Latest / The Birth Lounge Podcast / Ep. 466: Vaccine Schedules, Herd Immunity, and Informed Consent with Dr. Bob Sears (The Vaccine Book Author)

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Ep. 466: Vaccine Schedules, Herd Immunity, and Informed Consent with Dr. Bob Sears (The Vaccine Book Author) · The Birth Lounge Podcast

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It's totally a- almost like a religious indoctrination.
You know, we get almost no data, very little bit of...
very little scientific, uh, discussion.
It's all basically, "Vaccines are safe for everybody.
It's...
They've saved us from, you know, death and destruction.
They've literally saved our world.
They're so good.
You're crazy to think otherwise."
That's what we're taught.
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of The Birth Lounge podcast.
You guys, I know that making decisions around your birth can feel so overwhelming.
And then once you get to a place of having made a decision, you go into your prenatal appointment or you go into labor, and then if you're faced with any sort of resistance or pushback from your hospital team, it can kind of feel like you are coming up against a roadblock or a brick wall or kind of like a WTF moment.
Like, "I feel so informed.
I feel so confident.
Why is my medical team working against me?" Well, that's exactly why I have created my scripts for advocacy.
This is a guide that is jam-packed with the most common objections from your OB that you're going to face in late pregnancy and in labor.
It's gonna cover things like 39-week induction, late term ultrasounds, various interventions, how do you decline things that don't feel aligned to you, and then how do you truly advocate for the things that you do want.
Consent is not a form or a piece of paper that should be shoved in your face.
It's a question.
It's a full-blown discussion.
It's fluid, and not only can you give it freely, but you can take it away just as easily.
You know what I always say, if you don't have the freedom to either say yes or no, then it's not true informed consent.
That would be called coerced consent.
I want you to be overly prepared to advocate for yourself.
I want you to be overly confident in saying no.
I want you to be overly informed about the options that you can request and the discussions that you can have with your healthcare team as your pregnancy progresses and as you labor with your baby.
Why? Well, because I know that this is the number one crucial key factor in helping you avoid birth trauma and having a birth that leaves you feeling empowered and inspired, not broken and bruised.
Understanding what your options are is one thing, but knowing how to actually achieve them and stand strong in the face of adversity, resistance, and even medical manipulation while you're trying to have your baby is the key.
This guide is completely free, and like I say, it is jam-packed with the most common objections that you're gonna face from your OB.
You can download this guide at thebirthlounge.com/scripts-r-
for dash advocacy.
Again, that's thebirthlounge.com/scripps-for-advocacy.
I absolutely cannot wait to help you have the birth of your dreams, and I'm so committed to helping you achieve the birth that you've always dreamed of.
Grab my free guide at thebirthlounge.com/scripps-for-advocacy
You guys have absolutely been loving the vaccine conversations that we have been having on the show.
I originally did that five-part series where we broke down the most common questions that I got from you guys.
We covered delayed vaccination schedules, and vitamin K, and what does big pharma processes actually look like to make vaccines.
And then you guys asked to have a debate.
You guys asked that I had two pediatricians that seemingly had opposing views on vaccines on the show to have a discussion, so we did that.
I was joined by Dr.
Alok Patel and Dr.
Joel Gator, and the discussion was beautiful.
I actually really didn't even have to speak that much, and surprisingly, they agreed on so much more than I think a lot of us thought that they would.
I am not surprised, but it is an honor that you continue to come back and you want even more.
You continue to have these questions, and I have to say, it genuinely is such an honor for me to be able to hold this space for you.
I love being able to be the place that you know that you can come to get real, evidence-based, data-driven information.
You feel safe asking the hard questions.
You know that you can ask any question and I'm not gonna judge you.
You know that my guests are not gonna judge you.
And, for the most part, our guests are not going to push a certain agenda And I say for the most part because of course there are episodes where we do the little two-part series where one is anti and one is pro, and then those people obviously have an agenda that they come with.
But for the most part, the guests that we select, and the show is invite only by the way.
If you didn't know that about the Birth Lounge Podcast, people on the show are handpicked by us.
And long ago in, in 2018, I started out because I picked the topics.
And, um, then recently, last season and this season are topics that are picked by you guys, suggested by you guys, and prompted by some of the most common questions that we get.
And then my team and I go out and find the best representation and the best guests that we feel like can talk to that particular topic Today I am beyond honored and stoked to be sitting down with Dr.
Bob Sears.
You probably know him from his well-known book, The Vaccine Book.
It was one of my first introductions to really critically thinking about and analyzing vaccination schedules here in the United States.
Dr.
Sears is a pediatrician, a vaccine educator, and the author of, well, The Vaccine Book.
He earned his medical degree at Georgetown University School of Medicine, and did his pediatric internship and residency at Children's Hospital Los Angeles.
With the ongoing threat of mandatory vaccination laws, Dr.
Bob's mission is to ensure that all families worldwide receive complete, objective, and undoctored information so that you can make truly informed decisions with consent before you choose to vaccinate, and that parents everywhere retain the freedom to make healthcare decisions for themselves and their children In today's episode, we're gonna dive into what exactly has changed in the vaccination schedules and recommendations from the '90s, when a lot of us were children, to today, where we are now the parents making those decisions for our children.
What do we need to know about the clinical trials that originally got many of today's vaccines approved? I think you might be really, really surprised to hear about the sample size and their methodology.
Then we're gonna dive into herd immunity and the whole do your part thing.
Is there really a place where we reach herd immunity? And how much of a obligation do you have to get vaccinated for your fellow Americans? This one is complicated, but we're gonna dive into it And then I'm gonna have some of your questions answered.
You guys wanted to know if there are clean vaccine options.
Should you be a little fearful of your child getting sick if you choose not to vaccinate? And then one of the biggest questions that we've received recently is vaccines in pregnancy, because it's all over.
It is just dominating the headlines out there.
And if you decide that you don't want vaccines in pregnancy, how do you go about declining that? This episode is jam-packed with so much information that you need to hear while you are on your decision-making path to decide whether vaccines are right for your family or not.
As always, Dr.
Sears is a doctor, but he is not your doctor.
Nothing in this episode is intended to diagnose, treat, or be taken as medical advice You know I don't care what you choose for your family because I trust you.
I trust you so much, front, backwards, up, down, sideways, all the way around.
I trust you so deeply to know what the right choice is for your family, for your children, and for your goals.
My goal is to simply provide you with the information and the education so that you can make those decisions confidently rather than making them out of fear.
Without further ado, Dr.
Sears, welcome to the show Hey, thanks.
I'm super excited to be on.
I appreciate you, uh, reaching out.
Yeah, absolutely.
I am quite giddy right now because, uh, it's just always- so much fun to meet people who have been influential in my life.
Now, I first- Mm-hmm came across your book when I became a doula.
And obviously, being a doula, you're stepping through, you're stepping parents through the decisions of, um, vaccinations, particularly those ones right at birth.
And the more I dove into that to help people have true transparent education so that they can make a decision, I was led into the, the full vaccination schedule, so I started to look into that.
And your book, for me, was so helpful because it didn't push a narrative either way.
It simply gave you the information, the education, here's what you need to know.
Now you take that, and you do what you will with that.
And that is my entire existence as a doula, right? It's not get Pitocin or don't get Pitocin, get the epidural or don't get the epidural, get induced or don't get induced.
It's here's what you need to know about these choices, pros, cons, alternatives.
What do you wanna do? And so for me, your book was just, I mean, I have chills right now thinking about it.
It was pivotal for me.
I thought, "Oh, my God.
If, if we could just get every pediatrician talking to parents like this, speaking about vaccines like this, we would live in a much different world."
And you know, I talked to my parents about these things because I've, I've just had a baby.
And, um, now it's weird 'cause I'm the one making the decisions about the vaccines.
And I talked to my parents, and my parents report, you know, "Well, when you were kids, your pediatrician did talk to us like that.
There, there was not a lot of pressure," and I was born in '91, so my parents didn't feel the pressure to vaccinate or not vaccinate.
Our pediatrician really left it up to my parents, and they trusted parents.
