Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsPediatrician Applauds Challenging and Gripping Book
Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2018
I am a pediatrician with a career including private pediatric practice for 31 years, 11 years as a major university Department of Pediatrics Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics in a community pediatric residency training program, and most recently, 5 years practicing pediatric integrative medicine. Over these past 5 years I have worked with a large number of children who have autism and with their parents. I have found them to among the most courageous, inspiring, and determined parents I have ever encountered in my 47-year career.
In the process of becoming educated about environmental causes of various chronic health problems that are common in an integrative medicine practice, always looking for pathways to correct underlying causal pathologies, I have read some 18 books about vaccines and about biomedical treatments for autism. This book, by a parent of an autistic child, and another recent book by pediatrician Paul Thomas, The Vaccine Friendly Plan (2017), have led me to reconsider much of what I had been taught and read in the area of vaccine effectiveness, safety, and especially about Informed Consent – a long-held foundational precept in the field of medicine. In fact, these two books together, along with prior exhaustive study of relevant scientific articles and other books on both sides of the issue have led me to the conclusion that standard practice of information provided to parents of children about the vaccines that are recommended fails to qualify as Informed Consent. It would more accurately be described as Uninformed Coercion.
These comments are not intended to claim or imply that vaccines are “the” cause of autism, nor that children should not receive vaccines at all – but rather that there is a dire and pressing need to learn more about vaccine effectiveness and safety, and especially that informed consent and the related issue of parental choice about whether or not their child receives recommended vaccines must be modified. It has been more than eye-opening to understand that vaccines are not, in the unqualified sense, “safe and effective.” Even more so, it has been troubling to realize that we as a profession have failed to provide our patients true informed consent about vaccines. After all, the Hippocratic oath dictates “Primum non nocere” (first do no harm), and awards to families for vaccine adverse events through the VAERS system and the “Vaccine Court” since 1986 have surpassed $3.7 billion - in a system that is expensive, arduous for families to navigate, and stacked against petitioners. The US Supreme Court ruling in 2011 supporting vaccine manufacturers’ exemption from any liability for vaccine damages, because vaccines are “unavoidably unsafe” (Bruesewitz v. Wyeth LLC) is prescient.
I urge all parents or parents-to-be, as well as fellow pediatricians and other health care professionals who administer vaccines, to read this book, as well as Dr. Thomas’ above-referenced work. We all owe J.D. Handley the courtesy of at least reading and considering what his extraordinary synthesis of published and credible evidence shows. I find the information he shares to be compelling, albeit in many cases quite disturbing. With a 42-year professional pediatric background and after about 7 years of intensive study of the science behind vaccines, autism, and their connection or lack thereof, I find the author’s reasoning and the sources he cites to be extraordinarily well conceived and credible. Had I not previously read about many of the lines of research and evidence he cites, I would have found his conclusions shocking to the point of outright dismissal. His sources however are of the highest credibility and his line of reasoning irrefutable.
Two oft-repeated statements made by parents and professionals alike who summarily dismiss the idea that vaccines are not “safe and effective” in the unqualified sense are:
• Vaccines have been proven not to cause autism.
• The science is settled.
The author virtually destroys each of these arguments in a manner that requires one to suspend rationality to continue to believe they are true.
The prevailing cultural tendency to label any parent, or even health care professional, who questions vaccine safety or effectiveness as “anti-vaccine” and often repeating the above two unsupportable assertions, must stop. Eroding confidence and trust in vaccines among both groups can only be repaired through honest, respectful dialogue and following some of the suggestions advanced by Mr. Handley. These two books together offer a roadmap for improving vaccine safety and a wealth of ideas for how both parents and we professionals can begin to reduce the risks inherent in vaccines. They offer hope that the exponential increase in the incidence of autism to one in 32 children (CDC Fall, 2017) can be rolled back to past dramatically lower levels in the future.
Thank you, Mr. Handley, and Dr. Thomas, for providing parents of children and us professionals who work with them indispensable resources for making intelligent decisions about vaccines in a manner that is true Informed Consent. I intend to recommend these two books to all parents and professionals who inquire about resources to become more informed.
Samuel D. Ravenel, M.D., F.A.A.P
Robinhood Integrative Health
Winston Salem, North Carolina
September 20, 2018
