Dear Justine,
This experience, from the first time we spoke to the time your employer (Tampa Bay Times or TBT) released your story, “Measles cases are on the rise, but some Tampa Bay parents won’t vaccinate their kids” (as titled on TBT Facebook post on June 13th, 2019) and “Anti-vaxxers pick fringe over syringe” (as titled on the front page of TBT newspaper on June 16th, 2019) has taught me an invaluable lesson.
I want you to know that I took it to heart when you asked if I would help you write an article that would, “fairly represent both sides of the vaccine controversy…finally giving a voice to people who choose to opt out of vaccines”. The desperation in your voice as you teared up convinced me that you had a passion and a genuine motive to shed light on the side of the controversy that is often censored by popular news and social media.
After many hours of having you in my home, my practice and among my friends, it is incredulous that you omitted my honest and logical reasons, my spiritual/religious beliefs and the scientific evidence supporting my decision to opt out of vaccines. It is very sad that your article never captured any of those points, but rather cherry-picked information and carefully crafted it into a flowery story in an attempt to paint me as an uneducated quack. As quickly as I read the titles, it was clear to me that your goal was disingenuous.
From the big picture to the small details, TBT missed the real story. I’m still trying to figure out why you changed my daughter’s age by 2 years, changed the details of my business, changed what I said about McDonald’s to make me appear judgmental, changed the vaccine details about my children and inserted a comment to make me appear transphobic when we both know I was simply describing a study I came across as we spoke about aborted fetal cells in vaccines. These are only a few of the many misconstructed details. I find it bewildering that, despite me going over details of my son being officially diagnosed with autism by more than one medical doctor, your story still insisted that I diagnosed him myself. How is a story with such big lies and overstuffed with inaccurate details published? How is it legal that I was misquoted throughout and many of the details you shared completely false?
In spite of the story’s attempt to suggest that only ignorant people and quacks choose to opt out, the reality is that there are many types of people opting out of vaccines. These people include medical doctors, all types of practitioners, pediatricians of all kinds, nurses, farmers, teachers, engineers, cops, artists, successful entrepreneurs, and yes, even journalists. Many of these people trusted vaccines to start with and learned the hard way about the risks. Instead of being fearful of these people and their children, I recommend searching for the truth. You might learn that some outbreaks are actually caused by those who are vaccinated with live vaccines who spread and shed those live viruses into our communities while propaganda blames the unvaccinated for the outbreaks. Your mentioning that those who think like me are getting their information from “misinformation and fringed sources” is an opinion, not a fact and I hope readers do the research for themselves.
I am afraid you’ve fallen into a career of pseudo-journalism. It is a common product that results when big funders with big agendas inject news sources with money. Doing this suppresses the truth. Since interviewing with you was actually months ago, I do find it ironic that this obvious attempt to discredit me and those who share my views was just now published, perfectly aligned with politicians and government strongly pushing for 100% vaccination.
I wish you well, that you find a way to be brave enough to become noble to your craft despite my observations that you are likely paid to be a driver that steers public opinions right into the platforms of the politically charged agendas. I find it interesting that you said TBT is completely unbiased, but a quick search shows that TBT is owned by Times Publishing Company which is owned by the Poynter Institute, whose top funders happen to be billionaire, George Soros, and the Charles Koch Foundation. Soros donated $32 Billion to his “Open Society Foundations” that has well known political motives. Soros and the Koch Brothers recently team up to fight “online extremism”. Isn’t the purpose of this fight essentially to censor groups and individuals that have unpopular opinions like mine? Could this be the grounds from which a hidden bias is seeded? It doesn’t take a journalist to find the truth, but you and your readers should know how you are paid by studying the cash flow of TBT.
If a company created injections for babies and children that may or may not work in preventing a disease, including destructive toxins that would be introduced to the bloodstream without the help of any body filter and told you that your child might have side effects like not being able to reproduce some day (see vaccine insert) but, also washed their hands of any liability, would you take the chance by trusting blindly or do some research? Where there is risk, there must also be choice. People should not be governed by fear mongering and fictional stories that motivate readers to bully by triggering angry comments and setting a stage for outrage and potential violence.
With the abundant love and support of my family and friends, I plan to continue to help others and share my real story so that parents make the proper considerations instead of blindly trusting that the next injection for their family is completely safe. Parents can be left with a lifetime of regrets upon vaccinating because the effects of the ingredients can be compounding and cumulative. None are risk-free. My wish is for people to find the truth, wake up and recognize the real issues here.
May the most honest people receive the most light to shine on the truth,
England Miano