Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe (2016) Movie Script

in California, the
worst measles outbreak
in 15 years is spreading.
The virus is roaring back
into the headlines tonight.
An outbreak, somehow traced to...
Someone who had probably
caught measles abroad visited
Disneyland and may have sneezed.
Measles on the march in america.
This outbreak is
showing no signs of letting
up there are already more cases
this year than there were...
The number tripled
to 644 measles cases
reported in 27 states.
I mean, is this all
basically because of the
anti-vaccination movement?
Because parents aren't
vaccinating their kids?
Yeah, you know, I think so.
A bill that would ban exemptions
from childhood vaccines
is advancing
through the California
legislature.
We are offering legislation
that will abolish the
personal belief exemption.
I think you're
starting to see why it is
that mandates are so important.
There has been some
inaccurate information
circulating about
vaccines, mostly stemming
from a British study
linking vaccines to autism.
Still continued here,
the vaccine caused autism,
even though that
has been debunked.
Repeatedly and
thoroughly debunked.
You may have heard
vaccination causes autism
in one out of 110 children.
Fuck that.
Total bullshit.
It doesn't.
The bill requiring children
to be vaccinated has passed
with bipartisan support.
Every child must meet
immunization standards
before joining public schools,
private schools and daycares.
I would strongly encourage
everybody, look at the science,
look at the facts, CDC, the
center for disease control,
can give you good information.
Get your children vaccinated.
Hello?
I was sitting at
my desk where I teach
at Simpson university.
My phone rings.
It's Dr. William Thompson.
Brian, you and I don't
know each other very well.
I don't know how this is
all going to play out.
You have a son with autism,
and I have great shame now,
when I meet families
with kids with autism.
Because I have been
part of the problem.
My son Steven was
born in February of 1998.
Steve, what does the cow say?
Moo.
Tweet, tweet.
Tweet!
Doggie.
Yeah.
Two weeks after his 15 month
vaccines, he lost all language.
He lost all eye contact.
We pick him up and he
would just hang limp.
This is a time where
CDC was just starting
to do these studies on
vaccines and autism.
As a scientist, I
have over 60 technical
and scientific publications
in major international
scientific journals,
and I was contacting the CDC
and was deeply critical
of their studies.
And so the CDC decided that
the scientist who was going
to interface with me at that
time was Dr. William Thompson.
Because I was on his
back, because he didn't
like what I was saying about the
statistics, I received a letter
from a CDC attorney
in 2004 saying
that I was no longer
permitted to contact the CDC.
Fast forwarding to 2014,
Thompson said to me,
"Brian if you listen to me, and
if you do what I tell you to do,
I can guarantee you will be
able to access a treasure trove
of data, and I would like to
guide you through these steps.
So I wanted to be a resource,
I wanted to be valuable to you.
I want you to have
someone in the system...
For years, I had been trying
to crack this edifice
of the CDC.
And just getting little
glimpses of what was not right.
The CDC has put the
research 10 years behind.
Because the CDC has
not been transparent,
we've missed 10 years of
research because the CDC
is so paralyzed right now by
anything related to autism.
I am a licensed
clinical psychologist
and a board certified
behavior analyst.
In 1978, I want to say the
prevalence of autism was
about 1 in 15,000 children.
It was a very rare disorder.
I was working at
a clinic at ucla,
which was pretty much
the only known center
for treating children with
autism, and we had maybe 6
to 10 children we
were working with.
Somewhere around the early 90s,
shortly after I opened card,
the growth of autism has
been so high and so rapid
that I've never felt like I
could ever catch up anymore.
From an official
diagnostic perspective,
the way that we define
autism, we were looking
at deficits in two areas.
The first is social
communication
and social interaction.
And in that area we require
three specific symptoms
to be present.
Symptoms such as no social
emotional reciprocity.
No nonverbal communication.
That means eye contact,
for instance.
Or no development
of relationships.
The second required area
of deficit is the presence
of stereotypic repetitive
restricted behaviors.
And these are things like
hand flapping, body rocking,
insistence on routines
being the same.
One of the new additions
is the presence
of a sensory dysregulation.
If a child has an inability
to sense things correctly,
not necessarily hearing
things the way we do,
that could be classified
as a symptom of autism.
So you have five
symptoms, two in the area
of repetitive behaviors,
and three in the area
of social communication deficit,
then you will get
a classification
of what is called autism
spectrum disorder, asd.
We begin though, as
always, keeping them honest.
Breaking news tonight,
just hours ago,
the British medical
journal, the bmj,
did something extremely rare
for a scientific journal.
It accused a researcher, Andrew
Wakefield, of outright fraud.
I got a call on
the 19th of may 1995
from a mother telling me
the story of her child,
his regression into
autism following a vaccine,
and I said "how can I help you?
I know nothing about autism.
You've come through
the wrong number."
And she said, "no, doctor,
my child has terrible
gastrointestinal issues,
and no one will take
them seriously."
I was an academic
gastroenterologist doing
research with a particular
interest in crohn's disease,
ulcerative colitis,
inflammatory bowel disease.
I knew nothing whatsoever
about autism.
When I was at medical
school it was
so rare we weren't
taught about it.
We heard a succession of stories
which were very, very similar.
Medicine is about
pattern recognition,
and there was a clear
pattern emerging.
So we decided, a group of us,
including the world's leading
pediatric gastroenterologist
at the time, led by
professor John Walker Smith,
decided that these children
merited thorough investigation.
Well Dr. Wakefield
has been shown
to use absolutely fraudulent
data, created a fake paper,
the journal allowed it to run.
All the other studies were done,
showed no connection whatsoever
again and again and again,
so it's an absolute lie that
has killed thousands of kids.
What we discovered and reported
for the first time was this
link between what appeared
to be a novel type of
intestinal inflammation,
and autistic regression
in previously developmentally
normal children.
And among those, the
majority had regressed
into autism according to their
parents following the measles,
mumps, rubella vaccine.
It wasn't our place
to censor that story,
because it may be
uncomfortable for public health.
Our job was to report
that story accurately,
in order that it might lead
to further investigation
and the paper explicitly said,
this paper does not prove an
association between mmr vaccine
and the syndrome described.
More work is needed
to resolve this issue.
That was the conclusion
of the paper.
As an investigative
medical journalist,
I've spent the last 7
years working on one
of the best medical
talk shows in the world.
We know in medicine that
there have been many,
many studies proving that
vaccines do not cause autism.
But the problem I have always
had with that is that thousands
and thousands of parents
all telling the same story.
My child got a vaccine.
Usually the mmr vaccine.
And then that night
or the next day broke
out in a fever
and then when they came
out of the fever, lost speech
, lost the ability
to walk, basically
regressed into what we know
as autism, and never came back.
Doctors used to be told to
listen to their patient.
That was the cornerstone
of medicine as we know it.
But something has
changed recently
where the patient doesn't know
what they're talking about,
and these parents, with their
story of their children,
have just been written off
as if they have no idea
what is really going
on with their child.
I have two kids.
And anyone that has
children knows
that when we first have
babies, we are overly sensitive
to every little hiccup,
every cough, every sniffle.
So to say that a
parent was just unaware
that their child had issues,
and suddenly they
realized one year later
that oh they have autism,
that doesn't make sense to me.
And so I wanted to look
into this story and find
out what is this
disconnect between medicine,
science, and real parents?
I couldn't wait to be a mom.
I remembered specifically,
before we even got married,
talking about how important
children would be in our lives.
