I Speak of Dreams

Dear Justin Kanew, I Get Your Fear, But It Is Misplaced: Part IV

Shortly after the birth of their baby, Justin Kanew and his wife watched the film Vaxxed. It raised fears for him. He wrote: 

We learned about the existence of the United States Vaccine Court, which has paid out over $3.5 Billion to vaccine-injured children.

I want to correct Mr. Kanew here. The program covers all vaccines, not just those given to children. Quite a few adults have been compensated.  Readers can find the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program here. 

$3.5 billion is a lot of money, but let's consider the denominator. How much money, per vaccine distributed over the entire 29-year history of the program?  We don't have a good count of the total number of vaccines distributed sinke 1986, the best we can do is estimate from 2006 to 2014 (the last year for which a count was available)

• Total number of vaccines distributed, 1/1/2006-12/31/2014 = 2,532,428,541
• Total number of vaccine injury awards, FY 2006 - FY 2014 = 2,140
• Total amount of vaccine injury awards, FY 2006-FY 2014 = $1,306,003,930.68

This lets us do some simple math:

• Vaccine injury awards per million doses of vaccines distributed, FY 2006-FY 2014 = 0.85 -- less than one per million doses.
• Total amount of vaccine injury awards divided by total number of vaccines distributed, FY 2006-FY 2014 = $0.52
• Total amount of vaccine injury awards divided by the total number of vaccine injury awards, FY 2006 - FY 2014 = $610,282.21

That makes the numbers look a lot more reasonable, doesn't it?

Background:

John Snyder MD gave a brief overview of the program in 2009 at Science-Based Medicine:

In 1986, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) was enacted by congress as part of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Compensation Act. The most important purpose of the VICP was to safeguard the nation’s vaccine supply in the wake of a mounting torrent of lawsuits directed at vaccine manufacturers. These lawsuits were a major threat to the country’s vaccination program, as manufacturers faced potential jury awards that would be impossible to survive. In 1979 there was one DTP-related lawsuit. In 1986 there were 255. Between 1983 and 1984, costs related to these lawsuits climbed from $4.7 million to $9.9 million. In 1986 alone, over $3 billion in DTP injury claims were sought, which was 30 times greater than that year’s entire dollar value of DTP vaccine. Vaccine prices soared, and companies stopped making vaccines or went out of business entirely. In 1957 there were 26 vaccine manufacturers. In 1980 there were 17 companies making vaccines, and by 1986 there were only 3 (today there are only 5 major vaccine manufacturers in the world, and they are large pharmaceutical companies for which vaccines are only a small part of their product line).

The VICP effectively saved the nation’s vaccine program by moving these legal actions out of the traditional tort process, and creating a no-fault system whereby the vaccine manufacturers were saved from potential ruin. A special “vaccine court” was created to hear injury claims, presided over by Special Masters responsible for reviewing the evidence and quickly adjudicating cases on behalf of claimants. If a parent’s claim is deemed to fit a known vaccine complication, an award is usually given without significant reliance on the customary rules of evidence required by the traditional tort system. Compensation is drawn from a fund generated by a 75 cent excise tax on each vaccine component at the time a vaccine is administered (75 cents for a single vaccine like Hepatitis B, $2.25 for a three component vaccine like DTP).

While the VICP has been successful in providing timely compensation in cases of true (but rare) vaccine injury, the emphasis on streamlined proceedings, and the lack of rigor and evidence-base required of science (these are, after-all, legal not scientific hearings) has resulted in many rather dubious rulings. The special Omnibus Autism Proceedings, discussed previously on SBM, was established as an extension of the original vaccine court, and was designed to handle the over 5000 lawsuits clogging the system from parents claiming their children developed autism as a result of the MMR vaccine, the thimerosal preservative in other vaccines, or a combination of these factors. I’ll refrain from discussing the science behind this here, as it has been extensively covered elsewhere. Suffice it to say that the Special Masters poured over mountains of published evidence and listened to hundreds of hours of testimony on three test cases for these three theories. In a victory for science, they ruled strongly and unanimously against the claimants. This time, at least, the legal system respected the science and made it’s ruling accordingly.

I first wrote about the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program in 2012

OH NO! The US has paid out $2 BILLION in vaccine injury compensation! That must mean vaccines are dangerous!

Actually, it doesn't. It means the program is working as it was designed to do. No medical intervention is without risk, including vaccines. There have been, and there will be, people who suffer permanent, significant, adverse consequences from vaccination. The rate of such injury is about 1 per million doses of vaccine.

Steven Novella MD wrote about the program at Science Based Medicine in 2013

While vaccines are of clear benefit, no one argues that they are risk free. There are rare serious complications. For this reason the US established the NVIC – National Vaccine Injury Compensation program. This is funded by a small tax on each vaccine, and is designed to compensate families of children who have a possible reaction to vaccines, bypassing the slow and costly regular court system. The NVIC works well.

The goal of the NVIC is not to determine scientifically if there is a link between a particular vaccine and a particular side effect. That is determined by the scientific community. Rather, the NVIC’s charge is to determine if “compensation is appropriate” in specific cases. They also give the benefit of the doubt to the families.

In many cases families do not have to prove that a vaccine caused a specific injury, only that their child had a certain medical outcome within a specific time frame of being vaccinated. Further, certain outcomes are considered “table injuries,” meaning that all the family has to do is establish that the child has the condition and the onset was within a certain window after getting a vaccine, and then compensation is automatic.

