The 4th International Public Conference on Vaccination

The 4th International Public Conference on Vaccination




print this page
GEORGE J. ANNAS, JD, MPH

George J. Annas is the Edward R. Utley Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Law, Bioethics & Human Rights of Boston University School of Public Health, and Professor in the Boston University School of Medicine, and School of Law. He is the cofounder of Global Lawyers and Physicians, a transnational professional association of lawyers and physicians working together to promote human rights and health.

Professor Annas has degrees from Harvard College (A.B. economics, '67), Harvard Law School (J.D. '70) and Harvard School of Public Health (M.P.H. '72). He was the first recipient of the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation Fellowship in Medical Ethics (Harvard University, 1971-1972).

Professor Annas is the author or editor of seventeen books on health law and bioethics, including Public Health Law (2007), American Bioethics: Crossing Human Rights and Health Law Boundaries (2005), The Rights of Patients (3d ed. 2004), Some Choice: Law, Medicine & The Market (1998), The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code: Human Rights in Human Experimentation (with Michael Grodin, 1992); and Judging Medicine (1988). Since 1991 he has written a regular feature for the New England Journal of Medicine (“Health Law, Ethics & Human Rights”).

He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a member of the Institute of Medicine, a member of the National Academies’ Human Rights Committee, and co-chair of the American Bar Association's Committee on Health Rights and Bioethics (Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section). He is the recipient of an Humanitarian Award and the Jennifer Robbins Award from the American Public Health Association and Humanist of the Year Award from the Ethical Society of Boston, among many other honors for his work in the area of bioethics and human rights.



DAVID AYOUB, MD

Dr. Ayoub graduated from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and University of Illinois College of Medicine, completing a residency in Diagnostic Radiology at Southern Illinois University and a fellowship in Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology at University of Iowa. As a vaccine safety researcher, he has lectured on vaccine topics at numerous autism conferences and testified in state legislative hearings on vaccination. He is coauthor of "Influenza Vaccine in Pregnancy; Critical assessment of the Recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices" which was published in 2006 in the American Journal of Physicians and Surgeons. He is currently working on several research projects regarding the safety of mercury and aluminum components of vaccines.

Dr. Ayoub is a member of the Society of Cardiovascular and Intervention Radiology, Radiological Society of North America, Society of Nuclear Medicine, American College of Radiology, the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children and the Illinois State Medical Society. He is the father of two children, Oliver and Claire.


CINDY BEVINGTON (MODERATOR)

Cindy Bevington is the Special Assignments Editor for KPC Media Group, an independently family-owned publishing company of daily and weekly newspapers in the greater Fort Wayne area. During her writing career she has published more than 10,000 newspaper and magazine articles and is the recipient of seven dozen state and national awards for her work, including the National Newspaper Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Indiana Associated Press Managing Editors and Florida Press Association. She has received first place awards for investigative reporting, community and public service writing, profile writing, explanatory journalism, commentary, in-depth news and feature reporting, and health reporting.

Many of Cindy’s stories focus on exposing government waste, big government vs. the consumer, secret proceedings and whistleblower-topics. In 2006 she won the community leadership award from Inland Press for a series she wrote on a 2005 Indiana law mandating mental health testing for all Indiana children – and which no legislator admitted to knowing he or she had voted for, even though it was passed nearly unanimously. In 2007 a series she wrote on the disability system called “The Waiting Game” won “Story of the Year” from the Hoosier State Press Association. Cindy’s 2008 investigative report on Indiana’s Voter ID law made it all the way to the steps of the United States Supreme Court, when she revealed that one of the persons being used by the ACLU as an example of someone hurt by Indiana’s voter ID law actually was registered to vote in two states.

She often scoops the mainstream press, such as with the interview with HPV vaccine researcher Dr. Diane Harper, who called the mandating of Gardasil for young girls “a big public health experiment.” In 2008, her series on the HPV vaccine, “A Big Public Health Experiment,” won first place from the Indiana APME, along with community and public service awards from Inland Press and SPJ. Her reporting on the HPV vaccine impacted on the public debate about whether or not HPV vaccine should be mandated. The Indiana legislature did not mandate HPV vaccine for all girls entering sixth grade in the state.

Before she became a fulltime journalist, Cindy was secretary to the chief psychologist in child psychiatry at the University of Florida’s Shands Teaching Hospital. She also was heavily involved in education volunteering for 10 years, and served as the chairman of the Association of School Advisory Committees in Alachua County, Florida, overseeing 36 member schools for three years. She was recognized in 1987 by the Florida governor and commissioner of education for being the most outstanding education volunteer in a 19-county region, and by the city of Alachua, which named a day in May after her, in honor of her service to the community.



SUE BLEVINS, MPH

Sue A. Blevins is founder and president of the Institute for Health Freedom, a non-partisan, nonprofit Washington-based think tank. She is a leading advocate and spokesperson for consumers' freedom to choose their health care and maintain their health privacy, including genetic privacy. Her perspectives defending health freedom and privacy rights have been cited in newspapers across the country, including the Boston Globe, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. She is the author of the book Medicare's Midlife Crisis.

Before founding the Institute, Ms. Blevins was a Nonresidential Fellow at the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University. During her fellowship, she conducted original research to identify anti-competitive barriers in health care. That research was published by the Cato Institute in a Policy Analysis titled "The Medical Monopoly: Protecting Consumers or Limiting Competition?" In 1995, Ms. Blevins served as a consultant and primary author of a report for Governor Weld's (R-MA) Task Force on the Health Care Industry. She has also served as a legislative analyst for the National Institutes of Health and as a Congressional Fellow for Senator John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV).

A former Registered Nurse, Ms. Blevins developed her insights into the American and Canadian health care systems through years of hands-on experience in both of those countries. She received a Master of Public Health degree from Harvard University, and Master of Science and Bachelor of Science degrees from Johns Hopkins University. Ms. Blevins was awarded the Emma Jones Cullen Beckwith Award (a monetary award) for highest standards of nursing practice and executive ability from Johns Hopkins University.


TWILA BRASE, RN, HPN

Twila Brase is president of the Citizens’ Council on Health Care (CCHC), a free-market, health care policy organization based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She holds a Bachelor degree in Nursing from Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, specialized in emergency room nursing, and is a certified public health nurse

In 2000, the Minnesota Physician magazine selected her as one of “Minnesota’s 100 Most Influential Health Care Leaders.” Her organization’s efforts have led to the repeal of government-issued medical treatment directives, the governor’s veto of a “Baby DNA Warehouse” bill, and the demise of various proposals to expand state government access to private medical and genetic data.

Ms. Brase provides testimony to Minnesota state legislature, speaks around the country, including Congressional staff briefings, testimony before a New Mexico legislative committee and a presentation on “evidence-based medicine” for the Washington Policy Center. She also testified in Chicago before a federal committee against the proposed national patient identification number. Her article “Blame Congress for HMOs” has been placed into the Congressional Record of the U.S. House of Representatives. She is regularly invited to participate with other health care experts from around the country in a 2-day health care summit hosted by The Cato Institute.

Ms. Brase’s media interviews include various Minnesota and national television and radio stations including Glenn Beck Program on Fox News Channel, NBC Nightly News, NPR, CNN, Minnesota Public Radio, New York Public Radio and the NBC “Today Show.” She has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Washington Post, WORLDNETDAILY, Modern Healthcare, Medical Economics and the Washington Times, to name a few. She is author of several reports including “Newborn Genetic Screening: The New Eugenics?”


JANE BRYANT

Jane Bryant is the founder and Director of the One Click health advocacy pressure Group and editor of the internet-based news service News on One Click. Educated in Africa, Switzerland and England, Jane was previously a strategic communications professional and Board Director of two of the largest public relations consultancies in the world, with considerable expertise in devising and developing international mass communication concepts and campaigns worldwide. From food to the pharmaceutical industry amongst many other clients, her work has taken her all over the globe from the Far East, to Australia, to the USA amongst many other countries and regions.

In 2001 her young son was struck down by ill health at the age of ten from which
he has never recovered. Swept under the British National Health Service medical carpet, constantly ill and in pain and confined to the four walls of his home for the last eight years, he has become one of the forgotten children of which there are so many. By using her professional skills and determined to make a difference for her son and all children in his position, Jane launched the One Click health advocacy pressure group in October 2003. From this small acorn devoted to assisting patients and their families in conflict, the One Click pressure group has developed hugely over the years to become what it is today covering many contentious issues with many thousands of subscribers.

One Click is a reactive and interactive raw news hub that not only breaks controversial news around the world today but also makes it. The material published by One Click is read by opinion formers from a variety of walks of life that include health professionals, academics, politicians, health advocates, the media and patients and their families in more than 100 countries.


