The subtitle referencing the boards in Florida and Texas is slightly mystifying because there is no mention of these states in the text of the commentary. Here is my experience as a Florida licensed MD:
A couple of years ago Fla Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo sent out an email to all Florida physicians discouraging administering the mRNA covid vaccines to anyone under 40 (as I recall). This is based on the massive safety signal in VAERS for these vaccines for that age group. As far as I'm concerned his guidance still stands. Naturally, this correct advice was roundly criticized by the FDA and msm as 'anti-vax'.
In Texas, the Texas Medical Board has uniformly accepted complaints from physicians and pharmacists recruited by this sinister organization, SHOTS HEARD https://shotsheard.org/ . There are physicians who have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars out of their own pockets for their defense. These physicians were informing and treating their patients based on their knowledge and expertise, recommending against "vaccine" or for treatments flagged as misinformation like ivermectin for beneficence. NO malpractice was ever proven. Dr. Prasad is spot on.
I think the point about FL and TX was that those states (which appear to be the only sane-ish ones on the shots) should censure doctors for giving these products to babies and kids.
We just can't get enough of COVID in this country and, fortunately, most people have had COVID fatigue for a while. Unfortunately, in medicine we still have a number of physicians who follow political science instead of actual science. We, as a profession, continue to suffer from this.
Yes 100% agree. As pediatrician in very blue area I can see that even here most parents have figured this out thank goodness. Some with my help, to the best of my ability, at every opportunity.
Has a medical board ever punished a doctor for doing *more*? IMO the ACIP recommendations, broadly, should not be viewed as holy writ by doctors. We knew a family practitioner who said his advice to parents was to do some of the shots at age 11--certainly that makes more sense than birth for HepB--but just about everybody else acts as if every child is at an equal risk of contracting each VPD at exactly the age that ACIP recommends the shots. That can't be true. With HepB at birth (to HBsAg-negative mothers), the harms must outweigh the potential benefits, but I've never read anything in *JAMA* arguing one way or the other, except maybe the vague get-'em-while-you-can idea.
They also never tell parents that infants are not receptive to vaccines - they are more likely to cause lasting immunity when given after 1 year old.
So how many parents did their duty get their kid Hep B vaccines series at infancy because the pediatrician told them it would protect their future teenager and don't realize that their child has a 50% chance of having no detectable immunity at 15yo?
I was told with two different births at Mount Auburn hospital exactly this "Well, yeah, your kid is low risk now, but you'll want it when they're having sex when they're 12" - both incidents the day after the birth. Neither pediatrician informed me that such immunity might not last. That is NOT informed consent.
"Your child is due for [vaccine from ACIP schedule]" is not informed consent. "Here's the form we have to give you" (the Vaccine Information Sheet) is not really informed consent. Childbirth is pretty bad as far as informed consent is concerned (unless you and your partner planned ahead and took legit classes), and "well baby" visits are typically worse. We saw a family physician who didn't take insurance, so he actually talked through everything with us, from nursing to shots to you-name-it, but most people get two minutes with the MD before the nurse comes in with the needle(s). HepB at birth is the kind of thing that persists only because most educated, intelligent people don't think to question anything that comes out of a white coat's mouth; it is the most egregious example of uninformed not-really-consent.
it has been always so with vaccines. tell me, Dr Prasad, what did you learn about them in medical school? that they were one of the 3 greatest advances in the history of medicine (antibiotics and surgery being the other 2), that they had prevented millions of (probable- it's awfully hard to prove a negative) deaths, that their adverse event rate was 1 in a million and maybe, depending on when you were in med school, that the entire "anti-vaxx" movement was started by one crazy quack, Dr Wakefield who did it for the money and was funded by the Russians.
meanwhile, immediately after these products were granted a unique legal immunity status, a gold rush began and the health of american children plummeted. does the number of vaccines given to children have an inverse relationship to their overall health? it's a valid question but one that is not allowed to be asked without facing extreme punishments.
i became a confirmed anti-vaxxer in 1976, long before Andrew Wakefield destroyed his career, before RFKjr was magically morphed from the most celebrated environmental lawyer on the planet into a crazy conspiracy theorist, decades before the CCDH blamed just 12 people for starting the anti-vaxx movement, which was in fact started grass roots style by mothers of damaged children who swore that there was a connection only to be dismissed, ignored, mocked and reviled by their doctors, who think that they know best.
