Justin Kanew Interviews Del Bigtree of VaXxed The Movie
Let me say right up front that my wife and I have a 2-month old daughter, and we ARE vaccinating her, and that my #1 goal here is to learn as much as possible about how to care for her health, because if anything happened to her I honestly don't know what I would do.
Until recently - like most people - I assumed vaccines were 100% safe, and I thought anyone who thought otherwise was dangerous and selfish, putting everyone else at risk. I thought this because I was told this, by many people, many times.
"The science is in."
"Vaccines are 100% safe."
Lather, rinse, repeat.
The first chink in the armor was a conversation with a friend of mine whose grandson, he said, was developing normally, got the MMR shot at 15 months, dropped into a fever that night, regressed suddenly, and has had severe autism ever since.
His story seemed far-fetched, but my friend is no storyteller, and I soon learned he was not alone in this experience.
Now to be clear, we're no strangers to the autism spectrum conversation- one of my best friends has Aspergers, and my wife is a BCBA who works with kids on the spectrum every single day... but digging deeper and hearing the many eerily similar stories of autism-related vaccine injuries from parent after parent was a new experience for us, and made me wonder where my self-assuredness about vaccine safety had come from-- and, most importantly, why it seemed to be something nobody was allowed to talk about.
My wife getting pregnant brought this all into sharper focus. Soon we would have to make these difficult decisions ourselves.
Right after my wife gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, we heard about the documentary "Vaxxed", and how it had been yanked from the Tribeca Film Festival. We didn't pay it much attention until we saw the Today Show interview with the usually quiet Robert Deniro who said he regretted pulling it, and seemed sure there was more to the story than people wanted to believe.
So we went and saw the movie for ourselves.
We learned about the CDC whistleblower no national media were covering.
We learned about CDC head Julie Gerberding going to work for Merck as head of immunizations after helping to cover up the MMR-autism link, and cashing out for millions.
We learned about the existence of the United States Vaccine Court, which has paid out over $3.5 Billion to vaccine-injured children.
Say what you will about the documentary, which we found to be eye-opening, these things in it were verifiably true, disturbing things- none of which guaranteed a link between vaccines and autism, but all of which called the "Vaccines are safe" and "Science is in" mantras into question.
So I kept digging, and decided to do a series of podcasts on the subject, in an effort to find out as much as I could about the topic so we could decide the best way to handle vaccinating our daughter.
What follows are 4 episodes:
In this first one, I talk to "VAXXED" producer Del Bigtree about the CDC whistleblower, and why Doctor Andrew Wakefield, the director of the movie, may not be "The Father of the Anti-Vaccine Movement" as most seem to think.
Episode 1 is live on iTunes here: https://goo.gl/nXkFPI
And here's the direct link: http://goo.gl/32ypH9
In the 2nd (coming soon), I talk to investigative journalist Brian Deer, the man responsible for discrediting Wakefield all those years ago.
In the 3rd (coming a little less soon, but still soon), I talk to Louis Conte and Mary Holland, each of whom has done a lot of scientific and common sense research, and the only viable conclusion they could reach is their children are vaccine-injured. They conducted a study with Pace University that learned the U.S. government has actually been paying out vaccine-injured children who *happen* to also have autism... for years... at least 80 cases that they know of.
In the 4th and final episode (coming a little after the 3rd), since I hadn't spoken with an actual doctor, I talk to Dr. Stephanie Seneff, an MIT biologist who has been looking into this subject, and who feels the real culprit behind the skyrocketing autism numbers are the chemicals we use very cavalierly in our society... not just, but including, vaccines.
This series of conversations taught me a lot about just how unsettled the debate on vaccine safety and the causal link between vaccines and autism really is. I hope you get as much out of them as I did.
Again, to be clear, we're still vaccinating our daughter, but we're going to do it in as safe a way as possible, using resources like Dr. Sears alternate schedule to guide us... but the lesson I learned here was to question things, because questioning is really the only way to get answers, and for me the biggest red flag in all of this is how unwilling we as a society seem to be to even engage in this extremely important conversation.
I understand the risks an anti-vaccine movement presents, and I have no intention of contributing to that, but I also don't think it's fair for us as a society to act like vaccine-injured children don't exist, and to treat their parents like they're crazy.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Let's have the conversation. Let's get the answers.
There's a difference between being anti-vax (which we're not) and pro-safe vax (which we are), and there has to be a way to keep vaccinating children without hurting any, but until we start pushing the government and the pharmaceutical industry to do better, we'll never get there.
It might be a long, difficult road, but that's no excuse not to try. Every year that passes without talking about this, more kids get hurt, and even one vaccine-injured child is too many.
BIO:
Justin Kanew is a writer-producer in Los Angeles who was also a 2-time contestant on "THE AMAZING RACE" on CBS with his best friend Zev-- the first ever Amazing Race contestant on the autism spectrum. He lives in Encino, CA with his wife Nicole, a BCBA, and his recently born daughter Kaia. He also hosts "GET IT GOT IT GOOD", a podcast that was recently #16 on the iTunes News & Politics" chart. Subscribe to it here: And follow him on Twitter here: @justin_kanew
Jenny, In my opinion, Justin covered a lot of ground in the first two interviews and the audio clips were well chosen. I look forward to the other episodes. It's a pity there will only be four of them, because I'd really like Justin to interview two Medical Doctors sitting on opposite sides of the fence: Dr Suzanne Humphries, author of Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and The Forgotten History...
http://drsuzanne.net/
... along Dr Paul Offit who, as we know, writes a book about a condition he knows next to nothing about i.e. Autism; claims that babies can safely receive 10,000 vaccines at one time; that "ethylmercury is frankly a very gentle bacteriostatic agent" and considers "aluminum to be an essential metal.....believed to play an important role in the development of a healthy fetus". I'd like Justin to ask Dr Offit for the science behind those statements, or if they bear more resemblance to the tall tales he heard salespeople tell at his father's sales meetings that he despised so much in his youth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Offit
Posted by: ATSC | May 30, 2016 at 08:39 PM
Ronald and Grace,
I agree with John that interviewing Deer was an excellent thing to do: he's the one who started the whole mess by bringing legal action against Wakefield before the GMC. And so he was holding himself forth as someone with enough knowledge of the subject to be competent in his choosing to bring an action so dishonest and so devastating in its consequences. I was very interested in what he said, which was shown by Justin to be so at variance with reality. It's great that now we have sound bites: first Deer's lies, then the real expert witnesses.
Posted by: cia parker | May 30, 2016 at 04:57 PM
cia parker, I just wanted to supplement what you said about Vitamin A as a protocol for measles treatment.
You said: "And the vitamin A factor: even to many well-nourished children with measles are deficient in vitamin A since measles goes through existing stores so fast, and that seriously hampers immune function as well."
For vitamin A deficiency, I think that it's interesting to note that the recommended daily allowance (RDI) for an adult is 3,000 IU.
But when you are infected with measles, many sources call for a protocol of 50,000 IU of vitamin A for infants under 6 months and 100,000 IU for infants 6-12 months.
Just think about that for a moment, an infant under 6 months requires almost 17 TIMES the adult RDI for vitamin A, which should be a clue as to HOW IMPORTANT vitamin A is during measles infection.
Vitamin effects on the immune system: vitamins A and D take centre stage
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2906676/
Retinoic acid enhances cytotoxicity and T-cell proliferation, the latter probably mediated, at least in part, by enhancing IL-2 secretion and signalling in T cells.
Notably, it has been reported that a distinct set of vitamin A metabolites classified as retro-retinoids can also affect general lymphocyte functions such as B-cell proliferation
Retinoic acid can also modulate antigen presentation by exerting direct effects on DC function. For example, retinoic acid increases the expression of matrix metalloproteinases, thereby increasing the migration of tumour-infiltrating DCs to the draining lymph nodes, which have the potential to boost tumour-specific T-cell responses54. In addition, in the presence of inflammatory stimuli, such as tumour-necrosis factor (TNF), retinoic acid enhances DC maturation and antigen-presenting capacity, both of which are effects mediated by RXR receptors.
Lots of big words, but essentially it is saying:
Posted by: whyser | May 30, 2016 at 04:52 PM
Justin states:- "The Brian Deer interview will be going up here at AofA shortly, so I'll wait for that to happen instead of sharing the link here..."
I'm looking forward to this!! Brian Deer is the original snake-oil salesman . A cold hard analysis of what he actually stated will soon demolish his arguments. Many US readers will be unaware Deer's 2011 BMJ articles, one the subject of attempted slander litigation by Dr Wakefield in Texas*, and dismissed on 'jurisdiction' grounds, went down in the UK like a 'lead ballon'. This was because the three articles were so litigious the UK Press Association warned journalists against reporting them. Not so in the US where Deer's, now notorious Anderson Cooper CNN interview, metaphorically 'lynched' Dr Wakefield, accusing him amongst other allegations of 'murdering' children. If this interview had taken place in front of a mob the lynching would have been real.
The third BMJ article in Deer's trilogy was ' How the vaccine crisis was meant to make money'. Paul Offit included a fancilful and highly slanderous section about one of the litigation lawyers, in his book Deadly Choices. UK Book signings were lined up and a publisher produced the books, all of which were pulped when the lawyer threatened to sue both Offit and the publisher. The lawyer would have won substantial damages. The allegations were all fantasy.
Deer has delivered several lectures in the US, including from Johns Hopkins University. Getting a transcript was previously virtually impossible. Deer always insisted on no transcripts being publicly available. However, the much publicised 'prestigious annual life sciences' lecture at La Crosse University, was well attended not only by students of the university, but several persons from AoA and other Wakefield friendly commenters. There were plenty of smart phones and transcripts and extracts soon appeared on AoA and social media. Basically Deer's lecture was nothing to do with life sciences, unless you include his comment about him being 'motivated by sex and getting his name in the papers'. There was an avalanche of complaints, including from the students themselves, forced to sit through this diatribe against Dr Wakefield and everyone else whom Deer regards as enemies, including the parents of MMR vaccine damaged children.
Posted by: Jenny Allan | May 30, 2016 at 12:39 PM
ATSC,
I agree that it was definitely the treatment rather than the measles which killed Olivia. Half the children hospitalized for measles in that California study were well-nourished, but had vitamin A deficiency. It may well be that if Olivia had been supplemented with it, she may not have died. It is never measles itself which kills patients, but complications arising as a result of the measles. If a patient doesn't stay warm, quiet, and well-hydrated in bed from the beginning of the illness until the fever is gone, he may get pneumonia, which is usually viral and self-limiting, but may be bacterial. If it is bacterial, it can usually be treated with antibiotics. Most of the American children who died in the 1989 outbreak died of pneumonia (which is true in all outbreaks), because they didn't get allopathic medical care and antibiotics. That wasn't true of Olivia. The next danger is fever reducers hampering the efforts of the immune system to overcome the infection, and they also increase the risk of measles encephalitis (which has always been very rare). That is probably what happened to Olivia. The last danger is secondary infections either during or in the weeks after measles, since measles depresses immune function much more than most illnesses. Keeping the patient in bed and possibly sick people away from him will prevent most such infections, and it is important to keep the patient at home (no longer in bed) for two or three weeks after the day the rash appeared, until the immune system has recovered. The patient will look and feel well long before that, but he is still at risk during those weeks. That was not what happened to Olivia. I'm pretty sure it was the aspirin which I'm sure they gave her. What else would a loving, middle-class family have done in 1963 if a child had a headache? I had read that she complained of a headache when she was already in the recovery stage.
Posted by: cia parker | May 30, 2016 at 12:06 PM
Ronald
I couldn't agree less. I am not saying the Justin Kanew asked Deer all the questions he might have done but Deer's activities are fundamental to the representation of the issue and therefore it is important to talk about it. However you crunch the science the issue of the integrity of journalists and of institutions is one to keep before the public. People need to know how they are being manipulated and this is much part of it. Deer was put out there to defend certain interests and people should understand that.
Posted by: John Stone | May 30, 2016 at 10:52 AM
Grace Green,
"What is the point of a journalist interviewing another journalist, especially one with no specialist knowledge or credentials?"
Exactly; that was the point of my initial comment on this thread. If Justin wanted to gain a better understanding of vaccine safety, there are many experts he could have interviewed (as I pointed out). Reporters, lawyers, journalists, etc, are far from the available primary sources. I don't agree with your last sentence in characterizing Justin, but I have yet to understand his agenda.