Allison Hagood (on of the authors of Your Baby's Best Shot) wrote about the program in 2013

The percentage of compensations to actual vaccines administered is 0.003%. Three one-THOUSANDTHS of one percent of cases of vaccination have resulted in compensation for injury.

I don’t know about you, but a safety rating of 99.997% seems really great to me!

So the next time you see one of those scary headlines or images, stop to think about how many vaccines are used, safely and effectively, to prevent diseases.  Be thankful that the U.S. has a program to compensate the very, very few people who do have an adverse outcome from vaccination.  Vaccinate your children, and as adults, make sure you are up-to-date on recommended vaccines. 

Other articles on the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program

1. February 24, 2011 John Snyder at Science-Based Medicine Supreme Court Saves Nation’s Immunization Program (Bruesewitz v. Wyeth, Inc.)
2. March 5, 2013: Allison Hagood guest posting at Tara Haelle's blog, Red Wine and Applesauce A Look at the Numbers in Vaccine Reactions
3. September 12, 2013 Orac Knows at Respectful Insolence The Canary Party and Rob Schneider versus the Vaccine Court: Guess who wins?
4. November 8, 2013 Dorit Ress at Shot of Prevention Blog: Doing Away With NVICP: Bad For Plaintiffs, Bad For Society
5. November 12, 2013 Amy Pisani at Shot of Prevention Blog Take Action In Support of National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program
6. November 22,  2013: Dorit Reiss at U.C. Hastings School of Law's Viewpoint: Dismantling Vaccine Injury Program Is Bad for All of Us
7. April 13, 2014 Dorit Reiss at Skeptical Raptor Blog Price V HHS – Statute Of Limitations, Tolling, Vaccines And Autism
8. November 25, 2014: Dorit Ress at Shot of Prevention Blog: The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program: What Does the AP Report Really Show?
9. March 3, 2015 Liz Ditz at I Speak of Dreams: Vaccine Injury: Real, but Exceedingly Rare.
10. June 9, 2015: Dorit Reiss at Skeptical Raptor Blog National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Facts
11. August 11, 2015: Dorit Reiss at Shot of Prevention blog “A Dose of Reality” Does Not Support Abolishing the VICP
12. September 7, 2015: Dorit Reiss at Skeptical Raptor Blog The Vaccine Court – Causation And Administrative Discretion
13. October 27, 2015 Dorit Reiss and Michael Simpson at Skeptical Raptor Blog Shoulder Injury Related To Vaccine Administration And NVICP
14. November 27, 2015 Dorit Reiss at Skeptical Raptor Blog Vaccine Injury Compensation And Autoimmune Syndromes
15. November 27, 2015 Dirot Reiss at Skeptical Raptor Blog Vaccine Injury Compensation And Mitochondrial Disorders
16. January 26, 2016: Dorit Reiss at Skeptical Raptor Blog NVICP Compensation For Guillain-Barré Syndrome – Facts

Background posts on the Omnibus Autism Proceeding (OAP)

1. No date, U.S. Court Of Federal Claims Office Of Special Masters: Background on the Omnibus Autism Proceeding
2. January 21, 2012 Matt Carey at LeftBrain-RightBrain Autism The Omnibus Autism Proceeding: effectively over

Dear Justin Kanew, I Get Your Fear, But It Is Misplaced: Part III

Shortly after the birth of their baby, Justin Kanew and his wife watched the film Vaxxed. He wrote:

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.

First of all, as has been shown numerous times by numerous authors, there is no MMR-autism link. This is a figment of Andrew Wakefield's imagination, aided and abetted by Brian Hooker's inept analysis of a CDC data set.

As to Julie Gerberding MD, MPH: She served as the director of the CDC from 2002 to 2009. Now here's the deal. The position of CDC Director is appointed by the President of the United States; the Director serves at the President's pleasure. Gerberding was appointed by George W. Bush in 2002.  Obama wanted his own team. I am sure that beginning with Obama's election, Gerberding knew that she would be replaced.

What were her next career choices? In 2009, she was 54. Back to medicine? Unlikely. Academia?  Possible, but why not go into the pharmaceutical industry, where her combination of medical knowledge and institutional leadership would be highly valued, not just in terms of salary but in the ability to lead a company?  

So Gerberding was appointed to head Merck's vaccine division in late 2009. Four years later, she was promoted to a new position, executive vice president for strategic communications. Part of Gerberding's compensation is stock options. On May  8, 2015, Gerberding sold 38,368 shares of Merck stock at a reported  $2,340,000; the same day, she exercised options to purchase an additional 46,208 shares for a cost of  $1,618,000. 

Was any of this improper? No.  

And while we are thinking about compensation, we might consider Andrew Wakefield.

UK physician Michael Fitzpatrick reported on Wakefield's take in the 1990s  from the Legal Aid Board in a January 12, 2007 article, The anti-MMR gravy train derailed:

To any observer not familiar with the world of law, what is striking is the sheer scale of the payments received by the witnesses in this case, which contrasts sharply with standard incomes in the medical and scientific world. To enable a rough comparison, in the UK in the 1990s, the basic income of a mid-career researcher at a university or medical school would have been around £50,000 to £60,000 a year; ...

