#2852: Allison Folmar

Allison Folmar, JD, is a Michigan-based lawyer who’s gained some notoriety – especially in antivaccine circles – for representing parents accused of medical neglect of their children. She is also a board member for Parental Rights, an organization that works to “preserve parental rights through a Parental Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as well as through state and federal legislation that will protect children by empowering parents”, including health freedom and, of course, ‘vaccine freedom’ – indeed, their suggestion would (deliberately) make it almost impossible for states to protect children from medical abuse and neglect: children are, as the organization sees it, their parents’ property to do with as they see fit, regardless of the welfare of the child.

 

But if you wonder whether Folmar herself is antivaccine – she could after all just be deeply concerned with parents’ rights, couldn’t she? – she has also been an invited speaker at a number of anti-vaccine conferences, including the 2018 Vaccine Choice Empowerment Symposium and the 2015 issue of the autism quackfest known Autism One. At the latter, she even talked about one of her cases as involving a daughter having “exhibited autistic-like symptoms immediately after vaccinations”, and you get no points for guessing where that story would be going.

 

Folmar is apparently also a scientologist and has been caught pushing scientology’s views on psychiatry. As for the ParentalRights organization, its board consists of four people, three of whom we’ve already covered: William Estrada, Rick Green, Michael Farris, as well as one J. Michael Smith. Though health freedom seems to be part of it, their main goal is to promote home schooling and ensure that parents can prevent their children from being exposed to things like the theory of evolution or non-condemnatory information about women’s rights or homosexuality.

 

Diagnosis: Dangerous