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The Edit Alaverdyan Podcast
Welcome to "The Edit Alaverdyan Podcast," the podcast where insightful conversations unfold, and the depth of the human mind is explored. In each episode, I sit down with a diverse range of individuals—thinkers, innovators, and captivating personalities—who share their unique insights and experiences. Together, we embark on a journey of discovery, unraveling the complexities of the human psyche and uncovering the untold truths that influence our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
The Edit Alaverdyan Podcast
Cynthia Nevison | Vaccines, Autism Debate, Modern Healthcare | The Edit Alaverdyan Podcast #41
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.
We need a new set of incentives that prioritize health rather than just how many vaccines you manage to pump into your patient. We need metrics of children's health and we need to reward pediatricians based on you know what's the rate of autism in your practice? What's the rate of asthma in your practice? How many children in your practice are on ADHD medication? The lower the number, the higher their bonus should be. If that were the system, I think things would change quite rapidly. There's that.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone, thank you for joining me today. Today's episode was with the amazing and phenomenal Cynthia Nevison. Now, I found Cynthia on a colleague's page. He was talking about her research on autism and I was just blown away with her work and she is not somebody easy to find, for sure a very difficult person to tackle down. But after weeks and weeks of doing research I found her. I emailed her and she kindly accepted my invitation, which I'm so grateful for.
Speaker 2:In this episode we are going to talk about autism and do vaccinations really cause autism and other delays in children? And what are these vaccines about? What are these ingredients about and how do they affect children and why do they affect children and why are we being pushed to vaccinate our kids and why are we being punished for not vaccinating our kids? Her research is wonderful. I don't want to get too much into the intro because I don't want to give away what we talked about, but I think this episode is really an eye-opener for anyone that's processing vaccinating or thinking about vaccinating or is afraid and isn't sure about the information. Some things that we dived into was disturbing and, my goodness, I mean it's. It's such good knowledge and I'm just so grateful for them. Many, many, many are evidence-based, peer-reviewed articles that Cynthia has published and they're wonderful and she's she's dedicated her life, uh, to being a mom, and I love how empathy she has and sympathy she has for people and the drive that she has and the love she has for children, that she has dedicated so much time into this research on autism and vaccinations. So definitely something for all parents.
Speaker 2:Whether you are vaccinating or you are thinking about it or you're not sure, this episode is really going to help you put things into perspective, as it has for me. So enjoy and make sure to subscribe to the channel, because it's immense support and enjoy this episode with the amazing Cynthia Navasen. Hello, cynthia, thank you so much for joining me today. Oh, thank you for having me, absolutely. It is such an honor to be in your presence. I adore your work, but I have to tell you you were not easy to find. I think that's one of the things that you asked me too, right? You're like how did you find me?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you wrote me on an email account that I almost never used. It was funny, yeah.
Speaker 2:I was like I heard about your research through Dr Toby and I loved, I love, I love your work. I think it's phenomenal and it's so meaningful. And when I had him, when I was hearing him go through it, I said I have to find this woman and I have to sit down and talk to her about this, because not a lot of research is out there about this. First of all, and secondly, I feel like people are not really open to talk about this. We're so scared to talk about vaccines, we're so scared to talk about autism. So I'm very grateful and I'm so thankful that you are doing this research or you did this research.
Speaker 1:Jr, to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and I guess I really thank you for the opportunity to kind of present my side of the story and I feel like the time is here to actually have an open conversation about these issues. So I'm going to speak as honestly 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 could go to help shed light on this topic.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. What a perfect time to talk about this. I feel so free and more comfortable now that we have a new presidency and a new team. I don't know, do you feel like that too? I feel more comfortable to bring this up.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely, Absolutely, yeah. If you know, if the election had gone the other way, I I think what I would say today would be quite different. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:And um you know and another thing that happened quite recently was there was a paper on autism that came out maybe two weeks ago and it was a lot of HMOs, a lot of them in California, kaiser Mental Health Networks, and they were presenting new findings on autism.
Speaker 1:I was actually asked to comment on this paper and the way it was presented in the news was still sort of following this better diagnosis narrative, you know, emphasizing that rates among adults were increasing and kind of the implication I think a quote from I wrote it down, a quote from the paper is increased advocacy and education may be bringing autism spectrum disorders out of the shadow, encouraging more openness among Americans to get themselves or their children screened for the condition.
Speaker 1:But when you actually go into this paper and look at the data which is sort of what I do, and they did present their data we're looking in the youngest birth cohorts, which were around 2020, likely autism rates of 4.5% and that you know, and that means about 2% of girls and 7% of boys, because boys are most of the cases, and you know they barely said anything about that in the. You know the new, the press releases of the paper and still talking about better diagnosis and I think we really need to start addressing these issues because we're looking at very substantial percentages of our children who are being affected now.
Speaker 2:I agree with you. What percentage did you say was boys and girls?
Speaker 1: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 that that ratio is kind of narrowing a little bit and there's slightly more girls being diagnosed. It used to be more of a four to one ratio and it's moving toward three to one ratio and it's moving toward a three to one ratio in this particular paper. I don't think that was the case in the latest CDC study, but this is more recent birth cohorts that they're looking at.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'd have to agree with you Before we dive into all the juicy questions and all the good stuff. I really would love to get to know you more and I'd like to ask you how did you become interested in autism?
Speaker 1:Well, that, yeah, that was. That was something that developed during, during the birth of my, around the time of the birth of my first son, of my first son, and there were a number of events, but two that stick in my mind in particular are that one I happened to read a story about a newspaper article about the CDC's Adam report, which is a biannual report that they put out on autism prevalence, and it just so happened that was the first report. It was published in 2007, in February, and and it said that one in 91 boys was being diagnosed with autism. And you know, I've, as I've, learned in the meantime those studies are, there's a big lag time before they publish them, so they were looking at kids born in 1992. So if I had, if I had actually known 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 know that then. But anyway, I I asked a friend. A good friend of mine was a special ed teacher and everything I knew about autism, which was very little, came from her, because she would sometimes tell me anecdotes about her students. And anyway, I asked her. You know, gosh, I just read that one in 91 boys is being diagnosed with autism. What's causing this and what can I do as a mother, expectant mother to protect my son and because I knew I was having a boy at that point. And she said well, nobody really knows what causes autism, but the lead theory is that more nerdy men and nerdy women are intermarrying and thereby producing genetically autistic children. And that just sort of struck me as an odd explanation. But you know, I accepted it and this is what she was hearing at national conferences. She was a special ed teacher who went to conferences on the topic and that's what they were telling her.
