Who do you think you're Kidd-ing?

by Meryl Dorey

Dr Richard Kidd, Council and Board Member of the Australian Medical Association, QLD On Thursday, September 10th, I attended an inquiry that was held in the QLD Parliament regarding the possibility of excluding unvaccinated children from childcare. I was there as an observer and to support the AVN contingent who, I must say, did a masterful job under very difficult conditions. You can read more about that by clicking here. I am starting this blog series with the speaker who I felt should have been the best-informed of the lot, but who unfortunately showed himself to be terribly ignorant of some basic vaccination facts. If he were a neurosurgeon or a kidney specialist for example, one might almost understand his errors. But Dr Richard Kidd is a Council and Board Member of the Australian Medical Association, QLD and he is also a general practitioner - the sort of person who both administers vaccines and is meant to advise parents with up-to-date and accurate information. During his testimony before the Committee, Dr Kidd was asked by the Committee Chair about boosters for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR). She said that she had boosters when she gave birth to her young children but not the MMR. She asked the doctor if that was necessary. His answer blew me away. And it should leave you with grave concerns about the competence of Australian doctors if such basic and egregious errors can be made by someone so high up in the medical fraternity. Dr Kidd answered that, "...we do like to give people MMR preferably before they become pregnant but you can do it during pregnancy." Now, if Dr Kidd is giving his pregnant patients the MMR vaccine, he is not only putting their unborn children at risk, but he is also acting in direct contravention to the Australian Government's guidelines on vaccination! According to the Australian Immunisation Handbook which is published on the Australian Government Department of Health website:

"MMR-containing vaccines are contraindicated in pregnant women. Pregnancy should be avoided for 28 days after vaccination."

There is no doubt about this; no controversy. The rubella portion of the MMR vaccine has been contraindicated in pregnancy since it was first manufactured in the 1960s. Rubella vaccines are meant to prevent congenital rubella syndrome, which it is thought can cause congenital malformations and death in a percentage of infants whose mothers contract it during pregnancy. Because the vaccine contains the live attenuated rubella virus, it is possible for it to cause the very same condition it's meant to prevent if administered during pregnancy - especially during the first trimester. So Dr Kidd's advice is deceptive, misleading and dangerous. It is not the only error he made during his testimony. During the same answer to the Committee Chair, Dr Kidd stated that:

"We are routinely giving people boosters for tetanus in particular and attached to that is diphtheria. Maybe we should have the pertussis attached to that as well." 

The mind boggles. Dr Kidd was speaking about vaccination for adults (because that is what the question was about). There is only ONE vaccine that is recommended for adults who are seeking to have booster shots against diphtheria and tetanus. It is called Boostrix and it is a trivalent vaccine containing antigens for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis. Did the good doctor really not know that? There is a vaccine that is only for diphtheria and tetanus - called ADT (Adult diphtheria and tetanus) but it is not recommended for boosters and is only used in rare instances. Most doctors' offices would not even have this shot in the fridge. There were several other instances where Dr Kidd made statements that were either verifiably incorrect or were riding the thin edge of what is provable. I don't have time to deal with all of those here. But I will end with one of the more bold-faced incorrect statements he made, towards the end of his testimony. One of the other committee members, a doctor himself, asked Dr Kidd about information that had been provided earlier in the day regarding the possibility of vaccines causing immune dysfunction. The AMA representative was asked if this was true. His response was:

"There have been a couple of studies but they have been flawed."

Oh, really? The link between vaccinations and immune dysfunction/autoimmunity is so strong, it has been given a name in the medical literature - Autoimmune/inflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants (ASIA). Adjuvants are extremely toxic ingredients intentionally added to vaccines to induce an immune response. ASIA is autoimmunity caused by these ingredients. Again, there is no controversy about this - it is an accepted phenomenon within medical circles. So why is Dr Kidd, a GP who deals with vaccinations in his own practice (a practice he claims has a 96% vaccination rate) ignorant of this? For one thing, there is a textbook by THE world authority on autoimmunity, Dr Yehuda Shoenfeld (you can read his CV at this link - it is very impressive indeed!), called Vaccines and Autoimmunity. This book was co-authored by Nancy Agmon-Levin, a professor in the Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University and Dr Lucija Tomljenovic, a PhD researcher at the Neural Dynamics Research Group at the University of British Columbia. This text is used to teach advanced immunology to students at universities around the world. And it has not been found to be 'flawed'. It was presented by one of the speakers representing the AVN but the AMA representative was not present in the room at the time so he would not have seen that. The Committee members should have, however. Below is a small selection of other articles from peer-reviewed journals discussing the link between vaccines and immune system dysfunction - there are many more respected (not flawed) studies. If you are interested in seeing some of them, just click this link to go to a Google Scholar search for studies discussing whether or not vaccines cause autoimmunity. Interesting note - there are 33,000 results - so much for Dr Kidd's "couple":

Vaccination and autoimmunity-'vaccinosis': a dangerous liaison?; J Autoimmun. 2000 Feb;14(1):1-10.

Vaccination and autoimmune disease: what is the evidence?; THE LANCET; June 3, 2003

Vaccine-related Risk of Autoimmune Reactions; Rheumatology. 2011;50(8):1358-1365

Self-Organized Criticality Theory of Autoimmunity; 10.1371/journal.pone.0008382

I will be sending a copy of this blog to all sitting members of the QLD Parliament - including those who sat on the Committee that heard Dr Kidd's testimony. They need to be aware that the information they consider to be sacrosanct because it comes from doctors isn't necessarily so. I hope to receive appropriate responses in the near future and I will share any and all responses on this blog. In conclusion, while it is not necessarily surprising (since I have spoken with many doctors over the years who were not well-informed about vaccination ingredients, safety or efficacy), it is disappointing that someone in such an esteemed and responsible position would not be better informed. Doesn't Dr Kidd realise that as a doctor, he holds a sacred trust? Parents come to him anticipating that he is an expert because the government says he is. The government says all doctors are experts. But if Dr Kidd has been giving MMR vaccines to pregnant women, he has seriously breached that trust and needs to be held accountable. Once again, it is clear that when making a vaccination decision, though you should be speaking with your doctor, you should also be seeking independent information from other sources including doing your own research. Taking this responsibility and doing your own research is the only way to keep yourself and your children safe.