal to make this data available raises serious concerns regarding reproducibility and transparency. HHS regulations, in fact, provide severe penalties if researchers, using HHS funding, refuse to share data underlying their studies, but HHS does not apply this same standard to their own VSD studies. Third, the secret studies that HHS performs using the VSD with secret data are virtually all squarely aimed at increasing vaccine uptake, even for uses and in populations not approved by the FDA. This concern about Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) studies is interesting to me because he is basically asking our government to violate the privacy act, HIPAA.  The VSD members can study reports to VAERS made from their own patients because they can access the medical records. Del wants our government to allow independent researchers to access people’s medical records?  Sorry, Del, but that is not going to happen.

The other vaccine safety study database is called PRISM and Del is concerned about that, as well, saying Like the VSD, it is unlikely HHS will use PRISM to publish a study that confirms any serious widespread harm from vaccination. If it did, HHS would be developing the very science that would then be used against it in Vaccine Court, potentially resulting in crippling financial liability as well as loss of reputation. Thus, he is saying that the government is colluding with the pharmaceutical industry to hide vaccine injuries because the pharmaceutical industry would be crippled by the liability.  Del, if there was any hint that vaccine makers would be held liable for more claims, they would just stop making vaccines. That is what happened in the 1980s and why we have the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act in the first place.

 

Furthermore, special needs children cost the US government a lot of money. They would save a lot of money if something as simple as not vaccinating could prevent special needs from existing. I think it is irrational to conclude that our government would collude with pharmaceutical companies so much that they get more money from pharma than special needs children cost. Just completely irrational.

At this point, I am stunned that Del believes his own misinterpretations. I think ZdoggMD is right here, that antivaxers lack critical thinking skills and are stuck in the concrete stage of thinking.

I sincerely hope HHS ignores this letter Del sent them because he does not deserve a reply. He will never learn from them, no matter what they say. Del Bigtree has issues with vaccines because he is as stubborn as a mule and won’t learn he is wrong.

 

With one large sigh, I bid you adieu

 

Kathy

 

HHS reponse to Del’s First letter to HHS

Del’s Second letter to HHS

All letters to and from Del and HHS

 

PS By the way Del, one of your fans once contacted me on Twitter and asked me to debate you. I replied that if you ever want to come to Bellingham, WA, I will gladly sit down with you for coffee, off the record, not cameras or recording. Why? Because I am always up for a chat but I don’t want to risk having my image or words edited in a way that could be used against me.

 

Antivaxers are mean girls

 

 

I have noticed that antivaxers have a tendency to attack provaxers with what I would call immature vitriol. Vitriol is a term from chemistry meaning caustic but it fits their behavior perfectly. We see it often when they make nasty memes about Dr. Richard Pan or Dr. Paul Offit or my very kind and sweet friend Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, a legal scholar with expertise in vaccine law.  Here is an example of the kind of immature and vitriolic posts and memes they make, this one about California Senator, Dr. Richard Pan.

 

 

This week, some of the ladies from Informed Choice Washington, the antivax group in my fair state, chose to aim their vitriol at me. This came after I watched two of them, Susie Corgan and Jaclyn Gallion, testify at the latest ACIP meeting.  Jaclyn apparently took offense and posted about it on her Facebook wall.  [Sidenote: I find it funny that she has me blocked but I still get sent screenshots. Nothing is private online!]

 

Let’s go through her thread.

 

So, in this post, Jaclyn posted a link to my last blog post. She thinks I took the photos from her but I actually gathered from friends who found them around the internet. Webster defines “Gaslight” as “manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity.”  I am not sure what she thinks is gaslighting about my comment.  I did not call her sanity into question at all.

 

 

Next up we have Sandy who used to bug me on Twitter about debating Del Bigtree. I always said I would be fine with doing it if he could promise to not record audio or video.  Given what he does with clips, how nasty he can be, why would I trust him not to manipulate my words?  She never did set that up. I am not worried about how I look so her comment is very strange. I could make a comment about Del’s looks right now but I am going to rise above.

I did leave a lot out of my post about their ACIP commentary, that is true. I did not feel the need to comment on every single woman’s thoughts.

 

 

This made me laugh. I won an award from the CDC, as you can see in my about page, but I had to prove no ties to pharma to qualify. I love how they blindly believe each other without verifying a thing.

 

I am not sure what Jaclyn means about trolling. I don’t know anything about her children and I never post on other people’s pages unless we are FB friends. I have never posted on Jaclyn’s FB page.  As for Chris, she posted more than once about her son and so I made a few comments about him. He and my daughter have the same diagnosis so I figured we could chat. She took great offense and blocked me. I found that confusing since she opened the door by labeling him as autistic. [shrug]

Oh, an I am not a member of the Antivax Wall of Shame. I actually find that group too negative and have never been a member. Go ahead and check their membership.

 

I am not sure what Drella is talking about. I had several friends help me edit my blog post about them.  I did find one more typo today.  I would be more than happy to entertain Drella’s edits if she wanted to send them to me.  It certainly seems remarkably petty, to me, to make the comment she did with no specifics.

Hi Jack! Always like to see you on my blog. I miss bantering with you, now that you blocked me on Twitter and Facebook.

 

 

I am not sure who the Housers are. I will have to look. As for hairy actually, I am quite not hairy. LOL  It is telling that Michele, whom I don’t know at all, called me those names. is that really what matters to her? Not the science, just the way someone looks to her?  And is she really THAT perfect that she is above criticism?

 

 

I don’t appreciate negativity so I have Craig Egan and all his iterations on block. But, hey, thanks for thinking we are that organized that we are one and the same! What a funny comment!

 

 

I am not sure how they think I can be a troll if I don’t troll antivax pages.  A troll is a person whose seeks out the opposition and posts to argue. For example, when these ladies post on the Spokane Regional Health District Facebook page or the Washington State Department of Health Facebook page, they are being trolls because they always argue with page admin’s points. I am the supporter as I always post a positive, supportive comment.  I consider immunization very important but I never go to antivax pages and post. Never. I support the provax, pro-science message, which is the opposite of trolling.

As for my children, what an incredibly low blow for Ms Humphries to make that comment. My children are amazing and beautiful and smart and respectful and amazing. I am incredibly blessed to have a teenager and a tweenager who still enjoy my company and both get all As and Bs in school. One qualifies as gifted and the other is a gifted artist. One plays musical instruments, volleyball, and dances jazz. The older one is on the autism spectrum and her path has not been smooth but she is one of the most incredible people I have ever known in my life and every single speedbump in our lives has led to her being the person she is and I would not change a thing. Not one single thing. She is incredible.

I had a moderate reaction to the MMR in graduate school. My arm swelled up like a tennis ball was in it and it was very painful for about a week. That is not severe but did report it to VAERS and I was told the next MMR might cause a worse reaction.  Luckily, 27 years later, I had my titers run and I am still immune!

Erin’s comment is the worst.  What kind of person thinks this of people they don’t even know? It’s astounding. I will pray for her soul.

 

So, now they make fun of my wardrobe from 2015 when I testified in front of the Washington State House Committee on Healthcare at my state capital, Olympia. I wore a brand new abstract floral blouse and navy slacks. Apparently, that was not good enough for them. They didn’t recall a thing that I said but my wardrobe stood out.  [snort – you just have to laugh at this level of immaturity]

As for my weight, I am not obese. I wear a size 16 and am tall with broad shoulders. I am not as thin as a rail but my own doctor says I am fine. Why does it matter to them if I am skinny or not?  Several well known antivax advocates are quite overweight but that is not why we disagree with them.  Their weight is not the issue. Their belief that vaccines cause autism is the issue!  Focus ladies! Focus on the issues! Being pretty or not doesn’t matter!  

Apparently, Laira does not realize her boyfriend is really just a chiropractor. He is not a medical doctor. He is not a “functional medicine doctor” because he is only licensed as a chiropractor.  I love my chiro for helping my extra straight back and neck but I am very glad he does not deviate from straightening joints and backs.  Why on earth should I consider a chiropractor knows anything at all about immunology? They are not trained in immunology. They are good for nothing except putting joints back into place.

And, again, I did not listen to all the comments from the ACIP meeting. Feel free to link me to any you want to consider.

Jaclyn, your comment is about as vile as Suzanne’s.  Seriously, in what world do you think it is acceptable to say that kind of thing?  I see beautiful children daily and help them succeed. None of them are “vaccine injured” and I certainly would never look at one of them and ever think “you are damaged.”

 

 

I call a spade a spade. Antivaxers are those opposed to vaccines for reasons not based on sound science. I certainly don’t call all people on the fence about vaccines “anti” because that would not reflect their thinking. And where do I harass people? I never troll antivax pages. Ever. Also, as I pointed out earlier in this post, Chris brought up her son and I then commented. If she had not mentioned him and his issues, I would never have said a thing.

Moral: If you don’t want people to comment on your family, never mention your family.

 

I am a glass half full kinda gal and it always surprises me when people get so negative and irrational in vaccine discussions.  To me, the issues are science and safety studies and efficacy data, not personal issues like looks, what one wore, or one’s weight. If we wanted to make it personal, we could bring up a lot of well-known antivaxers who are obese, smoke, heavily tattooed, ugly, and/or look very ill. But that is beside the point. When we talk about public health, our looks are not the point. The point is what does the science tells us. If you have to deviate from the science and mock a person’s looks and comments, you have lost the debate. You are being a “mean girl.” You are being vitriolic and immature. You are showing the world you have no valid argument on your side and you are so immature that acting like a catty 14-year-old gossiping behind the backs of others is the only choice you have left.  What kind of person are you inside?

I am going to always stick to the science. There are no studies which show vaccines to have greater risks than benefits. Vaccines do not cause autism.

Seriously, these ladies are ridiculous.

 

Have a great day

 

Kathy

Mrs Antivaxer goes to Atlanta!

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

 

Provax autism mom reads JB Handley’s “Autism Epidemic” book

Yes, indeed, this pro-vaccine mom of one spectacular autistic teenage girl spent the last few days reading JB Handley’s new book, How to End the Autism Epidemic.  Please be aware this blog post is going to be very long because I want to cover everything.

 

I hemmed and hawed about whether I should read it or not but, in the end, I decided it was worth the $10 for the Kindle version to have something to say when antivaxers post a link to it, which they are doing often lately.  The Kindle version did not have page numbers so please note that all quotes are referenced to book section but not to exact page.

Note: please excuse the wonky spacing. I originally wrote this as a Facebook file and the formatting did not copy and paste well to Word Press. I chose not to spend an excess of time figuring out how to space every paragraph identically.