SHIV CHOPRA, B.V.Sc, M.Sc.,PhD

Shiv Chopra, who was born in India, has lived in Canada since 1960. He is author of numerous publications on science, society and religion. He holds degrees in veterinary medicine, a M.Sc. and a PhD in Microbiology. He is the recipient of numerous academic awards, including a Fellowship of the World Health Organization. As a scientist, Dr. Chopra has held numerous eminent posts in India, UK and Canada. Apart from his work in science, he is a highly acclaimed leader and spokesman on a variety of social and cultural issues in Canada, and around the world. He is the recipient of many community service awards.

Shiv Chopra’s name has become synonymous with food safety. He and fellow scientists have waged battles over four decades against a succession of Canadian federal ministries of health and helped to protect the food supply worldwide. With support of his union, Dr Chopra and his colleagues refused to approve various harmful drugs intended for meat and milk production. He endured disciplinary actions, spoke out publicly, testified at Senate committees, and won federal court cases against Health Canada. Due to Dr. Chopra’s work, Bovine Growth Hormone was barred in Canada in 1999 and in the EU. He has spoken out on BGH, dangerous antibiotics like Revalor-H Baytril, and the true causes of mad cow disease.

On the literary scene, Chopra is the author of a book of poetry, “Wondrous Virgin”; a dance drama, “In Praise of Women”; and an essay series, titled “The Hindus”. The most striking thread in all these writings is due to his unique interpretations of ancient scriptures into modern science. He is frequently described as a renaissance man for the 21st Century. His earlier book “FOUR.FIVE: Flood and Modern Science”, contains a comparative analysis of the Biblical book of Genesis with Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. It was published by Nova Science Publishers, New York, in 1995. A new publication along these lines which he is currently working upon is titled: “From Bethlehem to Banaras: In the Footsteps of Jesus”.

His latest release is “Corrupt to the Core” which details a full account of how government corruption endangers the public food supply. This book contains a blueprint for the establishment of food safety and security: Dr. Chopra’s “Five Pillars of Food Safety,” which was presented in April 2008 to the Canadian Parliament by MP (NDP) Paul Dewar.


VICKY DEBOLD, PhD, RN

Vicky Debold has worked in the health care field for more than 30 years as an ICU nurse, health care administrator, and health policy analyst focusing primarily on pediatrics and patient safety. Currently, she is an Affiliate Faculty member at George Mason University, Health Administration and Policy Department and teaches a course in Health Services Research Methods.

In addition to serving as the Director of Patient Safety and a board member of the National Vaccine Information Center, she is a director and committee member for SafeMinds, an autism-focused non-profit organization. She also serves as the consumer representative to the Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) and is a member of the Department of Health and Human Services, National Vaccine Program Office, National Vaccine Advisory Committee, Vaccine Safety Working Group which is reviewing the federal vaccine safety system and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Immunization Safety Office Draft Scientific Agenda. She has served as a consultant to the CDC’s Board of Scientific Counselors on the topic of vaccine acceptance.

She previously worked as a health policy analyst for the U.S. Congress at the Physician Payment Review Commission; the Michigan Health and Safety Coalition; and the Michigan State Commission on Patient Safety. Additionally, she has served as an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan and as an Associate Professor and Director of the Health Systems Management Program at the University of Detroit, Mercy. Her doctoral degree is from the University of Michigan (1999) – from both the School of Public Health (Health Services Organization and Policy) and the School of Nursing (Health Systems Administration). She was a University of Michigan Regent's Fellow and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in health services research at the Michigan Peer Review Organization.

Dr. Debold's son, her only child, experienced serious, long-term health problems following receipt of seven live virus and killed bacterial vaccines at his 15-month well-baby appointment. That event sparked her interest in vaccine safety and chronic childhood illness.


PETER DOSHI, MA

Peter Doshi is a Visiting Researcher, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tokyo and a doctoral candidate at Massachusetts Institute of Technoloy (MIT) in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology and Society.

Doshi's research interests are in the politics of public health, and his work aims to improve the way public health works in a democracy. He has published articles and letters in Emerging Infectious Diseases, American Journal of Public Health, British Medical Journal, and Lancet on popular and scientific attitudes regarding pandemic influenza, estimation of death rates from influenza, and the influence of public relations and policy considerations in the publicizing of U.S. flu death figures. In 2006, Harper’s Magazine published his article “Viral Marketing,” which examined the promotion of fear of influenza to market influenza vaccine.

Doshi received a master of arts degree from Harvard University in East Asian studies and a bachelor of arts degree from Brown University. He has received numerous awards for his academic achievements, including being named the “Best Socio-Cultural Anthropologist” by Brown University in 2002. In 2006, Harvard University and the Japanese publishing house Kodansha, Ltd. named his master's thesis--on the drug-induced pharmaceutical disaster "SMON" in Japan--best graduate essay in Japanese studies. At Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he was awarded a Presidential Fellowship to support his studies.

As an invited speaker at Keio University in Japan, he gave a 2009 lecture on “Counting Sickness: Epidemiology & Its Missing Patients” and as an invited speaker to the MIT-Knight Science Journalism Fellowships seminar, he spoke on “Facts, Myths, Statistic and Spin: the case of influenza.” Fluent in English and Japanese, Doshi will return from his study in Japan in 2010 to complete his doctoral thesis.


BONNIE DUNBAR, PhD

Bonnie Dunbar is Visiting Professor at the University of Nairobi, Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics. She is a founding member and Treasurer of The Africa Biomedical Center in Kenya (www.africabiomedicalcenter.com.)

She received a Ph.D. in zoology at University of Tennessee and completed post doctoral studies in biochemistry and biophysics at University of California-Davis. She served as a staff scientist with the Harbor Branch Foundation, Smithsonian Institution and The Population Council, Rockefeller University. She was a professor in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Baylor College of Medicine for more than 20 years. In 2001-2002, she was a Fulbright Scholar to Africa (Kenya).

An international authority on reproductive biology, molecular endocrinology and protein chemistry, she has been working to develop contraceptive vaccines for animals and humans for the past three decades and was honored in 1994 by NIH as the First Margaret Pittman Lecturer in recognition of her pioneering work on contraceptive vaccines. A lecturer in immunology, reproductive biology, biochemistry, cell biology and histology, she has trained hundreds of medical students, graduate students, post doctoral fellows and visiting scientists during her professional career.

Dr. Dunbar is the author, co-author or editor of more than 100 articles, chapters, reviews and abstracts as well as three medical books. She has served on the Advisory Board of the National Humane Society and is a member of the editorial board of Biology of Reproduction, International Journal of Reproductive Immunology and Journal of Reproductive Immunology.

In the late 1990’s, Dr. Dunbar investigated the biological mechanisms for hepatitis B vaccine injury and death after both her brother and lab assistant suffered serious reactions and disability following hepatitis B shots. She was featured in a 1999 ABC-TV “20/20” investigative news report on hepatitis B vaccine risks and has been invited to testify in the United States Congress and European Parliament on this issue.

Now making her home in Kenya, she continues her long standing effort to save the elephants from extinction and also works with families suffering with HIV infection and other chronic illness. Dr. Dunbar owns and lives at the small luxury boutique hotel, The Karen Blixen Coffee Garden Restaurant and Cottages (www.karenblixencoffeegarden.com), located on the farm built by the Danish author, Karen Blixen (pen name Isak Dinesen) at the turn of the 20th century, whose story was told in the film “Out of Africa.


JONATHAN EMORD, JD

Jonathan W. Emord, of Emord & Associates, P.C., was born in Brockton, Massachusetts and has been practicing constitutional and administrative law before the federal courts and agencies since 1985. He is a 1982 graduate (B.A., Political Science and History) of the University of Illinois where he was an Edmund J. James Scholar and a 1985 graduate (J.D.) of DePaul University.

Emord began his career as an attorney in the Federal Communications Commission during the administration of President Ronald Reagan and has practiced law for a number of well-respected firms, including Wiley, Rein & Fielding, and has served as Vice President of Cato Institute. In 1991, he authored the critically acclaimed Freedom, Technology, and the First Amendment in which he chronicled the intellectual foundations of the First Amendment and advocated replacing government control over the airwaves with a title registry, private property rights approach. He maintains an abiding conviction for and defense of full First Amendment protections for the freedoms of speech and press. He is also author of the 2008 book The Rise of Tyranny: How Federal Agencies Abuse Power and Pose Risks to Your Life and Liberty.

Emord practices food and drug law, deceptive advertising law, and libel law, and he served as lead counsel in the Pearson v. Shalala (D.C. Cir. 1999); Pearson v. Shalala (D.C.D.C. 2001); Pearson v. Thompson (D.C.D.C. 2001); and Whitaker v. Thompson (D.C.D.C. 2002) cases, holding FDA censorship of nutrient-disease relationship claims unconstitutional. He also served as lead counsel in Nutraceutical Corp. v. Crawford (D.Ut.2005).

Emord is admitted to practice in the states of Illinois, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. He is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court; the United States Courts of Appeal for the D.C., Fourth, Seventh, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits; the United States Court of International Trade; and the United States District Courts for the District of Columbia, Eastern District of Virginia, Northern District of Illinois, and Western District of Wisconsin. He is a Member of the Governing Council of the International Society of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology.

