#1720: Laura Hayes

Laura Hayes, who is a media editor for Age of Autism, is a bit unusual for an anti-vaxxer. As opposed to most anti-vaxxers Hayes has “no problem being called anti-vaccine,” because vaccination, according to Hayes is a “barbaric practice that is not founded on any sound science.” Of course, Hayes is almost remarkably unqualified to measure soundness in science (her CV summary on AoA lists her as a “mother”), as demonstrated for instance in her article “The Oxymoron of Safe Vaccines,” where she tells us that “it is of paramount importance for people to understand that the term ‘safe vaccines’ is an oxymoron, and therefore, I would argue that even those who might call themselves ‘pro-science’ would not agree that there is any ‘smart approach to vaccination’.” Why not? Since “[b]y their very nature, vaccines cannot be made safe, as they artificially and unnaturally stimulate the immune system (by injecting these toxic cocktails), versus inhaling or consuming them).” Yes, that’s right. Vaccines must be unsafe because they are unnatural (And no, she doesn’t really have any idea of how any of this actually works, despite attempts to parrot scientific language.) And according to Hayes, “vaccines have never been properly studied, either individually, or in the myriad combinations in which they are given, or as a complete whole over the first 18 years of a child’s life,” where “properly studied” apparently means “studied in a way that yields the conclusions I have already decided are the right one;” the tons of studies doing precisely what Hayes claims they are not doing do not give her the answer she wants. Also, Paul [sic] Thorsen, who peripherally worked on one big study, misused grant money to cover personal expenses; therefore all the results of big studies are invalid. Yeah, it’s the same as always (no, really).

Here is a discussion of her introduction to the antivaxx conspiracy film “Vaxxed”.

She also complains about “vaccine bullies”, who are apparently those who thinks that vaccines should be mandatory for school children. In her article “Dear Emily Willingham, Dorit Reiss, Christopher Hickie and other Vaccine Bullies” she rhetorically asks the question: “Do you believe anyone has the right to be exempt from vaccines? Does the Constitution protect the individual’s right to refuse a vaccine?” Of course, adults do have the right to refuse vaccines (apparently Hayes is a bit unclear on the distinction between “your children” and “your property”), and the Supreme Court has already ruled that philosophical and religious exemptions from vaccination for children are not required; it really doesn’t matter what Hayes believes. She proceeds to list 15 circumstances and asks the reader to consider these cases, most of which are misleading (no one is arguing against medical exemptions or exemptions in cases where there is a reasonable suspicion that an adverse reaction might occur, all things considered), where the really telling one is: “If a parent has independently researched vaccines, possibly to a level that exceeds that of any healthcare practitioner they might see, and is confident that they have reached the best decision for their family, would you be okay with that parent exempting their children from vaccines?” I assume the answer is supposed to be “yes”, for the same reason hospitals should consider replacing doctors with parents who have done their research. The implication that the knowledge she or other parents have obtained through google might rival that of experts is at least telling. That’s what the Dunning-Kruger effect is. Of course, she also repeats the myth that there have been no studies comparing the health of vaccinated v. unvaccinated children. As for evidence that supports her claims (to the contrary of science) she cites “informal surveys and assessments” such as an Internet survey by a German homeopath and a spectacularly incompetently administered phone survey commissioned by Age of Autism.

Courtesy of Refutations of
Antivaccine Memes

Now, it is common among anti-vaccine cranks to liken vaccines to the Holocaust, rape or brainwashing. Hayes has contributed to this collection of strained analogies by comparing vaccination with human trafficking. You may wonder how the analogy is supposed to go, but Hayes isn’t going to help you (she seems not to know what human trafficking is); she is still convinced, though, that “vaccine trafficking is a pharma-driven criminal industry that is based on the principle of ‘poison to profit’, with the goal being to ensure that every American is somewhere between sick and dead, for as long as possible.” Of course, she has compared vaccines to the Holocaust, too: “Please help stop this vaccine madness, this vaccine holocaust against our children,” says Hayes, and in the manner of your idea of a tinfoil hatter lays out, once again, how vaccines just is a means for Big Pharma to deliberately kill and injure as many children as possible.

Diagnosis: One wonders whether some of the less clinically insane AoA members sometimes stop up and ask themselves “wait, isn’t this article we’re promoting just hysterically crazy conspiracy theory?” Well, Hayes is not among that group, and yes: This is whale.to tinfoilhattery.

#1719: Anna Hayes

A.k.a. Ashayana Deane

Anna Hayes is a New Age cult leader. We are not entirely sure about her current whereabouts, but she seems to have moved to Europe in the late 90s after having apparently exhausted the cash flow from her followers in Sarasota. Nor are we entirely sure what kind of religious tenets she is pushing, either, since none of it adds up to anything resembling coherence, but it is some kind of UFO nonsense mixed up with messianic thinking and New Age pseudospirituality – apparently Hayes is some kind of channeller of religious wisdom possessed by aliens (Colleen Johnston, a former UFO cult member who has apparently left the cults but not the metaphysics behind, thinks they are evil and really duping her), in particular those belonging to what she calls the Guardian Alliance, who may or may not be the archangels of some branches of Christian thought – Hayes has apparently even claimed to be Jesus’s half sister. At present she seems to run something called the “Melchizedek Cloister Emerald Order”, which appears to be a money-making scheme; we have no idea how many followers she might have. She also used to peddle a version of the 2012 Mayan calendar nonsense.

