Tag: Jay Gordon

How Jay Gordon On Bill Maher Helps Explain Our Anti-Vaccine Problems

Jay Gordon has been on TV a lot in his career.

“Parents from around Southern California choose Gordon for his outspoken and controversial stance on vaccinations, driving from as far away as Santa Barbara and Long Beach.
They know he will lend a sympathetic ear to their concerns about the possible adverse side effects of childhood vaccinations — even though several large scientific studies have failed to find a connection.
His openness to alternative approaches has earned him an avid following. With thousands of patients, his practice is so busy that he no longer accepts new patients.”
Los Angeles Times on Doctor Contrarian

Often described as a celebrity pediatrician, partly because he sees many of the kids of Hollywood celebrities, the Los Angeles Times once named him Doctor Contrarian.

How Jay Gordon On Bill Maher Helps Explain Our Anti-Vaccine Problems

Jay Gordon has become a bit of a celebrity in his own right too, with appearances on Good Morning America, with Cindy Crawford, the Ricki Lake Show, the Doctors, and he was even a regular on ABC TV’s Home Show back in the 1990s.

#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*. How many kids ended up getting HPV because their parents listened?

Although he claims he is not anti-vaccine, Jay Gordon has made many other statements over the years that had vaccine advocates shaking their heads.

His main idea is that vaccines should be given on a slower schedule, just one or two at a time and that some shouldn’t be given until kids are “developmentally solid.”

Jay Gordon has no proof or evidence to back up any of his statements. — To clarify my statement, a severe reaction isn’t a reason to stop vaccinating a child all together.

Of course, giving vaccines later just leaves these kids at risk to get a vaccine-preventable disease while they are waiting, without any extra benefit of fewer side effects.

Sure, we would see fewer reactions associated with vaccines, because the same conditions would be occurring, but the kids would not have gotten a vaccine to be associated with it.

Jay Gordon has been at the front lines of taking care of parents who don't want to vaccinate their kids. — His “front lines” are parents in Southern California who don’t want to vaccinate their kids…

Is Jay Gordon an expert on vaccines?

Jay Gordon dismisses the statements of a true vaccine expert. — Jay Gordon lists all of the credentials of Dr. Hotez, none of which he has, and then tells him he is wrong!

It should be clear that he is not.

“I talk much more quietly, because I have no proof.”
Jay Gordon

Talking on TV is not exactly talking quietly…

But let’s take a quick look at some of his statements on Real Time with Bill Maher to help those who might think that he is.

B. Maher: I’m just saying vaccines, like every medicine, has side effects… So let’s not deny that or pretend it doesn’t happen. Which ones? How much? How do we manage this? This is not crazy talk.
Jay Gordon: We don’t do it the way we should do it. Manufacturers don’t put… We don’t manufacture vaccines as well as we could. We have a schedule that is invariable for every single child, one size doesn’t really fit all. The polio vaccine that I would get as a 180 lb. man is the same that I give to a 12 lb. baby. We could do it a lot better. I don’t want to bring polio back. I don’t want to bring measles back. Measles is a nasty illness.

No one denies that vaccines have side effects. The thing is, vaccines do not cause each and every thing that anti-vax folks claim that they do. They don’t cause autism, SIDS, most non-febrile seizures, eczema, diabetes, MS, ADHD, asthma, cancer, food allergies, rheumatoid arthritis, or POTS, etc.

What about Jay’s comments?

Interestingly, Jay has often said that measles isn’t that bad…

“This measles outbreak does not pose a great risk to a healthy child. And quite frankly I don’t think it poses any risk to a healthy child.”
Jay Gordon on Doctor explains why he lets kids avoid the measles vaccine

Healthy kids can just die with measles though. And healthy kids are at later risk to develop SSPE, which is fatal.

And if he doesn’t understand that vaccines aren’t given based on the weight of the child or adult, then he is clearly not a vaccine expert.