I wanted a daughter
first, and I wanted a son,
and we were planning on
having four children.
We were going to be
the most perfect parents
that we could be.
Bella was born, and that
was a wonderful experience.
Bella was just this
angelic, perfect child,
she hit all her milestones.
I got pregnant with
Billy quite quickly.
Bella, say hello to Billy.
Hello.
We've now got a beautiful
girl and a beautiful boy,
and life was just amazing.
So at 2, 4 and 6 months, Billy
had his normal baby vaccines.
A little bit sniffly,
chesty-coldy,
after the last one, so me...
In my perfect mother mode,
rushed to the doctor.
You know, is he okay?
Do I need to give him anything?
Yes, you need to
give him antibiotics,
just to make sure there is
not an infection in there.
It didn't clear up.
Brought him back to the doctor,
had even more antibiotics,
let's just keep this
going in him.
And I remember my
mother calling up,
my mother is a homeopathic
hippie,
and called up saying
what are you doing?
In chucking those antibiotics
down your son's throat...
For what?
And I'm saying to her
mum, with all due respect,
you're an artist, and they're
doctors, so they know best.
He was due his mmr
vaccination at 12 months.
So the morning, exactly to the
day, my friend, she said to me,
"listen, I've heard that
there may be a problem
with this vaccine you're about
to take Billy in for, the mmr."
I said "are you crazy?
What is the matter with you?
If there was a problem with
the vaccination it would be
headline news.
The doctor would be calling me
up saying do not bother coming
in, this is not a safe vaccine.
None of that is happening.
You're being negative.
You're being careless,
and you're listening
to what some rumor that
you heard somewhere,
Billy could become deaf
if I don't take him
in now and get him this mmr.
You know, most of the
evidence linking measles
with autism has kind of
settled down, and most doctors
and scientists agree that it
probably isn't the major cause.
I've been working in
pediatrics for almost 20 years.
I think most pediatricians
view vaccines
as they are the number one
thing they do for kids.
Okay there we go.
High-five.
All right.
That was really good.
I'm young enough to not
remember the days of kids
in an iron lung, because
they were battling polio.
You know, polio has
essentially been eradicated
from this country.
In 98 the Wakefield
study had come out,
my son had just been born.
That study kind of pointed
a finger at the mmr.
As a parent, I was scared
to give the mmr to my son,
and as a matter of fact, we... I
didn't give it to him on time.
Because I wanted to see.
I wanted to see what
additional studies would show.
And over time, additional
studies did show
that no, it's safe.
So he did get the vaccine.
You know, if everybody
stopped vaccinating,
we would be going
back to the dark ages.
When a CDC scientist, who
had been there, at that time,
17 years, tells you this
is how you access data,
it didn't take me very
long to realize oh,
I'd better do what he says.
Because he knows what
he's talking about.
I just want to
tell you one thing.
Right now, I'm sitting at a
very pretty position in terms
of providing you a
lot of information.
He asked me what data sets
are you going to request?
And I said, well I'm going
to request two of the studies
that you've done on thimerosal,
the Mercury-containing
preservative that is used
in some of the vaccines.
And he said well that's
fine, but I want you
to request the mmr data set
first, and this is the study
by frank destefano and
his colleagues in 2004.
It was the one study
where we could end
up creating a mess while
the CDC tried to, you know,
tried to sort out something
they couldn't understand.
The day Billy got the
mmr was a living nightmare,
worst day of my life,
to be honest with you.
I came in and I saw him
lying in his cot, listless.
He started this uncontrollable
shaking.
Uncontrollable shaking.
Imagine coming out
of a frozen pond.
His eyes were doing this,
and he was shaking, like this.
And I remember she grasped
him and held him really tight.
To her chest.
There's immediate fear
in Jon, and immediate,
mommy this is not
going to happen,
I don't know what
is wrong with you,
but this is not going to happen.
And we get to hospital, we rush
him in, doctors are coming in,
looking at him, that's when
they said he's had a reaction,
he's had a seizure, this
is normal, this is common,
for many, many children
who have this vaccination,
it's absolutely okay,
he's going to be fine.
Nobody ever told me that there
would be any side effect to any
of the vaccinations
my children had.
Following his febrile convulsion
that he had the same
day of the mmr,
we were told to take him home.
He slept in the bed
with us for the night,
he seemed just very,
very sleepy.
In fact, he didn't
ever really wake
up to the Billy that
we had before.
For me, it became really
necessary to start looking
at what types of medical
issues are these children
going through?
What are the other factors
that have affected them,
that have brought
them to this level
of symptomatology
that we call autism.
This is now probably
the mid-90s.
I came to notice that there
was a, a very high use
of antibiotics amongst
these children, but b,
what became pretty interesting
was seeing the number
of families who were reporting
that their child had
a regressive type
of behavior occur right
after their vaccinations.
A lot of these parents
were showing me footage
of their children who had been
completely developing normally
until 18 months, and then all
of a sudden, post-vaccination,
developed incredible regression.
Children who had speech anywhere
close to 50 to 100 words,
and had completely lost
all of their words.
Children who were extremely
attached and interactive
with their parents had
suddenly become isolated,
no longer responding
to their own name.
This was all happening right
after their mmr vaccines.
My oldest son, Ian, was born
normal, developing normally.
He was this beautiful
boy, and we ended
up at our 12-month visit,
which is his one year,
then they gave him
multiple vaccines at once,
and within 7 days,
he had a 104 fever,
and a rash all over his body.
He had previously been noted,
and in our videos, home videos,
that he was walking, and
actually running at that point.
Seven days after the vaccine, he
was no longer able to do that.
He was falling down.
He became a really
sick, sick little boy.
So the question for those
of us investigating autism,
is age of exposure to
mmr, a risk for autism.
And in order to understand
why that might be,
you have to understand something
of the history of mmr vaccine.
In 1987, there was an mmr
vaccine that was being used
in Canada, produced by
Smith-kline-beecham,
and that vaccine
caused meningitis.
It was recognized quickly,
and that vaccine was
withdrawn in Canada.
However, in the same month that
it was withdrawn in Ontario,
it was licensed in the u.K.,
the name was simply changed
from trivirix, to pluserix,
in the u.K. It was used
for four years, and likewise,
caused meningitis and had
to be rapidly withdrawn.
There was a public outcry.
There was an acute loss of
confidence by the public
in vaccine policy makers,
and the vaccine should
at that point have
been destroyed.
It wasn't.
It was then shipped to
developing countries
like Brazil, where it was used
in a mass vaccination campaign,
and there was an
epidemic of meningitis,
which was entirely predictable.
Now scientists studied that
epidemic, and what they found is
that the risk for meningitis was
associated with age of exposure.
The younger you got
the mmr vaccine,
the greater the risk
for meningitis.
For people like me
investigating autism,
the question was is there
a similar risk in autism?
Is age of exposure to mmr
a risk for autism just
as it was for meningitis?
We shared with the U.S. congress
and the CDC the hypothesis.
The story as told to us, and
which we have an obligation
to report is that the majority
of children regressed following
a period of normal development
in the face of an
mmr vaccination.
That does not mean it is
the cause of the disease.
The institute of medicine
is a body of scientists
and physicians that review the
available data on vaccine safety
and then advise our government
on vaccine research policy.
Well, because Andy Wakefield
had put forth this theory
that the age at which you
receive the mmr may increase
your risk of autism, the
iom looked to the CDC
to do that very study.
