The Lockstep Lockdown on Vaccination Safety Discussion by PharMedia
You can't have missed the latest media feeding frenzy over Jenny McCarthy's position on 'The View' starting in September. The message is: Someone who's publicly stated she believes vaccines caused her son's autism can't be allowed to have access to large audiences. She's a threat to our children's health.
Members of the press can't say enough bad stuff about Jenny McCarthy, but no one mentions that in 2008, at the Green Our Vaccines Rally in Washington, DC, in her opening remarks, Jenny stated, "This is not an anti-vaccine rally. This is not an anti-vaccine group. We are an intelligent group of parents that acknowledges that vaccines have saved many lives. What we are saying is that the number of vaccines given and the [toxic] ingredients ...need to be removed immediately, after we saw the devastating effects they took on our children."
How threatening is that? It sounds pretty reasonable. Let's honestly address the growing concerns parents and doctors have over the ever-increasing vaccine schedule.
No matter, there can be no dissent. The message must remain unchanged: Vaccines are safe.
It's been difficult to keep up with the barrage of opinion stories slamming 'The View' for their foolhardy decision to hire McCarthy. If a person is new to this issue, it might seem like the press is right. All the science is in. We've got to stop talking about vaccines and autism because nothing new can be said.
The truth is we've never gotten honest and thorough coverage of this controversy. Never. What we have now is the media advocating for censorship.
On July 17, the New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan wrote the piece, Just the Facts - No 'False Balance' Wanted Here, which openly called for UNBALANCED coverage of the vaccine-autism issue. She stated that when one side of an issue represents "an established truth," there's no need to have equal coverage.
I guess Margaret Sullivan gets to decide what is "an established truth" and obviously, it's whatever our pharmaceutical controlled heath officials say is true.
What angers me, a veteran of covering how that media reports on autism and autism and vaccines, is the total failure of members of press to know what they're talking about. Story after story all saying the same thing. Not one of these reporters can state, "I've personally researched this extensively, interviewed people, read opinions on both sides of this debate, and come to the conclusion that THERE IS NO SAFETY ISSUE WITH VACCINATION. THERE IS NO LINK TO AUTISM.
I've never heard reporters discussing what Wakefield wrote in Callous Disregard, what David Kirby wrote in Evidence of Harm, what Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill wrote in Age of Autism, what Louis Habakus and Mary Holland wrote in Vaccine Epidemic, or what Stephanie Cave, MD wrote in What Your Doctor May Not Have Told You About Your Child's Vaccinations.
Let's face it, the reporters on the following list aren't really informed on this subject. If they were, I doubt if they'd be so willing to put their professional reputations on the line like this.
This is just a small sample of what's out there right now. This isn't legitimate journalism. It's fraud and more and more of us recognize it for what it is.
New Yorker: Jenny McCarthy's Dangerous Views, by Michael Spector
"Jenny McCarthy, who will join 'The View' in September, will be the show's first co-host whose dangerous views on childhood vaccination may-if only indirectly-have contributed to the sickness and death of people throughout the Western world."
"Executives at ABC should be ashamed of themselves for offering McCarthy a regular platform on which she can peddle denialism and fear to the parents of young children who may have legitimate questions about vaccine safety."
Forbes: What Jenny McCarthy Should Do Before Her Debut On 'The View', By Emily Willingham
"What we'd like to see, before McCarthy joins 'The View'-she reportedly debuts September 9-is for her to chill her vaccine and autism stance and publicly state what the evidence demonstrates: She was wrong about both."
USA Today: Jenny McCarthy joins 'The View', by Gary Levin
"McCarthy's 'unfounded claims that vaccines cause autism have been one of the greatest impediments to public health in recent decades,' said Amy Pisani, executive director of one such group, Every Child By Two, in a letter to Walters and Geddie. 'These false assertions, in addition to her condemnation of public health officials and the medical community overall, has spread fear among young parents, which has lead to an increased number of children who have not received life-saving vaccines.'"
USA Today: ABC shouldn't give McCarthy platform, by Ronald Bailey
"McCarthy told Oprah's millions of viewers that she noticed changes in her son almost immediately. 'And soon thereafter - boom - the soul's gone from his eyes,' she said. Whatever afflicted her son, extensive research shows that it was not the result of being vaccinated."
"It's too bad the executives at ABC Television are giving McCarthy a bigger platform from which to promote her harmful pseudoscientific nonsense."
Slate: Daytime talk show hires anti-vaxxer Jenny McCarthy, by Phil Plait
"McCarthy's views constitute, in my opinion, a threat to public health. She is loudly against vaccines, claiming they cause autism, claiming they are loaded with toxins, and claiming her own son became autistic after a vaccination and that she subsequently cured him with a gluten-free diet."
