Doctors Assumptions: Humiston, Boonstra, and Savoy Train Physicians on How To Fail
by Ginger Taylor
On Friday, August 25th, a webinar was held, sponsored by Pfizer, called "Getting Parents to Yes! Vaccine Conversations That Work for Providers & Parents".
"With parents consuming so much conflicting health information about their babies and children, providing an effective vaccination recommendation can be harder than ever. Fortunately, there are strategies for discussing immunization with parents that can help them feel comfortable protecting their babies and children with on time immunization.
During this session, pediatrician Dr. Sharon Humiston will moderate a panel with pediatrician Dr. Nathan Boonstra and family physician Dr. Margot Savoy, who will share their top tips for having positive and productive vaccine conversations with parents. Join us on Friday, August 25 at 12 p.m. Eastern to gain insights and tips that you can begin implementing in your practice immediately."
I listened in to see if they were going to recommend anything egregious to the physicians. Surprisingly, it was not horrible. Well it was pretty much the arrogant garbage we already know and experience. Be the expert, be aggressive, blah, blah, blah. To their credit, they did stop short of recommending the full on bulldozing of parents, they didn't recommend dismissing non vaccinating parents from practices, and they did (for a split second) admit they had biases.
To one of the women's discredit (I could not be sure of who was talking at the time) she expressed her strong umbrage at being told by parents that they were declining vaccines because they had, "done their research on the internet," then burst out laughing at the incredulous and outrageous nature of such a statement. (Ahem... ma'am... you do realize you are teaching on the internet right now, yes???) #Irony
Actually the presentation was pretty weak. They don't really have a solution to getting parents refusals. Because, of course, they have not correctly diagnosed the reasons that they are refusing. And when you have the wrong dx, the tx ain't gonna work.
So there was not a lot of me loosing my mind listening to them, just a bit of eye rolling. And a bit of compassion, actually.
THEY ARE SO LOST. They are wandering around lost in the woods, pretending to know where they are going, that they are experts on the terrain, and teaching other lost doctors how to find their way out... of they woods they are lost in. (But to be fair, they are being paid by Pfizer to wander around lost in the woods, so perhaps they are happy there.)
So I wrote to them. I coulda sent a buncha stuff, but this is what I thought might be the most helpful to them. Tried to back them up at least to the right starting point. I figure maybe if I can convince them to get to the trail head, they might be able to see where they have gone wrong from that vantage point, and perhaps move in the right direction.
No answer as of yet. I will update if they do. But they won't. They never do. Because they don't have to.
Subject: | Impact of liability protection on physician trust |
---|---|
Date: | Fri, 25 Aug 2017 14:11:09 -0400 |
From: | Ginger Taylor <[email protected]> |
To: | [email protected] |
Dr. Humiston, Dr. Boonstra, and Dr. Savoy,
I am the mother of a vaccine injured child, and no longer participate in the National Immunization Program. I listened to your webinar today.
I was glad to hear that you don't recommend dismissing families from practices for declining vaccines, and that you refrain from calling families "anti-vaccine" (as only about 5 or 10% of those tagged with that epithet are actually opposed to vaccination.) However, I did want to point out a perspective that I don't think that you have taken into account in examining this topic.
The baseline assumption that was made was that a physician can assume that they are trusted by a family simply because that family has come to that physician. I don't think that you have taken into account that such trust, while it may extend to everything from a twisted ankle to cancer, may not exist for vaccines.
Because the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury act has effectively relieved medical providers of all liability for vaccine injury and death, you have been insulated from almost all accountability for adverse vaccine reactions, even those that could have been foreseen and prevented.
It is true that pediatricians, unfortunately more than most, have to practice defensive medicine in their decision making, however in the case of vaccination, the physician is ONLY must defend himself against liability for child getting a disease, his practice's ire if he is not making vaccine quotas to earn insurances bonuses, or his industry's attack for not fully participating in the NIP. There no is mechanism, other than his own conscience (subject to bias) to give scientifically accurate vaccine safety and efficacy information. It is the opposite of defensive medicine. A doctor backed into a corner with a question he does not know the answer to can simply make one up, and even if the child is severely disabled as a result, there are no consequences for him.