Dr Wakefield received a total of more than £400,000 for his contribution to the case (equivalent to several times his annual income in the 1990s). He claims that he charged at the rates recommended by the British Medical Association for such work (between £47 and £100 per hour) (8). If he worked full time at this rate, his receipts would cover between two and four years exclusively devoted to the case. (Indeed, he indicates that his final award from the LSC was £100,000 less than he claimed.) Yet he was employed by the Royal Free up to December 2001, when he was reported to have taken up a post at Dr Jeff Bradstreet’s treatment centre in Florida (he has since moved on to another private clinic in Texas). According to Dr Wakefield, he donated the income he received from the litigation to support the foundation of a research unit dedicated to bowel problems in autistic children, first (unsuccessfully) at the Royal Free and later in the USA. According to Deer, the accounts of these organisations reveal that he was a recipient of funds from them rather than a donor.

In 2009, Matt Carey examined the 2008 tax returns from Wakefield's employer, Thoughtful House. Wakefield's compensation was $270,000.

Next up: the facts on the United States's National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. 

Updated to add: This masterful synopsis of the film. Click to enlarge. 

Dear Justin Kanew, I Get Your Fear, But It Is Misplaced: Part II

Shortly after the birth of their baby, Justin Kanew and his wife watched the film Vaxxed. He wrote:

We learned about the CDC whistleblower no national media were covering.

I'd like to suggest to Mr. and Mrs. Kanew that they consider this:  Is it possible that the lack of coverage is from lack of real substance to the claim of a coverup?  Or that William Thompson, the CDC employee at the center of the story, does not appear to be a reliable source?

Here is a Guide for Media on the MMR, CDC, and Brian Hooker story. At the end of the Media Guide post is an exhaustive list of coverage of the "CDC whistleblower" non-story. 

William Thompson.

The person who has been following the Hooker-Thompson=Wakefield saga most closely is Matt Carey, who is a scientist in his own right and the father of an autistic child. The articles below are some of his coverage:

1. August 26, 2014 Autism, Atlanta, MMR: serious questions and also how Brian Hooker and Andrew Wakefield are causing damage to the autism communities. Thpost is a detailed analysis of the 2004 deStefano Study, Hooker's retracted 2014 study, and Wakefield & Hooker's misleading public relations campaign around the Hooker study.
2. August 28, 2014 Andrew Wakefield betrays another “whistleblower” with Brian Hooker helping

   As the recent story has unfolded, I’ve been asked and I’ve told many people that in my view, Brian Hooker sees himself as an honest person and, as such, he would not be a party to the sort of deception that would be involved in secretly recording someone while acting as his “priest”, then betraying him.

   Apparently I was wrong.

   When Wakefield and Hooker first released their story, they claimed that their “informant” wanted to remain anonymous. It says so right in the press release dated August 18. The (disgustingly race-baiting) video they put out was censored as if they wanted to protect the anonymity of the informant. But by the night of August 21st, 3 days later, the video had been changed without announcement. Mr. Wakefield (he owns/runs the Autism Media Channel that is putting out these videos) apparently uploaded the noncensored version. In it, Mr. Thompson is named early and repeatedly. His voice is no longer obscured. Mr. Thompsons’ anonymity (weakly veiled to begin with) was no more.

3. October 17 2014 A new Autism Media Channel video. A chance to watch some sleight of hand

   Now that we’ve seen that the conclusion from Mr. Wakefield’s video is wrong, let’s consider a second problem with this new video: the way in which Mr. Wakefield manipulates his audience. He creates a timeline for the CDC’s actions that allows Mr. Wakefield to use his new favorite “f” word. Fraud. Let’s go through the timeline.

4. October 23 2014 Andrew Wakefield and Brian Hooker complain. Not honestly, but they complain

   What I find interesting is that Wakefield and Hooker are not just misinterpreting the statement as I originally thought. In the complaint they clearly changed what the statement said. Besides being wrong all on it’s own, this change tells me they know that phrase they latched on to ( “The only variable that will be assessed as a potential confounder using the entire sample will be the child’s race”) doesn’t come close to fitting in with his story. I don’t see this as an honest mistake."

   The complaint is long, but it all hinges on the three major claims: (1) The CDC was supposed to do an analysis of the total group (not just the birth certificate group) by race, (2) that the CDC hid results on “isolated” autism and (3) that they deviated from their analysis plan, introducing a revised plan, to do this.

   All three claims are false. And not false as in “I interpret them differently” but false as in “the very data Wakefield and Hooker depend on show them to be fabricated claims.

5. August 24, 2015 The Brian Hooker/William Thompson conversations

   From the conversations in the book we see that Thompson is angry. Angry at people. Not as much angry about science or omitted data. You can read more about that at Science Based Medicine.

   Was Thompson aware of who he was dealing with in Brian Hooker? Yes. He says, “I see a lot of your stuff online. I saw that you interviewed Congressman Posey, is it?”

   There’s a lot of talk of Posey and Congressman Issa. It seems like Hooker’s connections with congress were a big draw for Thompson."

6. August 27, 2015 The Hooker/Thompson conversations: were significant analyses omitted from Hooker’s paper?

   Which is to say, this is a very ironic conversation Hooker and Thompson are having. Hooker appears to be doing exactly what he claimes the CDC was doing: crafting a story around the results he wants to report and omitting important information to make that point."

7. September 3 2015 Here’s a statement by William Thompson that they won’t be quoting

   One more claim made by Mr. Hooker’s team is that the CDC abandoned their initial research plan (which, now that we’ve seen the plan, we know isn’t true) and that they did so in order to dilute an effect they saw in the African American Cohort. And this is all somehow backed up by William Thompson’s statements in the phone conversations.

