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So, Mr. Kennedy does cancel some speaking engagements

13 Mar

I recently wrote about how Robert Kennedy Jr. is gutless (I’m an autism parent. No way I will vote for Robert Kennedy Jr.. He’s gutless).  Over the past few decades, Mr. Kennedy has spoken at many events where fake, even abusive, therapies are promoted to autism parents for use on their disabled children. As a keynote speaker, Mr. Kennedy could have either refused to attend or used his platform to distance himself from these charlatans. To my knowledge, he never has.

So I was a little surprised to read that Mr. Kennedy had pulled out of recent convention (Not Even RFK Jr. Wanted to Come to This Vegas Convention of Anti-Vaxxers and ‘Free Speech’ Brands). The Rolling Stone article states:

The result was more anemic than cohesive, however, in part because scheduled keynote speaker Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had pulled out following a February article from Mother Jones. The piece noted that another RePlatform speaker, Lonnie Passoff, president of financial services providers Green.Money and GabPay, the latter being the payment system of the far-right social media network Gab, had endorsed antisemitic comments on a prominent conspiracist’s streaming show. 

Good for you, Mr. Kennedy. Good for you. A speaker at the convention had endorsed antisemitic comments so you decided to not show up.

But this begs the question, why were you willing to speak when charlatans are preying on the families of disabled children? The example I gave in my previous piece was that of chemical castration. For those who didn’t read the piece, I’m not making this up or exaggerating.

Let me bring up another example. Bleach enemas. Charlatans sold (and still sell) chlorine dioxide (a bleach) as enemas and drinks to cure autism. Parents would give their kids bleach enemas, the kids would pass the lining of their intestines and people would say, “look, we got rid of the parasites that cause autism!” No, I’m not making this one up either. I wrote about it many times.

The main proponent of this “therapy” in the autism communities was/is a woman named Kerri Riviera. One of the times she spoke was at a parent convention called AutismOne in 2013. The keynote speaker that year was Robert Kennedy.

Mr. Kennedy could have refused to speak. He could have spoken at the time that he disapproves of these therapies. He could have spoken out since then, demonstrating regret for lending his name and credibility to charlatans such as these.

To my knowledge, he never has.

That would have taken courage. And the ability to discern junk science. These are traits I have not seen Mr. Kennedy show often.

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By Matt Carey

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Four years out, let’s look back on the Shelter-In-Place order for Santa Clara County

11 Mar

It’s four years since Santa Clara County (SCC) ordered shelter-in-place to limit the spread of COVD-19. This was the first such order in the country when they did this on March 16, 2020. It is a decision which gets much criticism today from some quarters. Is that criticism deserved?

Let’s start with a simple metric to see how well SCC did in general: the death rate. Deaths due to COVID divided by total population.

For SCC, the rate is 0.16%. [1]
That’s 3081 people who died of COVID since we started counting.

Let’s compare that to other locations (data as of March 2, 2024) and ask, is the SCC number lower? Here are some values:

SCC:                0.16%
California:       0.287%.
United States: 0.357%
Florida:           0.380%

The methodology is different than what I used for Santa Clara County, but not so different as to explain the very large differences in the death rate.

Santa Clara County is well under the US average. It’s well under the value for Florida (which famously decided against COVID prevention measures). We can’t say it’s because of the shelter-in-place measures, but certainly something (more likely some things, plural) went well in SCC.

Let’s put this in terms of lives lost.  First off, had Santa Clara County had the same rates as the US as a whole, another 3000 or more people would be dead today. That’s a lot of grandparents. That’s a lot of parents.  That’s a lot of people. Humans who didn’t have to suffer the painful and terrifying death that comes with COVID.

Consider the US as a whole. About a million people have died of COVID.  If the country had the same death rate as Santa Clara County, that number would be under 500,000. Five hundred thousand Americans.