There has not been a medical provider who has had to answer in court for a vaccine injury and death before a jury in the US for more than 30 years. And while the Hazelhurst v. Jackson Clinic will be going to trial this year, chances are still next to nothing that even if you do everything wrong, and kill a child with a vaccine, that you will even be questioned by any authority on the matter. There are no consequences even if you simply don't report it to VAERS. In fact, you can just call it a "coincidence" and "unprovable," and even attack the parents as "grieving, desperate and scientifically illiterate," even call CPS on them, and go on with your day. You can behave as badly as you want to, and do things that are considered malpractice in any other matter, and you will simply get a pat on the back from your fellow doctors. And while you may not have, sadly, there are some doctors that have gone to that extreme. Their conscience has not constrained them.
My questions are this...
Do you understand the impact of this liability protection on the trust parents have in your vaccine recommendations? Why should I trust any businessperson who has this magical liability protection and can't be sued even if they kill me or my child?
Do you understand the impact of this liability protection on your bias? When I hear you recommend to doctors that they approach families with such confidence in vaccine safety, I think, "They have so much hubris on this issue that they are not going to be teachable or learn anything from their clients." Even the name of the webinar is how to get them to "Yes." The question of, "When is their NO correct, and what can we learn from them?" is not even on your radar.
Do you know that EVERYTHING is on the internet? And when you laugh at people for making that statement, you kinda seem like you are living in 1990? Your webinar is on the internet. Pubmed is on the internet. All of the resource materials you recommended are on the internet. Mocking people from learning from "the internet" in 2017 is like mocking people for learning from "books."
Do you understand the impact of this liability protection on your vaccine safety education and accountability? If there is no way for families to legally challenge physicians or the industry when they are wrong, even when fraud is charged, how do you know if are right?
Because what we find when we talk to doctors is that they actually don't know research or vaccine policy. They have chosen selective research and policy, and will even read individual documents selectively, and take away what they want to take away.
Let me give you an example from the webinar. Dr. Boonstra referenced the NEJM Thompson paper, "Early Thimerosal Exposure and Neuropsychological Outcomes at 7 to 10 Years." And he characterized the study as finding no link to adverse outcomes.
That is not what the paper reports:
"Among boys, higher exposure to mercury from birth to 7 months was associated with significantly better performance on letter and word identification on the Woodcock–Johnson test, third edition (WJ-III), poorer performance on the parental rating of behavioral regulation on the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function, and a higher likelihood of motor and phonic tics, as reported by the children's evaluators."
"Higher mercury exposure during the first 28 days of life was associated with significantly poorer performance on the Goldman–Fristoe Test of Articulation, second edition (GFTA-2)"
"Among girls, increased neonatal mercury exposure was associated with significantly lower scores in verbal IQ on the WASI"
(I know this about the paper in question, because it is on the internet.)
Dr. Boonstra, have you made this claim in your office to families? Isn't that fraud? I can't imagine you knowingly want to commit false claims to families, but do you realize that the industry is structured NOT to prevent you from making false claims? That it encourages false claims?
This paper is 10 years old. If liability existed, and Dr. Boonstra or any other physician was making this false research claim by now certainly would have been sued by a family who had a child who had an adverse outcome. This would have litigated, new guidelines for these products would have been issued, and this false understanding of thimerosal safety would not be spoken in any physicians office.
But here, in 2017, Dr. Boostra has just taught physicians that this paper showed no adverse outcomes from injecting mercury into babies. And short of asking him to retract his false claim (which is usually ignored by the physician, who believes he has been attacked by the "anti-vaccine lobby,") reporting him to his practice (also usually ignored) and reporting him to the state for making a fraudulent safety claim about a product he sells to consumers (I have done this, they don't investigate) there is no action to correct Dr. Boostra on his fraudulent safety claim. He can literally say anything he wants.
Thus parental lack of trust in Dr. Boostra (and this is almost all physicians really, because of the "vaccine culture" you discussed) is not only justified, it is correct. He is not trustworthy on vaccine safety. He is biased, and there is no accountability mechanism that corrects his bias.
I hope that you will take this admonition and inquiry seriously. The liability protection has brought vast corruption into the vaccine program, and until it is gone, and the industry is willing to clean up the damage they have done, vaccine rates will continue to drop, and I believe, at some point, the program will fail.
Ginger Taylor, MS
Director
Maine Coalition for Vaccine Choice
207-200-8469
Keep up the good work!
