Measles (the disease) is pleased to learn of RFK Jr.'s pick to head up the promised new study to find that to study whether vaccines cause autism. It’s none other than David Geier, part of the father-son team of Mark and David Geier, who’ve run a chain of clinics giving a chemical castration drug to autistic boys under the delusion that it helps their mercury poisoning from vaccines. David earlier was investigated by the Maryland medical board for practicing medicine without a license. Great choice, RFK Jr.!
Positive news, especially for your other patients who’ll run less of a risk of contracting vaccine-preventable diseases from the children of your “decliners”.
That’s likely NOT the case. From the community risk perspective the result of a majority of practices refusing to care for refusers is inevitable concentration of those kids in the waiting rooms, which is the exact circumstance that increases outbreak risk (see Texas) which then exposes everybody where they spend more of their time, preschools, schools, grocery stores … Kids just are not in our waiting rooms or even offices that long.
It makes for a good self rationalization and maybe good PR, but it increases risk to all.
Despite that I am beginning to come over to other side.
Many pediatricians disagree with you about risk to their patients from unvaccinated children. For instance, California pediatrician and state senator Richard Pan:
Those chronic health conditions include inborn and acquired immune deficiencies, and immunosuppression secondary to treatment for cancer and other maladies.
I’m unaware that Texas pediatricians’ not seeing unvaccinated kids is what’s driving that outbreak, but rather the lack of vaccination in families holding antivaccine views.
If a pediatric practice excludes unvaccinated kids, other children in that practice won’t be exposed to that level of risk. If antivax parents attempt to get around a vaccination requirement by seeking out other providers, then those providers need to wise up and protect their own patients by excluding the unvaccinated.
It’s just sad that in the end, it’s the children who pay for their parents’ ignorance and ideological commitments.
I have been approached by a representative of Mumps™, who said he had money to invest and wanted me to recommend further individuals to head vaccine committees. Sadly, I could only think of Wakefield. Should I put you in touch?
Here is a gift link discussing the appointment of Grier and his controversies.
Excerpt:
The Department of Health and Human Services has hired David Geier to conduct the analysis, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. Geier and his father, Mark Geier, have published papers claiming vaccines increase the risk of autism, a theory that has been studied for decades and scientifically debunked. David Geier was disciplined by Maryland regulators more than a decade ago for practicing medicine without a license. He is listed as a data analyst in the HHS employee directory.
Public health and autism experts fear that choosing a researcher who has promoted false claims will produce a flawed study with far-reaching consequences. They fear it will undermine the importance of the lifesaving inoculations and further damage trust in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The government’s premier public health agency has stressed vaccination as the safest and most effective measure to control the spread of some contagious diseases, including the growing measles outbreak. “It seems the goal of this administration is to prove that vaccines cause autism, even though they don’t,” said Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation…
I am well aware that such is a story some pediatricians tell themselves to make themselves feel better about the choice. If I argue for the choice I won’t be deluding myself in that way.
Texas is illustration of the risk of have unvaccinated people clustered together. And once an outbreak starts it doesn’t stay within the cluster.
In terms of risk within an office setting? Correct that I know of no cases ever reported in which contact was traced to an office waiting room. So it is possible that my fear of that waiting room clustering is overblown. But if so the fear of such happening in a practice that is overwhelmingly compliant with immunization recommendations is orders of magnitude more overblown.
Nah. The reason to consider not taking these families is not that.
Forty years ago our pediatrician in Princeton had a separate waiting room for possibly infectious patients, to keep them apart from healthy patients coming for checkups. Not every practice has the room, and I don’t know if this was done out of caution or because they saw issues. Nothing to do with vax or anti-vax.
In Kansas, the virus has mainly infected unvaccinated children in the southwest corner of the state. Genetic sequencing has suggested a link to the Texas and New Mexico outbreaks, state health officials told The New York Times on Wednesday.
Measles Cases in Kansas May Be Linked to Texas Outbreak
p.s. Do you have any policy in your office about allowing kids to be vaxed when they’re brought in by their fathers, vs. their mothers? I have heard that some offices do not allow vaccines to be given without a MOTHER’S written permission, if she is alive and in the picture, because they’ve had too many irate anti-vax moms call them up and yell at them.
My husband was the primary child care provider during a lot of our children’s vaccine-getting years. A rule like that would have been a major hassle for us.
Me neither, everything I’ve brought to the attention of my medical ‘team’ has a web address citation that ends with ncbi.nlm.nih.gov or at least Harvard med or Johns Hopkins.
It’s possible to enlighten one’s physician about research with which he/she may be unfamiliar.
A caution though: just because something is contained within a government database doesn’t imply endorsement by that organization, just as a journal article’s listing in PubMed doesn’t mean it’s been validated by NIH.
And while major research and teaching facilities have made significant contributions to health, they’ve also promoted woo, to appear more “holistic” and of course, make more money. Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Cleveland Clinic and others have embarrassed themselves in recent years in such pursuits.
Mine was from uptodate. (Which is a good medical website, by the way, although a lot of it is paywalled. But some areas are more accessible than others.)
I’ve gotten good info from these guys. Pro info aimed at pros. I found them during COVID when they opened themselves up for non-paying non-professional subscriptions. But AFAIK they still allow those.
There is a difference between finding some information and talking to your doctor about it and “doing your own research,” which his t-shirt id referencing.