Introduction

The book dives right into the story of JB’s son,  Jamison’s, 2-month well baby visit, after which his health apparently “deteriorated” and developed eczema and insomnia. He had frequent ear infections and digestive pain. By 18 months of age, Jamison apparently was more sick, not talking much, and had what they thought were odd behaviors. JB and his wife had an “excruciating” time getting him screened for autism. (apparently a long wait list is excruciating). The diagnosis of severe autism was a nightmare for JB and his wife. They “wallowed in misery” for a long time, according to the introduction to the book. Of course, thanks to my friend, The Real Truther, we know that JB’s story has actually changed a lot over the years and JB doesn’t actually have a firm timeline for Jamison’s health issues nor is JB sure what was the cause of these issues.

One thing I note about the introduction is it is mostly about JB’s personal experiences and less about anyone else’s. As we have seen with antivax autism warriors, they really do enjoy getting attention for their troubles. And, there is no comparison to what other parent’s who have disabled children feel nor to what the children feel. This is all about JB.

The introduction ends with JB and his wife taking Jamison to an integrative doctor named Lynne Mielke. At the time, she was a Defeat Autism Now! (DAN!) doctor. Dr Mielke convinced them vaccines definitely cause autism because she said she had seen hundreds of patients with the same story as Jamison and she had seen many of them improve with her DAN! protocol. They claim that starting Jamison on this protocol helped return some of his health, including eye contact. At this point, Jamison was two years old and JB and his wife had spent a lot of time on the internet “researching” and wondering why the doctors at Universities didn’t believe in DAN! protocols. JB describes how, at this time in their lives, he was very angry and spent most of his free time “researching.” This is the point, in May 2005, where he and his wife founded Generation Rescue.

It is good to note that JB at least is not completely antivaccine. He says, in the introduction, that “While I acknowledge that vaccines provide some benefit to society in reducing cases of certain acute illnesses, they also cause brain damage in some of the vulnerable kids who receive them.” Note that he is calling autism “brain damage.”

Part one: The lies about vaccines and autism

Chapter 1: there is no autism epidemic

This chapter begins by discussing Steve Silberman’s book,  Neurotribes, which JB found very annoying. I will say that I enjoyed reading this book and own it.  At the time it was published, we were just getting our oldest formally diagnosed with autism. She had always exhibited behaviors and social skills and deficits outside the norm but it was not until she was ten years old that her doctors started talking about autism. She has what we would have once called Aspergers, but today is diagnosed Autism Spectrum Diagnosis.  Thus, I am an autism mom but I will agree that my child’s path has not been easy  but I have been blessed to not have a severely disabled child.

JB counters Silberman’s arguments with data from a book called Mental Disorders and Disabilities Among Low-Income Children and he claims that since he never knew anyone with autism when he was a child and the rate has grown so much then Silberman must be completely wrong.

JB asks the question: “Where are all the adults with autism?”  I find this point of view annoying. I did know people who were “mentally retarded” when I was growing up. Why does JB deny they existed just because he did not personally know one?  People who ask this question are ignoring the changing diagnosis categories (read my “there is no autism epidemic” blog post here) Worse still, when autism rate was 1:45, Robert Kennedy Jr asked “Why isn’t one in forty-five older people you see walking around the mall, why isn’t one in forty-five wearing diapers and wearing a football helmet, and having seizures, head banging and stimming?” This is an offensive description since most all people with autism are not in diapers or having seizures and being in diapers and having seizures are both symptoms NOT of autism alone but a co-morbid condition.

In other words, JB and RFKjr are offensive and ignorant. It is also highly offensive that they assume that everyone with autism is severely disabled and requiring massive assistance to exist.

JB claims that there must be close to 5 million adults with autism, if the data is correct; however, he thinks they don’t exist. Apparently, Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill also published a book recently on this topic, called Denial, and JB believes that because he cannot find cases of autism like his son’s in history then they did not exist. Again, this point of view ignores the history of institutionalizing people with mental retardation, Down Syndrome, schizophrenia and other health issues, some of which we now diagnose as Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Basically, JB denies these people exist.

This quote really sums up JB’s feelings: “Unfortunately, the Good Doctor is like a guy with a small limp and a cane representing paraplegics to the world. His story is fascinating and compelling but bears little resemblance to the autism most parents, myself included, actually deal with every single day.” Because JB lives with an autistic person, he believes his son’s version of autism is the sole version. He believes Silberman fans are “romanticizing” autism while we Silberman fans understand that JB has an extremely limited view of autism. What is confusing is that his idea that autism includes seizures and diapers is not backed up by his own definition of autism: “Despite what you may have read, the definition of autism has remained remarkably consistent over time. Because autism can’t be diagnosed with a blood test, it’s diagnosed through observation, and anyone possessing enough qualities of autism has autism. The hallmarks of an autism diagnosis include early onset of symptoms (typically before thirty months), an inability to relate to others (called “social-emotional reciprocity”), “gross deficits” in language development, peculiar speech patterns, and unusual relationships with the environment.” My own child did not exhibit “gross deficits” but she definitely had peculiar speech patterns and unusual relationships with her environment and social-emotional reciprocity issues, from toddlerhood.

JB is correct that there is research showing autistics have greater incidence of epilepsy and anxiety. My own child suffers extreme anxiety.

JB concludes this chapter with some quotes from RFKjr wherein they believe that denial of an autism epidemic is the government’s way to not accepting responsibility. Strangely, he claims Brian Hooker as a source, calling him a “Simpson University epidemiologist” but Dr Hooker is, in fact, a chemical engineer who now works as a biology professor.  To remind you, Brian Hooker appeared in the film, Vaxxed, to claim his child’s autism was caused by vaccines but saw his vaccine court case dismissed because the evidence proved otherwise. 

In sum, JB and RFKjr believe that pharmaceutical company profits are at risk of collapsing if autism is proven to be caused by vaccines and the government is colluding with pharma companies to cover up this “epidemic.” “The dollar signs associated with the epidemic are so large that it’s worth billions for the prime suspects to evade accountability.” They claim Dr Paul Offit is at the top of the “denial food chain” and that repeat the oft-debunked trope that he makes millions off the rotavirus vaccine and that is why he promotes vaccine in general. (Dr Offit does not own currently any vaccine patents). Because Dr Offit is the Maurice R Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, which is a chair endowed by Merck, JB and RFKjr see conspiracies everywhere. These two also claim Dr Peter Hotez, Dr Eric Frombonne, and Dr Paul Shattuck are “industry mouthpieces with deep ties to the vaccine industry.”

So, they see conspiracies everywhere but provide no proof to back them up.

JB makes another claim I find offensive: “Denying the autism epidemic is to deny the suffering of millions of children and their families and also to deny the exploration into the true cause so the epidemic might end.” This is so bad. Provaxers never deny anyone is experiencing health issues or suffering. We want to find the actual causes so we can treat people effectively.

JB defines his “three main arguments by deniers:

1. The diagnosis has improved. JB does not believe this is fact. He cites the 2012 Autism Congressional Hearing conversation between Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney and CDC’s Dr Coleen Boyle as evidence, which is silly. That conversation has been taken out of context so many times by antivaxers I would be rich if I had ever bet on it. Dr Boyle tries to answer the questions about what the CDC studies and is interrupted by Congresswoman Maloney and then told to send her the studies. That conversation doesn’t prove anything.

2. Autism is mental retardation reclassified. JB believes the “autism epidemic” started in the 1980s.  I debunked this here, as did Emily Willingham here.

3. The definition of autism has expanded. This is scientific fact so I am unclear as to why JB has issue with it.

JB concludes this chapter with a look at James Lyons-Weiler’s opinions on the issue of whether autism is genetic or not. (Skeptical Raptor echoes my thoughts on this guy)

JB ends this chapter with the following: “Pouring cold water on the severity of the autism epidemic inhibits the call to action we all need to find causation. It gives scientists on the fence an “out” where they can describe the autism epidemic as “up for debate.” It denies the suffering of so many impacted children, and it’s prevented a redirection of research dollars to find environmental causes. In the end, saying the autism epidemic isn’t real is simply a lie, and it’s a lie that extends the suffering of so many children.”

I am sorry but I had to roll my eyes big time here. As far as I have seen, no one denies how some people on the autism spectrum have severe issues. There is a massive amount of research going on to find causes and supports. Just because biomedical ideas are discounted doesn’t mean autism is not taken seriously. Many of us want to support and love autistics, not refer to them as damaged and try to change them.

Chapter 2: Vaccines are safe and effective.

This chapter attempts to make the point that vaccines are not safe and effective. The argument is made that since mortality (death) rates dropped after clean water and refrigeration were introduced then vaccines did not save us. But, no mention is made of morbidity or disease incidence rates. Here is an example of measles mortality overlayed with morbidity, so you can see the difference. The study from which this graph originates clearly points out how the vaccine made a huge difference in USA.

The Leicester example for smallpox is used to make the argument that vaccines did not stop smallpox. The Leicester example of quarantine is but one case but does not conclude the vaccines had no value nor that quarantine alone in all cases effectively works to eradicate the disease.   I am not sure why antivaxers persist in using this as an example. My friend at Vaxopedia explains.

A few more claims from JB:

JB then goes on to state how he is a herd immunity denier.  Herd immunity is fact, like gravity.

JB believes NCVIA indemnifies vaccine makers from responsibility. The reality is that vaccine court is easier to navigate than claims court.

Other countries give fewer vaccines, JB argues but he is not correct. I blogged about this point a while ago.

JB argues that there will always be outbreaks but the reduction in the rate of measles and other VPDs, post vaccination, counters this claim. The Pink Book is the best source on American disease rates pre and post vaccination.

JB claims that because the majority of mumps patients in a Harvard University outbreak, a few years ago, were vaccinated then vaccines must not work. But, there were 41 cases out of tens of thousands of students, nearly 100% of whom are vaccinated. So, that is a vaccine win. More students would have been sickened if not for vaccines.

JB believes vaccine safety testing is inadequate. He does not make a valid case here. Vaccines are tested much more strictly than other drugs. He further claims that adverse event rate is closer to 1:50 and bases that on a Harvard Pilgrim study but that is one health center and we know that nearly all adverse event reports are for mild reactions, none of which are a reason to avoid future vaccines. He then claims adverse events are not studied well and multiple doses of vaccines are not studies, neither of which are true. (link studies here). He goes on to cite a very old study of the DTP vaccine from Guinea-Bissau which was only published recently. This is classic cherry picking. There is absolutely no reason to consider this one study more valuable than the huge body of immunization science literature. He further cites a Dengue vaccine issue that is unique. Again, this is not a reason to avoid vaccines. And, he writes about a Canadian flu vaccine study that seemed to indicate more flu vaccines might lead to less efficacy.

Then, we have a section of this chapter devoted to Gardasil. JB pays no attention whatsoever to any studies which prove this vaccine safe and efficacious.

Finally, we have some links from JB to studies showing vaccines might be linked to autoimmune disease. He cites the oft-cited trope about the “textbook” that is actually used in not one medical school on earth, called Vaccines and Autoimmunity, as proof that vaccines cause autoimmune disease. This is not a valid source!

