Michael Gerson
Michael Gerson, the well-reasoned, moderately conservative columnist for the Washington Post, wrote a column this week bashing Donald Trump, which was spot-on except for one passage: “Here is Trump again: ‘Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn’t feel good and changes – AUTISM.’ And: ‘I am being proven right about massive vaccinations – the doctors lied.’ And: ‘So many people who have children with autism have thanked me – amazing response. They know far better than fudged up reports!’”
Donald Trump richly deserves all of the calumny that the media are visiting upon him – and more. But it only furthers his nefarious cause when the media ignorantly pounce on something about which he happens to be absolutely correct. Besides Gerson, Rachel Maddow and other high-profile people in the press have ridiculed Trump to high heaven about this – making themselves the ones who are ridiculous. The problem with the media is that they accept without questioning the pronouncements of medical officialdom, despite the huge number of issues the arbiters of conventional medicine have proven to be totally wrong about: oleomargarine is good and butter is bad; eggs are bad; coconut oil is bad; and on and on. Leading alternative physicians and research scientists with glowing credentials continually issue reports that factually contradict official medical dogma, but the media never seek their sides of the stories.
I sent an email to Gerson, though I doubt he’ll read it. Syndicated columnists get a lot of mail, way too much to respond to. And some (a good example, George Will) no doubt become smug. So I decided to do what I could to straighten out the misinformation these people disseminate. Here’s that email:
Get it right, Gerson
Dear Mr. Gerson,
I read your column about Donald Trump that appeared in the May 24 edition of the Palm Beach Post, as I read all of your columns that appear in that paper. While I often disagree with your conservative stance, I believe you are sincere and well-intentioned, and are in no way an extremist. I agreed with you on all the things but one that you wrote about Trump, whom I think is a despicable candidate for president and a disaster for the country if he is elected. I hope you will read what I have to say about the vaccinations-and-autism issue. I am not a crank or a conspiracy theorist: I was a reporter/feature writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, The Associated Press Chicago bureau, Milwaukee Journal, and others. I occasionally wrote about medical and health issues.
Donald Trump
I applaud you for what you are doing with the One organization. But you are dead wrong about vaccinations. I thought exactly as you do — that those people saying vaccinations can cause autism were conspiracy theorists. But after much reading, I have become a very strong believer that our medical and health organizations are fraught with compromised positions, and I subscribe to newsletters from highly credentialed and internationally acclaimed alternative doctors and researchers. The one I hold in highest regard is Dr. David Brownstein, medical director of the Center for Holistic Medicine in West Bloomfield, Mich. He lectures to physicians internationally, and is the author of a number of books. I was startled to read one of his newsletters addressing the issue of vaccinations, which included a portion indicating they were a possible cause of autism. It was the March 2015 issue. In lieu of that, I am copying and attaching the text of a blog I wrote on the subject at www.bobbrinkwriter.com. I implore you to read it, because I think that you will, at minimum, have second thoughts.
And by the way, Brownstein is by no means the only physician who is leery of vaccinations. It seems to me that our news organizations, so healthily skeptical of just about everybody and everything wearing the cloak of authority, leave the medical field alone, trusting carte blanche the pronouncements of officialdom. It is a grave mistake, and hard to comprehend, considering that the medical establishment has changed its positions on so many issues over the decades. Herewith the aforementioned blog posting, which I wrote in November; the link is http://www.bobbrinkwriter.com/what-you-dont-know-about-vaccinations/.
What you don’t know about vaccinations
Dr. David Brownstein
The medical establishment’s propaganda about the safety and benefits of vaccinations is relentless. And it’s effective. It had a skeptic such as I convinced that those parents who refused to vaccinate their children for fear of their becoming autistic were conspiracy theorists. Even Rachel Maddow, whom I think highly of, was disdainful of the Republican presidential candidates who expressed reservations about vaccinations in a debate a few weeks ago. But I’d learned something by then. It was one time I thought Donald Trump was on the right track.
Doctor speaks out
David Brownstein, M.D., of West Bloomfield, Mich., takes a different position. He lectures internationally to physicians, and puts out the newsletter Natural Way to Health, which has made me a staunch believer in his views on conventional medicine. His supplement for prostate health, his probiotic, and his advice on the way to stop leg cramps have worked wonders for me.
“One of the most alarming adverse effects from vaccines is autism …,” he wrote in the September newsletter. “I have seen many autistic children … Their parents often recount the same story of a healthy, normal child before vaccination. But within days – and sometimes just hours – of receiving a vaccine, the child regressed emotionally, physically, and mentally. Later, many of these children were diagnosed with autism. The powers that be will claim that there’s no proof that vaccines caused these children’s regression. But what proof do they want? They want a double-blind, randomized trial … That study doesn’t exist now and never will.”
A parallel to that line of reasoning is found in the climate change debate. Scientists haven’t proved that fossil fuels are behind it, the doubters say, so let’s ignore the almost universal opinion of climatologists that the climate extremes we are experiencing are indeed caused by man’s activities. Though there is abundant evidence that it will make the Earth uninhabitable, absolute proof is missing, so why should we worry about it?
