Cynthia Nevison | Vaccines, Autism Debate, Modern Healthcare | The Edit Alaverdyan Podcast #41

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Could the incentives in our healthcare system be misplaced, focusing too much on vaccination numbers rather than the holistic health of our children? Join us for a compelling discussion with Cynthia Nevison, whose groundbreaking research provides fresh insights into the complex and often controversial relationship between vaccines and autism. We navigate these murky waters with empathy and curiosity, offering a hopeful outlook for more open dialogues in the future.

Throughout the episode, we explore the challenging journey of balancing vaccinations with the rising rates of autism, informed by the real-life experiences of a concerned mother and a special education teacher. Dive into the potential role of environmental toxins, such as mercury, and how they intersect with autism trends. Cynthia brings to light the systemic pressures pediatricians face and the disparities in autism diagnosis across different racial and socioeconomic groups. These discussions aim to equip parents with the knowledge needed to make informed decisions about their children's health.

As we piece together the puzzle of autism trends, we also shine a light on the potential risks and benefits of vaccines, particularly during pregnancy. We question the long-term effects of current vaccination practices, advocating for more comprehensive education and informed consent. By examining how socioeconomic factors influence vaccination practices, we underscore the need for systemic change in pediatric care, focusing on holistic health metrics and equitable healthcare access for all families. Join us on this journey toward a healthier and more informed future for our children.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We need a new set of incentives that prioritize
health rather than just how manyvaccines you manage to pump
into your patient.
We need metrics of children'shealth and we need to reward
pediatricians based on you knowwhat's the rate of autism in
your practice?
What's the rate of asthma inyour practice?
How many children in yourpractice are on ADHD medication?

(00:23):
The lower the number, thehigher their bonus should be.
If that were the system, Ithink things would change quite
rapidly.
There's that.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Hello everyone, thank you for joining me today.
Today's episode was with theamazing and phenomenal Cynthia
Nevison.
Now, I found Cynthia on acolleague's page.
He was talking about herresearch on autism and I was
just blown away with her workand she is not somebody easy to

(01:04):
find, for sure a very difficultperson to tackle down.
But after weeks and weeks ofdoing research I found her.
I emailed her and she kindlyaccepted my invitation, which
I'm so grateful for.
In this episode we are going totalk about autism and do
vaccinations really cause autismand other delays in children?

(01:27):
And what are these vaccinesabout?
What are these ingredientsabout and how do they affect
children and why do they affectchildren and why are we being
pushed to vaccinate our kids andwhy are we being punished for
not vaccinating our kids?
Her research is wonderful.
I don't want to get too muchinto the intro because I don't
want to give away what we talkedabout, but I think this episode

(01:50):
is really an eye-opener foranyone that's processing
vaccinating or thinking aboutvaccinating or is afraid and
isn't sure about the information.
Some things that we dived intowas disturbing and, my goodness,
I mean it's.
It's such good knowledge andI'm just so grateful for them.
Many, many, many areevidence-based, peer-reviewed

(02:13):
articles that Cynthia haspublished and they're wonderful
and she's she's dedicated herlife, uh, to being a mom, and I
love how empathy she has andsympathy she has for people and
the drive that she has and thelove she has for children, that
she has dedicated so much timeinto this research on autism and

(02:35):
vaccinations.
So definitely something for allparents.
Whether you are vaccinating oryou are thinking about it or
you're not sure, this episode isreally going to help you put
things into perspective, as ithas for me.
So enjoy and make sure tosubscribe to the channel,
because it's immense support andenjoy this episode with the

(02:55):
amazing Cynthia Navasen.
Hello, cynthia, thank you somuch for joining me today.
Oh, thank you for having me,absolutely.
It is such an honor to be inyour presence.
I adore your work, but I haveto tell you you were not easy to
find.
I think that's one of thethings that you asked me too,

(03:15):
right?
You're like how did you find me?

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yeah, you wrote me on an email account that I almost
never used.
It was funny, yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
I was like I heard about your research through Dr
Toby and I loved, I love, I loveyour work.
I think it's phenomenal andit's so meaningful.
And when I had him, when I washearing him go through it, I
said I have to find this womanand I have to sit down and talk

(03:44):
to her about this, because not alot of research is out there
about this.
First of all, and secondly, Ifeel like people are not really
open to talk about this.
We're so scared to talk aboutvaccines, we're so scared to
talk about autism.
So I'm very grateful and I'm sothankful that you are doing
this research or you did thisresearch.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
Jr, to be the Secretary of Health and Human
Services, and I guess I reallythank you for the opportunity to
kind of present my side of thestory and I feel like the time
is here to actually have an openconversation about these issues
.
So I'm going to speak ashonestly and openly as I can.
I will tell you what I think,what I know, what I don't know,
where I think the research couldgo to help shed light on this

(04:54):
topic.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
Yes, absolutely.
What a perfect time to talkabout this.
I feel so free and morecomfortable now that we have a
new presidency and a new team.
I don't know, do you feel likethat too?
I feel more comfortable tobring this up.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
Oh, absolutely, Absolutely, yeah.
If you know, if the electionhad gone the other way, I I
think what I would say todaywould be quite different.
Oh my gosh.
And um you know and anotherthing that happened quite
recently was there was a paperon autism that came out maybe
two weeks ago and it was a lotof HMOs, a lot of them in

(05:29):
California, kaiser Mental HealthNetworks, and they were
presenting new findings onautism.
I was actually asked to commenton this paper and the way it was

(05:50):
presented in the news was stillsort of following this better
diagnosis narrative, you know,emphasizing that rates among
adults were increasing and kindof the implication I think a
quote from I wrote it down, aquote from the paper is
increased advocacy and educationmay be bringing autism spectrum
disorders out of the shadow,encouraging more openness among
Americans to get themselves ortheir children screened for the

(06:10):
condition.
But when you actually go intothis paper and look at the data
which is sort of what I do, andthey did present their data
we're looking in the youngestbirth cohorts, which were around
2020, likely autism rates of4.5% and that you know, and that
means about 2% of girls and 7%of boys, because boys are most

(06:35):
of the cases, and you know theybarely said anything about that
in the.
You know the new, the pressreleases of the paper and still
talking about better diagnosisand I think we really need to
start addressing these issuesbecause we're looking at very
substantial percentages of ourchildren who are being affected

(06:58):
now.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
I agree with you.
What percentage did you say wasboys and girls?

Speaker 1 (07:04):
What percentage did you say was boys and girls?
Well, autism has been about 80%of the cases are among boys and
20% girls, and I think thatthat ratio is kind of narrowing
a little bit and there'sslightly more girls being
diagnosed.
It used to be more of a four toone ratio and it's moving

(07:24):
toward three to one ratio andit's moving toward a three to
one ratio in this particularpaper.
I don't think that was the casein the latest CDC study, but
this is more recent birthcohorts that they're looking at.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, yeah, I'd have to agree with you Before we dive
into all the juicy questionsand all the good stuff.
I really would love to get toknow you more and I'd like to
ask you how did you becomeinterested in autism?