JB is a cherry picker. He posts only studies that make his point and does not care if they are valid or replicated. In my opinion, this is a form of lying. He is lying by omission in that he fails to report the vast plethora of studies which prove his points wrong.

At this point, I am getting very annoyed at JB’s cherry picking. He even has a section devoted to doctors who are questioning vaccines, as if that tiny group of shysters is a reason to avoid vaccines.

Chapter three: the science is settled

JB claims that because only thimerosal has been studied, with regards to autism, that vaccines cannot be ruled out as causing autism.  He cites some opinion statements from antivax persons as proof the studies looking at thimerosal and vaccines are faulty. But, he does not prove we have any reason to validate these opinions. Again, he has cherry picked points that confirm his own biases. He then goes on to bring up the “whistleblower” Dr William Thompson, which is so ridiculous I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. (read the facts of this story here ). And the Thorson trope! Read more on that here. Goodness, JB is grasping at thin straws.

JB devotes the last part of this chapter to a study from Carolyn Gallagher and Melody Goodman at SUNY Stony Brook which looked at rates of Hepatitis B vaccine and special education rates.  This study correlated hep b vaccine rates with rates of special education in American boys. They did not, however, analyze how special education services expanded during the time period. Correlation does not equal causation.

JB then discusses the twice retracted Mawson study as if it is valid. (OMG!) This study has been retracted twice for shoddy methods and not validating data.

At this point, I am seriously wondering how JB looks himself in the mirror daily and takes himself seriously. But, I digress….

Chapter 4: The reward is never financial

This chapter begins by discussing the custody battle between Michigan mother Lori Matheson and her ex-husband, which centers on vaccination issues. JB claims that Dr Stanley Plotkin was supposed to be a witness but then recused himself and, in the meantime, the lawyer for the mother presented a great deal of proof that her son should not be vaccinated. Having followed this case, I think JB is living in LA LA land. I did not see the attorney expose “more truth about vaccines and the vaccine industry in one document than I’ve ever seen.” JB spends a great deal of this chapter on the Plotkin deposition, even claiming the mother’s attorney decimated Dr Plotkin. No proof is given for this point. The attorney, Mr Siri, asked Dr Plotkin about payments received from pharmaceutical conpanies over the years but he never proved this in any way makes vaccines ineffective or dangerous. It was a very strange line of questioning, based solely on conspiracy theories. Much ado is made of the clinical trials for vaccines not using a saline placebo in all trials, but no scientific explanation is offered as to why this is an issue. Dr Plotkin is asked many questions about clinical trials but none about post-licensure safety studies. A great deal is made about the limitations of the pertussis vaccine, but no explanation is given as to why this is a reason to avoid vaccines. Human diploid cells are discussed at great length but no comparison is made between child and infant death rates before vaccines as compared to the legal abortions of the fetuses which cells are now used to make vaccines and save billions of lives. Dr Plotkin is asked some questions about human experimentation as if vaccines are some nefarious plot to experiment illegally on humans.

The whole thing is disgusting. No wonder Plotkin pulled out. The questions have no bearing whatsoever on the father’s right, in this case, to have his child vaccinated.

Then, JB compares tobacco to vaccines. At this point, my eyes rolled so hard I got dizzy and needed to take a break.  Good grief.

At this point, we get to his thesis: “If all parents believed they had a one in thirty-six chance of their child developing autism from vaccines, the vaccination rates would plummet. And if the pharmaceutical industry were proven to have created an epidemic of autism of several million children worldwide, the economic liability would be astronomical. Just doing some basic math, the average cost of lifetime care for a person with autism is estimated to be $2.4 million dollars.”

JB then spends some time trying to prove Andrew Wakefield is innocent and correct about MMR and again my eyes rolled so hard my BPPV was resurrected. Kidding/not kidding.

End part one

Part II – The truth about vaccines and autism

Chapter 5- Emerging Science and Vaccine-Induced Autism

Chapter 5 begins boldly: “Since 2004 there have been eleven groundbreaking discoveries in separate but related scientific fields that, taken together, reveal the cause of autism. Because of this science, we now know that autism is created by immune activation events in the brain during critical phases of brain development, typically by the time a child is thirty-six months old and that these immune activation events in the brain can be triggered by the aluminum adjuvant in vaccines.”

 

Let us go over the discoveries, but please note that I could probably write a post on each of these discoveries. I will endeavor to link you to information about each but there is no way I can produce a complete list for each.  I am but a humble special education teacher and mom. Please link in comments to more information, if you have it, and I will update this post. 

1. JB believes that Dr Carlos Pardo-Villamizar discovered “autism brains are permanently inflamed.” However, it appears that JB has cherry-picked parts of this study that suit his whims without regard to what it is really stating. The myth that this study supports the idea that vaccines cause autism reached the study author who issued a statement in 2008. “Another issue that is important to clarify is the notion that neuroinflammatory responses mediated by innate responses and neuroglial activation are directly associated with injury. At present, we are not able to conclude that these neuroglial reactions are deleterious for the central nervous system.” This study does not conclude vaccines cause autism, according to one of the main authors.

2. Dr Paul Patterson discovered that immune activation events lead to autism. They found that, in mice, immune activation led to mice with autism-like behaviors. However, they noted that mice models cannot be extrapolated to humans. And, they focused on the relationship between mothers who have infections during pregnancy being at higher risk for having an autistic child. He wrote several papers on how infections during pregnancy can lead to a higher risk of having an autistic child or a schizophrenic child. Note there is nothing about vaccines here. Again, this is not showing vaccines cause autism.

3. The cytokine interleuken-6 is the key biomarker for immune activation. This is again about Patterson but, again, Patterson was not studying vaccines. He was studying infections. Here is a good read about Patterson’s work.

4. Immune activation can take place after birth. This appears to be a theory by someone who hides behind the online moniker “Vaccines Papers” and nothing more. No data, no studies published, just a thought, which is not valid in and of itself.

5. Aluminum in vaccines can produce behavior and motor function deficits. Here, JB brings up the work of Christopher Shaw. Shaw is a Canadian scientist who’s work is funded by the Dwoskin Foundation. Dr Shaw primarily works with Dr Lucija Tomljevnovic at the University of British Columbia. Their interest in aluminum adjuvants coincides with getting grants from the Dwoskin Foundation, aka the Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute. These two have had a few studies retracted for being badly done. Also, the World Health Organization published a page about them, pointing out the flaws in their methods. In sum, their work does not lead us to conclude vaccines cause autism

6. Aluminum adjuvants can be carried to the brain by macrophages. This study is well explained by Scientist Abe over at the Blood Brain Barrier Scientist. Abe is an actual scientist in neurobiology who teaches at an American university. In his post, he also discusses several of the previous “discoveries.” It is a good read. In sum, Gherardi may have stumbled upon something genetic in the French that makes them more susceptible to immune issues after vaccines. It is only, thus far, something seen in France. Or, it could be a correlation. Not enough data to leap to the idea that vaccines cause autism.

7. Aluminum adjuvants stay in the brain longer than anyone realized. This is again about Gherardi and his ideas that aluminum adjuvants can travel to the brain. But, there are serious flaws and bias issues in his work. First of all, like Shaw, he has funding from CMSRI, a group clearly devoted to finding a link between aluminum and autism. That is their goal which makes any research they fund completely tainted by bias. This is also a very poorly done study. Read here to learn about the flaws and questions. Again, this is not a reason to think vaccines cause autism.

8. Small doses of aluminum adjuvants are dangerous. This is apparently about something Vaccine Papers noticed. I am really quite shocked that JB would think that citing the opinion of a person who hides behind a pretend name is valid. We have some ideas who might run Vaccine Papers website but we don’t have confirmation. All we know is he likes to read studies in his own wonky way and then argue a lot about it online. I cannot fathom why we should consider his opinion on this autism matter. But, this is again a mouse study from the Gherardi group in France and we have already discussed their limitations. There is no reason to give this study any validity. Here is an excellent explanation as to why antivaxers have turned their sights on aluminum as the cause of autism and why the theory is bogus.

Side note to the discovery list is the interest JB takes in the opinion of Vaccine Papers. Many times I have debated VP and noted that nobody cares if he does not like the Dr Rober J Mitkus, who wrote the paper “Updated Aluminum and Pharmacokinetics Following Infant Exposures Through Diet and Vaccination.” (link here). VP feels this paper is flawed and gets upset that Mitkus ignores the aluminum studies by Shaw, Exley, Gherardi, etc. In sum, JB and VP both are upset that the poorly done studies they like are not given attention by Mitkus.

9. Aluminum causes immune activation in the brain. This is a rat study where aluminum may have increased inflammation. Again, not related to vaccines, not about humans.

10. Hepatitis B vaccine causes immune activation in mice. This is a study from China. I remember when JB blogged about this study. This is yet another study on rodents that proves nothing. What is interesting is how the ideas in this study connected to misunderstandings about the work of Patterson and Pardo. And, this study overdosed rats, so it cannot compare to humans and vaccines.

11. High levels of aluminum found in autistic brains. This study is by Christopher Exley and it is twice affected by conflicts of interest. Exley is not only on the board of the journal which published it but he is also on the board of CMSRI, the group which funded it! And the study is terrible. Basically, Exley got some precious brain samples from deceased persons with autism. We don’t know how they were exposed to aluminum but he analyzed brain samples for it. His data was all over the map so he averaged it and came up with his idea that autistic brains are smothered in aluminum. Hardly! This study has been discussed here and here and here and does not show any link between vaccines and autism.

JB goes on to pronounce these eleven discoveries “light a clear path to autism.” I feel sad for JB. Or I might if he was not such an angry man who is incredibly rude to anyone who gets in his path. However, I do feel sad for people who will read this book and take him at his word and not read what the studies really say. They certainly do not indicate vaccines cause autism. And I am actually quite shocked JB used Vaccine Papers as a source throughout this book. Really bad, JB. That is not a valid source.

Chapter 6: The Clear and Legal Basis that Vaccine Cause Autism

Chapter 6 is about what JB thinks if the legal basis for vaccines as the cause of autism. He writes “In late 2016 two scientists, in legal depositions, affirmed everything I could have hoped for, and more. And not just any scientists, but Drs. Andrew Zimmerman and Richard Kelley, arguably the two leading mainstream autism scientists in the world. Their intimate relationship with the “vaccine court” almost ended the autism epidemic in 2009, and their ongoing willingness, to tell the truth, will likely contribute to the ending, I hope very soon.” This relates to the case of Yates Hazelhurst, an autistic young man whose parents have instigated three lawsuits to prove vaccines caused his autism. They have lost the first two. The first was in “vaccine court,” where Yates’ case was one of the Autism Omnibus cases. You can read his case here https://www.autism-watch.org/omnibus/hazlehurst.pdf and you can learn more about the Autism Omnibus here. http://www.immunize.org/catg.d/p4029.pdf In a nutshell, in 2007, three special masters in the US Court of Federal Claims, heard three test cases selected by a group of petitioners who all believed their children were made autistic by vaccines. The Hazelhurst case was one of them. In each of these cases, the special masters rejected the causation theory. In other words, the evidence did not convince them vaccines cause autism.

