A Lyme disease vaccine, LYMErix, was approved by the FDA in 1998.
Unfortunately, the manufacturer stopped making it a few years later.
What Ever Happened to the Lyme Disease Vaccine?
Although Lyme disease is caused by a bacterial infection, the bacteria is transmitted to people through tick bites. Not surprisingly, the original Lyme disease vaccine didn’t attack ticks, it attacked the Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria in those ticks, before they could cause an infection.
A new Lyme disease vaccine would be welcomed in the 14 states where the majority of Lyme disease cases are reported.
After three doses, LYMErix was found to be 78% effective at preventing Lyme disease.
Unfortunately, unverified reports of vaccine side effects, especially arthritis, were hyped by the media and anti-vaccine groups and led folks to avoid the vaccine.
In their article, “Concerns Grow Over Reactions To Lyme Shots,” The New York Times even gave equal time to doctors from the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society, who push the idea that folks need treatment for chronic Lyme disease.
Another vaccine, ImuLyme, didn’t even bother applying for FDA licensure at the time.
“In 2002, in response to low vaccine uptake, public concern about adverse effects, and class action lawsuits, SmithKline Beecham withdrew the vaccine from the market despite the fact that both pre- and post-licensure safety data showed no difference in the incidence of chronic arthritis between those who received the vaccine and those who had not.”
The History of the Lyme Disease Vaccine
Interestingly, a more current article in The New York Times, “Lyme Disease Is Spreading Fast. Why Isn’t There a Vaccine?,” doesn’t mention the media’s role in bringing down the vaccine.
“But the company took it off the market less than four years later, citing low sales, amid lawsuits from patients who said the vaccine caused severe arthritis and other symptoms… The high cost of the vaccine and confusion over who should get it and how many doses were needed didn’t help its prospects.”
Lyme Disease Is Spreading Fast. Why Isn’t There a Vaccine?
And that’s likely why we continue to see false balance in their reporting, as we see them interview a group who is “skeptical about the new vaccine.”
A new vaccine that hasn’t even made it into phase II trials yet!
“Whatever you think about Andrew Wakefield, the real villains of the MMR scandal are the media.”
Ben Goldacre on The MMR story that wasn’t
The media’s role in scaring folks about vaccines isn’t new.
“As we ask how to weigh public health benefits of interventions against potential risks (notably incurred by identifiable individuals), the LYMErix case illustrates that media focus and swings of public opinion can pre-empt the scientific weighing of risks and benefits in determining success or failure.”
The Lyme vaccine: a cautionary tale
Hopefully, folks have learned their lesson though. How many people have developed Lyme disease since LYMErix was withdrawn from the market? After all, Lyme disease should still be a vaccine-preventable disease.
The former Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Indiana (1983-2013) has been described as being “antivaccine through and through” and “organized quackery’s best friend in Congress.”
Dan Burton held over 20 Congressional hearings trying to prove that there was a link between vaccines and autism.
Hearings that gave a high profile platform to Andrew Wakefield and are best described as:
“carefully choreographed to generate as much negative feeling toward the vaccination system as possible.”
Arthur Allen on Vaccine The Controversial Story of Medicine’s Greatest Lifesaver
Who replaced Dan Burton?
It seems to be U.S. Congressman Bill Posey (R-FL), who has been described as “vying to take over the title of the most antivaccine legislator in the U.S. Congress since Dan Burton retired.”
He got a little help from Rep. Darrell Issa, who conducted a meeting of the Subcommittee of Government Operations in 2014, Examining the Federal Response to Autism Spectrum Disorders.
“Okay. Let’s stop it right there. Because every time we have ever talked about doing one of those studies, some idiot in the media says I am suggesting that children intentionally don’t get vaccinated. And I don’t know that anybody ever has ever proposed that. But there are plenty of children whose parents will not allow them to be vaccinated. There are plenty of cultures where children are not vaccinated. And there are other reasons children are not vaccinated. And there are children who take large doses of vaccination, and children whose parents decide to have them take one vaccination at a time to avoid thimerosal. And I have not been able to ascertain that there has actually been a legitimate study done that wasn’t tainted by the touch of the international colossal scumbag Poul Thorsen.”
Rep. Bill Posey questioning NIH Director Thomas R. Insel, M.D. in the Congressional hearing on Examining the Federal Response to Autism Spectrum Disorders
Who else might be joining him?
