Why You Shouldn’t Get Your Advice From Katie Collins
The Real Truth About Vaccines
Katie Collins is a physician assistant who describes herself as crunchy, integrative, and ‘holistically minded,’ and who claims to talk about conventional topics.
But she actually focuses on the controversy of the day and pushes the same misinformation and propaganda as most other anti-vaccine influencers.
Why You Shouldn’t Get Your Advice From Katie Collins
Let’s take a look at why her advice should be ignored.
In her most popular videos, Katie the PA:
mischaracterizes the Henry Ford draft research study as a completed, published study and says it found that unvaccinated kids are healthier than those who were vaccinated. They aren’t!
pushes the false idea that there are benefits to having measles and downplays the risks of developing complications of natural measles infections. For example, while the febrile seizures you might get from an MMR vaccine typically does go away without complications, the seizures you get when you have measles could be from encephalitis, a life-threatening complication.
downplays the risks of measles, mumps, and rubella, saying that only unvaccinated kids get rubella (not true), forgets to mention the risk of meningitis with mumps, and doesn’t mention all the babies that used to die with congenital rubella syndrome.
mischaracterizes how many doses of hepatitis B vaccines infants get, saying some pediatricians give two extra doses, including a birth dose and a dose at 1 month, plus doses in combination vaccines at 2, 4, and 6 months, when it is obvious that infants get a dose at either 1 or 2 months, not both.
says that there is evidence (there isn’t!) that 30% of 7-year-olds and 60% of adults can develop infections after their MMR vaccine! And totally mischaracterizes the side effect profiles from the package inserts of the MMR vaccines.
says that controlling chickenpox with the chickenpox vaccine led to a surge in shingles in adults, even though it is very well known that the same surge occurred in countries that use a chickenpox vaccine.
pushes misinformation about the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Inc. report, Electronic Support for Public Health–Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (ESP:VAERS), saying that it actually created a whole new reporting system for VAERS, when in reality, the researchers didn’t even finish their report!
tries to scare people away from getting rotavirus vaccines because infants died in the clinical trials in the control groups.
downplays an unvaccinated child’s risk for getting a vaccine preventable disease, equating getting Hib or pneumococcal disease with being in a plane crash, and measles, mumps, rubella, rotavirus, and RSV with being in a car crash - saying most people survive being in a car crash. While this is all wrong, if you want to use this analogy, you might equate your unvaccinated child as someone riding in a car without a car seat or seat belt…
mischaracterizes a Vaccine Court case, saying the infant was given 10 vaccines, when we don’t even have 10 vaccines to give an infant!
scares parents away from Rhogam and vitamin K, going so far as to say that you should be worried about contamination of Rhogam shots with COVID vaccine spike proteins!
and of course, she pushes for the widespread use of ivermectin
Basically, if you watch her videos, you will quickly see that she overstates the risks of vaccines and downplays the risks of vaccine preventable diseases, using her credentials as a PA to get people to think that she is giving them good advice.
What else?
For someone who mentions it a lot, she also doesn’t seem to understand informed consent.
For one thing, providing information to someone on the internet isn’t giving informed consent…
And then there is the simple fact that Katie the PA repeatedly says that she is giving people informed consent in her videos, all the while feeding them misinformation that is actually taking away their ability to make informed decisions.
It’s like she read my list of Anti-Vaccine Points Refuted A Thousand Times and turned it into her own little crunchy playbook!
Bottom line - don’t get your information about vaccines from Katie the PA.
More on Anti-Vaccine Influencers
Why You Shouldn’t Listen to Ashley Everly Talk About Measles and the MMR Vaccine
Why You Shouldn’t Listen to A Midwestern Doctor Talk About Vaccines
Joe Rogan Finally Admitted That You Shouldn’t Listen to Him for Vaccine Advice
PAs Tout Benefits of Vaccines Despite Persistent ‘Anti-Vaxxers’
The Anti-Vax Movement’s Radical Shift From Crunchy Granola Purists to Far-Right Crusaders
“says that controlling chickenpox with the chickenpox vaccine led to a surge in shingles in adults, even though it is very well known that the same surge occurred in countries that use a chickenpox vaccine.” I think you mean to include “don’t “ between that and use.
Shingles may be surging across the board, but I also suspect that it is appearing at a younger age.
What is also important to highlight is that mumps can cause infertility in males who become infected as adults, it’s also incredibly painful in those affected.
Measles can lead to death 7-10 years after the acute illness, it can also cause the immune system to forget earlier infections or vaccinations, leaving the child vulnerable to all manner of infections.
If she’s a physician assistant then should she be making such comments in public, particularly since she appears to be doing this in a professional capacity as she clearly mentions her role.
Here in the U.K. our General Medical Council would take a dim view of a Physician Associate making such statements, as would the Nursing and Midwifery Council with Nurses or Nurse Associates and the Healthcare Professionals Council with their registrants.
I dug into the publicly available information on the physician assistant who brands herself as "Katie Collins, PA-C" and appears on social media as "Katie the PA."
What I was able to verify
Her full professional name appears to be Kaitlyn Collins, PA-C, MSPAS.
She is a certified physician assistant and graduate of the Western University of Health Sciences physician assistant program.
Public professional profiles place her in North Idaho, specifically the Coeur d'Alene/Post Falls/Rathdrum area.
She appears to have practiced in family medicine and urgent care settings in Idaho.
State license
Based on the available records, she appears to hold a physician assistant license in Idaho and is actively practicing there.
Supervising physician
I could not find a publicly available source identifying her current supervising physician, collaborating physician, or delegation agreement physician. Idaho's PA practice laws have evolved in recent years, and physician assistant supervision/collaboration arrangements are not always displayed in public-facing provider profiles.
Practice locations found
Public directories list her at:
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
Post Falls, Idaho
Rathdrum, Idaho
If you need the supervising physician
The most reliable way would be to search the Idaho state licensing database directly or obtain records from her current employer/clinic. Those records may identify:
Delegating physician
Supervising physician
Collaborative practice agreement
Current employer
I can do a deeper search specifically through Idaho licensing-board records and clinic affiliations to see whether a supervising physician is listed in state filings or employment records.