The Spotty MMR Knowledge of Fox News' Dr. David Samadi and Dr. Marc Siegel
On December 15, 2013, Fox News had two reports with Dr. David Samadi and Dr. Marc Siegel as the medical experts. The first one was, Are Measles Making a Comeback?
David Samadi/Marc Siegel Part One
Marc Siegel:"Measles is a virus. ...It's a wildly contagious virus. .... The Centers for Control told me that measles is a perfect example of how a health problem anywhere is a health problem everywhere. And the reason that is the case is because we need vaccination. One of the biggest heroes of the 20th and 21st century is the MMR vaccine, which now has a 85 percent compliance around the world and is stamping out measles around the world. There is still 150,000 deaths from measles every year in the world. And here it's starting to return because of imported cases. . . . There's a 30 percent complication rate with measles, including one in 1,000 case of encephalitis. . . . You can get ear infections, you can get pneumonia form it. . . ."
Fox anchor: "There's this whole controversy, of course, over MMR. . . . "
Dr. David Samadi: "That's exactly why we have this problem today. . . . This vaccine is safe. It does not cause autism, despite some of the beliefs. This comes from 1998, when Andrew Wakefield published a paper in Lancet that said maybe this will cause autism. Since then that paper has been withdrawn. There's no proof that this vaccine causes autism. So everybody needs to go and get this vaccine. . . . "
(I have to ask you to imagine what other medical product or procedure is offhandedly recommended FOR EVERYBODY. Antibiotics? Surgery?)
Siegel: "United States compliance rate is over 90 percent. We need to keep it that way. . . You probably need a booster later on."
Samadi: "You have to check you titres. . . ."
The woman news anchor then asked what parents should do if the doctor wants to give multiple shots with the MMR.
Siegel vaguely referenced spreading out vaccines and Samadi continued to deny any link to autism.
Samadi: "I think what you're trying to bring up is the whole controversy over vaccines causing autism. I think we need to put this to rest on this show. . . . There's no scientific data that shows measles and MMR causes autism. Period. I know we're going to get a lot of emails and phone calls about this, but parents if you look at the data, it's not there."
My question is, Why were there two doctors on this show both promoting the MMR and denying
any problems---essentially saying the same thing? Wasn't that a little medical overkill? Or is it now so controversial to promote the MMR that one MD is just not enough?
What Siegel and Samadi need to do is look at the past coverage on Fox about vaccines and autism.
2010 Marc Siegel was here saying thimerosal had been removed from the MMR.
Siegel ended the interview responding to Becky Estepp saying, "Even if an association ever is found--at's not proof. . . "
September 12, 2010 -- Proof of Vaccine-Autism Link?
Alisyn Camerota focused on the Hannah Poling settlement. She called it "groundbreaking."
Dr. Alvarez was more concerned that "an avalanche of other people" might do what Hannah Poling's parents did and sue over vaccine damage.
Also on Fox News:
Dr. Sarah Bridges was on Fox News in 2011 talking about how son developed autism following routine vaccinations. The government agreed and she was awarded an $7 to $8 million settlement for lifetime care.
On Fox News, May 10, 2011, New York University law professor Mary Holland discussed the fact that a stunning report from Pace Law School revealed that for years, parents have won vaccine damage suits resulting in autism in federal court, all the while the government denied doing so.
Samadi and Siegel seem to have been very busy at Fox News on Dec 15 because they were also the experts in a report, FDA phasing out antibiotics in animal meat.
David Samadi/Marc Siegel Part Two
Samadi: "The FDA, since 1977, hasn't done much about the food industry. . . . And famers have been giving these kinds of antibiotics, first to treat all the bugs and bacteria in cows, in chickens, and other, but now they find out that these antibiotics make the cows grow faster and grow bigger. So, financially, this was a great way to make money. Over the years, this antibiotic has come in our food chain. This is one of the reasons why I'm completely against using all this antibiotic in our meat because of the rise of antibiotic resistance."
"Over two million Americans are now affected and antibiotic[s] aren't working anymore because we're getting resistant to it. Last year, about 23,000 people died as a result of this resistance. . . .Eighty percent of the antibiotics that are being used in this country is used on--not people---it's used on animals. And it's getting into our systems indirectly. You need to know about this. . . . First of all, stay away from red meat. We recommended this last week. . . . if you can't, use organic."
