Did Nurse Melody Butler Disclose Vaccine Industry Ties on Fox?
Registered Nurse Melody Butler appeared on New York television last week with John Gilmore of the Autism Action Network. She was speaking on behalf of New York City's new mandate that children under the age of six must receive a flu vaccine. Gilmore was speaking out about safety and parental healthcare rights vis a vis the flu shot. Nurse Butler is founder of "Nurses Who Vaccinate." However, we did not seem to hear that she is is also affliated with Voices For Vaccines, an organization funded/connected to both CDC and the pharmaceutical industry. See her LinkedIn profile above. Perhaps the mercury in her latest flu vaccine (I'm sure she is willing to show proof that she is 100% fully up to date on all of her adult vaccines including Gardasil) has muddled her thinking and she forgot?
Our own John Stone ran this post about Voices For Vaccines in August.
By John Stone
Despite Karen Ernst’s repeated insistence that Voices for Vaccines - who recently got up a petition against Jenny McCarthy on Change.com - is an independent parent-led organization speaking up for the vaccine program, the evidence that it was started by the Atlanta based non-profit partner of the Centers for Disease Control, Task Force for Global Health, to promote their joint policies is overwhelming. John Stone (UK editor of Age of Autism) reports:
A few days ago I wrote about vaccine program advocate Prof Dorit Reiss, her unconventional views about agency capture, and her links with Voices for Vaccines “an administrative project” of Task Force for Global Health a partner organization to the Centers for Disease Control and Emory University in Atlanta. The first response to my article was from Karen Ernst a Minnesota based officer of Voices for Vaccines :
“Voices for Vaccines has as its fiscal agent The Task Force for Global Health. They take in our donations and cut checks for us. Many non-profits who are too small to handle their own 501(c)3 status use fiscal agents in this way; it's quite common. We have absolutely no access to their money, nor do we benefit from their money. Voices for Vaccines is not tied to any pharmaceutical corporation or to any government organization. Thus far, all of our donations have been small and have come from individuals. Thus, the dots you have connected paint an incorrect picture.”
Ernst was again engaged the other day with Steve Schneider's article Big Pharma's faking a "grass-roots" campaign to keep Jenny McCarthy off "The View" in Mark Crispin Miller's News from the Underground blog noticed that a Change.com petition against McCarthy was being promoted by ‘Voices for Vaccines, St Paul, Minnesota’. Ernst was first to respond once more :
“I’m one of the two moms who runs VFV. Your blog post is curious to me, seeing that you are an academic. It seems you consulted Barbara Loe Fisher for her anti-vaccine conspiracy theories about who we are, but you never bothered to actually consult us.
“I am the person who started the petition. I have been in contact with exactly zero people who work for pharmaceutical companies or who work in the government about the petition. At best, your headline is misleading. The rest of your blog post is inaccurate. You’ve misrepresented our relationship with our Scientific Advisory Board and our fiscal agent.”
For the record the current Voices for Vaccine website states:
“Voices for Vaccines was re-launched in early 2013 after two young parents, Karen Ernst and Ashley Shelby, volunteered to lead the organization in rallying parents of immunized children to combat vaccine misinformation and increase immunization rates. In 2010, Shelby and Ernst founded the blog Moms Who Vax, which offers resources on vaccine information, commentary, and first-person stories from parents who immunize. They are currently working to develop a new organization, the Minnesota Childhood Immunization Coalition.”
The name ‘Voices for Vaccines’ rang a bell but I could not immediately find any pre-2013 references on Google. The web archive was rather more helpful, however, with the earliest page holding any text dating from 13 May 2008 (passages in bold are my emphasis):
“Recent public discourse has taken on a tone of doubt regarding the safety and efficacy of vaccines. While immunization rates remain high in the United States, scientifically unfounded fears receive broad coverage in the media, and the views of those who oppose vaccination are often presented as fact. This creates an environment in which vaccine uptake is in danger of declining precipitously - in America, and in other countries that are influenced by American attitudes toward vaccines.
“Voices For Vaccines has been formed to speak for those who value the vital protection provided by vaccines and want accurate communication of their safety profile. Our goal is to maximize the ability of vaccines to prevent disease, disability, and death, here and abroad, by supporting sound vaccine policies and practices.
