I'm a licensed physician, board-certified in both anatomic and clinical pathology. I operate the world's largest public pathology site, which has become the largest free one-man medical helpline on the internet. Generally, I am a therapeutic nihilist, and operate a sympathetic page devoted to alternative medicine. I give myself out to be a Christian.
I'm a man of integrity, and I demand basic truthfulness from others.
This site focuses SOLELY on the misuse of scientific articles by anti-immunization activists.
It is impossible to know the mind of another person. But I suspect that some of these people actually intend to deceive their readers.
And I could find no objections from the more responsible critics of immunization -- most of whom seem to be good, public-spirited people.
I am making this posting solely for the sake of health and truth. By doing this, I will...
... hopefully put a few decent, thoughtful people's minds at ease.
I have nothing else to gain. As a professional man, a university instructor, and an expert who testifies in court, I have everything to lose if I'm not telling the truth here. As always, I am speaking only for myself.
Concurrently with this project, I am undertaking an online project to publish the significant findings in the autopsy reports of children of who have died as a result of immunizations.
I will not be able to correspond with anyone about the larger issues involved in immunization, pro or con. I operate the internet's largest free personalized health information service, and will not take time from this to argue with militants. Please take your concerns to one of the major pro-immunization sites instead.
This is by no means a complete study of any of the internet sites in question. I'll add more instances of mis-citation as time (and my distaste for this subject) allows.
If you want to know who's lying and who's telling the truth, simply take a copy of this page to your local public library, and obtain the articles I've cited by interlibrary loan. Most libraries can do this. There may be a small fee, but it's worth it to find out who the crooks really are.
This website collects no information. If you e-mail me, neither your e-mail address nor any other information will ever be passed on to any third party, unless required by law.
This page was last modified March 2, 2010.
I have no sponsors and do not host paid advertisements. All external links are provided freely to sites that I believe my visitors will find helpful.
[Link now down.] The main feature of this inflammatory site is heavy referencing to the scientific literature. Someone who does not have the time to check the scientific references could be impressed.
The most sensational claims for vaccine ineffectiveness (for example, 29,972 smallpox deaths in Japan, all in vaccinated people) are referenced only to the writings of old anti-immunization activists. If they were true, the author would be able to find something in a refereed medical textbook, or even a history book.
Here is how the author uses his scientific sources.
Lancet 338: 715, 1991. The author cites this article to claim that polio vaccine is ineffective. He says, "In 1989, the country of Oman experienced a widespread polio outbreak six months after achieving complete vaccination." This is clearly untrue. If you will examine the article, you'll discover:
MMWR 33(24): , June 22 1984. The author cites an outbreak of measles among previously-immunized high-school students as proof that the vaccine is not effective. Given that the measles vaccine is (and was known at the time to be) only 90-98% effective in preventing the disease, it is not surprising that there would be a cluster in a high school sooner or later. Here's what the article actually said:
NEJM 332: 500, 1995. The author cites "a very recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine which revealed that a substantial number of Romanian children were contracting polio from the vaccine." The reference, however, is to the Washington Post. If the real reference had been given, it would have been easier for readers to find the author's misrepresentation.
AJDC 145: 1379, 1991. The author cites the article in support of his statement that outbreaks of Hib have occurred despite immunization. Again, examining the actual article shows how the activist is trying to trick you.
Pediatr. Inf. Dis. 13: 34, 1994. The author cites this article to make the true statement that outbreaks of measles have occurred in immunized populations. Not everybody makes antibody in response to the measles vaccine. Here is how the article begins:
J. Inf. Dis. 169: 77, 1994. The author cites this article to make the true statement that an outbreak of mumps has occurred in an immunized population, this one in Tennessee. As with measles, not everybody makes antibody after immunization. Here is how the article begins:
MMWR 38(18): 329-30, May 12, 1989. The author directly quotes this as saying that "[Measles epidemics] have occurred in all parts of the country, including areas that have not reported measles for years."