Speaker 1 (07:52):
Well, that, yeah, that was.
That was something thatdeveloped during, during the
birth of my, around the time ofthe birth of my first son, of my
first son, and there were anumber of events, but two that
stick in my mind in particularare that one I happened to read
a story about a newspaperarticle about the CDC's Adam

(08:17):
report, which is a biannualreport that they put out on
autism prevalence, and it justso happened that was the first
report.
It was published in 2007, inFebruary, and and it said that
one in 91 boys was beingdiagnosed with autism.
And you know, I've, as I've,learned in the meantime those

(08:40):
studies are, there's a big lagtime before they publish them,
so they were looking at kidsborn in 1992.
So if I had, if I had actuallyknown that the numbers for the
boys born in my son's birth year, the numbers would have been
one in 35, but I didn't knowthat then.
But anyway, I I asked a friend.
A good friend of mine was aspecial ed teacher and

(09:03):
everything I knew about autism,which was very little, came from
her, because she wouldsometimes tell me anecdotes
about her students.
And anyway, I asked her.
You know, gosh, I just readthat one in 91 boys is being
diagnosed with autism.
What's causing this and whatcan I do as a mother, expectant
mother to protect my son andbecause I knew I was having a

(09:24):
boy at that point.
And she said well, nobodyreally knows what causes autism,
but the lead theory is thatmore nerdy men and nerdy women
are intermarrying and therebyproducing genetically autistic
children.
And that just sort of struck meas an odd explanation.
But you know, I accepted it andthis is what she was hearing at

(09:48):
national conferences.
She was a special ed teacherwho went to conferences on the
topic and that's what they weretelling her.
And then the second incidentoccurred less than a week after
my son was born grocery storeand, um, a nonverbal, um, very
well-dressed, uh, uh, beautifullittle boy, probably maybe seven

(10:10):
, eight years old, had a tantrumlike right at my feet and he,
he was nonverbal and his.
Eventually his sister came andjust carried him away and um,
that really unnerved me.
And between that and my specialed friend's explanation, I

(10:30):
started paying attention to theissue.
Much all I knew.
My friend would tell meanecdotes about her students and
I remember one in particularwhere she mentioned a girl who

(10:51):
had a problem with constipation.
And in her view of thesituation, the problem was the
girl psychologically could quote, not let go.
So again, she was being toldthis autism is all sort of
psychological, it's genetic.
But knowing what I know now, Imean that poor girl probably had

(11:14):
gastrointestinal problems,which many children with autism
do.
And I guess here we come to thepart of the story where I'm
going to bring up the taboosubject of vaccines.
So I I took my, my two monthold son, to his first well, baby
visit and and you know Ithought, well, we'll probably

(11:37):
get some vaccines and I knewabout polio and DTaP and I was
okay with those.
But I was just kind of and I'man older mom I was just kind of,
you know, taken aback by howmany shots they wanted me to
give him and we ended up gettinglike it was one shot but it was
a bundle of five differentvaccines all in one.

(11:59):
We didn't get the other threethat they wanted.
But even with those five, Ijust came out of there feeling
intuitively very uneasy aboutwhat I'd just done, what I had
allowed to be done to my littlebaby.
And he was kind of on the smallside and I remember really

(12:21):
thinking, you know I need toinform myself on this issue
before we go back to the fourmonth visit, because you know
you're supposed to go at twomonths, four months, six months,
and I did.
I was vaguely aware there'd beensome sort of controversy about
autism and vaccines.
I thought it had beenthoroughly discredited but
nevertheless I wanted to, youknow, find out what was the

(12:44):
basis of that controversy.
So I went to the library publiclibrary I checked out Evidence
of Harm by David Kirby and Iread it Pretty much.
That's all I did for the nextSafe Minds, which at that time

(13:06):
was founded and was kind offocused entirely on the issue of
mercury in vaccines.
There was mercury in the shotswhich were taken out by the time
my son was born, but throughoutthe 1990s kids were getting a
lot of mercury in these vaccinesand this Safe Minds was a group
of parents that was focused onmercury.

(13:28):
But anyway, I learned aboutsome of their stories and what
they were dealing with autismand it was really really quite
heartbreaking, especially thekids with GI issues that were
really physically suffering, andI subscribed to their
newsletter and I subscribed totheir newsletter and then I had

(14:06):
a second son and that pregnancywas 2008, 2009.
And it was probably in fall2008,.
I went to a wellness checkup forme with my OBGYN and I remember
her saying well, you need toget a flu shot.
And that hadn't happened withmy first pregnancy, which was
2006, 2007.
So I think it's sometime aroundthat point they started't
really question the vaccinesthat much and I was heading down

(14:26):
to the lab to get the shot andthen I happened to ask at the
front desk, you know, becauseI'd read the Safe Minds
newsletter I said, well, isthere mercury in those shots?
And she said, well, yeah, yeahand right.
So at that point I just leftthe building, didn't look back,
and right.
So at that point I just leftthe building, didn't look back.

(14:47):
And, however, you know, I thinkat the time if there hadn't been
mercury in the flu shot, Iwould have gotten it on my
doctor's advice.
But what I know now is it'sreally not just mercury, you
know, it's the activation of thematernal immune system.

(15:09):
We have something, thesesentinels for lack of a better
word on our white blood cells,called toll-like receptors, and
when they sense you know, whenthey sense a pathogen is present
or a vaccine which is known tostimulate them, they go into an
inflammatory mode and that aloneis not great for the fetus.

(15:31):
It's not great to bestimulating a mother's immune
system during pregnancy.
So it was probably lucky for methat I was so focused on
mercury.
All I knew was that it wasmercury was the only problem at
the time, because I probablywould have gotten the shot, and
I'm glad I didn't.
And I did think you know that'skind of weird that they're

(15:53):
recommending pregnant women getinjected with a neurotoxin and
you know, since then they'veadded a lot more shots.
Yeah, it's like open, openseason on pregnant women now and
I, you know, I worry about the,the, the effects of that.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
Yeah, absolutely so.
Basically, all theseexperiences that you were
exposed to with, with vaccines,kind of allowed you to process
things a little differently andand research more about what
they're putting into your body.
So it's your personalexperience of it.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
Well, it was just sort of a slow.
You know, it took me many yearsto come to my current
understanding.
And it's a very slow processbecause I was just like anyone
else who didn't questionvaccines, and if my doctor told
me to get one, I would get one.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:45):
That's how I used to be.

Speaker 2 (16:46):
Yeah, I mean, as I, until you kind of learn and
question things.
But I love how you talk aboutthe motherly intuition.
Like it's just something inyour body that was telling you,
hey, like don't come back, don'tdo this to your child anymore,
go back and read about it more.
And I think that's one of thethings that we miss as women and
men too, sometimes, that wedon't really look for, that, we

(17:07):
don't listen to that insidevoice you know Right?

Speaker 1 (17:11):
No, I think um the, the maternal instinct is.
You know what I think Dr AndrewWakefield has has said it's the
, it's the steady hand on thetiller that has guided human
evolution, and we need to listento it.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
Absolutely.
How did you start publishingpapers on autism?
You've wrote quite a bit, sotalk to me a little bit about
that.

Speaker 1 (17:35):
Right, yeah, okay, so I had been subscribing to the
Safe Minds newsletter for anumber of years.
I had two young children atthis point and Safe Minds put
for a number of years.
I had two young children atthis point and Safe Minds put
out a call.
They wanted to volunteer with abackground in atmospheric
science, which is what I have,to look into the issue of air

(17:59):
pollution, especiallyatmospheric mercury, air
pollution and its correlation toautism.
So I sort of dived in and Ivolunteered for the project, and
that project acquainted me withthe available autism prevalence
data and so with my study withatmospheric mercury, I actually

(18:22):
did find kind of a geographiccorrelation.
So with my study withatmospheric mercury, I actually
did find kind of a geographiccorrelation.
But I became skeptical of myown study because it didn't
really make sense.
I mean, the amount of mercuryin the air is minute.
The trends, furthermore, hadbeen either flat or declining
over the same time frame thatautism was increasing rapidly.
So here I was sort of becomingdisillusioned with my my own air

(18:55):
pollution study, and then Ithink it was 2012.
A group from Johns Hopkinspublished a paper with a list of
the 10 top toxins that causeautism.
Okay, and then leading the listwas lead, which was largely
phased out, starting in the1970s, things like DDT, which
was banned in 1972.
Pcbs, which had also beenbanned or phased out.

(19:19):
Air pollution was up there.
And they also listed, I thinkvery you know sort of sneakily
or disingenuously methylmercury.
Everything else had been like abroad class of compounds or the

(19:41):
entire element, but here theywere specifically listing
methylmercury and it was clearthe reason why because
ethylmercury is the compoundthat was being put in vaccines.
So that's fine, I guess,according to this study.
But methylmercury was one ofthe top contributors, you know,
and that's the form more foundin fish and so on.
So, but anyway, found in fishand so on.

