We were expelled by our son's pediatric practice for declining risk-carrying pharmaceutical products. Here's my response to the doctors.

Re-posted from: https://www.jeremyrhammond.com/2021/06/07/expelled-by-pediatricians-for-declining-cdcs-vaccine-schedule/

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On Wednesday, May 5, 2021, I took our son in to his pediatrician’s clinic to get a health form completed for a health survey in which we have enrolled him.

We hadn’t been there for three years. Our son is healthy, and we had no need. We used to go just for routine checkups when he was younger but eventually decided that was unnecessary, too. We were also a bit bothered that every time we went in to see our son’s primary care physician, he was seen by one of the other doctors in the practice with whom we had not scheduled an appointment.

Upon arrival in the examination room, I was disappointed but not altogether surprised to see a notice on the door providing parents with an ultimatum: get your kid vaccinated according to the recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which are synonymous with the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), or don’t come back:

After a wait, one of the doctors who, once again, was not our son’s primary care physician, entered the room and, shortly into the exam, asked me whether we would be doing any vaccinations. I said no. She said, “Well, we need to talk about that, then.”

Indeed.

She pointed to the sign and explained that they have a new policy. I said, yes, I had seen that before she came into the room and was disappointed that they were implementing such an unethical policy.

I said we had always appreciated the practice because we’d felt welcomed and felt that our personal choices were respected. It is disappointing to learn that you are now no longer going to respect our choices and are rejecting our right to informed consent.

She had the stupidest reply to that—a reply indicating that she, a licensed medical professional, doesn’t even understand what informed consent means. “But we are informing you!” she protested.

I said, “Yes, you are informing me that you are no longer going to respect our right to informed consent.”

She just sat across from me agape. She had nothing else to say. But I did. So, I continued my little chat with her. I explained that informed consent cannot happen in the presence of coercion, yet here they were giving parents a clear ultimatum to pressure them into following the CDC’s schedule, even though those recommendations are not in the best interest of our son.

I explained how no government bureaucrat had the knowledge of our son necessary to do a meaningful risk-benefit analysis, and how we, the parents, were the only people who had that knowledge.

I said it was insulting to be told that if we don’t obey the bureaucrats, we can’t come here anymore. We do our own research and think for ourselves, I told her. I research the medical literature, and we make our own judgments about what is in our son’s best interest.

She then expressed her faith that the recommendations were good practice. I don’t recall her exact words, but it was something like “Well, we believe in the recommendations here.”

So, I said I would like to understand her belief and asked whether she would be willing to have that conversation. She did not object, so I continued, challenging her on her belief by pointing to the example of the Hepatitis B (HepB) vaccine. I pointed out that the recommendation that our son receive that shot in a three-dose series starting on the first day of his life made absolutely no sense and was not in his best interest.

I explained that the reason for this recommendation was purely political and not grounded in any scientific or medical rationale. The CDC’s reason for implementing this policy in 1991 was that they hadn’t achieved the vaccine uptake they were aiming for among the adult at-risk population, those who were sexually promiscuous or intravenous drug users, and so decided to just start indiscriminately vaccinating everyone at birth regardless of whether the mother is a carrier.

She interjected to say something about they do routine screening so that if the expectant mother is a carrier, the baby can be vaccinated.

I said, yes, that’s right, and if my wife was a carrier, we would have considered getting him—I pointed to my son sitting beside me—that vaccine, but she’s not, so it made absolutely no sense. And they don’t just recommend it for infants born to carrier mothers, I reiterated; they recommend it for all children even when the children are not at risk from the disease.

Tacitly conceding my point, she replied that that was just one recommendation.

I said yes, but it’s a clear illustration of how the recommendations are about achieving the policy goal of high vaccination rates rather than being about ensuring the health of our children.

That is inarguable, I posited. It’s not in his best interest, and it was insulting to be told that this would be best for him as though we were incapable of thinking for ourselves and making our own decision.

She sat speechless. I felt she was struggling to think of something to say but at the same time was recognizing that what I’d said truly was inarguable. So, I continued.