Jay Gordon believes that his middle of the road approach gets more kids vaccinated. — If you are scaring parents away from getting vaccinated, then giving vaccines on an alternative schedule may mean that you are anti-vaccine…

If he doesn’t understand the consequences of his slow vaccine schedule, especially if more parents actually started listening to him, then he is clearly not a vaccine expert.

Mostly, he seems to be an expert on pandering to parents who already have fears of vaccinating and protecting their kids.

Jay Gordon's middle of the road approach only works because his kids can still hide in the herd, getting protected from everyone else who vaccinates and protects their kids. — The kids that are vaccinated at “a different pace and thought process” are simply hiding in the herd. They don’t get sick because the rest of us are vaccinated and protected, but that system breaks down if more people start listening to Dr. Jay.

And what he has never understood, even if he does get some of these parents to vaccinate on a slower schedule, his rhetoric likely gets many more parents started on the road to thinking vaccines are harmful or not necessary.

Jay Gordon has been wrong before, as you can see in the way he has changed his stance on the HPV vaccine, which he says he now gives, and he is wrong now.

And his advise is indeed contrary to that of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which makes you wonder why he is still allowed to be a member.

“There is no ‘alternative’ immunization schedule. Delaying vaccines only leaves a child at risk of disease for a longer period of time; it does not make vaccinating safer.
Vaccines work, plain and simple. Vaccines are one of the safest, most effective and most important medical innovations of our time. Pediatricians partner with parents to provide what is best for their child, and what is best is for children to be fully vaccinated.”
Karen Remley, MD, MBA, MPH, FAAP, Executive Director, American Academy of Pediatrics

Maybe its time that Doctor Contrarian stopped thinking everyone else is wrong and he takes a long and hard look at his own views on vaccines.

“Nothing I do is free. I feel like I should give you a little bit of a discussion before I recommend Tylenol, because of the impact on the liver. A discussion about ibuprofen, because of the impact on the kidneys. And when someone gets antibiotics from me, I talk to them. You know, there could be a yeast infection. You could get diarrhea and a rash. Sorry about the diarrhea and the rash. But with vaccines, the discussion is closed.”
Jay Gordon

Health care providers are hopefully all giving their patients a vaccine information sheet and informed consent, so the discussion is certainly not closed when they give kids vaccines.

Does Jay discuss the potential risks of delaying or skipping vaccines?

Will he say sorry about the rotavirus, measles, tetanus, and diphtheria?

Vaccines are safe, with few risks, and are very necessary.

Although he thinks he is taking the middle road, Jay Gordon simply helps fuel the modern anti-vaccine movement.

To be sure though, along the way, he certainly has been in the middle of things…

Jay Gordon was named Doctor Contrarian way back in 1997. — March 1997 article in the LA Times describing how media savvy “skeptics” were attacking vaccines.

From his appearance on Good Morning America in 2000 to discuss why Cindy Crawford wasn’t vaccinating her baby, just as Wakefield was getting started, to testifying against SB277, California’s vaccine law, that didn’t work because doctors simply started writing unnecessary medical exemptions, he has been there. And let’s not forget that he was Jenny McCarthy‘s pediatrician!

“I’m just saying, ‘we don’t know shit,’ that’s why when doctors, when you get a diagnosis, the other doctor gives you another one. They say, right away, get a second opinion.”
Bill Maher

Bill Maher was right about one thing, if you are going to Jay Gordon for advice about vaccines – get a second opinion.

The Harlem Vaccine Forum

It isn’t a surprise that anti-vax folks will be hosting a vaccine forum in New York and that Bobby Kennedy is a part of it.

Why is Rev. Al Sharpton associated with the anti-vax Harlem Vaccine Forum?

It is a surprise to many that Rev. Al Sharpton is participating though.

The Harlem Vaccine Forum

Wait, how do we know that this is an anti-vax forum?

It's no surprise that they took the vaccines are dangerous link off the new flyer... — It’s no surprise that they took the vaccines are dangerous link off the new flyer…

The website for the event organizer is named vaccines are dangerous!

