Epidemic Answers is an anti-vaccine organization formed by
Beth Lambert, who bills herself as a former healthcare consultant and teacher –
she appears to have no formal medical training, and has evidently no
understanding of basic medicine. Epidemic Answers is known for their
“documentary” Canary Kids: A Film For Our
Children, an antivaccine conspiracy flick (discussed in detail here)
announced in 2013 (but as far as we know not released yet) that “shows how all children in this country are a
part of the autism epidemic.”
Wait, what? Oh, yes – according to the film vaccines are not
only to blame for every chronic health problem children experience (including,
it seems, those suffered by the non-vaccinated), it will also introduce a new
diagnosis, “almost autism,” that
encompasses basically everything, allowing any parent viewing the movie to
conclude that their kids are “almost
autistic” and therefore vaccine damaged. The produsers have been very clear
that the movie is about marketing and rebranding: “What is going to make someone come out to see Canary Kids? … For too
long, people not directly affected by autism have looked the other way, because
they can’t relate to autism. They don’t know what it is, they don’t see how it
impacts them. They may not come out to see a film about autism, but they will
come out to see a film about their kids. Most people don’t understand that the
asthma epidemic is directly related to the autism epidemic or that the obesity
epidemic is related to the autism epidemic. They don’t yet see that the same
environmental factors (pharmaceuticals, vaccines, toxins, diet, etc.) that cause symptoms of autism
in one child are the very same environmental factors that cause symptoms of
asthma in another.” Yes. No.
For the documentary, Lambert is apparently going to take
seven children with “with a diagnosis of
autism, ADHD, asthma, chronic Lyme or some other amalgamation of chronic
(environmentally-derived) symptoms” and subject them to a whole range of
autism biomed quackery,
including “detoxification” and “supplementation” treatment in
order to “heal” them. In other words,
the movie seems to be more about selling autism quackery to a broader audience
than the relatively few parents of autistic kids who are already into quackery,
by making an infomercial consisting of a series of judiciously selected
testimonials.
Lambert is also the author of the book A Compromised Generation: The Epidemic of Chronic Illness in America’s
Children (with one Vicki Kobliner who runs a company, Holcare Nutrition,
that touts “gluten-free, dairy free, low
allergen, GFCF, SCD, GAPS, FODMAPS, and other appropriate diets” to treat a
whole host of conditions that cannot be treated that way, and who is into
functional medicine,
which is among the most ridiculous types of crazy woo out there.)
Apparently Lambert herself has a child with “almost autism,” who had sensory, skin, allergies,
and behavioral issues. Apparently, her pediatrician didn’t agree and said her
child was fine and developing on-target, so Lambert took the child to a “Defeat Autism Now!” (DAN!) quack, who unsurprisingly found plenty of things wrong that Lambert could treat
with expensive and invasive quackery.
Diagnosis: Not only an antivaxx fanatic, but one of those
who apparently uses antivaxx conspiracies as a platform to promote quackery,
woo and snakeoil – the kind that’s not only expensive, but which has the
potential to really harm people. A horrible person.
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