[DISCLAIMER: AS IN ALL THINGS I DO, I SEEK THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE FOR PUBLIC HEALTH POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS. HERE YOU WILL SEE ME CALL FOR RANDOMIZED CLINICAL TRIALS FOR CONTROVERSIAL TREATMENTS OF AUTISM. CALLING FOR SCIENCE TO WEIGH IN ON KNOWLEDGE CLAIMS ABOUT THE SAFETY AND/OF EFFICACY OF ANY PARTICULAR TREATMENT FOR ANY DISEASE OR CONDITION DOES NOT, AND HAS NOT, EVER BEEN INTERPRETED AS ‘SUPPORT FOR’ OR ‘RECOMMENDATION OF’ THAT TREATMENT. WE SHOULD BASE PUBLIC HEALTH POLICIES ON SCIENCE, NOT ON RUMORS AND SPECULATION. THAT INCLUDES BANS OF POTENTIALLY EFFECTIVE TREATMENTS. NEVERTHELESS, I PREDICT THAT SOME WILL TRY TO MISREPRESENT MY POSITION ON TREATMENTS OF AUTISM AS ADVOCACY AS PART OF THEIR ATTEMPTS TO SMEAR PEOPLE SEEKING ANSWERS. IN MY BOOK “CAUSES”, I CATALOG NUMEROUS LIKELY FUTURE TREATMENTS. THE TREATMENTS BUZZFEED IS TRYING TO SAY (AND FAILING TO SAY) THAT POLLY TOMMEY, AND THEREBY THE CHARITY SHE FOUNDED, ADVOCATES OR RECOMMENDS ARE NOT LISTED AMONG THOSE I HAVE CATALOGED IN MY BOOK. – JLW]
Buzzfeed (no link, I don’t want to get into “trouble”, see below) evidently exists to manufacture perspective and to manufacture controversy. In their latest round of generated Fake News, they go after autism mom, Autism Trust UK Founder, and humanitarian Polly Tommey with very lame attempts to link her, and Autism Trust UK with what Buzzfeed evidently hopes will appear to be controversial “other sites”…. oooooohhh.
Let’s have a look:
A registered British autism charity has promoted “dangerous”, “harmful”…
(WHY QUOTES? ARE THEY? OR NOT?)
unlicensed medicines and made unfounded claims about the risks of vaccines, BuzzFeed News can reveal.
REVEAL? We’ll see. Polley has never been anything but 100% transparent.
The Autism Trust UK is based in Camberley, Surrey, and describes itself as a “vocational training and support centre for individuals with autism and families”.
CORRECT.
It was founded in 2007 by Polly Tommey, a noted anti-vaccine campaigner, whose son Billy had been diagnosed with autism.
BuzzFeed News has established that, over the last five years, the charity’s social media accounts have linked to sites
EGAD!!!!
apparently promoting various pseudoscientific
PLEASE DEFINE IN CONTEXT.
“treatments” for autism, long after some of those treatments were widely condemned as dangerous.
“WIDELY?” HOW WIDELY? Is this like “Bigly”? or are you just hoping people will THINK everyone thinks autism is just in the kid’s heads, and has no medical basis??
The charity has also repeatedly raised unfounded links between vaccines and autism,
OK, OK. Have to stop you right there. Please read these Studies that Support Link Between Vaccines and Autism, and then visit envgencauses.com, read the 1,000 studies there, and then let’s talk.
OK, so we’re good now, Buzzfeed? Care to update your article?
and suggested that other vaccines, such as the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine, have injured or killed children.
TRUE. ACCORDING TO VAERS, THERE HAVE BEEN THOUSANDS OF HPV VACCINE INJURIES.
The Times revealed last week that Tommey has close links to Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced
(VINDICATED)
anti-vaccine campaigner
THERE’S THE AV-WORD. DR. WAKEFIELD HAS STRESSED THE IMPORTANCE OF SPREADING OUT M, M AND R, FROM THE MMR, AND HAS CONSISTENTLY CALLED FOR SCIENCE FOR HIS HYPOTHESIS THAT VACCINES CAUSE AUTISM. HE HAS NEVER SAID HE IS AGAINST VACCINES; INDEED, HE INSISTS THAT HE IS NOT. SO WE’LL HAVE TO SETTLE FOR ‘VACCINE-RISK AWARE’ CAMPAIGNER
and struck-off doctor behind the vaccine-autism scare.
