Meet anti-vaxxers' greatest enemy

Ask anti-vaxxers which doctor they hate the most, and their most likely answer would be Philadelphia pediatrician Dr. Paul Offit.

Head of the infectious diseases division at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Offit is perhaps the most-quoted advocate for childhood vaccines in the United States, especially in recent weeks as measles cases have multiplied around the country.

Offit co-invented a widely used rotavirus vaccine, wrote a book about how vaccines don't cause autism, and started a vaccine information center at the hospital.

But an online search of his name yields much more than just quotes in news reports. He is vilified all over the Internet by anti-vaccine activists.

For example, he's called a "shill for the vaccine industry" by Joseph Mercola, an alternative medicine doctor who sells dietary supplements on his popular website Mercola.com. Age of Autism, a group claiming vaccines cause autism, attacks him in numerous online posts. So does Suzanne Humphries, a doctor who runs the anti-vax International Council on Vaccination.

"It is my understanding that Paul Offit is making sure that views such as those that I have, should not be heard," Humphries wrote in a recent email to the Washington Examiner.

In an interview with the Examiner, Offit responds to the attacks and explains how he became interested in infectious diseases in the first place. A lightly edited transcript of the conversation follows:

Washington Examiner: Every leading medical expert agrees with your pro-vaccine stance. So why do you think you've become anti-vaxxers' main target?

Offit: I think I probably was in the media earlier than other doctors who stood up [for vaccines]. We created our vaccine education center in 2000, right around the time the MMR [measles, mumps, rubella] vaccine had come under target. I guess I was an early spokesperson. I had written books about this and I took a definitive stance that vaccines don't cause autism.

I think from their standpoint I'm the perfect confluence of evil or whatever, because I'm the co-inventor of a vaccine and I had a patent on a vaccine — even though my hospital owns me, so they technically own the patent. But in their minds I've made money off this, so I'm evil. I would argue that making a vaccine is good thing, but they see this as an unhealthy collaboration between doctors and pharmaceutical companies and the government.

Examiner: Are vaccines usually developed in hospitals by doctors like you?

Offit: "You don't see vaccines typically developed in hospitals. I don't think I can count on three fingers the number of times. Typically the research is done by industry. [But] I say to people all the time, what should I have done, what should have been done differently? We wanted children's lives to be saved. I know I've done the right thing.

Offit: I get hate mail and the usual Nazi and God references. I've had a couple death threats, three to be exact. I don't believe them. I think they do it to scare me, I think they do it get me to stop. I don't like to be bullied. If anything, that makes me do the opposite. What really upset me — what gave me pause and I really did consider stopping — is when my children were threatened. I sat down with my wife and said I'll stop doing this if you want, but she was brave.

Offit: I was in a polio ward when I was 5 and that Image never left me. I was in the hospital for a couple months [for club foot] and that was back in the days when they had like one visiting hour a week and I was in a room with children who had polio. I think I saw them as something that needed to be protected.

Examiner: Critics often bring up your profit from drug makers. You hold a $1.5 million research chair at Children's Hospital, funded by Merck and the patent on the rotavirus vaccine. How do you defend yourself against claims that your medical advice is influenced by drug companies?

Offit: I make as much money off the sale of rotavirus as you do — I'm owned by my hospital.

Offit: Initially I did. I'm sorry if that offends people. The work from doing the research was never financial. It was like winning the lottery, it was nothing I ever really thought about. You never think you're going to make a vaccine, you keep plugging away and hope it goes somewhere.

Examiner: In your opinion, what will it take to quell the anti-vaccine movement?

Offit: I think the anti-vax movement was born of the smallpox vaccine in the 1800s, because people were mandated to get it. I think if you asked the anti-vax people what would make them stop, I think they would say make vaccines voluntary.

Examiner: But aren't vaccines essentially voluntary today because nearly every state offers exemptions?

Offit: It's harder because you do have to do something. It's a little work. You have to get a form and check a box, [but] if you're motivated you can get out of vaccines.

Examiner: Do you think the recent measles outbreak will affect public opinion?

