Following the stunning cancellation of her planned Australian lecture tour, anti-vaccine doctor Sherri Tenpenny has settled on talking to herself during an upcoming five city speaking tour. The outspoken osteopath and not-a-researcher says she looks forward to sharing her beliefs that vaccines are linked to autism, asthma and auto-immune diseases with anybody who is standing or walking nearby.
“I’m still hopeful of making a trip after that strong backlash from pro-vaccine campaigners forced many venues to cancel events in Australia,” she told The Spudd. “They call me anti-vaccine, but I am really pro-information.”
She is not hopeful that her Australian backers can find alternate venues.
“I know that we’re still trying to find locations, but it’s become quite difficult with the extremists in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane, The Great Sandy Desert, the Juniperina Juvenile Justice Centre, and Ayers Rock. They’re making it very challenging to schedule another event,” she says. Instead, Tenpenny will venture up to 40 miles from her Cleveland home.
But even that scaled back tour was not without is setbacks. Plans to sit by herself at a corner table in a Bainbridge Chipotles had to be scrapped when a waitress recognized her.
“I lost half of my hearing to measles when I was a girl,” says Darcy Giovanni, 53, of nearby Twinsburg. “She scares me.”
As of Spudd press time, Tenpenny’s speaking-to-herself venues include an abandoned gun shelter on Route 82 near Brecksville; a cave in Cuyahoga National Park; a Big Gulp Kiosk at the Truck World Truck Stop in Hubbard; a drum circle yurt at Wooster College; and the back of a 2002 Dodge Caravan for sale at Larry’s Auto Sales in Barberton.
“I think it’s important to let pro-vaccine extremists know that I will not be silenced,” says Tenpenny. “I am willing to travel all over the Greater Cleveland area and beyond if need be.”