“We’re called ‘anti-vaxxers’”, I said disdainfully, using my fingers to place air quotes around the term, “for thinking for ourselves instead of following recommendations that make no sense for our son.”

We were expected to get that shot at the hospital where he was born, I explained, but declined. “It was hard,” I said, recalling to myself how the doctors had tried to pressure us into getting him the shot and became upset with us over our refusal. “Our choice was not respected. But we have to do what we know is best for him.” I again pointed to my son beside me.

So, it’s disappointing, I concluded, that you now have an unethical policy of trying to force recommendations on us that are not in our son’s interests and are refusing to respect our choices and our right to informed consent.

She had no rebuttal. I obviously don’t know what she was thinking or feeling, but I got the sense from the stunned look on her face that my words had shaken her to her core. I did not get the sense that she was thinking, “There is obviously no reasoning with this person.” I got the sense that she was not feeling quite so good, in that moment, about their new policy, and that she was thinking, “He’s right. I can’t argue with that.” She did not attempt to.

Instead, she said something about how she was not the individual responsible for the policy and asked me whether I would like for her to complete the exam because she would like to do so.

“Yes, please,” I said. We got our form completed for the health survey. As we were leaving, I informed the person at the front desk that we were just told that we were being expelled from the practice and that I would like to receive a letter stating that in writing. They said they would mail one. We left, health form in hand, mission accomplished.

In my major exposé of how, after he published a study indicating that his completely unvaccinated patients were by far the healthiest children in his practice, Dr. Paul Thomas’s license was suspended by the Oregon Medical Board because he respects parents’ right to informed consent, I wrote:

In many cases in Portland, parents who face the scornful intimidation of a routine well-child visit at their pediatrician’s office and still insist on exercising their right to make an informed choice not to vaccinate are told that they must either comply with the CDC’s recommendations or find another pediatrician.And, so, they go to Dr. Paul.

Unfortunately, we do not have a Dr. Paul in our area. I do not think that we are going to be able to find a primary care physician that will be respectful of our right to decide for ourselves what is in our son’s best interest. In an endnote for that paragraph, I had shared the following:

Fortunately, my wife and I have not personally experienced this as our son’s pediatrician ultimately chose to respect our right to informed consent and so we were able to maintain an amicable doctor-patient relationship. However, we were expelled from the practice of the only pediatric dentist in town because we persistently declined fluoride treatment. She lied on his dental record, stating that he had several cavities. He was three then. We showed his X-rays to another dentist whom we trusted, and he agreed with us that it showed no cavities, which he also confirmed with an oral examination. We continued taking our son to biannual cleanings at another local clinic, where dentists also confirmed for years after that he had no cavities. I filed a complaint with the state licensing board, but the board sided with her, thereby granting its approval of her expelling my son from her practice on account of us exercising our right to informed consent. This experience reflects the experience of many parents with their pediatrician over vaccination choices.

I have now updated that to relate the experience I had a couple days ago of being expelled from our son’s pediatric practice for declining to fully comply with the CDC/AAP vaccine recommendations:

Fortunately, my wife and I have not personally experienced this as our son’s pediatrician ultimately chose to respect our right to informed consent and so we were able to maintain an amicable doctor-patient relationship. [Update, May 21, 2021: Just since publishing this article, my family has also experienced this kind of bullying due to a policy change at our son’s pediatric practice. On May 5, 2021, we were given an ultimatum by one of the doctors there to either vaccinate him according to the AAP’s recommendations (synonymous with the CDC’s recommendations) or never come back. We declined the unnecessary and risk-carrying pharmaceutical products and so were expelled.]

If you have not yet read that article, please do so. I put three months of labor into it and, with the exception of my book Obstacle to Peace, consider it to be the most important thing I’ve written to date. Please also share it with others because it’s full of empowering knowledge about the problems with public vaccine policy.

The Expulsion Letter We Received from the Pediatric Practice

As I’d requested, we received a formal letter postmarked May 12, 2021, that stated the ultimatum to either vaccinate our son according to the CDC’s schedule or accept expulsion from the practice. On the letterhead were the names of the four physicians in the group practice, including the man who had been our son’s primary care physician for most of the eight years of our son’s life.

