Barbara Loe Fisher

Barbara Loe Fisher co-founded the National Vaccine Information Center in 1982 under the original name Dissatisfied Parents Together (DPT), after she claims her son Chris suffered a severe neurological reaction — including convulsion and collapse — within hours of his fourth DPT shot. The reaction, she says, left him with permanent learning disabilities and attention deficit disorder. Fisher holds a bachelor's degree in English and has no medical, scientific, or public health training, yet she positioned herself as a leading national authority on vaccine safety.

In 1985, Fisher and co-author Harris Coulter published DPT: A Shot in the Dark, a book asserting that the whole-cell pertussis component of the DPT vaccine caused neurological injury including autism and death. The book was influential in driving parents to refuse or delay vaccination and helped inspire the passage of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, legislation Fisher lobbied for. While the law created a compensation system for vaccine injuries — a genuine policy achievement — it also significantly slowed the development of new vaccines by raising liability concerns.

Over the following four decades, Fisher built NVIC into the most politically effective anti-vaccine organization in the United States. She has testified before Congress, lobbied in dozens of state legislatures against vaccine mandates, and debated physicians on national television and radio. A 2019 Washington Post investigation found that between 2009 and 2018, 40% of NVIC's funding — approximately $2.9 million — came from Joseph Mercola, a supplement seller whose own misinformation enterprise has been condemned by the FDA.

Fisher has consistently framed her activism around 'informed consent' and 'parental rights,' a rhetorical strategy that has proven more effective with mainstream audiences than overt anti-vaccine claims. She has not explicitly disavowed all vaccines but has consistently argued against vaccine requirements, promoted unproven vaccine-injury links, and provided intellectual cover for the broader anti-vaccine movement. Her longevity and institutional credibility make her one of the most enduring and structurally harmful figures in the anti-vaccine ecosystem.

“The whole-cell pertussis vaccine in the DPT shot causes autism”

Fisher co-authored the 1985 book DPT: A Shot in the Dark asserting this link. Subsequent large-scale epidemiological studies found no causal relationship between DPT vaccination and autism or permanent brain injury. The Institute of Medicine reviewed the evidence exhaustively. The whole-cell DPT has been replaced by the safer acellular DTaP vaccine, but the autism link remains unsupported.

“Vaccine mandates violate informed consent rights and should be opposed legislatively”

While informed consent is a legitimate medical ethics concept, Fisher weaponizes it to oppose all vaccine requirements, including school immunization laws that protect community health. She has lobbied against vaccine mandates in dozens of state legislatures, conflating individual choice with the public health rationale for herd immunity.

“Vaccines cause a broad range of chronic diseases including learning disabilities, ADHD, and immune dysfunction”

NVIC has promoted the suggestion that the childhood vaccine schedule drives chronic illness in children without providing rigorous evidence. Major reviews by the Institute of Medicine and CDC have not found credible evidence for these associations at the population level.