#152: Paul Thomas, MD – Vaccines, Autism & Herd Immunity

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About Dr. Paul Thomas

Dr. Thomas graduated with his MD from Dartmouth College Giesel School of Medicine. He completed his three years of pediatric residency at the University of California San Fransisco (Fresno program) and San Diego. Voted by his peers the top teaching resident of the year, he went on to teach and train young doctors from OHSU (Oregon Health Science University) at Emanuel Children’s Hospital in Portland Oregon – where he settled and raised a family of ultimately 10 children (7 adopted).

Dr. Paul, is and has been board certified and maintained his board certification in Pediatrics since coming out of training in 1988 to the present. He went on to get board certified by the American Board of Addiction Medicine (ABAM) and also by the American Board of Integrative and Holistic Medicine (ABIHM).

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The Vaccine-Friendly Plan: Dr. Paul's Safe and Effective Approach to Immunity and Health-from Pregnancy Through Your Child's Teen Years

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Key Time Timestamps

02:09 CDC Recommendations for Pregnancy: The Tdap vaccine is recommended for women during pregnancy. Just a few decades ago, pregnancy was a sacred time, a time to protect an unborn child from toxins and other dangers. In 2013-2014 the CDC recommended the Tdap vaccine, mainly for the pertussis component, for every pregnant woman in America. That is almost 4 million unborn children exposed to a neurotoxic dose of aluminum. The FDA has a live document that says not to exceed 5 micrograms per kilogram, especially in premature infants. The recommendation is based upon studies that showed that it caused developmental delays and brain problems. This information is being ignored.

 

03:52 Tdap Pregnancy Vaccine Theory: We inject mom. She will develop antibodies against pertussis and pass them on to her baby, so baby is born with protection.  This may be true and may reduce the risk from 5 to 10 deaths per year from 4 million births to a lower number. Is it worth poisoning 4 million unborn babies to potentially save fewer than 10 lives? The adult daily dose max is 50 micrograms of aluminum or 5 mcg per kilo. An unborn child weighs less than a kilo. The Tdap vaccine has 250 to 330 mcg, depending upon the brand. We have no long term studies.

05:53 Lack of Data on Drugs: There are lots of studies, but few randomized placebo controlled studies. Vaccines get a special fast track.  One that upsets Dr. Thomas is the HPV Gardasil vaccine that is administered to teenagers to prevent cervical cancer in women. The control group for the study was administered very high doses of aluminum, negating the control. The study was stopped at 3 ½ years, long before it could be determined if it could prevent cervical cancer. A huge sample of non-vaccinated, partially vaccinated and fully vaccinated children should be followed for 10 to 20 years and look at the outcomes.  In 2013 a JAMA study from Norway of 80,000 pregnancies followed for an average of 6 years in which half of the mothers took folate and the other half did not. The autism rate for those who took folate was 1 in 1000. In those who did not take folate, it was 1 in 500.

 

08:43 Toxins, Toxins, Toxins:  At the time of the 1 in 1000 study in Norway, the US autism rate was 1 in 100. What toxins do we have in the US that they don’t have in Norway?  GMO is banned in most of Europe. They also do not do the hepatitis B vaccines for newborns. We have been doing this in the US for about 20 years. Hep B is contracted from sex and IV drug use, which babies don’t do. Babies can get it if their mothers have it. The CDC believes that 1 in 100 mothers have hepatitis B, however some studies say it is more like 1 in 1,000. We are injecting a 250 mcg toxic dose of aluminum to 99 out a hundred or 999 out of a thousand infants for a disease for which they are not at risk. It flies against common sense. Several studies show that only 24% of previously vaccinated 20 year olds have immunity from hepatitis B. If you give those teenagers a booster, it works. By postponing the hepatitis B vaccine until teen years, their immune system and neural development is more able to deal with the toxins of the vaccine.

 

11:47 Flu Shots and Autism: There are studies that show an increased risk of autism if you have inflammation in the womb. Other studies show that there is increased inflammation in the womb for women who receive a flu shot. Perhaps we should not giving flu shots to pregnant mothers. This should be studied.

 

12:28 Genomics: There are hundreds of thousands of SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms). Much research is being done. There is a major factor in the expression of these from our environment, such as our food, toxin exposure and the toxins in vaccines.  Autism is not one thing. It is toxicity that effects brain development and toxicity that effects the immune system. There is a relatively new condition called ASIA (Autoimmune Syndrome Induced by Adjuvants). The main adjuvant in vaccines is aluminum. Many studies show that aluminum can trigger autoimmunity. There is a connection between autoimmunity and brain problems, such as MS and a subset of autism where there may be an immune mechanism.

