ChildHealthSafety On Vaccine Bully Dr. David Gorski
Note: Dr. David Gorksi, who runs a blog under the pseudonym "Orac" has made a career of attacking all of us in the vaccine injury awareness arena. Below, ChildHealthSafety (from The UK) takes on Dr. Gorski with a stiff upperCUT, not just the usual British stiff upper lip. Have a cup of tea and cheerio!
Clear Proof sciencebasedmedicine.org’s Doctor David Gorski [aka ORAC] Is Dishonest And A Liar – And If You Find A Bigger Gorski Lie To Better This Example Let Us Know
Posted on November 2, 2014 by ChildHealthSafety
#gorskibusted
It is a serious matter when a medical doctor abuses the trusted status of a licensed medical professional to abuse bully disparage and attack others. It is worse when he uses that status and trusted position to lie about published medical research to make false claims intended to mislead and actively spread deliberate misinformation about medical knowledge whilst doing so to make false claims about others. It is even worse when he does it so publicly and routinely, publishing to mislead people worldwide and on a daily basis on the internet.
Here on CHS we examine just one deliberate intentional lie by Dr Gorski, the circumstances in which he made that lie and look at some implications. The lie we are interested in is published on the website sciencebasedmedicine.org. It is in an attack blog directed against investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson for her work exposing the scandal of vaccines causing autism in hundreds of thousands of US children. Dr David Gorski engages in his dishonest bullying conduct against a number of other people in the same blog post.
But first some background and we also invite readers to post comments here with other examples of Dr Gorski’s sciencebasedmedicine.org’s lies which they believe they have found to see if they can better our example.
Dr Gorski’s behaviour reveals him as a pseudoscientist and quack. And it indicates Dr Gorski may not be of good moral character – which is what his dishonesty suggests.
This kind of behaviour also brings all of modern medicine into disrepute and taints all medical doctors. Government health officials are able to avoid answering difficult questions hiding behind bloggers like Gorski who distract attention whilst spreading blatant misinformation and attacking wrongfully the characters and credibility of independently minded people who ask and even sometimes answer the questions health officials prefer to avoid.
It of course also tells the world about the website sciencebasedmedicine.org. Dr David Gorski is its Managing Editor. What are the other editors doing about Gorski’s deliberate lies and online bullying? Do they condone Dr Gorski’s behaviour? Have they done anything to stop it? Do they intend putting matters right? Gorski has been doing this kind of thing for many years.
The other editors are: Stephen P Novella; Kimball C. Atwood IV, MD; Mark A. Crislip, MD; Harriet Hall, MD; and Paul Ingraham [a former Registered Massage Therapist in Vancouver, Canada].
Are they liars too? We do not know about that because we have not considered any of their work. But if they do nothing then that tells you something about them.
Dr David Gorski seems to lie as a matter of routine. Worse still he asserts he relies on science when he is just lying. Gorski of course is not the only liar. On CHS we have highlighted other liars who have been caught lying blatantly, in some instances having to apologise and pay compensation.
So what are the implications of Gorski’s cyber bullying and lying under the requirements to be met by a licensed medical practitioner in the State of Michigan? [Dr Gorski practices medicine in Michigan].
The Michigan Board of Medicine appears to be responsible for enforcing for the practice of medicine the Public Health Code under Public Act 368 of 1978, as amended. Section 16221 contains a multitude of behaviours but lying appears to fall under a “lack of good moral character“. After all, if a licensed medical professional lies about medical knowledge to mislead others and so publicly that does not sound like someone of good moral character, does it?
But that is not all. If Dr Gorski advises and treats patients on the basis of the kind of defective untrue and misleading information he published on his blog then he may violate other requirements. Violations include negligence or failure to exercise due care as well as any conduct or practice that impairs, or may impair, the ability to safely and skillfully practice medicine. And it may also indicate a lack of competence to advise and treat patients in accordance with his obligations. Incompetence can be a violation. A mental inability reasonably related to and adversely affecting the licensee’s ability to practice in a safe and competent manner can also violate the Code. That raises the question of whether Dr Gorski’s psychological profile as revealed by his blogging activities and specifically his inability to be truthful about medical scientific matters makes him psychologically unfit to treat patients. That is not a question for CHS to answer but it would seem an appropriate question to ask.