JAMA 257: 1375, 1987: "In Japan, the problem of vaccine-associated SIDS was eliminated not by the introdution of acellular pertussis vaccines, but by the change of immunization from 3 months to 2 years."The rate of SIDS in Japan did not change, but because the immunization schedule was changed, people stopped blaming the vaccine.
I have spent a lot of time looking for this often-cited Japanese evidence, and have found so little that I must believe that the story originated with the misinterpretation of one person and spread like wildfire (as all the really "good" stories do). The rate of SIDS, I recall, did not change over the time-frame when this vaccination schedule shift occurred... Clearly it is the "vaccination-associated" classification of SIDS that went away; not SIDS itself.
6//7/00: A correspondent shared an account of the SIDS in Japan business. An online account of further deceptions involving vaccines and SIDS is also down.
The author of "Dispelling Vaccine Myths" has NO refereed data to document his obviously false claim that immunization has not led to a reduction in the diseases for which it is administered.
[Link is now down.] This site describes its mission as "to help the public make informed and intelligent decisions about childhood and adult vaccines."
With such a mission, we would expect extensive and honest documentation. You won't find it here.
There is a citation, supposedly from the AMA, to a non-existent issue of the journal "Science" ("March 26, 1977"). An editorial in a real issue from the previous day merely bewailed the fact that regulations and the threat of baseless litigation were making it nearly impossible even for valuable vaccines to get produced.
JAMA 274: 446, 1995 reviews the work on cellular and acellular pertussis vaccine. The author heaps ridicule and sarcasm on the study. (Again, for some reason she has the date of the issue off by a day.)
The author claims that this means the vaccine is effective only if the patient is not exposed to the disease. This is a shameless misrepresentation. The truth is that the whooping cough bacterium is ubiquitous, and whether you get sick depends both on your immune status and how much of the bacterium you inhale.
Of course, the epidemic itself was the result of anti-immunization activism. Thanks to people like this, there'll be pertussis epidemics for the foreseeable future.
The same JAMA issue contains an essay, "Brad Missed the Miracle", about a young boy who was almost completely paralyzed in the polio epidemic. When he was a teenager, his parents bought him a car so that the other teenagers could drive him around town.
The author correctly notes today's mysterious, ongoing increase in the prevalence of childhood diabetes mellitus. But if immunization were the cause, we would have seen a spectacular increase in the late 1950's and early 1960's, when widespread immunization became the norm. We didn't.
The two writers who caused all the excitement over hemophilus B immunization as a cause of diabetes are independent thinkers offering their own idiosyncratic immunotherapies which they present as alternatives to the usual vaccines. See Br. Med. J. 318: 193, 1999; Br. Med. J. 319: 1133, 1999. Anti-immunization activists will be interested to know that one of them also claims that "early immunization is associated with the prevention of diabetes in humans" (Autoimmunity 27: 35, 1998).
It's my judgement as a pathologist that when you control for people living longer and smoking more, cancer isn't becoming more common.
If the author had provided references, readers could have determined easily that she had yelled "Fire!" where there is no fire.
Of course, the author attributes the vilest motives to physicians, government, and industry. You're free to believe her if you want.
This is another catalogue of citations from the actual scientific literature dealing with vaccine problems. Some citations are fair, while others are deceptive.
Science 256: 1259, 1992. "ThinkTwice" says, "Science reported on a possible link between polio vaccines and the origin of AIDS."
Pediatrics 91: 699, 1993. "Despite immunization programs targeting high-risk groups, the incidence of hepatitis B has risen 37% since the introduction of the vaccine."
[The link is also down.] Despite the dark talk about
"evidence which is being suppressed by the authorities", this is
primarily a catalog of letters to medical journals expressing
possible hazards of immunization. When they haven't panned out,
the source remains silent.
NEJM 310: 198, 1984. "A report on a study of 11 healthy individuals to determine the effects of routine tetanus booster vaccinations showed that the vaccinations weaken the immune system of the recipients."