Offit: Yes, I think this year's outbreak has been a tipping point. Look at all the legislation that's been introduced [to limit exemptions]. People don't like it that other people are making decision not just for their own children, but for other people's children. When I was in 10th grade, there was boy who had leukemia. I can't imagine any of our parents sending us in unvaccinated.

All you have on your side is reason and data, so you try to frame the reason and data in a compelling way. But with all the education we've tried to do over the years, nothing educates like the diseases themselves.

Examiner: Do you have a position on whether the government should mandate vaccines? Or should vaccine rates be improved just by educating parents?

Offit: I think mandates have played a role and will continue to play a role. When you look at when we got measles vaccinations up it was because we finally enforced school mandates. But then there was pushback from people … they see this as a matter of an individuals' rights, but I disagree.

Examiner: You've been sued, unsuccessfully, by leading anti-vax advocate Barbara Loe Fisher. What do you think of her?

Offit: The thing about Barbara I find so contradictory is she argues parents should be informed, but if they go to her website, they'll be informed about all the things vaccines don't cause. It's just so duplicitous to on the one hand say I think parents should be informed and one the other hand engineer a massive marketing campaign to misinform them. I think she's a bad player. She believes her son received the pertussis vaccine and received permanent brain damage. I believe she believes it, I don't think she's lying. But she was wrong and she continues to convince other people that she was right.

Do I think parents who have caused an erosion of herd immunity and allowed people to suffer months unnecessarily, do I think they should be demonized? You bet I do, because they have put their own children at risk and they put other people at risk. Parents don't own their children — they have a certain responsibility to their children.

Examiner: How do you have time to practice medicine and speak so frequently to the press?

Offit: I also go to bed to early, I'm still human. I'm asleep after 9:30 p.m. I enjoy the work I do. My retirement plan is being dragged out of my office feet first. I plan to do this as long as I can still think straight.

How, exactly, is a doctor “usurping the power of the state” when he expresses a medical opinion? Do his expertise and his right of free speech matter not at all to you?

I doubt that many anti-vaxxers remember polio or knew anyone who had polio or whooping cough.

They don’t remember the thankful relief of a populace that enthusiastically stood in lines to get vaccinated against polio. Nor do they carry the blessed round scar on their upper arm that many of us do, so that we and our children are no longer threatened with smallpox.

Human memory is fleeting and knowledge of history shamefully short.

What has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun. Ignorance prevails.

Most “anti-vaxxers” are not against vaccines as long as individuals can freely exercise informed consent.

If a vaccine is safe and effective, and the threat of disease is high, most people will accept vaccination. Those that refuse to accept vaccination would be at greater risk of contracting the disease than those taking the vaccine in that situation.

Let me give you an example of an effective vaccine campaign coming form an anti forced vaxxer. During the Franco-
Prussian War small pox was still a big threat. The Prussians vaccinated their troops against small pox, but the French did not. The soldiers had similar conditions and went through the countryside. They intermingled directly when the Germans took French prisoners. The French suffered over 23,000 deaths from small pox and the Prussians suffered only 261 death from small pox. You can also point to small pox death rates between Native American and European during the 17th and 18th century.

Small pox vaccination was imperative because it was a highly lethal disease that spread easily by contact. In situations where small pox was prevalent, I think most people would accept the vaccine as long as the risks of the vaccine were not as great as contracting small pox. As the above examples illustrate, the Prussians were vaccinated and protected even when they were exposed to the unvaccinated and infected French prisoners and peasants. The Europeans had natural immunity and were largely protected form NIs with small pox. So, I think that we can safely say that, with an effective vaccine, the vaccinated are protected from the unvaccinated.

So, this argument really comes down to ethics and individual choice because those receiving an effective vaccine are protected. If the vaccine is not effective, then an individual should think as to why they should use it in the first place. One must also consider other risks vaccine contaminants such as mercury, aluminum, extraneous viruses, and triggering an autoimmune response.

So with something like measles or influenza, you have a disease with a very low death rate, and a vaccine riddled with contaminants that may possess a threat to long term health. Naturally, many people will be reluctant to take such treatment. This is much like those that refuse statin drugs for elevated cholesterol because of risks of liver disease.

Informed consent is all the “anti-vaxxers” want. Is that too much to ask?

If you can’t support informed consent with freedom to choose treatment, you are in favor of medical tyranny.