Speaker 1:And then the second incident occurred less than a week after my son was born grocery store and, um, a nonverbal, um, very well-dressed, uh, uh, beautiful little boy, probably maybe seven, eight years old, had a tantrum like right at my feet and he, he was nonverbal and his. Eventually his sister came and just carried him away and um, that really unnerved me. And between that and my special ed friend's explanation, I started paying attention to the issue. Much all I knew. My friend would tell me anecdotes about her students and I remember one in particular where she mentioned a girl who had a problem with constipation. And in her view of the situation, the problem was the girl psychologically could quote, not let go. So again, she was being told this autism is all sort of psychological, it's genetic. But knowing what I know now, I mean that poor girl probably had gastrointestinal problems, which many children with autism do.
Speaker 1:And I guess here we come to the part of the story where I'm going to bring up the taboo subject of vaccines. So I I took my, my two month old son, to his first well, baby visit and and you know I thought, well, we'll probably get some vaccines and I knew about polio and DTaP and I was okay with those. But I was just kind of and I'm an older mom I was just kind of, you know, taken aback by how many shots they wanted me to give him and we ended up getting like it was one shot but it was a bundle of five different vaccines all in one. We didn't get the other three that they wanted. But even with those five, I just came out of there feeling intuitively very uneasy about what I'd just done, what I had allowed to be done to my little baby. And he was kind of on the small side and I remember really thinking, you know I need to inform myself on this issue before we go back to the four month visit, because you know you're supposed to go at two months, four months, six months, and I did.
Speaker 1:I was vaguely aware there'd been some sort of controversy about autism and vaccines. I thought it had been thoroughly discredited but nevertheless I wanted to, you know, find out what was the basis of that controversy. So I went to the library public library I checked out Evidence of Harm by David Kirby and I read it Pretty much. That's all I did for the next Safe Minds, which at that time was founded and was kind of focused entirely on the issue of mercury in vaccines. There was mercury in the shots which were taken out by the time my son was born, but throughout the 1990s kids were getting a lot of mercury in these vaccines and this Safe Minds was a group of parents that was focused on mercury. But anyway, I learned about some of their stories and what they were dealing with autism and it was really really quite heartbreaking, especially the kids with GI issues that were really physically suffering, and I subscribed to their newsletter and I subscribed to their newsletter and then I had a second son and that pregnancy was 2008, 2009. And it was probably in fall 2008,.
Speaker 1:I went to a wellness checkup for me with my OBGYN and I remember her saying well, you need to get a flu shot. And that hadn't happened with my first pregnancy, which was 2006, 2007. So I think it's sometime around that point they started't really question the vaccines that much and I was heading down to the lab to get the shot and then I happened to ask at the front desk, you know, because I'd read the Safe Minds newsletter I said, well, is there mercury in those shots? And she said, well, yeah, yeah and right. So at that point I just left the building, didn't look back, and right. So at that point I just left the building, didn't look back.
Speaker 1:And, however, you know, I think at the time if there hadn't been mercury in the flu shot, I would have gotten it on my doctor's advice.
Speaker 1:But what I know now is it's really not just mercury, you know, it's the activation of the maternal immune system. We have something, these sentinels for lack of a better word on our white blood cells, called toll-like receptors, and when they sense you know, when they sense a pathogen is present or a vaccine which is known to stimulate them, they go into an inflammatory mode and that alone is not great for the fetus. It's not great to be stimulating a mother's immune system during pregnancy. So it was probably lucky for me that I was so focused on mercury. All I knew was that it was mercury was the only problem at the time, because I probably would have gotten the shot, and I'm glad I didn't. And I did think you know that's kind of weird that they're recommending pregnant women get injected with a neurotoxin and you know, since then they've added a lot more shots. Yeah, it's like open, open season on pregnant women now and I, you know, I worry about the, the, the effects of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. Basically, all these experiences that you were exposed to with, with vaccines, kind of allowed you to process things a little differently and and research more about what they're putting into your body. So it's your personal experience of it.
Speaker 1:Well, it was just sort of a slow. You know, it took me many years to come to my current understanding. And it's a very slow process because I was just like anyone else who didn't question vaccines, and if my doctor told me to get one, I would get one.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's how I used to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, as I, until you kind of learn and question things. But I love how you talk about the motherly intuition. Like it's just something in your body that was telling you, hey, like don't come back, don't do this to your child anymore, go back and read about it more. And I think that's one of the things that we miss as women and men too, sometimes, that we don't really look for, that, we don't listen to that inside voice you know Right?
Speaker 1:No, I think um the, the maternal instinct is. You know what I think Dr Andrew Wakefield has has said it's the, it's the steady hand on the tiller that has guided human evolution, and we need to listen to it.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. How did you start publishing papers on autism? You've wrote quite a bit, so talk to me a little bit about that.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, okay, so I had been subscribing to the Safe Minds newsletter for a number of years. I had two young children at this point and Safe Minds put for a number of years. I had two young children at this point and Safe Minds put out a call. They wanted to volunteer with a background in atmospheric science, which is what I have, to look into the issue of air pollution, especially atmospheric mercury, air pollution and its correlation to autism. So I sort of dived in and I volunteered for the project, and that project acquainted me with the available autism prevalence data and so with my study with atmospheric mercury, I actually did find kind of a geographic correlation. So with my study with atmospheric mercury, I actually did find kind of a geographic correlation. But I became skeptical of my own study because it didn't really make sense. I mean, the amount of mercury in the air is minute. The trends, furthermore, had been either flat or declining over the same time frame that autism was increasing rapidly. So here I was sort of becoming disillusioned with my my own air pollution study, and then I think it was 2012.
Speaker 1:A group from Johns Hopkins published a paper with a list of the 10 top toxins that cause autism. Okay, and then leading the list was lead, which was largely phased out, starting in the 1970s, things like DDT, which was banned in 1972. Pcbs, which had also been banned or phased out. Air pollution was up there. And they also listed, I think very you know sort of sneakily or disingenuously methylmercury. Everything else had been like a broad class of compounds or the entire element, but here they were specifically listing methylmercury and it was clear the reason why because ethylmercury is the compound that was being put in vaccines. So that's fine, I guess, according to this study. But methylmercury was one of the top contributors, you know, and that's the form more found in fish and so on. So, but anyway, found in fish and so on. So, but anyway that that I guess that prompted me to just write a paper looking at these 10 toxins and looking at their time trends, because I knew I used to teach atmospheric chemistry and I just I knew a lot of these things had downward trends and it simply, just, like my own atmospheric mercury paper, didn't make sense to be blaming a steep rise in autism which I was seeing in the data on pollutants that were decreasing in the environment at the same time. Nearly a two year struggle and, um, probably three different journals, five rounds of peer review I finally got that paper published. That was my first paper, um, and it was sort of an eye opener to encounter the peer review process in the field of autism.