BARBARA LOE FISHER

Barbara Loe Fisher is co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC www.NVIC.org ). She is co-author of the seminal book DPT: A Shot in the Dark (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1985); author of The Consumer's Guide to Childhood Vaccines (NVIC 1997) and Vaccines, Autism & Chronic Inflammation: The New Epidemic (2008); editor of the bi-weekly NVIC Vaccine E-Newsletter and a blogger at www.VaccineAwakening.blogspot.com. The mother of three grown children, her oldest son was left with multiple learning disabilities and attention deficit disorder after a severe reaction to his fourth DPT shot in 1980 when he was two and a half years old. She graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in English and worked in community relations at a large teaching hospital before becoming a Mom in 1978.

During the early 1980's, she helped launch a grassroots movement to bring the issue of vaccine safety to public attention, including leading demonstrations at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and the White House in 1986. Her 1985 book, DPT: A Shot in the Dark, which she co-authored with Harris Coulter, Ph.D., was the first major, well documented critique of America's mass vaccination system calling for safety reforms and the right to informed consent to vaccination.

For the past quarter century, Barbara has analyzed and publicly articulated the major issues involving the science, policy, law, ethics and politics of vaccination and is one of the world’s leading non-medical, consumer advocacy experts on the subject. She served on the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (1988-1991); the Institute of Medicine Vaccine Safety Forum (1995-1998) where she helped coordinate five public workshops on vaccine safety issues; the FDA Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (1999-2003); the Vaccine Policy Analysis Collaborative (2002-2005); and is a member of the Consumer’s United for Evidence-Based Healthcare, Cochrane Collaboration – U.S. She has represented health care consumers at many scientific workshops, government meetings and congressional and state legislative hearings and is a featured speaker at health care conferences.
Barbara has been quoted on the subject of vaccine safety and informed consent to vaccination by national news sources including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, USA Today, Time, and Newsweek. Since 1993, she has debated physicians live five times on NBC’s “Today Show” as well as on CNN, CBS, Fox, MSNBC and National Public Radio. She has appeared in vaccine news reports on CBS “Sunday Morning News,” CBN “700 Club,” “ABC World News Tonight” ABC “Nightline” and CBS “The Doctors.”

Several major articles she authored have contributed to national dialogue about vaccine safety and informed consent, including “Shots in the Dark” (The Next City Magazine 1999); “Smallpox and Forced Vaccination: What Every American Needs to Know” (The Vaccine Reaction 2001); “In the Wake of Vaccines” (Mothering Magazine 2004); and co-authored with Mark Blaxill “The Atlanta Manifesto: From Safety Last to Children First” (Age of Autism Blog 2007).

COLIN FORBES, MD

Colin Forbes returned to Canada in 2006 after teaching and practicing Pediatrics in Africa for 42 years. He graduated from McGill University Medical school then served in the Canadian Forces in Germany . He started pediatric post graduate training at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond St. London, returning to McGill to complete his training at the Montreal Childrens Hospital.

In 1964 Dr. Forbes started teaching Pediatrics in Africa at the newly opened School of Medicine at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. In the teaching hospital, Muhimbili, he found an unacceptable high mortality rate in children admitted. Most of these children came from a village called Kisiju about 60 miles down the coast, so he and his wife Margaret, a Canadian nurse, started an "under-fives" clinic there. In two years the clinic was able to drastically reduce, mainly through immunization, the diseases contributing mostly to the in-hospital deaths- neonatal tetanus, measles, pertussis and polio. Deaths from Kwashiorkor diarrhea and pneumonia were also markedly reduced.

Dr. Forbes then taught at the Lagos University School of Medicine in Nigeria for two years and afterwards went to join the McGill pediatric team in the University of Nairobi, Kenya. He continued to teach there and later started a private practice in Nairobi. He was also a consultant pediatrician at the Aga Khan Hospital, the M.P.Shah Hospital and Gertrudes Garden Childrens Hospital in Nairobi. He left with his family for security reasons in 2006 to return to Canada, London, Ontario where he now practices part-time.

Dr. Forbes also served as consultant to the World Council of Churches-Geneva, and to many non-governmental health agencies, working in Vietnam, S. Korea, India ,Uganda, Malawi and Jamaica. In 1964, he worked in a refugee camp in Goma, Zaire, following the Rwanda massacre. He has authored, published, and presented many papers on topics such as management of measles in the African child, diphtheria and leprosy in children, malaria diagnosis, and content of primary health care for children.


LOUISE HABAKUS, HHP, AADP

Louise Kuo Habakus is founder of Life Health Choices (www.lifehealthchoices.com). She is a board-certified health practitioner specializing in integrative nutrition and homotoxicology. Louise was a corporate marketing executive for one of the world’s largest global investment management firms before leaving the corporate world to raise her children. She received her Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees from Stanford University.

Louise deferred to prevailing mainstream pediatric medicine and vaccinated her babies according to the CDC schedule. After learning that both of her children were vaccine-injured, Louise and her husband Ron embarked on a journey of recovery and advocacy. Louise lectures widely on the subject of parent vaccine choices and how parents are connecting the dots and understanding the nature of their own children’s vaccine injuries while advocating for change in their communities. She urges parents, grandparents, homeschoolers, soldiers, legislators, teachers, scientists, doctors and the media to listen, challenge, open their minds and do their own research.

Louise is a member of the New Jersey Coalition for Vaccination Choice and played a lead role in organizing the freedom of choice rally in Trenton in October 2008, an event that attracted over seven hundred participants and received national press. Louise and Ron invited the world to their front lawn rally last fall to send a strong message to then-Senator Obama and Governor Corzine as they drove past their house en route to a fundraising event.


DIANE HARPER, MD, MPH, MS

Diane M. Harper completed her undergraduate and graduate degrees at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, Massachusetts, in the fields of Chemical Engineering and Polymerics. She received her medical degree from the University of Kansas in Kansas City, where she also did residencies in Ob/Gyn and Family Medicine. Early in her academic career, she received the American Cancer Society Cancer Control Career Development Award, which allowed her to attend Stanford University, studying Medical Decision Making/Cost Effectiveness Analysis as part of her Master’s of Public Health thesis. She developed and directed the Gynecologic Cancer Prevention Research Group at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center in which work on all aspects of HPV associated diseases, specifically cervical cancer prevention was conducted during her tenure at Dartmouth Medical School.

Dr. Harper has been a local director, in both Missouri and New Hampshire, of the CDC’s Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program. She has also served as an active member of the American Cancer Society as a Board Member of the National Home Office Advisory Group on Gynecology and the National Home Office Advisory Board for Primary Care. Dr. Harper has participated in the national guideline meetings to discuss the implications of HPV on women’s cervical health over the past 10 years. It is from these three major guidelines that all the professional societies, ACOG, AAFP, AAP, etc., have developed their society-specific guidelines for cervical cancer screening.

Dr. Harper is the leading international expert on HPV vaccines having worked with both Merck and GSK to develop Gardasil and Cervarix in phase II and phase III trials. She has published the sentinel work on both vaccines and is an on call consultant to WHO for HPV vaccine policy in developing countries. She serves as an international grant reviewer for the UK and for the EU Research Councils. She has been instrumental in guiding the course of HPV vaccination around the world.

Dr. Harper serves as the Journal Editor for Infectious Diseases in Obstetrics and Gynecology; is on the editorial board for the Journal of Family Medicine and the International Journal of Surgery. She serves as a journal referee for The Lancet, Lancet Oncology, Journal of the American Medical Association, New England Journal of Medicine, Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, Cancer: Interdisciplinary International Journal of the American Cancer Society, and The Annals of Internal Medicine, among others. She has published over 90 original hypothesis-testing articles in such peer-reviewed journals as The Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, and Annals of Family Medicine, as well as others for the popular press.

Dr. Harper’s research interests include women’s health issues with specific emphasis on HPV associated diseases: the prevention, screening, immunology, early diagnosis, treatment and communication of these areas. She has received numerous regional and national teaching awards over the past 20 years. She has received best research of the year awards from the American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology and was awarded the Robert Wood Johnson Generalist Physician Faculty Scholar Award to explore the quality-of-life issues related to abnormal Pap tests and the diagnostic work-up engendered. In addition, she has been honored as one of the nation’s top clinicians in her field, Physician of the Year in New Hampshire in 2006 and one of the 10 most influential women in the USA in 2007 by Prevention Magazine. Dr. Harper represents the accomplished three pronged academician; teacher, researcher and clinician.


CHRISTOPHER KENT, JD, DC

Christopher Kent is a 1973 graduate of Palmer College of Chiropractic, and a Diplomate and Fellow of the ICA College of Chiropractic Imaging. Dr. Kent is co-founder of the Chiropractic Leadership Alliance (CLA).