   Well, now we have transcripts of some of the calls. And here we can see Brian Hooker trying to get Thompson to say that and Thompson, well, not saying it.

8. September 4 2015 Another William Thompson quote they won’t tell you: “I will say the Geiers were not right”

   Here’s another statement by Mr. Thompson. This time it is in relation to Mark and David Geier, a father/son team that has written a great deal of junk science trying to promote the idea that thimerosal in vaccines and autism are linked. The Geiers have been criticized in many venues, being called “intellectually dishonest” as one of the more polite ways of characterizing their work. Brian Hooker relies upon the Geiers for his own beliefs about autism and thimerosal and even calls the Geiers his friends.

   Dr. Thompson: But it’s a marketing thing. It’s a marketing thing. You have to figure out how to market this. And this has to come from other voices, it can’t just come from you because you…they made you the poster boy of, they want to portray you as crazy and you know um, and honestly I think, you’ve been persistent. You have been right most of the time. I will say the Geiers were not right and the Geiers…you know the Geiers; I do not know them personally. But, I know the things they did. They took exact copies of papers we wrote and published them under their own names. Word for word and I just thought that [UI].

   Want to bet this quote doesn’t end up in the “documentary” Andrew Wakefield is making on Thompson?

9. January 4 2016 The William Thompson Documents. There’s no whistle to blow.

   For those hoping for an exciting look into CDC malfeasance, sorry to disappoint you. Not only is it not present here, but these documents are very mundane and repetitive. Many people seem to think there will be evidence that the CDC are covering up. No “Vaccines cause autism! How do we cover this up”. Nothing like it. Wakefield and Hooker have already cherry picked–and misrepresented–whatever they could to “best” make their case."

10. March 22 2016 Andrew Wakefield releases the trailer for his William Thompson video. Slick production and dishonesty

    Let’s start with a small detail. I suspect many have already wondered why I referred to the clips from Thompson in the plural. It’s because that 10 seconds or so of audio is actually two different comments from Thompson spliced together. And taken out of context. We know this because a book was released with the transcripts of the calls that Brian Hooker secretly recorded.

11. April 2 2016 Movie review: VAXXED

    Let’s take that second one first, isolated autism. Here’s the thing–when the CDC team published their study in 2004, they did report on this. Instead of autism isolated from all other conditions, they showed autism without intellectual disability. The CDC reported that the calculated risk for this group was “statistically significant”.

    In other words–what did they hide? Nothing. It’s the same result that Wakefield says was hidden. The only question I have– if this result is so important, why didn’t Wakefield or Hooker notice for the 10 years after it was published?

The core of the movie Vaxxed are the recorded conversations between Brian Hooker and William Thompson. Transcripts of these conversations were published in book form in the summer of 2015, as ,Vaccine Whistleblower, was reviewed in 2015 by a number of knowlegable people: ScienceMom;   David Gorski MD PhD; epidemiologist René Najera MPH; and law professor Dorit Reiss.

Here are their reviews.

1. Monday August 24, 2015: Catherina at Just the Vax: "Vaccine Whistleblower": A Review of the Preface and Foreword

   This book is so bad that it's good, so good in the sense that it contains such demonstrably false information and a re-hash of previously debunked claims that I have chosen to review it in parts, the first being the Preface (Boyd Haley) and Foreword (Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (RFK Jr.)),

2. Monday August 24, 2015 David Gorski MD at Science-Based Medicine Vaccine Whistleblower: An antivaccine “exposé” full of sound and fury, signifying nothing

   The funny thing is, nothing in Vaccine Whistleblower actually demonstrates [wrongdoing at the CDC]. All we have are the words of a very angry man, William Thompson, who clearly has been nursing a grudge against his former colleagues since at least 2003 and is willing to make accusations without significant evidence at them. All we have from this very angry man are a highly select number of transcripts, only four out of over 30, in which this bitter man makes his accusations. It’s all very one-sided, and unfortunately the CDC, probably because Thompson has lawyered up with one of the best whistleblower attorneys in the country, is being painfully vague and discreet in its response:

   CDC is aware that employee Dr. William Thompson has raised concerns regarding an article he co-authored that was published in 2004 in Pediatrics. Consistent with CDC’s existing policies and procedures, the agency, through its Office of the Associate Director for Science (ADS), and in coordination with the HHS Office of Research Integrity, is reviewing these concerns. The agency will provide further information once the review is completed.

   The bottom line is that this book is nothing more than propaganda, and deceptive propaganda at that. The sad thing is that a formerly reputable scientist, William Thompson, provided the grist for the propaganda because he apparently has an ax to grind against his former co-investigators.

3. Monday August 24, 2015 René Najera at Science-Based Medicine Vaccine Whistleblower: BS Hooker and William Thompson try to talk about epidemiology

   Let’s start by reviewing BS Hooker’s credentials. He is a bioengineer and chemical engineer, not an epidemiologist, despite what the author of the book wants you to believe:

   With the publication of Kevin Barry’s Vaccine Whistleblower: Exposing Autism Research Fraud at the CDC, any claims of credibility for the CDC’s science has collapsed. Barry built his book upon four legally taped conversations between CDC senior vaccine safety scientist Dr. William Thompson and Simpson College professor and epidemiologist, Dr. Brian Hooker.

