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Vaccine Choice Empowerment Symposium: To be a mole or not to be a mole…?

The Vaccine Choice Empowerment Symposium is coming, full of antivaccine misinformation and dishonest conflation, and it’s coming to Orac’s neck of the woods. Should Orac attend, given that the misinformation will be black hole density?

Regular readers might wonder why there was no post yesterday. Believe it or not, sometimes Orac needs to rest his Tarial cells. For some reason he hit the wall last night in the early evening, and, by the time he regained consciousness, it was the middle of the night. It happens occasionally. At least it gave you all an extra day to peruse part one of our mole’s report—and being a mole is a good thing in cases like this—on the One Conversation antivaccine quackfest that had almost ensnared real scientists along with me. Since then, I’ve learned of something happening far too close for comfort for me, namely the Vaccine Choice Empowerment Symposium, which is to be held at Schoolcraft College. Guess who’s sponsoring this antivaccine crankfest? Yes, it’s our very own homegrown antivaccine lobbying group, Michigan For Vaccine Choice. Given how close it is, I’m seriously tempted to do what I did the last time antivaxers had a confab in my neck of the woods and show up to observe and report.

I’ve written about Michigan for Vaccine Choice on multiple occasions before, of course. It’s basically Michigan’s version of the sort of group that’s been popping up in nearly every state over the last several years, like Texans for Vaccine Choice. In every case, the group’s tactics are the same. Antivaccine fear mongering is cloaked in a deceptive frame painting school vaccine mandates as unconscionable assaults on “freedom” and “parental rights,” and that deceptive frame is used to promote policies that progressively weaken school vaccine mandates. Indeed, in Michigan, the last attempt to weaken school vaccine mandates included a provision in the proposed bill that, if it had passed, would have made it more difficult for local health officials to exclude unvaccinated children from school in the event of an outbreak of vaccine-preventable disease. More recently, another bill was introduced that would have required “informed consent” about “fetal parts” in vaccines. (That’s the sort of thing that gives the real game away, and the real game is antivaccine.) Still more recently, two candidates for the legislature, including my very own incumbent state representative Jeff Noble, hosted a “vaccine choice” forum, in which the antivaccine tropes flew fast and furious. So it’s not at all surprising that an event called the Vaccine Choice Empowerment Symposium would be held here.

So let’s see what this “Vaccine Choice Empowerment Sypmosium” is about. On the Michigan for Vaccine Choice Facebook page, it’s represented thusly:

Gather medical, legal, and political viewpoints on Vaccine Choice on October 25 in Livonia, Michigan. Learn more and buy your tickets online.
https://www.michiganvaccinechoice.org/empowermentAnd there’ll be a strolling dinner and open bar, too!

Now let’s take a look at the panelists:

David Brownstein, MD
Keynote Speaker

Author, board-certified family physician, and Medical Director of the Center for Holistic Medicine in West Bloomfield – Dr. Brownstein will address immunity and health.

Allison Folmar, JD
Renowned civil rights attorney and parental-rights activist best known for winning a legal battle against the Michigan Attorney General to secure the rights of parents to choose the medical treatment for their children.

Sue Allor, RN & MI Rep.
Michigan State Representative for District 106 and Vice Chair of the Appropriations’ subcommittee for Health and Human Services, Representative Allor will talk about vaccine mandates in the workplace.

Christian Bogner, MD
Board-certified physician with clinical interests in nutritional research. As a former Chief of Surgery, Bogner looks at problems mechanically and understands the benefits of a healthy lifestyle to prevent unnecessary medical intervention. He has helped patients with autism, high cholesterol, obesity, diabetes and cancer.

James Neuenschwander, MD
Board-certified in Emergency Medicine, Integrative and Holistic Medicine, as well as Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine. In addition, “Dr. Neu” is a member of Medical Academy of Pediatric Special Needs (MAPS) since its founding, and a MAPS fellow since 2014. He received his undergraduate, medical, and medical postgraduate training from the U of M.

My first reaction was that this “Vaccine Choice Empowerment Symposium” will feature quite the rogues’ gallery of local antivaccine and antivaccine-sympathetic figures. I had heard of each and every one of them, although I was more familiar with some than with others.

