Last week, I wrote about an incident that happened last Wednesday when a antivaxer named Austin Bennett smacked California Senator Richard Pan from behind. Bennet was charged with assault and then, showing himself to be the worst client ever for a lawyer, promptly went on Facebook Live and started ranting about why he did it, how evil vaccines are, and how evil Dr. Pan supposedly is for having been the co-sponsor and driving force behind SB 277, the bill that became law in 2015 and eliminated nonmedical personal belief exemptions to school vaccine mandates. SB 277 worked, too, at first. However, as I warned right after the bill passed, it wasn’t long before, following the trail blazed by Dr. Bob Sears, a cottage industry of antivaccine quacks and antivax-sympathetic doctors started writing nonmedical exemptions for scientifically unsupportable indications such as a family history of autoimmune disease, having an older sibling with autism, or for bogus diagnoses of MTHFR mutations supposedly causing “susceptibility to vaccine injury.” As a result, the number of medical exemptions soared beyond what one would expect based on the prevalence of actual conditions that are contraindications to vaccination. This brings us to SB 276 and “V is for Vaccine.”
Basically, as I described a couple of weeks ago, SB 276 is Dr. Pan’s attempt to fix the deficiency in SB 277 that permitted this cottage industry of quack-written bogus medical exemptions to flourish, an effort that has brought the Church of Scientology into the fray opposing the bill. Basically, SB 276 would would require the health department in California to annually review immunization reports from schools, to identify schools with an overall immunization rate of less than 95%, physicians and surgeons who submitted five or more medical exemption forms in a calendar year, and schools and institutions that do not report immunization rates to the department. It would also require a clinically trained staff member who is a physician, surgeon, or a registered nurse to review all medical exemptions meeting these conditions, authorizing the State Public Health Officer to review the exemptions identified by that staff member as fraudulent or inconsistent with established guidelines. The department can report physicians issuing fraudulent or scientifically unjustified medical exemptions to the state medical board. It’s not perfect, as it was a bit watered down from the original version, but it would definitely shine a light on antivax quacks writing bogus medical exemptions, which is why antivaxers hate it.
Because the bill appears to be on the verge of passing the California legislature, antivaxers are getting desperate. As a result, yesterday antivaxers held a “V is for Vaccine” protest at the California State Capitol. It’s an effort that antivaxer Josh Coleman, the “brain” behind Star Wars cosplaying antivaxers descending upon Disneyland and V-cosplaying antivaxers descending upon San Diego Comic-Con earlier this summer:
As an aside, in my neck of the woods, there were antivaxers invading the Woodward Avenue Dream Cruise a couple of weeks ago cosplaying 1950s-era Bobby soxers, because, you know, antivaxers want to take us back to the 1950s in terms of infectious disease, back before there were vaccines against measles, polio, mumps, rubella, Hib, and a number of other potentially deadly infectious diseases:
You get the idea. Antivaxers have turned into cosplaying protesters. In any event, here’s what “V is for Vaccine” was to encompass:
“Surround the Capitol”? That sure doesn’t sound intimidating, does it, to surround the Capitol and wait for lawmakers and employees to arrive for work. As some people noted at the time, given the history of violent rhetoric from antivaxers, this “V is for Vaccine” rally really was a cause for concern, particularly given the recent attack on Sen. Pan by Austin Bennett.
Some people posted examples:
Apparently the heat based on Bennett’s attack and people calling out violent rhetoric of the antivaccine movement, because the organizers of the “V is for Vaccine” rally felt the need to write a statement:
There’s so much disingenuous bullshit here. (Sorry, but there’s no other good word to describe it.) Of course, given that antivaccine pseudoscience is rooted in conspiracy theories, it’s not in the least bit surprising that the first move of the organizers of “V is for Vaccine” was to invoke a conspiracy theory, claiming that Austin Bennet’s attack was, in essence, a false flag operation designed to cast antivaxers in a bad light. I have news for them: There is no need for a false flag operation. Antivaxers are quite good at casting themselves in a plenty bad light all by themselves. They don’t need any help from Dr. Pan, me, or any other vaccine advocate to look bad. All we have to do is to report what they say and do, and they look bad, because what they say and do is bad.
So what happened? Not much. There was, as far as I’m aware, no violence. What “V is for Vaccine” resembled, more than anything else, is every other antivaccine rally I’ve ever seen, with a couple of exceptions. There were fewer handmade signs and more professionally printed signs, and the demonstration was a bit bigger than Jenny McCarthy’s “Green Our Vaccines” march on Washington 11 years ago and much bigger than most other antivaccine rallies. Even so, it wasn’t by any means a huge rally, a few hundred people. As of this writing, there’s been very little press coverage of the rally (good!), but The Sacramento Bee did publish a report last night. Noting that there were a few hundred protestors, the report mentioned the attack on Dr. Pan last week by Austin Bennet and added:
Pan on Wednesday connected that kind of threatening activism to the organizer of the Capitol rally, activist Joshua Coleman. Coleman has posted Youtube videos showing himself following and trying to confront Pan at events. Coleman has also created printed signs and t-shirts of Pan with a red “Liar” stamp covering Pan’s face. Coleman also made the news in 2015 in a dispute over parking at a Roseville elementary school that led neighbors to call the police. “They allow someone like Josh Coleman, with his history, as the leader and organizer of this,” Pan said. “If you really are changing, then you have to reject Josh Coleman… and say, ‘no more,’ and they haven’t done that yet.” When asked about his videos of Pan on Wednesday, Coleman said, “I think I do ride the edge just a little bit, but I don’t view them as agitating. I view it as pushing the truth in a creative way, and sometimes a slightly aggressive way, but it’s all peaceful and it’s all legal.”
So what happened at the rally itself? The two main speakers are men whom anyone who’s been a regular reader of this blog more than a couple of months would recognize, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Del Bigtree. RFK Jr., as you recall, frequently refers to himself as “fiercely pro-vaccine” even as he lays down the most toxic and easily refuted antivaccine tropes there are, while Bigtree is prone to histrionic, even violent, rhetoric, up to and including saying that antivaxers should, like the Founding Fathers, be ready to “die for liberty” and asking antivaxers who own guns what they’re waiting for and adding “now’s the time” for guns. As I settled down to watch the Facebook videos, I wondered if Bigtree would tone down the rhetoric or not.
Here are a couple of videos, first from We Are Vaxxed:
And a shorter clip:
The We Are Vaxxed clip of the “V is for Vaccine” rally is much longer, over two hours, and shows a lot of scenes of antivaxers wandering around, being interviewed, and saying how much they hate vaccines—cough, cough, I mean how much they love freedom—before the main speakers came on. The second clip starts with Del Bigtree introducing RFK Jr. to the crowd. Before I discuss what they actually said, I note that the rally instructions were for doctors to wear white coats, nurses to wear blue scrubs, and everyone else to wear red shirts with anti-SB 276 slogans on them. As I noted before the protest, I thank the antivaxers for making it easy to identify doctors and nurses who have no business taking care of children (or anyone else, for that matter) and who should lose their licenses. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any white coats, although I did see some blue scrubs. However, given antivaxers’ newfound love of cosplay, I couldn’t be sure that many of the protesters wearing blue scrubs actually were nurses. The scrubs looked just too crisp and brand new, and it’s easy to buy scrubs.
