NY midwife who gave kids homeopathic pellets instead of vaccines fined $300K for falsifying records ( apnews.com )

A New York midwife who gave nearly 1,500 children homeopathic pellets instead of required vaccinations has been fined $300,000, the state’s health department announced this week.

Jeanette Breen, who operates Baldwin Midwifery on Long Island, administered the pellets as an alternative to vaccinations and then falsified their immunization records, the agency said Wednesday.

The scheme, which goes back least to the 2019-2020 school year, involved families throughout the state, but the majority reside on suburban Long Island. In 2019, New York ended a religious exemption to vaccine requirements for schoolchildren.

The health department said immunization records of the children who received the falsified records have been voided, and their families must now prove the students are up-to-date with their required shots or at least in the process of getting them before they can return to school.

ryan213 ,
@ryan213@lemmy.ca avatar

Wow, she avoided jail time!

Nurse_Robot ,

That really sucks

2xsaiko ,
@2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Didn't even lose her license from what it reads like. That's crazy. These kinds of people are dangerous.

EdibleFriend ,
@EdibleFriend@lemmy.world avatar

I swear in the last story it said she lost her license. Still not good enough but yeah.

Bonesince1997 ,

So much pain caused by this person. Forcing all the families to re-do everything. Stupid bitch; should be sitting in jail.

TWeaK ,

Apparently the families came to her to try and get fake vaccines.

Norgur ,

Another comment assuming stuff from the headline alone.

TWeaK ,

I didn't make an assumption based on the headline, I made the assumption based on the statement at the end of the article, which I quoted in another comment.

Erin Clary, a health department spokesperson, said Thursday that while parents and legal guardians had sought out and paid Breen for her services, they weren’t the focus of the agency’s investigation.

It's still maybe an assumption - perhaps there were people who thought they were getting real vaccines, not a homeopathic alternative - but it's what the health department said.

I'm guessing you read that other comment after making this one, as you've since replied to that comment thread. So no worries.

Norgur ,

I agreed with you regarding the comment you replied to.

TWeaK ,

Thanks. I didn't downvote you, you have my respect.

Bonesince1997 ,

Ah. Thank you for the additional information. It wasn't clear from the headline and description, although I probably should have inferred that detail. As well, I did not read the article.

derf82 ,

The families are the ones that sought her out. No sympathy for them. She was helping anti-vaxxers skip the law who previously used a religious exemption.

Bonesince1997 ,

I now understand that. Thank you also for pointing that out. Yeah, they all suck.

TWeaK ,

Isn't that a crime?

Edit:

while parents and legal guardians had sought out and paid Breen for her services, they weren’t the focus of the agency’s investigation.

Ok, that's slightly different. I thought she was giving children fake vaccines without their knowledge. Still incredibly shitty, and it isn't clear but it sounds like she's still allowed to practice as a midwife, just not vaccinate people.

SharkAttak ,
@SharkAttak@kbin.social avatar

Endangering childrens' lives? Yes, I think..

TWeaK ,

Were the kids in any more danger than before they had the vaccine? I don't think so. Obviously they're in more danger than if they'd got the vaccine, and they were required to get the vaccines to attend schools, but that's slightly different. I guess you could argue that the non-vaccinated children were endangering the lives of other children in the school, but really the biggest danger is to the non-vaccinated child.

If there was no deception to the parents, then the biggest crime is falsifying records, which is what she was convicted of.

My bigger issue is that she is still allowed to practice midwifery/nursing, it seems, and her restrictions only prohibit her from administering vaccines (which she wasn't doing) or accessing the vaccine record database. She might be an old hag at the tail end of her career, but the fact that she managed to pay $150,000 suggests that she doesn't desperately need to continue working, and given her offense she shouldn't.

Edit: Apparently she operates (and probably owns) the midwifery clinic. No doubt she has money, apparently enough to pay for a good lawyer. She should have got worse.

Deceptichum ,
@Deceptichum@kbin.social avatar

Yes they were.

Before they make have taken more precautions, afterwards they may have reduced them due to believing to be vaccinated.

Earthwormjim91 ,

The parents went to her specifically for fake vaccines and falsified records.

Both her and all the parents were putting other kids at risk, but this nurse wasn’t putting these specific kids at any more risk than they already had.