(20:09):
So, but anyway that that Iguess that prompted me to just
write a paper looking at these10 toxins and looking at their
time trends, because I knew Iused to teach atmospheric
chemistry and I just I knew alot of these things had downward
trends and it simply, just,like my own atmospheric mercury
paper, didn't make sense to beblaming a steep rise in autism
which I was seeing in the dataon pollutants that were

(20:30):
decreasing in the environment atthe same time.
Nearly a two year struggle and,um, probably three different
journals, five rounds of peerreview I finally got that paper

(20:55):
published.
That was my first paper, um,and it was sort of an eye opener
to encounter the peer reviewprocess in the field of autism.
Some of the reviewers wereopenly disrespectful.
They felt they had license toinsult me.
You know, call me ignorant.
It was only when they startedto contradict themselves that I
think the editor and onesupportive reviewer took pity on

(21:16):
me and my paper got through.
Because some of the reviewerswere saying well, you can't rule
out a cause of autism based ona time trend.
You can only identify toxinsthat might have the same trend
upward trend and thus be moreplausible, whereas other

(21:39):
reviewers were saying theopposite, that you can't rule
out anything, or I can'tremember which way.
I said there was one school ofthought that time trends were
useful for ruling out toxins andthe other was no, that has no
bearing, but you can at leastidentify toxins that are

(22:00):
plausible.
And just my own opinion on thatis that the time trends are
useful for ruling out toxins.
That really just don't makesense.
That's why I wrote that paper,and air pollution was uppermost
in my mind when I wrote it, andI, you know, I've been attacked
for, you know, for arguing thatcorrelation equals causation and

(22:25):
that was not the main point ofthat paper.
But also another part of thestruggle to publish that paper
was that I I had to address theissue of the time trend because
most of the reviewers Iencountered the peer reviewers,
you know, a paper has to gothrough a peer review process.
Most of the peer reviewersthought that the time trends

(22:47):
were completely irrelevant toautism causation and that I just
couldn't understand thatviewpoint because when you look
at the autism data, the moststriking feature of it is the
fact that it's increasingrapidly Correct.
So how can the time trends inthe candidate toxins not be

(23:07):
relevant?
But it turned out that a lot ofthe reviewers didn't think
there was actually a true trendin autism.
That was the problem.
They thought it was just betterdiagnosis.
So that's that kind of led to aseries of papers where I just
tried to look empirically at thedata and show one way or

(23:29):
another whether the trends wereactually increasing.
And so that you know I was sortof pulled into that argument
because I couldn't publish mypaper on air pollution and the
other declining toxins until Igot past that.
So that's kind of like a briefhistory of how I started

(23:50):
publishing on autism.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
I'm sure you went through a lot trying to get this
paper published.
I'm sure they put you through alot.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
Well, it was.
I mean, you know I work in adifferent field and there maybe
you have one journal, sometimestwo.
You know, in general the firstjournal I've submitted to
accepts the paper for peerreview.
Maybe you go through one or tworounds of review.
The peer reviewers are politeand they're respectful and then

(24:21):
your paper is published.
That's how it had worked, butthat's not how it worked in
autism.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
Yeah, going back to the mercury piece, and this is
something that I want to bringup.
What's interesting, I have aone and a half year old little
girl and during my pregnancy Iwould question the vaccines.
I would always look at theinsert.
Obstetrician was you tell methat I shouldn't eat fish

(24:54):
because it's got mercury andit's going to harm the fetus.
It's going to harm the baby.
But there's so much mercury inthe vaccines, how does that make
sense to not eat it whileyou're pregnant but to shoot it
in a child's brain?
That's when I started thinking.
I was like, oh my goodness,there's something here that

(25:15):
makes no sense.
Well, what did your doctor tellyou?
She just looked at me and saidit's your choice.
I'm just telling you that it'sa lot more safer if you do the
vaccines.
You could spread it apart.
But she just went right intothe vaccine conversation of why
she thinks it's important for meto give it to my kids, versus

(25:39):
addressing my actual concern, myconfusion and my question.
I was kind of gaslighted inthat in that moment which is
common, I know it is she's justdoing her job, but that's if
you're wise enough, if you're inthat position, you'd start, you
would think to startquestioning things and reading a
little bit more you know?

Speaker 1 (25:59):
Yeah, no, I think it's.
I'm a.
I'm a big proponent of askingyour pediatricians some of those
tough questions, and I will.
I will say that most of themercury has been taken out of
vaccines.
It's still in these multi-doseflu shots.
So I would be wary of that,especially one if you get it at

(26:20):
a supermarket or something,they're probably using the
multi-dose.
The Landrigan et al 2012 paperthat really prompted my entry
into the world of autismpublishing to list methylmercury
as one of the top 10 causes ofautism and development and, I

(26:41):
think, learning disabilities.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
Delays yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
As though somehow ethylmercury is totally fine.
Totally fine was just soselective and so arbitrary that
you know that that really um waswas not a very, you know,
inspired move on their part.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
I'd have to agree with you, um.
Have you only done academicwork on autism, or have you also
been involved in advocacy?

Speaker 1 (27:15):
And if you have, how did you start Right?
Yeah, yeah, well, okay, so fora number of years probably from
2010 through 2018, I was onlydoing academic research and I
lived in a state where, you know, we had a personal vaccine
exemption.
So I was, I was one of thosemoms who didn't do all the
vaccines.
I did some of them, I spacedthem out and nobody has no,

(27:38):
nobody hassled me.
Well, except for the schoolsecretary, but that's a long
story and I won't tell that.
But um, then in 2018, I was, Iwas asked to testify as an
expert witness before theColorado State Assembly and
there was a bill that would havedeclared autism a public health

(28:00):
emergency.
So it was a.
It was a bill that was sort ofwritten by parents with autistic
, with, you know, somewhatseverely autistic children, and
I think it was.
They were called the ColoradoHealth Freedom Alliance or I
think they had a different nameat that time.
Anyway, I was told that I wouldhave 15 minutes to testify and

(28:25):
I was just basically there todocument that autism is actually
increasing.
That was the issue in the billdocument that autism is actually
increasing.
That was the issue in the bill.
When we got to the hearing, theDemocratic chairwoman of the
hearing said that you know,sorry, cynthia, you only have

(28:47):
three minutes to give yourpresentation and I'm somebody
who you know I prepare thingscarefully and I look at my time
allotment.
So I had a 15 minutepresentation and I had three
minutes to deliver it.
And then the sponsor, thesponsors of the bill, the parent
sponsors I mean, they had oneassemblywoman who was their

(29:10):
actual sponsor, but it wasreally the parents pushing the
bill.
They were livid and there wassome sort of behind the scenes
last minute fighting.
That went on and finally thechairwoman came to me and said
OK, we'll give you 10 minutes totestify.

(29:30):
So I had, you know, I had a 15minute presentation that I cut
on the fly to 10 minutes and Iwas definitely flustered by that
and I think I probably cameacross as because there were

(29:53):
parents of autistic childrenwho'd come to testify against
the bill, who were describingtheir beautiful children and
this bill and I you know the badguy were challenging their
right to exist in their view,and that's you know, and I

(30:15):
really did feel bad about thatand that's not what I, you know,
that's not the message I meantto convey.
So, anyway, the bill was voteddown 12 to 1 in committee and
then fast forward to 2019.
So that was 2018.

(30:35):
I wouldn't really say I was anadvocate at that point, but I
was sort of entering thepolitical arena.
And then in 2019, the Democratsand I'm sorry to pick on the
Democrats, but they are the onespushing these vaccine mandates
they sponsored a bill that wasbased on the California I think

(30:57):
it's SB 277, a completecrackdown on vaccine exemptions
for school children.
So they were promoting thatbill and I went around, I
created a little slideshow, Iwent around to the legislators

(31:18):
and tried to talk to them.
Often they they wouldn't see me.
They would send me to talk totheir aide, who was usually like
a 20 something you know intern,and often they would.
They would roll their eyes whenyou know eyes when they saw me
coming.
So they didn't want to hear.
And that bill was killed,partly because it was introduced

(31:42):
somewhat late in the sessionand also our Colorado Governor,
jared Polis, said he would vetoit.
And Polis I don't know ifyou've heard the news, but he
came out yesterday as praisingRobert F Kennedy Jr's nomination
to be Health and Human ServicesSecretary.