Many of the protesters recycled the same signs used in the Star Wars cosplay protest and the V is for Vendetta cosplay protest, all of them chock full of antivaccine tropes that I’ve refuted here more times than I can remember. We’re talking really scientifically ignorant ones, like how it’s impossible to eradicate measles with a live virus vaccine (hint: it ain’t); that vaccines aren’t tested against placebo controls (how many studies would they like me to cite from PubMed to prove that lie wrong?); that vaccine manufacturers are free from liability (they ain’t); that vaccines are made with “aborted fetal cells” (not really); and many more.
So let’s get to the speeches. Del Bigtree started out with an appropriately (for an antivaxer) obsequious and fawning introduction for RFK Jr. RFK Jr., for his part, launched a variation on a common antivaccine denial of being antivaccine. Basically, he related a story about how he’d spent 35 years trying to cut down the pollution from coal-burning power plants in order to get the mercury out of the fish, adding, “But no one ever called me ‘anti-fish.'” If that isn’t worthy of a facepalm, I don’t know what is, but the crowd ate it up, as he added, “As soon as I said we ought to get it out of the vaccines as well, they called me antivaccine. I said to them, ‘I like to have seatbelts in automobiles. It doesn’t mean I’m anticar.'”
Hold on right there, RFK Jr. There’s a difference between advocating policies based on sound science (e.g., getting mercury out of fish and requiring seatbelts in cars) and demonizing a product based on pseudoscience. I’d reply this way: If you were to demonize cars as unsafe based on misinformation, pseudoscience, and bad reasoning and refuse to recommend any of them until your fallacious concerns were addressed and cars were made 100% perfectly safe, then, yes, you’re anti-car. I’ve yet to hear RFK Jr. ever say which vaccine he considers sufficiently safe and effective to recommend that all children other than those who qualify for medical exemptions, ever. Never, ever, to the best of my knowledge having followed RFK Jr.’s antics since 2005 have I heard him declare a single vaccine as safe and effective. In contrast, I have heard him ascribe “injury” to vaccines based on bad science, pseudoscience, misinterpretation of science, and outright misinformation than I can remember. On balance, then, yes, I’d say that RFK Jr. is definitely antivaccine, his denials and proclamations that he is “fiercely pro-vaccine” notwithstanding.
Naturally, to him, it’s all about persecution, “silencing” RFK Jr. and his fellow antivaxers, because, hilariously, he asserts that vaccine advocates can’t win on the science and data. (I’m sorry, I had to stop the video at that point because I was laughing too hard.) Also, because of the recent judgment against a pharmaceutical company for its role in the opiate crisis, obviously vaccines must be unsafe. Now, no one argues that pharmaceutical companies haven’t on occasion done bad things, but he’s comparing apples and oranges. Vaccines are not unsafe. Indeed, RFK Jr. spends an inordinate amount of time discussing the role of a couple of pharmaceutical companies in the opioid addiction crisis and repeatedly claiming that “I’ve seen the documents” from vaccine manufacturers and that they “make the opioid documents look like Sunday school.” My response: OK, where are these documents? What, specifically, did they say? It’s very convenient that he claims to have seen damning documents but basically tells the crowd to take his word for it how bad they are. Hilariously, he invokes the dreaded Verstraeten study gambit, that hoary old conspiracy theory about the conference at Simpsonwood in which the CDC supposedly tried to bury the results of a study that showed that mercury in the thimerosal preservative in vaccines causes autism. It’s nothing more than a variation of the central conspiracy theory of the antivaccine movement, and, hilariously, none of these claimed documents were from pharmaceutical companies. They were from the CDC.
Not surprisingly, he also invoked another variation on the central conspiracy theory of the antivaccine movement, the “CDC whistleblower” conspiracy theory, complete with the “tossing data into the garbage can” flourish. (Anyone who knows about CDC retention policies and how data is retained on computers knows this story is also bullshit. The “CDC whistleblower” himself, William Thompson, has stated, “All the associated MMR-Autism Study computer files have been retained on the Immunization Safety Office computer servers since the inception of the study and they continue to reside there today.”) I’ve been blogging about that one since it developed five years ago, having had the opportunity to watch the evolution of a conspiracy theory in real time. It’s nonsense, too. That “autism signal” depended on the pseudoscientific work of a biochemical engineer turned incompetent epidemiologist named Brian Hooker. It’s the conspiracy theory behind the antivax propaganda movie disguised as a documentary, VAXXED. The whole conspiracy theory is utter nonsense.
As the speech went on, RFK Jr. became even more incoherent, trotting out basically every antivax trope in the book. At one point, he even asked:
Why are we targeting 4,000 innocent vulnerable children, when who should we really be targeting? Merck! Why are they so frightened of Merck? Why won’t they point their gun at the person who’s causing the problem, which is Merck?
Ooops. RFK Jr. apparently never got the memo about toning down the rhetoric for “V is for Vaccine,” which he later ramped up by calling Merck this “greedy homicidal vaccine company.” (Indeed, he even reiterated that, “when I say homicidal, I’m not exaggerating.”) In any event, What he’s talking about is how the majority of cases in California were among adults, and it’s true. California health officials are worried about about adults who finished their schooling before the strict vaccination requirements took effect and never got their shots. It’s a red herring, though, that completely ignores the role of schools as incubators of outbreaks when vaccination coverage falls below the level of herd immunity. It also ignores the rest of the country, where the total number of measles cases is now up to 1,215 cases. RFK Jr. knows that California can’t be isolated from the rest of the country. He chose to focus solely on California because there have—fortunately—as yet only been 51 cases in California. He even invoked Vioxx, with a claim that it killed up to a half million people, and the antivax trope about “vaccine shedding,” in which immunocompromised children supposedly are endangered by children vaccinated with attenuated live virus vaccines. I just dealt with that trope the other day.
I didn’t watch the whole We Are Vaxxed video of the “V is for Vaccine” rally because, at nearly two hours, it rapidly became tedious. There were other speakers right after RFK Jr. There was a musician whom I’d never heard of. It was all very much like previous antivaccine rallies, except that Del Bigtree, egomaniac that he is, was the keynote speaker, saved for the very end. He even started out with a joke, calling the crowd “the most attractive group of terrorists I’ve ever seen in my life.” So, yes, he addressed the issue of violence, but, predictably, used it as another example of how antivaxers are being “silenced.” Nauseatingly, he also invoked the names of those “who have been called terrorists before us,” including Caesar Chavez, Martin Luther King Jr., Ghandi, and the Founding Fathers. (I’m surprised he didn’t throw Jesus in there while he was at it.) If anyone thought Del Bigtree was going to turn it down a notch or two, well, that person doesn’t know Del Bigtree. To him, antivaxers are the reincarnation of the Founding Fathers.
Bigtree, too, bristled at being called antivaccine. Instead, he proclaimed himself “pro-freedom,” saying he’s “anti-any forced injection of anything by the government in the world or the United States,” adding, “I’m anti-saline water if you want to inject it when I say no.” He even went so far as to say, “I am not a herd. I am not a farm animal. I am a free thinking human being that speaks my mind and tells my truth.” It might be “his truth,” but the antivaccine nonsense Bigtree regularly spews is not the truth. He also used the term “moronic” to describe SB 276, which is pretty damned ableist.
