Big Alterna and the Ties That Bind

By Karen Ernst

Editor's Note: Voices for Vaccines does not and never has accepted any government or pharmaceutical funding. The organization is supported 100% by individual member donations.

Recently, an anti-vaccine blog put together 11 Facts about Voices for Vaccines claiming to show that we are a “front group” for Big Pharma/the CDC. The blogger drew up charts showing the connection between various people (the charts were wrong) and included a map to show how close our fiscal agent was to the CDC (2.6 miles!). Yet, I work in my little (messy) rambler 1,120 miles away from this supposed vortex of evil, busily not being directed or controlled by the Task Force for Global Health, the CDC, Emory, or Big Pharma (or the reptillian overlords).

All the conspiracy theories and convoluted logic about supposed and unproven influence by the CDC and pharmaceutical companies on a parent-led vaccine advocacy group makes it that much more interesting that the National Vaccine Information Center is indelibly tied to the hugely influential Big Alterna figurehead Joseph Mercola. Unlike any fiscal connection alleged between Voices for Vaccines and the CDC or Pfizer or any pharmaceutical company, the fiscal ties between NVIC and Mercola are factual, and I want to explore them with you here.

If you are a person who lives a normal life and only thinks about immunization when you bring your child in for his well-child check, the National Vaccine Information Center might sound like a good thing. It might sound positive to have information about vaccines in one convenient “center” for the whole nation.  The problem is that NVIC is definitely anti-vaccine. They have even gone as far as promoting a conspiracy theory about high school kids who created a film about immunization in an after school program. (Shockingly, like football and yearbook, this program was advised by adults, thus prompting the conspiracy theory.)

In addition to the billboards NVIC buys across the United States asking motorists to “Know the Risks and the Failures” of immunization, NVIC also spends a great deal of time and energy opposing a great deal of vaccine-related legislation. They are even opposing proposed legislation that would provide information about vaccines and record students’ vaccination status.

For an organization that claims it is not anti-vaccine but is rather “pro-informed consent,” opposing information seems odd.

Except that they are anti-vaccine and pro-misinformed consent.

I had assumed for a long time that this was the entire story, until the day (two days actually) the NVIC website went down and in its place:

It turns out, the NVIC website is provided as an in-kind donation from Mercola.com.

If the VFV website went down, I do not know what would appear there, but to be clear, VFV pays for its website from its own funds which comes from individual donors. The Task Force for Global Health is listed as the owner of our domain name because, as our fiscal agent (we are not yet our own 501(c)3 so do not have ready access to our bank account), they actually issued the check using the funds we raised for Voices for Vaccines.

So, which websites does Mercola provide funding for? (A hat tip to the Skeptical Raptor for this next part.)

Click here for a larger image

Most interesting in this list of domains owned by Mercola.com is the number of them selling something. Bath products! Tanning beds! Water filters! Why would someone selling such an odd mish mash of home products care about helping an anti-vaccine organization promote their misinformation?

Perhaps because there is money to be made off of parents who eschew immunizations out of fear of what they see as “unnatural.” Make no mistake, parents seeking natural health alternatives make big bucks for Big Alterna. And Joseph Mercola, the doctor behind Mercola.com, is near the top of those cashing in.

Let’s review: the National Vaccine Information Center claims not to be anti-vaccine, but in favor of informed choice about vaccine, but as an organization they have made documented efforts to make it more difficult for parents to receive information about vaccines. They do not want schools to know who among their students is vaccinated (even in the case of outbreaks), and they do not want high school students to pursue documentary filmmaking about topics that interest them.

I believe Theresa Wrangham or even Barbara Loe Fisher, the women heading NVIC, believe the misinformation they promote, but if they believe they are not anti-vaccine, they are seriously delusional. And if they believe that Joseph Mercola is providing them with a website because he has a heart of gold, they should know that he probably bought that gold.

For a couple years now, I have sat on my slightly-too-tall IKEA chairs at my old computer fielding accusations about my connections to Big Pharma and the CDC, who apparently want to force parents to immunize their children because there’s money in it, and because the’re evil. (Note: you cannot buy tanning beds or supplements from VFV, the CDC, Emory University, or the Task Force for Global Health.) This strange theory is promoted enthusiastically by NVIC.

And I’m not even sure what that is. Hypocrisy? Willing ignorance? Arrogance? I’m genuinely curious about what drives NVIC’s willingness to schlep out the Pharma Shill gambit while simultaneously being a Big Alterna Shill.

But the public should not be fooled. This isn’t a story of the little guy who is desperately seeking alternative health options in a world of cruel public health bullies trying to take away the little guy’s freedoms. This is a story about a well-oiled, well-funded machine. A machine that wants to keep you scared--that demands that you look at their information but no one else’s. A machine that would harass children and their teachers in order to obscure the truth about immunization and to sell you a tanning bed.

Consequences--in the language of the courts

Sometimes reading stories about the consequences of forgoing vaccines for one's children can leave a reader feeling like she's not getting the whole story, or is getting one with a "point of view." Sometimes anti-vax activists call these true stories "scare tactics." 