Posted by: Ronald Kostoff | May 30, 2016 at 10:31 AM
Hi Grace
I don't agree, and several readers at least thought Deer had come out badly. The real story is in many ways what Deer did. For years we have been trying to get mainstream jounalists to attend to that. The only one that did was Melanie Phillips.
http://web.archive.org/web/20090219154520/http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3362116/a-deer-in-the-headlights.thtml">http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3362116/a-deer-in-the-headlights.thtml">http://web.archive.org/web/20090219154520/http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3362116/a-deer-in-the-headlights.thtml
Posted by: John Stone | May 30, 2016 at 05:40 AM
What is the point of a journalist interviewing another journalist, especially one with no specialist knowledge or credentials? The fact that Justin wanted to interview Deer puts him beyond the pale for me. That man is a liar and an ignoramus and no-one here should be giving that interview the time of day. There's plenty of science information out there, and if Justin wanted questions answering he should have started reading this website and followed the links. To me, he comes across as arrogant in his attitude.
Posted by: Grace Green | May 30, 2016 at 05:16 AM
Cia,
Olivia complained of feeling sleepy but it's possible she received aspirin during the course of the disease because everyone assumed that aspirin was safe to give to children until the 1980s when researchers found a link with Reye's Syndrome, and aspirin was eventually banned for children under 16 in the UK and under 19 in the US. What we know for a fact is that she didn't received Vitamin A, and while she was unconscious, she was given 3mg sodium amatol. What I think we are both saying is that it's likely that the treatment was responsible for her death not measles itself.
There's a very interesting article on measles at Think Twice with a section on Vitamin A and Nutrition. Mainstream doctors completely forgot about Vitamin A therapy when antibiotics and vaccines came along and it took until 1993 for a study to show that
"72 percent of all measles cases in the U.S. requiring hospitalization are deficient in vitamin A. The greater the deficiency, the worse the complications and higher the probability of dying".
http://thinktwice.com/measles.htm
Posted by: ATSC | May 29, 2016 at 08:17 PM
ATSC,
Olivia was over the acute stage of her measles, but complained of a headache. I'm pretty sure that her parents would have given her an aspirin for the headache: at that time, 1963? it was not yet known that giving aspirin to children can sometimes cause severe complications leading to death. I think that's the most probable explanation for the encephalitis which killed her.
Posted by: cia parker | May 29, 2016 at 11:25 AM
Benedetta,
From Roald Dahl's account, Olivia fell into unconsciousness at home, and as soon as she arrived at hospital by ambulance, a young doctor gave her the sodium amatol and a spinal tap:
https://www.ovg.ox.ac.uk/blogs/ojohn/how-dangerous-measles
Understandably, Roald Dahl became a spokesman for the measles vaccine but would treatment with Vitamin A during the course of the disease have changed the outcome? Knowing what we do now, I think so.
Posted by: ATSC | May 29, 2016 at 12:34 AM
Karen,
I also think you made a great comment. Too often we think in small pieces: that disease can kill, and most people seem to get the shots without adverse reactions, and we don't have many people dying of the diseases, so getting the vaxxes is the right answer, without considering the consequences of the huge number of vaccines routinely given now. I just wrote to Grace who mentioned someone who recommended that a moratorium be placed on giving vaccines to those under three until we figure out what's going on. I said I agreed with the idea, but we'd then have to make it possible for all families with working mothers to have a licensed caregiver care for babies and toddlers in the home. For the same price as daycare, which is already outrageous, and have the government pay the difference. It would not be possible to have millions of unvaccinated children in daycare without having a lot of them get severe cases of the VPDs and even die of them. And have a government program to encourage breastfeeding by grants or tax breaks, start a program of breast milk banks, pay women to donate milk and make it possible for all babies who needed it to have access to it, and a huge educational program on the many benefits of breastfeeding for the health of both mother and baby. And try large scale programs of homeopathic nosodes to see what the results were. And make high-dose IV vitamin C part of the standard medical protocol for treating everything. Judith said something the other day about some people being allergic to an ingredient used in vitamin C solutions, and I can only say that I believe it and we need to research alternatives, but the benefits outweigh the risks.
Posted by: cia parker | May 28, 2016 at 07:19 PM
ATSC,
One problem is that giving fever reducers reflexively to those who have a temperature over 100 degrees is a dangerous practice which has become almost universal now, but wasn't around 1960. It hampers immune function, and can cause dangerous complications or even encephalitis. Going through the childhood feverish diseases naturally educates the immune system so that it is easier for it to go through each subsequent one more easily, and most kids now don't get ANY of them, so that if they DO get one, the rate of complications and mortality is higher. And the vitamin A factor: even to many well-nourished children with measles are deficient in vitamin A since measles goes through existing stores so fast, and that seriously hampers immune function as well. A 1992 study found that 50% of children hospitalized for measles had vitamin A deficiency. Antonio Arrieta, "Vitamin A Levels in Children with Measles in Long Beach, California," The Journal of Pediatrics, July 1992, p. 75.
Posted by: cia parker | May 28, 2016 at 07:07 PM
Karen,
Great comment.
Re: " The CDC has stated that 1 in 5 kids between the ages of 3 and 17 has a mental disorder. Considering the source that is likely an underestimate."
Or an overestimate to justify the ridiculous amount of prescriptions.
Posted by: Linda1 | May 28, 2016 at 05:13 PM
Justin,
A comment by a reader implied that I along with most of the other commenters had not shown the proper respect by giving you feedback on the interviews. I have listened to both twice, and am grateful for your courage to cover this topic. I am relatively new to the understanding of vaccine related injury and its manifestations. Unfortunately, it took a ton of bricks to fall on me before I figured it out As a pharmacist, I just never questioned the science or safety of the recommended immunization schedule. What I was trying to point out in my comment on May 25th was that the scope of vaccine injury goes beyond autism. Among young people that we know we are seeing autoimmune disorders such as life threatening lupus, autoimmune hepatitis, rheumatoid arthritis, eosinophilic esophagitis. We know several children with severe food allergies, seizure disorders, ADD, and asthma. What is telling is that for the most part these kids all have relatively healthy parents. So something is happening early on in their lives to cause this.The CDC has stated that 1 in 5 kids between the ages of 3 and 17 has a mental disorder. Considering the source that is likely an underestimate. The fact that doctors don't screen for immune deficiency (you know, the exact kids the "herd" is supposed to protect) before administering vaccines is a clear indication this entire system is risky. The fact that we keep being told "the science is settled" is all the reason in the world to question it. Wishing you and your family the best!
Posted by: Karen Woytowitz | May 28, 2016 at 02:25 PM
ATSC
Some times with brain injuries and infections they do induce comas. Perhaps that was what was going on?
The question that should be researched with 1.8 billion dollars is not the zika virus, but why some times our immune system lets us down and we succumb to something as simple as measles or polio, or even mumps.
Posted by: Benedetta | May 28, 2016 at 12:47 PM
"In just twenty years, measles had decreased so much in virulence that in 1960 it caused death in one in 10,000 cases in the US, two in 10,000 cases in the UK."
A mortality rate of 1-2 per 10,000 cases is far more compatible with the CDC estimated 4 million measles cases in the US per year and 450 measles deaths (1 measles-associated death per 8888 cases) than the current rate of 1-3 deaths per 1000 which terrifies young parents into vaccinating their children.
What was it that protected the vast majority of us who sailed through the disease without any complications, or say they never caught it, and what was wrong with the people who suffered complications? Administering Vitamin A to children in developing countries has halved the death rate, so could complications have been more prevalent in the nutritionally deficient? And when complications arose, what treatment did they receive?
Having read Roald Dahl's sad story of losing his daughter to measles encephalitis, I'm curious to know why a doctor would give 3mg of sodium amatol to a comatose patient. Does anyone here know why a sedative would be given to an unconscious person? It doesn't sound right to me.
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Sodium+amatol
Posted by: ATSC | May 27, 2016 at 09:52 PM
cia
I am not qualified to write such a book and I would not do so. This way I can stay true to the path and look at information as I receive it from a neutral perspective. The way I have been assisting people is to ask them to be specific in what they are looking for and than provide websites that can given them clear information. Many people shifted when Dr. Thompson's confession was revealed and began asking questions. When Vaxxed was censored and it hit the news another group of people made the shift but from many of the comments I've read online they don't know where to go from there. Trolls were all over the internet before the film had it's first viewing, so many are confused not only by the lack of backstory but by the controlled opposition. As you said people who are interested will do their own research which is my point of contention with Justin's interview, why didn't he do more research to provide the backstory and ask Deer more probative questions.
These are my opinions about the interview and why I found it lacking. If you think he did a good job I have no problem with that. It's just isn't doing it for me.
Posted by: Danchi | May 27, 2016 at 08:18 PM
Danchi,
I think you should write a book providing the information which you think it would be good for new people to know. Everyone is chipping away at this in his own way, as best he can, Justin as well as countless others.
Posted by: cia parker | May 27, 2016 at 04:13 PM
Cia,
You and I have been following the drama for many years and we still are wading our way through the murky waters. In researching vaccines not just the Wakefield witch hunt, there are misdirections, fradulet studies, psy-ops, government information that looks legit, false information pushed by a legion of celebrity MSM doctors, bais MSM articles no doubt written by Pharma ghost writers, websites like the science blogs & left brain right brain that look legitimate but are financed by pharma and a brigaide of trolls from all over the being assigned to blogs to bully, threaten, abuse & intimitate anyone who oppose the propganda of the medical industrial complex being given free reign in the MSM, how would a newbie discern the truth no matter how interested they are? I have communicated with people so frustrated because the amount of info is overwhelming. A map is needed or something that points them in the right direction. Frustration & confusion will compel them to abandon their research and become passive. Something we don't want.
Posted by: Dancihi | May 27, 2016 at 03:00 PM
Justin,
If you haven't already read it, an interesting review of Mr Conte's book The Autism War.
http://thinkingmomsrevolution.com/autism-war-fiction-true-crime/
Posted by: Greyone | May 27, 2016 at 01:52 PM
Danchi,
I don't think every article or program needs to seek the same audience: I think those who even know who Brian Deer is are already pretty far into the loop, and it can be assumed they have a basic background in the issue. If they didn't and were at all interested, it's easy to look on the computer to get much more information.
Posted by: cia parker | May 27, 2016 at 10:59 AM
Researcher,
You made the same mistake, it wasn't 4.3 deaths per 100,000 cases in 1922, but 4.3 deaths out of every 100,000 population. In 1940 in the UK, there were 409,521, reported measles cases, with 857 deaths, or 21 deaths per 10,000 cases. In just twenty years, measles had decreased so much in virulence that in 1960 it caused death in one in 10,000 cases in the US, two in 10,000 cases in the UK.
Posted by: cia parker | May 27, 2016 at 12:12 AM
cia parker
The problem with the way the interview was handled is people who are now awakening to this genocide against our children don't know the backstory. Those are the ones that need to be reached.
Posted by: Danchi | May 26, 2016 at 09:44 PM
David,
It depends on the flu. Your body instinctively knows how high the temperature needs to be to defeat that particular germ and how long to hold it there. In August, I had a fever of 104. The following week when I went back to puppy kindergarten at Petco, our teacher told me that he had had that flu, that he had had a fever of 103 for several days. Both of us had a relapse not quite as bad as the first time the following week. Our language therapist told me that a lot of kids were out with it when school started the following week, and I think I caught it from someone at the health food store: they said they had had several employees out with it.
In 1999, I had a flu at the beginning of the university semester in January, I had a fever of 105. My mother wanted me to go to the doctor and take a fever reducer, but I wouldn't do either one. She said I'd miss teaching for weeks, but two days after having the high fever I was back teaching. A friend who worked in the language lab said two of her aides had that flu, and both had fevers of 105. It was just that flu. Not a big deal if you just let the fever ride and stay well-hydrated.
Posted by: cia parker | May 26, 2016 at 08:26 PM
Danchi,
Deer hanged himself. It's a good thing that he opined on Vaxxed while admitting he hadn't seen it, everything he said was contradicted by Justin's evidence. I thought Justin did a great job. It wouldn't have made any difference whether Deer had seen it or not, he would have said just exactly the same thing about everything, that everyone affected by vaccine damage is lying or hysterical. Very good. No one believes him anymore. At the Vaxxed showing, every single person in the audience said they knew someone who had autism from vaccines. And the pharma minion insists more and more shrilly that we're ALL wrong, ALL lying. Deer discredited himself with every word out of his mouth. He will never recover from this.
