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Want the Nobel Prize for Warp Speed, Mr. Trump? Fire Kennedy.

6 Sep

The same people who might value your efforts with Operation Warp Speed will also be able to do the simple math in their heads that says Mr. Kennedy’s approach is going to kill people.

Mr. Trump, there is a lot of chatter about you wanting the Nobel Peace Prize. OK, I know you’ve publicly stated you don’t want it, but just in case that’s just you being modest, let’s assume you actually do.

Even Robert Kennedy, a man with few to no good words to offer on vaccines, stated publicly that he believes you should get the Prize. Which may make you think, “good guy, Bobby. He’s going to help me get that Prize!”

Well…not so much. You may be thinking that I’ll point out the fact that Mr. Kennedy, as Senator Cassidy pointed out, says things like, “the vaccine killed more people than COVID”. You may be thinking that I’ll point out that he is likely getting people to generate “gold-standard science” that will claim the vaccine doesn’t work and kills people. Which he probably is doing.

Nope. Here’s an even bigger point I want to make: Mr. Kennedy’s policies are taking America back to a time when children die of vaccine preventable diseases. For example, we just had a large outbreak of measles, and Mr. Kennedy’s response was so lackluster that it certainly was a factor in how long it lasted. Two American children died. Needlessly. I called that outbreak “large”. It is nothing compared to what is in store for America under Mr. Kennedy’s leadership. Florida is moving to removing vaccine mandates for schoolchildren. That will lead to larger outbreaks. And not just among children. Florida is a state with a large retiree population.

The same people who might value your efforts with Operation Warp Speed will also be able to do the simple math in their heads that says Mr. Kennedy’s approach is going to kill people.

My guess is that if Mr. Kennedy is already telling you in private: “Solving the ‘autism epidemic’ will be even bigger than Operation Warp Speed. They will have to give you the Nobel then.” He even has ‘studies’ by some really bad and unethical people he can use to support his idea that vaccines are the cause. And, no doubt, more are on the way from David Geier and others. This is one of those times you need advisors who are both competent and free to speak their mind. People who actually understand science which, frankly, Mr. Kennedy does not. Because he is playing with people’s lives. Children’s lives. And that’s a lot more important than the Nobel Prize.

I am the parent of a young autistic adult. My kid grew up during the time Mr. Kennedy has been running his campaign against vaccines. I am a scientist. A researcher. Not in medicine, but I understand the studies. Focus on that last–not in medicine. I have no conflicts of interest other than this topic is very important to me. I don’t want children to die because Mr. Kennedy used my kid as a weapon against vaccines. I just don’t want children to die needlessly. I have been speaking out to counter Mr. Kennedy for 20 years because I saw the danger he posed.

Mr. Trump, I think you don’t want children to die and that is probably a bigger motivation than the Prize. But, do the simple math. Anyone on the Peace Prize Committee who values public health to the point of considering you for your efforts with the COVID vaccine program will see the dangers your administration–with Robert Kennedy running HHS–poses.

Do it for the children. Do it for yourself. Fire Robert Kennedy.

By Matt Carey

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“if you’ve been involved in good science, you have got nothing to worry about” Why did you lie, Mr. Kennedy?

7 Apr

We have recently seen a huge layoff at HHS. It’s amazing to think that just 2 months ago, Robert Kennedy was saying this wouldn’t happen.

On February 14, Robert Kennedy promised that people involved in good science would have nothing to worry about in terms of losing their jobs. He had a “generic list” of people who should be let go, but people working on good science were safe.

“I have a list in my head … we have a generic list of the kind of people that — if you’ve been involved in good science, you have got nothing to worry about,” Kennedy said during an appearance on Fox News’s “The Ingraham Angle” Thursday night.

“If you care about public health, you’ve got nothing to worry about. If you’re in there working for the pharmaceutical industry, then I’d say you should move out and work for the pharmaceutical industry,” he added.

Shortly after that, he started indiscriminately firing people. It’s so bad he’s admitting he made a mistake and has to bring people back. That’s not “you’ve got nothing to worry about”.

One area that affects the autism community directly is the Administration for Community Living.

The Administration for Community Living, which coordinates federal policy on aging and disability, was gutted – 40% of staff there lost their jobs, according to Alison Barkoff, the former head of the agency who says she learned this by talking to multiple members of her former staff. The ACL funds programs that run senior centers and distributes 216 million meals a year to older and disabled people.

