Pharmacutical Sales Rep Paul Offit Teaches Doctors to Ignore Pharmacutical Package Inserts

Paul Offit teaches doctors to ignore pharmacutical package inserts, calling the medical information morally and ethically required be given to patients who could be harmed by said pharmacutical, "the bane of [his] existence."

Not something that the physician needs to use to fully understand the Rx they might offer to a patient, "the bane of his existance."

He is not a doctor, he is a pharma sales rep.

Why would you want to see a doctor who is trained by this man?  From the LAT:

"I know you doctors keep telling me that vaccines don't cause autism. If that's true, then why is it on this package insert?" he asked, playing the role of a parent who had read the blogs and heard the celebrities who connect the two.
Shifting in her seat, the designated victim shot Offit an unsure look.
Then she began citing studies and said that drug packaging inserts include many "temporally associated symptoms" that weren't necessarily caused by the vaccine.
"Why?" Offit pressed. "Why would they put that there — just to scare me?"
The doctor kept trying. "They're required by law," she said. "I actually didn't know the answer."
Offit broke character to explain: Drug companies must list any condition known to have occurred within six weeks of a vaccination, whether the medication caused the condition or not, and even if it occurs at the same level as with a placebo.
Package inserts are legal documents, not medical documents, he said, calling them "the bane of [his] existence."
"If you look at the original package insert for chicken pox vaccine, it says, 'Broken leg has been associated with this drug,'" he added.

Invisible Threat: Ugh.

I've been gone for a long time doing Health Choice and media work... please forgive... blah blah blah...

So tonight I was down in Portland for some business meetings, and after the first Scott and I walked two blocks to Starbucks for a coffee.  I was at the table when he brought my drink and dropped a piece of paper in front of me.  "Look what I found on their bulletin board."

It was a flier for the new "hit" vaccine propaganda piece, "Invisible Threat."  (Since when to people who are in a film, review the film? Oh wait... HHS owns patents on the vaccines it licenses and recommends... forgot who I was dealing with.)

Watch the trailer below and be terrified that your child will die of disease if you don't vaccinate.

Invisible Threat Trailer from CHSTV Videos on Vimeo.

It is, of course the same old, same old, but with a twist this time.  This was not done by the vaccine lobby, this was done by unbiased high school students!

So I was all... "UGH... too bad I can't go, cause we gotta meeting.  And it starts in 12 minutes."

Then Scott was all, "Just drop me off and go, you don't even need to be at this meeting."  So I did that.

And there was a good reason to go... because I know a bit of the back story for this film.

You see I have a beloved friend and advocacy partner named Becky Estepp.  You all know Becky, she has been a regular on Fox News Channel, and lots of local San Diego area news pieces for years.  If you want to talk a parent in Southern California who can discuss the problems with the vaccine program, and its relationship to the autism epidemic, Becky is your go to gal.

Four years ago, she got a phone call from a high school boy from CHSTV, an awkward sophomore, who said they were making a documentary, and had some questions.  Becky had a long conversation with him, but could tell some of the things she was trying to teach him were a bit over his head.  Then she never heard from anyone on the film again.

Cut to this year when she sees the trailer for "Invisible Threat," and realized THIS was the project she was interviewed for. A totally biased piece, allegedly done by teenagers, that was a bit difficult to believe was done by teenagers.  Why did they not interview her for the actual film?  Great question... I wondered too!

We also wondered, "Kids made this?  Really?"  From my estimation, yes they did.  But it seems pretty obvious that they were lead around by the nose on what what and how to "investigate."  In fact we were told at the outset that one of the kids parents worked for Scholastic and "helped" the kids.  I am sure that Rotary "helped" too.  Also apparently the Gates Foundation, "helped"... so....

Fortunately there was a parking space right by the building and I whipped into my chair with one minute to spare before they started.  A very attractive lady from Vax Maine Kids (I think) explained that these kid had done two award winning documentaries, and were approached by The Rotary Club to do a pro-vaccine documentary.  The kids, of course, turned them down because they wouldn't do something like that, but then agreed to make one on their own terms where they would investigate the issues and then make their movie on what they had learned. (Yes they took the money.)

(P.S. Don't take your medical advice from Play Boy Bunnies, take it from teenagers?)

She explained that this was the first time the film had been shown in New England (Really?  They picked Portland, Maine?) and later explained that one of the reasons that it has not been widely distributed is because the children received death threats after the movie, just like poor Paul Offit (who we have asked for some documentation on these threats, a police report, anything, because, you know... if that shit is really happening, then NOT OK, and we would shame such people into oblivion for it... cause we are kinda sick of being called "baby killers" and being threatened with Child Protective Services as well.)

But apparently the death threats to children are not really a problem as they will be releasing the film broadly on August 1.  Not super clear.  I guess that arrests have been made and the problem is solved?

Of course my cynical self imagines the conversation:

"Well we premiered the film last spring, three days before the beginning of "Autism Awareness Month" to take headlines away from the vaccine injury problem, so aren't people gonna be all. "WHAAA?" if we don't release it until August, just in time for the back to school vaccine push?"
"Um... just tell them there were death threats so we had to hold off the release."  

I text all this to Becky and she is not convinced.  "Don't you think that if that really happened it would be all over San Diego TV?"  Becky makes great points (and is also very physically fit.)

Vax Maine Kids did say that they wanted open and respectful dialog on vaccines issues.  Well they have never contacted me or any of my loud mouth friends in Maine to have this open discussion, but I'll take her word for it that she means it for that event.

So the film begins, and it is all the same tropes.  It's all Wakefield's fault.  Your body is crawling with a bazillion creatures out to kill you.  Mothers of children who have died of "vaccine preventable" illnesses are beautiful and worthy of your compassion.  Mothers of children who believe vaccines cause their child's autism are into hippy dippy crap like rubbing oils on their kids and moving their limbs around to heal them.  The docs that treat their kids are unattractive quacks.  The docs that say vaccines are totally safe are attractive and established and should have angelic music behind them when they speak.  Paul Offit is the super smartest and objective guy ever and he thinks moms like me who write critical things on the internet about the vaccine program are "evil."  (Also, profiteers... which is hilarious and forces me to stifle a laugh.) MMR induced encephalitis is one in one million. (Wait... I thought vaccine injury in general was one in a million?)  And finally, VACCINES ARE SAFE, VACCINES SAVE LIVES, VACCINE REACTIONS ARE RARE, AND VACCINATION IS THE RIGHT CHOICE.

***UPDATE:
Apologies that this post is a bit of a mess.. wrote it at 3am.  I forgot the BEST part of the movie.  Parents who don't vaccinate are made analagus to THE TALIBAN!!

Yes... because every country on earth vaccinates... "except for one, THE TALIBAN!"  Then they point out that Talibanians killed polio vaccine workers.  They fail to point out that it was after the CIA used a fake vaccine campaign to harvest the DNA from Afgahan locals to find out if Osama Bin Lahadeen and family were in the area, which caused haters of The Great Satan to stop participating in vax programs and even attack them.  Because they assumed they were CIA.

Ergo, according to the NYT the CIA is runing vaccine uptake.

Also you are a Talabanian.

But this "documentary" is totally unbiased.***

So by the end of the film I think my blood pressure was 1000/1000.  I don't know why I let my self get so upset about this crap anymore... again... the New England premier and there were 20 people in the room.  And then they called the panelists (and moderator and projectionist) to the front of the room... And then there were 13 audience members... including me. (And from the chit chat at the end... clearly they were almost all friends of the panel/people working on vaccine uptake.)

