The Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity to Depose Stanley Plotkin

How I came to depose the "Godfather of Vaccines"

The following is an excerpt from Chapter 1 of my book Vaccines, Amen:

The story of how I came to depose Dr. Plotkin began on November 29, 2017. On that fateful day for Dr. Plotkin, I was killing time at a coffee shop on the Upper East Side, having arrived early for a meeting in a nearby building.

My cellphone rang. A doctor I knew, Toni Bark, MD, was calling to tell me that there was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to depose Dr. Plotkin. She explained she was the expert witness in a family law case in which a mother wanted to keep her daughter unvaccinated, and that Dr. Plotkin had appeared as the expert witness for the father who wanted to start vaccinating the child. Dr. Bark wanted to know if I would take Dr. Plotkin’s deposition.

It took a few seconds for it to sink in that we were talking about the Stanley Plotkin. The literal namesake of the medical textbook on vaccines—titled Plotkin’s Vaccines—and the gavel used at CDC’s vaccine committee meetings—the “Plotkin Gavel.” The man who invented many of the current vaccines, published more studies on vaccines than anyone, and is far and away considered the world’s leading authority on vaccines.

After a moment of pause, I told Dr. Bark, “I’ll do it.” As soon as I hung up, the excitement of the opportunity gave way to the realization, “I need to get to work.”

I already knew a decent amount about the primary sources related to vaccine safety, as I had litigated a few vaccine cases by that point, but if I was going to hold the world’s leading vaccinologist to the truth, I needed to gather and organize the evidence I had previously reviewed, as well as learn everything possible about Dr. Plotkin. I spent the next six weeks hunkering down in my office preparing.

As I prepared, what kept gnawing at me was the feeling that I must be missing something. I had carefully reviewed the available official government and pharma sources regarding vaccines, and they reflected serious safety gaps. But given Dr. Plotkin’s and his kin’s confident public statements about vaccine safety, I had to assume he knew something I had missed.

Maybe he had some special inside information. Presumably, he did. Because from my review of the primary sources, there appeared to be, at best, incredible gaps in the trials and data supposedly supporting vaccine safety.

As the date of the deposition arrived, I concluded my research and finalized my outline and exhibits to address the key questions about vaccine safety. As I went to bed the night before the deposition, I felt well prepared, yet I expected surprises. Twists. Unexpected facts. Some special inside information that would throw me for a loop.

However, during my nine-hour exchange with Dr. Plotkin, I was met with none of that. Instead, I was left astonished that the worst fears expressed regarding safety gaps related to childhood vaccines were not only true, they were worse than I could have imagined. This is no doubt why the other side in that family law case made an impassioned motion to the court after the deposition to have the deposition sealed from the world forever, which we succeeded in opposing.

If you haven’t watched the deposition, here are some highlights:

• Plotkin: Do Vaccines Cause Autism?

• Plotkin: Aborted Fetal Tissue in Vaccines

• Plotkin: Hepatitis B Vaccine Safety Tested for Just Five Days

Vaccines, Amen is available on Amazon.