Cammy Benton, MD on The Science On Flu Vaccines, Efficacy and Risks

Dr. Benton: Let’s talk about aluminum adjuvants. That is not a specific vaccine. Obviously, for those who don’t know much about vaccines this is actually something we put into vaccines that are not live. There’s live vaccines, like measles, there’s chicken pox, mumps, rubella, those are live vaccines. They actually are literally live and they can actually cause an illness similar to what you’re being vaccinated against.

Then they’re inactivated vaccines, they have to use aluminum adjuvant salts, it’s not the heavy metal aluminum, but it’s the salts, the aluminum salts that are meant to enhance your immune system. When they pair that aluminum adjuvant with an antigen, the antigen is the foreign substance, whether it be in like the disease that we’re talking about, like pertussis or tetanus or whatever. Or, quite frankly, and what I’m concerned about is that we have other things in that vaccine, we have human DNA with aborted fetal cell lines.

It’s not supposed to be whole DNA but they’ve been able to bind whole DNA fragments. There’s monkey kidney cells, there’s beef heart, there’s casein protein, there’s gluten in there. There’s all kinds of different proteins in there that if you put the aluminum adjuvant in there it can enhance the immune response to whatever’s in there with. We want it to obviously perfectly affect everyone, but for some people, their immune systems are overstimulated, and other people, it’s under-stimulated so they don’t have any immunity, some people have the perfect response.

For the overstimulated people you have to wonder, is that causing that rise of autoimmune diseases in our country? In the 1980s, when we had a lighter schedule, and also a lot less chemical exposure, who knows, and the epigenetic passing down of exposures. Meaning that my mother’s exposures get passed down to me and my exposures get passed on to my kid, right? In the 1980s, 12% of kids had a chronic disease state. Now 54% of kids have a chronic disease associated with them.

Ari: This number is just insane.

Dr. Benton: Staggering.

Ari: It’s almost unbelievable to just–

Dr. Benton: There’s an exponential rise of type one diabetes, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, there’s asthma, ear infections, eczema. There’s all these neurologic things like the sensory deficits, children with autism or other neurologic issues. There’s a rise and I’m not saying it’s all vaccines, I’m not saying that. We live in a chemical soup. There’s formaldehyde in our kitchen cabinets and the flooring, there’s flame retardants in our sofas. Our children are being inundated with chemicals and this is why we need to learn how to have a cleaner home environment as much as we possibly can.

Not everyone can afford an ecologically sound perfect house, but we’ve got to try. You have to wonder with this rise of autoimmune disease could it be because we have all these other animal and human proteins and DNA products attached to this aluminum salt solution that’s meant to stimulate your immune system. The aluminum-containing vaccines, again the inactivated vaccines, not the live ones. There’s Hepatitis B, there’s the tetanus ones, the ones for

pertussis and tetanus, pneumococcal, Haemophilus influenza- that’s the bacterial version of influenza- hepatitis A, the Human Papilloma Virus, that’s HPV vaccine or the Gardasil vaccine that people are aware of, and the meningococcal vaccine. They typically give that to 12-year-olds, and again before college, so they only have two doses of those. In Europe, they’re actually giving the meningitis vaccine to infants, and they’re pushing that earlier and earlier there.

It wouldn’t be surprising to me, that they’ll start adding that to the infant schedule since it’s already in Europe on the infant schedule there. There’s a lot to consider. The aluminum salts are they safe? We’ve been told that they’re safe. It’s got the GRAS status, which means Generally Recognized As Safe since 1975, but we actually did not have the technology to measure that size of product in the vaccines until 1990. Now, they’ve been able to study this a little more since the 1990s, and they found that there are effects on the nervous system and other parts of the body that causes motor skill impairment to encephalopathy, which is like basically brain damage, essentially, which is listed in all the vaccine inserts.

Encephalopathy is listed in all the vaccine inserts, so we’re taught to ignore.

The FDA in 2003 said, “The agency is concerned that young children and children with immature renal function are at higher risk for resulting from any exposure to aluminum.” There’s aluminum in all kinds of things, products. There’s baking products like baking soda, there’s deodorant. Aluminum comes in a lot of things, and there’s some other stuff is absorbed through our skin and absorbed through our GI tract. Most of it, our GI tract does a good job of getting rid of the aluminum. This is where they start talking about there’s oral.

