Guest Post by
Although Lance Simmens has been intimately involved in public life for several decades, you’ve probably never heard of him. As such, a little introduction is needed.
As mentioned, Lance Simmens’ career was spent in public policy. Specifically, he worked for two U.S. Presidents as well as a couple of senators and governors. Since retirement, he’s been a prolific writer, publishing 180 articles at the Huffington Post over the past 8 years. As such, it came as a great shock to him to discover that one of his recent articles was removed by the Huffington Post shortly after publication. It was the first article ever rejected by the online publication, and the unacceptable subject matter was nothing more than a positive review of the banned everywhere documentary VAXXED.
Here’s Lance Simmens describing the ordeal in a recent interview:
He mentions being locked out of his account, but it seems to have been reinstated since I came across a new piece published April 22 titled, Can Berners Become Trumpeters?
His VAXXED article; however, remains missing in action. As such, I bring you the banned Huffington Post article titled, Why Our Children Should Hate Us:
Vaxxed, the controversial documentary alleging a direct causal relationship between vaccines and exponential increases in autism amongst children is a deeply disturbing and hence critically important piece of work that will cause many sleepless nights for parents of infants everywhere.
I had the honor of both watching the film and participating in a discussion afterwards with its Producer, Del Bigtree and Director, Dr. Andrew Wakefield. It is a must see film and deserves to serve as a catalyst for a national discussion of the role of mandatory vaccines for children and the role of the pharmaceutical industry in government decision-making.
What is equally disturbing, however, is that the film represents another in a cascade of documented allegations calling to task not only the corruption of government regulatory agencies but the corruption of science and scientific method itself. And to the extent that the current Presidential election contest has sparked virulent dissatisfaction with our elected leadership and the institutions of government, we must take this opportunity to seriously question what many had taken for granted: namely, that government has as its most solemn mission the protection of public health, safety and welfare. The film carefully documents decisions by the Centers for Disease Control that lend credence to systemic corruption.
As a father of two millennials, I have been bombarded with what has turned out to be a warranted cynicism, criticism, and rejection of government. As one who devoted nearly 40 years to the promotion of public service and government, I have come to reassess my initial reluctance to such criticisms. The kids have every right to be cynical and critical and as hard as it is for parents to accept it, probably know more than we do.
The corruption of science and scientific method has manifested itself most prominently in recent years with a spate of attempts to deny the existence of global climate change and the role that continued fossil fuel usage plays in accelerating it. This, of course, finds refuge in the stalling tactical maneuvers perfected by the tobacco industry over a half century ago. These “Merchants of Doubt” cast an effective smoke screen that effectively blurs rational thought by an unsuspecting public that would much rather leave it to the experts. And the experts on protecting the public are those we elect to steer the ship of state.
But of late we have seen spineless political chicanery, which I must sadly admit is totally bipartisan, when it comes to issues like fracking and the substitution of natural gas as a purportedly transitional fuel to bridge the gap between coal and renewables. What, in essence, we are doing is substituting one form of greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide with its long-term atmospheric consequences, with a far more potent heat-trapping gas, methane, in the short- and intermediate-term. This is fossil foolishness that will sentence our kids and grandkids to a lifetime of gut-wrenching and maybe irretrievably lesser quality-of-life choices. But the effects will not show up until after those making the decisions have long left their lofty perches within the government.
Fracking is contaminating water supplies and the air we breathe, is causing public health problems and facilitating earthquakes in places that have never even had earthquakes in recorded history, yet the regulatory responses are negligible. While New York State maintains a moratorium on fracking its neighbor Pennsylvania continues to put communities at risk. California—with its tough-talking Governor Jerry Brown loudly decrying climate change and promising to be a world leader on mitigation strategies—is essentially missing in action when it comes to regulating fracking in the Central Valley and even within the city limits of Los Angeles. The inadequacy of California’s regulatory body to place the citizens’ health and safety above industry considerations borders on criminal.
We all witnessed the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and its dastardly cousin in Porter Ranch, California, that has been described as BP on land, the release of nearly 100,000 metric tons of methane from a leaking natural gas storage well. Yet we merrily proceed to push forward with government-subsidized fossil fuel production policies that benefit the richest corporations known to mankind.
We see government failure and most likely criminal negligence if not outright prosecutable actions on behalf of government officials with regard to the contaminated drinking water in cities like Flint, Michigan, and evidently in cities all across the U.S.
