Dachel Media Update: CNN Features Rebecca Estepp and Harvey Karp on Parental Vaccination Choice
By Anne Dachel
Read Anne's commentary and view the links after the jump. The Dachel Media Update is sponsored by Lee Silsby Compounding Pharmacy and their OurKidsASD brand.
Oct 3, 2014, CNN's Alisyn Camerota interviewed autism mom Becky Estepp and Dr. Harvey Karp. The subject was vaccine exemptions/a parent's right to choose.
Should parents decline child vaccines?
Becky explained that she stopped vaccinating her younger son because of the vaccine reaction her older son experienced.
"I took him in for a Hepatitis B vaccine, he immediately a hideous diarrhea, later that night, developed a fever, arched his back, screamed. If I would have known, as a young mother, these were signs of encephalopathy--brain swelling, I would have known to get him to a doctor right away. After that evening, his health deteriorated for the next two years. At two years and nine months he was diagnosed with autism. We didn't put the pieces of the puzzle together until I had my second son, who also started to exhibit some strange vaccine reactions. At that point I had to really weigh the options. My husband and I decided that our children's neurodevelopment was more important than vaccinating for these diseases. ...They could have permanent damage."
When Becky was asked about what her unvaccinated children might do to herd immunity she said, "I say that it's their right to vaccinate their children and if vaccines work the way they're supposed to, their children are safe. There's no reason to worry about my child; their children are vaccinated. I'm the one who's taken the calculated risk for a very good reason."
Dr. Harvey Karp was asked for his opinion on opting out.
"We all live in a community together and if you don't get vaccines, your child's going to have a higher risk of getting illnesses. Sure, if the other child's vaccinated, that may protect them. We wish vaccines worked a hundred percent, but they don't work a hundred percent. So it does increase the risk that a child even who's had vaccines can get an illness, but I'm more concern about the baby in the family, or your next door neighbor's baby. Maybe they're not old enough to get the vaccine yet and your toddler plays with them and can spread the illness to them. That poor unprotected child is totally at risk. And we're especially concerned about whooping cough, which is more contagious than any other known disease. If you live on a farm, I have no problem if you choose not to get the vaccines, but if you're benefitting by living in a community where everyone else is getting vaccinated and the next baby born on your block is depending on your children getting vaccinated, I think it's your responsibility. Otherwise you're really freeloading on the efforts made and the exposure made by the other families."
Becky was asked for her response.
"The problem that my children had was that I took my older son to an immunologist after he was diagnosed with autism. He ran a titer test. Every vaccine that we tested, my son did not develop titers. So even if I continued to vaccinate him, he would still be unprotected. There's no reason to vaccinate. The did not receive protection from his vaccines. He was vaccinated but he was not immunized. ...
Alisyn Camerota then did something I rarely ever see in broadcast journalism--she actually facts to challenge the efficacy of vaccination.
"I have here ... the whooping cough report. This is from the California Department of Public Health and it talks about this year--how there's been this spike in pertusus, as it's called. I want to read it to you because it's pretty fascinating. Pertusis is cyclical and it peaks every three to five years as the numbers of susceptible persons in the population increases due to the waning of immunity following vaccination. In other words, the vaccine is only good for five to ten years and then you're no longer immunized. It's not just parents in other words, who are opting out of vaccinating their kids, it's parents who think that their kids are immunized and it's worn off."
Karp:
"That's absolutely the case. We worry most about the littlest children because they're the ones who die from whooping cough and have to be hospitalized. Anyone can get whooping cough but it turns out to be more of a bad cold, a terrible cough as you get older. This is the crazy thing. We've weakened the vaccine. We were seeing some side effects of the vaccine, so to protect children from side effects, we weakened the vaccine. We made it more purified. And as an effect of that, it made the immunity last not as long as the old vaccine. It was more purified, so we have more children with fewer side effects.
Dr. Karp completely ignored what Becky said about her son's vaccine reaction. ("Wait a minute. I thought vaccines don't cause autism, but this mom claims they did for her son and the doctor here didn't say anything about it.")
Karp acted like vaccinating everyone for whooping cough would protect children too young to be vaccinated until Camerota pointed out that the vaccine's effects wear off in 5 to 10 years. Then he acted like he knew all about it. ("There must be millions of adults running around with no immunity to whooping cough so what good does it do to the insistence that every child be vaccinated?")
Karp did acknowledge that the old whooping cough vaccine had serious side effects so they replaced it with one that is less damaging and less effective. ("Maybe I have a lot of reasons to worry about choosing to vaccinate my children.")
(Five years ago I wrote this about Harvey Karp. http://www.ageofautism.com/2009/06/aap-spokesperson-dr-karp-speaks-of-world-wide-rise-in-autism.html Remember Karp on Larry King Live with Jenny McCarthy? He's in my upcoming book. So is Alisyn Camerota--because of her exemplary coverage of the vaccine controversy when she was at Fox.) The Dachel Media Update is sponsored by Lee Silsby Compounding Pharmacy and their OurKidsASD brand. Lee Silsby Compounding Pharmacy is one of the largest and most respected compounding pharmacies in the country. They use only the finest quality chemicals and equipment to prepare our patients’ compounded medications and nutritional supplements. Customizing medication and nutritional supplements for our customers allows them to achieve their unique health goals.
Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism and author of The Big Autism Cover-Up: How and Why the Media Is Lying to the American Public, which goes on sale this Fall from Skyhorse Publishing.
Dr. Karp on DTaP: "We were seeing some side effects of the vaccine, so to protect children from side effects, we weakened the vaccine. We made it more purified. And as an effect of that, it made the immunity last not as long as the old vaccine. It was more purified, so we have more children with fewer side effects."
Sounds like an admission that lack of "purity" causes side effects. Note, "We made it MORE purified." Not completely purified, eh? Still causes side effects...
And what's this crap about "it made the immunity last not as long as the old vaccine?" Either you really have immunity...or you don't. And there is ample proof that the fully-vaccinated people who make up the vast majority of pertussis cases didn't have immunity. (No mention, of course, of the fact that fully-vaccinated people can TRANSMIT pertussis, even if they have no symptoms themselves.)
Posted by: Taximom5 | October 06, 2014 at 09:54 AM
You're right. Dr. Karp's total disregard for Becky's child's situation was bizarre; an inconvenient truth.
Posted by: @Anne | October 04, 2014 at 06:46 PM
Dr. Harvey Karp was my daughter's pediatrician. He told me that the MMR was a completely safe vaccine, not like the DPT--I guess the old one. ( My daughter had gotten whooping cough despite being vaccinated and it hadn't been 5 years..) She received the MMR at age 4 and apparently she must have had a weakened immune system because the MMR triggered celiac disease, ataxia, dyslexia, and chronic tonsillitis. Now she has more or less recovered her health by living on a very restricted diet and taking supplements, but I have never forgiven him. She was chronically ill when he was her doctor and his advice to me was to ignore her ill health (black circles under the eye, listless energy, mouth full of puss) as much as possible because he thought I might give her hypochondria if I made too big of a deal about it. When I took her out of a private school and put her in the public school (8 months behind in her school work from dyslexia and so on) I told the teacher she generally missed about five months of school a year--that is unacceptable in the public school. She remained chronically ill for more than 20 years.
I am not sure what to call Harvey Karp but he is not the kind of doctor who has any interest in the health of children--he is more interested in lecturing Mom and Dad and anyone else who will listen on hypochondria, sibling rivalry, etc. He seems to see himself as a therapist. Of course, he ignores the trend in the conversation above...he ignores everything. I'm sure my daughter was not his only victim.
Posted by: kapoore | October 04, 2014 at 06:26 PM
More Crap science from Karp . I thought if you lived on a farm you were at higher risk from tetanus ..so how would living in a block be safer than living on a farm...and unashamedly "freeloading" good health from all the vaccinated good wholesome healthy kids.. conundrum time is here at Karps-vill.
We have a boy and a girl never vaccinated and my wife was a shrine to good living.No vaccines,just so that they were both born as God intended them rudely healthy.Gladly 11 years and 9 years on respectively they still have never been to the Quacks,Doctors, with an illness, no medical files whatsoever for either..How many filing cabinets my Autistic sons medical files run into I wouldn't want to guess..Sure as hell if he could, he wouldn't argue the corner for the "Better Good "of the population the total devastation of his life for the better good crap,from Karp.
Thanks Anne
MMR RIP
Posted by: Angus Files | October 04, 2014 at 05:44 PM
Barry,
You're right. It just lets people think they're protected and can't give pertussis to anyone else, when in reality they are not protected and can transmit it maybe half the time. The only answer is to refuse the vaccine and shelter newborns at home for the first four months, being careful not to let anyone who might be sick near them, and use a mask and gloves if there's any doubt.
Posted by: cia parker | October 04, 2014 at 01:50 PM
Benedetta,
I agree. The milder pertussis vaccine allowed my baby to catch pertussis anyway at 8 months, and the booster erased her only words at 18 months, diagnosed with autism two months later. Ineffective and devastatingly dangerous. Big improvement.
Posted by: cia parker | October 04, 2014 at 01:47 PM
It's very disappointing that Karp is so aggressively pro-vax. His two books were excellent, Happiest Baby on the Block and Happiest Toddler on the Block. The first mostly on how to do successful swaddling in the first months and its many benefits, the second on talking to toddlers as though their developmental level made them the cognitive equivalents of early humans, moving up from cavemen at two to early rural villagers at four. He showed such compassion and empathy with little humans in his books, that it's perplexing how he could be such a Death Eater in his public stance on vaccines.
Posted by: cia parker | October 04, 2014 at 01:44 PM
Bob Moffit is right --- The majority of Americans don't know what a side effect is, what it looks like, what to look for - Nothing.
I have a brother-in-law that is newly married and has a step son living with him.
he says he has been too isolated by his father - that he is 22 never held a job, does not know how to do anything but play video games, he has social issues. But he is teaching him how to do things and helping out in limiting video games.
Really -- My dear brother -in- law -- I have one just like that - do you know what autism is???