In this chapter, JB outlines how he believes something Dr Andrew Zimmerman stated on record during another vaccine injury case, that of Hannah Poling, lends credibility to the argument that vaccines cause autism. It does not. The Poling case was unique. The special masters have written, “In Poling v. HHS, the presiding special master clarified that the family was compensated because the Respondent conceded that the Poling child had suffered a Table Injury–not because the Respondent or the special master had concluded that any vaccination had contributed to causing or aggravating the child’s ASD.”

An excellent explanation of the concerns about the Poling case and the facts can be found here.

JB also brings up, in this chapter, the idea that there are more cases where children with autism have won vaccine injury claims. This is partly false. There are children with autism who have had their vaccine injury claim approved but not because of autism. They have won a claim of vaccines causing something else, something on the vaccine injury table. It is obvious JB wants very badly for vaccines to be a cause of autism, but no vaccine causes autism claims have even been won in “vaccine court.” Here is a good explanation. Also, here.

The rest of chapter 6 is quotes from dialogues between attorneys and two doctors, Dr Andrew Zimmerman and Dr Richard Kelley. Thanks to my friend, Dorit, I was able to read the deposition of Dr Zimmerman myself.  Apparently, JB has copies of the depositions these doctors gave as part of the lawsuit the family of Yates Hazelhurst has filed against his then pediatrician for not being aware that vaccines could cause autism. According to JB’s account, these two doctors can confirm that Yates had a mitochondrial disorder and, thus, vaccines caused his autism. In fact, JB states that “these depositions confirm their opinions that Yates Hazlehurst—remember, one of the original test case children in the OAP—had the same mitochondrial deficit that Hannah Poling had, and that vaccines caused his autism.” JB believes that, had this evidence been presented during the Autism Omnibus hearings, “the current state of the autism epidemic would be very different.”

Who are Drs Zimmerman and Kelley? Dr Zimmerman is a pediatric neurologist practicing at UMass Memorial Medical Center and he is also a faculty member at University of Massachusetts Medical School. He is the scientific advisor at N of One. Dr Kelley is the Director of the Clinical Mass Spectrometry Laboratory and the Division of Metabolism at Kennedy Krieger Institute. I am not sure if they are “two of the most respected autism scientists in the world,” as JB believes, but they are definitely involved in autism research, albeit on the biomedical side. Both have had their research summarized by Dr Vincent Ianelli, here.

The dialogue at the end of chapter 6 summarizes the depositions of both doctors, wherein they lay out how they believe Yates Hazelhurst suffers from mitochondrial disorder and vaccines caused his autism. Key points, according to JB, are that Dr Kelley believes upwards of 40% of autistics have mitochondrial disorder and that Dr Zimmerman believes many physicians hold the opinion that vaccines cause inflammatory response that leads to autism. Zimmerman is quoted as stating “People who work in the field of autism see, commonly see a relationship between infection, inflammation, and onset of regression.” Further, he believes that vaccines cause an inflammatory response which then leads to regressive autism, particularly in children with mitochondrial disorders. Dr Zimmerman concludes that the research is still on-going but he foresees that, in the future, our understanding of metabolic disorders will enable us to prevent regressive autism. In Dr Kelley’s deposition, he agrees that there is research showing vaccines can cause autism but is not accepted by the “very authoritative groups who say there is no proven association in large cohort studies.” Dr Kelley goes on to add that he believes the “cdc whistleblower” is real because the CDC is “clever in how they publish data to avoid public attention that there is an association.” And, he believes that because vaccines cause inflammation, multiple vaccines at once can cause deterioration.

Having read the deposition of Dr Zimmerman, I am appalled at how JB cherry picks only the parts he likes.  Dr Zimmerman is pro vaccine and even vaccinates his patients.

JB does note that neither Dr Kelley nor Dr Zimmerman conclude that all vaccines cause autism. Furthermore, if you read the actual deposition, Dr Zimmerman explains how he continues to vaccinate, even in children with mitochondrial disorders, as he understands the benefits outweigh the risks. JB cherry-picked only the parts of the deposition that suit his argument.

Dr Zimmerman also believes autism is primarily a genetic disorder. He goes further and states he does not agree with the parents of his patients when those parents believe vaccines caused autistic regression. He further explains how he the Yates Hazelhurst medical records show no signs of regression, as he reads them, and encephalopathy is a separate condition from autism and “mitochondrial autism” is not a term recognized as valid. To me, these points Dr Zimmerman makes are important as they contradict JB’s cherry-picked deposition comments.

Continuing with the deposition, Dr Zimmerman is prompted to testify that Yates was never diagnosed with mitochondrial disorder until recently.

Chapter 7 The Critical Mass of Parents all saying the same thing

This chapter is primarily about JB’s frustration that parents are not taken at their word when they describe what they perceive as “vaccine injuries.” He cites a study called “Validation of the Phenomenon of Autistic Regression Using Home Videotapes,” as proof that early regression exists and parents should be taken at their word. But, the study actually made a very important conclusion which JB ignores: “While we cannot be certain from these data that children with autistic regression were developing entirely normally before the regression occurred, the results of the present study suggest that at least some children with autism do not display prototypical impairments in joint attention, such as a lack of declarative pointing, nor do they display obvious delays in their use of language at the end of their first year of life. Although these core autism symptoms were not observed at age 12 months in the present study, it is possible that the infants with regression did have other types of unusual behavior before the regression occurred.” No one disputes that children can regress. The issue is “do vaccines cause the regression?” This study does not lend to JB’s argument.

Part Three: A reckoning to end the epidemic

Chapter 8: They would have told us

In this chapter, JB tells us about how Robert F Kennedy, Jr got involved in vaccine politics and how immunization advocacy groups are basically all shills for big pharma. He compares vaccines to lead paint and cigarettes. JB’s point is that the truth, in his opinion, is being hidden by corporate interests.  JB believes the NCVIA indemnifies vaccine makers from liability and safety testing of vaccines is inadequate. Readers know, from reading my blog and others, that these points are false.  JB also believes that more and more parents begin to report regression after vaccine appointments in the mid- to late 1990s, the CDC responded by publishing studies to quash concern. This is an unproven conspiracy theory.  Further, he thinks that when British doctor Andrew Wakefield raised concerns about the MMR vaccine in 1998, a kangaroo court strips him of his medical license, and the ensuing media frenzy morphs into a defense of the entire vaccine schedule and an attack on anyone who reasonably questions it. This is false.

JB further goes over, again, the points he has made in the previous chapters.

Chapter 9: Next Steps: a twelve-point proposal

In chapter 9, JB outlines how he thinks vaccines cause all the problems in our children, from ADHD to learning disabilities, anxiety, allergies, and more. To JB, vaccines are the reason 13% of American children have special education plans. His plan, to solve this issue, is to follow the advice of his family’s pediatrician, Dr Paul Thomas. These two believe children should be vaccinated much less and, if we do that, we will see much less autism, better-behaved children, and fewer children with special education needs.

This is their plan:

1. Immediately reduce the number of vaccines given to children. He believes children should get only DTaP, HIB, polio and MMR and they should get no vaccines until 12 months of age.
2. Children should only be vaccinated if healthy.
3. Separate MMR into three single shots
4. Substitute titer tests for booster shots
5. Screen vulnerable children for genetic vulnerabilities.
6. Scrap the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, as they are too mainstream.
7. Remove vaccine safety from the CDC.
8. Scientists who know vaccines cause autism should speak as one.
9. A congressional hearing should be held on the 83 autism cases supposedly linked to vaccines, as described in a paper by Mary Holland.
10. Dr William Thompson should be compelled to testify.
11. The drug suramin should be accelerated through the approval process.
12. The AAP needs to pay more attention to the biomedical doctors.

At this point, I am tired of reading debunked antivax and autism warrior tropes.  None of these ideas are valid nor do JB’s ideas give us any reason to even consider them valid.

Chapter ten: Treatment and Recovery

 

In this chapter, JB outlines how biomedical treatments can recover children from autism and recommends various treatments and books, including the drug suramin, drinking silica mineral water to detox aluminum from the brain, eating a ketogenic diet, healing the microbiome, and taking nutritional supplements.

Sigh

Epilogue: wherein JB details how he feels guilty for depriving his son a normal life.

I am not tired. This book was exhausting to read if only because it is ableist and unscientific and repeats all the tropes JB has written about at Age of Autism and his own multiple blogs. I really feel sad for parents who take him seriously. There is no good science here. We know some children regress because of age, not vaccines. Autism is not the only developmental issue that causes regression. It is offensive and ignorant of JB to ignore the other developmental issues, like Prader-Willi and Krabbe and Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy, all of which cause children to change late in infancy to early childhood.

Sometimes, I feel sorry for parents who have children needier than my own.   Then, I get upset at them and think about M and D and C and D and K and Chris and my other friends who have autistic children far needier than my own but THESE LADIES DO NOT BLAME VACCINES AND THEY DO NOT WALLOW IN SELF PITY.   They don’t feel they got dealt a bum hand and act sorry for themselves. They raise their spirits, advocate for their children, use sound medicine and science to care for them, and pretty much metaphorically flip antivaxers the finger for being selfish drama queens and kings.

To you, C and M and D and D and K, I send you big fat internet hugs. And especially to Chris.  Screw JB.

Remember to always think for yourself,

 

Hugs from Kathy!

A provaxer watches The Pathological Optimist

The Andrew Wakefield documentary, The Pathological Optimist, popped up on Amazon Prime this weekend. So, I chose to watch it.

Commentary

The film starts out with us watching Andy do yoga while media accounts of his fraud and the study retracted are shown. Interesting dichotomy, of a man easing his tension with yoga while the world discusses his malfeasance.

The rest of the film seems to follow him suing the British Medical Journal and Brian Deer, the journalist who wrote about his malfeasance for the Sunday Tims of London newspaper. Apparently, Andy chose to sue these British citizens and entities in the US state of Texas because he was living in Texas at the time and his reputation in Texas had been besmirched.

Some background information

You can read what Brian Deer wrote here and here.

Left Brain Right Brain blog explains the SLAPP suit here.

The outcome of the SLAPP suit here.