So what did the liar Dr David Gorski do? He published one of his usual rambling articles on the sciencebasedmedicine.org website. It was 3333 words entitled “Anti-vaccine propaganda from Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News“ published on April 4, 2011.
You can see this was not a trivial matter. Gorski attacked a prominent US journalist along with a number of other people and he lied to do it. Ms Attkisson reported for CBS News on a peer reviewed journal paper published by Dr Helen Ratajczak. Ms Attkisson’s report included
The article in the Journal of Immunotoxicology is entitled “Theoretical aspects of autism: Causes–A review.” The author is Helen Ratajczak, surprisingly herself a former senior scientist at a pharmaceutical firm. Ratajczak did what nobody else apparently has bothered to do: she reviewed the body of published science since autism was first described in 1943. Not just one theory suggested by research such as the role of MMR shots, or the mercury preservative thimerosal; but all of them.
Vaccines and autism: a new scientific review By Sharyl Attkisson CBS News April 1, 2011
This is the part of Dr David Gorski’s article in which the lie appears and it is a significant lie:
And she cites the anti-vaccine blog Child Health Safety as one of her references? The date of the CHS entry cited is June 30, 2010. All I could find was this entry, which purports to argue that both Merck’s Director of Vaccines and the U.S. government have admitted that vaccines cause autism all based on the long known science showing that a maternal case of rubella while carrying a fetus can result in autism in the child, something that’s been known for several decades and is in fact one reason why vaccination against rubella is so important. How on earth did this get through peer review. Obviously, the peer reviewers of Dr. Ratajczak’s article were either completely ignorant of the background science (and therefore unqualified) or asleep at the switch.“
Notice our emphasis added to just three words “all based on“. Dr Gorski chose those words to make sure his lie would be all the more convincing. Those three words show how deliberate and calculated Dr Gorski was being in his lying and dishonesty.
And just to make sure we are comparing apples with apples, this is the CHS article Dr Gorski lied about Vaccination Causes Autism – Say US Government & Merck’s Director of Vaccines as it appeared when Dr Gorski wrote his blog post in April 2011.
Notice how in his article Dr Gorski admits he found and read the article. There is no mistake. And of course Dr Gorski was making claims intended to damage the reputations of Ms Attkisson and Dr Ratajczak among others. So it was deliberate, intentional and to cause harm to others. And it was bullying cyber abuse.
Now what you can also see here is that Dr Gorski not only lied about the CHS article but he also lied about a number of other things [and this is just looking at the one paragraph] and all for the purposes of attacking Ms Attkisson and Dr Ratajczak.
Most people do not click on links in blog posts. But this particular Gorski lie would be one CHS would know to be a lie without needing to refer to the CHS article concerned. But we make sure you can refer to it to so you can see just how dishonest Doctor David Gorski MD is.
Contrary to Dr David Gorski’s contrived and dishonest claims, the admissions by Merck’s Director of Vaccines and U.S. government agencies that vaccines cause autistic conditions were not “all based on” autism caused by rubella infection. They were not based on that at all. And that is perfectly clear from the CHS article. So Gorski despite having found and read the CHS article clearly lied and did so deliberately and intentionally with a remarkable degree of dishonesty.
It is also plain for all to see that not only did the CHS article cover several known causes of autism and not just one [as the liar Dr Gorski claimed], but also the quotes admitting vaccines cause autism were in relation to further separate mechanisms by which that can happen.
In addition to that the CHS article quoted, cited and linked to original sources including a number of peer reviewed medical journal papers.