Since the verbal evidence she hears says kids are getting too many vaccines, Rep Maloney asks the CDC Director why we can’t just space out the vaccines kids get…
There is Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY).
Maloney also spoke at a 2012 hearing planned by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) on the federal response to rising autism rates.
“Are you looking at vaccination? Is that part of your studies? I have a question. Are you looking at vaccination? Are you having a study on vaccination and the fact that they’re cramming them down and having kids have nine at one time. Is that a cause? Do you have any studies on vaccination?”
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) in a hearing on Rising Autism Rates
Rep. Carolyn Maloney was also a co-sponsor of Rep. Bill Posey’s 2015 Vaccine Safety Study Act bill, which called for “a comprehensive study comparing total health outcomes, including risk of autism, in vaccinated populations in the United States with such outcomes in unvaccinated populations in the United States, and for other purposes,” even though many experts have long pointed out the problems with using intentionally unvaccinated folks as a comparison group.
But Rep Maloney got her start long before Bill Posey ever came to Congress…
In 2006, in response to a series of articles by Dan Olmstead, who later created the website, Age of Autism, Rep Maloney held a briefing at the National Press Club where she proposed the Comprehensive Study of Autism Epidemic Act of 2006, a bill that sounds awfully similar to Posey’s Vaccine Safety Study Act.
Rep. John Duncan (R-TN) was another co-sponsor.
But we shouldn’t forget Rep. Dave Weldon MD (R-Fl), who introduced the Mercury-Free Vaccines Act of 2004 and the Vaccine Safety and Public Confidence Assurance Act of 2007. Weldon also sent a number of letters to Julie Gerberding questioning a study about thimerosal by Thomas Verstraeten, a study that was investigated and cleared by Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY) and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee in 2005. Because he was a doctor, Rep. Burton also had Weldon do a lot of the questioning during his hearings.
And there is also Rep. Christopher Smith (R-NJ), who was a cosponsor when Maloney reintroduced the Vaccine Safety and Public Confidence Assurance Act in 2009.
Not surprisingly, many of these members of Congress have been getting donations from anti-vaccine organizations.
Henry Waxman was a featured speaker at the 2015 AAP Legislative Conference.
In contrast to all of the folks above, there was Rep. Henry A Waxman (D-CA), who retired after 40 years in Congress, but not before:
fighting back against Dan Burton’s misinformation in his hearings about vaccines
introducing the Vaccine Access and Supply Act of 2005
authoring the stand-alone Vaccines for Children legislation that was included in the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 that created the Vaccines for Children (VFC) Program
introducing the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986
But his work on vaccines has probably been the most low-profile thing that Waxman did, which is why he is often described as “one of the most important Congressman ever.”
You’ll never hear that said about Dan Burton, Bill Posey, Dave Weldon, or Carolyn Maloney…
“To our community, Andrew Wakefield is Nelson Mandela and Jesus Christ rolled up into one.”
J. B. Handley
He is the guy who published the 1998 paper in Lancet in the UK that started folks thinking that the MMR vaccine is somehow associated with autism.
In 1998, a major medical journal based in the UK, The Lancet, published a report headed by Andrew Wakefield, who was at that time a gastroenterological surgeon and medical researcher. The report implied a causal link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and the development of autism combined with IBD in children, which Wakefield described as a new syndrome he named “autistic entercolitis”.
Andrew Wakefield’s Harmful Myth of Vaccine-induced “Autistic Enterocolitis”
But he didn’t actually say that the MMR vaccine caused autism in that paper, did he?
If not for the press conference, which in itself was unusual, and all of the media attention over the next few years, his small study, which was “essentially a collection of 12 clinical anecdotes,” would have gone nowhere.
But there was no “Wakefield Factor” on immunization rates in the UK, was there? Didn’t measles cases continue to go down in the 10 years after his Lancet paper was published?
MMR vaccination rates had dropped below 80% by 2003, when the first measles outbreaks in the UK began. They didn’t fully recover until 2012.
Despite the heroic efforts of some folks to manipulate the data, it is clear that MMR vaccination rates dropped and measles cases jumped in the years after Wakefield’s MMR scare.
But even if his paper scared people away from vaccinating and protecting their kids, he was never really found guilty of fraud, was he?
