David Barton Goes Full Anti-Vax

Yesterday on Wallbuilders Live, David Barton doubled down on his claim that parts of aborted fetuses are in vaccines. He made that claim last week and after I wrote to refute it, he devoted a whole show to the topic today.

His guest for the program was anti-vax biologist Theresa Deisher. Deisher has a PhD in microbiology from Stanford and at one time was a mainstream scientist. Several years ago, she converted to anti-vax ideology and has focused on the theory that vaccines cause autism via the introduction of fetal DNA into a vaccinated child.

The most shocking false claim that the Barton’s (father and son) make on the program is that body parts are taken from live babies for use in vaccines in use today. This of course would be illegal. Despite what Barton and Deisher say, there is no legal process where children who are alive can be dismembered in this manner. Of course, anyone would be opposed to that.

Federal law (Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002) protects infants who survive abortion. Any baby who survives an abortion must be treated as a live person. I don’t know that this law is always followed but it is the law. Deisher nor Barton offered any proof that babies are being killed in this manner.

Dr. Deisher’s work has been thoroughly debunked.

She predicts that where MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine is widely used, autism will spike. However, this has been debunked, most recently in a large population scale study by our old friend Morten Frisch and colleagues in Denmark. Here are selected aspects of their paper:

Participants: 657,461 children born in Denmark from 1999 through 31 December 2010, with follow-up from 1 year of age and through 31 August 2013.

Results: During 5,025,754 person-years of follow-up, 6517 children were diagnosed with autism (incidence rate, 129.7 per 100 000 person-years). Comparing MMR-vaccinated with MMR-unvaccinated children yielded a fully adjusted autism hazard ratio of 0.93 (95% CI, 0.85 to 1.02). Similarly, no increased risk for autism after MMR vaccination was consistently observed in subgroups of children defined according to sibling history of autism, autism risk factors (based on a disease risk score) or other childhood vaccinations, or during specified time periods after vaccination.

Barton has moved into dangerous territory here. He is trying to scare people away from vaccines with these false claims and as a result may be partly responsible for people deciding not to immunize their children. I would not want that on my conscience. Even the Catholic Church advises members that they may use vaccines due to the greater good of preventing sickness and death.

James MacDonald Used Nonprofit Funds for That Perfect Gift (Updated)

On the heels of Harvest Bible Chapel’s loss of membership in the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, check this out.

Former HBC pastor James MacDonald gave Ed Stetzer a vintage 1971 Volkswagon Beetle. Then, Ed Stetzer found out the money for the gift came from MacDonald’s non-profit Walk in the Word. Stetzer did the honorable thing and reimbursed the ministry. Joe Thorn is a minister friend of Stetzer’s. You have to click on Stetzer’s note twice to read the whole story.

I seriously doubt any donor to Walk in the Word gave with the intent to buy Ed Stetzer a VW. Given the questions about finances at HBC and this story about WITW, donors should consider asking the Illinois Attorney General to investigate the use of funds and/or file a complaint with the IRS.

HBC and WITW appear to have moved an undetermined amount of money around without regard to donor intent. This kind of activity is what should bring in regulators and auditors for a thorough review. Donors beware.

UPDATE: Julie Roys has published additional information about the gift from MacDonald to Stetzer, complete with a photo of the VW in question. The value of the VW was calculated at $13K.

 

 

VW Image: Lothar Spurzem [CC BY-SA 2.0 de (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/de/deed.en)]

Where Was Charles Evers After Martin Luther King, Jr Was Murdered?

At 6:01pm on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered in Memphis, TN at the Lorraine Motel.

Recently, I posted a statement from the John and Vera Mae Perkins Foundation regarding the night of Martin Luther King Jr’s murder. Since 2007, John MacArthur has publicly stated that he traveled from Jackson, MS to Memphis, TN the night MLK was murdered. His stories strongly imply that his companions on that trip were civil rights icons John Perkins and Charles Evers, as well as other unnamed African-American people. Charles Evers has denied this and the Perkins Foundation’s representative told me that Evers’ statement is accurate. At the same time, the representative (John Perkins’ daughter Deborah) declined to make any statement about her father’s travels on that night.

Charles Evers has told at least three different stories about that night. He has said he was on his way to Natchez for a meeting and heard on a car phone that King was killed. He also said he heard it on the radio while in the car. He said on one occasion that he was with Bobby Kennedy in Gary, IN when he heard about the murder. However, he never said he was with John MacArthur in Jackson, MS when he heard the news. He told me when I interviewed him that he may have gone later to Memphis but not on the night of the murder.

In his various accounts, Evers said that he returned to Jackson after he heard the news and denies going to Memphis. This much can be confirmed. Some specifics might be lost to time but we can place Evers in Jackson after the murder according to newspaper accounts.  In this April 5, 1968 Greenwood (MS) Commonweatlth news article, it is clear that Evers is in Jackson helping to quell violence until late in the evening of April 4 (this article helps establish the time).

While he could have gone to Memphis in the small hours of April 5th, it appears that Evers remained in Jackson on the evening of April 4.

Evers on April 5th

According to a short piece in a St Louis daily, Evers was supposed to speak at a NAACP event in St. Louis on Friday night April 5th. However, he didn’t make it due to illness.

Evers on April 6th

While it isn’t certain that Evers was in Jackson, the location of this UPI article is listed as Jackson. The interview would have taken place on Saturday April 6.

Evers on April 7th – Martin Luther King, Jr’s Funeral

In this April 8, 1968 news article a photo was published of Evers with Mrs. King at the funeral which took place on April 7 in Atlanta.