“Voices For Vaccines is guided by the following principles:
“ Science. We will follow the most reliable scientific findings in formulating our positions. We will be frank and clear about what is known and the limitations of current knowledge.
“ Independence. To allay concerns about conflicts of interest, we will accept no funding from companies that manufacture or distribute vaccines, nor from any government.
“Accessibility. We will provide information through multiple media formats in order to effectively reach the general public, health care providers, and policymakers.
“Voices For Vaccines has already begun enlisting members to demonstrate the strong support that vaccines enjoy across the population. Membership is at no cost and provides a subscription to our newsletter as well as the opportunity to participate in VFV-coordinated action campaigns.
“Voices For Vaccines is administratively housed within the Task Force for Child Survival and Development, an Atlanta-based 501(c)(3) organization.”
According to its notice on Wiki ‘Task Force for Child Survival and Development” was re-named ‘Task Force for Global Health’ in 2009. Apart from that there are two fundamental problems. One is that however Voices for Vaccines solicits funds it is still administered by Task Force (which solicits funds from all sorts of places), so the notion of independence is meaningless and a deliberate deception. The other is that it is an attempt to recruit members of the public to advocate for Task Force’s policies and activities: Voices for Vaccines was not started independently of Task Force, and Task Force is not just “cutting” Voices for Vaccine’s checks, it is Task Force's creature while posing as an independent and parent-led organization.
Also, according to a current Task Force web-page Voices for Vaccination is a subdivision of Task Force’s Immunizations and Vaccines: Center for Vaccine Equity' Dr Alan R Hinman (a CDC veteran) being the director of both the wider operation and Voices for Vaccines (the site was down this weekend but this is an archive snapshot) with ‘Task Force for Vaccine Equity’ being funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Merck and Novartis.
Why is it that these people can only operate by subterfuge?
John Stone is UK Editor for Age of Autism.
Carolyn F: the other day I had occasion to hear a public health nurse say that immigrants inter marry a lot which explains higher autism in these families. There are just no words for this kind of ignorance. I know that another woman seated right next to her was from another country and speaks English as her second language. These people (nurses) show no interest in civility.
Posted by: Dorit didn't deny being paid to comment. | December 17, 2013 at 08:05 PM
"Nurses Who Vaccinate."
First do no harm.
Posted by: Lou | December 17, 2013 at 02:41 PM
This is a fascinating and important post. Like Dan's post about utilitarianism, you are getting to the big picture, the heart of what is going on. It is mind boggling in its cruelty and censorship, and it should be scaring the heck out of everyone in this country---not just us.
Our entire MOVEMENT for safe VOLUNTARY medical interventions, is the canary in the coal mine.
The FDA's crackdown on 23andme is just another example. The Ministers and High Priests of the health care religion don't want the people reading the Bible without their interpretation.
It is really getting scary. Not just because of our children, because of the principles that have been overtaken, because of the 'entryism', corruption on so many sites that normally would read the science instead of the lies. The sites that can see the lies when Big Oil, Big Business, and others victimize people, simply are blind to pharma's victimizing of us all.
You would think enviornmental types would back us just from the thimerasol that ends up in sewage systems from all the flu shots. Just for starters. You would think libertarians would be a no brainer. You would think journalists would be hot on the lead of a great story. You would think progressives would be skeptical of anything pushed relentlessly by a big corporation. You would think progressives, concerned about the ill and weak in so many other contexts, would have compassion and an open-mind and not fall for the corporate shills. You would think.
--------------------
I wonder if Lilady has something to do with:
Eli Lilly
since it looks so much like that. Eli Lilly, proud purveyors of Thimerasol since 1931 (1933?)
Or else she is aware she is lying! So she named herself "Lie Lady" to get it off her conscience.
Perhaps she has gone over to the dark side, the side that truly doesn't give a darn if they hurt children, but only counts the dollars that fly in.
I am not sure what is the best use of our time on those blogs. I am starting to think we need to start talking to people in person, in stores, in lines, places where we can safely tell our truth without some blankety blank jumping out of nowhere and distorting it . . they can be everywhere online, but not in every line! I notice that when someone like Katie is shut down, I feel that much more scared to speak out to friends and neighbors. . . but that's exactly what they want us to do--be silent. . .