MMWR 38: 101-105, 1989. The anti-immunization activist implies, falsely, that the mumps vaccine has increased the incidence of mumps in teens and adults, who risk sterility as a result.
As this site grows, I'll examine other people's use of the medical literature.
Vaccines -- A Second Opinion
Most of this extremely long paper, only a portion of which is available online, seems to be quotations from various alternative thinkers (largely homeopaths) about why vaccines should not work.
When the author gets down to citing facts, he simply lies or repeats the obvious lies of other writers. For example...
Children born with agammaglobulinemia (an inability to produce antibodies) develop and recover from measles and other infectious or contagious diseases almost as spontaneously as other children. The truth is that these children recover from most viral illnesses because their T-lymphocytes are intact, but if they do not receive supplemental immunoglobulins, they die of bacterial or picornavirus infections in early childhood.
The author claims that when German pertussis immunization rates dropped in the 1970's, the illness did not become more prevalent. This is a bald-faced lie. In the 1980's, pertussis was rampant in Germany, but there are no hard numbers simply because it was not reportable (Tok. J. Exp. Clin. Med. 13 S: 97, 1988).
The author cites Lancet June 5, 1985 (actually the article is in the January 5 issue) in which one investigator found a statistical correlation between serologic immunity to measles with no history of rash, and various autoimmune diseases. The anti-immunization writer claimed that Danish authors suggested that the measles vaccine places people at risk for future autoimmune disease. The article is not even about the measles vaccine, but did include some speculation about the possible impact of the old gamma-globulin passive immunization, which he thought might have permitted measles to function as a slow virus. The paper has only one author. People have looked at both measles virus and measles immunization since then (Pediatrics 104: 12, 1999) and I could find no one who was able to support the claims of the lone investigator.
The author goes on to list "chemicals" found in some vaccines, with the suggestion that they may be harmful. These include glutamate, sodium phosphate, sodium chloride, and glycine, all of which are basic building-blocks of life. This is shoddy work from somebody who feels qualified to tell the world that HIV does not cause AIDS.
Unknowing Women Victims of Hidden Birthcontrol Vaccine
This activist charges that a campaign to immunize women of childbearing age against tetanus and childhood diseases caused miscarriages and sterility. According to the activist, hCG was actually present in the tetanus vaccine.
None of the scientific references given in the paper describe anything of the sort ever really happening. I could find no report on a computer review of the medical literature back to 1966. If it had actually happened, it would have been a huge news story (both medicine and human-rights), and medical journals would have rushed to publish it.
It is hard to imagine how hCG would have gotten into a batch of vaccine by accident. But unlike its apparent source, below, this isn't a conspiracy buff site.
The author also cites Lancet June 4, 1988, p. 1273 in support of his claim. The article only says that some women in Nigeria believed that they would be given a contraceptive vaccine and hid in the bushes.
On the evidence, this site borrowed heavily from Miller's site, below. We'll have to guess who invented the stories about the vaccine actually causing miscarriages.
James A Miller (link is now down), an anti-contraception activist, charges that conspirators have already put hCG drugs in tetanus toxoid which was given to poor women in the developing world, in order to sterilize them.
Evidently, this never saw publication in a medical journal, or even a legitimate medical newspaper. I'm a pathologist, and I believe that I know why....
Lab testing isn't like counting sheep. Because of the nature of extremely sensitive assays, some tests for hCG ALWAYS give a positive number, even if no hCG is really present.
Miller suggests that there must be a sinister motive in targeting women of childbearing age. Really, the campaign had the reasonable aim of protecting newborn children by means of maternal antibodies.
Miller cites the same "Lancet" article, above, and claims on this basis alone that "Nigeria, too, may have been victimized" (see Lancet 4 June 1988 p. 1273).
I am pro-life, without any apology. I'm also a Christian and believe that lying is generally a sin. I am asking other honest people like me to stand up against this kind of bunk.