An attorney as well as a chiropractor, Dr. Kent is an active member of the State Bar of California and is admitted as an attorney of the U.S. District Court, Southern District of California. He is a member of the American Bar Association and Federal Bar Association. In 2006, he completed a course of study in legislative drafting for democratic social change at Boston University School of Law and continues to focus on constitutional, federal and state health law issues which affect the ability of doctors of chiropractic to provide care for patients in the U.S. and the right of consumers to make voluntary health care choices.

Dr. Kent is highly respected within the chiropractic profession for his dedication to defining the science, art, ethics and philosophy of chiropractic for students of chiropractic and the public. He is the author of many chapters for college textbooks and scholarly articles for peer-reviewed and popular journals. Recently he coauthored an article for Complementary Health Practice Review entitled “Chiropractors and Vaccinations: Ethics is the Real Issue.” He serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Pediatric, Maternal & Family Health and Vertebral Subluxation Research.

Dr. Kent was named the International Chiropractors Association (ICA) “Chiropractic Researcher of the Year” in 1991 and selected ICA “Chiropractor of the Year” in 1998. He received the Larry Webster Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in pediatric chiropractic in 2000 and a Life University Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007. He is former chair of the United Nations NGO Health Committee, the first chiropractor elected to that office.


ELEANOR KIBRICK, MSc

Eleanor Kibrick has been a health educator, conference organizer and workshop leader for over 35 years. Eleanor is one of the founding Board members of the Nightingale Initiative for Global Health (NIGH), an international organization dedicated to creating a powerful platform for nurses to have a global voice. NIGH is putting forward two UN resolutions. The first is to have a 2010 International Year of the Nurse and this to be followed by a UN declared 2011-2020 Decade to Create a Healthy World. . For the past 14 years, Eleanor has also been on the Steering Committee for the Annual Prayer Vigil for the Earth held on the National Mall, bringing people of many faiths and traditions together to create a powerful and sacred collective presence in prayer and ceremony.

She taught physiology to nurses and other health professionals for many years. She also helped organize conferences and worked on projects in Europe, India and Japan as well as the US and Canada. She helped create and run a series of workshops called “Care for the Caregivers” designed to “promote a culture of caring” for health professionals and has presented at a number of professional conferences and workshops. Currently Eleanor is researching the growing body of reports on the hazards to our health from exposure to electromagnetic radiation (EMR). She is writing a series of articles for the NIGH website to alert health practitioners and concerned citizens worldwide, to be aware of these dangers and take immediate action.


WALTER KYLE, JD

Walter Kyle is an attorney specializing in vaccine injury law. He is author of an hypothesis published in Lancet in 1991 (Simian Retroviruses polio vaccine and the Origin of AIDS, [The Lancet (339:600-601, 7 Mar. 1992)] providing evidence for a link between the onset of the AIDS epidemic with therapeutic use of live oral polio vaccine contaminated with Simian Immunoodeficiency Virus (SIV) to treat genital herpes. An expert in adventitious agent contamination of vaccines as well as oral polio vaccine neurovirulence, Mr. Kyle has helped secure federal compensation for more than 40 plaintiff’s in the U.S. Court of Claims under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986.

Mr. Kyle graduated from University of Miami with Bachelor of Science degrees in both Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering. He received his law degree from University of Arkansas in 1977. He is a member of the Massachusetts Bar, previously admitted to Florida, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and “pro hac vice” in New York, California and Colorado. He has practiced in the U.S. Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeal for the First, Third, Fifth, Eighth, Eleventh and Federal Circuit Courts.

He individually handled two precedent setting vaccine injury cases. The first, Loge v. United States, 662Fd 1268 (8th Cir. 1981), constitutionally challenged government actions as an "invasion of privacy" based on government health officials intent to immunize the close contacts of OPV recipients without the knowledge or consent of those contacts and with full understanding that some of those contacts, usually mothers, would contract paralytic polio. This concept served as the basis for Battery claims against the manufacturer of live oral polio vaccine (OPV) on the grounds that the manufacturer knew the vaccine could mutate in recipients and infect and injure contacts of recently vaccinated individuals. The second, Schafer v. American Cyanamid, 20 F 3d. 1, (1st Cir. 1993) established that the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) established under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 did not bar a Massachusetts loss of consortium claim on behalf of the husband and child of a mother paralyzed after her child received the live polio vaccine.

In a recent online publication Mr. Kyle published an article proposing that the initial AIDS epidemic, which uniquely presented Kaposi's sarcoma, hairy tongue (hairy leukoplakia), Cytomegalovirus disease and AIDS related lymphoma as well as immune deficiencies, arose from simultaneous exposure of humans to multiple African Green Monkey (AGM) herpes viruses together with SIV (Merck’s AIDS vaccine failure requires review of AIDS strategies and re-evaluating the Origin of AIDS issues http://lib.bioinfo.pl/user:14474/report). Kyle suggests that these diseases, now linked to recently identified AGM herpes virus sequences but labeled by CDC as "opportunistic infections" at the time of the 1981 epidemic, most likely traveled with polio vaccine virus vectors arising from recombination with the latent viruses in AGM kidney tissue used to make polio vaccine. He argues that the movement of SIV from monkeys to apes (chimpanzees) and humans could have occurred simultaneously and not sequentially as "assumed" by NIH, which raises the specter that, if the NIH assumption is incorrect, SIVcpz could be key to developing a cure for AIDS.


BOB KRAKOW, JD

Robert J. Krakow is an attorney in private practice in New York (www.krakowlawfirm.com) Bob started his legal career with the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG), a consumer advocacy organization. In the 1980’s Bob was a prosecutor with the New York County District Attorney’s office, serving as Bureau Chief of the special narcotics prosecution division. He founded his law firm in 1989, focusing on the trial of civil and criminal cases, and specializing, among other areas, in the representation of persons injured by exposure to environmental toxins and vaccines, as well as providing legal services to individuals with disabilities.

Bob serves on the Petitioners’ Steering Committee in the vaccine court’s Omnibus Autism Proceeding. He is the Board Chair of Lifespire, Inc. (formerly ACRMD, Association for Children with Retarded Mental Development), a 55 year-old New York and New Jersey not-for-profit organization that provides residential, day habilitation, occupational, educational and medical programs and supports for more than 5000 developmentally disabled adults and children.

Bob has served as a Board Member of SafeMinds, and founding Board Member of two other organizations, National Autism Association and Autism United, both of which work to promote the interests of children with neurodevelopmental disorders, especially in the area of scientific research. Bob also co-founded and led A-CHAMP, now also known as the Autism Action Network, a national political action organization that advocates for children with neurodevelopmental disorders. He lives in New York with his wife, Lori and two children.


AMY LANSKY, PhD

Amy Lansky grew up in a suburb of Buffalo, New York. She graduated from the University of Rochester in 1977 with degrees in mathematics and computer science and she received her doctorate in computer science from Stanford University in 1983. After many years of working at various Silicon Valley research institutions, including SRI International, NASA Ames Research Center and three years as a consulting associate professor at Stanford, Lansky made an unusual career move: she became a student, writer, promoter and, for a time, a part-time practitioner of homeopathic medicine. This was prompted by the miraculous cure of her son’s autism with homeopathy.

Lansky’s homeopathic studies have included foundational course work with Misha Norland’s School of Homeopathy in Devon, England; completion of the Homeopathic Master’s Clinician course with Louis Klein; and studies with Simon Taffler, Sadhna Thakkar, Jan Scholten and Alize Timmerman. For two years she served as co-editor of The American Homeopaths.

Amy is the author of Impossible Cure: The Promise of Homeopathy (R.L.Ranch Press, 2003), a best-selling introductory book on homeopathy that includes the story of her son's cure as well as dozens of other first-person cure stories contributed by homeopathic patients from all over the world. It serves as a comprehensive patient guide to homeopathic philosophy, history, science, and experience, is used as a first-year text by many homeopathic schools, and has also been translated into several other languages. For more information about Impossible Cure, visit www.impossiblecure.com.


In December 2003, Lansky joined the board of the National Center for Homeopathy in Alexandria, Virginia. She now serves on the executive board as Secretary. Lansky also helped to found and was an executive board member of the California Health Freedom Coalition from 2001-2005, an organization that sponsored SB-577, the California health freedom bill that was passed in 2002. As part of this legislative process, Lansky testified before a California Senate hearing on alternative medicine. Currently she promotes homeopathy and provides guidance and referrals to parents through email as well as gives lectures and interviews and writes articles about homeopathy. From 2004-2008
she wrote a regular column for the Society of Homeopaths Newsletter (UK) entitled “Letter from America.” Lansky’s monthly radio show on homeopathy can be found on Autism One Radtio (aired the third Friday of each month at 2 p.m. and archived for listening).

Lansky lives in the San Francisco area with her husband, Steve Rubin, and her two sons, Izaak and Max Rubin. An avid amateur musician, she has been a vocalist in several local rock bands and has composed several classical works for piano, as well as liturgical vocal pieces.