Norgur ,

Given the fact that the same parents would have just drawn the religious exemption card up until 2019, the danger to no one actuallyincreased it didn't decrease as it should have. Homeopathy is bullshit and I'm glad another mole providing it has been whacked, but this is not really comparable to ppl switching vaccines with saline or something.

TWeaK ,

the danger to no one actuallyincreased it didn’t decrease as it should have

That's a good way of putting it. The danger was supposed to go down, but it did not because of these assholes.

Earthwormjim91 ,

I would say the risk still did increase for other kids at least some, though it may be relatively negligible.

When there was the religious exemption, the school still knew which kids were and weren’t vaccinated. Not that I expect public schools to be good at epidemiology, but they could contact trace in the case of any sort of outbreaks. When a kid that isn’t vaccinated comes in with a rash on them, you might think of measles and begin to take measures for that like sending a kid home or calling the local CDC. Even if it turns out to just be chickenpox or something else.

By falsifying records and saying the kids are vaccinated when they’re not, it completely throws a wrench into any of that. When they say they’re vaccinated and come in with a rash you don’t think of measles until more kids have gotten it and gotten sick.

Norgur ,

I'd agree to that

TWeaK ,

Before they make have taken more precautions

I think the kind of people who would take homeopathic "vaccines" aren't the kind of people who would have taken precautions anyway, not unless forced to. You could maybe argue that they were endangering children by sending them to school, but really the danger would have been with the non-vaccinated child.

The only really significant new risk would be if a non-vaccinated homeopathic child was around a child who legitimately could not be vaccinated, but that's dependent on specific circumstances.

psud ,

I wasn't able to have my measles vaccine as a baby because I had a fever — from a measles infection

If I had been exposed to measles a month later, I would have been fine, by getting the illness unvaccinated I was at much greater risk. Luckily I suffered no lasting damage.

Every day a child goes without vaccination is a risk

TWeaK ,

Yes but these parents wouldn't have got the measles vaccine either way. We're talking about the increase in risk caused by the person selling fake vaccines, to people who knew they were fakes.

If they didn't get the fake vaccine at all, they still probably wouldn't have got a vaccine. Their kid might not have gone to school, so that would be a slightly lower risk, but they would still be unvaccinated and if they did catch it their illness would have been just as severe.

trash ,
@trash@lemm.ee avatar

I think it only counts if it happens before they are born /s

Witchfire ,
@Witchfire@lemmy.world avatar

That's exactly the type of person Long Island is full of

tsonfeir ,
@tsonfeir@lemm.ee avatar

Just put a lemon on it

Deceptichum ,
@Deceptichum@kbin.social avatar

Homeopathy should be outlawed. Pseudoscience masquerading as healthcare.

mihies ,

There is placebo effect as well, so it might somehow help. But not the way they think and it shouldn't be a substitute for proper medicine.

sjmarf ,
@sjmarf@sh.itjust.works avatar

Not for babies, it won’t

mihies ,

It could to some degree through parents, but most probably not, indeed.

stoly ,

I do think that you're right here. Parents could give a placebo to a child without realizing that it is a placebo, calm down, causing the child to calm down. Children are like dogs and stare directly at the faces of the adults around them to know how they should react to a situation. A calm parent can make a calm child.

derpgon ,

Actually, it does. A friend of mine uses homeopathic anal suppositories for his almost 1 y/o and it almost always calms her down.

Guess having stuff shoved up your butt doesn't need natural language to be understood lol.

derf82 ,

Probably more like “I better shut up, or mom will shove more stuff up my butt.”

stoly ,

You forgot the most important rule of humanity: everything is normal to a child. That child thinks that all kids get pills shoved up their asses every night and doesn't think anything of it.

JoBo ,

That's child abuse. But it's also an example of how strong beliefs in homeopathy can arise. With fluctuating conditions, people often seek a solution when symptoms (or the child's cries) are at their worst. When they get better soon after, it creates an illusion of effectiveness.

A similar illusion is at work with the MMR vaccine. Autism becomes diagnosable at around the same age as the first shot is given, creating a powerful impression that the two events are connected.

It's why we have randomised controlled trials. With no control arm for comparison, your friend has concluded that abusing their child is somehow useful.

derpgon ,

I myself am note sure whether they are any useful or effective, to each of their own. It's not like I can talk him out of it. I wouldn't spend a dime on any homeopathic at all.

derf82 ,

The placebo effect isn’t stopping measles or polio.