None of these clippings conclusively disprove John MacArthur’s story. Taken together, they do provide evidence that Charles Evers was probably in Jackson from the time he heard about the death of King until he went to King’s funeral.

 

David Barton Triggers Protest in East Idaho

Founder of Wallbuilders and GOP operative David Barton is slated to speak at a Lincoln Day Dinner in Idaho Falls, ID on April 13. Some local officials aren’t very happy about it.

To protest Barton’s visit, Idaho Falls City Councilman John Radford and Bonneville County Democrats Committee Chairwoman Miranda Marquit have organized a community rally focusing on inclusion.  The group plans to meet on the same day at a nearby park.

The group’s Facebook page says:

Unfortunately, David Barton has been invited to share his brand of exclusion and “wall building” with our community. We’d like to host an event where we discuss the beauty and strength inclusion can bring to our community. we want to present An alternative to the David Barton approach, which focuses on exclusion and exceptionalism around race, religion, and sexuality.

On the Facebook page, a link to a NPR article on Barton’s distorted history can be found and the news article mentions Barton’s book The Jefferson Lies which was pulled from publication due to historical errors.

In today’s GOP, pretending to have an earned doctorate, being an anti-vaxxer, denying climate change and distorting history isn’t a big problem. However, it is good to see others make the public aware of these issues and challenge Barton’s claim to be an expert.

No, David Barton, Vaccines Don’t Contain Parts of Aborted Fetuses

David Barton (left); Eric Metaxas (right)

In addition to history, David Barton often tries his hand at distorting other subjects as well. On his Wallbuilders Live program (which is taped) yesterday, Barton said the following about vaccines:

This is a big fight that’s going on now with the vaccinations. There’s a whole bunch of people that do not like their kids participating in vaccinations for several reasons. One is that so many vaccinations now contain parts of aborted fetuses. So, just as a matter of conscience, “I don’t want that in my kid.”

That’s The Government Getting Involved

David:

And then there’s so many bad things happening from the newer vaccinations. We think we have to have a vaccination for everything now. If somebody gets sick, we’ve got to create a vaccination. And that’s just not accurate. That’s the government getting involved and it’s having bad consequences.

Apparently, Barton is a big fan of people getting sick and opposes medical progress. The only bad consequences come from people listening to nonsense like this and failing to immunize their children. Currently, measles cases are on the rise with more cases reported this year already than all of last year.

Pro-Life = Anti-Vax?

Associating the anti-vax propaganda with a pro-life position would be a ideological win for anti-vaxxers. That is why Barton’s distortion of the facts requires a response. If pro-life people think that actual fetal parts from abortions are in vaccines, some might refuse vaccinations on that basis.  What is the real situation?

In fact, vaccine methods were developed from cells derived from fetuses secured via therapeutic abortions before abortion was legal. The two cell lines in use today came from two subsequent abortions outside the U.S. Fetal cells allow the development of vaccine production indefinitely. As far as I can determine, the abortions were not conducted for the purpose of making vaccines, and no new abortions have taken place to create new vaccines. In other words, vaccines don’t encourage abortion, nor do vaccines use parts of a fetus in the vaccine (see this helpful summary for more information).

If vaccine use was a moral concern for a pro-life position, one would expect the Catholic Church to forbid vaccines. However, the conservative National Catholic Bioethics Center allows the use of vaccines developed from aborted fetuses.

Are there any vaccines for which there are no alternatives?

Unfortunately, at present there are no alternative vaccines available in the United States against rubella (German measles), varicella (chickenpox), and hepatitis A. All of these are grown in the cell lines WI-38 and/or MRC-5. (See note #7 of the statement of the Pontifical Academy for Life for a listing of vaccines and their source).

What do I do if there is no alternative to a vaccine produced from these cell lines?

One is morally free to use the vaccine regardless of its historical association with abortion. The reason is that the risk to public health, if one chooses not to vaccinate, outweighs the legitimate concern about the origins of the vaccine. This is especially important for parents, who have a moral obligation to protect the life and health of their children and those around them.

The NCBC reasons that the risk to the life and health of one’s own children as well as other people’s children make vaccination the greater good. The NCBC also acknowledges that there are no parts of aborted fetuses in the vaccines.

What does it mean when we say that these products are made in “descendent cells”?

Descendent cells are the medium in which these vaccines are prepared. The cell lines under consideration were begun using cells taken from one or more fetuses aborted almost 40 years ago. Since that time the cell lines have grown independently. It is important to note that descendent cells are not the cells of the aborted child. They never, themselves, formed a part of the victim’s body.

How does one know when a particular vaccine has an association with abortion?

The cell lines WI-38, MRC-5 and Walvax-2 are derived from tissue from aborted fetuses. Any product grown in these cell lines, therefore, has a distant association with abortion. The cells in these lines have gone through multiple divisions before they are used in vaccine manufacture. After manufacture, the vaccines are removed from the cell lines and purified. One cannot accurately say that the vaccines contain any of the cells from the original abortion.

Leaving aside the reasons for the original abortions (they may have been to safeguard the health of the mother), any current cells from these cell lines were never a part of the aborted fetus. There are no parts of a fetus in a vaccine.

I don’t know if Barton’s words were ignorance or a deliberate attempt to distort the facts in order to discourage vaccinations. However, it would be a very dangerous development if anti-vax propaganda became aligned with a  standard pro-life position. He should retract what he said.

Hat tip to RWW for pointing this out.