Speaker 1:Some of the reviewers were openly disrespectful. They felt they had license to insult me. You know, call me ignorant. It was only when they started to contradict themselves that I think the editor and one supportive reviewer took pity on me and my paper got through.
Speaker 1:Because some of the reviewers were saying well, you can't rule out a cause of autism based on a time trend. You can only identify toxins that might have the same trend upward trend and thus be more plausible, whereas other reviewers were saying the opposite, that you can't rule out anything, or I can't remember which way. I said there was one school of thought that time trends were useful for ruling out toxins and the other was no, that has no bearing, but you can at least identify toxins that are plausible. And just my own opinion on that is that the time trends are useful for ruling out toxins. That really just don't make sense. That's why I wrote that paper, and air pollution was uppermost in my mind when I wrote it, and I, you know, I've been attacked for, you know, for arguing that correlation equals causation and that was not the main point of that paper.
Speaker 1:But also another part of the struggle to publish that paper was that I I had to address the issue of the time trend because most of the reviewers I encountered the peer reviewers, you know, a paper has to go through a peer review process.
Speaker 1:Most of the peer reviewers thought that the time trends were completely irrelevant to autism causation and that I just couldn't understand that viewpoint because when you look at the autism data, the most striking feature of it is the fact that it's increasing rapidly Correct. So how can the time trends in the candidate toxins not be relevant? But it turned out that a lot of the reviewers didn't think there was actually a true trend in autism. That was the problem. They thought it was just better diagnosis. So that's that kind of led to a series of papers where I just tried to look empirically at the data and show one way or another whether the trends were actually increasing. And so that you know I was sort of pulled into that argument because I couldn't publish my paper on air pollution and the other declining toxins until I got past that. So that's kind of like a brief history of how I started publishing on autism.
Speaker 2:I'm sure you went through a lot trying to get this paper published. I'm sure they put you through a lot.
Speaker 1:Well, it was. I mean, you know I work in a different field and there maybe you have one journal, sometimes two. You know, in general the first journal I've submitted to accepts the paper for peer review. Maybe you go through one or two rounds of review. The peer reviewers are polite and they're respectful and then your paper is published. That's how it had worked, but that's not how it worked in autism.
Speaker 2:Yeah, going back to the mercury piece, and this is something that I want to bring up. What's interesting, I have a one and a half year old little girl and during my pregnancy I would question the vaccines. I would always look at the insert. Obstetrician was you tell me that I shouldn't eat fish because it's got mercury and it's going to harm the fetus. It's going to harm the baby.
Speaker 2:But there's so much mercury in the vaccines, how does that make sense to not eat it while you'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 makes no sense. Well, what did your doctor tell you? She just looked at me and said it's your choice. I'm just telling you that it's a lot more safer if you do the vaccines. You could spread it apart. But she just went right into the vaccine conversation of why she thinks it's important for me to give it to my kids, versus addressing my actual concern, my confusion and my question. I was kind of gaslighted in that in that moment which is common, I know it is she's just doing her job, but that's if you're wise enough, if you're in that position, you'd start, you would think to start questioning things and reading a little bit more you know?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I think it's. I'm a. I'm a big proponent of asking your pediatricians some of those tough questions, and I will. I will say that most of the mercury has been taken out of vaccines. It's still in these multi-dose flu shots.
Speaker 1:So I would be wary of that, especially one if you get it at a supermarket or something, they're probably using the multi-dose. The Landrigan et al 2012 paper that really prompted my entry into the world of autism publishing to list methylmercury as one of the top 10 causes of autism and development and, I think, learning disabilities.
Speaker 2:Delays yeah.
Speaker 1:As though somehow ethylmercury is totally fine. Totally fine was just so selective and so arbitrary that you know that that really um was was not a very, you know, inspired move on their part. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'd have to agree with you, um. Have you only done academic work on autism, or have you also been involved in advocacy?
Speaker 1:And if you have, how did you start Right? Yeah, yeah, well, okay, so for a number of years probably from 2010 through 2018, I was only doing academic research and I lived in a state where, you know, we had a personal vaccine exemption. So I was, I was one of those moms who didn't do all the vaccines. I did some of them, I spaced them out and nobody has no, nobody hassled me. Well, except for the school secretary, but that's a long story and I won't tell that. But um, then in 2018, I was, I was asked to testify as an expert witness before the Colorado State Assembly and there was a bill that would have declared autism a public health emergency. So it was a. It was a bill that was sort of written by parents with autistic, with, you know, somewhat severely autistic children, and I think it was. They were called the Colorado Health Freedom Alliance or I think they had a different name at that time. Anyway, I was told that I would have 15 minutes to testify and I was just basically there to document that autism is actually increasing. That was the issue in the bill document that autism is actually increasing. That was the issue in the bill. When we got to the hearing, the Democratic chairwoman of the hearing said that you know, sorry, cynthia, you only have three minutes to give your presentation and I'm somebody who you know I prepare things carefully and I look at my time allotment. So I had a 15 minute presentation and I had three minutes to deliver it. And then the sponsor, the sponsors of the bill, the parent sponsors I mean, they had one assemblywoman who was their actual sponsor, but it was really the parents pushing the bill. They were livid and there was some sort of behind the scenes last minute fighting. That went on and finally the chairwoman came to me and said OK, we'll give you 10 minutes to testify. So I had, you know, I had a 15 minute presentation that I cut on the fly to 10 minutes and I was definitely flustered by that and I think I probably came across as because there were parents of autistic children who'd come to testify against the bill, who were describing their beautiful children and this bill and I you know the bad guy were challenging their right to exist in their view, and that's you know, and I really did feel bad about that and that's not what I, you know, that's not the message I meant to convey. So, anyway, the bill was voted down 12 to 1 in committee and then fast forward to 2019. So that was 2018. I wouldn't really say I was an advocate at that point, but I was sort of entering the political arena.
Speaker 1:And then in 2019, the Democrats and I'm sorry to pick on the Democrats, but they are the ones pushing these vaccine mandates they sponsored a bill that was based on the California I think it's SB 277, a complete crackdown on vaccine exemptions for school children. So they were promoting that bill and I went around, I created a little slideshow, I went around to the legislators and tried to talk to them. Often they they wouldn't see me. They would send me to talk to their aide, who was usually like a 20 something you know intern, and often they would. They would roll their eyes when you know eyes when they saw me coming. So they didn't want to hear. And that bill was killed, partly because it was introduced somewhat late in the session and also our Colorado Governor, jared Polis, said he would veto it. And Polis I don't know if you've heard the news, but he came out yesterday as praising Robert F Kennedy Jr's nomination to be Health and Human Services Secretary. So here's a Democratic governor who, I think sees which way the wind is blowing and, to be fair to him, he did help kill that.
