Cammy Benton, MD on Vaccine Efficacy and Risks, Flu Vaccines, Ex-vaxxers, and More

Ari: Yes, to the general public, especially, so that you have a huge portion of the general public who is literally, I mean, probably 50%, 70% of the general public, I’m guessing, they haven’t actually done any deep research on the subject of vaccines. They haven’t actually explored any of the research, and yet they have an idea in their heads, vaccines are perfectly safe and effective. Anyone who questions that, is themselves a quack and doesn’t understand the science.

Even though they have never actually read the science, they feel so confident in their view, as to say immediately to anybody who questions the narrative that vaccines are amazingly safe and effective and promotes or suggests that there could be dangers is a quack and is promoting pseudoscience. It’s really unfortunate that the sphere of conversation has become so hyperpolarized in that way, and you have so many people who are themselves non-experts, who have such extreme positions on this, and are so closed off to reasonable and intelligent discussion of the actual scientific evidence.

Anyway, that’s my overview of thoughts, but I’m curious if you have any thoughts on just the general, I don’t know, climate for discussion on this topic.

Dr. Benton: There’s so much there to unravel. Because I think I started this journey maybe sooner than six years ago. That’s when I really became more intense with my study. First, I’d like to say that anyone who says to you that science is settled, you need to run the other direction. Throughout history, we have a long history, millennia of when scientists come up with new information, that they are deemed crazy, quacks, and only to have actually really been right on the path.

They run into such efforts to quieten them, to silence them, and this is throughout history. This is no different. This is another dogma that we’re faced with. What I try to communicate with people is that we all really want the best for our children. We want them to be safe. As a physician, I want other children to be safe, I want my children to be safe. I think that within this polarized society, if we can learn to find our connections together, then we can actually hear the differences.

Starting out, I don’t care if it’s a doctor, or if it’s just a person in the airport, which I’ve had experiences with, but when they ask you about it, and it comes up, it doesn’t take anything and they have this visceral response. You can see their face turns red, they get fidgety, and they get angry. They simply cannot hear anything beyond, what about this issue? Whatever thing with vaccine.

Ari: It’s interesting, right? If you contrast this with, let’s say, pharmaceuticals as a category, just all pharmaceutical medications. We don’t see this kind of polarization taking place. Where people are either of the opinion that all pharmaceuticals, they’re all cures, they’re all amazingly effective, and they’re all perfectly safe and side effect free, or you have people that think all pharmaceuticals are the devil, they’re all harmful, none of them have any benefits, and they’re all just a bunch of nonsense.

People are much more capable of being like, “Let’s talk about the scientific evidence. Do some medications have certain benefits in certain contexts? Do some of them have potential dangers and side effects, where some of them even have death as a side effect? That they can kill you. In fact, they kill hundreds of thousands of people just in the US every year.” We can have a reasonable science-based discussion, whether you’re more of the natural health bent, and you’re mostly opposed to medications, hopefully, you’re reasonable enough to understand that, hey, in an emergency scenario, there might be a role for certain medications, and they might be even life saving.

Whereas we can also understand that people with chronic diseases of lifestyle, the solution probably isn’t just to load them up with a bunch of pharmaceuticals. We can have a reasonable discussion, but with vaccines, it’s like either you believe that all vaccines are perfectly safe and effective, or you’re a conspiracy theorist or a quack. We’ve created this black and white, totally nonsensical, total gibberish of climate for this conversation, and it’s just madness.

There will be people who listen to even this conversation, who won’t even hear anything that’s said, who will just immediately be upset. Be emotionally outraged that anyone would suggest that vaccines have potential side effects and dangers. Anyway, I’m probably speaking too much here. I’d love to get your take on this. I’m so enraged by the climate [crosstalk].

Dr. Benton: It’s funny. I just went to Israel, about a year ago, for an international conference on informed consent. I’m actually on the board for physicians for informed consent out of California since 2015. I went to Israel last year, it was funny, just to give that example, there was a nice guy from North Carolina who I’d met. He had been living overseas, he was a well educated man, maybe about 30, who we were on the plane, and sitting beside me.

