Defending Dr. Wakefield
Defending Dr. Wakefield
Interview with Jim Moody
As Jefferson and so many others have said “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” and those of us who love liberty and rights that are truly inalienable rather than ‘for sale’ have been sadly mostly asleep at the switch for a century as the political ‘left’ has achieved near complete success on its ‘long march’ to a blend of authoritarianism (dressed up as greater good), Marxism, Fascism, and Scientism (rule by an elite class of experts), albeit that in practice this looks more like a Kakistocracy1. I plan to keep as involved as possible in all of these battle-spheres. - Jim Moody
The GMC (General Medical Council) ruling has unleashed the Beast. The Beast is reptilian fear, irrationality, hatred, and blind unblinking faith in official dogma. – David Taylor
I discovered Jim Moody as a consequence of interviewing Anne Dachel.
There are so many people that have been in the trenches against The Poisoning that we will never know of. They don’t do it for the fame or money.
Jim Moody is one of those behind the scenes warriors that I’m honored at the opportunity to interview and profile.
Jim co-wrote “Ethics, Evidence, and the Death of Medicine,” which appears as the afterword to the book Callous Disregard: Autism and Vaccines--The Truth Behind a Tragedy by Dr. Andrew J. Wakefield.
With thanks to Jim Moody.
1. Jim, can you please tell us about your background and what led you to become involved in autism advocacy and vaccine safety?
I trained in computer science and business at MIT, majoring in artificial intelligence and strategic planning. Then went to law school at Georgetown and trained at Hogan and Hartson. Then I have been doing public interest and civil rights and False Claims Act cases, mostly, since then, mostly from a libertarian point of view.
I got interested in autism because a law school roommate had a son with autism, and then a childhood friend’s sister and leading “early” advocate Liz Birt had a severely autistic son. She called in 1999 because she suspected government corruption and cover-up, one of my specialties, and had just met Dr. Wakefield in the UK. That was the beginning for me, first autism and its connection to mercury (Hg) and then more broadly vaccine safety, especially with the outbreak and response to Covid.
2. You've been involved in several high-profile legal cases related to autism and vaccines. Can you share a particularly memorable or challenging case and how it has shaped your perspective on these issues?
Well, you know, the actual ‘doing’ of law is really quite boring, especially with all the midnight footnotes that nobody will likely read or care much about. Probably the most interesting of the “autism” cases was the Omnibus Proceeding, in Vaccine Court, about 6000 cases consolidated with six test cases. The community was quite hopeful this would get the answers and compensation the kids so badly needed. The no-fault Vaccine Injury Compensation Program [VICP] passed in 1986 was supposed to be child-friendly, quick and generous. Sadly it was just the opposite. Even though Vaccine Court had compensated dozens of autism cases in the 1990’s the government changed the rules in 1998 to exclude most ‘autism’ cases from the automatic presumption of causation, with damages being the only inquiry. From that point forward, because there were simply ‘too many’ autism cases, petitioners had to prove, rather than assume, causation. Again, this was supposed to be a very easy burden, requiring only ‘biologic plausibility, and time-relationship and no obvious other cause, but the deck was stacked against finding ‘too much’ injury, especially autism, because of its high profile controversy, and ‘never’ finding that vaccines especially MMR could cause massive numbers of autism cases. Looking back, the autism ‘class action’ was simply doomed from its inception, not for lack of good science but because of secrecy, fraud, and corruption. Even the ‘secret’ IOM transcripts from 2001, revealed that the government policy of ‘vaccines are safe’ could ‘never’ be jeopardized doubted or questioned, especially by telling the truth about autism. This is the so-called ‘vaccine dilemma.’ If vaccines caused ‘too much’ injury or were perceived as in any way risky, parents would stop taking them for their kids, and ‘free ride’ on herd immunity, given that most death and serious injury from ‘preventable’ diseases had disappeared (due to clean water, sanitation, and antibiotics, and not really vaccines). So this was the origin of the ‘big lie,’ we have a compensation program that will ‘never’ compensate much injury lest we risk revealing the ugly truth that vaccines cause a LOT of injury.
