The Truth about vaccines 6: rotavirus

Hopefully, you get the picture from my posts about episodes 1-5 that The Truth about Vaccines is anything but truthful.  This series is really just full of misinformation and lies. For today’s post, I am going to focus exclusively on the misinformation about rotavirus vaccine and Dr Paul Offit, as presented in episode 6. This vaccine is the reason I became a vaccine advocate in the first place. You can read my story, “How a bout of rotavirus made me appreciate vaccines.”

For my family, rotavirus was a terrible experience. It was 10 days (times two) of me not sleeping much at all, because my 11 month old daughter was spewing fluids from both ends every hour or so. When she was not vomiting or having diarrhea, she was nursing. If she was not nursing, she was crying. She refused to eat or drink anything else and would not take her pacifier. I took her to the doctor and was given information on how to keep her hydrated.  It was very hard on both of us and I am not exaggerating when I say that I experienced psychological trauma going through those ten days (times two). I have spoken with other moms who’ve experienced severe rotavirus in their babies and they understand and feel the same way.  14 years later, I still get upset and teary just thinking about it. It was godawful.

With all this in mind, watching the “experts” in the Truth about vaccines talk about rotavirus was painful.

First, Robert F Kennedy Jr implied that the only reason Dr Paul Offit invented the rotavirus vaccine was to take part in the “vaccine gold rush.” RFK Jr, also brings up that the rotavirus inventor, Dr Paul Offit sits on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and holds a chair at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) that is financed by Merck. . It is claimed that Offit voted to add the vaccine to the schedule and then later sold the patent for millions of dollars.  The implication is that because Dr Offit is a “vaccine industry insider,” and this vaccine was put on the market for nefarious reasons.

Next, Jennifer Margulis calls rotavirus “a pretty benign disease.”  She also claims that the decrease in rotavirus incidence has led to an increase in norovirus rates and “that is much more virulent than rotavirus.”  She says ” The theory that I have behind that is that since rotavirus, which was relatively benign, that almost every child in America got before age five and recovered from—no child in America has ever died from rotavirus with the exception of that kid that poor Paul Offit saw when he was a young doctor. Kids in America don’t die of rotavirus. There’s no reason to be giving the rotavirus vaccine.” (Note: Margulis is referring to a story Dr Offit tells of being unable to treat an Appalachian girl with rotavirus, due to her severe dehydration, and how that spurned him to study the disease.)

Then, Dr Paul Thomas, who does not give his patients rotavirus vaccine, claims that his patients who got the vaccine elsewhere have more diarrhea and ER visits than his patients who were not given this vaccine. (Please note he presents no actual data for us to verify his claims nor has he published any data.)  Thomas also says the rotavirus vaccine is contaminated. Barbara Loe Fisher also claims dangerous porcine viruses are in rotavirus vaccines and Sayer Ji implies porcine viruses “are able to infect children with a virus that goes into potentially their germline” and they are in the “same category as HIV, which is associated with AIDS.”

 

Let’s dive in to these claims.

 

The first rotavirus vaccine came on the market in 1998 and was called RotaShield. Pretty soon after, it was noted that some infants were experiencing intussusception soon after vaccination. Rotashield was pulled from the market and studied and an increased risk found between the vaccine and intussusception.  “Intussusception from all other causes is most common among infants in the first year of life; 1 child in 2,000 children to 1 child in 3,000 children is affected before one year of age. Based on the results of the investigations, CDC estimated that one or two additional cases of intussusception would be caused among each 10,000 infants vaccinated with RotaShield® vaccine.”

Please note that infants can get intussusception even when unvaccinated.

