I was a believer in vaccines, had all the recommended shots when growing up, and vaccinated my kids as well. I came down with Covid early on, recovered easily, and decided that it would be pointless and risky to vaccinate myself after attaining natural immunity. After discovering the repeated lies about Covid vaccine safety and efficacy, I began to wonder, “What about all the other vaccines?” Not one tested against a clean saline placebo? WTF???
So happy you're writing about this - finally. Can't say the last few years have done much to enhance the medical profession's reputation, but maybe it will get cleaned up . . . maybe. Along the lines of Turtles All the Way Down, another good book is Dissolving Illusions - Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten History, by Suzanne Humphries and Roman Bystrianyk. That has a particularly interesting section on the history of the smallpox vaccine.
Excellent essay. I've been looking for something easily readable/understandable to give to friends who still assume our health industry and its government partners (CDC, FDA, NIH) have our best interests and health as their central concern. Most people make so many assumptions that on even a brief, closer look fall apart and prove to be false. I think you just gave me what I've been looking for. Thank you Heather!
It was TWENTY years ago that our daughter introduced us to the idea that there was something fishy going on in the world of childhood vaccines. After much research she and her husband chose for their own children some vaccines, rejected others, split some up (e.g. getting DPT and polio on two different visits, instead of at the same time), and delayed some (e.g. postponing chicken pox till adolescence, hoping the kids would catch the disease first (alas, they didn't). Seems like a reasonable approach to me.
Oddly enough, I never heard the term "anti-vaxxer" until much later. It appeared sometime before COVID, but presaged the bizarre public reaction all too common during the pandemic: "By not submitting your children to all the recommended vaccinations, YOU are endangering the life of MY child." That's when I started hearing about how evil the "anti-vaxxers" were, and why they should be forced into compliance.
Come to think of it, that's also when I first heard the fear narrative pushed into hyperdrive. Measles can indeed be a deadly disease for some people, particularly those who are malnourished and live in unhygienic conditions, but when I was a child it was just something that we all came down with, and we were happy enough to get a few days off from school because of it. I knew no child for whom measles was any particular problem, and no parents who feared the disease. Now it might as well be polio or smallpox, for all the panic a case of measles generates. And this in a population where most children have already been vaccinated against it.
President Roosevelt may not have been 100% correct when he said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," but I'm beginning to think that may be one of those ideas that's literally false but metaphorically true.
Covid really opened my eyes to our blind allegiance to all things our medical industrial complex tells us. I was also a big believer in vaccines and many of the pharmaceuticals that are out there today. I was alarmed to learn just how lax the RCT protocols are across the board, how intertwined our alphabet medical oversight agencies are with the pharmaceutical industry and trust no one in any of these agencies anymore. I saved a graphic that Jessica Rose posted in one of her articles that shows the current childhood vaccine schedule. I was shocked when I saw it, and even more shocked when I compared my 28 year old son's vaccine record to it, and even more alarmed comparing his vaccine record to his 40 year old brothers. RFK, Jr. is correct - it is no wonder that our society is becoming sicker, not healthier, and that the incidence of autism has exploded. Something is causing this; I would think society would want to get to the bottom of what that cause is.
Heather, I am SO happy you and Bret are championing the truth about vaccine safety, and standing up for RFK Jr.. I remember listening to DarkHorse when you first began talking about the Covid "vaccines" in the winter of 20/21, hearing you posing logical, skeptical questions about the data and claims as the rollout was starting and taking pains to say you weren't "anti-vaxxers," that you were "pro" traditional vaccines. I knew from months of listening to you, though, that if ever you had cause to delve into the topic of childhood vaccine safety "science" you would very quickly see it for what it is, and I so hoped and prayed that day would come. And here we are. {{happy dance!}}
If there's a silver lining to the pandemic, it's the hubristic overreach of the Establishment's response since it woke up so many people to the corporate capture and fraud Pharma's gotten away with for decades. People are discovering that "safe and effective" is a marketing slogan, not a scientific fact. A corrupt lie, actually.