While the findings of the General Medical Council panel that took away Wakefield’s medical license never used the word ‘fraud,’ they described things that are fraudulent. The words dishonest and misleading come up a lot too.
How do you define fraud?
“The Office of Research Integrity in the United States defines fraud as fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism.13 Deer unearthed clear evidence of falsification. He found that not one of the 12 cases reported in the 1998 Lancet paper was free of misrepresentation or undisclosed alteration, and that in no single case could the medical records be fully reconciled with the descriptions, diagnoses, or histories published in the journal.
Who perpetrated this fraud? There is no doubt that it was Wakefield. Is it possible that he was wrong, but not dishonest: that he was so incompetent that he was unable to fairly describe the project, or to report even one of the 12 children’s cases accurately? No.”
Fiona Godlee on Wakefield’s article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulent
But those charges from the General Medical Council were later all overturned, weren’t they?
While charges against John Walker-Smith, a co-author of Wakefield’s study, were dropped on appeal, that doesn’t exonerate Wakefield in anyway. Remember, John Walker-Smith was actually against blaming the MMR vaccine and unlike Wakefield, he and another co-author actually published their own press release stating continued support of the use of the MMR vaccine.
But the other coauthors have stood by the results of the paper, haven’t they?
“We wish to make it clear that in this paper no causal link was established between MMR vaccine and autism as the data were insufficient. However, the possibility of such a link was raised and consequent events have had major implications for public health. In view of this, we consider now is the appropriate time that we should together formally retract the interpretation placed upon these findings in the paper, according to precedent.”
Retraction of an Interpretation
They stood by the idea that it is important that research be done so that gastrointestinal problems in autistic children can be recognized and treated. Almost all of them retracted Wakefield’s interpretation of the paper though.
Yeah, but other studies have proven Wakefield to be right though, haven’t they?
No, they haven’t. In fact, other labs could not even replicate Wakefield’s original study.
Why wasn’t Wakefield ever charged in a criminal court?
But Wakefield’s Lancet paper wasn’t retracted because it’s findings were wrong…
Yes it was!
“Following the judgment of the UK General Medical Council’s Fitness to Practise Panel on Jan 28, 2010, it has become clear that several elements of the 1998 paper by Wakefield et al are incorrect, contrary to the findings of an earlier investigation. In particular, the claims in the original paper that children were “consecutively referred” and that investigations were “approved” by the local ethics committee have been proven to be false. Therefore we fully retract this paper from the published record.”
Retraction—Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children
Still think Andrew Wakefield isn’t a fraud?
Every time there is a measles outbreak, anti-vaccine folks pop up to defend Andrew Wakefield. The problem is that they get virtually everything about him wrong!
Their false narratives and myths attempt to rewrite history and make you forget that he doesn’t just scare parents away from vaccinating and protecting their kids, he hurts autistic kids and their families.
There is a new Crazymothers video floating around and it is everything that’s wrong with the modern anti-vaccine movement.
What is so shocking about a pediatrician talking to a mother about the importance of vaccinating and protecting her child?
On the fence parents are being told ‘this this and this’ by their pediatricians and then going to someone who has found Internet fame making Crazymothers videos to find out if they are true.
She even defends Andrew Wakefield and doesn’t believe that people died of measles once MMR vaccination rates went down after Wakefield’s study was published.
A Crazymother Visits Her Pediatrician to Talk About Vaccines
Crazymothers?
As someone who is mindful that language can promote stigmas and stereotypes, it is not a term that I chose.
It is the name of a parenting group.
Wait until you hear what this pediatrician has to say when a Crazymother informs her she will no longer be vaccinating!
“Ok, today is just a hepatitis vaccine.”
I have made the decision that I no longer want my kids to be vaccinated.
“At all?”
At all. So, I know that’s not what you want to hear.
“It isn’t. It scares me. It scares me a lot.”
I know. I hear that, but I also have to do what I feel is best.
“Is there a specific concern that you have?”
Oh, there is a lot of things.
“What are they?”
There’s a lot. I’m worried about a lot. I wasn’t planning on having this conversation today. I didn’t know he was getting a shot. I wasn’t prepared. I thought he coming in for a blood test today. There’s a lot of reached out and met a lot of other moms who just have a lot of really sad stories and I just kind of started doing my own research and I just don’t feel like it is best for my kids and … I’m very concerned for his health and him getting vaccinated with all of these problems that he already has isn’t going to benefit him right now so I may change my mind down the road.
