By Scott St. Clair | The Save Jersey Blog
This is PART EIGHT of a multi-part series on an important topic, Save Jerseyans.
Click here for Part One (You’re Kidding, Right?), here for Part Two (Snake Oil and Politics), here for Part Three (Vaccinations or Communicable Diseases), here for Part Four (Herd Immunity and Unvaccinated), here for Part Five (Who are the Anti-Vaxxers?), here for Part Six (Free Choice-Based Anti-Vaxxer Opposition), AND here for Part Seven (Diseases Are Safe; It’s Vaccines that Kill You) if you missed’em…
Anti-Vax Physicians or Dangerous Quacks?
Then there are their leaders – their shining-light gurus and sages – like California pediatrician Dr. Robert “Dr. Bob” Sears. A visit to Sears’ website is an ecommerce shopping trip where his books and advice are for sale and advertisements for foods like natural goat’s milk are more prominent than fact-based medical information.
vaccnSears, who calls himself “the most trusted name in pediatrics,” is well known in the anti-vaxxer community for his book The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child, which posits the research-free notion that parents can delay, split up or outright skip vaccinations. One reviewer wrote in the medical journal Pediatrics that “Sears’ misrepresentation of vaccine science misinforms parents trying to make the right decisions for their children.”
Sears’ alternate vaccine schedule has been described as an:
Untraditional “alternative” schedule that delays shots or spaces them further apart. If parents are skittish about any shots at all, he offers a separate “selective” schedule to encourage them to give their kids at least the “bare minimum” of vaccinations.
While claiming not to be against vaccinations per se, a position he trots out when it’s convenient, he says he favors stretching them out, splitting them up or, if you like, foregoing them altogether.
This “anything goes” cafeteria-style approach to vaccinations appeals to younger parents who resist being told what to do. It panders to their sense that all opinions are equal irrespective of who holds them or where they’re found – keep looking until one matching your prejudices pops up.
Texas pediatrician Dr. Rex Fletcher encounters what he calls “misinformation” like Dr. Sears’ ideas a lot. In an email, he wrote:
The ‘alternative’ schedule advocated by Robert Sears only delays vaccines and often confuses parents, daycares and schools making it a logistical nightmare authenticating whether a child is up to date or not. There is no medical or scientific advantage to the alternative schedule.
“I spend a lot of my day fighting rumors and half-truths,” he wrote. “So far, the ‘system’ with the CDC has worked.”
Dr. Bob shifts his opinions to go with the prevailing winds. In early 2008, an unvaccinated patient of his proved to be the source of a measles outbreak in San Diego that resulted in 100 children being quarantined or hospitalized, with 11 children actually coming down with the disease. When news of his connection to the patient became public, he put as much distance between the unwitting kid and himself as possible.
He’s been dismissive, accusatory and near-cataclysmic about the Disneyland outbreak – all over the lot.
“It’s measles, people,” he wrote in a Feb. 18 op-ed, claiming that official concerns about the outbreak were “political hysteria.” Strenuously arguing against mandatory vaccinations for measles on the one hand, later in the same article he nonchalantly said a more serious disease would warrant them.
A month earlier in a Facebook post, he called the outbreak “a public health nightmare.” Yet even then it wasn’t that big of a deal: “Deadly? Not in the U.S., or any other developed country with a well-nourished populations.”
He talks out of both sides of his mouth about vaccines and autism. He acknowledges that “there is no science that is conclusive enough to show any links between vaccines and autism,” but then he fans the flames of doubt by providing in his book “ways to vaccinate if you are worried about autism that may decrease the theoretical link if you believe there is such a link.”
Needless to say, Dr. Bob isn’t beloved by everyone. Many of Sears’ critics are harsh in their assessment of him, with one claiming that his books and opinions are “non-evidence-based” and that he is “cashing in on fear” of vaccines by offering accept-the-risk-of-disease advice rather than working to fully eradicate disease.
Some of his colleagues want his medical license yanked for reasons similar to those relied upon by British medical authorities to revoke Andrew Wakefield’s license to practice. Sears, said one, should “forfeit his right to use his medical degree to misinform, confuse or lie.” Calling his advice “unethical,” another said, “His casual attitude about a disease that killed hundreds of Americans every year is horrifying. That this man should be giving advice about child health is a travesty.”
Sears is a “bald-faced liar,” “devious dissembler” and “first-rate huckster” who’s in it for the money, wrote long-time critic, journalist Seth Mnookin. Medical writer and surgeon Dr. David Gorski – nom de blog Orac – said Sears’ Facebook comments were “irresponsible” and “despicable” because of “his complete dismissal of the seriousness of measles.” Per Orac, he is a cynical deceiver:
Dr. Sears has basically urged parents who don’t want to vaccinated to “hide in the herd,” telling parents who don’t vaccinate not to tell their neighbors about their fears of vaccines, lest those parents become afraid too and fail to vaccinate, leading to further degradation in herd immunity and increased risk of measles in the unvaccinated. Basically, Dr. Bob cynically urges vaccine-averse parents to mooch off the herd immunity maintained by those who do the responsible thing. (Links in the original)
Telling your patients to lie about the state of their health – how ethical is that?
Dr. Bob says good nutrition and sanitation ward off disease. In his website bio he says, speaking typically in the third person:
By limiting antibiotic use, using science-based natural treatment approaches whenever possible, and focusing on good nutrition and immune system health, Dr. Bob takes preventative medicine to a whole new level.
But he’s par for the course and all things to all people when he debunks his own notions about sanitation and nutrition:
Some…diseases were beginning to decline before the shot was started, due to improved sanitary conditions and better healthcare. But I don’t believe the diseases would have gone away completely (like polio and smallpox) without the vaccines. And we wouldn’t have seen the diseases decrease to the point they are today.
Disease isn’t something that being diligent about washing your hands or eating organic foods will prevent. As Dr. Tara Smith, an associate professor of epidemiology at Kent State University writing at Slate.com said:
Nutrition and sanitation are no panacea for measles and no substitute for measles vaccination. Living in the United States does not magically protect you from dying from measles or other infectious diseases. Being generally healthy alone is not a guarantee that you won’t end up hospitalized from a measles infection. Your best defense against measles is an up-to-date MMR vaccine for yourself and your family…
Not surprisingly, anti-vaxxers are viewed with frustration by the medical community. Yet, it’s not unusual for doctors to blame themselves – their “poor communication skills” – for getting the pro-vaccination message across. Considering their audience, however, they might as well be trying to convince a post.
Let’s face it: no amount of data, evidence, scientific studies or what not persuades them. As conspiracy theorists cling to a second shooter on a grassy knoll or that 9/11 was an inside job, anti-vaxxers will take to their graves the conviction that vaccines are the root of all modern evil.
Some anti-vaxxers in California even resort to deliberately exposing their unvaccinated children to disease at “measles parties” in order for them to get it and be done with it. Dr. Tuteur might be on to something after all.
Why is it not surprising that the Taliban is solidly anti-vax?
There’s skepticism and disbelief of anything from the government or recognized medical experts, but an unhesitating willingness to embrace one doctor’s universally-condemned opinion or what’s found on a website put up by nobody knows who. If all you’ll do is listen uncritically to one side while refusing to consider the other, do you really care what’s true and what’s not?