   Later in the book, in the transcript of one of the conversations between BS Hooker and Thompson, BS gets a list of things he needs to do to earn an “honorary” degree in epidemiology. Among those things was to look at some of the earlier studies that Thompson had coauthored. And BS did. He would go on to write a flawed paper that I critiqued here and ended up being retracted, as I told you about here. That paper alone should tell you everything you need to know about BS Hooker’s epidemiological understanding, but the transcripts given to us by his camp in the form of the book really reveal his ignorance.

4. Monday August 24, 2015 Dorit Reiss at Science-Based Medicine Review of Vaccine Whistleblower: A Legal Perspective

   This post addresses some legal issues raised in the Vaccine Whistleblower book. The first part explains whistleblower protections and how Dr. Thompson’s allegations fit into them. The second part addresses Dr. Thompson’s suggestion of an independent research agency. The third part explains why the book’s claim that school mandates violate international human rights is incorrect.

So if the core of the movie Vaxxed is propaganda, and there's no substance to the allegations of a coverup, or a scandal, or anything of that nature, does that change your mind, Justin Kanew?

Next up: why the film Vaxxed is wrong about Julie Gerberding

Updated to add: This masterful synopsis of the film. Click to enlarge. 

Dear Justin Kanew, I Get Your Fear, But It Is Misplaced: Part I

There's a young podcaster, Justin Kanew, of Get It Got It Good.  I admired his interview with Steve Silberman. 

Recently he kicked off a series of interviews with the following statement:

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.

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.

You see the problem right away, I think. No one should have been telling Kanew that vaccines are 100% safe. Nothing in life is 100% safe. Vaccination is a medical procedure; all medical procedures have inherent risk. Here's what we know about the vaccines given to children: they are very safe, and orders of magnitude safer than the diseases they prevent.  I get it that young parents are fearful -- I remember my daughter being that young, and how I'd hover over her: Is she still breathing? Is everything OK? 

Unfortunately, Kanew found some skilled propagandists to fan his fears to the blazing point, namely the producers of the film Vaxxed. Kanew wrote,

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.

What Kanew didn't read was responses to De Niro's interview, for example:

1. April 13, 2016 Manny Alvarez MD at Fox News Dr. Manny: I'm talkin' to you, De Niro -- autism is not caused by vaccines

   When it comes to health, false promises and misinformed theories lead to inefficient therapies and dead end research. At the end of the day, it leads to anger and the misperception that somebody “caused” whatever medical hardship you’re facing to happen to you, and that is not a good starting point when it comes to autism. After 25 years of watching the rates of autism increase, we are faced with two challenges in this field. One: we must do more for these young adults entering the real world. We need more education, more job opportunities, better government support and full integration into society. Two: we must support genuine autism research. We must find out where autism originates, which could possibly begin in the womb.

   Creating an environment of suspicion only delays what we must accomplish today. De Niro, I need you and your celebrity pals to concentrate on today. I know that you chose a different career path than I, and that it takes many years of scientific training to understand cellular biology, but that is not an excuse to give any form of validity to Wakefield’s quack claims. Rather than acting as a mouthpiece for conspiracy theorists and the like, it’s time for you to use your celebrity power for good and help me, a father like you, get the answers we want.

2. April 13, 2016, Russell Saunders MD at The Daily Beast Robert De Niro Sticks Up for Anti-Vaxx Documentary

   I would happily sit down with De Niro, pause Vaxxed at any moment of his choosing, and rebut every single point he cares to mention.... And there is a perfectly good, accurate movie about vaccines for people who want to watch one.

   But it is lamentable that once again a celebrity has cast in his lot with people willing to ignore, deny, or even misrepresent medical science. De Niro’s comments not only shake his credibility as an arbiter of quality documentary films, they have the potential to make our country less safe from disease.

3. April 13, 2016 Rupal Pinto, MD, FAAP at Doc2mom The story they don’t want you to hear

   There’s nothing like a new celebrity wagging his finger at the medical establishment to make a doctor-mom want to vomit. A lot. The most recent iteration: Dr. (okay, not a doctor) Robert DeNiro stating that physicians and researchers have not been paying sufficient attention to the conversation about whether vaccines are related to autism (Antique Spoiler alert: they’re not.) Doctors deal with this issue every day – thanks to the work of charlatans like Andrew Wakefield – and millions of dollars have been spent trying to see if there is a relationship. No relationship has been found. Mr. DeNiro says that “nobody wants to talk about it.” Not true. We talk about it often with patients and we all do our reading and our homework and I have personally read that horrific Wakefield study enough times to know that it’s plainly a bad study, and warrants no documentary, no expose, and certainly no recognition at an internationally renowned film festival.

There are more responses at Is De Niro's Demand for "The Truth" about Safe Vaccines and Autism Justified?

So you see, Justin Kanew, thoughtful people have been thinking about these issues for quite some time. Maybe you should interview them. I imagine Russell Saunders (which is a nom de blogue) would make quite a good interview.

Next:The film Vaxxed convinced Mr. Kanew that there was a cover-up at the CDC. There's no coverup. It's a manufactroversy ginned up by Hooker and Wakefield. I explain why.

Updated to add: This masterful synopsis of the film. Click to enlarge. 

The Book Vaccine Whistleblower: The Core of the Movie Vaxxed Examined

The movie Vaxxed has been widely reviewed. There is nothing new in the movie that had not been extensively analyzed, starting in 2014. Many of the people who think the film is important seem unaware that the substantive content of the movie had been published in book form in 2015.  

This book, Vaccine Whistleblower, was reviewed in 2015 by a number of knowlegable people: ScienceMom; David Gorski MD PhD; epidemiologist René Najera MPH; and law professor Dorit Reiss.