Speaker 1:That the worst version of that bill and unfortunately they they brought the bill back in 2020. It was kind of a watered down version of it where now, rather than having no exemption rights, you have to get third party authorization. Exemption rights, you have to get third-party authorization, meaning you have to get a doctor to sign off or you have to watch their re-education video that is, you know, quite biased and emits a number of you know fails to really, I think, inform about both sides of the issue about the risks and the benefits of vaccines, anyway, you have to sides of the issue. About the risks and the benefits of vaccines, anyway, you have to sit through that video, enter your child into a registry or get a doctor to sign off, which is not easy, but you know, at least we still do have some exemption rights in California. So, anyway, that was kind of my switch from being purely an academic researcher to also being involved in advocacy.
Speaker 2:I love that you talk about the risks and the benefits. I mean a lot of people are aware of the risks but not a lot are aware of the benefits. Are there benefits to these vaccines, particularly child vaccines?
Speaker 1:Well, I think that some of them, especially the live viral vaccines, have definitely decreased the morbidity of these diseases. Where morbidity is it sounds like a horrible word but it just means the incidence of disease, and that's separate from mortality, which is death caused by the disease. So I think that, you know, the measles vaccine has been effective at reducing the morbidity, the incidence of measles, but the mortality rate was already, you know, down, I think, at least 95% from its historic level by the time that vaccine was introduced around 1963, I think it was. So I mean. So there's that benefit. So I mean, so there's that benefit. But on the other hand there's a downside, which is that mothers are no longer passing maternal antibodies for measles to their babies, and that's what used to protect the newborns from measles and help them along until their immune systems were mature enough to fight it off. And then you have older people who had, because they'd had measles as a child, they had lifelong immunity. But when you get the vaccine you know, people my age and I was one of the early recipients we probably have no immunity left to measles and I think I would have been better off just being allowed to have it as a child.
Speaker 1:So I mean, I think there are some benefits, but there are also downsides, and the thing about this education video that the Colorado Public Health Department puts out is it? I think it exaggerates the benefits and it ignores the downside. You know it doesn't even discuss the. You know the downside, and I'm talking about not only the side effects that have nothing to do with the disease. Like you know, with what we've seen with the COVID vaccine, the myocarditis, the strokes, the blood clots, etc. But they also have downsides for the targeted disease itself.
Speaker 1:And that's what I was discussing with measles is you're sort of weakening the passive maternal immunity that used to protect newborns, and I think that's why we're seeing this big push to vaccinate pregnant women. There's the hope that they will generate maternal antibodies and then, you know, transmit those through the placenta to their baby to get the baby through those first few months of life. But, you know, at the same time you're activating the maternal immune system during pregnancy, which is not great either. So it's, I mean, I think in principle, vaccines are a great idea, but in practice there are a lot of downsides that are not adequately discussed and parents are not, you know, are not adequately informed on what those are.
Speaker 2:Correct. Do you feel like we have enough research on vaccines for it to be adequately effective? Like or not, as doesn't have like that negative impact on kids? Is there enough research on it or we need to, like, do more extensive research on vaccines?
Speaker 1:I think we need a lot more research and even the authorities themselves.
Speaker 1:Somebody named Stanley Plotkin, who's the godfather of vaccines he wrote the textbook of the same name has admitted that parents or prospective parents is it's called Turtles All the Way Down.
Speaker 1:That really explains in very readable and extensive detail the problem with the safety studies. There literally has not been, except for the COVID vaccine, a single double-blind placebo study of any of the vaccines on the childhood schedule, let alone on the synergistic effects of giving all those shots at once. And one, you know, the most egregious example is probably the hep B birth dose, where the study for that was first of all, there was no placebo, there was no control group whatsoever. Two, there were 150 children involved, something like that, from age zero to 10. So who knows how many of them were zero and how many were 10. Maybe most of them were 10 and there was one or two babies. And then, finally, they followed the children for five days after they gave the vaccine, five days, which is not nearly enough time to look for long-term impacts on the immune system. And yet this vaccine is universally recommended for newborns in American hospitals, and sometimes they're giving the newborn the vaccine without their parents' knowledge or consent at a lot of hospitals.
Speaker 2:This is true.
Speaker 1: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 the placebo group for years after the vaccine is administered. Five days is simply not adequate. Most of the vaccines are only followed for days to months. They're not, you know, we're looking at sort of long-term immune system effects and you really need more time, a longer control, a longer study period to really, you know, sort out what those effects are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, have you heard of the no vaccine law? And I mean I don't know if other states have it, but right now parents are kind of doomed if they don't vaccinate their kids. There's no pediatrician that accepts them in their office for treatment, because we're a liability.
Speaker 1: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 a pediatric. He's done studies.
Speaker 2:He started to listen to parents, provide them with informed consent.
Speaker 1:And he had a lot of parents who either only partially vaccinated or didn't vaccinate at all. And he's published a couple of papers have been published on his data this is before they stripped him of his license and showing dramatically lower rates of not just autism but a lot of conditions anemia, ear infections, just getting sick in general among the unvaccinated group. But anyway, he has talked a lot about the financial incentives that pediatricians have, a lot about the financial incentives that pediatricians have, and he said that he realized at one point that his office was losing a million dollars a year because he was foregoing all these various bonuses that the insurance companies, that the hospital not quite sure how the financial structure works, but there are a lot of bonuses, incentives, if you will, for the pediatrician to give these vaccines and that's probably why they're they, you know, bully parents or they they push these vaccines so aggressively.
Speaker 1:I had a situation like that with where a pediatrician I I went to sort of a mainstream doctor because 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 me into giving my son the HPV vaccine and I asked him. You know well how much aluminum is in that shot. And he hit the roof. He, you know he didn't like the question. He got really angry, triggered him, huh. So I I'm, you know, I'm a firm believer in asking those questions. But you know, from the pediatrician's point of view, they can't stay afloat if they don't give these shots. It's a crazy system. I hope that Robert F Kennedy will remove those incentives and actually offer positive incentives that are based on like how healthy are the children under your care? What if pediatricians got rewarded for demonstrating measures of health, not merely measures of what percentage of their children are following the CDC schedule?