CARE TO INSERT “WRONGFULLY” BEFORE “STRUCK-OFF”. AT LEAST YOU GOT THE ‘DOCTOR’ PART RIGHT.
The treatments promoted through its social media accounts
SO NOW LINKING TO OTHER SITES THAT HAVE INFORMATION MEANS ‘PROMOTION’? OK, WE’LL BE SCOURING BUZZFEED FOR LINKS TO UNSAVORY SITES.
FOUND ONE! BUZZFEED LINKED TO THIS SITE, THUS PROMOTING IDEAS ON HEALING AUTISM. GOT IT.
https://www.facebook.com/HealingTheSymptomsKnownAsAutism/?__mref=message_bubble
include: • GcMAF,
HOW COULD BUZZFEED LINK TO SUCH A SITE?
a scientifically unfounded stem-cell treatment made from human blood which its producers have claimed can “eradicate” autism, along with HIV, cancer and dozens of other diseases;
YOU MEAN “UNFOUNDED” AS IN:
Case Report: GcMAF Treatment in a Patient with Multiple Sclerosis.
Inui T, Katsuura G, Kubo K, Kuchiike D, Chenery L, Uto Y, Nishikata T, Mette M.
Anticancer Res. 2016 Jul;36(7):3771-4.
- PMID: 27354653?
Thyer L, Ward E, Smith R, Branca JJ, Morucci G, Gulisano M, Noakes D, Eslinger R, Pacini S.Oncoimmunology. 2013 Aug 1;2(8):e25769.
Immunotherapy for Prostate Cancer with Gc Protein-Derived Macrophage-Activating Factor, GcMAF.
Yamamoto N, Suyama H, Yamamoto N.
Transl Oncol. 2008 Jul;1(2):65-72.
Koga Y, Naraparaju VR, Yamamoto N.
Proc Soc Exp Biol Med. 1999 Jan;220(1):20-6.
Korbelik M, Naraparaju VR, Yamamoto N.
Br J Cancer. 1998 Mar;77(6):1009-14.
Yamamoto N, Naraparaju VR.
Cancer Res. 1997 Jun 1;57(11):2187-92.
- PMID:9187119
FOR THE RECORD, POLLY TOMMEY ANSWERED INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FROM BUZZFEED ON VIDEO, AND INFORMED THEM REPEATEDLY SHE DOES NOT KNOW WHAT GCMAF IS. BUT YOU DIDN’T REPORT THAT. BUZZFEED=FAKE NEWS.
OK, NOW I’VE DONE YOUR HOMEWORK FOR YOU, BUZZFEED, WE CAN CONTINUE:
• Mineral Miracle Solution, or MMS, a chlorine-based bleach which, it is claimed, can “restore partial or full health” to sufferers of a wide variety of illnesses, again including autism, cancer and HIV, when given orally or as an enema;
• “chelation”, the chemical removal of heavy metals from the bloodstream;
• vitamin B12 injections for “methylation”.
INTERESTING!
In this tweet from June last year, the Autism Trust UK’s Twitter account linked to the Facebook page of a book called Healing the Symptoms Known as Autism (HTSKAA). The book is by Kerri Rivera, an LA-based homeopath. The HTSKAA page claims that “More than 250 children have recovered” from autism using MMS.
THAT’S FANTASTIC IF TRUE!!! SOUNDS LIKE WE NEED AN RCT, THE SOONER THE BETTER!
Rivera has recommended giving MMS eight times a day, or rectally two to three times a week.
I DON’T KNOW ABOUT THAT… BUT I AM GLAD WE KNOW THAT CHELATION CAN SAVE LIVES DUE TO METAL INTOXICATION:
Chelation in Metal Intoxication
The UK’s largest autism charity, the National Autism Society (NAS), describes MMS as a “bleach banned for human consumption”, and it has been linked to at least one death.
CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUAL CAUSATION! ONE DEATH. WAS THAT ASSOCIATION STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT?
BTW, WHILE ANY DEATH OF ANY PERSON IS SADDENING, PEOPLE DIE FROM CHEMICAL TREATMENTS FOR CANCER ALL THE TIME.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) warned about its use in 2010, calling it an “industrial-strength bleach”. The HTSKAA page angrily rejects these warnings, dismissing those who call it a bleach as “propaganda trolls”.