NANCY MASSOTTO, PhD

Nancy Massotto, Holistic Parenting Expert and Executive Director of the Holistic Moms Network, is a dedicated advocate for holistic medicine and green living. She is the mother of two boys, both born at home. Before embarking on her journey into motherhood, Dr. Massotto earned her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Maryland, specializing in gender studies, women's issues, and international affairs. She holds Master's degrees from George Washington University, Elliot School of International Affairs, and the University of Maryland.

Dr. Massotto has lectured at several universities on gender studies, international relations, and women's issues, including at American University and George Washington University. She conducted research on women’s issues while working for non-profit research institutes and organizations in the Washington, D.C. area, including the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) and the Women's Research and Education Institute (WREI), authoring and co-authoring publications during her tenure.

Motherhood renewed her interest in community building and strengthened her commitment to natural living, from which the Holistic Moms Network was born. Dr. Massotto has been a frequent guest on national radio and television programs including the award-winning Real Moms, Real Stories, Real Savvy show on PBS and Newsmakers appearing on CNN Headline News. Dr. Massotto and Holistic Moms have been featured in numerous newspaper stories on holistic parenting including The Washington Post, The Sacramento Bee, Newark Star Ledger, The Bergen Record, Kiwi Magazine, and The Orlando Sentinel, among others.

.


STEPHEN MARINI, PhD, DC

Stephen C. Marini is Adjunct Professor at Life and Northwestern Universities and maintains chiropractic practices in King of Prussia and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Villanova University with a degree in Biology and received a master’s degree in Mircobiology and Immunology from Hahnemann Medical College; a master’s degree in Ethics and Religious Education from LaSalle University; and a Ph.D. in Microbiology from Pacific Western University, completing his dissertation research at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia. He earned a doctor of chiropractic degree from the Pennsylvania College of Chiropractic in 1988.

Dr. Marini was Dean of Basic Sciences and Continuing Education and Professor of Mircrobiology and Immunology at Pennslvania College of Chiropractic. He also worked as Senior Medical Technologist, Blood Bank of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for 18 years. He is a well known lecturer in academic chiropractic on neuroimmunology & patterns of interference, optimum immunity, AIDS and vaccine concepts and controversies.

Dr. Marini is a Board Member and Instructor for the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association (ICPA) and serves on the Board of the American Holistic Association as well as on the editorial board of the Journal of Vertebral Subluxation and the Journal of Pediatric, Maternal and Child Health. He is Contributing Editor of Pathways, a publication of the ICPA.


GARY MATSUMOTO

Gary Matsumoto is an Emmy award-winning investigative reporter based in New York City who has reported from more than 40 countries on five continents, covered two wars and five popular uprisings and won more than two dozen journalism awards. He has been the London Bureau Manager and Chief Foreign Correspondent for “NBC’s Radio News” and National Correspondent for NBC News “Weekend Today Show” and “Weekend Nightly News.” He has published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Vanity Fair and Science magazine.

Matsumoto wrote the only published book on the toxicity of oil (squalene) vaccine adjuvants that are currently under consideration by US federal health and national security officials for inclusion in H1N1 influenza vaccines administered to millions of Americans to prevent swine flu. He co-authored a published 2002 scientific abstract on squalene and autoimmunity with scientists who discovered squalene’s toxic effects in animal experiments conducted at UCLA Medical Center in the mid-1970’s.

Licensed in Europe, but not the United States, both Novartis’ MF-59 and GlaxoSmithKline’s AS03 vaccine adjuvants contain squalene, which has proven toxic when injected into animals. Scientists have induced incurable, crippling autoimmunity in four different species of animals by injecting them with squalene. Examples of human autoimmune disorders which can cripple and kill are rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and multiple sclerosis. In his presentation, Matsumoto will question whether volunteers in H1N1 vaccine trials are being given true informed consent by officials at NIH, Novartis and GSK, who are conducting U.S. clinical trials.


JOE MERCOLA, DO

Joe Mercola is one of the most well known and widely respected physicians in the natural health movement. He has the most visited natural health site in the world (www.Mercola.com) with more than 1.5 million subscribers. He has compiled over 260,000 pages of health information that is freely available to anyone with the use of his search engine and each month more than 14 million pages of information are viewed on his website. This hugely popular site offers concise written and video summaries of the latest research that can have a dramatic powerful influence on helping people achieve optimal health and Dr. Mercola also provides important warnings about government and drug company influences on health.

Dr. Mercola graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and from the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine and completed a residency in family practice at Chicago Osteopathic Hospital. He is conventionally trained as a family physician but his focus the last twenty years has been natural medicine. He has attended hundreds of lectures and read tens of thousands of articles on natural medicine and integrated these disciplines and applied these principles in order to improve the health of many thousands of patients in his suburban Chicago medical practice. His passion is to help transform the fatally flawed medical system that is harming the health and causing the premature deaths of millions around the world.

Public Alerts and Warnings: Dr. Mercola’s website serves as an early warning alarm to alert the public to current threats to health. He issued the first public warning of Vioxx, an anti-inflammatory drug that was pulled off the market after killing 60,000 people. He first warned of this danger before the drug was ever released to the public, a full five years before it was pulled from the market. In May 2009, he was one of the first to widely educate people about the fear mongering misinformation swine flu campaign that the US media was inflicting on the public.

NY Times Best Selling Author: Dr. Mercola has published seven books, two of which were NY Times best sellers. He has been featured in national news media health reports, including CNN, NBC’s “The Today Show,” ABC “World News Tonight,” and on hundreds of national and local TV and radio stations.

Personally Committed to Health and Fitness: Dr. Mercola has been an avid exerciser since 1968 and continues to work out regularly and remain in top physical condition. He has run a 2:50 marathon but has long ago abandoned distance running in favor of anaerobic /interval training combined with strength training, yoga and tennis. He was born and raised in Chicago and continues to oversee his practice and run his website in a new facility located in Hoffman Estates, a northwestern suburb of Chicago.

MATTHEW MCCOY, DC, MPH

Matthew McCoy is presently an Associate Professor of Clinical Sciences at Life University. He was previously the Director of Research, an Instructor within Clinics and the Clinic Proficiency Department and was one of the developers of the Clinical Education Track. He currently teaches courses in Advanced Clinical Case Integration and Research Methods to Senior level students. The co
founder and editor of the Journal of Pediatric, Maternal & Family Health, he is the editor of the Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research and a past editorial board member of Today’s Chiropractic.

Dr. McCoy is actively engaged in research in such areas as health outcomes, pediatric and maternal health, and outcome assessment. He received his undergraduate degree in Organizational Management from Covenant College, a Doctor of Chiropractic from Life College School of Chiropractic in 1989 and a Master of Public Health from Emory University. He has pursued extensive post graduate training in the areas of research, applied chiropractic sciences, spinal adjusting technique, spinal trauma, treatment and rehabilitation. He additionally has post graduate training in magnetic resonance imaging, electroneurodiagnostics, spinal outcome assessment, impairment rating and is a Certified Independent Medical Examiner. Dr. McCoy is a Candidate for Diplomate Status in Applied Chiropractic Science through the International Chiropractors Association.

Actively involved in best practices initiatives, Dr. McCoy was a founding board member of the Council on Chiropractic Practice currently serving as its Vice President, Chairman of the Guidelines Committee and Vice Chair of the Research Committee. He was a chiropractic liason to the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Complimentary and Alternative Medicine. Other professional memberships include: the International Chiropractor's Association, The Council on Applied Chiropractic Science of the ICA, the Georgia Council of Chiropractic, the Academy of Upper Cervical Chiropractic Organizations and the American Public Health Association. Dr. McCoy is on the Board of Directors of the International Spinal Health Institute serving as its President, a member of the Board of Directors of the American College of Addictionology & Compulsive Disorders and is a member of the Post Graduate Faculty of Life University School of Chiropractic.

Dr. McCoy has been in private practice in Kirkland, Washington and is the past owner and Clinical Director for four integrative health care centers in South Florida. He is a consultant for Vostok 1/North Pacific Corporation and The Regional Center for Chiropractic "Spine" involved in developing a chiropractic treatment, teaching & research center in Vladivostok, Russia.

MERYL NASS, MD

Meryl Nass is Board certified in Internal Medicine and practices at Mount Desert Island Hospital in Bar Harbor, Maine where she cares for hospitalized patients and operates a clinic to treat patients with Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Gulf War Syndrome, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and related disorders.

Dr. Nass has studied biological warfare and bioterrorism since 1989. In 1992, she identified the use of anthrax as a biological weapon in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) between 1978 and 1980, during a civil war between the white minority and black majority. She discovered that only areas populated by blacks were affected because Rhodesia was then an apartheid nation and it was possible to confine the effects of the epidemic to areas where only black people lived and worked. At least 182 people were killed and her research concluded that the anthrax outbreak was part of a strategy of low intensity warfare, designed to wreak economic havoc by killing cattle needed for ploughing.