You’ll hear people say, “There’s more aluminum in a pear than there is in a vaccine,” but we found that the GI tract really does a good job of blocking that. It shows that there’s the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. That’s the ATSDR. I don’t know how you even say that one for short either. In 2008, they actually did a study of the neurotoxic effects of aluminum. They said to avoid the negative effects, we need to have no more than 1,000 micrograms for 1 milligram of aluminum per kilogram for body weight, as it can lead to alterations in motor function, sensory function, and cognitive function.

This is what we’re hearing from the parents, they’re having concerns with their children regressing or having sensory issues. We’re told, “Oh, that’s just normal. It’s just the normal.” I am not willing to accept that.

Ari: If I can just add on that. It’s worth stating for people who are unaware, Aluminum is a well established neurotoxic agent. There are literally thousands of studies on the neurotoxic effects of aluminum. There are clear animal studies that do exposure to aluminum in varying dosages, in rodents, for example, that show very clear, neurotoxic effects and harm to brain development, and brain function, cognitive function, or motor function, other neurodevelopmental problems. It is very well established, and not even remotely controversial, that aluminum is indeed a neurotoxic substance.

The only controversy is about at what dosage will it have actually significant, neurotoxic effects.

Dr. Benton: Those who are totally for this, “This is safe and effective, it’s regarded as safe,” they just don’t believe parents when they say their children have these issues. We just are taught to not believe you, just so you know. They mostly measure it- like in some of the earlier studies, they looked at that oral ingestion of aluminum. They said that 1,000 microgram limit of the aluminum was based on 0.1% oral absorption because the digestive tract blocks nearly all the aluminum. For the intramuscular where they actually inject you, into your deltoid muscle for your flu shot for instance, or children through the thighs, says 100% may be absorbed over time.

Based upon that, just those numbers, it could be up to 1,000 times greater than the oral absorption. Of course, we’ve just not had enough studies on the intramuscular injections, unfortunately. If you convert the oral to the injected, and to avoid the neurotoxic effects of aluminum, you should have no more than 1 microgram of aluminum per kilogram for bodyweight- all this again is on the slideshow because it’s a lot. It’s a mouthful- that should enter the bloodstream on a daily basis.

Ari: Dr. Benton, [crosstalk] if I just rephrase because I’m afraid people are going to miss some of the specifics there. When people take in, let’s say 1 milligram orally, in food, it was 1 milligram per kilogram was the safe limit based on oral dosage. If you take that 1 milligram in orally, 99.9% of it is not going to enter your bloodstream, it’s going to pass through the gastrointestinal tract and exit out of you. If you inject it, it is now 100% bioavailable and absorbed into the bloodstream because you’re literally injecting it directly into the bloodstream. Is that accurate?

Dr. Benton: Right, and it goes somewhere. It moves. There’s studies talking about where it travels into your body. No, the problem is how fast does it spread, and how much do you absorb, and where does it go. We need more data on it, but to say it’s just safe, it’s not. It’s not even scientifically valid to say that. On the slide show, it gives the ATSDR, which is that Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, there’s a limit that they give for newborns versus 2, 4, 6 months, and 12 months. It goes up to, for the 12 month, 9.3 micrograms per day.

The limit indicates that no more than 1 microgram of aluminum per kilogram of body weight should enter the bloodstream on a daily basis to avoid the neurotoxic effects of aluminum. Saying that again because if you look at these, for the ranges from 3.3 micrograms to 9.3 micrograms that they consider safe to prevent the neurotoxic effects, but then you look at the next page, it shows the amount of aluminum in vaccines. They have, for instance, in Prevnar, 125 micrograms, but all the way up for the Pediarix where they have a three in one, they have the DTaP.

Actually, it’s really more than three in one. It’s like five in one that had the DTaP which is diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis, hepatitis B, and the polio vaccine all in one. There’s 850 micrograms in just 1 vaccine. When you take the collective of everything, this graph that physicians [unintelligible 00:57:14] consented, it shows that the administration one dose of each of the Prevnar, which is the pneumococcal, the PedvaxHIB, which is another combo, the Engerix B, and the Infanrix, there’s a whole bunch of combo things. It’s delivered at one visit.

Delivers 1,225 micrograms of aluminum. That’s over the limit, but we also don’t know how fast it gets absorbed. If you’re doing this at the newborn, the day of life, that 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, 9 months, a little bit more, and then 12 months, we will collectively weigh over the limit for toxic levels for aluminum for an infant. Thanks to our tripled vaccine schedule.