Let’s take a look at David Brownstein, MD, first. Dr. Brownstein is, unfortunately, a local “holistic” family doctor who’s based in West Bloomfield and services the affluent people living in the northern suburbs of Detroit. Consistent with his embrace of alternative medicine, he’s definitely antivaccine. Indeed, I first wrote about him in the context of his spewing some weapons-grade nonsense about a large Jewish summer camp in northern Michigan instituting a requirement that children attending the camp and all camp personnel be up-to-date with their vaccines according to the CDC recommended schedule. At the time, I didn’t know the history of Jewish camps in Michigan, but my old friend from my ScienceBlogs days Peter Lipson was happy to educate me that they became popular among the Jewish population of southeast Michigan in the early part of the 20th century because Jewish children weren’t allowed to attend most camps and therefore Jews started their own. On another occasion, Dr. Brownstein published a hilariously off-base rant about board recertification in which he claimed that his family practice exam was all about “drugs, drugs, and more drugs.” Most recently, I was appalled (and somewhat amused by the ignorance of) shingles and the shingles vaccine. Let’s just put it this way. Dr. Brownstein was very, very unhappy with the new recommendation that adults over the age of 50 receive Shingrix, the new shingles vaccine. As usual, his rant against Shingrix was full of antivaccine misinformation.

If you want to get an idea of Dr. Brownstein’s views with respect to vaccines, I’ll re-quote him:

Folks, the truth of the matter is that the claim that vaccines are safe and effective is an example of a platitude that is continually repeated. Vaccines have not been properly studied and many vaccines simply don’t work. The truth of the matter is that the vaccine schedule has never been studied. We simply don’t know if it is safe to inject our children with over 70 vaccines before they are adults.

I can assure you of one thing: It is not safe to inject our children (or any living being) with toxic additives such as mercury, formaldehyde, aluminum or MSG. It is not rocket science to predict that people injected with toxic items that negatively affect the human body will suffer neurological and immunological problems.

Simply repeating that vaccines are safe and effective does not make them so. Watching our young people suffer with so many chronic illnesses should make anyone question the validity of injecting more toxins into them.

As I said at the time, all of these are lies and misinformation that I’ve debunked on more occasions than I can remember over the last 12 years. As I also said at the time, you’ll just have to take my word for it this time; debunking all this information again would make this post much, much longer than you probably want to read, even by my standards. You get the idea, though, I bet. Dr. Brownstein is a font of antivaccine misinformation, and he’s the keynote speaker.

But what about the rest of the crew?

Alison Folmar is a local lawyer who’s made a name for herself representing parents accused of medical neglect of their children. For instance, she represented Maryanne Goldboldo, a woman with a physically impaired daughter who in 2011 refused to turn her over to child protective services, leading to a twelve hour armed standoff with police during which she was accused at firing a weapon at police. She had been treating her child’s psychiatric condition with “holistic medicine” and blamed many of her child’s medical problems on vaccinations. The legal battle went on for years and finally ended with the charges against Goldboldo that she fired a shot at police being dismissed because she was not expected ever to be competent to stand trial again after suffering a brain aneurysm. She died in 2017. Let’s just put it this way. Folmar appeared at the autism quackfest known as Autism One in 2015, where the story was represented as her daughter having ” exhibited autistic-like symptoms immediately after vaccinations.” I can tell right away that Folmar is one of those lawyers who has mistakenly conflated parental rights with the right to refuse vaccinations. She’s a board member for ParentalRights.org, an organization that works to “preserve parental rights through a Parental Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as well as through state and federal legislation that will protect children by empowering parents” through a 2019 “battle plan” in which they will try to get as many states as possible to pass “parental rights” resolutions.

Here’s the amendment to the US Constitution they’re pushing:

SECTION 1
The liberty of parents to direct the upbringing, education, and care of their children is a fundamental right.

SECTION 2
The parental right to direct education includes the right to choose, as an alternative to public education, private, religious, or home schools, and the right to make reasonable choices within public schools for one’s child.

SECTION 3
Neither the United States nor any State shall infringe these rights without demonstrating that its governmental interest as applied to the person is of the highest order and not otherwise served.

SECTION 4
The parental rights guaranteed by this article shall not be denied or abridged on account of disability.

SECTION 5
This article shall not be construed to apply to a parental action or decision that would end life.

You can see why quacks, antivaccine and other, would love this amendment. It could basically make it almost impossible for states to protect children from medical abuse and neglect, if the “liberty” of parents to direct the care of their children is a fundamental right. As for Folmar, her appearances at the Autism One quackfest and at this “vaccine choice” symposium, it’s clear that Folmar considers “vaccine choice” to be part of “parental rights.”