in 1976, one soldier died at Ft Dix. the government flew into a panic, ordered up a rushed vaccine and urged (not bribed, mandated, bullied or coerced) people to take it and then pulled it off the market when there were some cases of of GBS and deaths as a result. of course the victims, before they were finally recognized as vaccine injured- mostly women- were at first told that their malady was "all in their head" by doctors who think that they know best.
my cousin's wife spent a year in a wheelchair and that was enough for me. there was no way i was going to take the covid shot even though it cost me the position i had loved for 40 years and a whole bunch of "friends" who, upon reflection probably weren't worth the paper they were printed on.
the very word "vaccine" is one branch of medicine's holy trinity myth that allows it's priests to make claims and take credit for things beyond their abilities.
I have friends working at UCSF in your vicinity Dr Prasad - they are afraid to speak up and worry they will be dismissed. Ostracized and criticized at the very least. Tolerance seems to not run with critical thinking skills.
Question for you, do you know the protocol at UCSF for pediatric patients in regards to the COVID19 booster, pediatric transgender care and <18 y.o. diet management with drugs like Ozempic/Wegovy?
I read the recommendations for this fall's version of COVID vaccine today. Unless I am reading something wrong, this is the recommendation for unvaccinated children under the age of 4: Children aged 6 months–4 years are recommended to receive an initial multidose vaccination series when they first receive COVID-19 vaccination and thus need more than 1 COVID-19 vaccine dose, including at least 1 dose of the 2024–2025 COVID-19 vaccine, to be up to date (Table 2, which shows how many doses of each preparation they need).
What parent is going to add 2-3 COVID vaccinations to their children's already cumbersome pediatric vaccination regimen? For something that is not a serious disease?? I really don't understand the point of this - thank you, Vinay, for speaking truth!
Totally agree with your main thesis - doctors need to think for themselves and not rely on CDC/FDA recommendations.
And while we're at it - there *are* FDA employees or former employees pushing vaccines on Nextdoor. On the SF/BA Peninsula, it's someone named Henry Miller. He keeps posting how great the Covid booster will be. His latest claim is that it reduces psychiatric issues. What is a former FDA employee doing pushing vaccines on Nextdoor???
Dr. Prasad, you always had sense of humor on your YT and VPZD podcast. But this bit "Ultimately, however we all own our actions. If you are a doctor, you can’t blame others for the advice you give patients." line made me laugh. That's a good one. Ohhhh wait.....!
I don't think it's malpractice. I think it's EVIL. There's no other way to put it.
And it falls into the “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.
I have 32 grandchildren under 17. 16 boys, 16 girls. Neither the parents or their children have had a covid shot. No one knows if they've had covid because they don't test for it. If they are sick, they stay at home. My 75 yo hubby and myself, 71, both got Pzizer doses 1 and 2 because we had plans for a cruise and it was required. Cruise was canceled so never got boosters. Hubby got the Delta variant in Jan of 21, received the infusion and recovered with no issues. In mid December of 21, I tested positive for Covid but had no symptoms, Doc thought it was probably Omicron. We have not had boosters and have not tested for covid since then. I get the flu shot every year but hubby never has. Our doctor has quit mentioning covid, thank goodness.
Pediatricians pushed the covid shot up until about 6 months ago. Now it's not mentioned. We live near (within 20 miles) of the Navajo reservation which was hit hard with Covid in the first 2 years. Many homes are multigenerational and it's hard to isolate grandma from other adults or children. School was a nightmare since the internet is not always available on the reservation. Kids were having to go to Chapter Houses (a gathering place for specific communities in at least a 30 mile radius) that had internet to try and keep up with school. Many people are still wearing masks, including cloth masks, when they come into town to shop. And most continue to get boosters or whatever they are told is necessary at the Indian (public) Health Hospital and clinics.
The thing that has bothered me most about covid is that my young grandchildren are not getting immunized for other things because they don't want to be pushed about the covid shot so they stopped going to normal appointments. It was difficult enough to convince most of them, before covid, that immunizations like the DPT, polio and the MMR were crucial to their child's health but for the past 3 years many of the children under 6 are behind or haven't even started. Many of them are now playing catch up as the kids reach school age but covid did a number on children. Most of the time you couldn't get an appointment and now Doctors are leaving in large numbers so getting an appointment is still difficult. The 3 newborns in our family have to wait until 3-4 months for the 2nd month checkup.