I found this in 2006. It's by Roman Bystrianyk, and uses graphs to document that death rates from infectious diseases were already declining markedly prior to the introduction of the vaccines against them.
The author relies on rhetorical questions and selective use of statistics. However, he clearly wants readers to conclude that they should not have their children immunized, and that the vaccines are a fraud perpetrated for some reason by the government and big corporations.
Anyone who visits an old graveyard will realize childhood mortality dropped substantially during the century before the vaccines were introduced. The vast majority of childhood deaths have historically been from the infectious diseases.
The obvious fallacy in Bystrianyk's paper is that he never cites the TOTAL NUMBER OF CASES of the diseases in question, only the death rates. If the vaccines really don't work, somebody as diligent as Bystrianyk would present data from public health sources indicating equally dramatic declines in the numbers of people who got the diseases and recovered. Rather than conclude that the vaccines do not work, Bystriank's graphs merely show that between 1900 and 1950, we got better at keeping sick people from dying.
Bystrianyk has only a single actual citation of a real medical publication that he claims says that a single vaccine did not "play a major role" in decreasing the number of cases of the disease. At the time that Bystrianyk wrote his own article, the paper was a quarter-century old. The quotation from this weird single-author paper (Lancet, Jan 29, 1977, pp 234-237) is genuine, but the conclusion does not follow from the author's own data. Click here to see the impact of immunization on whooping cough in Scotland. It's general knowledge that the vaccine confers only partial immunity. However, since the Y-axis is logarithmic, this is about a two-third decline in the deaths from whooping cough in the two years after immunization was introduced.
Anyone considerng Bystrianyk's notes also needs to know some facts that the author failed to share.
There are at least two other sites that show mortality curves for polio, showing mortality dropping to zero in 1957. Thanks to the iron lung, fewer people were dying of polio during the previous decade. The sites show the vaccine as having been introduced in 1957. It was acutally introduced in 1955. Since polio disappears from countries as soon as widespread immunization is introduced, and reappears when it is neglected, one would have to be very foolish to doubt the effectiveness of the vaccine.
Several people have written me asking about a Raymond Obomsawin, variously
described as an MD or PhD, who writes anti-immunization materials which
you can buy. According
to some websites, which I'll let you find on your own, Dr. Obomsawin was
commissioned in 1992 by the Canadian International Development Agency
to prepare a report to guide its immunization
policy. But when Dr. Obomsawin's report was submitted,
it was suppressed by sinister conspirators. A search
of the NIH database shows that Raymond Obomsawin has only one peer
publication, a popular article from 1978
for Canadian nurses about Indian health issues.
If you want to believe that the Canadian government
really hired this guy as an elite scientific consultant,
you're
free to do so. Of course, I don't know one way or the other.
Added in May 2006: I am still occasionally checking the anti-immunization
sites.
One phenomenon I've noticed is that, since I put this page online,
the obvious disinformation artists are much less likely to reference
their quotations so that the public can actually check them.
I have received a few inquiries about J. Anthony Morris.
who is presently cited on many of the anti-immunization sites
as having been "the chief vaccine control officer for the United States
Food and Drug Administration." On the record of his publications,
he was a virologist at the NIH from the 1940's to the time of the swine flu
vaccine business. He helped develop several experimental
vaccines,
most notably the failed attempts to create an influenza B vaccine in the 1960's
following the obvious success of the influenza A vaccine (in the development of which
he also participated). Not everything
works out, in fact most things don't, and this is no reflection on him.
His one major
paper deals with the discovery that some anti-influenza antibodies are
protective and some are not; you can read it in NEJM 274: 527,
1969. It was a great piece of work.
In the paper, his title is listed as "Chief, Section on Respiratory Viruses,
Division of Biologic Standards, National Institutes of Health." In other
words, he was a microbiologist who supervised the standardization of some
of the viruses
used for research. He is also third author on a paper in Science 116:
117, 1969, which lists his affiliation as "Division of Biologic Standards,
National Institutes of Health." He was dismissed from the FDA, at least in part for
talking in public about the risk-benefit ratio of influenza vaccines
in the early 1970's. This went to litigation
that he evidently won.