I am just deeply grateful we are finally, FINALLY at this moment.
One huge red flag about the Covid vax for me was that they kept insisting that people who had Covid and recovered should still get it. My husband grew up in England in the 60s and 70s. He actually had measles, mumps and rubella. Probably the last group of kids to get them. Not one doctor has ever, even once, told him he should get the MMR vax. It's absolutely shocking to now learn that so little testing has been done on all this stuff we put in our bodies and our kids' bodies.
The attractions of vaccines include them being a cleansing ritual, administered by a priestly class, to set oneself apart from the great unwashed masses. See the video compilation of the recent shunning of the unvaccinated: https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1657021799652024324 .
Many or most people who accept influenza vaccination each year presumably do it in large part to reduce the risk of serious illness, as would require hospitalisation. Yet perfectly solid research, by Anderson et al. 2020: "The Effect of Influenza Vaccination for the Elderly on Hospitalization and Mortality - An Observational Study With a Regression Discontinuity Design", Annals of Internal Medicine, 2020-04-07 https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/abs/10.7326/M19-3075 (paywalled, but see http://sci-hub.se/10.7326/M19-3075), shows that for 66 year olds in the UK, whose rate of flu vaccination rises to 57% from 27% at age 64, there is no change in the trend line of hospitalisation or death rates for influenza or other respiratory diseases. Please see:
Overall, vaccines are over-hyped and overrated. I imagine that some are very beneficial, but I no longer take consensus or the opinions of experts at face value. I would need to research any such vaccine very carefully before I formed a solid opinion about it.
Without proper vitamin D3 supplementation - such as for 70 kg bodyweight without obesity, 0.125 mg (5000 IU) a day - most people do not attain the 125 nmol/L 50 ng/mL circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D (as measured in "vitamin D" blood tests) they need for their immune system to work properly.
There is very little vitamin D in food, fortified or not, and the UV-B which can generate it in white skin is only naturally available from high elevation sunlight in summer, without glass, clothing or sunscreen in the way. Such UV-B always damages DNA and so raises the risk of skin cancer.
Most people only have 1/10 to 1/2 of the 25-hydroxyvitamin D they need. If everyone had 125 nmol/L 50 ng/mL or more, there would be no pandemic transmission of flu or COVID-19, very few deaths from these, and far less sepsis, which kills 11 million people a year: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)32989-7 .
2014 research from Massachusetts General Hospital shows the rate of post-operative infections rising drastically from 2.5% for both hospital-acquired infections and for surgical site infections when the pre-operative 25-hydroxyvitamin D level is 50 ng/mL or more, the further this level is below 50 ng/mL. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/fullarticle/1782085 Mean 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels around 20 ng/mL - which is normal for people in most non-equatorial countries, who do not supplement vitamin D3 properly and who have not had significant recent UV-B skin exposure - raise the risk of postoperative infection a factor of 10 to 25%, again for each of hospital-acquired infections and surgical site infections.
Without sufficient 25-hydroxyvitamin D, many types of immune cell cannot properly run their intracrine (inside each cell) and paracrine (to nearby cells) signaling systems. These are unrelated to hormonal signaling. They enable each cell to respond to its changing circumstances.
The COVID-19 so-called vaccines (the Novavax one is a vaccine) would not be necessary if everyone had at least 50 ng/mL 125 nmol/L levels of circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D. This would greatly reduce severity and death for those infected by SARS-CoV-2 and, more importantly, reduce average levels of viral shedding to the point well below that required for pandemic transmission. So many fewer people would be infected.
To many people, especially doctors, this sounds too simple to be true. However the research is very clear.
Heather, listening to you on the recent Darkhorse podcast as you integrated what you learned from RFK Jr. about childhood vaccines brought tears of awe, respect and deep kinship to my eyes. Your pure, ascendant willingness to know truth and to require integrity of yourself *even* while simultaneously experiencing painful disappointment along with the heart-pressure of decisions you’ve made that you now question, well, I felt witness to the fullest, absolute pinnacle expression of the human mind's blueprint capacity to know, to release and re-establish, to soar—truly.