This is the government policy of deliberate ignorance, so even the safety data that CDC can access, the Vaccine Safety Datalink, must be kept more secret than our nuclear secrets. CDC used these data from VSD to find a 7.6x relative risk for autism in a 2000-03 study led by Verstraeten, but after the infamous secret meeting at Simpsonwood…
…had to scuttle this devastating finding by deleting all the unvaccinated children and other scientific fraud. For all of these reasons, looking back, the OAP was ‘never’ going to honestly compensate the kids. CDC’s continued lie that ‘vaccines don’t cause autism’ was again shown to be the least well-kept secret in Washington in the Poling case, which was to be one of the ‘test’ cases. It was pulled and secretly settled at the last minute because government expert Zimmerman told DOJ he had changed his mind and that he would testify that vaccines can cause autism at least in some categories of cases. This scandal of fraud and corruption and a LOT of lies by DOJ lawyers is still unfolding, and I remain cautiously hopeful that legal justice will eventually be done, led by tireless hero Rolf Hazlehurst, another of the test cases. He has brought a motion to reopen the OAP and to expose the legal and scientific fraud that kept thousands of kids from being compensated. But just compensation all depends on data transparency, VSD, and on the success of the Hazlehurst petition. See for more details:
And justice will never be done until all of the vaccine data are public and transparent, as legal ‘causation’ is best shown with exposure vs. placebo comparison, i.e. vaccinated vs. unvaccinated kids. [see Hooker-Kennedy book]
With the 1986 Act Congress demanded quick and generous compensation for the vaccine injured children, part of our moral and ethical duty. This promise remains unfulfilled due to fraud and corruption in DOJ, CDC, and FDA. See Andy Wakefield’s movie The Act for the full and very sad story.
1986: The Act - Dr Andy Wakefield (7thchakrafilms.com)
Dr. Wakefield’s license revocation case in the UK was also quite interesting and revealing. In an 86-day trial spanning three years he was found ‘guilty’ of serious professional misconduct, but this too was rigged from the beginning. He was able to prove that the most serious charge, unethical research on vulnerable children, did in fact have the approval of the hospital’s ethics committee for the ‘research’ aspects and was otherwise ordinary clinical care. The High Court eventually set aside the misconduct finding for Dr. Wakefield’s two colleagues but his insurance company was unwilling to pay for the appeal.
Finally, the recently ended Merck mumps vaccine fraud case is quite revealing. This is the subject of the current award-winning movie Protocol 7. Mumps outbreaks began occurring in highly vaccinated populations by the 1990’s because Merck’s vaccine had lost much of its efficacy. Merck covered this up by conducting fraudulent testing, e.g. by spiking kids’ blood with antibodies from rabbits in an effort to hide the problem from FDA and CDC. Whistleblowers eventually reported this fraud to FDA who failed to take adequate corrective action, issuing just hand-written warning, and CDC, that kept buying the faulty MMR anyway, being as Merck was a “customer by capture.” CDC and FDA should have pulled and recalled the vaccine, required Merck to develop a new one, license GSK’s competitor [which it eventually did] and most important notify the public about the risks of delayed-onset mumps, thus becoming a willing abetter of Merck’s fraud. Ironically Merck argued that CDC’s continued purchases and its public silence should let it off the hook, which was the court’s decision, to let Merck off the hook for its “corporate bio-terrorism” [shifting mumps to a more dangerous disease for an older population] because CDC funded and participated in covering up the fraud from the public it is supposed to serve.
3. Regarding the Combating Autism Act and its original goals of preventing and treating autism. How have these goals evolved over time, and what role has the neurodiversity movement played in this shift?