So I did a little self-talk to calm myself down, which worked a little.  (Damn... I should not have had coffee before I went there.)  So I decided I would not talk, but if I did it would just be some mild questions at the very end.  Just to see where they really were on this stuff.

The panel was a very sweet gray haired older mother in a matronly dress who had lost her teen age son to meningitis, three pediatricians (two female and one male, now come to think of it, I can't remember if the second female was a doc... she didn't say much... might have been a professional advocate), and a former Maine epidemiologist.  One of the pediatricians was from my town, and is well known for publishing the most bone headed vaccines rah rah rah junk in our state via the Bangor Daily News.

Wait... I actually looked the event up.  Here is the panel:

"The public is invited to this free showing at 5 p.m. Wednesday, July 23, at the Portland Public Library. A panel discussion will follow the film. The expert panel will include: Larry Losey, M.D., of Brunswick Pediatrics, Laura Blaisdell, M.D., MPH, of Intermed Pediatrics and Researcher at Maine Medical Center Research Institute, Center for Outcomes Research & Evaluation, Jeri Greenwell, parent and Maine advocate for the National Meningitis Association; Emily Rines, MPH, CHES Community Impact Director at United Way of Greater Portland, and Stephen Sears, M.D., MPH, Chief of Staff, VA Maine Healthcare Systems and former Maine State Epidemiologist."

The first question was from Vax Maine Kids pretty lady (I really should look up her name, but I don't wanna.  Also she had a great skirt on. *edit: Cassandra Grantham of VaxMaineKids.org) It was about social media.  (Here we go..) How did the internet, etc impact their efforts on vaccine uptake.  Then I had to sit through that, "Oh the horrible internet, blah blah blah conspiracies, yadda yadda, misinformation, The End." discussion.  I refrained from shouting that it was the 21st century and every document ever published (Unless it is covered under National Security... and even a lot of those that are covered under National Security) is on the damn internet, and that poo pooing internet information is now exactly equal to saying, "Don't read books.  Or anything printed.  Or hand written." any time before 1987.

None of them said that they had ever learned anything from the critics of the vaccine program.

(Crap... I just looked at the Vax Maine Kids web site.  I really should not have done that.  Did you know that, "the mercury in the preservative Thimerosal has never been shown to harm children or cause autism?"  Wow!  Not even once!)

It should come as no surprise that reasonableness on the issue was inversely proportional to the age of the panelist.

Small ray of light came from Dr. Blaisdell, who opened with, and repeated often, that she wants open dialog with parents, and does not want to push parents.  But later was discouraged that she repeated the absurdity that, "Aluminum is necessary for human life to function," (No.. it really isn't , its a neurotoxin ); she mocked the use of the word "toxins" (even making air quotes when she said it) telling people in that give me a break, condescending tone, "Please don't listen to people who talk to you about "toxins." (I guess she wants the field of Toxicology to shut down?), and claimed that the Jacobson v. Mass SCOTUS ruling said that states can force people to vaccinate (Clearly the woman has neither read it nor met Mary Holland.)

I had been such a good girl and held my tongue, but apparently I got to the "I feel like I'm taking crazy pills" moment because after Losey said the 25th awful thing (I don't even remember what it was, but I did learn from him that if I didn't like my ruling in the VICP that I could go to civil court and sue the vaccine maker.  He had never heard of Bruesewitz v. Wyeth) I let out a snort that I am sure sounded like an angry horse, and my hand involuntarily shot up (Insert joke about how there is probably a vaccine for that.)

(Seriously... ten years of this crap and they STILL can't get basic information about the real problems right?  They are STILL repeating this garbage? JB Handley made the point many years ago, if peds have not bothered to learn by now, it is their own fault.  They shouldn't be coddled any more.)

The only other audience participation up to that point had been a mom who had of course vaccinated her kids, and wanted to know if Maine's philosophical exemption was making it harder to get kids vaccinated and meet public health goals.  Blaisdell made the point that she didn't know, because detailed records are not kept, and not getting the Hep B is not a problem like not getting the Measles vaccine, but opt out rates are higher in states with those exemptions.  Losey, to his credit, recognized that getting rid of the exemption was impossible in the current climate, as the bills being considered in Augusta are all to loosen their hold on pushing parents to vaccinate, and, for at least now anyway, not gonna happen.

So this is toward the end of the panel discussion, and I just unloaded on them.  And not gracefully either.  The angry, talking 60 miles an hour Ginge burst out of me.  I explained that I was the mother of a vaccine injured child and... blah blah insert my creds here... and watching the movie (that they had all extolled) was hard for me because it contained so much that was false and incomplete and sucky.  (I didn't really say sucky.)

I don't even remember all I said, but I took them on/correct them on many of the things they said.  I do remember saying, in that give me a break, condescending tone, "Do you really think the decline in vaccine uptake is because of one British study that came out 15 years ago."  But the big points that I made where that the film addressed NONE of the reasons that we don't participate in the vaccine program any more, that I was going to go ahead and do a point by point take down of the film when it comes out in wide release, and that this does not even address (because they never address it) the real root of the problem, which is the vaccine injury liability they all have.  Which assures that they will never have to be put under oath to testify and be cross examined on all the stupid things they say. (No I didn't say that last part either.)

So Dr. Blaisdell addressed me very nicely/handled me, and asked me questions, so I was like.. "Fuck it... I am just going to keep talking as long as they will let me," which was a while.  But then she brought it around with a "well what would you recommend for us" giving me a final say... again, good, but totally handling me.

"How could I choose just one thing!" my brain screamed.

So I choose two.  Stop attacking "those people on the internet and listen to them/learn from the professionals/stop calling us anti-vaccine" and "realize that because of the vaccine injury and death liability protection you have, that you live in a bubble, with no accountability for what you say and do, that you get to believe whatever you want to believe about vaccines."

Oh... also they called me "passionate" a lot, which is a polite/dismissive way of noting that I am a super angry woman.  Which I am.

"Oppression makes a wise man mad."

And then I shut up.

And then their tone changed.  They were more balanced, they addressed me directly, and in the wrap up question, they suddenly acknowledged that safety is a problem, that they need to do more to avoid vaccine reactions, and parents like me must be engaged.

Of course we know what people really want, because they actually DO the things that are important to them.

So on the way out I made sure to sign the registry with my contact info, since engaging parents and learning how to avoid vaccine injury is important.  So I'm sure they will call, right?  I am sure my phone will be ringing off the hook tomorrow with questions like, "What are these eighty plus studies you mentioned about vaccine induce autism and their mechanisms?  What are the ways you think vaccine reactions can be avoided?  Where is this information from federal officials on vaccine injuries?  What was that you said about aluminum and the vaccine schedule not being safety tested?"

I think I will clear my schedule tomorrow.  And perhaps Friday in case they want to have lunch and look at my research.

And then I can spend the day surfing facebook because they won't call me.  Or anyone else like me.  Because they never do.  Because they don't have to.  The threat to them for harming children with their mis information and bad practices is not an "invisible threat" it is a non existent threat.

They get to do and believe whatever they want.  The only consequence is the occasional crazy mom showing up to rant at them.

Update!

Check below!  A doc that does what she says she wants... you know... words and actions!  Wow.