Heather, thanks for your article and especially your inclusion of RFKJr’s much maligned opinions re: vax. Bret had Vivek Ramaswamy on Dark Horse. I’d love to see either of those guys in the White House. We are in desperate need of someone willing to speak truthfully and think hard about things and be open to changing one’s mind. I’m registered with one party but would happily vote for the other.
I must admit that I was absolutely stunned when Heather read out those vaccine package inserts on Dark Horse where the manufacturers admitted that their products had not been tested against a placebo. Silly me to think that would be the first and most important test: does the treatment actually work? As the childhood vaccinations required to enter school proliferate, it would be nice to think that those vaccinations had been tested for efficacy. Nice, but incorrect. When bureaucratic capture by Big Pharma is added to their complete immunity from liability, it is not obvious that there is ANY incentive to produce a product that does anyone any good. There is a saying "to find out who your real rulers are, look at who you are not allowed to criticize" That would indicate capture of the media as well as government. I am not completely convinced of RFK Jr's sincerity in attacking Big Pharma. But Big Pharma's attacks on him are very telling.
Thank you Heather for tackling this subject head on. As a mother of a toddler and a baby, the topic of vaccines has plagued my mind for the better part of 3 years now. My eldest received all the "trad vaxxes" in her first yer per my Canadian province's schedule, despite myself being admittedly skeptical at the time (is it really necessary to jab literal babies a dozen plus times over the course of 2 years?). I do not have a background in science, but have always felt myself to be a critical thinker and not one to accept things told to me at face value.
Our family dr repeated the "safe and effective mantra" as reassurance yet never provided any objective resources regarding safety. With that being said, I had assumed that "safe" meant that they had been tested against true placebos at the very least, and I thought I was being a good mom by doing the best that I could to protect my daughter from becoming severely sick from diseases.
However, over the course of her first year, my daughter did not fare easily with the rounds of vaccines we got for her - when receiving her first oral rotavirus dose at 2mo, she had horrible diarrhea for 2 weeks post vaccination and started inconsolably crying for hours every day. I then also became sick myself as a result. When I reached out to our family dr and explained what we were experiencing, my concerns were brushed aside and was again told that the vaccines were "safe" and that it was impossible I myself could get sick from my daughter having received the rotavirus vax (this is a live virus vaccine administered orally, so I did not believe him when he said this to me).
Based on my mother's instinct, I refused the subsequent rotavirus doses for her (in spite of my dr's insistence on following the schedule for my daughter's "best interest"), but continued with all of the other "trad vaxxes". But every other month when bringing her in for her jabs, we would cycle through weeks of her becoming exceedingly fussy/a lot of crying and increasingly horrible sleep (accompanied by inhibited crawling after her 8mo doses, the dr jabbed her poorly and she couldn't fully extend her one leg for half a month afterwards), that would start to taper off for a week or so until we would bring her in again for the next round.
After her 1yr doses I couldn't bring myself to continue and so stopped partway through the schedule. My youngest is still a baby in her first year, and I will let you guess the decision I've made for her up to this point.
Heather, are you familiar with Buzz Hollander? He is an M.D. who writes on Substack and I've been following him for a while (partly because we both got tonsil cancer at the same time and he was blogging about his treatment experiences). On Friday, he wrote a post in which he concluded that RFK Jr. was wrong in what he said about placebo testing for childhood vaccines. I researched the examples he gave (the polio vaccine, HPV vaccine, rotavirus, and some covid studies) and was unconvinced because it seemed like at least one of the parameters stated or implied by RFK Jr. were not met (not a childhood vaccine, not pre-licensing, placebo not true, etc.). I would pay big bucks to see you two in the same room at the same time discussing this because I have come to trust both of you to some extent (meaning that I trust you 97.3% and him 81.4%) but you've reached the opposite conclusion. At least, I'd love to know your thoughts on his article.