I CAN SEE WHY! THE CLAIMS BEING MADE ABOUT SAFETY LEVELS OF THESE TREATMENTS ARE NOT BASED ON SCIENTIFIC STUDIES!
The Autism Trust Twitter account also links directly and repeatedly – in at least three tweets in November 2016 alone – to sites selling “chelation”, a therapy which claims to treat autism by removing heavy metals such as mercury from the blood.
DON’T MAKE ME GO BACK AND COUNT LINKS FROM BUZZFEED I DON’T LIKE!
At least three deaths, including that of a five-year-old autistic boy, have been linked with chelation, according to the US Centres for Disease Control (CDC).
BUT HOW MANY DEATHS ARE REPORTED FROM VACCINES? NONE? BECAUSE CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUAL CAUSATION? NO…
“GARDASIL TRIALS DEATH RATE 3-10 TIMES HIGHER THAN SAME-AGE GIRLS IN GENERAL POPULATION”
Across the clinical studies, 40 deaths (GARDASIL N = 21 or 0.1%; placebo N = 19 or 0.1%) were reported in 29,323 as well as: the [death] rate for [12-year-old] females (13.8 deaths per 100,000) from https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db37.pdf
“VACCINE SAFETY FAILURE: 72,784 SERIOUS REACTIONS 6,423 DEATHS REPORTED TO VAERS SINCE 1989″
WHERE IS YOUR STORY ON VACCINE DEATHS, BUZZFEED? AND DOES CDC LINK TO ANY VACCINE MANUFACTURER’S WEBSITE?
The UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) explicitly warns that chelation should not be used as a treatment for autism in either children or adults.
BASED ON WHICH PEER-REVIEWED STUDIES?
The Autism Trust UK’s Facebook page also linked to the website of a clinic offering the pseudoscientific treatment “methylation”, or vitamin B12 injections, to treat autism.
OK…. DOCS TO B12 INJECTIONS ALL THE TIME… PLUS AUTISM SPEAKS SAYS…
The NICE guidelines say “do not use vitamins, minerals and dietary supplements” for the treatment of core autism symptoms in adults.
WHY ON EARTH NOT? BASED ON WHICH CLINICAL STUDIES PLEASE?
In this tweet last month, the Autism Trust linked to a Facebook post trying to help a mother called Dana in Chicago find someone who has experienced “rerum”, another name for GcMAF, and asked to be put in touch with “groups who would be helpful to me”. The post was live on 6 February when BuzzFeed News contacted the charity, but two days later it thad
been deleted.
Several research papers about GcMAF have been withdrawn by the journals that published them due to irregularities in the data.
BUT YOU IGNORE THE ONES NOT WITHDRAWN. BUZZFEED = FAKE NEWS.
The UK medicines regulator, the MHRA, has warned that GcMAF poses “a significant risk to people’s health”.
STUDIES PLEASE?
The NAS says that GcMAF is “dangerous” and “harmful”
and warns people to “not use [it] in any circumstances”.
A spokesperson for the Charity Commission told BuzzFeed News: “The commission is assessing the issues raised in the media regarding the Autism Trust Limited and has contacted the charity to determine what, if any regulatory role there might be for us.”
THE LAST THING WE COULD HAVE IS RECOVERY FROM AUTISM. THAT WOULD SHOW IT IS PRIMARILY ENVIRONMENTAL.
The commission’s “public benefit requirement” states that the benefit of a charity to the public must be “capable of being proved by evidence where necessary”, and “any detriment or harm that results … must not outweigh the benefit – this is also based on evidence and not on personal views”.
SOUNDS GOOD. LET’S DO CLINICAL TRIALS.
The Autism Trust UK’s Twitter feed also regularly posts updates from a Facebook page called Autism Mothers, which was set up by Tommey. Her email address is the only one listed on the Autism Mothers contacts page.
YOU SLEUTH YOU.
Almost every single tweet from the Autism Trust in February 2017 was a cross-post with Autism Mothers.
HEAVENS, NO!!! PEOPLE COMMUNICATING??? THIS HAS TO STOP.
