Kelly Brogan, a holistic psychiatrist, got her case study published in the Advances in Mind-Body Medicine journal. History making? That’s about as history making as her vaccine paper that was published in the journal, Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine.
Full stop. There is a lot of good information on the Internet, but most folks who say they did their research about vaccines on Google choose “to accept only information that supports his or her position, and ignores or dismisses information in conflict with it.”
Will Jim Meehan ever understand vaccines better?
Will anyone that listens to these folks?
Gwyneth Paltrow and Goop made one mistake – thinking that they could give health advice.
The creator of the PEACH anti-vaccine safety manual that has been distributed in Orthodox Jewish communities spent years gathering anti-vaccine propaganda…
Whether they put all of the anti-vaccine propaganda they gather into a binder or a vaccine guide on the Internet, these folks are simply misinformed about vaccines.
As their measles outbreak enters its six month, Rockland County health officials are making a big move to prevent more cases – an emergency declaration banning unvaccinated kids from public places.
Not surprisingly, anti-vaccine folks are reacting as you would expect.
Does it force parents to vaccinate their kids, as anti-vaccine folks have been warning us about? Does it quarantine unvaccinated kids in their homes?
It must be pretty outrageous if folks are willing to basically incite others to riot, right?
“Every action we have taken, since the beginning of this outbreak has been designed to by the department of health of Rockland County in conjunction with the state department of health to do two things, maximize vaccinations and minimize exposures. We are taking today the next step in that endeavor… In order to prevent any more children from falling ill from this deadly disease, I am today declaring a county wide state of emergency. Effective at the stroke of midnight tonight, March 27, anyone who is under 18 years of age and is unvaccinated against the measles will be barred from public places until the declaration expire in thirty days or until they receive at least their first shot of MMR.”
does not mean that law enforcement will be asking for vaccine records
does mean that your case will be referred to the District Attorney if you are in violation (class B misdemeanor) – your child is in a public place without at least one dose of MMR
holds parents accountable if they are in violation
exempts homes
exempts many public places, like streets and parks
So basically, the emergency declaration supports what the health department is already doing to end the outbreak and will hopefully get the attention of those who are keeping the outbreak going.
Are they out to arrest people?
No.
“We owe this to the residents of this great county so that we never ever have to go through this again. This is an opportunity for everyone in their community to do the right thing for their neighbors and come together. That’s what this is about now. We must do everything in our power to end this outbreak and protect the health of those who can not be vaccinated for medical reasons and those children too young to be vaccinated and also those who are risk…”
Ed Day, Rockland County Executive
They are trying to get their attention and educate them.
We know that there will always be some folks who won’t vaccinate their kids.
“Although many may characterize all individuals who eschew vaccines as “anti-vaccine” or “vaccine deniers,” in reality, there is a broad spectrum of individuals who choose not to have themselves or their children vaccinated.”
Tara C Smith on Vaccine Rejection and Hesitancy: A Review and Call to Action
Who are these people?
Who’s Who in the Anti-Vaccine Movement – 2019 Edition
We used to conveniently call them anti-vaccine, but that doesn’t really work.
Well, it still does, as long as you understand who you are talking about.
The thing is, the folks who don’t vaccinate their kids exist on a spectrum, from those who just need a little extra reassurance (the worrieds) or a lot of extra reassurance (parents who are on the fence or vaccine-hesitant), to vaccine refusers (will likely vaccinate during an outbreak, etc.) and deniers who likely aren’t vaccinating their kids in any circumstance and who might try to persuade others to avoid vaccines too – the vocal vaccine deniers.