The Atlantic: Destabilizing the Jenny McCarthy Public-Health Industrial Complex, By David M. Perry
"This week, news leaked that The View, a popular daytime talk show featuring a panel of four women, is considering making Jenny McCarthy one of their hosts. This is a mistake, as it would provide a platform for a dangerous voice. Over the last decade, McCarthy has become one of the most prominent voices against vaccinations. She declared, as a fact, that vaccinations had caused her son's autism, and promoted this idea in venues aimed at mothers, such as on Oprah."
"Meanwhile, children are literally getting sick and dying. By 2009, just when McCarthy's anti-vaccine message was reaching a peak, one study in Oregon found parents four-times as likely to skip vaccines as they had been four years before."
Fox News: Jenny McCarthy's hiring on 'The View' prompts backlash, boycott calls,
Fox News media analysis Howard Kurtz on the video said, "McCarthy] is a leading crusader for this utterly discredited theory that childhood vaccinations cause autism."
Two stories from the LA Times;
Los Angeles Times: Jenny McCarthy, dangerous at any volume, by Paul Thornton
"We've also become terrified of autism -- and more likely to listen to the likes of Jenny McCarthy. Her gig on 'The View' will ensure that millions of Americans -- no doubt many of them young parents -- will be exposed to and persuaded by her earnest yet discredited advocacy. Unfortunately, it wouldn't take many more well-meaning but credulous mothers and fathers to opt out of vaccinating their children to compromise the herd immunity that keeps diseases like smallpox and polio at bay."
Los Angeles Times: Jenny McCarthy on 'View': A new forum for discredited autism theories by Melissa Healy
"This is quackery begotten of fraudulence, exacerbated by mistrust of science and panic over a disorder that upends parents' lives and their hopes for their children. Add celebrity to that already combustible mix, and you get a fiasco that has already opened the door to the resurgence of preventable childhood diseases such as measles and pertussis."
Washington Post: Jenny McCarthy on The View - not The Medically Correct View, Just The View By Alexandra Petri
"Jenny McCarthy's lack of information about medical science would not be our business if she didn't keep crusading. But given her track record, she seems likely to use this new platform to continue to spread dangerous misinformation."
This relentless attack on Jenny McCarthy is a sign that years of biased reporting haven't really convinced us. Pretending that a single public figure is misleading masses of parents (along with lots of references to Andrew Wakefield thrown in) is ridiculous. Are we really gullible enough to believe that if it weren't for Jenny McCarthy the issue would disappear?
It won't work, of course. There is too much damning evidence out there. Parents everyday are educating themselves and they're frightened by what they're learning. It doesn't take very long before they know the facts that aren't being talked about in the mainstream press.
If I had the chance, I'd like to sit down with each of these reporters to see exactly what they really know and ask them why they're so selective when they write.
I'd have lots of questions:
Margaret Sullivan at the NY Times... How can studies that come from the agency that runs the vaccine program and that have ties to the vaccine makers possibly give us "an established truth"?
Michael Spector at the New Yorker... Do you think a "legitimate question" on vaccine safety includes, why is the only study on the mercury-based vaccine preservative, thimerosal, one that was done by its inventor Eli Lilly back in 1930?
Emily Willingham at Forbes... Would you be willing to state that the "evidence demonstrates" an egregious oversight failure on the part of the FDA when they allow vaccine makers to do their own safety studies?
Gary Levin at USA Today... Why don't we ever hear about the hundreds of studies by well-credentialed experts at leading universities that show vaccines have serious side effects? Why doesn't anyone interview even one of these researchers?
http://www.greatergoodmovie.org/learn-more/science/.
http://vaccineresearchlibrary.com/
https://www.facebook.com/notes/ginger-taylor/68-research-papers-showing-that-vaccines-can-cause-autism/10151550806568920
Ronald Bailey at USA Today... How would you explain regressive autism following vaccination to the thousands of parents who report that after being vaccinated, their healthy children got sick, lost learned skills and ended up with autism? Why is it that while health officials continue to tell us studies show no link, the federal government has paid out millions of dollars for compensation for vaccine injuries that included autism? http://www.ebcala.org/unanswered-questions
Video "Mixed Signals" On HDNet TV: http://blip.tv/hdnet-world-report/vaccines-and-autism-mixed-signals-5479546
Phil Plait at Slate... Does it bother you that there are known neurotoxins in vaccines--mercury, formaldehyde, MSG, aluminum, and antibiotics--and that none have been tested for their toxic effects?
