Tag: germ-theory denialism

Who Is Larry Palevsky?

Think you know all of the anti-vaccine pediatricians?

“The pediatrician who spoke on Monday night, Dr. Lawrence Palevsky, is regularly cited in pamphlets circulated in New York City that urge women not to get their children vaccinated. His views have no basis in science, experts said.”

Despite Measles Warnings, Anti-Vaccine Rally Draws Hundreds of Ultra-Orthodox Jews

Sadly, there is more than one pediatrician pandering to parent’s fears about vaccines these days.

Who Is Larry Palevsky?

Although not as well known as Sears or Thomas, who were thrown into the spotlight because they wrote anti-vaccine books and were associated with measles outbreaks in their areas, it would be hard to say what makes Palevsky different from any other anti-vaccine expert.

A holistic pediatrician, he was an “expert” for the anti-vaccination movie The Greater Good. Palevsky also often links to and quotes other notorious anti-vax “experts.”

He even appeared on the Gary Null Show – in addition to being anti-vax, Gary Null is among the alternative medicine folks who actually denies that HIV causes AIDS.

So no one should be surprised that Palevsky spoke at an anti-vaccine rally during the longest measles outbreak we have had in the United States in over 25 years. An ongoing measles outbreak that health officials are still struggling to contain.

At the rally, he talked at length about mutating viruses and falsely claimed that failed vaccines were producing a new strain of measles. Women scribbled into notepads as he spoke. Others filmed his comments, sending them to their contacts on WhatsApp. Essentially, he said, there were no studies available to show how the vaccine affects the human body.

“Is it possible that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine that is somehow being given in this lot to communities in Williamsburg and Lakewood and Monsey, maybe in Borough Park, is it possible that these lots are bad?” he asked, referring to areas in New York and New Jersey with large ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities.

“It’s fascinating because we’re told how contagious the disease is, but somehow it’s centered in the Jewish community.”

Despite Measles Warnings, Anti-Vaccine Rally Draws Hundreds of Ultra-Orthodox Jews

It’s fascinating that a pediatrician would actually think that any of this is possible…

Bad lots of vaccines?

Does Palevsky, who runs a Wellness Center, realize that only about 3-4% of the people who have gotten measles in Brooklyn and Rockland County have been fully vaccinated. Most are unvaccinated.

How does that fit into Palevsky’s theories about bad lots, mutating measles viruses, and failed vaccines?

Since Palevsky doesn’t seem to believe in the germ theory of disease, that viruses and bacteria can actually cause us to get sick, it isn’t hard to figure out. For him, of course, it would be easier to blame vaccines instead of the measles virus, I guess even vaccines that these folks have never received.

Sure. It is anything and everything except the fact that parents are intentionally not vaccinating and protecting their kids…

What’s really fascinating is that people are still listening to this kind of misinformation when they can see the consequences of what happens when they leave their community unvaccinated and unprotected.

“I believe in what’s called a starvation diet for kids when they’re sick.”

Larry Palevsky

And that they are listening to it from folks like Palevsky!

“Most of the reason that kids get sick is to move or get rid of wastes anyway.”

Larry Palevsky

But just in case they don’t get better by just removing the wastes in their body or by using supplements, essential oils or herbs and reducing their stress levels, Palevsky is very happy to refer your child to one of the homeopaths, acupuncturists, chiropractors and/or other health professionals in his office.

Palevsky wants your child to “breathe more” when they get sick…

And that’s a clue to why we continue to see outbreaks of measles.

This industry of holistic and integrative “health professionals” goes out of their way to make sure parents are too scared to vaccinate their kids.

More on Larry Palevsky

Who Is Chris Exley?

Are you worried about aluminum in vaccines?

If you are, the chances are good that you have been reading something by or about Professor Christopher Exley recently.

Who Is Chris Exley?

To those in the anti-vaccine movement, Professor Chris Exley is one of the worlds’ leading experts on the subject of aluminum toxicity.

“I am a Biologist (University of Stirling) with a PhD in the ecotoxicology of aluminium (University of Stirling). My research career (1984-present) has focussed upon an intriguing paradox; ‘how come the third most abundant element of the Earth’s crust (aluminium) is non-essential and largely inimcal to life’. Investigating this mystery has required research in myriad fields from the basic inorganic chemistry of the reaction of aluminium and silicon to the potentially complex biological availability of aluminium in humans. I am also fascinated by the element silicon in relation to living things which, as the second most abundant element of the Earth’s crust, is also almost devoid of biological function. One possible function of silicon is to keep aluminium out of biology (biota) and this forms a large part of the research in our group. We are also interested in biological silicification.”