Speaker 2:Yes, I agree with that and I pray and I hope for that too. I too am a victim of bullying from a few pediatricians offices, and so luckily, there's homeopathic doctors, luckily, and I'm like very, it's such a noble job as well, and so we found a great one in studio city, so she kind of like walked through all the vaccines with us, and so I just want to share that. If there are parents that are bullied out of their pediatricians office, there's lots of holistic doctors.
Speaker 1:Well, but aren't, aren't they, aren't the state boards going after those doctors, especially in California?
Speaker 2:Homeopathic doctors yeah, yeah, a lot of them, yeah, and a lot of them are very scared 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, would you like to have vaccine conversations? And majority of them they're very adamant, they're reluctant, 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 no answers, there's not a lot of answers.
Speaker 1:Well, I hope that. I've heard that Nicole Shanahan, who was Robert F Kennedy's running mate, might run for governor. That wouldn't that be wonderful to have her.
Speaker 2:Yes, oh, my God, I think a lot of things are going to change. All right, let me go to our next question. I want to talk to you about one of your papers the autism prevalence. Would you like to? Let's talk about the county and race ethnicity declining trends among wealthy whites, that one in particular.
Speaker 1:Right, and that's probably the subject of the tweet that led you to yes.
Speaker 2:Yes, because I know the tweet went viral. I know that it went viral, so I'm very excited to hear your story of this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I actually wrote some notes on what. What do I want to say about that? And let me just consult what on racial trends in autism, using both the Department of Education data set, which was known as IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act data set, and that's in every state, and then the CDC, I think I mentioned earlier, runs a biannual ADAM network report and there's, you know, differences among these two approaches, but these are two of the main databases for tracking autism time trends in the United States. And then there's a third data set that I have used heavily and that is from the California Department of Developmental Services and that goes way back. You know that's probably the oldest long-term data set looking at autism prevalence.
Speaker 1:The other two, the Adam Network, only started in 2000, and that was looking at children born in 1992. And then the IDEA data set started around that same time. So, if you want to and that was after the increase in autism had already started, because it started around the late 1980s. But anyway, I guess, before I get to the paper you asked about, I wanted to talk a little bit about my earlier paper on race.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Racial trends in the IDEA. I'll call it IDEA, it's the Department of Education and the CDC ADAM data set, Because when the Adam report came out for children born in I believe it was 2004, 2006. Let me just pull up my I have a summary that I wrote down. There was an apparent plateau in the rate of autism increase. Yeah, that was for birth year, I'm sorry, 2002 and 2004. So that was the one set of Adam reports where the rate of autism did not increase.
Speaker 2:Did not increase. Did not increase.
Speaker 1:Did not increase. It stayed the same at. It was one in 68 at that time and that was one in 42 boys. So then the next two years later the rate started to increase again Again. Okay, and then the way the CDC presented it was that that we're getting better at diagnosing minority children, black and Hispanic children. Okay, and so it's good news because historically those children had had lower rates of autism than white children. And then so, and then they were, they were bringing down the rate in the report, in this narrative, and so the fact that they were then starting to catch up meant that we're finally getting services to these children. We're diagnosing them and giving um, you know, giving them the, the educational services that they need, um.
Speaker 1:So I was kind of skeptical of that narrative and I knew that there was a way to look at the race resolved, uh, trends in autism, um, in part, in part of the IDEA data set, if you looked at the three to five-year-olds Mm-hmm. And so I wrote a paper on that with Walter Zaharadny, who was part of the CDC ADAM study in New Jersey, and we showed that. Basically we showed although the data were quite messy and erratic and there was a lot of state to state differences. We showed that the black and Hispanic children aren't just catching up, they are surpassing, they are overtaking the white rates, you know. Another issue is that black and Hispanic children tend to have more severe forms of autism, which you can measure by the rate of co-occurring intellectual disability. And that's one area where I think that sort of the popular media tends to sugarcoat autism and one has the sense that it's mainly a bunch of high functioning, quirky individuals, you know. But when you actually look at their data something like 60%, for example, the most recent Adam report, the CDC report about 60% of the children with autism had either intellectual disability, which means IQ less than 70, or they were in that borderline range between 70 and 85. So you know, a lot of those children are going to have problems living and working independently as adults, and so this is not just a matter of a quirky, you know, high functioning person in many cases. And those rates are higher among minority children, I think among black children, something like 75 percent are either intellectually disabled or in that borderline IQ range range.
Speaker 1:So anyway, I wrote, I wrote that I wrote a paper in 2019, where we sort of challenged this view that autism rates are only increasing because minorities are catching up to whites and there's some sort of genetic level in the population where everything will stabilize. That was kind of the view and you know we showed that that wasn't true and at the time I wrote that paper I became aware of a paper using california data that was showing that these rates were breaking down along economic you know, socioeconomic lines as well as race, where the autism rates were stabilizing among privately insured families and that's sort of a proxy for wealth. You know, if you have private insurance you tend to be more wealthy than the publicly insured. So the rates of autism were stabilizing among the privately insured, especially among whites, and they were continuing to increase among the publicly insured, especially among whites, and they were continuing to increase among the publicly insured, especially among the and I shouldn't even call them minority children, because Latino children are the majority.
Speaker 1:In California I think there was something like 55%. Whites are not even a quarter anymore of the California school population, are not even a quarter anymore of the California school population.
Speaker 2:Yes and since we're on the California topic. I I, this is something I think will strike many people. Why do you think that California autism rates are the highest in the nation? Right, well, that's, that's a good 36 overall.
Speaker 1:Right, one in 23 boys nationwide versus one in 22 overall and one in 14 boys in California Right, and that is a statistic from the most recent CDC Adam report. And I guess I to finish my story about the racial trends and how I came to write this paper that was the subject of the tweet. So I got interested in race. I had some hints from a conference paper that things were breaking down along socioeconomic lines, so I obtained data from the California Department of Developmental Services and I asked for it by county, by county and by race, and so that is the paper that I published, which was the subject of the tweet, where I found that and I wish we could pull up a figure from the paper but we basically found that Prior to the birth year 2000, the rates of autism were increasing pretty uniformly throughout California among wealthy counties.
Speaker 1:That includes Santa Clara County, marin County, sonoma County, the Bay Area counties, and I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. I should say so I'm quite and I'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 rates of autism, the data they they correlated for the white, the white children, to income, to to the wealth of the county. And so in Marin County, I wanted to address the issue of Marin County if I could. Marin County, I wanted to address the issue of Marin County if I could. Marin County was computed in my paper as a residual, so those data are pretty uncertain because I had the California Department of Developmental Services gave me Sonoma plus Marin data and they gave me Sonoma only. So I backed out Marin County as a residual and um so I would.