These are not people doing science, but they are definitely people who care about public health who are not working for the pharmaceutical industry. It’s hard to see gutting this organization as being within Mr. Kennedy’s comments on FoxNews. At all.

Which is why I ask: did you know you were lying at the time, Mr. Kennedy? Or did you just not have the guts to stand up and defend good people doing good work when you were told to cut them?

Having watched Mr. Kennedy for decades, I never expected him to have a backbone when he got into power. Sacrificing the jobs of people who directly help disabled people in order to keep his job, yes, that’s in line with what I expected. Mr. Kennedy hired a staunch anti-vaccine pseudo-scientist, so we know where his priorities lay.

By Matt Carey

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How RFK Jr. could add $100B a year to the debt

31 Mar

If autism were a vaccine injury, i.e. if it was legitimate to add autism to the vaccine injury table, I would say, “change the schedule now and pay however many families deserve it, no matter the cost.” But autism is not a vaccine injury. I will note that if Mr. Kennedy truly believed autism is a vaccine injury, he wouldn’t have hired David Geier to do the studies. Having Mr. Geier run an autism study is the equivalent of using loaded dice in a game of craps. Mr. Kennedy is buying the outcome he wants to see. If he wants to do more autism/vaccine studies, let the science speak, to quote Mr. Kennedy himself. He’s not doing that.

Robert Kennedy is (rightly) getting a lot of attention for his vaccine related actions. Just last week he pushed out the FDA’s top vaccine official (Top US vaccine official forced to resign, reports say). I will suggest it’s past time to stop reacting and start looking ahead–ask ourselves what is going to happen and what will the fallout be? That said, if we’ve learned anything from Mr. Kennedy, it’s that one should be careful and not fall into the conspiracy theory trap. So I’ll be careful and conservative as I predict what I think Mr. Kennedy is planning.

One Kennedy goal that seems obvious to me (and many others): get autism recognized as a vaccine injury. Get autism added to the vaccine injury table* to allow families to obtain compensation from the vaccine program. Perhaps he’s made this statement outright. I wouldn’t be surprised. But even if he hasn’t, I doubt many who have followed Mr. Kennedy’s words and actions would argue that this is a likely goal for him.

Let’s say he’s successful. What would be the result? Specifically, what would this cost? The vaccine court, after all, awards monetary compensation. It’s a pretty simple calculation:

$17B is a lot, but it’s not the $100B in the title of the article. Where did I get that? The support needs for an autistic person vary greatly, but, I would argue, they are higher than the average vaccine injury recipient. Also, we are talking about very young autistic children here, so there will be a lot of uncertainty projecting the lifelong needs and the court may be convinced to provide payouts on the higher end of the scale. Often in the past, I saw payments of about $1m to provide support for a lifelong disability awarded by the court, so I chose that number when I wrote the title of this piece. If we take 104,000 autistic kids being awarded $1m a year, we get $104B a year in vaccine court awards.

Let’s state the obvious: that’s a huge amount of money. That’s about 8 aircraft carriers a year. If Elon Musk found $104B a year in savings, believe me, we’d be hearing about it.

To put this more in context, the vaccine program has a trust fund of about $4.3B. This would be gone in the first year (potentially the first month) of autism cases being handled as a table injury. Technically, the vaccine court would have no money after that, and the awards should stop. This would put congress in a tight spot: allocate more money, or tell their constituents that that they voted to deny compensation to disabled children. I suspect they would vote to allocate funds. So we are talking about somewhere between $17B and $100B a year added to the budget, which would be directly added to the national debt.

I will admit that this is a very rough estimate of the financial cost. We could argue how much the average award would be. We could argue that not all autistic kids would get awards, even if autism were added as a table injury. So, maybe the total would go down. However, I also would argue that more kids will be diagnosed as autistic should autism be added as a table injury. Many more. How that balances out in the end can be debated, but I think a reasonable person can see that the answer will be billions of dollars a year and very likely many billions of dollars a year.