And I feel like that has been eroded.
That trust between pediatricians and parents has completely deteriorated on both sides.
I think pediatricians no longer trust parents, and I think parents no longer trust pediatricians.
And I would love to hear your opinion on why do you think that fracture in the relationship has happened.
What has changed from, let's say, the late '80s and the early '90s to now? Well, I think what's really changed in the last five years is the number of parents, especially young families having babies, who are choosing to raise their kids vaccine-free has escalated exponentially.
I mean, I don't have good data because it's kind of a hard thing to study.
The only, the only way the CDC typically studies this is they call parents, you know, and do phone surveys nationwide.
And I think, you know, people in the medical freedom fight, people like you and I, and people who maybe tend to opt out of vaccines, if we see a call from the CDC on our cell phone, we're not answering it.
I'm not telling you that.
Yeah.
So it's a very, it's a very skewed survey.
So, so they'll reach out, and they'll, they'll talk to parents and try to assess, well, how many parents nationwide are not vaccinating? And maybe, like, oh, 20 years ago, they said maybe about one, 1.5%
were vaccine hesitant.
That's what they called it.
Um, recently it was, it was 3%, and maybe even 5%.
But that's a very skewed study.
I think based on my experience and the parents I talk to and the colleagues I talk to and what I see nationwide, I would say the number of parents who are opting out of vaccination today, at least maybe not doing the entire CDC schedule, is probably...
I, I mean, I'm totally guessing, but it could be, what is it, 20%? Is it 30%? I mean, based on What I...
Based on how many people come to me asking for this information, I feel that's why it's escalated.
And based on how many newborns that come into my practice every day now compared to how many came in 10, 20 years ago, we- we're having to turn people away now because the number of newborns flooding into our office is basically our schedule's all newborns not wanting to vaccinate, and they have nowhere else to go.
So I think, I think the pediatric community is concerned.
I think they're very worried.
I think they're worried in two ways.
I think the business people involved in the pediatric community are, are very, very, very worried about a huge financial loss.
But you know what? I, I gotta believe, and I'm hoping I'm tr- I'm right, that the basic pediatrician isn't so worried about this because of the financial loss of, of not selling vaccines.
I think most of them just truly believe in their heart that vaccines are so good for you, they're so safe, and your baby's literally gonna die if you don't vaccinate.
I, I hope and trust that that's what a lot of pediatricians feel.
And for them it's not about money.
But I think a lot of people in our community suspect that for many it is about money.
And I don't know.
I think the truth is somewhere, somewhere in between.
So the overall re- the overreach- ugh, the overreaching reason I think that pediatricians are now fighting back is people are leaving mainstream pediatrics in droves and choosing to raise their kids differently now, and pediatricians are concerned.
Now, that concern- is this something you learn in medical school? Is this how vaccines are spoken about? Is it, in your opinion, somewhat of an indoctrination rather than a true exploration of vaccine safety? Oh, yeah.
It's totally a- almost like a religious indoctrination.
You know, we get almost no data, very little bit of...
very little scientific, uh, discussion.
It's all basically, "Vaccines are safe for everybody.
It's...
They've saved us from, you know, death and destruction.
They've literally saved our world.
They're so good.
You're crazy to think otherwise."
That's what we're taught.
And, and doctors are also taught just to ridicule these parents who, uh, who ask questions.
And- And they just, they're, they're taught it's ridiculous to even question vaccines.
And then that's where the discussion ends.
And, uh, and I, I will say as a, as a young medical student and as a young pediatric resident, we're very impressionable, and we look up to all our mentors.
Our mentors who are 30, 40, 50 years older than us, they've seen it all.
They know it all.
And, and we look up to them, so when they tell us something, oh, yeah, you know, it's gospel.
And I think that's what pediatricians come out of their training with that kind of mindset.
And unless something prompts them to look deeper, that's the end of their education.
And so that's what they go into practice thinking, and that's how they practice until something gets their attention and makes them, uh, rethink that narrative.
That's really crazy to me because this is all printed in the vaccine inserts, right? Uh-huh.
So any doctor, any parent, any human who can read English can go and look at the vaccine inserts, and you can see the things that don't line up with what the mainstream medical community is often sharing.
And, or I find a lot of parents feel like they are told only pieces, but they're not told the full story.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, completely.
And what, what I find interesting is, and I think if you wonder why doctors are so adamant about vaccines, is that no one's investigated the whole story.
Uh, and what I mean by that is the, the vaccine story, it needs to have an ending, and the ending is how do all these vaccinated kids turn out 20, 30, 40, 50 years later? How is their health? And how does that compare to a whole bunch of kids 20, 30, 50 years later who haven't vaccinated? And that's kind of what I would say, the, the ultimate way we could, we could figure this out, is getting to the end of the story.
And doctors, I don't think they realize that no one's written that book.
No one's researched that and gotten to the end of that story.
And in their mind, of course, everyone who's vaccinated is way healthier and has had fewer serious infections, and has, you know, lived and fewer deaths and fewer medical conditions.
In their mind, that's the end of the story.
And so why wouldn't you vaccinate? But my challenge to doctors is- I, I'll sit here while you look for this study, but show me one study, just, just one, that shows that your, you know, 100,000 kids studied who have been fully vaccinated are way better off for it, are healthier, and their lives have been great.
They have way fewer medical conditions.
They've, they haven't had as many infectious diseases, and they're way better off than a comparative number of unvaccinated kids.
If you as a doctor are gonna scientifically tell me that, of course, all these vaccinated kids are healthier, you have to have a study that shows that.
And I don't know why doctors aren't clued into this, 'cause it's so obvious for any scientist that's lacking.
And so I think I need to have more conversations with pediatricians about this and challenge them on that.
And honestly, I don't.
That's probably one of my, one of my downfalls is I haven't, you know, I don't have enough pediatric colleagues who want to talk to me anymore.
But, um, but if you're talking to a doctor, you know, just say, you know, "Don't just tell me they're safe and effective.
And don't just, you know, tell me the FDA says they're safe.
Show me one study that proves to me the 10,000 patients you've been taking care of for the last 30 years are way healthier than the 500 patients you've been taking care of who have not vaccinated.
And, uh, show me that study, and I will then pay attention."
Anyway, I don't know how we got on this topic but, you know, that's, that's how I think doctors look at it or how they're failing to look at it.
And that's how parents are now looking at it, and that's why everyone's not complying anymore.
And what are you seeing in clinical practice? I assume that a lot, m- maybe the most, maybe all of your patients or clients at this point are not vaccinated or at least doing some sort of delayed or alternative schedule.
But when you were practicing and you did have parents that chose to vaccinate, when you looked at vaccinated versus unvaccinated children, what were you seeing long-term? Yeah.
I have, I've never studied this scientifically by collecting data in my office, but what I've seen is, um, 30 years ago when I started, almost everyone vaccinated in my practice.
They followed my alternative vaccination schedule, which was a smaller schedule which I, you know, in hindsight, I mean, and say I, I didn't really actually recommend that schedule.
But back then pe- more people wanted to vaccinate, and they were way more scared of not vaccinating at all.
So I showed them, "Well, here's the diseases your kid might die from.
Here's the diseases your kids are not gonna die from.
Let's do the vaccines for the diseases your kids might die from."
All right? And so we did only those vaccines, and, and everyone in my office did them And so everyone is partially vaccinated.
But I still, in the back of my mind, I suspected, well, i- is it even better to not even do these, these, uh, vaccines? And, but I was worried patients were gonna die from these infections, so a lot of people did the vaccines.
I had a lot of sick kids in my office.
I, every day was, like, five ear infections, five sinus infections, two pneumonias, 10 kids with allergies.
Every checkup was, "I'm here for a checkup, and my kid has allergies.
I'm here for a checkup, and my kid has chronic diarrhea.
I'm here for a checkup, and my kid is developmentally delayed."
I, I feel like my patients seemed very sick, and my office was just filled with lots of complicated stuff And fast-forward to today, the difference that, that you asked is no one vaccinates babies in my office anymore.
Probably for the last 15 years, I would say no one vaccinates babies.