The big wigs have done such a great disservice to our country and if it can catch up health wise, it's going to take cleaning house and getting someone with a brain who uses common sense. Right now it's not looking too good! I'd vote for you in a heartbeat Vinay, if you'd run for something I can vote for.
You have the best interest of people in your thoughts and I listen more to you than my PCP.
Their parents feel that way and I support most of their decisions. It’s just living in an area where things like measles and pertussis still have bad outbreaks is scary. I grew up in a time of the first polio outbreak and had several friends contract it. One friend lived about 3-4 years in an iron lung at his home before he passed. We would play games, read and talk. I have a friend who is my age who had polio as a child and I guess it’s returned so he’s back in a wheelchair.
I do think there are way too many immunizations today and don’t push them on all of them. Just the few that I experienced first hand. Or saw the effects caused by them. I heard or read something last week that newborns will have had 50+ immunizations by the time they’re 18. Don’t know if that’s true but if it is, that’s a lot
measles was never a big deal until there was a vaccine for it and then suddenly it was something to be feared. i realize that in other parts of the world, measles can be deadly but factors like poverty, malnutrition and dirty water play more of a roll in the seriousness of it. bill gates should try to improve those conditions instead of just shooting everyone up with vaccines, but that's not as good an investment for him.
read The Moth in the Iron Lung by Forrest Maready. i was born in 1953 so i've had 3 vaccines. i'll wager that my general health is far better than the average 20 year old. i'm also willing to bet that the "eradication" of chicken pox with the vaccine is responsible for the "epidemic" of shingles we see today. i've met young men in their early 20's who have already had shingles- and that was in the pre-covid vaxx days. what good would the shingles vaccine do for them?
when i was in college- a psych major- i learned, we were taught the cause of autism. it was KNOWN for certain in the 1970's that autism was caused by a cold, unfeeling, rejecting mother. it was in textbooks; it was The Science.
now that they've radically ratcheted up the number of vaccines on the schedule and taken away the market forces that would incentivize safety and autism has gone from very rare to everywhere, they suddenly no longer know what causes autism. funny about that.
Giving Covid boosters to healthy kids who already had Covid is not malpractice. It is a crime.
In a saner world, such a doctor would lose his license to practice, and be sent to do communtiy service for a year.
And again with the EUA? Where exactly is the emergency?
The subtitle referencing the boards in Florida and Texas is slightly mystifying because there is no mention of these states in the text of the commentary. Here is my experience as a Florida licensed MD:
A couple of years ago Fla Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo sent out an email to all Florida physicians discouraging administering the mRNA covid vaccines to anyone under 40 (as I recall). This is based on the massive safety signal in VAERS for these vaccines for that age group. As far as I'm concerned his guidance still stands. Naturally, this correct advice was roundly criticized by the FDA and msm as 'anti-vax'.
In Texas, the Texas Medical Board has uniformly accepted complaints from physicians and pharmacists recruited by this sinister organization, SHOTS HEARD https://shotsheard.org/ . There are physicians who have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars out of their own pockets for their defense. These physicians were informing and treating their patients based on their knowledge and expertise, recommending against "vaccine" or for treatments flagged as misinformation like ivermectin for beneficence. NO malpractice was ever proven. Dr. Prasad is spot on.
I think the point about FL and TX was that those states (which appear to be the only sane-ish ones on the shots) should censure doctors for giving these products to babies and kids.
We just can't get enough of COVID in this country and, fortunately, most people have had COVID fatigue for a while. Unfortunately, in medicine we still have a number of physicians who follow political science instead of actual science. We, as a profession, continue to suffer from this.
Yes 100% agree. As pediatrician in very blue area I can see that even here most parents have figured this out thank goodness. Some with my help, to the best of my ability, at every opportunity.
Has a medical board ever punished a doctor for doing *more*? IMO the ACIP recommendations, broadly, should not be viewed as holy writ by doctors. We knew a family practitioner who said his advice to parents was to do some of the shots at age 11--certainly that makes more sense than birth for HepB--but just about everybody else acts as if every child is at an equal risk of contracting each VPD at exactly the age that ACIP recommends the shots. That can't be true. With HepB at birth (to HBsAg-negative mothers), the harms must outweigh the potential benefits, but I've never read anything in *JAMA* arguing one way or the other, except maybe the vague get-'em-while-you-can idea.
They also never tell parents that infants are not receptive to vaccines - they are more likely to cause lasting immunity when given after 1 year old.