The CAA was originally passed in 2006 and renewed every five years since then. The purpose was to provide an organized research program and a forum for discussing autism issues, and funding for cause and treatment research and an infrastructure, basically the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, to (IACC) manage the program. The primary tool was an annual strategic plan and report to Congress, this was really the first use of strategic planning methodology, from the business community into scientific research. Sadly that vision never materialize in part because the first director was Tom Insel, whose brother was a developer of the Hib vaccine, and in 2009 through an illegal re-vote on the strategic plan pretty much nixed any useful research on vaccines as cause, and environmental factors in general for that matter. Most of the IACC effort has been along with CDC to “normalize” autism as just another condition children are born with, it has been here forever as a natural part of the human genetic background, and just must be accepted and supported rather than ‘prevented’ or ‘combated.’ Indeed, the rewrite of the law is now called AutismCURES. ASD is now about 1:36, up from 1:10000 in 1980, and although some of the increased rate is due to better awareness and reclassification, since there by definition can’t be a genetic epidemic, the ‘cause’ for much of ASD must be environmental. Yet IACC still spends tens of millions on genetic ‘cause’ research and almost nothing exploring the impact of environmental factors, especially vaccines. The ND community has demanded seats on IACC (“nothing about us without us”) and has changed the focus from cause and prevention to mainly services and supports. Part of the ‘problem’ is that there is too many ‘autisms’ on the spectrum. The high-functioning group ‘celebrates’ ASD as an evolution not a disease or condition that must be prevented treated or cured. This group is obviously entitled to acceptance and non-discrimination and appropriate supports and services. But some very ‘sick’ children are also included on this ‘spectrum,’ and this half and their families are entitled to prevention and treatment. So we have a huge ‘spectrum,’ but no agreement on whether autism is an evolution to be encouraged and celebrated or a disease, disorder, or condition that must be prevented or treated. At a minimum, as a matter of policy this ‘spectrum’ like ‘cancer’ in the old days, needs to be split up into the various autisms, or simply rename several of the conditions with neuroimmune inflammatory disorder and the like, with each ‘condition’ getting the appropriate research attention. For the same reason, this ‘normalization’ has prevented IACC from declaring autism as e.g. a ‘national health emergency.’
4. In your opinion, how have government agencies and appointees influenced the direction of autism research and the overall narrative surrounding the condition?
Agencies are keen to ‘normalize’ autism as a mostly genetic condition that has been around forever. This is largely because they don’t want to admit or confront or even know how much autism is caused by vaccines, or less so by other environmental causes. This policy of deliberate ignorance is both to protect the guilty, i.e. the past damage caused by the vaccine program and payment of damages, and the future ‘policy’ favouring full mass mandated vaccination because they are ‘safe and effective.’ Thus the vaccine dilemma, since most preventable diseases are gone or not a problem with modern medicine any serious number of AE’s from vaccine, especially autism since it is the highest profile AE, would likely further collapse public ‘confidence’ in vaccines and the officials that mandate them, fuel hesitancy, and kill any support for mandates. This is why so many kids are wrongly lumped together in a spectrum with the sickest kids being still largely hidden from view. Autism should have been declared a national health emergency long ago with a focused research-driven effort at cause and treatment. Ignoring these ‘sickest’ children is a terrible national tragedy. Especially since so many, perhaps most, but certainly not all ‘autism’ is caused by vaccines, as so well documented in the recent vax vs. unvax book by Hooker and Kennedy. CDC has abandoned these kids on the alter of vaccination as a cruel ‘religion’ demanding sacrifice.
5. The GMC ruling against Dr. Andrew Wakefield has been a controversial topic. What is your perspective on the ruling and its impact on autism research?
It all started with the ‘early report’ of a case series of 12 children by Dr. Wakefield and colleagues. Wakefield, et al., “ Ileal lymphoid nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children,” Lancet 1998; 351:637-41. The paper, an ‘early report’ of a case series, not a research study, reported evidence of a unique bowel disease in autistic children, did not claim MMR causality, and called for more research:
“We have identified a chronic enterocolitis in children that may be related to neuropsychiatric dysfunction. In most cases, onset of symptoms was after measles, mumps, and rubella immunisation. Further investigations are needed to examine this syndrome and its possible relation to this vaccine.”
