Long-time readers of this newsletter are aware of my skepticism regarding the flu vaccine. At the same time, headlines shouting about the looming flutastrophe can’t fail to grab my attention. The other day I walked past one of the televisions at my gym, and a graphic about hospitals turning away flu victims caught my eye. How horrible! Oh, wait. The routine emergency room advice in flu season is to “stay...
As you are probably aware, and I have written about previously, the US is in the midst of a whooping cough epidemic. With a “business-as-usual” bias, a number of agencies, individuals within the medical community and representatives of major media outlets have blamed “ignorant and irresponsible” parents choosing not to vaccinate their children as the cause of this outbreak. That criticism is unfair, because, as...
The widely disseminated comments of many organizations and authorities would lead one to believe that any possible linkage between vaccination and autism has been entirely disproven. That is not so. The theory that there might be a connection is biologically plausible. One of the most consistent biological abnormalities among children with autism is their limited ability to detoxify heavy metals. It would be a...
Immunizations have been all over the news lately, even entering the political debates. A couple of the discoveries have confirmed clinical impressions, including some I shared with you before. As I mentioned in an earlier newsletter, the current whooping cough (pertusis) epidemic has been remarkable to me because, while I have had patients with whooping cough almost every year for the last 25 years, I have not had...