Here are their reviews.

1. Monday August 24, 2015: Catherina at Just the Vax: "Vaccine Whistleblower": A Review of the Preface and Foreword

   This book is so bad that it's good, so good in the sense that it contains such demonstrably false information and a re-hash of previously debunked claims that I have chosen to review it in parts, the first being the Preface (Boyd Haley) and Foreword (Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (RFK Jr.)),

2. Monday August 24, 2015 David Gorski MD at Science-Based Medicine Vaccine Whistleblower: An antivaccine “exposé” full of sound and fury, signifying nothing

   The funny thing is, nothing in Vaccine Whistleblower actually demonstrates [wrongdoing at the CDC]. All we have are the words of a very angry man, William Thompson, who clearly has been nursing a grudge against his former colleagues since at least 2003 and is willing to make accusations without significant evidence at them. All we have from this very angry man are a highly select number of transcripts, only four out of over 30, in which this bitter man makes his accusations. It’s all very one-sided, and unfortunately the CDC, probably because Thompson has lawyered up with one of the best whistleblower attorneys in the country, is being painfully vague and discreet in its response:

   CDC is aware that employee Dr. William Thompson has raised concerns regarding an article he co-authored that was published in 2004 in Pediatrics. Consistent with CDC’s existing policies and procedures, the agency, through its Office of the Associate Director for Science (ADS), and in coordination with the HHS Office of Research Integrity, is reviewing these concerns. The agency will provide further information once the review is completed.

   The bottom line is that this book is nothing more than propaganda, and deceptive propaganda at that. The sad thing is that a formerly reputable scientist, William Thompson, provided the grist for the propaganda because he apparently has an ax to grind against his former co-investigators.

3. Monday August 24, 2015 René Najera at Science-Based Medicine Vaccine Whistleblower: BS Hooker and William Thompson try to talk about epidemiology

   Let’s start by reviewing BS Hooker’s credentials. He is a bioengineer and chemical engineer, not an epidemiologist, despite what the author of the book wants you to believe:

   With the publication of Kevin Barry’s Vaccine Whistleblower: Exposing Autism Research Fraud at the CDC, any claims of credibility for the CDC’s science has collapsed. Barry built his book upon four legally taped conversations between CDC senior vaccine safety scientist Dr. William Thompson and Simpson College professor and epidemiologist, Dr. Brian Hooker.

   Later in the book, in the transcript of one of the conversations between BS Hooker and Thompson, BS gets a list of things he needs to do to earn an “honorary” degree in epidemiology. Among those things was to look at some of the earlier studies that Thompson had coauthored. And BS did. He would go on to write a flawed paper that I critiqued here and ended up being retracted, as I told you about here. That paper alone should tell you everything you need to know about BS Hooker’s epidemiological understanding, but the transcripts given to us by his camp in the form of the book really reveal his ignorance.

4. Monday August 24, 2015 Dorit Reiss at Science-Based Medicine Review of Vaccine Whistleblower: A Legal Perspective

   This post addresses some legal issues raised in the Vaccine Whistleblower book. The first part explains whistleblower protections and how Dr. Thompson’s allegations fit into them. The second part addresses Dr. Thompson’s suggestion of an independent research agency. The third part explains why the book’s claim that school mandates violate international human rights is incorrect.

Backstory #1: At the blog Harpocrates Speaks, ToddW has kept an updated guide for parents and media over the story: MMR, the CDC and Brian Hooker: A Guide for Parents and the Media

Backstory #2: January 4, 2016, Matt Carey at LeftBrain/RightBrain Autism:  The William Thompson Documents. There’s no whistle to blow. "Congressman Posey released the documents to a journalist recently and, given that they are now in the public domain, Dorit Reiss and I requested that they be made available to us as well. Mr. Posey’s office graciously granted our request and I have spent some time going through them." 

Here is what you need to remember:

Also, consider this: before Thompson, Wakefield and Hooker didn’t talk about the issues of racial/ethnic minorities. For the most part, the entire “autism is caused by vaccines” community have ignored minority communities. Why? Because [the racial/ethnic minority autism figures] are a clear example that the vaccine hypothesis is a failure. Prevalence estimates for racial/ethnic minority groups have been typically much lower than for Caucasians (Hispanics are diagnosed at a rate of 1/3 that of Caucasians in California. And this has been consistent for over 10 years.) This presents a huge problem for the likes of Hooker and Wakefield. If vaccines are a major cause of autism, why do minority groups have such low prevalences? If they were honest about their own beliefs, they would be calling for a study into the “protective” effect for minorities. But they don’t. More importantly, if they were real autism advocates they would be calling for better diagnosis, better awareness, better services for these under served communities. Instead they have just ignored these minority communities. That is, until they could use them as part of their campaign against vaccines.

Don't forget that last point. In the last two decades "vaccines cause autism" community has demonstrated no (0, null, zero) in engaging with the needs of non-white, low-SES families affected by autism

TBT Remembering The Robe, Victor Sivore

The year is 1989.  Left to right, my sister Janet, my sister Nancy (holding my daughter Al, then I think 5 months old), Father Victor Sivore, me, my sister Susan. 

Fr. Vic entered the priesthood in 1964; the occasion was celebrating Vic's 25th anniversary. 

I have so many memories of Vic...  He started visiting California as I recall in the mid-1960s, coming to stay with his cousin Bob Jamplis; the Jamplises were good friends with my parents and with Bud and Jeanne Dickey.  Bud and Vic were alike in personality large, outgoing raconteurs.  I think it was Bud Dickey who started calling Vic "The Robe". 

