Jenny McCarthy and David Kirby on Larry King

Tonight was another hallmark in the national vaccine/autism debate.

Never before has there been REAL debate.

A pissed off autism mom, a smart investigative journalist asking the hard question, an experienced pediatrician frustrated with his own profession, all face to face with hard core denial doctors like Harvey Karp and my pal David Tayloe who does not believe that vaccine injury even exists, and does not know how to read vaccine safety package inserts.

I have never seen David Kirby, usually the mellow, middle ground man, calling for more study, and 'let's see where things go', be so passionate. "The Debate Is Over"!

The very mature and measured Jon Poling could only shake his head at the AAP doctors misinformation.

Jay Gordon was clearly working hard to hold back his annoyance with his own AAP's party line and their lack of ability to reason beyond "vaccines good... make public health good...", to the varying health needs of individual children.

I have to guess that the Kirton's were booked on the show to make the 'genetics' point, and I have to wonder if they were disappointed when John Kirton said the word, "vaccines".

And then there is Jenny... shouting "Bullshit"!

And then there is my husband and me, jumping up and down in our living room!!!!

NOW the main event has started!

I want 10 more shows like this, but with fewer guest and with Larry asking questions that progress the debate a little better. ("Why do you keep having children?" Seriously Larry?)

Let me say outright, I cannot imagine for the life of me why the AAP has chosen David Tayloe as their new chief. He is a PR nightmare for them! In the current climate, when every day more and more parents quit vaccinating all together, choosing a dinosaur like Tayloe who is stuck in the 1950's polio epidemic, and who does not seem to notice that the threats to children's health have dramatically changed in the last half century, is just plain stupid.

I am going to say something here... and it will be the most harsh thing I have ever said about anyone on this blog before, but it needs to be said.

Dr. Tayloe said that in his practice that has seen 100,000 patients that he has never referred one person to the Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund. If he has never seen a serious vaccine injury, it is not because he has not come across one, it is because he has his head up his ass.

Tayloe is just dangerous.

This man has GOT to be removed from the position that he has been elected to before he takes office. I would take Karp in a second over this guy. Karp was wrong, but he wasn't crazy person saying insane things with a smile wrong.

Jay Gordon gives me hope that there are doctors out their who recognize that we have gone to far with vaccines and it is time to re-examine.

RISE UP WISE AND COMPETENT PEDIATRICIANS EVERYWHERE! RISE UP! Who do you want to take recommendations from, Jay Gordon, or David "The Dinosaur" Tayloe?

I know I am biased, way biased, but our guys won and the other guys just looked foolish.

Question of the evening goes to David Kirby who exposed the AAP docs for the close minded relics that they are:

David Kirby: "There is a bill in congress to study vaccinated v. unvaccinated populations in this country. Doctor would you support that legislation?"

David Tayloe: "Please allow me to talk around the answer by saying something politically correct but not going on record for supporting the legislation."

Jenny McCarthy: "Will you support the vaccinated v. unvaccinated study?"

David Tayloe: "We support lots of things, like flowers, and lemon drops and My Little Pony."

Yeah... they don't support that legislation.

The quote of the evening goes to David Tayloe who, when Jenny pointed to the chart of 36 vaccines and asked, "Do we really need ALL of these?", nodded his head and replied, and this is really great... listen to this:

"They're recommended!"

Well Doctor Tayloe... if 12 guys in Atlanta who tell mom's with good questions like, "Why don't you make a recommendation for pregnant women to receive only thimerosal free flu shots?", to sit down and stop asking questions in public vaccine policy meetings designed to let the public ask questions, then dammit... that is good enough for me! Bring on the vaccines!

36 Vaccines! It's Recommended!



(Check this space for more footage when I get around to it.)

[UPDATE: OMG! Turns out the Vaccine Injury Compensation Court exists in part due to the 3.5 million dollar malpractice suit that Dr. David Tayloe lost in 1985 when a child he gave the DPT shot to magically got permanent brain injury!! That Asshole just got on TV and implied that he had never SEEN a vaccine injury in his practice!!!

Here is what he said:

Tayloe: "I have yet to see a patient who I sent to the compensation program because I thought they had a permanent injury. Extremely rare."

He lost 3.5 million dollar lawsuit, apparently one of the biggest awards ever, the year before the vaccine court was created!

And then BRAGGS about not sending any other children to the injury program?!

And having a court force him for giving a shot to a kid who could not handle it was still not enough to teach him the lesson that not all vaccines are safe for every child, because he went on the Today show and said that ALL VACCINES ARE SAFE FOR EVERY CHILD!!!!

AAP you have lost your collective mind putting this man in charge!? Are you kidding me!!!! I think I am gonna have an aneurysm.

[More UPDATES: Gotten more information that this may have been Tayloe's father David Tayloe Sr. Which would make David Tayloe Jr. a little less evil, but sill evil. I am trying to confirm details but I am traveling today and only have like 10 more minutes of wifi.]

[YET MORE UPDATES: Thanks for your patience as I got reconnected after a day of travel. I got an email from someone Tayloe went to med school with that says this was his father. In thinking about where to adjust my judgmentalism meter, I think that I will retract my declaration that he is an asshole, and say that he is a dangerous, foolish man.