Speaker 1:I would not put a huge amount of stock in that rate in Marin County because when you're doing a prevalence calculation you have an uncertainty both in your autism count and then in the denominator, which is the total school population. So I guess I want to distance myself a little bit from this claim that Marin County has lower rates of autism because the parents aren't vaccinating. I think the most robust data in my paper is from Santa Clara County because that's a larger county. We had a larger, you know, a larger denominator, a larger numerator to do the calculation and there you see that the rates of autism among the white children in that county are flattening and even declining after birth year 2000, even as they continue to go up rapidly among the Hispanic children in that county. And in terms of the question of you know, is this because the parents aren't vaccinating?
Speaker 1:Yes you know, is this because the parents aren't vaccinating? Yes, I've been. I think it must have been. I didn't realize this tweet had been made and I was getting these queries from strangers I'd never heard of and I didn't know. Are they baiting me? What you know, what's prompting all this?
Speaker 2:It did go pretty viral though.
Speaker 1:I, I, yeah, and so I guess the no-transcript. And then they have a system of icons that you have a green triangle If, for the safe quote, safest schools, and safest means that the vaccination rates are 95 to a hundred percent of the kids in that school following the, you know, the CDC schedule, like a, like an orange down triangle, is moderately vulnerable I love these terms 90 to 95%, more vulnerable, 80 to 90%. In any case, you know, and as I say, I grew up in California, I'm very familiar with its geography. I see a whole bunch of green safest in Marin County and in Santa Clara County, which is the Silicon Valley area, for that matter as well. So, but these are kindergarten data, um, so you know, and I don't, I don't think that this, I think it's kind of a myth based on these data, that the parents in these regions are not, are not, vaccinating their children.
Speaker 1:I do have older um data, I think this.
Speaker 1:This was prior to SB 277, with which was the crackdown on the vaccine exemption rights, and so I have data for Santa Clara County and Marin County and this is looking at how many kindergartners have a personal belief exemption from one or more vaccines.
Speaker 1:In Marin County the numbers were 2.5% in the year 2000, 4.2% in 2005, and 7.6% in 2013 in Marin County. The equivalent numbers for Santa Clara County were less than 1% in 2000 and 2005 and less than 2% in 2013. So I don't, you know, even if let's take the highest number in Marin County, even if 8% of the parents were exempting their children, that doesn't have the leverage to create the kind of decrease in autism we were seeing in the data set. But I will say that the only data I have are for kindergartners, and this data set that the CDPH puts out supposedly also has child care centers, but when you choose that from the menu, nothing comes up, so they haven't uploaded the data. When you go back to some of these earliest papers on autism and there was a notorious one that was published in 2003 called the Verstraten et al study on thimerosal- I don't know if you've heard of that.
Speaker 2:No, I have not actually.
Speaker 1:That was the paper that got Robert F Kennedy involved in this issue. Okay, it was discussed so because the earliest version of that paper. There were growing concerns about how much mercury was in the childhood vaccine schedule and they'd added a bunch of new vaccines to the schedule shortly after they granted blanket immunity to the manufacturers in 1986. You've probably heard of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. So soon after that, you know it was open season they kept adding a lot of new vaccines to the schedule and they realized the cumulative load of mercury in those vaccines, even though they vaccines had always contained mercury. There was just a lot more of them now. So they did a study.
Speaker 1:The CDC commissioned a study. It was led by I think he was a Belgian postdoc named Verstraten, and the earliest versions of the study found a very high correlation between receipt early on of thimerosal and the rate of autism. The odds ratio was something in the order of 8 to 11. I mean, that's high, that is smoking gun level high. Sent out a notorious email to his CDC colleagues with a header it just won't go away meaning the signal of a significant effect of thimerosal. And I should say that thimerosal was a proxy just for the total number of vaccines given, for the amount of aluminum, because the vaccines that contained mercury also contained aluminum. So it was in general general proxy for how many vaccines are these children receiving. And so there were multiple iterations of that study and they massaged the data, they grouped the children who had received no vaccines with those who'd received some vaccines, the pool kind of like comparing a three-pack-a-day smoker to a one-pack-a-day and then concluding that smoking doesn't cause lung cancer. You know, because you don't really have a pure control group who's had no exposure.
Speaker 1:So anyway, but I mentioned that because it was Restraighten's view, his honest view, view that the damage that was being done was most, it was most important early on, in those early months of life, in those first six months, that first year of life. So what we're looking at on these public data sets is what's happening with the kindergartners, and it looks like even the wealthy parents in California they've caught their kindergartners up. What I think would be really illuminating is to know what happened in those earliest years, to what extent, you know, were the less privileged parents obliged to put their children in daycare? As I understand, under SB 277, if you want to ask for an exemption you've got to submit it every with each well child visit two months, four months, six months. My goodness, who can keep up with that? I think most people would throw up their hands and just say, okay, we'll get them all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:And I, you know, is that happening disproportionately with the lower income parents? That's what I would like to know and I think if we, if we can address that issue, I think then we can ask the question are differential vaccine practices among, you know, wealthy parents versus lowincome parents affecting the rate of autism? I think that's the question that really needs to be asked.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I love that, and that's actually one of the questions that why are the rates higher among low-income and minority children than among wealthy whites? Is it the lack of knowledge? Is it the language barrier? Is it cultural? Is it religion? I don't know, but that's definitely a question that needs to be.
Speaker 1:That is the $64,000 question, as we used to say, and the answer to that is I don't know.
Speaker 1:And and I will say that I am very disappointed that I published I published my paper in 2020, right around the time the pandemic hit there has been. Just recently, it was called to my attention that somebody from, I think, ucla published a paper in which they actually said our results align with those of Nevison and Parker. So they these were people who had better access to the California DDS data they found the same thing. They didn't go any further than William Parker and I did in explaining why this is happening, but they corroborated that it is happening and so at least somebody is looking into this. But I have, aside from that, I'm not been aware of any interest whatsoever on the department, on the part of the public health authorities, to look into this issue, and I think it's a very pressing issue. It is, and we have evidence that something these parents are doing, these wealthy parents are doing or have access to, is lowering their children's risk for autism and, given that we're looking at in California, you're looking at 7% of boys already with autism.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think fear is a big part of this, cynthia. I mean I've thought about this question so much and I mean I have friends, I have family members that are, you know, migrated to the States from a different country. They're new, and I think fear is a big factor in this. I mean, you might not be the only, but when you are not, your nervous system is not that alive and you turn to fawn or you freeze or you flight and you have this doctor telling you no, you have to do it, or I'm not going to see you, or no doctor is going to. And that's just a small piece to it.