Siegel joined in the discussion. "The key number here that David just highlighted is that eighty percent of antibiotics are given to animals in this country and they're not given in therapeutic ways. Animals are not sick. What the FDA wants to do is ban this kind of use and at least put on the label, 'for human consumption only' because they give only very low doses of antibiotics that promote growth in animals. But here's how it works inside an animal's intestine. If a bacteria is exposed to all these antibiotics, you know which ones survive? We're talking millions of colonies here. The ones that survive are the ones that are resistance to that antibiotic. Survival of the fittest. You see it with E. coli. You see it with salmonella. . . . The American Academy of Pediatrics came out saying, hey, we don't have enough antibiotics to treat children already, 'cause children don't tolerate this antibiotic, they don't tolerate that antibiotic. We need more choices, not less. And if you give us a problem with drug resistance, we're not going to have as much arrows in our quivers to use. That's the problem when you get over the human side. It's a big part of the problem. The other part, which David and I discussed a few weeks ago, is in hospitals, we're overusing antibiotics. . . . "
If you're like me, it's difficult to reconcile these two reports. In one, the two doctors do little more than cite official studies when proclaiming the safety of the MMR vaccine and denying a link with autism. Neither of them questions the safety of the ever-expanding vaccine program.
In Part Two we're told the FDA has been asleep at the switch and lots of unhealthy things are going on with the meat supply. The use of antibiotics in meat products is affecting human health and even endangering our lives. Change is called for. We need to wake up to what's happening.
Where is the same concern when it comes to vaccine safety? Siegel and Samadi happily accept or close their eyes to the fact that vaccines are among the most poorly researched medical products on the market. We allow the agency that runs the vaccine program to also be responsible for the safety of vaccines. They are also allowed to have financial ties to the industry they're overseeing. We allow the vaccine makers to do their own safety studies.
No one mentioned the fact that in order to stop the mounting lawsuits because of vaccine damage, the government had to indemnify the vaccine makers or they threatened to stop making vaccines. Even the Supreme Court has said that vaccines are "unavoidably unsafe."
Why didn't Siegel and Samadi bring up the pathetic history of safety testing for vaccine components? If they would care to look, they would discover that neither the aluminum nor the mercury used in vaccines has ever been tested or approved by the FDA, yet they're still allowed. When it comes to the MMR vaccine, there are many studies on the efficacy of the vaccine and almost nothing on the safety of combining three live viruses into one vaccine.
When speaking about antibiotics in meat, David Samadi stated, "You need to know about this. . . . First of all, stay away from red meat. We recommended this last week. . . . if you can't, use organic."
When the issue is vaccines and autism, Samadi could only say, "I think we need to put this to rest on this show."
Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.
My post is regarding the treatment and prevention of cancer. I’m troubled by the issue no one is talking about how a simple diet change can prevent cancer from even starting there is such a wealth of information concerning this subject. Radiation and chemo (o yes we now call this infusion as it not sounding so bad but same thing a euphemism is what it is. I’ve lowered my PSA from 325 yes 325 to 1.1 ( for one my age should e between 0-& 4.
Be your own advocate. Best, Bill
Posted by: William Leland | June 20, 2017 at 11:25 AM
Bob Moffit- That's an easy question to answer. I think Siegel made a mistake. Vaccine reactions/adverse events- are always one in a million.
To all, I would like to say that I think that autism following MMR might be rare if the kids had not been given mercury laden vaccines in prior well baby visits (Sorry - scrap the well-baby part) One of the effects of mercury is that it loosens the tightly packed cells that line the intestinal lining like tight bricks. As the "bricks" get more space between then, toxins, microbes, gluten and other unwanted substances are able to penetrate the gut lining. This is, no doubt , not a good situation to have before you are infected with three live viruses in the MMR.
Posted by: Cherry Sperlin Misra | December 19, 2013 at 01:27 PM
one lesson I have learnt about the pharma quacks is that they just make it up...and some if it is pretty convincing to the sheeple..
MMR R.I.P.