Posted by: cia parker | May 26, 2016 at 08:20 PM
Johns Hopkins has had a recent comedy night apparently and finally come up with the cause of the Autism Pandemic , wait for it , "eating salads" . So it isnt the TV, internet or sparrows .
If those salads are laced with Monsatans glyphosate or Agent Orange , then I'll consider it .
Posted by: Sophie Scholl | May 26, 2016 at 06:56 PM
Jenny: In response to your suggestion, I listened to the Del Bigtree interview. Del Bigtree is always good; he has a fine mind and exceptional clarity about a subject he is relatively new to. I could only stomach three minutes of the Brian Deer interview. He has nothing of any positive value to say. He is a despicable excuse for a human being. I do find an audio interview interspersed with audio clips is a bit difficult to follow, but then I am more of a visual learner.
Posted by: Gary Ogden | May 26, 2016 at 06:39 PM
I'd just like to say I do appreciate all the feedback and links, and I'm glad this post and this comments section will live on as a resource so I can keep learning about the topic, which I'm admittedly new to and find to be as important as any. I find everyone here to be genuinely concerned, even the ones who are angry at me. So thank you.
The Brian Deer interview will be going up here at AofA shortly, so I'll wait for that to happen instead of sharing the link here... I would like to say though, to Kat- ripping me about an interview you haven't listened to for talking to a man about a movie he hasn't seen... that's a special one I'll remember right there! But I appreciate the feedback nonetheless.
And to Danchi- I would have asked for pointers before the Deer interview, but it happened weeks ago. I hadn't yet connected with this community, so I did the best I could.
Jenny, Cia, Bob, and the many others I can't name, thank you for kind words and the information. Lots to chew on.
Posted by: Justin | May 26, 2016 at 06:29 PM
Linda,
This is a good source of information, on measles notifications AND deaths in the UK from 1940 to the present, so you can see the fatality rate.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/measles-deaths-by-age-group-from-1980-to-2013-ons-data/measles-notifications-and-deaths-in-england-and-wales-1940-to-2013
In 1940, there were 409,521 reported cases of measles, with 1,349 deaths, or 21 out of 10,000 cases. The death rate plummeted in a short time, the way deaths from smallpox, pertussis, and scarlet fever had, so that in 1960 in the US the death rate was one in 10,000 cases. In the UK in 1960, there were 159,364 reported cases, with 31 deaths, or 1.945 deaths per 10,000 cases.
Posted by: cia parker | May 26, 2016 at 06:10 PM
Linda,
You put: "But there's more. In the 3rd edition of the textbook, _Infectious Disease Epidemiology_ by Nelson (Johns Hopkins) and Williams (NIH), in Table 2-9 on page 37 "Death Rates for Common Infectious Diseases in the United States in 1900, 1935, and 1970", the measles death rate per 100,000 population is listed as:
1900 - 13.3
1935 - 3.1"
So 3.1 death rate for 100,000 population means that in a town with 100,000 people, there were 3.1 deaths a year from measles, when only maybe 2,000 people had gotten it in that town that year (most having already had it, each person getting it only once at some point in his life). So that would make it 3.1 deaths out of 2,000 cases, or 15.5 deaths in 10,000 cases.
Posted by: cia parker | May 26, 2016 at 05:48 PM
"The cases or mortality per 100,000 population aren't the same as the mortality per number of cases. Most of the 100,000 didn't get the disease."
You're of course, right, Cia. Thanks for pointing that out.
Sorry for the incorrect analysis.
(But the 1/1000 cases is still wrong!)
Posted by: Linda1 | May 26, 2016 at 05:35 PM
Listened to the Deer interview. Excellent job, Justin. I like your style. Very thorough and you didn't let him get away with anything. PLEASE keep peeling back the layers to unfold and report the truth.
Posted by: Linda1 | May 26, 2016 at 05:24 PM
My comments are being halved. Is this a new thing? Are we being limited to a finite number of characters in a comment?
Posted by: Danchi | May 26, 2016 at 05:12 PM
Listening to the interview I have mixed feelings. I thought about it but my feeling are no longer mixed. First, I don't think Justin is a good interviewer. My opinion. Anyone can ask questions but the right questions were not asked. Second, given the fact he's posted on this blog about his upcoming interview with the liar known a Deer, might he (Justin) have requested assistance from John or Dan who are experienced and knowledgeable about Deer on how to frame questions to Deer that were more provocative. People who are familiar with the Wakefield witch hunt learned nothing new and people who are new to this drama-learned nothing. I did have a problem with Justin framing Deer as some sort of hero when even the British High Court stated that Deer's accusations were crap.
Third: When Deer stated he hasn't seen the film that should have quashed any questions into the film itself. How can he comment on a film he's not seen? Allowing Deer to pontificate gave him a bully pulpit he doesn't deserve.
Justin: Have you read the cohort paper written by Wakefield and 12 other researchers?
-Are you aware of the papers conclusion? If not, here it is:
Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. Lancet 1998; 351: 637-641.
A J Wakefield, S H Murch, A Anthony, J Linnell, D M Casson, M Malik, M Berelowitz, A P Dhillon, M A Thomson, P Harvey, A Valentine, S E Davies, J A Walker-Smith
We did not prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described. Virological studies are underway that may help to resolve this issue. If there is a causal link between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and this syndrome, a rising incidence might be anticipated after the introduction of this vaccine in the UK in 1988. Published evidence is inadequate to show whether there is a change in incidence 22 or a link with measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine. 23
A genetic predisposition to autistic-spectrum disorders is suggested by over-representation in boys and a greater concordance rate in monozygotic than in dizygotic twins. 15 In the context of susceptibility to infection, a genetic association with autism, linked to a null allele of the complement (C) 4B gene located in the class III region of the major- histocompatibility complex, has been recorded by Warren and colleagues. 24 C4B -gene products are crucial for the activation of the complement pathway and protection against infection: individuals inheriting one or two 4Bull alleles may not handle certain viruses appropriately, possibly including attenuated strains.
Justin are you aware that:
THE ACCURACY AND PATHOLOGY OF THE PAPER HAS NOT BEEN DISPUTED and still isn’t to this day.
“Fiona Godlee, the editor of the BMJ, says that the journal's conclusion of fraud was not based on the pathology but on a number of discrepancies between the children's records and the claims in the Lancet paper…”
Posted by: Danchi | May 26, 2016 at 05:10 PM
Cia,
Why was it 1 out of 32,258 in 1935 and 1 in 10,000 in 1989? That's more than triple the mortality 54 years later.
Posted by: Linda1 | May 26, 2016 at 05:09 PM
Linda,
The cases or mortality per 100,000 population aren't the same as the mortality per number of cases. Most of the 100,000 didn't get the disease. It's hard to compare them unless you normalize it.
Posted by: cia parker | May 26, 2016 at 04:46 PM
Cia,
I'm not saying that pertussis isn't bad in a baby. Do your references have mortality rates from pertussis for older children and adults in the prevaccine era?
Posted by: Linda1 | May 26, 2016 at 04:33 PM
Linda,
I read the other day that in the measles epidemic in 1989, the death rate was fairly high. It said that although the incidence had plunged because of the vaccine, that the number of deaths remained exactly the same as before, a higher rate since it was out of a lower number of cases. It may be that children now don't go through illness as well as they used to, because their immune systems are deprived of the chance to be strengthened by going through the diseases, and they are given fever reducers at the first sign of fever, when that destroys the whole point of getting the diseases. And we know that there are more children who are immunocompromised (usually by vaccines) than there ever were before. In Europe five years ago the mortality rate in a measles epidemic was three per 10,000, higher than the 1 per 10,000 cases in 1960 in the US and the 1.5 per 10,000 in the UK in the '80s. It's still not a lot who are affected, but three out of 10,000 is triple 1 in 10,000. I think measles may be slightly more dangerous (much like pertussis) for many possible reasons: routine use of antipyretics, reduced opportunity to get the childhood diseases, more immunocompromised patients.
Posted by: cia parker | May 26, 2016 at 04:31 PM
Justin,
Excellent interview with Del Bigtree. You fit a lot of information into a short time slot. You mentioned measles mortality. This is one reason (of many) why I am so cynical. The public is told ad nauseum by public health officials and the press that the mortality rate is 1-2/1000 cases. Before I looked any further, I knew that was baloney because I grew up in the pre measles vaccine era. According to the CDC's own report, it was 1/1000 *reported* cases. They play games like this, leaving out words, telling half truths, outright lying. Please see below:
"In 1962, immediately preceding the licensure of the first measles vaccines in the United States, when measles was a nearly universal disease, Alexander Langmuir described the medical importance of measles to the country and put forth the challenge of measles eradication [1]. Although most patients recovered without permanent sequelae, the high number of cases each year made measles a significant cause of serious morbidity and mortality Langmuir showed that >90% of Americans were infected with the measles virus by age 15 years [1]. This equated to roughly 1 birth cohort (4 million people) infected with measles each year. Not all cases were reported to the public health system; from 1956 to 1960, an average of 542,000 cases were reported annually.By the late 1950s, even before the introduction of measles vaccine, measles-related deaths and case fatality rates in the United States had decreased markedly, presumably as a result of improvement in health care and nutrition. From 1956 to 1960, an average of 450 measles-related deaths were reported each year (∼1 death/ 1000 reported cases), compared with an average of 5300 measles-related deaths during 1912–1916 (26 deaths/ 1000 reported cases) [2]."
http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/189/Supplement_1/S1.long
But there's more. In the 3rd edition of the textbook, _Infectious Disease Epidemiology_ by Nelson (Johns Hopkins) and Williams (NIH), in Table 2-9 on page 37 "Death Rates for Common Infectious Diseases in the United States in 1900, 1935, and 1970", the measles death rate per 100,000 population is listed as:
1900 - 13.3
1935 - 3.1
1970 - 0.0 (that is not a typo)
In 1970, my generation were teens. We all had the measles and we all have life long natural immunity that we were able to protect our infants with. We had at that time true herd immunity. While health officials cry about how everyone must be vaccinated in order to protect infants who are too young to be vaccinated, they leave out the little detail that before vaccination when mothers had natural immunity infants were protected. Vaccinated mothers do not have the same ability to pass immunity to measles onto their infants. Quite a mess vaccination has made.
So in 1935, 3.1 deaths out of 100,000 cases = 1 death out of 32,258 cases.
Even in 1900, 13.3 out of 100,000 = 1 death out of every 7,519 cases. That's before refrigeration, antibiotics, respirators, and indoor plumbing.
See why I'm just a tad irritated to hear 1 (to 2!) out of 1000 cases?
The data in that table is from "the National Office of Vital Statistics, U.S. Public Health Service, and from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention". The book is a mainstream pro vaccine immunology textbook copyright 2014.
Regarding what happens when those with natural immunity to measles die off leaving only those with vaccine "immunity", please see this article from 1984 that concludes:
"The results of this study suggest that measles elimination in the United States has been achieved by an effective immunization program aimed at young susceptibles combined with a highly, naturally immunized adult population. However, despite short-term success in eliminating the disease, long-range projections demonstrate that the proportion of susceptibles in the year 2050 may be greater than in the prevaccine era."
Am J Epidemiol. 1984 Jul;120(1):39-48.
The future of measles in highly immunized populations. A modeling approach.
Levy DL.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6741921
IOW, they don't have the least slightest idea of what they're doing and what will happen. Making it up as they go along. One big experiment.
Posted by: Linda1 | May 26, 2016 at 04:04 PM
I thought Brian Deer made a complete fool of himself during this interview. Unlike some others I thought Justin Kanew had cleverly chosen those clips and quotes from Dr Wakefield, Dr Thompson and others. Getting Deer to admit any fault or wrongdoing is impossible, but his glib assertions and attempts at rationalisation in response to what were unassailable facts, were at times ridiculous and plainly 'cut no ice' with Mr Kanew. Most of all, Deer admitted he had not even seen the film Vaxxed, but of course 'he knew what was in it'. Actually he didn't!!