Did the Harlem AIDS Forum change anyone's understanding of HIV/AIDS? — Did the Harlem AIDS Forum change anyone’s understanding of HIV/AIDS?

A website and organizer who promotes the idea HIV is not the cause of AIDS!!!

Yes, HIV denialism is a thing…

Mothering no longer publishes a print magazine, but still has active anti-vaccine forums. How many HIV+ mothers listened to her advice?

Don’t recognize the name Christine Marjorie?

That’s because he really means Christine Maggiore.

Christine Maggiore spoke at the Harlem AIDS Forum in 1998. Her daughter, Eliza Jane, was born three years later.

Christine Maggiore, “the notorious AIDS denialist who barely escaped felony charges in 2006 after her baby died untreated for HIV, has herself succumbed to the disease she claimed did not exist.”

She died in 2008.

“Dr. Jay Gordon, a Santa Monica pediatrician who had treated Eliza Jane since she was a year old, said he should have demanded she be tested for the human immunodeficiency virus, HIV, when, 11 days before she died, Maggiore brought her in with an apparent ear infection.”
HIV skeptic faces child’s death

Her daughter, Eliza Jane Scovill, died with AIDS related pneumonia in 2005.

And now the same folks who were pushing misinformation in a forum about HIV are holding a forum about vaccines to scare people away from vaccinating and protecting their kids.

There are no natural alternatives to vaccines... — There are no natural alternatives to vaccines…

Or I should say another forum about vaccines pushing misinformation…

“…Reverend Sharpton’s National Action Network will host the Harlem Vaccine Forum at its 106 West 145th St. headquarters at noon. Medical doctors, holistic health practitioners, lawyers, activists and parents will discuss recent changes in New York’s vaccine laws that have a dramatic and disproportionate impact on African American families and their rights to religious practice, education and parental rights.”
Mary Holland on New York’s repeal of the religious exemption to vaccines: what it means for African American families

Misinformation from “medical doctors, holistic health practitioners, lawyers, activists and parents” targeting African American families that might already have lower vaccination rates.

“Compared with white children, black children had lower coverage with ≥3 and ≥4 doses of DTaP, the primary and full series of Hib, ≥3 and ≥4 doses of PCV, ≥2 doses of HepA, the completed rotavirus vaccine series, and the 7-vaccine series (Table 2).”
Vaccination Coverage Among Children Aged 19–35 Months — United States, 2016

Maybe Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network and the Harlem Vaccine Forum should focus on that issue…

“I do not believe in silencing people, because to silence people means to assume that I am so gullible that I am going to believe something because I hear it. If everyone is heard, then everyone can make their own decision.”
Rev. Al Sharpton at the Harlem HIV Forum

While he obviously doesn’t believe all of the ideas of the people that appear at his meetings, rallies, and forums, he would hopefully realize that providing these speakers with a platform to push their false ideas about vaccines creates the impression with many people that they have equal weight with the opinions of experts.

That gets in the way of the message that vaccines are safe, with few risks, and are necessary.

What Do Anti-Vaccine Doctors Know About Vaccines?

Here’s a tip for pre-med students – simply going to a good, or even great medical school, doesn’t guarantee that you will become a good doctor. Or even that you won’t become a bad doctor.

One of the few things that Del Bigtree has ever gotten right. Anti-vaccine doctors are a big part of the problem.

There are plenty of folks that end up being quacks that have gone to NYU, Harvard, and Dartmouth, etc.

“Gordon hated medical school. He almost flunked out.”
Pediatrician Jay Gordon Talks Babies, Breast Feeding, Vaccines and Almost Flunking Out of Medical School

But there are a few things that anti-vaccine pediatricians have in common.

What Do Anti-Vaccine Doctors Know About Vaccines?

For one thing, they never consider themselves to be anti-vaccine.

That probably goes without saying. Well, at least by them.

There is something else that they have in common that likely won’t surprise you.

Anti-vaccine doctors don't seem to know anything about vaccines.