Of course we can’t say, “SCC did shelter-in-place and that’s why their numbers are as low as they are”. A lot of factors were in play. But shelter-in-place kept the hospitals from overflowing.  Shelter-in-place meant that a lot of people didn’t get sick until there was a vaccine that dramatically lowered the chance of death. So I’m willing to say that shelter-in-place saved people. Am I saying it came without any cost? Absolutely not. But I will add this–there was going to be a huge disruption no matter what. It was a pandemic. A lot of people in places like Facebook argue that anything bad that happened was all due to shelter in place and other pandemic limiting measures.

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By Matt Carey

I’m an autism parent. No way I will vote for Robert Kennedy Jr.. He’s gutless.

26 Feb

As an example, I will discuss one particularly egregious “therapy” that was used on autistic children, the so-called “Lupron protocol”. Mr. Kennedy was in a perfect spot to stop or limit this therapy, but he never did. It would have taken courage, and, in my opinion, Mr. Kennedy is gutless.

Robert Kennedy (RFK Jr.) is running for president. He failed to gain the Democratic Party nomination and is now running as a third-party candidate. Since the beginning of his campaign, he’s faced criticism for being anti vaccine and anti-science. As someone who has watched Mr. Kennedy for nearly two decades I will agree: he is, indeed, anti-vaccine and anti-science. But that’s not why I am strongly against the idea of him being president. I oppose his bid for one reason:

He’s gutless.

Let me explain.

Long before Mr. Kennedy reached national prominence with his myriad of bad ideas during the COVID-19 pandemic, he was well known in the anti-vaccine autism-parent community. He was probably most famous for pushing the failed idea that mercury in vaccines caused an autism epidemic (an idea he still won’t abandon). And this is where many discussions focus on how his actions are anti-science and anti-vaccine. But to me, I hurt for the harms Mr. Kennedy’s advocacy has caused autistic people and the autism communities. One can say, “his anti-vaccine views have caused harm to public health”. One would be right. But, the anti-vaccine movement has long used autism and autistic people as the hammer with which they attack vaccines. And, to quote Sancho Panza in Man of La Mancha, “Whether the rock hits the pitcher or the pitcher hits the rock, it’s generally bad for the pitcher”. Being the weapon of choice for attacking vaccines has caused increased stigma and allowed charlatans to sell fake “cures” for autism which range from useless to abusive.

As an example, I will discuss one particularly egregious “therapy” that was used on autistic children, the so-called “Lupron protocol”. Mr. Kennedy was in a perfect spot to stop or limit this therapy, but he never did. It would have taken courage, and, in my opinion, Mr. Kennedy is gutless.

For decades there have been regular autism-parent conventions focused primarily on two things: promoting the idea that vaccines cause autism and promoting fake “cures” for autism as a vaccine injury. And Mr. Kennedy has been prominent at these conventions, serving as a keynote speaker.

Mr. Kennedy speaks primarily on the idea that vaccines cause autism (they don’t). He’s well respected as someone who has been involved for decades in this arena. His name gives some credence to the others at these conventions, including those who push abusive therapies.

I have never heard of Mr. Kennedy speaking out against the fake, even abusive, “therapies” pushed at these parent conventions. Why? In my opinion:

He’s gutless.

Allow me to focus on one of the most egregious fake therapies pushed as part of the vaccines-cause-autism movement. There are more. Many more. But let’s just discuss chemical castration.

If you are thinking, no way that happened, Matt. You must be exaggerating. I’m not.

Doctors were prescribing Lupron in order to reduce the testosterone in autistic children. That’s chemical castration in my lay opinion. Dr. David Gorski, an oncologist, wrote a series of articles about this “treatment” as “why not just castrate them“.

Surely they had a good reasoning for taking such drastic measures, you must be thinking. No, they didn’t. In fact, the “science” behind the therapy is horrifically bad. It would be funny if it wasn’t actually used on children.