(32:03):
So here's a Democratic governorwho, I think sees which way the
wind is blowing and, to be fairto him, he did help kill that.
That the worst version of thatbill and unfortunately they they
brought the bill back in 2020.
It was kind of a watered downversion of it where now, rather

(32:26):
than having no exemption rights,you have to get third party
authorization.
Exemption rights, you have toget third-party authorization,
meaning you have to get a doctorto sign off or you have to
watch their re-education videothat is, you know, quite biased
and emits a number of you knowfails to really, I think, inform

(32:48):
about both sides of the issueabout the risks and the benefits
of vaccines, anyway, you haveto sides of the issue.
About the risks and thebenefits of vaccines, anyway,
you have to sit through thatvideo, enter your child into a
registry or get a doctor to signoff, which is not easy, but you
know, at least we still do havesome exemption rights in
California.
So, anyway, that was kind of myswitch from being purely an

(33:15):
academic researcher to alsobeing involved in advocacy.

Speaker 2 (33:19):
I love that you talk about the risks and the benefits
.
I mean a lot of people areaware of the risks but not a lot
are aware of the benefits.
Are there benefits to thesevaccines, particularly child
vaccines?

Speaker 1 (33:38):
Well, I think that some of them, especially the
live viral vaccines, havedefinitely decreased the
morbidity of these diseases.
Where morbidity is it soundslike a horrible word but it just
means the incidence of disease,and that's separate from
mortality, which is death causedby the disease.

(34:01):
So I think that, you know, themeasles vaccine has been
effective at reducing themorbidity, the incidence of
measles, but the mortality ratewas already, you know, down, I
think, at least 95% from itshistoric level by the time that

(34:22):
vaccine was introduced around1963, I think it was.
So I mean.
So there's that benefit.
So I mean, so there's thatbenefit.
But on the other hand there's adownside, which is that mothers
are no longer passing maternalantibodies for measles to their
babies, and that's what used toprotect the newborns from

(34:45):
measles and help them alonguntil their immune systems were
mature enough to fight it off.
And then you have older peoplewho had, because they'd had
measles as a child, they hadlifelong immunity.
But when you get the vaccineyou know, people my age and I

(35:07):
was one of the early recipientswe probably have no immunity
left to measles and I think Iwould have been better off just
being allowed to have it as achild.
So I mean, I think there aresome benefits, but there are
also downsides, and the thingabout this education video that
the Colorado Public HealthDepartment puts out is it?

(35:28):
I think it exaggerates thebenefits and it ignores the
downside.
You know it doesn't evendiscuss the.
You know the downside, and I'mtalking about not only the side
effects that have nothing to dowith the disease.
Like you know, with what we'veseen with the COVID vaccine, the

(35:51):
myocarditis, the strokes, theblood clots, etc.
But they also have downsidesfor the targeted disease itself.
And that's what I was discussingwith measles is you're sort of
weakening the passive maternalimmunity that used to protect
newborns, and I think that's whywe're seeing this big push to

(36:12):
vaccinate pregnant women.
There's the hope that they willgenerate maternal antibodies
and then, you know, transmitthose through the placenta to
their baby to get the babythrough those first few months
of life.
But, you know, at the same timeyou're activating the maternal
immune system during pregnancy,which is not great either.

(36:33):
So it's, I mean, I think inprinciple, vaccines are a great
idea, but in practice there area lot of downsides that are not
adequately discussed and parentsare not, you know, are not
adequately informed on whatthose are.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
Correct.
Do you feel like we have enoughresearch on vaccines for it to
be adequately effective?
Like or not, as doesn't havelike that negative impact on
kids?
Is there enough research on itor we need to, like, do more
extensive research on vaccines?

Speaker 1 (37:07):
I think we need a lot more research and even the
authorities themselves.
Somebody named Stanley Plotkin,who's the godfather of vaccines
he wrote the textbook of thesame name has admitted that
parents or prospective parentsis it's called Turtles All the
Way Down.
That really explains in veryreadable and extensive detail

(37:40):
the problem with the safetystudies.
There literally has not been,except for the COVID vaccine, a
single double-blind placebostudy of any of the vaccines on
the childhood schedule, letalone on the synergistic effects
of giving all those shots atonce.

(38:01):
And one, you know, the mostegregious example is probably
the hep B birth dose, where thestudy for that was first of all,
there was no placebo, there wasno control group whatsoever.
Two, there were 150 childreninvolved, something like that,

(38:23):
from age zero to 10.
So who knows how many of themwere zero and how many were 10.
Maybe most of them were 10 andthere was one or two babies.
And then, finally, theyfollowed the children for five
days after they gave the vaccine, five days, which is not nearly

(38:46):
enough time to look forlong-term impacts on the immune
system.
And yet this vaccine isuniversally recommended for
newborns in American hospitals,and sometimes they're giving the
newborn the vaccine withouttheir parents' knowledge or
consent at a lot of hospitals.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
This is true.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
So, yeah, in answer to your question, no, I think we
need more research.
We need double-blind,placebo-controlled studies that
follow the vaccine and theplacebo group for years after
the vaccine is administered.
Five days is simply notadequate.

(39:24):
Most of the vaccines are onlyfollowed for days to months.
They're not, you know, we'relooking at sort of long-term
immune system effects and youreally need more time, a longer
control, a longer study periodto really, you know, sort out

(39:45):
what those effects are.

Speaker 2 (39:47):
Yeah, have you heard of the no vaccine law?
And I mean I don't know ifother states have it, but right
now parents are kind of doomedif they don't vaccinate their
kids.
There's no pediatrician thataccepts them in their office for
treatment, because we're aliability.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
Yeah, no, and I think the expert on that topic is Dr
Paul Thomas.
You may have heard of him.
He's a physician or he was apediatric.
He's done studies.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
He started to listen to parents, provide them with
informed consent.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
And he had a lot of parents who either only
partially vaccinated or didn'tvaccinate at all.
And he's published a couple ofpapers have been published on
his data this is before theystripped him of his license and
showing dramatically lower ratesof not just autism but a lot of
conditions anemia, earinfections, just getting sick in

(41:00):
general among the unvaccinatedgroup.
But anyway, he has talked a lotabout the financial incentives
that pediatricians have, a lotabout the financial incentives
that pediatricians have, and hesaid that he realized at one
point that his office was losinga million dollars a year
because he was foregoing allthese various bonuses that the

(41:21):
insurance companies, that thehospital not quite sure how the
financial structure works, butthere are a lot of bonuses,
incentives, if you will, for thepediatrician to give these
vaccines and that's probably whythey're they, you know, bully
parents or they they push thesevaccines so aggressively.

(41:43):
I had a situation like that withwhere a pediatrician I I went
to sort of a mainstream doctorbecause he was covered by my
insurance.
I only lasted like maybe twice,two visits with him before I
couldn't take it anymore.
But he was trying to bully meinto giving my son the HPV

(42:08):
vaccine and I asked him.
You know well how much aluminumis in that shot.
And he hit the roof.
He, you know he didn't like thequestion.
He got really angry, triggeredhim, huh.
So I I'm, you know, I'm a firmbeliever in asking those

(42:28):
questions.
But you know, from thepediatrician's point of view,
they can't stay afloat if theydon't give these shots.
It's a crazy system.
I hope that Robert F Kennedywill remove those incentives and
actually offer positiveincentives that are based on
like how healthy are thechildren under your care?

(42:49):
What if pediatricians gotrewarded for demonstrating
measures of health, not merelymeasures of what percentage of
their children are following theCDC schedule?

Speaker 2 (42:59):
Yes, I agree with that and I pray and I hope for
that too.
I too am a victim of bullyingfrom a few pediatricians offices
, and so luckily, there'shomeopathic doctors, luckily,
and I'm like very, it's such anoble job as well, and so we
found a great one in studio city, so she kind of like walked

(43:22):
through all the vaccines with us, and so I just want to share
that.
If there are parents that arebullied out of their
pediatricians office, there'slots of holistic doctors.