Ari: It’s unclear how fast these– I guess the first point is, the amount of aluminum is way, way higher than the established safe limit by that agency you just referred to, ATSDR. The second point is that we also don’t know what happens as far as bioaccumulation of the aluminum in the body, how fast these things the body is able to excrete that aluminum that is entering. Is that accurate?

Dr. Benton: Yes, it’s accurate. There are kids that have renal problems, kidney function issues that we just don’t realize early on, or they have immature systems that just are still maturing in their infancy. Where are those safety studies for aluminum? In 2011, they actually compare the amount of aluminum vaccines to the ATSDR on the bloodstream limits, but they used the calculations based on 0.78% not on the 0.1% that they had determined earlier, and we’re not sure where they came up with that number. That was even faulty data because the main industry that we’re trying to follow is the ATSDR, which is part of the government that sets these standards.

We don’t know if it takes a month, or a year or more to actually, make it through and to totally disperse, but we’re just putting these deposits of aluminum salts into our muscles. It could be potentially by several hundreds more the amount that a child needs that would exceed that safety limit for neurotoxic effects. There are studies that show that aluminum from vaccines are absorbed by immune cells that travel to distant parts of the body, including the brain. We have those studies. There’s plenty of studies actually available for that part. Basically, my point is that I believe in informed consent. I’m a doctor who believes in that. I believe in discussing, “Here’s your risk, and here’s your benefit for this disease, for this vaccine. What are the real risk of dying from this disease? What’s the real risk of whatever?” That takes more than a 15-minute doctor visits, [sound cut] to start practicing in a regular setting for 15 minutes. I literally couldn’t sleep at night because I was like, “How do I get proper informed consent in 15-minutes?” You cannot. We’re spending an hour just on the flu vaccine and aluminum adjuvants.

How am I supposed to give this information to the parents, so they can feel like they’re making that informed decision? Obviously, I’m against mandates, and where there’s a risk, there must be a choice that’s not in any coerce way. That’s the problem is that there’s this mindset already, “You’re not going to be mandated, you have a choice. You have the choice to not work, or not drive, or go to college.” In the University of California system, you can’t go to school unless you get that flu shot. Is that really an option? They’ll say, “Sorry, you cannot now get an education because you don’t want to take a useless vaccine, and take a medical treatment that could cause you harm, that is not worth the benefit to you.” That is coercion, that is unethical.

By any measure, forced medical procedures should be against any kind of ethical policies. It is becoming more mainstream to accept the idea that is unethical to say no, that we are placing value judgments if you say no to this, or even question this at all. There are some book recommendations I did include in the slide. I think there’s super helpful because it does take so much time to read. If we’re going to research the car seats we put our kids in, or the mattresses, or the stuff we put on our bodies to avoid the chemicals, then we need to actually consider, you’re going to do your own research for what you inject into your body or for your kids because your doctor does not know.

I don’t care how much they think they know. They do not know. They have not studied it. They have accepted the rhetoric, period. One of my favorites is A Tale of Two Sides. Bob Sears, he actually came out as first John Philip Ryan, but he later said, “It was me.” He’s fantastic because he’s very scientific. He’s very thoughtful in how you approach like, “For this disease, this is your risk of dying. These are the treatments available for this disease. This is the vaccine. This is why they mandated this vaccine, and this is the real data behind it.” He does a beautiful job.

It’s written in a very conversational language for your average person to understand. He has all the science loaded up on his website through there so that we can always look at the references. It feels like a story that’s full of science. I love it. It’s great for parents. There’s The Vaccine-Friendly Plan, Paul Thomas, and Jennifer Margulis. It’s a more moderate schedule, but Paul Thomas did a study that I think you’re going to really like when he finally gets it published. His practice has over 13,000 children. He’s a well-known pediatrician in Oregon. He’s amazing.

He actually did a study where he separated out the children who follow the CDC schedule versus those by his vaccine-friendly plan versus those who were unvaccinated completely. You wouldn’t believe the difference in statistics for that. Basically, the ones that followed the CDC schedule actually had the autism rate of 1 in 69, much like the CDC says.

Ari: [crosstalk] is that 169 out of every [crosstalk]?