Ever the boy scout, Dr. Wakefield believed that honest science would lead to reform because, after all, doctors were ethically constrained to “do no harm.” Even though he endorsed the continued use of monovalent MMR vaccine components at the Royal Free’s press conference on Feb. 27, 1998, to announce the early report, even this was too much questioning of vaccine orthodoxy for the “deep state” system to tolerate. Dr. Wakefield recounts the whole sorry saga in his book Callous Disregard. The price of his devotion to science and duty, perhaps naively, was loss of his license and country, but the US is consequently better off as England’s loss was our gain.
The GMC’s ‘ruling’ was actually overturned with respect to Professor Walker-Smith and Dr. Simon Murch, by the High Court Judge Mitting although this did not technically apply to reinstate Dr. Wakefield’s license because his medical insurance carrier refused to pay for his appeal. The UK has mandatory “loser pays” attorney fee shifting, making a self-paid appeal financially impossible. Judge Mitting concluded in his comprehensive 2012 decision that: “[B]oth on general issues and the Lancet paper and in relation to individual children, the panel’s overall conclusion that Professor WalkerSmith was guilty of serious professional misconduct was flawed, in two respects: inadequate and superficial reasoning and, in a number of instances, a wrong conclusion. . . . The [GMC’s] panel’s determination cannot stand. I therefore quash it.”
Dr. Wakefield was the victim of what we would now call “cancel culture” and censorship. Evidence compiled during the 73-day GMC trial spanning three years demonstrated that that the 12 children were given appropriate clinical care by the leading GI team in the UK and that the collection of biopsies for the research aspects was fully approved by the Royal Free’s ethics committee.
The broader historical perspective is important. That vaccines can cause autism, or more accurately a biological condition diagnosed under the DSM as being on the spectrum, is now quite unremarkable. It was Professor Sir Michael Rutter who was the first to report in the medical literature in 1995 a case of DPT-caused autism [Rutter M et al., “Autism and Known Medical Conditions: Myth and Substance,” J Child Psychol and Psychiat. 1994;35:311322.”]. The Vaccine Court has been compensating ‘autism’ cases since 1991, although they stopped presuming causation when the number of cases started to rise rapidly. Mary Holland et al., “Unanswered Questions from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program: A Review of Compensated Cases of Vaccine-Induced Brain Injury,” 28 PACE ENVTL. L. REV. 480 (2011); see Autism General Order No. 1, p. 7 (7/3/02) (“Autism cases involving Table Injuries have been compensated under the Program.”)
CDC’s Director Gerberding, now at Merck, said of the famous ‘test’ case of Hannah Polling: “Now, we all know that vaccines can occasionally cause fevers in kids. So if a child was immunized, got a fever, had other complications from the vaccines, and if you’re predisposed with a mitochondrial disorder, it can certainly set off some damage. Some of the symptoms can be symptoms that have characteristics of autism.”) [CNN, House Call With Dr. Sanjay Gupta (3/29/09). There is no doubt that vaccines cause autism, the question is how many cases, and the tragedy is the government’s anti-science policy of coverup and deliberate ignorance so these children go without the compensation that Congress demanded, and more kids continue to be injured. Dr. Wakefield’s movie 1986: The Act dramatically exposes the corruption in the Vaccine Court that has prevented it from fulfilling its Congressionally mandated purpose of swiftly and generously compensated all vaccine-injured children.
Regarding Dr. Wakefield, history has proven him prophetic. The Institute of Medicine has rejected the studies relied upon by CDC to exonerate MMR of causing autism. David Kirby’s book Evidence of Harm exposed the scientific fraud in the CDC’s original analysis using the still-secret Vaccine Safety Datalink of whether mercury in vaccines was associated with an increase in autism. CDC found that there was such an association with a relative risk of 7.6, but deleted the unvaccinated kids to hide this risk from the public. The fraud in CDC’s infamous Destafano study was exposed by whistleblower William Thompson and in Dr, Wakefield’s movie Vaxxed: From Cover-up to Catastrophe.
YOW.Tv - We believe in the power of storytelling
CDC concealed an increased association between the timing of first MMR and autism, subsequently incinerating the raw data.
