As for “informed consent”, the PIC means that parents should be exposed to antivaccine misinformation that overstates the risks and underestimate the effectiveness of vaccines, in order to ensure that they are properly frightened into making the bad choice that PIC wants them to make. For instance, in their educational materials on the MMR vaccine, the PIC states that “the chance of dying from measles was 1 in 10,000 or 0.01%”, which is less than a tenth of the actual rate established by thorough research – so how did PIC arrive at their figure? By assuming that “nearly 90% of measles cases are benign and therefore not reported to the CDC”. They do not cite sources … but even if they are right, the actual number of kids dying would remain unchanged – if the official numbers were 1 000 000 kids getting the measles during an outbreak and 2000 dying, the PIC would jump in and say that in reality, 10 000 000 kids got measles of which 2000 died: measles is just even more contagious and widespread than expected and the risk of death or hospitalization for an unvaccinated kid remains the same … which to a person with normal reasoning skill would be all the more reason to get the vaccine. PIC does not embody reasoning skills. For the record, there has been no reported death due to the MMR vaccine – which would also spare you a long list of serious and common complications from measles. PIC, by contrast, supplies documents indicating a range of mythical risks associated with the MMR vaccine (such as claiming that it leads to seizures) harvested from various conspiracy outlets that they, for good measure, say are “peer-reviewed”, meaning presumably that more than one antivaccine activist has endorsed the source (their sources are not independently peer reviewed or published in any kind of reputable journal).
Greg Glaser is the general counsel for PIC – Glaser is, as such, a “vaccine rights attorney” (not a medical professional) in California with a litigation and transactional law background. And as Glaser tells his backstory: “After my daughter’s first round of injections, the experience forced me to open my eyes and actually research the matter. I found a suspicious list of vaccine ingredients, and an absolute certainty of widespread, under-reported vaccine injury across our population [a misleading claim at best]. Seeing my nephew suffer after the MMR vaccine also prompted me to research holistic ways to detox from vaccine injury.” Yes, he diagnosed his own child with vaccine injury (though he is notably vague about it). And yes, he thinks you can, and should, do a vaccine detox. A holistic detox. You should not.
Otherwise, Glaser’s website is stuffed with the usual antivaccine (and Covid) pseudoscience, misinformation and conspiracy theories you usually find on antivaccine sites and which Glaser has found in sources like the National Vaccine Information Center and other members of PIC. He was also involved in lawsuits against California’s school vaccine mandate, and with fellow antivaccine lawyer Ray Flores, he filed a lawsuit on behalf of Joy Garner, leader of the antivaccine group ‘The Control Group’ (the name is supposed to convey the delusion that all vaccines are experimental and that the unvaccinated constitute the control group), against then-president Trump since he was allegedly ultimately responsible for the California school vaccine mandate that Garner, Glaser and Flores thought was unconstitutional, a case that must be considered baseless and delusional – as confirmed by the courts – even by antivaccine conspiracy theory standards.
Indeed, in 2020, Glaser and Garner were also behind a “survey” called ‘The Control Group Pilot Study’ designed to “prove” that the unvaccinated are healthier than vaccinated people (they aren’t), which even antivaxx organizations seem to have recognized as being pretty worthless – it is discussed here). Basically, the “study” was a (yet another) survey advertised on various anti-vaccine sites (you had to request a paper version) asking people frequenting those sites simply about what chronic diseases they have and their vaccination status – Glaser and Garner didn’t even control for age, weight, or any other demographic factors. That’s it … except for some random-capitalization rantings about the evils of Common Core mathematics, the corruption of science, and the VAERS database. (Garner’s defense against potential criticism concerning lack of scientific rigor is worth quoting: “I see some people think the survey’s not ‘scientific’ enough. But the real point here is: According to WHO’s definition of ‘science’ do you claim this? If you’re looking for The Control Group to fall in lock-step with the sort of ‘science’ pharma has to offer you, we’re not you’re huckleberry” – in particular, the study is “NOT being conducted for publication in a pharma-funded medical journal”, it “IS being conducted based upon the Federal Rules of Evidence for submission under a particular branch of law” and though it “is possible that the results could be skewed by some people, but this happens with ALL surveys [yes … but good science at least attempts to reduce bias], and we already have so many participants willing to identify themselves, (and even testify in court) that we will be able to show these affects are only minimal in our study” [that’s … not the issue]; also, they were “using PAPER hard-copy documents, and those are REALLY tough to fake”.)
