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The Sharyl Attkisson Podcast

324. Top Pediatrics Group Sued Over Vaccine 'Racketeering'

March 29, 202635 min · 5,706 words

Show notes

The Children's Health Defense is suing the vaccine industry-funded American Academy of Pediatrics alleging tobacco-like racketeering over its practices. CHD's Mary Holland provides details. The AAP consistently claims it is science based and has done nothing improper. Subscribe to both of Sharyl's podcasts: “The Sharyl Attkisson Podcast” and “Full Measure After Hours.” Leave a great review, and share with your friends! Support independent journalism by visiting the new ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sharyl Attkisson store⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ .

Highlighted moments

Twice, Cheryl, the Institute of Medicine, the highest medical organization in the country, in 2003 and 2012, articulated in its formal report about childhood vaccination that there is inadequate science to justify the claim that the schedule has been tested.
Jump to 6:08 in the transcript
Essentially, it's a pharma front, but it looks professional. It looks medical. They wear white coats. And they have this sort of veneer that they are really talking about children's interests when, in fact, they are serving the pharmaceutical industry's interest.
Jump to 7:32 in the transcript
And racketeering is an activity that creates its own demand. So let's say you're the mafia and you say to a business, if you don't pay us money, we will burn down your store. It will create the demand that the people pay a tithe.
Jump to 8:18 in the transcript
if a pediatrician doesn't have a very high threshold of patients who are getting the full schedule and it's like 85 or 95%, they will miss, um, bonuses that basically are required to keep a pediatric, uh, practice going.
Jump to 12:56 in the transcript

Transcript

Introduction

0:00Hi, everybody. Cheryl Ackeson here. Welcome to another edition of the Cheryl Ackeson podcast.

0:11In today's podcast, an unprecedented move. A non-profit is suing a major pediatrics group alleging vaccine-related racketeering. Slow draining sinks, a foul kitchen odor, standing water in the shower. It's time to get your dreams cleaned with OneSource's $99 dream cleaning special. OneSource does it all without draining your wallet. Scheduled today at onesourceair.com. You're great at protecting your data, but lots of places could still expose you to identity theft. I thought it was safe. If that happens, LifeLock gives you a U.S.-based

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Racketeering Allegations

1:09The Children's Health Defense Nonprofit is suing the pharmaceutical industry-supported American Academy of Pediatrics, alleging racketeering activity for promoting false information about the safety of childhood vaccines. Based on my research over a couple of decades, beginning when I was first assigned to the topic at CBS News, I have seen the American Academy of Pediatrics be misleading, deceiving, and coercive on the vaccine topic. In fact, before I knew better, I considered them some kind of

1:41neutral, top-notch medical authority. Probably you did too. But based on my research and their behavior, I've come to believe, as many have, that it's little more than a front for the pharmaceutical industry. After today's interview on this podcast, I will also play a report that I did at CBS News exposing the AAP's pharmaceutical industry ties, which is conflicting enough. But the worst part, I think, is that the group wouldn't be forthright about just how money it takes from the vaccine industry. Why not? The Children's Health Defense is a nonprofit now suing the pharmaceutical

2:17industry-supported American Academy of Pediatrics, alleging racketeering activity for promoting false information about the safety of childhood vaccines. Today, Children's Health Defense's Mary Holland tells us about the allegations and implications. She says her group is patterning its challenge after successful tobacco lawsuits. A reminder that you can get the other side to this story quite easily online. In fact, that's pretty much all we ever get in the media and in online

2:49searches is sort of the other side because our information is so widely managed by vaccine industry interests and propagandists. So feel free to look into this and see what the counterpoints are. But today, we're hearing from Mary Holland.

