Tag: toxins

If It’s Vaccines, Then Why Are There Autistic Kids Who Are Unvaccinated?

Although we know that vaccines aren’t associated with autism, anti-vaccine folks can’t let go of the idea.

Paul Thomas misses the one thing his data is telling him...
Paul Thomas misses the one thing his data is telling him…

So how do they explain all of the autistic kids who are unvaccinated?

If It’s Vaccines, Then Why Are There Autistic Kids Who Are Unvaccinated?

Of course, anti-vaccine folks have a ready answer – it’s vaccines, but it’s not just vaccines.

I guess that’s how they explain the fact that there are so many autistic adults too! Well, actually no. Most anti-vaccine folks are surprised when you point out that there are so many autistic adults, as it doesn’t fit in with their idea that autism is new and caused by kids getting more vaccines than they used to.

Well, I guess mostly caused by giving so many more vaccines than we used to – there are also the autistic kids who were never vaccinated.

How do they explain those kids having autism?

Like their competing theories about how vaccines are associated with autism (it’s the MMR vaccine, no it’s thimerosal, no it’s glyphosate contaminating vaccines, etc.), they have a lot of ideas about how everything else causes autism. From fluoride and chlorine to acetaminophen and aluminum-lined containers, plus mercury, arsenic, aspartame, MSG, and the vaccines your child’s great-grandmother received – they think that just about anything and everything can cause autism. Or at least anything that they think they can sell you a treatment for, such as their supplements, special diet plans, or other “cures.”

Makes you wonder why they still focus on vaccines…

But they do, even as more studies have shown that vaccines are not associated with autism. And since vaccines don’t cause autism, it shouldn’t be surprising that there are unvaccinated children with autism. The only reason there aren’t more is that most parents vaccinate their children, so, of course, most autistic children are going to be vaccinated.

Another reason is that some parents stop vaccinating their kids once they have an autistic child. But since vaccines aren’t associated with autism, which is highly genetic and inheritable, younger unvaccinated siblings born after older siblings were diagnosed often still develop autism.

Now if vaccines didn’t cause autism in these unvaccinated kids, why would anyone still think that they caused autism in their older siblings?

“I must admit that it was through conversations with a coworker that I began to suspect something might be wrong with my youngest son. It concerned me so much that I started looking for information online. I read some of the stories and they sounded similar to what I was experiencing with my son – with the symptoms, the regression and the age at which it all started to become apparent.”

Lara’s Story: Growing Up Anti-Vaccine

Unlike some other stories you might read online, Lara’s story is about her unvaccinated autistic child.

She isn’t alone. You only have to look at personal stories and posts in parenting forums to see that there are many cases of autism among unvaccinated and partially vaccinated children:

  • “It is highly likely my 4-year-old son is autistic. And he is completely 100 percent vaccine-free. And I am just at a total loss.”
  • “I have unvaxxed kids on the spectrum, and my friend does as well.”
  • “A good friend’s son is autistic. He is totally non-vaxxed.”
  • “I seriously delayed vaccinating my son, so had very few vaxxes at the time he was diagnosed”
  • “We have autism in our unvaxxed children”
  • “I know two little boys who are both autistic, completely non-vaxxed”
  • “I have two unvaccinated children who are on the autism spectrum and have never vaccinated any of my children.”
  • “I am not sure what caused my son’s autism, but autistic he is. He is completely unvaxxed as we stopped vaxxing 10 years ago.”
  • “I have a 10 year old daughter with autism spectrum disorder… My daughter has never had a vaccine, a decision I made shortly after she was born, after much research.”

Unfortunately, while realizing that unvaccinated children can develop autism does help some parents move away from anti-vaccine myths and conspiracy theories, others get pushed deeper into the idea that it is just about toxins. It is not uncommon for some of these parents to blame vaccines they got while pregnant or even before they became pregnant, Rhogam shots, or mercury fillings in their teeth, etc.

Fortunately, most don’t though.

Take Juniper Russo, for example.

She “was afraid of autism, of chemicals, of pharmaceutical companies, of pills, of needles” when she had her baby. She just knew that vaccines caused autism when she first visited her pediatrician after her baby was born and knew all of the anti-vaccine talking points. She also later began to realize that her completely unvaccinated daughter had significant developmental delays. Instead of continuing to believe that vaccines cause autism, Ms. Russo understood that she “could no longer deny three things: she was developmentally different, she needed to be vaccinated, and vaccines had nothing to do with her differences.”

And she understands that her autistic child isn’t damaged, as hard as folks in the anti-vaccine movement still try to push the idea that she is.