(Academic politics is bizarre.
When a practicing scientist goes on "Donahue", something
is not right.)
I could find no support for the claim that he was "the chief vaccine
control officer for the United States Food and Drug Administration".
This looks like a propagated error within the anti-immunization community.
I am not aware of any attempt by Dr. Morris himself to mislead others
during his time as a scientist.
If he has in fact stated that no influenza vaccine has been of benefit to
humankind, as is alleged here (warning: vulgar
language), then
time has proved him mistaken.
Crooks who are caught in a lie smear your character
and ignore your facts.
Ordinarily, I ignore my abusive mail and attacks on my character in blogs.
However, this one's special, and I'm sharng this as an example of how
they operate. Four years after posting a request for anyone who could inform me
whether Dr. Morris was ever truly "the chief vaccine control officer
for the United States Food and Drug Administration", I received an e-mail,
a very-watered-down version of which may be found here.
Yes, ma'am, I did ask him through his attorney and there was no response.
On Feb. 9, 2010, four years after my original request
for Dr. Morris's credentials, Google count shows 6020 anti-immunization websites calling him
"the former chief vaccine control officer" for the Food and Drug Administration.
I did rethink my tone, and reflected that we should first honor a man who did contribute
in an important way to the battle against influenza. However, my correspondent dodged my question. Was Dr. Morris indeed
the FDA's "chief vaccine control officer?" -- a position of which I'd never heard.
The lawyer I was supposed to "apologize to" didn't respond.
Nor has anyone produced:
I've drawn my conclusion, subject to new evidence if it ever comes along.
No, I don't think Dr. Morris ever pretended to be somebody he wasn't. But
I believe that someone
exaggerated his credentials,
and the error propagated because these people -- who are asking you
to make life-and-death decisions -- parrot each others' deceptions. It's a pattern.
Keep calling me a bad person if you want.
Vaccinations and Children -- Yahoo club. So far the main contributors seem fair-minded and eager to get at the truth.
National Vaccine Information Center.
Here's their current whooping cough page. As of 12/11/99, it gives no traceable reference more recent than 14 years old. Newer papers are cited but references are not given. If you pursue the matter yourself, I think you'll discover why.
Most of this site is devoted to concerns about adverse reactions to current vaccines, and these people simply ask readers to weigh risks (which you can read about here -- though you won't learn which are real and which have been discredited scientifically) and benefits (which the site does acknowledge).
The lady who runs this site sometimes testifies under oath. I don't think the site contains any actual falsifications.
If you are interested in the diseases against which immunization is effective, you can visit my own brief notes. In the era before immunization, there would have been no need to describe these to any adult.
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No reasonable person would question that there are hazards associated with the present vaccines.
In particular, anecdotes of marked, permanent behavioral changes following immediately after DPT injections have impressed me. Everybody seems to agree that the current negative (for example, JAMA 271: 37, 1994), inconclusive (for example, Vaccine 11: 1371, 1993) or suggestive (Vaccine 8: 531, 1990; Neuropediatrics 21: 171, 1990) statistical studies cannot rule out very-rare cases of DPT-induced acute allergic encephalomyelitis, with the bordetella toxin serving as an adjuvant. In fact, the Institute of Medicine estimated that there are "0.0 to 10.5" cases of AAE per million immunizations in excess of the expected rates (JAMA 271: 68, 1994). The fact that there's no easily-characterized syndrome in these children (Am. J. Dis. Child. 146: 327, 1992) is very much in keeping with the protean nature of acute allergic encephalomyelitis. However, I've been unable to find an autopsy report of this using the usual medical literature search techniques. In the hopes of settling this business to my own satisfaction (and perhaps that of others), I am soliciting autopsy reports from children who are supposed to have died of immunization side-effects.