So you don’t really want to bunch them all up one big anti-vaccine group, especially when you are typically talking about the vocal vaccine deniers, many of whom believe that they have a child who was injured or damaged by a vaccine.
anti-vaccine social media influencers on Facebook and YouTube
anti-vaccine profiteers who have learned to make money scaring parents and getting them to buy anti-vaccine books on Amazon, watch anti-vaccine videos, sell supplements, and “attend” their online seminars (they make money through affiliate programs)
so-called autism advocates, who push unproven and sometimes dangerous therapies and talk about cures, all of the while talking about vaccine injury and damage
politicians who are trying to make it even easier for kids to get vaccine exemptions and use anti-vaccine messaging to make it seem like a good idea
anti-vaccine researchers who are funded by anti-vaccine organizations and can only get their papers published in pay-to-publish journals
Who’s to blame for low immunization rates and continuing outbreaks?
Do you know who I’m talking about it? Have you noticed that these folks never seem to face any consequences?
Who else do we need to talk about?
I remember speaking with my mother about vaccines, and at one point in our discussion, she claimed a link existed between vaccines and autism. In response, I presented evidence from the CDC which claimed directly in large bold letters, “There is no link between vaccines and autism.” Within the same article from the CDC on their official website, extensive evidence and studies from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) were cited. Most would assume when confronted with such strong proof, there would be serious consideration that your views are incorrect. This was not the case for my mother, as her only response was, “that’s what they want you to think.”
There are also the folks who are pushing an anti-science agenda, making you think that mainstream doctors are bad and that anything holistic and natural must be good. Until the damage these folks are doing is seriously addressed, it won’t matter if we get a few anti-vaccine folks off of Amazon, Facebook and Pinterest.
Six degrees of separation? The idea that most people are connected by six or fewer degrees of separation.
Six Degrees of Anti-Vaccine Separation
Not surprisingly, you don’t have to beyond a few degrees to see the connection between many anti-vaccine folks.
“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
Especially the vocal anti-vaccine folks.
Few folks likely remember, but in 2000, just after Andrew Wakefield released his now retracted study, Dr. Jay Gordon and Cindy Crawford appeared on Good Morning America to discuss vaccines and how she had decided to delay vaccinating her baby.
After the segment, Dr. Gordon 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.
March 1997 article in the LA Times describing how media savvy “skeptics” were attacking vaccines.
So while a lot of folks like to give credit to Bob Sears and Jenny McCarthy for starting the modern anti-vaccine movement, Dr. Jay and Cindy Crawford were on the scene far earlier.
Dr. Jay had even been featured in the LA Times before Wakefield published his paper!
Speaking of Jenny McCarthy, it is interesting to note that Jay Gordon was her pediatrician!
“Right before his MMR shot, I said to the doctor, I have a very bad feeling about this shot. This is the autism shot, isn’t it? And he said, “No, that is ridiculous. It is a mother’s desperate attempt to blame something on autism.” And he swore at me. . . . And not soon thereafter, I noticed that change in the pictures: Boom! Soul, gone from his eyes.”
Jenny McCarthy
Well, Dr. Jay is almost certainly not the pediatrician that swore at her after giving her child an MMR vaccine.
“Yes, there have been cases of Disney spread from Measlesland. I will give MMRs to kids 3 yrs+ if parents are worried.”
“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
It probably makes even more sense if it is your pediatrician saying it…
“My name is Brittney Kara and my husband and I are parents who have chosen not to continue vaccinating our children. After thoroughly investigating and carefully weighing the risks and benefits of each vaccine, we have concluded that the current vaccines are not safe for our children and that they are not required for the optimum health of our children.”
Brittney Kara
Especially when you have a pediatrician who has said “I think that the public health benefits to vaccinating are grossly overstated” and who recommends that parents “Wait until a child is clearly developmentally “solid” before vaccinating because we just don’t know which children will react badly to immunizations.”
“I began researching vaccines in 2007 when I was pregnant with our first child. Dr. Jay Gordon was my pediatrician growing up and since I have always held him in a high regard he was the first person I turned to. He was very cautious about the current CDC schedule and his research inspired me to start my own. I began following the work of Dr. Russell Blaylock, Dr. Joseph Mercola, Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, and Dr. Suzanne Humphries, among others.”