The evolving evidence continues to demonstrate that Wakefield was right. The association between ASD and bowel disease is now an accepted comorbidity.2
The Institute of Medicine has concluded that the safety of the childhood vaccine schedule has never been measured against adequate controls, and that very little is known about the actual rate and mechanisms of vaccine adverse events. See Institute of Medicine, “The Childhood Immunization Schedule and Safety: Stakeholder Concerns, Scientific Evidence, and Future Studies,” (The National Academies Press, 2013).
6. In your view, how has the retraction of Dr. Wakefield's 1998 Lancet paper affected public perception of the potential link between vaccines and autism?
Yes and No. Dr. Wakefield was attacked, and the Lancet paper was eventually retracted to silence scientific and medical inquiry into the cause of autism, and the safety of the vaccine schedule in general, and to silence debate over this ‘religious’ orthodoxy. See, e.g., Mercola, “Why Medical Authorities Went to Such Extremes to Silence Dr. Andrew Wakefield,” (4/10/10).
The public scepticism about the safety and efficacy of vaccines in general and the childhood schedule in particular has been in a state of continuous decline since the late 1990’s fuelled by example after example of fraud, lack of transparency, and outright government lies. A July Gallup survey found that opposition to government vaccine mandates has increased from 20 to 45% during the past 20 years, and the percentage who regard vaccines as more dangerous than the preventable diseases has increased from 6% to 20%. Only 36% of adults now believe that vaccines do not cause autism. But the retraction, totally unjustified, was an early example of ‘cancel culture.’ The paper is still available online and is one of the most read downloaded and cited papers in the medical literature. The retraction is frequently cited as ‘proof’ that vaccines do not cause autism, which of course it is not. Like more recent information warfare associated with Covid, attacking the ‘messenger’ is more and more seen by the public as evidence that government and industry must by hiding the truth.
7. In your complaint to the GMC, you allege that false testimony from several doctors has influenced the proceedings against Dr. Wakefield and his colleagues. How has this false testimony impacted the development of science, medicine, and justice in relation to autism?
GMC just ignored the complaint. Legally the whole proceeding was found by the High Court to be false and unjustified so the impact just lives on in legend. But past is prologue as so many US doctors have their licenses attacked over Covid vaccine and treatment issues. So, this tool like the lawfare against Trump and his allies is a potent weapon that will likely continue to be used by the deep state and industry to silence and chill criticism and deter good and honest science and medicine.
8. You argue that the GMC's actions against Dr. Wakefield and his colleagues were predetermined and part of an effort to discredit any possible association between the MMR vaccine and autism. Why do you think there was such a strong focus on discrediting Dr. Wakefield's work in particular, and what do you believe are the underlying motivations behind this concerted effort?
Vaccines for children are not technically mandatory in the UK. Parents will voluntarily accept them to the extent they believe there are dangerous diseases out there and that vaccines prevent these diseases without significant risks, i.e. the classic cost-benefit calculation. Most severe illness and death from so-called vaccine preventable diseases was actually dealt with by improved sanitation, clean water, and most importantly antibiotics improved diet and other interventions of modern medicine. The actual contributions to human health may be quite slight or more likely, negative. As parental concern for childhood diseases gradually waned, concern gradually grew over adverse events. Eventually the perception, if not the reality, crossed and parents began to be concerned about the risks of adverse events much more so than the increasingly forgotten diseases. From the perspective of individual choice and physician ethics to their patients the ‘rational’ strategy increasingly is becoming to forego the vaccines and whatever risks of adverse events, possibly quite large, and free ride on the ‘herd’ immunity created by others who are fully vaccinated, or simply take advantage of the fact that ‘herd’ immunity is no longer necessary in a relatively wealthy industrialized society. From the public health standpoint, however, this entirely rational individual strategy ‘risks’ the return of the ‘horrors’ of vaccine preventable diseases. Hence the ‘vaccine dilemma,’ that vaccines are the ‘victim’ of their own success. In America this has led to mandates and brutal fights over preserving religious and personal belief exemptions and worse, to the denial of vaccine injury and the required compensation. So many kids are now ‘sacrificed’ to the vaccine ‘religion’ for the so-called greater good. There’s also industry that makes billions and must use the power of ‘vaccine disinformation’ and mandates to protect its profits.
