Del Bigtree

COVID-19 herd immunity without vaccines? That will lead to genocide

Yesterday, I spent a bit of your time writing about the Great Barrington Declaration which strives to create COVID-19 herd immunity, without a vaccine, by opening up the economy and allowing people to get infected. It was based on pseudoscience and callous disregard for the health of people across the world. Numerous other scientists showed their disdain for it like David Gorski and a friendly microbiologist.

I was going to move on to other things to discuss when it became clear that Donald Trump supports this pseudoscientific nonsense. Of course, Trump has promoted all kinds of equine feces about the coronavirus from pushing hydroxychloroquine to trying to take shortcuts in producing a vaccine.

Then it became clearer to me that trying to create COVID-19 herd immunity without a vaccine was worse than I thought. Maybe I’m buying into hyperbole, but I don’t think so. Let’s get into it.

ACIP COVID-19 vaccines meeting – summary of August 2020 discussions

by Dorit Rubinstein Reiss
2020-09-13
COVID-19, Del Bigtree, Moderna, Pfizer, Vaccines

This article about the August 2020 ACIP COVID-19 vaccines meeting was written by Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law (San Francisco, CA), who is a frequent contributor to this and many other blogs, providing in-depth, and intellectually stimulating, articles about vaccines, medical issues, social policy, and the law.

Professor Reiss writes extensively in law journals about the social and legal policies of vaccination. Additionally, Reiss is also a member of the Parent Advisory Board of Voices for Vaccines, a parent-led organization that supports and advocates for on-time vaccination and the reduction of vaccine-preventable disease.

On August 26, 2020, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) held an emergency meeting to discuss COVID-19 vaccines. This was an emergency meeting, as opposed to one of its three annual scheduled meetings, but it was not “emergency” in the sense of being unplanned – it was announced long in advance, and the announcement was repeated during the June and July emergency meetings.

The ACIP COVID-19 vaccines meeting consisted of four to five hours of presentations from the COVID-19 vaccines workgroup, convened in April, and one hour of public comments that included multiple pro-vaccine speakers and four anti-vaccine individuals.

The main takeaway most people would have from the meetings are, I expect, the same as mine – that COVID-19 vaccines safety is taken extremely seriously by the workgroup and the committee, that there is still a lot of uncertainty about which of the vaccine in the pipeline will be effective, and that there are thorny, hard questions in deciding how to allocate the first vaccine doses.

This will be a very short overview of the meeting. The next meeting is on September 22, and I encourage and urge people to listen and learn from it. The presentation slides for the previous meetings can be found here.Read More »ACIP COVID-19 vaccines meeting – summary of August 2020 discussions

Post vaccination mortality – another anti-vaccine myth without merit

by Michael Simpson
2021-01-11
Del Bigtree, Robert F Kennedy Jr, Vaccines

One of the most pernicious myths of the anti-vaxxers is the claim that post-vaccination mortality is a rampant “epidemic.” Their evidence of such an issue with vaccines is non-existent, but it continues to be pushed by notable anti-vaccine missionaries like Del Bigtree and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

The anti-vaxxer world seems to use anecdotes and VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) to create fear, uncertainty, and doubt about vaccines by claiming that vaccines kill children. Well, anecdotes do not equal data (they are filled with bias) and dumpster-diving into VAERS which does not establish correlation, let alone causation.

In other words, the anti-vaccine world relies on bad data to make claims about post-vaccination mortality.

But is there a plague of vaccine-related deaths across the world? I have long stated that there have been few, if any, documented post-vaccination deaths over the past 40 years. I determined that by attempting to search for post-vaccination mortality reported in the peer-reviewed literature, but trying to prove a negative is difficult.

But I’m just a science blogger who hasn’t published an article in years, so even the best scientific skeptic amongst you will say, “OK, you old feathered dinosaur, I trust you, but I need something more to deal with these anti-vaxxers.”

Well, this old feathered dinosaur happens to agree. Lucky for us, a group of researchers did some investigative research a few years ago to determine if there were any cases of post-vaccination mortality that have been documented. And what they found was – not so much.Read More »Post vaccination mortality – another anti-vaccine myth without merit

Evee Gayle Clobes – another tragedy incorrectly blamed on vaccines

This article about the tragic death of Evee Gayle Clobes was written by Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law (San Francisco, CA), who is a frequent contributor to this and many other blogs, providing in-depth, and intellectually stimulating, articles about vaccines, medical issues, social policy, and the law.

On March 1, 2019, Evee Gayle Clobes, a six-month-old baby, died in her mother’s bed. Because Evee had received her vaccines 36 hours before her death, and with the urging, courting, and support of anti-vaccine activists eager to use her and her story, her mother blamed vaccines.

However, this tragedy is even less appropriately blamed on vaccines than most, because there is a clear other cause for Evee’s death: According to the evidence detailed in a letter from the medical examiner, Evee Gayle Clobes, sadly, tragically, suffocated to death because of unsafe sleep conditions.