Children's Health Defense

3:03So Children's Health Defense is a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending the epidemic of chronic childhood disease by eliminating toxic exposures. And we do that through four different ways, litigation, advocacy, science, and education. So Children's Health Defense is suing the American Academy of Pediatrics, focusing on what you say

3:33is it's RICO or racketeering activities on behalf of vaccine manufacturers that financially support the organization. Before we dig into that, let's tell people a little bit about the American Academy of Pediatrics, which I learned many years ago in my reporting, is a very conflicted medical agency that is largely funded by the pharmaceutical industry and vaccine industry. Although when I've tried to ask for stories, they won't say how much. What can you tell us about the American Academy of

AAP's Conflicts of Interest

4:03Pediatrics? Sure. It is what we would call a trade association for pediatricians. Well over 90% of all pediatricians are members. That is over 67,000 in the United States. And the AAP is a sort of community for pediatricians, but more importantly, it essentially dictates what is standard of care for pediatricians. And if a pediatrician is not aligned with the AAP, they have the capacity to effectively end that

4:38pediatrician's career. Two of the plaintiffs in the case that we are funding against the American Academy are in fact pediatricians who were essentially outlawed or essentially exiled from AAP when they questioned the vaccine schedule that AAP vociferously endorses, in our view, without science. It's interesting to note that as things are changing, there are science-based evaluations now

5:10being furthered in the government really for the first time when it comes to vaccines. People may Google and read that vaccines are the most tested and safe and effective products in history, and that's all false. It's not true. And now we have people who understand that finally in government that are taking some steps to alter the vaccine schedule and require some scientific proof and testing for children's safety. But the result is these groups, these medical establishment groups that are so influenced and paid for by the vaccine industry are saying, well, we're going to develop our own

5:44guidelines now. You've been following that. Yes, absolutely. You're exactly right that Secretary of Health and Human Services Kennedy said, adequate science has not been done. The schedule as a whole has never been tested, and we are articulating that in our lawsuit against the American Academy of Pediatrics. Twice, Cheryl, the Institute of Medicine, the highest medical organization in the country,

6:14in 2003 and 2012, articulated in its formal report about childhood vaccination that there is inadequate science to justify the claim that the schedule has been tested. The schedule as a whole has never been adequately tested. And the Institute of Medicine said to HHS, to the pharmaceutical industry, the pediatric community, you must actually do a study of vaccinated versus unvaccinated health outcomes in children. And they've never done that, right? And so the AAP, despite the Institute of

6:49Medicine's Challenge, that you cannot say that the schedule is safe and effective, they have continued to say that. And the two leading plaintiffs in the case, Cheryl, are mothers whose children died. There are three children at issue in this case who died by following the AAP schedule and by following AAP advice. So, you know, there's a real issue here about children's health and children's lives. And we do believe that the AAP here is analogous to the Tobacco Research Institute. And there was successful

7:25RICO litigation against big tobacco in the 1990s. And we believe that AAP is analogous. It's the same kind of proxy organization that this tobacco organization was. Essentially, it's a pharma front, but it looks professional. It looks medical. They wear white coats. And they have this sort of veneer that they are really talking about children's interests when, in fact, they are serving the pharmaceutical industry's interest. Can you explain just a little bit to the layman what

7:57racketeering is or what the RICO Act is and how that specifically applies? And it sounds like you're modeling it after, like you say, a successful lawsuit in the past. Yes. So this is patterned very closely after tobacco litigation that was successful. And so we are relying on precedents from federal district courts and federal appellate courts against Philip Morris. And racketeering is an activity that creates its own demand. So let's say you're the mafia and you say to a business, if you don't pay us

8:38money, we will burn down your store. It will create the demand that the people pay a tithe. They pay money to the mafia because otherwise there's a threat. And essentially, this AAP, every single vaccine that has ever come out has been recommended. And what Kennedy has done at Health and Human Services is to say, you know what, we don't want to universally recommend 18 vaccines to every child anymore,

9:09including COVID shots, hepatitis B at birth, flu shots, meningitis shots. Some of these shots, some ones that I mentioned, they should really be shared clinical decision making. It shouldn't be a universal recommendation. Some are still universal, measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis. But some vaccines should really be really assessed on an individual basis. And our view at Children's Health Defense is every parent needs to have full, unfettered, informed consent for their own individual child. We're not all the same biologically, emotionally, mentally in any way.