Here is the full text of the letter:

Policy Statement- Parental Refusal of Immunizations: Our goal here at [—] Pediatrics has and always will be to provide the best care to our patients and their families. In order to do this, we believe that we must effectively work within a partnership that is based on mutual trust with the parents of our patients. In that partnership we will collectively make decisions that are in the best interest of the child to achieve their utmost health and well-being. We understand and respect that parents’ role as the ultimate decision-maker for their child, but we also believe strongly that in our role we are obligated to deliver the safest healthcare possible for our patients.

As a practice, we follow American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and Centers of [sic] Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines when it comes to immunizations. We believe that immunizations are one of the most important health interventions that parents can do on behalf of their children and it is our goal that all children receive the benefits of this lifesaving tool. It is our professional duty to prevent and treat diseases in all forms. Vaccines protect children against preventable diseases that cause serious illness; complications including seizures, hearing loss, vision changes and brain damage; and ultimately death. As one of the most studied areas in medicine, we know vaccines to be very safe. While we recognize there are risks associated with all interventions and therapies, we know vaccines to be the clearly safer option than not receiving them.

As a practice, it was important that we implement a consistent policy in regards to Parental Refusal of Immunizations, due to an increasing trend of unjustified fear in regards to vaccinations. We strongly support all recommended vaccines, but as part of our office policy we require children receive required immunizations as outlined by the AAP and CDC. These include: Diphtheria, Tetanus and Acellular Pertussis (Dtap/Tdap); Hemophilus Influenza Type B (Hib); Pneumococcal Conjugate (Prevnar); Hepatitis B (Hep B); Polio; Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR); Varicella; and Meningococcal Conjugate (Menveo). Refusal of these vaccinations indicates a significant difference in philosophy of care and we feel it best to terminate the relationship so that you may seek care in a setting that better suits your needs. We hope that no patient is discharged from our practice due to vaccine refusal, as we are happy to educate, provide resources and develop a schedule that you are comfortable with in order to move forward. If that cannot be achieved, then with great reluctance we will discharge you from our practice and wish you well. If your child requires medical care within the following 30 days then we will provide that care as you choose a new medical home for your child. Once a new physician has been selected, we will transfer your child’s medical records upon receiving a signed release.

Refusal of vaccinations place children at unnecessary and potentially severe risk, and we feel obligated to do everything we can to reduce the number of children needlessly exposed. We are lucky to practice in a time where diseases like polio and acute meningitis related to Hib are things we see in medical books rather than a daily reality as we attempt to prevent complications and death in children suffering from them. It is our duty to prevent the backwards slide to that time of medicine again. It is our hope that families with ill-founded fears of vaccines will reconsider and work with us to find a common path forward, but if you are unwilling to obtain the required immunizations listed above then we ask you find a new physician that will meet your needs. If you would like to stay in our practice, please schedule an appointment to work with one of our providers to establish a schedule to get your child caught up on their vaccinations in a timely manner.

My Letter of Response to Their Expulsion Letter

I have responded to their letter with a letter of my own, mailed individually to each of the four pediatricians in the practice. I am omitting names here for the sake of protecting our own privacy, not theirs. Here is my response:

Dear [—],In your letter postmarked May 12, 2021, you informed my wife, our son, and I that our son, Elijah, is no longer welcome in your clinic due to our choice not to comply with the routine childhood vaccine schedule recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). We are very disappointed to learn that [—] Pediatrics has adopted the unethical policy of attempting to coerce parents into accepting vaccinations by delivering an ultimatum to either comply or be expelled from the practice. This policy is directly contrary to your duty as a physician to deliver individualized care and also constitutes a direct violation of the right to informed consent, which cannot be meaningfully exercised under such conditions of coercion.

