#2516: Kevin Barry

More antivaxxers! Kevin Barry is a lawyer and antivaccine activists, and in particular known for pushing the infamous CDC whistleblower conspiracy theory (and no: there was never any whistle to blow there, though if you wish to know what the manufactroversy was supposed to be about, you could do worse than to check out this). He has even written a book about it, Vaccine Whistleblower: Exposing Research Fraud at the CDC, which contains a foreword by Robert F. Kennedy jr., a preface by Boyd Haley, and transcripts of carefully selected telephone conversations between the alleged “CDC whistleblower”, William W. Thompson, who – at least if the transcripts are to be trusted – has gone full on antivaxx, and antivaxx conspiracy theorist Brian Hooker. Barry’s book is thoroughly reviewed here. Apart from the transcripts, forewords and some summaries, the book (published by Simon & Schuster, currently the antivaxx publisher of choice, apparently) consists primarily of deceptive propaganda and Barry imploring Congress and the president to subpoena, persecute and remove from office any scientists unwilling to submit to Thompson’s misunderstandings and delusions. Some of the errors propagated by Barry are discussed here.

 

Barry is of course no newcomer to antivaccine circles. He was apparently President of Jenny McCarthy’s antivaxx organization Generation Rescue until 2006, and subsequently a consultant to Autism Speaks. He has also published conspiracy theories at Age of Autism, a telling example being the post ‘First Peer-Reviewed Study of Vaccinated versus Unvaccinated Children (Censored by an International Scientific Journal) Now Public.’ The study he is referring to is none other than Anthony Mawson’s unscientific and hilariously inept internet survey, which was:

 

i) not a study in any reasonable sense of the word, 

ii) not the first to compare the health of vaccinated to unvaccinated children – there have been many solid, large-scale studies doing precisely that, but they don’t show what antivaxxers want them to show; and 

iii) not censored, but retracted – from a bottom-feeding journal because it was too garbage even for them; it was subsequently published in what looks, for all intents and purposes, indistinguishable from a predatory journal. Barry needed to push his narrative, though, since he had already made great advance claims for it in his book.

 

A rather more novel contribution is Barry’s apparently homemade conspiracy theory that the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 was really due to an experimental vaccine, where he concludes that the influenza virus didn’t cause the disease that killed over 50 million people a hundred years ago but that it was all to blame on an experimental meningitis vaccine that caused bacterial pneumonia in army recruits. The theory has about as much going for it as the idea that dolphins are really lizard people from Alpha Centauri. And yes, Barry seems to be entirely unaware that bacterial pneumonia is often the secondary cause of death in influenza or that the 1918 virus has been identified from old clinical samples and been completely sequenced – there really is no mystery here to spin a yarn around, but neither Barry nor his readers seem to be at all aware of the facts. Barry’s evidence? Recruits at Fort Riley received a meningitis vaccine in January 1918, and were hit by the flu in March. That’s it. He is a bit vague about the fact that the flu was also in full bloom worldwide at that time, but you know. Details. He also promotes a number of familiar antivaxx talking points and lies along the way, such as claiming that current vaccine schedules are “experimental” and that vaccine manufacturers are not liable for injuries or deaths caused by vaccines, which is blatant bullshit.

 

As an activist, Barry is known for instance for his attempts to frame opposition to school vaccine mandates as a matter of religious freedoms, as summed up for instance in a letter to then-President Trump he signed together with e.g. Shannon Kroner, Renee Bessone of the Conscience Coalition; James A. Moody, JD, Rev. Robert Schuller, Rabbi Hillel Handler (who has long encouraged Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn and Rockland County not to get vaccinated), and the colorful Pastor Ricardo Beas of the Natural Law Church of Health and Healing (they don’t seem to have vetted the signatories particularly carefully), where they tried to argue that “governments are forcing and coercing a pharmaceutical product upon children that is made from religiously objectionable ingredients, specifically human aborted fetal DNA, animal cells, carcinogenic preservatives, and neurotoxins such as mercury and aluminum. This coercion of mandated vaccines is a clear attack on religious liberty and a form of government overreach. Making personal decisions about protecting one’s body is a basic human right, and most religions agree that our sacred bodies are the holiest of temples.” Of course, the fact that they aren’t demanding freedom to make decisions about their own bodies but about their children, is a distinction utterly lost on them. In the letter, they also promote unfounded conspiracy theories, such as suggesting utterly debunked links between vaccines and infertility, as well as concerns about protecting their precious bodily fluids and appeals to Nazis.

 

Diagnosis: Insane conspiracy theorist, and really one of the leaders of the antivaxx movement, no less. Barry has probably caused more harm than most.