9:43And we can't have medicine that's coerced to be identical for every child. It's illogical. But that's where the AAP is, because they really are acting on behalf of industry. And so some of the examples we give in the lawsuit are that the AAP says that there's an unlimited number of vaccines you can give to a child with an undeveloped immune system at any one time. And the children who are

10:16the plaintiffs in the case or the mothers, they're not the first children to die in the immediate aftermath of vaccines. In fact, what is called sudden infant death syndrome is highly correlated with deaths within a short period of days after vaccination. So AAP is really looking out for its funders. And it does, it is a multimillion dollar organization. Its budget is well, I think it's 195 million per year, but it is a big organization, extremely well funded, and extremely

10:52powerful.

Lawsuit Details

10:53What do you have to prove as part of the lawsuit in order to win? Well, we would have to prove the elements of a racketeering influence corrupt organization charge. This is a civil case. This is not a criminal case. RICO can be used criminally. We're not using it criminally. But we will have to prove that in fact, they are not acting on the basis of science as they claim, and that they are actually having, they've been involved in wire fraud and mail

11:24fraud on behalf of the, uh, the sponsors, their, their financial backers, which is the first thing. It seems like, you know, at least two elements, you have to show that they're not acting on science and then be that the reason behind that is because of the financial. I should, I misspoke, Cheryl. I should say that they've, they have perpetrated fraud. They have told their, their, uh, patients and the parents of the patients and the public, they have told the, the, the public at large that the vaccine schedule is well tested and safe when they know absolutely

11:59without question that that is a false claim. So they've perpetrated fraud and they've used the instruments that are affected by the federal government, the mails and the wires to do that. So they reach out to their pediatric, um, members and then the pediatricians reach out to the patients and the patient's parents, and they give these fraudulent statements that are knowingly false, thereby inducing people to take these vaccines when in fact, uh, there is no basis for their claim that these, that this schedule is safe and effective. You have to prove that there's a profit motive or a

12:34connection to the pharmaceutical industry, or is that not necessary, you know, in their decisions? Well, you have to prove that it's a fraudulent statement and the rationale behind the fraud that will bolster the claim of the fraud is that it is for their gain. So yes, you do have to prove financial incentives are the reason behind this fraud. And in fact, there's a lot of evidence that, uh, if a pediatrician doesn't have a very high threshold of patients who are getting the full schedule and it's like 85 or 95%, they will miss, um, bonuses that basically are required to keep

13:10a pediatric, uh, practice going. If you are not vaccinating for so-called well baby visits, if you don't meet those high thresholds of uptake of the vaccines, you really have very grave difficulty as a pediatrician making it. So the coercive power of this organization is extreme when it comes to pediatric care. If your organization wins the lawsuit, what, what changes? Well, what changes is they have to acknowledge that they were lying to their, the pediatricians and to the community at

13:45large. Uh, there's not really a financial incentive to children's health defense in this. It's really just to get at the truth, uh, that they can't make false claims anymore that, that have led to, to children's deaths. And if they can't make that claim anymore, I'm just playing that out. I think, I guess there would be more individual evaluations when parents go for vision. A hundred percent. And you know, that is part of what Kennedy, who's completely separate from children's health defense at this point, although he's the founder, uh, is getting at by reducing the

14:20number of universally recommended vaccines to 11. It's the state governments that mandate vaccines. And interestingly, Cheryl, as much as some of these states are challenging Secretary Kerry Kennedy, no state mandates more than nine vaccines. So it's hard to understand what their real claim is when what Kennedy has done at best creates a kind of inconvenience for people. Maybe it's, you'll, you'll have to drive an extra five miles to get a vaccine. Whereas the plaintiffs in our case