Maybe one or two patients a year vaccinate a baby, like very, very minimally, because to them they really feel like they need to.
I, I tell them straight up front what my opinion is about that.
And, and like you said about my book earlier the book is very objective, but in my office you're sitting in front of me, I'll just tell you straight up what, you know, what my opinion is.
And so now that no one vaccinates, almost every single one of my checkups are, "I'm here for a checkup, but my kid is fine."
And I keep asking, "Well, do you have any problems you want to discuss? You know, anything I can help you with?" They're like, "No.
You know what? We're just here.
We want a paper trail that we're being, you know, good patients and we're here at the doctor, and, and we trust you, and we like hearing, you know, that our kids are healthy and, and make sure everything's okay."
And yeah, occasionally I find something where the parents didn't realize there was something about this kid that we needed to figure out, or something we need to fix, or something we need to have them adjust.
And so, yeah, it's, it's always...
It's a minority now where I, where I find a problem because these kids just are, are so much healthier, and that makes my job a lot easier.
I enjoy my job a lot more I think, that way, and it allows me to serve a much higher volume of patients.
Because my whole day is baby checkups, not half checkups and half sick kids coming in needing me to fix, you know, fix things.
So that's awesome.
And so that's what I've seen happen, and the only thing that's changed in our, in my patient population is their vaccine status.
They're not eating healthier.
They're not more organic.
They're...
Nothing's changed about their lifestyle other than everyone used to vaccinate, now nobody does.
Um, I should qualify that just by saying some people vaccinate here for school.
Oh.
But they do it later.
They do it when their kids are older, not during infancy.
They wait till their kids are four, five, and six if they want to go to a, a California school.
So that's been my experience, and I'm super excited about that and, and I've learned from that.
And I think as soon as I realized this trend, I stepped way back from recommending my alternative vaccine schedule.
Like, like, like I said earlier, you seemed a little kind of, like, surprised, you know, that I said I, I don't recommend it anymore, and I just recommend it because I've, I'm learning from my patients.
Yeah, absolutely.
I...
So for me, that is a telltale sign of a great doctor who is willing to say like, "I used to do it this way, and I have changed because I've learned more."
It kind of goes back to like know better, do better, and I find a lot of times in the medical community, it's like, "Well, we've always done it this way."
And it's like, okay, but you can see clearly that what we're doing now is not working, or it's harming people- or it's making people sicker.
In, in, for one example, in pregnancy, I'm thinking about induction, and it's like, "Well, we've always done it this way," and it's like, yes, but look at our induction rate, look at our C-section rate, look at our birth trauma rates.
They are constantly rising.
Alongside, our maternal mortality rate is just astronomical.
The stats in pregnancy and birth in our country is deplorable, yet our default in the hospital system is to say, "We've always done it this way."
And it's like, okay, but we have to change.
If we've always done it this way, we have got to make a pivot.
So I, for one, really appreciate, I am surprised that you have kind of rescinded your alternative schedule and are now saying like, "Maybe think about no vaccines."
Um, I recently heard you on, uh, a podcast talking about, you know, this is a big mindset shift that I am going to adopt.
Maybe our default is doing nothing because we come here perfect, and you opt in instead of- Mm-hmm the default being vaccine, vaccine, and you have to opt out.
I love the mindset of you can opt in if you find that that's the right choice for you, but your default should be, "Let's leave this baby's body alone until they show us that they need something or until they reach a age that, you know, it is appropriate."
So I do have a question about the age thing because also on a podcast I recently learned from you about, um, I can't remember if it was the Gardasil or HPV or HIB, one of them, you said there's a lot of risk in infancy, and then once a female goes through puberty, she then has another increased risk.
Mm-hmm.
So you kind of have this window of getting a certain vaccine.
So when it, when it comes to vaccinating your children, if you have chosen to do no vaccines or very minimal vaccines in infancy, is there a window where you kind of think like, all right, if you're gonna do it, this is your safest window? And let's take, like, maybe school out of it.
I don't want school to be the deciding factor.
Right.
But just, like, health overall, what are we seeing long-term with, like, timing? Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a great question.
So- I don't think this has been studied research-wise, but just my experience, what I've observed is when you vaccinate kids who are four years and older, it seems like their nervous system is less susceptible to the negative effects of the vaccines 'cause it's more fully developed, and their immune system seems less susceptible to, um, allergic effects or negative effects because they're, they're just older.
They're heartier, their immune system has seen a lot, and it's had a lot of practice so far.
So I feel like vaccinating four years and older seems safer.
I will qualify that by saying, though, that I've seen...
I've still seen some bad vaccine reactions in older kids.
But I feel like, based on my observations, that you're gonna have less negative consequences on your long-term health, less long-term problems, if you vaccinate when your kid is four years and older.
Y- you know, assuming you don't have one of those immediate severe allergic reactions or a severe neurologic reaction, which you still can have even at four and older.
Assuming you don't have a severe immediate reaction, your long-term prognosis is probably better if you're vaccinating older compared to if you vaccinated as an infant.
I feel like these infants are fragile, they're new, their brains are new, their immune systems are brand new, and to hit them with all that young, I think has much more potential to create long-term problems.
I will say there's two ways that vaccines might become less safe the older you are, and that's kind of why you were just asking me, is there a time window? Once you've gone through puberty and you're an adult, essentially, you seem more prone to autoimmune disease in general.
Like, adults are more prone to autoimmune disease than children are.
Um, and I don't know why that is.
Something about the immune system.
And so if you give vaccines post-puberty, you might have a higher risk of autoimmune consequences.
It hasn't been well-studied.
It's just kind of a theory.
So I would say if you're gonna do vaccines, and you're gonna pick and choose and do some, you might wanna do some during, like, mid-childhood, well before puberty.
But let me also say All my patients who are, like, approaching puberty or they're through puberty, and we sit in the office, and they ask me, "Okay.
Well, now's the time, you know.
Should we do anything?" And, and I will say there, there aren't any vaccines that I advocate for or that I am in favor of you getting in that timeframe.
Like, like, you know, "Should we do something now? Should we, you know?" And my general answer is no, but we certainly can talk about it.
You can, you know, tell me what your worries are, and we can discuss it.
The final aspect of what your question is, is MMR vaccine specifically is a vaccine that is way more dangerous for women who are already through puberty.
MMR vaccine, the rubella part of MMR vaccine has a very high rate of causing lifelong rheumatoid arthritis if you are a woman who gets an MMR, uh, vaccine because of the rubella component.
Whereas if you're a younger woman, a younger girl before puberty, you don't have much risk of a lifelong arthritis.
The risk is, is very, very tiny.
So I will tell every post-puberty woman that asks me, "Don't get an MMR vaccine."
I'll be straight up with that.
And in your field, that's, uh, your, your clients who have babies, they can't give you an MMR vaccine while you're pregnant, but they'll try to give it to you after you have your baby in the hospital.
If you lost your rubella immunity that you used to have as a child, they'll wanna give you a MMR vaccine to boost up your rubella immunity after you have your baby, and you should be aware of that because you're signing up for a very high risk of lifelong rheumatoid arthritis.
So super interesting.
I mean, there's so many you could s- things you could say about this topic, but, um, I don't know.
That's kind of my, my thoughts on it.
And, uh, I get the question a lot: Should I do tetanus vaccine? Should I give my kid a whooping cough vaccine? Should we do MMR? Should we do chickenpox 'cause we don't wanna catch chickenpox when you're older? Should you do all these things? Should you do, like, teenage meningitis vaccine? There's all these vaccines we give teenagers, you know, HPV vaccine, hepatitis B to prevent, you know, these sexually transmitted infections.
Should you give those to teenagers? I have that discussion with patients, and when I look at the disease risk versus the vaccine risk- I feel like the vaccines possibly pose more risk than your, your chance of getting harmed by the diseases poses to you.
Mm.
If that makes sense.
And so I, I'd say almost all of my patients in my office don't opt in for any, uh, teenage vaccines when I walk them through the risk-benefit analysis.
Okay.
So I, for one, was vaccine injured from the HPV vaccine.