One thing I noticed about Bigtree’s speaking style, and it’s that he sounds more and more like a preacher. He speaks with the same repetition, the same use of the rule of three, the same sing-song cadences. It’s really, really blatant in this talk. In any case, Bigtree didn’t speak much about anything resembling science, but instead pretty much solely uses the “health freedom” movement and attacking Sen. Pan as a tool of the pharmaceutical industry. He did throw some antivax tropes in there, such as the claim that a passive reporting system, the VAERS database, is missing all sorts of vaccine injuries (notably he ignores the two other reporting systems about vaccine safety, both of which are active), the “no saline placebo” gambit, the “no vaxxed/unvaxxed study” gambit (wrong), and several others, such as the “sickest generation” trope, which is a total distortion based on two cherry picked studies that are not comparable to each other and do not jibe with other studies.
One claim Bigtree did make is that no physician will write a medical exemption if SB 276 passes. It’s a common trope among opponents of SB 276, and it, too, is utter bullshit. No physician will need to fear writing a medical exemption for scientifically supported medical indications. What Del Bigtree was really referring to are the aforementioned doctors writing medical exemptions for indications that are not medically accepted reasons for an exemption from school vaccine mandates.
If you want to know just how ignorant of science Bigtree is, he even threw evolution into the mix in a way that shows that he’s utterly clueless about evolution:
Whether or not you believe in God and that we’re created in the image and likeness of God or you’re the straight-up atheist scientist who believes in evolution, I have news for you. We’re the first species on this planet devolving apparently. 54% of our kids cannot breathe this air, eat this food, drink our water.
Again, that 54% figure is the “sickest generation” antivaccine trope, and the whole statement above rates this:
Or maybe:
You get the idea.
At this point, Bigtree started a chant with the crowd, “Show us the science! Show us the science!” We can only respond: We have shown you the science. We’ve shown it to you many times. We’ve shown it to you in many ways. We’ve beat our heads against the wall trying to show you the science. You won’t accept the science because it shows clearly that vaccines do not cause autism, that vaccines are safe and effective, and that vaccines do not cause all the health issues you attribute to them. You either do not understand the science or you reject the science. You are Dunning-Kruger personified. Del Bigtree is the arrogance of ignorance personified, and he demonstrated it by claiming that only he and his followers understand and that those who “haven’t read” are not there because they do not understand. Having watched this half hour speech, I can understand why Bigtree is an effective speaker, but I also realize that he’s an effective speaker in the way that a lying demagogue is an effective speaker.
Will this demonstration have an effect? Will it lead to SB 276 failing to pass? Let’s hope not. This rally, as all antivaccine rallies are, was the worst of us in terms of science, society, and understanding. Truly, RFK Jr. and Del Bigtree want to turn back the clock. They think they’re doing good, but, if they succeed, we’ll go back to the days when hundreds of children died of measles and many others suffered and even died of many other diseases.
99 replies on “V is for Vaccine: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Del Bigtree rile up an antivaccine demonstration against SB 276”
bloody hell mate ….u getting bogged down here….good luck.happy bob from oz
u getting bogged down there….stop bogging….happy verging on ecstatic rs
Bloody hell mate… You have the writing skills of a 4 year old… Also please stop using so many ellipses.
Ironic how standing on the steps of the state capitol in California–surrounded by the measly (pun intended) few hundred anti-vax protestors they could dredge up–Bigtree and RFKjr complain about being “silenced”. No, anti-vaxxers, you aren’t being “silenced” as none of your rights to protest have been at all curtailed. Not being covered by the media absolutely galls Bigtree and RFKjr, but that’s not silencing or censorship to have media outlets deem you
lunaticsnot newsworthy.Where were the anti-vaccine California physicians who’ve been profiting handsomely writing illegitimate vaccine exemptions? Dr. Bob Sears couldn’t make it. Guess Jay Gordon couldn’t make it. Looks like all the physicians from Physicians for Informed Consent (based in California) couldn’t make it. They were probably all too busy raking in the $$$ writing all the illegitimate vaccine exemptions they can before SB 276 gets passed in to law.
Hopefully Bob Sears knows when to leave well enough alone. The optics would not look good for him given his recent troubles with the BOM.
Why are you attempting top genoicde species of humanity.? You could be executed on mass for this blatant crime against humanity.
Nice demonstration of the violent rhetoric of antivaxers, there.?
And they wonder why normal people think they are insane.
Hey there Ld Elon, it’s “en masse” (it’s French)–and who do propose is to do the executing of the masses? Do they get a trial?
I see Shannan Velayas (one of the “organisers” of that silly “vaccine safety conference” One Conversation) has hitched her wagon to Trash Can Coleman. But she’s not anti-vaxx, oh no.
Shannan is Dr. Pan’s communication director. She’s criticizing Mr. Coleman here. I think you mean Shannon Kroner, who certainly did link to Mr. Coleman.
Oh good grief. How I shouldn’t comment early in the morning! Yes, that is correct; it was Britney Valas and Shannon Kroner. Thank you.
Shannan is Dr Pan’s communications director and a GREAT person. Super smart and major provax supporter.
whoops, this format is confusing. Sorry to post redundancies
Why are none of them demanding that smallpox be brought back? I know it still exists in some laboratories. After all, they believe disease is better than vaccines, so obviously we made a mistake, eradicating smallpox in this country.
I’d accept them showing off their naturally acquired immunity to tetanus.
Well, they’d certainly shup up. . . . .
A. To reiterate your point: a few hundreds isn’t a big number for a nation wide demonstration in California. For comparison, check the 2017 March for Science, Women’s March, various political causes or this local concert to raise money for housing.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.kcra.com/amp/article/unity-concert-housing-sacramento/28739240
B. Also as you point out, using aggressive rhetoric and then trying to distance yourself from extremists that go to the next step is unconvincing.
C. Even aside from the tropes, if you compare vaccines to child sacrifice, you’re antivaccine, Nr. Bigtree.,
One wonders how many of the demonstrators were local. The people who would travel across the country for it are unquestionably going to be filter biased to be the most zealous.
I recognized some out of state activists – Mr.s Kennedy, Bigtree and Lockwood, of course, and Ms. Susie Olson-Corgan from WA, but I also recognized a lot of local people. I expect most were local.
There are more than 500 local people who are concerned about SB276 and losing fake medical exemptions. A higher number attended some of the previous hearings. Maybe those who are not the most zealous weren’t sure about this specific event.
“obviously we made a mistake, eradicating smallpox in this country.”
It wasn’t eradicated, it’s just called something else now.
It was eradicated by good nutrition and hygiene, not the vaccine.
Look, something shiny!
Take your pick.
Conspiracy theories aren’t “the arrogance of ignorance” or Dunning-Kruger. They’re forms of denialism, which is something else altogether.
Bigtree may be right about de-evolution though, as he seems to have assembled a few hundred examples… besides himself of course.
Read it again. I never said they were the same thing. I said that Del Bigtree was Dunning-Kruger and the arrogance of ignorance personified. And he inarguably is both of those things.
I read it right the first time. Del isn’t ignorant. To use the medical term of art, he’s nuts. He arrogant alright, but it’s the arrogance of the unhinged. The Dunning Kruger thesis is extremely broad, asserting in essence that we’re all inclined to some degree or another to overestimate our abilities in areas outside our expertise and/or genuine skillset. I repeat, that is not remotely the same thing as denialism, in which knowledge is not merely absent, not even just willfully rejected, but willfully inverted. “The MMR causes measles. That’s psychopathology.
Whatever. ?
