Scientist "The Anti-Vax Lobby Owns the Internet" | Joe Rogan

Let's be clear, the anti-vaccine lobby owns the internet right now. What does that mean? What that means is they've put out now by some estimates 500 anti-vaccine websites so that every time you put the word vaccine into a search engine, whether it's Yahoo or Google, you're going to get anti-vaccine misinformation. That's number one. Second, we know now it's amplified on social media like Facebook, other forms of social media. So third, look at the Amazon site. It's incredible. So my book, this book, the good news is it's, I think right now it's the highest rated pro-vaccine book on Amazon. The bad news is overall it's ranked about 20 because there's 19 other phony, baloney anti-vaccine books ahead of it. So the Amazon is the biggest purveyor now of anti-vaccine books. And wait, it gets even worse. Then you also have now, they've become politicized. They have political action committees in multiple states lobbying state legislators about applying them with false information about what vaccines do. And the problem is we don't have a robust system of pro-vaccine advocacy to counter it. So we don't really hear as much as we need to from the federal government, from the CDC, from the search in general. So unfortunately in this country, the defense of vaccines falls to a handful of academics like myself. And I'm an academic, I wrote a book. What chance do I stand against this major media empire that they do that exist? Why do you think that exists? Why do you think there is this major media empire that's against vaccines? That's a great question. What's the motivation number one? And number two, where's the money coming from? Right. Right? There's real money behind this. Just to put out phony documentaries and phony books. What's a good phony documentary to point to? Well, I'm a little reluctant to say it because they're so litigious. And I don't have the means to defend a lawsuit and things like that. So these documentaries. That's why I usually don't name specific names. I understand. These documentaries, what do you think their motivation is? Do you think they earnestly believe that vaccines do cause harm or vaccines do cause diseases? Or excuse me, autism? I don't know. I mean, is there some kind of other agenda that they have? I mean, we do know in some cases that some elements of the anti-vaccine lobby are promoting phony autism therapies. Right? They're doing terrible things like this thing called MMS, which are bleach enemas. What? Yeah, bleach, giving bleach enemas to kids. You couldn't... The children. Bleach. Why bleach? Because they're cleansing the immune system. They're cleansing them of toxins. No, that's really awful stuff. And they're doing chelation therapy, which is very dangerous. What is that? That's where they claim kids are overdosed with toxic metals. So they give a chemical that actually can chelate the metal, but it can chelate your calcium and then put you into a fatal arrhythmia as well. They're also... Who's doing this chelation therapy? You can Google it. Okay. It's... Or whatever... Are these doctors? In some cases, they're doctors, unfortunately, or other health professionals. And what is... I mean, I'm sure you've studied this. What is the evidence? Way to get work. There's no evidence. And then they're doing hyperbaric therapy, which is really bad. So in some... How do you mean? Hyperbaric therapy is bad? Well, it doesn't do anything for autism, that's for sure. Okay. But it's good for recovering from injuries and... Yeah, under certain selected... But who knows what it's doing to a young kid, right? I mean, so you shouldn't be doing that. Then the other... Then that's one... So how much of this is being driven by financial motivation peddling these phony autism therapies? I can't say... My sense is that's not the big piece of this. There's also some reports now of Russian bots and trolls that are amplifying this and sowing political instability in the country. But again, add that all up. The phony autism therapies, the Russian bots and trolls in my mind, that really doesn't get our arms around the big driver of this thing. So I think we really need some good investigative journalists to look into this. Well, do you think that there's some sort of a concerted effort or do you think that it's just a bunch of people that really believe that vaccines do cause autism, they don't truly understand the science and they haven't talked to someone like you and maybe they have this idea that's cemented in their mind and they're not willing to look at it objectively and look at the full spectrum of possibilities and look at the science behind what you guys are saying because in their head, they've been saying vaccines cause autism, they've been saying it for so long that once someone gets that and they're connected to that, it's very difficult for them to shift gears. People have a really hard time not being married to an idea. Yeah, no, I