9. You have argued that the attack on these doctors is ultimately an attack on children and innovative clinical medicine. Can you explain this perspective further?
Congress required safer vaccines and swift and generous compensation of all children injured by vaccines. This requires proof of causation so we know when regulatory actions are needed and who and how much to compensate. This is society’s ethical duty especially where there are mandates. So to keep the data on injury secret, e.g. Vaccine Safety Datalink, and to conduct fraudulent studies, and to attack doctors and scientists trying to uncover the truth about injury causation and treatment is quite directly an attack on children. The lawyers are threatened as well, for example any lawyer that files an ‘autism’ case in Vaccine Court will be denied the compensation Congress intended in this no-fault program. The attacks include a direct attack on the license as happened to Dr. Wakefield, and e.g. Dr. Geier and Dr. Thomas, and an attack on funding, and even laws, e.g. in California (withdrawn after legal victory) explicitly designed to silence doctors who dare to question orthodoxy. Even the name “Wakefield” has been turned into a verb as doctors stay away from ‘problematic’ research and treatments so as not to get “Wakefielded.”
10. In your experience, what are the biggest legal challenges faced by families affected by autism when seeking support, services, or compensation?
Well, on the support and services issues, most of the problem is failure to recognize we have an epidemic and a public health emergency that justifies a ‘funding’ response. IACC is supposed to concern itself with treatments but so much of the money is still wasted on genes and diagnosis with so little invested in treatment especially of the sickest i.e. ‘biological autism’ children who they literally want to ‘erase’ as autism is ‘normalized’ into cuddly but ‘geeky’ Rainman characters who are “gifted’ and eccentric but not ‘sick’ in the sense of justifying the appropriate ‘emergency’ response as we would expect if we woke up one morning and found 1:37 kids had lost their eyesight. A significant amount of support comes from IEP’s under IDEA and since this is an ‘unfunded’ federal mandate, most states are out of money to support the huge increase in need. By the end of 2022, 7.3 million students, about 15% were on an IEP, double the rate in 1980. Ann Dachel’s reporting on sped (special education) demonstrates that the system is simply collapsing in both the US and UK yet the “deep state” still refuses to declare autism an epidemic. Families also face the challenge of getting adequate insurance coverage, since so many treatments and services are not covered either because they are regarded as experimental and undocumented or because the services are ‘habilitative’ rather than rehabilitative. See “Health Insurance Coverage for Autism; “Why Don't Some Insurers Have to Cover Autism Services?”. Finally, vaccine-caused autism remains uncompensated (except for a handful of lucky families such as Hannah Polling that slipped through the cracks) despite the Congressional mandate in VICA. The Hazlehurst petition will likely reopen the omnibus proceeding because the fraud in the original proceeding should be exposed as an intolerable denial of justice. Or, autism could be added to the injury table following a proper vax vs. unvax study and that would reopen a limited filing window.
We must have full data transparency to have a fair chance at proving causation for injuries and compensation. We have to amend the civil rights statutes to protect speech and debate and banish censorship since the First Amendment generally only protects against government abuse not the present state of private or mixed public-private censorship that Bobby Kennedy speaks about so eloquently as such an incredible risk to our basic democracy. And we must have some accountability, many in the CDC need to be fired. Congress needs to hold meaningful oversight hearings, the Burton hearings way back in 2001 led to nothing.
Various amendments need to be made to VICA e.g. lengthening the statute of limitations to properly and fully implement the Congressional goal. We need some court decisions or changes to civil rights statutes to permanently ban all mandates and make all medical care a matter of personal autonomy, informed consent and choice.
11. SafeMinds states that autism is environmentally induced and that there is no such thing as a genetic epidemic. Can you elaborate on this perspective and the evidence supporting it?