Heather, listening to your red-pill moment on Darkhorse gave me the biggest boost of Hope (with an uppercase H) that I can remember in the longest time. real scientific reasoning is not dead. whew.
on the level of personal karma, the podcast took place on the 19th birthday of my son with autism. I know you said you 'don't wanna go there' but that's okay. putting your big toe in the water is a fantastic first step. its a terrible thing to admit you've been lied to and bought the lie. its a lot to digest; that red pill is a big 'in. take your time.
neurodevelopmental disorders are highly multifactorial; the onion has a lot of layers. vaccine injury is only one potential facet. (sorry for the mixed metaphor ;) )
lack of placebo-controlled safety trials is something that we in the 'community' have know for a few decades now. its old news to us. incidentally, while you're at it, have a gander at the HPV jab. it was tested against its aluminum-based adjuvant. seizures in BOTH arms of the trial, we're good to go! did you know that the print ads for the jab actually stated: 'your doctor may ask you to lie down while receiving the injection, as fainting and shaking may occur'. uh helllloooo, did they not just describe a seizure?! stunning CYA there.
well, Merck had to recoup the Vioxx loses, don't ya know. perfect timing coming out with THAT one!
I truly enjoy listening to you and Bret; your intellect and banter are such a breath of fresh air. your righteous indignation sometimes elicits fist-pumps from me in the middle of my work day. Ah SANITY... people who are sane and still have critical thinking skills. I can actually exhale sometimes.
but honey, on THIS topic, you have barely scratched the surface. can't wait to experience your journey down this rabbit warren (as you so correctly call it :) )
but no hurry. take your time. us warrior moms (its what we've called each other for many years) are patient.
I was a believer in vaccines, had all the recommended shots when growing up, and vaccinated my kids as well. I came down with Covid early on, recovered easily, and decided that it would be pointless and risky to vaccinate myself after attaining natural immunity. After discovering the repeated lies about Covid vaccine safety and efficacy, I began to wonder, “What about all the other vaccines?” Not one tested against a clean saline placebo? WTF???
So happy you're writing about this - finally. Can't say the last few years have done much to enhance the medical profession's reputation, but maybe it will get cleaned up . . . maybe. Along the lines of Turtles All the Way Down, another good book is Dissolving Illusions - Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten History, by Suzanne Humphries and Roman Bystrianyk. That has a particularly interesting section on the history of the smallpox vaccine.
Thanks, as always, for all you two do!
Excellent essay. I've been looking for something easily readable/understandable to give to friends who still assume our health industry and its government partners (CDC, FDA, NIH) have our best interests and health as their central concern. Most people make so many assumptions that on even a brief, closer look fall apart and prove to be false. I think you just gave me what I've been looking for. Thank you Heather!
It was TWENTY years ago that our daughter introduced us to the idea that there was something fishy going on in the world of childhood vaccines. After much research she and her husband chose for their own children some vaccines, rejected others, split some up (e.g. getting DPT and polio on two different visits, instead of at the same time), and delayed some (e.g. postponing chicken pox till adolescence, hoping the kids would catch the disease first (alas, they didn't). Seems like a reasonable approach to me.
Oddly enough, I never heard the term "anti-vaxxer" until much later. It appeared sometime before COVID, but presaged the bizarre public reaction all too common during the pandemic: "By not submitting your children to all the recommended vaccinations, YOU are endangering the life of MY child." That's when I started hearing about how evil the "anti-vaxxers" were, and why they should be forced into compliance.
Come to think of it, that's also when I first heard the fear narrative pushed into hyperdrive. Measles can indeed be a deadly disease for some people, particularly those who are malnourished and live in unhygienic conditions, but when I was a child it was just something that we all came down with, and we were happy enough to get a few days off from school because of it. I knew no child for whom measles was any particular problem, and no parents who feared the disease. Now it might as well be polio or smallpox, for all the panic a case of measles generates. And this in a population where most children have already been vaccinated against it.
President Roosevelt may not have been 100% correct when he said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," but I'm beginning to think that may be one of those ideas that's literally false but metaphorically true.