agree that. And I spend a lot of time going around the country giving what are called grand rounds, lectures to hospitals and medical schools, pediatric grand rounds. So I've had the chance to talk to a lot of pediatricians and nurses and nurse practitioner and even more than a few parents. My impression is most of the parents who are called to be so-called vaccine hesitant, as the word of the day, are not really deeply dug in. I mean, you can have a conversation with them and explain to them like we're talking now in a very non-technical way, the evidence showing vaccines don't cause autism and the lack of plausibility given that it begins in pregnancy and they'll vaccinate their kids. There is another percentage, and I don't know what the percentage is, whether it's 10, 15 percent that are deeply dug in and are wholly invested in this conspiracy theory that the government is in cahoots with the pharmaceutical companies and blah, blah, blah. And then if you try to talk them out of it, they just think you're part of the conspiracy. So it's sort of a no-win approach there. But most parents you can have a good conversation with. Most parents, yeah. It's not necessarily even most parents, right? I mean, what you're dealing with is these people that maybe they're into a bunch of different alternate therapies, a bunch of different kinds of cleansing. There's a lot of that nonsense that you find online where, I mean, look, there's legitimate ... But I guess my point, sorry. That's okay. Please, go ahead. No, but I guess my point is parents don't get the chance because they're so inundated with phony anti-vaccine information that ... If they do a Google search. Yeah, or whatever, you know, whatever search they do. So what do you think should be done? Should there be a pro-vaccine documentary that makes sense? Thanks for that question. I think there's three things that need to be done. I think, first of all, some of this anti-vaccine media empire needs to be dismantled. Dismantled. Dismantled. But who's to say whether they're wrong or right? Like, shouldn't ... I mean, it seems like there should be some sort of a debate, right? Like if there's someone who's saying that there's some evidence of vaccines cause debates, you're saying there's no evidence of vaccines cause debate ... No, excuse me. That vaccines cause autism, and you're saying there's no evidence that vaccines cause autism. There should be a debate where there's some sort of a monitored conversation where you can have you versus someone else and break this down. Yeah, but that's a two-edged sword, too, because then it gives some false legitimacy to the anti-vaccine side. It's like debating the smoking cause cancer. Yeah, but isn't there already a problem? I mean, it seems like if there's this many ... If you do a Google search and you're just overwhelmed with anti-vac ... It seems like the fight has already been lost, if that's the case. That's right. So giving them legitimacy. It's not necessarily giving them legitimacy. It's giving them, you rather, a forum to dismiss their legitimacy. Yeah, I mean, I think part of what has to be done is ... And this gets into all sorts of First Amendment issues, and I'm not a lawyer. The idea that Amazon now is putting out all of these phony books and phony documentaries. Well, they're just a distributor, right? They don't have to go over every book that they sell with a fine-tooth comb. Well, but maybe they should. I mean, not a fine-tooth comb, but maybe there should be some screening. Maybe Amazon, maybe Facebook should all be hiring chief scientific officers to putting some stops on the dissemination of information, because it's harming children. Right, I understand. I mean, the reason I get passionate about it ... The reason I actually wrote the book is kind of interesting. It actually happened before all of these big measles outbreaks that we've been having. I noticed that in Texas, there was ... My laboratory is at Texas Children's Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine. We noticed that there was a steep increase in the number of kids whose parents were opting them out of getting vaccinated, to the point where in Texas, we have almost 60,000 kids not getting their vaccines in the state of Texas. And those are the ones we know about. We don't know anything about the 325,000 homeschooled kids. So we probably have over 100,000 kids not getting vaccinated, all because of this misinformation campaign. And I was really troubled by the fact that there was no response to it, and that drove me to write the book. So the point is now, Texas is very vulnerable to measles outbreaks. And I say measles more than the others, because that's the most highly contagious disease. What's the danger of a child getting measles? So is there any benefit to a child getting measles in terms of their immune system? No, there's no benefit. And that's one of the phony books they put out. It's called Melanie's Marvelous Measles. I mean, it's awful. So what did they say in that book? They say build your immune system. It does not. It does not. Remember, after ... So let's go back a little bit. Smallpox was eradicated in the late 1970s through vaccination. One smallpox was eradicated in measles, was arguably the single leading killer of children globally. 