Oh, he makes straght A's in school.
Well, do you believe that -- it probably means he makes passing grades.
Yeah, I have one of those too.
Well what ever it is - he says -- it is like night and day next to his son who is the same age. Of course his son went into a diabetic shock - did not even know he had diabeties untill he almost died from it.
Posted by: Benedetta | October 04, 2014 at 10:59 AM
Dr Karp
"This is the crazy thing. We've weakened the vaccine. We were seeing some side effects of the vaccine, so to protect children from side effects, we weakened the vaccine. We made it more purified."
I was disappointed Dr. Karp was not asked to describe the "side effects of the vaccine" they were seeing? Were those "side effects" .. for a small(how small?) sub-set of children .. which Dr Karp describes vaguely as "some" .. worse than whooping cough itself?
I strongly disagree with Dr. Karp the "crazy thing" was "purifying" the vaccine to make it "safer" for all children. I don't think that was "crazy" .. I think that falls under Dr. Karp's oath .. "First .. do no harm".
Dr. Karp: "We wish vaccines worked a hundred percent, but they don't work a hundred percent."
Obviously Dr. Karp is speaking about the vaccines "effectiveness" .. but .. he didn't make any comments regarding the "side effects" associated with all "unavoidably unsafe" vaccines.
AND THE BAND PLAYED ON AND ON AND ON ....
Posted by: BoB Moffitt | October 04, 2014 at 06:55 AM
The answer to giving a vaccine that doesn't work is to give it again and again, every year if you are a Duggar."With minimal safety data in humans available, there is currently a US study looking specifically at this issue. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is supporting a study examining the safety and immunogenicity of Tdap.5 Nonetheless, the US Food and Drug Administration has classified Tdap as a Class C drug.6 Such drugs lack adequate and well-controlled studies in humans but have been associated with an adverse effect on the fetus in animal reproduction studies. In reviewing the available literature, researchers have noted that “potential benefits may warrant use of the vaccine in pregnant women despite potential risks.”6 - See more at: http://www.obgyn.net/news/tdap-pregnancy-what-new-guidelines-say#sthash.cfLSkHgZ.dpuf
Posted by: barbara | October 03, 2014 at 11:36 PM
Thank you Becky! You smoked that Karp. :)
Posted by: Adam Mortenson | October 03, 2014 at 11:07 PM
"…So it does increase the risk that a child even who's had vaccines can get an illness, but I'm more concern about the baby in the family, or your next door neighbor's baby. Maybe they're not old enough to get the vaccine yet and your toddler plays with them and can spread the illness to them. That poor unprotected child is totally at risk.
************
If vaccine don't work 100% of the time…then that poor, unprotected child might be sharing a bedroom with an older sibling who's whooping cough vaccine didn't work. Or even sharing a home with two or three older siblings, who's whooping cough vaccines didn't work.
Isn't that an even bigger risk?
Posted by: Barry | October 03, 2014 at 10:30 PM
Well it is all because they changed from the dangerous DTP shot to the milder -one the DTaP shot and now they will just have to take it more often.
Well the milder DTaP shot is the same shot that gave my daughter's fellow nursing student's little boy autism -- I could see him having seizures at the nursing graduation. They the parents and grandparents did not know it though, he was hoping down the isle and then stood and stared -- the way he stared with his eyes jerking -- I knew.
It was also the milder DTaP my grown daughter had in 2012 - her life has been a mess every since, including GI problems.
Ohhh, All i really wanted to say though was that FOX NEWS Lost a Precious jewel when they lost Alisyn Camerota. And as for Kelly Megan after her little rant turning her head to the side to look cute -- you sold out girl, bigger than you know. You got three boys??? Hmmm.
Posted by: Benedetta | October 03, 2014 at 09:04 PM
Yay Camerota! Karp just sound like a dumb fish. In other words, you'd have to keep getting this gd vaccine all the time to satisfy them. She had every reason to avoid after her child was injured with encephalopathy, never mind that he had no immunity developed from them anyhow.
Posted by: Yay Camerota, Yuk Karp | October 03, 2014 at 07:56 PM
Karp's TOTAL DISREGARD OF BECKY'S STORY OF WHAT HAPPENED TO HER SON WAS BIZARRE.
The folks at home must have noticed. Why does he think parents are exempting their children?
Why should we be willing to take this kind of risk when doctors like Karp have absolutely no concern about vaccine injuries?
Instead, Karp makes this insulting comment:
"If you live on a farm, I have no problem if you choose not to get the vaccines, but if you're benefitting by living in a community where everyone else is getting vaccinated and the next baby born on your block is depending on your children getting vaccinated, I think it's your responsibility. Otherwise you're really freeloading on the efforts made and the exposure made by the other families."
So is Becky Estepp "freeloading" because she won't vaccinate? Should she continue to follow the recommended schedule after both her sons suffered side effects, including something as devastating as regression into autism?
Telling us about herd immunity is fine if there are no risks.
Anne Dachel
Posted by: Anne McElroy Dachel | October 03, 2014 at 05:38 PM