Speaker 2:Fear plays a big role because if you don, if you don't know and you're not settled in this country and you're new, you're going to do as they say. You're not going to question authority. Right, you know. I think that, uh, the parents that don't vaccinate have built the courage to kind of question authority and be comfortable with that versus, you know, parents that maybe have a hard time speaking English or not really settled yet. There's a lot of fear, there's a huge fear factor there.
Speaker 1:I feel like yeah, no, I think that that you know. And their children can't go to school in California, right, if they don't follow the schedule, or they can't go to a public daycare or even a private daycare, 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 likely that they are going to the doctor and getting all the shots all at once. You know, like it used to be eight at once and I don't know how many, it is now probably at least 10 at once, I think around eight or 10.
Speaker 1:Once, and I don't know how many it is now probably at least 10 at once. I think around eight or 10. And you know whereas a wealthier parent might schedule more visits and spread them out a bit more.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:Or they might have the luxury of hiring a nanny and caring for their children at home 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 happening among the wealthy parents, if they're just slowing things down, spreading out the shots. Darker explanation that I almost hesitate to bring up, but I know that Toby, you mentioned Toby Rogers has talked about this which is that and this has to do with the Vaccines for Children program, vfc, and that started, I believe, around 1992. That was kind of what came out of the original efforts by Bill and Hillary Clinton to start a national health care program. So they you know they didn't get that, but at least they got their vaccines for children program. And that's a program by which the CDC buys up something like half the vaccines that are made in this country and then it distributes them to the states for lower income families. So the CDC is at once in the business of sort of promoting and distributing vaccines and ensuring their safety, and it's a conflict of interest and that's one thing I hope that Robert F Kennedy addresses.
Speaker 1:You really need to separate those functions. People in charge of safety should not be the same ones in charge of promoting the product. But there, you know, I wouldn't have believed this prior to COVID. But we, you know, we saw a lot of erratic lack of standards in the manufacturer process. So, you know, it has been suggested that maybe those you know, those poor kids, are getting a lower quality of vaccine because there is, you know, there are anecdotes about the separate refrigerators for the VFC vaccines and the privately insured vaccines and I've been told that's mainly for accounting purposes to keep them separate. It's mainly for accounting purposes to keep them separate. But I, you know, so I probably shouldn't go there because I have no evidence whatsoever. But that is something that should be looked into.
Speaker 2:I agree with you. It's something that definitely needs to be looked into Again. I sure hope that the Trump administration will address all of this, but do you, are you going, are you thinking about writing something about that? Because that's that's pretty big and that definitely should be addressed and looked into, investigated even.
Speaker 1:Well, I, I mean I don't know if that I have personal plans to write about that, but I just I I hope that the public health officials will be more interested in these diverging trends among, you know, low income and minority children and wealthier children, because I mean, the fact that these trends are diverging is evidence that there is a strong environmental component in place. And, you know, we're still fighting the battle of those who believe that autism is entirely genetic and that clearly cannot be the case. I mean, the numbers are climbing to. We're up at, as I say, 7% of boys in some areas.
Speaker 2:That's wild.
Speaker 1:That is wild, yeah, and this has been going on, as you know. I mentioned earlier that the numbers really started to increase around the late 1980s, shortly after the passage of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act and the youing of the childhood vaccine schedule. And even today, 35 years later, the CDC is not offering one piece of practical advice to parents except maybe get your folic acid about what they can do to reduce their child's risk. And I guess, when I told you my story, how I got interested in this, I was a parent who wanted information. I was an expectant mother who wanted information and I talked to you know, I talked to young new parents or expectant mothers. They really want to know, and that's where I'm coming from.
Speaker 1:I think that parents have a right to know because they're they're the ones that are going to, you know, have to raise this child. They're the ones who, if their child is not able to live and work independently, they're the ones who are going to have to care for the child for his entire life. They're the ones who are going to drive him to occupational therapy, to all the various therapies. They are going to be on the line and I just feel that they have a right to honest and accurate information about what they can do to reduce their child's risk, and it's really a shame that our public health authorities are still in the business of denying that. Autism is even increasing, you know, let alone giving parents the information they need to lower their child's risk.
Speaker 2:Also, I'd wish that the new administration the Trump administration possibly might have classes for, you know, families with newborns. You know vaccine education particularly. You know it's not only do it, do it these. You know it's going to. You know help your child with this or you know so on and so forth, but at least knowledge of what it can do possibly. You know injuries like. All of that needs to be put on the table so that the parents can decide not out of fear or obligation, but true knowledge whether or not they want to go through with it or not. I think that's something really important that doctors need to provide parents is vaccine knowledge, not to only shove it down their throats.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah, and I would start even before I would start with a pregnant woman. Yeah, like Lamaze classes yeah, and I would start even before I would start with a pregnant woman. Yeah, like Lamaze classes.
Speaker 2:Okay, have a Lamaze class, but have another course like vaccine courses. Why aren't hospitals doing that Well?
Speaker 1:because the answer is that they are financially incentivized, as we discussed. As Paul Thomas has documented, they are financially incentivized to promote as many vaccines as possible. That's right, and with the loss of maternal immunity that used to protect the newborn, I think they're scrambling what to do to protect the newborn. So there are legitimate concerns of newborn babies being prey to some of these infectious diseases. So it's kind of, you know it's a bad situation. You know, maybe they shouldn't have mucked around with it in the first place and, yeah, just left maternal, left a system in place that had worked for, you know, throughout human history.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I always, you know, I, I, when I was in my, my PhD program, I had a teacher, you know, and we were talking about this back in the day, like our grandfathers, our grandmothers, like this stuff. You know, autism was not even around. It just spiked at me immediately. I mean, like what has happened? How can you, how can you blame this on genetic when this wasn't even around? Like my grandma always says it, like every other child that she meets at a supermarket, you know, has something going on, there's some kind of delay, and she'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 more aware and knowledgeable, like what they're putting in the bodies of their beautiful children.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely. And I, and I should say I don't, I, I, you know, I don't know that we, we should focus exclusively on vaccines, although I personally do think they 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 a background in atmospheric science and when I first read about autism, I thought that this is very analogous to the Antarctic ozone hole, that this is very analogous to the Antarctic ozone hole. Bear with me for a minute here. Because what is the Antarctic ozone hole? And certain types of chemists. So there's a predisposing, pre-existing condition. That has always been that way. But then there's something entirely new. There's a very new element being introduced in the case of the ozone hole. That's bromine and chlorine, man-made compounds that are getting up into the stratosphere where the ozone layer, um, exists. So it's that, that combination of this entirely new element, and then a predisposing condition that you know it, the ozone hole. Because other parts of the atmosphere are also receiving these high levels of bromine and chlorine, 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 I think that's analogous to autism. I think there is something entirely new going on to cause it, because autism did not exist prior to the 1930s. Effectively, the rate of autism was zero. And my colleague, mark Blacksill, has done definitive work on that topic. Definitive work on that topic. You know, he's gone into the historical archives and and just all the prominent psychologists of the 1800s had never seen a child with autism. So I think there is something entirely new.