2.6 million children died every year of measles because it causes measles pneumonia, measles encephalitis. Talk about permanent neurologic injury. That's a bad actor, measles. And then deafness at all. And then through global vaccination campaigns, we brought it down by the year 2000 to about half a million kids dying. And then the Gates Foundation put up $750 million to create the Gavi Alliance, the global alliance for vaccines and immunization. We've brought it down now to 100,000. But now measles is coming back. Europe's a disaster right now. We've got 80,000 measles cases in 2018 in Europe. And now it's coming back to the US. And so my worry is this anti-vaccine media empire started out as a fringe group, but now it's really affecting public health, allowing a deadly disease like measles to come back. Do you think if there's some sort of definitive evidence that shows to the general public, like you could show it to them, like this is what causes autism. We've narrowed it down to these genes. And it has nothing to do with vaccines. If you give these vaccines to people without these genes, there is no way they're going to get autism. They get autism specifically because of these variations in their genes. You just summarized the book. Right. They need more than a book, right? Right. It does disturb me when I hear about all these kids getting measles. And not just measles, but means in some places polio is made of resurgence. Well, polio, we're down to about three countries that still have transmission of wild-type polio. It's Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan. So hopefully we're getting arms around polio. But measles is now coming back, roaring back with a vengeance. But haven't people contracted polio outside of those areas? I mean, those are the areas where it's common. Every now and then some cases pop up. We had some, and this can get onto a whole other topic. Wherever there's collapse in health systems, infrastructure, such as from war, political instability, these diseases can come back. They can come back, and the people that are vulnerable, the children that are not immunized. That's right. And when you're immunized, you're not vulnerable. That's right. Yeah. It's a really confusing thing for people because on the outside, people always want to think that big pharma, but I've said some terrible things about big pharma. And the reason being is painkillers. Because painkillers and antidepressants, and there's SSRIs which are overprescribed, and the painkiller one kills me because I know people directly that have been addicted to these goddamn things. And the doctors are passing them out like candy. And people look at big pharma as being, oh, these are the monsters that push this. They're also the people that give you things that save people's lives. There's a lot going on there. Yeah. I'm no big defender of the big pharmaceutical companies. I mean, one of the things that the anti-vax, the insults that anti-vaxxers hurl at me is they say I'm a shill for industry. They say I'm secretly taking money from Merck and GlaxoSmithClotch. That's all crap. I don't take a penny from them, and it's not even realistic. How do you get paid just from the university? I get paid by the university, and some of my salaries offset by grants from nonprofit foundations. Then, I like the National Institutes of Health, right. And then they say I'm secretly making millions of dollars for our vaccines for Hook, Ormondchista, Semiasis, and Shagas. What do you do with all that money? Because my wife says, if only, that were the case, right? These are diseases of the poorest of the poor. I'll never make a penny on these diseases. In fact, one of the frustrations I have with the big pharmaceutical companies is we've gotten a lot of progress with our vaccines. We've gone all the way from discovery through early phase process development and manufacturing and IND filing with the FDA, investigational new drug applications. But we're getting kind of stuck at phase one, phase two clinical trials because we don't have the big pharma money to take us all the way to licensure. So I've had a lot of meetings with the big pharmaceutical companies to see if they can partner with us, and so far that hasn't happened. So has there ever been any discussion or any interest in creating some sort of a compelling documentary that's pro-vaccination that can counter all these things? Because there's quite a few health-related documentaries that I know are horseshit because I've talked to actual real scientists and clinical researchers that say, like, all these things are saying are wrong, and this is why they're