Professor Chris Exley Keele University Staff Profile

What do other people think of Dr. Exley and his work?

“Let me put this straight, this is not a paper that has evidence of scientific fraud or data manipulation. There is no duplicated images, no suspicious blots. The problem I have with this paper is its deep experimental flaws and data analysis that nonetheless should not have passed through the peer-review filter.”

Does the latest paper from Exley show a link between ASD and aluminum?

While it is typically strange to talk about fraud and data manipulation when starting to review a scientific study, remember that other aluminum studies, including other aluminum studies that were also funded by the Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute (CMSRI), were recently retracted.

In addition to performing deeply flawed studies about aluminum, Chris Exley gives lectures about aluminum toxicity at so-called vaccine safety conferences. At one 2011 conference, in addition to Exley talking about The systemic toxicity of aluminium adjuvants, you could have heard presentations by:

  • Russell Blaylock, MD on The central role of immunoexcitotoxicity in aluminum and mercury-containing adjuvant-triggered neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders
  • Shiv Chopra, MSc, PhD on Vaccination programs: prevention or corruption?
  • John Barthelow Classen, MD on Vaccine induced epidemics of type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes/obesity/metabolic syndrome, and their relationship to the epidemic of autoimmune autism
  • Barbara Loe Fisher, President & Founder of NVIC on Medical science & public trust: the policy, ethics and law of vaccination in the 20th & 21st Centuries
  • Lawrence Palevsky, MD, FAAP on Rethinking the germ theory
  • Christopher Shaw, PhD on Aluminum as a neurotoxin: the evidence from cell culture, in vivo, and human studies
  • Yehuda Shoenfeld, MD, FRCP on ASIA – Autoimmune (Auto-inflammatory) Syndrome induced by Adjuvant: a new syndrome to be defined
  • Lucija Tomljenovic, PhD on Gardasil: prophylaxis or medical misconduct? and Aluminum adjuvants and immunization science: a matter of pervasive uncertainty
  • Andrew Wakefield, MB, BS on Autism and vaccines: a research strategy focused on cause

Chris Exley keeps interesting company if he doesn’t want to be thought of as someone who is anti-vaccine…

Interestingly, he also believes that we are living in The Aluminum Age.

“The human race has inadvertently agreed to participate in a clinical trial to assess and understand the toxicity of human exposure to aluminium. This is an experiment which is, of course, ongoing as I write and you read this essay. It is an experiment which has neither been submitted for independent peer review nor received ethical approval.”

And he seems fairly sure that aluminum is responsible for a whole host of diseases, from Alzheimer’s and autism to diabetes.

Why hasn’t research been done to figure out whether or not aluminum is safe?

“While there are thousands of scientific publications over many decades demonstrating the toxicity of aluminium in all living things the larger questions concerning aluminium and common human diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease or diabetes remain unanswered or at best equivocal. These questions remain unanswered primarily because neither the global aluminium industry nor governments which have allowed the unfettered growth of the use of aluminium products are prepared for an answer. Try to imagine the immediate and short term economic consequences of human exposure to aluminium being directly linked as causal or even contributory in just one disease, for example Alzheimer’s disease.”

Of course, it’s a conspiracy!

“The ensuing chaos and stock market crashes would be unpalatable but they would just be the beginning of a world which would now have to change to address and accommodate such knowledge. Now that the tip of the iceberg has become visible the remainder would have to be investigated and the inevitable consequences of human exposure to aluminium would be revealed, piece by piece, and a new jigsaw of life on Earth would slowly be pieced together.”

Just like it was a conspiracy that there was a “tsunami of silence perpetuated by all mainstream media, almost globally” following his deeply flawed study that he thought linked aluminum adjuvants in vaccines and autism.

chris-exley-conspiracy
More than the criticism, it seems that Chris Exley was really bothered that his latest research was ignored…

What’s next for Exley?

You can be sure it will be something about aluminum toxicity…

What to Know About Chris Exley

Professor Chris Exley is an expert on telling folks that aluminum is toxic.