So how many parents did their duty get their kid Hep B vaccines series at infancy because the pediatrician told them it would protect their future teenager and don't realize that their child has a 50% chance of having no detectable immunity at 15yo?
I was told with two different births at Mount Auburn hospital exactly this "Well, yeah, your kid is low risk now, but you'll want it when they're having sex when they're 12" - both incidents the day after the birth. Neither pediatrician informed me that such immunity might not last. That is NOT informed consent.
"Your child is due for [vaccine from ACIP schedule]" is not informed consent. "Here's the form we have to give you" (the Vaccine Information Sheet) is not really informed consent. Childbirth is pretty bad as far as informed consent is concerned (unless you and your partner planned ahead and took legit classes), and "well baby" visits are typically worse. We saw a family physician who didn't take insurance, so he actually talked through everything with us, from nursing to shots to you-name-it, but most people get two minutes with the MD before the nurse comes in with the needle(s). HepB at birth is the kind of thing that persists only because most educated, intelligent people don't think to question anything that comes out of a white coat's mouth; it is the most egregious example of uninformed not-really-consent.
it has been always so with vaccines. tell me, Dr Prasad, what did you learn about them in medical school? that they were one of the 3 greatest advances in the history of medicine (antibiotics and surgery being the other 2), that they had prevented millions of (probable- it's awfully hard to prove a negative) deaths, that their adverse event rate was 1 in a million and maybe, depending on when you were in med school, that the entire "anti-vaxx" movement was started by one crazy quack, Dr Wakefield who did it for the money and was funded by the Russians.
meanwhile, immediately after these products were granted a unique legal immunity status, a gold rush began and the health of american children plummeted. does the number of vaccines given to children have an inverse relationship to their overall health? it's a valid question but one that is not allowed to be asked without facing extreme punishments.
i became a confirmed anti-vaxxer in 1976, long before Andrew Wakefield destroyed his career, before RFKjr was magically morphed from the most celebrated environmental lawyer on the planet into a crazy conspiracy theorist, decades before the CCDH blamed just 12 people for starting the anti-vaxx movement, which was in fact started grass roots style by mothers of damaged children who swore that there was a connection only to be dismissed, ignored, mocked and reviled by their doctors, who think that they know best.
in 1976, one soldier died at Ft Dix. the government flew into a panic, ordered up a rushed vaccine and urged (not bribed, mandated, bullied or coerced) people to take it and then pulled it off the market when there were some cases of of GBS and deaths as a result. of course the victims, before they were finally recognized as vaccine injured- mostly women- were at first told that their malady was "all in their head" by doctors who think that they know best.
my cousin's wife spent a year in a wheelchair and that was enough for me. there was no way i was going to take the covid shot even though it cost me the position i had loved for 40 years and a whole bunch of "friends" who, upon reflection probably weren't worth the paper they were printed on.
the very word "vaccine" is one branch of medicine's holy trinity myth that allows it's priests to make claims and take credit for things beyond their abilities.
Rinse. Repeat.
HANDS OFF MY BODY! Oh - that only applies to women, er, people with uteruses…, er - oh hell, never mind.
I have friends working at UCSF in your vicinity Dr Prasad - they are afraid to speak up and worry they will be dismissed. Ostracized and criticized at the very least. Tolerance seems to not run with critical thinking skills.
Question for you, do you know the protocol at UCSF for pediatric patients in regards to the COVID19 booster, pediatric transgender care and <18 y.o. diet management with drugs like Ozempic/Wegovy?
I read the recommendations for this fall's version of COVID vaccine today. Unless I am reading something wrong, this is the recommendation for unvaccinated children under the age of 4: Children aged 6 months–4 years are recommended to receive an initial multidose vaccination series when they first receive COVID-19 vaccination and thus need more than 1 COVID-19 vaccine dose, including at least 1 dose of the 2024–2025 COVID-19 vaccine, to be up to date (Table 2, which shows how many doses of each preparation they need).
What parent is going to add 2-3 COVID vaccinations to their children's already cumbersome pediatric vaccination regimen? For something that is not a serious disease?? I really don't understand the point of this - thank you, Vinay, for speaking truth!
Totally agree with your main thesis - doctors need to think for themselves and not rely on CDC/FDA recommendations.
And while we're at it - there *are* FDA employees or former employees pushing vaccines on Nextdoor. On the SF/BA Peninsula, it's someone named Henry Miller. He keeps posting how great the Covid booster will be. His latest claim is that it reduces psychiatric issues. What is a former FDA employee doing pushing vaccines on Nextdoor???