Dr. Nass has also worked to prevent biological warfare by creating ways of investigating suspect epidemics. A report she coauthored was presented to the 1996 international Biological Weapons Convention Review Conference in Geneva. In 1998, Dr. Nass found that the anthrax vaccine being given to hundreds of thousands of military service- members was making many of them sick. Since then she has helped to create public awareness about anthrax vaccine reactions and has provided treatment and support to many anthrax vaccine victims. She has also been a leading voice in pointing out serious flaws in national policy that relies on vaccines as a panacea for the threat of biological warfare. Calling bioterrorism vaccines "A medical Maginot Line," her perspective was included in a 2000 report of the Congressional Committee on Government Reform, Unproven Force Protection.

Dr. Nass volunteers to answer medical questions related to biodefense vaccines, host the website www.anthraxvaccine.org, advocate for better vaccines and drugs for bioterrorism, and writes academic and popular articles on anthrax, bioterrorism and biodefense vaccines. Since 1999, she has testified before Congress three times and written four additional testimonies at the request of 6 Congressional committees: on anthrax vaccine, bioterrorism and Gulf War Syndrome.


GARY NULL, PhD

Gary Null was called “The New Mr. Natural” by Time Magazine. My Generation magazine dubbed him one of the top health gurus in the United States. For over three decades, Gary Null has been one of the foremost advocates of alternative medicine and natural healing. An award-winning journalist and New York Times best-selling author, Dr. Null has written more than 70 books on nutrition, self-empowerment and public health issues, including his most recent, Power Aging. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, Get Healthy Now! and The Encyclopedia of Natural Healing. His syndicated public radio show, Natural Living with Gary Null, earned 21 Silver Microphone Awards and is the longest-running, continuously aired health program in America (27 years). Currently, The Gary Null Show, which is an on-air health forum featuring provocative interviews with special guests, commentary and listener call-ins, can be heard on the Internet at www.garynull.com from 12:00 noon to 1:00 pm EST, on Health Radio Network and on a growing national network of radio stations.

Gary Null holds a Ph.D. in human nutrition and public health science. He was a founder and director of health and nutrition certificate programs at Pratt Institute and The School of Visual Arts. He was also the founder of the National Health Resources Council and the Nutrition Institute of America, where he has also served as a Director of Nutrition. He has been a consistent voice on how to live a longer, more vital life through work that embraces the body, mind and spirit. Gary believes that much of what our society accepts as inevitable markers of aging are actually manifestations of a preventable disease process and his philosophy has influenced countless Americans to achieve a healthier, more fulfilling lifestyle.

Gary has been featured in numerous publications, including The Daily News, Time, People, Fitness, Time Out, and Vegetarian Times and is the recipient of a Truth in Journalism Award for Investigative Reporting and The Human Rights Award from the Citizens Commission on Human Rights. He has published in such journals as The Townsend Letter for Doctors, The Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, and The Journal of Applied Nutrition. As a documentary filmmaker, he has achieved critical acclaim and has produced more than 20 films and videos on health and nutrition topics, including the following award-winning productions: Age Is Only A Number; Overcoming Depression and Anxiety Disorders Naturally (for which he received a coveted Gold CINDY [Cinema In Industry] Award); Deconstructing The Myth of AIDS (winner of the AudienceAward for Best Documentary at both the New York and Los Angeles International Independent Film and Video Festivals); Fatal Fallout (winner of both Best Director and Best Documentary awards at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival) and Drugging of Our Children (Winner of 2005 Best Documentary at World Houston International Film Festival and Key West Indy Fest).

As an athlete, Gary has trained thousands of marathon runners and walkers through his Natural Living Walking and Running Club. He is a TAC Master Champion athlete and twice MAC Track and Field Masters Athlete of the Year. He lives in New York City and Florida.


JEANNE OHM, DC

Jeanne Ohm is founder of Makin’ Miracles…Connecting Kids n’ Chiropractic, a community outreach program offering tools to educate children and adults about the life saving benefits of chiropractic (www.makingmiracles.com). A graduate of Pennsylvania College of Chiropractic, she has been a practicing DC in a family, wellness based practice since 1981 and a post-graduate Instructor for numerous chiropractic colleges, including Cleveland Chiropractic College, Parker College, North Western Health Sciences University, Life University, and Life West.

Dr. Ohm is an international lecturer on chiropractic care in pregnancy and infancy and author of many articles on pregnancy, birth, child health and chiropractic. She produced the educational video “Birth Trauma: A Modern Epidemic” and wrote the children’s song about chiropractic "Power On!" Dr. Ohm’s professional mission is to provide Doctors of Chiropractic with the skills and motivation to support natural birthing and care for pregnant mothers and children. She is committed to educating other practitioners about birth trauma and elimination of damaging effects on the newborn.

Dr. Ohm is a Board of Directors member and executive director for the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association (I.C.P.A. www.icpa4kids.com) and executive editor of Pathways to Family Wellness Magazine (www.pathwaystofamilywellness.org). She also serves on the Board of Directors for The Academy of Chiropractic Family Practice, Holistic Pediatric Association and Families for Conscious Living. She is a Panel Member of Mothering Magazine “Ask the Expert.”

She is married to Dr. Thomas Ohm, Chiropractor. They have six children who have all received chiropractic care since conception. They were all born at home and are living the chiropractic family wellness lifestyle.


DAN OLMSTED
Dan Olmsted has had a long career as a newspaper and magazine reporter and editor. He began working for his hometown newspaper in Danville, Ill., in high school. He graduated from Yale College in 1974 with a degree in English Literature. He was a founding staff member of USA TODAY in 1982, where he worked in both the Life and News Sections, serving as an assistant national editor, and as senior editor of USA WEEKEND Magazine. In 1999 he joined United Press International, where he held a variety of posts including managing editor, Washington Editor and investigations editor. His investigation of the side effects of the anti-malaria drug Lariam won best wire service reporting from the National Mental Health Association.

Since 2007 he has been Editor of Age of Autism – ageofautism.com – the daily Web newspaper of the autism epidemic, which attracts thousands of readers every day and writers as diverse as scientists, parents and people diagnosed with Asperger’s disorder and autism. He lives in Falls Church, Va. The Columbia Journalism Review said he had offered “some of the most enterprising journalistic contributions” to the debate over whether mercury in vaccines contributed to the huge rise in autism diagnoses. He and Mark Blaxill are co-authors of the upcoming book The Age of Autism, to be released in 2010.


PEGGY O'MARA

Peggy O’Mara is the mother of four grown children. She has gained international celebrity as publisher, editor and owner of Mothering Magazine, founded in 1976. She is also the author of four books: Having a Baby Naturally: The Mothering Magazine Guide to Pregnancy and Childbirth, Natural Family Living: The Mothering Magazine Guide to Parenting, The Way Back Home: Essays on Life and Family, and A Quiet Place: Essays on Life and Family.
Peggy has lectured and conducted workshops in conjunction with organizations such as the Omega Institute, Esalen, La Leche International, Hollyhock and Bioneers. She has appeared on numerous television and radio programs and has been featured in national publications including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Mother Earth News, and Utne Reader.

Peggy has received four Maggie Awards for public service from the Western Publication Association, one for vaccine coverage. She is on the board of Commercial Alert, Holistic Moms Network, Attachment Parenting International and Moms Against Mandatory Medications.


LAWRENCE PALEVSKY, MD

Lawrence Palevsky is a board certified pediatrician who received his medical degree from the NYU School of Medicine in 1987. He completed a three year pediatric residency in 1990 at the Mount Sinai Hospital in NYC, and a one year fellowship at Bellevue Hospital-NYU School of Medicine in the pediatric outpatient department and emergency room. In his first full-time job, he treated children as a pediatric attending in the emergency room of Our Lady of Mercy Medical Center in the Bronx, NY from 1991-1995. From January 1994 until June 1996, Dr. Palevsky worked on weekends, covering the private practice of three pediatricians on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

Dr. Palevsky served as the Chief of the Pediatric Acute Care Unit at NYC's Lenox Hill Hospital from 1995-1998. He continued on in the Department of Pediatrics at Lenox Hill until March 2000, when he left to practice as the holistic integrative pediatrician for the Center for Health & Healing, an integrative and complementary care medical facility affiliated with the Beth Israel Medical Center in NYC. Dr. Palevsky remained in practice at the Beth Israel Medical Center
Continuum Center for Health and Healing until October 2002 when he left to take a two year personal sabbatical.

Beginning in February 2005, to the present, he has been practicing at the Northport Wellness Center in Northport, Long Island, and in NYC, NY, offering consultations and educational programs to families who are looking for counseling in preventive and holistic health; nutrition for adults, infants and children; safe alternative treatments for common and difficult to treat acute
and chronic pediatric and adult conditions; vaccination controversies; mindful parenting; and rethinking the current medical paradigm. He provides wellness care and check-ups to families looking for a holistic pediatrician and teaches holistic integrative pediatric & adolescent medicine to parents and medical and allied health professionals both nationally & internationally. Dr. Palevsky’s clinical practice since 1991 includes experience in pediatric emergency and intensive care medicine, in-patient and out-patient pediatric medicine, neonatal intensive care medicine, newborn and delivery room medicine and conventional, holistic and integrative pediatric private practice in NYC.