How was the “Lupron protocol” justified? First, let’s start with the idea that autism is caused by mercury. It isn’t, but this is the idea that Mr. Kennedy pushed so hard 20 years ago. Mercury intoxication is commonly treated by chelation, which is a way to remove mercury from the body. For years medical practitioners pushed chelation on autism parents (again, often at these autism parent conventions that Mr. Kennedy is known to speak at). Only chelation didn’t work. It didn’t work because autism isn’t mercury intoxication. But to people like the Geiers, the problem was that chelation wasn’t working, the problem was they needed a better way to chelate. They came up with the idea that testosterone was binding to mercury and keeping chelators from working. So, they postulated, remove the testosterone and one can remove the mercury and the kid will stop being autistic. Which brings us to chemical castration: remove or reduce testosterone in the body. Which brings us back to Lupron.

Seriously, it happened. And a father-son team named Geier led the charge.

In order to prescribe the Lupron, the Geier’s needed a diagnosis. Insurance companies aren’t going to allow people to prescribe Lupron for mercury intoxication (even ignoring the fact that the Geiers didn’t have evidence for mercury intoxication). So the Geier chose precocious puberty as the diagnosis. Diagnose a kid with precocious puberty and you can prescribe Lupron.

The Geiers got into trouble for this. In 2013 they were facing disciplinary action as noted by blogger Todd W. at Harpocrates Speaks (among many others). They were facingmedical license suspension. In multiple states. So, you’d think people might be questioning the Geiers’ “protocol”. Perhaps checking the “science” that supported it? Well, not in Mr. Kennedy’s circles, apparently.

A few days after Todd W. wrote his article, two things happened. The Geier’s spoke at a parent convention called AutismOne. And Robert Kennedy was the keynote speaker for that convention.

Think about it. Mr. Kennedy could have told the parents at that convention that he stands apart from the Geiers. He could have just said perhaps people should be cautious, a relatively weak stance. Mr. Kennedy could have taken a stronger stance said that what the Geiers were doing was chemical castration and it was wrong, a much stronger stance.

To my knowledge Mr. Kennedy did not speak out then against the Geiers or any other practitioner of fake autism cures. I have no knowledge of him ever speaking out against charlatans.

It would have taken courage to speak out. It would have taken courage to admit to himself that he’d missed the obviously bogus science before, and that he, a self-professed science expert, was wrong. And it would have made a difference. I don’t consider it hyperbolic to say that I consider chemical castration of disabled (or any) children to be abusive. And Mr. Kennedy could have slowed or even stopped this practice long before Dr. Geier lost his license. He was respected and a frequent speaker at these conventions.

It takes courage to face allies (the Geiers were long known for pushing the mercury-autism link. Mr. Kennedy cites them multiple times in his books) and say they are doing wrong. Mr. Kennedy didn’t even have to admit that the mercury-causes-autism idea was false (which would have taken another step of courage and would have been the right thing to do). Just that chemically castrating disabled children is wrong.

Seriously, how hard is it to say, “Chemically castrating disabled children is wrong”, Mr. Kennedy?

Mr. Kennedy has spoken regularly at the “vaccines-cause-autism” parent conventions. And the Geiers were not the only ones pushing abusive therapies. It would have taken courage to say, “I will not speak and lend my name to a meeting where fake therapies are promoted.” But Mr. Kennedy lacks that courage.

This is largely due, I believe, to the fact that Mr. Kennedy lacks to courage to analyze his own lack of scientific expertise. My belief is that Mr. Kennedy, to this day, doesn’t understand just how bogus the “Lupron protocol” was. But it would take a courage for someone who has branded himself as a person who understands science (even though he lacks any credentials) to say, “You know what, I didn’t catch on to the idea that the science the Geiers were claiming was unsound.”

One might ask, was the Geier science obviously bogus? I would say yes and I would say that someone with the expertise Mr. Kennedy claims to have should have easily seen there was a problem very early on. Let me explain. The Geiers claimed that mercury and testosterone form “sheets”, large complexes, in the brains of autistic children. Sounds very scientific and all, until we found that the study the Geier’s were basing this idea upon involved boiling mercury and testoterone in benzine.

In my opinion, Mr. Kennedy should have known that a child’s brain is not similar to boiling benzine. Yes, this sounds snarky, but it really is that simple. The science behind the Geier’s “Lupron protocol” was really that bad.