I was much older.
I was in college when when I got it, and it gave me an autoimmune disease.
This is so interesting to hear, and then that has transformed into MCAS, mast cell activation syndrome.
And I don't know that those necessarily one led to the other, but I will say, before I had the series of HPVs, which were not given to me in the correct way, they were misadministered I was healthy, and, and I didn't have really any problems.
Ever since having my son, ever since actually getting pregnant, I've not had any MCAS flares, and I find that so interesting.
But you just mentioned that when you were a newer pediatrician or, uh, uh, you know, you had just kind of started out, you would talk to parents about, like, "All right, let's talk about the diseases that your baby might die from, and the ones that you might not die from."
What are the diseases that your baby might die from? Or now have you kind of adopted this idea that there's not really anything that is, you know, super dangerous for us that's, like, pertinent in our immediate environment these days? Right.
And so let me say, in all my 30 years of being a pediatrician, I have never seen a child die from an infectious disease that we have the vaccine to, to work against.
Right? Not a single one of my patients has ever regretted not vaccinating because their kid then ended up dying of, of an infection.
So it hasn't happened at my office, nor have I even seen a very serious case of any of these infections.
Not one.
No one's ever been harmed by these infections.
Everyone's worked through them in a way where they ended up being fine.
All right.
So I wanna stress that.
So when I say, "Yeah, your kids might die of an infection," I- I've been super blessed to say that, that no one has in my practice.
Now, nationwide, statistically, yes, kids are dying from these infections.
And you talk to any emergency room doctor or infectious disease specialist, they'll tell you, "Oh yeah, I've seen kids die from these things," because they're the ones seeing the complicated, serious, near-death cases of these infections.
So what do kids die from every year in our, in our, in our, uh, country? Of course, uh, the flu COVID babies and kids, uh, whooping cough, meningitis, pneumonia, Am I leaving anything out? I don't think I'm leaving anything out.
I mean, one kid wa- How about RSV? So yes, RSV.
The, the, the f- the injection we use to prevent RSV, um, is not really a vaccine, so it's interesting that, uh, whether or not we include that in this discussion, and it's brand new.
But no, no one's- Because it's monoclonal antibodies? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, because it's an antibody, yeah.
Different.
So it doesn't work on your immune system to create immunity, it just gives you the immunity- Got it as a direct antibody.
Um, but yeah, I've never had a patient die of RSV either, but you know, babies do die of RSV.
And so that was sort of the, you know, rotavirus, some babies die of that.
I think one kid died maybe from measles last year.
A g- a few kids die of chicken pox every year.
So th- the, there's these rare fatalities that do happen.
But what you said is, what is the real risk of your child being one of those statistics? And I think that risk is relatively very, very low.
I think it's incredibly low.
I, I've tried to estimate the risk, and it, I mean, it's, it's probably somewhere around 1 in 5,000 or 1 in 10,000 statistical risk of, of a, w- of an American child passing away from one of these infectious diseases.
It's kind of really hard to quantify.
But um, and so I think that's why in my 30 years of serving maybe 30,000 patients or more, it's kinda hard to say how many I've seen in all those years, I should have had a few fatalities statistically, but I haven't.
And so I've been, you know, very blessed to be able to say that.
Now, do you think that lifestyle has a lot to do with it? If these children are eating well at home, and they're getting sunlight, and they are getting exercise, and they're not, you know, eating a bunch of processed food, sitting in front of screens, staying indoors all day, can you assume that an unvaccinated child with a healthy lifestyle is going to fare better than a vaccinated child with an unhealthy, sedentary, processed food lifestyle? Yeah, yes.
I do.
I suspect that is probably true.
And it's funny, back when I first wrote the vaccine book, I used to think all these unvaccinated kids were gonna be more susceptible to infection, and more, more in danger.
I used to tell people, "Don't put your kid in a church nursery.
Don't put your kid in childcare.
Be careful where you go.
Don't expose your kid to lots of other kids, um, because they are really at risk of, of these infections and being harmed by it."
But what I've learned is if you raise a baby without vaccines, then you might actually have a better immune system, a healthier immune system that actually protects you better from every infection that's out there compared to kids who are vaccinated.
So in fact, you might even be better off and, and safer than a vaccinated kid when you're out and about.
Um- Why would that be? Well, just you have a s- you have a healthier immune system, a stronger immune system.
Um- But how can that be when the medical community is saying that vaccines are the reason our immune system is so strong? I know.
And again, they have no research to back that up, and all the research we have that has been done shows very clearly a vaccinated immune system is weaker and less healthy.
A lot of it is animal research, but there is also some human research that also demonstrates that.
And so you ask, "Well, how can that possibly be true?" The reason it's, I believe it's true, is when...
Vaccines are so artificial.
Every germ component they put in a vaccine is either genetically modified, or genetically engineered, or cross-bred, or hybridized, or mixed with other germs.
Th- there's nothing natural about any of the germs that are in vaccines.
They all go through some laboratory alterations.
So what's injected into you is a very artificial version.
And so when your immune system sees it, it has a very artificial response, or a very unnatural response to the vaccine.
Also, when you get a vaccine, it's injected into your body, except for the, the one that's given by mouth, but they're almost all injected.
And so it goes immediately into the internal part of your immune system, where germs don't usually go directly in.
So the part of your immune system that's responding this, to this vaccine isn't designed to respond to germs as the first responders.
What's supposed to happen, let me shift gears a bit, is when you are exposed to a natural infection through your eyes, your nose, your lungs through your intestines, the, the first layer of your immune system sees it and processes it and absorbs it and responds, and then that first part of your immune system, the first responder, that then presents this germ to your second layer, your internal layer of your immune system.
And it's your own immune system plus the germ then hits your internal, you know, bloodstream immune system, and then your internal immune system reacts and creates some good natural immunity and natural response to the infection.
So when vaccines instead they bypass that whole first layer of your immune system and hits your inner layer, the response is crazy.
Y- your allergic part immune system responds, the autoimmune part of your immune system responds, the inflammation part of your immune sy- system responds, and the germ-fighting part of your immune system.
Your entire immune system responds artificially, and it overreacts to the vaccine.
So when you do that to a baby with nine vaccines at two, four, and six months, and then a whole bunch more vaccines at one year and eighteen months, two years, five years, twelve years, teenage years, uh, young adult years, you keep hitting the immune system repeatedly with these artificial things that are over-stimulating the wrong parts of your immune system, you're gonna have a very dysfunctional immune system.
Compared to a baby who doesn't have all those artificial immune react- immune responses, they just grow up getting natural exposures to disease, you're gonna have a better, healthier immune system.
So having said that, I, I mean, so that's the why of why these kids might be healthier compared to vaccinated kids.
And I love what you said earlier, why do we even call them unvaccinated kids? There should be kids, and there should be vaccinated kids, you know.
That...
You're right, that should be the default.
You should opt in, and I've actually started using that terminology.
Saying, you know, "When you choose to opt in for vaccines at your two-month checkup," instead of, "Oh, if you choose to opt out or not vaccinate..."
You know, I, I've started wording it the way that you did, 'cause I think that is the better way to word it.
But anyway, it's important to know why.
You know, why these immune systems are healthier.
And so I tell parents in my office, "Don't live in fear.
Your kid's probably even better off."
Maybe shelter your newborn a little bit.
You know? Maybe don't throw him out into the world for the first few months of their life.
Baby wear- Maybe- breastfeed yeah, absolutely.
You know, uh, in fact, baby wearing is a great way to protect babies from infection.
If you enter, like, a church or a family gathering with a baby in a car seat and you set him down, everyone's gonna descend on that baby.
A stroller, they're gonna s- descend on that baby.
You walk in anywhere with a baby strapped to you in a baby carrier, your, your personal space is sort of like a bubble of protection.
People can't grab the baby, they can't touch the baby, they're not gonna get close.
And it's a great way to protect babies from, uh, from airborne infections, and you can kind of have more control over who gets close to you.
And, and you also can't easily hand your baby over, because it's a huge ordeal to take them out of the carrier, right? So you have a good excuse that your baby's gonna stay right where they are.