What is also notable is the causes of autism which Dr Gorski omitted are causes which he steadfastly has avoided referring to. It is difficult for him to deny the admissions made because they were made and the CHS article cited and linked to original sources showing that. That is another aspect of his dishonesty. He ignores completely evidence which goes against the political commercial views he publishes under contract on sciencebasedmedicine.org to support the drug industry and to support government officials in pressurising parents into giving dangerous unnecessary vaccines to their children.
But what it does show is that Dr Gorski knows those admitted causes are known real causes of vaccine-caused-autism. If he were to contradict that he would also have to claim Merck’s Director of Vaccines and US Government agencies were lying when they made those admissions – admissions which were against their interests [but definitely in the public interest]. So Gorski avoids acknowledging the admissions, but in doing so tacitly confirms he knows they are true.
But Gorski did not stop there. He lied also about it being improper of Dr Ratajczak to cite CHS in a peer reviewed journal. But it would have been improper for Dr Ratajczak to take the benefit of the work of others without citing CHS as the source. To do that would have been plagiarism.
Dr Ratajczak properly cited the source of the information, which itself cited original sources. So Gorski lied again. And of course Dr Gorski knows that.
This also addresses a further lie by Dr Gorski, that the peer review system of the journal concerned was in some way defective by allowing such a citation. Clearly, it was not and could not have been.
And that brings us to a final point. That one Gorski paragraph is comprised of 133 words, yet it contains at least 3 lies. So on that basis one might estimate 75 Gorski lies in just that one blog post of 3333 words. And he blogs 6 days a week under contract, so that could be around 450 Gorski lies a week. And over the course of a year it could be 22,500 lies p.a. making Dr Gorski quite an impressive liar by quantity. And if sciencebasedmedicine.org contains that many lies from just one author, how many other lies might there be, if any?
You should not hold your breath waiting for the Michigan Board of Medicine to do anything. But what this information does is raise the question: if one doctor can lie that much in one year and so blatantly and publicly and get away with it, how many other doctors and “scientists” are lying too? How many in the US Centers for Disease Control for example?
Read more at ChildHealthSafety.
Gorski's reaction to being caught and outed as dishonest and a liar is interesting. He does not care and even lies about his lies being lies and lying.
So he knows he is doing it and is clearly going to continue doing it regardless. Which suggests the inference that sciencebasedmedicine.org exists with him as its Managing Editor for the particular purposes of misleading and attacking anything which goes against the interests he is paid to pursue, at least insofar as Gorski's contributions are concerned.
What is clear also is that the base used is not science and the word "science" is used again to mislead that it is.
Again, whilst it might all seem obvious it is helpful to have specific evidence and examples documenting this and generated from the Managing Editor.
Whether the foregoing applies to all the editors/contributors to that site or not is a different question. However, even if it is assumed the other editors do not behave like Gorski, who would want to be an editor or contributor to a site with appears to exist for such a purpose? Or what kind of person would stay associated with such a site?
Posted by: ChildHealthSafety | November 03, 2014 at 04:09 PM
I'm not an expert on Dr. Gorski's persona, but way back I watched him answer a parent's sincere queries about flaws in the "mainstream" research with something like "well, all research has problems." This was in the context of dismissing research showing vaccine concerns flatly because he could identify "problems." That gave me the irrepressible impression Dr. Gorski feels entitled to pick and choose his "facts" as temporarily or personally convenient or safe, never-mind that those of us with possible vaccine-injured children needed real answers, so I didn't feel like his blog was worth investing time in.
I've also seen him dismiss GMO concerns, the need to research their safety, on grounds that we don't at this point have any concerns to research (not exactly true). So, I'm guessing something problematic for the "mainstream" becomes a "fact" for him when just about everyone else already knows it, if even then.
Posted by: Jeannette Bishop | November 03, 2014 at 01:38 PM
His blog isn't drawing many these days & he manages to discuss Salk's polio vaccine with no mention of NPAFP. He simply has no skin in the game i.e. couldn't care less about the truth.
Posted by: Reader | November 03, 2014 at 12:25 PM
PS Gorski is a professional liar.