Posted by: Denise Anderstrom Douglass | September 08, 2017 at 12:33 AM
Apropos of Ginger's comment, "THEY ARE SO LOST":
This young medical resident earnestly parroting the stock misinformation about the 1998 Wakefield MMR case series. The article, for Michigan's Upper Peninsula, is ironically titled "Breaking down vaccine fact vs. fiction."
http://abc10up.com/2017/08/31/8338633/
“A lot of people are afraid of thimerosal or mercury,” Crawford-Bartle said. “There was a study done many decades ago by a gentleman that said that vaccines cause autism and the components in them like mercury are harmful. It has since been disproven has since been disproven that vaccines cause autism there is no link.”
Watch out, Yoopers.
http://www.mgh.org/for-healthcare-professionals/family-medicine-residency/our-residents
Posted by: nhokkanen | September 07, 2017 at 01:52 PM
Ginger, you've done an excellent job with this letter!
I really wish you get a response, but I highly doubt this will happen. I write letters like this to the newspapers and recently wrote one to the American Academy of Pediatrics about a false article they posted in their journal, but (of course), I received no response.
BUT they KNOW that their position is biased and we know that they know. They all can't be that stupid! There's just too much "religion" surround vaccines and even the word, "Immunization Program" is inaccurate but they (and our New York State Health Department) uses it. Real "balanced" Immunity comes from natural exposures, NOT from vaccines. They have equated the two words, and it sounds so "cool" that you must get your "immunity" from vaccines. It's a twisting of words.
Naturally occurring chicken pox gives is immunity. Vaccines against chicken pox give us TEMPORARY immunity--witness the huge growth of the Shingles epidemic. Of course, their solution is a "shingles vaccine," NOT stopping the chicken pox shots in kids.
I sure wish you get a response!
Posted by: Tom Petrie | September 07, 2017 at 09:01 AM
These doctors remind me of the Razzle Dazzle song from Chicago with lyrics like: "Give 'em the old flim flam flummox
Fool and fracture 'em
How can they hear the truth above the roar?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx6aRCa8lrE
They're just "disgusting," all right!
Posted by: Someone | September 06, 2017 at 10:33 PM
Thank you for a well-written critique that I hope gets some attention.
Doctors working for the state (and/or insurance company sometimes, and obviously pharma, about all the time), and not you.
Even where they perhaps have liability, they've done quite a bit of harm (mostly founded upon vaccination though) over the past couple of decades with anti-biotics, tylenol, delaying access to correct diagnoses, and sometimes hindering access to treatments...have they changed anything in the past two decades, on a major scale?
I'm not sure the root problem. Is it us? Assuming this is all what good parents do, because we're either indoctrinated, cowed, many of us maybe want to be doing the same things as everyone else, need to have group validation of our choices, that is make everyone do what we think we should do...?
Apparently the FDA doesn't work for us either--ok, maybe we all knew that--but now they want us to pay them more to do their job (i.e. work for us):
https://leviquackenboss.wordpress.com/2017/09/03/stop-injecting-weed-killer-into-your-kids/
Posted by: Jeannette Bishop | September 06, 2017 at 08:57 PM
A few items you will never hear said in a pediatricians office...
1) No one ANYWHERE can EVER be held responsible for the 8 or 9 vaccines we want to give your child today
2) We can make over a $1,000 in only a few minutes with your charming children today
3) those 50+ wacko doctors and CDC officials at Simpsonwood were wrong about Thimerosal
4) three or four live viruses on the same day will not be a problem ...
5) there are about 10 SIDS cases each & every day and a only a few hundred "vaccine day" ER visits...
6) be sure not to miss the 12 month baby visit, because the first four vaccine doses do not always work
Posted by: go Trump | September 06, 2017 at 08:12 PM
if doctors want a good vaccine conversation, they need to refuse financial incentives to vaccinate.
Posted by: greyone | September 06, 2017 at 07:09 PM
In the fall of 2021, my (then 12yr old) daughter will not have access to a public education
if anyone other then pig-man donald trump is elected.
ACCESS to a public education!! Goodman, Maddow, Kimmel, Fallon, Colbert......
where are you? COWARDS!!!!
ps: On this issue i hate you all, but on every other issue i am grateful for you brilliant opinions!:
and pss: i'm sorry for calling y'all cowards.
Posted by: annie | September 06, 2017 at 06:49 PM
Thanks, Cherry, your advice is correct. The first dentist I had, although a member of IAOMT, didn't do the job properly, but that was three years ago and I seem to have survived! The dentist who completed the job last year was very good. I'm now suffering side effects from the chelation, so having to proceed very cautiously.