It was a study about timing.
Does the earlier you receive the
mmr vaccine increase the risk
of autism?
When we talk about
the mmr study,
nobody had ever requested
those data,
because it was a big
secret that you could do it.
Thompson told me to email
such and such a person,
and then on the inside,
I also found out that one
of the people preparing
these data sets
for me was bill Thompson.
They don't really
want people to know
that this data exists,
again, you know?
I just can't believe we
actually got you that data.
Thompson couldn't send
these documents directly
to Brian hooker, because
that would have been illegal.
What Thompson identified was a
legal loophole that is referred
to as a citizen's request.
That allowed Thompson to deliver
to Brian hooker potentially
classified information
in a legal way.
You get checked in england,
with your babies,
at certain times.
Health, by health visitors.
So nine months Billy
had his full blown check
and there was no
parental concerns,
baby laughing, babbling,
talking.
So we passed that
with flying colors.
Eighteen months is when they
next come in, and by this time,
we know there is something
seriously wrong with Billy.
Probably within
five or six days,
the first signs really
was this vacancy.
He wasn't the same smiley
little baby that he was before.
He had a blank expression.
Then the diarrhea kicked in.
His tummy started to get
bigger and bigger, bloated.
Rock hard bloated tummy.
He would start to
walk on tiptoes.
His hair fell out, and this
dreadful, high-pitched scream,
sort of whiny scream
developed from him,
and then came the head banging.
The constant banging
against his crib.
The constant banging against
the floor or a wall or anything
that he could find
to bang his head on,
he would thrash it,
and thrash it.
Jon and I would lie in bed
at night just listening
to this thud, thud, thud.
Thud.
There's nothing... now not
even noticing his sister he used
to play with.
Jon comes through the front
door after work, no recognition
that we were his parents, or
that this child even belonged
to us, nothing, nothing.
Gone.
I mean, that was the
time where, our boy changed
from what he was, to a real
tragic, tragic case of a child
Who regressed into this autistic
state, and lost everything.
Lost everything.
The CDC, the way that
they do research studies is
very reactionary.
They look at something
that is creating the press,
and creating a buzz, that could
actually lower vaccination
rates, and that's
what they study.
They don't study
vaccines proactively.
So if Andy had never done
his original study and gotten
that published in the lancet,
would have never
created the uproar
that rightfully it
should have created,
then the CDC would have
never studied this.
The press conference for
the lancet paper was called
by the Dean of the medical
school, who was the chairman
of the media committee.
I had done an extensive research
into measles vaccine safety
and mmr vaccine safety
in the pre-licensing phase.
In other words, what safety
studies had been done before
these vaccines were put onto
the market and into children?
The 250 page report
was compiled by me,
showing that the vaccine
safety studies for mmr
in particular, were lamentable.
They were lamentable.
Many, many assumptions have
been made about the safety
of this vaccine, and
there had been problems
which had been airbrushed.
So I wrote to my
colleagues, and the Dean,
and I said going forward there
are going to be questions
about what parents
should do next.
I cannot in due conscience
support continued use
of the mmr vaccine,
having done this research.
I said, I will continue to
vigorously support the use
of the single vaccine.
But can no longer support the
use of the triple mmr vaccine.
So the Dean, the chairman
of that committee,
had three choices.
He could have not had
a press conference.
He could have banned me
from the press conference,
or when the question came
up, as inevitably it would,
what do parents do next about
vaccinating their children?
He knew what my response
would be.
He could deflect the
question to someone else.
When the question
came up on the day,
he directed it straight to me.
All I recommended at
that press conference was
that parents opt for the
use of the single vaccines.
Single measles, single
mumps, single rubella,
until the issue had been
resolved scientifically.
What happened when I
made that recommendation,
unilateral decisions were made
by the government in the u.K.
To withdraw the importation
license for the single vaccines,
merck opting in the U.S.
to cease the production
of the single vaccines,
giving parents no option.
I said to a senior
representative to the department
of health, why, if your
objective is to protect children
against serious infectious
disease,
why would you take away the
option of how parents do that?
And she said "because if
we allow parents the choice
of single vaccines, it would
destroy our mmr program."
In other words, the concern
was for the protection
of the program, over and above
the protection of children.
No one's career
has ever been advanced
in the medical industrial
complex by being outwardly
and openly critical of
the vaccine industry.
I'm Mark blaxill, father
of a daughter diagnosed
with autism back in 1998.
I've written two books that have
come out of the autism movement,
that have been projected into
autism advocacy ever since.
Michaela was born typical.
Everything was fine.
She was developing normally
through her first birthday.
We had vivid memories of,
you know, early language,
joined attention, lots of play.
She was adorable,
beautiful, cute.
And then somewhere in the months
after she began to slip away,
and she lost language,
and she began to retreat
into a world of her own.
And at 2 years, 9 months,
we got a formal diagnosis
of a full syndrome autism.
It was a hopeless,
pessimistic future
that was laid out
in front of us.
She was going to be disabled
for the rest of her life,
likely to be non-vocal,
in an institution,
and that the best thing we could
do was to accept the inevitable.
Part of the story we heard
from the Harvard experts was
that autism was genetic,
it was low
and relatively constant
prevalence.
The more I learned,
the more clear was
that that whole orthodox
view was false.
Completely false.
Revolutions only
happen in science
when there is an anomaly.
An anomaly that the old
orthodoxy can't explain.
With autism, the anomaly
was the explosion in cases,
which meant that what people
were trying to describe
as a genetic, neurologically
based condition couldn't
be genetic.
It could only be environmental.
It could only be
some set of things
that happened to children.
And you had to ask the question
what might it have been?
One of my personal training
clients was the director
of programs for lwt
London weekend television.
And this guy said why
don't you do a program,
and people out there,
there may be someone
out there with this condition.
He said this is going to
be an unbelievable story.
And we thought we've got
nothing to lose, right now,
this child is either going to
kill himself because he's going
to smash his head to pieces,
or we're going to go insane,
because everybody
here is miserable.
That program was aired, and
we received 250,000 email hits.
Computers were kind of new then,
the whole Internet
computer thing.
Ours crashed.
We set up a Billy website, you
know, just in case somebody...
One person, might
be able to help us.
Crashed. The television
station's computers crashed.
They had never seen
anything like this before.
The parents had exactly
the same story as us.
Antibiotics, some with
chicken pox, a lot vaccine.
Bang, the symptoms all the same.
The diarrhea, the constipation,
the high-pitched scream,
the banging of the head,
we've all lived through it.
It was the same story.
And it was Polly's idea to
put all of this stuff together
in a magazine called
the autism file.
They all ask the questions,
and maybe someone can help.
These questions from these
parents were not being answered
by the doctors that
they went to see.
They came to us out
of desperation,
and we had 45,000
subscribers within four months.
When I originally
got the mmr autism data,
I came up with my own
analysis plan, and I stepped
through logically
and systematically how the data
should have been approached.
I looked first of all
at males versus females.
Then I looked at black
males, the relative risk
of them receiving an autism
diagnosis was astronomical,
and it was highly
statistically significant.
I really had to scratch my
head and say I know nothing
about the mmr vaccine.
And so that's when I
originally called Andy.
Wow, really?
After everything
that had happened,
everything that we
had all been through,
everything the families had
suffered for the last 15 years,
and the CDC had known all along
there was this mmr autism risk.
As I started to divulge
more of the conversations,
and I think it really hit him,
that this was a major crack
in the wall of the CDC.
