Pete Evans’ vaccine conspiracies debunked by medical experts
‘Paleo’ Pete Evans has questioned the safety of vaccines and encouraged suspicion about immunisation, which protects us from deadly diseases. We enlisted a medical expert to answer the celebrity chef’s questions to get the facts straight once and for all.
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Celebrity chef Pete Evans has been hard at work cooking up vaccine conspiracies and trying to make the immunisation debate sound far more complicated than it really is.
“Paleo Pete” has featured professional anti-vaxxers such as Del Bigtree, David Wolf, Paul Chek, Sherri Tenpenny, Robert Kennedy Jr and Shivva Ayyadurai — all attempting to muddy the vaccination waters on his social media channels.
So The Sunday Telegraph has decided to answer their questions simply and directly, while also using advice from Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Dr Harry Nespolon, who has worked on the frontline of medicine for 30 years.
He is a GP examiner who ensures GPs are up to date with the latest evidence.
PETE SAYS: Can vaccination cause autism?
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH SAYS: No. That’s a load of crap
“It has been shown over and over again that there is no relationship between measles mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination and autism and it is not just some little study, they have done whole-of-population studies in northern Europe,” Dr Nespolon said.
Statens Serum Institute Denmark tracked 657,461 children born between 1999 and 2010 from 12 months of age until August 2013, and included 31,619 who had not received the MMR vaccine.
It found that autism spectrum disorder (ASD) occurred equally in both sets of children, leading the study’s authors to conclude that the MMR vaccine does not increase the risk of developing ASD.
“There was no greater risk in the group immunised,” Dr Nespolon said.
There have now been more than 100 studies disproving the now struck-off doctor Andrew Wakefield’s 1997 study of just 12 children and no-one has replicated his findings.
“Wakefield’s study was crap, it was made up.” Dr Nespolon said.
Autistic children do not usually show traits until they are aged three, which makes parents point to immunisation as the only medical intervention, he said.
“People say autism is much more frequent but a lot of that is diagnosis,” he said.
“It is now a spectrum of conditions, so you have a broader definition and people who are looking out for it. When I was at school you never heard the word autism, they were the naughty kid. Now we have a diagnosis, back then we saw it as a range of normal behaviour.”
PETE SAYS: Vaccination should not be mandatory
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH SAYS: Rubbish. It’s only mandatory if you still want government money
“You have a choice,” Dr Nespolon said.
“You are just not going to get as much money from the government if you choose not to vaccinate. People have a choice but they don’t like the consequences of their choice.”
PETE SAYS: Immunisation “overloads” the immune system.
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH SAYS: Wrong. That’s like living in silly land
“This overload of the immune system is out there in silly land,” Dr Nespolon said.
“We are bombarded by thousands of viruses during any year and our body reacts to them. “Coughs, colds, things we don’t even develop symptoms from. A lot of people don’t remember when they had Epstein-Barr virus, glandular fever but they have a blood test and you say: ‘You’ve had glandular fever’ and they don’t even know.”
PETE SAYS: Adjuvants and additives in vaccines are dangerous
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH SAYS: Wrong. There’s higher doses in breastmilk. Are you going to try to ban that?
“Adjuvants are put in to improve the immune response, it has never been shown to be a problem,” Dr Nespolon said.
“Aluminium (an adjuvant) is in tiny doses but if you breastfeed your child you will get six times the amount of aluminium and if you use infant formula you get 10 times as much … it has not been shown (at these levels) to cause any problems.
“Then you have stabilisers like sugar, amino acids and proteins. These are all in foods which people eat every day. They are not likely to cause problems.
“There are no preservatives in the childhood vaccines. Used to be thimerosal, a mercury-based substance in the past but there are no immunisations on the national immunisation program that have thimerosal.
“Trace components, if you look at MMR and the flu, they are actually made in eggs but even children with anaphylactic to eggs can be immunised because it is such a small dose.”