Second time evah a doc has actually followed up with me on stuff.  The first was like five years ago, a med student wrote me and said, "I disagree with everthing you say, but I do have one question."  That one question turned into years of conversations long into the beginning of his practice.

UPDATE!!!!

As my regular readers know, last week I suffered and massive brain hemmorage and died after attending a screening "Invisible Threat" a propeganda film made by HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS on the vaccine debate.

Well today, following a touching and heartfelt funeral (seriously guys, I had no idea how insanely you loved me... I was moved) They had to dig me up and readmit me to the emergency room, where I died again, after reading the follow up email I received from the Maine Health Department.

They said if I filled out a survey on the film they would send me my CME credits in two weeks.  FRIGGING CME CREDITS!!!

My next funeral will be held this Saturday at my house.  Bring chocolate chip cookies.

This was my reply:

Ms. Lawson,
After attending this event, I was stunned to get this email.
Let me get this straight... you are giving CME credits to medical professionals for watching a movie made by high school students?  Not medical professionals... minors.  We are talking about children.
Emphasizing... their highest qualification is that they graduated from Jr. High School.
It was FILLED with inaccuracies, partial information and compared people who don't vaccinate to the Taliban, but this is to be used for guidance in how to provide medical care?
How exactly does this qualify as advancing a medical education?  How are they qualified to teach medical professionals?
I await you response,
Ginger Taylor

UPDATE again...

So despite leaving two messages for Dr. Blaisdell in the last three weeks, no response from her.

But you know what I just noticed?  Paul Offit is listed as the "Science Technical Adviser" on the film.  But don't worry... just because the vaccine industry's defacto salesperson, who has made millions off his own vaccine patent is the guy providing them technical science advice, does NOT mean that this is unbiased.

Just to emphasize... Offit is in the movie, he is the guy who shaped the movie, and he also reviewed the movie.  JOURNALISM!!!

Final update:

Blaisdell never made good on her invite to talk.

It took me a full month to figure out why I was so incredibly angry at this documentary, when we face this kind of schlock so often that we are kinda desensitized to it.  It was because they are using kids to sell dangerous drugs to other kids.  No better than street corner drug dealers.

Offit Teaches Physicians How to Talk To The Public About Vaccines: Contemptuously Lecture, Stonewall, Bully and Throw Them Out

Reading Jake Crosby's piece today on being thrown out of yet another Paul Offit speech, I am struck by the ironic pattern in these speaking engagements.  

Paul Offit (and Seth Mnookin) have been holding events at prestigious institutions to tell medical professionals and academics how to handle the public on the vaccine controversy.  Yet I think that it is completely lost on them that they are not just giving a speech on how to handle people who question the current vaccine program, they are actually holding a lab, will full scale demonstrations, on how to handle people who question the current vaccine program.

Because people don't really pay as much attention to what you say as they do to what you do.  (Ask any parent trying to teach a child NOT to do something that they do themselves.  "Don't smoke kids.  Now pass mommy her cigarettes.")  And what Offit and Mnookin have done, is offer a bunch of words that will likely have little impact, but then actually demonstrate how to treat doubters of their message, which has a huge impact.

So here is the take away that event goers are getting when attending an Offit/Mnookin event:

1.  Offit gives a lecture at NIH entitled “Communicating Vaccine Safety Science to the Public,” says a bunch of words, then demonstrates how to communicate "vaccine safety science" to someone who is a steakholder in the issue (Jake Crosby, who may be vaccine injured) by falsely accusing him of being a stalker, by not letting him ask a question (although he is behaving completely appropriately) and by throwing him off the premises. 

Take away:  To communicate with the public, talk AT them.  If they have questions that you don't want to answer, make them your adversary and have them removed from the property.

It is OK, and even preferable, to demonize vaccine safety skeptics, and treat them very poorly. 

Bully them.


2.  Offit gives a lecture at Yale entitled “Hard Knocks: Communicating Science to the Public,” says a bunch of words, then demonstrates how to communicate "science" to someone who is a steakholder in the issue (Jake Crosby, who may be vaccine injured) by falsely accusing him of being a stalker, by yelling at him, by not letting him ask a question (although he is behaving completely appropriately) and by throwing him off the premises.

Take away:  To communicate with the public, talk AT them.  If they have questions that you don't want to answer, make them your adversary and have them removed from the property.  Offit has also inferring that the "Hard Knocks" do not refer to the medical professional being "knocked" when trying to talk to communicate to the public, but actually to the vaccine safety skeptic who was actually "knocked" trying to communicate with the medical professional.  "When engaging the public, it is OK to give them 'hard knocks'."

It is OK, and even preferable, to demonize vaccine safety skeptics, and treat them very poorly. 

Bully them.

3.  Mnookin gives a lecture at  American University's School of Communication entitled  "How to Communicate with Anti-Vaccine Parents," says a bunch of words, then demonstrates how to communicate "science" to someone who wants to make their own vaccine decisions, by telling the audience that you are offended and repulsed by such parents, and that you think they are "Total Assholes."

Take away:  To communicate with the public, hold them in contempt.  Even when they are parents earnestly working in the best interests of their vulnerable children.

It is OK, and even preferable, to demonize vaccine skeptics, even as you admit that vaccines may not even work for their child.

Bully them.

4.  Mnookin appears at the  “Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research” event,  says a bunch of words, then demonstrates public responsibility in vaccine discussion by falsely accusing a stakeholder in the issue (Jake Crosby, who may be vaccine injured) of being disruptive at events, by not letting him ask a question (although he is behaving completely appropriately) and by throwing him off the premises .

Take away:  It is responsible, when dealing with vaccine safety skeptics, to talk AT them while only allowing them to sit quietly and listen.  If they have questions that you don't want to answer, make them your adversary and have them removed from the property.

It is OK, and even preferable, to demonize vaccine safety skeptics, and treat them very poorly.

Bully them.

Do you see the pattern here?

Mnookin and Offit ARE teaching the medical world how to treat those who have questions about vaccine safety.  They are to be treated very poorly.  They are to be held in contempt and bullied.  They are to be removed from the premises.

But of course the problem for medical professionals in taking this advice, is that when they try it in their offices, they loose the argument, the loose the patient, and they loose their reputation in the community.  Taking Offit's advice is akin to shooting oneself in the foot for anyone whose job actually requires them to have a conversation with a member of the public.

And the Offiteers have lost at least A QUARTER of the public to the conclusion that vaccinating according to CDC recommendations is a greater risk to their child than adhering to their recommendations.

So I will echo Mary Holland's most salient question to Paul Offit in this last exchange:

"Would you be willing to engage in a public debate about the vaccine issue?”

And we see that the answer is, and always will be, the one that Offit gives:

“There is no need to debate the science; the science is in.”

Their answer is "No."  

So as Offit (who has become the Bagdad Bob of vaccination) and friends lock the doors to the ivory tower from the inside, to protect themselves from vicious graduate students in epidemiology at that hotbed of anti-science anarchy, George Washington University; but what they don't seem to have noticed is that all they have done is locked themselves in a broom closet, away from the real vaccine discussion that matters.  Their tiny mutual admiration society is having little impact in the direction of vaccine uptake rates, because they are not engaging with the vaccine decision makers.  You know... their customers.  The discussions that are changing vaccine uptake are happening at coffee tables, at bus stops and over back fences.  

I have them on a weekly basis, I don't accuse people who question me of being disruptive or being stalkers, I don't treat them with contempt, i don't call them "Total Assholes," I don't shout them down when they try to ask questions, I don't throw them off the premises and I DO engage them for as long as they want to talk about the issue.

