The Truth About TTAV Episode Six: Conspiracy Theory Extravaganza!

New to this series? Start here.

Episode Six: A Closer Look at the CDC, Chicken Pox and Rotavirus Vaccines & Retroviruses

The Cast

• Ty Bollinger is the producer/creator of this series and a previous The Truth About Cancer series. His films and books are steeped in conspiracy theories.
• David Lewis is a biologist who discovered the HIV could be transmitted via dental equipment.
• Dr. Toni Bark is an MD and homeopath who sells chocolate and skincare on her website and travels the country testifying at hearings.
• Sayer Ji is the founder of non-evidence based website GreenMedInfo.
• Andrew Wakefield is the fraudulent researcher whose retracted study still falsely convinces parents that vaccines have a direct causal relationship with autism.
• Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is an environmental lawyer who remains convinced that the thimerosal that was removed from childhood immunizations is somehow still causing autism.
• Jennifer Margulis has a PhD in American Studies and is the author of several anti-vaccine and pro-homebirth books.
• Dr. Larry Palevky is a “holistic” pediatrician who sells supplements at his website.
• Neil Z. Miller is a conspiracy theorist and author of anti-vaccine books who helped his daughter self-publish a book about how they’ve spoken with aliens.
• Del Bigtree is a self-proclaimed award winning television producer who has also produced Wakefield’s film VAXXED and a live YouTube show.
• Barbara Loe Fisher is the founder of the poorly named National Vaccine Information Center.
• Judy Mikovits is a biologist and a controversial Chronic Fatigue researcher whose papers have been retracted. 
• Dr. Paul Thomas is a pediatrician who sells supplements and anti-vaccine books at his website.
• Brian S. Hooker is a biochemical engineer and author of retracted anti-vaccine papers.
• Robert J. Krakow is a vaccine court lawyer. 
• G. Edward Griffin is a filmmaker and conspiracy theorist by profession.
• Tony Muhammed is a minister in the Nation of Islam who has recently teamed up with anti-vaccine forces.
• Mike Adams is a conspiracy theorist and Scientology-apologist who runs the website/webstore NaturalNews.
• Allison Folmar is a civil rights attorney who has represented high-profile anti-vaccine cases. 

The Claims

CDC Conspiracy theories

• The film claims that U.S.-based thinking on vaccines has shifted to ideology and dogma, as the scientific method has been rejected for the sake of rejecting unfavorable study results. 
  • If we are going to use the language of religion, it is important to note that the world’s major religions support vaccines.
  • But vaccines are not a religion, and the scientific method is deeply imbedded into the history and development of our current vaccine program.
• The film thinks the public has a “misplaced faith in an undeserving authority” of the CDC.
  • The film claims that silences any kind of dissent so heretics get burned.
    • They mean that their wild theories are not taken seriously.
    • But spirited debate and dissent are done openly and publicly.
    • Heretics are religious dissenters. Researchers with differing conclusions are scientific dissenters. Replication of scientific conclusions proves who is correct.
  • They claim that if doctors question the dogma, they face retaliation
    • They mean Andrew Wakefield, who was a fraud for pay.
• Claim: CDC-sponsored research is conducted in a manner to support the agency’s policies. However, the CDC is not the sole researcher of vaccines. Vaccines are researched across the globe and by labs in universities, corporations, and agencies everywhere. No one in any place in the world (outside the anti-vaccine community) thinks vaccines cause autism.
• Claim: Doctors are taught to respect the CDC’s authority without question. In all of my research (googling ), I have yet to find this class.
• Claim: CDC’s conflicts of interest with the pharmaceutical industry are revealed through the vaccine schedule, as vaccines with questionable safety and effectiveness (i.e. Hep B vaccine for babies) are included.
  • The Hep B vaccine is safe. 
  • The vaccine schedule is recommended by an independent board and supported by the AAP and AAFP. 
  • Sustaining a conspiracy to hide nefarious vaccine information would involve paying off 22,000 people.
• Additionally, many high-ranking CDC employees end up working within the pharmaceutical industry with lucrative positions.
  • This isn’t completely incorrect, but keep in mind that people with expertise in such niche areas as vaccinology have few prospective employers.
• Claim: CDC has a conflict of industry because they’re responsible for both vaccine safety and scheduling; impossible to objectively evaluate both areas 
  • The film says an independent commission is needed for an unbiased evaluation of vaccine safety. That’s literally what ACIP is. ACIP is comprised of volunteers who work in healthcare across the country. Their main conflict of interest is not wanting their patients to get sick. Anyone can apply to be on ACIP.
  • Claim: CDC is regulating an industry that participates in: CDC owns patents for immunizations and sells vaccines.
    • Hogwash. The CDC buys vaccines for the Vaccines For Children program and gives them to children for free. Similarly, the CDC owns patents for vaccine technology so that companies cannot own those patents and refuse to let others use them. Super nefarious that CDC.
  • CDC Advisory committees are only required to have at least one person who isn’t employed by the pharmaceutical industry
    • ACIP requires people to make public their conflicts of interest because the boar is public and transparent and not nefarious.
    • “Candidates with specific vaccine-related interests at the time of application are not considered for appointment by the committee.” 
• The flilm called ACIP an agency to watch
  • Blah blah blah the CDC whistleblower William Thompson. 
  • Thompson supposedly lived with the fact that the CDC had found a causal link between MMR and vaccines for 13 years.
  • Recounted DeStefano study in Atlanta, the film alleged higher incidence of autism in African American boys upon MMR administration
    • In fact, the retracted Hooker reinterpretation of the data found a higher incidence of autism in African-American boys vaccinated late: between 24 and 36 months.
    • Likely, these children were diagnosed before being vaccinated, and were vaccinated so that they could enter early childhood special education services.
• To prove they are conspiracy theorists, the film claims forced vaccines, or vaccine mandates, are in violation of the Nuremberg Code as their justification for “informed consent.”
  • The Nuremberg Code was written after the Holocaust to stop medical experiments done on people without their consent because the Holocaust was horrific and we can never let it happen again.This comparison is highly despicable.
  • Our vaccine program is not a medical experiment. Vaccines are well-studied before being added to the schedule.
  • By “informed consent,” anti-vaccine people mean they want their particular, disproven theories espoused to patients before vaccines are given. Before a vaccine, patients are informed about the vaccine, the diseases it prevents, possible side effects, and whom to contact in the unlikely event of a severe side effect.
• The film claims that the number of vaccines on the CDC’s schedule was significantly increased when the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act was passed in 1986. Perhaps no longer being tied up by frivolous lawsuits, pharmaceutical companies were able to invest more money in research and development. Vaccines take 15 years to research and develop, and most do not make it out of the first phase of research.
• The film claims that the CDC and other regulatory agencies suppress data by forcing researchers to sign away their rights to data proving issues with vaccines.  
  • When you are doing research on behalf of an organization or corporation, they usually own the intellectual property and have the right to do with it what they wish. This isn’t specific to vaccines. I really don’t understand what crazy train this theory is on.
  • The film claims researchers like Judy Mikovits faced bankruptcy and censorship as retaliation for her findings. However, Mikovits refused to let a colleague have her data. Eventually, scientists found she had manipulated her data. 
• The film say the science of anything is never settled, so the science around vaccines is not certain.
  • However, degrees of certainty around science certainly exist, and vaccines have more than 60,000 studies showing they are safe and effective. Replicating findings over and over again increases our degree of certainty.
• Remember that Andrew Wakefield was a fraud for pay and continues to work toward building his own wealth.