But this discussion risks getting back into the realm of “He’s anti-science”. I bring this up not to point out Mr. Kennedy’s lack of science chops, but to point out that the science was so bad that it didn’t really take much analysis to see it.

That is if one has the courage to question. To question one’s allies. To question one’s own expertise. To question whether one’s own inaction led to the abuse of disabled children. And, again, in my opinion this was abuse. And Mr. Kennedy could have helped stop it sooner.

Again, I only picked one example. And this discussion has gone long, so you can understand why I chose only one example. But there are many examples of fake cures promoted at autism-parent conventions that Mr. Kennedy could have stopped. There’s also a lengthy discussion we could have about the stigma the anti-vaccine movement has brought to autistic people (one of Mr. Kennedy’s allies tried to label autism as “mad child disease“, to give you one example.) Mr. Kennedy could have spoken out agains the stigmatizing language. But the fear of autism and autistic people has long been a mainstay of the anti-vaccine movement.

We need a president with courage. While others discuss his anti-vaccine views, his near self-delusional belief in his scientific acument, let me just say this again: Mr. Kennedy lacks courage.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is gutless.

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By Matt Carey

More discussions
This blog on Mr. Kennedy.
Articles on this blog about the Geiers.
Articles on this blog about Lupron.
Mark Geier’s Wikipedia Page.


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Flu vaccine given to pregnant women doesn’t cause autism. Is anyone surprised?

3 Mar

I happened to run across this study from last year: Maternal Influenza A(H1N1) Immunization During Pregnancy and Risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder in Offspring : A Cohort Study and thought it worth highlighting. The anti-vaccine movement has been good at moving goalposts and one of their lines in recent years has been that vaccines are dangerous for pregnant women. One line of “logic” holds that as mercury was phased out of vaccines, the influenza vaccine was given to pregnant women. Thus, we are told by anti-vaccine activists, explains why there was never their predicted drop in autism rates as thimerosal was phased out of vaccines.

The conclusion of the study is one line:

This large cohort study found no association between maternal H1N1 vaccination during pregnancy and risk for ASD in the offspring.

Will this convince the remaining anti-vaccine activists? Of course not. Is this surprising? No.

But it is worth noting another study which debunks their dangerous misinformation.

By Matt Carey

I got my second dose of COVID vaccine.

19 Feb

I am very fortunate that my state classified parents of high risk disabled kids (young adults, in my case) as “health care workers” and granted us access to the COVID-19 vaccine. 4 weeks ago I got dose one, and today I got dose 2.

As a short PSA–nurses like food and nothing stops you from showing them some gratitude. Here I am with the nurse who administered my shot, handing off a bag of chocolate.

“High risk” isn’t just a phrase. It’s a reality. My kid has a higher chance of complications or death than others. So I do this to protect them. And hospitals don’t have the capacity to handle a high support individual in the best of times. With a pandemic, the idea that my kid could end up strapped down and/or sedated has been very much on my mind.

So if I can reduce the chances of my kid getting sick, I’m taking it.

And I will admit, I am pleased to have the protection for myself. One of the phrases you will hear attributed to parents of disabled kids is “what will happen when I’m gone”. Well, this is a big step to make “when I’m gone” happen later. COVID kills.

As the parent of an autistic person I am well aware that many of my fellow parents are actively anti-vaccine. That’s a big reason why I speak out against their misinformation. The harm they do is very real.

I look forward to a time when we have COVID-19 under some control. Not so I can stop wearing a mask or eat at a restaurant. So I can rest with the confidence that my kid and other people are safer.

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By Matt Carey

As of March 15 people with developmental disabilities can qualify for COVID vaccines in California

18 Feb

California is opening access to COVID vaccines to more people. As part of this they have issued “Updated COVID-19 Vaccine Allocation Guidelines” which includes guidance on vaccines for people with developmental disabilities. Access will start March 15. Individuals must be 16 years or older, and meet these requirements:

1) The individual is likely to develop severe life-threatening illness or death from COVID-19 infection
2) Acquiring COVID-19 will limit the individual’s ability to receive ongoing care or services vital to their well-being and survival
3) Providing adequate and timely COVID care will be particularly challenging as a result of the individual’s disability.