Seven years passed before another rotavirus vaccine was on the market. RotaTeq, from Merck, was invented by Drs Fred Clark, Stanley Plotkin, and Paul Offit and licensed in 2006. Rotarix, fromGlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, was licensed in 2008. Globally, there are other rotavirus vaccines. Dr Offit did not sit on the FDA committee that approved any rotavirus vaccine and he was not a member of ACIP, as RFK Jr claims, at the time they voted to recommend adding rotavirus vaccine to the immunization schedule.  The patent for RotaTeq was sold for $182 million but by CHOP, not the doctors who invented the vaccine. As co-inventors, each of the three doctors split 10% of that three ways. Keep in mind that they spent 25 years working on that vaccine, nearly all vaccines in development never make it to market, and they never knew if their vaccine would succeed until it did. As Dr Offit himself states, scientists don’t research vaccines for money. “You do it because it’s fun and because you think you can contribute. And the reward for creating a vaccine was also never financial. The reward was watching this vaccine dramatically reduce the incidence of rotavirus hospitalizations in the US and now getting to watch the vaccine enter the developing world in countries like Mali, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Ghana, and Nicaragua. That’s why we did it.”

Jennifer’s claim that rotavirus is a benign disease is easily negated by the facts:

Dehydration is the major concern for infants with rotavirus.  Globally, 3.4% of child deaths are from dehydration and rotavirus. Most deaths occur in the poorest countries, but rotavirus was still a health concern in USA, before the vaccine. In the prevaccine era, in the USA, 95% of children under five experienced at least one rotavirus infection by age five.

“Rotavirus infection [in USA] was responsible for more than 400,000 physician visits, more than 200,000 emergency department (ED) visits, 55,000 to 70,000 hospitalizations, and 20 to 60 deaths each year in children younger than 5 years. Annual direct and indirect costs were estimated at approximately $1 billion, primarily due to the cost of time lost from work to care for an ill child. In the prevaccine era, rotavirus accounted for 30% to 50% of all hospitalizations for gastroenteritis among U.S. children younger than 5 years of age; the incidence of clinical illness was highest among children 3 to 35 months of age. Infants younger than 3 months of age have relatively low rates of rotavirus infection, probably because of passive maternal antibody, and possibly breastfeeding. Rotavirus infection of adults is usually asymptomatic but may cause diarrheal illness.”

source

And she claims norovirus is worse than rotavirus. Rotavirus is 3 to 8 days of terrible diarrhea and vomiting that can be severe in infants. Norovirus is 12 to 48 hours of vomiting and diarrhea. Rotavirus used to cause 200,000 ER visits a year and 50,000-70,000 hospitalizations a year, pre-vaccine.  Norovirus rates vary from year to year but, in bad years, it has also caused as many as 250,000 ER visits and 50,000-70,000 hospitalizations. As you can see by this graph of hospitalization rates for norovirus, norovirus rates clearly go up and down and have not risen dramatically, other than the pandemic years, since rotavirus vaccine was licensed. And, rotavirus did not only kill the one child Dr Offit met as an intern. It killed as many as 60 infants a year, pre-vaccine. Clearly, Jennifer Margulis is wrong.

Dr Paul Thomas’ claims about his own vaccinated patients being sicker than those who did not have rotavirus vaccine are unable to be verified. There are no better than rumors or anecdotes. I could counter with my own anecdote that I have only had a gastro infection once in my life, never had noro or rota viruses, my younger (vaccinated for rotavirus) daughter has never had a gastro infection in 9 years, and my oldest has never had a gastro bug since she was 14 months old and recovered from that second round of wild rotavirus. Harrumph!

Finally, the porcine dna issue has been studied at great length and not found to be a health concern by anyone reputable. Keep in mind that people opposed to vaccines present a lot of concerns about dna in vaccines without regard to the fact that we eat, breathe, and drink non-human dna all day, every day.  They fear that we are going to turn into mutants, like The Fly. If non-human dna were a health risk, I would be half cat, thanks to these guys.

 

Remember to think for yourself,

 

Kathy

The Truth about vaccines 4: influenza, HIB, and pneumococcal vaccines and herd immunity

Let me remind you that an explanation as to this video series can be found here and a run-down of the experts biographies can be found here.

Here are the top ten most egregious lies from Episode 4 of The Truth about Vaccines.