Chickenpox Vaccines Are Terrible

• The film cited Gary Goldman’s story of his research on chicken pox being censored
  • His research, available right here, purported to show that adults were coming down with shingles at higher rates because they were no longer exposed to kids who have chickenpox. Other studies show that shingles was on the rise before the vaccine was licensed.
• Chickenpox was a rite of passage!
  • No, it wasn’t. 
  • The film wrongly claims that deaths from the disease are rare and only occurred in immunocompromised populations. It is also important to note the 10,000 hospitalizations a year caused by chickenpox before the vaccine.
• The film claims, wrongly, that because the chickenpox vaccine has been effective in curbing the disease, debilitating shingles cases have risen in adult populations.
• The film says chickenpox vaccine contains human aborted fetal cells (diploid cells) to be produced as antigens for vaccine. These are, in fact, cell lines procured from an aborted fetus in the 1960s. The cell line is considered “immortal” in that it replicates endlessly, and no further tissues from aborted fetuses need to be obtained for vaccines.
  • The film incorrectly claims that the vaccine conflicts with religious beliefs

Rotavirus Vaccines Are Terrible

• The film basically asserts that the rotavirus vaccine was added to the schedule because Dr. Paul Offit is evil and has made money developing the vaccine.
  • Dr. Offit is not evil. 
  • His rotavirus vaccine was not the only one added to the schedule.
  • Dr. Offit does not control ACIP or the CDC.
  • I’m really tired of debunking pharma shill gambits from a group of people who sell supplements on their websites.
• The film claims the rotavirus vaccine is not appropriate for American children
  • As evidence, the film says nearly every child under 5 gets the disease and is easily cured through rehydration (I.V. fluids); benign disease that only causes dehydration in the U.S.
    • Before the vaccine, rotavirus caused up to 450,000 hospitalizations in the U.S. each year. I.V. rehydration is not a small deal. Going to the hospital is not a good outcome for a child.
  • The film claims wrongly that vaccinated rotavirus patients had more diarrhea, cases of gastroenteritis – the conditions the vaccine is intended to prevent. If a baby gets diarrhea after the vaccine, it is much milder than full-blown rotavirus.
  • The film asks why the rotavirus vaccine is dangerous for anyone over 9 months, but safe for 2 month old babies? This is a misunderstanding of the licensure of the vaccine. The burden of disease is in the youngest babies, and the older a child is when she receives the first dose, the (very slightly) higher their risk for side effects is.
• The film claims norovirus has emerged since the emergence of the rotavirus vaccine, which is a far more virulent disease. The research into norovirus is young and interesting to follow, and we should still prevent rotavirus.

Retroviruses Are Because of Vaccines

• The film claims mouse-related viruses were introduced to human populations through vaccines.
  • This theory is meant to support the now-debunked work of Judy Mikovits. The FDA has investigated this possibility.
• Claim: There is reverse transcriptase activity in MMR vaccines that has been formally recognized since 1994
  • No concerns have been found when researching this question.
  • This is part of the “MMR causes autism” gambit. However, if retroviruses in vaccines caused autism, why do we not find them in the brains of deceased autistic people?

And finally, Episode Seven: Natural Immunization, Homeoprophylaxis & Fundamental Freedom of Choice

The Truth About TTAV Episode Four: Herd Immunity AND MORE!

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Episode Four: Examining Influenza, the HIB and Pneumococcal Vaccines & Herd Immunity

The Cast

• Ty Bollinger is the producer/creator of this series and a previous The Truth About Cancer series. His films and books are steeped in conspiracy theories and his primary M.O. is to stoke fears about mainstream anything.
• Dr. Toni Bark is an MD and homeopath who sells chocolate and skincare on her website and travels the country testifying at hearings.
• Dr. Suzanne Humphries is a nephrologist and homeopath who sells books she’s written.
• Sayer Ji is the founder of non-evidence based website GreenMedInfo.
• Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is an environmental lawyer who remains convinced that the thimerosal that was removed from childhood immunizations is somehow still causing autism.
• Dr. Larry Palevky is a “holistic” pediatrician who sells supplements at his website.
• Neil Z. Miller is a conspiracy theorist and author of anti-vaccine books who helped his daughter self-publish a book about how they’ve spoken with aliens.
• Del Bigtree is a self-proclaimed award winning television producer who has also produced Wakefield’s film VAXXED and a live YouTube show.
• Barbara Loe Fisher is the founder of the poorly named National Vaccine Information Center.
• Eric Zielinski is a chiropractor and “Biblical Health Educator” who promotes essential oils at his
• Dr. Paul Thomas is a pediatrician who sells supplements and anti-vaccine books at his website.
• Dr. Jack Wolfson is a “holistic cardiologist” who made a name for himself for a particularly vicious attack against vaccinating parents.
• Robert Scott Bell is a homeopath, a podcaster, and an HIV denialist.
• Julian Tharpe is a cinematographer.
• Dr. Janet Levitan is a pediatrician practicing with Dr. Sherri Tenpenny.
• Thom and Candice Bradstreet are related to Dr. Jeffrey Bradstreet, whose death by suicide they believe to be a murder to stop his disproven autism treatments.
• Dr. Joseph Mercola runs a highly profitable online supplement store who has violated federal law by making dangerous claims about alternatives to mammograms.

