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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWill This Doctor Hurt Your Baby?
http://www.phillymag.com/articles/will-this-doctor-hurt-your-baby/This is a really good feature article about a prominent vaccine researcher and critic of the anti-vaccine movement. The article isn't short, it's an in-depth look at what science is up against in the court of public vaccine opinion.
A few years ago, Paul Offit found himself in a small room with a bob-haired American mother of three who was so mad at him she had tears in her eyes, and she was standing above him, sort of rearing up this is his recollection as if she was preparing herself, mentally, physically, to call him something cutting and mean, like a piece of shit, Offit remembers thinking, or an arrogant jackass. Thats what Offit was bracing himself for. An epithet. But this woman didnt say anything like that. Instead, she said, Youre an elitist.
Compared to some of the other names Offits been called, elitist is a tongue-kiss. But it got under his skin anyway. He still talks about it. Hes still trying to figure it out.
It had begun so calmly. There he was, at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., doing what he does best, which is talk about vaccines. Offit is the worlds number one vaccine pundit. He writes opinion articles about vaccines. He writes books about vaccines; Offit just published his fifth book, Autisms False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure. He recently helped convince a famous Hollywood actress, Amanda Peet, to become a spokesperson for vaccines. He even invented a vaccine. If youre reading this, and you have a baby, and your pediatrician has followed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Preventions recommended vaccination schedule, Offits strain is most likely coursing through your kids bloodstream. Offit is basically Mr. Vaccine. Even his day job is vaccine-related; Offit runs the infectious-diseases division at the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, where he roams the colorful wards and pokes his head into the rooms of three-year-olds laid up with complex staph and strep infections, and engages in gentle patter like, Trent, were just gonna look at you, sweetie, were just gonna look, and prods gently at little Trents bandages, hoping to kill whatever bugs have slipped through Trents protective vaccine net. And Barbara Loe Fisher, the woman who called him an elitist, runs a grassroots organization called the National Vaccine Information Center, whose website features a quote from her decrying the States ability to tag, track down and force citizens against their will to be injected with biologicals of unknown toxicity.
Theyre ideological opposites. Offit thinks vaccines are heroically staving off death and suffering, and Fisher thinks vaccines are causing death and suffering.
Sid
idwiyo
(5,113 posts)Warpy
(111,339 posts)who is being paid handsomely to disinform people.
Those "biologicals of unknown toxicity?" The toxicity is well known, and if she were educated enough to read the literature, she'd know it, too. Unfortunately, she and other lazy people just like her would rather call educated people "elitists" and bury their stupid heads in the sand.
The diseases they prevent are all killers. Immunized herself, along with all her peers, Fisher has had the extreme luxury of never seeing them or feeling them in action.
The only reason idiots like Fisher aren't burying half their children before the age of five is vaccines.
hlthe2b
(102,357 posts)He's a smart guy, but he does not have an understanding or background in immunology, vaccine science and medicine--nor epidemiology.
I have to think that Mike Pappantonio (his long-term friend, fellow attorney and former radio co-host) does not agree with him. I only wish someone Bobby knows and trusts would push him to spend time with those with the expertise to counter his misconceptions.
still_one
(92,394 posts)preservative, not against the vaccines themselves. I have also noticed that they have removed thimerosal from most of the vaccines given in this country
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)so it wasn't the thimerosal.
Sid
jeff47
(26,549 posts)but Thimerosal is still used when the vaccine is shipped to a place without reliable refrigeration. Such as Africa. Where autism is basically unknown.
FSogol
(45,525 posts)HappyMe
(20,277 posts)Good article.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)People could actually die because of the insane swill he spouts.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)But on vaccines, he's spectacularly wrong.
Sid
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Archae
(46,345 posts)People have died because of the insane swill he spouts.
I have a cousin who is militantly anti-vaxx, and her 2-year old baby died of whooping cough.
She's still rabidly anti-vaxx.