Dr. Benton: The 169 kids will have autism. That’s the rate that the CDC had said. Actually, in boys, it’s even younger. 1 in 49, I think [crosstalk].

Ari: 1 in 69, okay. I thought you were saying 169.

Dr. Benton: 1 in 69. Then in the ones that followed his vaccine-friendly plan, which is more of a moderate schedule, 1 in 450- don’t quote me on that- but it’s 1 in 400 something have autism. In the ones that are not vaccinated at all, it’s like 1 in 750. That kind of pattern follow along with asthma, ear infections, autoimmune diseases. When he came forward, the Oregon board started harassing him. They finally sent someone in, an external person, to look at the data, and they indeed confirmed what he had said. They had to leave him alone.

It was beautiful. I think he’s working on getting that published. He did a great job and he still is a hero of mine. Dissolving Illusions, Suzanne Humphries. She’s totally tough, smart. She’s a nephrologist. She deals in the whole history of smallpox, polio, measles, all these things. Your mind will be blown. It’s highly referenced, full of citations of history. It’s just history really. If people like history books and want to hear about the history of disease, you’re going to learn so much in this book. She’s a very methodical, very smart person who did an amazing job.

If you don’t like too much detail, skip to the polio chapter, but it was great. Then Vaccine Epidemic by Mary Holland. She’s a lawyer, who’s been in this fight for a long time. All these books are just great. Vaccine Epidemic, The HPV Vaccine On Trial also by Mary Holland. Those go into really the more of the politics behind this that goes into sort of the dirty history of pharma. How did they do in the trials? Really, the unethical methods that they’re using to create these studies that are so safe and effective, and really what they’re really hiding behind the scenes.

It’s amazing. It’s worth reading this, especially if you have a child who is due for vaccines or a grandchild. It’s worth educating yourself because the doctors simply just don’t know. Been a fun journey for me learning all this stuff. It’s an unpopular journey, but it’s a fun journey. It’s been great.

Ari: Thank you for doing it, and thank you for having the courage to speak up and be willing to present this information, and do the work that you do. As I’d said at the beginning, with the climate as it is, with anybody who does what you’re doing, no matter how scientific you do it, people will attack you, and insult you. Most of the time, it’s people who have done a lot less digging into the actual science, who are just making assumptions about what the science says, and then will go and attack or insult you.

Dr. Benton: I do want to urge people that if they did this, if they start hearing about vaccines and you get this visceral response, like, you start getting agitated, your face gets spread, you get angry, then you especially need to be the one that needs to stop and read because you need to question yourself, why would you be so angry at someone asking a question? Why would you? Because I’ve run into these people, and I asked them this, “Why do you think I would choose to leave a much more lucrative position where we were number one in the entire system for quality care measures, making way a lot more money than I used to?

Why would I choose to go against everything I’ve learned and choose the hard run? Why would I choose to do that just for the fun of it?” I did it obviously, for me. I know why I did it. I did it for the right reasons. For that person who gets that visceral response and the anger response, for me, questioning as a physician, as a mother, why would you get so angry at me for just studying this? Why would you get angry at me for presenting this data? If you’re the one getting angry, then you of all people need to be the one to say, “Why am I so angry?

Who got me this angry?” Because it’s just science. There’s no reason to be this angry over science. It makes no sense to be this angry over science unless someone has talkedto you enough, media, and I’m talking about non-medical people, “How dare you question this?” I am a doctor, actually. I think I’m actually quite qualified to question this. I’m a mother, and I’ve researched this for going on six years now. I am very qualified and you need to check yourself. For those people, this is a challenge to them to look at the inside, honestly. I’m not trying to convince people to not vaccinate.

That’s not what I’m doing. I’m just like, inform yourself what you’re injecting in your body. We do need to question the media’s role with pharma in educating us.

Ari: Yes, 100%. I want to add a couple of points here. One is, in general, a person’s level of certainty on their views about something should be in direct correlation to the degree that they have studied that subject. Studied it on a scientific subject to the degree that they have studied the science on that subject. If you have a very strong opinion about a scientific subject, you better have spent years, and years, and years digging into the scientific literature, and you better know it inside and out. If you haven’t done that, then you have no right to a strong opinion on a scientific matter. None.