wrong, and you could show this if they're wrong. And then when someone says, hey, I saw this documentary, it says that all you should eat is toast, you could say, listen, man, you've got to go here and watch this, and it'll show you why that's nonsense. Is there anything like that right now? Was there any discussion? Not right now. There are some discussions, but we're a long way off from that. And the problem is the anti-vaccine documentaries are being widely distributed, widely sold. And those people that are talking about it, here's the other problem. Whenever I talk to someone about it, I've been doing this a lot lately, or I talk to someone about something they're passionate about, I go, what books have you read on it? And it's like, well, I saw this documentary. It's very- And there are books. Yeah. In fact, there's 19 ahead of mine. There's books that are bullshit, right? And 19 ahead of mine. Right, but books that are written by actual researchers, people that have spent decades in labs understanding what's going on. You don't really get a lot of that from the people that are anti-anything. Right. Well, that's why I wrote the new book. It's a very confusing thing for parents because you're scared. You have this little tiny baby that you love more than anything in this world, and then the doctors say, hey, we've got this round of vaccines coming, and you're just terrified that you're going to do something to your child. It's going to turn your child into someone who's compromised. And the point is, the problem is these diseases are back now. And so the urgency to vaccinate is now more than ever. I mean, remember, right now, look what's going on in Vancouver, Washington right now, where the measles outbreak is underway. The ones who are at greatest risk are infants under the age of 12 months, not yet old enough to get their vaccine. So that if you're a parent right now living in Vancouver, Washington, you're terrified. You're terrified about taking your baby out to Walmart or the public library. They can't get that vaccine yet. They're not old enough to get the vaccine. So now the disease is coming back because the older kids are catching it. And the anti-vaccine lobby uses terms like personal liberties and medical freedom. Well, we're the personal liberties of this parent now who's terrified to take her in. These are her infants. When you say anti-vaccine lobby, now I know that Robert Kennedy Jr. is a big one. He's a big one. And he seems like a very intelligent guy. How could he not be aware of the science behind this? And what is he getting wrong? What he's getting wrong is just about everything. He's formed an organization called Children's Health Defense. And he had a press conference about it I think it was September, October of last year. It is probably one of the best organized anti-vaccine groups out there. Now, he's doing other things other than vaccines. He's doing a lot of things about environmental health and things like that. I don't know any part of that business. I've only followed what he does with vaccines. But it's all nonsense. Why is he doing this about vaccines? I don't know. You have to ask him. What's his motivation? Would he be a guy that you would want to have a debate with or have a discussion with? But again, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of a debate because it's like debating, I don't know, it's like debating a Holocaust denier, whether the Holocaust exists. I mean, not that this rises at the same level. I understand what you're saying. If you're, again, I want to bring this up. If you're complaining there's 19 books ahead of yours that are anti-vaccine books, you've already lost the battle. Like, it's time to regroup. And maybe regrouping would be confronting someone with actual scientific information. I mean, you are a real doctor. You're a guy who actually studies this. And you're a man who understands the science. You're a legitimate academic. You could actually put a dent in this with a real conversation. Yeah, potentially. Potentially. Yeah. I mean, what would he be able to say? What is his take on it? Well, remember, he's an attorney and he's very clever, right? And he knows how to, presumably knows how to do arguments in court. And one of my, I'm a scientist. Right, but do you think that he wants to deceive people or do you think that maybe he's just incorrect in his accumulation of data? Yeah, I can't say what his motivation is, but his information is highly misleading. Now, what else is, when you say the lobby, is this an organized thing? Good question. I mean, again, we need somebody who really wants to do a deep dive in this and kind of dissect out the pieces to understand. But it's impressive what you've got out there in terms of the hundreds of websites and the amplification on social media and everything else. Is it, are there just one or two or three groups behind it? Or is it a random collection of organizations? That needs to be looked at.