Fairfax County Police Watch: Well let' see, we have weasel and a thief on the Board of Supervisors so I suppose this guy will fit right in

Fairfax County School Board Member, County Board

Candidate Co-Founder of Quack, Anti-Vaxxer Group

by: lowkell

Fri Apr 10, 2015 at 17:30:00 PM EDT

WHY HASN'T THE LOCAL MEDIA REPORTED ANY OF THIS?

The race to succeed Gerry Hyland (D) as Fairfax County Supervisor from the Mt. Vernon magisterial district is off and running, and there are four Democrats in the field. I don't support anyone in this race as of yet (and may never), but I've started looking into the candidates, one of whom is Fairfax County School Board member Dan Storck. According to Storck's website, he is "Co-Founder and Managing Member, National Integrated Health Associates." What is National Integrated Health Associates, you ask? I had never heard of it before (and barely knew a thing about its "co-founder and managing member," Dan Storck), so I checked its website. Here's what I found.

*The company claims to be "leaders in holistic integrative medicine and biological dentistry." Sounds innocuous enough, but start poking around the website, and you quickly get a different impression.

*In fact, these folks are vociferous "anti-vaxxers," who among other things tie vaccination to autism. See their page on vaccinations for more on this dangerous pseudo-science. Note that, according to the Centers for Disease Control, "There is no link between vaccines and autism." Period. Also, just for emphasis, "Vaccine ingredients do not cause autism."

*Despite the overwhelming benefit to humanity of vaccines, and the pandemics that would occur (which would kill untold numbers of people) if we stopped vaccinating people, the National Integrated Health Associates website states, "We support the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) effort and their accumulated expertise and information about vaccinations - the risks and benefits of vaccinations."

*The "National Vaccine Information Center," as this article in Slate explains:

...is a group that has an official-sounding name, one that might make you think their message is trustworthy.

Except, not so much. Or at all. Or really just the opposite.

NVIC is an antivax group, plain and simple. Despite hugely overwhelming tsunami-level amounts of evidence showing no link between vaccines and autism, they still think there is one. They go on and on about "vaccine injuries", yet actual severe side effects from vaccines are very rare, especially when you realize that many millions of vaccines are given every year. The NVIC relies on anecdotes of injuries as evidence, but that's very dangerous thinking. Stories and personal observations are a good place to start-it's how you might notice a connection between two things-but it's not where you end. You must apply rigorous testing to your ideas, so that you can make sure you're not seeing a connection where none exists.

Not good.

*Even worse: on the National Integrated Health Associates website, there's a page of links to all kinds of dangerous, pseudo-scientific nonsense. For instance, a document entitled "Seeking to understand: ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder)" argues absurdly that "only you can be your child's best doctor." No, sorry, that's what all those years of Medical School are for, and why we go to the doctor for diagnosis and treatment, not to Dr. Mom or Dr. Dad.

*The National Integrated Health Associates website further claims, outrageously: "welfare moms and school systems get extra money for medicating their kids - what a system!" Whoa -- "welfare moms?" The whole vaccination thing is a way for school systems and "welfare moms" to get money? Is this a bad joke?

*The website also asserts, completely falsely, that "Autism, ADHD, allergies and asthma (4 A's) and all the other brain disorders are due to neuro-immune dys-function due to too much neurotoxins and the inability of the child to adequately detox or remove these harmful toxins." It explicitly blames, again completely falsely, the "rapid rise in the vaccination schedules for infants in the last 30 years" for everything from autism to allergies to "leaky gut" to "Lyme, Candida, Herpes virus, Strep, staph, tetanus botulinum, mycotoxins from mold and others." Alrighty then...

*One of the National Integrated Health Associates' doctors was disciplined by the Maryland State Board of Physicians for having "incompetently managed 12 significantly ill patients." This same doctor previously had been "convicted and sentenced to two years' probation for marketing an unapproved medical device in interstate commerce." In addition, he "signed a consent agreement with the Maryland board under which he admitted to practicing medicine without a license and would pay a $15,000 fine." Oh, and New York State suspended this guy's license for basically being a total quack, practicing something called "orthomolecular medicine," which his website claimed (falsely) were "effective against ADD & ADHD; aging and longevity; alcohol and drug problems; allergies; Alzheimer's; arthritis; asthma; immune and autoimmune disorders; cancer; chronic cardiovascular problems and risk factor screening; chronic fatigue; chronic illness; chronic pain; depression; detoxification; diabetes; fibromyalgia; heart and vascular disease; heavy metal toxicity; hormonal problems; intestinal problems; lifestyle health issues; men's health problems; mental health problems; migraine; neurological disorders; osteoporosis; Parkinson's disease; sinusitis; smoking; sports nutritional medicine; and women's health problem." Craaaazy stuff.