When you attempt to USURP the powers of PARENTS, to impose your views. You become very unpopular. To borrow part of your statement.

When you FAIL to inform said parents of all RISK involved you fail your OATH to do NO HARM. Did you tell her and her mom Gardasil can cause infertility? Or carried other risk factors?

My beautiful, perfectly healthy, active 16 yr old granddaughter, not sexually active yet, was given on the STUPID advice of her pediatrician the Gardasil vaccine. She now has Rheumatoid Arthritis, Fibromylagia, and some digestive health issues. Plus some her mom won’t talk about.

Once a very accomplished Ribbon Gymnast, she now has hands with knuckles so swollen she can’t grip the ribbons. So she sits on the side line and has to take EIGHT pills a day to combat the side effects of your DAMN vaccine.

Since I am facing OP that is DRUG INDUCED and am at -4 which is Red Zone. I’ve done a lot of homework on each of the drugs, including the 2 in trail phases. All come with VERY high GI issues warnings and other harmful warnings. NOT my ENDO or PCP both pushing OP drugs has BOTHER to inform me of the potential risk. I am a high drug sensitive patient. With multiple health issues, most of them related to drugs you advised me to take.

Their latest answer to bone spur pain in the Thoracic disc is NOT to remove the bone spurs, but to REDUCE the size of my Breast. I am not a fat person, just over gifted. A highly expensive and invasive surgery. Takes 1 hr and a 1 inch incision to do the bone spur removal. Well I don’t like your advice and don’t want your Poisons. I already had a reaction to your Fosamax.

Want more, YOUR DAMN POISONS Osteoporosis DRUGS all carry very high FDA warnings on them and not 1 of you tell your patients that! Gee, so sorry you developed A-Fib, jaw degeneration, A-Typical Femur Fractures, bone, muscle or joint pain or DIED a horrible death from our drug. Foreto is Black Box Labeled for Bone Cancer.

WARNINGS OP DRUGS Kidney failure deaths, A Fib, Jaw Degeneration and A Typical Femur Fractures

Bisphosphonates (Osteoporosis Drugs): Label Change - Atypical Fractures Update
http://www.fda.gov/Safety/MedWatch/SafetyInformation/SafetyAlertsforHumanMedicalProducts/ucm229244.htm

http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/DrugSafetyPodcasts/ucm229800.htm
FDA issues new warning: Osteoporosis drugs cause thigh bone fractures

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/030972_osteoporosis_drugs_bone_fractures.html#ixzz3TtkwHMyM

http://www.webmd.com/osteoporosis/news/20101013/osteopososis-drugs-may-raise-thigh-fracture-risk

When you see your child react to a vaccine, does that make you a Anti-vaxxer or as you state a global warmest of the medical world?

Or a very cautious parent?

And before you harp, I am a hard right Conservative, to the Right of Rush.

Have you ever reacted to just a flu shot? I spent 2 weeks in the bathroom very sick, lost 10 lbs and ended up in the ER for dehydration. Even though drinking Gator Aid products and puking them up as fast as I drank them.

I raised 3 boys saw what those vaccines did. Some were harmless, some were NOT. Do you know what it is to have your just crawling baby vaccinated and then in just a few hours see that same healthy child dragging a nearly useless leg that took weeks to stop? I see what Gardasil is doing to my granddaughter. It has ruined her life.

Then there is just the run of the mill drugs doctors say have little to know side effects. Well that 1 Bentyl pill you just prescribed while I was in the hospital, sent me into shock. Your PPI's have destroyed my bones. Your OA drugs my digestive track. Now you want me to take your poison OP drugs for the OP you induced with your drugs. Yet you have NOT told me they all carry very strong FDA WARNINGS! I had to research those factoids out. When I researched each OP drug for side effects. You say creams, gels or patches by pass the stomach. You LIE.

Must have missed Biology 101, any med that is applied to the skin goes into the blood stream and then through the GI track including your stomach. So stop lying to people about them.

We LEARNED from first hand experience what harm a pill or a vaccine can do! That does NOT make us an ALARMIST, just very skeptical and cautious. Each person is unique and will react differently to different meds or vaccines. And there is currently no way to pretest for it.