The first thing that Thompson
did was to plot a graph.
A graph of percentage of
children vaccinated against age
at first mmr vaccination.
The children with autism are
represented by the pink line.
The children without
autism by the blue line.
Now, if there's no link
between early mmr and autism,
those two lines should
track together,
whatever the age at first mmr.
And they do track again.
Until they get to 15
months, then they separate,
then they continue to
separate thereafter.
This was their first indication
that mmr vaccine
was causing autism.
And that finding alone rocked
Thompson back on his heels.
This was a huge issue for Andy.
So I said to Brian,
Brian are you recording
these conversations?
Recording phone conversations
was not really palatable to me.
Almost seemed cruel.
Whistle blowers can disappear
as easily as they came.
They're like a fish on
a hook, and your job is
to get them into the boat.
Temple walked at 12
months, so he had been walking
for an entire month
before we went
in for the next set
of vaccinations.
The minute we walked into
the pediatric office,
Lou, his twin, she is
screaming her head off,
I mean she knows
what's going on.
She doesn't want the
doctor touching her.
I look up, and there's she's
got the shots lined up,
three for him, three for her.
By the second shot, Lucinda
had flipped herself over,
so I had to stop looking
at what I was doing,
unstrap her, get her out.
Well, the minute I get
her out and I calm her
down a little bit, and I
look over, he's screaming,
I look at the shots,
and I notice
that one of hers was gone.
There are only two
shots left for her.
And I asked the nurse
practitioner, I said,
what happened to
that other shot?
She says "oh, oh my
goodness, I gave it to him."
I said which one was it?
She said it was the other mmr.
I said call the doctor.
This baby is screaming
his head off.
You've given him an extra shot.
I don't know what the effect
of that is going to be.
We're leaving.
And I left.
So she never got her shots.
I go home, this baby
cried, cried, cried.
I put him down on
his little blanket,
he starts banging his
head on the floor,
banging his head on the floor.
The next morning, I go in
his room, and he's staring
into space, and he's
looking around like this.
As if, you know,
he's a bit paralyzed.
Not the baby who was always
doing this every morning,
smiling for me to
get him out of bed.
And I pick him up,
and he does this.
And I said, what has
happened to my baby?
So I call the clinic.
And I said I think my child
has had an adverse reaction
to those shots yesterday.
She says "no, no, no.
I'm waiting for the
representative from merck.
I don't think it's
a reaction to that."
Bill Thompson looked
at African Americans,
he saw that those African
Americans that got the mmr
on time were 2.64
times more likely
to get an autism diagnosis
than those African Americans
that receive the mmr
after three years of age.
So what bill is suggesting
is that among the blacks,
the ones that were getting
vaccinated earlier were more
likely to have autism.
At that point, the group of
researchers that was working
on this particular study they
were having weekly meetings.
Coleen boyle, who was the head
of developmental
disabilities branch
and marshalyn yeargin-allsop,
who was one of Thompson's
direct supervisors.
Frank destefano,
who was the head
of the immunization
safety office,
and a post-doctoral research
associate named Tanya bhasin.
In that meeting, Thompson
brought up the fact
that African Americans were
showing a highly statistically
significant risk of autism
if they got the mmr on time.
What is said in these
closed door meetings?
I mean, do people say well
oh, this is unacceptable,
or is it just do they always
say oh this can't be right?
Or?
I'm not going to lie.
But I also don't want to
say things to you right now
that aren't, that
aren't some written form.
Right.
The analysis regarding the
African Americans was the 8
on the Richter scale earthquake
that just shook through the CDC.
I take him to see the
pediatrician that I know.
And she looks at me, she closes
the door, and she whispers.
She says, "Sheila, I
believe he has autism."
I said, "what?
Like rainman?"
She says, "something like that.
I'm going to refer
y'all to a neurologist."
And we go see the
neurologist the next week.
He says he has every
classical symptom of autism.
I do not believe this.
I was angry.
When he explained it
to me what autism is,
he told me he was born that way.
I said, no he wasn't.
Clearly, there was a
very high risk of autism
in African American children.
Here's the thing.
We know that autism is four
times more common in boys.
And so to see that
effect mirrored
in the African American children
was a compelling finding.
When I looked at
African American males only,
the relative risk was 3.36.
It just blew my mind.
And that's when I wanted to
call bill Thompson on the phone.
And his statement to me was "oh!
You found it."
It appears in the final
publication is that race
in general is downplayed.
Of course it is!
Temple's twin is amazing.
She is fluent in
three languages.
She speaks French like a native.
She is an a student.
She plays classical piano.
With all of the guilt
that I feel from that day,
one of the best decisions I
made for her was to walk out of
that office without
her being vaccinated.
At the end of this journey,
I don't want to be one
of those mothers standing there
saying I wish, I would have,
could have, should have done.
I want to be able to say I
gave it everything that I had.
I gave it my best shot.
His twin is going into the
11th grade and for someone
who still can't manage
to cross the street.
Now, am I grateful he's here?
You bet. I'm grateful
my son lived,
I was so nave that he
would live a fulfilling life.
He would end up being
a happy man.
Having a family.
My dreams for him.
And every year that goes
by, the older my son gets,
the further that
dream seems to be.
All about vaccines!
So what do vaccines do?
Vaccines build up
your immune system
and make you stronger
to fight off disease.
Are vaccines safe?
Yes. The studies
involving millions
of children have
shown no connection
between vaccines and autism.
Stick to the schedule.
The CDC's own vaccine
schedule, which we are required
to adhere to as parents
in america recommends
that our children get the
mmr between 12 and 18 months.
But in this hidden
data, provided to us
by William Thompson, it is clear
that for African Americans,
this is actually the
most dangerous time
to deliver the mmr.
The CDC in my
opinion is one of the-
where I go to if
I need information
about an infectious disease.
I probably either
go on their website,
or open one of the
reference books every day.
That building is filled
with a lot of scientists
that are smarter than me.
The analysis plan is one
of the most important parts
of the scientific study.
It's the laws or the rules by
which the scientist will adhere
to while doing the study.
And this analysis
plan is put together
by the scientists themselves.
Sometimes their superior's
way in.
But once they've locked
that analysis plan.
They said this is how we
are going to use the data.
And you can't deviate
from that analysis plan,
or you're at risk for fraud.
Scientific fraud.
Did they deviate from
the analysis plan
after seeing something
they didn't like?
If they did, we have
a real problem.
Thompson not only
played a major role
in developing the analysis
plan, he was the numbers guy.
He was responsible for
collecting the data,
analyzing the data, and
presenting the results,
and by November 2001,
the results were in.
Now with the mmr
autism one, the-
we had an analysis plan that
we were supposed to execute,
and it was written,
and you know,
I'm going to be sharing
these draft analysis plans
that we had.
And you can see whether we
did what we were going to do.
That analysis plan
had been agreed upon,
not only by the co-authors,
but also by CDC superiors.
In order to conceal the
effect of the mmr, what they had
to do was reduce the number of
children in the study in order
to reduce what is referred
to as the statistical power.
That is, the ability of the
study to detect a difference
if one genuinely exists.
In the analysis plan,
they had agreed
to use two sources
of information.
The first was the
children's school records,
and the second was the
children's Georgia birth
certificate records.
So while every child in the
study had a school record,
only half of the children
in the study had a Georgia
birth certificate record,
because the other half had
been born in other states.