 

13:48 Individualized Vaccine Approach: Families should be able to individualize the approach to vaccines. For example, if you already have an autistic child and your next child is a boy, his risk is about 1 in 5. The current US rate is one in 45 or 67, depending upon the study. Dr. Paul did a retrospective study in his practice. The average age at the start of the study was 4. Family history is a huge risk factor. Not vaccinating at all, especially when there are risk factors, reduces your risk. In his group that were part of the vaccine-friendly plan (no hep b unless needed, only one aluminum containing vaccine at a time, wait until age 3 for the MMR, wait on polio and no rotavirus), there were no new cases of autism spectrum in over 1,000 kids. The chance that this was a random occurrence was 1 in 100,000.  In the unvaccinated group of 238 kids, there were no new cases of autism spectrum. In the third group who had some or all of their vaccines, they had 15 cases of autism spectrum out of 900, a rate of 1 in 60.

 

17:47 Dr. Thomas’ Shift to Integrative Pediatrics: In November 2007, he walked into what was supposed to be a 2 year old well child visit. Jack had no eye contact or language. He had been normal at age 1, starting to talk.  This was the fourth child in four years in his practice that had gone from normal at 1 to severe autism by age 2.  It was the last straw.

 

19:21 Developmental Delays: A policy in Dr. Thomas’ practice is if you start to see developmental delays, you stop all further vaccination. Each child is an individual and care must be tailored to what you are seeing.

 

20:31 Informed Consent: Doctors have been taught to never do anything to a patient without informed consent, explaining explicitly the risks and benefits of the procedure. Also explained must be the alternatives. If you live in the state of California and you do not do all of the CDC vaccines, your child cannot go to school or daycare, private or public. The state of California has 97,000 children in public school with an autism diagnosis. They have had a 600 percent rise in autism since 2001.  People need to look at the science and use common sense.

 

22:24 Herd Immunity: Herd immunity is a concept that if we vaccinate enough in the human herd, if the disease is introduced into the herd, it cannot take hold. The Disneyland measles epidemic was the rationale behind mandating vaccines in California. There were fewer than 200 cases of measles tied to this epidemic. There were fewer than 800 cases that year in the US. The usual flux is between 200 to 800 cases over the last decade plus. There have been no deaths from measles in the US. It illustrates that herd immunity works well. Dr. Thomas’ vaccine friendly plan concurs with this, but changes the timing. Delivering the MMR at or after the age of three insures that much brain development has already occurred before it is introduced.

 

25:34 Vaccines and Pediatricians: Dr. Thomas’ book, The Vaccine-Friendly Plan is about far more than vaccines. It begins with toxins, goes into keeping pregnancy sacred and protected, what you should expect from each well child visit and how to deal with childhood illnesses. Sometimes pediatricians will remove a family from their practice if they do not follow the CDC vaccine schedule. Ignorance and misinformation on the part of the pediatrician may be a cause. There is also awe of the CDC. There are conflicts of interest at the CDC and it is time for pediatricians to think for themselves. There is a great deal of pressure to comply from government and healthcare plans. If a pediatrician does not meet a certain vaccine percentage, doctors may lose their bonus or there will be a cut to the reimbursement rate. It’s complicated.

 

30:50 CDC’s View on Risk: Allergic reaction and severe autoimmunity issues are seen as risk by the CDC, but not family history, genetics or other impacts.

 

31:34 Pediatricians Must Think for Themselves:  It is time for pediatricians to stand up and return to informed consent. We need to be science-based and think. Avoid contempt prior to investigation. Dr. Thomas used to believe everything that came out of the CDC. The movie Vaxxed showed that in 2002, when the CDC was charged by congress to look at the MMR vaccine and autism, the CDC found data that showed a link. Instead, of publishing this, they hid the findings and published a study in 2004 that showed no link using the data set that had a link.

 

34:02 Pharmaceutical Research: There is a great deal of research being done that is sponsored by pharmaceutical companies whose goal is to show benefit. When tiny studies are done. The ones that show benefit are published.

 

36:12 Dr. Thomas’ Morning Routine: Dr. Thomas starts his day going through the abstracts of world literature on pediatric preventative health, saving the more interesting ones for a full read later.  He doesn’t want to miss anything. He has over 13,000 patients, so making reading a priority has been challenging. He purchased an enclosed Elf bicycle so he can pedal the six miles to work. He also plans to focus more on meditation and spirituality.

 

40:18 Dr. Thomas’ Favorite Botanical: Besides vitamin D and omega 3, his choice is methylfolate. However, so many antioxidants are important: vitamin C, quercetin, and more.

 

41:51 Dr. Thomas’ Elevator Pitch: Read his book. Be open-minded to the fact that the current direction we have been on with the WHO and the CDC is myopic. We are ignoring side effects. One size fits all does more harm than good.

 

45:46 Liability: We need to put liability back into the process. If companies are held accountable for the damage of their products, they will make better products. Public health means looking at the whole picture. What is the collateral damage compared to what we are preventing? Dr. Thomas would like to see the WHO and CDC take their focus off purely preventing infectious disease and shift it to health and wellness.