Brittney Kara
What about Alicia Silverstone and Mayim Bialik?
How many celebrities got their ideas about vaccines from Jay Gordon?
Suspicions about the DPT were not confirmed. In fact, it was found that the DPT vaccine did not cause any of the neurological problems that folks claimed, something that seemed to trigger the anti-vaccine feelings in some pediatricians.
How many other people have been influenced by the anti-vaccine celebrities that Jay Gordon has inspired?
But did he mock the father of a child who died of SUDC, within a day of getting vaccinated? A father who was carrying a copy of JB Handley’s autism book, who claims that “there is no money in dead babies,” and who is banging on the studio window during his interview with Paul Offit?
No.
He is simply pointing out, and seemed a little excited, that he had anti-vaccine protesters at his studio for the first time.
At a screening for Vaxxed, Paul Thomas, MD, joked that kids with autism were brain damaged. And everyone laughed.
But if anti-vaccine folks really feel outrage over this, why is it so selective?
Where is the outrage when the comments don’t come from someone who supports vaccines?
“I want to thank the warrior moms and dads. Those of you who have an autistic child, or a child who is otherwise damaged, you know the damage isn’t always clear-cut autism. Some times it is just some variation – your kids just not quite right.
That’s why I didn’t stand and say that I have an autistic child, because my kids, I tease them and say that they are brain damaged. Uh. Sorry son.”
Paul Thomas
I don’t remember any outrage over Paul Thomas’ comments or when Del Bigtree said “Eve is autistic, that’s right, otherwise, why would she have eaten the apple,” and made this statement on his show:
“When I go visit my grandma, why don’t I see any autistic people flapping in the corner of the room.”
But that isn’t even the worse thing Del has been recorded as saying…
“But I would think when you have a child with autism, you know, or on the spectrum, you have no reference point. You have no…
I don’t want this to sound wrong, but it’s a little bit more like having a dog or a Doberman or something that you don’t understand how it thinks, you don’t know. I mean, I mean a better figure than animal reference except… you don’t have their brain.
Or you hear about stories of people that bring home of exotic you know of chimpanzee or something where they can’t, and this is not sounding right.”
At least he didn’t want it to sound wrong…
“They get the shot. That night they have a fever of 103. They go to sleep, and three months later their brain is gone. This is a holocaust, what this is doing to our country.”
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr
The anti-vaccine world is full of talk of autistic kids being broken and damaged, they push dangerous and expensive “cures” on parents, and spread propaganda to scare parents away from vaccinating and protecting their kids.
Dr. Jerry is a pediatrician who practices Translational Medicine and wrote the forward to Jenny McCarthy’s autism book.
And they hijack every disease, story, and tragedy to make folks think that everything is a vaccine injury.
As a physician, I assure you this story isn’t believable at any level. In my opinion, the “health officials” are conjuring meningitis fairy tales about an “unvaccinated” boogeyman to cover for the much more probable cause of this child’s death: VACCINES.
The much more likely cause is right in front of us: “The child had just received his 4-month-old vaccinations two days beforehand.”
Jim Meehan
Jim Meehan, for example, is so upset that he thinks Zdogg should lose his medical license, but he had no problem harassing the family of an infant who had just died of meningitis, claiming it was a cover up for a vaccine injury.
This is the modern anti-vaccine movement.
Have I mentioned that some of them lie about religious and medical exemptions to avoid getting their kids vaccinated and protected? And others sell those vaccine exemptions?
“A Clallam County woman in her 20s died this year from an undetected measles infection discovered only after an autopsy, state health officials said Thursday. The case is the first confirmed measles death in the U.S. in 12 years.
The woman was likely exposed to the highly contagious infection at a local medical center during a recent outbreak in Clallam County. She was at the site at the same time as someone who later developed a rash and was determined to be contagious for measles.”
Undetected measles led to death of Clallam County woman in her 20s
Where is the outrage when someone dies from a disease that could have easily been prevented by a safe and effective vaccine?