Today, just a short post. A mother in Australia chose not to give her newborn a Vitamin K shot or the recommended hepatitis B vaccine. The baby died from the very blood clotting disorder the Vitamin K shot was designed to prevent. The Office of the State Coroner conducted an investigation into the baby's death. Its report is a fact-based narrative that every parent should read. If you wish to read a completely unbiased account of the consequences of rejecting a vaccine for your child, you will find it in this report, which is heartbreaking in its very matter-of-fact tone.

I will mention one more thing that I found deeply troubling. Some of you may know of Dr. Joseph Mercola, one of the most infamous purveyors of anti-vaccine nonsense. Unfortunately, when a new parent or parent-to-be Googles "Vitamin K newborn" the first link is a video from Mercola touting the "dangers" of the Vitamin K shot. I wish the first link that came up under "Vitamin K" and "newborn" was the coroner's investigation I just read. 

An Attachment Parenting Mom on Watching "The Greater Good"

By Jennifer Westmoreland Bouchard

I went down the anti-vax rabbit hole the other night. I have to admit that I learned a lot. This not-so-fantastic voyage was prompted by the fact that several friends and acquaintances had recommended I watch “The Greater Good,” described to me as a dispassionate, fair-and-balanced documentary that offers a glimpse into the complex vaccine debate.

The people who recommended this film to me largely share my parenting philosophies. For all intents and purposes, I consider myself a practitioner of attachment parenting (AP). I exclusively breastfeed my four-month-old daughter, we practice elimination communication, I wear her as much as she’ll let me, and I am extremely careful about the products I allow her to use. 

But I’ve noticed an anti-vaccine trend in attachment parenting groups (I partially attribute this to Dr. Sears’ delayed vaccine schedule), to such an extent that I always feel compelled to add that I am pro-vax whenever I’m in a conversation about AP. So, yes, I've become the AP parent who vaccinates according to the routine vaccinations scheduled outlined by the CDC. Why? Because my daughter deserves better than to be put at risk for serious illness as a result of baseless claims and anecdotal evidence. Because my community deserves better than to be subjected to an epidemic, to travel back in time to a much more dangerous time in human history, a time before safe, effective vaccines were available to a majority of the U.S. population.

I’ll be honest: I knew going in that “The Greater Good” was going to be about as fair and balanced as Fox News and as dispassionate as… well, a one-sided conversation about vaccines. I decided to approach my viewing as a sociological study, as a way to begin to understand why there are still those out there who believe the myriad falsehoods and leaps of logic that run rampant in anti-vax side of the vaccine debate.

Five minutes into the film, I wasn’t sure if I could make it through the whole thing, but I pushed ahead in the name of research. In short, the film was everything I thought it would be and more. Creative (read: deceptive) editing and splicing of sound bytes, vague science, anecdotal "evidence," everything you'd expect from a film with full support from Joe Mercola (for information on Joe Mercola, visit Science-Based Medicine's post about his appearance on Dr. Oz's show). The only reasonable parts of the film were the sections featuring Dr. Paul Offit. (I guess these few scenes were the filmmakers attempt at fair and balanced), who says something logical, then the film cuts to a figure such as notorious anti-vax crusader Barbara Loe Fisher who contradicts what he said, and then it cuts to a heart-wrenching anecdote about a child whose illness was “caused by vaccines.” There were, of course, no anecdotes about unvaccinated children whose lives had been ruined by preventable diseases.

Needless to say, I would never recommend this film to anyone. It’s simply a rehashing of all of the old anti-vax chestnuts (yes, the same ones that have been debunked by the medical community over and over). However, I’m glad I watched it. It helped me understand where anti-vaxxers get their information, and how these notions of false causality become hardened truths in their minds.

Though I’m tempted to give it a go, I’m not going to pick apart the film point-by-point. This has already been done by those much more knowledgeable about vaccine debate than I. For starters, try this piece in the Vaccine Times that dissects the film’s trailer: . Or Gorski’s remarkable dissection of the entire film at Science-Based Medicine. 

Never did I imagine that vaccinating my daughter would be perceived as a political or philosophical statement. Never did I imagine that my pediatrician would noticeably relax, relieved when I told her that we were committed to following a routine vaccination schedule. It saddens and angers me that the anti-vaccine voices have become so loud, and that more and more people are being duped into refusing vaccines for their children. Good parents question the safety of everything. It’s what we do. Questioning is important, yes. But it’s even more important to base those questions on hard scientific evidence, on correct information.

We live in a climate where everyone can get a “degree in vaccination studies” at the “University of Google.” As I remind my college students each semester as we come to final paper time, Internet research is fine, just make sure you consult quality sources. Be analytical, be tough, be unrelenting when it comes to the veracity of the information you’re reading. It is my job as a Mom Who Vaxs to be a quality (re)source, to continue to educate myself not only on the science that supports benefits of vaccines, but also on the rhetoric of the anti-vaxxers (so that I can debunk it for those who are still “on the fence” about vaccinations, or anti-vaxxers who are willing to question their views). This is my best hope for helping to make our society safer for our kids, safer for all of us.

Jen Westmoreland Bouchard is a writer, teacher, translator, and mother.