Tag: Jay Gordon

The Fatal Flaw in the Anti-Vaccine Movement

There are a ton of flaws in the “logic” of the anti-vaccine movement.

Just consider how many theories they have for why vaccines are associated with autism…

  1. It’s the MMR vaccine – the Andrew Wakefield theory
  2. It’s thimerosal – but MMR never contained thimerosal…
  3. It’s glyphosate – the Stephanie Seneff theory
  4. It’s the vaccines you get while you are pregnant
  5. It’s the vaccines you get as an infant – but you don’t get MMR until you are 12 months old
  6. It’s the vaccines you get as a toddler – but what about the kids who get diagnosed as infants?
  7. It’s just something about vaccines – but what about the autistic kids who are unvaccinated and whose parents weren’t recently vaccinated?

It’s fairly easy to see that these folks just want to blame vaccines…

The Fatal Flaw in the Anti-Vaccine Movement

That’s not necessarily the fatal flaw in the anti-vaccine movement though.

Is it that all of their ideas and theories are so easy to refute?

There are hundreds of these types of arguments that anti-vaccine folks use to scare parents away from vaccinating and protecting their kids.

Of course, none are true.

That it only takes a few minutes of research to prove that they aren’t true isn’t the fatal flaw in the anti-vaccine movement though.

As more people are vaccinated and diseases disappear, they forget how bad those diseases are, skip or delay getting their vaccines, and trigger outbreaks.
As more people are vaccinated and diseases disappear, they forget how bad those diseases are, skip or delay getting their vaccines, and trigger outbreaks. Photo by WHO

The fatal flaw is that when enough folks listen to them and immunization rates drop, we get outbreaks.

“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

Ironically, Dr. Bob obviously knew this would happen, warning folks not to tell anyone – in his book that likely increased fears about vaccines!

Although Wakefield and others were factors, remember that Dr. Bob‘s book about vaccines was published in 2007…

And what happens once we start to see a lot more outbreaks?

In addition to a lot of unvaccinated kids getting sick, folks line up to get their kids vaccinated and protected.

Even Dr. Jay is advocating for older (I’m going to assume he means 6 months) unvaccinated children to get an MMR to help stop the outbreaks.

This is a cycle that experts have talked about for some time.

It’s the reason that the anti-vaccine movement, which has been around for hundreds of years, can never really win. They will never take us back to the pre-vaccine era.

Yes, a woman died when she got caught up in a 2015 measles outbreak in Washington.
Yes, a woman died when she got caught up in a 2015 measles outbreak in Washington.

Anytime their ideas take hold a little too much, nature fights back. Diseases, especially measles which is extremely contagious, come back. And we have to work to control the outbreaks.

But that more kids eventually get vaccinated in outbreaks isn’t the only fatal flaw in the anti-vaccine movement.

Tragically, the other fatal flaw in the anti-vaccine movement is that since these are life-threatening diseases, people end up dying from vaccine-preventable diseases. And the risk of that happening goes way up during a large outbreak.

Vaccines aren’t perfect, but they are safe, with few risks. They are also very necessary.

It shouldn’t take an outbreak to convince you to vaccinate your kids.

More on The Fatal Flaw in the Anti-Vaccine Movement

Do Anti-Vaccine Parents Ever Change Their Minds?

Most anti-vaccine folks think that nothing could ever change their minds and get them to vaccinate and protect their kids ever again.

Even if they don’t believe any of the current evidence that vaccines are safe and necessary, what if we showed them some new evidence?

Nope.

They have ‘woken up’ and won’t be convinced.

Do Anti-Vaccine Parents Ever Change Their Minds?

Of course, folks change their minds all of the time.

They learn to see past the myths and propaganda of the anti-vaccine movement and they eventually get their kids vaccinated.

A megachurch in Texas that was the site of a large measles outbreak quickly hosted free vaccination clinics.
A megachurch in Texas that was the site of a large measles outbreak quickly hosted free vaccination clinics.

Unfortunately, it sometimes takes an outbreak to get them motivated to do so, or their child actually catching a vaccine-preventable disease.

Remember the Disneyland measles outbreaks in California?

“I’ve given more measles, mumps, rubella vaccines in the past 10 days than I gave in the entire 12 months previously.”