The Claims

Influenza Vaccines Are Terrible

• The film disputes the CDC’s annual influenza death estimate (typically around 36,000) as inaccurate and misleading
  • The primary dispute is that the total allegedly does not match the numbers reported in the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report). Influenza, however, is not reportable in people over 18. The CDC uses estimates because influenza has a history of being underreported on death certificates.
  • Another argument is that the CDC does not report the fact that most flu deaths occur in people with preexisting conditions. People with chronic health challenges are at higher risk of developing serious flu complications. However, health people can and do die from influenza.
• Influenza vaccine is generally ineffective 
  • Sometimes the film throws in science-y sounding sentences like: “Antibody (humoral) immunity stops the body from producing cell mediated immunity.” I don’t understand immunology, but here’s a link.
  • As proof, they cited the CDC’s 2014 statement on the inability of the flu vaccine to prevent flu that year because the virus had mutated. In fact, the changes in the virus were due to antigenetic drift, which rendered the vaccine less effective but not completely ineffective.
  • As more proof, they cite the Cochrane Collaboration (independent group of MDs, scientists, etc.) and the assertion that the flu vaccine is ineffective in their med analysis, and that for every 100 patients told that they have flu, only 7 actually have the flu. The author of this review is Dr. Thomas Jefferson (not this one), who has significant biases against the flu vaccine and has had dalliances with the anti-vaccine community. Multiple studies show that the flu vaccines is effective.
  • They also cited a 2012 study in which groups of study participants were either given the trivalent influenza vaccine or a saline placebo; the incidence of influenza was similar, but the vaccinated group was found to be “4-5 times more likely to contract a non-influenza viral infection.” One important criticism of this study is that the vaccinated group had 69 people, and the unvaccinated 46. It’s an interesting starting place for research, but not a definitive indictment of anything.
• Influenza vaccine causes mutations at the level of germ cells, including embryos.
  • • The film claims that most vaccines have never been tested for mutagenicity or carcinogenicity (causing cancer). This common anti-vaccine claim comes from a misreading of the package insert, as vaccines and their components are tested for mutagenicity and carcinogenicity in pre-clinical testing.
    • The mutations are allegedly due in part of the presence of thimerosal, which is said to be safe in vaccines (because it is) but the film deems dangerous (which is wrong).
• Thimerosal was removed from some vaccines but added to others
  • • They cite a study on pregnant mothers claiming that flu vaccines caused increased circulation of inflammatory immune markers for their babies, including schizophrenic disorder and autism. However, the study in question looked at illness from influenza and increased risk of schizophrenia and autism. Vaccination, of course, could mitigate that risk.
    • The films asserts that amount of mercury in vaccines is a toxic hazard. Thimerosal, which is sometimes used in some vaccines, is an organic mercury compound that metabolizes into ethylmercury—a different type of mercury than that we might be exposed to through fish and breathing. In vitro and in vivo studies have shown that the amount present in vaccines is safe. 
    • Th assertion that the amount of mercury that vaccinated people are exposed to exceeds legal limits set by the EPA is due mostly to the confusion between ethyl- and methyl- mercury.
    • Also, thimerosal was removed from childhood vaccines in the U.S.
• Influenza vaccine marketing is awful
  • • The film claims that the vaccine is linked to kidney failure. While there are some case reports of patients on statins suffering kidney failure after a flu vaccine, this claim is made mostly through the observations of Dr. Suzanne Humphries. If real, it would be exceedingly rare.
    • The assertion that children who have had the flu vaccine are more likely to be infected by pandemic flu is based on a 2010 Canadian study which found an association but did not posit causation.
    • The film also claims that over-vaccinating harms your ability to fight other infections (and increases susceptibility to them). It’s not clear how they would define “over-vaccinating,” There is some evidence to suggest that getting a flu vaccine in multiple seasons consecutively could reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine, but many confounding factors make it difficult to explain why this observed effect is occurring.
    • Flu vaccine is poison, say the film. Of course, the old adage that the dose makes the poison applies, and if you’ve ever watched yourself getting a flu shot, it’s a tiny amount of anything.
    • The film follows up by claiming that getting sick after the vaccine is administered is your body’s way of rejecting the poison. In fact, feeling achey and bleurghy is your immune system’s way of mounting a defense against influenza.
• Addressed flu requirements for workers
  • • The film discusses that many workers who have refused the vaccine have never gotten sick. People used toot wear seat belts and not die in car accidents, too. It’s hard to see why this is a persuasive argument. The average adult over the age of 30 will catch influenza twice each decade. It’s reasonable to believe that healthcare workers exposed to more germs than the average person would be more at risk for catching and passing along influenza.
    • The film also talks about some who have refused but subsequently taken the vaccine for job security have become ill after being vaccinated. Side effects from the flu vaccine can include headaches, fevers, muscle aches, and other feelings of unwellness that are far less severe than actual influenza.
• Physicians don’t read the science around vaccine safety
  • • The film claims that rather than reading their misinformation, doctors blindly follow CDC recommendations and information. Of course, CDC is not the only governmental agency in the world that agrees on vaccine safety. From the UK to Australia to Canada to every corner of the globe, vaccines are promoted as safe. It also must be noted that doctors learn quite a bit during residency and through continuing education when they become providers.
    • The film claims strong financial incentives for doctors to comply with the vaccine schedule
      • The claim that if 63% are not compliant, doctor forfeits a bonus from Blue Cross Blue Shield is a misunderstanding of BCBS policy. Providers pay into a pool and are reimbursed if they meet certain measurements.
      • Of course, the film says that the vaccine schedule is not about the patient, but it’s a money-driven system. For many pediatricians, however, giving vaccines is not a moneymaker.
      • As evidence, they cite Australia’s “no jab, no pay” policy. While this policy has increased vaccine uptake, it’s important to note that the Australian government offers healthcare to everyone and pays for the vaccines given.

Hib and Meningococcal vaccines

• The speakers say that you never see bacterial meningitis or type B anymore. Like since the vaccines. Again, it’s hard to understand why they think this proves anything for them.
• Hib only causes a handful of serious diseases a year. Again, since the vaccines.
• The film points to problem with vaccines and the food proteins present within them.
  • The claim that food allergies have boomed since the development of certain vaccines has been studied and found to have no substance.
  • The film asserts that the Hib vaccine has peanut oil and consequently has caused food allergies. This falsehood is belied by the fact that such ingredients are, by law, required to be listed and peanut oil or any derivative of it is listed as an ingredient.