If autism were a vaccine injury, i.e. if it was legitimate to add autism to the vaccine injury table, I would say, “change the schedule now and pay however many families deserve it, no matter the cost.” But autism is not a vaccine injury. I will note that if Mr. Kennedy truly believed autism is a vaccine injury, he would not have hired David Geier to do the studies. Having Mr. Geier run an autism study is the equivalent of using loaded dice in a game of craps. Mr. Kennedy is buying the outcome he wants to see. If he wants to do more autism/vaccine studies, he would let the science speak. To quote Mr. Kennedy himself. He’s not doing that.

As I stated at the outset, one has to be careful of relying upon conspiracy theories. I believe I’ve stayed away from that here. I’ve made assumptions of what I think Mr. Kennedy wants to accomplish, but I think those are valid assumptions. And the cost analysis is very simple and I’ve laid it out very clearly. No chance to hide some trick in the math. I could be off by a factor of 10 and the conclusion would be the same.

One could and should ask why I am focusing on the financial cost and not the human cost. First, because autism is not a vaccine injury, we aren’t talking about a real human cost. Second, the financial cost is what will get the attention of Mr. Trump, Mr. Musk and congress. Sad to say, but I believe that to be the case.

The most logical outcome of adding autism to the vaccine injury table, in my opinion, is that congress and the president would be forced to choose between keeping autism on the vaccine injury table and ending the infant vaccine program. End the infant vaccine program and many people in Mr. Kennedy’s community (possibly including Mr. Kennedy himself), will say “mission accomplished.”** Pull autism off the table and the net effect is pretty much the same. The idea that vaccines cause autism will be accepted and vaccine uptake will drop. Many states will stop mandating infant vaccines. The infant vaccine program would be effectively dead.

Either way, Mr. Kennedy will be able to say, “See, I’m not anti-vaccine. I didn’t direct the infant vaccine program to end. They just followed the “science” (that I directed be created when I hired David Geier).”

By Matt Carey

* The vaccine injury table lays out injuries that are presumed to be caused by a vaccine. For example, if one develops paralytic polio within 30 days of getting the oral polio vaccine, it is assumed to be caused by the vaccine. If you haven’t heard of this, that’s because the U.S. doesn’t use the oral polio vaccine anymore.

** Recall that one of the people at Mr. Kennedy’s “Children’s Health Defense” is JB Handley (Vice Chair in 2018). Recall that Mr. Handley once wrote: “With less than a half-dozen full-time activists, annual budgets of six figures or less, and umpteen thousand courageous, undaunted, and selfless volunteer parents, our community, held together with duct tape and bailing wire, is in the early to middle stages of bringing the U.S. vaccine program to its knees.”

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David Geier now works for HHS. He’s supposedly going to do autism/vaccine studies

27 Mar

I’ve been waiting for an announcement like this since Robert Kennedy was named Secretary of HHS. Someone from his community, someone known for pushing out bad and very biased studies, would be named to do vaccine/autism research. I’ll admit, my money was on someone else. But, in general, this announcement does not surprise me.

I first saw this in a link someone sent to me from the Washington Post: Vaccine skeptic hired to head federal study of immunizations and autism. The story is by Lena H. Sun and Fenit Nirappil. I will admit, I have cancelled my Washington Post subscription, but Lena Sun is one of the authors I will miss supporting.

David Geier is part of the father/son team that brought us the “Lupron Protocol“. You can read up on the details here and elsewhere, but I will just say flat out the opinions I’ve made clear many times: it was junk science of the worst sort and, even more, it was abusive to disabled children. In addition to that, the Geiers have a long and story career of junk science and bad medicine. It takes a lot to lose your medical license. Mark Geier (David’s father) did.

Unless he has gone back to school, David Geier holds a B.A.. He’s never held a real research position that I am aware of. He doesn’t have the background to be an assistant to the people who have done studies he apparently will be re-investigating, much less lead a project on his own. And, I think the record shows clearly, he is clearly and terribly biased.

Given news of this sort, I’d expect Science Based Medicine to have an article out quickly. Steven Novella did just that in David Geier Hired to Study Vaccines and Autism. It’s a good read and I don’t want to duplicate too much of what he says. But here’s one key paragraph:

Tapping David Geier tells us everything we need to know – this is a hit job. In my opinion, Geier has zero credibility in the scientific community due to his long history of crankery in this area. He is not qualified as is evidenced by a long history of shoddy science and discredited conclusions.