The film appears to be a melodramatic look at Andy’s feelings about the SLAPP suit and his life thus far. He is shown pondering thoughtfully quite a few times. This is juxtaposed with him being treated with adulation by fans at a book signing.  News reports about the study, fraud, and Brian Deer are shown repeatedly but Andy’s opinion is this only happened in the USA and was simply about the fact that he now lives in the USA. Thus, this is the reason his SLAPP case was taken on by the law firm DiNovo Price Ellwanger & Hardy.

An interesting fact in the film is that the money for his legal fight against Deer and the BMJ came from what Andy refers to as the “autism community.” From the film, it appears the money came from Autism One conference fundraisers. Autism One is the “autism quackfest,” as ORAC calls them, and it makes sense that they would sponsor the effort to redeem Andy’s reputation.

Ironically, as soon as I type this, Andy starts reading and talking about Orac.

Throughout the film, Andy and his wife, Carmel express their opinion that Andy’s troubles are because Brian Deer lies, that the study from 1998 was not fraudulent at all, and pharmaceutical companies are out to get him. When Judge Amy Meachum, in Texas, throws out his attempt to sue the British journal and related persons for libel, Camille brings up that Meachum’s husband is a lobbyist for pharma. This conspiracy theory was even published on the autism hate blog, Age of Autism. The Poxes blog exposed this ridiculous conspiracy theory for what it is, ridiculous, but still, the filmmakers made sure to include this point in the film.

The point of the film seems to be to portray Andy Wakefield as a fallen hero deserving of redemption. It’s calculated, in how they use conversations between Andy and his mother and Andy and his wife. It’s emotionally manipulative but subtle. In many ways, the film rehashes much of what Andy wrote about in his book. Callous Disregard, although the film is better made and easier to watch than the book is to read. I did read the book, but never blogged about it. Dr Harriet Hall, however, did write about how she read it. 

She writes: “In his concluding epilogue, he says

In the battle for the hearts and minds of the public, you have already lost… Why? Because the parents are right; their stories are true; their children’s brains are damaged; there is a major, major problem. In the US, increasingly coercive vaccine mandates and fear-mongering campaigns are a measure of your failure — vaccine uptake is not a reflection of public confidence, but of these coercive measures, and without public confidence, you have nothing.

How ludicrous: he is clearly the one who undermined public confidence, not the scientists and agencies that are doing their best to reduce the incidence of preventable diseases and to protect the public from alarmists like him.

In my opinion, the whole book is an embarrassing, tedious, puerile, and ultimately unsuccessful attempt at damage control. Wakefield has been thoroughly discredited in the scientific arena and he is reduced to seeking a second opinion from the public. Perhaps he thinks that the truth can be determined by a popularity contest. Perhaps he thinks the future will look back at him as a persecuted genius like Galileo or Semmelweis. Jenny McCarthy thinks so; I don’t.”

The film, like the book, is basically a means for Andy to voice his excuses for why he should not have been struck from the register and why the study was not fraudulent. He even gets his son, James, and his wife, Carmel, to make excuses for why it was no big deal to take blood from James and his mates during James’ 10th birthday party. They all act like it is no big deal to pay children 5 pounds to take their blood at a birthday party, without ethical approval. One wonders why any of them think that this is a valid way to collect any kind of sample for a scientific study. It’s really hard to understand. Andy spends quite a bit of time, in the film, arguing that taking these blood samples was ethical.

As I get halfway through the film, I remember that the filmmaker, Miranda Bailey, maintains that the film is not about proving Andy right or making vaccines look bad and, yet, she spends quite a bit of time painting Andy as a loving family man. He is filmed cooking for his children and spending time with the family, the whole family participates in the interviews, and he is often filmed sitting in front of a large array of family photographs.

The point of this film is obviously to make us see Andrew Wakefield as a victim.

But it is not working for me. I am getting upset as I watch it. I am upset that he cannot admit he did anything wrong. I am upset that he continues to con people with these lies and mistruths. And I am upset that Andy continues to allow these lies and mistruths to be perpetuated, giving fuel to the antivaccination fire. Truly, if it were not for him, I believe we would not have such a large antivaccination movement and we would have a far smaller group of people who think vaccines cause autism. We likely would also have far fewer dangerous “cures” and treatments for autism. Autistic persons would not be seen as damaged and people would not be trying to remove the autism from them. Andy even says, at one point in the film, that he is very lucky that his own children are healthy and have no developmental disorders. The implication is that a developmental disorder is a horrible thing. Again, he is perpetuating the notion that autism is horrible.

The part of the movie I found the most annoying is the tale of Andy’s experience trying to confront Brian Deer in Wisconsin in October 2012.  Included in this part of the film is the story of Cade, the son of Jennifer VanDerHorst-Larsen. Cade was typically developing, in her words, until he had his 15-month vaccines. Between 15 months and 19 months, Cade became autistic, according to his mother. For some reason, the filmmakers chose to show Cade’s mother fangirling over Andy, inviting him into her large, luxurious home, where Cade is shown stimming and enjoying their pool. Cade seems to have a lovely life, which includes two dogs, a huge home and pool, and his own art room. Cade is a very cute boy, perhaps about 12 in the film. By the very sad music, I gather we are supposed to feel sorry for his family but my take is Cade has a blessed life.

In the film, Brian Deer is invited to a journalism school to talk to journalism students. Andy feels it is appropriate to show up to the college uninvited to give “the other side.” Ms. Larsen truly believes, in her own world, that pharmaceutical companies are paying Deer to ruin Andy’s career because they want to bury a link between autism and MMR. So, Andy is shown yelling at a small crowd of supporters and being called a hero.

Melodramatic music plays in the background.

I gather we viewers are supposed to take these moments seriously and see Andy as the fallen hero but all I see is a charismatic liar.  I also have a very hard time with the moms fangirling Andy. As someone who has read a great deal of the scientific literature and someone who has an autistic child and knows vaccines have NOTHING to do with it, I find the adulation of him disturbing. He even goes so far as to blame governments for the increase in measles incidence. He says that because they have removed the single measles vaccine from the market, they gave parents no other choices. He fails to acknowledge that parents are choosing not to vaccinate with MMR because of his opinion that MMR causes autism.

The film returns to the appeal of the SLAPP suit being dismissed. Andy’s lovely Austin home is shown.  It is a large estate in Austin, Texas, with a great deal of land and more than one home on it.  For all the complaints from Carmel about money, the house the Wakefield’s are shown in is a multi-million dollar plus estate, according to public tax documents. Carmel is showing walking around the estate with her daughter, discussing their lack of funds. It is a confusing scene. How could they have money for such a large estate if they have no money?

One clue comes towards the end of the film when Andy states he is $350,000 in debt and he realizes that another source of money, other than autism community, is needed. He states that another “target” is needed, “another group of people who get it.” And that target is the chiropractors. This fully explains Andy’s recent involvement with chiropractor associations and the chiropractor associations recent interest in “health freedom” advocacy. Andy reels them in by explaining to crowds of chiropractors that investigating the connection between autism and vaccines ends people’s careers, that Andy needs their financial help to fight the powers of evil. Andy is shown at a chiropractor conference in San Diego, where $50,000 is raised and everyone who donates over $500 gets to enjoy dinner with Andy. He gets a standing ovation.

Despite that money, the courts dismiss the appeal. Andy loses what many call a frivolous court case. Andy decides not to appeal to the Texas Supreme Court and, instead focuses on making Vaxxed.

At the end of the film, Andy does admit that he believes that MMR causes autism. To the filmmaker’s credit, they do cite that there are over 100 studies demonstrating no link between vaccines and autism. But it is only one line in an hour and a half of Andy explaining otherwise.

The film ends with Andy taking to the woods with his ax, in hot pink shorts and a tank top, to chop some wood. Apparently, chopping down his woods is how he relieves stress.

Review

As far as documentaries go, this is a fairly well-made film. It was fascinating to get a behind the scenes look, albeit a contrived one, at Andy’s life at home. The point of the film is obviously to make the viewer sympathetic to Andy and I do believe the filmmakers did a good job of this, with their choices of where to film (in front of family photos) and how they portray Andy himself. This makes it very obviously a film focused on the antivaccine message, the message that Andy Wakefield is a hero and the MMR and other vaccines are evil. This is not a message based on sound science. It is emotionally manipulative, just like all the other antivax films. In that respect, I find this film very annoying and the producer, Miranda Bailey, to be highly disingenuous in her statements that she was not setting out to make an antivax film.

 

It should be noted that Brian Deer wrote about this film and the idea that he was asked to participate in it.  It is an interesting read. As you might expect, the filmmakers were not truthful.

 

Remember to think for yourself!

 

Kathy

Vaccines don’t cause mass shootings

Yes, I went there. Why? Because antivaxers have been going there all week, since a teenager opened fire at high school in Parkland, Florida, USA.

Ever since Sandy Hook,  when Shari Tenpenny blamed vaccines for causing the shooter to be autistic and rage against society, antivaxers have blamed mass shootings on vaccines and autism. It is not just pseudoscience but ableism of the worst kind.

No! Just No!  Vaccines do not cause autism, there is no autism epidemic, and neither autism nor vaccines are responsible for mass shootings!

Not much has changed since Shari made that statement. Antivaxers are still blaming all of society’s ills on vaccines. The antivax band and group. The Refusers, was the first one I noticed.  Refusers is basically the brainchild of Michael Belkin, a man who believes his baby died from a reaction to the hepatitis B vaccine, although he has no evidence to back that claim.

Comments have been made around the internet

First of all, we don’t know if Nikolas Cruz was autistic.  Secondly, it doesn’t matter. Humans have been violent since they first started to walk upright. Anyone who has ever read history, studied anthropology, or just bothers to be well-read knows that humans have tended to be violent since the dawn of our time.

“Medieval knights—whom today we would call warlords—fought their numerous private wars with a single strategy: kill as many of the opposing knight’s peasants as possible. Religious instruction included prurient descriptions of how the saints of both sexes were tortured and mutilated in ingenious ways. Corpses broken on the wheel, hanging from gibbets, or rotting in iron cages where the sinner had been left to die of exposure and starvation were a common part of the landscape. For entertainment, one could nail a cat to a post and try to head-butt it to death, or watch a political prisoner get drawn and quartered, which is to say partly strangled, disemboweled, and castrated before being decapitated.”

source

“Lethal violence increased over the course of mammal evolution. While only about 0.3 percent of all mammals die in conflict with members of their own species, that rate is sixfold higher, or about 2 percent, for primates. Early humans likewise should have about a 2 percent rate—and that lines up with evidence of violence in Paleolithic human remains.

The medieval period was a particular killer, with human-on-human violence responsible for 12 percent of recorded deaths. But for the last century, we’ve been relatively peaceable, killing one another off at a rate of just 1.33 percent worldwide. And in the least violent parts of the world today, we enjoy homicide rates as low as 0.01 percent.”

source

We have gotten less violent as we have gotten more civilized, primarily due to education and lawmaking. The USA may have the 31st highest rate of violence in the world, but that rate is also decreasing. A 2014 report from the FBI found “Violent crime, however, is about 0.7 percent lower than five years ago, and 16.5 percent lower than a decade ago. The violent crime rate – nearly 373 violent crimes per 100,000 inhabitants in the U.S. – is almost half the 20-year high reached in 1996.”