Autism linked with vaccination
“There are, however, many studies showing an association between autism and vaccination,” Brownstein continues in the September newsletter. Cigarette smoking, he says, “was shown in enough trials to have a large statistical association with lung cancer. Studies from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have found the same type of statistical association between autism and vaccinations.”
Blowing the whistle on the CDC
Now comes the shocker: “One very important study showed a 240 percent increase in autism among African American children who received the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine before 36 months of age. Dr. William Thompson (Ph.D., not M.D.) , a whistleblower at the CDC, has come forward to explain that he and his colleagues knowingly falsified data from a 2004 study that failed to show an association between the MMR vaccine and autism.” In 2014, Thompson contacted Brian Hooker, Ph.D., who was suing the CDC for data from that study because he believed his son’s autism was caused by vaccination. “Dr. Thompson admitted on tape that the CDC altered the data in order to show no link between the MMR vaccine and autism,” saying, “‘It’s the lowest point of my career that I went along with that (2004) paper. We did not report significant findings. I am completely ashamed of what I did … I have great shame now when I meet families with autism because I have been part of the problem The higher-ups wanted to do certain things and I went along with it.’”
Brownstein says Thompson’s findings were made public in 2014, and he has not been called to testify before Congress. I read my daily newspaper assiduously. I never read a thing about this.
Why? Brownstein answers: “Because of Big Pharma’s control over Congress and the media.”
Indeed, he points out, “the media, healthcare providers, and the powers that be claim that there is nothing to worry about, and even vilify parents who are uncomfortable vaccinating their children.”
Herd immunity concept flawed
We are told that vaccinating children is necessary to keep diseases from spreading, and, Brownstein says, that concept of “herd immunity” might be worthy if vaccinating against contagious diseases provided lifelong protection. However, he says, “vaccination has never been shown to provide lifelong immunity against any illness – not measles, mumps, rubella, whooping cough, chickenpox” or anything else. Childhood vaccines last only 10 years at most, he says.
“On the other hand, natural infections, which trigger the body to create antibodies, do produce lifelong immunity.” Mothers who come down with childhood diseases develop lifelong immunity, and pass these antibodies on to their children, protecting them from the diseases.
“But maternal antibodies are not passed to children whose mothers received vaccinations rather than developing natural immunity.” Thus, “there is now a huge population of adults who have waning immunity to chickenpox. Chickenpox infections are much more dangerous for adults than they are for children.”
You Docs parrot medical establishment
Yet here’s what The You Docs, Michael Roizen and Mehmet Oz, wrote recently in their column that appears weekly in many newspapers: “To protect everyone, it takes at least 96 percent vaccination compliance to prevent a measles outbreak, for example, and 97 percent to block a mumps outbreak. So, if you’ve put off getting your kids or yourself vaccinated because it doesn’t seem very important, think again.”
Another problem with vaccinations, Brownstein says, is that “it’s possible that outbreaks of illnesses such as measles, rubella, and chickenpox could be caused by vaccinated individuals shedding the virus.” The CDC concedes that such shedding occurs, but holds that it rarely causes problems in others, even though no surveillance is done for verification, the doctor says.
Other arguments Brownstein makes against vaccinations:
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Although American children are the most heavily vaccinated in the world, they have the highest infant mortality rate and more chronic illnesses than other Western children. American children’s health has worsened since vaccinations were increased.
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Flu vaccines are ineffective for “the vast majority of people,” and most contain highly toxic mercury, as do the tetanus and meningococcal vaccines.
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As for the hepatitus B vaccine, “I have seen many adults injured by the hep B injection,” which nevertheless is recommended in multiple doses to newborns. “Let me make this clear: Giving a healthy (or sick) newborn baby whose mother does not have hepatitis B an injection with the hep B vaccine – just hours after its birth – should be considered malpractice.”
Fraud in the CDC
“Because I have extensively studied the vaccine literature,” the doctor says, “I can assure you that the science behind vaccines is far from settled. If the CDC was working for us, we would have many studies outlining what works and what doesn’t work with vaccines. At present, we have neither. Vaccines can and should be made safer. But that won’t happen until the CDC is exposed for its fraud.”
In January, President Obama granted Dr. Thompson immunity to testify before Congress. He hasn’t been called.
“Call your senators and congressmen,” Brownstein urges. “Tell them to let Dr. Thompson testify under oath.”
Another email
Then I sent Gerson an email with an excerpt from another past blog post:
I had become all but convinced that any connection between vaccinations for diseases and the chances of a child becoming autistic was a conspiracy theory that had been thoroughly debunked. That’s because the pro-vaccination forces are so adamant, and the media, populated by laymen, simply provide microphones for these so-called authorities to trumpet their dogma.
Here’s the conclusion of a scientific paper published in PubMed.gov, the voice of the U.S. National Laboratory of Medicine, National Institutes of Health: “When comparing cases and controls receiving their first MMR vaccine before and after 36 months of age, there was a statistically significant increase in autism cases specifically among African American males who received the first MMR prior to 36 months of age.” In sum, the NIH reported, “The present study provides new epidemiologic evidence showing that African American males receiving the MMR vaccine prior to 24 months of age or 36 months of age are more likely to receive an autism diagnosis.”