You’re full of shit on this one. Yes, Del is arrogant, but Del is also ignorant as hell on so many things related to vaccines, in particular what studies mean, how to interpret them, and even just the basics of how vaccines work. Consider this. He clearly knows nothing of statistics. If he did, the fact that a “signal” for vaccines causing autism in the Verstraeten study and the “CDC whistleblower” studies disappeared when appropriate controls for confounders were applied would not be an issue. Anyone with a reasonable understanding of statistics would understand why. Now, in this case, what’s more likely, that Bigtree understands statistics and is lying to fool the rubes or that he doesn’t understand statistics and thus accepts the crank narrative on Verstraeten and the CDC whistleblower? I suppose it’s possible that he understands enough statistics to know why his arguments are bullshit and is just fooling the rubes, but I really don’t think so. He’s made so many other obvious mistakes that demonstrate that his understanding in virtually everything about medicine and vaccines is sorely lacking that I find it hard to believe he’s knowledgeable and just playing for the rubes. He really believes his misinformation. He’s not even very good at motivated reasoning, because he can’t even really rally cherry picked evidence in a way that sounds convincing to anyone who isn’t already one of his deluded follower.
Basically, there are two types of denialists. There are those who are experts but whose ideology leads them to reject what their discipline has taught them. They are in the minority. Far more common are denialists who are in over their head in a field in which they weren’t trained (Del Bigtree, RFK Jr., and virtually every climate science denialist) or in which their training is lacking (e.g., David Irving, who never trained as a historian but did historical research). Their lack of knowledge, coupled with their arrogance plus their ideology, lead them to make spectacular mistakes of understanding and interpretation in their fields to the point where they actually can invert what their field says.
That’s all I’m going to say on this, probably Don’t bother lecturing me any more on denialism. I’ve been dealing with denialism since the 1990s.
@Sadmar – Blast from the past! Boogie boy! Are you a DEVO fan too? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gcp8osYmU88
Tangentially,, Doc Bob couldn’t make it to the rally because he was up here trying to promote his special brand of idiocy to the New Brunswick governemnt. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/vaccine-bill-education-minister-safety-1.5261363 Travel paid for by his anti-vaccine friends. Though he did spare the time to liken the proposed law to tighten up vaccine exemptions to the US’s “Separate by equal” segregation law. All to ensure this young lady has to miss out on another 3 months of hockey practices. (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/cancer-measles-vaccination-gootjes-hockey-1.5262519). Why 3 months, that’s when she is finally able to be vaccinated after surviving brain cancer. But ya know, screw her, my freedom to be an idiot is more important than her life. Bloody dumb asses.
I do have a question brought up by the article. 95% vaccination rate is the level needed for herd immunity. Three percent of people are not immunized effectively by vaccination. Does this mean that a minimum of 98% of a population needs to be vaccinated or does that 3% get accounted for in the 95% herd immunity?
That’s a hoot that Sears was metaphorically shredded under questioning:
I sure hope there’s some video of this. No wonder Sears isn’t crowing about his anti-vax advocacy given he was shown for the fool he is. .
@ AP,
I only skimmed through but didn’t see if anyone has answered your question? As a non-responder; I can’t ever get a straight answer on this.
If it’s important for those who only got the MMR1 to get the MMR2; then why is it not important for those born before 1957 to get a titre?
The virus doesn’t care if you are ‘considered immune’. If you are not; you will catch it & be contagious.
I have received MMR4 & am considered immune but I am NOT immune & I can spread it. Is immunity important or just submission?
Here is the link for Sear’s testimony in Canada–he gets hammered at 27:00. Basically an American anti-vax quack who thinks Canada is somehow part of the US. https://www.facebook.com/alternativeautismawareness/videos/594029001127852/.
I live on a border state, and every so often I have to remind people that British Columbia is not an American state. It is in a whole other country!
Note: The “police state” bit is precious, since the RCMP has more power than the average American cop. Especially in regards to surveillance. This case hinged on the fact they used tactics not legal in the USA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v_Burns
And anti-vax faux scientist James Lying-Wailer testified in Canada, too as yet another American idiot that doesn’t realize Canada isn’t the US. JLW takes gets zinged at 20:40. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mldu_isEyJ8&feature=youtu.be&t=1240
And another:
Meryl Nass, famed for the ‘Anthrax vaccine contains seekrit squalene adjuvant and causes GWS’ kookery, also appeared and drooled all over herself like Sears and Weiler:
https://youtu.be/voTbzW0WBaI?list=PLw6ZJMaJbx1JeGi35uxXykvFUHVhOmBFP&t=1190
.
I note that all 3 of these USA grifters lies like there is no tomorrow in their presentation and then never directly answers the questions put to them until the ministers rechallenge them and force them to answer – where they mostly beat around the bush and do not answer again.
They all seem to not be sure who it was who contacted them and invited them to testify because we all know that this scenario plays out all the time:
.
Phone rings.
“Hello?”
…
“So you want me to come to New Brunswick to testify about vaccines?
… And you’ve bought me an airline e-ticket that I can pick up at the Delta counter?
Thanks! I’ll be there”
Hang up ‘click’.
“Hmmmm. Maybe I should have found out who that was and what organization they represent and who is going to provide my lodging and…”
.
Yeah, that happens all the time we just don’t hear about it because the fools who operate in this manner are promptly chopped to bits and buried in the axe murderer’s basement.
That they are unsure of who contacted them or who invited them is beyond belief but they all claim it until more pointed questioning.
Bob Sears travelled 3000 miles and wasn’t sure who contacted/invited him. That’s about the distance from Portland, Maine to London.
.
I will congratulate the Canadians as they seemed to not buy into the foreign grifters in their midst.
You could tell they were not happy with the importation of anti-vaccine quacks from the states.
I would assume this is another in the long line of self-inflicted wounds by the clueless anti-vaccine cult.
So did Lawrence Solomon also appear? Another anti-vax fool who just so happens to be Canadian.
Orac and the minions musing: Schucks!
We shuck oysters. Are you an oyster? Do you have a pearl, even a teeny tiny one? Open your shell and let’s see.
And yet you use some very scaremongering language when describing what you think vaccines cause in children, but no evidence. This is the seventh time I have tried to get you to support the following statement:
Greg: “Ok ok — I also blame Pan for fathering legislations that en masse will vaporize kids’ brains..”
Citation needed. Do tell us exactly how any MMR vaccine used in North America causes more harm than measles. Just provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that shows the vaccine causes more encephalitis than an actual measles infection (which is about one melted brain from encephalitis out of a thousand cases of actually getting measles).
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— RFK jr used to head a group called the “World Mercury Project”, his new one is called ” Child health Defense” . I wonder why he changed it? ( rhetorical question, I know why).
— Del Bigtree ( @ highwiretalk) says that “thousands” attended the rally. Today is Thursday which means that he should have a new crapfest.. I mean podcast later this afternoon.
— -btw- I must remark: the cosplay costumes from the Michigan clip are truly atrocious AND there are so many of them
— re Sears in NB: isn’t that pretty far to travel to support pseudo-science? ( I’ve been there) Long plane ride from CA.
— Orac says: ” We have shown you the science.”.