It is horrible to lose a child, and no parent should have to pay such a heavy price for a choice that could be mistakenly thought to be a reasonable one. But blaming vaccines incorrectly here can actively hurt others in multiple ways.Read More »Evee Gayle Clobes – another tragedy incorrectly blamed on vaccines

The great vaccine debate – only exists in the brains of anti-vaxxers

by Michael Simpson
2022-06-20
Climate change, Del Bigtree, Evolution, Robert F Kennedy Jr, Science, Vaccines

Frequently, anti-vaxxers like Robert F Kennedy Jr and Del Bigtree demand a great vaccine debate between whomever they’re targeting, like Paul Offit or our friend Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, and themselves. I find it amusing, and if anyone asks, I tell them that a vaccine debate is worthless for lots of reasons.

The problem is that if you pay attention to any scientific topic, like climate change, evolution, and, yes, vaccines, you’d think that some scientific principles were actually being debated by scientists. The unfiltered information about important scientific subjects allows the science deniers to use a false equivalency to make it appear that the minority and scientifically unsupported point of view is equivalent to the scientific consensus which is always based on huge amounts of published evidence. And for vaccines, the safety and effectiveness are settled science.

From listening to the screaming and yelling, you would think that there is a great vaccine debate. Or an evolution debate. Or a climate change debate.

There aren’t any debates on any of those (and hundreds of other) scientific topics. Just because someone, like RFK Jr or Bigtree, thinks that there is some “debate,” it doesn’t mean there actually is one. All that happens is one side, almost always the science deniers, use misinformation, lies, anecdotes, and pseudoscience while attempting to scream and yell as loud as possible, then claim they’ve won.

Science can’t be debated. And a corollary is that there is no great vaccine debate.

MMR vaccine sytematic review – science finds no link to autism AGAIN

by Michael Simpson
2020-09-09
Andrew Wakefield, Autism, COVID-19, Del Bigtree, Vaccines

With so much sense and nonsense about coronavirus, I set to the side an important MMR vaccine systematic review that I’ve been wanting to review for a few weeks. Well, it’s time to focus on that.

Ever since Mr. Andrew Wakefield published his fraudulent, and subsequently retracted, study that seemed to show a link between the MMR vaccine and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the anti-vaccine crowd has embraced it as if it were a scientific fact. Of course, they ignore over 150 published scientific articles that show that there are, in fact, no links at all.

This Wakefield chicanery has spawned a cottage industry of other anti-vaccine zealots like Del Bigtree and his fraudumentary Vaxxed, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Christopher Exley, Christopher Shaw, James Lyons-Weiler, Tetyana Obukhanych, and many others.

And now we have a new, large, impressive MMR vaccine systematic review that once again provides affirmative evidence that there are no links between ASD and the MMR vaccine. None. Read More »MMR vaccine sytematic review – science finds no link to autism AGAIN

ICAN FOIA lawsuit – misrepresenting another non-win from anti-vaccine group

This article about another ICAN FOIA lawsuit was written by Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law (San Francisco, CA), who is a frequent contributor to this and many other blogs, providing in-depth, and intellectually stimulating, articles about vaccines, medical issues, social policy, and the law.

The Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) is an anti-vaccine organization, founded in 2016 by Del Bigtree, largely funded by a New York couple, Bernard and Lisa Selz.

On March 4 and March 5, 2020, ICAN claimed a “win” against the CDC that, they said, prevented CDC from claiming vaccines don’t cause autism. In reality, the ICAN Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit was settled, and the settlement doesn’t counter the existing scientific consensus that vaccines do not cause autism.Read More »ICAN FOIA lawsuit – misrepresenting another non-win from anti-vaccine group

2020 Vaccine Day – reminders about their safety and effectiveness

by Michael Simpson
2020-09-09
COVID-19, Del Bigtree, HPV vaccine, Robert F Kennedy Jr, Vaccines

Today is 2020 Vaccine Day. It’s not an official holiday with Hallmark cards but it is an annual event where #DoctorsSpeakUp about vaccines and remind the world that vaccines stop diseases.

And they are safe.

And they are effective.

This article isn’t here to argue about some obscure point about vaccines like they don’t cause autoimmune diseases, because they don’t. I just want to cover some of the more important issues about vaccines about which I wrote over the past few years (I’ve been writing here since January 2012).

So, let’s celebrate the 2020 Vaccine Day, and I’m here to help #DoctorsSpeakUp.Read More »2020 Vaccine Day – reminders about their safety and effectiveness

Anti-vaccine Informed Consent Action Network requests emails

by Dorit Rubinstein Reiss
2021-01-17
Del Bigtree, Law, Robert F Kennedy Jr, Vaccines

On January 7, 2020, my school informed me that it received a new Public Records Act request for my emails, this time from the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN), a well-funded anti-vaccine organization headed by Mr. Del Bigtree. The request was submitted via the law firm of Siri and Glimstad in New York, though it was not signed by Aaron Siri, a lawyer who represented groups fighting vaccines in the past.

They were also involved in an aggressive 9-hour deposition against a vaccine expert who agreed to support, pro-bono, a father seeking to vaccinate his young daughter (the father recently won his appeal). The request was signed by Attorney Allison Lucas; but since one of the requests was for emails with the word “Siri”, it is fair to see Attorney Siri as relevant, whether or not he was directly involved.Read More »Anti-vaccine Informed Consent Action Network requests emails