So the analysis plan
was explicit.
Information on a
child's race was to come
from their school record.
But when confronted by data
that revealed an increased risk
of autism in African American
children, they deviated
from their analysis plan.
They chose to get the race data
not from the school record,
but from the Georgia
birth certificate record.
Instead of having 3,000
individuals in the study,
it went down to about 1,800.
The relative risk went
down from 2.64 to 1.8,
but more importantly,
that relative risk was no longer
statistically significant.
And I'll ask you to step
forward to receive your prize
from the hands of his
majesty, the king.
I am Luc montangier, m.D.
Shortly after Julie
gerberding became head
of the CDC,
I began to communicate with her
and ask her to come
to my office.
There didn't seem to be
objective research going on.
There was the CDC trying
to promote vaccination
for children, and then
they were doing the safety
research themselves.
In CDC's judgment,
the best public policy is
to continue vaccination
unchanged,
while aggressively working
to try to identify causes
of developmental disabilities.
The CDC, I just thought,
was institutionally conflicted.
The CDC can't take
money directly from pharma,
but they can set
up a foundation,
and the foundation
can attract donations
from commercial interests,
and does.
Merck, glaxo-Smith-kline,
now pfizer, sanofi aventis,
have huge, multi-billion
dollar vaccine businesses.
They're profitable.
They promote them because some
of these new high-tech vaccines,
that are patented, that are
high priced, get protected
by this little cocoon of
regulatory capture in hhs.
And are guaranteed
multi-billion dollar franchises.
When I was working at merck,
I was a sales rep for Vioxx.
The whole scandal started
when it was discovered
that merck had manipulated
data and covered up the fact
that Vioxx actually caused twice
the amount of heart attacks
and strokes than the placebo.
What I learned from
that experience,
just because things are
on the market does not
mean they are safe.
I think we get into a
very dangerous territory
with vaccinations.
If a drug company gets just one
vaccine added to the schedule,
they can make upwards of
$30 billion in one year.
It's no secret.
I think they've published their
intention, which is they want
to create an environment
of constant vaccination
from cradle to grave.
They want infant vaccines
they expanded flu shots,
dtap boosters, Gardasil
shots, meningococcal shots,
they want adult vaccines, you
know, they want you and me
to come in and get a
constant barrage of shots,
and then they want
vaccines for the elderly.
We have highly
profitable product,
because the safety
testing isn't as rigorous
as a normal pharmaceutical drug.
The gold standard
is double blind,
placebo-based long-term study.
And that just isn't
done with vaccines,
because they're classified
in a different way
as a public health measure,
and they haven't been tested
in combination with other
vaccines, yet doctors give six
to nine doses per visit.
It's insane.
If a pharmaceutical drug
was tested like this,
it wouldn't be on the market.
But because it's a vaccine,
and the safety testing
is less rigorous,
our children are
being experimented on.
I don't like to look at autism
from a behavioral perspective.
I look at it more from what
causes it in each child.
When I want to define autism, I
have to say it's the inability
to detoxify the way
you're supposed to,
at the rate you're supposed
to, and it all has to do
with this toxic overload.
These children are
not detoxifying
from the vaccinations.
Same thing with gmo products,
the pesticides in our food.
If I can prevent the child from
being exposed to more toxins,
then when I'm teaching
the child,
at least the child
is getting better,
and not continuously
getting worse.
Without a doubt, what's happened
to Billy has changed his life.
I did it!
There you go, you got a strike!
What I have on my hands
now a 19-year-old man,
he's 6 foot 2, he is volatile.
On good days, Billy is
as brilliant as an angel.
On bad days the slightest thing
can trigger him, and he's scary.
I'm going to go downstairs
and get daddy right now.
No, you need to
stay up here, okay?
I'm going to kill
daddy right now!
Bill, listen to me.
I'm going to stay up here,
we're going to calm down okay?
The reason they become
aggressive, and dangerous
in some cases, is because they
have no ability to communicate.
Because mummy asked Kent,
but Kent bring the sweet corn,
then bring in the chickens here.
Here, this is your fault, mummy.
If you're not able to
express your needs, your wants,
your desires, your happiness
and sadness and so on,
you would become aggressive.
That's often when we see
the worst part of autism.
We have to occupy his room
and use his video player,
and of course, that is a
massive intrusion in his space,
and he got very upset.
Where else in this
house can we play a video?
Remember? Listen, bill
reduce the stress level.
No! Don't hurt daddy.
Out there, there's millions
of me's, there's millions
of Polly tommey's with
vaccine damaged children.
I'm telling you this,
because I do not want you
to live the life that I've led.
I don't want you to
go through the pain.
I do not want to see you
suffer, or your family suffer.
That is why I'm telling you.
I've no other reason
to tell you about it.
It's not my concern, my
kid's already damaged.
I am a senior research
scientist here at mit,
in the computer science
and artificial intelligence
laboratory.
I have a bachelor's
degree in biology from mit,
and I have msee and phd
degrees, also from mit
in electrical engineering
and computer science.
I became interested in
autism a long time ago
when my best friend at the time
had a son who was diagnosed
with autism following
a dpt shot.
He had a high fever after the
shot, seizures a week later,
and was later diagnosed
with autism.
We have to accept the
fact that autism is new.
That before 1930,
the rate of autism
in the world was
effectively zero.
And then for a long
time it was 1 in 10,000.
I got interested in
studying autism eight years ago
when I saw the numbers go
up, and I was quite alarmed,
because I could see that the
trend was exponential growth.
And exponential growth
is extremely scary.
Since really the
mid-to late 80s,
we've gone from this
low-prevalence environment
to a rate of increase where
the trend is still vertical.
We have not seen a
flattening in trend.
Every couple of years,
the CDC provides a number
of what percentage of kids
are diagnosed with autism.
And you've got the dots going
all the way back to 1975.
You draw the line, it is a
perfect exponential curve.
If we assume that things are
going to continue as they have,
for the past 30 years, into
the future, we can predict
that by 2032, 80% of
the boys born will end
up on the autism spectrum.
Half the children,
80% of the boys.
If you think the
vaccine is only a problem
for African American kids
like me, you're wrong.
There's an even bigger problem.
One that puts all kids at risk,
and it's called isolated autism.
When the CDC researchers
set out to do this study,
they asked themselves
the question
if early mmr vaccine
causes autism,
in which children would we be
most likely to find this effect?
Their answer is children with
no developmental concerns
for the first year of life.
Children who were
perfectly healthy
until they received
their mmr vaccine.
They called this
group isolated autism.
Now, this does not refer to
an isolated cause of autism,
or an isolated group
with autism.
They isolated autism out,
so children who had no
co-morbid conditions apart
from their autism.
No cerebral palsy.
No mental retardation.
No visual or hearing impairment.
No epilepsy, and
no birth defects.
This risk group includes
essentially every healthy child
in the world.
I'm a single father.
Raising a 15-year-old
severely autistic,
non-verbal teenaged daughter.
When she was 15 months old, she
received a round of vaccines
which included the mmr and dtap.
She developed a high fever,
the fever broke,
she lost everything.
My daughter was six
weeks old when I took her
in for her vaccination.
Two hours later, she had a five
minute seizure, and two hours
after that, she had
another five minute seizure.
Mama's here.
Come on. Come on.
Come on, you're okay.
You're okay.
Come on baby.
Come on babe, you can do it.
Come on babe.
Come on out.
Come on. Come on baby.