You can have an opinion, but it should be a very weakly confident position. It should be, “I’ve read it so and so, but I don’t really know. I’m not an expert on the subject.” The other point is that a scientific attitude is one that is deeply flexible and committed to the evidence. Whatever the evidence says, you can study, study, study and have a form of view based on the evidence. Then if stronger better evidence comes out that says that that’s not accurate, you should be willing to change your view and to always be committed to whatever the best evidence and the full value of evidence says. If you find yourself in a position where you are committed to a particular belief system instead of dogmas about something, about a scientific matter, and it doesn’t matter what science you’re presented with, you still are committed- how much science someone can show you that directly contradicts your belief system-

if you are still committed to that belief system, that is an anti-scientific position. It is, in other words, not a scientific way of thinking and operating.

Dr. Benton: To say science is settled is very unscientific, in general. Anyone who says science is settled, science is settled, there’s no discussion. That alone is anti-science.

Ari: 100%. The other one point I want to make here is, and you alluded to this, talking about informed consent, is risk assessment. There should be a risk assessment of each individual vaccine, and what are the risks of getting this disease? What is the efficacy of the vaccine? What is the ability of this vaccine to prevent me from getting this disease or prevent me from getting it severely? What are the risks of the vaccine?

Unfortunately, that kind of holistic risk assessment is almost entirely not done by the medical establishment. There’s a portrayal of the disease as very risky, even diseases which are actually very low risk, like the flu or chickenpox, and things like that, and a portrayal of the vaccine as being entirely effective in efficacy is often implied to be way higher than it actually is, and safety is implied to be perfect. Like the vaccine is without side effects. That’s the implications of the narrative, like the pharma funded narrative of what they’d like us to believe about vaccines.

This proper scientific thinking and risk assessment, what’s the risk of this, what’s the risk of this, what are the pros and cons of each approach, is being suppressed, and anybody who wants to do it, and who’s calling for it is being suppressed or censored, branded a quack, et cetera. Even beyond doing that on an individual vaccine level, there should also be a comprehensive big picture risk assessment of the entire vaccine schedule. There are certain segments of the population that have chosen to go unvaccinated. There should absolutely be- and this is, in my mind, Science 101, this is the basics of science that has to be done to establish proper risk assessment- you have to compare long term health outcomes, disease outcomes, rates of various kinds of childhood illnesses, as well as these long term disease outcomes, and even lifespan among unvaccinated people versus people who received the full vaccine schedule.

Dr. Benton: [unintelligible] is trying to do that study right now, and he’s trying to get funded for that. He’s trying to do a 18-year perspective study. If anyone wants to support him, out in Oregon, he really needs the support.

Ari: My point is only to say that those kinds of comprehensive, very scientific risk analysis, that is the only way we actually have solid data to know with great certainty, what is the proper choice to make for ourselves or our kids.

Dr. Benton: Good science would require that they use real placebo too. As I said in the last show, that most studies are using an aluminum adjuvanted solution. That includes all the human DNA, and the monkey kidney cells, the food proteins, everything, minus the infectious disease antigen. Either you use that aluminum adjuvant solution or another unrelated vaccine. They don’t use true placebo. That is scientifically dishonest. Most doctors don’t know that either.

Ari: Above all, I think there was some fascinating stuff on the flu vaccine, that you’ve presented here, and hope you blew some people’s minds as far as the actual existing science on the efficacy of that vaccine, and the stuff on the aluminum adjuvants is pretty mind-blowing as well. Also, I hope people will take away from this to be less dogmatic, make less assumptions, and be more committed to following the evidence, and think scientifically. Dr. Benton, I’ve ranted a little bit there, about my thoughts on scientific thinking and how annoyed I am at people who are being antiscience and their thinking on this subject in particular.

Do you have any thoughts that you want to leave people with? Any final words that you want to say?

Dr. Benton: I think there’s just a general move towards mandating more vaccines, and because of the lack of liability, for pharmaceutical companies, that’s not going to end. They’re going to keep adding to our schedule because we want more. We’re so afraid of infectious diseases that we want more, and more, and more. The reality is that we have enough knowledge in science that we can actually be more specific and have more personalized medicine, really, based upon your risk factors, your genetics, your family history, what your exposures are, what your risks are.

That is, we should be entering in the next era of personalized medicine. Now that I think that the COVID vaccine very well might become mandated at some point in the near future, I’m hoping that this scares grownups enough, they’re like, “Oh, I don’t want that experimental vaccine.” Hopefully, in this, you’ll also learn that a lot of the kids’ vaccines are also experimental really and that we need to be demanding that they stop and reevaluate the current vaccine schedule for children to make sure it’s truly safe and effective as they say. I would venture to say if they really use the placebo studies like they should use, they’re not going to have quite the same outcomes that they would have otherwise.