Covid really opened my eyes to our blind allegiance to all things our medical industrial complex tells us. I was also a big believer in vaccines and many of the pharmaceuticals that are out there today. I was alarmed to learn just how lax the RCT protocols are across the board, how intertwined our alphabet medical oversight agencies are with the pharmaceutical industry and trust no one in any of these agencies anymore. I saved a graphic that Jessica Rose posted in one of her articles that shows the current childhood vaccine schedule. I was shocked when I saw it, and even more shocked when I compared my 28 year old son's vaccine record to it, and even more alarmed comparing his vaccine record to his 40 year old brothers. RFK, Jr. is correct - it is no wonder that our society is becoming sicker, not healthier, and that the incidence of autism has exploded. Something is causing this; I would think society would want to get to the bottom of what that cause is.
Heather, I am SO happy you and Bret are championing the truth about vaccine safety, and standing up for RFK Jr.. I remember listening to DarkHorse when you first began talking about the Covid "vaccines" in the winter of 20/21, hearing you posing logical, skeptical questions about the data and claims as the rollout was starting and taking pains to say you weren't "anti-vaxxers," that you were "pro" traditional vaccines. I knew from months of listening to you, though, that if ever you had cause to delve into the topic of childhood vaccine safety "science" you would very quickly see it for what it is, and I so hoped and prayed that day would come. And here we are. {{happy dance!}}
If there's a silver lining to the pandemic, it's the hubristic overreach of the Establishment's response since it woke up so many people to the corporate capture and fraud Pharma's gotten away with for decades. People are discovering that "safe and effective" is a marketing slogan, not a scientific fact. A corrupt lie, actually.
I am just deeply grateful we are finally, FINALLY at this moment.
One huge red flag about the Covid vax for me was that they kept insisting that people who had Covid and recovered should still get it. My husband grew up in England in the 60s and 70s. He actually had measles, mumps and rubella. Probably the last group of kids to get them. Not one doctor has ever, even once, told him he should get the MMR vax. It's absolutely shocking to now learn that so little testing has been done on all this stuff we put in our bodies and our kids' bodies.
The attractions of vaccines include them being a cleansing ritual, administered by a priestly class, to set oneself apart from the great unwashed masses. See the video compilation of the recent shunning of the unvaccinated: https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1657021799652024324 .
Many or most people who accept influenza vaccination each year presumably do it in large part to reduce the risk of serious illness, as would require hospitalisation. Yet perfectly solid research, by Anderson et al. 2020: "The Effect of Influenza Vaccination for the Elderly on Hospitalization and Mortality - An Observational Study With a Regression Discontinuity Design", Annals of Internal Medicine, 2020-04-07 https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/abs/10.7326/M19-3075 (paywalled, but see http://sci-hub.se/10.7326/M19-3075), shows that for 66 year olds in the UK, whose rate of flu vaccination rises to 57% from 27% at age 64, there is no change in the trend line of hospitalisation or death rates for influenza or other respiratory diseases. Please see:
https://nutritionmatters.substack.com/p/influenza-vaccines-do-not-reduce for more on this and related research which shows the same thing.
Overall, vaccines are over-hyped and overrated. I imagine that some are very beneficial, but I no longer take consensus or the opinions of experts at face value. I would need to research any such vaccine very carefully before I formed a solid opinion about it.
Without proper vitamin D3 supplementation - such as for 70 kg bodyweight without obesity, 0.125 mg (5000 IU) a day - most people do not attain the 125 nmol/L 50 ng/mL circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D (as measured in "vitamin D" blood tests) they need for their immune system to work properly.
There is very little vitamin D in food, fortified or not, and the UV-B which can generate it in white skin is only naturally available from high elevation sunlight in summer, without glass, clothing or sunscreen in the way. Such UV-B always damages DNA and so raises the risk of skin cancer.