Those of us who understand the hypocrisy of the anti-vaccine movement know exactly where it is.
More on The Moral Outrage of the Anti-Vaccine Movement
We know why most folks got scared of the MMR vaccine.
Who’s to blame for low immunization rates and continuing outbreaks?
And most of us remember when most folks welcomed the MMR vaccine the end of endemic measles in the United States.
Why You Were Worried About the MMR Vaccine
Of course, that all changed when Andrew Wakefield spoke at the press conference for his 1998 Lancet paper and said:
“And I have to say that there is sufficient anxiety in my own mind of the safety, the long term safety of the polyvalent, that is the MMR vaccination in combination, that I think that it should be suspended in favour of the single vaccines, that is continued use of the individual measles, mumps and rubella components… there is no doubt that if you give three viruses together, three live viruses, then you potentially increase the risk of an adverse event occurring, particularly when one of those viruses influences the immune system in the way that measles does. And it may be, and studies will show this or not, that giving the measles on its own reduces the risk of this particular syndrome developing… the risk of this particular syndrome developing is related to the combined vaccine, the MMR, rather than the single vaccines…. People have been saying for some time, people on the periphery of autism, have been saying for some time that this may well be related to bowel damage.”
Although there was no evidence for any of that, vaccination rates went down and measles rates went up – the Wakefield Factor.
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 no, it wasn’t one person at a press conference that us lead down a decade of worry about the MMR vaccine.
“And then the nurse gave my son that shot. And I remember going, “Oh, God, no!” And soon thereafter I noticed a change. The soul was gone from his eyes.”
Over and over again, we see new studies that show that the MMR vaccine is safe and is not associated with autism.
Andrew Wakefield’s work was never replicated.
The MMR vaccine never contained thimerosal and doesn’t even contain aluminum, which I mention only because those are ingredients that some folks get scared about, not because they are harmful.
As a pediatrician who has always fully vaccinated and protected his own kids, I didn’t totally understand what it meant when my first parents told me that they were pro-safe vaccine.
If they were interested in safe vaccines, I thought, why not get their kids vaccinated and protected? After all, vaccines are safe! Their baby was due to get several very safe vaccines at her upcoming two-month checkup.
“You don’t have to dig far to know that vaccines have caused tremendous harm. Have they had benefits? Absolutely. Which is why I remain somewhat on the neutral side in saying that I am not anti-vaccine,” said Dr. Paul Thomas. “I’m pro-safe vaccines. I’ve progressed along to the point where I now don’t believe there is such a thing.”
Folks who say that they are pro-safe vaccines typically:
“Pro-Safe Vaccine” Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Means
Are you starting to see the problem with folks who say that they are pro-safe vaccines now?
“I’m not for starting an epidemic of another disease. We just want there to be some type of conversation, once. Sit down with our side, with our doctors and scientists, to take a look at what we’re talking about. We’re not an anti-vaccine movement. We’re pro-safe-vaccine schedule. Until we have that conversation, people are going to think it’s an anti- and pro- side.”
“In our community we say, “Yeah.” We firmly believe the cause of the epidemic of autism is due to a vaccine injury and/or other environmental exposures — pesticides also. But what on this earth we all kind of share the most is vaccines.”
Jenny McCarthy
Right. So she is not anti-vaccine, but she thinks that vaccines injure people and have caused and epidemic of autism?
And that’s where her pro-safe vaccine schedule comes in…
And we’re saying: “Delay them. Delay them till age 2. Skip some that you might not need.”
Jenny McCarthy
Like all of the other alternative vaccine schedules out there, Jenny McCarthy’s pro-safe vaccine schedule had no evidence that it was safe or effective.
And that gets to the root of the issue. We don’t know what causes autism, so it must be vaccines.
“To our community, Andrew Wakefield is Nelson Mandela and Jesus Christ rolled up into one.”
J. B. Handley
But what about the folks who have moved beyond listening to Jenny McCarthy and being concerned about autism?