That last paragraph says an awful lot about why some parents are choosing to delay or skip their children’s vaccines:
they are getting influenced to make their decision in anti-vaccine Facebook groups, which are essentially echo-chambers of anti-vaccine misinformation and propaganda
Mostly they are scared. Hopefully this mom does some more research, gets more answers to her questions, and does change her mind soon.
Crazymothers Propaganda
The video, most which I have transcribed, also illustrates why it is important to be prepared when you talk to your pediatrician about vaccines. After all, you can’t get your questions about vaccines answered if you don’t ask any questions.
“So my job at every visit is to let you know what you are declining and what we’re trying to protect against. It’s also very important if you decide not to immunize to remember that he’s at risk for a lot of other things so if he gets a fever its going to mean something different to mean than a child who is fully immunized as a fever… so if you call us after hours and he has a fever, make sure you tell us, oh by the way, he isn’t immunized…”
How does it mean something different if a child is intentionally not vaccinated?
While a vaccine-preventable disease should be in the back of your mind for any kid if their symptoms fit the disease, since vaccines aren’t 100% effective, they move higher up your list of possibilities if you know the child is unvaccinated and unprotected.
“I also just want to tell you that there’s a very big difference between anecdotal evidence and population based evidence, so just because someone has a sad story doesn’t mean that what happened to them is truly related to the vaccine.”
yeah
“And also keep in mind that in terms of autism, the study that was done in England years ago that supposedly linked autism to the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine was tainted. It was funded by anti-vaccine lawyers, was retracted by every single person that offered that study and because of that study, children didn’t get the MMR and many died.”
Crazymothers – OMG, I can’t even with this… She said that children didn’t get the MMR and many died. That’s not true. If you look at the cases of measles after 1998 when the Lancet study was published the measles cases actually went down. Nobody died. Nobody has died in America for years and years from the measles. It is completely silly.
Nobody died?
Measles cases went down?
“Between 2001 and 2013 there was a sharp rise in the number of UK measles cases, and three people died.”
Current measles risks in the UK and Europe
As most folks now, before Wakefield was stripped of his medical license, he practiced in the United Kingdom, and not surprisingly, that’s where we saw a big effect on MMR rates. They went down and measles cases went up.
MMR vaccination rates had dropped below 80% by 2003, when the first measles outbreaks in the UK began. They didn’t fully recover until 2012.
But even as measles cases and deaths have gone down globally, measles outbreaks and measles deaths have been much worse in the rest of Europe.
Even in the United States, cases have gone way up since we hit a record low of 37 cases in 2004 and there have been deaths, with the last in 2015.
“Again, this was very contentious and you would not get consensus from all members of the group on this, but that is my feeling, that the, the risk of this particular syndrome developing is related to the combined vaccine, the MMR, rather than the single vaccines.”
Andrew Wakefield
It is amazing how many times you hear the phrase “that’s not true” in this video about things that are so easy to confirm as facts.
“Continue to give it some thought because to me vaccines are modern miracles and it scares me to death to have people not getting vaccinated… He’ll probably be okay, but that’s because I’ve vaccinated my kids the other day, so we’re protecting your kid… The more people who stop doing it, forget about it, it’s going to go back to the old days where people are dying all of the time.”
Crazymothers – There’s that herd immunity myth. She says that your kid is going to be okay because I’m doing the right thing. I’m vaccinating my child. And anybody who studies this knows that’s not true! Herd immunity is a myth. Go outside and talk to a 30-year-old, 40-year-old, 50-year-old, who hasn’t been recently vaccinated and you can clearly see, plain as day…
As far as I know, we have indoor plumbing, we have sewage systems, we have clean water, and we have access to whole foods, we have ways to supplement with vitamins and minerals, we have all of these amazing things and that is what actually brings disease rates down.
Proper sanitation, sewage systems, all of the modern things that we take for granted – that is what is actually bringing the disease down, because clearly, in under-developed countries, we still see the diseases rampant, right?
But herd immunity is disease specific, so when we talk about herd immunity for measles, it doesn’t matter if someone has immunity against hepatitis A or Hib. Also, some vaccines, like Hib and Prevnar, have indirect effects, protecting adults even though they aren’t vaccinated, because vaccinated kids are less likely to become infectious.