You opened your letter by saying that your goal is “to provide the best care to our patients” by working “within a partnership that is based on mutual trust with the parents of our patients” in which “we will collectively make decisions that are in the best interest of the child”, and in which you “understand and respect the parents’ role as the ultimate decision-maker”. Then you proceeded to render those appropriate words empty and hypocritical by making it perfectly clear that your idea of providing “the best care” is to reject a partnership with us in which we collectively make decisions that are in the best interest of our son and in which you respect our role as the ultimate decision makers in that relationship.

We find it interesting that you say you “believe” that there is no need for an individual risk-benefit analysis, that your “philosophy” rather favors vaccination as a one-size-fits-all solution to infectious disease. We reject your belief system and your philosophy because we recognize that a risk-benefit analysis is required for each vaccine and each child. Not every child is at the same risk from the diseases that vaccines are intended to protect against, and not every child is at the same risk of experiencing harm by the vaccines.

How dare you arrogantly condescend to us as though we were making the wrong choice for our son, that we have placed our son “at unnecessary and potentially severe risk”! How dare you presume that we have made this choice out of ignorance and that were you to “educate” us, we would comply with the CDC’s schedule! Shame on you. We do not take kindly to your bullying.

It is interesting to note that never once in all of the time that our son was a patient of Dr. [—]’s in [—] Pediatrics were we ever simply asked the reasons for our choice. Never once were any of you interested in educating yourself about our reasons. Yet you dare to condescend and lecture us about our choice with your hypocritical air of superiority? If you were interested in truly providing excellent care in a partnership with us wherein you respect our role as the ultimate decision-makers and respect our right to make our own informed choice, you would have at the very least made an effort to understand our reasons, which I would have been happy to explain to you. Obviously, your lofty words about quality of care and respect are empty and meaningless. Spare us your hypocrisy!

We have a great many reasons for our choice. There are more factors that have gone into our decision making that you could probably even fathom. Yet you present us with simplistic philosophical position that completely foregoes our need to do an individualized risk-benefit analysis for our son. I will touch on just a few of our reasons here that suffice to illustrate the fact that you do not know better than us what is in our son’s best interest and are not acting in good faith to see that he remains a healthy child.

It suffices to point out that, even if we were to do all the other vaccines on the schedule but still wished to skip the Hepatitis B (HepB) vaccine, we would still be expelled from [—] Pediatrics under your new policy for declining strict compliance with the CDC’s schedule. This is a perfect illustration of the problem with your belief system about vaccines and how it is not grounded in science and reason. What sense does the recommendation make to vaccinate all newborn babies, starting on the first day of their lives, with a three-dose course of an aluminum-containing vaccine even if their mother is not a carrier?

This recommendation is not grounded in medical science but in politics. The reason that the CDC made this recommendation in 1991 was because they had failed in their policy goal of achieving a high vaccination rate among at-risk individuals, namely sexually promiscuous individuals and intravenous drug users, and so the political decision was made, without a scientific basis, to just vaccinate all children at birth, regardless of individual risk, in order to achieve their policy aim of high vaccine uptake.

The fact that you are telling us that we are acting recklessly by not getting our son the HepB vaccine perfectly illustrates how you do not have his best interest in mind and cannot be trusted to make these kinds of health care decisions on our behalf. By condescending to us that we are endangering our son by not getting him this shot, you are merely insulting our intelligence and revealing your own cognitive dissonance. It illustrates perfectly that you do not have our son’s best interest in mind, but your own.

We are aware, for example, of the financial incentives for doctors to push the CDC’s schedule on parents. Plus, by issuing an ultimatum rather than engaging in a meaningful conversation with parents about it, you save the time of having to have a conversation, which means being able to get kids in and out of your doors faster, which means more office visits and treatments billed. A study published in March 2021 in the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research observed that doctors who respect their patients’ right to informed consent and do not try to pressure parents into strict compliance with the CDC’s schedule forego significant income by doing so.

You speak of the need for a relationship built on “trust”, but you seem blissfully unaware of how public health officials have proven themselves over and over to be completely unworthy of our trust as parents. We are not stupid. We are not blind. We see the corruption within the medical establishment to which you are evidently content to turn a blind eye. We see how the CDC blatantly lies about the science in furtherance of their political goal of achieving high vaccine uptake.