Empricorn ,

Placebo is a real peer-reviewed thing and a powerful tool in the right hands. But it has to be authorized and prescribed by a real doctor who knows what they're doing...

stoly ,

At its roots, it's like PETA--originally started out by nice people who wanted people to be nice to animals. Over time, the whackadoos took over and now they are a hateful org.

Homeopathy had its origins in treating the whole person and not just the disease, but was quickly taken over by quacks and placebo salespeople.

Gumus ,

Homeopathy was developed and thriving in an era when "do nothing" was better for the patient than contemporary accepted treatments.

LillyPip ,
@LillyPip@lemmy.ca avatar

Homeopathy had its origins in treating the whole person and not just the disease

That’s actually holistic medicine, not homeopathy. Homeopathy was invented in the late 1700s as an evolution of the medieval belief in humours.

Homeopathy’s premise is that ‘like cures like’ (a substance that causes symptoms in healthy people can cure them in sick people), coupled with a belief that water has a spiritual memory that can be unlocked by ritually diluting and shaking until no molecules of the active ingredient remain. Common dilutions are 1:10^60 or higher.

Here’s a great write-up on what it is and how it began from the National Library of Medicine.

It’s commonly mistaken for holistic medicine, but it’s a very different (and potentially dangerous) thing.

stoly ,

Thank you.

Drusas ,

If any of these kids die[d] of Covid, she should be held liable.

Norgur ,

I think you misread what's happening. The parents actively sought her out for this service and Covid wasn't part of the "immunization" scheme she offered.

monkeyslikebananas2 ,

So her and the parents then.

trash ,
@trash@lemm.ee avatar

Absolutely. Negligent parents should be held accountable.

psud ,

COVID is tame compared to the diseases we immunize against.

Drusas ,
  1. No, not if you're looking at all of them.
  2. Even if that were true, so what?
xePBMg9 ,

That should be 300k per kid.

SeaJ ,

She paid $150k and promised not to deal with medication anymore.

Legendsofanus ,
@Legendsofanus@lemmy.world avatar

Why would someone do this? Do they feel like a rebellious hero?

TwinTusks ,
@TwinTusks@bitforged.space avatar

They would feel like they are saving the children from the evil government that try to give dangerous drugs to kids.

Legendsofanus ,
@Legendsofanus@lemmy.world avatar

Is there any way to stop this kind of thinking in old people?

funkless_eck ,

be the us government in the last 100 years and don't ... deliberately infect people with syphilis (Tuskagee), deliberately test lead paint on their children (JH-KKI), test chemical weapons on them (Whitecoat), enact compulsory sterilization (Buck v Bell), adding spinal taps to kids (Wentworth), replace prison inmates testicles with dead men's/animal testicles (San Quentin), or give them malaria (Stateville) or spray them with pesticides until they get lupus, brain issues or their skin is forever damaged (Holmesberg) spray an entire US city (San Francisco) with pneumonia-inducing bacteria (Seaspray), give a school class hepetits (Willowbrook), try to give the entire state of Georgia malaria (Operation Big Buzz), hire sex workers to give out their services for free and then inject people with experimental drugs and LSD (Midnight Climax), deliberately put mental health patients into months-long medical-induced comas, then wake them into them wearing a blacked out helmet where they can't see or hear but are played a loop saying "You are a good person" while physically restrained, being randomly electrocuted and fed a cocktail of drugs... for weeks or months without rest, causing the patients to end up completely incapable of normal human function afterwards (MKULTRA Sub-proj 68)...

probably some of that eroded some trust among the general populace (not an anti vaxxer btw but wanted to add some context that some concerns aren't totally unfounded)

Devorlon ,
@Devorlon@lemmy.zip avatar

Because Anti-vaxxers don't exist in other countries...

It's more that people are distrustful of large organisations in general (governments, business, religion). There's a rightful suspicion of faceless entities, and I don't think that can be "fixed".

stoly ,

They didn't think that way when they got old, they always felt that way then got old.

hemko ,

Or they got paid under the table for faked vaccine records by nutcase parents

stoly ,

They are in it for the politics and religious belief. Really, this is "You're not my mom and you can't make me", but spoken by adults.