Here is a quote of the guidance:

Vaccinating those at higher risk

Beginning March 15, healthcare providers may use their clinical judgement to vaccinate individuals aged 16-64 who are deemed to be at the very highest risk to get very sick from COVID-19 because they have the following severe health conditions:

Cancer, current with weakened immune system
Chronic kidney disease, stage 4 or above
Chronic pulmonary disease, oxygen dependent
Down syndrome
Solid organ transplant, leading to a weakened immune system
Pregnancy
Sickle cell disease
Heart conditions, such as heart failure, coronary artery disease, or cardiomyopathies (but not hypertension)
Severe obesity (Body Mass Index ≥ 40 kg/m2)
Type 2 diabetes mellitus with hemoglobin A1c level greater than 7.5%

OR
If as a result of a developmental or other severe high-risk disability one or more of the following applies:

The individual is likely to develop severe life-threatening illness or death from COVID-19 infection
Acquiring COVID-19 will limit the individual’s ability to receive ongoing care or services vital to their well-being and survival
Providing adequate and timely COVID care will be particularly challenging as a result of the individual’s disability.

This is a very welcome change. Caregivers were allowed access to the COVID vaccines earlier (Family members of some people with developmental disabilities declared “health care workers” and are eligible for COVID vaccines in California). Now we can extend People with disabilities are at high risk from COVID and getting this protection is a big step forward.

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By Matt Carey

Xavier Becerra please seat a new IACC quickly

7 Dec

Xavier Becerra, the news is reporting that you will be nominated to be the new head of the Department of Health and Human Services. Congratulations. You will have a lot to do when you get started. One of those tasks is to seat a new Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee.

Please do this quickly. Please.

The IACC serves a very important mission, and we really could have used them this year to address the unique challenges of the pandemic. Not having an IACC in place hurts our communities, our people.

The law reinstating the IACC was signed on Sept. 30, 2019. Over a year ago. Nominations for members was held between November 19, 2019 and February 21, 2020. So HHS has had those nominations for over 9 months. I’m sure your staff can put the names of good candidates in front of you on day one. This should be an easy task to get done, do it quickly. Please.

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By Matt Carey

Mr Trump, Mr Azar, your inaction is hurting autistic people

1 Oct

You took credit for it, but it is meaningless if it isn’t implemented. You are short changing people with disabilities.

Mr. Trump, a year ago you signed the Autism Cares Act into law. September 30, 2019. That law calls for the formation of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (the IACC). Which has yet to be named and start work.

That is clearly your responsibility. Both of you, President Trump and Secretary Azar, both of you. I know, I served previously on the IACC. I was appointed by then Secretary Sebelius.

Six months after signing that bill, you took credit for it. You noted the IACC in your press release.

Last year, I was proud to sign into law legislation reauthorizing the Autism CARES Act, approving more than $1.8 billion in funding over 5 years to research and develop new treatments and therapies, and enhancing support services for those with ASD throughout their entire lives. This legislation also expanded the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee to include representatives from 17 Federal agencies and stakeholders from throughout the autism community. The enhanced public-private partnerships made possible by these efforts are providing support to those with ASD.

It has been another six months and still nothing has been done to form the IACC and push forward the mission of the Autism Cares Act.

I am sincerely grateful that you and Congress put that law into the books. You took credit for it, but it is meaningless if it isn’t implemented. You are short changing people with disabilities.

Mr. Trump, Secretary Azar, select the new IACC. Get them started right away.

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By Matt Carey

Trump’s strategy in the debate was to abuse Biden’s disability. That should sicken any real American.