Dr. Jay Gordon on Demand for Measles Vaccine Sends Crowds Even to Anti-Vax Docs

Other times, it is a good pediatrician who doesn’t pander to their fears, and instead, answers their questions about vaccines and helps them understand the risks (very small) and benefits (very big) of getting vaccinated and protected.

Or they might have a friend, family member, or other immunization advocate that helps them be more skeptical of the information and advice that is scaring them away from vaccines.

Remember. The great majority of parents vaccinate their kids. And those that don’t, do often change their minds.

More on When Anti-Vaxxers Change Their Minds

How to End the Epidemic of Bad Books About Autism

Looking for a book about autism?

There are a lot of good ones, including NeuroTribes and the Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism.

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.
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 Epidemic by 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

Besides the fact that there is no autism epidemic and that vaccines are not associated with autism, they miss that they are actually hurting autistic families.

“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 based biomedical 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.

More on the Epidemic of Bad Autism Books

Would a Doctor Ever Say These Things About Vaccines?

More and more people are beginning to realize that it is getting harder and harder to easily identify satire, as folks say ever more outrageous things.

And it isn’t limited to politicians and celebrities.

#SaidNoDoctor

What unbelievable things have doctors said?

#SaidNoDoctor, except Dr. Jay Gordon, who made this statement about the HPV vaccine on the Ricki Lake Show.
#SaidNoDoctor, except Dr. Jay Gordon, who made this statement about the HPV vaccine on the Ricki Lake Show.

A pediatrician making a recommendation against a vaccine that can prevent cancer?!?

What about a pediatrician telling folks that measles isn’t deadly in the middle of a large measles outbreak? Yeah, that happened too…

Dr. Bob Sears actually reassured parents that measles wasn't deadly in developed countries, neglecting to mention the dozens of people who have died in outbreaks in Europe - another well-nourished population with lower vaccination rates than the U.S.
Bob Sears actually reassured parents that measles wasn’t deadly in developed countries, neglecting to mention the dozens of people who have died in outbreaks in Europe – another well-nourished population with lower vaccination rates than the U.S.

Not surprisingly, you can easily find “doctors” that hit on these and every other anti-vaccine talking point that put some parents on the fence about vaccines.

Kelly Brogan, a holistic psychiatrist, doesn't seem to think that vaccines fit into a paleo lifestyle...
Kelly Brogan, a holistic psychiatrist, doesn’t seem to think that vaccines fit into a paleo lifestyle…

Would you laugh at the notion of getting tetanus from a deep puncture wound?

Apparently some doctors would…

Dr. Blaylock misses that you aren't worried about tetanus organisms in the wound, but rather their spores, which you aren't going to easily clean out, not even if the wound bleeds a lot - common myths about tetanus.
Dr. Blaylock misses that you aren’t worried about tetanus bacteria in the wound, but rather their spores, which you aren’t going to easily kill or clean out, not even if the wound bleeds a lot – common myths about tetanus.

Do you know why most people don’t get tetanus or die of measles in the United States?

Because most people are vaccinated.

And they don’t listen to these kinds of doctors.

But wait, there’s more…

Dr. Jerry is a pediatrician who practices Translational Medicine and wrote the forward to Jenny McCarthy's autism book.
Dr. Jerry is a pediatrician who practices Translational Medicine and wrote the forward to Jenny McCarthy‘s autism book.

Of course, these aren’t the kinds of things that a doctor should say, at least not a doctor who understands vaccines, vaccine-preventable disease, and anything about science.

What to Know About Outrageous Vaccine Quotes from Doctors

Vaccines are safe and necessary and they work, but you wouldn’t know that after listening to what some of these doctors have to say.

More on Outrageous Vaccine Quotes from Doctors

What Is the Evidence for Alternative Vaccine Schedules?

There is plenty of evidence that the standard immunization schedule is safe and effective.

What about the alternative vaccine schedules that some folks push?

Is there any evidence that is safe to delay or skip any of your child’s vaccines?

Alternative Vaccine Schedules

Many people think of Dr. Bob Sears when they think of alternative vaccine schedules.

Bob Sears appeared on Fox & Friends in 2010 for the segment
Bob Sears appeared on Fox & Friends for the segment “Vaccines: A Bad Combination?”

He created both:

  • Dr Bob’s Selective Vaccine Schedule
  • Dr Bob’s Alternative Vaccine Schedule

He didn’t invent the idea of the alternative vaccine schedule though.