I am tired of being a Human Guinea Pig for Big Pharma's harmful drugs.

Some of us are old enough to remember ancient history.
Like....THIS!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_swine_flu_outbreak

Quote:

The 1976 swine flu outbreak, also known as the swine flu fiasco,[1] or the swine flu debacle, was a strain of H1N1 influenza virus that appeared in 1976. Infections were only detected from January 19 to February 9, and were not found outside Fort Dix.[2] The outbreak is most remembered for the mass immunization that it prompted in the United States. The strain itself killed one person and hospitalized 13.[2] However, side-effects from the vaccine are thought to have caused five hundred cases of Guillain–Barré syndrome and 25 deaths.”

Some of us are old enough to remember Thalidomide and all those deformed and dead babies that resulted from it.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the drug thalidomide caused an estimated 10,000 birth defects and thousands of fetal deaths worldwide.

I’ve been on some form of PPI for nearly 30 yrs when the first HRT and OA drugs caused Acid Reflux so bad it would eat your esophagus up with the acid. Now every drug with a long list of GI issues will cause horrid reactions. Now we know they cause bone density brittle bones issues. Yet patients are still now warned about that. It’s like the OP drugs with the FDA warnings, that don’t make it down to patient level.

You would not think something as simple as a change in dye color would cause a reaction, but it can and does.

You really have to be your own detective and be educated on each drug and know what your body will react to. It no longer is just searching out the best doctor, but the right doctor for you. Even the hospital they use matters when the quality of workers is so poor any more. Many not speaking understandable English.

Had 1 M.E. Male doc who would not touch me, or speak to me. Just my husband. They take their religious tabos into the medical field. And heaven help you if you get one in the ER.

Remember back in our own history we gave blankets from patients infected with small pox, measles, typhoid etc to Indians who had no immunity to these diseases. Wiped out nearly whole tribes.

“If a vaccine is safe and effective” that is the crux of the entire issue. IS THE VACCINE REALLY SAFE? Is the Medicines or vaccines being prescribed safe and effective?

At this point patients are ‘required’ to report the side effects. Many seniors are not computer literate. Small children don’t know what a bad side effect is. And uninformed parents are just that, DUMB. Doctors just give Patients a different medicine if they complain about horrible side effects of a med until they find one that shuts the patient up. No one ties deaths to the medicines, just age. Many meds have memory issues, is this a reason we are seeing a big uptick in Alzheimer’s? Most Patients report side effects to their doctors. WHO should be the ones reporting those side effects to the FDA, not the patient.

Bill Gates uses his Billions to push COMMIE CORE that comes right out of Mien Kemp. Those of us old enough know about how Hitler educated the German youth to be snitches on their parents and neighbors. That is what Commie Core does.

You check Bill Gates and Merck and the relationship goes very deep. With Whistle Blowers statements being suppressed by the MSM. http://www.thelibertybeacon.com/2014/04/25/mercks-former-doctor-predicts-that-gardasil-will-become-the-greatest-medical-scandal-of-all-time/

Then ask how can we truly trust our medical profession? When they refuse to tell patients a drug they are prescribing carries a BIG FDA WARNING on the drug. Doctors like patients who wear blinders. Not well informed patients.

Those who are well informed say NO a lot. And rely on natural remedies more.

And with many of our meds now being made in foreign countries where we have no control in the processing it makes you worry a lot about the ingredients and if they actually contain enough of the ‘drug’ vs being more filler. And those fillers are not benign either, they cause side effects, right down to dyes used in the pills. Ditto goes for Generics. Some are ‘small window’ meds and can’t be off by the amount the government allows.

I’m not an anti-vaxxer, but a well informed consumer. HARD RIGHT CONSERVATIVE, and a hard head Celt. Prove to me it’s safe first. If it carries a FDA Warning tell me before you write the script.

The decision is ultimately mine to make. Just as it was my mom’s when she was diagnosed with late stage lung cancer. Despite going to the doctor more than enough, who missed the clear signs. Chemo and it’s horrors of side effects, would NOT save her, but would buy her another month. She opted for Hospice and surprised them and lived 4 months instead of the 3 months with Chemo she was told she get. She died peacefully surrounded by family.

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