Pneumococcal Vaccines 

• The film says that previously “harmless” strains of pneumococcal bacteria became vaccine-resistant after 7-valent pneumococcal vaccine was licensed. The strains were actually never harmless, but they become more common after the 7-valent pneumococcal vaccine came to wide use. Theses emerging strains are now covered in the 13-valent vaccine. 
• The claim that pneumococcal bacteria are immune to the strains that Prevnar 13 guards against is easily rebutted by looking at the drop in incidence of pneumococcal disease.
• Of course, the cast members claim that the pneumococcal vaccine has never been studied with a true placebo control group, which is incorrect.

Vitamin K and Tylenol

• It’s important to clarify that the vitamin K injection is not a vaccine.
  • The film asserts that the vitamin K injection has been linked to childhood cancer. Reviews of the original studies making this assertion have not held up, and no study has replicated that finding.
  • The film says the shot is unnecessary because mothers can eat leafy greens to get their babies Vitamin K or babies can take oral supplements. The benefit of the injection is that there is a known quantity of the vitamin the baby’s body absorbs.
  • Another claim is that VKDB (vitamin K deficiency bleeding) is not that common. While the incidence without vitamin K supplementation is between 0.25% and 1.7%, the consequences can be severe, from lifelong neurological difficulties to death.
• One common anti-vaccine theory is that acetaminophen (Tylenol) prevents children from detoxing and could possibly be the cause of why more boys than girls are affected by autism. The theory hinges on the idea that Tylenol reduces the glutathione levels in a child’s body. The theory was bolstered by a study suggesting a correlation between pregnant women who used acetaminophen and whose children developed autism. A third part of the theory rests on another study suggesting the acetaminophen given after vaccines could render them less effective. Many anti-vaccine theories function this way: stringing together three unrelated studies to come to a new conclusion. However, there’s no association between autism and children being given Tylenol after vaccines.
  • The film claims that incidence of autism and vaccine injury is lower outside of the US because children aren’t required to be vaccinated before age two. In actuality, a number of countries have higher autism rates than the United States. Also, worldwide immunization schedules are not a lot different from the  CDC schedule.
  • The film claims that rates of infant mortality are also lower worldwide than in the U.S. The U.S. rate is due in part to poverty and access to healthcare. Another contributor is preterm birth rates.

Herd immunity is a myth

• Yes, this is a super common claim. It keeps coming up.
  • First, they say that the DTaP does not prevent illness or transmission in vaccinated people. In the first few years after it is given, the vaccine is about 80% effective. But it is important to note that public health tells people not to rely on herd immunity to prevent pertussis.
  • Doctors don’t know vaccine ingredients and therefore can’t evaluate safety. Next time you go grocery shopping, ask the manager for the chemical makeup of a banana. Refuse to buy it if she cannot list all of them. 
  • We’ve known for a very long time that herd immunity is super real. That’s why disease outbreaks occur where vaccine refusal is high.

Next up, Episode Five: Considering the HPV and Hepatitis B Vaccines, SIDS & Shaken Baby Syndrome

Pro-Vaccine World Tour

On Friday, I found myself protesting an anti-vaccine bus. A decade ago, I could not have imagined even writing such a sentence, but there I was.

Some backstory, first.  (Scroll down if you don’t need the backstory.)

In 2011, amidst a growing measles outbreak among some unvaccinated Somali-American children in Minnesota, Andrew Wakefield flew into town and held a private meeting with them. Who knows what was said in this meeting since the people in attendance were parents of autistic children who are convinced of the vaccine connection and Wakefield–a defrocked pediatric gastroenterologist. I mean, what could he say? Who knows, but it was history.

Until April of this year when measles made a predictable comeback to the same community. Wakefield didn’t come back, but there was plenty of anti-vaccine outreach into the Somali-American community to convince them not to trust public health officials (to the consternation of many Somali-Americans). The Washington Post also reported talk about white parents of exposing their children purposely to measles and convincing Somali-American mothers that there was no measles outbreak, that it was all a trick concocted by public health.

And that’s all bad enough, but the anti-vaccine community in Minnesota has been actively working on translating Wakefield’s 2015 fraudumentary, Vaxxed, into Somali for further indoctrination. I’m not done. We were all disheartened when Tribeca announced (and eventually retracted) that Vaxxed would be screened, but now the film is available on Amazon Prime and a tour RV/bus (it’s an RV, okay?) containing Polly Tommy and her friends is making its way through the country and recording stories of so-called vaccine-injury (usually autism).

Enter self-described Pro-Vaccine Troll, Craig Egan. Craig asked his Facebook friends and fans if he should follow the Vaxxed RV/bus/it’s an RV à la Grateful Dead. $10,000 in GoFundMe donations later, he was pulling into Minneapolis and following the Vaxxed vehicle.

On the day the measles outbreak was finally declared over.

End of backstory.

Everyone wants to know what it was like confronting the Vaxxed jalopy, and so I thought I would write out my story. The day before, I wanted Craig to get a real sense of what we are really fighting for–preventing kids from getting sick. So I took him to Children’s Minnesota to meet Patsy Stinchfield and Joe Kurland, who worked directly with the measles cases and with system-wide infection prevention. He interviewed them on video (and they interviewed him back):

At this point, we still had no idea where the bus was going to be. The anti-vaxxers in Minnesota were being purposely coy about where they were filming. Even though it was the day before and we had had feelers out for weeks trying to figure out where it would be, we didn’t know. But one journalist got confirmation of where it would be, and I called him Friday morning and was lucky enough to find out. This is where I admit that we tipped off a few reporters, as well. When I arrived, Craig, his girlfriend Sharon, Joe Kurland, a few mothers, and a reporter were there, being filmed by an anti-vaccine mom standing at a distance. I waved hello because I am polite.

Not much happened other than some good conversation on our end and worried looks shot our way from theirs. Joe decided to do a Facebook Live video.

Eventually Patsy Stinchfield arrived and Joe left. She pointed out the Sunday Mail journalist Ian Birrell was over at the RV. He had interviewed both of us in the week prior, and we were both impressed with his depth of knowledge concerning science and the anti-vaccine movement–especially Andrew Wakefield in particular. I knew he had connected with Polly Tommey, and he allowed her to interview him aboard their transport.

Because Patsy is brave and I want to grow up to be just like her because she is also smart and pretty and amazing, she decided she wanted to get up close to see the Vaxxed wagon. A number of people had been staring at use almost the entire time we had been there, and they didn’t look happy that we were walking closer. I held out my hand and introduced myself to a few people, only because I wanted to convey to them that I was not there to belittle or harm them. I feel like giving people your name helps you connect as people rather than representatives of some opposing side. Most of them shook my hand and told me their names, too. They were polite.