We could go on all day here, but the bottom line is clear: the National Integrated Health Associates, co-founded and managed by Fairfax County School Board member (and current County Board candidate) Dan Storck, is a quack organization which strongly promotes dangerous "anti-vaxxer" pseudoscience. Why "dangerous?" Because, obviously, failure to vaccinate children makes not just the unvaccinated children more vulnerable to potentially life-threatening diseases, but also other people (e.g., older people whose immunity might be compromised for whatever reason) as well. As this article puts it: "An epidemic of vaccination skepticism - largely based on unfounded and discredited anti-vaccine beliefs - has contributed to the growing public health crisis."

So here's the thing: Dan Storck is entitled to whatever beliefs he wants to hold, but for a member of the school board in Virginia's largest county to be peddling this dangerous, anti-vaccination pseudoscience seems to be relevant information that parents and voters might want to be aware of. In talking to people yesterday and today, what I'm hearing is that the public has NOT been aware of Dan Storck's anti-vaccination views. Perhaps if they had known, they might have reelected him anyway, but the issue apparently never came up, so we'll never know.

Anyway, now Storck's seeking a promotion to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, and it seems like voters should have this information before they go to the polls this June to select their Democratic nominee (Storck or one of the other Democratic candidates - Tim Sargeant, Jack Dobbyn and Candice Bennett) for this position. At that time, voters can make an informed decision as to who they want representing them on the Fairfax County Board, possibly for many years to come...

P.S. Also note that Storck's company believes herbs can cure Lyme Disease, that fluoridated water is heinous, that mandatory vaccines may violate your civil liberties, that wearing a bra or putting on deoderant can cause breast cancer, that kids with cancer shouldn't get chemotherapy, that women shouldn't get mammograms because they are worthless (they link to this article), that measles is "transmitted by the vaccinated," and...ok, I think you get the idea.

Morrogh finds cop he doesn’t love. In other news, hell freezes.

Probe of fatal police shooting goes to federal authorities

By Justin Jouvenal/Post

The Fairfax County prosecutor has turned over the investigation of a fatal police shooting of an unarmed Springfield man to federal authorities, citing complications with the five-month-old case.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia has agreed to continue the probe into the death of 46-year-old John Geer, who was shot during a standoff with Fairfax County police in August. No one has been charged in the incident.

“There is a conflict of interest that has arisen in the case,” Morrogh said Thursday. “And there is a second potential conflict of interest that has arisen out of my office. . . . This is the prudent thing to do.”

Morrogh declined to describe the nature of the conflicts because the investigation is ongoing. The U.S. attorney’s office said Thursday that it could not confirm or deny any investigation or comment on pending investigations.

Police went to Geer’s Pebble Brook Court home on Aug. 29 because of a report of a domestic disturbance. Geer’s father, Don Geer, said his son was upset because his girlfriend, the mother of his two children, had decided to leave him.

John Geer had thrown his girlfriend’s belongings in the front yard. She called police and told them that Geer had a firearm. Police said they tried for about 50 minutes to persuade Geer to leave the home, but he refused.

Don Geer said he watched the climax of the encounter. He said that he could not hear what officers were saying to his son but that he saw him standing with empty hands resting on top of a screen door at the home’s entrance.

At some point, John Geer began to slowly lower his hands and an officer opened fire, hitting Geer in the chest, his father said. Geer retreated inside and closed the door. A SWAT team eventually entered the home and found Geer dead.

Don Geer said detectives later told him that his son did not have a gun on him at the time of the shooting but that there was a holstered handgun a couple of steps from the front door.

Don Geer said it appeared to him that the shooting was unjustified, but he was unsure what to make of the probe being turned over to federal authorities.

“I don’t know whether that’s good or bad — if I had a better idea of why they are doing it, I could form an opinion,” he said.

Geer and friends of his son have been critical of how long the investigation has taken, but Morrogh said police and prosecutors were working to explore all the evidence. He did not think federal prosecutors would have to start from scratch.

“No one wants these things to linger on,” Morrogh said.

Our ink will outlast his career

Under the reign of former Chief of Police Rhorer the Fairfax County Police arrested a man for not wearing clothes in his house while he made coffee, set up an eye doctor on a gambling charge and then used the SWAT team to kill him. An investigation into the charge that the Doctor’s primary clients were cops has never been investigated. The police gunned down an emotionally unstable man because cop who shot him wrongly assumed the man was trying to escape. He wasn’t. The cops also shot dead four other citizens under highly questionable circumstances. The department under Rhorer was sued multiple times by citizens. So did they fire Rhorer? Naw they promoted him. According to news reports Rhorer draws a salary of $191,168 per year as Deputy Fairfax County Executive as well as a concurrent pension from the Fairfax County police of $173000 per year.

Occupation by force

According to the most recent U.S. Census figures, nearly one in five Fairfax residents (17.5 percent) is of Asian descent while Hispanics make up nearly 16 percent of Fairfax’s overall population. Those numbers drop considerably when applied to the Fairfax County Police Department, where only 4.3 percent of officers are Asian and 4.1 percent Hispanic. White officers make up 84 percent of Fairfax County’s 1,360-member police department, significantly higher than the county’s general population (54 percent white). Almost 90% of the force lives outside the county.