“Many of us believe that wrongs aren't wrong if they are done by nice people like ourselves.”             ~Author Unknown

 

There are many scientists, doctors, parents and journalists that have been accused by the anti-vaccine movement of being shills for the pharmaceutical industry. Dr. Paul Offit, Steven Novella, Trine Tsouderos, and Orac (pseudonym) have long been targets of Jenny McCarthy and groups like Generation Rescue and Age of Autism for profiting from their support of vaccines.  Even I have even been accused by some members of the anti-vaccine movement of being paid off by the pharmaceutical industry for writing a favorable review of Dr. Offit’s book Autism’s False Prophets.  I’m still waiting for my check.

 

I have learned, from experience, to be wary of “he who doth protest too much”.   So, after watching Frontline: The Vaccine Wars on PBS, I began to look into the people that are casting the stones.

 

My research leads me to believe that sites like Age of Autism and Generation Rescue may, in fact, be elaborate fronts for the alternative pharmaceutical industry.  When I went to the websites of Age of Autism and Generation Rescue I noticed that the Lee Silsby Compounding Pharmacy was a sponsor at both websites.   Wait a minute.  Could these seemingly well-meaning organizations be backed by a pharmaceutical company?  It was time to dig a bit deeper.

 

J.B. Handley is the founder of Generation Rescue, an organization that attempts to “recover” children from autism through biomedical treatments.  Some of these methods utilize treatments for mercury poisoning in an attempt to cure autism.  Crazy, right?  There is very little support in the scientific community for using these dangerous techniques to treat autism.  There is no scientific evidence that these costly medications and treatments are successful, however, the biomed community continues to prescribe these expensive alternative approaches.  Many desperate parents go broke from chasing these false hopes.  And guess who sells this kind of stuff?  That’s right.  Lee Silsby. 

 

Jenny McCarthy is now the public face of Generation Rescue.  McCarthy claims to have recovered her son from autism and has vowed to spread the word and share her techniques. Even though she dominates the media’s autism conversation with her own brand of pseudo-science; McCarthy claims there is a media conspiracy against the anti-vaccine movement designed to protect the pharmaceutical industry.  Funnily enough, McCarthy is pushing her own pharmaceutical industry when she touts HBoT (Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy) chambers as a treatment for autism. And guess who sells the HBoT Prep Forumla?  Bingo!  Lee Silsby.

The Age of Autism, the “Daily Web Newspaper of the Autism Epidemic” is responsible for some of the most outrageous and despicable charges against the pro-vaccine community. Not too long ago, Age of Autism featured a photo-shopped image of some high-profile doctors and journalists feasting on dead babies.  Kim Stagliano, Dan Olmstead and Katie Wright (daughter of Bob and Suzanne Wright, founders of Autism Speaks) are just a few of the contributors that rail daily against science and common sense to demean people who are actually saving lives.  They praise biomed treatments and DAN! (Defeat Autism Now!) Doctors in practically every sentence of their posts.  Do I even need to ask who sponsors their website?  Just to be clear, it is LEE SILSBY!

 

I contacted Lee Silsby’s marketing person to see how much financial support they give to these organizations.  What started as a pleasant conversation soon changed as the person on the other end became very guarded and evasive.  I was told that sort of information is not available to the public.  Meanwhile, after several attempts to contact Age of Autism contributors, I’ve decided to give up. Generation Rescue did return my call and they claimed that a very small percentage of Generation Rescue’s website is sponsored by Lee Silsby but they declined to give an amount. 

 

The hypocrisy exhibited by McCarthy, et al. is embarrassing.  They demonize Dr. Offit for benefitting from being the co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine yet they rely on the sponsorship of a pharmaceutical company to continue pushing their agenda. They accuse others of being shills of “Big Pharma” when they are shills.  The hypocrisy is mind-blowing.