Speaker 1 (43:32):
Well, but aren't, aren't they, aren't the state
boards going after those doctors, especially in California?

Speaker 2 (43:38):
Homeopathic doctors yeah, yeah, a lot of them, yeah,
and a lot of them are veryscared to speak up on their
Instagram pages.
They're scared to be, you know,showing up at podcast.
I mean, I've asked a few, wouldyou like to have vaccine
conversations?
And majority of them they'revery adamant, they're reluctant,

(44:02):
they're scared.
So I don't know.
I hope that changes, you know,because I think parents really
do want to know, but there's noanswers, there's not a lot of
answers.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
Well, I hope that.
I've heard that Nicole Shanahan, who was Robert F Kennedy's
running mate, might run forgovernor.
That wouldn't that be wonderfulto have her.

Speaker 2 (44:23):
Yes, oh, my God, I think a lot of things are going
to change.
All right, let me go to ournext question.
I want to talk to you about oneof your papers the autism
prevalence.
Would you like to?
Let's talk about the county andrace ethnicity declining trends

(44:48):
among wealthy whites, that onein particular.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
Right, and that's probably the subject of the
tweet that led you to yes.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
Yes, because I know the tweet went viral.
I know that it went viral, soI'm very excited to hear your
story of this.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
Yeah, I actually wrote some notes on what.
What do I want to say aboutthat?
And let me just consult what onracial trends in autism, using

(45:36):
both the Department of Educationdata set, which was known as
IDEA, the Individuals withDisabilities Education Act data
set, and that's in every state,and then the CDC, I think I
mentioned earlier, runs abiannual ADAM network report and
there's, you know, differencesamong these two approaches, but

(45:58):
these are two of the maindatabases for tracking autism
time trends in the United States.
And then there's a third dataset that I have used heavily and
that is from the CaliforniaDepartment of Developmental
Services and that goes way back.
You know that's probably theoldest long-term data set

(46:21):
looking at autism prevalence.
The other two, the Adam Network,only started in 2000, and that
was looking at children born in1992.
And then the IDEA data setstarted around that same time.
So, if you want to and that wasafter the increase in autism

(46:41):
had already started, because itstarted around the late 1980s.
But anyway, I guess, before Iget to the paper you asked about
, I wanted to talk a little bitabout my earlier paper on race.

Speaker 2 (46:56):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (46:56):
Racial trends in the IDEA.
I'll call it IDEA, it's theDepartment of Education and the
CDC ADAM data set, Because whenthe Adam report came out for
children born in I believe itwas 2004, 2006.

(47:19):
Let me just pull up my I have asummary that I wrote down.
There was an apparent plateauin the rate of autism increase.
Yeah, that was for birth year,I'm sorry, 2002 and 2004.

(47:40):
So that was the one set of Adamreports where the rate of
autism did not increase.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
Did not increase.
Did not increase.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
Did not increase.
It stayed the same at.
It was one in 68 at that timeand that was one in 42 boys.
So then the next two yearslater the rate started to
increase again Again.
Okay, and then the way the CDCpresented it was that that we're

(48:16):
getting better at diagnosingminority children, black and
Hispanic children.
Okay, and so it's good newsbecause historically those
children had had lower rates ofautism than white children.
And then so, and then they were, they were bringing down the
rate in the report, in thisnarrative, and so the fact that

(48:42):
they were then starting to catchup meant that we're finally
getting services to thesechildren.
We're diagnosing them andgiving um, you know, giving them
the, the educational servicesthat they need, um.
So I was kind of skeptical ofthat narrative and I knew that

(49:02):
there was a way to look at therace resolved, uh, trends in
autism, um, in part, in part ofthe IDEA data set, if you looked
at the three to five-year-oldsMm-hmm.
And so I wrote a paper on thatwith Walter Zaharadny, who was

(49:23):
part of the CDC ADAM study inNew Jersey, and we showed that.
Basically we showed althoughthe data were quite messy and
erratic and there was a lot ofstate to state differences.
We showed that the black andHispanic children aren't just
catching up, they are surpassing, they are overtaking the white
rates, you know.

(49:45):
Another issue is that black andHispanic children tend to have
more severe forms of autism,which you can measure by the
rate of co-occurringintellectual disability.
And that's one area where Ithink that sort of the popular

(50:05):
media tends to sugarcoat autismand one has the sense that it's
mainly a bunch of highfunctioning, quirky individuals,
you know.
But when you actually look attheir data something like 60%,
for example, the most recentAdam report, the CDC report

(50:25):
about 60% of the children withautism had either intellectual
disability, which means IQ lessthan 70, or they were in that
borderline range between 70 and85.
So you know, a lot of thosechildren are going to have
problems living and workingindependently as adults, and so

(50:47):
this is not just a matter of aquirky, you know, high
functioning person in many cases.
And those rates are higheramong minority children, I think
among black children, somethinglike 75 percent are either
intellectually disabled or inthat borderline IQ range range.

(51:15):
So anyway, I wrote, I wrote thatI wrote a paper in 2019, where
we sort of challenged this viewthat autism rates are only
increasing because minoritiesare catching up to whites and
there's some sort of geneticlevel in the population where
everything will stabilize.
That was kind of the view andyou know we showed that that
wasn't true and at the time Iwrote that paper I became aware
of a paper using california datathat was showing that these

(51:39):
rates were breaking down alongeconomic you know, socioeconomic
lines as well as race, wherethe autism rates were
stabilizing among privatelyinsured families and that's sort
of a proxy for wealth.
You know, if you have privateinsurance you tend to be more

(52:01):
wealthy than the publiclyinsured.
So the rates of autism werestabilizing among the privately
insured, especially among whites, and they were continuing to
increase among the publiclyinsured, especially among whites
, and they were continuing toincrease among the publicly
insured, especially among theand I shouldn't even call them
minority children, becauseLatino children are the majority

(52:23):
.
In California I think there wassomething like 55%.
Whites are not even a quarteranymore of the California school
population, are not even aquarter anymore of the
California school population.

Speaker 2 (52:32):
Yes and since we're on the California topic.
I I, this is something I thinkwill strike many people.
Why do you think thatCalifornia autism rates are the
highest in the nation?
Right, well, that's, that's agood 36 overall.

Speaker 1 (52:48):
Right, one in 23 boys nationwide versus one in 22
overall and one in 14 boys inCalifornia Right, and that is a
statistic from the most recentCDC Adam report.
And I guess I to finish mystory about the racial trends

(53:12):
and how I came to write thispaper that was the subject of
the tweet.
So I got interested in race.
I had some hints from aconference paper that things
were breaking down alongsocioeconomic lines, so I
obtained data from theCalifornia Department of
Developmental Services and Iasked for it by county, by

(53:33):
county and by race, and so thatis the paper that I published,
which was the subject of thetweet, where I found that and I
wish we could pull up a figurefrom the paper but we basically
found that Prior to the birthyear 2000, the rates of autism

(53:57):
were increasing pretty uniformlythroughout California among
wealthy counties.
That includes Santa Clara County, marin County, sonoma County,

(54:20):
the Bay Area counties, and Igrew up in the San Francisco Bay
Area.
I should say so I'm quite andI've lived in San Diego, so I'm
quite familiar with California,I'm a native Californian and you
know, when you plotted the data, either the rate of change in
the data or the absolute ratesof autism, the data they they

(54:41):
correlated for the white, thewhite children, to income, to to
the wealth of the county.
And so in Marin County, Iwanted to address the issue of
Marin County if I could.
Marin County, I wanted toaddress the issue of Marin
County if I could.
Marin County was computed in mypaper as a residual, so those

(55:04):
data are pretty uncertainbecause I had the California
Department of DevelopmentalServices gave me Sonoma plus
Marin data and they gave meSonoma only.
So I backed out Marin County asa residual and um so I would.