David Gorski at Respectful Insolence has also chimed in, with great detail and his own flair in David Geier: A blast from the antivax past hired to “prove” vaccines cause autism. Worth reading to get more details on the history of the Geier team.

So allow me to add a few secondary observations on what is happening. Per the Washington Post:

The information that the CDC has turned over to NIH includes the underlying data from four studies on vaccines and autism published in the 2000s, three current officials said. None of the papers found any link.

Step back and think about what this means. My opinion: the goal is not just to show that vaccines cause autism, but to discredit the previous studies and, with that, the CDC researchers who did that work. And, in general, public health researchers in general.

My next point has to do with Mr. Geier’s position at HHS. He’s listed as a senior data analyst* with the organization listed as HHS/OS/ASFR. AFSR is the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources. A strange place to place an epidemiologist type person, isn’t it? Take a look at the org chart below. This is not a place for someone doing research like this. Not only that, but if my (admittedly limited) ability to read Mr. Geier’s entry in the HHS phone book is accurate, he appears to report directly to the Assistant Secretary or the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary. Why? Why isn’t he in some team of, oh, I dunno, epidemiologists, reporting to someone who, call me silly, can check his work?

Also, this begs the question: is Mr. Geier going to be influencing grants? I.e., is he just shoehorned into this position or is he going to help the people who work on grants and such? This next is a stretch, but what if he’s going to help get grants to other credulous “researchers”? I suspect projects are supposed to be approved through a different office, and this is more for managing finances. But, who knows in this topsy-turvy world.

One could imagine a world where Mr. Geier was invited in to work with people with the expertise to do these studies. You know, make sure there are no shenanigans and all. That would give Mr. Kennedy a chance to get an answer he doesn’t want to see. That would take guts. Frankly, if I’ve learned anything over the past 20 years it’s this: Robert Kennedy has no guts. He can’t face the fact that he’s not only wasted decades of his life, but that he’s caused harm. Harm to disabled children and their families. No, I don’t think Mr. Kennedy has that sort of courage. And with this decision, he’s proving me correct.

by Matt Carey

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Team Trump, ever classy, stigmatize people with mental illness to excuse their own bad behavior

28 Aug

NPR reports Trump campaign staff had altercation with official at Arlington National Cemetery. Apparently, members of Mr. Trump’s team chose to disrespect on of America’s most sacred places:

A source with knowledge of the incident said the cemetery official tried to prevent Trump staffers from filming and photographing in a section where recent U.S. casualties are buried. The source said Arlington officials had made clear that only cemetery staff members are authorized to take photographs or film in the area, known as Section 60.

Mr. Trump’s spokesperson, Stephen Cheung, gave NPR a statement:

“The fact is that a private photographer was permitted on the premises and for whatever reason an unnamed individual, clearly suffering from a mental health episode, decided to physically block members of President Trump’s team during a very solemn ceremony,” Cheung said in the statement.

Not only did Mr. Cheung try to deflect blame for the incident, he did so while blaming someone “clearly suffering a mental health episode”. I get politicians lying and trying to dodge blame. It’s what they do. And Mr. Trump never, ever, ever accepts blame or admits a mistake. I get that. I expect this from Mr. Trump. But, seriously, Mr. Cheung, why did you have to drag people with mental health issues into this story? Seriously, you can lie without stigmatizing people.

But first you should wake up and care about stigmatizing people, Mr. Cheung. I get it, you work for someone who has repeatedly mocked people with disabilities. On one notable occasion, he imitated the motion of a reporter with a physical disability. Mr. Trump’s supporters claim that Mr. Trump often uses such motions. Or, that he was “doing a standard retard“. Because always mocking people with disabilities is a good defense?

OK, Mr. Cheung. You work for a jerk. You have a choice, you know.

For people wondering about whether Mr. Trump’s team had the right to film what was obviously a campaign stop at Arlington, NPR reports:

“Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign,” according to the statement. “Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants.”

The people in the disability communities, and by that I include people who love people with disabilities, vote. We may not have carried the day in 2016, but that doesn’t mean we won’t have an impact in 2024.
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By Matt Carey

Robert Kennedy dodges his support for the failed autism/vaccine link

25 Aug

I’ve been watching Robert Kennedy (RFK Jr.) for nearly 20 years now. Watching him closely. As I recently wrote: I’m an autism parent. No way I will vote for Robert Kennedy Jr.. He’s gutless. And now we have a new example of his lack of backbone.