One woman, however, did refuse to shake my hand. I felt a little like Angela Merkel, and hey–that’s not bad company to be in. She also would not tell me her name. I don’t know if she was afraid of what I would do with her name (honestly, I am terrible with names, so forget is the correct answer) or if she was just being hostile.

She wanted us to say something about the names written on the bus. (The names are supposed to represent people who have been injured by vaccines. I did notice how many of the names were written in groups by the same hand, and it seems an improbability to me that anyone would have multiple people from the same family who suffered a true adverse reaction to a vaccine.)

In any case, we didn’t reply as she wanted, and she expressed her displeasure. She wanted us to know that the names were important, so I tried to prove I was listening to her by paraphrasing what I believed she was saying, but that also made her angry. I supposed she didn’t like my paraphrasing. I was trying, though! Perhaps she was just spoiling for an argument.

She told us that if our brakes went out in our cars, we would want to warn other people. Patsy commented that brakes are a good analogy, except that with vaccines, we need everyone to use their brakes or else we are all in trouble. We can’t allow people to opt out of brakes. This unnamed woman told us that we couldn’t use a car as a comparison because the human body is not a car. Craig pointed out to her that the car/brake analogy was hers, but that didn’t satisfy her. I’m also not really a huge fan of arguing about analogies. The thing about analogies is that they are always imperfect. The only thing that is exactly like the thing is the thing. So we moved on.

Another woman then approached us. She did give us her name (I am not going to disclose it here), shook our hands, and told us that she was vaccine injured. Patsy asked what happened, and she said she had a stroke after the flu vaccine.

I’ll just pause briefly for an evidence aside. The flu vaccine is, in fact, associated with a temporary drop in the risk of strokes and heart attacks. Unpause.

She disclosed some other information to us that isn’t pertinent to anything and I don’t think is appropriate to share publicly. It was a calm, polite conversation. No minds were changed. She probably doesn’t like us.

We returned to our picnic table, and Ian came over and chatted with us briefly. His photographer took a photo of us. He asked us not to smile, but he was standing next to an adorable baby who kept waving at us.

As we stood there, someone we called Frisbee Guy walked past and said, “I’m with you guys!” I guess while I was at the bus with Patsy, a family on a Surrey bike pointed at the Vaxxed vector and shouted, “They are the ones who caused the measles outbreak!”

Craig presented me with a check for Voices for Vaccines. He donated a third of his GoFundMe proceeds, which was incredibly generous.

As I drove home, I heard a reporter from Minnesota Public Radio give an in-depth (and really well-covered) report on the end of the measles outbreak and the Vaxxed cohort’s dealings. If possible, please listen rather than read the MPR report, as it is abbreviated in print.

If you live in Minnesota, please use the contact form on this blog to reach me and to learn how to combat the anti-vaccine movement. The next measles outbreak will happen if we do not act now.

Lessons learned:

1. There is only one Craig Egan.
2. Anti-vaxxers want to argue. Kind of. Not about car brakes.
3. Read the dimensions on Amazon products carefully.
4. Eric Clapton became a terrible person while I wasn’t looking, so I can’t tell you who I thought looked like him. (I now denounce that opinion. He was much handsomer than Clapton.)
5. The Vaxxed tour is devolving into the end of the Spinal Tap tour. All they need is their miniature Stonehenge.
6. Pro-vaxxers are awesome, and they are often huggers.

 

Walgreens: Not Marco’s Puppetmaster

At some point last week, anti-vaccine crusaders decided that picking on a child was only so much fun, so they turned their sights on Walgreens:

Multiply that times a hundred, and you get a taste of what Walgreens’ social media managers are dealing with. Why are they upset with Walgreens? Apparently, Walgreens’ name appeared in an ad on A Plus media (Ashton Kutcher’s site) in a post about Marco Arturo and his vaccine/autism video. The anti-vaaxxers claim? That Walgreens isn’t just advertising on the A Plus website Wellness section, but that they were creating this content and that Marco is just a puppet in the nefarious scheme to push vaccines for evil reasons. And of course, videos were created to promote the idea. Here is Forrest Maready’s contribution:

A Plus, Marco, and Walgreens. Maniacal Laugh

What do they make of Walgreens advertising on the entire Wellness section of A Plus? Facts schmacts. Who needs them.

Spot the Walgreens logos

And then, just like that, the banner ad on the A Plus post about Marco disappeared. Almost as though the internet were not made of paper and banner ads could be cycled through.

But not so soon. A Facebook page named Hear This Well declared victory! Finally, anti-vaxxers are being heard! Only moments from now will Walgreens and the government and the lizard people finally admit that vaccines do cause autism!

Hear This Well was a campaign started by anti-vaccine parents of autistic children. Never heard of it? Ironic.

Because I never take anything at face value, it was that point I decided to write an email to Walgreens and ask them what was up. They sent me this official reply:

We had no knowledge of, nor connection to the development of this video.  Walgreens has been an advertiser on the website only in conjunction with the Vitamin Angels program, and again we were unaware of the video’s placement on our sponsored page.

While I would have preferred a statement which would have gone on to declare that the video was awesome and anti-vaxxers can scram, this response seemed pretty corporate and normal.

Forrest Maready (who made the video alluded to above), started to change his tune. Kind of. He issued this partial retraction on his Facebook page:

I don’t believe the APlus media writer knew about the video before it went up. I spoke at length with her, twice over the past two days and she has convinced me she found the post organically through a Facebook group she follows (not a member of) called A Science Enthusiast. She is an avowed Believer, I realize. She could be lying to protect an elaborate PR set up, but I think she is telling me the truth.

Of course, he went on to add that Marco’s video is still suspicious because of Marco’s shirt and because the Google dates don’t make sense to him. The retraction, then, is just that A Plus media isn’t part of some conspiracy, not that Marco could really be awesomely intelligence and well-spoken. If you are an anti-vaxxer, you have to feed the conspiracy theorists, after all.

If pro-vaxxers were conspiracy theorists, we would be all in a tizzy about the fact that the Hear This Well Facebook page disappeared.* But then, we know that Facebook pages, like banner ads, are hardly a constant in life and that there is no point getting wound up about it. I guess no one is hearing them at all any more.

*UPDATE: They’re back.

Anti-Vaxxers Dox a Child

One particularly vile and unethical way of shutting down opposition is to make public personal information about someone whose ideas oppose yours. Sometimes doxing comes with the presumption that others will then follow up by contacting and harassing that person. Often the defense on the part of the doxer is that the doxee’s information is already available online. However, giving that information to people who are ideologically opposed to someone makes that person a target, and thus doxxing becomes horrible and awful and you should never do it.