So, why does USA have so many mass shootings, particularly mass shootings in schools? Well, without good research, which the NRA blocks, we don’t really know. It certainly has nothing to do with vaccines since we know that human’s tendency to violence is nothing new. Perhaps it relates to easy access to guns. Perhaps it is about social media attention. Maybe shooters want to go down in a blaze of glory.  Until we have some research, we won’t really know what this is all about. One thing for sure, this is not about mental illness.

“Our brief review suggests that connections between mental illness and gun violence are less causal and more complex than current US public opinion and legislative action allow. US gun rights advocates are fond of the phrase “guns don’t kill people, people do.” The findings cited earlier in this article suggest that neither guns nor people exist in isolation from social or historical influences. A growing body of data reveals that US gun crime happens when guns and people come together in particular, destructive ways. That is to say, gun violence in all its forms has a social context, and that context is not something that “mental illness” can describe nor that mental health practitioners can be expected to address in isolation”

Source

One thing I know for sure, these shootings are not about vaccines or autism or mental illness. Please stop blaming those for things they do not cause. You are not helping.

Kathy

PS Did you know we have a Facebook page? Please check it out!

https://www.facebook.com/vaccinesworkblog2/

 

There is NO Science that shows Vaccines Cause Autism, EXCEPT ….. explained

You may have seen this copypasta show up in a vaccine debate.

There is NO Science that shows Vaccines Cause Autism, EXCEPT in ALL THESE Government Published Studies which show Vaccines Cause Autism.

This list was made by Marcella Piper-Terry of the website, Vaxtruth.com

Let’s take a look at this list and see what the studies actually say.  I will indicate a YES or NO after each to indicate if the study shows vaccines cause autism. I do have access to full studies and will be interpreting those, not abstracts.

First of all these studies come from pubmed which is a database managed by the  US National Library of MedicineNational Institutes of Health.  It commprises more than 27 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites. It is not a list of “government published studies.”  The studies are mostly published in independent journals.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3878266/

This study used raw VAERS data, which is not confirmed by medical evidence and, therefore, not valid. Also, two study authors, David and Mark Geier, have a notorious reputation for performing shoddy science in support of their work chemically castrating autists.  Senior Geier, the medical doctor, has lost 11 medical licenses for causing serious harm to children. NO
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21623535

This is just a correlation between vaccination rate and autism.  The author analyzed disability rates compared to vaccination rates without regard for diagnoses changes nor increasing disability rates linked with increasing services in schools. Medical records were not verified. She did not analyze historical rates of disability by comparison. I do not find this study to have much validity. No
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25377033

This is just a commentary regarding the perception, via the film Vaxxed, that Dr William Thompson of CDC found a higher risk of autism in children vaccinated with MMR. Since we know this is untrue, this commentary is meaningless. No
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24995277

This study’s authors include Geier senior and junior as well as Boyd Haley and Brian Hooker, both antivaxers also very convinced mercury is behind autism. The study, a literature review, was funded by CoMed, the Geier’s business. What they have done is take a list studies that may show mercury can cause neurological damage and try to link that with autism. This study was written in 2014 but an excellent summary of why mercury preservative in vaccines is not accepted as causing autism comes from the Brian Hooker vaccine injury claim from 2016.  No
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12145534

This is a very small study that compared MMR antibodies in autistic and not autistic children. Study authors conclude vaccines save lives and are necessary but that measles may elicit an autoimmune response in genetically susceptible children. They do not conclude vaccines cause autism.  No
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21058170

This is just a comparison of hepatitis birth vaccination rate and autism. Study authors found 9 autistic children  received birth dose of Hep B vaccine and 22 autistic children had not. This study has been analyzed by several people I respect, including Matt Carey and a few other science bloggers.  No.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22099159

This study has been discredited by many, including WHO.  No
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3364648/

This is just an opinion piece about the supposed dangers (all not true) of vaccines. No
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17454560

This was written by the Geiers (see above for more about them). They used hair analysis to test for metal toxicity. Hair analysis is a dubious practice that is not accepted as scientifically valid.  When combined with serious conflicts of interest from study authors and their nefarious history, this study is not valid. No
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19106436

Full text was not available for this one but it is also written by the Geiers.  Their theory is that mercury poisoning and autism are similar so autism must be mercury poisoning. This has been proven untrue. No.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3774468/

More Geier and Haley. They are again using hair samples. See above.  No.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3697751/

This study is postulating that children with autism are sensitive to thimerosal. Since thimerosal is out of all pediatric flu vaccines, except multi-dose flu, and has been proven not causative of autism, this is also a no.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21299355

The author goes through every possible explanation for autism that has ever been proposed, without regard to changing diagnostic criteria, and postulates vaccines must be contributing to rise in autism rate. It is merely her opinion.  No.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21907498

This is just an editorial about another study.  No.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11339848

Very old study theorizing autism is caused by mercury poisoning. We know this to be untrue.  No.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17674242

I was unable to gain full access to this study. Geiers blame mercury preservative in Rho(D)-immune globulins given during pregnancy for autism. Given their past conflicts and shoddy science, I am going to call this a no.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21993250

I was not able to gain full access to this document but it appears to be a hypothesis that conjugate vaccines may be linked with increase in autism rates, not an actual study in and of itself. No.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15780490

This is a paper by the Geiers on all the uproven and dangerous treatment options they used to offer autists before Geier senior lost all eleven of his medical licenses.  This is just their opinion on how to treat autism.  No.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12933322

This is a look at haircut samples from babies, which we already know is bogus because hair sample tests are unreliable and not accepted as valid. No.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16870260

Authors postulate that heavy metal poisoning from thimerosal in vaccines can cause toxicity issues in children, leading to autism. They exposed a small survey of cells from autistic children and not autistic children to ethyl mercury and zinc and found up-regulate metallothionein to be low in the autistic children’s cells.  While I was not able to access the full study, based on the abstract I do not see this implicating vaccines as causing autism because we have removed thimerosal and autism rate did not decrease. And, this study does not conclude vaccines cause autism. No
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19043938

The author, retired neurosurgeon Russel Blaylock, shares his opinion that vaccines causeimmunoexcitotoxicity (he coined this term, he claims). It is problematic that he cites the now retracted, infamous Wakefield study in his review of literature. This indicates Blaylock is not using quality research methods in his review.  Furthermore, this is just an opinion piece in an alternative health magazine, not a study on vaccines causing autism. No.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12142947

Safe Minds, an antivax group devoted to connecting autism to mercury, wrote an opinion piece/literature review stating that “all US influenza vaccines, all mono- and divalent diphtheria and tetanus vaccines, some immunoglobulins routinely given to pregnant Rh-negative women, and some over the-counter ear drops and nasal sprays” have enough mercury in them to cause mercury poisoning and should be removed from the market. This is not saying vaccines cause autism.  Also, thimerosal is out of pediatric vaccines, except multi dose flu, and autism rates did not decrease. No.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24675092

Study authors subcutaneously injected mice with thimerosal-mercury at a dose which is 20× higher than that used for regular Chinese infant immunization during the first 4 months of life. I have no idea whatsoever why anyone thought that would be a valid comparison to the amount of thimerosal in vaccines in some countries. No.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25198681

Study authors Hooker, Geier, Geier and others from CoMed compared neurodevelopmental rates to vaccination with thimerosal.  First of all, there are serious conflicts of interest here. Comed is a troublesome organization. Secondly, their funding came from Dwoskin Foundation, a known antivax group dedicated to connecting vaccines to autism. Thus, they went in to this study already assuming vaccines cause autism due to mercury poisoning.  Thus, this study has some serious conflicts of interest and cannot really be seen as valid.  If there are any studies independent of this group which confirm their results, I would be happy to change my No.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22531966

This is an analysis of raw data from the Vaccine Adverse Event reporting system (VAERS) comparing vaccination to reported deaths.  Since no medical evidence was confirmed, this study is not valid. No.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9345669

This is an extremely small study (n=23) of children in New Zealand in 1977 who got DTP and live polio vaccines and has nothing whatsoever to do with autism. No.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3170075/

This is an analysis of vaccination rate compared to infant mortality rate, but authors do not tell you that infant mortality rate in USA is at all time low, as is SIDS rate. The authors are disingenuous and lying by omission. See my blog series with actual IMR and SIDS facts.  This study has nothing to do with autism.  No
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16126512

This study has nothing to do with autism. No.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17092614

This study has nothing to do with autism. No.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646939/

This study has nothing to do with autism. No.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21623535

Author postulates a correlation between autism rate and vaccination rate. Correlation does not equal causation. No.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12145534

Authors suggest measles vaccine may cause autism. Several large studies, including this one, have proven that wrong.  So, No .
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3173748/

No, thimerosal is not the cause of autism. Just No.
http://jcm.asm.org/content/46/3/1101.long

Not about autism.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17454560

No, thimerosal is not the cause of autism. Just No.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23609067

This study’s authors have been discredited by many, including WHO.  No
http://www.mednat.org/vaccini/dannivacc_study.pdf

An antivax group in New Zealand surveyed their members and did not verify medical records. Not valid. No.

Several others listed at this point had bad links so I could not read the studies. Then, there were a few studies about flu which had no relation to autism. 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21575620

Again with hair analysis, which is proven faulty.  No.
http://www.getcancercure.com/fda-announce-that-dtap-vaccin…/
This is about Tripedia vaccine, claiming the insert shows FDA concludes vaccines cause autism. Tripedia vaccine has not been used in years. It was discontinued. And, inserts don’t imply causation. No.

 

As you can see, none of these studies are written by the US Government and none conclude vaccines cause autism. 

Marcella offers more!

1. http://www.scribd.com/…/124-Research-Papers-Supporting-the-… This is Ginger Taylor’s list of studies she thinks implicate vaccines as causing autism. This has been debunked. As you can see, Ginger also cannot read studies accurately.

2. Marcella wants us to believe there are cases where families have been compensated for vaccine injury causing autism. She links a number of cases but did not read them accurately. Here and here are explanations on why that idea is wrong.

 

In conclusion, not one study on Marcella’s list actually shows vaccines cause autism. This list is cut and pasted (copypasta) EVERYWHERE. So, now you can feel good about debunking it as horseshit.

 

Remember, always think for yourself,

 

 

Kathy

 

The Truth about vaccines 3: MMR, DTaP, and the Greater Good

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. I am not going to share a link to the video because I don’t want anyone to think I am an affiliate with them, trying to earn referral dollars. On their website, you will see that they have a referral program where can earn $1 per person you refer. (I have taken screenshots)

My goal in watching this series is to “take one for the team” and blog about the worst mistruths and list in each episode.