He’s like, “Hey, what were you doing in Israel?” I’m like, “Well, I just had a really– Another bad experience in the airport where someone had just asked that question,” and they got mad and left. I literally was just trying to say, “Oh, my kid had a vaccine reaction,” and they got angry and left. I’m like, “At the expense of maybe making you angry, I’m hoping that you can actually just hear me out.” I went [crosstalk].

Ari: The person asked you about vaccines, or they just asked [crosstalk]?

Dr. Benton: They asked me what I was doing in Israel. I said, “Well, it’s for a conference on informed consent, and regarding vaccines.” So, I went ahead and started talking to him, and as I started talking about my child having severe vaccine reactions, this previously really nice friendly guy started fidgeting, his face turned red, and he was like uncomfortable. He started turning away from me, and I said to him, “Why is it that I’ve already given–” At this point, I’d already given him some studies, I’d given him some statistics, and what happened personally to my child.

I was like, “Can I ask you why you’re having this reaction?” He’s like, “What are you talking about?” I’m like, “Well, suddenly you can’t look at me, your face looks pretty red.” I was like this calm because I’m used to it now. I was like, “I’m just telling you about my personal experiences as a mother and as a doctor, and you seem pretty angry at me now. Can I ask you why you’re so angry?” He’s like, “It’s just are you anti-vaxxer?”

I’m like, “I want you to answer the question for me. What have I said that is so bad? I want you just to hear of my child’s reactions, and here’s some science, and here’s some stats. What about that makes you turn this way?” He says, “I don’t know. I guess you seem more educated than– You seem less crazy than most anti-vaxxers.” I’m like, “Well, let me ask you, how many anti-vaxxers have you actually sat down with and talked to?” He looked, he’s like, “I guess you’re the first.”

I’m like, “So, I’m the first anti-vaxxer that you spoke to, and I’ve not actually spoken against vaccines, I’ve spoken about my personal experiences with it. I want you to think, you know nothing about vaccines, you’re an engineer, you had this visceral, this whole body response, to me talking about my child’s experience with a medical procedure. The only reason you didn’t leave is because we were taking off in an airplane and you couldn’t get out of your seat. Right? Am I correct?”

He’s like, “I guess.” He’s like, “Well, you kind of know what you’re talking about.” I’m like, “Yes, I’ve been studying this for like six years now, and I’m very well-versed in it, and also personally.”

Ari: You’re an MD who’s been in practice for a couple of years.

Dr. Benton: I’m an MD. I was trained to give vaccines, I was trained to not question the vaccines. Literally, our training is, “Here’s the vaccine schedule, here’s the– The answers, don’t look at them. That’s for lawyer jargon. It’s a cover your butt kind of thing. You don’t need to really know.” They put everything in there. “There’s going to be some crazy anti-vaxxers, and maybe we should try to tolerate them so we can win them over more. For us as doctors, vaccines are safe and effective. That’s the easy part of our education. There’s so much to learn in medicine, we welcome something that’s safe and effective, and science is settled.

We don’t have to think. Thank goodness for something we don’t have to think about, right? Anyway, that’s our training. For me to go from that, just pure, like over and over again, no question, no question, and you– We are, by nature as doctors, we’re called gunners. We’re like A students. We like to be the best. We want to be the best in the class. You don’t want to be relegated to being a quack. Those are really the bad doctors, the stupid doctors. We’re taught this from very early on.

I said to him, I was like, “Instead of asking an MD, who naturally went through the regular training, ‘Why would you turn your back against your entire training, risk everything for your job, risk everything in the public, risk your personal and your professional identity as being a smart doctor, why would you risk it all?’” The money, I made four times my salary working in a corporation than I do now in my private practice. Thankful for every dollar I’ve loss because I can live with integrity every day. Why would I give all that up? Just because I decided I’ve lost my mind. [laughs]

Ari: Yes. Well, it’s obviously the only explanation, is that you’re just scientifically illiterate, and you’re low IQ, and you’ve been convinced by conspiracy theory. That’s the only reason that could possibly explain it, right?