Come on, keep breathing.
Come on, come on... the
vaccination gave her severe
brain damage, and she had
seizures every day for the rest
of her life until she died
in my arms at the age of 15.
There is no good reason to
choose not to get a vaccine.
He got his mmr,
and he got his dtp,
and within days,
he stopped talking.
Projectile vomiting,
convulsions.
He went blind in his left eye.
Vaccines took our healthy,
happy baby and made him unwell.
She lost all acquired speech.
He lost his speech,
he lost his eye contact,
like the flick of a switch.
If vaccines were unsafe,
I think this would
be an interesting
and reasonable discussion.
Obviously some minority
get hurt by this stuff.
I don't understand why
this is controversial.
Vaccines are safe.
Get vaccinated.
It's like, you know what?
Shut the fuck up and let me take
every vaccine that merck wants
to shove down my throat.
Autism is not a
side effect of vaccine,
or to say it another way,
because some people
don't hear this well,
vaccines do not cause autism.
Hear this well.
Hear this well.
Please hear this well.
Here this well.
Vaccines can and
do cause autism.
My granddaughter Lilly...
My daughter...
My son was fully vaccinated.
My son, Jackson.
I had a healthy,
typically developing boy.
Please, hear this well.
Vaccines cause autism.
One day, everyone will
know the truth about vaccines.
Hear this well.
I honestly think the most
interesting results are the
elevated ones, for the isolated,
ones that don't have other
co-morbid conditions.
The effect is where you
think it would happen.
In isolated autism, he saw
a very, very strong effect,
specific to those kids
that got the mmr on time.
When bill Thompson
ran those numbers,
he saw an astronomical effect.
Some of the numbers
were actually...
The relative risks were as
high as 7 or 8 times higher
with these kids that
were diagnosed
with just isolated
autism, no other diagnosis,
versus those controls.
Isolated autism is confusing,
because it sounds small,
but it really is a big problem.
Because all healthy children no
matter what race, are at risk.
For example, my sister is 18
months old, and she is supposed
to get her mmr shot right now.
But if she does, she is seven
times more likely to get autism
than if my parents wait
until after 3 years old.
So I hope my parents
don't do it.
Here's what's really scary.
When we look at isolated
autism, we see that there is
up to a seven-fold increase
in the incidence of autism
between those that receive
the vaccine between 12
and 18 months, versus those
that got it after 3 years old.
But let's be perfectly clear.
Every child in the study had
received the mmr vaccine.
What would the numbers be
if you compared children
who got the vaccine between 12
and 18 months versus children
that never got the
vaccine at all.
This is often referred to
as the vax vs. Unvax study.
CDC refuses to do this study.
Even though every drug
that we take has been
through this exact study.
There is a group who take the
drug, then they compare it
with a group who do
not take the drug,
and they see there are more
side effects and complications
with the group that
takes the drug.
So why does the CDC refuse to
do the vax vs. Unvax study?
Probably because when we look
at the results of this study,
we realize that the risk would
be astronomical, and is likely
to be one of the major reasons
we're seeing this skyrocketing
increase of autism, worldwide.
Just like the African
American children,
they went into the room, and
they sliced and diced the data,
in an effort to get
rid of that effect.
This is coleen boyle's
meeting notes, how they planned
to present the data by these
age groups, that after the fact,
when the data she
writes reformats.
And then she puts
in new age groups.
Even this failed to
achieve the desired effect,
since in the end, they simply
omitted the relevant findings
from the paper altogether.
I was just looking at
that, I'm like, oh my god,
I cannot believe
we did what we did.
But we did.
Yeah.
So it's all there.
It's all there.
And you in the health field,
you who run our health agencies
in this country are sitting here
today, you have an obligation
to these kids that you just
saw there, to make sure
that these studies are
complete, thorough,
so that everybody knows
that we have all the facts,
and you don't have that.
One of the things
we did because this was
such an important topic was
to have them be sworn in.
So they were under oath.
And if they were doctoring
the results of a study,
and they did it deliberately,
they committed a felony.
It used to be 1 in 10,000.
And now it's 1 in more than
250 kids that are being damaged
in this country,
that are autistic.
Now those kids are
going to grow up.
They aren't going to die.
It's not like a lot of diseases
where they get infected,
and they drop dead.
They're going to live
to be 50, 60 years old.
Now, who do you think is
going to take care of them?
It's going to be us.
All of us.
The taxpayers.
And it's going to cost, I think
as you said Ms. Maloney,
trillions of dollars.
So we can't let the
pharmaceutical companies
and our government cover
this mess up today,
because it ain't
going to go away.
And it's going to cost the
taxpayers trillions more
if we wait around on it.
And or our fda and hhs and the
health agencies to continue
to hide behind this faade
that there have been studies
that conclusively prove
otherwise, it's just wrong too.
So the CDC wasn't just doing
the study inside of a bubble.
In fact, it was the
exact opposite.
They were under fire.
You had congressman
Dan Burton in front
of the congress demanding
answers about Mercury
and the mmr, and
vaccine studies,
and the connection to autism.
Dave weldon, congressman
from Florida,
is reaching out to
Julie gerberding
with serious complaints
on how he thinks this entire
issue has been handled.
On top of that, the department
of justice is requesting files
and data from the cbc because
of a previous study called the
verstraeton study, that
had so may anomalies,
it looked like scientific
fraud was taking place.
So they were suspicious.
So then you look at the emails
that Thompson provided to us,
and you see that he is reaching
out to his line manager,
Dr. Melinda wharton, throwing up
red flags, saying "I first spoke
with you in September of 2002
regarding the sensitive results
we have been struggling with
in the mmr autism study."
How do you struggle
with scientific results?
I mean, facts are facts.
Data are data.
That doesn't make any sense.
So you've got Dan Burton
breathing down their necks.
The department of justice
is requesting files,
and William Thompson finds out
that coleen boyle has brought
in a lawyer to help her decide
what materials are too sensitive
to provide to the
department of justice.
This obviously freaks William
Thompson out, because later
in the email to wharton, he says
"I will be hiring my
own personal attorney."
And it's extremely unfortunate
that we need to be concerned
that our own legal rights are
covered when participating
in a study such as this.
I mean, what's going on here?
We have government
scientists, lawyering up,
over a children's safety study.
Clearly this does not sit
well at all with Dr. Thompson.
Because at the end
of this email,
he makes what looks
to be a clear threat.
"My level of concern
has also caused me
to seriously consider
removing myself as an author
on the draft manuscript."
So then a few days later,
Thompson writes directly
to Dr. Walter orenstein, head
of the national immunization
program,
saying "I am not interested in
taking all of the political heat
that will go along
with that study."
Thompson has gone all the way
to the top of his department.
I mean, we don't ever get a
response from Walter orenstein,
but Thompson is very clear
on what happened next.
The higher ups wanted
to do certain things,
and I went along with it.
In terms of chain of command,
I was number four out of five.
Dr. Thompson talked about
destruction of documents,
and that in fall of
2002, there was a meeting
with the trash can rolled in,
and they selected
documents to be destroyed.
I led all the analyses
with the destefano thing,
literally everyone else got
rid of all their documents,
so the only documents
that exist right now
from that study are mine.
These documents were
no doubt federal records.
They were very important
documents,
because they showed a
very strong statistically
significant effect.
He felt that quite
rightly it would be illegal
to destroy those documents.
And so in his office, he kept
not only the hard copies,
but the computerized
files for that study.