Under the name “Ashayana Deane” Hayes is the author of the book Voyagers, which sums up her views. Apparently “‘The Guardian Alliance’ is an immense group of beings residing within a myriad of dimensional locations within the Space/Time Matrix,” and they are experts of “Merkaba Mechanics”. According to a critic and rival cultist (I am not quite able to determine what are Hayes’s positions and what are commentaries), Hayes claims that “[t]he ‘fixed’ tailbone Merkaba Field is the mark of the Nibiruian Merkaba-Reversal that keeps the physical body literally locked into its present time vector and unable to achiever Star Gate passage –  another of several other ‘little secrets that Thoth and his friends conveniently forgot to mention to their human ‘students.’ Most of the humans who have fallen into using or teaching the Nibiruian Reverse-Merkaba have been covertly ‘set up’ by the Thoth-Enki-Zephelium or Alpha-Omega Templar Melchizedek Anunnaki races to propagate this Base-11 Reverse Merkaba perversion. Most, but not all, human teachers of Merkaba do not realize that they have been deceived in this way, and are not intentionally bringing harm to their students; the teachers themselves are being victimized and deceived by Fallen Angelic contacts.” You know. That.

But perhaps it’s the critic who is confused? Well, here is a sample from Hayes herself (you can read the complete passage here; I just quote the opening paragraphs): “The Anunnaki/Draco try to make it look like Earth was formed from Maldak (the Nibiru BATTLESTAR was formed from it, not Earth.) They try to make it look like they did us a favor by taking cave men and making them human. [Neanderthal etc came after the original Humans not before as evolution would have it]. A total lie aimed at hiding the TRUE human heritage of the 12-strand Turaneusiam. They have 10-strand DNA and DO NOT want us to realize we have the 12 potential superior to theirs. What they DID do was mutate the human Cloister strains, tainting the race pool and hybridizing the Low Belil and Black Sun human gene codes into the lineage, which was NOT a part of the intended human evolution plan. Sharks in Sheep Clothing. They are trying to make it look like the Anunnaki were the Original Lyrans, when in fact the Sirian Anuhazi and their human-hybrids Oraphim Emerald Order were the pure Lyran strains, the Anunnaki were ‘fallen’ Anuhazi that crossed with Drakonian from Orion and were mutated into the 10-strand reptilian imprint.” Okay … (Is it worth taking note of the references to “tainting the race pool” and the notion of “superior” DNAs?)

There is also mind-control and suchlike. Apparently the Anunnaki are trying to exploit us (apparently they “and their manipulations were responsible for the original ‘fall of man’. The Turaneusiam cataclysm 550 million years ago on Tara”), and Neanderthals (mentioned in the previous quote) is a conspiracy: The Anunnaki “always try to make it look like WE started out as the ‘cave men’, but in truth those pathetic hominid forms were Anunnaki mutation experiments made from distorting the original human DNA imprint.” Biological evolution is an Annunaki-created myth, too: “It is simply the nature of the polarity game as it manifests in the lower 3 harmonics. There are hidden ulterior motives of evolutionary hi-jacking. They are using the LIE that have used with our race for 200,000+ years, that they made us from animals and are thus are our forefathers and ‘gods’.” And so on.

Diagnosis: One can’t quite shake the feeling that she might be trolling her followers. Little of what she says rises above stream-of-consciousness gibberish and time-cubing.

#1718: Chase Hayden

The Hayden Institute is the vanity institute of one Chase Hayden, DC (“doctor of chiropractic”), where he offers you quantum neurology, no less. And although chiropractic neurology is silly enough , quantum neurology appears on the surface to play in a different league of ridiculousness altogether (we’ve actually encountered it before). In fact, in the case of Hayden quantum neurology appears to be nothing but your standard chiropractic vitalism (http://skepdic.com/vitalism.html) with a label that should suffice to narrow the target audience to the severely under-informed or critical-thinking challenged: illnesses are caused by blockage of the flow of life force by subtle subluxations, which can be removed by the manipulations of a chiropractor and thus allow your body’s innate magic to take care of the healing process. To make it sound as if it has something to do with actual anatomy or biology, chiropractors like Hayden claim that they can cure all sorts of ailments because of nerves, which according to them “control every function in your body” (including the heart, the lungs, the liver and so on) which anyone with even cursory knowledge of how the body works will know is pretty stupidly false. (But then, that’s a fact, and chiropractors are talking religious creed; facts got nothing to do with it.)

Hayden’s clinic also offers applied kinesiology, detoxification and “functional endocrinology”. It is noticeable that the clinic doesn’t quite claim to be able to cure specific diseases, only that “[p]atients have reported improvements with the following symptoms and conditions” – followed by a list of conditions and diseases, including epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and high blood pressure.

Diagnosis: Shameless pseudoscientist. We don’t know what impact he’s had, but whatever it is, it’s bad. Avoid.