There is only clearly one modern thing that that anti-vaccine folks take for granted – vaccines.
My uncle got polio around 1950, in Brooklyn, just before the first polio vaccine was developed.
You know what?
They had indoor plumbing, sewage systems, clean water, whole foods, vitamins and minerals, and medicine – he was hospitalized for six months – yet many people still died of polio.
In 1951, during the first season of I Love Lucy, you can see that they had indoor plumbing. Surprised?
At that time, during the pre-vaccine era, many people also died of measles, tetanus, pertussis, chicken pox, and many other diseases that are now prevented with vaccines.
In 1954, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz asked everyone to “give every dime and dollar” they could spare to fight polio.
And unfortunately, many under-developed countries still don’t have proper sanitation, sewage systems, or good nutrition, but do you know what they also don’t have?
Polio.
We are very close to eradicating polio all over the world. Only two countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan still have cases of wild polio today. And so far this year, there have only been 11 cases. Did every other country in the world suddenly get proper sanitation, sewage systems, and good nutrition? Is that why we are so close to eradicating polio?
Of course not. It’s the polio vaccine.
Vaccines work. Vaccines are safe and necessary. They have few risks and many benefits. You won’t learn any of that from the Crazymothers group and that’s likely why you have made the decision that you no longer want your kids to be vaccinated.
What to Know About Crazymothers Propaganda
Don’t let Crazymothers propaganda scare you away from vaccinating and protecting your kids.
The reason why Kat Von D won’t vaccinate her baby!
Looking at this type of anti-vaccine propaganda can help you understand why some parents are scared to vaccinate their kids.
Actually, despite the hype, a new video from Del Bigtree, who works with Andrew Wakefield, never does reveal the reason why Kat Von D won’t vaccinate. That shouldn’t be a surprise from a guy who produced a movie about a whistleblower, but left the whisteblower out of the movie.
“We are not against vaccines. Just because we have hesitancies and valid concerns about injecting our baby with specific chemicals and toxins does not mean we are anti anything.”
Kat Von D
We don’t know… Most people assumed it was because she was vegan, but many vegan parents do vaccinate their kids.
“As a soon-to-be-parent [and especially as a first-time-mom] I do feel it my responsibility to have questions, and to listen to my motherly instinct to question things, and do my research.
What we have found is that sometimes it isn’t always so black and white.
While we believe medications, including vaccines, are not all bad – we also can’t dismiss the fact that some may not be good for everyone.
There are plenty of studies that show some vaccinations can work wonders. And there are also studies that show some people [including mothers, and babies] may be more susceptible to vaccine injuries more than others.
It’s unfair for anyone to expect me [or any parent] to take the word of the pharmaceutical companies who have much to gain from and industry worth billions without question – and then have to dismiss any concerns of my own.”
Unfortunately, there are an awful lot of bad ones too.
How to End the Epidemic of Bad Books About Autism
Why are there so many bad books about autism?
That’s easy.
JB Handley is the latest to write a book about vaccines and autism, moving the focus to aluminum, now that it has become obvious that removing thimerosal from vaccines didn’t affect autism rates.
Just about every anti-vaccine expert out there also thinks that they are an expert on autism. In fact, they think that they have all of the answers and can even help you cure and prevent autism.
That’s why there are books like:
The Autism Book: What Every Parent Needs to Know About Early Detection, Treatment, Recovery, and Prevention by Dr. Bob Sears
Preventing Autism: What You Can Do to Protect Your Children Before and After Birth by Dr. Jay Gordon
Louder Than Words: A Mother’s Journey in Healing Autism by Jenny McCarthy
Callous Disregard: Autism and Vaccines – The Truth Behind a Tragedy by Andrew Wakefield
Vaccines, Autism & Chronic Inflammation: The New Epidemicby Barbara Loe Fisher
The Age of Autism: Mercury, Medicine, and a Man-Made Epidemic by Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill
What do all of these books miss?
“Autism, as I see it, steals the soul from a child…”
Dr. Jerry Kartzinel writing in the introduction to Jenny McCarthy’s first autism book Louder Than Words
“Doctors who first worked with children with regressive autism back in the early 1990s found that one of the biggest “wows” came from treating intestinal yeast overgrowth, and this benefit holds true today. Children whose diarrhea doesn’t go away with the GFCF diet usually show resolution with yeast medication.”