What about Susan Allor? As you might know, I’m sick and tired with the number of antivaccine-sympathetic legislators I keep encountering, the more I pay attention to what our state legislator is doing. I’ve already mentioned my very own state representative, Jeff Noble, who also sees parental rights as near absolute and views “vaccine choice” as part of that, as though children don’t have rights of their own. Then there’s my state senator, Patrick Colbeck, who is antivaccine, prone to other pseudoscience, and, thankfully, soon to be term-limited so as not to be my senator any more. They are not alone.

Depressingly, Sue Allor is a registered nurse. Oddly enough, she doesn’t immediately appear to be antivaccine. For instance, this article from 2015 reports her discussing strategies to increase immunization rates in Cheboygan county. Given that she’s slated to speak about workplace immunization mandates, such as requiring the influenza vaccine for health care workers, it could be that she conflates the “rights” of adults with their “right” to expose their patients to preventable infectious disease. She is, however, one of the Michigan legislative candidates endorsed by Michigan Vaccine Freedom PAC. My take? She buys into the right wing view that parental rights are near absolute and that parents should have unfettered rights to refuse vaccination for their children.

The last two doctors, Dr. Christian Bogner and Dr. James Neuenschwander, appear to be your run-of-the-mill “holistic” doctors who are antivaccine. There’s more about him on the Michigan for Vaccine Choice home page:

Medical Director of Oxford Recovery Center, an integrative care facility in Troy and Brighton. The ARTS (Autism Recovery Thru Synergy) program is analyzing genetics, labs, offers hyperbaric oxygen therapy, nutrition counseling, neurofeedback as well as applied behavior analysis. Dr. Bogner is a regular speaker at AutismOne and will speak at the World Autism Organization conference later this year.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy? This sounds like serious autism quackery, except that Dr. Bogner doesn’t treat just autism. He treats almost everything including, of course, chronic Lyme disease. I’ve written about him before in the context of his advocacy of medical marijuana to treat autism. Specifically, he co-authored a summary of the evidence for cannabis for autism that was one of the most blatantly cherry-picked reviews of the literature I’ve ever seen and did not support the efficacy of medical marijuana for autism by any stretch of the imagination. Dr. Bogner is also most definitely antivaccine, as this article by him demonstrates. Indeed, it looks like a seriously target-rich environment that I should consider doing a complete post on. Basically, he claims that adjuvants (like aluminum) plus heavy metals in vaccine activate the microglia, causing inflammation and autism. Oh, and glyphosate is involved, too. So are a lot of other things, like the “aborted fetal cells in vaccines.” You get the idea.

Finally, there’s Dr. James Neuenschwander. An emergency medicine doctor who turned to quackery, he founded the Bio Energy Center:

Dr. Neu is board certified in Emergency Medicine, Integrative and Holistic Medicine, as well as Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine. In addition, he is a Fellow of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M) as well as holding a certification in chelation therapy. He is a member of A4M, ACAM, and ILADS. He has been a DAN! Practitioner since 2007, a member of Medical Academy of Pediatric Special Needs (MAPS) since its founding, and a MAPS fellow since 2014. He received his undergraduate, medical, and medical postgraduate training from the University of Michigan.

I hang my head in shame. As regular readers know, I graduated from the University of Michigan too. How someone who graduated from U. of M. back in the days before one of its departments embraced integrating quackery into medicine, I can’t understand, but “Dr. Neu” does homeopathy(like the quackery that is CEASE therapy), chelation therapy, and “autism biomed.” If you want to get an idea of his view towards vaccines, just consider that he wrote an article entitled I used to be a vaccine Nazi:

Nowhere else in medicine do we do what we do with vaccines, where we give everybody that exact same dose of something. And then we’re shocked that we get some bad outcomes. And we have a vaccine injury court that paid out $3.6 billion, last I checked, for vaccine injuries.

And when you look at what these vaccine injuries are, most of them are all symptoms of autism… encephalopathy, seizures, and things along those lines… and what am I supposed to think? I’m supposed to tell parents that, regardless of their knowledge, they should vaccinate, just because everyone tell me to?

