In a blog post published earlier this week, Cool Springs Family Medicine says it will no longer offer vaccines and cites the long-debunked notion that they can cause autism as the reason.

The blog is unsigned but presumably written by Dr. Daniel Kalb, who opened the practice in 2006. His record includes no disciplinary actions, no firings and no malpractice. According to state licensure information he was on the clinical faculty at Meharry Medical College, although he is not listed among their staff.

The blog begins thusly:



We will no longer be administering Vaccines at Cool Springs Family Medicine (CSFM). How come? 1. Because they can cause Autism – yes, I’ve had 15 years’ experience in taking care of ASD kids, that’s a lot of vaccine injury stories from moms. Don’t tell me that they are making it up or they are just reaching for an explanation, or that it was a coincidence or that they are just too stressed, or that they are uninformed. All of those arguments are stupid.

The blog goes on to list more reasons the practice will no longer offer vaccines, including falsehoods, debunked myths and typos among them.

Let's start with "...they can cause autism."

NOVA has a good breakdown of the birth of this myth and its subsequent debunking. In 1998, a paper published in a British journal called The Lancet asserted that vaccines could be linked to autism.

From NOVA:



What the public didn't know in 1998 was that the now-retracted study, which involved just 12 children, would turn out to have some serious flaws—and even to contain apparently falsified data.



The paper was retracted in 2010 but well before then, in 2004, "ten of the paper's 13 authors cosigned a partial retraction of its main interpretation."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has this to say:



Many studies that have looked at whether there is a relationship between vaccines and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). To date, the studies continue to show that vaccines are not associated with ASD.



But our Cool Springs doctor is not convinced. He writes:



Don’t quote the single study by the CDC that shows that MMR is not linked to Autism. One of the authors of that paper, Dr. Thompson, said that the data was falsified and the study manipulated. So, with this information and the lack of studies that prove the safety of combined vaccines, I can do no harm, so I’m out.



The claim that "one of the authors of that paper, Dr. Thompson, said that the data was falsified and the study manipulated" is false.

These claims are not just false, but they do real damage. In recent years, according to the CDC, the United States has seen record numbers of measles cases, largely due to people being unvaccinated. The anti-vaccination movement has contributed to the resurgence of other preventable diseases as well.

Kalb's blog also asserts that Gardasil, a vaccine used to prevent human papillomavirus (HPV), "is not safe." You can read here how the CDC monitors the safety of vaccines and how and why Gardasil was approved for use.

It turns out Kalb has a reputation for eccentric medical beliefs. He's a fan of raw milk for instance, and using hookworms for treatment.

Under the blog post about the new vaccine policy, the comments appear to be almost entirely positive.

"WOW!!!" writes commenter Frances. "So proud and so very brave of you to make this announcement!!!!"

But over at Reddit, commenters claim that's because someone is deleting negative responses.

"Yup just posting a sane comment and it was removed minutes later," writes irishbball49.

The Tennessee Department of Health, as you might imagine, urges you to get your children vaccinated.

An office manager at Cool Springs Family Medicine confirms the policy to Pith and says it's actually not new, but has been in place for around a year.

Update (12:05 p.m.):

A statement from Shelley Walker, assistant director of communications for the Tennessee Department of Health:



The Tennessee Department of Health strongly supports all recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for routine immunization. Vaccinations are a long-standing public health intervention clearly shown to improve population health by reducing death, disability and illness caused by preventable diseases. Multiple scientific studies have demonstrated there is no causal link between vaccinations and autism.