Hat-tip to Steven Novella on sciencebasedmedicine; we got most of the info for this entry from him.

#1717: Kristan Hawkins

Kristan Hawkins is a vocal representative of Students for Life of America and one of the more vocal and influential pro-life campaigners out there. Now, as we have said before, it is possible to have serious philosophical debate about the moral dimensions of abortion, but Hawkins has as much to contribute to that debate as a young-earth creationist have to contribute to modern biology. Hawkins is the kind of abortion opponent who claims that Planned Parenthood is some sort of all-powerful “abortion Goliath” that not only possesses immense political power (used to subsidize abortions) but conspires to get girls pregnant (by distributing harmful and malfunctioning contraception) so that they will later be forced to have abortions (getting breast cancer on the way) – all in an effort to maximize profits, which is their goal. Indeed, it is one of her “ugly truths” about Planned Parenthood: Abortion is a big business that profits from a woman’s crisis, and Planned Parenthood makes millions of dollars: 92% of Planned Parenthood’s business was abortions, and they even have abortion quotas, according to Hawkins. None of the claims have anything whatsoever to do with reality, of course.

I bet you can guess what some of the other “ugly truths” are. Oh yes, abortion increases the risk for breast cancer and causes emotional harm to women; according to Hawkins the suicide rate is 6 times higher for women who have abortions. Facts are, once again, not on her side.

Oh, and Planned Parenthood is also a racist business that “promotes and covers up” statutory rape and aids sex traffickers. And they support sexual education and birth control only to convince young women to have premarital sex and then spend money on STD tests, treatment and, of course, abortions. No wonder she and her group have made taking out Planned Parenthood one of their primary goals.

Diagnosis: Stock conspiracy theories, really, and not much different from militia sympathizers raging about the IRS and the Illuminati – except that Hawkins and her groups have quite a bit of influence and political clout among fundies.

#1716: David Hawkins

Magda Havas is a pseudoscientist (a serious pseudoscientist) and one of the leading snowflakes in the wi-fi-phobia movement; she deserves a mention in any Encyclopedia of Loons, but she is also Canadian – she even teaches students in Environmental & Resource Studies at Trent University in Ontario; stay away from that program, in other words.

Not that David Hawkins is much better. Hawkins is a trained MD and psychiatrist, but decided to go rogue some years ago and gave up any vestige of truth, evidence and accountability in favor of New Age mysticism with a hint of orientalism. He currently runs his own Veritas publishing house to publish his own books (such as Powers vs. Force and Dialogues on Consciousness and Spirituality) without having to deal with referees or people who ask for justification and support for the claims he makes. In fact, Hawkins is not only an MD, but a “Ph.D.” – from Columbia Pacific University, an unaccredited diploma mill that was shut down by court order (Jerry Bergman also got his degree there); his thesis appears to have been Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis and Calibration of the Levels of Human Consciousness, which probably doesn’t need further comment.

You can find his ideas on the website consciousnessproject.org, where he supposedly tells you how quantum physics validates applied kinesiology (AK) (by handwaving, assertion and assuming that the audience doesn’t know anything about quantim physics). Yes, Hawkins has discovered that the insane pseudoscience of AK (a good survey of AK tricks here) is a good vehicle for New Age bullshit, and he runs with it as far as he can: His website can even tell you that “David Hawkins conclusively proves the ability of kinesiological testing to distinguish truth or falsehood in any statement ...” (of course, we don’t get anything like a proof, but you know). AK can also serve as a reliable test for how spiritually advanced a person (or corporation, or nation, or piece of music) is; Hawkins has “developed” a consciousness-scale from 0 to 1000 (“consciousness” apparently refers to some kind of spiritual entity; the parallel midichlorians is striking); scoring above 700 means “enlightenment” (Jesus is at 1000; Hawkins himself merely at 999.8). Meanwhile, skeptics score at 140 (“which is that of sophomoric egotism;” Hawkins doesn’t like skeptics), and anyone who doesn’t believe that AK works automatically ranks below 200 (and one shouldn’t fraternitize with them); George W. Bush scores at 460 (in the range of intellectual genius). According to Hawkins’s acolyte, David Gersten (another MD): “Below 200 an individual or society are at very high risk. Up until 1986, the world CS calibrated in the low 190s, but there was a sudden shift in 1986, taking the world CS to 207, which is a safe place to be. The reason for this positive shift is unknown.”

Apparently it is all on his Map of Consciousness. Before his own lectures, he tests the audience to see how they locate as a group on the Map; the groups always start out very high, but after the lectures, when Hawkins retests them, they have nevertheless always gone up another five points or so – it’s just as surprising every time. Since very few people, according to Hawkins, climb more than five points in a lifetime, the tests prove that his lectures were a good investment. So it goes.

Interestingly, Hawkins apparently co-authored a book with Nobel laureate and world-famous pseudoscientist Linus Pauling called Orthomolecular Psychiatry.

Diagnosis: This guy appears to be quite influential, despite the staggering idiocy of his claims and techniques. He does come across as a true believer rather than a fraud. I don’t know whether that puts him in a less or a more negative light.