Fortunately, the scary-sounding 5000 IU a day is only a gram every 22 years, and ex-factory, pharma-grade vitamin D3 costs about USD$2.50 a gram. Please see the research articles cited at: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/, https://brownstone.org/articles/vitamin-d-everything-you-need-to-know/ and https://nutritionmatters.substack.com.
Most people only have 1/10 to 1/2 of the 25-hydroxyvitamin D they need. If everyone had 125 nmol/L 50 ng/mL or more, there would be no pandemic transmission of flu or COVID-19, very few deaths from these, and far less sepsis, which kills 11 million people a year: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)32989-7 .
2014 research from Massachusetts General Hospital shows the rate of post-operative infections rising drastically from 2.5% for both hospital-acquired infections and for surgical site infections when the pre-operative 25-hydroxyvitamin D level is 50 ng/mL or more, the further this level is below 50 ng/mL. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/fullarticle/1782085 Mean 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels around 20 ng/mL - which is normal for people in most non-equatorial countries, who do not supplement vitamin D3 properly and who have not had significant recent UV-B skin exposure - raise the risk of postoperative infection a factor of 10 to 25%, again for each of hospital-acquired infections and surgical site infections.
Without sufficient 25-hydroxyvitamin D, many types of immune cell cannot properly run their intracrine (inside each cell) and paracrine (to nearby cells) signaling systems. These are unrelated to hormonal signaling. They enable each cell to respond to its changing circumstances.
The COVID-19 so-called vaccines (the Novavax one is a vaccine) would not be necessary if everyone had at least 50 ng/mL 125 nmol/L levels of circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D. This would greatly reduce severity and death for those infected by SARS-CoV-2 and, more importantly, reduce average levels of viral shedding to the point well below that required for pandemic transmission. So many fewer people would be infected.
To many people, especially doctors, this sounds too simple to be true. However the research is very clear.
Heather, listening to you on the recent Darkhorse podcast as you integrated what you learned from RFK Jr. about childhood vaccines brought tears of awe, respect and deep kinship to my eyes. Your pure, ascendant willingness to know truth and to require integrity of yourself *even* while simultaneously experiencing painful disappointment along with the heart-pressure of decisions you’ve made that you now question, well, I felt witness to the fullest, absolute pinnacle expression of the human mind's blueprint capacity to know, to release and re-establish, to soar—truly.
Heather, thanks for your article and especially your inclusion of RFKJr’s much maligned opinions re: vax. Bret had Vivek Ramaswamy on Dark Horse. I’d love to see either of those guys in the White House. We are in desperate need of someone willing to speak truthfully and think hard about things and be open to changing one’s mind. I’m registered with one party but would happily vote for the other.
I must admit that I was absolutely stunned when Heather read out those vaccine package inserts on Dark Horse where the manufacturers admitted that their products had not been tested against a placebo. Silly me to think that would be the first and most important test: does the treatment actually work? As the childhood vaccinations required to enter school proliferate, it would be nice to think that those vaccinations had been tested for efficacy. Nice, but incorrect. When bureaucratic capture by Big Pharma is added to their complete immunity from liability, it is not obvious that there is ANY incentive to produce a product that does anyone any good. There is a saying "to find out who your real rulers are, look at who you are not allowed to criticize" That would indicate capture of the media as well as government. I am not completely convinced of RFK Jr's sincerity in attacking Big Pharma. But Big Pharma's attacks on him are very telling.
Thank you for diving into this topic. Can't wait till you get to the chapter on Polio...
Turtles All the Way Down was the book that opened my eyes to the issue, followed by RFK Jr's The Real Anthony Fauci
Thank you Heather for tackling this subject head on. As a mother of a toddler and a baby, the topic of vaccines has plagued my mind for the better part of 3 years now. My eldest received all the "trad vaxxes" in her first yer per my Canadian province's schedule, despite myself being admittedly skeptical at the time (is it really necessary to jab literal babies a dozen plus times over the course of 2 years?). I do not have a background in science, but have always felt myself to be a critical thinker and not one to accept things told to me at face value.
