N.Y. midwife fined for giving 1,500 children homeopathic pellets instead of vaccines
A New York midwife has been fined $300,000 for giving homeopathic pellets to 1,500 children instead of their required vaccinations for diseases like hepatitis, measles and polio.
The penalty, announced by the state's Department of Health on Wednesday, came after an investigation found that Jeanette Breen had entered nearly 12,500 false vaccine records into New York's Immunization Information System since 2019.
It's the first settlement of its kind for a scheme to create false immunization records, the department said.
The pellets Breen administered were taken orally as a series and supplied by an out-of-state homeopath, the department said in a release. They are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration or Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as an immunizing agent.
Erin Clary, a public information officer with New York's health department, said the nature of the scheme suggests that the affected children's parents or guardians "sought out and paid Breen related to their children’s immunizations and immunization records," but that the parents or guardians were not the subject of the investigation.
Breen told NBC News that she had no comment. Her attorney David Ekew wrote in an email that when Breen was informed of the investigation, she "fully cooperated."
"She paid the fine, entered into the stipulation of settlement and intends to fully comply with the requirements of the agreement. From her perspective, this matter is over, done with, and closed and she is now moving on with her life," Ekew said.
The children whose vaccine records were falsified ranged in age from around 4 to 18 and attended 300 different schools, mostly in Long Island where Breen practiced. Their immunization records have been voided, so they will have to receive all the required vaccinations before returning to the classroom.
None of the fake records were for Covid vaccines. Rather, the list included tetanus, hepatitis B, chickenpox and the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) shot, among others.
By law, New York requires health care providers to submit accurate vaccination information to its immunization system. In 2019, the state eliminated religious and other nonmedical exemptions to vaccine mandates for schoolchildren, following a series of major measles outbreaks that sickened more than 1,100 people. Breen’s falsification scheme appears to have started several months after New York’s rule changed.
Currently, a measles outbreak in Philadelphia has led nine people to be diagnosed. None had immunity, meaning they either never got vaccinated or had not contracted measles before.
Dr. Arthur Caplan, head of the division of medical ethics at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, said he had heard of Breen before the penalty was announced because her name was mentioned in Facebook groups where users discussed how to dodge vaccination requirements.
"I saw people saying, 'If you want to avoid a vaccination but still be able to send your kids to school, go here,'" Caplan said. "She put so many people at risk for communicable diseases by lying."
Breen has paid $150,000 of her fine. The rest was suspended, contingent on her compliance with state laws and the terms of the agreement, which prohibits her from accessing the New York State Immunization Information System and from administering any vaccine that would be reported there.
But Caplan said the state should go further.
“She has been found guilty and fined a huge amount for lying and promoting quackery so her license should go,” he said. “She’s dishonest and putting innocent people at risk.”
Eskew did not comment on questions about whether Breen should lose her license.
The New York State Education Department, which is responsible for prosecuting misconduct among medical professionals --- including the loss of a license — said it could not comment on Breen’s case for confidentiality reasons.
The New York State Association of Licensed Midwives denounced the vaccine fraud in a statement, saying it opposes "any actions that harm the public and stands firm against outliers in our profession who operate outside clinical and moral standards."
"It is the hope that the recent news stories concerning one NYS midwife will not detract from the vital work that over a thousand NYS midwives are doing every day," it added.
Although Breen's penalty is a first in New York, a California doctor was arrested in 2021 for falsifying Covid vaccination records after administering similar homeopathic pellets.
Adding to the problems faced by experts trying to persuade people of the vaccines’ safety: The oral vaccines themselves now cause most polio cases worldwide.
…
So far this year, there have been seven cases of polio caused by the wild virus - all in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, more than 270 cases have been caused by a virus linked to the vaccine in 21 countries across three continents. In January, roughly 62,000 parents, mostly in Pakistan’s Sindh province, refused polio vaccinations for their children, prompting authorities there to propose the new law with penalties.
The bill is in the final stages of becoming law after the provincial assembly approved it in August. It would punish parents with up to a month in prison for failing to vaccinate their children against certain diseases; they could also be fined up to Rs50,000 ($168). Officials said their primary aim was to boost polio immunisation rates, though diseases including measles, pneumonia and pertussis are also in the legislation.
4 minute video
So, today I stumbled across this article:
"CDC discussing using oral polio vaccine to combat New York outbreak: report"
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is discussing the use of an oral polio vaccine for the first time in decades in light of concerns of an outbreak in the New York City metropolitan area, CNBC reported Friday.
Officials first detected a case of polio in Rockland County, N.Y., in July. The 20-year-old man developed symptoms of polio, including paralysis, and was unvaccinated.
A CDC official said in August the case could indicate that “several hundred cases” exist in that community.
New York State Health Department officials also said in August that the CDC had detected poliovirus in wastewater surveillance. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) declared an emergency in the state last month after the health department found poliovirus in stool samples in five counties.
Most people who are infected with the virus do not show symptoms [🙄], but they could put those who are unvaccinated or immunocompromised at risk.
CNBC reported that scientists believe the outbreak stemmed from someone who was vaccinated with a live virus abroad, and the virus eventually got to the United States.
I did a little digging and found this article:
"Joe Randig: Vaccination the key to preventing more polio outbreaks"
As long as polio exists anywhere, it is a threat everywhere, as evidenced by the recent paralysis of a young man and the detection of the poliovirus in the sewage in five counties in New York.
Rotary and its partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative have made great strides over the past 30-plus years to reduce polio cases by 99.9%. As we mark World Polio Day today, what’s happened to our neighbors in New York serves as a stark reminder that we still have work to do to increase the number of children who are vaccinated for this terrible disease.
Here in the United States, we often hear that vaccine-preventable diseases such as polio are no longer a threat. As a polio survivor and a friend of Rotarians in our area, I encourage everyone to support immunization as the only protection against many childhood diseases that we thought were no longer a threat.
https://triblive.com/opinion/joe-randig-vaccination-the-key-to-preventing-more-polio-outbreaks/
So, who belongs to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative? Well, that's simple -- the usual suspects:
The Global Polio Eradication Initiative is a public-private partnership led by national governments with six core partners - the World Health Organization (WHO), Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
Surprise, surprise.
Cue u/TrustTheTruth ...
Sepsis -- your grandparents called it blood poisoning, and it's a nasty and often fatal condition. Treatment is arduous and often fails.
UNLESS you are treated with high-dose intravenous vitamin C (20,000 mg - 100,000 mg daily) or, many reports suggest, with 6 or so grams of lipospheric or liposomal vitamin C per day, orally.
ThIs link covers a bit of history on the use of vitamin C to cure scurvy and viruses, and contains two YouTube videos -- only one of which (the second one) is still available. The vid is well worth watching; it's about a family that saved their husband / father's life by fighting to get a hospital to give high-dose intravenous C to the patient, which was finally begun at the point where the hospital was planning to turn off his life support because he was at death's door and couldn't POSSIBLY get well. (The man had swine flu and leukemia, not sepsis).
Direct YouTube link for the embedded video: Vitamin C: the miracle Swine Flu cure
https://twitter.com/TheInsiderPaper/status/1581707969279848448
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NEW 🚨 Gates Foundation pledges $1.2 billion to eradicate polio
insiderpaper.com
Gates Foundation pledges $1.2 billion to eradicate polio - Insider Paper
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on Sunday pledged to invest $1.2 billion towards wiping out polio as health experts from around the world gathered for a summit in Berlin. “Polio eradication is…
7:05 AM · Oct 16, 2022
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