14:53against the AAP, that's the AAP case against Secretary Kennedy. And now certain states are suing Kennedy. In our case, we're talking about toddlers and infants who have died by following the AAP schedule. So we're happy that this case is in the mix at the same time that the AAP and these obstinate, these sort of oppositional states are bringing claims that what Kennedy has done is going to harm children and prevent their good health and so on. Hardly the AAP has been making

15:26false assertions, fraudulent assertions that have led to children's deaths and have exiled really fantastic pediatricians who were trying to tell the truth. It's so interesting that all these years as America and our children have grown sicker and sicker and sicker that there were no lawsuits suing anybody, you know, in the government saying you're doing something wrong. But now, as soon as there's an effort to apply science and try to sort some of this out, all these lawsuits trying to stop

15:56the government from making the changes. Well, again, in my view, these are the pharmaceutical industry that is a major contributor to the political process through donations and major donor to the wealth of the American Academy of Pediatrics. They are clearly playing a role behind the scenes. This is their business model. And one of the other things we allege in the complaint, Cheryl, is that vaccines are, they are profitable on the front end. There are many different ways in which pediatricians

16:28are paid. But what's most important is we are faced with essentially a massive epidemic of vaccine injury, autoimmune conditions that are so prevalent among American children, neurological, behavioral conditions. These are very plausibly related to vaccine injury, either inflammation of the brain or dysregulation of the immune system. That's what vaccines do. They affect the immune system, including the neuroimmune system. And so we have studiously not studied this, but part of what Secretary Kennedy is doing is saying, no, we actually have to look at this.

17:03And as you know, there's been a big movement over decades now to say autism is largely a vaccine injury. And Secretary Kennedy made a very important change on the Centers for Disease Control website saying the claim on the website is vaccines do not cause autism. And he has changed that, although keeping that historical fact saying there is inadequate science to make that claim. And that's the truth. We have not really studied what is happening through this process of vaccine injury. And I think

17:37that that's something that is happening now. And it's very important that it does occur. Let me give you my suspicion, which is based on the experience and good reporting. Vaccinated outcomes versus unvaccinated child outcomes have been studied. The industry knows what it shows and they would reveal the results if they were good. There's no way that they just haven't thought about it or haven't thought to address this burning question. They've looked at the autism links. They've looked at all of that. And the reason everybody says there's no study that shows this

18:10or that is because the study results are bad and they're not going to, you know, they're not going to put those. I agree with that entirely. And Children's Health Defense put out a book by Robert Kennedy and Brian Hooker, our chief science officer, unvaccinated, let the science speak. There have been meta-analyses that have been done comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated outcomes. And by every measure, every measure, unvaccinated children are healthier. They have fewer erics. They have fewer allergies. They have fewer cases of attention deficit disorder, of diabetes, of cancer, of autism.

18:47By every metric that we've looked at, fewer cases of SIDS. They are healthier. And I completely agree with you that certainly the industry and people within the federal government have looked at this and they do recognize that. And I think that's why the fight, the pushback against Kennedy is so great because once the public completely embraces the notion that vaccines are bad for young children overall without some special consideration, that industry is gone. The pharmaceutical industry is

19:20going to be severely cut back when that recognition is widely accepted. And I think they're trying to forestall that day and kick the can down the road. And I pray that won't be successful. Well, check out the new fuel your thirst game in the racetrack app. Play to score offers on your favorite food, drinks, and more. Plus a chance to win fuel or fountain drinks for a year. Earn a play every time you buy an eligible cooler drink using your racetrack rewards idea at checkout. Then head to the game to make your next move. It's as easy as sip and play for chances to win. Download the racetrack app

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20:47Let's go down the rabbit hole since you brought this up. One way the industry has compelled Congress to give them immunity from lawsuits, which happened in the 1980s when the autism cases, I think they saw those coming, and they wanted immunity from the brain damage and autism cases. So they made the argument that, gosh, if you don't grant us immunity from liability, which Congress did, we won't make vaccines. And then when you really need us for something like COVID or some, you know, some emergency, we won't be

21:20there for you. I suppose they're still trying to make that argument. And, you know, members of Congress will tell you that that's why they handle the vaccine safety question the way they do. But I think it's really all about money. But that's the argument they make is it's for everybody's good is why we you can't really go down the road of looking at these vaccine safety issues.

