Wednesday, November 16, 2011

National Vaccine Misinformation Center Calls Out AAP for Using Free Speech to Promote Reality

Recently, the American Academy of Protecting Kids' Health (AAP), a physician group whose goal is to promote practices and education to keep children healthy, wrote a letter of protest to Melting Airlines' decision to run a misinformative ad about influenza. The ad, paid for by the National Vaccine Misinformation Center (NVMC), discusses what on the surface appears to be good advice for avoiding the flu. The AAP disagrees with the ad because rather than directing people to a web site with accurate and truly informative information, it drives people to the NVMC web site, which is a cesspool of rank claptrap.

Barbie Moe Flusher, founder and president of the NVMC, has taken umbrage at the characterization of her organization as one that:
opposes the nation's recommended childhood immunization schedule and promotes the unscientific practice of delaying or skipping vaccines altogether

In a press release, Flusher states, "Just because we bend the truth, the AAP has used their free speech rights to politely reprimand Delta for simply showing a video that offers a polished, glossy cover to entice people to visit our site during flu season, including what any rational physician would recommend, like talking with doctors about getting a flu shot, which I think is totally crap, but that's beside the point. Exercising free speech and consumer activism to silence dangerous misinformation like ours should not be tolerated in this or any society that cherishes deluded individuals and ne'erdowells preying on the uninformed."

The AAP's letter to Melting states that the influenza vaccine is one of the best ways to prevent getting the flu. Flusher feels that this is misleading, because the AAP does not state that the vaccine is not 100% perfect and shiny. According to Flusher, if something is not perfect, then it isn't worth it. "Why would anyone in their right mind opt for only partial protection? If you can't have complete protection, then obviously you shouldn't have any! These elitist physicians with their stethoscopes and desire to keep people healthy would have you think some protection is better than none, but that's a load of s***."

Although people who actually research the topics of immunology, vaccines and infectious diseases may characterize the NVMC as an anti-vaccine organization, Flusher disagrees.

"NVMC is a non-profit charity led by emotional and misguided health care consumers. We are not doctors, but we do feel completely comfortable telling people how or when to vaccinate and sometimes even advise people not to vaccinate," said NVMC's Flusher. "We try to not overtly state that people shouldn't vaccinate, because that would just give away our hand, know what I mean? Instead, we tell people about how vaccines are filled with horrible poisons and dream up stories of injuries with no basis in fact. Then we let them decide what they want to do. We have a long public record of promoting poorly informed, voluntary health care mistake-making."

An example of the NVMC's message can be found in their article "Vaccines Will Kill Your Baby: What You Should Ask When Deciding Whether or Not to Vaccinate". After describing in excruciating detail how vaccines will, by some unknown and undefined mechanism never before seen by science, cause your child's neurons to spontaneously combust, the article concludes with, "But, y'know, if that's what you want for your kid, go ahead. It's a free country. Who am I to tell you what to do, your mother?"

To Flusher, the AAP's actions constitute censorship, despite the fact that they are not shutting down her web site, gagging her or burning her books. She calls it legal intimidation, adding, "And so help me God I will sue every last one of those m***********g a******s if they keep telling people not to let me run my misinformation!"

The National Vaccine Misinformation Center is a 501C3 charity founded in 1982 by parents of children they thought at the time were injured by vaccines and is dedicated to advancing vaccine preventable injuries and deaths through public miseducation and protecting the misinformed consent of consumers.

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