The series is hosted by Ty Bollinger. Ty is a CPA. See episode 1 for information about Ty. 

 

source

The top ten lies from episode 3

Please see this post for the full names and identity of each guest.

One: The theme of episode three should be ” we love Andrew Wakefield.”  Because that is the claim made over and over, by multiple interviewees.  Andrew is a saint. He should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Price. His work has been replicated 28 times. His work was not bogus or fraud. He is a victim of “big pharma” who are only interested in profit.  Please click on the blue words to learn why Andrew is a lying fraudster and his work has definitely not been replicated.

Two: Neil discusses how, if vaccines worked correctly, we would not have anyone vaccinated ever get a disease. Brian brings up the mumps portion of MMR and the current lawsuit about it. These two issues are related. First of all, no one ever promised vaccines work 100%. Depending on type, vaccines have an efficacy rate of 50-99%. Mumps is said to have an efficacy rate of 66% to 95% after two doses. So, some people who are vaccinated can still get mumps. Having followed the mumps outbreak news in detail, I don’t feel we yet know why there are suddenly more cases of mumps in USA.  It could be related to waning immunity.  What I do know is that it is not because mumps vaccine does not work at all nor is it because there is a lawsuit against Merck regarding mumps vaccine. The lawsuit makes claims that Merck did possible fidget with data to bump the effectiveness up from 78% to 95%.  This means the vaccine is still effective, but it might not be AS effective. The lawsuit needs to sort out the details before we can know for sure.

Three: Toni and Tim both claim that current measles outbreaks are caused by the measles vaccine, due to the recently vaccinated shedding the virus.  But, here’s the thing. Measles is a reportable disease and CDC and health departments test for virus type. The vaccine uses measles strain A, which protects against all strains, but all outbreaks are NOT strain A. For example, between 2001 and 2003, the following strains were found in measles patients:  B3, D3, D4, D5, D7, D8, H1, H2. These strains are all imported to USA. Furthermore, there are no cases on record of anyone even passing measles vaccine virus to another person. There are a few cases of vaccinated persons getting full blown measles and this is called shedding, but it is shedding to oneself, not others. Measles vaccine virus does not cause outbreaks.

Four: The vaccines did not save us idea is a lie. Sayer and Suzanne both repeatedly refer to mortality (death rates) graphs showing death rate was decreasing before vaccines. Suzanne has put a bunch of these historical mortality rate graphs in her book. It is true that improvements to water quality and nutrition and other lifestyle improvements did help lead to a dramatic decrease in death rate, even from diseases for which we now vaccinate. But, people were still dying and there was still great suffering from diseases, until we started to vaccinate. Look at this graph comparing the measles (mortality) death rate from 1912 to 2001 to the measles (morbidity) disease rate.

In this report on the history of measles in USA, the authors found

“In the first decade of reporting, an average of 297,216 cases were reported each year, representing a mean reported measles incidence of 289/ 100,000. In the same period, an average of 5948 measles-related deaths were reported annually. The average annual number of reported measles cases increased to 530,217 (incidence, 310 cases/100,000) in the decade preceding licensure of measles vaccine (1953—1962). Population-based surveys suggested that reported cases underestimated actual cases in the pre-vaccine period by 85%–90% [1]. By 1953–1962, the mean annual number of fatal measles virus infections had decreased to 440, despite more reported cases [2].

Measles case fatality decreased from 21 deaths/1000 reported cases in 1911–1912 to <1 death/1000 in 1953–1962. This improvement in survival of people infected with measles virus presumably resulted from improved nutrition and medical care, especially the availability of newly discovered antibiotics to treat many of the bacterial complications of measles. It is difficult to estimate whether measles-related deaths were as severely under-reported as were measles cases.”

So, in 1912, we had 5948 measles deaths a year and 289 cases per 100,000 people. In 1953, we had 310 cases of measles per 100,000 people. And, since the population had grown, this meant a tremendous increase in the number of measles cases yearly, from 1953-62. Yes, death rate was down. But measles was still causing suffering to many until the vaccine came out in the 1960s.

This argument applies to all the vaccine preventable diseases. Modern water plants, refrigeration, hand washing, and clean food all helped us be vastly healthier. But, VPD rates were still high until vaccines helped lower them.

 

Five: Sayer talks about how we need germs to be healthy and if we allow our body to fight infection naturally, we will be stronger. He and Neil both claim having a vaccine preventable disease naturally will protect one from cardiovascular disease and cancer.  It is true that some studies are being reported showing a correlation between having chicken pox naturally and a reduced risk of a type of brain cancer. It is true that there is a study from japan that linked having had natural measles and mumps with a lower incidence of cardiovascular disease. But, why is Sayer concluding that children should get sick in order to possibly not have cancer or heart disease later in life? To me, this makes no sense at all and, certainly, the study authors do not make this suggestion at all. No reasonable person would ever suggest that a child should risk getting sick in order to possibly not get sick as a senior. So, this is a half lie, in my opinion. Or, a crazy stretch of the truth. You choose.

Six: Larry makes a claim that combination vaccines are problematic because, in real life, nobody ever gets more than one disease at a time. I am making the face again. Seriously? He thinks you cannot get two diseases at once? The term used for one disease or disorder linked to another is comorbidity. There is scientific literature on vaccine preventable disease comorbidity. Here is a study of children in Ghana having more than one VPD at once. Here is a study from Iran of children getting chicken pox with other diseases.  It is rare to acquire one vaccine preventable disease with another but this does not mean it cannot happen. And, it is not uncommon for people with HIV or other very serious diseases to acquire another infection. Yes, this more common people who are immune compromised or living with malnutrition, but it can happen.

Larry also claims that some countries know that combination vaccines are more dangerous and this is why they don’t offer them. He shares how Japan switched from MMR to MR and M separately because the combo vaccine caused meningitis. In reality, there are different strains of mumps and Japan prefers to use the Urabi strain while USA sticks with Jerryl-Lynn. One brand of MMR, used in Japan, was shown to increase the risk of aseptic meningitis so they switched to a different vaccine for mumps that does not have this problem. They still vaccinate for all three diseases. The switch has nothing to do with combination.

Seven: Paul says the 2004 study discussed in the movie Vaxxed shows a 300% increase in autism in African American Boys. Follow the links to read more about the film and claims.  However, this is a lie, in and of itself, because no studies show 300% more AA boys with autism. This study shows a rate of autism in whites of 62.5 per 10,000 and 42.6 in blacks. Data published in 2012 shows autism rate 1 in 63 white children, 1 in 81 black children, and 1 in 93 Hispanic children were identified with ASD. Here is the dataset.  It is possible that Paul was confused about recent claims made by RFK, but those have been refuted by several scientists who also happen to have autistic children (lest you think they are biased).

Eight: Tetyana says rubella is an unnecessary vaccine for boys and it would be better to simply have rubella parties, the disease is THAT mild. She says pregnant women are the only ones at risk from rubella. It is true that rubella, or German Measles, is a relatively mild disease in children. Complications are more common in adults than the children. The problem is not that rubella is mild but that congenital rubella syndrome is a terrible thing. “A rubella epidemic in the United States in 1964–1965 resulted in 12.5 million cases of rubella infection and about 20,000 newborns with CRS. The estimated cost of the epidemic was $840 million. This does not include the emotional toll on the families involved.”

 

Thanks to vaccines, the incidence of rubella as well as the incidence of congenital rubella syndrome both dropped 99%.  The Pan American Health Organization declared all of the Americas free of native rubella in September 2016. The fact that a person with a PhD in Immunology should believe that rubella parties are a good idea is so reprehensible to me that I am just going to say that this woman must not have even one clue that CRS was like, in the days before vaccines. Before vaccines, 20,000 babies a year were born with CRS, in the USA. That we have eradicated this is astounding.

Nine: Paul says there are no safety studies done for TDaP during pregnancy. He says the vaccines is too toxic to justify giving it to prevent 5-10 pertussis infant deaths a year. Pertussis is a very serious illness, particularly in infants under age 1. Infants are most susceptible to complications and death. In 2015, almost 3000 infants had documented pertussis and 6 died. In 2012, 6000 infants had documented pertussis and 16 died. In 2013, 4000 infants had pertussis and 12 died.  It is likely that many of these infants needed hospitalization and probably all of them needed medical care. Does Paul really think that is not worth preventing?

And, yes, there are safety and efficacy studies on pertussis vaccine during pregnancy. Here is a very long list of such studies.

Paul needs to read more than inserts.

Ten: Suzanne says pertussis vaccine doesn’t work and it leads to a worse infection called parapertussis. Neil says the vaccine has caused the bacteria to evolve. This is something antivaxers have been worried about for years. But, parapertussis is milder than pertussis and parapertussis does not produce the pertussis toxin. Even Joe Mercola says it is milder. So, what about the claim made by Suzanne and Neil? This turns out to be related to a mice study where authors added findings to hype their results and this claim is contradicted by many large-scale human studies.

And, with that, I end my take on episode 3. I am going to save commenting on the greater good for a blog post of it’s own, set for next week.

 

Thanks for reading and remember to think for yourself!

 

Kathy

 

 

 

Thank you to Michael for helping me access this episode and thank you to Dorit for helping me clarify a few poins.

Truth about vaccines: who are the experts?

I missed out on watching episode three of The Truth about Vaccines.  The episodes are only available for free for 24 hours. I missed episode three. I suppose I could try to find it on youtube but, instead, I decided to bring to you the people behind the series.  It is quite a long list.  It is important to know who they are, why the filmmakers consider them experts, and why they are not truly experts in immunization science. Narrator Ty Bollinger makes frequent claims that his film is unbiased and truthful. Is it? How impartial and free of conflicts of interest are the members of this group?

***********************************************************************************

Robert F. Kennedy, JR – RFK is an attorney, author, and environmental activist. For a while, he was famous for working with Riverkeepers and then Waterkeeper Alliance but has since moved on to The Mercury Project and vaccines. His claims about mercury and vaccines are not supported by scientific consensus. He is lately becoming famous for his choice of words.

Sherri Tenpenny, DO – Sherri is a practicing osteopath in Ohio, USA, who runs a store online for supplements and a website called The Vaccine Library where, for $100 a year, you can access her information on vaccines. She also runs a website called TruthKings, which publishes very dramatic stories related to science and vaccines, rarely providing evidence to support claims. She calls herself a vaccine researcher but she has, in fact, published no research.

Paul Thomas, MD – Paul is a pediatrician with offices in the Portland, Oregon area.  He is a founding member of Physicians for Informed Consent, an antivax group affiliated with many other antivax groups. Dr Paul makes claims about his patients health that are not supported by any actual evidence and he is the author of a book called The Vaccine-Friendly Plan. He claims not to be antivax but then he spends a lot of time saying vaccines are dangerous, without much evidence to support his claims.