They all say that they didn’t learn very much about vaccines in medical school or residency!

In fact, Bob Sears and Paul Thomas say that they learned nothing about vaccines and they are the ones who wrote books with alternative immunization schedules that are influencing parents to avoid vaccinating and protecting their kids.

Having read their books, I believe them!

“We got a lot of microbiology. We learned about diseases. We learned that vaccines were the solution to those diseases what they say are “vaccine preventable,” that’s the term that they used in my world, but what’s in the vaccines, I don’t really remember really learning anything.”
Paul Thomas

Wait, what?

Does that mean he doesn’t think that measles and polio and other diseases can really be prevented by vaccines?

“During your training in the hospital, you get everything else except vaccines. You learn about all of the rare things. All of the super rare disorders that you may never see in the office. That’s what we spend the time learning and and and almost nothing about vaccination.”
Bob Sears

Is anyone surprised that Suzanne Humphries, Joseph Mercola, and these other folks didn’t learn anything about vaccines during their training?

“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

Do you think that Kelly Brogan, a holistic psychiatrist, learned much about vaccines at NYU? Anything about science???

Why does anyone listen to these folks?

But they learned about vaccines later, right?

“Robert Sears became interested in vaccines as a medical student after reading “DPT: A Shot in the Dark,” a 1985 book that argued that the whooping cough vaccine was dangerous. (The makeup of the vaccine has since been changed.) Sears said the book, which helped spark a backlash against vaccines, exposed him to ideas he wasn’t hearing in school.”
Vaccination controversy swirls around O.C.’s ‘Dr. Bob’

Maybe, but as in the case of Dr. Bob, it is important to note that he was influenced by a book that we know to be wrong. Later studies have shown that the original DPT vaccine did not cause any of the serious side effects that were originally blamed on it, including in the anti-vaccine book that got him started.

Who Are the Anti-Vaccine Pediatricians?

Surprisingly, not all of the members of the American Academy of Pediatrics are on the side of advocating for vaccines!

Who Are the Anti-Vaccine Pediatricians?

Sure, except for a few outliers, most of the members of the AAP are typically strong advocates for vaccines.

In fact, one of the very first actions of the AAP was to establish the Committee on Immunization Procedures in 1936. They soon published the first vaccine recommendations for kids in the 1938 pamphlet, Routine measures for the prophylaxis of communicable diseases.

So what happened?

How did we end up with anti-vaccine pediatricians?

In 1954, Dr. Roger L. J. Kennedy, the president of the AAP, declared that he would not allow his own children to get Salk’s polio vaccine during the Polio Pioneer trials.

Was he right, considering what happened with the Cutter Incident?

Since none of the polio vaccines produced directly by Jonas Salk caused any problems, no, Kennedy wasn’t right and could have put the whole trial at risk if folks had listened to him.

We next saw Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, a pediatrician who was against many standard practices, including ultrasounds in pregnancy, “water fluoridation, immunization, coronary bypass surgery, licensing of nutritionists, and screening examinations to detect breast cancer.”

He appeared on Donahue in the early 1980s, making claims that “The greatest threat of childhood diseases lies in the dangerous and ineffectual efforts made to prevent them through mass immunization.”

Mendelsohn also appeared as an “expert” in Vaccine Roulette, falsely calling the pertussis vaccine “probably the poorest and most dangerous vaccine that we now have.” Of course, none of the claims against the DPT vaccine ended up being true, but we are still left with the DTaP vaccine which is less effective.

Although he wasn’t the last anti-vaccine pediatrician, he was the last to be formally called out by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Dr. Jay Gordon, a celebrity pediatrician in California and Fellow of the AAP, appeared on Good Morning America with Cindy Crawford in 2000, saying afterwards that “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 thinks infants should get vaccines slower, with fewer shots at one time. — Delaying vaccines and leaving infants at risk to get a vaccine-preventable disease doesn’t make any sense to most pediatricians.

Since then, he has continued to push the idea that kids should get vaccines on a slower schedule, perhaps only getting one or two at a time.