I think big picture articles like this one are incredibly important. The shills get tied up in knots trying to make all of these different arguments at once. We have the truth. Eventually, we will prevail.
One more point though--when someone gets a shot, they shed viral material.So can't this be flipped on them?
Posted by: Carolyn Flannery | December 16, 2013 at 07:50 PM
Reading about tobacco industry propaganda recently, I came across the curious case of Dr. Alvan Feinstein, epidemiolgist and one of the fathers of the evidence-based medicine we hear so much about these days. Feinstein worked for thirty years to disprove the connection between smoking and lung cancer while keeping quiet his connection with cigarette manufacturers. Apparently the tobacco industry kept statisticians on the payroll for their ability to muddy the waters. Their success in doing that is probably why we now see so much epidemiology "disproving" the link between vaccines and autism.
From _Golden Holocaust_ because it's interesting and apposite:
"Statisticians have served the industry in other ways. In 1981, for example, a team of statisticians led by Nathan Mantel of George Washington University was hired to criticize Takeshi Hirayama's paper showing a lung cancer risk in Japanese women exposed to secondhand smoke. The team--which included Alvan R. Feinstein of Yale and Chris P. Tsokos from the University of South Florida--found a 'mathematical error' in Hirayama's work, which the Tobacco Institute publicized with an extraordinary media blitz. Hundreds of newspapers throughout the country carried the story, with very few recognizing that cigarette makers had paid for the poke. (The tobacco press described Mantel et al. as 'three independent statisticians,' when the reality was that all three had taken money from the tobacco industry--and Feinstein was a Special Projects operative.)"
Reports of Hirayama's 'error' were carried in 469 US newspapers even as tobacco industry scholars were quietly admitting that Hirayama was correct after all.
Posted by: Carol | December 16, 2013 at 03:17 PM
@ Lou
"So the nurse went on FOX NY and lied.
John Gilmore told the truth.
Mayor Bloomberg then called him crazy.
Sick world we all live in."
I suspect this nurse felt free to go on national television and "lie" .. the same way the fraudulant "sign language expert" at Nelson Mandella's memorial service felt free to present himself on the world stage .. all the while expecting no one in the media would bother to investigate thousands of allegations that his vigorous "sign language" was nothing more than gibberish.
Jeepers .. its the media's job to expose "frauds" .. be they nurses or sign language experts .. no?
Posted by: Bob Moffitt | December 16, 2013 at 03:03 PM
Sceptical,
Lawrence (one of the SoP barroom bouncers and also vaccine defender at large) said last week that he was not paid to defend vaccines, and I said that in that case it must be his wife who works to support him and their two young sons, and I asked how she felt about his failure to support his family.
Posted by: cia parker | December 16, 2013 at 02:09 PM
Tony Bateson,
Yes, everyone in charge knows, but no one cares. The carrots dangled by the pharma companies are apparently tempting enough to make them sell their souls. It will not be they personally who have to pay the piper when it comes time to educate the young autists and care for the adult ones, so they really just don't care. That mercury in the brain of everyone vaccinated is totally insidious.
Posted by: cia parker | December 16, 2013 at 02:06 PM
cia, Dorit and Lilady both created an account on Dailykos the other day just to shout someone (Caroline, posts here, can't rememer last name) and when I(a member in good standing, of 6+ years) pointed out the 'new arrivals' and their affiliations, I was banned within a few hours, after the professional site trollhunters deemed my behavior disruptive. Since that diary was posted, no comment there from Lilady or Dorit. Of course this is the standard site BS, but the rapid response and universal shunning wrt 'antivaxxers' is illuminating, to say the least.
Yes, Dorit is literally doing this full-time, and not only on the behalf of the US Pharma, but Israel's as well. You can see it really is a globally coordinated campaign. Is there a way to collate her internet activity? I think it would reflect an OVERTIME rate.
Posted by: Joy B | December 16, 2013 at 01:20 PM
So the nurse went on FOX NY and lied.
John Gilmore told the truth.
Mayor Bloomberg then called him crazy.
Sick world we all live in.
Posted by: Louis Conte | December 16, 2013 at 12:48 PM
So New York has mandated Flu shots has it? Does New York know that there is an almost solid link between mercury containing vaccines and autism? Does it know that there may be a really solid case linking mercury containing vaccines and testosterone to autism? Does New York know how many of its older men are receiving testosterone jabs? Does New York know that susceptibility may start with elevated testosterone? Does New York know whether the Flu shots it is to mandate contain mercury compounds?