I can show a mother that the claim that "The science is in and vaccines don't cause autism" (and apparently now encephalopathy) is a complete load of horse shit in 2 minutes on my cell phone from our health officials own words documents and web sites.  Not only is Offit not there to defend his stupid claim, local pediatricians are completely ill equipped to win back moms who have been educated at the coffee table, because the only thing they have been taught to do with these moms are:

1. Hold them in contempt.

2. Talk AT them.

3. Don't allow them to ask questions.

4. If they challenge your stance, throw them out.

And then of course, the next time they are at coffee, it's all, "OMG... you were totally right.  They don't know anything about vaccine injury!  He couldn't answer the questions and just tried to bully me!  What is the name of your pediatrician who is cool with your vaccine choices?"

So by all means, keep it up you two... keep it up.  Nothing proves my points more to all the women I talk to than the way you behave.

Offit/Crosby

So strange.

Jake Crosby has been dissecting autism research, writing about vaccine injury and exposing corruption and conflicts of interests in vaccine apologists for what, four years now?  And suddenly, in the course of three weeks, he has been branded so dangerous that he must be physically removed from not one, but two separate lectures by vaccine industry defenders... after merely asking a legitimate questions, both about Andrew Wakefield?

First Seth Mnookin said he was a heckler, but now wont answer questions or offer details about said heckling.  Now Paul Offit has upped the ante and announced that Jake was his stalker.

So as with Mnookin, I have written to Dr. Offit and asked him for details of Jake's problematic behavior.  You may recognize much of the letter, as I merely modified the letter I sent to Mnookin a few weeks ago, as this is practically the identical scenario that happened a few weeks ago.

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	Jake Crosby
Date:	Tue, 27 Dec 2011 18:40:00 -0500
From:	Ginger Taylor
To:	Paul Offit

Dr. Offit,

I read Jake Crosby's story on being ejected from your most recent event after asking a question during the question and answer period.

From his telling of the story, what you did seems to me be very heavy handed and inappropriate at the least, and some pretty ugly censorship and slander on your part at most.

As you have been untruthful about offenses that were never committed by your opponents in the past, (I reference JB Handley's successful libel lawsuit against you and the Orange County Register's retraction of your charges against a CBS reporter when you were unable to back them up), I tend to believe Jake's story on its face, but I want to allow for the fact that Jake did not report the incident accurately, thus my reason for contacting you with a few questions.

1.  Did he accurately report the incident, and that he has only been in contact with you once before, two years ago, via email?

2.  If so, do you not believe that an apology to him is in order?

3.  If he did not report the incident accurately, what did he get wrong?

4.  If not, what was the "stalking" incident or incidents that you referred that previously took place and why did it preclude him from asking a non-stalking question at this event?  When and where did it take place, what was said, what administrative or security action was taken, and are there recordings of any such events?

5.  Is Jake precluded from asking you questions in the future?  Is he precluded from attending any of your speaking engagements in the future?  Have you given him any notice to stay away, or a cease and desist or has any form of restraining order been issued?

6.  Like Jake, I have been very critical of your writing in my own blogging.  Am I allowed to attend your events and ask you questions?  If so what are the parameters for asking you questions and do they differ from someone who might agree with you on your vaccine stance?

7.  Is there anyone else from the autism, vaccine injury, vaccine safety or anti-vaccine communities, or from the medical community that is skeptical of the safety and efficacy claims made about the current vaccine program, that are not allowed to attend your events or ask you questions?

8.  Finally, (and with brutal frankness) If Mr. Crosby's story is accurate, and he has been appropriate in his interactions with you, and your own desire to silence your challengers is at the heart of why you had him removed from the room, is this a pattern you intend to continue?  Can anyone asking you a question which you believe you will not not be able to answer well, or which might make you look bad in front of the audience, expect to be slandered and escorted from the room?

9.  As Seth Mnookin made similar charges against Jake earlier this month, have you been communicating with him about Jake, and is this a coordinated effort to slander him?

I want to get this cleared up as people have expressed in increasing interest in attending your speaking events and challenging your assertions, many of which (myself included) believe are grossly inaccurate and/or irresponsible.  We certainly want to know up front if you intend on misrepresenting any of us as you seem to have done with Jake or if it is Jake who is misrepresenting you.

Your prompt response is appreciated.

--

Ginger Taylor
Adventures In Autism
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Vaccine Epidemic
818-402-9672

131 African Children Vaccinated at Gunpoint. Do Bill Gates and Paul Offit Approve?

The Malawi Voice is reporting that a group of families who took their children out of the country, to Mozambique, to avoid the free measles vaccine that was being distributed, were rounded up by police and vaccinated at gunpoint upon returning to the country.

The vaccine safety/choice community has been hearing reports of this happening in Africa for more than a year now, but this is the first official story that I have heard thus far and thus been able to report. In this case the District Health Officer himself, Dr. Matchaya, freely admitted to the newspaper that this was done.

"According to Dr. Medison Matchaya District Health Officer for Nsanje, medics went to vaccinate the children in Nsanje under police escort.

"We were alerted that some children who were hiding in Mozambique were back in the country and we asked police to escort the health officials in order to vaccinate them and we have managed to vaccinate about 131 children," said Matchaya.

This week, Bill Gates, working on another round of publicity for his "Year of the Vaccines" campaign (which just happens to fall on the year that he became an owner of a vaccine company, funny that) has declared at the GAVI meeting that the world needs to work toward "vaccine equity". He wants every child on the planet vaccinated. (Which in my book only matters when he is of course elected King of the World, which he hasn't been. Gates is not even a doctor, but just some guy who dropped out of college and made a bunch of cash on his buggy software via pushy business practices. I am more qualified to give medical advice than Gates is.)

"It's now that we are going to start to get the last two vaccines that rich kids take for granted, Pneumococcal and RotaVirus, and over these next five years, get them out to every child everywhere. That means for the first time ever, that we have equity in vaccines. That we don't take the poorest children who are actually the most susceptible to these diseases, and the benefit of giving them the vaccine is the highest, and yet in the past, they've been the ones who don't get it. And so, it really is, in the achievement of equity, this is a very important day. Now our foundation wants to do its part, so I am pleased to announce to you that we are pledging and additional billion dollars... (pause for lengthy applause)... Thank you... alright, thank you... It's not every day we give away a billion dollars, but for a cause like this it is exciting to be doing it. That will be over the next five years."

So will Bill "Not a Doctor" Gates' billion dollars go to making sure that the basic human right not to be injected with any substance against ones will is respected? Or will some of it go to guns to force people to take the vaccines that they don't want?

Will any of that billion to care for children who suffer vaccine injury? Wanna know the difference between my vaccine injured son a let's say, a child in a small African village who suffers a vaccine encephalopathy? In our house we have doors with locks on them to keep him safe inside, and school systems that are legally obligated to serve him. Take a moment and imagine what it would be like to try to keep your neurologically impaired child alive in rural Africa for a month or two. Just watched a short documentary about a new neurological illness befalling children in one African village. Parents have to tie their children to the side of their homes with a rope to prevent them from walking away and dying. That is how they live their entire lives.