As John points out Deer has been pontificating in much the same manner for more than 12 years. In the UK, Deer is plainly 'personna non grata' amongst the upper echelons of the medical/political establishment. In the US, a few people are still prepared to give Deer airtime, but after the embarrassment of his disastrous 'prestigious life sciences lecture' at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, 2012, he is now shunned by the academic community. (Deer has NO formal qualifications in life or any other sciences. His ignorance showed, and he was not above including some base profanity in his lecture).
Perhaps Deer, and Lipkin, Singer et al, should reflect on that old saying in the entertainment industry 'there is no such thing as bad publicity'!
Posted by: Jenny Allan | May 26, 2016 at 03:51 PM
Bob Moffitt
I'd answer your questions, but I'm getting censored right now by AOA - my latest posts have been rejected.
Yes, your very own AOA is censoring an important debate on the subtle attacks of false friends.
Lamentable.
Posted by: Lev | May 26, 2016 at 03:17 PM
Linda,
I don't think that was the case. Pertussis was a horrifyingly deadly disease century ago, and mortality from it WAS greatly reduced by the time the vaccine was introduced, by 75%, I've read, depending on location and your beginning and ending points, but it was still very high by today's standards. Let me look it up. From charts in Wendy Lydall's Raising a Vaccine-Free Child, p. 92: in the UK around 1870, the year with the highest mortality, it was 18,000 deaths. Pertussis peaks naturally every 33 months, and after 1870 there are peaks and valleys, with the peaks ever lower: in 1902, 9,000 deaths, in 1925, 3,000, less than 1,000 in the early 1940s, and it was down to the bottom line by the year the DPT was introduced there in 1956. While I've got the book out and before going to Dissolving Illusions, in 1870 in the UK, there were 31,000 deaths from scarlet fever; diphtheria deaths peaked at 9,000 about 1890. I think it's important to recognize that people still have a sort of collective memory of what it was like to have that many children die every year from contagious disease, and why they accepted vaccines as a godsend.
OK, Dr. Suzanne Humphries' Dissolving Illusions, p. 196. Her charts are done differently, not overall number of deaths, but deaths per 100,000, so it's hard to compare them. In 1862 in England and Wales, it was 160 deaths from scarlet fever out of every 100,000, the peak mortality rate. In 1870, the mortality rate from pertussis was nearly 80 per 100,000 population. Measles peaked at 70 deaths per 100,000 in 1840. In the US, mortality from pertussis was 17 per 100,000 in 1918. England and Wales had 3,000 deaths from pertussis in 1934, 10,000 in 1918 (back to the overall number of deaths on the charts).
I think that the childhood diseases, and smallpox too, declined in both incidence and virulence before the vaccines (except for measles, which remained universal until the vaccine, though much milder than it had been), both because of better nutrition and because the diseases self-selected to become milder, it being in their evolutionary interest to do so. But I think the DPT virtually eliminated the incidence of these diseases in the populations which used it. My 87 year old neighbor had pertussis and measles as a child, and her sister had the attenuated form of smallpox in 1928. No one I knew or heard of growing up ever had pertussis. Again, I'm not promoting the use of the vaccine, just saying that stopping its incidence in children was understandably viewed as a desirable thing at that time. Wow, can you imagine what the media would do if there were 31,000 children a year dying of scarlet fever now, or 18,000 from pertussis? And that was when my great grandparents were children or young, not that long ago. My great-grandfather's father died in a Yankee prisoner-of-war camp, while his wife and four of his children died of spinal meningitis. There were a lot of deaths from diphtheria in the ex-Soviet Union 25 years ago. It's interesting to read about and imagine the horror of such epidemics.
Posted by: cia parker | May 26, 2016 at 03:02 PM
@ Lev
"BOTTOM LINE? Kanew is delivering a not-so-nuanced hitjob against Wakefield, parents, and the autism community. Sorry to say I told you so."
Lev .. I greatly appreciated your posting the site to hear the interview .. thanks for that.
Having said that .. I disagree with your assessment .. which seemed to focus on the "production" quality of the interview .. such as .. "Deer's voice is clear, commanding and authoritive" .. while Wakefield's voice is 'poorly recorded, tinny and sounds far away" .. parent interviews sound "screechy" and hysterical.
I was far more interested in "what" Deer, Wakefield and the parents "said" .. rather than how they "sounded".
In fact, I thought Justin did a great job interspersing ... what appeared to me carefully selected answers .. from Wakefield and parents in immediate response .. concise, effective rebuttals .. to all the Deer's predictable b.s. this scoundrel has been spewing for over a decade now.
As a long-standing member of the "autism community" .. I think Justin's interview was far from being a "nuanced hit-job" on Wakefield or parents within that autism community.
I look forward to his interview of Mary Holland and Lou Conte ..
1 - Deer's voice throughout the podcast is clear, commanding, and authoritative
2 - Wakefield's voice is poorly recorded, tinny, and sounds "far away"
3 - The parent interviews sound "screechy" and hysterical
4 - Kanew gives Deer the OVERWHELMING majority of time, and let's him expound without interrupting or challenging what he states
5 - The interview format of a live Brian Deer juxtaposed with recorded newsquotes and interviews from Wakefield and autism moms is HORRIFIC. It is a case study of hitjob journalism. A live person is allowed to freely comment on recorded soundbites chosen by Kanew instead of the vested parties themselves.
I think Ron said it best: Put Deer on the air with Wakefield directly, both live, otherwise forget it.
Posted by: bob moffit | May 26, 2016 at 02:59 PM
Is there a direct link to the Deer interview?
Posted by: Linda1 | May 26, 2016 at 02:01 PM
Cia,
"I think the reason there was so little pertussis and so mild when it occurred between 1948 and 1995 or so, was probably because the old DPT was very effective in preventing and attenuating it. "
Interesting point. I think thought, that it was mild in all but babies before there ever was a vaccine. Would have to verify that though. The CDC has published their opinion (below) that the vaccine has caused pertussis and related pathogens to become much more virulent just like antibiotics have created superbugs.
I know you've seen this article, but for anyone else who hasn't:
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/15/8/08-1511_article
Posted by: Linda1 | May 26, 2016 at 01:50 PM
I am looking forward to your next interview.
I have heard many interviews and presentations of Mary Holland (most on this site), and find her always thoughtful and to the point. I wish she could be cloned to help deal with all the vaccine bill mill proposals in so many states.
The study she did with Mr Conte, Unanswered Questions, should have raised response from those who do oversight. It did not. Of course, one could say the same about Dr Wakefield's Lancet paper, and the thousands in the autism omnibus hearing, and the ASIA studies, and Dr Lee's Gardasil findings. The vaccine safety system is truly paralyzed.
The interspersing of clips throughout the interview I find disconcerting and distracting.
It is interesting that Mr Deer would not allow the conversation to be framed in any other manner than pro or anti vaccine.
Deer also sounded more than a bit daft when discussing whether vaccines have an association with autism.
Keep asking questions.
Posted by: Greyone | May 26, 2016 at 01:10 PM
Cia, I'm glad that you listened to the Deer interview. I pretty much agree with what you say.
Cia, Kat and Lev - Did you listen to the interview of Del Bigtree at all? What did you think of that one?
Personally, I don't care that he didn't interview Wakefield or whether Wakefield declined an interview. Wakefield has stated his opinions and finding in many other places and it would have just been a repeat of that. I am interested in hearing whether other logical, informed, human beings, who already have an established, non-autism population as an audience, come to the same conclusions Wakefield did after looking at the same information. That's an inroad and that's probably why Justin is being hazed.
Anyway, 90 comments later, we have all given Justin some awesome information, and hopefully Justin sifts through it in a meaningful way. Justin - you can tell by how the majority of these comments went that this audience's primary concern is to save children, even one child that they've never met - yours. Every child counts. The degraded health of one child counts, especially when it might be prevented. If you hate us, but reduce or stop vaccinating your child, people here will consider it a good day and a job well done.
In the meantime, Lisa, David Taylor, Chris Houghton, Joe, Danchi, Carol, Linda1, Andrea, Gary Ognden, Justaparent, BettyBona, Grey One, Grace Greem, Benedetta, Tim Linden, Melissa D, Barry, David Burd, Cherry Misra, Jennifer, John Stone, Hera, Bob Moffatt, Researcher, TRP, ATSC, K Woytowitz, Ronald Castoff, PandasMom, what did you think of Justin's interview of Del Bigtree?
and also, what do you think of his interview of Brian Deer? Justin seems to have read through our comments and responded multiple times. Wouldn't it be great for him to have some feedback on the interviews themselves? I mean, we're all guilty of talking back and forth to each other about things we know about while sometimes not responding to the original article but there is a time or place for everything. Shouldn't we show a bit of respect by actually listening to his interviews now that we've covered the issue of trying to save his child and his family from future angst?
Posted by: Jenny | May 26, 2016 at 01:01 PM
Deer spouting as usual. It is obviously a ridiculous claim that the authors did not know what was in the paper. They might have had something to say when it was published if Andy had done that too them. Ten of them under political pressure signed the "retraction of an interpretation" in 2004 but not their part in the paper. In 2010 and 2011 the two histopathologists wrote to BMJ defending their contribution to the study and denying Deer's intepretation, and in 2012 a British High Court judge completely exonerated the senior author John Walker-Smith, which could not have happened if he had allowed a fraudulent study to go out under his name.
Of course, it is very difficult for a journalist coming fresh to master all the material. Deer hasn't after 12 years, after all.
Posted by: John Stone | May 26, 2016 at 12:34 PM
I just listened to Justin's interview of Brian Deer and I think it was excellent. I'd ask everyone here to listen to it and comment on it. I thought Dr. Wakefield's voice was the clear and authoritative one, while Deer seemed sneering and on the defensive. There are the Lancet parents expressing gratitude and support for Andrew Wakefield, talking about the night and day change in their children after the vaccine. Deer just sneers about mass religious hysteria making parents believe lies, and that the Lancet parents were LYING to try to get a piece of the action in the lawsuit. Deer says that really everyone knows that the time the MMR is given just naturally coincides with the time when children have ALWAY often developed seizures, delirium, and regressed into autism. Deer's single-handedly bring the legal action against Dr. Wakefield before the GMC himself is highlighted, again, to devastating effect.
Deer denies that Thompson has accused the CDC of fraud, while Justin juxtaposes clips from Thompson's statements about his boss wanting him to lie about the study findings, and he refused to lie about it any more, being ashamed of having been a part of it. Justin mentions his friend whose child regressed into autism soon after getting the MMR, to give personal witness to what is happening, and says that at the Q and A after the screening of Vaxxed, that Dr. Wakefield asked those to stand who knew a child who had autism from vaccines, and every single person stood up.
I didn't like that Deer said that the team which did the case series was not a real team, that Dr. Wakefield was solely responsible for the work and the article published in The Lancet, and that the other 11 doctors were not even aware of what it had said when they signed off on it, and that such carelessness and fraud is common in the publication of medical studies. Justin seems to just take his statement at face value, which I don't think was fair.
However, all the rest of the interview was great. Dr. Wakefield's voice was clear and confident, his accent elegant and educated, unlike Deer's sneering, distorted, lower-class accent. The juxtaposition of the voices of the confident, angry parents, of Drs. Wakefield and Thompson, with Deer's really out-of-date attempt to hang onto the myth that vaccines definitely do not cause autism and anyone who says they do is lying or deluded, is stunning, as is the clip about the billions vaccines companies will make from new vaccines if only public confidence in their safety can be kept up, was great as well.
Dr. Wakefield was the clear winner of this interview, even though he regrettably didn't participate in person. I'm looking forward to more of your interviews, Justin.
Posted by: cia parker | May 26, 2016 at 12:13 PM
Justin,
I can appreciate an open mind and so I was interested when I saw your podcast and first article on AoA. This morning seeing the comments on here I followed the link to your second podcast - an interview with Brian Deer.
Here is how the first little bit goes ......here is Brian Deer the hero who destroyed Andy Wakefield!..... and then on to my favorite part Justin asks Brian "Have you seen the movie Vaxxed?" Brian replies "NO I HAVE NOT SEEN IT BUT, I CAN TELL WHAT ITS ABOUT"
that is where I pressed stop and stopped wasting my time listening......hey guess what Justin interviewing a guy about a movie that he admits he hasn't bothered to watch is a JOKE
how can I take anything he says beyond that seriously? and you, pretending like it has value to ask someone questions about facts they refuse to admit even exist? please tell me why you would bother interviewing someone about a movie they haven't seen?
seriously makes no sense. I hope your daughter is one of the lucky ones that is not destroyed by her shots of poison
Posted by: Kat | May 26, 2016 at 12:13 PM
Quick note to Lev- the funny part is the pro-vax people already think Deer gets the short end of the stick in the Deer interview. I asked Wakefield to come on the show, and the publicists declined. I tried to find the best responses Wakefield has given to Deer's charges that I could. I didn't record him myself, he recorded them and put them online, so if you have issues with the audio quality I'd ask you to take that up with him.