The human genome changes slowly in response to long-run basically Darwinian forces. The environment can cause ‘disorders’ quite quickly e.g. getting drunk or a food-borne infection or toxicity from the thousands of ‘new’ chemicals we are exposed to, everything from lead to glyphosate to all the derivatives and additives to plastics, not to mention deliberate poisoning from cigarettes. So the best evidence that autism is an environmental epidemic is the rapid rate of change, from 1:10000 around 1980 to 1:37 today. More and more studies, many cited in the Hooker-Kennedy book show vaccines are a significant cause of this epidemic as does the evolving biological evidence. A couple of books that explain all this in more detail are Turtles All the Way Down: Vaccine Science and Myth, edited by Mary Holland, and Environmental and Genetic Causes of Autism by James Lyons-Wiler.
12. How has your legal expertise informed your advocacy work with organizations like SafeMinds and the Coalition for Vaccine Safety?
After MIT I was a ‘scientific socialist,’ and wanted to use the tools of the law to ‘engineer’ a better world. A couple of weeks in DC opened my eyes to an ‘alternative’ and more libertarian world where ‘rule’ by self-appointed and unaccountable ‘experts’ is the great risk, not the desired solution. Science and medicine are the disciplines that well get the answers on autism cause, prevention, treatment, and sort out the various autisms, including some conditions that as the ND community would say are more evolutionary. But the pathway to these answer is all tangled up with law, what is required and forbidden, what is funded and censored, compensation systems that actually achieve the intended goal rather than prevent its fulfillment. I am very much aligned with the politics of Bobby Kennedy especially his emphasis on the deep state, fascism, and the necessity of honest science.
13. How do you think the controversy surrounding the MMR vaccine and autism has affected public confidence in vaccines more broadly?
As I explained above the survey data including the recent Gallop data shows that opposition to mandates is growing and that confidence in regulators at CDC and FDA is in sharp declines, fuelled along by the recent Covid tragedies. Scepticism, hesitancy, and opposition to vaccines is as ancient as immunization efforts which date to Biblical times, and has grown in rough proportion to the various kinds of mandates and most recently with the obsession to load up the schedule. Children and teens get over 50 shots against 16 diseases counting flu and covid. Dr. Wakefield in the UK (focusing on MMR) and Safeminds and the “mercury moms” groups in the US (focusing on mercury and heavy metals generally) were the leaders in the “modern” anti-vaccine movement. Actually better to call this “vaccine sceptic” or “honest medicine” or “medical choice” movement because many parents are not so much ‘anti’ vaccine as they are for good science and medicine, honesty, transparency, and choice.
14. Looking ahead, what do you believe will be the most significant legal battlegrounds in the fight for autism rights and vaccine safety, and how do you plan to contribute to these efforts through your legal expertise?
Overall the most important legal developments will be statutory and judicial changes to protect the civil rights of informed consent, autonomy, and choice. Success is more likely to come with statutory reform than judicial protection given the judicial reluctance to second-guess expertise and the primacy of the police power (greater good) against individual liberty and inalienable rights. The same is true for mandates for vaccines masks testing, etc. Most of the protection will have to come from statutes. During the covid era over 300 bills were introduced at the state level as Washington is just too ‘swampy’ to expect much reform. For injury compensation it will take full data transparency and research funding for the no-fault programs to work. The CICP covid cases will have to get at least dumped into Vaccine Court as that program is totally and intentionally useless. It has compensated for example only about 13 of the tens of thousands of covid cases filed. Even a developing country such as Thailand has compensated over 20,000 covid vaccine injury claims proudly touting its ethical duty to do so swiftly. The case we have in Connecticut state court for reinstatement of its religious exemption will likely succeed because of its Religious Freedom Restoration Act (requiring strict scrutiny over claims of religious discrimination) and the four remaining states religious exemptions will likely be restored. The chance for reform on the regulatory side of safety issues will depend entirely on the election of the Trump-Kennedy et al coalition. As Jefferson and so many others have said “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” and those of us who love liberty and rights that are truly inalienable rather than ‘for sale’ have been sadly mostly asleep at the switch for a century as the political ‘left’ has achieved near complete success on its ‘long march’ to a blend of authoritarianism (dressed up as greater good), Marxism, Fascism, and Scientism (rule by an elite class of experts), albeit that in practice this looks more like a Kakistocracy. I plan to keep as involved as possible in all of these battle-spheres.
