>> Alright, let's move to our public comment session.
So let me begin by stating that I want to welcome
and thank all the public comment speakers
for addressing the committee today.
All of the speakers today were selected in advance
of the meeting by a lottery.
The final list of public speak commenters were determined
by that lottery.
Specific comment for the speakers,
we have a limited amount of public comment period and I'd
like you all to please stay within the time limit
that has been recommended for you, that's three minutes.
We'll be displaying a timer that will cycle through your time
on the screen and you can use that to gauge your speech.
And I want to say that when you reach the end of your speech
or three minutes, I will state "Thank you for your comment,
your time has expired."
If you extend yourself another 15 seconds,
I will state "As a courtesy to other speakers,
we ask that you conclude your comment"
and if you are 30 seconds over your allotted time,
I will ask that your microphone be cut and state
"Your comment time has ended.
Thank you very much."
So we'll begin then with our first public commenter
who is Dr. Sears.
And when you come to the microphone,
please state your name and your affiliation.
Dr. Sears.
>> Yes, thank you for having me.
Yes, I'm a board-certified family physician,
been in practice for about three years.
And first off, I just want to thank the committee
for having me and also thank you for your [inaudible],
which has greatly contributed
to the U.S. having an extremely safe vaccine supply so thank you
for your tireless effort.
I want to discuss, as you all know, the FDA is set
to approve the Pfizer SARS-CoV-2 vaccine hopefully early next
week and I just wanted to sort
of encourage all my fellow colleagues in pediatrics
and family medicine who work with kids
of what the critical role children
in this population are going to play in achieving herd immunity
and how important it is for us to communicate
that to the parents of our children.
And keep in mind, children under 15 make up approximately 20%
of the general population in the United States and it's going
to play a critical role, we as clinicians,
in helping to achieve herd immunity
in the fight against SARS-CoV-2.
And as well, I think it's really important that we stay abreast
and up-to-date on things out there and in the social media
about concern the parents have
about long-term effects, infertility effects,
DNA changing, all the things [inaudible].
We need to be able to discuss and address these concerns
with our parents in a thoughtful and encouraging fashion
and be able to alleviate their concerns
as to why these are not issues that they need to be concerned
about but in a way that is understanding toward the parents
and empathetic of their concerns.
And just wanted to again just encourage us all
to know what a critical role we're going
to play amongst this pediatric population, as well as adults,
as well as the general population as well of course.
And finally I just also wanted to address the issue of concerns
of falling behind on the routine schedule during this pandemic.
Just to remind how important it is for us all to remain vigilant
that our patients don't fall behind
on the CDC recommended schedule.
But again, once again, thank you so much for allowing me
to comment and I will leave it at that.
Thank you so much.
>> Hello, my name is Sarah Berry
and I am an independent pro-vaccine advocate
and online I go by the name "42 believer".
In my first public comment,
I talked about how anti-tax lobbyists attempted
to censor my testimony and in my second, I began to touch
on the rampant abuse of autistic children
within the anti-vaccine community.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I must return
to that awful subject as I inform you all about MMS.
MMS stands for Miracle Mineral Solution
and has long-been touted as a cure-all by a cult known
as the Genesis 2 Church of Health and Healing.
Unfortunately, MMS is in fact a type of bleach
and is very dangerous for consumption, obviously.
The leaders of the cult were finally arrested after claiming
that MMS could cure COVID-19 but unfortunately for hundreds
of autistic children that arrest came far too late.
It was through the efforts of Kerri Rivera that the book
"Healing the Symptoms Known
As Autism" was published giving a detailed guide on how
to administer MMS orally, topically and rectally
for the purposes of healing/curing autism.
And it was through my efforts that I was able to get that book
"Healing the Symptoms Known As Autism" banned from sale
from Amazon back in 2019.
It is disturbing to know that this book was for sale at all,
that anti-vaxers seem to not even notice
that such a horrible cure could be touted
within their community.
I have seen Kerri Rivera present several years
at a very well-known autism anti-vax convention called
Autism One.
And even after Kerri Rivera was banned from the State
of Illinois by the attorney general from promoting MMS,
Autism One still brought her back to speak virtually,
kind of getting around the rules so to speak
because even though MMS is bleach
and that is an absolute fact,
people in the anti-vax community are unwilling to grapple
with this concept that this is abuse.
I have actually had to contact Children's Services multiple
times because I truly believe it's a fact that giving MMS
to an autistic child or an autistic adult is abuse,
it's medical abuse, it's neglect, you could even say.
And unfortunately all three of those instances
where I reported the caregiver, none of those ever resulted
in action or removal of the autistic child from that home,
so again, I just need to stress that this is a very large part
of the anti-vaccine community.
It is easier to convince people that anti-vaxers are wrong
if you talk about the side of the community
and until anti-vaxers grapple with this disconnect,
I'm going to continue talking about this problem.
Thank you.
>> Thank you very much for your comments.
>> Forgive us, there's a problem with my mic.
So thank you very much.
I believe that it is the last of our public commenters for now.
We will re-adjourn in 15 minutes.
Thank you.