I don't see how anyone can come away from this interview thinking I gave Brian Deer free reign to speak his mind without challenging him, but if that's how you choose to see it I'm pretty sure I won't be able to change your mind. Again, thanks for listening, appreciate the feedback.
Posted by: Justin | May 26, 2016 at 11:46 AM
Linda,
Yes, Cecily was in the coughing fits by the last week of January, 2001, eight months old, and I had it by the second week of February.
Just saying, but I think the reason there was so little pertussis and so mild when it occurred between 1948 and 1995 or so, was probably because the old DPT was very effective in preventing and attenuating it. The new acellular version is not. I really am just mentioning it: I recognize how dangerous the vaccine was and is, and that pertussis even now is not bad enough for fear of it to be a reason to get the vaccine. The adverse reactions are so common and so severe that I would definitely recommend NOT getting it, but to be aware of the risk for a young infant and do everything possible to shield him or her from it.
Posted by: cia parker | May 26, 2016 at 11:33 AM
Lev
You may be right. I just felt it was not wise or fair to jump on someone who may just be beginning to have doubts: if we do that it will make it harder to win friends not easier. If it is a charade it will emerge soon enough. Perhaps it already has. I haven't heard the Deer interview.
Posted by: John Stone | May 26, 2016 at 11:04 AM
Just finished listening to Justin Kanew's podcast with Brian Deer. Suspicions confirmed.
1 - Deer's voice throughout the podcast is clear, commanding, and authoritative
2 - Wakefield's voice is poorly recorded, tinny, and sounds "far away"
3 - The parent interviews sound "screechy" and hysterical
4 - Kanew gives Deer the OVERWHELMING majority of time, and let's him expound without interrupting or challenging what he states
5 - The interview format of a live Brian Deer juxtaposed with recorded newsquotes and interviews from Wakefield and autism moms is HORRIFIC. It is a case study of hitjob journalism. A live person is allowed to freely comment on recorded soundbites chosen by Kanew instead of the vested parties themselves.
I think Ron said it best: Put Deer on the air with Wakefield directly, both live, otherwise forget it.
BOTTOM LINE? Kanew is delivering a not-so-nuanced hitjob against Wakefield, parents, and the autism community. Sorry to say I told you so.
Before I get flamed again for giving my analysis, LISTEN to the podcast here:
http://getitgotitgood.libsyn.com/
P.S. John Stone: yes, I'm new here and so is Justin. Apparently he gets a pass and I do not. Listen to the Deer interview and then report back.
Posted by: Lev | May 26, 2016 at 10:26 AM
Cia,
Re pertussis being little more than a runny nose in older children and adults, I'm referring to pre 1980s. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm thinking you and your daughter had your bouts much later.
Posted by: Linda1 | May 26, 2016 at 09:51 AM
Justin,
When I went back to Dr. Sears' FB page, I couldn't find where he had said what I mentioned, that vaccines were more dangerous than he had thought and he felt he had been lied to for the last ten years. This was it:
""One of the MDs in the film, Dr Sears—a pediatrician, seemed skeptical about the possibility of vaccines causing autism and wondered about the MMR vaccine for his son. However, toward the end of the documentary when he is given the Thompson data to review, which was given to Congressman Posey and available to all who request it, Dr Sears—almost in total disbelief on camera says—“I feel like I’ve been lied to. ….there is a piece of data they chose to ignore.” Furthermore, he went on to lament that he felt everything he’d been telling his patients for the last ten years is based on a lie and cover-up...
Rachael Ross, MD, said “It’s really unbelievable how the data have been switched around….What else am I being lied about.”
Stephanie Seneff, PhD, a researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on camera stated that we’re going to have extremely sick children and our society will not be able to focus on anything else!""
I'd suggest that you read Randall Neustaedter's The Vaccine Guide and look at the section called "A Personal Strategy," at the end of each chapter on a separate vaccine. He basically says no to chickenpox, flu, meningococcal, pneumococcal, measles, mumps, pertussis, and polio vaccines, and maybe to hep-A, hep-B (if mother is positive), Hib (many factors to consider given), rubella, and tetanus vaccines. He also gives ways to boost a child's immune system. He also wrote A Holistic Baby Guide, which is a wonderful book about different aspects of a baby's health.
Posted by: cia parker | May 26, 2016 at 09:35 AM
Vitamin C and homeopathic Drosera helped my children (4 and 6) through whooping cough twenty odd years ago which they caught at different times. My fully-vaccinated son was diagnosed with bronchitis by several doctors because they said that being fully-immunised he couldn't have whooping cough, and yet my unvaccinated son was diagnosed within a week. Other fully-vaccinated whooping children in the outbreak were diagnosed with viral asthma and given inhalers, and adults were told they had the 100-day cough.
Tim Lundeen wrote: "even if the illness is more uncomfortable than a cold, it is still far better than serious and permanent vaccine injuries"
Absolutely agree. My fully-vaccinated son was permanently injured by his vaccines and the P in the DPT didn't protect him from whooping cough, He wasn't treading on rusty nails or having his umbilical cord smeared with ghee heated with cow dung, so there was no point in him being "protected" from tetanus; diphtheria was almost unheard of in the 1990s, and as a small child, obviously, he wasn't an IV drug user or sexually active so he wouldn't have been exposed to Hepatitis B. We derived no benefits from my son's vaccines, only heartache.
Posted by: ATSC | May 26, 2016 at 08:35 AM
Cia, It's very rare for "flu" symptoms to include any temperature over 101 F (and usually there's no discernible "temperature" at all). Having made the study of influenza a large part of my life the last 15 years I suspect your "summer flu" was something else.
Since the hopelessly corrupt CDC has massively ruined countless lives with its Flu vaccine promotions and fear campaigns (i.e. For decades pushing the lie that flu kills 35,000 Americans each year - when actual medical records show annual "flu-associated deaths" are in the hundreds, rarely as high as a thousand with the great majority of deaths being elderly in Care Homes AND after getting yearly toxic flu shots), I cringed when you reported your experience.
Thanks for all your comments, and best to you!
NEVER GET A FLU SHOT, AND MAKE SURE YOUR ELDERLY RELATIVES ARE NOT COERCED TO TAKE FLU SHOTS.
Posted by: david m burd | May 26, 2016 at 08:26 AM
"Honestly, I don't remember having any fever, let alone one as high as 105. I believe that you had that experience, but I'm sure it wasn't universal. Chicken pox, too, can be severe, but in most kids it is no worse than a cold. The pictures that they show of kids covered head to toe with pox is also not what I remember, in my generation, or in my own kids. We had a few pox and that was it."
Same here. I can still remember to this day jumping up and down on our beds when we had to stay home with the chicken pox. We had just a few spots - that's it. Same with the measles. Everyone we knew as kids, had these illnesses and no one that I knew became extremely ill. It was just a normal rite of passage for all us kids. Our parents knew what to do when we came down with these illnesses and didn't freak out when we did.
Posted by: Bayareamom | May 26, 2016 at 02:34 AM
@cia parker
I always appreciate your posts, even this one directed at me :-) What I'm hearing is that you have seen severe cases, much worse than a cold. But I'm not hearing that these severe cases were treated optimally. If you could say to me "We gave high-dose Vitamin A and Vitamin D, frequent and early Vitamin C, and used liposomal C dosed every hour, and still it was awful", then I would be scratching my head as to why -- because that's not what you see when you use a good protocol.
The modern medical system simply does not provide anything close to optimal treatment. The people who used intravenous Vitamin C saw dramatically reduced inflammation and duration including 100% cures of paralytic polio cases. It's hard to find places that do IV Vit C today, but I've seen the comparable potency of liposomal Vitamin C first hand when we use it. Whooping cough is well-treated with frequent Vit C, it dramatically loosens up phlegm and makes the cough easier, and also helps the immune system clear it.
But even if the illness is more uncomfortable than a cold, it is still far better than serious and permanent vaccine injuries.
Posted by: Tim Lundeen | May 26, 2016 at 12:46 AM
Linda,
I've read that older kids and adults often think it's just a cold and don't realize it's pertussis. Five years ago, over 48,000 Americans were diagnosed with it, probably because they realized it was something more serious than a cold. Many more had it but were not diagnosed. Every disease can present subclinically, in a mild form, or be more serious.
Cecily coughed ten coughs per breath and coughed up vast sheets of clear, slippery mucus at the end of the coughing fit that covered the whole cloth diaper I wiped it away with. And that was good, otherwise it might have pooled in her lungs and caused pneumonia or choked her if she had been unable to cough it up. For about two weeks she had maybe six fits a day, more at night, then it got less frequent. She felt OK between coughing fits and it was never dangerous. I caught it from her and did not mistake it for a cold. I also coughed ten coughs per breath, unable to take a breath until the fit was finally over. Cecily coughed for over a month, I for over two months. It really didn't matter in the big picture: since we'd both had pertussis vaccines, we didn't get permanent immunity, so we may go through it again. It wasn't that bad looking back, I wish neither of us had ever gotten a pertussis shot so we might have benefitted from it, but it certainly wasn't bad enough that I'd ever get another pertussis vaccine or let Cecily get one.
And it didn't come out of nowhere. It didn't even go through my mind that it might not be a good idea to take her to La Leche League meetings at the Newman Center. I read what I could, but it wasn't that much. I let her get the DTaP at 2, 4, and 6 (and 18) months, not knowing that the acellular version is still very dangerous and close to ineffective, completely ineffective for young babies. So I took her to a La Leche League meeting the first week of January of 2001 where there were many babies and toddlers. And I'm sure that's where she caught it: she had cold-like symptoms about ten days later that gradually turned into the protracted series of coughs at night. The moral to this is to be careful about exposing babies to people who might be sick, especially children. It did not even enter my mind.
I had a high fever when I had measles, I remember my parents carrying me down the hall at night to put me into a cool bath to lower the fever (at least it wasn't Tylenol). My mother later said that the doctor said I had the worst case of measles he had ever seen, but I don't know why he said that: I was not hospitalized, I recovered in a normal length of time and had no complications. I think you need to get the high fever to get the benefits for your immune system of having measles. The more febrile illnesses people get as children, the better their long-term health and the less their risk of cancer. Those who get measles, mumps, and chickenpox fare better than those who only get one of them. So it's a good thing to get the fever, and if it's not high enough it may take longer to push the virus out, and the fever is what brings out the rash which is necessary to move through the self-limiting disease and recover from it. It can be a problem if the rash is slow to appear or fails to do so.
It's not fun to be sick, but it's necessary to go through the childhood illnesses to develop and mature the immune system. I'm glad I've had a lot of them: measles, chickenpox, rubella, pertussis, flu, hep-A, and rotavirus. Maybe mumps, I don't know. Studies have shown that if you get a febrile illness as an adult, it gives you a lot of protection from getting cancer in the subsequent five years. I was miserably ill with a summer flu last August, had a fever of 104 for a couple of days, and 103 for a third day, and felt just awful, didn't eat anything for several days. But it's good that it was a sort of continuing education course for my immune system, and lowered my risk of cancer for the next four years.
Posted by: cia parker | May 25, 2016 at 09:49 PM
I've listened to Justin's interview of Del Bigtree and the one of him interviewing Brian Deer. I think they are both good interviews. He asks pertinent questions, points out relevant information and the inconsistencies of concern, yet lets everyone finish their thoughts. Simultaneously, his out loud comments come across as "stream of thought" and reflect exactly the type of doubts that have led most honest people on AofA to their own current conclusions, but his "cut and paste" use of comparative interview quotes show that he has also done a respectable amount of homework for someone so early on in the discovery process. I have no idea how many people listen to his blog, but it says right on the description that the point of his podcasts is to quickly get to the important points of some really interesting relevant topics without getting into the extended time frames that can inadvertently cross a listener over into boredom. Those listeners got some food for thought if they listened to these 2 interviews. That's a good thing. Also, the length of them (25 minutes) is actually longer than quite a few of his other podcasts, so apparently he thinks the topic is worthy of some extra effort. It was good, people. Take a deep breath and listen to them. Personally, I'm now interested in hearing some of his other discussions, too. It's a refreshing format.