Dr. Palevsky is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Past-President of the American Holistic Medical Association (www.holisticmedicine.org); co-founder and President of the Holistic Pediatric Association: The Alliance for Family Health and Wellness (www.hpakids.org)); a Diplomate of the American Board of Integrative Holistic Medicine (www.holisticboard.org) ; and a medical advisory board member to the Natural Gourmet Institute in NYC (www.naturalgourmetschool.org); Developmental Delay Resources (www.devdelay.org); Families for Conscious Living, the Holistic Moms Network (www.holisticmoms.org) and the National Vaccine Information Center (www.NVICic.org).

RICHARD PITCAIRN, DVM, PhD

Richard Pitcairn is a holistic veterinarian and an internationally known authority and educator on veterinary homeopathy. He founded and, for more than 20 years, was Director of Animal Natural Health Center, a private practice and teaching clinic in Eugene, Oregon with emphasis on homeopathy and nutrition as treatment modalities. In 2003 he retired from active practice and moved to Sedona, Arizona and established Animal Natural Health Center Education Programs for training veterinarians in the use of homeopathic medicine in their practices. A founding member and first President of the Academy of Veterinary Homeopathy, he is author of the best-selling Dr. Pitcairn’s Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs & Cats and Natural Health for Dog’s & Cats” co-authored with his wife, Susan Pitcairn.

Dr. Pitcairn graduated from veterinary school at the University of California, Davis and received a Ph.D. in veterinary microbiology and immunology from Washington State University (WSU) in 1972, where he specialized in the study of viruses, immunology and biochemistry. At WSU, he was assistant professor on the veterinary school faculty and taught public health and epizootiology to fourth year veterinary students while participating in research projects using tissue culture, virus isolation and assay, and electron microscopy.

In 1992, Dr. Pitcairn began teaching an annual 130 hour post-graduate certification training program in clinical homeopathy for licensed veterinarians. By 2009, Dr. Pitcairn had trained more than 450 animal doctors from around the world to use his holistic approach to keeping animals well.

Dr. Pitcairn has written articles for professional organizations and been featured in The American Homeopath and in journals published by the American Holistic Veterinary Association, the International Foundation for Homeopathy, the National Center for Homeopathy and the International Association for Homeopathy. He has served as President of the International Foundation for Homeopathy and Society for Animal Homeopathy and has given presentations to government and professional panels, including the California Medical Association and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.


LISA REAGAN

Lisa Reagan is co-founder and president of Families for Conscious Living since 2000, a 501C3 nonprofit organization that facilitates a national network of self-directed community groups and learning programs for parents. She is the Associate Editor for Pathways to Family Wellness magazine and the former US Contributing Editor for Kindred magazine. She is the parent representative on the board of directors for the Holistic Pediatric Association. She and her husband of 20 years, Keith, and their son live on Ceo Maidin Feirm, a family-run organic farm in Toano, VA.




SHELLEY REYNOLDS

Shelley Hendrix Reynolds is co-founder and president of Unlocking Autism, a non-profit parent autism advocacy organization founded in 1999. She graduated with a Bachelors of Arts degree from Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA in 1991 with a double major of political science and art history. She currently resides in Baton Rouge, LA with her two children, Liam and Mairin.

When her son, Liam, was diagnosed with autism at the age of two in 1998, Shelley began to work to increase autism awareness. In February of 1999, she co-founded Unlocking Autism with Nancy Cale and Jeana Smith, primarily for the purpose of raising awareness about Autism Spectrum Disorders and their belief that autism is treatable and preventable.

On April 6, 2000, she testified before the United States Congress Government Reform Committee along with a panel of parents with regard to the impact that autism had on her family and discussed her son’s regression into autism after vaccination. In 2005, Spectrum Publications selected her as "Person of the Year" for her work within the autism community and in 2006 Spectrum named her as one of the "Top 10 Faces of Autism".

Over the years, she has been featured in numerous articles in publications throughout the country including USA Today, Atlanta Journal & Constitution, Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington Post, Spectrum Magazine, The Advocate, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, New York Times and New York Daily News. On October 3 1999, she and her family appeared in a segment entitled "A Question of Harm" CNN/Time Magazine's NewsStand as well as CNN's “Talk Back Live” regarding the MMR vaccine, which she maintained contributed to her son’s development of autism in her son. The CNN report aired in 37 countries worldwide and was the first nationally televised piece to feature a connection between vaccines and autism. In 2001, Shelley appeared as a panelist on the “The Montel Williams Show” in a segment focused on vaccines and autism. Author David Kirby features portions of her testimony in his book, Evidence of Harm.

In addition to her work with Unlocking Autism, Shelley currently serves on an advisory panel with the United States Department of Defense Autism Spectrum Disorder Research Program through the Science Applications International Corporation for Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs. She is Director of State Advocacy Relations for Autism Speaks where she is responsible for coordinating state based legislative initiatives. She is a blogger for The Huffington Post, an active member of Healing Place Church and a founding member of the Aquinas League of Baton Rouge.


DAWN RICHARDSON

Dawn Richardson is President and Co-founder of PROVE (Parents Requesting Open Vaccine Education) in Austin, Texas. An activist Mom who has built a statewide parent rights advocacy network, Mrs. Richardson led a highly successful twelve year public information campaign in Texas and in the Texas Legislature to promote awareness about vaccine safety, medical privacy and informed consent issues. Her work has contributed to positive legislative changes, including the passage of a statewide conscientious belief exemption to vaccination, the vacating of a gubernatorial executive order for mandatory HPV vaccines for 6th grade girls, and institution of medical privacy protections in a statewide vaccine tracking system and a newborn DNA storage system.

Dawn graduated with a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Connecticut and her vocational and educational experience in science and computer engineering has helped to shape her leading role in the criticism of mandatory one-size-fits-all vaccine policies and vaccine tracking systems. She has appeared in many media reports in Texas and nationally defending parents’ right to refuse vaccines. Her February 2007 appearance on the NBC “Today Show” calling for the repeal of the Texas Governor's Executive Order mandating Gardasil vaccine for all sixth grade girls was instrumental in raising public awareness in Texas that the Executive Order should be overridden by the legislature.

In her appearances at the Oct. 1 pre-conference evening state organizing session and on Friday evening Oct. 2, Dawn will discuss the growing multi-billion dollar segment of the pharmaceutical industry that is producing vaccines for everything from drug addiction to sexually transmitted diseases, smoking, and even obesity. She will emphasize how imperative it is for Americans to understand the right to informed consent to vaccine risk taking and how to keep elected legislators educated and involved. She will talk about how vaccine safety is taking a backseat to genetic technologies and drug companies are spending millions of dollars lobbying legislatures for stronger vaccine mandates while government-operated computerized vaccine tracking systems will be used to enforce compliance. She will outline what steps you need to take to protect your family now and in the future.


RICK ROLLENS

Rick Rollens, 58, resides with his wife of 32 years, Janna, and their two sons Matthew, 23, and Russell, 18, in Granite Bay, California. Rick is President of Rollens Consulting, a government relations and lobbying company in Sacramento representing clients from the brain injury, autism and developmental disabilities community. He is the Legislative Advisor to Association of Regional Center Agencies (ARCA).

Sixteen years ago when his son Russell was diagnosed with autism, Rick began an unprecedented father's battle to find a cure for his son's disability. Shortly after Russell was diagnosed, Rick became co-founder of Families for Early Autism Treatment (FEAT). Rick established an annual "Autism Treatment Awareness Week" that is proclaimed by the Governor and Legislature each year and FEAT established the “Rick Rollens Research Award,” which is presented each year to an outstanding person in the field of autism and autism research. Rick is also a co-founder of Alliance of California Autism Organizations (ACAO).

Rick is the former Secretary of the California State Senate, a position he held for many of his 24 years of distinguished service to the California State Senate. Prior to his career with the California Senate, Rick served on the staff of Congressman Jerome Waldie in Washington, D.C. With his numerous government and private contacts at the state and federal level, Rick was successful in securing legislation in California to produce the 1999 "California Report," the first state or federal report documenting the alarming increase in autism in the U.S. in recent decades. This ground breaking report, which has had annual updates since 1999, led to funding for the recently released Byrd study examining factors that have been linked to California's autism epidemic.

Rick was one of the co-founders of the U.C. Davis M.I.N.D. Institute, having secured, in 1998, the passage of state legislation creating what has become one of the world’s largest private or public entities dedicated to research and treatment of neurodevelopmental disorders in children. Rick is directly responsible for raising millions of dollars for ongoing funding, from state and private sources, for M.I.N.D., and for autism research.

Rick has testified before Congress and the California legislature on autism as well as vaccine safety and proposed new vaccine mandates. He has participated in NIH Committees setting autism research agendas and spoken at many meetings around the world, including an invitation from the government of Ireland to address the European Union (EU) in 2007 on the U.S. autism epidemic. His son, Russell, was featured on the cover the July 31, 2000 issue of Newsweek, which became the all-time best selling issue of the magazine. Rick has contributed to or been featured in hundreds of media reports, including 60 Minutes, Reader’s Digest, Washington Post, New York Times, and BBC and was featured in the best selling book Evidence of Harm.