It’s going to really be a grassroots effort, again, of us talking to our pastors, our teachers, our principles, our neighbors. I think that’s the only way to stop it because me talking to other doctors is like talking till I’m blue in the face. For the people who know me well, they knew how much I studied. I was always a nerd anyway. Even knowing that they struggle so hard to believe, but even in my own story last time, I struggled hard to believe that it wasn’t what I was presented.

I was watching right in front of my face. We’re going to have to do this grassroot efforts, talk to our legislators, and say we are not going to accept more mandates. We need the current relationship between media and pharma, and the legislators examined for really just corrupt connections. We need to remove liability from vaccine makers to force them to truly do true safety studies and come up with more– If they want to do vaccines, I like the idea of people living longer great, but we can’t do it in exchange for our chronic diseases that really dramatically alter, for the worst, the quality of life of children.

We just have to create this demand for something different. Pharma has the ability to study more. There are really cool methods that they’re coming up with, out there, for vaccination that seems a lot safer than what we’re currently doing. There’s no reason to do anything different because we’re all fully accepting of what the policies are, without any questions or hesitations. I just encourage people to ask questions and demand true informed consent, and also support physicians from formal consent because we need more support, actually, and more numbers to show that we are in it together, we want people to be safe.

I think the truth is that, whether you’re for vaccines or against vaccines, or for some, or against some, we all want all our kids to be safe. We all want them to live a long, healthy, happy life. We really want the same thing. We just have different ideas about how to go about it. Of course, people like me, I prefer supporting the immune system and doing true risk assessments on kids. We need to have that conversation and be allowed to have that conversation, period.

Ari: Yes, 100%. I actually lied a little bit about that one being the last word, I have one more thing that I just thought of. It’s worth stating directly that I think neither you nor I, are opposed to vaccinations in principal. If you can allow me, for example, to take an inactivated influenza virus, and it’s a weakened strain, and I can take that. Let’s say it’s just distilled water and weakened Influenza virus, and no other ingredients. I can take that, and I can snort it through a natural route of exposure, like, through my nose, or I can put it in my mouth, in the mucus membranes there, and it’s being exposed through a pathway that that virus would normally encounter in my body.

My body can generate an immune response, and if there’s clear science, really good science, showing that that vaccine in fact works really well to prevent flu sickness, and is perfectly safe, there’s no good reason to oppose getting that. Do you agree with me on that?

Dr. Benton: Right.

Ari: This is actually a quote I meant to share earlier, but I didn’t want to interrupt your flow on adjuvants. This is the coordinator of the World Health Organization’s initiative for vaccine research Dr. Martin Howell Friede. He said, “We do not add adjuvants because we want to do so, but because vaccines will not work without them.” In most cases, in many cases, the body just doesn’t generate a significant enough immune response so they have to add these substances with known, for example, neurotoxicity. This is someone who’s held senior management positions in the vaccine industry, and he said, “I give courses every year on how do you develop vaccines.

How do you make vaccines? The first lesson of vaccine manufacturing is while making your vaccine, if you can avoid using an adjuvant, please do so. Lesson 2 is if you are going to use an adjuvant, use one that has a history of safety. Lesson 3 is if you’re not going to do that, think very carefully.” I thought these were profound words from somebody who’s actually deeply in the vaccine space and gives courses on vaccine manufacturing, who’s very clearly saying adjuvants, they’re basically in his view, a necessary evil, but they carry very clear dangers that should not be minimized or overlooked.

I think the principle of vaccines is a good one. I personally would prefer to get rid of all substances with known neurotoxicity in those vaccines, especially when you’re talking about injecting newborn babies, for example.

Dr. Benton: Like the kidney cells that are known to be carcinogenic.

Ari: Yes. In principle, with solid science, and the kinds of risk assessments that we were talking about earlier, there’s really no good reason to oppose the principle and the concept of vaccination. I just want to be clear that we’re not saying all vaccines are bad, all vaccines don’t work, all vaccines are unsafe. There are vaccines that have pretty good established efficacy, and that they do work well to prevent or minimize the severity of various diseases. There are vaccines that have better and worse safety profiles as well. Anyway, I wanted to put that forth as my thinking on that.