21:41Yes, they certainly have arguments for why things should stay the way they are. As you point out, this 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act not only disincentivized safer vaccines, but it gave, you know, liability protection to one of the most powerful industries ever known to humankind at the expense of the health of young children. And, you know, as as you know, children are much less healthy today than they were 50 years ago before this came into place. You're right that

22:14their best argument is, well, what happens in the event of a bioweapons attack? What happens in the event of the Black Plague occurring? That's actually handled by a different law. That's actually at this point handled by the 2005 Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act, which we also are litigating against because we think it's way too broad and way too over-encompassing. But there are certainly ways to enable attention to infectious disease outbreaks or even bioweapons outbreaks

22:47without harming and creating health hazards for children. Is there a timeline on where this could be decided? So, yes, the case has been filed in Washington, D.C. The American Academy has been granted a two-month extension to reply. Presumably, they will move to dismiss the case. I personally don't believe that will be successful. In the interim, Children's Health Defense has filed an effort in the

23:19case brought by AAP and the American Medical Association in federal court in Boston. They are trying to thwart the new recommendations of Secretary Kennedy. And I'm very pleased that the judge in that case, Judge Murphy, has permitted Children's Health Defense to submit a friend of the court brief. So I think what's really important is keeping this issue alive, keeping it before the public, keeping it moving forward in the courts, and keeping the efforts that Secretary Kennedy is making to bring light to this going. And I think that we're headed in the right direction. How long the

23:54case will take, ultimately, it's very hard to say. Well, thank you so much. We'll be following it.

Vaccine Safety Investigation

24:00Appreciate it. Thank you so much, Cheryl. And now, by way of background, I promised to play an older story I did many years ago at CBS News at a time before I think the industry had almost wholly taken over news media, meaning the vaccine industry. And CBS News was encouraging me and assigning me to cover vaccine safety stories. There was so much to dig into once I started looking into it. I had been really uninformed on the topic prior to CBS News assigning me to cover it. And I was shocked at what

24:31I began to discover. Maybe I shouldn't have been because the scandal and scams and dishonesty and media manipulation going on when it comes to the vaccine industry and what we're being told and what the government has told us for many years, all of that really mirrors other scams and scandals inside the government over the years, where there are ties to industry, widespread efforts to manipulate us by keeping us from learning truthful information and putting out false or misleading information.

25:04Of course, strong money ties between the industry and those nonprofits or people in government who are promoting this incorrect or misleading information. And at the time when I was learning all of this, believe it or not, all the major news organizations were covering these topics. Yes, the New York Times, ABC, NBC, the Washington Post, we investigative reporters were competing hard to break news on this important topic. And we knew there was an almost endless amount of news as we began to uncover what

25:35had been going on inside the industry over the years. And it was so impactful, we knew, because almost every child in America gets multiple vaccines. So this affects pretty much everybody. And then as many of you know, came, I guess what you could say was the clamp down on these types of stories as the industry gained a foothold, not only in news organizations, but in social media and information at large. And pretty soon, nobody could report the stories factually anymore the way we had.

26:07We were controversialized and attacked. If we did, we were undermined and smeared. You can still get some of that good old-fashioned, honest reporting on my TV show, Full Measure, where they do allow and encourage these sorts of investigations. But for now, I want to play this older story that I did in 2008 on vaccine conflicts that mentions the American Academy of Pediatrics and its conflicts of interest. Here it is from CBS News. And the first voice you'll hear is that of Katie Couric, who introduced the report.