Also in California, Dr. Bob Sears, ~~also a Fellow of the AAP~~, published his Vaccine Book in 2007, pushing his own alternative vaccine schedule and creating a list of vaccine-friendly pediatricians.

Bob's warning about not sharing their fears appeared in the first edition of his book. — Bob’s warning about not sharing their fears appeared in the first edition of his book.

Although the AAP hasn’t formally called out today’s disease friendly pediatricians by name, they have repeatedly stated that there are no alternative immunization schedules.

“There is no ‘alternative’ immunization schedule. Delaying vaccines only leaves a child at risk of disease for a longer period of time; it does not make vaccinating safer.
Vaccines work, plain and simple. Vaccines are one of the safest, most effective and most important medical innovations of our time. Pediatricians partner with parents to provide what is best for their child, and what is best is for children to be fully vaccinated.”
Karen Remley, MD, MBA, MPH, FAAP, Executive Director, American Academy of Pediatrics

And the AAP has said that the views of pediatricians who push alternative immunization schedules “are counter to scientific evidence and clearly they do not reflect Academy policy or recommendations.”

“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.”
Countering Vaccine Hesitancy

Are there others?

Unfortunately, there are.

“Most of my patients make the educated decision not to give one vaccine-hepatitis B – to their infants. This is because you catch hepatitis B from sex and IV drug use so if a child is born to a mother that does not have hepatitis B, the child is at no risk of getting this disease. Preschool and young school-aged children are not at risk for hepatitis B, which is why most countries in the developed world only recommend this vaccine for at-risk groups and not for everyone.”
Paul Thomas

Paul Thomas is another pediatrician and Fellow of the AAP who has written a book about vaccines that pushes his own alternative vaccine schedule.

And even though he has written a book about vaccines, it seems clear that he doesn’t really know which vaccines most countries in the developed world actually give to their kids.

Larry Palevsky spoke at an anti-vaccine rally in New York in the middle of a record setting measles outbreak.

Then there is Larry Palevsky, the pediatrician “who utilizes a holistic approach to children’s wellness and illness…”

Some folks are likely wondering how Larry Palevsky still has a medical license after the things he said at the so-called vaccine symposium in Rockland County this year. Yeah, that Rockland County with the longest active measles outbreak since the endemic spread of measles was declared eliminated.

“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

Most others who are familiar with things he has said in the past aren’t surprised by his statements though. After all, he was an “expert” for the anti-vaccination movie The Greater Good.

Are you really going to pay extra for a pediatrician that follows a made up schedule that leaves your kids at risk to get a vaccine-preventable disease? — Are these alternative pediatricians encouraging parents to only give their kids one vaccine at a time?

And they are familiar with other holistic and integrative pediatricians who are obviously anti-vaccine.

What Makes a Pediatrician Anti-Vaccine?

Although none consider themselves anti-vaccine, preferring to think of themselves as pro-safe vaccine, pro-vaccine choice, or pro-informed consent, as they continue to push myths and misinformation about vaccines, it should be clear who they are and what they are doing.

No, a pediatrician isn’t anti-vaccine just because some of their patients follow a non-standard, parent-selected, delayed protection vaccine schedule. They are anti-vaccine if they encourage parents to skip or delay vaccines, scaring them away from vaccinating and protecting their kids.

“The American Academy of Pediatrics is dedicated to the principle of a meaningful and healthy life for every child. As an organization of physicians who care for infants, children, adolescents, and young adults, the Academy seeks to promote this goal by encouraging and assisting its members in their efforts to meet the overall health needs of children and youth; by providing support and counsel to others concerned with the well-being of children, their growth and development; and by serving as an advocate for children and their families within the community at large.”
preamble to AAP Constitution

It’s time that more pediatricians call them out, even if they aren’t members of the AAP, as we see more outbreaks and more parents following their advice, leaving more kids unvaccinated, unprotected, and at risk to get vaccine-preventable diseases.

VAXOPEDIA