I’m curious if you agree with everything I said, or if you have any dispute?

Dr. Benton: I agree. It would be great if we could live free of disease, but just a reminder [unintelligible 01:23:08] certain infections actually when children mount a good, febrile response when they’re little, they actually have lower rates of cancers, lower rates of autoimmune disease. To some extent, we are designed to fight off infections when we’re little, and that actually stimulates our immune system for the better. Good febrile illnesses actually can be good for us. They can be dangerous, they can be good for us. Just like vaccines; it’s not all good, it’s not all bad.

Infectious diseases in kids is actually important to some extent if we can learn, teach doctors, and nurses, and PAs, and nurse practitioners how to support the immune system, just like the Vitamin A. In the World Health Organization, they found a 80% reduction in mortality if given high dose of Vitamin A with measles. That would be great for most doctors to know, but most doctors don’t even know that simple thing. Even in the middle of all the measles outbreaks and epidemics or whatever, are they talking about Vitamin A, any of those?

You don’t even hear it mentioned; an 80% reduction in death that had Vitamin A, and that is not getting mentioned in the news every single day. That tells me that the agenda is not to keep us well, is only to push that vaccine. I’m not saying don’t get the measles vaccine. I’m saying why are we not really focusing on the immune system? We need to look at the bigger picture. It becomes like this very much we have to live inside that box or else. We have to recognize we are responsible for our immune systems. Some people have weakened immune systems.

They need to take extra precautions to protect themselves. Then for people like me and you, who have good immune systems, we just learn how to support it. We learn how to support our children’s immune systems. That’s really if we want to do prevention, that’s where it is. Prevention is where it is. It’s nutrition, it’s in your environment, your toxic exposures, avoiding sugar. Those are easy, simple things we can do. We can teach people, and we need to empower people to really take their health in their own hands, and not just assume, like we’re trained, oh, people really don’t want to actually eat healthy. People don’t want to get well.

We make those assumptions, but we realize most people don’t want to be sick. You need to teach them the simple things to do to support their immune system.

Ari: That was beautiful what you just said. I’m so glad you brought up the point about getting infections when we’re young. That’s a critical point to make because I’ve read a whole bunch of research on, for example, kids who get chickenpox as opposed to kids who don’t, when they’re children, later in life, as you said, have a much lower risk of many types of cancers, many types of autoimmune diseases. That just paints an even more complex scientific picture of this really is a complex topic. When you go and start to fiddle with things, when you start to fiddle with nature in these ways, you really need to be cautious of what are the second and third-order consequences or side effects of doing that?

Let’s say you prevent kids from getting chickenpox, and let’s say you’re really effective in preventing all kids from getting chickenpox, and you completely eliminate chickenpox. It sounds like a great thing when you’re only looking at it in that level, but then when you now have this data on how that leads to increased rates of cancer or increased susceptibility to [crosstalk].

Dr. Benton: Shingles. Actually, there’s increased rates of shingles now, or the waning immunity by their 20s and 30s when it’s actually way more dangerous to get chickenpox as an adult than when you’re a kid. There’s many risks to not having chickenpox in the circulation. There’s actually benefits to it.

Ari: Exactly. My point is only to say that these are really complex scientific issues. When you make the mistake of analyzing them in a myopic, and reductionistic, and simplistic way, where it’s like infection bad, getting rid of this infection, good, you miss a lot of the big picture of what’s going on, and you’ve potentially missed that. I hope people took away from this that these really are complex scientific topics. Please explore the science for yourself, and form your own opinions, and form nuanced science evidence-based opinions.

Not just based on assumptions of what you’re hearing in the media, or what you heard from a friend, or whatever the popular mainstream narrative is. Dr. Benton, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for your time and spending a little extra time with me tonight. Where can people reach out to you if they want to get in touch with you?

Dr. Benton: At bensonintegrative.com is my clinic, and it has my contact information there. We would love to have you. We have people from all over. We do virtual medicine as well, and I’m licensed in a lot of states. We have patients in California, New Jersey, New York, but I’m in North Carolina, just outside of Charlotte. It’s been a blessing.

Ari: Thank you so much, Dr. Benton. Really such a pleasure, brilliant stuff. I really appreciate you sharing with my audience.

Dr. Benton: Thank you. Goodnight.