More on Autistic Kids Who Are Unvaccinated

What Level of Mercury Is Considered Toxic?

Why would an Arizona State Representative be posting about mercury and flu shots?

It’s easy to figure out once you look at the rest of her posts…

What Level of Mercury Is Considered Toxic?

We should start off by correcting a few things in Representative Kelly Townsend’s post.

The mercury in a thimerosal containing flu vaccine is ethylmercury, not methylmercury, the type that we might be exposed to in a can of tuna.

And mercury is only considered to be toxic if you are exposed in specific ways, at specific levels, and depending on the length of exposure.

“In case reports of accidental high-dose exposures in humans to thimerosal or ethylmercury toxicity was demonstrated only at exposures that were 100 or 1000 times that found in vaccines.”

FDA on Thimerosal in Vaccines Questions and Answers

Not only is the ethylmercury in vaccines not toxic, since only a small percentage of flu vaccines now contain thimerosal and you almost have to go out of your way to get a vaccine with thimerosal, you have to wonder why Representative Kelly Townsend is posting about it?!?

If she is really concerned about mercury toxicity, she should be sure that the EPA is truly doing everything they can to reduce mercury pollution and our exposure to mercury. She shouldn’t be scaring folks away from vacinating and protecting their kids.

Still, I guess it is much better than some of her other recent anti-vaccine posts, like the one that is said to have compared mandatory vaccinations to forced number tattoos…

More on Toxic Levels of Mercury

Show Me the Vaccine Insert!

Have you ever wondered why anti-vaccine folks always ask about vaccine inserts?

It will soon be obvious that anti-vaccine folks don't really read vaccine inserts...
It will soon be obvious that anti-vaccine folks don’t really read vaccine inserts…

Would they really be happy if we handed them the entire vaccine insert before every visit?

Would they read the entire vaccine insert?

Which part of the vaccine insert do anti-vaccine even read?
Which part of the vaccine insert do anti-vaccine folks even read?

Or would they continue to only believe the parts that they think justify their decisions to leave their kids unvaccinated, unprotected, and at risk for getting life-threatening diseases?

Show Me the Vaccine Insert!

Let’s see what’s really in these package inserts…

“Measles, mumps, and rubella are three common childhood diseases, caused by measles virus, mumps virus (paramyxoviruses), and rubella virus (togavirus), respectively, that may be associated with serious complications and/or death. For example, pneumonia and encephalitis are caused by measles. Mumps is associated with aseptic meningitis, deafness and orchitis; and rubella during pregnancy may cause congenital rubella syndrome in the infants of infected mothers”

MMR II Package Insert

Wait a second!

How can anti-vaccine folks say that measles is a mild disease if the vaccine insert says that it “may be associated with serious complications and/or death.”

Have they really read this thing?

“The impact of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination on the natural history of each disease in the United States can be quantified by comparing the maximum number of measles, mumps, and rubella cases reported in a given year prior to vaccine use to the number of cases of each disease reported in 1995. For measles, 894,134 cases reported in 1941 compared to 288 cases reported in 1995 resulted in a 99.97% decrease in reported cases; for mumps, 152,209 cases reported in 1968 compared to 840 cases reported in 1995 resulted in a 99.45% decrease in reported cases; and for rubella, 57,686 cases reported in 1969 compared to 200 cases reported in 1995 resulted in a 99.65% decrease”

MMR II Package Insert

Full stop!

How can they say vaccines don’t work when the package insert provides these stats showing it does and goes on to say that “M-M-R II is highly immunogenic and generally well tolerated.”

“The recommended age for primary vaccination is 12 to 15 months.”

MMR II Package Insert

Why are some of these folks delaying or skipping their child’s MMR vaccine? The package insert says to give it at 12 to 15 months!

“Individuals first vaccinated at 12 months of age or older should be revaccinated prior to elementary school entry.”

MMR II Package Insert

That’s the part of the package insert that says to give a second dose before kids enter kindergarten.

“There are no reports of transmission of live attenuated measles or mumps viruses from vaccinees to susceptible contacts.”

MMR II Package Insert

And that’s the part that says they can stop talking about shedding.

Maybe we should make anti-vaccine folks read these inserts…

“The following adverse reactions are listed in decreasing order of severity, without regard to causality, within each body system category and have been reported during clinical trials, with use of the marketed vaccine, or with use of monovalent or bivalent vaccine containing measles, mumps, or rubella:”

MMR II Package Insert

Do anti-vaccine folks understand that some of the things that are listed in the adverse reactions section of the package insert haven’t actually been proven to be caused by the vaccine? They are listed “without regard to causality.”