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/additives.htm
David M. Perry at the Atlantic... Would you call the late Dr. Bernadine Healy, former head of NIH, "a dangerous voice"? On CBS News in 2008, she announced that we can't say there is no link because we've never looked at the children who were healthy and suddenly got sick and descended into autism. http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4088138n
Howard Kurtz at Fox News... How could this theory be "utterly discredited" when medical experts at HHS, looking at the vaccine injury case of Hannah Poling, concluded that the nine vaccines she received in a single doctor's visit caused her sudden and dramatic regression into autism? CBS News ran this story about Hannah Poling in 2010: Family to Receive $1.5M+ in First-Ever Vaccine-Autism Court Award. Are we to believe that vaccines have nothing to do with autism--unless you're Hannah Poling? http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20015982-10391695.html
Paul Thornton at the LA Times... Why shouldn't parents be "terrified of autism"? A once rare disorder is now so common that everyone knows someone with an autistic child, and officially, autism has no known cause, cure, or prevention.
Melissa Healy at the LA Times... Why should we trust mainstream medicine and the American Academy of Pediatrics not to be giving us "quackery" when the power and influence of the drug industry is so prevalent? This is the question CBS News asked in 2008, "How Independent Are Vaccine Defenders?" http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500690_162-4296175.html
Alexandra Petri at the Washington Post... Isn't it concerning that even health officials who defend vaccine safety admit that only about 1 to 10 percent of vaccine injuries are ever reported to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System? How can we be so sure vaccines are safe with this pathetic record?
If members of the media really cared about children dying of vaccine preventable diseases, if they really wanted to convince parents that vaccines are safe, they'd all be writing opinion pieces pleading for the one study that could settle the issue overnight. There'd be this massive call for a comparison study of fully-vaccinated and never-vaccinated kids. All the op-ed people who are so quick to sound an alarm about Jenny McCarthy being allowed on 'The View' could take this one step further. If they're SO SURE THERE IS NO LINK, lets see headlines like:
Do Unvaccinated Kids Have Autism? Let's Find Out!
End the Vaccine-Autism Controversy, Do the Study
Compare Vaxed-Unvaxed Kids
It would be easy. With so many parents now too afraid to vaccinate their children, the study group is out there and it's getting bigger everyday. Take 5,000 never-vaccinated children and 5,000 fully-vaccinated children from around the U.S. and compare their health issues, especially the rate of autism in both groups. Anyone can understand the logic of doing this. There's nothing unethical about a study of groups that already exist and officials do retrospective studies like this all the time.
Calling for censorship is not the answer. A call for the truth will settle this heated controversy once and for all.
I wonder what these people would be writing if Jenny had said her son suffered a vaccine injury that caused autistic like symptoms and that she worked really hard to make him better.
Posted by: Cindy Loveland | July 28, 2013 at 11:15 AM
How is it possible to wrest control of mainstream media from the hands of corporate controlled agencies and pit it in the hands of objective newsgatherers and editors? That's the one crucial step we need to take. People believe whatever is fed to them because they've been conditioned to trust the media. Imagine what would happen to the vaccine safety issue if only truth or at least thoroughly verified claims were printed or broadcast.
Posted by: Carter's Daddy | July 27, 2013 at 08:54 PM
"What is the most effective member to combat the hijacking ("capture?") of our regulatory/oversight process by industry? ACLU? FBI? How can this fraud be exposed, or is it already too late?"
I am afraid we face a criminal government, MOST agencies have been long ago captured at their apex. Take the FBI for example. The overwhelming majority of FBI agents truly wish to protect the American people. Yet the FBI is religiously used to cover up political murder.
It is never too late, all that is required is for a large number of citizens to realize that our government is a functional criminal organization and to talk about it openly.
Posted by: Lou | July 27, 2013 at 08:25 PM
Yes the media tends to be the mouth-piece for the Political Medical Industrial Complex.
BUT
Here is how we win.
"My Child was doing well until his set of shots. After those shots we held him as he cried for a day and a night. All his words were gone, he would not look at us. It was as if a switch had been thrown. Now they tell me he has autism. But I am his mother I KNOW what happened it was the SHOTS!"
There are tens of thousands of versions of this story. Mothers need to talk to mothers and mothers to be.
Posted by: Lou | July 27, 2013 at 08:13 PM
I find it very frustrating that all around me - there are a lot of good citizens.
Posted by: Benedetta | July 26, 2013 at 07:21 PM
Do Unvaccinated Kids Have Autism? Let's Find Out!
End the Vaccine-Autism Controversy, Do the Study
Compare Vaxed-Unvaxed Kids
*****************
Expecting the medical community to do this study, is like expecting a suspected burglar to admit that he broke into your hose. Not friggin likely.
What I don't understand, is why we're still waiting for them to do this study. According to Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, from Chicago based Homefirst Medical Services..... "We have about 30,000 or 35,000 children that we've taken care of over the years, and I don't think we have a single case of autism in children delivered by us who never received vaccines. "
Thats 35,000 kids, in just one US state, who DO NOT have autism. Kids who's American experience is no different from that of any other American child, EXCEPT for the fact that that they have completely avoided vaccines.