(55:25):
I would not put a huge amount ofstock in that rate in Marin
County because when you're doinga prevalence calculation you
have an uncertainty both in yourautism count and then in the
denominator, which is the totalschool population.
So I guess I want to distancemyself a little bit from this
claim that Marin County haslower rates of autism because

(55:51):
the parents aren't vaccinating.
I think the most robust data inmy paper is from Santa Clara
County because that's a largercounty.
We had a larger, you know, alarger denominator, a larger
numerator to do the calculationand there you see that the rates

(56:14):
of autism among the whitechildren in that county are
flattening and even decliningafter birth year 2000, even as
they continue to go up rapidlyamong the Hispanic children in
that county.
And in terms of the question ofyou know, is this because the
parents aren't vaccinating?

(56:36):
Yes you know, is this becausethe parents aren't vaccinating?
Yes, I've been.
I think it must have been.
I didn't realize this tweet hadbeen made and I was getting
these queries from strangers I'dnever heard of and I didn't
know.
Are they baiting me?
What you know, what's promptingall this?

Speaker 2 (56:51):
It did go pretty viral though.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
I, I, yeah, and so I guess the no-transcript.

(57:18):
And then they have a system oficons that you have a green
triangle If, for the safe quote,safest schools, and safest
means that the vaccination ratesare 95 to a hundred percent of
the kids in that schoolfollowing the, you know, the CDC
schedule, like a, like anorange down triangle, is

(57:39):
moderately vulnerable I lovethese terms 90 to 95%, more
vulnerable, 80 to 90%.
In any case, you know, and as Isay, I grew up in California,
I'm very familiar with itsgeography.
I see a whole bunch of greensafest in Marin County and in

(58:03):
Santa Clara County, which is theSilicon Valley area, for that
matter as well.
So, but these are kindergartendata, um, so you know, and I
don't, I don't think that this,I think it's kind of a myth

(58:24):
based on these data, that theparents in these regions are not
, are not, vaccinating theirchildren.
I do have older um data, I thinkthis.
This was prior to SB 277, withwhich was the crackdown on the
vaccine exemption rights, and soI have data for Santa Clara

(58:45):
County and Marin County and thisis looking at how many
kindergartners have a personalbelief exemption from one or
more vaccines.
In Marin County the numbers were2.5% in the year 2000, 4.2% in
2005, and 7.6% in 2013 in MarinCounty.

(59:09):
The equivalent numbers forSanta Clara County were less
than 1% in 2000 and 2005 andless than 2% in 2013.
So I don't, you know, even iflet's take the highest number in

(59:29):
Marin County, even if 8% of theparents were exempting their
children, that doesn't have theleverage to create the kind of
decrease in autism we wereseeing in the data set.
But I will say that the onlydata I have are for

(59:50):
kindergartners, and this dataset that the CDPH puts out
supposedly also has child carecenters, but when you choose
that from the menu, nothingcomes up, so they haven't
uploaded the data.
When you go back to some ofthese earliest papers on autism
and there was a notorious onethat was published in 2003

(01:00:13):
called the Verstraten et alstudy on thimerosal- I don't
know if you've heard of that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
No, I have not actually.

Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
That was the paper that got Robert F Kennedy
involved in this issue.
Okay, it was discussed sobecause the earliest version of
that paper.
There were growing concernsabout how much mercury was in
the childhood vaccine scheduleand they'd added a bunch of new
vaccines to the schedule shortlyafter they granted blanket

(01:00:43):
immunity to the manufacturers in1986.
You've probably heard of theNational Childhood Vaccine
Injury Act.
So soon after that, you know itwas open season they kept
adding a lot of new vaccines tothe schedule and they realized
the cumulative load of mercuryin those vaccines, even though
they vaccines had alwayscontained mercury.
There was just a lot more ofthem now.
So they did a study.

(01:01:05):
The CDC commissioned a study.
It was led by I think he was aBelgian postdoc named Verstraten
, and the earliest versions ofthe study found a very high
correlation between receiptearly on of thimerosal and the
rate of autism.
The odds ratio was something inthe order of 8 to 11.

(01:01:26):
I mean, that's high, that issmoking gun level high.
Sent out a notorious email tohis CDC colleagues with a header
it just won't go away meaningthe signal of a significant
effect of thimerosal.
And I should say thatthimerosal was a proxy just for

(01:01:46):
the total number of vaccinesgiven, for the amount of
aluminum, because the vaccinesthat contained mercury also
contained aluminum.
So it was in general generalproxy for how many vaccines are
these children receiving.
And so there were multipleiterations of that study and
they massaged the data, theygrouped the children who had

(01:02:08):
received no vaccines with thosewho'd received some vaccines,
the pool kind of like comparinga three-pack-a-day smoker to a
one-pack-a-day and thenconcluding that smoking doesn't
cause lung cancer.
You know, because you don'treally have a pure control group
who's had no exposure.

(01:02:31):
So anyway, but I mentioned thatbecause it was Restraighten's
view, his honest view, view thatthe damage that was being done
was most, it was most importantearly on, in those early months
of life, in those first sixmonths, that first year of life.
So what we're looking at onthese public data sets is what's

(01:02:52):
happening with thekindergartners, and it looks
like even the wealthy parents inCalifornia they've caught their
kindergartners up.
What I think would be reallyilluminating is to know what
happened in those earliest years, to what extent, you know, were
the less privileged parentsobliged to put their children in

(01:03:15):
daycare?
As I understand, under SB 277,if you want to ask for an
exemption you've got to submitit every with each well child
visit two months, four months,six months.
My goodness, who can keep upwith that?
I think most people would throwup their hands and just say,
okay, we'll get them all.

Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
And I, you know, is that happening
disproportionately with thelower income parents?
That's what I would like toknow and I think if we, if we
can address that issue, I thinkthen we can ask the question are
differential vaccine practicesamong, you know, wealthy parents

(01:03:57):
versus lowincome parentsaffecting the rate of autism?
I think that's the questionthat really needs to be asked.

Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
Absolutely.
I love that, and that'sactually one of the questions
that why are the rates higheramong low-income and minority
children than among wealthywhites?
Is it the lack of knowledge?
Is it the language barrier?
Is it cultural?
Is it religion?
I don't know, but that'sdefinitely a question that needs
to be.

Speaker 1 (01:04:25):
That is the $64,000 question, as we used to say, and
the answer to that is I don'tknow.
And and I will say that I amvery disappointed that I
published I published my paperin 2020, right around the time
the pandemic hit there has been.

(01:04:47):
Just recently, it was called tomy attention that somebody from
, I think, ucla published apaper in which they actually
said our results align withthose of Nevison and Parker.
So they these were people whohad better access to the
California DDS data they foundthe same thing.
They didn't go any further thanWilliam Parker and I did in

(01:05:12):
explaining why this is happening, but they corroborated that it
is happening and so at leastsomebody is looking into this.
But I have, aside from that,I'm not been aware of any
interest whatsoever on thedepartment, on the part of the
public health authorities, tolook into this issue, and I

(01:05:32):
think it's a very pressing issue.
It is, and we have evidencethat something these parents are
doing, these wealthy parentsare doing or have access to, is
lowering their children's riskfor autism and, given that we're
looking at in California,you're looking at 7% of boys

(01:05:53):
already with autism.

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
Yeah, I think fear is a big part of this, cynthia.
I mean I've thought about thisquestion so much and I mean I
have friends, I have familymembers that are, you know,
migrated to the States from adifferent country.
They're new, and I think fearis a big factor in this.
I mean, you might not be theonly, but when you are not, your

(01:06:19):
nervous system is not thatalive and you turn to fawn or
you freeze or you flight and youhave this doctor telling you no
, you have to do it, or I'm notgoing to see you, or no doctor
is going to.
And that's just a small pieceto it.
Fear plays a big role because ifyou don, if you don't know and
you're not settled in thiscountry and you're new, you're

(01:06:41):
going to do as they say.
You're not going to questionauthority.
Right, you know.
I think that, uh, the parentsthat don't vaccinate have built
the courage to kind of questionauthority and be comfortable
with that versus, you know,parents that maybe have a hard
time speaking English or notreally settled yet.
There's a lot of fear, there'sa huge fear factor there.