Dad at the time was also deeply involved with Stanford Athletics, and Vic became involved in Stanford football in the Plunkett years. 

Illinois Senate resolution.

Stanford memorial

 

 

Agnes Slott-Møller

I don't remember how I came across this image: Faestemanden dør or in English, "The Dying Betrothed" which I found... intriguing. 

Who was the artist? A woman named who later in life adopted the name Agnes Slott-Møller.  But there is a story.  Maria Laterza runs the page Tutt'Art@, (A meeting place for artists) and wrote a biographical sketch of Angess Slott-Møller. 

(I've corrected the pronouns -- Laterza writes in Italian.

Agnes Slott-Møller was a very independent artist who maintained her youth Symbolist approach work, even when it was no longer fashionable. Her strong national interests meant that she was a board member of Sønderjysk (South Jutlandic) Society in 1915. As a matter of fact, her painting "Fædrelandets vår" ("The Spring of the Fatherland") was presented to Christian X and Queen Alexandrine at the reunification festivities in North Schleswig in 1920, and the painting has since hung in the King's study.

Who Is Polly Tommey?

The movie Vaxxed, produced and directed by Andrew Wakefield, also features a British woman, Polly Tommey, who appears in several scenes in the movie and is listed as one of the seven producers.  She has also been appearing with Del Bigtree and Andrew Wakefield at Q&A sessions following screenings of the movie. Ms. Tommey is well-known in UK autism circles, but not so well in the US.  

A bit of backstory: in the UK, the dominant autism organization is the National Autistic Society (NAS), which began as a group of parents meeting in a private home in 1962. By 1965, the organization had opened a school for autistic children; by 1972 the organization held a national conference on autism, and by 1997, NAS had organized and funded a national helpline (you can see a timeline of NAS achievements here). it is worthwhile to note that NAS has several autistic  board members. The focus of NAS has been to improve the quality of life for autistic people across the life-span, and has run several remarkable autism acceptance campaigns (see the 2008  I Exist for example). 

In 1997, Jonathan and Polly Tommey's second son, William ("Billy") was born. According to a 2009 interview with The Evening Standard, Billy developed normally for the first 13 months of life, and began suffering health woes thereafter.  Mr. Tommey, who was a fitness instructor, began to research dietary and other interventions.  One of the treatments popular at the time in the US was intravenous secretin, a hormone. (See John Wills Lloyd's assessment from 1998, and updated in 2014).  As recounted in their book Autism: A Practical Guide to Improving Your Child's Quality of Life, the Tommeys arranged to obtain supplies of secretin from the US and have it administered under medical supervision six times between November 1998 and September 1999.  Somehow, the Tommeys were put in touch with Trevor McDonald, a prominent television figure in the UK, and "Billy's Story" was broadcast on ITV on April 29, 1999. 

The Tommeys said that subsequent to the airing of the Trevor McDonald program, they received "thousands" of messages from parents of autistic children who were in desperate need of help. The Tommeys started a newsletter, The Autism File, which eventually became a glossy magazine. In 2007, the Tommeys established a charity, The Autism Trust. 

Ms. Tommey was back in the UK national news in 2009, with a billboard campaign directed at then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Both Michael Fitzpatrick and Mike Stanton urged Prime Minister Brown to ignore Tommey's campaign. 

Fitzpatrick:

...in the interests of children and families affected by autism, I hope that you will refuse support for her key activities – upholding discredited links between vaccines and autism and recommending unproven and untested fringe treatments.

Stanton

The greatest danger is not that Ms Tommey and the Autism Trust are going to persuade the government to follow their lead. But by muddying the waters with their campaign they may give the government an excuse to back pedal on existing commitments while they consult with this self appointed autism constituency. The best way forward is to get behind the NAS campaign and keep up the pressure for the provisions of the autism bill to become law.

Notably, the Autism Trust was not one of the backers of the landmark 2009 Autism Bill sponsored by The National Autistic Society

In 2010, Tommey started another billboard campaign:

Guardian reporter Amelia Gentleman called it: Attention-grabbing antics for autism

Tommey is controversial in other ways, too. Her desire for residential centres for people with autism is not universally supported, with many other charities advocating that care should be brought into the wider community. Her magazine's focus on nutritional remedies has raised questions: her husband, a nutritionist, runs the Autism Clinic, a private practice offering treatment through dietary modifications.

Much of the content of The Autism File consisted of articles in support of Andrew Wakefield. Wakefield was forced out of his position at Thoughtful House in 2010, after the General Medical Council struck him off the UK medical register.  Tommey continued vocal in her  support of wakefield 

In January 2013, The Texas Observer published a long article , Autism Inc.: The Discredited Science, Shady Treatments and Rising Profits Behind Alternative Autism Treatments

The founder of Autism File is a woman named Polly Tommey, who is also the mother of an autistic child. In 2010, according to an Observer review of records kept by the Texas Secretary of State, Andrew Wakefield registered a company called The Autism File Global in Texas, listing Tommey as a fellow manager. In June 2011, an amendment was filed changing the company’s name to the Autism Media Channel. Today, its website contains general autism tips, diet and nutritional information, and various embedded videos, many of which feature Tommey. Wakefield remains a director of the company.