1 Oct

Biden is a stutterer. He’s learned how to communicate clearly but that involves focus. There’s a great story in The Atlantic on this: John Hendrickson’s What Joe Biden Can’t Bring Himself to Say. Here is one paragraph discussing possible ongoing strategies Biden has:

Eric S. Jackson, an assistant professor of communicative sciences and dis­orders at NYU, told me he believes that Biden’s eye movements—the blinks, the downward glances—are part of his ongoing efforts to manage his stutter. “As kids we figure out: Oh, if I move parts of my body not associated with the speech system, sometimes it helps me get through these blocks faster,” Jackson, a stutterer himself, explained.

I watched the start of the presidential debate last night, and watched more segments through the night. Everyone could see the interruptions and it’s natural to assume that this was Trump’s attempt to dominate the conversation. And Trump wanted to appear stronger than Biden, to be bullying him. And, of course, to try to get Biden angry. All of these are probably true.

But there’s another aspect to this. Watch Biden, he clearly focuses on what he’s saying to get through the stuttering. Trump’s team clearly saw this and saw this as a way to derail Biden. So the strategy emerged: keep interrupting, keep chattering while Biden is talking. This will throw Biden off. If Biden interrupts in kind, as he did some times, it won’t work as well because, frankly, Trump doesn’t think while he talks. And it is a way to get under Biden’s skin. Keep poking at that stutter–without being completely obvious–and Biden will get angry.

As I read John Hendrickson’s piece I realized a few things. I realized how lucky I am. Lucky that my speech issues were caught early, and that since special education had started being offered in schools, I was able to get help early. But I also realized how I need focus to speak on important issues, and how interruptions make that so difficult.

So, yeah, I think this is real. Team Trump saw an opening. A disability in an opponent. And they planned their attack to use that disability.

These are the people running the country today. This is why I can’t sit back and watch 2016 happen again.

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By Matt Carey

So where is that economic miracle, Donald?

30 Sep

There’s a reason why Trump isn’t talking GDP growth these days. It’s because he failed by that measure.

Four years ago Donald Trump was able to sell America that the economy was in bad shape (it wasn’t) and that he, a businessman, could help. Many Trump supporters have told me then and now how we need a president who can run the country like a business. I’ve never gotten any real detail on that argument, they have just repeated Trump’s slogan.

We’ve recently learned from Mr. Trump’s taxes that he’s not very good at business. It wasn’t a big surprise given his failures in so many businesses over the years. We now know that his businesses have been kept afloat by his reality show and endorsements. And big, big loans.

So, we have a showman president, not a businessman president. Which anyone watching the past few years already knew.

But how about that economic miracle? What about the turnaround we were promised (since the economy was doing well under Obama, we didn’t need a turnaround, but let’s keep going). One way we can measure Mr. Trump’s success is with the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The recovery from the great recession was slow, we were told. Trump can do better. This was also a key to his sales pitch for his tax cut: the economy would grow so much that the tax cut wouldn’t increase the deficit. He’s promised 4%, 5% even 6% quarterly growth in GDP.

We don’t hear him talk GDP much now. We don’t hear him brag how he grew the economy so much that we can pay for the huge deficits he created with his tax plan. Makes me want to know if he succeeded (OK, I know he failed, makes me want to quantify it).

With that in mind I pulled GDP data from here to check. Here it is: a table of the percent change in GDP by quarter going back to part way through the Obama administration:

I’ll be fair: I won’t include those quarters affected by the pandemic. Sure, I could also argue that with Trump’s epic mismanagement the economic hit has been far worse than it should have been. I could argue that convincingly. But let’s just look at the quarters before the pandemic. Trump had 11 quarters as president, back to Q1 2017 when he was inaugurated. For compariso, I then counted 11 quarters back to average for Obama.

Average GDP growth in Trump’s first 11 quarters was 2.5%. For the previous 11 quarters, under Obama, it was 2.4%. Trump did no better than Obama. And–this is important–that is with the short term jolt he got with his tax cuts.

So the only way Trump did as well as Obama was at the huge cost of a big deficit.

There’s a reason why Trump isn’t talking GDP growth these days. It’s because he failed by that measure.
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By Matt Carey

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