As for Glaser’s group, PIC, we have encountered them before through the group’s founder Shira Miller, who, although she is educated as a physician, currently runs an Integrative Center for Health and Wellness specializing in “anti-aging” medicine and holistic “medicine”. But it might be informative to use this opportunity to do a relatively comprehensive rundown of their leadership group, which in addition to Glaser and Miller includes:
- Douglas Mackenzie, MD, Director and Treasurer (California), a plastic surgeon and member of AAPS (he’ll get his own entry later)
- Cammy Benton, Founding Director (North Carolina)
- Yoshi Rahm, DO (California), who is, predictably, also “board certified in holistic and integrative medicine”.
- Joyce Drayton, MD (Georgia)
- Paul Thomas, MD (though note), Founding Member (and one of the movers and shakers in the antivaccine movement) (Oregon)
- Ilona French, Community Director (California), who has no discernible medical background but was ostensibly associate editor of a medical journal, Dialysis and Transplantation, for which the closest google hit is an entry on Jeffrey Beall’s list of potentially predatory journals
- Semi-legendary antivaccine champion Gary Goldman, “independent computer scientist” and Computer Science Advisor (Mississippi)
- Legendary antivaccine activist and “false authority” Tetyana Obukhanych
- Jane Orient, MD (Arizona). No, seriously!
- Tiffany Baer, MD (California), well-known in California antivaxx circles for being willing to write medical vaccine exemptions (she works at the same clinic as Kelly Sutton, see below)
- Michelle Veneziano, DO, Founding Member (California), who has long questioned the safety of vaccines: When investigating, she “discovered many studies that questioned their safety; I also found that these studies are not easily located in the medical literature.” Well, there is a good reason for that; people like Veneziano go for “there must be a conspiracy afoot” instead.
- Antivaccine movement leader and pseudoscience producer Christopher Shaw, PhD neurobiology (Canada)
- Tawny Buettner, Nurse Advisor (California) and organizer of a 2021 rally outside her employer Rady Children’s Hospital to protest a state mandate requiring health workers to be vaccinated against COVID if they are to work with vulnerable groups
- Robert Krakow, P.D., Advisor (New York)
- Sandy Reider, MD (Vermont)
- Philip Incao, MD (Colorado) (deceased), a germ theory denialist who was also into HIV denialism.
- Kenneth Stoller, MD, Hyperbarics Advisor (!) (New Mexico). One of the practitioners placed under investigation by the Medical Board of California for writing bogus medical vaccine exemptions in 2019.
- Jacques Simon, Esq. (New York), another lawyer, and one who apparently likes to advise doctors on how to write medical vaccine exemptions in California.
- Nikki Leeds, Outreach Director (California); no discernible medical background
- Edmond Sarraf, MD, Founding Member (California), affiliated with the Southern California Integrative Wellness Center and who has “an open philosophy about vaccines”
- LeTrinh Hoang, DO, Founding Member (California), who runs a practice offering “holistic, integrative pediatrics” combining homeopathy and osteopathy, and is coauthor with Lauren Feder of The Parents' Concise Guide to Childhood Vaccinations (not recommended)
- Pejman Katiraei, DO, Founding Member (California)
- Kelly Sutton, MD and specialist in anthroposophic “medicine”, Founding Member (California). One of the practitioners placed under investigation by the Medical Board of California for writing bogus medical vaccine exemptions in 2019.
- Stuart Fischbein, MD, Founding Member (California), who has had some troubles with the California Medical Board
- Debra Gambrell, DO, Founding Member (California), another anthroposophical medicine practitioner and star of Ty Bollinger’s antivaccine conspiracy propaganda series The Truth About Vaccines.
- Jonathan Wright, MD and holistic practitioner (quack), Founding Member (Washington)
- Robert Rowen, MD (and “integrative physician”), Founding Member (California)
- Bob Sears, MD, Founding Member (California). One of the practitioners placed under investigation by the Medical Board of California for writing bogus medical vaccine exemptions in 2019.
Diagnosis: Yet another group that could, at first glance, come across as consisting of people with something worthwhile to say … but you don’t need to dig much to start to discern the insanity of the antivaccine clown troupe that is the PIC. They undeniably have some influence, however.
No comments:
Post a Comment