Jay Gordon has been on TV a lot in his career.
“Parents from around Southern California choose Gordon for his outspoken and controversial stance on vaccinations, driving from as far away as Santa Barbara and Long Beach.
They know he will lend a sympathetic ear to their concerns about the possible adverse side effects of childhood vaccinations — even though several large scientific studies have failed to find a connection.
His openness to alternative approaches has earned him an avid following. With thousands of patients, his practice is so busy that he no longer accepts new patients.”
Los Angeles Times on Doctor Contrarian
Often described as a celebrity pediatrician, partly because he sees many of the kids of Hollywood celebrities, the Los Angeles Times once named him Doctor Contrarian.
How Jay Gordon On Bill Maher Helps Explain Our Anti-Vaccine Problems
Jay Gordon has become a bit of a celebrity in his own right too, with appearances on Good Morning America, with Cindy Crawford, the Ricki Lake Show, the Doctors, and he was even a regular on ABC TV's Home Show back in the 1990s.
Although he claims he is not anti-vaccine, Jay Gordon has made many other statements over the years that had vaccine advocates shaking their heads.
His main idea is that vaccines should be given on a slower schedule, just one or two at a time and that some shouldn't be given until kids are "developmentally solid."
Of course, giving vaccines later just leaves these kids at risk to get a vaccine-preventable disease while they are waiting, without any extra benefit of fewer side effects.
Sure, we would see fewer reactions associated with vaccines, because the same conditions would be occurring, but the kids would not have gotten a vaccine to be associated with it.
Is Jay Gordon an expert on vaccines?
It should be clear that he is not.
"I talk much more quietly, because I have no proof."
Jay Gordon
Talking on TV is not exactly talking quietly...
But let's take a quick look at some of his statements on Real Time with Bill Maher to help those who might think that he is.
B. Maher: I'm just saying vaccines, like every medicine, has side effects… So let’s not deny that or pretend it doesn’t happen. Which ones? How much? How do we manage this? This is not crazy talk.
Jay Gordon: We don’t do it the way we should do it. Manufacturers don't put... We don’t manufacture vaccines as well as we could. We have a schedule that is invariable for every single child, one size doesn't really fit all. The polio vaccine that I would get as a 180 lb. man is the same that I give to a 12 lb. baby. We could do it a lot better. I don't want to bring polio back. I don't want to bring measles back. Measles is a nasty illness.
No one denies that vaccines have side effects. The thing is, vaccines do not cause each and every thing that anti-vax folks claim that they do. They don't cause autism, SIDS, most non-febrile seizures, eczema, diabetes, MS, ADHD, asthma, cancer, food allergies, rheumatoid arthritis, or POTS, etc.
What about Jay's comments?
Interestingly, Jay has often said that measles isn't that bad...
"This measles outbreak does not pose a great risk to a healthy child. And quite frankly I don't think it poses any risk to a healthy child."
Jay Gordon on Doctor explains why he lets kids avoid the measles vaccine
Healthy kids can just die with measles though. And healthy kids are at later risk to develop SSPE, which is fatal.
And if he doesn't understand that vaccines aren't given based on the weight of the child or adult, then he is clearly not a vaccine expert.
If he doesn't understand the consequences of his slow vaccine schedule, especially if more parents actually started listening to him, then he is clearly not a vaccine expert.
Mostly, he seems to be an expert on pandering to parents who already have fears of vaccinating and protecting their kids.
And what he has never understood, even if he does get some of these parents to vaccinate on a slower schedule, his rhetoric likely gets many more parents started on the road to thinking vaccines are harmful or not necessary.
Jay Gordon has been wrong before, as you can see in the way he has changed his stance on the HPV vaccine, which he says he now gives, and he is wrong now.
And his advise is indeed contrary to that of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which makes you wonder why he is still allowed to be a member.
“There is no ‘alternative’ immunization schedule. Delaying vaccines only leaves a child at risk of disease for a longer period of time; it does not make vaccinating safer.
Vaccines work, plain and simple. Vaccines are one of the safest, most effective and most important medical innovations of our time. Pediatricians partner with parents to provide what is best for their child, and what is best is for children to be fully vaccinated.”
Karen Remley, MD, MBA, MPH, FAAP, Executive Director, American Academy of Pediatrics
Maybe its time that Doctor Contrarian stopped thinking everyone else is wrong and he takes a long and hard look at his own views on vaccines.
"Nothing I do is free. I feel like I should give you a little bit of a discussion before I recommend Tylenol, because of the impact on the liver. A discussion about ibuprofen, because of the impact on the kidneys. And when someone gets antibiotics from me, I talk to them. You know, there could be a yeast infection. You could get diarrhea and a rash. Sorry about the diarrhea and the rash. But with vaccines, the discussion is closed."
Jay Gordon
Health care providers are hopefully all giving their patients a vaccine information sheet and informed consent, so the discussion is certainly not closed when they give kids vaccines.
Does Jay discuss the potential risks of delaying or skipping vaccines?
Will he say sorry about the rotavirus, measles, tetanus, and diphtheria?
Vaccines are safe, with few risks, and are very necessary.
Although he thinks he is taking the middle road, Jay Gordon simply helps fuel the modern anti-vaccine movement.
To be sure though, along the way, he certainly has been in the middle of things...
From his appearance on Good Morning America in 2000 to discuss why Cindy Crawford wasn't vaccinating her baby, just as Wakefield was getting started, to testifying against SB277, California's vaccine law, that didn't work because doctors simply started writing unnecessary medical exemptions, he has been there. And let's not forget that he was Jenny McCarthy's pediatrician!
"I'm just saying, 'we don't know shit,' that's why when doctors, when you get a diagnosis, the other doctor gives you another one. They say, right away, get a second opinion."
Bill Maher
Bill Maher was right about one thing, if you are going to Jay Gordon for advice about vaccines - get a second opinion.
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