Most readers of RI will note that it doesn’t work: over the past weeks, we have had adamantly entrenched anti-vaxxers
arguing against ANY research or analysis that illustrates how well vaccines work and how they don’t cause autism. According to one: whoever supports vaccines is “complicit” in the “domestic abuse” that parents of autistics suffer. They support vaccines which cause ” brain damage”. Is it any wonder that a few anti-vaxxers might feel justified in taking action against well known vaccine supporters? Disrupt lectures, follow them around, notify their employers, put their photos or addresses on public sites, hit them from behind? I wouldn’t be surprised if worse happened.
Don’t forget that because we don’t support the concept of a “cure” for autism, we think autistic children should be allowed to run amuck and do whatever they want and everyone else is required to accept this. Apparently, supporting the idea of neurodiversity means never telling kids “no.”
Who said that?
@ Terrie,
You have GOT to be kidding me.
see Wikipedia on Del, Interview on Fatherly.com. Merlan ( other notes in Wikipedia article)
@Christine,
Did you or did you not say that “accomodation” requires people to put up with your son hitting them?
As far as antivaxers go, “V” is for Vague, Vain, Vindictive, Venomous and Violent.
And Vacuous
One of the guys drumming up rage and frustration for the anti-vaxxers is Tony Rogers, PhD MPP. I just went through his “thesis” and he’s another Judy Wilyman getting a degree he obviously didn’t really earn. His thesis is childish, shallow and never would have gotten past a credible review. His main sources are Blaxill, Handley and other anti-vax sources with no balanced review of the evidence.
He also appears to be pestering Dr. Pan and others. He’s one to watch out for, as it appears he resides in Australia and can’t be limited in his advocacy for violence.
That is Toby Rogers. You are correct about his thesis. Oh my, the uncritical acceptance of junk science like Anthony Mawson’s retracted, retracted again and finally the cheque cleared publication, Nancy Swanson’s correllationathon where every single disease on the planet correlated with planting of GM crops and/or use of glyphosate (if only you make the y axes dodgy enough), Blaxill, Handley, Mary Holland, Brian Hooker, Stepahnie Seneff, and so on. It is massively selective. Brian Hooker’s nonsense comment on Association Between Influenza Infection and Vaccination During Pregnancy and Risk of Autism Spectrum Disorder in JAMA Pediatrics gets trotted out, but not the original paper.
The best piece for understanding what the thesis is about is a chapter titled “The capitalist conquest of science and medicine”. Yes, the thesis is rife with conspiracy theories.
It is after all a thesis in the Department of Political Economy. Even so, Sydney University should be embarrassed.
Rogers uses the Twitter to broadcast his asinine opinions, but he is a gutless chickenshit who preemptively blocks anyone he thinks might disagree.
One thing came clear from reading his thesis: He has never read the crucial primary sources like Kanner’s papers, and only knows them from versions that Handley has pre-digested and pre-falsified for him. Rogers is far down the antivax human centipede.
For your “enjoyment”…
Del has a new highwire up ( @ highwiretalk) where you can watch him surf with a chiropractor
More impressively, he starts with a call for support for ICAN so he can continue his important work. Right.**
I sometimes ask myself if these grifters/ entrepreneurs/ con artists believe any of the woo they pitch. Although we can never know what is within another person’s mind, I’d have to venture that they must believe in at least SOME of it. There is such emotion behind their rants it can’t ALL be acting. They may have psychological problems as well but we can’t really tell from our collective vantage point.
I searched and found out a little about Del:
he is the son of a preacher and a First Nations mother- thus the name ( ne something else). His education was FILM SCHOOL. And although he worked on television medical shows, he seemed to have frequently veered towards woo-ful topics, many of which were not approved for broadcast: he was unhappy with this state of affairs. He left television and went to work with Andy. As Orac has written, he’s got money from some wealthy woo-believers. In an interview, he claimed that he AND his children were never vaccinated. He has never visited a doctor and he’s ( approximately) 50. He lives in Malibu and lost his house in a recent wild fire. An RI commenter added that he married into money- his mother in law is rich.Somebody is rich if they live there.
So he’s not a student of science or medicine and he apparently likes to put on a show. Could he make big money in his newfound career? I don’t know but some of those I survey have gross incomes in the millions. Does he want to produce docu-dramas for general release rather than remain an internet phenom?
** it’s interesting how many of the sites/ people I survey have “charities” and/ or sell products to support their “work”
( NN, PRN- has several, AoA, TMR, GreenMedInfo, Mercola, whatever Andy runs, smaller operations like Tenpenny, Bark, FoodBabe, various Healthy Mommas)
see sources above @ 4:11PM wrong place. sorry
Hi Denise.
Here’s some more for your references on Dull:
.
Here’s Del talking with his mother.
https://youtu.be/cw4jhKP8LqA?t=2314
(In case Youtube comes to its senses and bans anti-vax Dull – https://www.facebook.com/HighWireTalk/videos/266473443986069/)
Note they are acolytes of the failed seer of the future and pre-scientific lunatic Edgar
CrazyCayce.Looks around… Nope, no Atlantis has arisen from the depths of the sea, and the world hasn’t ended, etc., etc.
Just a NuAge kook from a NuAge kook family.
.
It turns out mom’s father was Mohawk but her mother was Anglo so I’m not sure if she was raised on the rez. It sure sounds like she was raised in NYC which makes some sense as Mohawks were a noted and famed faction of the fearless high-steel workers who built the NYC skyscrapers.
In any event, it seems Del was home schooled by this genius until his last 2 years – in Colorado.
It is also never revealed if Del actually graduated from high school or just aged out and dropped out.
Del’s linkedin entry showed he attended Vancouver Film School – a 1 year program in film production.
That is a trade school where the only prerequisite is a warm body and the cash for the tuition so Dull needn’t have even a GED to attend.
This kinda’ shows why Dull strikes you as an ignorant junior high schooler… because that is what he is.
.
As seen in the vid his mother is an alt-med promoter if not seller. Here are some of her blog posts from the NuAge interfaith church she and her husband run:
https://unityofboulder.com/5-essential-oils-need-emergency-kit/
More of her pre-scientific “wisdom” which she passed on to Dull:
https://unityofboulder.com/author/norma-groverland/
.
.
A 2016 visit to Dull’s parent’s church in Colorado with the Quaxxed Bus:
https://www.periscope.tv/teamvaxxed/1eaJbLjZDLRKX
Note the winged sun symbol from ancient Egypt. I believe it is one of the Ra symbols.
Note the “We are all one” plaque and the symbols:
– The Christian cross
– The Muslim crescent and star
– The Shinto shrine
– etc.
Del’s church is apparently interfaith celebrating the worship of Ra, Christ, Allah/Mohammed, Ancestor worship, etc.
It may surprise Del’s fans to find out he isn’t exactly a Christian… he’s more of a NuAge pantheist.
I wonder how his right-wing fundy cristian followers will react?
.
In the vid we get to meet Del’s family –
His father, his mother, and a sister.
They run/own the Unity Church of Boulder: https://unityofboulder.com/
Apparently the Unity Church is a New Age Church embracing various NuAge beliefs similar to The Secret, The Ra Material, etc.
They claim to be Christian but I think most Christians would balk at the concept.
http://www.unityworldwideministries.org/about
“Values
– Spirit-Led–We are centered in God. Spirit leads our thoughts and actions as we co-create a world that works for all.”
Mmmm-hmmm. The NuAge concept that the believer is a co-God, co-creating reality (presumably by intention = wishing). Not a very Christian concept, but a firmly NuAge, SciFi, Scientology-like concept.