So that's all you need to do if you're raising a vaccine-free kid.
Just be smart in the first few months.
Maybe be a little cautious during your first winter of your baby's life.
Other...
But enjoy life.
Don't stay at home.
Don't be scared, 'cause your kid probably has a better immune system than the, your vaccinated neighbors.
Yeah.
Oh my gosh, you guys, one of my favorite facts, and I have relied heavily on this with, um, with Saggy boy, is that anything that we are exposed to, and whatever he's exposed to I'm exposed to 'cause we're always together.
He's literally my little sidekick, always on my hip, and my breast milk will make antibodies that will help protect him from whatever we are exposed to.
It doesn't mean that he's not gonna get sick.
I've shared with you guys.
Mm-hmm.
If you're not following me on Instagram, go over there, 'cause when we do get sick, I share about it and I share what I'm doing to help my family heal and get better.
But every single time, we've been sick twi- uh, three times since he's been born.
We had the flu twice.
Ugh, so annoying.
And then we just had some sort of summer something gunk that's going around, and you guys, all three times Saggy got over it faster, and he was less sick than my husband and I.
And it was fascinating to see how fast he bounced back, but also how it just didn't take him out as harshly as it did- Mm-hmm for, for us adults.
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Yeah.
Dr.
Bob, I have a question.
I wanna go back to kind of the vaccines we were talking about You had mentioned that the MMR is the one that we see a lot of r- you know, bad reactions with.
Is this because it's combined? Is this because it's a really, really, really old vaccine, and we haven't changed it? Is it because it's just super potent? Why are we seeing a lot of bad reactions with the MMR? And then my follow-up question is, can parents ask to have them separated out, and you just get mumps, and then you just get measles, and then you just get rubella? Right.
No, you can't get them separately anymore.
They stopped making that about, uh, 15 years ago, so that's not an option.
The reason is, is it's a live virus vaccine, and it has three live viruses in it for infections that are pretty potent infections on your body.
Like, when you catch measles, you feel pretty sick.
When you catch mumps, you, you feel pretty sick.
And yeah, I guess when you catch rubella you don't really feel that sick, but as a young baby when babies used to catch rubella, yeah, they kind of felt pretty sick.
There's fever.
There's rash.
You're achy.
It affects a lot of different, uh, different body sym- systems.
And each of these infections has a potential to inflame the brain, inflame different body organs, inflame your liver, your kidneys, um, your joints.
So these infections are...
they're tough infections.
Now I'm not saying that they're dangerous infections ultimately.
I mean, we, we handle it.
We get through it.
But you know you have it for the most part.
You feel pretty sick.
And so when you give all three of these infections as a vaccine, and all three of these viruses are live, you're hitting that immune system hard, and every possible diseased consequence of measles, mumps, and rubella is also a possible vaccine consequence- as a side effect of the vaccine.
And you're also tripling that by giving all three at the same time, because that doesn't happen in nature.
You don't catch all three of these infections at the same time.
So that's why MMR is particularly tough on, uh, on babies especially.
And I think that's why...
I mean, I, I don't think I've had any families in my office even want an MMR during infancy in the last 20 years.
I mean, that's one vaccine that my patients pretty much started opting out of way, way, way back.
It, so are you concerned, I'm thinking about obviously the increase in measle cases across our country, right? Mm-hmm.
This has been inflammatory.
The headlines are dominated by it.
Are you concerned about unvaccinated children coming in contact with measles and then getting it, contracting measles, and then being at a higher risk? Or are you along the lines of, no, you're unvaccinated, as long as you have a healthy immune system, good vitamin A levels, you're eating fruits and veggies, you're getting sunlight, you should be able to come in contact, maybe get it.
If you do contract it, your body should be able to fight it off Well, the, the last part of what you just said is true.
Everyone who is well-nourished, who has, uh, a good, healthy diet and has enough vitamin A in their system, measles should be a harmless disease for you.
And the best data we have is about, about 1 in 93,000 cases of measles ch- in children, in healthy children, is, uh, is fatal.
About 1 in 93,000 cases.
So that's a very, very, very, very low fatality risk.
It's about similar to the COVID fatality risk for healthy children.
Now, if you have a very unhealthy child, malnourished, starving, very low in vitamin A, oh yeah, measles can be terrible, and that's why measles kills a lot of children in undeveloped countries.
And...
But that's really the only media statistic the media can use, is when they say, "Yeah, measles is killing, you know, half a million children worldwide every year."
I, I don't know...
I don't even know if that's the right number.
I just made that up.
But they say they sh- they throw out this huge number to scare you.
But each American, uh, with a healthy child, basically you would view your child's risk as about 1 in 93,000.
And then if we group all kids together, both healthy and unhealthy in America, if we just, like, look at our entire population the fatality rate might be about 1 in 10,000 if we look, kind of have everyone grouped together, both nourished and malnourished.
Um, so, so no, measles is not gonna be a dangerous infection that's gonna start killing everyone left and right.
Um, I will say, though, that, yes, if you are not vaccinated, I think you are at a higher risk of catching measles as a child.
I think that is one vaccine that does seem to create some useful level of immunity.
So I mean, you can not like a vaccine because of its side effects, like MMR.
A lot of people don't like MMR 'cause the side effects.
That doesn't take away from the fact that it maybe works some and also gives you some protection, so I, I like to point that out.
It, it does seem to have some, some useful immunity.
However, that immunity wears off So we will never get rid of measles in our country, no matter how many people vaccinate, because the vaccine doesn't even work at all in about 2 or 3% of people.
So we'll always have at least 2 or 3% of kids are susceptible, no matter what their immunity, or no matter what their vaccine status.
But it wears off in almost all adults.
So our entire, like, uh, middle age and el- middle age and, you know, getting older group of adults are all susceptible to measles.
Mm-hmm.
So we'll always have an adult herd that's gonna share measles whenever it comes around.
So we can't get rid of this infection, 'cause we just don't have a vaccine that works long enough to give our whole country good herd immunity.
So I think it's really each parent's individual decision.
Do you want measles immunity in case your kid encounters measles, or do you keep your kid healthy, well-fed, with enough vitamin A? You can Google search what foods have vitamin A in it.
You can take cod liver oil every day to get vitamin A.
And then you just weather the disease when it comes your way.
You know, that- that's kind of the, the choice parents have to make.
Now, when we're thinking about the risk of fatality in, uh, you know, healthy children being 1 in 93,000, and all children 1 in 10,000, do we have numbers of the bad reactions that happen from the vaccine so that we can directly compare risk of being unvaccinated versus, you know, the risk of taking the vaccine? Yeah.
And that, that is the, uh...
That's the missing factor from this equation, is we don't have very good, uh, risk s- statistics for these, uh, for any of these vaccines.
Except o- occasionally we do.
I'm trying to think if MMR in particular has a known disease statistic risk.
I think I could, I could look it up in the book.
You know, we mentioned the, um, the arthritis risk for women after puberty.
That's a 25% risk for having arthritis reaction, and then about, about, um, 1 or 2% of those will go to be lifelong, like permanent arthritis.
What else do we have? Um- Well, so yeah, we the, the bottom line is we don't have good data because we don't know...
it just hasn't been studied.
They haven't collected the data very well with this.
My, um, my impression from watching kids react to vaccines over the years, and talking to patients who have had vaccine reactions, is that the disease risk is, is somewhere, let's just give it a size with our fingers here.
I don't know if that's a, some sort of risk for each baby.
I feel like the vaccine risk is bigger.
I think if, if you look at your risk of being harmed by all the infections put together compared to your risk of being harmed if you get all the vaccines, I think vaccine risk is higher statistically, if you go based on the numbers we do have.
And that's kind of how I explain it to parents, and I wish we had better data to show the exact statistical risk of these side effects, because we don't.
Another risk though that just came into my mind that the CDC used to put out there is, they used to warn people.
Back in the day when you said doctors would talk to you about vaccines and talk to you openly about vaccine reactions, there was one particular reaction the CDC actually had on their consent forms.