I can’t abide by that. I mean, there has to be a way for us to say, these are children at risk and they just shouldn’t be vaccinated. And because of my experience, I’ve been doing this for a long time, I’ve gone from being that vaccine Nazi to being somebody who… I don’t know if there’s a vaccine I would recommend anymore.

Yep, “Dr. Neu” is totally antivaccine.

So let’s recap. The Vaccine Choice Empowerment Symposium has three doctors who are unabashedly antivaccine and, in my opinion, quacks, as well as a lawyer and an RN turned legislator who appear to think that parental rights are near-absolute and outweigh any rights the child might have as an autonomous being and therefore either oppose school vaccine mandates or favor weakening them. So I’m left with the question: Should I do what I did for Kerry Bentivolio’s antivaccine confab for voters, namely show up, observe, and report back to you? I don’t know. Bentivolio’s meeting was free. The cost of this meeting is now $125, up from $100 for early registrants.That’s mighty steep. I’ll really have to think about that one, especially since the proceeds from are going to benefit Michigan for Vaccine Choice, and the Vaccine Choice Empowerment Syndrome looks to be no more than yet another antivaccine propaganda event in which parents will be urged to lobby for weaker school vaccine mandates and, above all, to donate to an antivaccine group.

By Orac

Orac is the nom de blog of a humble surgeon/scientist who has an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his copious verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few probably will. That surgeon is otherwise known as David Gorski.

That this particular surgeon has chosen his nom de blog based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights that he originally encountered when he became a fan of a 35 year old British SF television show whose special effects were renowned for their BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction ever televised, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.)

DISCLAIMER:: The various written meanderings here are the opinions of Orac and Orac alone, written on his own time. They should never be construed as representing the opinions of any other person or entity, especially Orac's cancer center, department of surgery, medical school, or university. Also note that Orac is nonpartisan; he is more than willing to criticize the statements of anyone, regardless of of political leanings, if that anyone advocates pseudoscience or quackery. Finally, medical commentary is not to be construed in any way as medical advice.

To contact Orac: [email protected]

48 replies on “Vaccine Choice Empowerment Symposium: To be a mole or not to be a mole…?”

Perhaps you could infiltrate a server or bartender?

And who needs those stinking vaccines anyway? Just because the Ukraine is up to 30,744 – 12,608 adults and 18,136 children as of early September? A mere bagatelle.

The idea that parents own their children seems to hark back to the Roman Republic were the father had just about total control over his children including life and death.

i dont know when this subject will end ??? antivaccine for the olds here is another story awaiting to be told indepth but who is going to investergate it ?? cheers happy bob from oz.. cheers

If you don’t like what is written here, don’t read it. There are lots of other blogs on teh internets.

One of my key requirements for participating in an event is whether they offer t-shirts, though I can’t imagine this is a case where you could wear one without also going out with a bag over your head. And paying at least $100 to hear the sort of speakers they offer and not even get a sit-down dinner?

In lieu of attending this one, I’d write a check for $100 to an organization doing genuine autism research and let the “vaccine choice” people know that you decided to put the money to a good purpose.

As soon as I read the word ‘holistic’, I get an eerie feeling and want to run away from the persons using this word to describe theirselves.

Sneak in. I’ve been in that building many times. You might want to wrassle up a name tag though.

I don’t see that there will be anything offered that is not already available from the participant’s previous writings, statements, and appearances. I can’t see giving them $125 and not sure anything new would be gleaned even if it were free.

When will people understand what “informed” actually means?

I vote no. Seems like these types of things are all the same. I really hate the thought of giving them $125!

I’ve lately come to think that maybe SBM supporters should infiltrate events like these because those who run them are misinforming the public and should be exposed- written about and ridiculed. No one does that better than Orac.

The $125 is a problem: what will they use it for? I always say, ” Not one penny for woo” . In the 1990s- early 2000s, I attended several New Age events ( yoga, diet, auras, a Native American healer/ storyteller) held in a nearby university which I imagine in some way benefitted the students ( the Metaphysical Society who sponsored the events could not have made money). Most of the other events I witnessed were free in book stores.

Anti-vaxxers blithely preach their nonsense while kids get sick:
( NBC) children in the Orthodox Jewish community of Williamsburg** Brooklyn have measles; ( CBS) children in other orthodox enclaves in Upstate NY*** have measles as well. A child who visited Israel may have been the first case. Total: 17

** Williamsburg is famous for hipsters as well, depicted in HBO’s “Girls”, various films
*** New Square, Monsey, New City

This is easy. Just post that you and two of your middle class, white, female friends will be going incognito. Some of the attendees and hosts probably read this site. Then don’t go and have them try to figure out which guests are Orac and friends.

