Fairfax School Board Member Dan Storck: “Immunizations are an essential part of people’s health”

Note: the following email from Fairfax County Board candidate Dan Storck comes in response to my April 10 article on Storck’s company, “National Integrated Health Associates,” which he manages and co-founded. Among many other strange claims on its website, and/or linked to on its website, include stuff like this: “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.” In addition, the website explicitly blames, 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. Oh, and on its Facebook page, it links to an article entitled, “Measles Transmitted By The Vaccinated, Gov. Researchers Confirm,” and one about how a “young, brave, wonderful man is showing everyone how to beat cancer, naturally, with no chemo!” It goes on and on like this, with Storck’s company claiming that  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.

Anyway, I was at the office opening for Scott Surovell and Paul Krizek the other day, and Dan Storck approached me, clearly not pleased about how his company had been portrayed (even though, as I told him, everything in there was stuff ON HIS COMPANY’S WEBSITE or LINKED TO by his company’s website). Basically, Storck’s counterargument was a combination of: a) claiming the stuff on his website wasn’t really on his website; b) claiming it was mostly links to other sources, not implying any endorsement of those sources; c) repeating his belief that what his company does is good for people’s health; and d) claiming I must be working for or supporting one of his opponents, which is 100% not true (I’m overwhelmingly inclined not to endorse in this race). Clearly, a dead end there. So, I tried to refocus the discussion on public policy, since Storck is a member of the Fairfax County School Board and a candidate for County Board. The question I asked was whether his personal beliefs and/or work at “National Integrated Health Associates” in any way impacted his public policy decisions on the School Board, or possibly on the County Board if he’s elected.  Here’s his written response, which I received this morning. I’ve added bolding for emphasis of what I think are key points.

Lowell,

I appreciate the opportunity to discuss with you this past Saturday my activities as the business partner of my firm and its impact on my public policy positions.  To start, our holistic healthcare center, National Integrated Health Associates (NIHA), and I support and our doctors routinely provide and administer vaccinations to our patients. My children have been vaccinated.  I support and oversee, as a Board member, the vaccination policies of our school system (link: http://www.fcps.edu/dss/osp/St… ). Immunizations are an essential part of people’s health in a modern society.

The foundation of holistic medicine is to treat the whole person – mind, body and spirit – as a coach and a partner to wellness.  We are focused on strengthening and supporting a person’s self-healing powers, and our healthcare professionals blend traditional western medicine with non-traditional alternative or complementary healthcare to treat patients.  Our patients, like most of our staff and practitioners, came to NIHA because they wanted to be healthier or they were sick and needed more help.  We have helped most of them.

My understanding and involvement in holistic health care approaches has helped me to be a key leader and advocate on the Fairfax County School Board for healthier school buildings and grounds, healthier, fresher and less processed foods, stronger mental health care screenings and student supports systems and starting high schools later so adolescent biological clocks are better aligned with our school schedules.  I have been a leader in each of these initiatives because healthier kids learn better, more safely and are better prepared with the good habits needed for a healthy adulthood.  On the Board of Supervisors, I intend to continue to be a leader on improving the health of all our residents.

Again, I’d like to extend an offer to you or any of your readers to visit our center and learn directly for themselves how they can become healthier.  We have many free or very low cost ways to get started.

Dan Storck

Thanks to Dan Storck for his response, which alleviates many of my concerns regarding the potential for “out-there” views expressed on his company’s website to make their way into the Fairfax County Public School system. Instead, it sounds like what Storck has focused on is all good, science-based stuff, such as healthier buildings, healthier foods, etc., that nobody could reasonably have any problem with. I DO continue to find it odd that Storck personally is pro-vaccination, yet his company links to and promotes numerous, harmful myths on this topic.  I would encourage Dan Storck to delete all that stuff from his company’s website, Facebook page, etc.