Toni Bark, MD – Toni is a former hospital medical director who currently runs an aesthetic beauty clinic and health center in Illinois called The center for disease prevention and reversal.  She is a practicing homeopath who also offers nutrition advice, bio-identical hormones, and aesthetic treatments like dermabrasion. She has, in recent years, become a very outspoken antivax activist.

Mike Adams, Health Ranger – Mike fancies himself a sort of health lone ranger, but this is really a business model for which he has become quite successful. It has been documented that Mike’s original foray into the business of health blogging was based on what he felt would be the most financially lucrative area of the internet. His it no wonder he “has found a way to foster and monetize the most current fear gripping the cultural zeitgeist?”  He is considered a health scammer and has been under investigation by the FBI for his actions.

Andrew Wakefield, former MD – Andy has been involved in two notorious science scandals, both relating to his 2004 study.  Brian Deer’s profile of him is accurate, as is this explanation of the “whistleblower” manufactroversy. Of course,  I watched his film Vaxxed.

Barbara Loe Fisher – founder of the National Vaccine Information Center, Barbara talks a lot about vaccine risks, including autism, and freedom and choice. She has a son who had a reaction after his fourth DPT shot that she believes led to his learning disabilities. That spurned her into vaccine advocacy, leading to her being one of the authors of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986.

Del Bigtree – former producer of the television talk show, The Doctors, and producer of Vaxxed. Del was a lower tier producer on 32 episodes of The Doctors (out of 1125 total).  He now makes a full time job out of promoting Vaxxed.

Suzanne Humphries, MD – Suzanne is a former nephrologist (currently licensed but not practicing) who, in 2011, devoted herself to studying homeopathy and then gave that up to focus full time on what she perceives as the evils of vaccines. She has been widely criticized for her ahistorical take on vaccines. I have read her book, Dissolving Illusions, and I am familiar with her vitamin C protocol. Her recommendations for vitamin C are based on case studies from the 1930s.

Larry Pavelsky, MD – Larry is a holistic pediatrician in New York state. He is in practice with a host of “alternative health practitioners.” A hallmark of someone not espousing good science is if they offer a store where they sell supplements and whether they offer to cure autism. Larry does both. Throughout the Truth series, Larry’s comments are among the most outrageously disconnected from fact and science.

Brian Hooker, PhD – Brian is an associate professor of biology at Simpson university in California. He has a teenage son on the autism spectrum and has spent much of the last 20 years working on proving that MMR and mercury caused his son’s “vaccine injury.” He was heavily involved with Vaxxed in that it was his now-retracted study that is featured in the film. His claim of vaccine injury was recently denied with medical evidence proved him wrong.  He has a PhD in chemical engineering.

Sayer Ji – businessman Sayer has a degree in philosophy and runs the website, Greenmedinfo, which is a natural health website oft noted for it’s inexplicable inability to properly read scientific studies. He is also an advisory committee member of RFK’s World Mercury Project.

Judy Mikovitz, PhD – Judy is a disgraced scientist who chose to embrace pseudoscience rather than admit she made a mistake. She was a researcher looking into possible causes of chronic fatigue syndrome and claimed it was caused by a mouse recombinant virus called XMRV.  The reality is that the XMRV was found to be caused by lab contamination, but Judy could not face facts.  Sadly, bad science has a hard time dying and people desperate to repair their reputation sometimes dig themselves in deep holes.

Sin Hang Lee, MD – Sin has made a reputation for himself with his ideas about Gardasil vaccine. Even though his ideas about HPV dna have been widely discredited, he is still sought out by antivaxers.

Stephanie Seneff – Stephanie is Senior Research Scientist at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. That sounds so impressive, doesn’t it. But, why is she trying to study vaccines? This is the question of the day. Lately, she is making incredible claims about vaccines and autism, none of which make any sense.

Marco Ruggiero, MD – Marco is an Italian AIDS denialist and practitioner of autism “cures.” In my world, this makes him pretty low on the respectability totem pole.

Janet Levatin, MD – Janet is in practice with Tenpenny and a known antivaxer.

Joseph Mercola, DO – Joe is the granddaddy of natural health bloggers. He has been in legal trouble for making outlandish claims not based on science and is a millionaire off tanning bed and supplements sales.

Jennifer Margulis, PhD – Jennifer is a writer and known antivaxer. She has no background in science but co-authored Paul’s book (scroll up). She is anti medicine on several fronts, including birth.

Robert Scott Bell, DA, Hom – Robert is a podcaster who supposedly overcame a lot of chronic health conditions with homeopathy (which he now practices) and other natural healing methods.

Tetyana Obukhanych, PhD – Tetyana is a currently not employed immunologist who self published a small manual one can buy online.  She makes a lot of strangely unscientific claims, in her book, which has led to her becoming a popular member of the antivax brigade. She is now also a member of Physicians for Informed Consent. It is not clear why she has rejected her training.

Rashid Buttar, DO – Rashid is a known antivaxer.

Debra Gambrell, DO – Debra is an Anthroposophical Medicine Specialist, which means she espouses the theories of Waldorf School founder, Rudolf Steiner, including that disease makes us stronger.

Allison Fomar, JD – Allison is a parental rights activist.

David Wolfe – David is, well, David.  He thinks the earth is flat.

Jeffrey Jaxen – Jeffrey is an independent journalist who often writes for greenmedinfo and appears on the Robert Scott Bell show.

Robert J, Krakow – Robert is an attorney specializing in vaccine and other injuries.

Polly Tommey – Polly is a friend of Andy Wakefield’s and very involved in Vaxxed, including actively travelling the USA in the Vaxxed bus, collecting vaccine injury stories. She doesn’t believe science is truthful and instead believes whatever parents tell her. She has a son on the autism spectrum and believes he is vaccine injured and his life was destroyed. She is known for saying things like vaccines are murdering babies.

Shawn Centers, DO – Shawn is an integrative doctor who believes he can heal autism.

Neil Z Miller – Neil is a vaccine researcher who likes to use VAERS data that has not been medically verified as accurate in his “studies.”

Laura Hayes – Laura is media editor of Age of Autism, which many in the autism community believe is a hate group.

Tim O’Shea, DC – Tim is the author of a self-published book claiming vaccines do not immunize.

Ty and Charlene Bollinger – Ty is a former CPA who now runs the Truth about Cancer website. Charlene is his wife.

Nico LaHood – Nico is District Attorney for Bexar County, Texas. He believes one of his children became autistic after a vaccine and now talks about it in public.

Brandy Vaughan – Brandy is a former Vioxx rep for Merck who now runs a website called Learn the Risk. She thinks vaccine ingredients are highly toxic and raises money to fund a billboard campaign about them. She feels that her two years selling Vioxx makes her an expert in pharmaceutical company practices.

G. Edward Griffin – G. Edward is a far right conspiracy theorist. 

April Boden – April believes vaccines caused her son’s autism.

Tony Muhammad – Tony is a minister with the Nation of Islam and opposes vaccines. He also believes Vaxxed is truthful and vaccines are causing 250% more autism in African American boys.

Erin Crawford – Erin believes she got cancer from the HPV vaccine but this is not supported by medical evidence.

Mario Lamo-Jimenez – Mario is a Colombian author who now speaks at Autismone conferences on HPV vaccine.

Michael R Hugo – Michael is an attorney

Erin Elizabeth – Erin calls herself “the health nut” and is either currently or has overcome every chronic health condition you can think of, including being aborted as a fetus, mold toxicity, vaccine injury, and god knows what else. Read her story, on her blog. It’s astounding. She is Joe Mercola’s girlfriend and spends much of her time, lately, making a list of “holistic” doctors who have died in the past few years. She believes they are all murder victims.

Heather Rice, DC – Heather is a Vermont chiropractor

Erick Zielinski, DC – Erick is a chiropractor, essential oil salesman, and practitioner of “biblical health” and online ministry out of Atlanta, Georgia.

Srinivasulu Gadugu MD – he is a homeopath

Cilla Whatcott, PhD – she is a homeopath

David Lewis – David is a former research microbiologist and now Co-Chair of the Whistleblower Leadership Council.

Heather Wolfson, DC – Heather is a chiropractor from Arizona who believes vaccines are toxic

Jack Wolfson, DO – Jack is a cardiac specialist from Arizona who now runs a practice with this wife wherein they sell supplements and share why they think vaccines are toxic.

David Brownstein, MD – David is a holistic medicine practitioner from Michigan with specialty in thyroid health, arthritis and other chronic conditions. He believes they can all be overcome through diet.

Edward Group, DC – Edward wins the award for the most initials I have ever seen after one person’s name. According to his website, his title is Dr. Edward F Group III, DC, NP, DACBN, DCBCN, DABFM. You can check for yourself what all of that means.

Ian Clark – Ian is developer of a nanno-nutrition supplement called Oceans Alive.  Yes, it is supposed to have two Ns.

Heidi Bonaroti – Heidi believes her son’s autism was caused by vaccines.

Muhammed Rafeeque, AA, BHMS – Muhammed is a homeopath who practices in India.

Edda West – Edda is founder of Vaccine Choice Canada, a believer that vaccines cause catastrophic illness and death in children, and a contributor to whale dot to and Vaccine Risk Awareness News.

Edwin Black – Edwin is a syndicated columnist and investigative journalist. He specializes in human rights.

Manuela Malaguti-Boyle, PhD, NMD – has a master’s in philosophy and a degree as a naturopathic doctor. She practices homeopathy and natural medicine in Australia.

Tom and Candace Bradstreet – Tom and Candace are related to Jeffrey Bradstreet, who killed himself as federal officials were about to raid his clinic. He had been accused of using an unproven, unregulated, potentially dangerous “cure” for autism called GcMAF.

Irvin Sahni, MD – Irvin is a pain medicine specialist from San Antonia, Texas.

 

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Do you see what I see? The only person on the list who comes close to claiming any expertise about vaccines is Neil Z Miller and his studies have been widely refuted as not valid since he uses unverified VAERS data. Every person on this list has a reason to be antivax and completely biased against vaccines. They either make a living off the claims that vaccines cause all manner of health problems or they are people who are convinced they or their child experience vaccine harm. These are not unbiased, impartial people. Not at all.

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In writing this blog post, I have linked often to several blogs I have come to know and trust over the years. Scienceblogs, Science Based Medicine, the Genetic Literacy Project, Skeptical Raptor, Left Brain Right Brain, and Harpocrates Speaks are blogs I have followed for years. They are all excellent quality. But, don’t take my word for it. My criteria for blog excellence is the following: do they cite their sources, do they back up their claims, do they NOT sell things, and are they good people with good intentions.

 

As I alway says, think for yourself.

 

Kathy