A jury told his own father that he was more than three million dollars worth of wrong for administering a shot that plunged a boy into brain damage, and he learned nothing from it, continuing to claim that 'all vaccines are safe for every child', and that there is no such thing as serious vaccine injury. (or maybe, but barely ever, as his statement last week was that there was not "any relationship between vaccines and permanent injury", and this week he has downgraded his stance to "extremely rare".) Even though it was not directly his, he should still know better because of his father's legacy.]

Info on David Tayloe's Malpractice Suit [HT: Kevin Barry]:

Medical Malpractice/Negligent Administration of the DPT Vaccine
$3,500,000 Jury Verdict, May 1, 1985


The Minor Plaintiff, Bernard Forehand, Jr., was seriously injured when the Defendant Pediatrician's Nurse failed to communicate to the Defendant Pediatrician, David Tayloe that the Minor Plaintiff had an adverse reaction to the first vaccination shot. The administration of the second shot left the Minor Plaintiff with a significant brain injury. The Defendant Pediatrician, David Tayloe, who at that time was the President of the National Pediatric Association, strenuously fought this case all the way to a jury verdict. On May 1, 1985, the jury handed down what was at that time the largest jury verdict in a medical malpractice case in the State of North Carolina, in the sum of 3.5 million dollars.

***********

Following is a newsletter article that I (Barbara Loe Fisher) wrote in the summer of 1985 on the Forehand lawsuit:

"In May, a North Carolina jury in the Wilmington U.S. District Court decided that David Tayloe, M.D. and T. Frank Stallings, M.D., of Washington Pediatrics, P.A., were guilty of medical malpractice in the pertussis vaccine-induced brain damage suffered by Beau Forehand, Jr. The child was awarded $3.5 million in compensatory damages by the jury but the judge overturned the verdict and it was appealed.

It was the highest medical malpractice award in North Carolina history. Beau was represented by attorneys Anne Werum Lambright and Richard Polling of the Charleston West Virginia firm of Preiser and Wilson. The defense claimed that the two doctors were following the vaccination guidelines contained in the American Academy of Pediatrics 1970's "Red Book" which was in effect at the time Beau Forehand received his first DPT shot in January of 1974.

Beau reacted to his first short with a 103 degree fever and inconsolable crying, which his mother reported to the doctors. Six weeks later, Beau had a febrile seizure and was hospitalized. However, despite the reaction to his first shot and the subsequent seizure, he was given another DPT shot even though he had a cold and a slight fever at the time of the second vaccination. Within three hours of his second DPT shot he went into a major seizure and has had an uncontrolled seizure disorder ever since. He was left with severe mental retardation.

The 1970 RedBook did not list inconsolable crying, a fever of 103 degrees, a history of convulsions or a cold at the time of vaccination as contraindications to the pertussis vaccine. Attorney Lambright stated that the jury's verdict in the case sent a clear message to physicians that "The American Academy of Pediatrics Red Book should not be used as the sole guide to contraindications or adverse reactions to vaccines. The basic premise in the Forehand case is that doctors have to use their common sense, medical training, skill, knowledge and experience to make appropriate determinations for vaccination on a case by case basis."

If the jury's verdict is upheld on appeal, the Forehand case will be an important precedent-setting case. It would mean that individual physicians are responsible for obtaining knowledge and making decisions about the advisability of vaccination in individual cases which go beyond automatic reliance on the recommendations listed by the AAP or the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). Examples of additional information available to physicians are the vaccine manufacturer's product inserts included in vaccine packages. which historically have listed more contraindications than those listed by either the AAP or ACIP, and the more than 40 years of scientific literature on the subject."

In a Winter 1986 newsletter, I wrote:

"On September 18, 1986, Forehand V. Tayloe and Stallings was settled for $1.1 million in North Carolina. A North Carolina jury had concluded that two pediatricians were negligent in the pertussis vaccine induced brain damage of Beau Forehand, Jr. and had awarded the boy and his parents $3.3 million. The judge overturned the verdict and the case was appealed on behalf of Beau by the law firm of Preiser and Wilson, of Charleston, West Virginia, before the Sept. 18 settlement ended the lawsuit."

BRIEF VACCINE INJURY COMPENSATION SYSTEM (VICP) BACKGROUND:

The Forehand settlement was one of a series of DPT vaccine malpractice cases against negligent physicians, as well as a few high profile punitive damage awards for DPT vaccine brain damage that went against vaccine manufacturers between 1981-1985 which persuaded Congress that both drug companies making vaccines and doctors giving vaccines should be protected from liability for vaccine injuries and deaths. The vaccine manufacturers threatened to leave the country with no vaccine if they did not get protection. Doctors threatened to stop giving vaccines if they weren't protected. Both doctors and the companies wanted a federal compensation system that banned all vaccine injury lawsuits for all time. We fought for protection of the right to access the civil justice system to sue companies or doctors if the child was turned down for federal compensation or offered too little or if it could be proved the vaccine manufacturer engaged in criminal fraud or gross negligence in the manufacture the vaccine or the doctor did the same in administering the vaccine.

I hope this is helpful.

Best,
Barbara Loe Fisher