In preparation for being absorbed into the Trump campaign, Mr. Kennedy posted a video on Instagram to show that he’s not extreme in his views on vaccines. Watch it. Then tell me how he addressed his stance on vaccines and autism. You know, the thing he’s been pushing for 20 years. He wrote a book about it. His organization (Children’s Health Defense) is the “expanded mission” of the World Mercury Project, an organization built on the failed idea that autism is caused by mercury in vaccines.

But, back to Mr. Kennedy’s video. He thinks people are “most confused about my stance on vaccines”. So he wants to go “point by point” into his “exact posture”.

Mr. Kennedy plays the game, “It’s controversial to say vaccines have side effects”. As in, “my position is only that there are side effects”. Nope. He believes, to this day, that mercury in vaccines cause autism. 20 years ago it was a weak hypothesis. Now it is an idea that has been demonstrably refuted. Over and over. But Mr. Kennedy has never accepted the data. He’s never apologized for the harm he caused by promoting an idea that autistic people are damaged.

He’s gutless. He’s a coward. He’s a politician who knows that saying what he believes will harm his chances to get elected. So he hides behind the idea that all he’s saying is that there are adverse effects to vaccines. And then he uses an old video of Bernadine Healy where she talks about vaccines and autism.

Grow a backbone, Mr. Kennedy. Say what you want to say.

He does throw out an old video of Bernadine Healy saying “no one studied the kids who got sick”. As an aside, being autistic isn’t “being sick”. It’s also an outdated statement. Way back in 2008 a study compared autistic children to non-autistic children to see if the MMR vaccine (one of the primary theories of the vaccines-cause-autism). They “studied the children who got sick”. What did they find? A “lack of association”. That’s science speak for, “there’s no connection”.

Another study looked at Mr. Kennedy’s favorite theory: mercury in vaccines cause autism. They found Vaccines are not associated with autism: an evidence-based meta-analysis of case-control and cohort studies. Lack of association is, again, science speak for there’s no connection. Case-control and cohort studies is science speak for “these studies looked at the children who got sick”.

So, Mr. Kennedy didn’t say what he thought out loud.

Mr. Kennedy hid behind Bernadine Healy, using an old interview to say what he thought. He neglected to tell his audience that Dr. Healy’s prime question is no longer valid.

The idea that vaccines cause autism was explored, in depth, in court. The Omnibus Autism Proceeding brought together the top experts on the hypothesis that vaccines cause autism to explain to a court their science. They lost. Badly. The court declared that the decision was “not close”. That was in 2010. I know Mr. Kennedy is well aware of the OAP.

Let me add, I listened in to the OAP hearings when they happened. I was listening every day. To say “this was not close” was charitable. The “experts” that were brought out to present the “science” behind the autism-vaccine link were, in a word, terrible. They would be laughable if the topic weren’t so serious. It was frankly embarrassing to see autism parents pinning their hopes, and being taken in, by that team of doctors and researchers. They were obviously wrong, and they were the experts Mr. Kennedy relied upon to support his failed ideas.

Frankly, Mr. Kennedy should have packed up his tent and left the autism-vaccine debate after the OAP. He should have before then, but when it was all laid out like that, there was no excuse for hanging on to a clearly failed hypothesis.

I know I’ve been going on a long while about this. After 20 years, believe me this is a brief discussion of how awful Mr. Kennedy is when it comes to his support of the autism-vaccine link. I haven’t even discussed the harm he has caused autistic people and their loved ones. I did some of that recently.

But just let me say again: the man is gutless. He didn’t address his primary issue: vaccines and autism. He dodged it. He’s just doing the usual bad politician gimmick of using code-phrases to keep his loyal followers in line while trying to not alienate other people. He tried to paint himself as just a guy asking important questions, when in reality he’s a guy whose questions have been answered, over and over (and over and over and over again), but he refuses to accept the answer. He knows his positions is extreme, so he hopes he can fool people into not looking closer.

He’s wrong. He’s extreme. If Donald Trump were a great guy in all other respects (he’s not even close), taking Mr. Kennedy on as part of his team would be enough to vote against him.