Our family dr repeated the "safe and effective mantra" as reassurance yet never provided any objective resources regarding safety. With that being said, I had assumed that "safe" meant that they had been tested against true placebos at the very least, and I thought I was being a good mom by doing the best that I could to protect my daughter from becoming severely sick from diseases.
However, over the course of her first year, my daughter did not fare easily with the rounds of vaccines we got for her - when receiving her first oral rotavirus dose at 2mo, she had horrible diarrhea for 2 weeks post vaccination and started inconsolably crying for hours every day. I then also became sick myself as a result. When I reached out to our family dr and explained what we were experiencing, my concerns were brushed aside and was again told that the vaccines were "safe" and that it was impossible I myself could get sick from my daughter having received the rotavirus vax (this is a live virus vaccine administered orally, so I did not believe him when he said this to me).
Based on my mother's instinct, I refused the subsequent rotavirus doses for her (in spite of my dr's insistence on following the schedule for my daughter's "best interest"), but continued with all of the other "trad vaxxes". But every other month when bringing her in for her jabs, we would cycle through weeks of her becoming exceedingly fussy/a lot of crying and increasingly horrible sleep (accompanied by inhibited crawling after her 8mo doses, the dr jabbed her poorly and she couldn't fully extend her one leg for half a month afterwards), that would start to taper off for a week or so until we would bring her in again for the next round.
After her 1yr doses I couldn't bring myself to continue and so stopped partway through the schedule. My youngest is still a baby in her first year, and I will let you guess the decision I've made for her up to this point.
Heather, are you familiar with Buzz Hollander? He is an M.D. who writes on Substack and I've been following him for a while (partly because we both got tonsil cancer at the same time and he was blogging about his treatment experiences). On Friday, he wrote a post in which he concluded that RFK Jr. was wrong in what he said about placebo testing for childhood vaccines. I researched the examples he gave (the polio vaccine, HPV vaccine, rotavirus, and some covid studies) and was unconvinced because it seemed like at least one of the parameters stated or implied by RFK Jr. were not met (not a childhood vaccine, not pre-licensing, placebo not true, etc.). I would pay big bucks to see you two in the same room at the same time discussing this because I have come to trust both of you to some extent (meaning that I trust you 97.3% and him 81.4%) but you've reached the opposite conclusion. At least, I'd love to know your thoughts on his article.
Keep up the great work.
So encouraging to hear reasonable voices, like yours, talking about this issue.
Heather, listening to your red-pill moment on Darkhorse gave me the biggest boost of Hope (with an uppercase H) that I can remember in the longest time. real scientific reasoning is not dead. whew.
on the level of personal karma, the podcast took place on the 19th birthday of my son with autism. I know you said you 'don't wanna go there' but that's okay. putting your big toe in the water is a fantastic first step. its a terrible thing to admit you've been lied to and bought the lie. its a lot to digest; that red pill is a big 'in. take your time.
neurodevelopmental disorders are highly multifactorial; the onion has a lot of layers. vaccine injury is only one potential facet. (sorry for the mixed metaphor ;) )
lack of placebo-controlled safety trials is something that we in the 'community' have know for a few decades now. its old news to us. incidentally, while you're at it, have a gander at the HPV jab. it was tested against its aluminum-based adjuvant. seizures in BOTH arms of the trial, we're good to go! did you know that the print ads for the jab actually stated: 'your doctor may ask you to lie down while receiving the injection, as fainting and shaking may occur'. uh helllloooo, did they not just describe a seizure?! stunning CYA there.
well, Merck had to recoup the Vioxx loses, don't ya know. perfect timing coming out with THAT one!
I truly enjoy listening to you and Bret; your intellect and banter are such a breath of fresh air. your righteous indignation sometimes elicits fist-pumps from me in the middle of my work day. Ah SANITY... people who are sane and still have critical thinking skills. I can actually exhale sometimes.
but honey, on THIS topic, you have barely scratched the surface. can't wait to experience your journey down this rabbit warren (as you so correctly call it :) )
but no hurry. take your time. us warrior moms (its what we've called each other for many years) are patient.