I submitted the following media inquiry to the Gates Foundation. I have not waited for a response, as I understand that these questions have been sent in on several occasions and no one that I know of has ever received a response. I will amend this article if they do respond:

"Subject: Vaccination forced at gun point
Date: Sat, 09 Jul 2011 11:50:43 -0400
From: Ginger Taylor
To: media@gatesfoundation.org

I am writing a piece and I am looking for comment from Bill Gates or the Gates Foundation on forced vaccination.

Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation have donated billions to new global vaccination campaigns over the next decade. Gates announced at GAVI a billion over the next five years to get Pneumococcal and Rotavirus vaccines "out to every child everywhere".

But, not every family wants these vaccines or believes that they are in their child's best interest, and of course, all vaccines carry risk of serious injury or even death to some people.

In light of this, do Bill Gates and The Gates Foundation believe that people should be coerced or forced into vaccinating against their will in violation if their human rights to decide what pharmaceuticals go into their bodies?

Further, for more than a year now, we in the vaccine safety/choice community have been hearing about people being vaccinated at gun point in Africa, but had not had any confirmation of these reports. Today an official in Malawi confirmed that he lead such an effort, and used police to force vaccinate children of families who did not want the measles vaccine.

131 Children Vaccinated at Gunpoint in Nsanje

Do Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation support or condemn this practice?

Additionally, in the US, vaccine injury (and deaths) are recognized by all involved in vaccination and our Department of Health and Human Services has a compensation program that was set up to provide financial compensation to those injured by vaccines so that their loved ones could care for them. Will the Gates Foundation be setting up a similar system to care for those who will be injured by their vaccine campaigns?


Ginger Taylor"

I am equally as interested in Paul Offit's thoughts on this, as it is a huge payday for him in future royalties. Bill Gates money is going to to buy his vaccine for every single person in the entire world. Offit advocates coerced vaccination, recommending that people be forced to take classes before being "allowed" to refuse a shot for themselves or their child. In the trailer for The Greater Good, Offit says, "Sadly, some people don't do what it best for their children unless it is mandated."



Note that he is not the only one advocating mandated vaccination. Gunpoint is one hell of a mandate. Does he believe that this level of coercion, threatening to kill someone if they don't vaccinate, is appropriate?

I sent the following to Dr. Offit. He has responded to my inquiries before, so there is a much better chance I will hear back from him. I will let you know if he responds.

Subject: Gun Point Vaccination in Africa
Date: Sat, 09 Jul 2011 11:42:08 -0400
From: Ginger Taylor
To: offit@email.chop.edu

Dr. Offit,

You have spoken out in favor of vaccine mandates and compelling individuals to take an education course on vaccination before they would be allowed to turn down a vaccine for themselves or their children.

For more than a year now, we in the vaccine safety/choice community have been hearing about people being vaccinated at gun point in Africa, but had not had any confirmation of these reports. Today an official in Malawi confirmed that he lead such an effort, and used police to force vaccinate children of families who did not want the measles vaccine.

131 Children Vaccinated at Gunpoint in Nsanje

Do you support or condemn this practice?

Ginger Taylor

So the questions are... just how insane does this vaccine push have to get before the world stands up and says "NO!".  How far does this go... this Doctocracy?  How many shots?  How many other medical interventions?

This has officially become the plot of a bad movie. Egomaniac billionaire desperate to leave a legacy proving he is the most wonderful man in the world, destroys long term health of civilization, pits doctors against patients and citizens against governments (and NGOs who have become delusional that they are actually governments with power over people). Gates and GAVI seem to want all the rights to make people's health decisions for them, but I don't see them talking about taking any of the responsibilities for the outcomes of those decisions.

When I heard "vaccine equity" I immediately thought, "so now children in rural Africa and Asia will have the same access to immune dysfunction and brain damage that my son has?" Congratulations children of the world?  When rich, educated, established Americans (even medical professionals) can't get recognition and proper care for their vaccine injured children, what chance do you think poor single African mother has?  And we now know that if she tries to say no in the first place, there is a chance that a gun will be used to make her do what Bill Gates has decided is good for her child.

"Authority should derive from the consent of the governed, not from the threat of force!" - Barbie, Toy Story 3

UPDATE:

Michael Belkin noted that Melinda Gates has already been praising Malawi for their vaccine program:

‘How is it that they do that? What I found was that the vision and dedication of the country’s top leadership has been absolutely instrumental in terms of making success in this area. So the country, one of the commitments that they’ve made is to build out this cadre of front line workers they call them in their country health surveillance assistants. So every month these 11,000 health surveillance assistants spend 3 weeks out in the villages, talking with the villagers providing basic vaccinations … They make sure the vaccinations happen, not only at the village level but all the way back through the system.’

Offit Called Out For Lying AGAIN!

Why does this man still get published!

In 2008 CBS ran this piece:



(My blog on in here.)

Paul Offit responded to the piece in the OC Register here.

Note the comments section... everyone knew the man was not telling the truth.

Now, three years later, the OC Register has retracted the article, because they had to come to grips with what we have learned the hard way, that the man is a big fat liar.

"An OC Register article dated Aug. 4, 2008 entitled “Dr. Paul Offit Responds” contained several disparaging statements that Dr. Offit of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia made about CBS News Investigative Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson and her report. Upon further review, it appears that a number of Dr. Offit’s statements, as quoted in the OC Register article, were unsubstantiated and/or false. Attkisson had previously reported on the vaccine industry ties of Dr. Offit and others in a CBS Evening News report “How Independent Are Vaccine Defenders?” July 25, 2008.

Unsubstantiated statements include: Offit’s claim that Attkisson “lied”; and Offit’s claim that CBS News sent a “mean spirited and vituperative” email “over the signature of Sharyl Attkisson” stating “You’re clearly hiding something.” In fact, the OC Register has no evidence to support those claims. Further, Offit told the OC Register that he provided CBS News “the details of his relationship, and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s relationship, with pharmaceutical company Merck.” However, documents provided by CBS News indicate Offit did not disclose his financial relationships with Merck, including a $1.5 million Hilleman chair he sits in that is co-sponsored by Merck. According to the CBS News’ documentation recently reviewed by the OC Register, the network requested (but Offit did not disclose) the entire profile of his professional financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies including: The amount of compensation he’d received from which companies in speaking fees; and pharmaceutical consulting relationships and fees. The CBS News documentation indicates Offit also did not disclose his share of past and future royalties for the Merck vaccine he co-invented. To the extent that unsubstantiated and/or false claims appeared in the OC Register and have been repeated by other organizations and individuals, the OC Register wishes to express this clarification for their reference and for the record."

Apparently Vaccine Epidemic is Getting Under AAP's Skin

As you know, a few weeks ago our book, Vaccine Epidemic, was released to the public. It quickly rose through the ranks on Amazon to #117 on their bestseller list, and was the number one book in several categories, including Public Health. Three days after the launch, the book went into its second printing, as both Amazon and Barnes & Noble have requested more copies. Reports I get from people trying to buy the book in the stores is that they are finding it sold out.

Really pretty good for a little book like ours that has had no mainstream press what so ever.

By contrast, Paul Offit's most recent book attacking our community, Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All, has been out for more than two months, didn't break the #1,000 threshold on Amazon's list, and spent the weeks since our launch trailing our book in Public Health and the other related categories. That is, until yesterday.

On Sunday, someone sent me a link to this:

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Mass Bookbuying Event Tomorrow: Raise Awareness of Safety & Efficacy of Vaccines

A group of pediatricians are planning a mass book-buying event tomorrow, Monday February 21st.