So why is it happening to a child? I guess the answer, if you don’t want to read any further, is that anti-vaxxers are narrowly hellbent on defeating anyone who champions vaccines that they don’t see a child as a child, a human, an actual person who should be off limits to harassment. Marco Arturo, whose adorable satirical video purporting to show all the evidence that vaccines cause autism (Spoiler: he reveals an empty folder), has become the target of Levi Quackenboss‘s doxing.*

I’m upset, my friends. And that’s really the motivation behind this post. However, because I don’t want to further the doxing and harassment, I won’t link to the blog post in mine.  But here you have a screenshot:

In one particularly hypocritical point, “Levi Quackenboss” writes:

So who is Marco?  I’m not going to post his full name out of respect for him and his parents as well as their safety, but they’ve been a little sloppy about making trails to it so they should clean that up. The last names his parents use are not the name that he uses on social media.

Why is this hypocritical, you ask? You will notice that everyone who responds to “Levi Quackenboss” calls her she and her, not he or him–as you would expect with a man named Levi. Guess what. Levi Quackenboss is not the blogger’s real name! Oh shocking! (Or actually not at all.

Although, as a side note, I was irked that “Levi Quackenboss” used one of her pseudonyms to testify in front of a Colorado congressional hearing. Her testimony consisted of showing memes that Voices for Vaccines had made and making false and disparaging remarks about the organization and the Colorado VFV Parent Advisory Board member who was in attendance. She does seem to hide behind fake names to say horrible things.

A second aside, amazeball epidemiologist and awesome guy, Rene Najera points out this Picasso’s full name is Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso. So yeah. Marco didn’t use his full name.

“Levi” concludes her doxing piece against a child with this bit a conspiracy paranoia:

One thing is obvious, though: Marco isn’t just some random unknown kid when his parents have connections with the Mexican government and Walgreens is on standby with a celebrity media company to sponsor his pro-vaccine video.

Yes, because children of lobbyists never make videos and don’t have opinions. And Walgreens and Ashton Kutcher are apparently in on the conspiracy–along with the Mexican government–to cover up the vaccine-autism connection championed by such savory characters as Andrew Wakefield. People who believe this are really the same sorts of people who believe that Tupac is still alive and that 9/11 was an inside job.

This entire affair brought to mind an experience I had with a viral blog post and doxing. In December 2013, my organization (Voices for Vaccines) published a piece by Amy Parker titled “Growing Up Unvaccinated.” I actually hadn’t realized it was going viral until our website crashed and I was unable to access my email. Like Marco’s simple and marvelous piece, Amy Parker’s struck a nerve both among pro- and anti-vaxxers.

And the anti-vaxxers immediately pounce in some of the most despicable and horrible ways possible. They began by taking to Google and discovered someone named Amy Parker Fiebekorn who worked at the CDC. They immediately decided that because Amy Parker is such an unusual name that this CDC Amy Parker, and not the one from the UK whose actual biography we gave, was the true author of “Growing Up Unvaccinated.” You know–because if we went to the trouble of tricking people by secretly publishing a piece by someone at the CDC, we wouldn’t bother changing her name. This myth persists to the day and will pop up if you Google “Growing Up Unvaccinated Fake.”

Others were not satisfied and decided that perhaps Amy Parker didn’t work at the CDC. So they tracked her down. They found her profile and her mother’s Facebook profile. Some sent PMs. They found Amy’s cell phone number, and some began texting her. They found a video where she discusses her struggles with mental health issues and posted it publicly, as if to shame her with the stigma of mental illness. In one forum, one woman (who, by the way, makes a living teaching online classes about the dangers of vaccines), discussed paying her a visit:

Amy Parker (the real one) had to shut down her Facebook page and take down her business page (which included her phone number). To make matters worse, the doxing and harassment came as she welcomed a new baby into her family.

Doxing has real consequences, and an adult shouldn’t have to deal with those consequences, but a child really, really should not have to. The doxing of Marco Arturo is despicable and has to stop now.

All this because a child made a satirical video. Grow up, anti-vaxxers. If you disagree with him, discuss your disagreement. Don’t disparage and harass a child.

*ETA: The doxing included in the Quackenboss post included the names of his stepfather and his mother and some employment information regarding his stepfather. A screenshot of the stepfather’s Facebook page included the name of their hometown. This information not only makes it easy to harass Marco and his family, but collating together could incite that harassment. 

Anti-Vaxxers Defeated by Twelve-Year-Old Whiz Kid

And they know they’ve been defeated. Do you want to know how we can tell? Because they are spending their time trying to tear this kid down.

Perhaps you are the last person in the world who hasn’t seen the phenomenal video by science whiz kid Marco Arturo. Marco presents all the evidence that vaccines cause autism–in a folder full of nothing. (I’m embedding the video at the bottom of this post–please watch it an up-vote it!)

The anti-vaxxers sure haven’t missed it. Some of our favorites have written rebuttals. Let me type that again so we can all understand what they are doing. The anti-vaxxers are rebutting a satirical video made by a 12-year-old. Surely they are taking this video in stride, right?

Uh, no. No they are not. They are losing their minds.

Blogger and salesperson Kate, who runs Modern Alternative Health, claims the video is “devoid of facts and amounts to little more than uninformed bullying” [emphasis hers]. Really, Kate? A 12-year-old is bullying you? I know a lot about bullying, about how people use their social power to make you feel excluded and to gain control over you. What kind of small person are you that a 12-year-old you have never met has social power over you? But she’s not done. Immediately after claiming that she is being bullied, she resorts to this classless diatribe:

Naturally, it’s being heralded by the kind of brain-dead pro-vaccine nut jobs that the internet regularly produces.  The kind of people who don’t understand the importance of actually examining new scientific information critically and having an honest conversation. . . . I kind of imagine them as “cavemen” of sorts — pounding on their keyboards, drooling, and thinking that they have won, while all of the actual intelligent people are smirking and shaking their heads at how painfully, obviously ignorant they are.

In the world of Kate (MAM) and other anti-vaxxers, a 12-year-old is a bully, pro-vaxxers don’t understand science, and only anti-vaxxers are intelligent (and smugly so). Also, up is down, black is white, and the sky is green.

From there, Kate’s post goes nowhere, repeating that the kid is a bully and that pro-vaxxers are terrible and dumb in all ways. It also doesn’t actually present any science showing that vaccines cause autism. In other words, she kind of proves Marco’s point.

By the way, here’s some evidence (okay lots of evidence) showing that vaccines DO NOT cause autism.