Autism Mothers has linked to websites selling MMS and GcMAF, albeit before the official warnings about the two were issued,
OK, TIME MACHINE ACTIVATED. RETROACTIVE CRIMINAL CHARGES PENDING!
although after the 2009 death of a Mexican woman and the 2008 hospitalisation of a man in Canada, both linked to fom MMS. It
SORRY, I’M LOST HERE. WHAT IS THE ‘IT’? AUTISM MOTHERS FB PAGE?
has promoted an online conference featuring Rivera, four months after she was prohibited from promoting or selling MMS in the state of Illinois.
It
has also twice highlighted a conspiracy theory claiming that Jeff Bradstreet, one of the main proponents of GcMAF and a prominent believer that vaccines cause autism, was murdered.
HOW DOES ONE HIGHLIGHT A SHARED POST?
According to local law enforcement, Bradstreet killed himself in North Carolina in 2015, a few days after an unlicensed GcMAF factory he apparently ran was shut down.
AND ACCORDING TO HIS FAMILY, HE NEVER WOULD HAVE DONE THAT.
SEEKING:INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST TO FIND THE MOST RELEVANT PART OF THE LAST BF SENTENCE ?
According to local law enforcement, Bradstreet killed himself in North Carolina in 2015, a few days after an unlicensed GcMAF factory he apparently ran was shut down.
DID HE? DIDN’T HE???
It has also posted at least five direct links to websites selling chelation treatments, and in the most recent post, in January this year, it described the treatment as “inexpensive”.
YOUR POINT BEING? POLLY CAN POST WHATEVER, WHENEVER SHE WOULD LIKE TO.
The Autism Trust UK’s Twitter feed appears to have highlighted unfounded vaccine scares
on at least 10 occasions, including a December 2016 link to an Autism Mothers post by the anti-vaccine campaigner Del Bigtree describing the “fallen soldiers in the pro-vaccine war” and a June 2016 video claiming that the MMR vaccine had caused a boy’s autism.
WONDERING ABOUT THOSE “CHELATION DEATHS”…. CORRELATION <> CAUSE, EXCEPT WHEN ITS LEADS TO VACCINE SALES…
The Autism Mothers Facebook page has made similar claims, including one video in which a woman claimed that her daughter’s leukemia had been caused by the HPV vaccine.
THAT’S TERRIBLE NEWS ABOUT THE HPV VACCINE.
The National Autism Society says that it is “clear that there is no link between autism and the MMR vaccine”.
(BLINK. BLINK. BLINK.)
The NHS describes the HPV vaccine as “safe”, saying it could save 400 lives a year in the UK from cervical cancer, and that while it has side effects they are either mild or extremely rare.
Tommey herself has a long history of claiming that vaccines are dangerous.
LIKE I SAID, SHE’S A HUMANITARIAN.
She is listed as a producer of the film Vaxxed,
directed by Wakefield,
THAT’S DR. WAKEFIELD, BF!!
which itself links the MMR vaccine to autism
WRONG. IT REVEALS FRAUD AT THE CDC AND TELLS THE TRUTH ABOUT THE HARM MMR CAUSED IN N. AMERICA, BEFORE BEING RE-PACKAGED AND SHIPPED TO GREAT BRITAIN, AND RE-EXPORTED TO THE US.
and claims
CONFESSIONS
that the CDC covered up evidence for that link.
The Autism Trust UK Twitter account has also promoted Vaxxed.
A source sent BuzzFeed News screenshots of messages in which the general manager of the Autism Trust UK, Mo Wilson, offered to sell Vaxxed merchandise privately, although Wilson said that she was doing it as a personal favour, and that the Vaxxed team and the Autism Trust are “totally separate” and refused to give advice on how to get hold of pseudoscientific treatments.
SALES OF MERCH ARE ROUTINE IN FUNDRAISING. THIS IS BREAKING NEWS?
Tommey has been filmed in the past saying that “paediatricians are dangerous”
WELL, THOSE UNEDUCATED ABOUT VACCINE RISK CERTAINLY ARE!
and that there is “no such thing as a safe vaccine”,
RIGHT. JUST LIKE THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES HAS RULED.
and, while promoting Vaxxed with another of its producers, Del Bigtree, that “there’s no school, no job, no house, no anything worth putting a vaccine in your child”.