When you see them talk about SIDS and autism and package inserts, this is what they are talking about.

What about all of the “hidden” ingredients that are listed in the package insert?

Vaccine ingredients are not hard to find.

The ingredients that are so well hidden, they are listed right in the vaccine’s insert? Where does it mention all of the toxins that anti-vaccine folks are always talking about?

“…M-M-R II is highly immunogenic and generally well tolerated.”

MMR II Package Insert

The MMR vaccine works and it is safe.

It says so in the package insert.

Vaccinate your kids.

More on Vaccine Inserts

How to Become a Vaccine Advocate

Are you tired of reading about outbreaks that might put your family at risk, either because they are too young to be vaccinated, fully vaccinated, or because they have a true medical condition that keeps them from being vaccinated?

Brittney Kara, who once wondered why vaccines weren’t mentioned in the Bible, gets a lot of other things wrong too.

Are you especially tired of reading about these outbreaks while friends and family members post anti-vaccine propaganda on Facebook that you know isn’t true?

How to Become a Vaccine Advocate

It is time to speak up and speak out against anti-vaccine misinformation.

It’s time to become a vaccine advocate.

Most importantly, post and share stories when you or your family get a vaccine!

Share your #flushotselfie and let folks know you got vaccinated and protected.
Share your #flushotselfie and let folks know you got vaccinated and protected.

And be skeptical when you see or hear something that is anti-vaccine, especially when they are talking about toxins, vaccine-induced diseases, Big Pharma, vaccine choice, mandatory vaccination, the benefits of natural immunity, or when they are trying to sell you their books, videos, seminars, or supplements.

If nothing else, drop a link to the vaxopedia whenever someone posts something about vaccines that you just know isn’t true.

More on How to Become a Vaccine Advocate

Are the Risks Greater Than the Benefits for Any Vaccines?

The only reason some folks question the risk-benefit ratio of vaccines is because most of them have never had or even known anyone with a vaccine-preventable disease.

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

Of course, that’s simply because most people are vaccinated and protected. But if enough folks decide to skip or delay their vaccines, then we will have outbreaks and a higher risk of getting sick.

We shouldn’t have to wait for outbreaks for anyone to understand that the benefits of vaccines far outweigh their risks though.

Are the Risks Greater Than the Benefits for Any Vaccines?

Vaccines are safe, effective, and necessary.

Unless you have a true contraindication to getting vaccinated, until a disease is eradicated, the benefits of a vaccine will typically be far greater than its risks.

The switch from the live, oral polio vaccine to the inactivated vaccine is a good example of when this wasn’t the case though. Since OPV could rarely cause vaccine-associated paralytic polio (VAPP), once polio was well controlled in the United States, the risk of this side effect became greater than the benefit of continuing to use the vaccine, but only because we had an alternative polio vaccine that didn’t cause VAPP.

Similarly, the original rotavirus vaccine was withdrawn because the extra risk of intussusception, even though it was small, was thought to be greater than the benefits of the vaccine.

In the great majority of cases though, to think that getting vaccinated is a bigger risk than getting a vaccine preventable disease, you have to buy into the anti-vaccine hype:

Of course, none of that is true. These, and other anti-vaccine talking points have been refuted time after time.

Don’t put your kids at risk.

Don’t put others at risk from your unvaccinated child.

Get them vaccinated and protected.

More on Risks and Benefits of Vaccines

What is Corvelva?

Have you heard of Corvelva?

People are dying of measles in Italy and groups like Corvela are pushing anti-vaccine propaganda to further scare folks away from vaccinating and protecting their bambini.
People are dying of measles in Italy and groups like Corvela are pushing anti-vaccine propaganda to further scare folks away from vaccinating and protecting their bambini.

Probably not, but they are getting some attention in the anti-vaccine world because they think that they have uncovered a Vaccingate!

What is Corvelva?

Specifically, they analyzed the Infranix Hexa vaccine, and instead of finding DTaP-IPV-HepB/Hib antigens, they think that they found “65 signs of chemical contaminants of which only 35% is known” and “7 chemical toxins.”

Should you be worried?

“Coming back to the two basic principles that have been our topic on this analysis path, we reaffirm what we have said in the recent interview on the scientific journal Nature: we are inquiring the vaccines efficacy and safety and we can’t quite understand how it is possible to claim that this vaccine is even able to generate the 6 protective antibodies – reason why it is designed for – and furthermore to understand how this cluster made of 6 neurotoxic antigens bound together can be claimed as not toxic for newborns.”