 

One: Episode 4 of Ty Bollinger‘s The Truth About Vaccines opens with a discussion about influenza.  Neil Z. Miller makes a claim that the CDC fabricates the annual flu death statistics. This is not true. First of all, the CDC does estimate annual flu deaths, but that is not the same as fabricating.  Here is a good explanation of how they estimate these numbers. One thing that Neil and Ty discuss is pneumonia death rate. Neil claims ” one of the statistical issues is that the CDC places deaths from pneumonia along with deaths from the flu into the same category.” Neil fails to acknowledge that “many seasonal flu-related deaths occur one or two weeks after a person’s initial infection, either because the person may develop a secondary bacterial co-infection (such as bacterial pneumonia)” or some other complication. In other words, having influenza can lead to pneumonia. The cause of death is still related to influenza, however, so it is appropriate to put these two in the same category. Thus, when the CDC reports 55,227 deaths in one year from influenza and pneumonia, they are doing so because they are related.  There are many “reasons that CDC and other public health agencies in the United States and other countries use statistical models to estimate the annual number of seasonal flu-related deaths.” They certainly are not, as Neil claims, making things up.

Two: Suzanne Humphries says Flumist nasal flu vaccine was “very bad and it wasn’t that great before and it was spreading influenza.” This is untrue. In the USA, the Flumist had four strains of influenza in it, making it a quadrivalent vaccine. In Canada, Flumist had three strains. Studies in USA showed the quadrivalent version had only a 3% efficacy rate, compared to 63% for flu shot for 2015-16. On the other hand, studies in Canada showed the trivalent vaccine was highly effective. So, the problem was not the live mist vaccine, but something to do with that added strain. And, there is no evidence to support Suzanne’s claim that the mist was spreading influenza.

Three: The Cochrane Collaboration says flu vaccine does not work. In reality, this comes from one paper written by Tom Jefferson, a physician based in Rome and a member of the Cochrane Collaboration, a highly respected international network of researchers who appraise medical evidence. Cochrane Collaboration is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organization consisting of a group of more than 37,000 volunteers in more than 130 countries. They are highly reputable but not everyone agrees with everything they publish. And, this particular idea that flu vaccine does not work, per Tom Jefferson, is controversial. Jefferson has aligned himself with some pretty unscientific characters. And, his ideas have been questioned by many. Basically, Jefferson thinks that because influenza vaccine does not work great, it is useless. Others argue that it is not a great vaccine but better than nothing. To quote Dr Mark Crislip, “I have discussed flu vaccination multiple times in the blog. The question is not IF influenza vaccination works. It does. It is the  magnitude of the effect and in what populations it is effective that is the question.   The preponderance of information suggests the for most of the endpoints above, the influenza vaccine has beneficial effects. It’s not a great vaccine but better than nothing.”

Four:  Ty and RFK discuss thimerosal and RFK says it was only removed from three vaccines. They say nothing about how thimerosal is not in any pediatric vaccines except multi-dose flu. The FDA has information on vaccines and thimerosal. You can read the pediatric vaccine list here and easily see that only multi-dose flu vaccines have thimerosal. Tripedia, a DTaP vaccine, is no longer used.   Neil says “they” are only saving 15 cents per dose by using multi-dose vials. A discussion ensues about how children are worth 15 cents. But, the difference between multi-dose and single dose flu vaccine vials is not 15 cents.  I have no idea where they got the 15 cents but here is a list of how much pediatric vaccines cost. The Vaccines for Children program is a CDC program which provides vaccines free of cost for who might otherwise not be able to afford them.  If you look on their price list, you can see the cost for a multi-dose vial of Fluzone is $16.622 per dose for private sector providers.  It is $18.72 per dose for the single dose syringes. That is about $2 difference per dose. Not 15 cents.

Five: RFK claims that if a doctor drops a multi-dose vial of flu vaccine, the doctor would have to call in a hazmat crew to clean it up. He says the multi-dose vial is hazardous waste, if not used completely. You cannot throw away unused vials. A multi-dose vial of flu vaccine has ten doses in it. Since it has 0.25 mL dose of thimerosal in it, then it has 2.5 ml of thimerosal in a vial. Remember, thimerosal is not elemental mercury.  RFK is referring to elemental mercury being a hazardous substance.  He is confusing thimerosal with elemental mercury. The EPA does have elementary mercury spill guidelines.  But, thimerosal is not mercury and there are no cleanup guidelines for it. You cannot inject elementary mercury into a body but you can inject thimerosal. Because compounds like thimerosal are not the same as elements.  Similarly, the comments by Ty and Paul about how much thimerosal is in vaccines is also based on bad math and misinformation.