There was a dramatically
different result presented
before and after the time
frame that Thompson alleged
that these data were destroyed.
If I never had the
documents before October 2002,
there would be nothing
that would show
that they actually had
the results in hand,
and they decided to
destroy those results.
I filed a formal complaint to
the office of research integrity
and the department of
health and human services.
I heard back not long after
the complaint was filed,
and the letter basically
stated that every co-author,
except for Dr. Thompson,
denied that any
such meeting was scheduled,
they denied that any material
was destroyed or thrown away.
They were calling
Dr. Thompson a liar.
It was their word against his.
Dr. Thompson predicted
that this would happen.
There are things I
haven't even shared with you
because I can't prove it, and
that's what I struggle with.
I don't want to share things
with you that I can't prove.
That there aren't hard records
of, because I am worried
that the other four
people will collude
and say no that's not true.
Dr. Thompson provided
meeting notes to me
for precisely the time where
the co-authors are claiming
that no meeting took place.
That's what I keep seeing
again and again and again.
Where these senior people just
do completely unethical vile
things, and no one
holds them accountable.
So look.
Once you have the data,
a scientific study
like this is a relatively
simple process.
You just run the data,
you get the results,
and then you publish
those results in a paper.
In their own analysis plan,
this study was only
supposed to take six months.
From may 2001 to December 2001.
So if they weren't
destroying data,
why did this study end
up taking four years?
The question everybody needs
to be asking the CDC is
what the heck happened
between October 2002
and February of 2004?
The reason you don't see
anything else circulating
on this study, it
was five of us,
behind closed doors,
for two years.
Wow.
So after two years of secret
meetings behind closed doors,
destefano emerges with the
final draft of the mmr study,
and they're going to present it
to the institute of medicine.
People on the iom move from
industry, government, academia,
government, industry,
and they bounce around.
It's all the same people,
and there wasn't a really
good policeman in all of this,
to really make sure that the
vaccine safety studies are done
properly and that
they're done objectively.
It just didn't seem to me
like we were running a
system that was credible.
I had written to Julie
gerberding, and I asked her
to postpone the February 9th
institute of medicine meeting.
This report, the institute
of medicine report I wanted
to postpone because my concern
that this was not an exercise
in discovering the truth,
but was instead a meeting
being driven by a desire
to short-circuit
important research
and draw premature conclusions.
The problem is, William
Thompson being the lead
scientist, he is going to have
to present their findings.
And he's not happy about it.
In fact, he's so upset, that
he goes above the lead author,
destefano, above
Walter orenstein,
all the way to the head of
the CDC, Dr. Julie gerberding.
And in an email he says,
Basically saying "I'm not
going to continue this lie.
If you put me up there, I'm
going to tell the truth."
Thompson was originally
scheduled to provide a briefing,
because he basically
told director gerberding
that he would have to say that
there is a causal association.
He was switched at the last
minute with frank destefano,
who was able to report
to the iom falsely
that we have found
no association
between mmr and autism.
The iom was the
point of no return.
And so deprived of the truth,
the iom declared
mmr vaccine safe.
It was a rush to judgment,
to shut the door, permanently
and completely, on
the mmr autism link.
It is absolutely appalling
that much of what I said turned
out exactly to be true.
They were trying to
short-circuit the research.
It's the lowest, you know,
the lowest point in my career,
that I went along
with that paper.
After their brilliant work
on the mmr study, destefano
and his team received an
award from the department
of health and human services.
And then several years later,
Dr. Julie gerberding
received an award of her own.
A high paid job as head of
the vaccine division at merck.
Clearly, merck appreciated the
work she had done investigating
their vaccine.
Just to let you know, I wrote
a paper on my results on mmr.
Yes?
And it will include
something that I got from you.
Brian was about to
publish a paper using data
that could only have come
from an inside source
in the CDC, a whistle-blower.
And from that point forward,
William Thompson
was a marked man.
Andy approached
me and said it's time
to publicize the
CDC whistle-blower.
Ironically 12 years later,
while Thompson is bearing
his soul to Brian hooker,
in front of congress coleen
boyle is just peddling the same
old CDC fraud.
But this time, it's
to a new player.
And that is congressman
bill posey from Florida.
I wonder if the
CDC has conducted
or facilitated a study
comparing vaccinated children
with unvaccinated children yet?
Have you done that?
We have actually done a
number of studies looking
at the relationship between
thiomerisol vaccines and autism,
and other developmental
disabilities.
The lies from the
CDC were still the same.
The difference now is
we had William Thompson.
Vaccines and their components
did not increase the risk
for autism.
But my time is very limited
here, so clearly, definitely,
unequivocally, you have studied
vaccinated versus unvaccinated?
We have not studied vaccinated
versus unvaccinated, as you...
Never mind, that
is just not there,
that is the meaning
of my question.
You've wasted two
minutes of my time.
Brian had also
submitted a related paper
to a journal called
nature neuroscience.
And in that paper, he
had specifically referred
to an unnamed source at the CDC.
And my worst fears were
realized, when a journalist
from nature neuroscience
contacted the CDC,
contacted Walter
orenstein, the message went
on to frank destefano, who sent
it out to the co-authors saying,
"keep your heads down.
This may be coming your way."
The fear was all of a
sudden we'd be dredging a river
for bill Thompson.
So I said to him, Brian,
we've got to do three things.
We have got to get Thompson
a whistle-blower lawyer.
We have got to make sure that
his documents are with posey,
and we've got to
reveal his name.
Whistle-blowers are in danger
only as long as the only people
who know their identity
are their enemies.
Do vaccines cause autism?
In the last 30 years,
the childhood vaccine
schedule has tripled,
while the U.S. autism
rate has skyrocketed
from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 50.
Dozens of published research
papers show that yes, vaccines
and autism are linked.
Yet, the debate rages on,
in part because of a 1986
national childhood vaccine
injury act, passed by
congress, as the result
of pharmaceutical lobbying.
It shields drug companies
from liability for injuries
and deaths caused by the
vaccines they manufacture.
Vaccines that the federal
government admits are
unavoidably unsafe.
Instead of suing the
pharmaceutical company directly,
parents are forced to petition
the department of health
and human services,
and if federal officials
oppose compensation,
the case is argued
before a special master
in the U.S. claims court.
Many refer to this
as vaccine court.
Here are some shocking facts
about the so-called
vaccine court.
Pharmaceutical companies
do not have to participate
in the proceedings at all.
Taxpayers pay for all damages.
The U.S. department of justice
acts as a government's lawyer,
with taxpayers footing the
bill for their defense.
Beginning in 2002, there
were already thousands
of cases accumulating
in vaccine court,
and the average compensation
for an autistic child is
in the range of $5 million
dollars, so just do the math.
The government was facing
several hundred billion,
possibly a trillion
dollars in liability
as the autism epidemic grew.
They had to develop a fraudulent
study that would exonerate mmr
to deliberately defeat the
cases in vaccine court,
to avoid paying the
trillion dollars.
So the thousands of autism
petitioners were denied their
fair day in court by a corrupt
and deliberate obstruction
of justice.
It's one of the most unethical
medical decisions of all time,
because it was made
with knowledge
to sacrifice these
children as a direct affront
to the congressional mandate
that they all be compensated.
In the fall of last
year, I got a call
from an inside source, who
told me that in two weeks,
there's going to be a whistle
blower from the CDC who is going
to come out and say that
the CDC had committed fraud
on the mmr study
and that they knew
that vaccines were
actually causing autism.