There are crimes against humanity being perpetrated by chemical companies like Monsanto as glyphosates and genetically engineered foods find their ways comfortably into our kitchens and stomachs. Steven Druker, in his seminal book Altered Genes, Twisted Truth has meticulously documented systemic corruption in the Food and Drug Administration.
In Malibu, there is a local effort to address the existence of PCB’s in window caulking in schools yet the school board spends millions of dollars to fight its removal rather than simply remove it. Once again it seems to be far easier to spend money denying the evidence than in fixing the problem. This is obscene and unfortunately the problem extends to schools throughout the country. Why is it we have so little regard for the injuries we are inflicting upon our children?
Last but not least we are witnessing a monumental failure on the part of the Fourth Estate, the media. Bowing to the pressures of deep-pocketed advertisers, the media refuses to even make an attempt at investigative journalism. A glaring exception to this is the case of the Spotlight investigative team at the Boston Globe, which uncovered massive corruption within the Catholic Archdiocese in sheltering child molesters and pedophiles among the priesthood. We celebrate this as an act of great valor, when in essence it ought to be business as usual. This should not be the exception; it should be the norm and the media is abdicating its responsibility to expose the truth and instead prefers the safer course which is to be complicit in the cover-up. Richard Dreyfuss and I recently penned an article calling attention to this complicity here.
I have worked in numerous governmental agencies at senior levels where I attempted to defer to the scientific expertise when contemplating major policy decisions affecting millions of people. To see the systemic corruption that is occurring in government agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services including the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration not only makes me sad but it makes me mad.
There has always been an attempt in this nation to balance out the avarice of the private sector with a regulatory framework in the public sector that protects those most vulnerable in society. That balance has been totally upended and as the latest effort on behalf of those involved in Vaxxed shows, we as a society can no longer depend upon our government leaders and institutions to protect us.
We must begin by electing leaders who will restore the balance that is needed to protect at the very least our children. If we do not our legacy to our children will be one punctuated by scorn and anger. In this instance our kids actually know us better than we know ourselves. What a sad commentary on the state of affairs of the human race.
The first thing that strikes you upon reading the article above is that only a small portion of the piece even discusses VAXXED, and yet a mere endorsement of this documentary by a veteran writer who’s been publishing on the Huffington Post for nearly a decade is enough to elicit an article ban.
Which leads us to a couple of followup questions. Is this how the Huffington Post treats its longtime contributors? Are writers not allowed to share their personal opinions about a movie? Or is the issue this movie in particular? Why is this one documentary so threatening?
It seems like it’s this particular movie, which makes me even more curious to see it. As I wrote in a post published earlier this month, Video of the Day – Producer of Vaccine Documentary Banned From Tribeca Film Festival Speaks Out:
What I’m still having trouble getting my head around is why a documentary that is apparently so easily disproven and full of garbage poses such a threat to so many powerful people. Indeed, the film’s critics should be thrilled about an opportunity to discredit the film publicly, and the total panic generated by the simple screening of a movie is what I find so bizarre and noteworthy.
Perhaps it’s partly due to the following, which was noted in a recent article critical of the film published by the Hollywood Reporter:
It’s all effective, but also purely anecdotal. It’s more interesting to learn that drug manufacturers are protected by federal law from customer lawsuits claiming adverse effects from vaccines, and that injury claims are handled by a particular U.S. court that is commonly known as the “Vaccine Court,” a term that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
I haven’t seen this film, but one thing is clear. Some very, very powerful and influential people are terrified of it and are doing everything they can to make sure it never sees the light of day.
Which makes me infinitely more curious.
Here’s the trailer:
For related articles, see:
Video of the Day – Producer of Vaccine Documentary Banned From Tribeca Film Festival Speaks Out
A Father’s Personal Struggle with the Vaccine Debate
Obama’s Nominee to Head the FDA Has Very Deep Ties to the Pharmaceutical Industry
Video of the Day – John Oliver on Pharma Company “Marketing to Doctors”
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
“The corruption of science and scientific method has manifested itself most prominently in recent years with a spate of attempts to deny the existence of global climate change…”
Wait. First he talks about the corruption of science then he uses an example of corrupted science (anybody remember climategate?) as real science?
Excluding the VAX issue, Lance Simmens appears to be one of Obama’s speech writers. As a regular writer for Huff, I expect nothing but liberal ideology from this shill.
In a weird departure from the flock, he heaps criticism on vaccinations, which is why Huffy pulled the article. Maybe Lance is just starting to come out of his lib coma.
FWIW (related but indirectly so to the article) Harvard is currently suffering a massive problem with a Mumps outbreak.