Orac is just too well known to attend such a gathering incognito, even if he wears noseglasses*.

Besides, he might run into a stalker like the one-time poster and alleged M.D. who claimed to have spotted him at a previous antivax gathering, and took surreptitious cellphone photos for undisclosed nefarious purposes.

*I could loan him my Richard Nixon mask, which I was saving to put on when campaign workers come to the door.

Should Orac attend? Yes, with three contingencies:

1) You take Dora with you as your support animal/attack dog in case things get rough.

2) You refrain from any utterance by whatever means necessary (Duct tape? Having a colleague temporarily wire your jaw shut?).

3) You agree to not wear your VACCINES CAUSE ADULTS t-shirt to the meeting.

Acute flaccid myelitis is thought to have a number of different causes, including several different pathogens.

Of course, antivaxers have maniacally leaped to conclude that it’s gotta be caused by polio vaccine, or that AFM is non-eradicated polio which the CDC doesn’t want you to know about.

While they won’t go Saudi Consulate on you, I vote for you not going. You never know what some deranged conspiracist (Is that an oxymoron?) will do. As well, by withholding your money, you just might save the life of a child.

I just checked their website. It said cash bar. I think someone must have realized a mistake and fixed it quick.

You’d have to get me drunk to listen to such dreck.

I would not go to this myself, because I would find it hard to not go ballistic over such toxic levels of stupidity. And in general one should not ask another to do something that one is unwilling to do oneself.

I cringed at the name “Dr. Neu”. “Neu” is the German word for “new”. What is so new about what this guy is advocating? Or are we talking about the new reality, AKA postmodernism?

@ Eric Lund:

You might be surprised how you are able to restrain yourself when behaving in the service of a science based goal by keeping a poker face. In fact, it was easy to just blend in. However, I did not go as far as to clap or play along asking questions etc.

( Truthfully, at the New Age presentations, I DID applaud for the Native guy who was quite entertaining as a story teller )

There were only about 100 attendees at One Conversation, which tells me antivax is dying and not worth the time. If they would use the registration fee to extend their death knell one second, that’s to be avoided. There are far more pernicious anti-science conspiracy theories afoot to worry about.

Antivax is my bailiwick. It’s my niche. I also disagree that antivax is dying. Quite the contrary! The fusion of antivax work right wing anti-government, anti-regulation politics had made it more dangerous than it’s been for a long time.

Orac writes,

I also disagree that antivax is dying. Quite the contrary!

MJD says,

Anti-vaxxers are dying, but vaccine safety advocates are immortal.

Re my earlier posting
That should have read “he Ukraine is up to 30,744 measles cases”.

Anti-vaxxers ( AoA) claim that public support for their ideas is about 30% now. I wouldn’t say that it’s on its way out.

Recently, there was an Autism Education Summit in Dallas and NOW ( Nov 2-3) , Your Health Freedom will erupt in South Jordan Utah, featuring AJW, Mark Blaxill and Laura Hayes. From the blurbs about other presenters ( see eponymous website), I’d guess that the politics that Orac described above is correct.

Anti-vaxxers ( AoA) claim that public support for their ideas is about 30% now.

Operative word “claim”. And I wouldn’t believe AoA if they declared that the sky is blue.

Parentalrights.org also opposed signing the Univeral Declaration of the Rights of the Child and other international conventions protecting children. They clearly see children’s rights as incompatible with those of parents.

Hey, I thought I’d post this on the latest vaccine related post. I’m a mod in a biggish anarchist group on the Facebooks, and somebody posted a pro-vax post this evening, which brought precisely one anti-vax jerkward out of the woodwork. (Banned summarily, especially because he expressed the common sentiment that it’s essentially better to die than to be autistic (!) although it was a sh!tshow for about an hour, because nobody tagged a mod.)

It led to some other discussions on the post, and some fellow skeptics showed up. One of them told me about some stuff in Minnesota that I hadn’t heard about, and I wasn’t sure if y’all here had heard about it.

Sorry for copypasta, essentially, but here:

” Saw this earlier: In spring 2018, Senator Jim Abeler SD 35 proposed legislastion for a statewide autism registry in Minnesota.