Rick is on the board of the M.I.N.D. Institute, Autism Education Network, Autism Coalition for Research and Education, and Unlocking Autism and is a former board member of Cure Autism Now (CAN) and Autism Society of America. He was appointed in 2006 by the California Speaker of the State Assembly to serve on the Blue Ribbon Commission on Autism and recently was appointed by California's Superintendent of Public Instruction to the State Department of Education's Autism Advisory Committee.




STEVEN RUBIN, PhD (Moderator)


Steven M. Rubin is a computer scientist who maintains the online searchable VAERS database, MedAlerts. He has managed this database since 2003 and has worked with the NVIC as a volunteer since 2005.

Dr. Rubin has worked in the computing field for over 40 years, both as a teacher and a researcher. He has taught computer graphics at Carnegie Mellon University and at Stanford University and has worked at Bell Telephone Laboratories, Schlumberger/Fairchild, Apple Computer, and Interval Research. He is currently a Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems Laboratories. The author of "Electric," an open-source program for designing integrated-circuit chips, he also wrote a textbook on chip design software.

Dr. Rubin got his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University (1978) in the field of Artificial Intelligence. His work there included computer image recognition and computer graphics. His youngest son, Max, was autistic and was cured with homeopathy. This sparked his interest in vaccine safety, and it led his wife, Amy Lansky, to write her popular book: Impossible Cure: The Promise of Homeopathy. Dr. Rubin was also the lead singer of "Severe Tire Damage," the first band to perform live on the Internet. He is the father of two children, Izaak and Max.


ALAN SHERR, DC

Alan Sherr graduated from the New York Chiropractic College in 1980 and has been in private practice for the past 28 years in Long Island, New York. He is founder and director of the Northport Wellness Center, a holistic health care practice which takes a “vitalistic” approach to health care and encourages each individual to take responsibility for his or her own physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. Dr. Sherr’s practice is designed to “direct people to the realization that life and healing come from within and that, ultimately, the promotion and maintenance of health is superior to the treatment of disease.”

Dr. Sherr graduated from SUNY-Binghampton with a degree in biology and psychology. He is a past board member and regional director of the Whole Health Institute and the New York Chiropractic Council. He is a member of the International Chiropractic Association and the New York Chiropractic College Alumni Association. His book Heart of the Healer won the Benjamin Franklin Award for the Best New Publication in 1986.

A champion of the philosophy of chiropractic, which emphasizes the uniqueness of each individual and views health as a dynamic process involving the body, mind and heart rather than merely an absence of disease symptoms, Dr. Sherr teaches that each person’s journey toward optimal health and well being is a personal one. In his practice, he cares for healthy children and adults as well as those with chronic illness, musculoskeletal illness, and autism.

In the 1980’s, Dr. Sherr and another petitioner challenged the State of New York’s mandatory vaccination law because the State denied them a religious exemption for their children due to deeply held personal religious beliefs. In the historic case Sherr and Levy v Northport East-Northport Union Free School District, 672 F. Supp. 81 (E.D.N.Y., 1987) the New York high court held that the State cannot deny a religious exemption to vaccination for citizens who hold personal spiritual beliefs opposing vaccination but are not members of a recognized church or religion with a tenet opposing vaccination. This pivotal legal finding clarified the fact that Americans cannot be denied free exercise of religious beliefs regarding vaccination simply because those beliefs are personal and not beliefs held by an organized church or religion


BOB SEARS, MD, FAAP

Robert W. Sears is a board certified pediatrician in private practice with his father, Dr. Bill Sears, in Dana Point, CA. “Dr. Bob”, as his little patients like to call him, received his medical degree in 1995 from Georgetown University and completed his pediatric training at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles in 1998.

Dr. Bob is co-author of six books so far in the Sears Parenting Library, including The Healthiest Kid in the Neighborhood, Father’s First Steps, The Baby Book, The Premature Baby Book, and The Baby Sleep Book. His latest and first solo work, The Vaccine Book – Making the Right Decision for your Child, highlights his passion for providing America’s parents with a fair and objective look at childhood vaccines. He is the chief editor and writer for www.AskDrSears.com and www.TheVaccineBook.com.

Dr. Bob is also co-author of Happy Baby: the Organic Guide to Baby’s First 24 Months and is passionate about combining mainstream medicine with a more natural and holistic approach to pediatric care in his office and his writing. A DAN! Physician, he uses biomedical treatments to help recover children from autism. He is a medical consultant for Happy Baby Organic Baby Food and an Advisory Board Member for Kaplan University Department of Health Sciences. Dr. Bob has appeared on the CBS “Early Show,” “The Ellen Show,” CNN, and the “Dr. Phil Show.”

He is the proud father of three boys, ages 16, 13 and 7. In his spare time Dr. Bob enjoys surfing the California waves, mountain biking, playing bass guitar with his teenage son guitarist, trying to keep up with his youngest son, reading, speaking at parenting conferences throughout the U.S. and is the chief editor and writer for www.AskDrSears.com and www.TheVaccineBook.com.



KIM STAGLIANO

Kim Stagliano is Managing Editor of Age of Autism and mother of three girls with autism. She writes for the blogs Huffington Post and Betty Confidential and is active on Facebook and Twitter. Her debut book will be released Fall 2011. She lives in Connecticut with husband Mark and Mia, Gianna and Bella.








ANDREW WAKEFIELD, MB, BS, FRCS

Andrew Wakefield, MB BS FRCS FRCPath, is an academic Gstroenterologist and founder and executive director of Thoughtful House in Austin, Texas. . He graduated in Medicine from St. Mary's Hospital (part of the University of London) in 1981, pursuing a career in gastrointestinal surgery with a particular interest in inflammatory bowel disease. He qualified as Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1985, and in 1996 was awarded a Wellcome Trust Traveling Fellowship to study small-intestine transplantation in Toronto, Canada.

Discoveries made during his work in Canada led him on return to the UK to pursue the study of inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. In 1998, he and his colleagues at the Royal Free Hospital in London reported a novel inflammatory bowel disease in children with developmental disorders such as autism. The condition later became known as autistic enterocolitis.

Dr. Wakefield resisted international pressure to stop his research on the possible links between childhood immunizations, intestinal inflammation and autism, leaving the Royal Free School of Medicine in 2001. He is involved in many scientific research collaborations in the U.S and abroad, investigations centering on the immunologic, metabolic, and pathologic changes occurring in inflammatory bowel diseases such as autistic enterocolitis, links between intestinal disease and neurologic injury in children, and the possible relationship of these conditions to environmental causes, such as childhood vaccines.

During the course of his work on childhood developmental disorders, Dr. Wakefield was increasingly convinced of the need for a research-oriented, integrated bio-medical and educational approach to these disorders in order to translate clinical benefits for affected
children into measurable developmental progress. His work at Thoughtful House is a fulfillment of that vision. Dr. Wakefield has published more than 135 original scientific articles, book chapters, and invited scientific commentaries. He was awarded the Fellowship of the Royal College of Pathologists in 2001. He is medical advisor to the United Kingdom charity Visceral, and sits on the board of the U.S. charity, Medical Interventions for Autism.


MARK ZAID, JD

Mark S. Zaid specializes in litigation and lobbying on matters relating to international transactions, torts and crimes, national security, foreign sovereign and diplomatic immunity, defamation (plaintiff) and the Freedom of Information/Privacy Acts (FOI/PA). Through his practice Mr. Zaid often represents former/current federal employees, intelligence and military officers, Whistleblowers and others who have grievances or have been wronged by agencies of the United States Government or foreign governments, as well as members of the media.

Mr. Zaid is also the Executive Director and founder of the James Madison Project (www.jamesmadisonproject.org), a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit, with the primary purpose of educating the public on issues relating to intelligence gathering and operations, secrecy policies, national security and government wrongdoing. Mr. Zaid is a former Board member of the Public International Law & Policy Group, a non-profit organization which provides legal advice to newly independent states and states in transition, the International Law Student's Association, which oversees the Jessup International Moot Court Competition, Titanic International, Inc., a world-wide association that focuses on historic ocean liners, and the Arlington Sister City Association, which establishes relationships with foreign cities.

In connection with his legal practice on international and national security matters, Mr. Zaid has testified before, or provided testimony to, a variety of governmental bodies including the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, the House Judiciary Committee, the House Government Operations Committee, the Department of Energy, the Public Interest Declassification Board and the Assassination Records Review Board.

A 1992 graduate of Albany Law School of Union University in New York, where he served as an Associate Editor of the Albany Law Review, he completed his undergraduate education (cum laude) in 1989 at the University of Rochester, New York with honors in Political Science and high honors in History. Mr. Zaid is a member of the Bars of New York State, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, and several federal courts.