It said, "Your child has a 1 in 1,000 risk of brain inflammation from the DTP vaccine," the old pertussis vaccine we used to give.
About a 1 in 1,000 risk.
And I remember reading that risk as a young parent when my first kid was born 33 years ago.
My wife and I were in the office, we're reading these risks, and it's like, "Oh, wow, gosh, 1 in 1,000 risk that my, our kid's gonna get brain inflammation and brain swelling and possible brain injury from that."
1 in 1,000.
It's like, "Eh, that sounds like a pretty low risk."
And, and my wife is like, she's like, she's crying.
She's like, "Oh my gosh, that's terrible.
I don't want my kid to, to get brain damage from this vaccine."
I'm like, "Honey, it's okay.
It's a low risk, you know," and I cringe when I say this, but I said it, "And we have to do it for the good of society."
And, you know, we have to do our part, right? Un- unbeknownst to me that, you know, that vaccine doesn't, uh, protect anyone else around you.
It do- doesn't prevent transmission.
It doesn't stop you from getting the infection and passing it around.
So there is no, like, public health benefit from getting that, that particular vaccine.
But I didn't know that back then.
I just thought we're doing our part and, and our kid was fine actually.
Thank God.
You know, he, uh, he was not one of the one in 1,000s.
So the CDC took that statistic off of their consent form.
As you can imagine, many parents were opting out of the vaccine because they were not comfortable with the one in 1,000 risk of brain injury.
And so they took that off of the consent form conveniently.
And so it's, it's kind of hard to track down.
But yeah, so, uh, so I wish we had better statistics for every vaccine, but overall, I, I feel like vaccine risk is higher than disease risk.
Now, when you read the inserts for vaccines, there's actually a lot of them that state that herd immunity is not achievable with that vaccine because of exactly what you talked about.
It doesn't- Mm-hmm stop transmission.
It only protects you.
Is that right? Right.
Right.
That's true for almost every vaccine.
Yes.
So this idea of do your part, protect your neighbor, is a fallacy? It's, it's a fallacy.
Where did it come from? Yes.
Yeah, it's a fallacy.
It came basically from the, the religious aspect of vaccine policy, where they just have lots of faith that vaccines do everything we want them to, everything we wish they would do, and not just the things that we know they do.
Mm-hmm.
And for the most part, every vaccine is gonna give you some personal level of immunity in that when the infection gets in your body, it's still gonna infect you, but your immune system is gonna have that vaccine protection that dampens the severity of the disease and makes your infection less severe.
But you'll still get infected, and you'll still be contagious and spread the germs to others.
You just won't, uh, you won't feel as sick.
So you might get some personal benefit from that, but for most vaccines, it doesn't help anyone else around you.
But doctors wish it was otherwise.
And one of the old vaccines we used to use that we don't use anymore was the old polio vaccine, and there's a whole debate whether or not that really helped us.
But the general medical consensus is that did give some immunity, where you couldn't catch and spread polio.
The downside was the vaccine was contagious to others.
It would give others polio.
So it was kind of a- Through shedding, is that right? Yeah, through shedding.
Yeah, vaccine shedding with the polio vaccine that we used to use was a very re- real thing.
It used to paralyze eight kids a year in our country just from vaccine shedding alone.
So, but the vaccine might have also helped prevent sh- you know, disease transmission, maybe or maybe not.
The measles vaccine might prevent disease spread.
But I think that's about it.
There's a very, very tiny number when you count the number of vaccines that actually do or are known or have been proven to prevent disease transmission.
So you're right, it's...
But I think because we've seen a lot of these diseases go away, doctors are just assuming it's because of vaccines.
Whereas when you really look at the science and how each vaccine works, they just don't work the way we wish they would.
I was really aghast.
I mean, my mouth dropped, and I still...
I- it, it plays over and over in my head again.
You can read it in the vaccine inserts directly from the manufacturers, where they will type out in black and white that they don't know when herd immunity is achieved because that's not how the vaccine is designed.
And that just, that really was so pivotal for me.
It was such an educational moment.
Now, along the lines of shedding, let's talk about having a newborn.
I, you know, I'm...
You guys are not gonna be surprised to hear this.
I believe and trust everyone to make the decision for their own bodies.
I would never, ever tell anyone to do something with their own body.
That's not my place.
I don't feel like I have the right to do that.
This is a con- a, a conversation that continued to happen as we got closer and closer to the birth of Saggy, and the people around us started to s- to say, like, "Well, do you want me to get vaccinated? Well, should I get vaccinated? Are you gonna require me to be vaccinated? Are there anything that I need to do? Is there anything I need to do in order to be able to spend time with the baby?" And for me, my only ask was, "I will not tell you what to get or that you should get something, but if you're choosing to do it, please get it by this date so that we don't run the risk of shedding to the baby."
And I had chosen a date that was comfortable for me.
It was, uh, several weeks out.
I had looked into how long shedding com- you know, typically lasts, and then I had given our, our family that date.
And I, I left it up to them.
Is this something that parents need to be thinking about when family and friends are getting vaccinated in order to come and see their newborn? I would say overall no.
Okay.
I don't think that needs to be a f- a fear or a worry or a, something you, you do in practice.
But I, I wanna say a couple things about this.
Um, number one, the reason people are asking you that, HeHe, is their OBs are telling them that.
Yes, they are.
And the media are telling them that.
OBs, th- this whole, this whole concept called cocooning.
We want that newborn baby to be born in a co- in a cocoon where everyone around them has this shield of vaccine protection.
Well, all the vaccines we use in the cocooning strategy is this, this OB strategy they came out with years ago.
None of those vaccines prevent you from getting infected and being contagious to the newborn, not a single one of them.
The whooping cough vaccine doesn't prevent transmission.
The flu vaccine doesn't prevent transmission, neither does the COVID vaccine, and neither does the RSV vaccine.
None of those vaccines help that newborn at all.
You as a vaccinated adult are gonna be just as likely to catch all those infections and bring them to the baby as a vaccinated person.
And everyone knows that except, I, I think except the OBs.
I think their, the drug reps push the, the, you know, cocooning strategy on them.
They're like, "Oh, yeah, well, because all vaccines prevent transmission, then of course I want all my OB clients' families to be fully vaccinated."
They don't even think further.
And the problem is, is if you are vaccinated for whooping cough, you are actually more likely to transmit that infection to a newborn than someone who is not vaccinated.
And I'll tell you why, is because if you're vaccinated- And you catch whooping cough, or exposed to it and you catch it, you have a cough, but you don't, you won't know you have whooping cough because you don't feel as sick, 'cause the vaccine is giving you a milder case.
So you just think you have a regular cough.
You're gonna go see that baby, wash your hands, pretend you're not sick.
Meanwhile, you're breathing whooping cough all over that baby 'cause you didn't know you had it because the vaccine, you know, gives you a milder case.
Whereas someone who is not vaccinated, they catch whooping cough, they know they have it 'cause they have a really terrible cough and they can't hide it.
So they're not gonna go see that baby.
All right? And, uh, so it...
The whole strategy makes no sense, and in fact...
And it can have the opposite effect.
And the same might even be true of flu and COVID.
You might be sick with flu or COVID and not realize you even have it, or think you're barely sick because the vaccine maybe gives you a milder case, and then you're gonna go see that newborn.
So it's completely opposite.
Parents are waking up to this, and people like you know this, and you're telling all your clients.
And, and so I, I would encourage you to make sure your clients know this, you know? And don't be too objective in your adv- in your advice.
I mean, you know, I, I appreciate how you like to be objective, and I, I like to be objective in my book.
But I think when it comes to, uh, being a medical practitioner, I think patients want our actual opinion too.
And I've had so many people read my book, and I read my book and I feel like, "Oh, well, it's obvious.
The healthiest choice is to raise a baby vaccine-free But half the people that read my book can't process it in a way that leads them to that conclusion, so they're still confused, right? And that's why they need the in-person discussion with me.