Speaker 1 (01:07:02):
I feel like yeah, no, I think that that you know.
And their children can't go toschool in California, right, if
they don't follow the schedule,or they can't go to a public
daycare or even a privatedaycare, I'm not quite sure they
have to work.
What do they do?
Homeschool, you know they don't.
They don't have the luxury.
Also, I think it's more likelythat they are going to the

(01:07:25):
doctor and getting all the shotsall at once.
You know, like it used to beeight at once and I don't know
how many, it is now probably atleast 10 at once, I think around
eight or 10.
Once, and I don't know how manyit is now probably at least 10
at once.
I think around eight or 10.
And you know whereas awealthier parent might schedule
more visits and spread them outa bit more.

Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (01:07:48):
Or they might have the luxury of hiring a nanny and
caring for their children athome for the first couple of
years, where they're, you know,they can choose the pace at
which they vaccinate.
I wonder if that is happeningamong the wealthy parents, if
they're just slowing things down, spreading out the shots.
Darker explanation that Ialmost hesitate to bring up, but

(01:08:21):
I know that Toby, you mentionedToby Rogers has talked about
this which is that and this hasto do with the Vaccines for
Children program, vfc, and thatstarted, I believe, around 1992.
That was kind of what came outof the original efforts by Bill
and Hillary Clinton to start anational health care program.

(01:08:41):
So they you know they didn'tget that, but at least they got
their vaccines for childrenprogram.
And that's a program by whichthe CDC buys up something like
half the vaccines that are madein this country and then it
distributes them to the statesfor lower income families.
So the CDC is at once in thebusiness of sort of promoting

(01:09:04):
and distributing vaccines andensuring their safety, and it's
a conflict of interest andthat's one thing I hope that
Robert F Kennedy addresses.
You really need to separatethose functions.
People in charge of safetyshould not be the same ones in
charge of promoting the product.
But there, you know, I wouldn'thave believed this prior to

(01:09:24):
COVID.
But we, you know, we saw a lotof erratic lack of standards in
the manufacturer process.
So, you know, it has beensuggested that maybe those you
know, those poor kids, aregetting a lower quality of
vaccine because there is, youknow, there are anecdotes about

(01:09:45):
the separate refrigerators forthe VFC vaccines and the
privately insured vaccines andI've been told that's mainly for
accounting purposes to keepthem separate.
It's mainly for accountingpurposes to keep them separate.
But I, you know, so I probablyshouldn't go there because I
have no evidence whatsoever.
But that is something thatshould be looked into.

Speaker 2 (01:10:07):
I agree with you.
It's something that definitelyneeds to be looked into Again.
I sure hope that the Trumpadministration will address all
of this, but do you, are yougoing, are you thinking about
writing something about that?
Because that's that's prettybig and that definitely should
be addressed and looked into,investigated even.

Speaker 1 (01:10:28):
Well, I, I mean I don't know if that I have
personal plans to write aboutthat, but I just I I hope that
the public health officials willbe more interested in these
diverging trends among, you know, low income and minority
children and wealthier children,because I mean, the fact that

(01:10:50):
these trends are diverging isevidence that there is a strong
environmental component in place.
And, you know, we're stillfighting the battle of those who
believe that autism is entirelygenetic and that clearly cannot
be the case.
I mean, the numbers areclimbing to.
We're up at, as I say, 7% ofboys in some areas.

Speaker 2 (01:11:18):
That's wild.

Speaker 1 (01:11:19):
That is wild, yeah, and this has been going on, as
you know.
I mentioned earlier that thenumbers really started to
increase around the late 1980s,shortly after the passage of the
National Childhood VaccineInjury Act and the youing of the

(01:11:40):
childhood vaccine schedule.
And even today, 35 years later,the CDC is not offering one
piece of practical advice toparents except maybe get your
folic acid about what they cando to reduce their child's risk.
And I guess, when I told you mystory, how I got interested in

(01:12:01):
this, I was a parent who wantedinformation.
I was an expectant mother whowanted information and I talked
to you know, I talked to youngnew parents or expectant mothers
.
They really want to know, andthat's where I'm coming from.
I think that parents have aright to know because they're
they're the ones that are goingto, you know, have to raise this

(01:12:25):
child.
They're the ones who, if theirchild is not able to live and
work independently, they're theones who are going to have to
care for the child for hisentire life.
They're the ones who are goingto drive him to occupational
therapy, to all the varioustherapies.

(01:12:46):
They are going to be on theline and I just feel that they
have a right to honest andaccurate information about what
they can do to reduce theirchild's risk, and it's really a
shame that our public healthauthorities are still in the
business of denying that.
Autism is even increasing, youknow, let alone giving parents
the information they need tolower their child's risk.

Speaker 2 (01:13:06):
Also, I'd wish that the new administration the Trump
administration possibly mighthave classes for, you know,
families with newborns.
You know vaccine educationparticularly.
You know it's not only do it,do it these.
You know it's going to.
You know help your child withthis or you know so on and so

(01:13:28):
forth, but at least knowledge ofwhat it can do possibly.
You know injuries like.
All of that needs to be put onthe table so that the parents
can decide not out of fear orobligation, but true knowledge
whether or not they want to gothrough with it or not.
I think that's something reallyimportant that doctors need to

(01:13:48):
provide parents is vaccineknowledge, not to only shove it
down their throats.

Speaker 1 (01:13:54):
Absolutely yeah, and I would start even before I
would start with a pregnantwoman.
Yeah, like Lamaze classes yeah,and I would start even before I
would start with a pregnantwoman.
Yeah, like Lamaze classes.

Speaker 2 (01:14:00):
Okay, have a Lamaze class, but have another course
like vaccine courses.
Why aren't hospitals doing thatWell?

Speaker 1 (01:14:06):
because the answer is that they are financially
incentivized, as we discussed.
As Paul Thomas has documented,they are financially
incentivized to promote as manyvaccines as possible.
That's right, and with the lossof maternal immunity that used
to protect the newborn, I thinkthey're scrambling what to do to

(01:14:30):
protect the newborn.
So there are legitimateconcerns of newborn babies being
prey to some of theseinfectious diseases.
So it's kind of, you know it'sa bad situation.
You know, maybe they shouldn'thave mucked around with it in
the first place and, yeah, justleft maternal, left a system in

(01:14:54):
place that had worked for, youknow, throughout human history.

Speaker 2 (01:15:00):
Yeah, and I always, you know, I, I, when I was in my
, my PhD program, I had ateacher, you know, and we were
talking about this back in theday, like our grandfathers, our
grandmothers, like this stuff.
You know, autism was not evenaround.
It just spiked at meimmediately.
I mean, like what has happened?
How can you, how can you blamethis on genetic when this wasn't

(01:15:24):
even around?
Like my grandma always says it,like every other child that she
meets at a supermarket, youknow, has something going on,
there's some kind of delay, andshe's like, at our time this
wasn't like this.
What is going on, you know,with her accent, I'm like, yeah,
you know, it gets you to think,like what's in these vaccines?
Like parents need to be moreaware and knowledgeable, like

(01:15:44):
what they're putting in thebodies of their beautiful
children.

Speaker 1 (01:15:48):
No, absolutely.
And I, and I should say I don't, I, I, you know, I don't know
that we, we should focusexclusively on vaccines,
although I personally do thinkthey are a major player.
I mean, if we, but you know,and I don't know how into the
weeds I should get here.
But, as I say, I have abackground in atmospheric

(01:16:09):
science and when I first readabout autism, I thought that
this is very analogous to theAntarctic ozone hole, that this
is very analogous to theAntarctic ozone hole.
Bear with me for a minute here.
Because what is the Antarcticozone hole?
And certain types of chemists.
So there's a predisposing,pre-existing condition.

(01:16:29):
That has always been that way.
But then there's somethingentirely new.
There's a very new elementbeing introduced in the case of
the ozone hole.
That's bromine and chlorine,man-made compounds that are
getting up into the stratospherewhere the ozone layer, um,
exists.
So it's that, that combinationof this entirely new element,

(01:16:54):
and then a predisposingcondition that you know it, the
ozone hole.
Because other parts of theatmosphere are also receiving
these high levels of bromine andchlorine, but you don't really
see the ozone hole there.
Why?
Because they're not cold enough, they don't have that
predisposing condition, and Ithink that's analogous to autism

(01:17:15):
.
I think there is somethingentirely new going on to cause
it, because autism did not existprior to the 1930s.
Effectively, the rate of autismwas zero.
And my colleague, markBlacksill, has done definitive
work on that topic.
Definitive work on that topic.