More About the Chris Exley

Those Times Alternative Medicine Got It Wrong

Anti-vaccine folks like to use the fallacy that they don’t vaccinate their kids because sometimes science and doctors have been wrong in the past.

They instead turn to alternative medicine when their kids get sick and for their preventative care.

Those Times Alternative Medicine Got It Wrong

While it is true that science gets it wrong sometimes, these people seem to fail to consider that alternative medicine does too.

“…there’s no such thing as conventional or alternative or complementary or integrative or holistic medicine. There’s only medicine that works and medicine that doesn’t. And the best way to sort it out is by carefully evaluating scientific studies – not by visiting Internet chat rooms, reading magazine articles, or talking to friends.”

Paul Offit, MD on Do You Believe in Magic

More than that, they hardly ever get it right.

Remember the teen with osteosarcoma who died after he was treated with shark cartilage instead of chemotherapy?
Remember the teen with osteosarcoma who died after he was treated with shark cartilage instead of chemotherapy?

Need some examples?

  • Ayurvedic treatments can be contaminated with toxic metals
  • biomed treatments for autism – from restrictive diets and chelation to coffee and bleach enemas, these “cures” and treatments have not been shown to be safe, are sometimes known to be dangerous, and don’t even work
  • Cannabis Oil for kids with cancer – while marijuana-derived products might help some medical conditions, it doesn’t cure cancer
  • chiropractic neck manipulation of newborns and infants has no benefits and has caused deaths
  • chronic Lyme disease is not a recognized condition in modern medicine, but that doesn’t keep some ‘Lyme literate’ practitioners from recommending and charging patients for all sorts of unnecessary and sometimes harmful “treatments”
  • faith healing is still allowing children to die of very treatable conditions, from diabetes and appendicitis to common infections and premature babies
  • Gerson protocol – often discussed with other forms of cancer quackery this “radical nutritional program combined with purges (particularly coffee enemas)” is believed by some to cure cancer – it doesn’t
  • HIV denialism – yes, this is a thing, and tragically took the life of Christine Maggiore, her daughter, and many others who eventually died of AIDS
  • homemade baby formula – notorious for leaving out important nutrients, from iron vitamin D to enough calories for a growing baby
  • Hoxsey treatment – a natural treatment for cancer that has been around since the 1950s and has never been shown to work, except in people who never actually had cancer
  • laetrile for cancer – in the late-1970s, kids with treatable forms of cancer had parents who were convinced that this latest fad cure was better. It wasn’t.
  • naturopathy – although mostly looked at as a holistic alternative to other providers, some of these treatments include vitamin injections, hydrogen peroxide injections, and alternative cancer therapies
  • shark cartilage – this was the fad cancer cure in the 1990s that was killing kids who’s parents sought alternative cancer treatments. It didn’t work.

What’s the harm with these treatments?

Many, like Acupuncture, Homeopathy, Reiki, and Reflexology, etc., aren’t necessarily dangerous on their own. In fact, most don’t do anything at all, but they can lead people away from real treatments. And that essentially leaves people untreated.

Getting a fake treatment might not be a big deal when it is a condition that can go away on its own, like when Angelina Jolie talked about getting acupuncture when she had Bell’s Palsy, but it often leads to disastrous consequences when a life-threatening condition goes untreated.

Many people who push these alternative “treatments” often also recommend against standard treatments, like vitamin K shots for newborns, RhoGAM shots for their moms, and vaccines.

Those Times Anti-Vaccine Experts Got It Wrong

It shouldn’t be surprising that many of the folks who think that vaccines are dangerous, aren’t necessary, or that they don’t even work also believe in holistic or alternative treatments.

It also shouldn’t be surprising that they are also wrong a lot:

  • Meryl Dorey – equates vaccination with rape, something many of her followers aren’t even comfortable with
  • Mark and David Geier – this father and son pair are infamous for pushing a chemical castration treatment (Lupron) for autistic children, a treatment that led to Mark Geier losing his medical license (he’s a geneticist) in several states.
  • Jay Gordon, MD – once made the comment that “Heaven help us if we have a generation of kids who get a hepatitis B vaccine and a HPV vaccine and they think that now unprotected sex is okay…” Not surprisingly, studies have found that this doesn’t happen. In fact, teen pregnancy rates are at their lowest levels ever.
  • Suzanne Humphries, MD – a nephrologist who became a homeopath and now pushes anti-vaccine talking points, believes that vaccines don’t work and that polio never really disappeared, and that we don’t “see it anymore” because we changed its name to acute flaccid paralysis.
  • Robert F. Kennedy, Jr – continues to push the idea that thimerosal in vaccines is causing an autism epidemic.
  • Neil Z. Miller – a psychologist who has written many anti-vax books, gives lectures at chiropractic associations, and published his daughter’s book, Ambassadors Between Worlds, Intergalactic Gateway to a New Earth, which describes how they are both able to talk to intergalatic beings because she has been doing it for multiple lifetimes. No word yet if folks from the Pleiadians vaccinate their kids…
  • Tetyana Obukhanych, MD – the Harvard trained immunologist who believes that Immunology has no theoretical or evidence-based explanation for immunity.
  • Viera Scheibner – the micropaleontologist who thinks that getting a vaccine-preventable disease is good for kids, that vaccines are contaminated with amoebas, and that they cause SIDS and shaken baby syndrome
  • Bob Sears, MD – infamous for his alternative vaccine schedule that was never tested for safety or efficacy, he and now rallies folks against California’s new vaccine law
  • Stephanie Seneff – the MIT doctor (she has a doctorate in electrical engineering) who thinks that half of kids will have autism in eight years and that glyphosate causes everything from autism to school shootings and terrorist bombings.
  • Yehuda Shoenfeld, MD – an immunologist who heads the Zabludowicz Center for Autoimmune Diseases and is on the scientific advisory board for the Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute. He is the latest to blame adjuvants for causing disease – his Autoimmune Syndrome Induced by Adjuvants (ASIA), which is often described as being a “basically a made-up syndrome that isn’t generally accepted.”
  • Sherri Tenpenny, DO – described as an anti-vax “expert” whose advise is “chock full of vaccine pseudoscience.” Once board certified in emergency medicine, Dr. Tenpenny now sells DVDs and supplements on her website, speaks at chiropractic health events, and provides holistic medical care. In a rant about freedom of choice in vaccination, she talks about General Robert E. Lee, Southern war hero and postwar icon of the “Lost Cause of the Confederacy,” the extinction of humanity, and about slavery and eight veils that must be pierced if you want to see what is really going on in the world – that the Illuninati and other secret organizations control us and that they are being controlled by time traveling dragons, lizards, and aliens.
  • Tim O’Shea, DC – a chiropractor, he speaks at anti-vax conferences and wrote an anti-vaccination book called The Sanctity of Human Blood: Vaccination is not Immunization. Dr. O’Shea does not believe that germs make us sick (germ theory denialism), thinks that vaccines cause peanut allergies, and he sells supplements and seminars.
  • Kelly Brogan, MD – a holistic psychiatric who recommends that patients wean off their prescribed medications and has talked about HIV denialism.
  • Erin Elizabeth – is pushing the idea that holistic practitioners are being murdered

And of course there is Andrew Wakefield – his scandal and MMR-autism fraud is well known.

Are these folks ever right?

Only if you buy into their anti-vaccine talking points.

What to Know About When Alternative Medicine Was Wrong

Alternative medicine is rarely right, and that can have life-threatening consequences when it leads folks to reject traditional treatments when they are really sick.

More on When Alternative Medicine Was Wrong

Who Is Kelly Brogan?

Kelly Brogan is a holistic psychiatrist.

Why am I writing about a holistic psychiatrist?

More specifically, Kelly Brogan is a women’s health holistic psychiatrist who doesn’t seem to believe that vaccines are safe, that vaccines work, or that vaccines are necessary.

They are.

“…we have been recently convinced through the promise of technology and corporate prowess that processed food is more reliable, nutritious, and beneficial. We’ve been convinced that Hamburger Helper is better for our families than a homemade Bolognese.”

Kelly Brogan

For some reason, she does not seem to be vegan, as one might expect. Not even vegetarian…

She does seem to believe that people with mental health conditions not should be treated with medication. In fact, she thinks the medications that are routinely used to treat common mental health conditions are behind some of the biggest tragedies happening today.

“The records also listed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder as one of his medical conditions” the proverbial smoking gun of every mass shooting in this country.”

Kelly Brogan on the Sutherland Church Shooting

And she was mentored, not by a psychiatrist, but by a doctor who pushed “a largely dietary treatment for cancer including an individualized organic diet, large amounts of supplements, and pancreatic enzymes,” a regimen that was actually studied and found to be harmful and reduced the quality of life for people with a deadly form of cancer.