Posted by: Jenny | May 25, 2016 at 09:42 PM
And if you refuse some or all of them, you should read a lot to be prepared to recognize and act appropriately if a possibly dangerous VPD affects your child.
*****
There is no such thing as a vaccine preventable disease.
And I welcome anyone, to use anything other than epidemiology, to prove me wrong on that.
Posted by: Barry | May 25, 2016 at 08:56 PM
Cia,
Pertussis used to be indistinguishable from a very mild cold in older children and adults. It was so mild that people often didn't even know that they had it. They'd have sniffles and they wouldn't know that they could pass it on to an infant - because they didn't feel sick. The vaccine must have made the organism more virulent than it was just 3 decades ago (actually, the CDC has confirmed that vaccine pressure has worsened pertussis).
I know measles can make some people really sick, but I never knew anyone to get sick with it. Honestly, I don't remember having any fever, let alone one as high as 105. I believe that you had that experience, but I'm sure it wasn't universal. Chicken pox, too, can be severe, but in most kids it is no worse than a cold. The pictures that they show of kids covered head to toe with pox is also not what I remember, in my generation, or in my own kids. We had a few pox and that was it.
Posted by: Linda1 | May 25, 2016 at 08:02 PM
Reading the mean comments about him, I was hoping that Justin wouldn't give up in disgust and never come back. This hostility is uncalled for. Censorship is wrong, and it's only when someone's opinions differ from yours that the issue even comes up.
*********
I have nothing against Justin, and I don't think my comments have been unnecessarily unkind.
I didn't ask him to wade into this, that was his decision. And I'm not going to hold back on voicing my concerns, just because some people here feel that we should how unconditional support, to the latest person claiming to be on our side.
This whole thing smells bad to me, and I'm not going to pretend that it doesn't.
If if my opinion is enough to make Justin go away, then his heart was never really in it.
Posted by: Barry | May 25, 2016 at 05:51 PM
Tim,
I disagree that the vaccine-preventable diseases are now worse than a cold for a healthy child. I think they are all worse and the potential for dangerous complications is there with all of them. Measles is a lot worse than a cold, with a high fever for two and a half or three days of as high as 105. It's beneficial in the long run, but it makes you feel really sick in the short run, and good nursing is essential for all of these diseases. Pertussis is a really long coughing illness, and in the middle of ten coughs per breath you really feel like you're going to die for lack of air. I got tingling in my chest from lack of oxygen in the middle of the fits when I had it, and it could kill a young baby. Again, not dangerous for healthy people past early infancy, but a lot worse than a cold. Chickenpox and mumps are worse than a cold, but not as bad as measles or pertussis (usually).
Diphtheria and clinical cases of polio are bad news, and allopathic care is essential for these illnesses, also for cases of tetanus, which still has a high mortality rate. Clinical cases of meningitis are very dangerous, often disabling or fatal. Rubella is harmless in everyone but fetuses, but is often very dangerous for them: deliberately giving all schoolgirls natural rubella would be a good idea. NOT a reason per se to vax for them, but you shouldn't decide not to vax thinking there is no risk involved in not vaxxing. There is, although vaxxing may well present the greater risk. I think it's a tough decision to make if you want to refuse all the vaccines: every disease, vaccine, and individual child are different and need a separate risk/benefit analysis done in every case. And if you refuse some or all of them, you should read a lot to be prepared to recognize and act appropriately if a possibly dangerous VPD affects your child.
Posted by: cia parker | May 25, 2016 at 05:15 PM
Justin,
I am not painting you with the plant brush. But at this point knowing what I know about how the medical industrial complex operates, I had to entertain and voice the possibility. As you can see from the diverse views among mostly regular commenters here, we do not follow each other in lock step. Some of us backed down out of respect when you wrote that you are still vaccinating, while others, those of us who firmly believe that vaccination is an extreme form of child abuse, let out a cry of anguish. I know that your social indoctrination to accept vaccination may be so strong that you feel you need to find a way to go ahead with it. I was there once and did exactly that. I knew that vaccines could be very dangerous and I stood in the pediatrician's office thinking that I should probably give some of the required vaccines and tried to decide which ones won't be harmful. Didn't work out so well. That was the biggest mistake of my life and I will jump up and down, lose friends and make a complete fool of myself trying to keep you from making the same mistake with your child. After years of research, I have come to the conclusion that there is no safe vaccine and I believe that the whole concept is outdated in light of our emerging knowledge of the human microbiome, microbiology and the human immune system, not to mention the revelation of shoddy vaccine manufacturing processes. From everything that I can gather, the healthy kids are the unvaccinated kids and they grow into healthy adults. We have traded childhood infections for chronic illness, sometimes mental illness, and in the case of SIDS and mortality from fatal asthma attacks and other horrific vaccine induced aberrations, death. Not pleasant to say, I know. But it is the truth and you need to hear it until you are able to internalize it.
Our government considers anyone who they call "antivaccine" to be an internal enemy, someone to defeat, a danger to our country. Their plan is to gradually make the anivaccine outcasts of society, denying access to school, work, medical care, health insurance, social contact and travel. Our government considers anyone who they deem to be "vaccine hesitant" to be someone to be persuaded, through whatever tactics, ethical or not, will bring the desired result. They will use all kind of tactics to convince people, including giving doctors and pharmacists bonuses for giving vaccines and directly targeting young children with slick ad campaigns designed to plant ideas which contradict what their parents believe.
In a democracy, we are supposed to be given the truth in any situation, about any issue, and WE are supposed to decide the direction that we want to go in. With vaccination, the truth is being hidden and we are being lied to. That's why I was suspicious of you. I look forward to hearing your broadcasts. Hopefully, your wife is breastfeeding exclusively and on your baby's demand, which is nature's very effective vaccination. Hopefully, she will continue for several years. That is a very important part of developing a strong immune system.
Posted by: Linda1 | May 25, 2016 at 03:20 PM
John Stone,
"attacking the people in the middle is just about the least sensible thing you could do".
I'm not attacking anyone; that's your interpretation of my comments and critique. My comments leave the door open for Justin to respond. Hopefully, such an exchange would lead to improved understanding for all concerned.
Posted by: Ronald Kostoff | May 25, 2016 at 03:12 PM
Ronald
But what I believe is that it takes time for people to absorb the implications of for them a radically new insight and that we have to be tolerant of people who are listening to us. You keep on complaining about ineffective tactics but attacking the people in the middle is just about the least sensible thing you could do. It is not easy to think x one day and not x the next.
Posted by: John Stone | May 25, 2016 at 01:29 PM
Karen Woytowitz, I am so very sorry for your loss. My only child has PANDAS/Lyme and in 7 years we have not been able to fully recover him. I worry every day that we're going to lose him. You're in my prayers as are all the parents here who struggle every day to help their children and warn others. I would give everything I have to turn back time and not give him those 33 doses of vaccines.
Posted by: PANDAS Mom | May 25, 2016 at 01:04 PM
John Stone,
"But just asking some basic questions about the integrity of the institutions demanding everyone should vaccinate might be an excellent start".
Okay, but Justin doesn't state that objective in his posting. If, in fact, that was his objective, how do Brian Deer and Stephanie Seneff relate to that issue.
Frankly, I can understand how Barry, Lev, Joe, Linda1, and others are suspicious of Justin's post. I am uncomfortable with the totality of his message, even though it appears superficially as an honest quest for the truth.
First, as stated in my post below, there is a disconnect with the expertise of those he will interview and what is required to gain a better understanding of vaccine safety.
Second, Justin states "we're still vaccinating our daughter". This statement follows a number of statements he makes about potential problems with vaccines, and with the agency responsible for monitoring vaccine safety. One would think that, after these statements of doubt, he would conclude that he would not proceed with vaccinating until he assured himself that it was 'safe'; i.e., the benefits greatly outweighed the costs. But, that's not the conclusion he reached.
Third, he states: "I understand the risks an anti-vaccine movement presents, and I have no intention of contributing to that". Why would he draw that conclusion? If he were shown conclusively that astroturf on soccer fields quadrupled the risk of cancer (hypothetical example only), would he allow his child to play soccer on those fields. Would he have no intention of contributing to an anti-astroturf movement?
Fourth, he states: "there has to be a way to keep vaccinating children without hurting any". Where does that come from? Would he state that there has to be a way to stand near Chernobyl after an explosion and not suffer any consequences?
The point is, he is stating conclusions that are inconsistent with someone on an objective quest for the truth. None of the above conclusions were required to get his point across, yet he stated them voluntarily. And, these conclusions just happen to coincide with positions that would give the pro-vaxxers warm and fuzzy feelings!
Posted by: Ronald Kostoff | May 25, 2016 at 12:05 PM
Reading the mean comments about him, I was hoping that Justin wouldn't give up in disgust and never come back. This hostility is uncalled for. Censorship is wrong, and it's only when someone's opinions differ from yours that the issue even comes up.
Posted by: cia parker | May 25, 2016 at 11:57 AM
Thank you, John Stone!
And something Justin Kanew may find of interest.
I think most of us when first realizing about vaccine injuries think "Well, at least they work/prevent the effects/consequences of polio etc" , right?
Here is an interesting study on the effects of the oral polio vaccine in India, where there has been a massive push to vaccinate, the purpose of which is, one assumes to prevent people from being paralyzed or dying. And yet, per the study, massive rates of non polio paralysis and death are linked with increasing OPV dosages.
IMO, having a campaign that "gets rid of the polio virus" but leaves people just as paralyzed, or more so, is ridiculous.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/135/Supplement_1/S16.2
From the article
"Although the incidence of polio acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) has decreased in India, the nonpolio AFP (NPAFP) rate has increased. Nationwide, the NPAFP rate is 11.82 per 100 000 population, whereas the expected rate is 1 to 2 per 100 000 population"
So; conversation goes something like "it's okay kid, you don't have polio, but as a side effect of the vaccine, (perhaps coupled with poor nutrition, or ill health, which are both probably more common in India), you are still paralyzed for life."
And now we will celebrate our success in getting rid of polio, while ignoring the children who are now paralyzed, and may have been okay without our intervention....
Posted by: Hera | May 25, 2016 at 11:54 AM
Lev has never posted here except to attack Justin just now.
I noticed that also John. Some people are late to the party and some are just party crashers. Lev is a crasher.
Posted by: Danchi | May 25, 2016 at 11:49 AM
I just ran a check. Lev has never posted here except to attack Justin just now. He certainly isn't one of the regulars.
Posted by: John Stone | May 25, 2016 at 11:05 AM
Ronald
That might be an almost impossible brief for anyone trying to find out. Several people here have offered excellent suggestions about how Justin should better inform himself. But just asking some basic questions about the integrity of the institutions demanding everyone should vaccinate might be an excellent start. X is asking you to take a certain action: can you trust them? I think Justin is finding out that you cannot, but may be reluctant to act on his own conclusions.
Posted by: John Stone | May 25, 2016 at 07:35 AM
@ Lev
"Don't understand the "nicey-nice" approach with Justin. He's a big boy, and I'm sure he can defend himself without you wimpering for him."
Lev .. I really don't find much to laugh out loud at early in the morning .. but .. "wimpering for him" .. you made my day.
I can't say I agree wholeheartedly with your comment .. "Politics, my friends, has EVERYTHING to do with the autism epidemic" .. because .. my friend .. Politics are NOT the ONLY thing having to do with the autism epidemic.
In any event .. as I recall Justin's comments .. HE didn't mention POLITICS .. ergo .. HE shouldn't be made suspect or forced to defend HIS political beliefs .. unless/until HE opens HIS political opinions to AoA for discussion.
I hope we would agree the vast majority of American voters are deliberately being kept ignorant regarding vaccines .. including all that is POLITICALLY WRONG with the way they are researched, recommended and administered .. especially the POLITICAL TYRANNY by which those vaccine policies are protected and mandated.
Indeed, vaccines have ALWAYS been a virtually UNTOUCHABLE SUBJECT .. in ALL political campaigns .. be they local, state or federal .. because the last thing POLITICIANS want to happen .. is to have citizens become INFORMED .. and .. VACCINES become a national issue .. such as .. gun control, abortion, immigration, free trade, on and on.