So, to me, this explains Del’s genesis into the world of woo. He grew up in NuAge woo-woo.
He’s just another crystal clutching NuAge kook.
Hi Denise.
Here’s some more for your references on Dull:
.
Here’s Del talking with his mother.
https://youtu.be/cw4jhKP8LqA?t=2314(In case Youtube comes to its senses and bans anti-vax Dull –
https://www.facebook.com/HighWireTalk/videos/266473443986069/)Note they are acolytes of the failed seer of the future and pre-scientific lunatic Edgar
CrazyCayce.Looks around… Nope, no Atlantis has arisen from the depths of the sea, and the world hasn’t ended, etc., etc.
Just a NuAge kook from a NuAge kook family.
.
It turns out mom’s father was Mohawk but her mother was Anglo so I’m not sure if she was raised on the rez. It sure sounds like she was raised in NYC which makes some sense as Mohawks were a noted and famed faction of the fearless high-steel workers who built the NYC skyscrapers.
In any event, it seems Del was homeschooled by this genius until his last 2 years – in Colorado.
It is also never revealed if Del actually graduated from high school or just aged out and dropped out.
Del’s linkedin entry showed he attended Vancouver Film School – a 1 year program in film production.
That is a trade school where the only prerequisite is a warm body and the cash for the tuition so Dull needn’t have even a GED to attend.
This kinda’ shows why Dull strikes one as an ignorant junior high schooler… because that is what he is.
.
As seen in the vid his mother is an alt-med promoter if not seller. Here are some of her blog posts from the NuAge interfaith church she and her husband run:
https://unityofboulder.com/5-essential-oils-need-emergency-kit/More of her pre-scientific “wisdom” which she passed on to Dull:
https://unityofboulder.com/author/norma-groverland/.
.
A 2016 visit to Dull’s parent’s church in Colorado with the Quaxxed Bus:
https://www.periscope.tv/teamvaxxed/1eaJbLjZDLRKXNote the winged sun symbol from ancient Egypt. I believe it is one of the Ra symbols.
Note the “We are all one” plaque and the symbols:
– The Christian cross
– The Muslim crescent and star
– The Shinto shrine
– etc.
Del’s church is apparently interfaith celebrating the worship of Ra, Christ, Allah/Mohammed, Ancestor worship, etc.
It may surprise Del’s fans to find out he isn’t exactly a Christian… he’s more of a NuAge pantheist.
I wonder how his right-wing fundy christian followers will react?
.
In the vid we get to meet Del’s family –
His father, his mother, and a sister.
They run/own the Unity Church of Boulder:
https://unityofboulder.com/Apparently the Unity Church is a New Age Church embracing various NuAge beliefs similar to The Secret, The Ra Material, etc.
They claim to be Christian but I think most Christians would balk at the concept.
http://www.unityworldwideministries.org/about“Values
– Spirit-Led–We are centered in God. Spirit leads our thoughts and actions as we co-create a world that works for all.”
Mmmm-hmmm. The NuAge concept that the believer is a co-God, co-creating reality (presumably by intention = wishing). Not a very Christian concept, but a firmly NuAge, SciFi, Scientology-like concept.
So, to me, this explains Del’s genesis into the world of woo. He grew up in NuAge woo-woo.
He’s just another crystal clutching NuAge kook.
Sorry for the double post.
My original with the live links hadn’t shown after 1.5 hours so I thought it had gone to the void and reposted with inactive links.
Of course, both posts immediately showed up as soon as I hit the “Post Comment” button for the 2nd attempt.
Sorry.
Hello Reality! ( I’ve always wanted to say that)
Thanks, it’s very good. I especially like NuAge which hints at its inherent cloudy logic.
I forgot all about his connection to Boulder. Now I totally love Boulder and spent a few great days there BUT it has a lot of wacky altie crap, let’s be honest.
Looking at the well maintained façade ** of the church, I would guess that his family is not poor. I wonder why he uses his mother’s name when his siblings use his father’s? Exotica to impress the Angelenos/ film crowd?
-btw- long ago, a relative of mine adopted an orphaned boy from either the Oneida or Mohawk of NY.
** double entendre
Hello again Denise.
Yeah, my cousin lives in Boulder… she’s a NuAge kook, unfortunately. I love her, but…
.
More on Dull’s parents and upbringing:
One merely has to read the pap being dispensed by Dull’s parent’s church to understand his complete lack of scientific knowledge:
https://unityofboulder.com/sunday-spiritual-service/“Our Sunday Spiritual Service is at 10:00 am.
Jack Groverland, Head Minister, along with his daughter, Syntysche Groverland who is the Associate Minister, give weekly Sunday sermons covering topics like the Law of Attraction, Unity Principles, Bible Secrets, and A Course in Miracles.”
Uh-huh. The Law of Attraction and A Course In Miracles. It is Teh Sekrit crapola.
.
See this Miracles Made Easy (A Course In Miracles) blog post by Dull’s dad:
https://unityofboulder.com/miracles-made-easy/Wow. The anti-science, anti-medicine woo is thick enough to cut with a knife.
It is pretty clear why Dull is anti-science and anti-vaccine having grown up being taught by these woo-woos without the buffer of a public education to moderate the woo.
.
More blog posts by the whole crew:
https://unityofboulder.com/category/uncategorized/.
Christian it is not.
Dull’s fundy followers don’t realize they are supporting a pantheist…
.
In any event, this is a glimpse into the Edgar Cayce, Law of Attraction, Course in Miracles, The Seekrit, alt-med foundations of Dull Bigtwig’s world view; such as it is.
.
Have fun.
I see the Unity of Boulder Church (or Spiritual Center, the two titles seem to be interchangeble) is a family business.
Certainly having woo obsessed parents is likely to influence your thinking. While like thinkers tend to gravitate to each other, Bigtree was likely to be attracted to conspiracy theories wherever he grew up and it may be unfair to blame Boulder.
Bigtree seems to be no more than an ego driven conspiracy theorist. Much like Donald Trump, he doesn’t seem to care what rational people think of what he says or does, so long as he still has his adoring fans. A classic narcissist.
I doubt anyone of them cares; they are first and foremost, anti-vaccine and that is the singular tie that binds them all.
Oh, good grief. My stepmother belonged to a Unity church in Arizona. My description of it was “Christian Science Light.” Lots of woo on healing oneself, but willing to get medical care.
She used to send me these little pamphlets with stories on how their deity saved them when injured. I was really annoyed with one where the woman prayed and prayed… but did not call 911. Ugh. I told my stepmother to not sent them anymore.
She used gush at any improvements my son had with his multiple medical appointment and hospitals stays. Apparently all improvements were do to some random deity and not me calling 911 or taking him to multiple speech therapy sessions.
Dull’s fundy followers don’t realize they are supporting a pantheist…
The family grifters are ecumenical, they accept any currency.
Kennedy has exactly fifty-seven documents showing the full knowledge and culpability of the manufacturers. https://youtu.be/wncTgMi3pWc?t=89
V if for Vaccine
Worst. Sequel. Ever.
“54% of our kids cannot breathe this air, eat this food, drink our water.”
And the solution is more measles, I guess.
@Narad – Thank you! I am beginning to question my fandom. I misspelled “Booji Boy”and I didn’t know they had an alter-ego band – DOVE.