Who Is Kelly Brogan?

Kelly Brogan is a holistic psychiatrist.

“Eastern wisdom tells us that when we think we know, we don’t. But when we admit ignorance, we achieve enlightenment. The most profound part of my departure from conventional medicine has been the depths of my surrender to all that we do not, cannot, and must not understand about the body and its experience. Humble awe and wonder are truly the only appropriate states for approaching the complexity of the human condition.”

Kelly Brogan

Do holistic psychiatrists use a different definition for the word humble?

“All suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their own happiness or satisfaction.”

Dalai Lama XIV

Kelly Brogan, a holistic psychiatrist, also pushes a lot of anti-vaccine talking points about epigenetics, germ theory denialism, MTHFR, and the need for detoxing from vaccines.

These beliefs can cause suffering if she can get others to believe them too, as can pushing the idea that babies shouldn’t get their hepatitis B vaccine or a vitamin K shot.

I’m actually surprised that she hasn’t written about RhoGAM. Maybe she hasn’t gotten around to it. But she doesn’t disappoint. She has shared an article on her Facebook page that claims that the RhoGham shot is just a “Big Pharma Profit Ploy.”

Kelly Brogan is a holistic psychiatrist that wants you to live a medication free life. I guess that could have made her some kind of psychoanalysist, but that doesn’t seem to be the route she went.

“In fact, ‘treatment’ with chemotherapy and radiation not only disrupts a complex process that needs to actually be supported, but also it induces secondary harm, both psychically and physiologically. When we interfere and war with the body, we keep the fight alive – you can’t win the battle against yourself.”

Kelly Brogan

Is she telling people to stop their cancer treatments?

Do folks get a lot of training in treating cancer in their psychiatry residency these days?

And she advises that you “think long and hard about vaccination.”

“As we discover more about the near infinite sophistication of your interconnected bodily systems, and the hyper-individuality of any cause and effect process resulting from a healthcare decision, the one-size-fits-all, indemnified vaccine program may begin to make less and less sense to you. Educate yourself before you make a choice that could change everything for you and your family. Trust your body. Invest in your immunity. And explore a mindset shift that offers you a fear-free way to understand health and wellness.”

Kelly Brogan

Shortly after talking about informed consent, she lets you know how she really feels about vaccines.

“Don’t buy into the lore, don’t make assumptions, and understand that the philosophical underpinnings of the vaccination program are predicated on an antiquated perspective: warring against and attempting to eradicate bad germs. Science has left that childlike notion in the dust, and so should we.”

Kelly Brogan

I think Dr. Brogan misspelled pseudoscience…

Why don’t you need to get your kids vaccinated and protected? Because Kelly Brogan has a “tremendous faith in the potential for the body to heal when naturally supported.”

Do you?

Will you during a measles outbreak?

“One of my favorite medical terms, anosognosia, means lack of awareness of a deficit. I have come to find this useful in description of so many of my colleagues who practice the medicine they were trained to practice without conscious acknowledgement of its gross limitations and even hazards.”

Kelly Brogan

Kelly Brogan didn't make history in getting a case report published in a low impact journal who's editorial board includes a Reiki Master, chiropractors, and naturopaths.
Kelly Brogan didn’t make history in getting a case report published in a low impact journal who’s editorial board includes a Reiki Master, chiropractors, and naturopaths.

Does anyone else think that it is wildly ironic that anosognosia is Kelly Brogan’s favorite medical term?

Psychiatry explains Kelly Brogan well.

Actually, it might be cognitive psychology that explains her actions.

Can a psychiatrist be suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect?

I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure that a holistic psychiatrist can.

A history-making case report? Considering that case reports are the weakest type of scientific evidence, just above YouTube videos and articles on her website, that’s not likely.

Kelly Brogan is a holistic psychiatrist who has flirted with HIV denialism.

You can get educated about vaccines if you are on the fence, but it won’t be from Kelly Brogan, a women’s health holistic psychiatrist.

What to Know About Kelly Brogan

Kelly Brogan is a holistic psychiatrist who seems to charge folks a lot of money in private consultations to help them know that she has faith in their potential to heal themselves naturally – with her help.

More About Kelly Brogan

Updated December 2, 2017