Corvelva on Vaccingate: Initial results on Infanrix Hexa chemical composition

Although they might not understand it, Infranix Hexa has been proven to be safe and has been proven to work. You can read study after study in well respected peer reviewed journals that say so.

The Corvela Vaccingate “study” wasn’t published in a well respected peer reviewed journal. It wasn’t even published in one of the typical bottom-feeder, pay-to-publish journals that anti-vaccine researchers frequently use.

What Corvela did was more like a very poorly done science fair project by a kid who got too much help from his anti-vaccine parents.

Using the Surface Activated Chemical Ionization-Electrospray-NIST Bayesian model database search (SANIST) platform is pretty cool, to be sure. But why are we supposed to believe that their method would actually deconstruct the Infanrix Hexa vaccine? Because that’s why they were trying to do – separate out all of the combined vaccine ingredients so that they could be detected by SANIST. The combined vaccine ingredients, including one of which is an emulsifier that keeps the ingredients from separating, in a 6-in-1 combination vaccine.

So what’s more likely? That the unnamed ‘scientists’ at Corvela, which is basically an anti-vaccine website in Italy, did the experiment wrong or that the Infanrix Hexa vaccine, which is used in countries all over the world, doesn’t contain any of the antigens that it is supposed to contain?

A previous study on vaccines that they also have posted to their website and to an open peer review site was not approved, getting a lot of criticism.

Have you figured out what Corvela stands for yet?

It’s Italian for covfefe.

More on Corvelva

Who is Larry Cook?

Larry Cook is either one of the movers and shakers of the modern anti-vaccine movement, with his Stop Mandatory Vaccine group, a ‘double agent’ who worked to oppose a vaccine law in California, while also lobbying for the law, or someone who other anti-vax folks claims “puts his own profit far ahead of our children.”

Who is Larry Cook?

Larry Cook says that he has devoted himself to natural living for over 25 years.

“I studied video production and photography at Clover Park Vocational-Technical Institute in Tacoma, Washington and I received my bachelor’s degree from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA.”

From developing natural living magazines and self-publishing a book about ADHD, he became the Executive Director of the California Naturopathic Doctors Association, a position he held for four years.

He resigned in 2016 to devote his time to “educating” folks about vaccines.

“Finally, I believe my mission is to educate as many parents and others as possible about the dangers of vaccination, the lack of efficacy of vaccination, and why natural immunity is superior to vaccination.”

He even has a GoFundMe page to support his mission…

Is Larry Cook on a mission to take advantage of and profile parents who think that their kids have been vaccine injured?
A mission to take advantage of and profile parents who think that their kids have been vaccine injured? Who he thinks have been vaccine injured, even when the parents don’t.

How did he get started in his quest to save children from vaccines, which he believes are a “200 year old mistake?”

“In late March or early April, 2015, Mr. Cook started a GoFundMe campaign to produce short films, interviews with parents who felt their children had been damaged by vaccines, in order to share those stories with legislators and the general public to build opposition to SB277.”

ConspiraSea, SB277, Colin McRoberts, Larry Cook, and Me

Of course, SB277 passed, and Larry Cook soon left his job as Executive Director of the California Naturopathic Doctors Association, with a new career and salary from his GoFundMe donations.

Why are anti-vax folks always participating in and promoting “free” online summits? They never disclose that they are making money from them, but they usually are.

I guess his campaign went well, at least for him.

It turned into a full time job.

“A video I wish I didn’t have to make. When I started in this movement, I had no idea it would be as corrupt as pharma.

But I have had my eyes opened many times over…this video describes just one of many disappointments along the way: Larry Cook, who runs a popular page and group.

In the beginning, I believed what he told me and tried to look past the many odd comments and strange behaviors. But it ultimately became clear that he puts his own profit far ahead of our children.

That in and of itself wasn’t enough to motivate me to speak out and open myself up to the hundreds of attacks I would get, I kept hoping the truth would be exposed by someone else. And while some have tried, the past couple of weeks I have seen too much to stay silent any longer.”

Brandy Vaughan

 Surprisingly, he even has critics in the anti-vaccine world. 

Unfortunately, they aren’t critical of his extreme views, including that vaccines are “filled with poison” (they aren’t), are “unnecessary” (they are very necessary if you want to avoid life-threatening vaccine preventable diseases), don’t work (they do work), and that outbreaks are a “manufactured problem” (what???).

Vaccines are safe and necessary. Don’t let folks like Larry Cook scare you away from vaccinating and protecting your kids.

More on Larry Cook