POLLY IS EXTREMELY ELOQUENT AND CLEAR ON HER OPINION, ISN’T SHE!
Recently,
APRIL 2016??? BREAKING NEWS!
Vaxxed has been withdrawn from planned screenings at the Tribeca film festival in New York and at the Curzon cinema in Soho, London. On 9 February it was to be screened at the European Parliament, hosted by Michèle Rivasi, a French Green MEP, but it has since been withdrawn following news coverage and public pressure.
BANNING FILMS IS A GREAT MARKETING TOOL.
Emma Dalmayne, an advocate for autistic people, told BuzzFeed News: “The fact that registered charities are promoting these things to vulnerable parents, which in turn affects autistic children, is of great concern to me as an autistic mother to autistic children. It has such a detrimental effect on the advancement of the autistic rights movement.”
WELL, IT DEPENDS ON WHICH SOURCE OF HARM ONE THINKS IS BEING CHARITABLE ABOUT, DOESN’T IT?
Fiona O’Leary, another campaigner, agreed: “My autistic children have to live with this rhetoric and pseudoscience.”
BuzzFeed News contacted the Autism Trust UK for its response to our findings. The charity’s general manager, Mo Wilson, forwarded that email to Tommey who sent a detailed reply by email.
BF FAIL. EPIC FAIL.
In both the video and the email, Tommey repeatedly denies knowing what GcMAF or MMS are. However, she is in a video last year in which Wakefield discusses both treatments knowledgeably.
POLLY IS A MOM.
And in July, the Facebook page for Vaxxed called for “action” against a Sunday Times reporter, Josh Boswell, who had emailed with concerns that Tommey and Wakefield had promoted the substances. The post was widely shared, and Tommey was tagged in it.
#TAGGINGMEDOESNOTIMPLICATEME
Tommey confirms that she believes vaccines cause “devastation”.
CORRECT. US SPECIAL MASTER’S COURT AGREES. $3BILLION PAID OUT FOR INJURIES SO FAR.
She said MMT
NOT FAMILIAR WITH MMT VACCINE…
was a “dangerous vaccine, as is the DTap [diphtheria vaccine]”, while HPV vaccine causes “horrific injury and death … There is nothing safe about the HPV Gardasil vaccine.”
GIVEN THAT THE STUDIES DONE COMPARED ALUMINUM HYDROXIDE TO HPV VACCINE, AND WE RELY ON POST-MARKETING SURVEILLANCE FOR SAFETY, IT IS NOT LOOKIN GOOD AT ALL.
She also confimed in both the video and the email that she is “concerned” about the manner of Bradstreet’s death, saying in the email: “I don’t know what happened but I think suicide is highly unlikely.” However, she said didn’t know who posted the conspiracy theory.
POOR POLLEY. WHY ARE YOU BADGERING HER ABOUT DR. BRADSTREET’S MURDER?
She said she did not run the day-to-day business of the Autism Trust, and insisted the Autism Mothers Facebook page was an open, uncensored forum.
COOL.
On 7 February, Tommey released another video talking about the “BuzzFeed silliness”, thanking people for their support, and saying she’d offered to step down from the Autism Trust UK, although she says that that offer had been rejected by the charity. She denied again knowing what GcMAF and MMS are, saying she didn’t remember Wakefield’s explanations.
COOL.
On 8 February the Autism Trust UK put out a press release “in response to the Times article on 2.02.17 and future articles from BuzzFeed.com or other media” decrying “inaccurate and misleading information regarding The Autism Trust UK”
AKA “FAKE NEWS”
which “puts at risk the futures of the young adults” they work with. It describes Tommey as “a tireless campaigner for vaccine integrity”.
WHICH SHE TRULY IS.
-JLW. DAD. AUTHOR. SCIENTIST. CEO. DIRECTOR. MUSICIAN. NOT A BF READER.
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Thank you so much for this. Will post on social media.
Just had to say that you are fast becoming a here of the ‘Wakefield’ variety!
Regards
Sue Welch
Such vitriol! I like the point by point refutation. Clearly there is a concerted and coordinated effort to support vaccine programs regardless of risk to a ‘small’ segment of the population. We may have to rely on countries other than the U.S. and U.K. to hold manufacturers liable for these avoidable injuries. Thanks for your passionate advocacy.