Rooter ,

No jail time? That's disappointing.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

"My six-year-old needs to be protected from a deadly disease but I don't trust vaccines. I know! I'll call a midwife!"

She is awful and deserves prison time, not just a fine, but the parents are also fucking stupid.

Snapz ,

The importantance of vaccines are "I need to do my part to protect OTHER kids AND adults from deadly disease"

That's the biggest part of this problem though, it's not "my six year old" on the table here - it's everyone's six year old. I have a responsibility to understand that.

If we can't understand the above, then we don't live in a functioning society.

lagomorphlecture ,

Unfortunately at this point we actually don't live in a functioning society.

mojofrododojo ,

we don’t live in a functioning society.

beginning to suspect this is right.... still wearing my mask in crowded spaces, still watching 1000s die weekly from covid, no one seems to fucking care.... 1712 died last week.

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_weeklydeaths_select_00

Texas_Hangover ,

That sounds awfully similar to deaths from the flu every year, why didn't everybody flip out and wrap their faces in panty liners before big scary covid came along and petrified the sheep? I'm old enough to remember all the terrifying "pandemics" that the media tried to scare everybody with every 5 or 12 years or so. Covid is the one that stuck.

mojofrododojo ,

That sounds awfully similar to deaths from the flu every year,

If it does, it's only because you're profoundly stupid. They aren't the same. Millions died from Covid, 1.2million in the US alone - Stop acting like it's just a few randos.....

scare everyone? Scare everyone into what? How fucking weak are you that wearing a mask is too much? what a child

panty liner? jesus you really are a 5 year old.

Snapz ,

Everyone knows you're afraid when they read your impotent posturing here.

You're trying so hard to get your Darwin award, and because you're still here, I guess we'll just add this latest one to the long list of failures in your life. You probably don't admit it to anyone except yourself when it's dark at night, but you know, as strongly as you know anything, that when you leave a room people laugh at you - lightly at first and then they just stop as they become overwhelmed with pity for the shell of a person you are.

Just yelling at the sky trying to prove you're the bravest coward, and fooling nobody.

mojofrododojo ,

eloquent retort.

THE_ANON ,

Yeah she should get prison and they should follow up with the kids who is unvaccinated because of her and see if they are suffering from anything due to lack of vaccine and increase the time.

AngryCommieKender ,

I suspect that she selected her midwifery clients based on their views about vaccines.

mojofrododojo ,

I wouldn't be surprised if her patient's parents knew she was pencil whipping these vaccinations, otherwise she'd be in jail or being sued by the families.

ILikeBoobies ,

Yeah, if the parents knew what was going on then they should lose custody

girlfreddy ,
@girlfreddy@lemmy.ca avatar

Authorities never looked into whether or not the parents/guardians were aware of it, so they get off scott free here.

Erin Clary, a health department spokesperson, said Thursday that while parents and legal guardians had sought out and paid Breen for her services, they weren’t the focus of the agency’s investigation.

GilgameshCatBeard ,

Why is she not in prison for life?

stoly ,

I'm amazed that vaccines are part of a midwife's role.

doctorcrimson ,

I looked it up and while it doesn't have a specific number of credits to be a licensed midwife in the state of New York, they do require you complete a Midwifery Course and require at least some Nutrition and Pharmacology credits as well as a comprehensive examination. The lowest number of credits I could find for Midwifery was 88 which is a lot less than an average bachelor's degree, but some higher level courses required RN status to complete. It appears the term is synonymous with Nurse in a lot of contexts so at first I thought it might be a difference in dialect, but upon closer inspection many midwife organizations appear holistic in nature, as in "spiritualism."

I really hate people who actively harm others based on their spiritual beliefs. The world would be better if she spent her life in prison, not just fined.

stoly ,

Thanks for the research.

mojofrododojo ,

they're simply trying to increase the number of opportunities to vaccinate.

stoly ,

That makes a great deal of sense.

mojofrododojo ,

totally, and generally is effective until you run into fuckwits like this lady. We had awesome, science-based midwives to help our delivery and it went great. Some states like WA license both at the state level and require other education / certs.

ExfilBravo ,

Wait until she needs a doctor and then send her to a clown doctor instead. So she knows how it feels.

0Xero0 , (edited )
@0Xero0@lemmy.world avatar

For some reason I read "midwife" as "wildlife" and was confused as shit.

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