Here's the action:

Go to Amazon and purchase a copy of Paul Offit's Deadly Choices: How the Anti-vaccine movement Threatens Us All. The hard-cover edition is $17.11 and the Kindle edition is $9.99.

Remember, Dr. Offit is donating all royalties from the book to the Autism Science Foundation.

Motive:

Moving Deadly Choices onto Amazon's Hot New Releases List. If his book is the biggest seller on Amazon on Monday the 21st, this will raise much needed publicity about the importance and safety of vaccines.

But I already have a copy of the book!

So? Buy another and donate it: to your local library, to a local high school library, to a high school or community college teacher of biology, health, or journalism, to your pediatrician...let your imagination be your guide.

On Personal Medicine, a blog that aims at, "enabling Primary Care Physicians to return to a simpler more gratifying method of medical practice, enhancing physician needs for lifestyle, professional satisfaction and income," we find that entreaty passed along. We also learn from Alison Singer's email that has been posted there, that the plucky "group of pediatricians" that are bravely banning together to get the urgent word out to parents that questioning vaccines is "deadly" is in fact the American Academy of Pediatrics. A 60,000 member strong, the Pediatricians Union, snuggled tightly into bed with Offit and Pharma, that once upon a time was concerned with the health of children and that would abruptly cease to exist if it ever admitted that the practices that it was prompting its doctors to practice were causing neuroimmune disorders in an entire generation of children.

Dear Friends:

AAP District 1 is promoting a mass book buying event on amazon.com for Dr. Paul Offit's most recent book, Deadly Choices. This event will take place on Monday Feb 21st (tomorrow). See the note from District 1 leadership below. Also, please know that Dr. Offit has generously agreed to donate all royalties from book sales to the Autism Science Foundation, so that we can fund research to learn the true causes of autism. Many thanks. Alison

Alison Singer
President, Autism Science Foundation

Apparently AAP no likey that the public is choosing the actual good faith arguments in Vaccine Epidemic over yet another propaganda screed like Deadly Choices.

We see that "Chip" at PedSource encourages pediatricians to:

GET THE WORD OUT.
From Dr. Jill Stoller:
In an effort to raise awareness for the importance of childhood vaccinations, the Section I chair for the American Academy of Pediatrics (the Section on Administration and Practice Management) is promoting a mass buying event on amazon.com for Dr. Paul Offit's most recent book Deadly Choices
Dr. Offit is the Chief of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. He is a relentless in his advocacy for children's health and childhood vaccination. As a favor to me, and all the children you know and love, please purchase a copy of his book on Monday February 21 on amazon.com.
If his book is the biggest seller on Amazon on Monday the 21st, this will raise much needed publicity about the importance and safety of vaccines. Even if you don't have the time to read his book, purchase it and donate it to your local library!

Thank you for helping in this effort!
Update (5:30PM, Jan 21): Deadly Choices is #4 on the Amazon Movers and Shakers list and is now #28 on their sales list! A 40,000% increase - amazing.

Note that people are not expected to actually READ the book, just to buy it.

What is the medical equivalent of "astroturf?"

So Offits book shot to #27 on the Amazon best seller list yesterday.

Seth Mnookin's book got a bump as well, rising from the #5,000 neighborhood where he and Offit had been dwelling, despite all the media hype of their books (and Offit even appearing on Colbert), and Seth made it as high as #777 by my tracking.

So congratulations to Offit and Mnookin for getting the people whose asses you are covering by writing these books, to buy these books.

And to the AAP, you know what you could have done instead? You could have asked your doctors to read our book and actually started a real, common sense, good faith conversation with the HALF of the country that doesn't believe you on your vaccine safety claims, and begun to repair the damage that you have done by lying to the public. But once again, instead of course correcting, you double down.

I will end this as I have dozens of posts on this blog. By urging wise pediatricians to take back their profession. All those patients that you are arguing with in your offices are real people who want to have good faith conversations with you on vaccines. A bunch of them got together and wrote a book outlining many of the REAL problems in the vaccine program in this country. Realize that the AAP is not your friend if you want the truth on vaccine safety, read the book and (like Dr. Oz did last week) start the real conversations. Stop allowing yourselves to be propegandaized by Merck's boy Offit and the AAP who is trying desperately to prevent you from waking up to the fact they have lied to you for years.

Deer's MMR Wakefield "Fraud" Story Not Playing in the UK, Deer's Wheels Coming Off His Cart

The Bash Wakefield crew seems to finally have overplayed its hand in the UK. And Deer... well... true colors are showing.

For the last two weeks, the US media has been pounding Deer's fraud allegations. The UK media has ignored them.

In the US, a CNN blogger is calling for Wakefield to be brought up on criminal charges (ironically... even outright mentioning Galileo in his piece). In the UK.... no calls for new investigations, no interviews with prosecutors, no pitchfork wielding mobs calling for Wakefield's head.

Because in the UK, they have been following this story for a decade, they know what is up with it, they know what a weaselly figure Brian Deer is and they are not falling for it. The lapdog media there is not even falling for it. The US media apparently was handed a press release, saw that the British Medical Journal's name was on it, and having no understanding of the case or the players, or what making actual fraud allegations would mean legally, just parroted it.

Child Health Safety reports today that Brian Deer is angry that the only coverage he could get there was the Guardian allowing him to write a blog, which could well have been titled, "Someone Please, Please Pay Attention To Me." And even the blog piece is not being received by the readers it is getting.

In it, Deer recounts his glorious MMR protection and declares that, "13 years passed before I slayed the MMR monster." I get the sense that he is disappointed that he has not been hoisted on the shoulders of a teeming mass of mothers and carried triumphantly through the streets of London.

Shockingly, Deer lashes out against the medical establishment for... get this... PROTECTING Andrew Wakefield! He chastises Ben Goldacre and Paul Offit for not being hard enough on him!

I don't even know what to do with Deer's reference to "a single, severed hand may yet come crawling across the floor."

I am sure this column in the Guardian must have been met with a flurry of text messages betwixt board rooms hither an yon saying, "someone tell Deer to shut up before this whole thing falls apart". (Update: CHS now reporting that Deer has actually shut up.)

And I wonder why his blog was not run in the Sunday Times and if the BMJ is cringing at their endorsement of him.

These charges of fraud are based on the word of Brian Deer alone, as none of us has access to the children's records or interviews with the parents to confirm his claims. And these claims are coming from a man who believes he can be a journalist AND the complainant in the GMC trial, lied to the Lancet 12 parents about his name, calling himself "Brian Lawrence", to get interviews with them and who not only writes very self-aggrandizing pieces (to put it mildly) but posts a page of 36 pictures of himself on his journey from babe to "MMR Monster Slayer" on his journalism blog.



I feel that I am being kind in characterizing Brian Deer as someone whose honesty and judgment one might be wise to question.

Bottom line, it is not being covered in the UK, because there is no fraud. If they cover it, they have to interview prosecutors for interviews and prosecutors know there is no crime here. Worse... the media would have to start asking... "Hey... I know I can't get access to, or publish, private medical records... how 'come Deer can?"

And GSK has to be a little concerned about calls in the UK for criminal proceedings... God Forbid that the parents of these kids are allowed to testify, which they would have to be, and the news carries the fact that the 12 children in the study went in sick and came out better! Then its heads on a platter for the GMC who took away the licenses of doctors who heal very sick children, and a decade and millions in work on the End Wakefield project goes right out the window.

