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• Judy Mikovits is a biologist and a controversial Chronic Fatigue researcher whose papers have been retracted.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

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.

 

Filling Wakefield’s Coffers

Really, that’s all VAXXED is about. The movie, written by, produced by, funded by, and starring Andrew Wakefield is about Andrew Wakefield. It came to the city where I live and caused very little stir.

The Uptown theater in Minneapolis didn’t even list VAXXED in its marquee while it was being shown there.

Nor should it. Andrew Wakefield is a fraud, but he is also a washed up has-been. It was no surprise when friends of mine went to see the film, sitting in nearly empty theaters.

My gut feeling is that this film, like many of the other anti-vaccine endeavors preceding it, will fizzle out with a whimper.

But not without a fight. The anti-vaxxers are goading each other to buy tickets to the film, even if they have no intention of using the tickets. They hide this racket by terming it a donation or calling it their “Angel Ticket” program. But what they are trying to do is to make this film seem like more of a success than it is so that they can push it out to more theaters across the country.

The Hear This Well Facebook page is only one of many encouraging people to “donate tickets” (to whom? they don’t say) in order to sell out the theaters in Florida and pressure Regal theaters to show the movie nationwide.

I have to believe that Regal will notice that no one is actually in these so-called sold out theaters, although they might not care–as long as they are selling tickets. I have heard rumors from insiders that the VAXXED DVD is coming out next month, though. I don’t know any theater that would show a movie that is also out on DVD.

All this brings me back to the beginning. The movie itself is made by, written by, promoted by, and starring Andrew Wakefield. He tried to swindle us all once with a phony study and a media tour aimed at frightening us away from the MMR vaccine. Andrew Wakefield doesn’t do anything that doesn’t benefit Andrew Wakefield, and once again–even in the promotion of this film, the main beneficiary is Andrew Wakefield (and the main victims are public health and autistic people).

 

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.