Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All (25 page)

• On January 31, 2008, Nancy Minshew, a professor of psychiatry and neurology at the University of Pittsburgh and director of a Center of Excellence in Autism of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), confronted anti-vaccine activists. In an article in the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
titled “Pitt Expert Goes Public to Counter Fallacy on Autism,” Minshew said, “The weight of the evidence is so great that I don’t think there is any room for dispute. I think the issue is done.” Handley, who had become aware of an email exchange between Minshew and a parent of a child with autism, threatened to post it on an anti-vaccine Web site. Minshew was upset, writing, “Mr. Handley, none of you have permission to share emails that I have sent to you as individuals. Unlike the newspaper, which was public, private emails to individuals sent confidentially are not for public quotation.” Handley responded immediately. “Says who?” he wrote. “And tough shit.”

• In an interview with
Cookie
magazine in their August 2008 issue, actress Amanda Peet, who starred in
2012
,
A Lot Like Love
,
Martian Child
,
Something’s Gotta Give
,
Syriana
,
The Whole Ten Yards
, and
X-Files
, talked about the importance of vaccines. Peet was worried about the growing number of unvaccinated children in southern California; worried about how it might affect her young daughter. “I was shocked at the amount of misinformation [about vaccines] floating around,” she said, “particularly in Hollywood.” Again, Handley resorted to threats: “Ms. Peet, I have a quick message for you: you have no idea who you are messing with.”

• On August 4, 2008, Handley attacked Every Child by Two (ECBT), a nonprofit organization founded by Betty Bumpers and Rosalynn Carter. Questioning their funding sources, Handley wrote, “By non-profit standards, ECBT is a rat-shit organization.”

• On September 10, 2008, after yet another study had found no evidence that MMR caused autism, Geri Dawson, chief science officer for the advocacy organization Autism Speaks, sent out a press release reassuring parents about the safety of the vaccine. Handley’s response was personal: “Geri Dawson is either a blithering idiot or she is a corrupt partisan hack who so desperately wants the autism-vaccine thing to just die so she can get back to work chasing her genetic-psychological theories on autism that she will happily go along with the mainstream spin on a stupid little study.”

• On October 30, 2008, after NBC’s Dr. Nancy Snyderman appeared on
The Today Show
supporting the science showing no link between vaccines and autism, Handley called her “NBC’s pharma-whore in residence.”

• On December 15, 2008, in a blog entry titled “Some
New York Times
Reporters Are Just Ignorant,” Handley attacked Gardiner Harris, who had written an article exonerating vaccines as a cause of autism. Handley wrote, “There’s a reporter named Gardiner Harris who writes for the
New York Times
. I’ve probably talked to a hundred or so reporters in my time and he is unquestionably the biggest jackass I have ever encountered.”

• In November 2009, a freelance reporter named Amy Wallace wrote an article for
Wired
magazine titled “An Epidemic of Fear.” The cover of
Wired
featured an infant staring out from behind the word
FEAR
in three-inch high letters; the subheading read, “Vaccines don’t cause autism. But some panicked parents are skipping their baby shots. Why that bad decision endangers us all.” As he had done with Nancy Snyderman, Handley demeaned Wallace, a single mother living in southern California, with a sexual reference, implying that she had been intellectually raped using a date-rape drug. After Wallace described his comments on National Public Radio, Handley called her a “cry baby.” Wallace lamented “the way people like Handley use gender and sexuality as weapons to bully their opponents,” arguing that “the debate needs to be civil. That’s part of what I’ve been trying to participate in—a civil discussion of these issues.”

• On January 12, 2010, Handley went after those he believed were most responsible for causing autism—pediatricians: “If a doctor sticks six vaccines into a child while the child is taking antibiotics for an ear infection and Tylenol for a cold, he’s not a doctor, he’s a criminal, and should be hauled into jail on the spot for assault and battery. If the child also happens to have eczema, long-term diarrhea, and has missed a milestone or two, perhaps the charges should be attempted murder.”