In regard to the subject matter, however, Freedom of Choice is too obvious….You probably knew it was coming. They are talented, strange and wonderful… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajjX2_Eygu4
I can see why you could be envious.
Yesterday was the worst day I have ever had on Twitter. The day before I started a new job so I was checking social media all day, off and on, to follow the protest. These antivaxers were incredible. Literally, not a single one of them apologized for the rhetoric of violence, even when I tweeted numerous screenshots of Dr Pan constituents posting incredibly violent memes: guns, nazi and genocide comparison, bloody heads, etc.
And, while I am limited in my current film knowledge and don’t watch a lot of current films except for Rom Coms and kid movies, I am not an idiot. I have never seen V is for Vendetta but I know the Guy Fawkes story. I googled V is for Vendetta cause one of these CA antivax guys tried to tell me this V business and the Guy Fawkes symbols are just about a movie character. Fucking idiots! (pardon my language) Do they think we are that dumb or are they dumb? Guy Fawkes tried to assassinate the King of England! V tried to assassinate the leader of dystopian England. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? This is not nonviolent. Using V ( for vaccines) is harkening to wanting to assassinate a leader they don’t like. The Guy Fawkes imagery, which they used in the San Diego Comic Con protest, is also about wanting to assassinate a leader. They are threatening Dr Pan’s life/
Another antivaxer, a woman on Twitter was spitting mad at me last night for advocating in favor of denying disabled children special education! She says her son is Vaccine injured. Turns out, he’s on the autism spectrum! Fake medical exemption alert!
Because, in her mind, her son needs that fake ME or he won’t get special Ed services. I’m like, lady, your making the choice here, not me. There is no medical reason this kid cannot be vaccinated! She is a picture perfect example of a fake ME.
If you feel like it, go to instagram and search for #matrixmothers. You will find this gal!
#StopAntiVaxViolence
Orac, thanks for helping me find the live feed. I am handmadekathy on Twitter. I watched a bit but RFK was too much for me to handle.
Also, all their signs are lies. They don’t get it. It is so incredibly frustrating.
https://vaccinesworkblog.wordpress.com/2019/07/25/v-is-for-vexatious-antivaxers-and-their-misinformation-campaigns/
gah, I need to be able to edit my posts. I do not advocate in favor of denying children IEP services. I am a SPED teacher, for cripe’s sake! The antivax mom was tweeting to me that my views equate to denying children services. Nope, hun, you are denying our own child services.
It looked like a tough day, Kathy.
I liked that V’s “professionally” produced signs appeared to contradict one another. There was a photo of one person with the “72 vaccines” trope, next to a person with an otherwise identical sign, but with “69 vaccines!”
No surprise there. They don’t read, and are innumerate. All of their theories are mutually contradictory, anyway, so why would a little quality control error throw a spanner?
Also whoever came up with V (for Vaccines) should have chosen a different pithy title. All I get from it is flashbacks to V, a television miniseries and franchise about disguised reptilian aliens (which my stepdaughter, then 8, made me sit through from roughly ’83 – ’85). Their best sight gag was eating rats, but for me it’s more the David Icke conspiracy theories that bind it to the current reboot.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZYoAmZX4rI&w=560&h=315%5D
Now that would be some cosplay.
I saw the film on television: V, is presented as the charismatic leader of an oppressed citizenry in London so of course he uses the Guy Fawkes reference to rally supporters. V and his follower- portrayed by Hugo Weaving and Natalie Portman, respectively, are the heroes of the piece: they are right for rebelling against the state. The film is not a plea for non-violence or discussion in Parliament by a Loyal Opposition.
The Guy Fawkes masks have also been made popular by the hackers Anonymous.
While these guys have some good creeds in my book, their stick is to engage in on-line vigilantism. We are still not talking about non-violent activism.
Also, we are talking about the AVers riding other people’s dovetails. Again.
[…] V is for Vaccine: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Del Bigtree rile up an antivaccine demonstration agains… August 29, 2019 […]
AoA features a new post by Wayne Rohde castigating Prof Reiss and her work in support of vaccination:
she has a “new campaign of hate and preying on parents who have lost children from vaccination”. She issues ” false statements”, is “misleading”, “lying”, in “denial, ” not knowing the science”, “emotional assault”, ” denying any connection of a specific vaccine with a medical condition especially death, cancer or autism” . He compares her “playback:” to industry cover-ups of “football concussions and CTE”, “Agent Orange” and “Tobacco”. She is ” trying to pollute the well, to gaslight parents that SIDS or death is caused by vaccines’. ” Our nation is slowly waking up to the extreme damage that blanket vaccination has created”. In other words, she’s wrong for telling the truth!
OBVIOUSLY this is par for the course but I thought that Orac’s minions should be aware of yet another attack on a SBM supporter who is attempting to counter anti-vaxxers’ misinformation machine. She courageously stands up the their nonsense and should be commended for her activities. As you know, I personally try to present how alt med prevaricators lie to and try to manipulate the public in my own small way in a mostly protective environment BUT I doubt that I could stand up to abuse as gracefully as she has. Nor could MOST of us.
That’s funny, Wayne has no education in science, so his attempt to criticize anyone else rings a bit hallow.
Thank you, Denice.
Wayne has a child on the autism spectrum and has spent that child’s entire life arguing vaccines cause autism. There is no hate coming from Dorit. She is one of the kindest people you will ever meet and one of the most gentle, factual, and respectful vaccine advocates.
Also, the “heroes” in V is for Vendetta are trying to overthrow the government and are viewed as heroes because the agreed upon point of view is that the government are the enemy. By dressing as V, antivax protesters are implying vaccines are evil, provax advocates deserve assassination, and any government which mandates vaccines should be violently overthrown.
Whether or not you believe in God and that we’re created in the image and likeness of God or you’re the straight-up atheist scientist who believes in evolution, I have news for you.
Bigbooty’s goal there is to create a false dichotomy between religion and evolution, i.e. “only a godless heathen rationalist would accept Evolution”. If you’re not an atheist, you must be a creationist.
Now that his CMSRI moneyteat has gone away, he’s climbing into bed with the theocrats and Talevangelists in search of a new income stream.
As I’m sure most everyone here already knows, California’s Assembly’s Appropriations Committee passed SB276 Friday, August 30, 2019.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article234564137.html.
It now goes to a vote by the full Assembly and then to the governor’s desk for signing.
Since the full Assembly is split as
Democrat – 61 members
Republican – 18 members
Vacant – 1 seat
The result is a foregone conclusion = pass.
And, as the Gov. has stated he will sign if it hits his desk SB276 will become law, barring some sort of miracle.
.
One can almost hear the furious tapping of computer keys as quack anti-vaccine doctors try to cleanse their records to show they acted properly when they issued their medical exemptions which will be rejected once reviewed by a committee of their non-quack peers.
It seems Bob Sears’ days as a doctor are numbered if his statements at the June hearing are any indication that he knows most of his exemptions will not pass scrutiny by non-quacks. If there are enough and they are flagrant enough his activities will now be passed to the Cali Med. Board and they will have the evidence without needing his cooperation.
Another wonderful result in spite of the impotent efforts of Dull Bigtwig and RFK, Jr.
Generally a bad day for anti-science, anti-vax quacks, grifters, and conmen.
Have fun.
Fabulous. Can’t wait for Dr Bob and Dr Jay to start complaining because one of their scams will be shut off.