Or, to put it another way, it would take a lot to make Donald Trump an even worse candidate than he is. Mr. Trump found a way. He brought Mr. Kennedy into his tent.

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By Matt Carey

Donald Trump: Disabled Americans “Should Just Die”?

25 Jul

Fred C. Trump III has an article in Time Magazine out: “My Uncle Donald Trump Told Me Disabled Americans Like My Son ‘Should Just Die’” The article is an excerpt from an upcoming book, “ALL IN THE FAMILY: The Trumps and How We Got This Way“.

What is the context of this quote, “Should just die”? I’d strongly suggest reading the article, but it comes down to this: Donald Trump’s nephew was able to get a White House visit to for a group of disability activists to speak with officials in the White House. This included Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar. Again, I’d encourage you to read the article, but here’s one section that stands out:

Azar was still in the Oval Office when I walked back in. “Hey, pal,” Donald said. “How’s everything going

“Good,” I said. “I appreciate your meeting with us.”

“Sure, happy to do it.”

He sounded interested and even concerned. I thought he had been touched by what the doctor and advocates in the meeting had just shared about their journey with their patients and their own family members. But I was wrong.

“Those people . . . ” Donald said, trailing off. “The shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die.” 

I truly did not know what to say. He was talking about expenses. We were talking about human lives. For Donald, I think it really was about the expenses, even though we were there to talk about efficiencies, smarter investments, and human dignity.

I turned and walked away.

We already know Mr. Trump is no friend to the disability communities. From mocking a disabled reporter (and then being spineless and denying that’s what he did) to disparaging disabled veterans (“A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ ), the pattern is clear. But, this was his own family. And Trump thinks his own grand nephew should, “just die”.

It’s hard enough to get support for people with disabilities in America. Can we really afford another Trump presidency? Pick and issue that’s important to you. If you are disabled or love someone who is disabled, what issue could mean more to you than disabled people should just die?

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By Matt Carey

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Imagine Mr. Kennedy working in a Trump administration.

17 Jul

Donald Trump was be very bad for America and very bad for the autism communities in specific and would be worse in a second term. Robert Kennedy would be very bad for America and very bad for the autism communities in specific. But it can get worse. What if Donald Trump were elected and put Robert Kennedy in a position of authority? Mr. Kennedy asked Mr. Trump for a job as some sort of “vaccine commissioner” before Mr. Trump’s first term.

A leaked video shows Robert Kennedy speaking with Donald Trump. Media outlets are focusing on Mr. Trump playing to Mr. Kennedy’s anti-vaccine sentiments. A Trump/Kennedy conversation exchanging vaccine fearmongering is, frankly, not newsworthy in my opinion. The fact that a call happened is not either, to be honest. It would be appropriate for Mr. Kennedy to speak to Mr. Trump following the assassination attempt. We don’t have the full conversation in the video, so we don’t know who initiated the call or why. Mr. Kennedy says the main message was “national unity”

But here’s the part that I worry about:

Trump also appeared to appeal to Kennedy, though it’s unclear for what exactly. “I would love you to do something,” Trump said, without offering further context. “And I think it’ll be so good for you and so big for you. And we’re going to win.”

Allow me to sidestep the “I would love you to do something” comment and focus on what Mr. Trump means by “so good for you and so big for you”. Most likely it’s Mr. Trump offering vague and empty promises. That would be very on-type for Mr. Trump. But, this will read to Mr. Kennedy’s followers as a possible open door to some sort of appointment in a Trump administration. They have speculated in the past about Mr. Kennedy running FDA or CDC. Which again would be very on-type for Mr. Trump’s planned second term: replacing people with competence with loyalists. Mr. Kennedy is unlikely to be a fierce loyalist, in my opinion. But, as a “burn it down” appointee, Mr. Kennedy might serve Mr. Trump’s vision well.

I am just amazed that Donald Trump is a viable candidate. His performance his first term was…bad. His disregard for the foundation of democracy should be undeniable, but denialists abound. The idea that Mr. Trump could appoint Mr. Kennedy to some post shouldn’t be the tipping point in one’s vote. Mr. Trump is bad enough as it is. But, seriously, Kennedy + Trump is worse than Trump alone.

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By Matt Carey

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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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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

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