How can that be seen as anything BUT a smoking gun???? And how is possible that not a single autism advocacy group, has viewed this as a gift in the context of illustrating that zero vaccines = zero autism???
Posted by: Barry | July 26, 2013 at 07:09 PM
Nancy
Yes, these people are cold and without conscience.
John
Posted by: John Stone | July 26, 2013 at 05:29 PM
A self-described sociopath, M.E. Thomas, was interviewed by a journalist on a video I watched yesterday. They described the differences between sociopaths and narcissists -- the former being more willing to put others in danger. Both deviants pursue positions of authority over others.
Sociopaths walk among us; few are ever jailed. Defending vaccines gives sociopathic journalists a cloak of cover -- they can fake that they care, while still meting out abuse and control. All the more reason to remain truly skeptical and do one's own investigation.
Posted by: nhokkanen | July 26, 2013 at 03:05 PM
This deluge of stories is incredibly frustrating. And there's an Alice in Wonderland feeling to it all.
Posted by: Twyla | July 26, 2013 at 01:58 PM
These "journalist" and pharma front groups can yell, scream and stomp their feet like a two year old kid as much as they want. However, those tactics will never prevent people from questioning vaccines and the schedule. What they forget is that their foot stomping doesn't cure all the injured kids and erase the memory from the minds of their families. The reason Jenny's book are so popular is because they tell the story of thousands of families, not just Jenny's story. In the end, Jenny's opinion wouldn't mean squat if their weren't so many injured kids.
Posted by: Dorit, do something positive | July 26, 2013 at 10:48 AM
Here's a direct link to more detailed information about the monkey cancer-contaminated polio vaccine administered to some 30 million Americans during the 1950's and '60's. Although CDC has now censored the information, it remains available through the Wayback Machine.
http://web.archive.org/web/20130613200545/http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/updates/archive/polio_and_cancer.htm#3">http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/updates/archive/polio_and_cancer.htm#3">http://web.archive.org/web/20130613200545/http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/updates/archive/polio_and_cancer.htm#3
This FAQ list tells us, among other things, that switching the vaccine culture medium from the tissue of rhesus monkeys to African green monkeys solved the problem - but fails to mention that green monkeys carry cancer viruses of their own. The story of the contamination of the polio vaccine (ongoing to this day) is brilliantly documented in the book Dr. Mary's Monkey by Edward Haslam, which I would recommend to everyone.
Posted by: Rae N. | July 26, 2013 at 09:24 AM
I love the "don't think" Logo.
The HPV vaccine sometimes called the "help pay for Vioxx" vaccine. Gardasil was fast-tracked to market after only 18 months of testing, rather than the usually 4 years. (by Dr. Julie Gerberding)
Vioxx is a.... 4.5 Billion dollar... Merck problem. 60,000+ American deaths
At present, there are over 80 / 100 ? Gardasil death cases on file at the CDC vaccine court.
******
Former CDC Director, Dr. Julie Gerberding, discusses the Hanna Poling Case.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh-nkD5LSIg
Dr. Gerberding in now President of Merck Vaccines, the corporation she once was expected to regulate.
Posted by: cmo | July 26, 2013 at 09:09 AM
Anne,
Even though the ignorance is not really funny, I had a good laugh over Paul Thornton's statement that opting out of vaccination is going to destroy herd immunity and bring back smallpox. I'd like to ask him, are they still vaccinating for smallpox in California?
Posted by: Linda | July 26, 2013 at 08:45 AM
What action can people take to reveal the fraud?
Last night NBC News had Snyderman regurgitate CDC talking points on HPV shot as though they are facts. Brian Williams introed the piece saying that the HPV shot has prevented cancers. Snyderman said there are 26,000 cases of cervical cancer diagnosed each year in US. And HPV compliance is around 50%. Another example of CDC "fear mongering" marketing disease in order to market vaccines, see BMJ May 15, 2013 Doshi, Pete.
Not disclosed is HPV shot has never prevented a single cancer, ever, and the shot only targets two or three strains of HPV.
From CDC talking points - there was a CDC presser yesterday on HPV shot- to NBC News- promoting sales of pharma products. Govt directing media to bolster corporate interests. Facism.
Our liberty and way if life is literally in jeopardy.
What is the most effective manber to combat the hijacking ("capture?") of our regulatory/oversight process by industry? ACLU? FBI? How can this fraud be exposed, or is it already too late?
Posted by: Ottoschnaut | July 26, 2013 at 07:15 AM
Anne: Excellent questions.
Posted by: Dan E. Burns | July 26, 2013 at 07:03 AM