Dr. Bob Sears
Dr. Bob's Story
Robert William Sears grew up on the East Coast of the US and in Canada, and watched his dad, Dr. William Sears, thrive in his career as a pediatrician, author, and speaker. Little “Bobby” still remembers running up and down the wood-floored hallways of his dad’s office and knew he’d grow up to be a doctor too, someday. His interest in science and biology, mixed with his love of reading and writing, prepared him for a similar career that would take him outside of a doctor’s office as well.
The Sears family moved to California in the 80s, and “Bob” eventually attended Biola University as a pre-med Biology major, where he met and married his wife, Cheryl, upon graduating. The couple were then off to the Georgetown School of Medicine in Washington DC, where soon-to-be Dr. Bob found a love for Pediatrics (after briefly considering Surgery and Obstetrics) and Cheryl worked as an Accountant. And it was there that Bob found his interest and passion for studying vaccines on a deeper level and spent a good amount of his free time in the medical school library reading every medical article he could find on vaccine research, development, and safety.
Cheryl and Bob welcomed their first child into the world during his second year of med school, coincidentally just a few miles away from where Bob was born back in 1969 when his own dad was in medical training. Helping to raise his own child helped solidify his career in Pediatrics with real-life training, and he was accepted into Children’s Hospital Los Angeles for his three-year pediatric residency. Child number two was born during their time in LA, and Dr. Bob developed a real empathy for what parents go through during sick times and in health.
The Sears family moved to California in the 80s, and “Bob” eventually attended Biola University as a pre-med Biology major, where he met and married his wife, Cheryl, upon graduating. The couple were then off to the Georgetown School of Medicine in Washington DC, where soon-to-be Dr. Bob found a love for Pediatrics (after briefly considering Surgery and Obstetrics) and Cheryl worked as an Accountant. And it was there that Bob found his interest and passion for studying vaccines on a deeper level and spent a good amount of his free time in the medical school library reading every medical article he could find on vaccine research, development, and safety.
Dr. Bob also found right away that none of his patients wanted the full CDC schedule of vaccines, and he himself didn’t feel like all the vaccines were necessary anyway (like Hepatitis B for newborns, and Chicken pox vaccine for toddlers). So he developed a slower vaccine schedule that focused on the most important vaccines first, spread out over more time, and he dubbed the terms “delayed vaccine schedule” and “selective vaccine schedule. His practice continued to thrive as more and more patients in the four-county area wanted this approach to vaccines. They also welcomed baby boy number three into their family.
Dr. Bob also found an outlet for his love of writing, and helped update some of the older books in his dad’s Sears Parenting Library, particularly the flagship The Baby Book (now, the latest version published in 2023 is The Sears Baby Book). He also was the primary author of several other books in the Sears library: The Portable Pediatrician, The Premature Baby Book, The Allergy Book, and 25 Things Every New Dad Should Know (not part of the Sears Library), and helped write The Baby Sleep Book. He was also drawn to finding ways to help children diagnosed with autism to improve their social, behavioral, and learning skills through alternative medical and nutrition. He authored The Autism Book to present the best available treatment protocols to help kids with autism, and worked with The Autism Community in Action (TACAnow.org) to bring resources to these families.
Then two major life-changing events happened that steered the course of Dr. Bob’s pediatric career in a new direction – a much better direction. First, he canceled all his medical insurance contracts (except he kept taking the military insurance for the hundreds of young families on the nearby military base for another 12 years) because working under the insurance model was forcing him to focus too much on business and regulations and taking all the joy out of simply being a small-town doctor, which is what he really wanted to be. This shift allowed him to spend more time with every patient and work at a much slower pace without stress, and he found joy in his work again. His father and his brother continued to work under the insurance model, so Dr. Bob and Cheryl separated their business and became Dr. Bob Sears, Inc. The three Sears doctors moved together to a newly built office in Dana Point, where they still share the same office space today (but two different businesses). Dr. Bob’s practice became busier than ever, even having to briefly close to new patients from time to time when things got too busy.
The second career-changing event was the publication of The Vaccine Book in 2007. This book presented every detail about every vaccine and its infection so that parents could make an educated decision. It also detailed Dr. Bob’s alternative and selective vaccine schedules so parents all over the country could find guidance on this approach. The book was updated in 2011 as a second edition. During the decade of the 2000s, he appeared on dozens of talk shows, morning-and-evening new shows, and in several documentaries to discuss alternative vaccine approaches (back then, the media were more open about presenting both sides of this debate). He also wrote many magazine articles and was interviewed in numerous prominent newspapers.