A Dedication to Pharma Rep Paul Offit from Mothers Everywhere

Paul Offit: Nothing to Disclose

On Tuesday Nov. 23, the AMA is holding a seminar entitled:

"Immunization: Benefits, Safety, and Perceived Risks"

Paul Offit will be speaking:

7:45 a.m.– 9:30 a.m. Immunizations: Vaccine Safety and Perceived Risks
Paul Offit, MD
Division of Infectious Diseases
Vaccine Education Center
The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Note the disclosures on the seminar:

Disclosure information

In order to assure the highest quality of CME programming, and to comply with the ACCME Standards for Commercial Support, the AMA requires that all faculty, planning committee and CME Program Committee members disclose relevant financial relationships with any commercial or proprietary entity producing health care goods or services relevant to the content being planned or presented. The following disclosures are provided:

Planning Committee
Barry Dickinson, PhD Nothing to disclose
Mary Alice Rice Nothing to disclose
John Schneider, MD, PhD Nothing to disclose
Litjen (L.J) Tan, MS, PhD Nothing to disclose

Faculty
Paul Offit, MD Nothing to disclose
Walt Orenstein, MD Nothing to disclose
CME Program Committee Nothing to disclose

Disclosed financial relationships have been reviewed by the AMA to resolve any potential conflicts of interest. All faculty and planning committee members have attested that their financial relationships do not affect their ability to present well-balanced, evidence-based content for this activity.

And year after year the irony that all the work that they do to encourage trust in the vaccine program is what is eroding trust in the vaccine program.

It has been two and a half years now since Offit's vaccine patents were mainstream news, and a year and a half since the article in which he admitted that he was a vaccine salesman. But still he poses as your kindly neighborhood pediatrician.

A Call to Suspend Contaminated Rotavirus Vaccines

Coalition for Vaccine Safety (CVS) Calls on FDA Commissioner to Immediately Suspend All Contaminated Rotavirus Vaccines


FDA Expert Advisory Panel Fails to Follow Safety First Agenda for Childhood Vaccines Containing DNA from Pig Viruses

WASHINGTON, May 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) convened a panel of experts to review recent findings that rotavirus vaccines given to infants in the U.S., Rotateq, produced by Merck Pharmaceuticals and Rotarix produced by GlaxoSmithKline, are contaminated with DNA from pig viruses PCV1 and PCV2. On March 22nd the FDA Commissioner asked doctors to suspend use of the Rotarix vaccine due to the contamination. Upon additional testing, Rotateq was also found to be contaminated.

At the meeting, the experts acknowledged that the PCV2 virus is known to cause a wasting disease in pigs, similar in type to the AIDS virus in humans. While acknowledging that the entire short and long term risks from the porcine circoviruses PCV1 and PCV2 are as yet unknown, the advisory panel decided that 'the benefits of the vaccine trump its risks.' By contrast, health authorities in Hong Kong ordered an immediate recall of Merck Rotateq despite the U.S. panel's recommendation to keep the vaccine on the market.

Shocked at the advisory panel's recommendations for the health and safety of American children, the Coalition for Vaccine Safety (CVS) calls on FDA Commissioner Hamburg to re-assess the panel's hastily-considered risk-benefit analysis and suspend the use of both rotavirus vaccines. Steering Committee member Mary Holland said, "How can you say the benefits outweigh the risks when you don't know what the risks are?" A safety first agenda demands suspension of the vaccines immediately while the short and long term risks are studied, especially since rotavirus is a relatively benign and treatable gastrointestinal disease that is rarely fatal in the United States.

The risks from PCV1 and PCV2 are real and potentially testable by analyzing lymphoid tissues, which is where the human immunodeficiency virus hides during its latency period. Immediate independent analysis should be done on children and primates who have received these vaccines before another child receives the rotavirus vaccine. According to CVS member Lyn Redwood, RN, "It is impossible for parents to give free and informed consent to a vaccine containing pig virus DNA when their risks are unknown. To continue to administer these vaccines given the impossibility of informed consent is unethical."

The FDA expert panel's failure to urge suspension of contaminated vaccines underscores the need for immediate Congressional hearings on vaccine safety. The apparent conflicts of interest in the U.S. vaccine program are illustrated by the fact that the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) until January 2009, Dr. Julie Gerberding, is now the President of Merck Vaccines. In 2007, under her stewardship, 97% of CDC outside experts failed to complete their conflict of interest disclosure forms as required by law. The lack of direct corporate accountability for vaccine products, codified by the 1986 Childhood Vaccine Injury Compensation Act, further complicates conflicts of interests in the national vaccine program.

CVS is an alliance of organizations dedicated to vaccine safety representing over 75,000 families. In recent letters to the Chairmen and Ranking Members of House and Senate Committees charged with oversight of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Coalition called for hearings to investigate HHS, CDC and other government agencies. These federal agencies have failed to comply with the terms of the 1986 Vaccine Injury Compensation Act (VICA) by not providing critical vaccine safety science.

For more information on vaccine safety, visit www.coalitionforvaccinesafety.org.

Contact:

Lyn Redwood, RN (404) 932-1786

Mary Holland, Esq. (917) 743-3868

coalitionforvaccinesafety@gmail.com

Offit Offensive Has Failed, Vaccine-Autism War Continues, Child Vaccine Refusals Increase in U.S.

I was going to write something, but it turns out Harold already wrote it. So go read it there.

AAP, CDC, HHS, Public Health... what is your plan? Is this really it? You really gonna ride this train right of the side of the cliff?

Doctocracy: Paul Offit, Vaccine Millionaire, Wants Coerced Vaccination and Re-education Camps, I Mean, Vaccine Classes

“Offit suggests one way to raise vaccination rates is to make it harder for people not to get themselves or their children vaccinated. This could mean, for example, attending educational classes that teach the public what the safety profiles of different vaccines are, before they are allowed to opt out of vaccination. “You have to convince people that a choice not to get a vaccine is not a risk-free choice; it’s just a choice to take a different risk.” ”
- The Lancet

Vaccination is down. For Offit, that means a loss in future profits on his vaccine patents. The solution? Make people sit though vaccine propaganda lectures (complete with pictures of children with horrible rashes and in polio wards, I am sure) before they are ALLOWED not to vaccinate.

Because, you see, your body belongs to the government and you need their permission NOT to put mercury, aluminum, foreign DNA and viruses it in. After all, having a body, is like driving a car, you should have to take classes and pass an exam in order to use it... it is a privilege.

OH WAIT.... NO IT'S NOT.... YOUR BODY BELONGS TO YOU!!!!

A few months ago I heard a very accomplished physician, bemoaning the bias and pressure tactics at work in his own profession, refer to the public health power grab that is happening as a growing "Doctocracy". That immediately popped to mind when I read Offit's new ideas.

"Public Health" has gotten way out of hand. Doctors have always been accused of having a God complex, but few would actually go as far as suggesting that you legally need permission from them to exercise informed consent on whether or not you should take a pharmaceutical.

So if the health care bill passes, will they try to make full vaccination mandatory before you can access your health care coverage? Will only AAP member doctors be covered, and will AAP only allow docs that make their patients vaccinate according to the CDC schedule? Maryland already sent out letters to parents saying that they may be subject to imprisonment and child protective services intervention if they didn't vaccinate (and conveniently left out that Maryland is a philosophical exemption state and all they had to do what sign a form to be 'legal').