(01:17:39):
You know, he's gone into thehistorical archives and and just
all the prominent psychologistsof the 1800s had never seen a
child with autism.
So I think there is somethingentirely new.
And what is that new element?
Um, many people think it'saluminum.
Um, I'm because aluminumaluminum is while it's, it's a
very common element in theEarth's crust, but it's bound up

(01:18:02):
in clay and minerals, it's notbiologically available from its
ore.
And put it in a reactive formand inject it directly into our

(01:18:23):
muscle where our immune cellscan carry it throughout the body
, including into the brain.
So you know, in the 1990s, safeminds kind of put all their
eggs in the mercury basket.
So I'm a little hesitant to putall my eggs in the aluminum
basket at this point, because Imean, the other thing is just
this sort of massive activationof the immune system and

(01:18:44):
creation of inflammation, whicha vaccine has to create
inflammation or it wouldn't work.
And when you have kids beinggiven eight, 10 vaccines at once
.
What is that doing to the youngimmune system?
So, in any case, I think theseare the new elements, yeah, but
then we have the pre thepredisposing condition as well.

(01:19:04):
Some kids can, can handle this,but others can't.
Yeah, and I think, if we getback to why are the low income
children more susceptible?
That's another very importantpossibility that I think needs
to be explored.
Maybe these lower incomechildren do not have as good

(01:19:26):
nutrition and that makes themless able to sustain this
inflammation and to detox.
Maybe their parents are livingunder greater stress you know,
stress can cause inflammationand could also lead to
susceptibility.
So maybe the parents have lessopportunity or sort of a

(01:19:49):
cultural tradition ofbreastfeeding, which is one
thing.
We know that the rates arehighest among wealthy white
women, and I think breastfeedingcan be very protective.
Really, it's really the bestthing that a new mother can do
for her baby.
If she's able to breastfeed, Ithink is, you know, to help the
immune system.
So these are all, I think, veryplausible reasons and probably

(01:20:15):
more plausible than you know,the bad vaccine issue.
I you know, I'd probablywithdraw that hypothesis.

Speaker 2 (01:20:24):
I wonder what would make, because earlier we talked
about how mothers and theirimmune system and pregnancy, and
so I wonder what are some ofthe things that mothers can do
for themselves that can providebetter, some immunity for them
while they're pregnant?

(01:20:44):
I wonder.
I always wonder, like, what aresome things besides the you
know methyl folates and thevitamins and all these things
that they're taking, you knowprenatals, but what other things
they can do to kind of helpthemselves, because I mean,
everything is so compromisednowadays food, and so that could
play a role, right, yeah, I, Iknow, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:21:05):
I know a doctor here in Boulder who has written a
book about that and I wish Icould remember her name in the
book.
I know that there are, you knowthere are doctors who are
starting to address this issue.
You know how do you prepareyour body to have a healthy baby
and obviously nutrition is hugeGetting plenty of rest, I think

(01:21:31):
, lowering your stress levels ifpossible, you know, and being
in a calm state of mind.
You know, in terms of all thevaccines they're giving pregnant
women, now I mean I can, on theone hand, I see why they're
doing it, because they're tryingto replace this lost maternal
passive immunity that protectsthe newborn.

(01:21:54):
But the flip side of that isthey're activating the maternal
immune system.
So I just think, be be cautiousabout accepting that Tdap shot
or whatever you know, the flushot Like.
When I was pregnant, I wasencouraged to get a flu shot, at
least for my second baby and I,you know, I realized I don't

(01:22:16):
tend to get the flus, I itwasn't really on my radar screen
and I decided I didn't needthat and I was fine.
Um, so I, um, I wish I could.
I think that's a reallyimportant question because I I I
think that women should reallystart thinking about this
pre-pregnancy.

(01:22:36):
Yes definitely how to be in themost calm, healthy,
well-nourished, low-inflammationstate that they can be and just
have confidence that pregnancyis a natural process.

Speaker 2 (01:22:58):
You don't need all the drugs your body can can do
this and you will be fine andyou know your baby will be, will
be beautiful and healthy,absolutely.
I think this.
This is also a way women canhopefully build the courage to
go to their doctors aboutplanning a baby and talking to

(01:23:18):
them about the best protocol andhow to be more healthier, you
know, and then get pregnant.
I think this should be like anopen discussion with with their
doctors to that.
How beautiful that would be.

Speaker 1 (01:23:31):
Absolutely yeah, and I I think, if you know, there
are women sort of helpers, likedoulas that they're called.
I had a doula.
She was very helpful to me.
She provided me with a lot ofinformation.
They're amazing, they're amazingand they might count her.
You know, I'm almost hesitantto encourage people to go to see
their doctor, because so manydoctors are caught up in this

(01:23:57):
pharmaceutical view of health,where health comes through
needles and pills, and I don'tthink health.
You know that's the path togood health and I'm sure that
you, as you've described yourphilosophy, I don't think you
believe that either.

Speaker 2 (01:24:13):
No, absolutely not.
One thing I wanted to ask youis, for new time, parents that
are conflicted.
They don't know if they shouldproceed with vaccines.
If they should not, what advicedo you give them?
Like that's my first question.
My second question is what aresome questions they can ask

(01:24:33):
their pediatricians?

Speaker 1 (01:24:36):
Right.
Well, that's where I, again, Ihighly recommend turtles all the
way down.
Turtles all the way downbecause at the end of each
chapter they have a list ofquestions to ask your
pediatrician, like tell me howmany placebo, double-blind
placebo trials were done to testthis vaccine?

(01:25:00):
The answer is zero.
You know, I think it would benice to have a less
confrontational interaction thanI had with that one doctor who
was trying to promote the HPVvaccine.
I I simply asked in a calmvoice how much aluminum is in
the vaccine, and I knew theanswer.
The answer was 500 micrograms.

(01:25:22):
He didn't know the answer, youknow.

Speaker 2 (01:25:28):
So I think either way they're going to, they're going
to get mad.
I don't know what it is, butdoctors don't like these types
of questions.
I've asked so many of them.
It's just, it puts them on thespot.

Speaker 1 (01:25:42):
When you read, when you read, when you listen to Dr
Paul Thomas and you learn aboutthe financial pressures they're
under, you understand wherethey're coming from.
So I think it's more, it's asystemic change we need.
And again, I hope pediatricians, based on you, know what's the

(01:26:19):
rate of autism in your practice?
What's the rate of asthma inyour practice?
How many children in yourpractice are on ADHD medication?
The lower the number, thehigher their bonus should be.
If that were the system, Ithink things would change quite
rapidly.

Speaker 2 (01:26:36):
That is such a beautiful goal and, robert
Kennedy, if you're watching this, I'm going to make this a real
Cynthia like come on, we,because it's a, it's a beautiful
goal and I think it's it's verypowerful.
We can switch the, the way weview it, and turn this incentive
into exactly what you said.

(01:26:56):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:26:58):
I hope so and I you know I maybe I'm being overly
optimistic, but with this newadministration coming in, one
has to hope.
You know, one has to reach forthose high goals.

Speaker 2 (01:27:08):
Exactly.
Thank you so much for today.
Cynthia was such a meaningfulconversation.
You're so intelligent.

Speaker 1 (01:27:17):
Oh well, thank you it it was.
It was a real pleasure to be onyour show and and and really to
be able to discuss these issues, um, openly.
Yeah, um, I really appreciatethe opportunity.

Speaker 2 (01:27:29):
Absolutely, and I'm happy we got to do this and
hopefully this provides parentswith a little bit of comfort and
education and knowledge so thatthey can decide what they want
to do.
So thank you, thank you forbeing on Absolutely, thank you,
thank you.