Six:  Paul talks about how insurers have quality measures, mostly which include vaccine status. He claims this is pressure to conform to standards. He says insurers don’t look at any other health measures. RFK comes on to say pediatricians and doctors read no science, they just take the word of the CDC on everything. Takes a sec to plug his book. He says doctors are punished dramatically by insurance companies if they do not get a certain percent of patients are not vaccinated. He claims “you don’t cross Blue Cross.” He says if 63% of patients are not vaccines, doctors get no payments from insurers and “he suffers a terrible terrible financial punishment.” Shari comes on to talk about the Blue Cross Blue Shield provider program for Michigan providers, refers to it as the “combo 10” but fails to mention this is only for patients and providers of BCBS of Michigan. She says this applies to entire practice so doctors who have 1000 2 year olds in their practice could get $40,000 if 63% of those are fully vaccinated. This is given as the reason for firing patients. Jack comes on to claim that medical doctors are all about money and seeing the most patients in one day that they can possibly fit into their schedule. Paul claims that by not fully vaccinated all his patients, in 8 years he has lost over $1 million in administrative fees. Apparently, in his practice, vaccines are free for him to buy so any reimbursement from insurers just does into his coffers to cover administrative fees? He says pediatricians could not survive in business without financial incentives from vaccines.

I wrote about the Blue Cross Blue Shield program for Michigan providers. There are many problems with the claims made in the film.  First of all, most people opposed to vaccines  (POTVs) are not recognizing or posting that this program is only for BCBS of Michigan providers and only if they join the incentive program, called the Physician Group Incentive Program.  Secondly, POTVs are not clarifying this only works for patients insured by BCBS, with providers enrolled in the program. Thirdly, they are also not clarifying that the program is comprehensive and involves many different healthcare outcomes, not just vaccines. There are incentives for helping patients achieve healthy weight, healthy diabetes control, hypertension control, and more. Finally, POTVs are not sharing that these programs SAVE the insurance company money.

Seven: Ty comes on to claim Japan delays vaccines. A “board certified integrative oncologist” by the name of Manuela Malaguti-Boyle claims Japan gives not vaccines under age 2. Apparently, she is unfamiliar with the actual vaccine schedule in Japan. She claims this is to protect the children. She claims that in countries which do birth vaccines the children don’t do very well. If you read the Japanese immunization schedule, they do vaccinate children under age 2 years. Here is a close up of the vaccine schedule for infants and children under age 2 years.

We also know, from my three part series, that many countries vaccinate infants, many vaccinate similarly to USA, SIDS and infant mortality rates in USA are both at all time lows, and vaccines don’t cause autism.

 

Eight: Paul says that informed consent conversations with parents should include the risk of acquiring the disease as well as the risks associated with the vaccines. If a disease is rare, he feels it is okay to not use that vaccine. HIB is an example. This is called hiding in the herd. Paul is advocating that his patients hide in the vaccinated herd because the possibility of getting HIB or measles is rare.  But, what happens if more and more people stop vaccinating? Then, the risk of getting HIB or measles increases. So, Paul is contributing to the increase in disease rates by advocating people not vaccinate.   Joseph Albeitz, an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado, Denver, and The Children’s Hospital put it well: “It bears to be stated again, frankly and clearly.  The choice to refuse a vaccine, to “hide in the herd,” is an active decision to accept a markedly higher risk of infection, its complications, the associated medical costs and lost wages, the responsibility of spreading the disease to others should an infection occur, and to choose to undermine the very herd immunity on which we all depend.” source

Nine: Larry comes on to claim that vaccine ingredients cause allergies. He says castor oil in Vitamin K shot is linked with peanut allergies. Vitamin K is not a vaccine and it also has no castor oil in it. There is no castor oil in any vaccines except adenovirus, which is not given routinely.

