Epidemic Answers is an anti-vaccine organization formed by Beth Lambert, who bills herself as a former healthcare consultant and teacher – she appears to have no formal medical training, and has evidently no understanding of basic medicine. Epidemic Answers is known for their “documentary” Canary Kids: A Film For Our Children, an antivaccine conspiracy flick (discussed in detail here) announced in 2013 (but as far as we know not released yet) that “shows how all children in this country are a part of the autism epidemic.”
Wait, what? Oh, yes – according to the film vaccines are not only to blame for every chronic health problem children experience (including, it seems, those suffered by the non-vaccinated), it will also introduce a new diagnosis, “almost autism,” that encompasses basically everything, allowing any parent viewing the movie to conclude that their kids are “almost autistic” and therefore vaccine damaged. The produsers have been very clear that the movie is about marketing and rebranding: “What is going to make someone come out to see Canary Kids? … For too long, people not directly affected by autism have looked the other way, because they can’t relate to autism. They don’t know what it is, they don’t see how it impacts them. They may not come out to see a film about autism, but they will come out to see a film about their kids. Most people don’t understand that the asthma epidemic is directly related to the autism epidemic or that the obesity epidemic is related to the autism epidemic. They don’t yet see that the same environmental factors (pharmaceuticals, vaccines, toxins, diet, etc.) that cause symptoms of autism in one child are the very same environmental factors that cause symptoms of asthma in another.” Yes. No.
For the documentary, Lambert is apparently going to take seven children with “with a diagnosis of autism, ADHD, asthma, chronic Lyme or some other amalgamation of chronic (environmentally-derived) symptoms” and subject them to a whole range of autism biomed quackery, including “detoxification” and “supplementation” treatment in order to “heal” them. In other words, the movie seems to be more about selling autism quackery to a broader audience than the relatively few parents of autistic kids who are already into quackery, by making an infomercial consisting of a series of judiciously selected testimonials.
Lambert is also the author of the book A Compromised Generation: The Epidemic of Chronic Illness in America’s Children (with one Vicki Kobliner who runs a company, Holcare Nutrition, that touts “gluten-free, dairy free, low allergen, GFCF, SCD, GAPS, FODMAPS, and other appropriate diets” to treat a whole host of conditions that cannot be treated that way, and who is into functional medicine, which is among the most ridiculous types of crazy woo out there.)
Apparently Lambert herself has a child with “almost autism,” who had sensory, skin, allergies, and behavioral issues. Apparently, her pediatrician didn’t agree and said her child was fine and developing on-target, so Lambert took the child to a “Defeat Autism Now!” (DAN!) quack, who unsurprisingly found plenty of things wrong that Lambert could treat with expensive and invasive quackery.
Diagnosis: Not only an antivaxx fanatic, but one of those who apparently uses antivaxx conspiracies as a platform to promote quackery, woo and snakeoil – the kind that’s not only expensive, but which has the potential to really harm people. A horrible person.