And, and that's why, and in fact, I got, I, I got so inundated with people wanting to do, uh, vaccine consults with me or prenatal consults with me, like, like what you do, and that, but we're so busy right now, I actually had to stop doing prenatal consults and vaccine consults 'cause I'm so busy taking care of all the newborns that are a product of, of, you know, pregnancy and, and young families.
So I had to create basically a, a video online video consult system where I actually had to, I, I produced these two videos where it's me talking to you for an hour.
You sign up.
It's way cheaper than coming in as a patient.
You know, it's not cheap to come in and, and have a consultation with me.
Super cheap comparatively to have like a, have the video version of the consult with me.
You get the video.
You can email me your questions.
You do a...
I do a once-a-month Zoom call with like all the clients for that month, right? We get on a Zoom call together, and we talk about pregnancy, prenatal stuff, having a baby, vaccines.
And so it's kind of morphed into that because, 'cause I've found people just can't ultimately make that final step in their reasoning.
Some people can, but not everyone can, and I actually have found that it seems like the majority of people need a medical person to tell them that final, help them with that final decision step.
Yeah.
So that- that's made me become more forthcoming in my advice.
Instead of just being totally neutral and objective I'll come out and tell you how it is.
I know that so many people really appreciate that.
So along the lines of pregnancy- Tell me why we're offering people the same vaccine in every single pregnancy.
Wouldn't it make sense- Yeah that if you have had it once or you've had it recently, that your immunity would transfer to future babies? Or is that not how it works? Right.
Well, no, yeah, it doesn't work that way because the, say you get a flu vaccine, a COVID vaccine for that year during pregnancy, you might give that baby some of those immunities.
And let's, let's label those as very artificial immunities, right? So yeah, you're pregnant a couple years later, you need a whole new version of those vaccines because what's going around that year are gonna be different strains.
The whooping cough vaccine, if you give it to a pregnant woman and that baby is born with some immunities, those immunities don't stay in that woman long enough to then get there to the next baby in the next pregnancy.
You have to reboost those immunities in, during that pregnancy.
And that's, that's why.
That is so frustrating because I feel like, you know, when, if you're around my age, when our moms were pregnant, you did not give pregnant people vaccines.
It was kind of like- Right "Whoa, no, no, 'cause we haven't studied this.
We don't want to inject a pregnant woman who's growing a baby with vaccines."
Yet recently, especially in the most recent weeks and months, now we've got the CDC recommending, not just saying these might be something to consider, but saying every pregnant woman should have these three, four, five vaccines in each pregnancy.
Right.
I know.
And, and for them, the priority is disease prevention.
The priority, sadly, is not long-term healthy living or long-term better health outcomes.
It's, we gotta prevent disease at all costs.
And so even if the vaccines are causing some harm to babies, that's okay, because disease prevention is what we do, and that's, that's the number one priority.
And if we can prevent flu and COVID and whooping cough in some of these moms, in some of these babies and we have to pay the price of causing a little bit of, you know, harm to every baby that, that gets, you know, a pregnancy vaccine through their mom, that's okay.
Now, they don't think that's happening, though.
They don't think babies are being harmed by these artificial things being injected into moms.
To them, they're 100% safe and effective, so they don't think that way.
But even if it is happening, in their mind, the disease prevention is paramount and is more important than, uh, the safety of, uh, yet-to-be-born babies and, and the health of these newborns.
So that's how they look at it, and that's not right, and that's why I think why parents don't trust them anymore.
Yeah.
The different tracks of thinking are just, it's- Mm-hmm so fascinating to me.
It really is, how you can just think so differently than even your neighbor.
Okay, I have two final questions before we wrap up, but the next one is something that I think is kind of newer, and it may not be for you as a pediatrician, but for me as a doula, and it is something that I continue to hear more and more about online.
MTHFR gene mutations.
I feel like it's getting a lot of light.
People are learning about it.
People are being tested.
It's a saliva test.
You can just swab the inside of your cheek, have it sent off.
It will tell you whether you have a gene mutation.
That sounds really serious.
A lot of people have it, so it's not, like, a super rare condition, but there is some thinking that it may impact the way that your body interacts and is susceptible and then metabolizes these vaccines.
Talk to us about that.
If someone finds out that their child has MTHFR gene mutation, what do they need to know? Okay.
Great question.
I, I wanna give you an overall statement, in that, in my opinion, people don't need to pay attention to MTHFR issues in their vaccine decisions.
Okay? Um, they might need to pay attention in their, in their overall health, but I don't think it's related to vaccine decisions at all.
Um, so having said that, uh, I mean, I, I don't know if your audience already knows but MTHFR is a gene that helps your body process folic acid.
All right? And, um, you use, you, you, you use the folic acid to help, you know, your brain stay healthy and to help your body detox, all right? So if you have that mutation, then your body's not gonna use folic acid as well, and you're not gonna detox as well.
That's, that's sort of the, the basics of it.
And even more so, your body won't be able to process artificially manufactured versions of folic acid, like the kind that, that they add to cereal and they add to baby cereal and they, they put in prenatal vitamins and the...
or they used to.
And the, the folic acid they've had all these years, the artificial version of it, if you have MTHFR mutation, your, your body won't be able to process that even more, and then your detox mechanisms are gonna work even less, and so you can't detox well, right? Um, if you get, if you eat folic acid that's naturally occurring, then you, your body probably can utilize that.
Or if you utilize, uh, uh, what's called a methyl version of folic acid, which is, which is what they're putting in prenatal vitamins now.
If it's a na- like a, like an alternative version or a natural holistic version of a prenatal vitamin, you'll have methyl folic acid, which your body can use even if you have MTHFR mutations.
So there's a way around this.
You just supplement with a methyl folic acid in your vitamin or, and you eat foods that have naturally occurring folate, and you should be fine.
Now, the reason I don't think this matters for the vaccine decision is If you can't detox vaccines very well because of MTHFR mutation, that's only a tiny little bit of your body's inability to handle that vaccine well.
There are way more genes, tons of other genes involved in detox, tons of other genes involved in your body's ability to handle vaccines well.
And if you have other mutations in other genes that you're not even testing 'cause we don't know how to test, you're not gonna handle vaccines well.
I feel like out of...
I, I don't know of any really good thorough research that has showed MTHFR alone is a good predictor of how well you handle vaccines.
Another way to say that is if your MTHR- FR is fine and you have no gene mutations, you still could have a terrible vaccine reaction So to me, it doesn't matter if you have an MTHFR gene defect or not.
I don't think that weighs into your vaccine decision, 'cause you could still have a terrible reaction or you could not have a terrible reaction independently of MTHFR in, in my opinion.
So that's why I, I don't test a- any of my patients.
I supplement e- everybody who's getting a vaccine.
They supplement with methylfolate a- and take like, you know, eat some foods with natural folate leading up to that vaccination just in case they have MTHFR.
And, um, that's kind of how I handle that.
Wow, that's fascinating.
So if someone tested positive for MTHFR or they had the gene mutation, there's nothing further to do in your opinion or would you have them maybe think about other test? Or do these other tests not exist? Right.
There are other tests, I just don't know that they've been proven to predict how well you're gonna handle vaccines.
Got it.
Or what your overall health is gonna be.
So I, I just think the tests are out there, but to me, they, they don't give you a, a clearance to get vaccines essentially, or they don't give you, like, evidence to not get vaccines.
Right.
I just don't think they're we know that they're practically useful in that respect.
Hmm.
Okay, and my last question is, are you concerned with any diseases that might resurface or make a surge, make a comeback if we continue to see this rate of people opting out of or choosing the default to not vaccinate- Yeah.
Right uh, their children? Do you have any diseases where you're like, "You know what? I am a little concerned about this one."
Right.
Right.
Well, we know polio is not coming back because it has not, it's had many decades to try to resurface 'cause the vaccine we use to prevent polio now does not prevent transmission at all.
It just prevents you from having nerve damage if you catch polio.
So we've kept polio out of our country for 30 years now using a polio vaccine that doesn't even stop transmission.
And just with good public health measures and good disease surveillance we've kept polio out.
So we're not gonna see polio come back.
We might see chicken pox come back, but it's chicken pox.
I think we are seeing measles come back, and I think we will keep seeing that come back for reasons that we've talked about earlier.