Dr. Prasad, you always had sense of humor on your YT and VPZD podcast. But this bit "Ultimately, however we all own our actions. If you are a doctor, you can’t blame others for the advice you give patients." line made me laugh. That's a good one. Ohhhh wait.....!
I don't think it's malpractice. I think it's EVIL. There's no other way to put it.
And it falls into the “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.
Keep speaking truth to power.
I hate that you had to write this. Maddening!
I have 32 grandchildren under 17. 16 boys, 16 girls. Neither the parents or their children have had a covid shot. No one knows if they've had covid because they don't test for it. If they are sick, they stay at home. My 75 yo hubby and myself, 71, both got Pzizer doses 1 and 2 because we had plans for a cruise and it was required. Cruise was canceled so never got boosters. Hubby got the Delta variant in Jan of 21, received the infusion and recovered with no issues. In mid December of 21, I tested positive for Covid but had no symptoms, Doc thought it was probably Omicron. We have not had boosters and have not tested for covid since then. I get the flu shot every year but hubby never has. Our doctor has quit mentioning covid, thank goodness.
Pediatricians pushed the covid shot up until about 6 months ago. Now it's not mentioned. We live near (within 20 miles) of the Navajo reservation which was hit hard with Covid in the first 2 years. Many homes are multigenerational and it's hard to isolate grandma from other adults or children. School was a nightmare since the internet is not always available on the reservation. Kids were having to go to Chapter Houses (a gathering place for specific communities in at least a 30 mile radius) that had internet to try and keep up with school. Many people are still wearing masks, including cloth masks, when they come into town to shop. And most continue to get boosters or whatever they are told is necessary at the Indian (public) Health Hospital and clinics.
The thing that has bothered me most about covid is that my young grandchildren are not getting immunized for other things because they don't want to be pushed about the covid shot so they stopped going to normal appointments. It was difficult enough to convince most of them, before covid, that immunizations like the DPT, polio and the MMR were crucial to their child's health but for the past 3 years many of the children under 6 are behind or haven't even started. Many of them are now playing catch up as the kids reach school age but covid did a number on children. Most of the time you couldn't get an appointment and now Doctors are leaving in large numbers so getting an appointment is still difficult. The 3 newborns in our family have to wait until 3-4 months for the 2nd month checkup.
The big wigs have done such a great disservice to our country and if it can catch up health wise, it's going to take cleaning house and getting someone with a brain who uses common sense. Right now it's not looking too good! I'd vote for you in a heartbeat Vinay, if you'd run for something I can vote for.
You have the best interest of people in your thoughts and I listen more to you than my PCP.
your young grandchildren just might be better off without all those shots
Their parents feel that way and I support most of their decisions. It’s just living in an area where things like measles and pertussis still have bad outbreaks is scary. I grew up in a time of the first polio outbreak and had several friends contract it. One friend lived about 3-4 years in an iron lung at his home before he passed. We would play games, read and talk. I have a friend who is my age who had polio as a child and I guess it’s returned so he’s back in a wheelchair.
I do think there are way too many immunizations today and don’t push them on all of them. Just the few that I experienced first hand. Or saw the effects caused by them. I heard or read something last week that newborns will have had 50+ immunizations by the time they’re 18. Don’t know if that’s true but if it is, that’s a lot
measles was never a big deal until there was a vaccine for it and then suddenly it was something to be feared. i realize that in other parts of the world, measles can be deadly but factors like poverty, malnutrition and dirty water play more of a roll in the seriousness of it. bill gates should try to improve those conditions instead of just shooting everyone up with vaccines, but that's not as good an investment for him.
read The Moth in the Iron Lung by Forrest Maready. i was born in 1953 so i've had 3 vaccines. i'll wager that my general health is far better than the average 20 year old. i'm also willing to bet that the "eradication" of chicken pox with the vaccine is responsible for the "epidemic" of shingles we see today. i've met young men in their early 20's who have already had shingles- and that was in the pre-covid vaxx days. what good would the shingles vaccine do for them?
when i was in college- a psych major- i learned, we were taught the cause of autism. it was KNOWN for certain in the 1970's that autism was caused by a cold, unfeeling, rejecting mother. it was in textbooks; it was The Science.
now that they've radically ratcheted up the number of vaccines on the schedule and taken away the market forces that would incentivize safety and autism has gone from very rare to everywhere, they suddenly no longer know what causes autism. funny about that.