26:39Years now, parents have wondered if vaccines are linked to conditions like autism and ADD. Government officials and some scientists say there is no connection, and they're often backed by independent experts. But just how independent are they? You may be surprised at what Cheryl Atkinson found when she set out to follow the money.

27:01They're some of the most trusted voices in the defense of vaccine safety. The American Academy of Pediatrics, Every Child by Two, and pediatrician Dr. Paul Offit. But CBS News has found these three have something more in common. Strong financial ties to the industry whose products they promote and defend. The vaccine industry gives millions to the Academy of Pediatrics for conferences, grants, medical education classes, even help pay to build their headquarters. The totals are kept secret,

27:31but public documents revealed bits and pieces. $342,000 was given to the Academy by Wyeth, maker of the pneumococcal vaccine for a community grant program. $433,000 was contributed to the Academy by Merck the same year the Academy endorsed Merck's HPV vaccine. Another top donor, Sanofi Aventus, maker of 17 vaccines, and a new five-in-one combo shot just added to the childhood vaccine schedule last month. Every Child by Two, a group that promotes early immunization

28:04for all children, admits the group takes money from the vaccine industry too, but wouldn't tell us how much. A spokesman told us there are simply no conflicts to be unearthed. But guess who has been listed as the group's treasurers? An official from Wyeth and a paid advisor to big pharmaceutical clients. Then there's Dr. Paul Offit, perhaps the most widely quoted defender of vaccine safety. He's gone so far as to say babies can theoretically tolerate, quote, 10,000 vaccines at once. This is how Offit

28:35described himself in a previous interview. I'm the chief of infectious diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a professor of pediatrics at Penn's Medical School. Dr. Offit was not willing to be interviewed on this subject, but like others in our investigation, he has strong industry ties. In fact, he's a vaccine industry insider. Dr. Offit holds a $1.5 million research chair at Children's Hospital funded by Merck. He holds the patent on an anti-diarrhea vaccine he developed with Merck, Road Attack, which has prevented thousands of hospitalizations in the U.S.

29:07And future royalties for the vaccine were just sold for $182 million cash. Dr. Offit's share of vaccine profits unknown. There's nothing illegal about the possible conflicts of interest, but as one member of Congress put it, money from the pharmaceutical industry can shape the practices of those who hold themselves out to be independent. The American Academy of Pediatrics, every child by two, and Dr. Offit wouldn't agree to interviews, but all told us they're upfront about the money they receive and it doesn't sway their opinions. Today's immunization schedule now calls for kids to get 55 doses of

29:43vaccines by age six. Ideally, it makes for a healthier society, but critics worry that industry ties could impact the advice given to the public about all those vaccines. Cheryl Atkinson, CBS News, Washington. A blast from the past and a couple of postscripts, Every Child by Two, the nonprofit started by the vaccine industry that people used to think was independent. Let me just tell you how I found out it wasn't. When I realized they weren't interested in these childhood safety issues, I thought that was

30:18strange because a group called Every Child by Two should be looking at what was best for the kids. And when I was covering the vaccine safety problems that were being unearthed and saw them just blindly defending all vaccines for all kids, I thought that didn't make any sense. And then I came to find out the group was started by a vaccine company and that's who's been funding it. And that explains their behavior. Now they've changed their name to vaccinate your family, but they have the same agenda.