Bob Sears, MD on The Autism Book
From restrictive diets and antifungal drugs for yeast infections to bleach enemas and detox therapies, these books often push expensive, often unproven, sometimes disproven, and dangerous non-evidence basedbiomedical treatments and cures on hopeful parents of autistic kids.
Don’t help them by buying or promoting their books.
Instead, look for better books by folks who are really helping autistic kids and don’t think they are damaged, or books by someone who is actually autistic.
What to Know About the Epidemic of Bad Autism Books
There are a lot of good books out there with helpful information if you think that your child is autistic, has been recently diagnosed, or if you simply want to learn more about autism. It’s time to stop the epidemic of bad autism books.
Are they trying to scare parents away from getting vaccinating and protecting their kids, hoping to drag us back to the pre-vaccine era?
What Are the Demands and Goals of the Anti-Vaccine Movement?
Of course, some of the folks who are anti-vaccine don’t actually like to be called anti-vaccine. Instead, they prefer to say that they are pro-safe vaccines. So for them, it is rather obvious – they want safer vaccines without toxins.
Now, since vaccines are already safe and don’t contain any toxic ingredients, it would seem like their work is done already, right?
Another goal is having fewer vaccines on the immunization schedule. Jenny McCarthy often pushes the Turn Back the Clock immunization plan, wanting kids to only get vaccines that were on the 1983 immunization schedule, back when kids still died of meningitis, pneumonia, blood infections, severe dehydration, epiglottitis, and cancer from Hib, pneumococcal disease, rotavirus, hepatitis B, hepatitis A, chicken pox, HPV, and meningococcal disease, which are now vaccine preventable.
Other members of the anti-vaccine movement talk about vaccine choice. They want to be able to choose whether or not they should have to vaccinate their kids.
Again, done. No one is forcing parents to vaccinate their kids. We may not have a choice on whether or not your unvaccinated child gets sick and puts someone else at risk for getting a vaccine-preventable disease because they were too young to be vaccinated, had a medical exemption, or their vaccine didn’t work, but you can certainly make the choice to skip or delay any vaccines you want.
“I also warn them not to share their fears with their neighbors, because if too many people avoid the MMR, we’ll likely see the diseases increase significantly.”
Dr. Bob Sears in The Vaccine Book
What are other goals of the anti-vaccine movement?
Johns Hopkins Medicine went out of their way to correct this anti-vaccine misinformation about shedding.
Have you heard about the anti-vaccine folks who want to quarantine all kids who have recently been vaccinated for at least six weeks? Why quarantine kids who have been vaccinated? They are worried about shedding…
Would anyone go so far as wanting to ban vaccinations? Yup. So much for vaccine choice.
Some others want to rescind the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, which they think will help make it easier to sue vaccine manufacturers. That’s one of Andrew Wakefield‘s demands in his movie VAXXED. He and others never mention that if you are suing in civil court, then you must meet a higher burden of proof for vaccine injury than you do in Vaccine Court.
Remember when Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. thought he would be appointed to some special Trump commission on vaccines?
“We want safe vaccines, robust transparent science and an honest and independent regulatory agency focused narrowly on public health rather than industry profit.”
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on Mercury, Vaccines and the CDC’s Worst Nightmare
Kennedy’s vaccine commission never happened, but that hasn’t stopped him from pushing for an independent regulatory agency.
I’m not sure who would run or be a part of Kennedy’s independent regulatory agency though, as he believes that “Congress, the regulatory agencies, FDA and CDC, the IOM, the NIH, the AAP, the science journals, the university science departments and the press” have all been compromised by Pharma.
Kennedy also wants thimerosal out of vaccines, which, as most people know, is already out of all vaccines on the immunization schedule, including about 100 million doses of flu shots this past year. But like others, he seems to be moving on to aluminum as his new target.
What else?
Del Bigtree wants the CDC to remove the claim that “Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism” from the CDC website, despite the mountain of evidence that vaccines are not associated with autism.
What to Know About the Demands and Goals of the Anti-Vaccine Movement
Whatever their demands and goals of the anti-vaccine movement, the effect is that they are scaring parents away from vaccinating and protecting their kids from life-threatening vaccine-preventable diseases for no good reason.
More on the Demands and Goals of the Anti-Vaccine Movement