We see, for example, how the government on one hand insists dogmatically that “vaccines are safe and effective” while on the other hand having granted broad legal immunity to manufacturers of vaccines recommended by the CDC for routine use in children and administering the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, thus effectively shifting the financial burden for vaccine injuries away from the pharmaceutical industry and onto the taxpaying consumers.

We see, for another example, how the CDC continually added more vaccines to its schedule throughout the late 1980s and 1990s without ever considering the potential harms from the cumulative levels of ethylmercury from the preservative thimerosal that it was thereby exposing children to. When the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finally got around to doing the calculations in 1999, they realized that the CDC’s schedule was exposing children to cumulative levels of mercury that exceeded the safety guidelines of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). And you want us to place our faith in you who place your faith in demonstrably untrustworthy institutions? We are not so irrational as parents as to do that!

You speak to us of “trust” as though we should simply place our faith in your judgment rather than our own, but to do that would be to totally shirk our own responsibility as parents—our duty to be the ultimate decision-maker when it comes to doing what is in the best interest of our son. You say you “believe” in vaccines. But for us, it is not a matter of faith. We understand you view us as heretics against your vaccine religion, but, for us, it is a matter of recognizing the huge disparity between what we are told science says about vaccines and what the peer-reviewed medical literature actually tells us.

We can see, for instance, how the CDC claims on its website that ethylmercury—since removed from most childhood vaccine but still contained in multi-dose vials of influenza vaccines, which are recommended for infants as young as six months as well as pregnant women—is “safe” and rapidly eliminated from the body, but how the CDC’s own cited sources rather recognize it to be a “known neurotoxin” that “accumulates in the brain” and “can injure the nervous system.” (Institute of Medicine, 2004.)

FDA researchers acknowledged in a 2001 Pediatrics study reporting their calculations regarding cumulative mercury exposures that ethylmercury is toxic even at low doses, and that it was possible that the exposure from vaccines could cause neurodevelopmental abnormalities in children.

Another study cited by the CDC to support its claim, published in Environmental Health Perspectives in 2005, in fact showed that ethylmercury, while more readily eliminated from the blood than methylmercury, is more persistent in the brain. The authors expressed concern that toxicological assessments of ethylmercury had never been done, leaving the FDA to rely unscientifically on assessments of methylmercury’s toxicity. They also expressed concern that mercury in the brain was associated with “an active neuroinflammatory process” that had in turn been “demonstrated in brains of autistic patients”, and they emphasized that studies were “urgently needed” to determine “the potential developmental effects of immunization with thimerosal-containing vaccines in newborns and infants.”

Similarly, while the CDC claims that the aluminum in vaccines that is used as an adjuvant is “safe” and readily eliminated from the body, its own key study cited to support that claim in fact acknowledged that aluminum, too, is a known neurotoxin that can be transported by immune cells from the vaccination site through the blood-brain barrier, where it accumulates. (Mitkus et al., 2011.) There is an abundance of other scientific literature that the CDC ignores describing the potential harms of contributing to children’s toxic burden with the cumulative exposures to aluminum from adjuvanted vaccines.

The CDC’s dishonesty is again on display when it claims that it’s “safe” to vaccinate pregnant women with mercury-containing flu shots or the aluminum-containing tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis (Tdap) vaccine despite pregnant women being excluded from prelicensure trials. Indeed, were the vaccine manufacturers themselves to make the same claims as the CDC about the safety of these vaccines during pregnancy, they could be sued for fraud—which is why they state plainly right on their package inserts that adequate studies have not been done to determine the safety of this practice.

Many parents, ourselves included, also have serious concerns about the sheer number of vaccine doses children are exposed to under the CDC’s schedule and the lack of scientific data comparing long-term health outcomes, including all-cause mortality, between children who are fully vaccinated and children who remained completely unvaccinated. As the Institute of Medicine observed in 2013, “No studies have compared the differences in health outcomes . . . between entirely unimmunized populations of children and fully immunized children.” The IOM reiterated that “existing research has not been designed to test the entire immunization schedule”; and, again, that “studies designed to examine the long-term effects of the cumulative number of vaccines or other aspects of the immunization schedule have not been conducted.”