Dr Janet Levatin claims “allergies were unheard of before the invention of the hypodermic needle.” They were not a known phenomenon at all. She says substances being injected into us are the reason we have allergies. She claims HIB vaccine is made with peanut oil in adjuvants in the vaccine. She says this is not disclosed due to trade secrets. She says the HIB bacterium is similar in weight to peanuts so there is also a cross-reaction.  HIB bacterium nothing like peanuts and  there is nothing related to peanuts in any vaccine. 

Ten: Autism is a vaccine injury. Jeffrey Jaxon comes on to say “every child that has a vaccine injury is creating a warrior in the mother and a soldier in the father. And these soldiers will fight to the death.”  Mike comes on to compare vaccine mandates to communism. He says the vaccine industry uses the same tools as Chairman Mao and Adolph Hitler. Both Jeffrey and Mike Adams make mention of impeding violence coming from the vaccine freedom movement. I am not sure if this is a lie or not but it is certainly not a rational claim at all. If anyone is planning violence, that is domestic terrorism and will, hopefully, be treated as such. Why on earth would anyone get health information from terrorists? Personally, aside from all the lies and misinformation told in this series, what concerns me the most is the threats of violence. That is why I make this face a lot, when I watch this series.

 

As always, think for yourself. Remember to verify all claims before you make them.

 

 

Kathy

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?

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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

Do doctors get paid to vaccinate?

Source

Lately, people opposed to vaccines have been very upset about a recent finding that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan has a Performance Recognition program for provider incentives, including paying $400 to providers for every fully vaccinated two year old in their practice.  This screen shot comes from page 16 of the document:

 

 

As you can see, the target is 63% of patients, so people opposed to vaccines think this means that if a provider can vaccinate at least 63% of two year olds in his or her practice, they will receive $400 per patient. As many pediatricians have between a few hundred to 1000 patients, people opposed to vaccines postulate that providers could be earning as much as $80,000 extra a year for vaccinating.

There are many problems with this claim.  First of all, most people opposed to vaccines  (POTVs) are not recognizing or posting that this program is only for BCBS of Michigan providers and only if they join the incentive program, called the Physician Group Incentive Program.  Secondly, POTVs are not clarifying this only works for patients insured by BCBS, with providers enrolled in the program. Thirdly, they are also not clarifying that the program is comprehensive and involves many different healthcare outcomes, not just vaccines. There are incentives for helping patients achieve healthy weight, healthy diabetes control, hypertension control, and more. Finally, POTVs are not sharing that these programs SAVE the insurance company money.

 

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan is a non-profit company.  Saving $155 million a year is considerable and enables them to make healthcare more affordable for all enrollees.  They have done a seemingly tremendous job creating partnership programs with providers that save money and keep people healthy. Pediatricians earn a good living, but compared to most specialties, they earn considerably less. The average pediatrician earns $175,400 a year while cardiologists earn $525,00 a year and orthopedic surgeons earn almost that much. Clearly, pediatricians could earn far more money with other medical specialties. Furthermore, BCBS of Michigan doesn’t come anywhere near paying out the $80,000 per provider POTVs estimate because this benefit only applies to a few children.

Think about this:  How many fully vaccinated, two year old children are there in a pediatrician practice?  Pediatricians see patients from age newborn to 21. Even if they are getting $400 per fully vaccinated two year old, pediatricians usually have a case load of 1000 patients each so that would be about 45 two year olds per practice. They are not going to all be fully vaccinated. The threshold is 63% and not all providers will meet it. Assuming they do meet it, 63% is 28 two year olds so that could mean $11,000 a year, but only if they  meet the threshold. After taxes, that would be an extra $7000 a year, perhaps? And, remember, the insurance company IS SAVING MONEY by offering this and other incentives. In fact, if you browse the brochure, they pay out more for vaccines than anything else. That tells me that vaccination saves them MORE money than the other health indicators.

So what if insurers pay out providers a benefit when they vaccinate? This is about saving money, in the long run. Insurance companies save money when children are healthy. They lose money when children are chronically ill or hospitalized. This incentive is PROOF that vaccines work and save insurance companies money.

Always think for yourself.

 

Kathy