Then, another major shift took place in Dr. Bob’s practice that put him on a completely new path. More and more patients started coming to him and didn’t want any vaccines at all. This had been a minority of patients in the first decade of his career, but in this second decade it gradually became the majority. In addition, almost all pediatricians in the surrounding counties made full, on-time vaccination mandatory to be a patient at their offices. Many of these patients found refuge at Dr. Bob’s, and by the mid 2010s his practice became, by default, an almost vaccine-free practice. Some families wanted some vaccines, but about 99% didn’t want any vaccines.
After several years of this, Dr. Bob noticed that these patients seemed much healthier and got sick less often than what his busier practice was like earlier in his career. He was also relieved to see that not a single patient suffered a severe case of a vaccine-targeted infection (and this is still true today at the time of this writing in 2024). This made him feel better about welcoming unvaccinated families and even suspected this may be a healthier choice. But he still gives all his patients the freedom to choose, without any pressure one way or the other.
It seems as if major life events find themselves attracted to Dr. Bob, and 2015 didn’t disappoint. A new California law was passed that made vaccines mandatory for daycare and school attendance (public and private), and the only exception was if patients could get a vaccine medical exemption (VME) from a doctor. The valid medical reasons for exemption were open-ended, were up to each doctor’s discretion, and included family medical history reasons, so Dr. Bob and many other open-minded doctors evaluated many children for VMEs. He started a podcast – The Vaccine Conversation, which has had over 2 million downloads so far. He started raising funds through a non-profit to help raise awareness for vaccine medical freedom, and developed a video series to provide more education to families worldwide – The Vaccine Conversation five-part video series. He also fought hard in the legislative world in the losing battle against this vaccine law and a follow-up law passed in 2019 which eliminated all prior VMEs and mandated that all new VMEs be only given if a child suffered severe brain injury or severe anaphylactic shock directly from a vaccine.
He also found a love for fictional writing, and self-published a series of real-life stories from his own life that presents every aspect of the vaccine debate in story form, under a pen-name. This book is A Tale of Two Sides: A novel on vaccines and disease, and is his favorite book he’s written so far. It allows the reader to now only learn everything they need to know about vaccines, but to really feel the struggles that other parents go through in their journey to understand the truth, and to get to the heart of the many issues surrounding vaccination. Story brings the information to life, makes it more real, and also makes it more memorable for the reader.
Dr. Bob didn’t come through these recent legislative battles unscathed. The California medical board put him on probation from 2018 to 2023 for his views on vaccination, which is now over with. He did continue to practice without any restrictions during this time, but many of his like-minded colleagues suffered a worse fate, some losing their licenses to practice, and others going on probation as well. He also updated The Vaccine Book in 2019 to better reflect his new understanding of vaccines, and added a Covid vaccine chapter to the book in 2022.
Now, Dr. Bob continues to practice in Dana Point, and Cheryl continues to manage their business. Their three children are now grown and out of the house, and they enjoy spending time in North Carolina with their two grandchildren. Dr. Bob continues to write and speak, and continues his legislative fight against mandatory vaccine laws.
Dr. Bob’s number one passion remains to insure that every new parent worldwide has access to objective and un-doctored informed consent before their vaccinate and to help everyone stay up-to-date and educated on this topic so we can all work together to stop vaccine medical mandates. To this end, he offers you an All-Access Pass to everything he does in this fight for medical freedom.
Looking for more education on Dr. Bob’s most passionate topics in pediatrics? Check out one of his books on vaccines, medical freedom, parenting, or pediatric health.
And if you want to learn more about Dr. Bob, his life, and his views on vaccines, you’ll see all of these resources throughout this website for you to enjoy:
One Doctor vs The Medical Board, a brand new novel, and companion podcast
The Vaccine Book: Making an educated decision for your child
A Tale of Two Sides: A novel on vaccines and disease, plus a companion podcast
The Vaccine Conversation audio podcast
The Vaccine Conversation video series
Vaccine Consult with Dr. Bob Sears – a brand new video just released!