Now Offit has said, and Lancet has printed, that vaccines uptake should be coerced, so if this idea is accepted, what other methods of coercion will they come up with?

Say no to forced and coerced vaccination at the The American Rally for Personal Rights. Enough is enough.

The Lancet, Volume 375, Issue 9719, Pages 970 – 971, 20 March 2010

Experts concerned about vaccination backlash
Priya Shetty

Public health professionals are worried about the increasingly vocal anti-vaccination lobby in the USA and other western countries and their effect on immunisations globally. Priya Shetty reports.

Vaccination was one of the greatest public health achievements of the 20th century. Its success might now be its undoing, however. Around the world, vaccination rates are dropping, and the unthinkable is happening: children are dying from childhood diseases like measles and pertussis.

This fall in immunisation has coincided with an increasingly vocal anti-vaccination movement. Public health now seems more at threat than ever by anti-vaccination messages, and the reluctance to vaccinate has been affecting rates of uptake for other vaccines such as that for influenza A H1N1. Health experts are now faced with the daunting challenge of fighting these groups.

Anti-vaccination groups have been around for as long as the practice of vaccination has. Arguably, health watchdogs and critics are a vital part of checks and balances on the medical industry. But scientists are starting to become increasingly concerned about the medical misinformation that some groups are spreading.

Organisations such as the US National Vaccine Information Centre (NVIC), the Coalition for SafeMinds, and Know Vaccines, either oppose universal vaccination (on the basis that “all children are different”) or emphasise the parents’ right to choose whether their children are vaccinated. In a statement on the website of the NVIC, one of the biggest groups in the USA, its co-founder Barbara Loe Fisher says: “If the State can tag, track down and force citizens against their will to be injected with biologicals of unknown toxicity today, there will be no limit on which individual freedoms the State can take away in the name of the greater good tomorrow.”

Many groups use as ammunition alleged links between vaccines and diseases such as autism, diabetes, or multiple sclerosis. “At the heart of the anti-vaccine movement is the notion that we are merely substituting infectious diseases with chronic diseases”, says Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, PA, USA, and co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine.

Offit is one of several scientists who told The Lancet that anti-vaccination groups are unequivocally threatening public health, the evidence of which is the re-emergence of diseases that medical science had once beaten. “In 2008, we had a measles epidemic in the USA that was bigger than anything we had had in a decade, and that epidemic owed directly to the fact that some children had not been vaccinated. The parents were more afraid of the vaccine than they were of the disease, as a direct result of misinformation by anti-vaccine websites”, says Offit. Recent outbreaks of pertussis and haemophilus influenza B in undervaccinated communities in parts of the USA have resembled outbreaks from the prevaccine era, he says.

The geographical spread of people who refuse to vaccinate is important, says Saad Omer, assistant professor of global health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA. If these people are uniformly spread out across an area, then the herd immunity stays intact. “However, our group and others have shown that vaccine refusal clusters geographically (and perhaps in social networks). Anti-vaccination groups often ‘think globally but act locally.’ Therefore, even if only ten of 100 people refuse vaccines but most of them live in the same neighbourhood, the likelihood of outbreaks increases due to local breakdown of herd immunity”, says Omer.

The movement has tended to be most active against childhood vaccines, with the most forceful rhetoric coming from parents who say that they do not want to expose their children to “unnecessary toxins”. One in eight American parents has refused at least one vaccine recommended for their children by their family doctor, according to a study published in Pediatrics this month, which surveyed more than 1500 parents of children aged 17 years or younger. But the reluctance to vaccinate is now permeating other areas of health.

According to the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID), anti-vaccination messages have partly been responsible for the poor uptake of the H1N1 vaccine. As each influenza season progresses, “we don’t know whether the virus will stay the same”, says Giuseppe Cornaglia, former president of ESCMID, now at the Department of Pathology, University of Verona, Italy. “Because many people who could have been immunised haven’t had the vaccine, we are going to be starting from scratch”, he says.

Anti-vaccination groups have also affected the way governments responded to the pandemic, says Tevi Troy, the previous Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services. “The US decision not to use adjuvants, which effectively expands the supply of the vaccines, stemmed in part from concerns about how the anti-vaccine groups would have reacted to adjuvants. This could have been a problem had the H1N1 outbreak been more severe”, he says.

However ludicrous some of the anti-vaccination messages might seem to scientists, it is hard to deny that they do hold some traction with the public. Complacency about infectious diseases in the developed world, born out of the enormous success of vaccination, might be one explanation. “As the rate of illness goes down, and people mostly encounter real or perceived vaccine associated adverse events (instead of disease), there is a change in mental calculus in terms of benefit versus risk of vaccines”, says Omer.

The internet, and the forums and social networking sites it has spawned, has allowed anti-vaccination advocacy and influence to permeate deeper than ever. For example, says Omer, “a few years ago, vaccine-related rumours would be restricted to certain (mostly developed) countries. However, now a viral video made by a vaccine opponent in California can end up being discussed in an Indian web forum.”

The increase in anti-vaccination advocacy dovetails with a growing public mistrust of science that in recent years has manifested against genetically modified food, stem cells, and, most recently, climate change.

At last month’s yearly meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Ralph Cicerone, president of the US National Academy of Sciences, told delegates that recent controversies over climate change had damaged public faith in science. “There has been a widespread deterioration in the public’s attitude to science not only in the US but in many other countries in the past 3 months”, said Cicerone.

Against this background, global health experts are trying to ensure that people in developing countries can access life-saving vaccines.

Does anti-vaccination advocacy exist in these countries? “Unfortunately yes”, says Omer. “However, they are relatively less organised. Often there are entities that are organised for a different reason but end up providing a platform for opposing vaccines eg, religious and political groups in Nigeria.”

ESCMID’s Cornaglia says he is “seriously scared” about the prospect that anti-vaccination groups will take hold in the developing world. “Vaccines are the best weapon we have for the future.”

Not everyone shares this view. Offit still believes that there is much more public appreciation of vaccines in the developing world. Offit remembers taking the rotavirus vaccine to Nicaragua, and says “it was remarkable how happy people were to get a vaccine to prevent a common cause of diarrhoea and dehydration, and, at least in the developing world, death.”

Cornaglia was ESCMID’s communication officer at one time, and he believes that health agencies such as ESCMID and WHO “have to change their communication style”. “They have to address public health professionals like physicians and nurses, because if we don’t convince them, then we cannot convince the lay public at all”, he says.

“Public-health messages should be simple, honest and straightforward.” Sending a clear message, however scientifically erroneous it might be, is how the anti-vaccination movement scored big with H1N1, he says. Their message was simply: “vaccines are the devil”.

The anti-vaccination lobby has become so highly organised, says Adam Finn, professor of paediatrics at the University of Bristol, UK, that “they do pose a threat and need to be taken seriously. NVIC in the USA now has a yearly conference and is becoming a kind of institution…They are not amateurs—they are making careers out of this.”

Like Cornaglia, Finn says that the anti-vaccination lobby’s communication skills have a lot to do with their influence. “They, unlike most doctors and scientists, are always willing to talk to the media and are good at doing it.”

Offit suggests one way to raise vaccination rates is to make it harder for people not to get themselves or their children vaccinated. This could mean, for example, attending educational classes that teach the public what the safety profiles of different vaccines are, before they are allowed to opt out of vaccination. “You have to convince people that a choice not to get a vaccine is not a risk-free choice; it’s just a choice to take a different risk.”

HT:AVN