This is Brian Hooker, Ph.D., an anti-vaxxer who traveled to Texas during a measles outbreak to spread some anti-science propaganda. He’s best known as a promoter of the idea that vaccines cause autism. He was making a video with Ben Edwards, an anti-vax doctor working in the center of the Texas outbreak that killed three, who also contracted measles.
Brian Hooker, chief scientific officer of Children’s Health Defense, filmed an interview in west Texas in March with the parents of the six-year-old child who died from measles – the first measles death in the US in a decade.
The video promoted several dangerous myths about the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Two doses of the vaccine are 97% effective at preventing measles, a virus that can be deadly and can cause lifelong harm.
Now for the non-ironic ironic part:
Hooker and Polly Tommey, an anti-vaccine film-maker with Children’s Health Defense, also interviewed other Mennonite families in west Texas. And they visited the medical office of Ben Edwards while patients and Edwards himself had symptomatic measles, they said.
Hooker then traveled home to Redding, California, and developed measles symptoms, he said.
Full disclosure, 18 days after visiting Seminole, Texas, sitting in a measles clinic and being exposed to Doctor Ben with the measles, I got the measles. So cool,Hooker said.
So he exposed himself to the measles in Texas, then, while he was maximally contagious, he flew across the country to California, exposing everyone he encountered to the disease.
But don’t worry, Ben Edwards also gave him the cure.
Edwards has become quite popular in the severely undervaccinated community in Gaines County, Texas, the epicenter of the explosive outbreak that began in late January and continues to grow steadily. Edwards set up a makeshift measles clinic in Gaines and provides unproven treatments, such as cod liver oil, the antibiotic clarithromycin, and the glucocorticoid budesonide, which is used to treat asthma and Crohn’s disease.
It would be very nice if these two quacks would drop dead of a preventable disease.
Measles Ben spreadin’ the plague for personal fun and profit.
That sounds exactly like Dr. Immanuel Pfeiffer, leader of the anti-smallpox vaccination efforts in Boston. On a dare, he went to a quarantine island in the harbor. Of course, the fool got smallpox.
https://www.someweekendreading.blog/vaccine-mandate-history/
And then just recently Hooker and Tommey were both testifying before a Senate subcommittee about how dangerous vaccines are, giving them even more chances to spread lies and possibly contagion.
From Orac: “Voices of the Vaccine-injured”: Old school antivax nonsense on steroids
Never mind the conflicts of interest, given that both Hooker and Tommey worked for RFKjr at CHD (I refuse to dignify it by using the full name). We all know that as far as Republicans are concerned, conflicts of interest are only problems when you can use them to cudgel your opponents.
I looked up Hooker. He was born 10/22/1963. That means he’s 61 (though he looks older). Which leads me to wonder if he ever had childhood measles himself? The vaccine didn’t come into wide use until the late 60s, early 70s. It seems unlikely that he could’ve avoided measles as a child because it was widespread in those years and considered a major public health issue. If he’s having his first case now, that means he avoided it as a child, or he was never vaccinated. Something doesn’t smell right about his story. I can’t prove it, but I think he’s lying about contracting it now. I suspect he had it or was vaccinated as a child.
@4 was wondering the same myself. I guess we can see if cases show up from his flight.
I could imagine a negligence lawsuit for deliberately exposing people, but likely he is lying.
Re: John Watts @ #4…
It’s entirely possible. I’m 76 (born 1949). I never had measles, that I know of, nor got the vaccine. My doctors are of the opinion that I probably had a case mild enough that no one noticed.
John Watts @4
It’s possible for those in his age group to have gotten the killed virus vaccine which faded since:
https://www.cdc.gov/measles/about/questions.html
When I started at a university in the early 90s I was required to get a measles booster on top of whatever it was I received ca. 69-70ish because there had been a huge wave of infection not long before (late 80s to earlier 90s). I got another measles booster in 2019 of my own volition.
Also infection with symptoms can occur in vaccinated people. It’s quite rare and milder. I think the success of measles vaccination is more about herd immunity than whether one person happens to be vaccinated. Those rare cases of measles in vaccinated people probably occur when herd immunity is below a certain threshold.
Thing about measles itself though it can result in vary degrees of immune amnesia. That alongside the occasional death from infection would prompt most conscientious people to ensure their immune status is shored up by measles vaccination.
A followup:
https://www.cdc.gov/measles/data-research/index.html
Herd immunity is our friend!!!
I am against capital punishment in all cases because even at the most extreme of deserving of it, there still has to be an executioner. And I don’t want to unwittingly sit next to an executioner on the train who is really looking forward to bring your daughter to work day.
However, if I could outsource the job to a virus and could guarantee no splash damage, I think I’d be all for it!
“It would be very nice if these two quacks would drop dead of a preventable disease.”
RFK FIRST!
It’s great how my existence as an autistic person is scarier than people dying from disease
The Province of Alberta has managed has managed to surpass the entire USA in number of measles cases (that is total, not per-capita). Thanks a lot Premiere Daniele Dumbfuck Smith.
I was encouraged that new cases of measles are down this week, but then I learned not all states are bothering to confirm measles cases and report them to CDC.
@2. weekendeditor : That sounds exactly like Dr. Immanuel Pfeiffer, leader of the anti-smallpox vaccination efforts in Boston. On a dare, he went to a quarantine island in the harbor. Of course, the fool got smallpox.
Thanks for that – a really good article there making some grim points about the cost of willful ignorance and Science Denialism which literally kills and cuts short lives at the start there too.
@4– In that age cohort, 4% have no measles antibodies and another 6% have equivocal results. Infection doesn’t always give lifelong immunity. Antibody level is strongly associated with but not identical to immunity. None of this makes Hooker’s stance any less objectionable.
@12– The US has crippled its own public health reporting system, so who knows how many cases it really has?
This Vaccine Song (3.36 long) is now fifteen years old and yet sadly more relevant than ever. Also catchy and very well done and makes some really good points on this topic in my view. Staggering that after all this time, all this evidence, so many people are still such utter fools.
Wear a mask in closed spaces and on airplanes, even if you think Covid doesn’t affect you anymore. There are people like this flying around the world recklessly and without caring who and how many people they infect with measles, whooping cough, mycoplasma or whatever.