It has been rather easy for Politicians to maintain voter ignorance on the subject of vaccines .. because .. POLITICIANS are well aware that only a small minority of voters .. during any single decade in a lifetime .. will actually have children or grandchildren of mandatory vaccination age.
Consider .. Justin has just become the proud dad of a two month old child .. and .. THAT makes all HIS previous POLITICAL opinions open to re-evaluation .. because .. today .. JUSTIN HAS HIS OWN "SKIN IN THE DANGEROUS GAMES" BEING PLAYED BY POLITICIANS HE ONCE THOUGHT DESERVED HIS SUPPORT.
(Today .. the American people seem at ease sending our "volunteer military forces into combat" .. yet .. I remember it was quite different when sons were subject to being "drafted" to serve in Vietnam. As I remember it .. many who avoided the draft to serve in Vietnam .. suddenly became "sofa Samurai's" .. urging our now volunteer forces to wage war in Iraq, Afghanistan, on and on. It's amazing how having one's "own skin in the game" changes political views)
OK, that's my analysis of your comment .. am removing my kid gloves now.
Posted by: bob moffit | May 25, 2016 at 07:33 AM
I have a problem (with the original post) that none of the commentators has addressed.
Justin states as his objective: "So I kept digging, and decided to do a series of podcasts on the subject, in an effort to find out as much as I could about the topic so we could decide the best way to handle vaccinating our daughter."
Now, he doesn't specifically define "the subject" or "the topic", but given his preceding statements and the desire to "decide the best way to handle vaccinating our daughter", one would assume his interest is understanding vaccine safety more clearly.
If one wants to understand a problem better, one identifies the issues, identifies the types of expertise required to address the issues, and then identifies the people who have the required expertise with a diversity of perspectives. To understand vaccine safety better, one would need immunologists, neurologists, gastroenterologists, pediatricians, and epidemiologists, at a minimum. The latter would have to be well-versed in statistics and potential synergies of vaccines with other toxic stimuli.
I see none of this in the people identified in the four podcasts. A movie producer, a reporter, at least one lawyer, etc. The closest to a working scientist in the areas identified above is Dr. Seneff, and her focus has been mainly on pesticides, and other harmful chemicals.
I'm not going to second-guess Justin's agenda or motives, but there is a major disconnect between what he states he wants to accomplish, and the resources he is using to achieve that goal.
Posted by: Ronald Kostoff | May 25, 2016 at 05:26 AM
Lev -
You're being a jerk. And nobody's "whimpering" for Justin.
Posted by: Twyla | May 25, 2016 at 02:39 AM
Lex,
I think many big corporations are scared to death of moderates like Justin, actually questioning vaccine safety, while not fitting within the easily ignored or derided category of "anti vaxxer".
Sometimes, when people I have rarely seen posting before come on sites like this only to attack moderates like Justin, almost as if they want to try to drive them away, I occasionally wonder exactly what their motivation is.
No whimpering here, Lex. Just... wondering a bit.
Posted by: Hera | May 25, 2016 at 01:56 AM
Lev
Bob Moffit, Danchi, Betty, et. al:
Don't understand the "nicey-nice" approach with Justin.
It's a sad day for Pro-Choice/Anti-Vaccine advocates to characterize being respectful to others as nicey-nice. IMHO doing otherwise would makes us no better than the forces we oppose.
Justin's political leanings are his choice. However while you are going on about how autism is political (vaccines also which we know) have you taken a good look at how the Pro Choice/Anti-Vaxx advocates have been divide by politics. You not only have Vaccine Proponents vs Pro-Choice/Anti-Vaxx, you now have Pro-Choice/Anti-Vaxx politically divided between themselves. What was once a fairly united group has now been fractured. I believe in the real world this is called divide and conquer.
Whatever information Justin posts in his follow up pieces, we, as intelligent people who use critical thinking and common sense will assess and determine if it has merit or not. We are more than capable of determining if he is posting BS or not and I for one resent you implying we lack the intelligence to discern the truth because we are being respectful and will wait until we read for ourselves what he has to say.
If you think he has an agenda maybe you should reread your comment because it's certain looks like you are the one who is blatantly bias.
Maybe you are the plant.
Posted by: Danchi | May 25, 2016 at 01:03 AM
Justin,
Just feel I need to share my experience with you. It took many years for me to see the damage that vaccines can cause with my children. We have struggled with mitochondrial dysfunction, POTS, enlarged heart, asthma, allergies, eczema, growth issues, ADD, and PANDAS.
Only recently have I come to recognize that my kids all have some level of immune deficiency, and one of them should have never received live virus vaccines (according to the CDCs own website). Nobody is doing the research to figure out which children are susceptible to vaccine injury. No pediatrician that I've heard of screens children for immune deficiency before vaccinating. It is a game of roulette, period.
Yesterday was my 52nd birthday, and the only gift I wanted I can never have; just a few minutes to tell my eldest child how much I love him and how much beauty he brought to my life. I lost him to PANDAS 2 yeas ago at the age of 21, as the medical community is just coming to an understanding of how to diagnose and treat this devastating autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorder. The PANDAS Physician's Network states this of PANDAS/PANS:
"Autoimmune or Autoinflammatory Disease – Researchers hypothesize that simultaneous exposure to multiple infectious organisms can (i) override the natural immunological mechanisms which prevent the immune system from attacking self-antigen; and/or (ii) produce abnormal activation of the immune system, which then attacks neuronal cells. It is also possible that some people are genetically predisposed to these forms of dysregulated immune response."
Think about it...simultaneous exposure to multiple infectious organisms...
Posted by: Karen Woytowitz | May 25, 2016 at 12:16 AM
Justin,
Here's a disgusting example of marketing to children that Linda mentioned. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment broadcast this song on radio and tv stations about ten years ago. The original video has been turned into a Powerpoint presentation, and edited to remove the twenty or so very young children singing the "If you love me, get me immunized" chorus together with adoring parents watching on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAShAk7k2uA
One of the hardest decisions that parents of young babies have to make when swamped by new information must be whether they should vaccinate or not because they are the ones that have to live with the lifetime consequences of that decision. It won't be the entrenched anti-vaxxer who tells them not to vaccinate under any circumstances, nor the parent of a vaccine-injured child who warns them of the dangers, nor the doctor who assures them that the risk of permanent vaccine injury is 1 in a million. They must be comfortable with whatever decision they make, and willing to take responsibility come what may.
Posted by: ATSC | May 24, 2016 at 11:28 PM
And Barry, I'm not sure what Brian's policy has been previously, but I simply emailed him, told him about the podcast, and he agreed to talk. Didn't take any convincing.
************
Here's the last Brian Deer interview that I'm aware of.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dX4JTS4FoQ
Where 'Keeping 'em Honest' Cooper, appeared to have left his journalistic mojo in the parking lot.
Except of course, when it came to Dr. Wakfield. Who for some reason he decided, to interview over the technological equivalent of a shoe phone.
Interviews don't come more staged than this one. Because THAT is the only way that you can get a lying coward like Deer in front of a camera. And if you think I'm the only who's figured that out, you're dreaming in technicolor.
You want me to believe you're for real? Then conduct your interview fairly, with Deer and Dr. Wakefield BOTH present. And with BOTH being given equal opportunities to speak.
Posted by: Barry | May 24, 2016 at 08:38 PM
Rates of paralysis (and modern day iron lung use) have increased since the polio vaccine.
Rates of congenital defects have increased since the rubella vaccine.
Rates of encephalitis and deafness have increased since the measles vaccine.
Rates of liver cancer/disease have increased since the Hep B vaccine.
Rates of meningitis/pneumonia/sepsis have increased since the Hib and Prevenar vaccines.
Rates of respiratory hospitalisations are extremely common despite the diphtheria and pertussis vaccine.
Rates of sterility have risen since the mumps vaccine.
Rates of gastro related deaths have increased since the rotavirus vaccine.
Clearly none of them have worked the way we were promised and the only plausible explanation is that all the diseases have been renamed.
What possible reason could anybody have to consider a single vaccine?
100 per cent of all vaccines ever used throughout history have been 100 per cent useless.
Posted by: rtp | May 24, 2016 at 06:38 PM
Justin, welcome aboard.
My question is, why does vaccination have to be The Answer?
Are diseases like measles as deadly as health official tell us, when the death rate for measles in 1922 was only 4.3 per 100,000 cases? https://books.google.com/books?id=weVakfr9l0oC&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=measles+death+rate+1913&source=bl&ots=rE1sW6nWtq&sig=mwQFNGYgOqaIlWKEW463BtGwsl4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiulfvQwpvKAhVFthQKHeLXC14Q6AEIMTAD#v=onepage&q=measles%20death%20rate%201913&f=false Scroll to p. 28
Wouldn't it be better to concentrate on finding why some people have catastrophic reactions to vaccines, while others have serious complications from disease?
What about the fact that no vaccine has EVER been studied for carcinogenicity, despite the fact that many contain ingredients acknowledged as carcinogenic?
Posted by: Researcher | May 24, 2016 at 06:19 PM
Bob Moffit, Danchi, Betty, et. al:
Don't understand the "nicey-nice" approach with Justin. He's a big boy, and I'm sure he can defend himself without you wimpering for him.
Politics, my friends, has EVERYTHING to do with the autism epidemic, whether you want to admit it or not. Why do you think the vast number of politicians do everything they can to avoid discussing it? (Think Richard "Pan-demonium") Why won't any journalist touch it?
Bill Posey R-FL, (one of the good guys) stands on the floor of the U.S. House in 2015 and documents corruption at the highest levels of the CDC, and everyone YAWNS.
Elderly are dropping dead from flu shots, (just ask nursing home staff - they call seasonal flu campaigns "the culling"), adolescent girls are dropping dead from Gardasil (check the disaster in the Colombian town of Maria del Carmen), infants are dropping dead from SIDS after "coincidental" pediatric well-child visits (old news), on the band plays on and on....
But hey, let's not offend Justin here.
Get real.
Justin considers himself pro-safe vaccine, and yet his politics (gasp! there's that word again) don't logically support that assertion. That's why I think there's a strong possibility he's being disingenuous.
You all say that he's in the learning process and yes, yes, we must bring him along and we must nurture him towards the light.
Hogwash.
His Twitter Feed is pro-Hillary all the way. Hillary has NO interest in producing "safe" vaccines whatsoever. Hillary is a world corporate player, who has received more than $22 million dollars from Wall Street in just the past two years. Check the (AP)excerpt:
***********************
Mandatory financial disclosures released this month show that, in just the two years from April 2013 to March 2015, the former first lady, senator and secretary of state collected $21,667,000 in speaking fees from Wall Street firms.
************************
All fees collected from Wall Street! Now, is it too brutal to ask Justin how he expects to get "safe" vaccines from this candidate?
Uh, no. It's not too brutal to ask. It's a good question.
If we have all learned anything at all from the autism epidemic and vaccine holocaust, it's this: QUESTION EVERYTHING.
I'm questioning Justin because his presentation strikes me as disingenous. I frankly don't believe a word he writes.
OK, that's my analysis of the article. Please return to your kid gloves.
Posted by: Lev | May 24, 2016 at 05:49 PM
Justin,
Here's something for you to take into consideration:
For Struggling Pharma Market, Vaccines Offer Path to Revenue
http://www.genengnews.com/insight-and-intelligence/for-struggling-pharma-market-vaccines-offer-path-to-revenue/77900658/
The revenue growth opportunity in vaccines looks far more promising when compared to the overall market for pharmaceuticals. Revenues earned by vaccines manufacturers worldwide reached $27.6 billion in 2015 according to Kalorama Information, up 11% from $24.7 billion in 2014, as sales in all segments expanded (Figure 1). This is, by Kalorama’s estimate, at least five to ten times the revenue growth rate of the overall pharmaceutical market in recent years. The world vaccines market is predicted to increase at a compound annual rate of 7.6% during 2013–2022, reaching $45.1 billion in 2022 as new product introductions continue and usage of current products expands further.
Read remaining article at link. This is just one of the reason for vaccination. Money.