All current students that have caught it have already been vaccinated against it, none of the unvaccinated students (if there are any) have caught it.
I imagine this means there well be draconian push to get any unvaccinated students -if there are any- vaccinated immediately.
As for me, I remain unvaccinated against anything for over 45 years since I got out of the Army, and I never catch anything which can be vaccinated against. You can make your own choice about it, it’s not my business to decide for you one way or the other.
As a father, this kind of thing scares the shit out of me. Im scared to get them injected with that poison, but Im also scared of whooping cough, polio, etc.
Like the Anon guy posted above, the biggest problem is the vaccines don’t even appear to work. They hammer home that the measles outbreak at disney was caused by an unvaxxed foreign visitor and harp on the need to vaccinate, but what they don’t mention is that many of those who caught measles WERE vaccinated and caught it anyway. If it doesn’t even work, why risk the adverse side effects?
As a physician, parents should be free to choose to vaccinate their children or not. One of the key tenets of medicine is a concept called informed consent. Ie. The risks and benefits are discussed beforehand, and the patient, or guardian, or said patient, chooses.
IMO the only reason this piece was posted on TBP is that it is anti-Huffington Post. Gotta flame those Liberals, eh Admin? And that’s why you’ve NEVER seen a piece here written by me that wasn’t in the comments. TBP has it’s own unique form of censorship.
One other thought: Robert DeNiro is a pussy for bowing to Big Pharma’s pressure to pull this film from Tribeca. Now, my image of him as a tough guy has shit stains.
Westcoaster
You have never once submitted a written post you lying sack of liberal shit. You spam me with worthless links to dumbass articles.
Go fuck yourself. You aren’t capable of writing a cogent article that wouldn’t be obliterated by the the intelligent people on TBP.
Accusing me of not posting what you have written is a bold faced lie and you know it. You’re a fucking douchebag. DO NOT email me ever again or I’ll kick your ass off this site for good.
General,
You’re right, informed consent used to be a cardinal rule in medicine. Along with “First, do no harm.” Sad to see too many physicians don’t think like you. I’ve had my kid’s pediatrician refuse to continue seeing them because I didn’t want them vaccinated.
Westie,
Maybe you should actually write an article of your own authorship and submit it so the Administration can judge it’s value or lack thereof and respond accordingly?
Until you do that isn’t it a bit hard to claim censorship?
Seems like it is to me anyway.
Gator, that’s why they have booster shots. Even the most effective vaccines wear off or lose effectiveness over time.
To recap the issue:
1) Vaccines WORK. They have saved millions of lives. Edward Jenner is one of the greatest scientific heroes who ever lived.
2) Pharmaceutical companies experimented with various ways to preserve the potency of vaccines, and mixed them with various compounds, including mercury, that are widely known to be toxic. This practice has been condoned for a long time, and is not supervised in any meaningful way.
3) The Pharm companies have stonewalled efforts to investigate the effects these compounds have had on the relatively small subset of vaccinated children who turned out to be vulnerable to the toxic effects of the compounds in the solutions that were being injected.
4) The Government, in its arrogance as the self-appointed ‘protector of the common good’, has shielded Big Pharma from the consequences of its practices by banning lawsuits and refusing to sanction scientific studies.
Remarkably, this stalemate has persisted for a couple of decades, with no real resolution in sight. And as Gator points out, it creates a wrenching dilemma for parents.
Just chiming in on vaccines…several women have used the phrase,
“I lost my son at 18 mos.”…the boys didn’t die but became bumbling
head banging retards…/no normal school/no normal life.
I am guessing the pharmas are outsourcing to China, one, and
looking for a long shelf life two. But then, it could be a deliberate
form of soft kill…Lord knows we have plenty of “soft kill” going on,
regardless vaccinations.
Wake up!!
Greetings,
When I think about the drug companies the word “thalidomide” always pops into my head.
If you are too young to know what that is then I’d suggest looking it up. This is what happens when profit is put ahead of common sense.
I have not had a single vaccine since 1977, I refused the swine flu vaccine and was disciplined by my AF Commanders who became incredibly ill from said vaccine. I was in Spain @ Torrejon AFB at the time. Our entire unit was sick as hell and I had to stand duty for over a week alone.
I have never had the flu since. I had mumps, measles and chicken pox as a child and survived all without dying.
I rarely get sick and I contribute that to being fortunate to having a healthy immune system.
I also don’t eat anything fast food, anything “out of a box ” preferring to eat as fresh and local as possible.