One of the vaccines that led to lawsuits that were putting manufacturers out of business prior to them being granted legal immunity was the diphtheria, tetanus, and whole cell pertussis (DTP) vaccine. Naturally, public health officials insisted while that vaccine was on the market in the US that it was “safe”, yet it was eventually replaced with the acellular pertussis combination vaccine precisely because it was so reactogenic. It is still widely used in developing countries. Another assumption public health officials had made, without evidence, was that the vaccine would reduce mortality, but the best scientific evidence that we have to date shows that, on the contrary, the vaccine is associated with an increased rate of childhood mortality. As top researchers into the “non-specific effects” of vaccines have observed, although the vaccine might protect against the target infections, it appears to detrimentally affect children’s immune systems in such a way as to make them more vulnerable to other diseases.

Public health officials insist that the acellular pertussis vaccine is “effective”, but we can read the scientific literature for ourselves and observe how scientists estimate the duration of immunity conferred as lasting only a few years. We can read how mass vaccination has resulted in selective pressure being placed on the bacteria so that today strains in circulation lack expression of pertactin, a key antigen component of the vaccine. We can read how the vaccine does not prevent infection and transmission of pertussis. And we can read about how one opportunity cost of vaccination is the lost opportunity to acquire the superior immunity conferred by infection. As one researcher expressed it in a paper published in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society in 2019, children whose immune systems were primed by the DTaP vaccine “will be more susceptible to pertussis throughout their lifetimes, and there is no easy way to decrease the increased lifetime susceptibility.”

You speak in your letter of how, if parents like us do not comply with your diktat, there could be a “backwards slide” to a “time of medicine” before vaccines when mortality rates from infectious diseases were high. But we can look at the data and see how the mortality rates for measles, pertussis, diphtheria, and other diseases were already plummeting before the introduction of vaccines. In fact, as observed in a summary of vital statistics published in the journal Pediatrics in 2000, “vaccination does not account for the impressive declines in mortality” witnessed during the twentieth century. Rather, “nearly 90% of the decline in infectious disease mortality among US children occurred” before most vaccines were available to help explain it. The claim that vaccines were responsible for the decline is not a statement of science but of vaccine mythology. The true reasons for the decline rather had to do with an increasing standard of living, including less household crowding and better sanitation, hygiene, and nutrition. The impact of vaccines on the already declining rates of mortality for the diseases I mentioned is unnoticeable. The idea that by doing what we can to ensure that our son has a strong and functional immune system, rather than simply vaccinating him, we will be contributing to a return to some dark age of medicine is ludicrous. Once again, your words serve only to insult our intelligence while highlighting your own ignorance of the science

.As another illustration, you express your belief in the letter that it is “clearly safer” to fully vaccinate every child according to the schedule, but that is the fallacy of argument from ignorance. This statement of yours is another expression of faith, not science. We make our own health choices based on science and logic, not faith. Therein lies the key difference in our opposing philosophies.

Look around you. We have a very unhealthy childhood population in the US, with epidemic rates of chronic illnesses and disorders including allergies, asthma, autoimmune diseases, and neurodevelopmental disorders. What is absolutely clear is that the medical establishment you are serving is utterly failing our children. So, many parents like us are doing our own research, thinking for ourselves, and making our own informed choices. You want us to “trust” you, but trust is earned, and with your letter expelling us from your practice, you have unearned whatever amount of trust we once had in the practitioners at [—] Pediatrics.

Our son is healthy. You have his chart. Look at it. The last time our son was seen for a routine checkup by his primary care physician, Dr. [—], he joked about how he never got to see our son because our son is so healthy! Does the good health of our child truly give you cause for concern? Do his health and intelligence truly indicate that we are irresponsible parents placing his life in danger? What insulting nonsense! Compare our son’s excellent health to the general health of your fully vaccinated pediatric population. What do you see?

