The Ultimate Assist
John Stockton and Dr. Ken Ruettgers host The Ultimate Assist Podcast along with special guests that have frontline experience and knowledgable expertise in the medical freedom space. As technology advances and social institutions grow more powerful, we hope you will inform your voice and use it to restore and maintain our medical freedoms now and into the future.
The Ultimate Assist
#82: Are Parents Losing the Right to Choose? – with Chris Downey (VAX Calc)
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
On this week’s episode of The Ultimate Assist, John Stockton and Ken Ruettgers sit down with Chris Downey, founder of VAX Calc, for an important conversation about informed consent, parental responsibility, and how families can make confident healthcare decisions in an increasingly complex medical system.
Chris believes one of the biggest challenges facing parents today isn’t simply deciding whether to vaccinate—it’s navigating a healthcare system that often pressures families to make decisions before they feel fully informed. Drawing on years of research and software development, he explains why he created VAX Calc to help parents prepare before they ever walk into a pediatrician’s office.
The conversation explores:
- Why informed consent starts long before the doctor’s appointment
- The pressure many parents feel during well-child visits
- Why Chris believes healthcare decisions should be individualized—not one-size-fits-all
- How parents can build their own trusted healthcare “roundtable”
- The importance of asking better questions instead of accepting automatic recommendations
- How artificial intelligence could help families make more informed decisions in the future
- Why courage, intuition, and personal responsibility matter when making healthcare choices
John also shares several personal experiences navigating vaccine discussions with physicians, while Ken discusses preparing the next generation of parents to confidently advocate for their children. Throughout the conversation, the focus remains on empowering families to think critically, ask questions, and make decisions they believe are best for their own children.
Whether you’re expecting your first child, raising young children, or simply interested in medical freedom and informed consent, this episode offers practical strategies for becoming a more informed advocate for your family’s health.
🎙️ Episode #82: Are Parents Losing the Right to Choose? – with Chris Downey (VAX Calc)
Available on Rumble, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.