But MAMKate is not alone. National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is getting in on the act of rebutting a 12-year-old’s satirical video. (Because NO voices must ever say anything positive about vaccines without being actively shouted down.)

NVIC has a history of classless, terrible behavior, including promoting the harassment of children. This time, they are getting in on the “take Marco down” campaign by posting a hit piece written by “Levi Quackenboss.”

The Quackenboss piece begins by claiming scientific pursuits concerning vaccines are a religious belief and intimates that Marco shouldn’t even be on Facebook because he is not the requisite 13-years-old yet. So actually, the piece begins by slamming Marco for being young and influenced by his parents (and science).

Then, in anti-vaccine style, she (Quackenboss) picks up the goalposts and moves them downfield. SV-40! Acellular pertussis! HPV! Monkey pox! Faked moon landings! Spaghetti at the ceiling! She discusses anything except, you know, how vaccines don’t cause autism–the actual topic of the video. It’s pure throat clearing written by someone who loves her own voice.

Then she goes on with a condescending and easily refutable diatribe, writing:

Little dude, I totally get that you love science but I’ve got some sad news for you: there’s very little science in vaccine science.

And following with every possible anti-vaccine trope she can find. Here are some answers for her:

• Do vaccines prevent disease or just build antibodies? Why look! They prevent disease.
• Has a vaccinated versus unvaccinated study ever been completed? Why, yes it has! (And it shows all health outcomes–except for contracting VPDs, are the same.)
• Are vaccines ever tested against saline placebos? Sometimes they are, such as this HPV vaccine trial.
• Has the vaccine schedule ever been tested? Yes, in fact the schedule tested with every single new vaccine.
• Can I sue a vaccine manufacturer? Guess what? Yes, I could!
• Is there any proof that vaccines are safe? Seriously? Okay, yes, vaccines are safe.
• What really causes autism? Not vaccines, but something that happens in the womb.

After all these myths, Quackenboss ends with a smug little kicker, something meant to put a 12-year-old in his place:

Look, clearly you’re a smart kid in your knockoff Polo shirt and your eyeglasses that look like wraparound safety goggles.  I trust that one day you’re going to figure out that you’ve been lied to, not only by your parents but by your government and the leaders of this world, and you’re going to look back on this insulting video and say, “God, what a little prick I was.”

And that’s OK, Marco.  We’ll be here for you when you do.

But you know what, anti-vaxxers? Marco doesn’t need you and he isn’t interested in you waiting for him. One of you visited him, and he was ready for you.

Credit: Karen Halabura

A final piece of advice for anti-vaxxers: pick on someone your own size. I mean that two ways: while Marco is smaller than you in stature, he is far larger than you when it comes to class and intellect.

Here’s Marco’s video. Please give it a watch. It will restore your faith in our future.

 

Why doesn’t Age of Autism like me?

Everyone is talking about the movie produced by, funded by, directed by, and starring Andrew Wakefield. And while Andrew Wakefield doesn’t need anyone’s help with promotion (he is the master of self-promotion), we all became enraged when Robert De Niro used his non-existent medical degree to almost every media outlet in the country in order to say that maybe the film has a point that maybe vaccines cause autism.

I mean, science? Pfffft. Who wants to listen to science when the actor whom I confuse almost always with Al Pacino says that he wants studies done and people to look into. (Apparently, while I was busy confusing De Niro with Pacino, he was busy reading absolutely none of the 107 studies that show that SERIOUSLY VACCINES DON’T CAUSE AUTISM.) But whatever. Today show and stuff.

And actually, that’s where I’d like to begin my tale. For me, it wasn’t just De Niro needing to put a sock in that nonsense that had me going bananas. It was also an NBC interview with Autism Speaks’ Bob Wright and former NBC guy Tom Brokaw on the radio, both spouting nonsense about vaccine injuries and autism and whateverwhoneedsfacts.

So I tweeted this:

And thus, I drew the ire of anti-vaccine, biomeddling conspiracy site Age of Autism once again, as you can see with this snippet from their most recent post:

No response? That is really unfair, because Wayne Rohde (the author of the above piece), and I had an exchange which ended in him inviting me to the movies. And so I left a comment:

But I have little faith that this will all turn out with mutual understanding and mended fences. I guess I’ll have to go see a different movie in June. I’ve been waiting to see Me Before You.

 

No, MLK Jr Wasn’t Talking About Vaccines

The anti-vaccine movement has a history of couching their concerns callously and ridiculously as civil rights issues. Of course, purposely leaving a child unprotected against a potentially dangerous disease is not a civil right.

So I wasn’t surprised to see them co-opt Martin Luther King Jr. day for their own agenda.

 

Immediately assuming he is talking about your pet cause does not count as thinking.

There were several other similar posts, including this one, from one prominent California activist, claiming that being required to vaccinate your child before enrolling them in school is the equivalent to being denied the right to vote and use public facilities because of the color of your skin:

When I saw those posts, I wondered why they were not connecting MLK Jr. to any race issue at all, including their newest claims that a CDC Whistleblower has revealed that the MMR vaccine causes autism in black, male preschoolers. (Spoiler alert: he didn’t and it doesn’t.) Considering this accusation, you would think that when talking about their CDC Whistleblower hubbub they would invoke race and MLK on a day about race and MLK, right?

Posted on MLK day, this literally says nothing about MLK or race or their main CDC Whistleblower thesis.

Faux-journalist Ben Swann, who works for the CBS affiliate in Atlanta, is coming out with a bombshell documentary (on his own website) about the CDC Whistleblower documents–the ones that claim that there is an increased risk of autism for black males who receive the MMR–and he says nothing about race at all. (Note: these assertions are bunk.)

So much for civil rights, huh?

I combed Facebook to see if others, who were working to promote Ben Swann’s report, but I couldn’t find mention of race at all. I found the Canary Party’s Ginger Taylor’s missive about why God is on their side and how Ben Swann is going to expose the Truth. The Thinking Moms’ Revolution was excited about exposing the CDC for something. Age of Autism discussed how bad the media is and how good Ben Swann is. But I couldn’t find anyone talking about the main Whistleblower hypothesis as it concerned race. And that was on the day many specifically think about race and civil rights.

It is likely just an oversight, but the anti-vaccine activists have been exploiting the idea of race, such as Robert F Kennedy Jr. did in this interview with Tavis Smiley. It’s not that they don’t know race exists. It’s just that they think their rights trump not only their children’s rights but also the struggle for actual civil rights and racial equality.