While the CDC refuses to do a study comparing health outcomes between vaccinated and unvaccinated children, independent researchers have forged ahead with observational studies. In November 2020, Dr. Paul Thomas and Dr. James Lyons-Weiler published a study in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health showing that the completely unvaccinated children in Dr. Thomas’s practice in Portland, Oregon, had significantly less incidence of diagnoses and of office visits for a broad range of chronic health conditions and disorders. While the study does not demonstrate a causal relationship, it is strong evidence that unvaccinated children are not less healthy and indeed, in accordance with the findings of other independently conducted studies, are considerably healthier than the general population of highly vaccinated children.

The Oregon Medical Board, despite having requested Dr. Thomas to produce peer-reviewed data supporting his approach, reacted to the study’s publication by emergently suspending his license. This is the topic of a book I’ve written that will be published in late August titled The War on Informed Consent: The Oregon Medical Board’s Persecution of Dr. Paul Thomas, which will feature a Foreword by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

The book is adapted from an article I published in March 2021, in which I discussed how many doctors were engaged in the unethical practice of bullying parents into complying with the CDC’s schedule by threatening them with expulsion. I had written in an endnote that, “Fortunately, my wife and I have not personally experienced this as our son’s pediatrician ultimately chose to respect our right to informed consent and so we were able to maintain an amicable doctor-patient relationship.” I regret that I have now had to update both the article and the book manuscript to state that we, too, have now experienced that kind of bullying by unethical physicians.

We do not require your so-called “education” about vaccines. We are already familiar with everything you would have to say about it and have already factored all of the usual propagandistic talking points about vaccines into our decision-making. It is you who need to be educated about the reality of the situation and stop burying your head in the sand, including now by expelling from your practice patients whose parents do not strictly comply with the CDC’s schedule, which enables you to continue your unscientific one-size-fits-all approach without having a comparison group of unvaccinated children present to be able to observe the harms you are causing by trying to unethically pressure parents into making vaccine choices in strict compliance with your own personal belief system.

Shame on you! How dare you try to bully us with your condescending ultimatum! The fact that you reject the need for an individualized approach and the need for an individualized risk-benefit analysis, and the fact that you have implemented a policy that unethically violates the right to informed consent, tells us that [—] Pediatrics truly is not an appropriate medical home for our son. We could not be more disappointed that Dr. [—], with whom we felt we had developed an amicable, trust-based, and mutually respectful relationship, has put his name on the letter informing us of our expulsion from his pediatric practice.

We have done quite well for our son by doing our own research, thinking for ourselves, and trusting our own superior judgment; and we will continue to act according to his best interest rather than being bullied into accepting unnecessary and risk-carrying pharmaceutical products. Poor health is emphatically not caused by lack of vaccinations. Our son’s excellent health, strong immune system, and superior cognitive abilities serve starkly to validate our choice, and we will continue to trust our own judgment in all matters related to his health.

You are not serving your patients. You are hypocritically glorifying in your own willful ignorance of the science and serving the corrupt medical establishment and the pharmaceutical industry at the expense of the health of the childhood population. You are violating your oath to first do no harm and violating the fundamental medical ethic to respect patients’ right to make their own informed choice about matters relating to their health care. Shame on you!

Most Sincerely,

[Signed]Jeremy R. Hammond Elijah’s father

If you have not already done so, I encourage you, dear reader, to read my article “Oregon Medical Board Suspends Dr. Paul Thomas for Practicing Informed Consent”, where you’ll find references relevant to my response letter, along with much, much more.

If you’d like to support my independent journalism on this critically important topic, you can own it as a PDF e-book.

Or, if you prefer, wait to purchase the forthcoming book adaptation, titled The War on Informed Consent: The Oregon Medical Board’s Persecution of Dr. Paul Thomas, which you can learn more about here from the publisher.

Above all, empower yourself with the knowledge to become an effective voice for reason and positive change in the fight to protect our health and our liberty from the existential threat posed by public vaccine policies—including now with efforts to achieve the political goal of high vaccination rates with the experimental COVID-19 vaccines. Stand up to the bullies and make your voice heard!