Plenty of genuine scientists dedicate their careers to vaccine safety. There are huge monetary profits to be made for corporations who can make the safest vaccines. Science is driven primarily by the desire of scientists to enhance their personal reputations. They will jump at any chance to discover (and be the first to publish) a genuine public health hazard. In particular, an academic scientist who could spot misbehavior by a corporation would have his career made.
The burning question is whether you are better off accepting immunization against polio, measles, Hib, hepatitis B, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis. There is a level of consensus, rare in either science or politics, that ordinary folks and ordinary communities are better off accepting the standard immunizations. I think you can skip smallpox.
It is also the responsible thing to do, since by immunizing yourself and your children, you diminish your own chances of transmitting disease to those for whom the vaccine fails. This seems painfully clear from the small epidemics that have resulted from activism. You're being asked to assume some risk, for your own good and for the good of the community. Your neighbors have already taken the risk on YOUR behalf.
Read carefully. Despite some reasonable concerns, much of the rhetoric from anti-immunization parents boils down to, "I DON'T CARE if my kid infects YOUR kid." It's a harsh thing to say -- but it's the truth.
This would all seem totally obvious. But people often simply choose to believe lies that make them feel intellectually and morally superior. A "cause" lets you find friends and meaning. A certain percentage of people will decide to believe the radical anti-immunization activists for emotional reasons. That's human nature. But it makes for bad decisions, both public and private. And activists who leave movements that they learn are founded on lies are often tremendously saddened.
I am not an attorney, and I cannot advise you on what to do if you, or a family member, has been harmed as a result of these misinformation campaigns. I would be angry if my child was a non-responder, and then caught an infection from a child whose parents had refused immunization. I would be more than angry if my child became sick or died because I read something that the author knew to be untrue.
If you visit some (not all) anti-immunization sites, the links to organized, big-money health quackery are obvious. It is also easy to recognize other signs of pseudoscience -- beautiful rhetoric, claims of being spiritual and humanitarian, mud-slinging, lack of internal criticism, lack of original experimentation, lack of any real support from genuine scientists working in the areas, wild charges of massive corporate and government conspiracy (no specifics), and occasional outright lying.
If you are a responsible critic of today's immunization policies, you should start demanding that others withdraw their clearly false allegations.
If you are an ordinary citizen, and you still want to believe these people, then that is your business.
But don't let your concern for your health, and the health of others, allow you to be deceived by disinformation artists.
Health and friendship.
Vaccine Page -- world site,
lots of links.
ImmunoFacts -- lots of links
Institute for Vaccine Safety --
Johns Hopkins. Real scientists. Unlike activists, if a scientist lies
or misrepresents his material, his career is over.
Follow-up: By now, everyone knows of the deceptions by Andrew Wakefield. When I read his article, I realized he was describing the normal microscopic anatomy of the normal bowel as a new disease, and that something was wrong.
Click here for the LA Times on the cost to society of refusing immunization.
New visitors to www.pathguy.com reset Jan. 30, 2005: |
Follow Up
Three days after posting, I'm already receiving plenty of visitors. As above,
I do not have time to correspond with individuals -- pro or con -- on the subjects raised here.
Don't take my silence as lack of interest or appreciation.
A few people have written to remind
me that activists are right to bring studies on various limits
and hazards of immunizations to the attention
of the public. Of course I agree. But don't falsify your evidence
in the process.
I have received two replies from parents who believe they have lost
children to immunization. Please visit my
other page -- where
you'll see entirely different faces of this controversy
and this physician.
The author of one of the sites described at length on this page wrote to me in
2005. He accused me at considerable length of not being a genuine Christian,
but did not deny that he had falsified his evidence. Draw your own conclusions.
The MMR business is back in the media following a report at a meeting
in early 2006 on work-in-progress by
Dr. Steven Walker (Phys/Pharm, Wake Forest) that his group had isolated
vaccine-type measles virus from the gut of children with
regressive autism. We all await (April 2007) publication, whether
peer-reviewed or not,
especially considering the seriousness of the subject.