And he lost me at the globull warming horseshit
T4C, that is great. IF they hadn’t started pushing such an insane amount of the shots, I probably never would have questioned it. But they want to give newborns HEP vaccinations the moment they are born? Why? Aren’t the most common ways thats transmitted unprotected sex, sharing needles, and unclean tattoo parlors? how the fuck is my newborn going to catch that? its insane.
This is also another example of the revolving door. the people who are supposed to be monitoring these drugs and making sure they are safe come from the very industry they are supposed to be regulating.
Viet – get the mumps as an adult and you would wish you were dead.
I have seen the movie Vaxxed. And have spent hundreds of hours researching vaccines. For me, the movie did an excellent job of dealing with some major issues. Why are pharmaceutical companies free from liability for their product? Why are they not held to the research gold standard of randomized double blind studies to determine safety? Why are people who have financial conflicts of interest making vaccine policy for Amercians? Why does the CDC refuse to do a vaccinated versus non-vaccinated stud? Why are multiple vaccines given in one visit but the safety of doing that has never been studied? Why has the carcinogenic risk of vaccines never been studied (especially given the record rates of childhoodb cancer in this country)? Why do US children get up to three times the number of vaccines children in other developed countries get? importantly why are MSM shills displaying histrionics over 160 or so people getting measles at Disneyland and 40 students at Harvard getting mumps when no-one is dying from these diseases or getting seriously maimed….yet in 2015 1 out of 45 kids are getting diagnosed as on the autism spectrum and if increases in that dx continue at the unabated rate they have been growing year after year so that by 2030 1 out every 2 children will be dx and that represents a MASSIVE societal issue in terms of our country’s capacity to handle it and pay for it? Just like most things in this country all the hysteria over diseases that used to be consider “meh” (didn’t we use to send our kids to “chickenpox parties” to get them infected and why do newborn have to get vaccinated for a disease rhat is transmitted through sex and IV drug use?) Is just a diversionary tactic to avoid people seeing the real issues at hand. Record allergies, cancer, ADHD, excema, SIDS, and more and a medical system that is broken and not producing health.
Good points, sorel, but remember that paragraphs are your friend. I’m old and I have trouble reading a multi-line post that isn’t broken into paragraphs. Just a suggestion.
Sorel, they are immune from lawsuits because they bribed congress. Follow the money. If there is money to be had by promoting vaccines and globull warming. Guess what will be promoted.
Sorel, being diagnosed with autism isn’t necessarily a sentence to helplessness, nor is being autistic necessarily debilitating. I have one diagnosed young as Aspberger’s and another “autistic spectrum disorder”, OCD possibly, and so on. I was a “discipline problem” when I was young, we didn’t have words for it then.
I recognize that some unfortunate autistics will sit quietly or rage for the rest of their lives. My eldest has graduated from a major university with an English degree; the younger is studying computer science, and has only about two years left. The autistics may have abilities some would envy; the ability to concentrate without flagging for hours on things that interest them (hence the computer science). They pay for it other ways.
All this is really deviant psychology carried to an extreme. I was raised in a small Southern town, and was mildly well known as smart (I made salutatorian of my high school class), outspoken (I tried to get my high school principal removed from position for his misdeeds), and socially active (band, chorus, one speech contest, one year of track and field, and so on). I never felt people looked down on me for being “odd”, although any objective observer would have to say I was far from “normal”. My deviance was allowable, acceptable, and I had a few friends, a few enemies and lots of casual acquaintances.
What we are seeing these days is an attempt to define “normal” as 50% median + / – 1% in all ways. That way, 98% of the kids need medication, intervention, behavioral modification, therapy, all kinds of PROFITABLE special attention. Crap that would have been considered routine (although, still punished if needed) is now cause for concern. Hi-jinks are now criminalized, sanctioned, blown out of proportion. Then money can be made off of them.
If we continue to define normal narrowly, more and more kids who DON’T need special help, meds, official discipline, jail time or hospital treatment will be forced into it, and stigmatized. I have no problem with helping those who really are impaired and need it – but this endless “diagnosis” of ordinary experimentation, high spirits (especially in boys) and tomfoolery as “autism”, “antisocial behavior”, “deviance” and so forth must stop – before we create tens of thousands of unnecessary criminals, who are then free to BECOME criminals. Setting off firecrackers at a pep rally is not a threat to the public order!
James. what sorel is talking about is autism, often severe autism, caused by poisonous adjutavants in vaccines. I can agree with you on the prevalence of misdiagnosis by unqualified child psychologists.
The documentary mentioned in the article addresses that subject. I think the overvaccination of babies is a serious problem.