30:49And now they're not just promoting vaccines for Every Child by Two. It's for your whole family. They're talking about COVID vaccines and they're just defending pretty much any kind of vaccine on behalf, in my view, on behalf of the industry. And then another postscript about Dr. Offit and his dishonesty. After that story aired, Dr. Offit did an interview with the Orange County Register in which he falsely claimed that he had provided me all kinds of information for that story and that I had sent him nasty

31:19emails and refused to use the information. Well, none of that was true. And I was shocked to see really how blatantly dishonest he was willing to be to a news organization. And by the way, that news organization at the time did not check its facts or contact me for any kind of counterpoints. Well, I had a pretty serious track record of my communications with Dr. Offit in which I had been exceedingly polite, persistent about the information and his financial ties that I had

31:51asked him to provide. Any publishing doctor should be willing to provide their list of conflicts of interest or where they receive industry money. They have to have that when they publish. So that was all I was asking for. And he wouldn't give that to me. Long story short, the Orange County Register published a correction to its original article. And I will read that to you now. It says, an Orange County Register article dated August 4th, 2008, entitled Dr. Paul Offit Responds.

32:22That was him responding to the CBS News piece. The Orange County Register says their article, the one the Orange County Register published after my piece, contains several disparaging statements that Dr. Offit of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia made about CBS News investigative correspondent Cheryl Atkinson and her report. Upon further review, the Orange County Register says, it appears that a number of Dr. Offit's statements as quoted in the Orange County Register article were

32:53unsubstantiated and or false. Atkinson had previously reported on the vaccine industry ties of Dr. Offit and others in a CBS Evening News report, How Independent Are Vaccine Defenders, July 25, 2008. The Orange County Register correction continues, unsubstantiated statements include Offit's claim that Atkinson, quote, lied, and Offit's claim that CBS News sent a, quote, mean-spirited and vituperative email over the signature of Cheryl Atkinson stating,

33:27you're clearly hiding something. In fact, the Orange County Register says, the Orange County Register has no evidence to support those claims. Further, Offit told the Orange County Register that he provided CBS News the details of his relationship and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's relationship with pharmaceutical company Merck. However, documents provided by CBS News indicate Offit did not disclose his financial relationships with Merck, including a $1.5 million Hilleman share he sits in that is co-sponsored by Merck.

34:03According to the CBS News' documentation recently reviewed by the Orange County Register, the network requested but Offit did not disclose the entire profile of his professional financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies with pharmaceutical companies including the amount of compensation he'd received from which companies and speaking fees and pharmaceutical consulting relationships and fees. The CBS News documentation indicates Offit also did not disclose his share of past and future royalties for the Merck vaccine he co-invented. To the extent that unsubstantiated and or

34:39false claims appeared in the Orange County Register and have been repeated by other organizations and individuals, the Orange County Register wishes to express this clarification for their reference and for the record." I think this event marks kind of the end of the media turning to Dr. Offit as they had for many years as if he were an independent expert without disclosing his very strong vaccine industry financial ties. As the media continued to use him because they still wanted to put out the propaganda that the

35:14government was recommending, they would always refer us to Dr. Offit for interviews. So with the vaccine industry, other media started mentioning or often disclosing that, oh yeah, he did invent a vaccine and make many millions of dollars, but that has nothing to do with his opinions on vaccine safety. He's still an independent expert on even his own vaccine. I do still see him quoted from time to time in conflicted publications like MedPage, again vaccine industry funded, where he's treated as if he's an

35:45independent expert of some kind. It boggles the mind how someone who is A, not independent, but B, has proven to be so dishonest, would still be relied upon as if he's a neutral source of information on these topics. That just shows you how conflicted the media has become as well as some of these non-profits and medical organizations. I hope you enjoyed today's podcast and that if you did, you will subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your friends. And check out my other podcast, Full Measure After Hours.

36:18To support independent journalism, you can purchase my latest book that talks about some of these very issues in depth, explaining why and how we've become so sick as a society, even as we've never spent more on vaccines, medicine, pills, insurance, hospitals, and doctors. The book is called Follow the Science, How Big Pharma Misleads, Obscures, and Prevails, with proceeds supporting many independent reporting causes. Same with proceeds from the Sheryl Ackeson store. You can find some exciting, fun, exclusive products

36:53designed exclusively for independent thinkers like you and some of your friends and family. Go to SherylAckeson.com and click the store tab. Do your own research, make up your own mind. Think for yourself.

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