Dr. Benton: Yes. I was an expert in vaccines. If you look on the Internet, oh, don’t look on the Internet, ask your family doctor or your pediatrician. They’re the experts. Until they find that I’m a doctor, “Well, you’re not an expert. You should be an immunologist or vaccinologist to be an expert. You clearly are not capable.” I’m capable of making the decision to give vaccines without any questions. No real discussion.

I can give seven doses of a vaccine in one 15 minute visit, and give proper informed consent, and be the expert, or I can study literally every single day for five years, and then suddenly I’m considered dangerous, and I’m not the expert, and I have to be an immunologist to understand vaccines. You see the doublespeak there? It makes no sense.

Ari: It’s worth emphasizing, I guess, a couple points. One is, all of medical school is four years. The coursework for medical school. You’re talking about spending an entire five years dedicated specifically to studying just this topic of vaccines.

Dr. Benton: Every day, literally. Every day, unless I was out of the country. Every day, I read probably 30 minutes a day, at least on vaccines, but after I was between jobs, in January of 2015 to May of 2015, I had the blessing of having this opportunity. I literally studied five days a week, six hours a day, just vaccines. Intensely until I started my– Then I started the next job, and then I would just have to study on top. I became obsessed with it, honestly. This is, I guess, where you ask why I came into this.

Ari: Yes.

Dr. Benton: It’s twofold.

Ari: I’ll let you ask the questions and answer them. [chuckles]

Dr. Benton: Basically, I, myself, had reactions, and my children had reactions, and then I also had a patient population made up of a small amount of unvaccinated patients versus my normal population. The unvaccinated patients were always well. I hardly ever saw them for actual sick visits. They told me about Wakefield, and I’m like, “Oh, Wakefield was put in jail. He’s crazy and he took advantage of people.” That’s what I was trained to believe, and that’s what they’re saying. I was like, “Well, these are their children.” I supported them. I was very curious, they were never sick. They’re always super healthy. It was like a seed planted in my head.

For me, personally, when I look back on my adult life, I had the tetanus shot when I was 18, developed autoimmune thyroiditis within the next year, then the hepatitis B series for medical school. I ended up with [unintelligible 00:20:44], another autoimmune eye condition after that. Then I got the Tdap vaccine in my 30s, and I developed recurrent bronchitis and basically exercise-induced asthma. There was a flu vaccine three years in a row. I stayed sick literally for three to four months at a time, just cold, after cold, after cold, after cold. I’m like, “Clearly, my body didn’t do well.”

That’s when I finally started, “Wait a second. I’m not doing well with this.” I still, at that point, did not question the childhood vaccine schedule. I had to fight my own fight with the corporation. That’s a whole separate good one I could tell you in a minute because I took this one up to the CDC. I’ll tell you about that one. I’m already in trouble with them anyway, so I can tell you all about it. When my children started with the vaccines, I was like, got wild and crazy because I skipped the hepatitis B vaccine at birth. Hepatitis B is transferred by blood or by semen. It’s IV drug use, it’s sex, that way.

Yet, we’re giving three doses of this vaccine to children under six months of age. That wasn’t on. “Okay, I’m going to wait till two months.” I thought I was being totally rebellious. I started vaccinating my older child so that at two months, she went from being the calmest child, slept, great eye contact, to hyperirritability. With each set of vaccines, she became more and more difficult. She ended up with neurosensory issues. I still didn’t connect vaccines.

I’m sitting here watching my child over and over again have inconsolable crying, fevers, and then her toddler years we watched her, she’s super able to learn, then suddenly she was not able to learn. Then her five-year vaccines, she had high fever, she ended up with strabismus, like her eye was off. She ended up with emotional lability, her legs swelled up, facial tics for several years, and she still gets it occasionally. Second child develops an autoimmune disease at two and a half, that is associated with the aluminum adjuvants in vaccines. The third child ended up with major food sensitivities and allergies, and ended up in the hospital with malabsorption.