Posted by: Grace Green | September 06, 2017 at 03:41 PM
To Grace Green, It is easier to find a pediatrician who admits to adverse reactions to vaccines than to meet a physician who recognizes or even thinks- ever- of a patient having dental amalgam symptoms. And yet- disorders resulting from mercury amalgams are extremely common. If you still have dental amalgams in your mouth - an important word of caution- Get amalgams removed only from a biological dentist, even if you have to take a loan. You may actually lose your life from mercury poisoning if you get amalgams removed carelessly by a mercury-ignorant dentist. Dr. Chris Shade, of Quicksilver Scientific laboratory reports that the majority of his mercury-toxic patients at this time are people who did just that.
Posted by: cherry Misra | September 06, 2017 at 03:03 PM
Great letter Ginger! In my neighborhood a while back I saw that the owner of a health food store had posted a two page scientific study about Mercury in flu shots. People were stopping to read it on the street. Possibly your letter of reply should be circulated and even posted if possible. Or maybe ask one of those free health magazines to run it as an article, What a parent would like to tell pediatricians. Thanks for your good work.
Posted by: Army brat | September 06, 2017 at 02:43 PM
Good for you, Ginger, for keeping at it on as many fronts as possible!
Also wanted to let AoA readers know that I will be interviewed by Jeanie Keltner again today in just 90 minutes! Info below :)
Today, Sept. 6th, from 12:00-1:00pm PST, I will be interviewed by Jeanie Keltner again regarding vaccines on KVMR radio. I hope you will be able to tune in!
Just click on the link below, and listen via the KVMR Live Stream Player link which shows up on Google, or click the "Listen" tab on KVMR's website, and then the "Listen Live" tab.
The Undernews on KVMR FM 89.5
www.kvmr.org
Please share with others who might be interested to listen in...and/or with those who need to hear the truth about vaccines!
Thank you,
Laura
P.S. If they make a podcast like they did last time, I will send out that link once available.
Posted by: Laura Hayes | September 06, 2017 at 01:31 PM
So very well-stated, Ginger.
Their liability sweetheart deal has made doctors and pharma cocky and reckless in their practices. It is only appropriate for parents to be highly skeptical of their pronouncements and prescriptions.
I would say that the removal of liability has greatly exacerbated this problem, but it is not the sole cause and existed prior to 1986. The fundamental problem is that government (at all levels) has endorsed and promoted its vaccine program and thus, implicitly all the participants know that it has their back. That is why government needs to get out of the vaccine business entirely and we need a separation of vaccines and state.
Posted by: David Weiner | September 06, 2017 at 01:11 PM
Hopefully, the context of this seminar is that they are in trouble. That people are avoiding their incompetence and their poison, and that's why they aren't recommending turning patients away. Because the public is so fed up with them, that their aggression is backfiring and they are losing too much business. Listening to young parents talk now, the pediatrician with his shots and bonuses is to them like the bogeyman.
Posted by: Linda1 | September 06, 2017 at 12:23 PM
Their fraudulent, pseudo-science can not hold court with ours, so they took away our access to the courts. Shame!
Posted by: annie | September 06, 2017 at 12:20 PM
Your break-down of the study says it all. Today's pediatricians don't understand science. This is all about a religious devotion to the practice of vaccination compared to a scientific understanding of it.
For crying out loud, when will science prevail?!
Posted by: annie | September 06, 2017 at 12:04 PM
Ginger, 0f course they won't reply to you because they can't argue with your facts. They hope to bamboozle people when we're in the surgery, they definitely don't want to start talking science. Speaking for myself I find it very difficult to remember and put forward all the relevant information. I once took a printed page on the symptoms of amalgam poisoning (having been complaining of said symptoms for many years) to my doctor, who took it from me and said "tell me in your own words..."! They show all the signs of knowing they've lost the arguments. It's only a matter of time till they cave in. Thanks for your amazing article and letter.
Posted by: Grace Green | September 06, 2017 at 11:38 AM
Ginger .. it is indeed very troubling .. that you expect Dr. Humiston, Dr. Boonstra, and Dr. Savoy to IGNORE your well-researched .. well-informed .. thoughtful comments .. wherein you explain precisely why "parents lack of trust" in most physicians is .. as you said .. "not only justified .. but .. also correct".
As it often has been said .. "There are none so blind as those who refuse to see"
Again .. as often has been asked .. HOW DO THESE PEOPLE SLEEP AT NIGHT.
Posted by: bob moffit | September 06, 2017 at 06:50 AM