I mean, that's a huge story.
Unfortunately it was a story
I would not be able to tell
on a medical talk show, because
a lot of our funding was coming
from the pharmaceutical
industry,
and we were also very
good friends with the CDC,
who had appeared on
our show many times.
But I knew that once this
story broke, two weeks later,
that the mainstream news
media would pick it up.
Fox would be on it.
CNN would be on it.
Msnbc, and we're talking about
the biggest medical story
in the last decade
or two at least.
So that two weeks came.
I saw the video that was
posted by Andrew Wakefield
and Brian hooker,
and I heard the words
of William Thompson
and his confession.
Oh my god, I cannot
believe we did what we did.
But we did.
It's all there.
It's all there.
And I watched the blogosphere
go crazy, tweets, Facebook,
social media, everybody
talking about it.
But not one mainstream media
source went anywhere near
the story.
In fact, on CNN someone
put the story
up on ireport, and
CNN took it down.
And at that moment, I
realized wait a minute.
Not only is my medical
talk show being produced
by the pharmaceutical
industry, all of television is.
We were never going
to get this story.
But we certainly
did get a story.
A highly contagious
measles outbreak.
Major outbreak.
Measles outbreaks.
Measles on the march in america.
This outbreak is showing
no signs of letting up.
But in 2014, the number tripled,
to 644 measles cases
reported in 27 states.
It's really amazing to
consider the number of cases
of autism every year,
and to contrast
that to let's say the number of
children who acquired measles
by going to Disneyland.
It's a tiny number of
children who acquired measles,
and it's a vast number of
children who are being diagnosed
with autism every day.
We don't know
what causes autism.
I mean, that's fair to say.
We are not sure
in the scientific
community what causes autism,
but we know that
vaccines do not.
Now, I'm not saying that
Sanjay gupta is a bad guy.
In fact, I think that he
tries to do a lot of good.
Just like many doctors do.
But if they're being lied
to by the scientific body
that provides them
with their information,
what happens to all of us?
What happens if a good doctor
sees the same data that I saw?
So you're a scientist,
basically.
So you're studying this.
And you feel 100% confident,
you even said you have kids,
so you're a family person.
Yes.
You would feel very...
How long have you been a doctor,
and sort of what is
your area of specialty?
Sure, I've been a
family medical physician
for over 10 years now,
in treating families,
everyone from newborns
all the way
up to my oldest patient is 96.
So do you administer
vaccines as part of that?
Yes I do administer vaccines.
In our clinic, we follow
the CDC recommendations,
and we give that
information to our patients,
and we give them a schedule of
when their children are going
to need to be vaccinated,
and so on and so forth.
There's something
I want to show you.
This is the formal complaint
about what they've been given
by William Thompson,
as well the CDC.
Okay? There's all sorts
of reference materials
in here and things like that.
I'm just going to give
you time to look at it,
study it as long
as you want, okay?
When you feel like you have
a grasp of it, you are going
to know, it's going
to take some time,
appreciate you taking the time.
All right.
All right?
Okay.
So I have sent you what
William Thompson has said is the
fraud at the CDC.
All of that data
that was missing.
Did you get a chance
to really look it over?
It's really unbelievable.
How blatantly the data
was switched around.
It made me question whether
or not this organization
that has been mandating
how I practice medicine
for the past 10 years, if
they're lying about this,
they're leaving data out
about this particular study...
What else am I being
lied to about?
I'm still trying to digest it.
Because this study,
which was used to kind
of give the definitive answer
to us pediatricians, that oh,
the mmr is not related
to autism,
I kind of feel
like I've been lied to.
When they set out to do the
study, they wanted to look
at the data, and interpret the
data, but then there is a piece
of data that they
chose to ignore.
The data they excluded was
really, really significant.
Think about it.
It is a big deal.
It is a big deal for a physician
to have to deal with the fact
that for the past 10, 20 years,
we've been potentially
destroying the brains
of children.
Everything I've been
telling my patients
for the last 10 years has been
based on a lie and a cover up.
Parents making decisions
about their children's
health deserve
to have the best
information available to them.
They should be able to
count on federal agencies
to tell them the truth.
Once Brian and I had
outed bill Thompson,
he got himself a whistle-blower
lawyer, he provided all
of his documents on the
fraudulent CDC study
to congressman posey, who
then went before the congress.
Considering the nature of
the whistle blower's documents,
as well as the involvement
of the CDC, a hearing
and a thorough investigation
is warranted.
So I ask Mr. Speaker, I
beg, I implore my colleagues
on the appropriations
committees to please,
please take such action.
Thank you Mr. Speaker,
I yield back.
It's now been 7 months
since congressman bill
posey urged the congress
to subpoena bill Thompson,
and they have done nothing.
Bill Thompson wants to
be subpoenaed by congress.
As a CDC employee from
the federal government,
he cannot speak voluntarily
because of the threat
of jail time.
Absolutely, William Thompson
needs to go before congress.
He needs to go before
the whole nation.
Everybody needs to see
what he has to say.
He needs to be deposed in front
of a committee in congress.
And Julie gerberding has to
be brought in and deposed.
Because this is a very, very,
very disturbing revelation.
For this researcher to come
forward and be saying now
that they were indeed
deliberately concealing critical
information about
an mmr autism link...
Horrible, horrible development.
Deviation from an analysis plan.
Omission of crucial data.
Destruction of documents.
Obstruction of justice.
Misleading the congress.
Grievous harm to
innocent children.
This has to be investigated.
You and I are in agreement.
Vaccine safety should
not be in the CDC.
Absolutely.
You would end up with an agency
like the national
transportation safety board.
The next thing they need
to do is somebody needs
to reintroduce the
weldon-maloney bill.
It needs to be very, very
quickly enacted, and you need
to take all of the vaccine
safety responsibilities
out of the CDC.
These children have
been maimed by the actions
of coleen boyle,
frank destefano,
marshalyn yeargin-allsop,
and Tanya bhasin.
My son has been debilitated
for 17 years.
I think jail time is too
good for these individuals
who have perpetrated such fraud.
The notion of vaccinating
children, protecting children
against serious infectious
disease with vaccines
that are safe and
effective is laudable.
You hear about measles
outbreaks in Disneyland,
and then they try
and sell you mmr.
We didn't see autism being
reported as a consequence
of the single vaccine,
only of the triple vaccine.
So my feeling is that we need
to review vaccination
policy across the board.
But in the first instance,
I do believe we can make
the problem far less
if we separate those vaccines
out into their single
measles, mumps and rubella.
I just cannot
imagine what it will be
like if we really
do face a future
in which half the children born
end up on the autism spectrum.
I mean, it will be so
disruptive of the school system.
There will be so little
money to be able to spend
on the normal children to
help them to bring them
up and to educate them.
We're just going to have
extremely sick children.
And parents that will be so
distracted by the challenge
of bringing up these
children that are so sick
that our society will not be
able to focus on anything else.
The implications of
that for our country,
for our competitiveness
as a nation,
for our economy, are massive.
They must know, and
they do know,
that there is a national
emergency.
I mean this is going to
be a complete catastrophe
if we just let it happen.
What will you say the next
time a mother sitting there
with her baby in her
hands says Dr. Rachel,
is the mmr vaccine safe?
Hm... I'm going to tell her.
I'm going to say, you know,
honestly I'm not going
to give the mmr vaccine to
my babies, and here's why.