learning from these speakers and witnessing improvements (and, in some instances, recovery of children on the spectrum), I thought surely, the world would catch on to what the DAN! community of parents, physicians, and researchers had discovered. Looking back, I see how naïve and wrong I was. Instead of embracing the approach to identify and treat underlying causes, the pharma-funded, profit-driven propaganda machine created a new narrative. This carefully constructed narrative emphasized accepting autism as the new normal and demanded that parents and doctors no longer seek out or question underlying causes. The result: instead of 2 per 10,000 children with autism, as in the 1990s, the numbers have climbed to 1 in 36 children, the most recent data from the CDC.
Given my personal and professional experiences, my belief in natural approaches to health, and after ten years of organizing these conferences - what was I left to do? I had to focus all my efforts on prevention. To that end, I co-founded Saving Our Kids, Healing Our Planet, a large activity-filled, interactive educational forum with healthy food and supplement vendors, and speakers for parents, teachers, physicians, and children. I poured everything into this new venture, but I quickly learned that prevention was a tough pill for people to swallow. Changing diets, finding affordable holistic practitioners, and implementing lifestyle changes before getting sick were, in most cases, too high-a-price to pay to minimize the chances of a child developing autism or other chronic childhood disorders. Besides, the medical or health world was not enforcing this preventive concept.
While these events produced a low turnout and a high financial loss, my personal life was uplifted as my kids and step-children began producing beautiful, healthy grandchildren. Starting in 2004 and ending in 2022, I now have 12 grandchildren.
Grandmotherhood took me to another level of reflection, mainly because I no longer had a lifetime ahead of me. I’ve heard a rumor that some people slow down as they age. I hear the word retirement is something I should consider. However, becoming a grandmother sparked a stronger warrior or defender of the child- like spirit in me, culminating in a few trips to Washington, DC, to meet with congressional leaders and senators to discuss the ever-escalating health problems our children were experiencing. On a few of these occasions, I had the great privilege of accompanying Robert Kennedy Jr., Del Bigtree, and other amazing activists to these meetings. Unfortunately, no matter how articulate or well-prepared our presentations were, our pleas to address the dire statistics were often met with blank stares. It became crystal clear — politicians didn’t care what was happening to our kids.
After these disappointing but eye-opening experiences in DC, I was divinely inspired to pull myself up by my bootstraps, dust off my conference organizing hat, and contact many of the thought leaders I had worked with for years in the health, freedom, and vaccine risk movement (as well as a few newly emerging leaders). I brought them together to discuss ways to build our strength and impact as a movement. Over 50 thought leaders came to the mountains of NC for a 3-day summit. We made progress, built bridges, and Millions Against Medical Mandates was formed as an overarching inclusive umbrella organization to keep the collaboration concept active. Little did we know when we met in May of 2019 how much we would need each other as the COVID debacle was just around the corner.
During this new phase of my career as the founder and director of MAMM, I had a health scare that took me to my knees. After months of grappling with fear (mainly over the pressure to enter the “sick care” system dominated by the pharmaceutical industry I so adamantly opposed), I emerged stronger, healthier, and more resolved to continue my work of building collaboration, with the help of my incredible husband, my family, and many dear friends.
This dark night of the soul experience better prepared me to enter the COVID insanity without falling prey to the strategically-designed fear-mongering that had permeated the world. As a result of this newfound strength and the opportunity to work with many first-class physicians, attorneys, journalists, and activist volunteers, MAMM took on the mission of cutting through the propaganda and BS the world was being influenced by and instead speak truth to power. MAMM put out dozens of articles, videos, and toolkits focused on strategies for staying well amid all the misinformation the public health system and so-called experts were throwing at us.
The beauty of MAMM is that we gather great minds to discuss what is needed to help educate, equip, and empower the moveable middle, and then we make it happen. We share everything with our associated allies and affiliated organizations. Everything we create is open access. We collaborate with other organizations like Children’s Health Defense, Health Choice, America Media Periscope, Autism Action Network, Age of Autism, etc. to accomplish our goals. When MAMM was named one of the top 5 organizations spreading misinformation (along with Mercola.com, Del Bigtree’s ICAN, NVIC, and CHD), I knew we were doing our job of getting our messages out beyond the censorship and delivering the Truth to Millions around the world.
COVID has taught us all so much – such as who your friends really are, what is important in life, why and how to believe in and support your God-given immune system, why it’s crucial to listen to your common sense and use your critical thinking skills and to follow through when you receive Divine inspiration.
In December 2022, I received a beautiful honor from the Zelenko Foundation. Along with my colleagues Dr. Christiane Northrup, Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, Dr. Judy Mikovits, and Barbara Loe Fisher (the cofounder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center), we were acknowledged for being the Grandmothers of the Vaccine Risk Awareness Movement and for being some of the first warriors on the scene.