Tony Bateson, Oxford, UK.
Posted by: Tony Bateson | December 16, 2013 at 12:44 PM
Nurse Melody Butler wrote a guest post on Shot of Prevention about the flu vaccine the other day. A corporate army of pharma defenders and damage deniers deployed on their vast network of sites, shuffling their spokespeople around, to fight for the hearts and minds of American families. I really don't know who falls for their pharmaganda, it's so easy to google articles on vaccine damage and by vaccine-damaged families.
Posted by: cia parker | December 16, 2013 at 12:23 PM
Sceptical,
I told a friend the other day that Dorit did this all the time, she's there in the evening, every day, Saturday and Sunday, she shoots back responses to me instantly. I think she's paid, she has to be, it's just like the shills at Shot of Prevention, there all the time ready to shoot back answers (and she posts there a lot too), or else she's currying favor with Big Pharma to get some sort of high-paying legal position that doesn't require membership in the Bar.
Posted by: cia parker | December 16, 2013 at 12:19 PM
Dorit said last week on one of the Katie Couric criticims that she had not had Gardasil, but she will get it for her son, and would have gotten it at the appropriate age had it been available then.
Posted by: cia parker | December 16, 2013 at 12:15 PM
Nurse Melody lost all credibility when she said that those who contracted the flu after having the flu shot would have a milder case. There are hundreds of viruses which cause flu-like symptoms. Even if the flu vaccine protects possibly protects against 3 viruses it has no effect on the others.
Just as a note of interest since so many health care professionals especially physicians respect the opinions of the Cochrane Review,this is what the 2012 review authors found after analyzing the safety studies and other studies on the flu vaccine for children. Be sure to read the last sentence…Influenza has a viral origin and often results in an acute respiratory illness affecting the lower or upper parts of the respiratory tract, or both… The review authors found that in children aged from two years, nasal spray vaccines made from weakened influenza viruses were better at preventing illness caused by the influenza virus than injected vaccines made from the killed virus. Neither type was particularly good at preventing 'flu-like illness' caused by other types of viruses. In children under the age of two, the efficacy of inactivated vaccine was similar to placebo. It was not possible to analyse the safety of vaccines from the studies due to the lack of standardisation in the information given, but very little information was found on the safety of inactivated vaccines, the most commonly used vaccine in young children.
http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD004879/vaccines-for-preventing-influenza-in-healthy-children
Posted by: Judy Brasher | December 16, 2013 at 10:33 AM
skeptical of paid shills
It remains unclear that Reiss is paid to do it, but it is also a good question about how she manages to do it. It does feel like the same person is the author of all the comments although she might have a team behind her advising how to respond.
Posted by: For skeptical of paid shills | December 16, 2013 at 10:26 AM
The picture of Dorit Reiss makes me wonder if it might not be a really good idea for someone to track her posts.
The other day, I was reading through comment sections of various recent articles, and I was stunned to see literally hundreds of posts from Dorit Reiss, on Gardasil, flu shots, etc., all from the last week or two, as well as blog.
Does anyone have a computer program that can add up how many comments per day, or even per hour, she posts on vaccines under her own name?
If it's as many as I think, it begs many interesting questions. How does she have time to do her official job and still care for her young child? I can't even see a SAHM having enough time to post like that, let alone a college professor.
Posting that many comments sure looks like a full-time job...
And if she's not being paid by anyone to do so, then doesn't it seem like some sort of obsessive-compulsive disorder?
Posted by: SkepticalOfPaidShills | December 16, 2013 at 10:07 AM
That's a pretty serious omission considering how active people from Voices for Vaccines like Dorit are- and when we are talking about something as serious as MANDATED flu vaccines. I wonder, John, has she had Gardasil?
Posted by: Melody Butler Didn't Disclose Industry Ties. | December 16, 2013 at 10:02 AM
Not to mention 'Shot of Prevention' which is an Every Child By Two enterprise. ECBT is funded by the US government and the pharmaceutical industry. I have the accounts somewhere.
Posted by: John Stone | December 16, 2013 at 08:42 AM