Other...
But everything else we're seeing, uh, that, that's coming back, like whooping cough h- has been high for the last two years.
The, the vaccine doesn't stop that transmission, we know.
So that's gonna come and go regardless of vaccination.
No, I don't think we're gonna see anything return.
I think the only thing we're gonna see more of is measles, and parents can educate themselves how to get their kids ready for that.
And, uh, other than that, no.
I, I feel like this, uh, group of young families who are now raising their kids as kids I think Measles might be something they'll deal with, but I don't think they're gonna deal with anything more than that.
And it'll be fun and interesting to see how this generation of kids turns out.
And, uh, maybe they'll be the, the next, you know, generation of medical leaders and medical policy makers, and, and, and they can, uh...
Could you imagine if a whole bunch of, uh, kids, uh, got into, uh, positions of, of influence and authority in the next 20, 30, 50 years and changed this whole system? 'Cause all these kids that are being born now vaccine-free, they're gonna grow up, and it'll be fun.
I, how am I? I'm in, I'm in my 50s, so I, I think I'll still be around to, to see the fruits of that.
Hopefully.
Yeah.
You know, I, um, I haven't thought about it directly in that line of thinking, but I do imagine a world of people who are much more compassionate to their neighbors thinking differently than they do, and making different choices.
And we live in a world where you trust your neighbor to make a decision for them, and you can be trusted to make a decision for you.
And there is not all of this tension, and hatred, and indoctrination.
It's just a more peaceful world where you trust that everyone around you is doing the best that they can for their bodies, and you can trust that you're doing the best for your bodies, and those things can live harmoniously.
In my brain, in my perfect world, that's- Right how it would be.
Yeah.
Okay, Dr.
Sears, for people who are longing for a pediatrician to have these conversations, my husband and I were so, so grateful and lucky, and...
Well, I'm actually not gonna chalk it up to luck.
We did a lot of research.
We went on multiple interviews.
We finally landed with a pediatrician that we feel super heard by and seen and respected, and she has the greatest conversations with us when we are making decisions.
And then finally, she always, always, always just leaves it up to us to make the decision.
I know not everybody has access to those type of pediatricians in their area.
You have a very bold opinion that you may not even need a pediatrician per se.
Tell us about that.
Right.
Well, yeah, yeah.
I feel like, um, As a pediatrician, you know, I, I almost feel like I'm seeing all these healthy kids, and they're all healthy.
They're all doing great.
And yeah, I mean, it's, it's pretty useful, I feel like, for people to just get that encouragement that their baby's growing well and developing well and thriving.
And but ultimately, I feel like if you can't find a pediatrician who is like-minded like that, you can get pretty good care.
Uh, no, I should phrase that differently.
You can get excellent care from other natural health practitioners who are trained and skilled in, in monitoring kids' health, watching them grow, watching them develop, counsel you on, on, on challenge, you know, when there's a challenging problem.
It doesn't have to be a pediatrician.
It can be a family practice doctor, but it doesn't have to be them.
It could be a, a, you know, a integrative or a complementary or alternative healthcare practitioner.
If you can't find someone in the mainstream maybe it's time to realize that you don't need somebody in the mainstream to, to help you raise a healthy child.
Hmm.
But I will say on my website, on the, uh, I have lots of different sections on my website, but on the office section of my website, I have a link.
It basically says, like, "Looking for a doctor like, like me near you? Click here."
And then I have a good database about, you know, how to find a like-minded doctor in your area, as long as, you know, of course, all my other Video resources, podcasts social media, everything is, is, you'll see it on my website.
I love that.
Oh my gosh, you guys I gotta be honest with you.
For Saggy, we went with a pediatric nurse practitioner who has a functional medicine background, and I feel so secure and safe with her.
Mm-hmm.
She, I just can't even begin to tell you how seen she has made our family feel, and we feel so safe with her, and I love that she has that nursing background.
I love that she has that functional medicine highlight.
It just, I don't know, for me it was the right decision.
So- Yeah thank you so much, Dr.
Sears.
All right.
Tell us where people can connect with you.
Where can they find you online? Where can they find you on Instagram, and how can they take advantage of your videos, your live calls, your consultations? And if they're in the California area and they happen to have a newborn, I understand you're not taking older children, but how can people work with you directly? Yeah, so, um, everything is, uh, drbobsears.com.
Uh, drbobsears.com,
and it's the same thing on, on all my social medias.
Somehow I got all the social media handles, uh, @drbobsears.
Um, yeah, Instagram has been fun lately.
I've been doing a lot on, on Instagram.
Um, and, uh, yeah, I mean, my website has tons of resources.
Um, and yeah, like you said, if, if you have a, a young baby, we are, you know, open to young babies here in Southern California.
But I feel like if you're not in this area but you really want to access The kind of information I share in the office, uh, when it comes to vaccines and newborns and, and I'm gonna probably expand this to, you know, health- how do you raise a healthy one-year-old? You know, how do you have a healthy two-year-old, five-year-old, 10-year-old, whatever.
I'm gonna expand my video series where essentially I call it my all access pass.
But you, you, you pay, you pay a one-time fee.
It's not a recurrent subscription.
You're not gonna get stuck with anything renewing without you knowing.
It's one-time fee.
You get an hour-long video of me telling you everything I want you to know about that topic.
And then, um, and then you jump on a Zoom call every month with me, ask me your live questions, email me your questions, you know, that you have.
Uh, and I've just...
I f- felt like I wanted to make myself accessible to everybody who can't find that medical practitioner who's willing to have these, uh, full, truthful, and objective conversations with them.
So I made myself accessible that way.
It's kind of been fun, and I've had a lot of fun developing that, uh, web presence.
And so yeah, you can just find it all on, uh, drbobsears.com.
Awesome.
Oh my gosh, you guys.
Thank you, Dr.
Bob, for being here.
Thank you for all your wisdom.
Thank you for making yourself accessible.
Thank you for sharing your book.
Where can people grab your book if they were interested in that as well? Well, I guess grab it on Amazon if you want, 'cause it helps sales.
But if, if you want a signed copy, you can grab one from my website, too, and, um, but that doesn't help my Amazon sales, so it's kind of a...
I've always wondered, should I just throw everyone into Amazon so I can get higher rankings, or do I like to...
I, I sign them and mail them off myself, you know, when you order them from my website.
I kind of, it's kind of fun as an author, I guess, to, uh, to be able to sign your own books and mail them away, kind of, I don't know, makes you feel seen like, as you said.
Little personal touch.
I love it.
Yeah.
I love it so much.
Yeah.
You guys, it is such an honor to hold this space for you to have these transparent conversations, to be able to provide you with this space that is safe.
I want you to ask these questions.
I'm not afraid to ask the hard questions.
I want you to have this information because I know that underneath everything, you're just trying to make the best decision for your baby and your children and your family, and I'm right there with you.
I am in this so deeply with you, and I just want you to know that this is a space that you can do that.
You never have to be afraid of something that you're wondering.
You never have to be afraid of something to ask.
You never have to be afraid whether we're judging you or not.
We're not.
We're never judging you.
We are just simply here to help you have the conversations that you need in order to make a confident and informed decision for your family and your children.
And I, oh my gosh, you have no idea what an honor it is for me to be able to be on this journey with you.
So thanks you guys for being here.
I will see you in the next episode.
Be sure to grab Dr.
Sears' book, follow him on social media, and join his new community.
And if you're looking for a doctor in your area after getting all of Dr.
Sears' information and you're looking for a practitioner to then have those conversations with, he has his list.
Dr.
Green Mom has a list, and Just the Inserts have lists as well.
So you've got, not a plethora, but we've got some resources out there for you to hopefully find a practitioner in your area that will feel aligned to your family.
You can find me on social media at tranquilitybyhehe and at the.birth.lounge.
Until next time, head to your app store and download the Birth lounge app for evidence-based childbirth education and data-driven postpartum support delivered straight to your phone.
Bye.
Thank you so much for tuning in today.
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I'm HeHe, and this is the Birth Lounge Podcast.