“One can almost hear the furious tapping of computer keys as quack anti-vaccine doctors try to cleanse their records to show they acted properly when they issued their medical exemptions which will be rejected once reviewed by a committee of their non-quack peers.”
Not saying it would happen – but it would take very specialized skills to make such “revisions” in a manner undetectable by examiners. Otherwise, we’d have wholesale cleansing of computerized medical records in response to litigation. Once such hanky-panky is detected, might as well give up the case.*
*it’s pretty easy (I’m told) even to check on whether someone has _accessed_ computerized medical records.
I agree, DB.
But I do not think these dishonest quacks are above trying to save their careers by falsifying records.
They may not succeed but what do they have to lose if they know their 50 MEs for quacky reasons without examining the patient is going to sink their career?
We shall see in a couple years.
We will also get to see the list of MD quacks, frauds and scammers who have written large numbers of fraudulent MEs to the detriment of public health.
Have fun.
.
.
More on Bob Sears foot-bulleting himself at the June 20th Health Committee:
https://www.assembly.ca.gov/media/assembly-health-committee-20190620/video.
@4:29:32
Pan has finished explaining the ‘5 exemption’ trigger for review to Representative Chad Mayes (R) who then moves on to discuss if there may be some other way to the phony medical exemption problem during this segment.
Rep. Mayes states up front that he believes that there are unscrupulous doctors abusing/gaming the ME system and, humourously, asks Bob Sears if he had any ideas on how to address the problem of the unscrupulous doctors.
He obviously did not know that he was essentially asking Al Capone how to address the problem of organized crime in bootlegging and prostitution, but he will find out shortly courtesy of Dr. Pan.
Sears goes on and on about what he does and focuses on the payments to doctors for “medical exemption appointments” as a means of oversight. This is patently absurd and Dr. Pan’s response is quite good by saying that SB276 is the answer and does provide oversight of MEs.
@4:35:10 Pan then hoists Bob Sears on his own petard by explaining to Rep. Mayes that Sears is one of the main members of the ‘unscrupulous doctors’ cohort and @4:40:05 by commenting that he has no idea what a “medical exemption visits (appointments)” is and why anyone would be making one. He explains the blatantly obvious sequence of events that result in a ME:
1) – Child’s PCP pediatrician or specialist diagnoses a condition.
2) – Condition precludes the use of one or more vaccines.
3) – Child’s PCP or specialist informs parents of the situation and states that they will issue a ME for the child and why.
Dr. Pan – “That’s it.”
Pan elaborates but never says “Doctor shopping” when that is what he means these parents are doing.
This clarified and spotlighted the parents’ gaming/defrauding the system by discarding steps #1-#3 and diagnosing their children’s ‘vaccine fragility/injury’ themselves and then searching for a doctor that will agree with the scam and write the ME via an “exemption appointment”.
It is doctor shopping just as much as an addict shops for a doctor who is loose with narcotic prescriptions.
Sears basically revealed that he knows he is gaming/defrauding the system in concert with the parents and then whined about Pan’s bill which will stop and expose him.
After Pan’s response to Rep. Mayes, Rep. Mayes became quiet, asked Sears no more questions, and turned the floor back to the chairman, presumably embarrassed at how Bob Sears had just dishonestly gamed him.
.
I can’t think of anyone more deserving of losing their license than he.
Anyone with a reasonable understanding of statistics would understand why
No, only anyone who wanted an agenda SO BADLY to be true would throw their years of education & experience right out the window to cling to the very bad explanation as to why it wasn’t really the vaccines.
A ‘reasonable understanding of statistics’ was trumped by ‘must exonerate the vacciiiines ….’. No knowledge base required; just close your eyes, click your heels together three times & repeat:
‘It’s not the vaccines … It’s not the vaccines … It’s not the vaccines’ And look! It’s magic! Whew … close call; dang whistle blower’s shredding documents & all that, WTH? Very, very hard to maintain that comfy state of denial with those disgruntled CDC scientists around. Or wait; mentally ill?
Oh, of course: Disgruntled, mentally ill, CDC scientists That’s the ticket.
There are autopsies and clinical and genetic studies, if you cannot stand statistics. I will send you links, if you like to see them again.
This insipid claim has been debunked six ways to Sunday, including the first time you excreted it here.
The pit that holds your lack of knowledge seems to be bottomless
Guess what, Christine? The people who’ve been flogging the idea that William Thompson was mentally ill are…antivaxers.
Thompson’s alleged mental problems are described in a complaint letter that Brian Hooker and Andrew Wakefield sent to the CDC:
“The major consideration is that, if this conversation (with Thompson) occurred as represented, then Hooker just divulged highly personal medical information about Thompson, namely that he suffered some sort of mental breakdown, complete with paranoia, delusions, and depression, right before (the) IOM conference ten years ago. This, after having bragged about how he was Thompson’s “confessor,” like a priest. How vile can you get?”
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2014/10/23/brian-hooker-and-andrew-wakefield-send-a-complaint-to-the-cdc-about-its-vaccine-research-everyone-yawns/
You need to keep your conspiracy theories straight, Christine.
This task (like understanding what vaccines cause (immunity to dangerous infectious diseases) and don’t cause (autism and other disorders claimed by antivaxers) requires a knowledge base. Fortunately, these days you can acquire such basic knowledge online:
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/the-role-of-vaccines-in-preventing-infectious-diseases-and-amr
@ DB,
Still confused to what your take on Thompson is. It sort of sounds like you are painting him as a victim of antivaxxers.
Whatever makes you feel better, I suppose, about the future of vaccine policy & program but it’s weird that I seem more concerned about this than you do. If public faith is destroyed; there will be no policy or program. Why continue to ridicule public concerns instead of address them. Pretending that there are not problems will not make them go away.
You and your weird grab-bag of complaints do not rise to the level of “public concerns,” I’m afraid. Grandiosity is not your friend.
Read the linked article, and others on RI and elsewhere that clearly show Thompson was victimized by antivaxers who recorded conversations with him without his knowledge and outed his supposed mental illness problems.
If you’re really concerned about potential loss of public faith in vaccination, try not to continually push misinformation about vaccine safety, stop attempting to denigrate quality research showing no connection between immunization and autism, and cease dismissing serious infectious diseases like measles as “fever with spots”.
And take an online course on immunology and infectious disease. You badly need that knowledge.
If you’re really concerned about potential loss of public faith in vaccination,
“Nice public faith you have there; it’d be a shame if something happened to it”… well, that’s a kind of concern.
“Devolving”? Someone doesn’t understand the first thing about evolution! Quick question, what’s more “highly evolved”, a jellyfish or a human? If you answered “human”, then let’s drop both you and the jellyfish in the middle of the ocean, and see who survives longer. The jellyfish is a highly effective predator in the ocean and would probably survive a good long time, while in the ocean you would probably drown after a few hours at most. Evolution is not a progression from bacteria to jellyfish to humans, it has no direction or goal. So it is not meaningful to talk about “devolution” as that implies that evolution is working towards a goal.
Or die of hypothermia in about 20 minutes.
Yet on land, they are just blobs of vaguely solidified water, drying out in air and sun.
Update from the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/09/california-legislature-protest-vaccine-bills
“Protesters on Monday took over the halls of the state capitol building, chanted in the halls and demonstrated outside of the office of the California governor, Gavin Newsom, but they were unable to prevent the legislation from passing or Newsom from signing the bills into law.”
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