PETE SAYS: Vitamin A, D and zinc protects you from viruses like the flu or coronavirus
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH SAYS: This advice is hazardous to your health
“This is where it gets dangerous,” Dr Nespolon said.
A 65-year-old who goes out thinking a daily dose of zinc (a supplement Evans sells on his website) will protect them is putting themselves in danger from not just COVID-19 but a range of viruses.
“He has a right to express his views, but there are facts, there is black and white, it is not beige, to use the word he uses,” he said.
“People die from COVID-19 if they don’t do the right thing, people die from measles and it maims children for all of their lives.”
PETE SAYS: Sign my “pro-choice” petition to stop flu vaccination for visitors in nursing homes
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH SAYS: Do you want to kill old people?
“With most vaccinations, people can make a choice if they do it or not,” Dr Nespolon said. “Pete Evans is concerned if you want to go into a nursing home at the moment, you must demonstrate you have had an influenza vaccination.
“You have a choice to not to have the vaccination and not see your parent until the end of the flu season, or you can have the vaccination and go in and see your parent. If you choose not to (have the flu jab) the consequence of that is, if you wander through with the virus you potentially kill people.
“There is a risk you will kill one or two of the residents because you have exposed them to the flu, despite the fact they have had their flu shot, because they are less effective in older people.”
PETE SAYS: Vaccine side effects are “rare”. Is that as in cooking “rare”, about a fifth cooked through, so perhaps 20 per cent?
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH SAYS: That is four-fifths rubbish and one-fifth stupid
“Why don’t we look at measles for example, it is a highly infectious disease,” Dr Nespolon said.
“If unvaccinated, one in five will be hospitalised, one in 20 will get pneumonia, one in 1000 will get encephalitis — which means they develop deafness or intellectual disability — and one to three in 1000 will die.
“The risk from the vaccine is one in a million of getting any of the above but not death.” That is 0.000001 per cent.
PETE SAYS: National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program in the USA is proof millions are being harmed
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH SAYS: Nope. It’s proof America has far too many ambulance-chasing lawyers
“We do not have a vaccine injury court in Australia,” Dr Nespolon said.
“The US court was set up to acknowledge that no drug or medical procedure is 100 per cent risk free and to prevent endless litigation in civil courts in a country that is highly litigious, which would drive up costs.
“Some claims might be legitimate but many are frivolous, so the vaccine companies pay into a trust for compensation.
“The standard of proof is lower than traditional court. Reported figures between 2006 to 2014, show 2.5 billion doses of vaccines were administered and 1876 received compensation, which is less than one in a million, or 0.000001 per cent
“It is probably cheaper to pay out than run a case.”
PETE SAYS: The “anecdotal cases” of vaccine injured are being silenced
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH SAYS: Sigh. Those cases are about as silent as you are, Pete
“All reactions to vaccines are recorded with the Department of Health’s Adverse Events Following Immunisation and investigated by the Therapeutic Goods Administration if serious,” Dr Nespolon said.
“Anyone can write to the TGA and say my child has had a reaction and they will investigate it. It is not hidden.
“The Fluvax in Western Australia in 2009, there was an increase in children getting fever and febrile seizures after Fluvax and so that was withdrawn for all kids under five.
“In my 30 years-plus as a GP, I have never had a patient come back and say my child is different after immunisation.
“That is as anecdotal as anything else is, so that is why you have studies. I’ve had one patient whose mother had rubella and that child has two cochlear implants as a result. Another child, before pneumococcal vaccination, was almost dead and we whisked her off to hospital.”
PETE SAYS: The medical and scientific community are a religion called ‘sciencology’ corrupted by academia
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH SAYS: Why let the facts get in the way of your story?
“We reject that, our religion — if there is one — is trying to find the truth,” Dr Nespolon said.
“Look at hydroxychloroquine and all this anecdotal evidence … now we have some studies on decent-sized groups and now most are coming out and saying it doesn’t work.
“He also made the insinuation we are not trained enough — immunisation is a major part of our training.”
Originally published as Pete Evans’ vaccine conspiracies debunked by medical experts
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