I’m like, “Wait a second, I am an organic eating, health nut with an organic garden, and everything is clean in my house, why are my kids so messed up?” That’s when I started studying functional medicine and learning about genetics and epigenetics. I’m realizing, of course, I can’t say 100% this is what’s happened, but they have methylation issues, and mitochondrial issues. Some genetic things that set them up for failure. Then is it also my expression of my genes that were turned on as an adult with me having multiple vaccine reactions that then I passed that down to them?

There are so many questions that could be asked, but no one gets to study it because as soon as I started telling my doctor, then all of a sudden I’m that crazy mom. It didn’t matter that I was a doctor that took my kids for all these vaccines. I literally, at five years, the oldest is five years old, I said, “Dear God, please let her reaction be not so much that I cannot handle it.” Lo and behold, she had these big set of vaccine reactions. Then my friends distanced themselves, the primary care doctor distanced herself.

Ari: Even friends who were physicians?

Dr. Benton: Doctors. Yes, the doctors. They were like, “What’s wrong with her?” Instead of saying, “Oh, crap, what happened to your kid?” If it were a penicillin reaction, someone to say, “Does your child have allergies to antibiotics?” “Yes, they have a penicillin reaction.” They’d write it down with no question. If your child has a vaccine reaction, you have lost your mind officially. That was the first time I was ever on that side. At that point, I didn’t even want to vaccinate her, but I didn’t know I had the right to say no. Honestly, I really thought I had no choice, or she’d never be able to go to school.

I didn’t know about religious exemption. I didn’t know about the VAERS, which is the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. It’s a passive system. I didn’t even know, as a physician trained to give vaccines, on how to report it. I didn’t learn about that till like two years later. Then I asked my other doctor friends, “Did you all know about VAERS?” No one knew about VAERS. I remember the RN who was in charge of our clinic when we had patients with significant vaccine reactions, only adults though, we never recognized the children’s.

She would report it to the actual drug company who would then respond back, “Oh, sorry, thank you for reporting it. We disagree with you. We’re not going to count this as a vaccine reaction.” Even though the hospital actually called it a vaccine reaction. It didn’t matter that four doctors were involved. Then I learned that reporting it to the drug company had no difference, and no one even knew about VAERS. Then suddenly, I’m the crazy mom, crazy doctor. It was the beginning of a big transformation in my life as a doctor and as a mother, and realizing that my children did not do well with standard treatments, and that I needed to seek care elsewhere.

I went from natural pass, and then going to say functional medicine. My children, I was able to recover them with the help of some really wonderful doctors. They’re healthy, thank God now, but they still have– My oldest one still happen to have neurologic rehabilitation due to her five year vaccines, and it showed– She had sensory issues, visual and auditory processing issues, and the child that came up perfectly normal and healthy, I watched her deterioration in her neurologic status, but I was trained it was normal. It’s normal to cry, it’s normal to have inconsolable screaming, aka encephalitis, it’s normal.

They normalize all the screaming and crying and these changes in behaviors, and then you think, “Well, is it just me?” I’m telling you these stories from a doctor’s perspective too, of how hard it is to change your mindset. It took me years of watching it happen to my own kids, so then when I had to– I used to do Special Olympics physicals for years. Many years in a small town before I left. There was a 14-year-old boy who was an arm flapping, toe walking, nonverbal, autistic boy wearing a diaper, and so I asked the mom, this is January of 2015, at the very beginning when I was like, “Something’s really funky here.”

I asked, I’m like, “Hey, was he always autistic? Do you remember what–” She’s like, “No, he changed at 18 months.” I’m like, “Well, tell me what happened at 18 months.” She looked at me, she looked at her husband and was suspicious. She looked back at me, she’s like, “He had his vaccines.” Like she’s almost afraid to say. I’m like, “So, he had a vaccine reaction or what happened?”

Ari: She’s afraid to say it because she doesn’t want to be labeled a conspiracy theorist and a scientifically illiterate [crosstalk].

Dr. Benton: She’s afraid. She said to me. I was like, “What was he like before? She’s like– and you can see her like, [sighs] “He would like hug me, and kiss, and mommy, and daddy, and giggle, and this sweet smile.” I’m like, “Then what happened?” He had high fever, and seizures, and he’s never spoken again.

Ari: Wow.