Posted by: Danchi | May 24, 2016 at 02:35 PM
Justin,
For more re astroturf and media manipulation, watch Sharyl Attkisson’s short TED talk at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bYAQ-ZZtEU, and her article at https://sharylattkisson.com/top-10-astroturfers/
Posted by: Tim Lundeen | May 24, 2016 at 01:12 PM
Gary Ogden,
Thank you! I had completely forgotten about Vitamin C. Especially high-dose Vitamin C. Here's an interview of Dr. Kalokerinos that corroborates my feeling that we are at least ten years behind in treating infectious illnesses because we have ignored and even sabotaged any treatment other than vaccination:
http://www.vaccinationinformationnetwork.com/an-interview-with-dr-archie-kalokerinos-md/
That would also be a good one for Justin to review. It gives me hope that we can protect our young infants of vaccinated mothers who may be infected with measles at vulnerable ages. But I am worried that our health professionals will not expand on these ideas for parents who choose not to vaccinate. I wish we had more doctors who were willing to speak up.
I agree with Danchi. Let's keep Justin's political choices out of the discussion. I'm still hoping for a miracle candidate to pop up out of thin air that I will be comfortable giving my vote to - LOL - like that will happen!
Posted by: Betty Bona | May 24, 2016 at 12:07 PM
Totally agree with John Stone, Hera, Bob Moffit, and Danchi. Thank you so much Justin for this excellent first interview, and looking forward to the next ones. These issues need to see the light of day! Thank you for breaking through the resistance to considering and discussing these issues.
Posted by: Twyla | May 24, 2016 at 11:20 AM
John,
I'm not meaning to be rude. The problem, as you know, is that we have a government that manipulates through ad campaigns, by controlling the press, through "financial incentives" and by hiring an army of social media mouthpieces to deliver carefully crafted messages and to combat legitimate questions and concerns. If Justin is not one of them, he needs to know that they exist. He needs to know how the program is protected and that our government has literally declared war ("the Vaccine Wars") on those who question and/or abstain.
If he is sincere, then once he is aware, he will understand why some of us aren't so quick to trust someone who says they know that vaccines aren't safe, but they're going to vaccinate anyway.
Justin,
Some links that might be of interest:
http://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/nvpo/national-adult-immunization-plan/naip.pdf
With regard to adult vaccination, note this quote from section 4 that says low effectiveness of adult vaccines is a barrier to high uptake. Of course, low effectiveness should be a red flag. It should be the reason why these vaccines are NOT recommended for adults. Instead, it is a barrier to be overcome to maintain sales. Why push a vaccine that doesn't work? Why not wait until you have an effective vaccine to offer?
Not only that, but as childhood vaccines wear off, because the spotty protection of early childhood vaccination wanes over time, that will leave this generation completely vulnerable as they age because adult vaccines won't work. The government plans to take care of that little problem by developing more effective vaccines. But more effective vaccines are not a reality, only an unrealized goal that may never materialize. Meanwhile, they forge ahead to alter the natural age of infection and the acquisition of natural life long immunity that we have evolved to expect, starting in the womb. We have evolved to deal with measles and other childhood illnesses in childhood, not in adulthood. What they are doing is irresponsible and criminal. From the above link:
"Objective 4.1:
Develop new vaccines and improve the effectiveness of existing vaccines for adults. While most existing vaccines are highly effective in children, vaccines recommended for adults are generally less effective, especially older adults and those with immune systems compromised by underlying diseases or medications. In general, the immune response of currently recommended vaccines declines with advancing age and the onset of chronic diseases. The perception that vaccines may have limited effectiveness in some adults may, in turn, negatively influence demand and contribute to low vaccination rates. However, the changing demographics of an aging society highlight the importance of improving our understanding of the aging immune system and the development of next generation vaccines that can protect against serious infections that occur in this population."
Here's another manifestation of the CDC and partner's campaign. This is aimed at increasing HPV vaccine uptake, a vaccine which has killed and maimed so many young people that Japan has withdrawn government recommendation of the vaccine. The Danes have figured out that severe adverse reactions are more common in elite athletes. Yet, in this country, it's full speed ahead. There wouldn't be anything wrong with education and outreach, as long as the public is told the truth. In the United States, CDC education and outreach is pure propaganda:
http://www.aafp.org/news/health-of-the-public/20150623adolimmconf.html
And no one asks the obvious - If most people contract HPV and resolve the infection without symptoms, gaining natural immunity, what happens when the age of infection is postponed into later adulthood and old age by a vaccine whose effects will wear off? Will the CDC recommend HPV boosters throughout life? Will the boosters be tolerated or effective? No one knows, but the CDC does say that in general, adult vaccines are not effective. No one knows if other non vaccine strains will become stronger in the absence of the vaccine targeted strains. No one knows if HPV vaccine will prevent or in fact cause cancer. Those are just a few of many unanswered questions about only one vaccine.
The vaccine industry and vaccine program is like the Wild West of medicine. Once you take a hard look, you realize that it's one big uncontrolled experiment on the world's population. Anything goes and no one is held accountable. Lives are destroyed, people are maimed and killed and they get away with it.
Finally, here is Time Magazine's, "9 Ways Advertisers Think We Could Convince Parents to Vaccinate"
Alexandra Sifferlin Feb. 6, 2015
Heavily excerpted - please see link for entire article:
1. Market them to kids.
...Getting kids to ask their parents for a product—a strategy called “pester power”—works...Wright suggests an ad that says to kids: “Get vaccinated and you won’t get measles. Measles are horrible and hurt. And by the way, when you get a shot it’s customary to eat ice cream and get a small toy.”
2. Make it funny. Imagine an ad with a celebrity cage fight: on one side, anti-vaxxer Jenny McCarthy, and on the other, pro-vaccine Amanda Peet....Alternatively, Fitzgerald sees a sequel to the film Clueless starring Alicia Silverstone, who’s expressed vaccine skepticism. This time, it’s called Still Clueless and Paul Rudd keeps canceling playdates with Silverstone’s kids over vaccines...
3. Try sarcasm. Imagine a somber ad thanking anti-vaxxers for the measles outbreak....
4. Get personal. We need stories that combat the narrative from loud voices like Jenny McCarthy, says Elizabeth Cleveland, vice president/planning director of The Martin Agency. But instead of hearing from doctors, she says, moms with kids who contracted measles should have the voice. Cleveland asked her own pediatrician for some stories, who supplied the perfect one-liner from a mom: “If my son can’t bring a peanut butter sandwich to school, then you can’t bring your unvaccinated child.”
5. Talk about measles, not vaccines. Go after the disease itself, rather than the vaccine debate...“Everyone will say we have to fight this—no parent would say no to that.”
6. Launch a social media campaign.
... “It needs to be a coordinated effort, not a series of biting tweets,” says Patrick Godfrey, managing partner and president of the firm Godfrey Q. “Move [the anti-vaxxers] into a corner.”
Human Rights Campaign
7. Add a little fear.
Create a film chronicling the measles outbreak, suggests Fitzgerald, who notes that she’d recruit Danny Boyle, the director behind the post-apocalyptic film 28 Days Later. “We open in Disneyland, we see someone cough, and it takes off from there,” she says. “We market the movie by having big groups of red dotted men, women and children appear flash-mob style in public places dancing to Desmond Dekker’s You Can Get it If You Really Want.”
8. Make it a game. Create an app calculating your risk of getting measles, similar to the app “Am I Going Down?” which determines the chance that your plane is going to crash, suggests Tiffany Coletti Titolo, president of cummins & partners....
9. Whatever you do, don’t preach...
“It’s all about parents wanting to feel like they have a say in the matter,” Harvey agrees. “If you say they shouldn’t, they dig their heels further.”
http://time.com/3693767/ad-campaigns-promoting-vaccines/
Posted by: Linda1 | May 24, 2016 at 11:16 AM
It seems to me an important thing to respect people like Justin who are just beginning to realise that there is a real debate.
Thank you John.
I'm taking the wait and see attitude. I'm also removing any political aspect from this debate which will just cause a distraction. Let Justin speak and than make up your mind. Let Justin speak, not hillary , bernie, trump or any other politician. Let's debate what Justin is posting here, not on his twitter page or his facebook page if he has one. I for one don't have either so I'm at a disadvantage in people posting comments on those. I for one Justin, would like to read what you have to say so do your thing.
Posted by: Danchi | May 24, 2016 at 10:25 AM
I greatly appreciated Justin Kanew's column on the movie VAXXED .. and .. applaud him for his honesty ..
"Until recently - like most people - I assumed vaccines were 100% safe, and I thought anyone who thought otherwise was dangerous and selfish, putting everyone else at risk. I thought this because I was told this, by many people, many times."
To all those "suspecting" Justin may be a "plant" .. I offer Justin's words:
"Let me say right up front that my wife and I have a 2-month old daughter, and that my #1 goal here is to learn as much as possible about how to care for her health, because if anything happened to her I honestly don't know what I would do."
In my humble opinion .. having his own "skin in the game" .. a two month old daughter .. qualifies Justin as someone I wholeheartedly welcome to speak his mind as he and his wife go forward.
In that respect .. I look forward with great anticipation to Justin's "soon to be available" conversations .. with EVERYONE .. Del Bigtree, Lou Conte, Mary Holland .. yes .. even Brian Deer.
With all due respect to those valued AoA contributors that are critical of Justin for seeking what he and his wife believe to be "safe" for their daughter .. IT IS AND SHOULD ALWAYS BE .. THEIR CHOICE .. NOT YOURS OR THE CDC'S TO MAKE.
If you strongly disagree with THEIR CHOICE .. get over it .. simply because .. it is THEIR two month old daughter .. NOT YOURS.
Posted by: bob moffit | May 24, 2016 at 10:13 AM
John Stone,
Yes, you're right. I have plenty of friends who fully vaccinate; that is their choice, and I believe in medical freedom of choice.
And ..plenty of kids (well, about 1 in 48 right now) seem to survive their vaccines without obvious immediate injury.
I always think the saddest stories are of those who watched their kid react to a vaccine; and then vaccinated again. And again.
Still remember a little boy in a hospital, who my husband visited one year. His parents were blue collar workers, and the doctors insisted he had to be vaccinated despite his reactions. His parents description was he "became like a baby" after EACH vaccine and had to learn to crawl etc again. The father told my husband when he looked at the little boy lying in the bed, not responding to the Christmas toys that had been bought in, that he would never let them do it again. I don't know what happened to the child. But I do know that I wish those doctors who were able to vaccinate repeatedly, watch the side effects, and walk away from the mess they made, had instead had to actually have some skin in the game, some consequence for their actions.
So, my take on it ( not medical advice, just an opinion) is that if people at least know vaccine reactions are possible; they will be more likely to notice them.
And know to look out for things like family autoimmune history etc. as potential risk factors for developing an autism diagnosis.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/124/2/687.short
Also the current speculation of a link between Tylenol and both asthma and possibly autism is one that perhaps new parents will be interested in.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306987709005702
There are other studies which demonstrate an asthma/Tylenol link.
Wishing Justin Kanew and his wife all the best with their beautiful baby, their medical choices, and wishing good health for their new family member.
Posted by: Hera | May 24, 2016 at 10:05 AM
It seems to me an important thing to respect people like Justin who are just beginning to realise that there is a real debate. You don't win the public argument by being an enclave: we can just go on talking among ourselves for the next decade or forever but that is how you don't win minds.
Posted by: John Stone | May 24, 2016 at 09:08 AM
Justin,
Your Twitter feed is very interesting. You do a good job ridiculing and lambasting Trump, which most likely means you're a Bernie or Hillary supporter.
So I'm sure you're familiar with the following Hillary tweet:
***********
"The science is clear: The earth is round, the sky is blue, and #vaccineswork. Let's protect all our kids. #GrandmothersKnowBest"
**********
So your candidate thinks "the science is clear." And given your Twitter statement that "we're vaccinating," it's clear you agree.
And yet, paradoxically, your article sounds like Trump! He's the only candidate asking the questions you're asking. He calls the infant vaccine barrage "horse shots."
Since, as you say, "Even one vaccine-injured child is too many," I'm sure you're re-evaluating your pick of presidential candidates.
Posted by: Lev | May 24, 2016 at 08:57 AM
I sincerely hope you and your wife said No to the Hep B vaccine which killed Ian Gromowski. He was injected with this vaccine which *protects* against diseases which are transmitted by IV drug use and/or sexual behavior. He was ready to go home on his fifth day of life, got Hep B vaccine, died on day 47 of his life. He never went home. The photos on his parents' webpage are horrific.
No one should have to endure what baby Ian did or what his parents still do.
You can never undo vaccination.
Posted by: Jennifer | May 24, 2016 at 05:29 AM