Posted by: Glax Britannicus | November 03, 2014 at 12:15 PM
CHS
The new euphemism of Gorski for lying ("fact based opinion") is the finest piece of casuistry since Lord Armstrong (head of British civil service in the 1980s) admitted to an Australian court in 1986 the he was "being economical with the truth" while trying to stop them allowing the publication Peter Wright's Spycatcher. Gorski is a liar.
Posted by: Glax Britannicus | November 03, 2014 at 12:13 PM
Gorski is old news and is a complete loser. Same thing can be said about Matt Carey.
Posted by: Elucidatus | November 03, 2014 at 11:41 AM
Hi @False_Skeptics_Make_Me_Laugh,
"Gorski lies? Isn't that a bit like saying water is wet?"
Saying it is one thing and having it documented is another.
Gorski's reaction to this is interesting. He lies about him lying, claiming his lies are opinions - "fact based opinions". So that adds more. And it shows he knows he is lying but cannot care less. All very deliberate.
Posted by: ChildHealthSafety | November 03, 2014 at 10:47 AM
Gorski's blog is vile. I steer clear and tell everyone I know to do the same. I've tried in the past to post on that site. I gave very civil accounts of my children's vaccine injuries and great response to biomedical interventions. The responses I got from "the regulars" over there were vicious. They are not at all interested in the truth. They just want a platform for their misinformation. I can't stand them, and certainly do not consider them an even remotely reliable source of information. The guy is a quack.
Posted by: Anne J. | November 03, 2014 at 10:41 AM
Kerry Ann-- they get away with this by saying it happens 1 in a million times. That is what th news reporter said. Such a number I wonder if it really was true - or something off off the top of his head.
Well this type of vaccine reaction is probably one in a million.
But there are about a million different types or reactions to the flu shot.
But no one knows what they look like and it is all just gentic fate that runs in the family.
Posted by: Benedetta | November 03, 2014 at 10:06 AM
Gorsi lies? Isn't that a bit like saying water is wet?
Posted by: False Skeptics Make Me Laugh | November 03, 2014 at 09:04 AM
Hi Dan, Gorski just lied and lied and lied.
Whilst you can read it at ChildHealthSafety here is the rest of the CHS post [and when you read it you can see that the comment here below on AoA by Associate Professor of Adelaide University Chris Preston is trolling. He has obsessively spammed CHS for months - sad but true]:
Posted by: ChildHealthSafety | November 03, 2014 at 09:04 AM
Uh ... what was that lie again?
Posted by: Dan Burns | November 03, 2014 at 07:14 AM
CHS, this is all a little bit pathetic.
Poring over a three and a half year old blog post to find a few things that you disagree with and then claim they are lies? Gorski writes as a blogger, people disagree with him all the time. If you think he was wrong in the post, why don't you write to him and point out the errors?
Posted by: Chris Preston | November 03, 2014 at 06:12 AM
#gorskibusted
David Gorski
@gorskon@childhlthsafety Clearly your momma didn't teach you the difference between a lie and stating a fact-based opinion. No surprise there.7:11 AM - 2 Nov 2014
ChildHealthSafety @ChildHlthSafetyHa! Making untrue statements of fact intentionally & knowingly is "opinion". Where can we buy that dictionary
11:48 AM - 2 Nov 2014
Posted by: ChildHealthSafety | November 03, 2014 at 05:05 AM
A Florida woman says her daughter became paralyzed after getting a routine flu shot.
Carla Grivna says her child was happy and healthy until getting the flu shot just before the Thanksgiving Day holiday last year. Three days later, however, her daughter Marysue could not move or talk, Grivna said. The child is now a bedridden 10-year-old diagnosed with a rare viral infection of the brain called Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis, or ADEM. Carla Grivna believes what happened is directly tied to the flu shot.http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/11/02/mom-blames-daughter-paralysis-on-flu-shot/
Posted by: Kerry Ann | November 03, 2014 at 01:14 AM