Posted by: Angus | December 19, 2013 at 06:58 AM
Well apparently in places like Minneapolis (and probably much of the rest of the U.S.) significant neurological and developmental regression and/or delays just happen to genetically express themselves sometime during the infant and toddler years in about 3% of our kids, and now we are congratulating ourselves that we are so much better at recognizing it. Oh, and we are also diagnosing several other mysterious "lesser" learning disabilities in many more of our children now. Something that looks like 10 percent total affected to me where I live. So how can we be sure that the rate of encephalitis is really 1 in 1000 from measles? You know, we weren't very good at counting and ascertainment in the past, so how can we be sure that some percentage of any neurological damage attributed to any disease were not actually due to disabling genes just happening to leap into action in coincidence with natural infection? I mean maybe now that we are better at identifying how defective our genes are, we should look at whether to a great extent, we've been falsely maligning immune stimulating pathogens?
OK, trying to, Owww, extricate my tongue trapped by clenched molars from my cheek...
Even if it was logical to assume that the 3% of children with a mysterious disability as severe as falls on the autism spectrum and about 10% of children all told with some form of neurological disability and the one in 13 children with asthma, 1 in 5 with allergy...all have absolutely nothing to do with vaccination, the massive expansion of the schedule, or the increased reliance on pollutants to "enhance" the immune stimulation of vaccination, why have most parents not fired this industry that has done nothing but push pills and vaccines and promotes doubt manufacturing tobacco science and studiously avoids finding prevention-facilitating answers, and remedies for the new epidemics that torture our children?
Posted by: Jeannette Bishop | December 18, 2013 at 03:49 PM
I see Dr. Marc Siegel is at Langone Medical Center, where Art Caplan is bioethicist (but his version of bioethics differs from what I thought the word meant). Art and Dorit Reiss were on the radio promoting their pet theory that those who don't vaccinate should be sued if others (presumably those who vaccinate?) get sick. No one from the other side of the debate was represented. http://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/2013/08/21/33359/should-anti-vaccination-parents-be-held-liable-if/
They are well-organized, but there's something compelling about truth and logic. Still, their arguments must be opposed.
Posted by: Christina Waldman | December 18, 2013 at 02:05 PM
Is there a link to the five MMR Autism papers, from five other countries... that have been published since the Wakefield MMR paper ???
Posted by: cmo | December 18, 2013 at 01:57 PM
In case anyone would like the great truths reference:
"All Great Truths Begin as Blasphemies" George Bernard Shaw
and, even more relevant:
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Right now our movement has been stuck in the "violently opposed" stage for far too long. And yet, I see people listening, as the tragedy ripples to their homes despite all our efforts to stop it . . .
Posted by: Carolyn Flannery | December 18, 2013 at 12:21 PM
What kills me more than anything else, is the thought of a third-world Mom dealing with the gut problems and explosive diarrhea caused by thimerasol damage then setting the stage for the MMR damage. Even when I was coping with that with my son (daily for almost 4 years--until he was treated by Thoughtful House's methods, as outlined by Dr. Wakefield) , I used to think "Thank God I have running hot water" . Each crapisode (Kim's word!) took an entire box of wipes to clean up my son, and half a box of clorox wipes to clean up the bathroom. I am NOT exxagerating. Can you imagine the danger to a third world community with limited sanitation of each child whose gut is destroyed by this vaccine? I am scared that these children will be shunned, banned, or worse because this is an impossible sanitation issue and a danger to their entire community and water supply I hope to GOD that these doctors, and Kathleen Sebellius have to someday spend a year cleaning up crapisodes, facing the entire time they are scrubbing that they refused to listen to us because it was an uncomfortable, and unprofitable, and deeply frightening, truth. I want them and all the shills to have to see the reality of the "small number of side effects" and wonder if , just maybe, there is a better way to do vaccines this criminal, lazy, archaic one-size-fits-all approach. I want them to then loudly apologize. And face the attacks and the derision and the insults--just to see how that feels. But finally, I want this great truth to be accepted, and acted upon. Like someone here once posted, the Berlin Wall came down in one day. I don't know what it will take. I pray for it daily.
Posted by: Carolyn Flannery | December 18, 2013 at 12:13 PM
Just pulling numbers out of my head here; but if we assume that say 6% of autism is genetic,(fragile x, agenesis corpus callosum etc) and that a portion of autism is related to other environmental toxins or vaccines, and given the current autism rate of what is it now 1 in 85, (or is it now even higher?)then being conservative and suggesting maybe 1 in 300 children are getting autism/encephalitis from the MMR; and comparing it to the 1 in 1000 possibly developing encephalitis from the live virus ( and of course correlation isn't causation, maybe they would just have got seizures and brain damage anyway; we all know seizures and brain damage "mysteriously" happen to some kids for no reason at all!!)
