An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All
By Amy Wallace October 19, 2009 | 3:00 pm | Wired Nov 2009
To hear his enemies talk, you might think Paul Offit is the most hated man in America. A pediatrician in Philadelphia, he is the coinventor of a rotavirus vaccine that could save tens of thousands of lives every year. Yet environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. slams Offit as a biostitute who whores for the pharmaceutical industry. Actor Jim Carrey calls him a profiteer and distills the doctors attitude toward childhood vaccination down to this chilling mantra: Grab em and stab em. Recently, Carrey and his girlfriend, Jenny McCarthy, went on CNNs Larry King Live and singled out Offits vaccine, RotaTeq, as one of many unnecessary vaccines, all administered, they said, for just one reason: Greed.
Thousands of people revile Offit publicly at rallies, on Web sites, and in books. Type pauloffit.com into your browser and youll find not Offits official site but an anti-Offit screed dedicated to exposing the truth about the vaccine industrys most well-paid spokesperson. Go to Wikipedia to read his bio and, as often as not, someone will have tampered with the page. The section on Offits education was once altered to say that hed studied on a pig farm in Toad Suck, Arkansas. (Hes a graduate of Tufts University and the University of Maryland School of Medicine).
Then there are the threats. Offit once got an email from a Seattle man that read, I will hang you by your neck until you are dead! Other bracing messages include You have blood on your hands and Your day of reckoning will come. A few years ago, a man on the phone ominously told Offit he knew where the doctors two children went to school. At a meeting of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an anti-vaccine protester emerged from a crowd of people holding signs that featured Offits face emblazoned with the word terrorist and grabbed the unsuspecting, 6-foot-tall physician by the jacket.
I dont think he wanted to hurt me, Offit recalls. He was just excited to be close to the personification of such evil. Still, whenever Offit gets a letter with an unfamiliar return address, he holds the envelope at arms length before gingerly tearing it open. I think about it, he admits. Anthrax.
So what has this award-winning 58-year-old scientist done to elicit such venom? He boldly states in speeches, in journal articles, and in his 2008 book Autisms False Prophets that vaccines do not cause autism or autoimmune disease or any of the other chronic conditions that have been blamed on them. He supports this assertion with meticulous evidence. And he calls to account those who promote bogus treatments for autism treatments that he says not only dont work but often cause harm.
As a result, Offit has become the main target of a grassroots movement that opposes the systematic vaccination of children and the laws that require it. McCarthy, an actress and a former Playboy centerfold whose son has been diagnosed with autism, is the best-known leader of the movement, but she is joined by legions of well-organized supporters and sympathizers.
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Put your foil hat on and get your kid vaccinated. Absolutely no reason not to.
If you want to take your medical advice from Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy, you deserve what-ever sickness you get. You can also include Suzanne Sommers in that group. Whack-jobs all of them...
they'll keep inventing diseases, poison you with unnecessary medication, vaccinating you to maintain the customer base as numerous as possible.
So, please refrain from labeling people, honestly, you don't know what you are talking about.
HEALTHY PEOPLE DON'T NEED MEDICATION!!!
HEALTHY PEOPLE DON'T NEED MEDICATION!!!
Until Salk and Sabin produced the first effective polio vaccine in the early 1950's, every hospital had wards filled with survivors of paralytic polio -- all of whom depended on "iron lungs" (a type of mechanical ventilator) to breathe. Since the vaccine came into widespread and routine use, paralytic polio has been almost unheard of in developed countries. In fact, polio has nearly been eradicated, just as smallpox has; unfortunately, there has been a recent resurgence of polio in parts of Africa, mainly in areas where vaccination has been incomplete -- or worse, discouraged by leaders with no appreciation of the risks of not vaccinating children.
Case 2: The initial batches of Dr. Jonas Salk's polio vaccine produced thousands of cases of poliomyelitis in vaccinated individuals. (One such case was Franklin D. Roosevelt who was stricken weeks after receiving a vaccine.)
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