Following public outcry, particularly from the #actuallyautistic and greater disability justice community, the proposed legislation was pulled. After a community meeting, Sen. Abeler appointed two parent advocates, Jean Bender and Wayne Rhode, to design a new task force-type group for the state of MN. Dr. Sheryl Grassie, executive director of the MN Consortium of Citizens with Disabilities, volunteered to contribute as well. The Autism Spectrum Planning Group was formed.

The ASPG recognized early on that it would be ethical and effective to have more representaion. They added members that represented the #actuallyautistic community, the research community, an organization (Autism Society of MN), the somali community, a service provider in the field of assistive tech with AAC expertise, a member with EIDBI Benefit expertise, and parents of children recieving early intervention services. Some members wore multiple hats in order to keep the group small and functional. Mn Dept of Health provided technical support.

Over approximately four months, The ASPG met and developed a mission statement, a purpose statement, a group stucture, representation priorities, and a proposed list of members for The Minnesota Autism Council. The first meeting of the council was scheduled for November 8th, 2018.

Recently, two members of the group—Wayne Rhode and Dr. Sheryl Grassie, both original members—met privately with Sen. Abeler. As a result of that meeting, Sen Abeler scrapped both The ASPG and our progress. He then created a new work group, appointed leadership that includes no autistic members, and instructed them to form a council that does not reflect the priorities the ASPG spent four months identifying. The ASPG was not consulted or informed prior to Sen. Abeler’s announcement of these changes during the commitee hearing on 10/17/2018.

It is vital to note two things:

These changes remove all autistic voices from the leadership team that will design and implement The Minnesota Autism Council.
These changes implicitly invite multiple specific organizations to the table that prioritize treating and/or curing autism. These organizations were not included in the proposed membership developed by The ASPG.

Oh, maybe there is a third thing to note. This is coming from the same senator who wanted an autism registry just months ago.

Please contact Sen. Abeler and let him know that he must reinstate The Autism Spectrum Planning group that was functioning until yesterday, and support us in moving forward with the membership and structure for The Minnesota Autism Council that we developed. The safety of autistic minnesotans is at risk. Nothing about us without us.

Please share this post.

Jim Abeler
Tel: 651-296-3733
Email: [email protected]
Legislative assistant: Tom Brennan 651-296-4847″

Hi JP!.

You didn’t note that Abelar is a Republican (of course) a chiropractor (shocked, shocked!), and his Senate District lies within Michelle Bachmann’s old Congressional District..

Hey sadmar! Yeah, long time no see. 🙂 I’ve been traipsing through the realms of mental illness, having hours-long phone (or other voice technologies) with friends, doing anarchist sh!t, trying to keep my head above water financially (it’s been a struggle), etc.

I’m working on starting a blog, actually. I know another anarchist who has a web server, so hosting will be free. I just need to come up with a title and a domain name at this point.

Working title for my first post: “Anarcho-primitivism: What it is, What it isn’t, and Why it Sucks.”

As a former Chief of Surgery, Bogner looks at problems mechanically

But did he wear compression stockings?

Bogner wore neither a skull cap or a bouffant cap but rather a tin foil hat….

You can see why quacks, antivaccine and other, would love this amendment.

I think the term is ᤾”derangement,” construed literally.

If 10 pro-vax moles were to attend and the speaker asked if Orac were in attendance, they could–one by one–stand up and say “I am Orac”…

[…] In any event, antivaxers didn’t like this editorial at all. At all. Hilariously, one of the main responses I saw came from a local antivaccine quack from the northern suburbs of Detroit named Dr. David Brownstein. He is, in my not-so-humble opinion, exactly the sort of antivaccine doctor that Israel is cracking down on, but unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be a mechanism to get the medical board here in Michigan to do anything about him. We’ve met Dr. Brownstein before a couple of times, first when he woefully lamented the requirement of a Jewish summer camp in Michigan that its campers be fully vaccinated before they can attend, after which he was schooled by both fellow Detroiter Dr. Peter Lipson and yours truly. The second example was a pseudoscience-filled rant against the Shingrix vaccine. The third time was when David Brownstein complained that his family practice board recertification expected him to know a lot about common drugs used by, you know, family practice doctors to treat commonly encountered medical conditions. Finally, he spoke at a conference called the Vaccine Choice Empowerment Symposium. […]

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