Don't have any idea what proportion of autism cases are truly related to the MMR vaccine, but if the numbers do come out to anything like 1 in 300,which seems possible, then it appears that the whole risk benefit ratio doesn't seem to be working out too well....1 in 1000 IF you catch the disease, imo appear to be better odds of not developing encephalitis, and possible brain damage, than the current odds of a child developing brain damage with our current vaccine schedule.
Posted by: Hera | December 18, 2013 at 11:47 AM
Yes; I heard all this one Sunday morning -- one say in that cute little accent - that thimerosal was taken out of the MMR.
With such expansive knowledge; that is why he is on the TV tube and I am the one sitting home watching him.
???????????????
Posted by: Benedetta | December 18, 2013 at 10:21 AM
"Marc Siegel:"Measles is a virus. ...It's a wildly contagious virus. .... The Centers for Control told me that measles is..."
Like the "news" reporters, these two were following a script handed to them, in this case, from "The Centers for Control"?
Posted by: Linda | December 18, 2013 at 09:06 AM
The most popular comments on all these biased interviews are to point the bad finer at Dr. Wakefield. It is falsely repeated so many times that it has met that old adage-"If you say something enough times people will believe it" (or something like that).
Posted by: Maurine Meleck | December 18, 2013 at 09:05 AM
Very few doctors understand that they are part of the pharmaceutical industry. And the purpose of that industry is to sell and deliver products. Look at Julie Gerberding. She led the CDC -- before she became president of Merck's Vaccine division. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_Gerberding . And they quote studies by industrial scientists that fail to properly address the safety of pharmaceutical products injected into children. See http://www.ageofautism.com/2012/12/poul-thorsen-called-industry-scumbag-scientist-and-mercury-shill.html .
Posted by: Jim Thompson | December 18, 2013 at 08:45 AM
Anyone taking the time and making the effort to actually "read" Merck's information on their MMR vaccine .. can only conclude these two "doctors" never bothered to do so. The information released by Merck is replete with "warnings" and "precautions" to be considered before their MMR vaccine is given to ANYONE .. let alone EVERYONE.
Here is their information site:
http://tinyurl.com/24ldtn
I doubt anyone who visits the site and reads its contents for themselves .. will share the same confidence and trust in the MMR vaccine as do these two "experts" .. who .. as reputable medical professials .. would have an extremely difficult time dismissing the warnings and precautions that Merck itself acknowledges.
Such as .. under ADVERSE REACTIONS:
"Panniculitis; atypical measles; fever; syncope; headache; dizziness; malaise; irritability
Cardiovascular system .. Vasculitis
Digestive system .. pancreatitis, parotitis
Endocrine system .. diabetes, mellitus
Hemic and Lymphatic system .. thrombocytopenia
Immune system .. anaphylaxis and anaphylactoid reactions, angioneurotic endema, broncial spasm
Musculoskeletal system .. arthritis, arthalgia, myalgia
Nervous system .. encephalitis, encephalopathy, measles inclusion body encephalitis (MIBE), subacute sclerosing panencephalitis(SSPE), Gullian-Barre Syndrome (GBS), febrile convulsions, afebrile convulsions or seizures, ataxia, polyneuritis, polyneuropathy, ocular palsies; paresthesia
These warnings are immediately followed by a rather "lenghty" disclaimer paragraph .. claiming the previous adverse events following MMR vaccination occur naturally in the population .. and .. there is "no evidence" the vaccine alone caused them.
As for Dr. Siegel's statement: "There's a 30 percent complication rate with measles, including one in 1,000 case of encephalitis. . . . You can get ear infections, you can get pneumonia form it. . . ."
Merck ends their disclaimer with the following:
"Post-marketing surveillance of the more than 200 million doses of M-M-R and M-M-R II that have been distributed worldwide over 25 years (1071 to 1996) indicates that serious adverse events such as encephalitis and encephalopathy continue to be rarely reported."
Odd Merck did not give a "rarely reported..ball park" figure of "1 in 1000" like Dr. Siegel did .. wonder why that is?
Posted by: Bob Moffitt | December 18, 2013 at 07:57 AM