And let’s not forget the demographic we are discussing. Parents who refuse to protect their children through immunization are often wealthy, well-educated, and white. Despite all of their privilege, they think Martin Luther King, Jr. was talking about them and their supposed right to leave their children vulnerable to disease and to endanger their broader community. And that’s kind of awful.

Vaccine Safety Advocate

It is interesting that hundreds of researchers and scientists work every day to monitor and study the safety of our vaccine program to ensure that it is safe, but “vaccine safety advocate” gets used, without irony, by anti-vaccine activists in order to obscure their true purpose of frightening parents away from vaccines by falsely connecting them to autism.

Words matter, and they matter especially in journalism. Casting people who form coalitions in order to slow the uptake of vaccines and promote misinformation about them as anything other than anti-vaccine is playing into their own public relations and feeding the anti-vaccine delusion.

So why does the Star Tribune keep changing articles and headlines to accommodate the public relations of Minnesota’s wealthiest and most politically connected anti-vaxxer?

On the heels of the Disneyland measles outbreak, Strib reporter wrote this terrible and falsely balanced article discussing how anti-vaccine activists were on the defense (since they were, you know, bringing back measles). Originally, the article began:

Jennifer Larson’s conversion to anti-vaccine started after her infant son got his measles shot in October 2001. Within minutes, she said, he passed out, within hours he stopped making eye contact, within weeks he lost a sense of touch and within months he was found to have severe autism.

The first line, that she was converted to anti-vaccine, is accurate. That the vaccine caused her child’s autism is, of course, refuted by science. But to the point: Jennifer Larson is anti-vaccine. It is her anti-vaccine stance that has led her to bring to Minnesota hearings doctors like Dr. Toni Bark, who is also anti-vaccine and who has a whole movie about the pretend dangers of vaccines. The bill they were testifying against would not have mandated vaccines; it simply would have required parents speak to a doctor before opting their children out of vaccines. Who is against people talking to their doctors about the risks of opting out of vaccines? People who are anti-vaccine.

But Jeremy Olson (or his editors) changed that first line of that awful article so that it read: “Jennifer Larson’s conversion to vaccine skeptic started after her infant son got his measles shot in October 2001″ (emphasis mine). Jennifer Larson, no doubt, did not like being called anti-vaccine because who wants to be against vaccines? Not someone who spreads misinformation about vaccines or keeps parents who have hesitation about them from their doctors. Oh wait.

In any case, the Star Tribune slipped up and called her anti-vaccine again, to report that she was planning, along with her anti-vaccine political party, a local fundraiser for anti-vaccine Libertarian presidential almost-candidate Rand Paul. The article was originally titled, “Head of anti-vaccination group to host Rand Paul fundraiser.” As far as headlines go, it was completely fair. Yet, months later, the headline has changed, and a correction now accompanies the article:

An earlier headline and photo caption with this article did not identify the Canary Party and its president, Jennifer Larson, correctly. Neither she nor the group oppose all vaccinations. Rather, they are raising questions about vaccine safety and federal vaccine research.

Oh really? She’s raising questions about vaccine safety? I know she has contributed tens of thousands of dollars to politicians in hopes of getting anti-vaccine misinformation about autism into the congressional record, but has she ever funded research about vaccine safety since she is so concerned about the federal research being done? (And can someone please point out how ridiculous it is to be concerned about “federal vaccine research” when vaccines are researched by governments and universities and non-profits and, yes, corporations across the globe, in lots of countries with lots of government structures?)

But the Star Tribune knows all this. I know they do because I have told them. So the real question remains: why do they keep capitulating to the absurd and inaccurate request by one anti-vaccine activists to be labeled as a “vaccine safety advocate.” Vaccine safety advocates do exist. They are the reason we have safe vaccines that prevent us from getting polio and diphtheria. They aren’t the lone voices repeating snippets of fraudulent, retracted studies.

Here’s the Good News Following the GOP Debate

Cringe-worthy. You could see the inner workings of their minds as they figured out how to straddle the different sides of the vaccine “debate” during the (actual) CNN debate. Some GOP Presidential candidates were trying to make everyone happy, like Ben Carson, who wants people to vaccinate and think some nebulous idea about spreading vaccines out is reasonable. I mean, if it makes parents feel better, who cares if they are leaving their children at risk for diseases longer than is safe?

Others have a core base that supports the idea of parents have freedom to do whatever they want to their children. And the last guy is a narcissist who isn’t used to his ideas being challenged and wouldn’t know a fact if it bit him in the rear.

These men who would rule the most powerful nation in the world and could easily unleash nuclear weapons also want to unleash measles on us. It’s easy to become disheartened if you stop at the debate.

But the debate isn’t the only thing that happened this week. Come Thursday morning, a torrent of backlash was unleashed on these candidates. They may not have expected it because anti-vaccine activists are loud and persistent and focused on only that one issue. They may have assumed that the debate was equally matched.

They were wrong. So many articles were written debunking these candidates and their misinformation that every word in this sentence has its own fabulous, lovely, pertinent, excellent hyperlink. The backlash was so great, I even had to add adjectives to my sentence. And I am guessing the backlash isn’t done.

The backlash is great enough that the campaigns are likely strategizing right now about how best to untangle themselves from their debate statements. If they want my opinion on how to do so, here’s my suggested language: “During the debate, I made statements about vaccines that were wrong. My wrongness was great and horrible, and I regret threatening public health with my wrongness. Children’s lives are too important to allow my wrongness to stand. Therefore, I retract my wrongness, and will gladly state now that vaccines do not cause autism and that parents should stick with the CDC schedule.” Not hard. Statements like this are made in marriages across the world.

Another presidential candidate has sniffed out this backlash. Bernie Sanders met with Rachel Maddow and stated:

I think the evidence is overwhelming that vaccines do not cause autism. It really is a little bit weird for Trump, who has no medical background, to be raising this issue. And obviously it is a concern because when somebody like that says it, thousands of people are going to hesitate to get their kids their shots, and bad things may happen.

I predict good news to come. Being pro-vaccine is now mainstream, and anti-vaccine statements are not allowed to stand. I predict a flurry of pro-vaccine statements by candidates and public figures  in the weeks to come.

But if you are listening carefully, pro-vaccine statements are embedded in our culture. References to the value and importance of vaccines are now part of casual allusion, such as the analogy made in the preview of Benicio Del Toro’s new film, shared on Jimmy Fallon’s show this week.

Despair not. Pro-vaccine voices are becoming more significant.

Although, if Donald Trump becomes President, you should despair. You should despair a lot.