On April 6, 2013, The Guardian published Alex Hannaford's  article, Andrew Wakefield: autism inc, which among other things details the many interrelationships, professional and personal, between the Wakefield family and the Tommey family.  Mike Stanton gave his opinion of why the Tommeys might have left England. 

According to Mike Stanton, British author of Learning To Live With High Functioning Autism and the father of a son with Asperger's syndrome, the Tommeys are now "linked to these people in America who think diseases are better than vaccines – that diseases will give you immunity and vaccines will kill you. [Tommey] knows Wakefield is a busted flush over here. That's why they've gone over there."

The Tommeys moved from England to the Austin area of Texas in October 2012. In March, 2015, Cassie McKee at Four Points News interviewed Polly Tommey. Local landowners Berta Bradley, and her daughter, Lisa Eckhart, donated 40 acres of land to the Autism Trust USA to build a residential facility for adult autistics. In the year since, little progress has been made on building the facility. 

In 2013, Wakefield and Tommey were working on an autism reality TV show.  As part of that effort, they became involved with the family of Alex Spourdalakis, the autistic young man later brutally murdered by his mother and godmother, in June, 2013.

Tommey and her Autism Media Channel worked with Dorothy Spourdalakis - recording the public pleas for help.

"He needs something simple, in the country, where he can run around, get the treatment that he needs so he can get better," said Dorothy Spourdalakis, Alex's mother, in the YouTube video.

"She was crying and so was the godmother. They were both in a terrible state - that's why we did that plea in the hospital for help," said Tommey.

In January 2015, Wakefield released a direct-to-DVD film, Who Killed Alex Spourdalakis, which was reviewed by autism parent and advocate Matt Carey. Tommey is listed as the producer.

Alex deserved better in life. He deserved medical care, be it psychiatric, standard medical or both, to bring him back to the happy person he was before his crisis. But Alex also deserves better in death. He deserves that his life and death not be used as a tool to promote Andrew Wakefield’s poorly supported one-size-fits-all approach to autism. He deserves to be the story, not have his story framed as “who killed Alex Spourdalakis”.

Alex deserves better.

In the summer of 2014, Wakefield's associate Brian Hooker released a paper that was withdrawn from publication in a matter of weeks.  In the meantime, Wakefield and Tommey released videos hyping the story.  In the fall of 2014, an early trailer for what was then called "Feast of Consequences" was released and Matt Carey reviewed it.  (Here is an account of a presentation Wakefield gave under the "Feast of Consequences" title.)

If Mr. Wakefield weren’t doing so much damage to my community, his videos would be laughably bad.  I’m not laughing.

Evidently Wakefield and Tommey spent much of 2015 developing the film that was released as "Vaxxed".  

Here is Tommey's self-written biography from the Vaxxed website:

PRODUCER Polly Tommey is the mother of Billy, a 20-year old boy with autism, a book author, founding Editor-in-Chief of the world’s preeminent autism magazine The Autism File, and Autism Media Channel’s TV host and award-winning documentary film producer (“Who Killed Alex Spourdalakis”).

An outspoken autism advocate and founder of the not-for-profit Autism Trust in the UK and US, Polly has appeared in print and television media around the globe, gone head-to-head with top political leaders, and never compromised.

She has received multiple nominations and awards from, among others, The Women of The Year Foundation, Red magazine, and the British Society of Magazine Editors. She is also a Producer on “Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe.”

 

On May 13, Orac at Respectful Insolence examined Polly Tommey's claim that she is not anti-vaccine.

 

Image source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-1164799/Mothers-unite-World-Autism-Day--8216-If-want-heard-noticed-8217.html

Updated to add: This masterful synopsis of the film. Click to enlarge. 

I Want To Thank My Autistic Friends

For reasons, I spend a lot of time with Mr. Idaho, an 11 year old boy who is neurodivergent in various dimensions -- but not autistic.  

One of Mr. Idaho's baseline attributes is that he has a short but powerful body that he can not always control as well as he would like.  Or even think of controlling.  But he needs to move, and bump into things, and thrash about. 

Another is that his baseline, his normal, speaking voice is Drill Sergeant. Really.  I was calling on a neighbor two houses down the other day and could clearly hear him... from inside my house. Just talking about what he was hoping was available for snack. 

To be honest, a lot of Mr. Idaho's ways chap my hide. I find being addressed by a Drill Sergeant  aversive -- I don't like being blared at. I could say he is  a bull in a china shop. And so on.

In the olden days, before I had autistic friends, I might have had the idea that I could shame or discipline Mr. Idaho out of ... being who he was by nature. 

But then I met for example, Julia Bascom, who let me peek into her world with the The Obsessive Joy Of Autism.  And many have spoken of the cost of passing for neurotypical. Cynthia Kim's article Acceptance As A Well Being Practice is particularly insightful.

So I shifted my point of view.  My goal has become to find time and space to allow and encourage Mr. Idaho to be his natural self, his loud, exuberant, boisterous self....in ways where he doesn't run into limits or inadvertent bad outcomes.

I would not have gotten to this place of seeking settings for Mr. Idaho to be himself without the wisdom and guidance of my autistic friends. Thank you. And Mr. Idaho thanks you. He is a happier, more confident, more joyous boy. 

Edited to add: if you have favorite essays about the cost of passing, or how acceptance has changed your life, or similar topics, please put links in the comments. 

 

 

Yom Hashoah 2016

For today, please visit my e-friend Peter Lipson's remembrance: My immigrant family

If you don't understand what this is about, perhaps Remembering the 6 million Jewish people will be useful.