Speaker 1:And what is that new element? Um, many people think it's aluminum. Um, I'm because aluminum aluminum is while it's, it's a very common element in the Earth's crust, but it's bound up in clay and minerals, it's not biologically available from its ore. And put it in a reactive form and inject it directly into our muscle where our immune cells can carry it throughout the body, including into the brain. So you know, in the 1990s, safe minds kind of put all their eggs in the mercury basket. So I'm a little hesitant to put all my eggs in the aluminum basket at this point, because I mean, the other thing is just this sort of massive activation of the immune system and creation of inflammation, which a vaccine has to create inflammation or it wouldn't work. And when you have kids being given eight, 10 vaccines at once. What is that doing to the young immune system? So, in any case, I think these are the new elements, yeah, but then we have the pre the predisposing condition as well. Some kids can, can handle this, but others can't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think, if we get back to why are the low income children more susceptible? That's another very important possibility that I think needs to be explored. Maybe these lower income children do not have as good nutrition and that makes them less able to sustain this inflammation and to detox. Maybe their parents are living under greater stress you know, stress can cause inflammation and could also lead to susceptibility. So maybe the parents have less opportunity or sort of a cultural tradition of breastfeeding, which is one thing. We know that the rates are highest among wealthy white women, and I think breastfeeding can be very protective. Really, it's really the best thing that a new mother can do for her baby. If she's able to breastfeed, I think is, you know, to help the immune system. So these are all, I think, very plausible reasons and probably more plausible than you know, the bad vaccine issue. I you know, I'd probably withdraw that hypothesis.
Speaker 2:I wonder what would make, because earlier we talked about how mothers and their immune system and pregnancy, and so I wonder what are some of the things that mothers can do for themselves that can provide better, some immunity for them while they're pregnant? I wonder. I always wonder, like, what are some things besides the you know methyl folates and the vitamins and all these things that they're taking, you know prenatals, but what other things they can do to kind of help themselves, because I mean, everything is so compromised nowadays food, and so that could play a role, right, yeah, I, I know, you know.
Speaker 1:I know a doctor here in Boulder who has written a book about that and I wish I could remember her name in the book. I know that there are, you know there are doctors who are starting to address this issue. You know how do you prepare your body to have a healthy baby and obviously nutrition is huge Getting plenty of rest, I think, lowering your stress levels if possible, you know, and being in a calm state of mind. You know, in terms of all the vaccines they're giving pregnant women, now I mean I can, on the one hand, I see why they're doing it, because they're trying to replace this lost maternal passive immunity that protects the newborn. But the flip side of that is they're activating the maternal immune system.
Speaker 1:So I just think, be be cautious about accepting that Tdap shot or whatever you know, the flu shot Like. When I was pregnant, I was encouraged to get a flu shot, at least for my second baby and I, you know, I realized I don't tend to get the flus, I it wasn't really on my radar screen and I decided I didn't need that and I was fine. Um, so I, um, I wish I could. I think that's a really important question because I I I think that women should really start thinking about this pre-pregnancy.
Speaker 1:Yes definitely how to be in the most calm, healthy, well-nourished, low-inflammation state that they can be and just have confidence that pregnancy is a natural process.
Speaker 2:You don't need all the drugs your body can can do this and you will be fine and you know your baby will be, will be beautiful and healthy, absolutely. I think this. This is also a way women can hopefully build the courage to go to their doctors about planning a baby and talking to them about the best protocol and how to be more healthier, you know, and then get pregnant. I think this should be like an open discussion with with their doctors to that. How beautiful that would be.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah, and I I think, if you know, there are women sort of helpers, like doulas that they're called. I had a doula. She was very helpful to me. She provided me with a lot of information.
Speaker 1:They're amazing, they're amazing and they might count her. You know, I'm almost hesitant to encourage people to go to see their doctor, because so many doctors are caught up in this pharmaceutical view of health, where health comes through needles and pills, and I don't think health. You know that's the path to good health and I'm sure that you, as you've described your philosophy, I don't think you believe that either.
Speaker 2:No, absolutely not. One thing I wanted to ask you is, for new time, parents that are conflicted. They don't know if they should proceed with vaccines. If they should not, what advice do you give them? Like that's my first question. My second question is what are some questions they can ask their pediatricians?
Speaker 1:Right. Well, that's where I, again, I highly recommend turtles all the way down. Turtles all the way down because at the end of each chapter they have a list of questions to ask your pediatrician, like tell me how many placebo, double-blind placebo trials were done to test this vaccine? The answer is zero. You know, I think it would be nice to have a less confrontational interaction than I had with that one doctor who was trying to promote the HPV vaccine. I I simply asked in a calm voice how much aluminum is in the vaccine, and I knew the answer. The answer was 500 micrograms. He didn't know the answer, you know.
Speaker 2:So I think either way they're going to, they're going to get mad. I don't know what it is, but doctors don't like these types of questions. I've asked so many of them. It's just, it puts them on the spot.
Speaker 1:When you read, when you read, when you listen to Dr Paul Thomas and you learn about the financial pressures they're under, you understand where they're coming from. So I think it's more, it's a systemic change we need. And again, I hope pediatricians, based on you, know what's the rate of autism in your practice? What's the rate of asthma in your practice? How many children in your practice are on ADHD medication? The lower the number, the higher their bonus should be. If that were the system, I think things would change quite rapidly.
Speaker 2: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 very powerful. We can switch the, the way we view it, and turn this incentive into exactly what you said. Wow.
Speaker 1:I hope so and I you know I maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but with this new administration coming in, one has to hope. You know, one has to reach for those high goals.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Thank you so much for today. Cynthia was such a meaningful conversation. You're so intelligent.
Speaker 1:Oh well, thank you it it was. It was a real pleasure to be on your show and and and really to be able to discuss these issues, um, openly. Yeah, um, I really appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I'm happy we got to do this and hopefully this provides parents with a little bit of comfort and education and knowledge so that they can decide what they want to do. So thank you, thank you for being on Absolutely, thank you, thank you.