Well before Dr. Bob appeared on the scene, Dr. Jay Gordon had been on Good Morning America with Cindy Crawford to discuss vaccines and how she had decided to delay vaccinating her baby.

Where did she get the idea?

After the segment, Dr. Jay stated:

“They edited the segment to make me sound like a vaccination proponent. We also have to understand the impact of a person as well-known as Cindy Crawford delaying vaccines for over six months.”

Jay Gordon

Dr. Jay has long talked about only giving infants one vaccine at a time and waiting until they are “developmentally solid” before vaccinating.

1983 historical immunization schedule
When Bob Sears came out with his vaccine book, Jenny McCarthy was also pushing the too many too soon myth and rallying folks to go back to the 1983 schedule that left kids at risk for meningitis, pneumonia, blood infections, severe dehydration, epiglottitis, and cancer from Hib, pneumococcal disease, rotavirus, hepatitis B, hepatitis A, chicken pox, HPV, and meningococcal disease.

Similarly, other folks have pushed ideas about delaying and skipping vaccines before Dr. Bob, including:

  • Donald Miller and his User-Friendly Vaccination Schedule – no vaccines until age two years and no live vaccines and when you begin vaccinating your child, give them one at a time, every six months (first published in 2004)
  • Stephanie Cave – starts at 4 months and delays many vaccines
  • homeopaths with immunization schedules that say to wait until six months and then start giving nosodes every five days
  • chiropractors with immunization plans that say to get regular chiropractic adjustments instead of vaccines
  • Paul Thomas‘ vaccine friendly plan
  • Jenny McCarthy and Generation Rescue’s Turn Back the Clock immunization plan which recommends substituting the latest schedule with the 1983 immunization schedule or a schedule from another country, like Denmark, Sweden, Finland, or Iceland.

Of course, Dr. Bob is the one who popularized the idea of the alternative vaccine schedule in 2007, when he published The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child.

That’s when parents started to bring copies of his schedule into their pediatrician’s office, requesting to follow Dr. Bob’s schedule instead of the standard immunization schedule from the CDC.

What’s the Evidence for Alternative Vaccine Schedules?

There is no evidence that following an alternative vaccine schedule is safe for your kids.

“No alternative vaccine schedules have been evaluated and found to provide better safety or efficacy than the recommended schedule, supported by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the CDC and the Committee on Infectious Diseases of the AAP (the committee that produces the Red Book).

Pediatricians who routinely recommend limiting the numbers of vaccines administered at a single visit such that vaccines are administered late are providing care that deviates from the standard evidence-based schedule recommended by these bodies.”

American Academy of Pediatrics

What’s the first clue that these so-called alternative vaccine schedules have absolutely no evidence behind them?

They are all different!

Paul Thomas, for example, doesn’t even offer his patients the rotavirus vaccine. Dr. Bob, on the other hand, has it on his list of vaccines that “that could protect a baby from a very potentially life-threatening or very common serious illness” and is sure to give it at 2, 4, and 6 months.

How slow should you go?

Both Dr. Bob and Dr. Paul give two vaccines at a time with their schedules, but Dr. Jay and Dr. Miller say to give just one at a time.

“Would any scientist give SIX vaccines at once to a baby? Asking for trouble. One at a time makes so much more sense.”

Jay Gordon

And while some start their schedules at 2 or 4 months, others delay until 6 months or 2 years.

There is also the fact that the folks who create these schedules admit that there is no evidence for what they are doing…

“No one’s ever researched to see what happens if you delay vaccines. And do babies handle vaccines better when they’re older? This is really just a typical fear that parents have when their babies are young and small and more vulnerable. Since I don’t know one way or the other, I’m just happy to work with these parents, understand their fears and their worries, and agree to vaccinate them in a way that they feel is safer for their baby.”

Bob Sears on The Vaccine War

But there has been research on delaying vaccines.

Unvaccinated kids aren’t healthier – they just get more vaccine preventable diseases. Most of which are life-threatening, even in this age of modern medicine, with access to good nutrition and sanitation.

So whether you only get one or two vaccines at a time; delay until four months, six months, or two years before you get started; skip all live vaccines or just wait until your child is “developmentally solid” to give them;  or go with some other non-standard, parent-selected, delayed protection vaccine schedule, the only things that you can be sure of is that there is no evidence to support your decision and that you will leave your kids unprotected and at risk for getting a vaccine-preventable disease.