No one questions that other behavioral disorders
of children can follow exposures
(even "PANDAS" was unknown when I was in medical school).
Of course, the impact of these on a family is devastating.
I remain undecided as to whether MMR (by immunity, infection, or
toxicity) may on rare occasions be etiologic.
If so, it has completely eluded the best minds in science for
over a decade. I've cited Wakefield's
much-criticized work elsewhere.
It is now clear that he engaged in a pattern of deception,
including re-assigning normal biopsies as "enteropathic enterocolitis",
a problem I recognized on first reading his article. He may once
have been sincere.
I would be enormously pleased if his friend
Dr. Walker has something solid to add -- especially since he's from
one of my old institutions. Even in a world full of
politicians, lawyers, and emotion, science still seems to correct itself.
So far, nothing has happened.
* * *
Nineteen days after posting, I have withdrawn my offer to review
autopsies.
Here is the text as it appeared:
When it is developed, this site will catalogue the significant findings of
autopsy reports from children who have died (or who are thought to
have died) as a result of childhood immunizations.
I am uniquely qualified to do this.
The purpose of this site is not to discuss the larger issues involved
in immunization decision-making.
Despite the risks, which are real,
I believe that immunization is good personal and public policy.
I doubt that
developing this site will change my mind. In the meantime,
I will not be able correspond with anyone on this business.
As of this posting, I have e-mailed the authors of the major responsible
anti-immunization sites requesting copies of the autopsies on children
who are reported to have died following immunization.
I especially hope to find a credible report of acute allergic
encephalomyelitis following pertussis immunization. It is hard not to
be impressed by anecdotes of (thankfully rare) permanent behavioral
changes in children after DPT shots. The current statistical studies,
though large,
clearly lack the sensitivity to detect very low frequencies of this
protean reaction. Collecting a series of
autopsy reports with A.A.E. would
be very helpful for me, and for others who are concerned with the truth
of this business. And perhaps in the process we might discover
something else.
In the meantime, please visit these sites, which contain
first-hand accounts of deaths reported to be due to immunizations.
Whatever each of us may decide, as scientists or human beings, about
the actual causation, it is impossible not to be touched emotionally
by the love and grief which the surviving parents show -- and to admire
their concern for others.
[Four links followed.]
If I decide
that there is not a link between the vaccine and your child's death,
you have my word of honor that this will stay between us.
Neither readers of this site, nor anyone else, will hear about it.
If I can make a connection, I will give you whatever help I
can, pro bono.
Thank
you very much.
I have had only three correspondents who have been gracious. I thank these
people for their kindness and thoughtfulness, and for staying with
what they see to be a good cause.
Although this is not my first controversy, I have never gotten this much
hate mail -- twenty at current count.
I have been called "butcher", "murderer",
"totally closed-minded", "brainwashed", and "idiot". Despite a wealth
of detail about supposed corporate and government wrongdoing,
the level
of overall
ignorance is astonishing. It's revealing
to hear these people say that "the germ theory of
disease is now discredited" and so forth.
More germane to my decision to withdraw the offer, I was informed
that the activists have urged each other, via their online newsletters,
not to let me look at their cases,
both for their own legal reasons and out of the belief that
I intended to break my promise of secrecy should I arrive at a
negative conclusion.
What disturbs me the most is that only one of the more responsible
anti-immunization activists had anything to say about the
obvious pattern of deception carried out by their less-scrupulous
colleagues. Draw your own conclusions -- I've drawn mine.
More favorably, one of the responsible activists agreed to help
me gather material from older cases. I look forward to the chance
of perhaps finding an anatomic signature for vaccine injury. However,
I never heard from this correspondent again.
Immunization Deaths: The Online Autopsy Series
If you have autopsy reports, please fax them to me at 816-283-2251.
I must of hit pretty close to the mark
to get her all riled up like that, huh kid? -- Han Solo