15. What are you currently focusing on in your work related to autism and vaccine safety, and how can interested readers stay informed about your ongoing efforts?
I plan to continue as a board member of National Autism Association and continue to assist and support lawyers and organizations and conferences around the country on these issues, with increased emphasis on state legislative efforts to provide a greater bulwark of protection for medical civil rights and safeguard individual liberties against the tyranny associated with the 'next’ pandemic.
As one final example of what must change, in the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has stated their policy on this issue clearly, “any possible doubts, whether or not well founded, about the safety of the vaccine cannot be allowed to exist in view of the need to assure that the vaccine will continue to be used to the maximum extent consistent with the nation's public health objectives.” (vol 49, No. 107, June 1, 1984)
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Baseline Human Health
Watch and share this profound 21-minute video to understand and appreciate what health looks like without vaccination.
"Kakistocracy" refers to a government or system ruled by the least qualified, most corrupt, or worst individuals. The term comes from the Greek word "kakistos," meaning "worst," and "kratos," meaning "rule" or "government." It is often used to criticize leadership that is perceived as incompetent, self-serving, or unethical.
See Buie T, Campbell DB, Fuchs GJ 3rd, et al. Evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of gastrointestinal disorders in individuals with ASDs: a consensus report. Pediatrics. 2010;125(Suppl 1):S1–S18; Buie T, Fuchs GJ 3rd, Furuta GT, Kooros K, Levy J, Lewis JD, et al.
Recommendations for evaluation and treatment of common gastrointestinal problems in children with ASDs. Pediatrics. 2010;125 (Suppl 1): S19–29.
The prevalence of bowel disease in children with autism is now accepted. See, e.g., McElhanon, B., et al., “Gastrointestinal Symptoms in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Meta-analysis,” Pediatrics May 2014, 133 (5) 872-883; Bresnahan, M., et al., JAMA Psychiatry. 2015 May;72(5):466-74 (“Gastrointestinal (GI) comorbidities are frequently described in association with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). . . . In this large prospective cohort, maternally reported GI symptoms are more common and more often persistent during the first 3 years of life in children with ASD than in children with [typical development] or [developmental delay].”); Collins, F. [NIH Director], “Could a Gut-Brain Connection Help Explain Autism?” NIH Director’s Blog (1/23/20) [https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2020/01/23/could-a-gut-brain-connection-help-explain-autism/].
And the bowel disease has been found to be genetically unique and distinct from other childhood bowel conditions. See, e.g., Walker SJ, Langefeld CD, Zimmerman K, Schwartz MZ, Krigsman A. A molecular biomarker for prediction of clinical outcome in children with ASD, constipation, and intestinal inflammation. Sci Rep. 2019 Apr 12;9(1):5987; Walker SJ, Beavers DP, Fortunato J, Krigsman A. A Putative Blood-Based Biomarker for Autism Spectrum Disorder-Associated Ileocolitis. Sci Rep. 2016 Oct 21;6:35820; Walker SJ, Beavers DP, Fortunato J, Krigsman A. A Putative Blood-Based Biomarker for Autism Spectrum Disorder-Associated Ileocolitis. Sci Rep. 2016 Oct 21;6:35820
Great interview.. flippin adore Andrew Wakefield & Brian Hooker and nice to hear a lawyer who has seen the dark side step up in defense of our kids!
This was the first rabbit hole I went down. When I realized Dr. Wakefield was an actual Hero, and not how the Media portrayed Him, I new not to trust a single thing in the News after that. I stopped listening to NPR, WNYC and reading the New York Times, all of which I had avidly read and listened to up until then. My kids grew up during the autism explosion and I kept reading and listening to all the theories. Until I heard Bobby Kennedy being interviewed on the Leanord Lopate Show on WNYC in which he was talking about his Thimerosol book, I believed that vaccines were fine. Gosh, was I naive.