“…when I give your six-week-old seven different vaccines with two dozen antigens, I am supposed to try to convince you that the adverse reactions you have heard about are just coincidences.”

Jay Gordon

Better yet though. Find a pediatrician who will listen and answer your questions about vaccines, concerns about vaccine myths and misinformation, explain that no vaccine is optional, and not just simply pander to  your fears.

What to Know About the Evidence for Alternative Vaccine Schedules

There is no evidence that skipping or delaying any vaccines with an alternative vaccine schedules can keep your kids safe from vaccine preventable diseases.

More on the Evidence for Alternative Vaccine Schedules

The Benefits and Risks of Delaying Vaccines

Believe it or not, some pediatricians think it is a good idea to delay vaccines.

“Wait until a child is clearly developmentally “solid” before vaccinating because we just don’t know which children will react badly to immunizations.”

Dr. Jay Gordon

In fact, Dr. Bob wrote a whole book pushing his own immunization schedule!

Not surprisingly, there are no benefits to skipping or delaying your child’s vaccines, but there are plenty of risks.

What Are the Risks of Delaying Vaccines?

Of course, the biggest risk of delaying your child’s vaccines is that they will get a disease that they could have been vaccinated and protected against.

“In 1989, the Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccine was relatively new and not yet routine. I was aware of the vaccine’s availability, but, busy mom that I was, I had not yet made the trip to the health department to get the immunization for my two-year-old daughter, Sarah. I will always regret that bit of procrastination and the anguish that it caused.”

Peggy Archer

Although we are much more used to hearing vaccine injury scare stories, if you are thinking of delaying your child’s vaccines, there are also many personal stories of parents who regret not vaccinating their children that you should review.

You can wait too long to get a tetanus shot...
You can wait too long to get a tetanus shot… Photo by Petrus Rudolf de Jong (CC BY 3.0)

It is true that the risk may be very small for a disease like polio, which is close to being eradicated worldwide, but it is not zero.

Consider that the last case of polio occurred in 2005, when an unvaccinated 22-year-old U.S. college student became infected with polio vaccine virus while traveling to Costa Rica in a university-sponsored study-abroad program.

So you might not get wild polio unless you visit specific regions of Afghanistan or Pakistan, but you might want to be concerned about vaccine-associated polio if you go to a country that is still giving the oral polio vaccine.

And the risk is certainly much higher than zero for most other vaccine-preventable diseases, as we see from the regular outbreaks of measles, mumps, and pertussis, etc.

Some studies even suggest that delaying your child’s vaccines puts them at more risk for side effects once you do start to get caught up!

“…in the second year of life, delay of the first MMR vaccine until 16 months of age or older resulted in an IRR for seizures in the 7 to 10 days after vaccination that was 3 times greater than if administration of MMR vaccine occurred on time.”

Hambridge et al on Timely Versus Delayed Early Childhood Vaccination and Seizures

Why would that be?

It’s probably because that’s when kids are most at risk for febrile seizures.

What Are the Benefits of Delaying Vaccines?

Again, there are no real benefits of delaying vaccines, except that your child gets out of one or more shots. Of course, that means your unvaccinated child is left unprotected.

And it is going to mean more shots later, once you do decide to get caught up.

Will it mean a lower risk of autism, ADHD, eczema, peanut allergies, or anything else?

Nope.

“The prevalence of allergic diseases and non-specific infections in children and adolescents was not found to depend on vaccination status.”

Schmitz et al on Vaccination Status and Health in Children and Adolescents Findings of the German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents (KiGGS)

Unvaccinated kids are not healthier than those who are vaccinated. They are just at higher risk of getting a vaccine-preventable disease.

Why do some folks think that there are benefits to delaying vaccines? Because they have been scared into thinking that vaccines are harmful and that they don’t even work.

“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

Obviously, that put us all at risk. If too many people skip or delay their child’s vaccines, we will see more outbreaks.

Get educated. Vaccines work. Vaccines are safe. Vaccines are necessary.

What to Know About the Risks of Delaying Vaccines

Delaying your child’s vaccines offers no benefits and lots of increased risks, especially an increased risk of getting the diseases that the vaccines protect us against.

More on the Risks of Delaying Vaccines