The heated exchange between HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. and CNN’s Dana Bash on August 2nd showed that nothing ever changes when it comes to defending vaccines by the mainstream media, most notably, CNN.
Bash quoted the Wall Street Journal:
“The President wants you to go further to probe the link between autism and vaccines.”
Kennedy:
He certainly does.
Bash:
Have you talked to him about medical research that have studied this for 25 years and found no link between autism and vaccines?
. . . My question is, because you’re HHS Secretary now, why not study what could cause autism, which scientists do believe starts with fetal brain development?
Why not do some studies on that?
Kennedy:
You are wrong when you say this has been studied.
Bash immediately cut Kennedy off.
I don’t want to have you use our air to say this.
There have been more than 40 studies involving 5.6 million people to conclude that there is no link between vaccines and autism. This is the head of the committee of infectious diseases of the American Academy of Pediatrics. . . .
Kennedy quoted the National Academy of Sciences.
It says that none of the eight vaccines that are administered in the first six months of life have ever been studied for a relationship to autism.
It found two studies on the DPT vaccine that showed that it does cause autism and one on the hepatitis B vaccine that again suggests that it does cause autism. . . .
Bash interrupted Kennedy repeatedly pushing a genetic link to autism.
Kennedy:
Genes don’t cause epidemics.
Bash:
Epidemic?
(Here she sounded skeptical that Kennedy used the word epidemic with regards to autism. )
Kennedy:
Your statement that this has been studied is not true.
Bash:
It’s considered decided by every scientist who’s studied this.
Bash would hear none of Kennedy’s arguments. The fact that she was unwilling to consider anything he said about the studies clearly showed that her mission was to discredit RFK from the outset.
The most telling moment came when Kennedy challenged her credibility.
Let me ask you something. Do you see your job as ending vaccine hesitancy, or do you see your job as telling the truth to the American people?
Bash:
I see my job as telling the truth.
The truth is that there is study after study after study. It is one of the most studied things out there in science.
Kennedy:
You’re repeating it like a parrot. Have you actually read the science? You don’t want to hear and debate the science.
Bash:
I’m not debating this.
Kennedy:
Of course you’re not. All you want to do is repeat things that people told you and say, “Trust the experts.”
The truth is CNN is doing everything to promote the interests of the pharmaceutical industry and ignore what autism is doing to children.
I recently wrote about another one-sided attack on Kennedy and his efforts to look into vaccines and autism from CNN.
Actually, when I heard Dana Bash say, “I don’t want to have you use our air to say this,” I immediately thought of how Andy Wakefield was treated on CNN 15 years ago.
Anderson Cooper interviewed Dr. Andrew Wakefield on Jan. 5, 2011 Cooper called Wakefield’s findings, “bogus data” and he said he “confronted” Dr. Wakefield. He accused Wakefield of fraud and cut him off at every opportunity.
Wakefield told Cooper that the facts were in his book, Callous Disregard.
Cooper said he’d read what Brian Deer wrote, and he rudely told Wakefield, “I’m not here to let you pitch your book.”
Clearly, Cooper was not interested in looking into both sides of this heated debate. He gave no indication that he’d read Callous Disregard or ever talked to a single parent of the children Wakefield treated.
When a network is out to discredit someone, it’s highly unlikely that they would be allowed to present their side of things. The treatment of Kennedy and Wakefield by CNN was more like a Soviet show trial where the guilt is already predetermined.
CNN knows the truth. They reported on the case of Hannah Poling back in 2008. The US government conceded her claim of vaccine-induced autism after medical experts at HHS agreed that the nine vaccines in a single doctor’s visit were to blame for her autism. CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta did not dispute Hannah’s claim when he interviewed her father, Dr. Jon Poling.
IF I HAD BEEN AT CNN ON AUGUST 2nd:
I would have asked Dana Bash, who considers all the science settled, why the government has never called for a simple study of fully-vaccinated and never-vaccinated kids to compare the rates of autism. With so many parents now too scared or too well-informed to vaccinate, the study group is out there.
If never-vaccinated kids have the same rate of autism as fully vaccinated, the proof would be there for all to see.
I would also have informed Bash that the studies she cites are population studies, the ones most likely to be flawed and also the easiest to manipulate to get the results the researchers are after.
I would have asked Bash who funded the studies she’s talking about and what conflicts of interests the researchers have because of connections to the vaccine makers.
Knowing this information is critical for any journalist who claims that the science is settled. Citing organizations like the AAP without acknowledging their vast money ties to the pharmaceutical industry is also questionable.
I would have asked Bash what she thinks about the fact that officials refuse to study the 30+ percent of children who start out normally developing but then lose learned skills and end up with autism. No one in charge wants to know what preceded the regression in these kids.
Finally I would have questioned Bash’s reaction to the word “epidemic.” Does she understand that autism is a true epidemic with ever-increasing numbers that show no sign of leveling off? I’d ask her how bad things have to get before CNN cares as much about autism as they do about defending the safety of vaccines.
Luke 8:17: “For there is nothing hidden that will not become visible, and nothing secret that will not be known and come to light“
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