dsimons
Posted January 1, 2011
The focus of Deadly Choices is on the history of the introduction of new vaccines and the anti-vaccine movements that tend to follow. Offit is a prominent virologist and he doesn't hide his scorn for some in the anti-vaccine movement. His book is unlikely to change the minds of anyone who is firmly within that movement, but I'm not sure what would. The book is a must read for anyone interested in a detailed, well-written, and thoroughly sourced discussion of the scientific basis of vaccines, the real and imagined risks of vaccination, and the consequences of the choices we make about vaccines. The book thoroughly documents some of the unfounded claims that the anti-vaccine movement has made and explains the biological reasons why some of the perceived risks of vaccines either are not a risk or physiologically CAN'T be a risk. The book is not one-sided, though. The first chapters discuss all of the well-documented cases of actual vaccine injury and the real side effects of vaccines (e.g., the live polio vaccine could cause polio, although most vaccines don't use live viruses). Offit makes the case that anti-vaccine movements raise fears of vaccines that are inconsistent with the science. In so doing, he draws parallels between current anti-vaccine claims and those made over a century ago after the introduction of the smallpox vaccine. Many of the fears of that vaccine are laughable by today's standards (e.g., that children would develop cow-like facial features because the vaccine was initially taken from cows infected by cowpox). But Offit argues, fairly convincingly, that the logic and nature of current anti-vaccine scares are largely the same as those raised over a century ago and in each subsequent anti-vaccine movement. The most compelling chapter is the last one, in which Offit describes what happens when someone who could not be vaccinated (because they were too young) comes into contact with an infected child whose parents decided not to vaccinate. The choice not to vaccinate affects people other than your own child--it puts young infants and others whose bodies lack a typical immune response can't be vaccinated at risk. The chapter is reminiscent of the recent PBS Frontline documentary on vaccinations. At times, the book can be a bit heavy handed in its tone-Offit's perspective is clear throughout, and he doesn't hold his punches. Sometimes his parallels between historical anti-vaccine movements and current ones are a little forced, and in a few cases, the book is perhaps a bit more dismissive than is necessary. Overall, though, the book presents the scientific evidence in a compelling, comprehensive, thoroughly documented, and engaging way. For prospective parents whose prior information about vaccines comes from friends, the internet, or even their pediatrician, this book is a must read by one of the top scientific experts in the field. It provides the background and evidence you need to evaluate claims about the dangers and benefits of vaccines and to make the best choice for your children AND your community.
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Posted November 27, 2012
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This excellent book, like Dr Offit’s successful Autism’s false prophets, exposes the dangers of choosing faith-based medicine rather than evidence-based medicine. Dr Offit is the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Before vaccination, in the USA, measles killed 500 children a year; whooping cough infected as many as 147,000 people each year between 1940 and 1945 and killed nearly 8,000 a year; polio killed 1,000 children a year, and diphtheria killed 12,000 people, mostly young people. In epidemics of mumps and bacterial meningitis, hundreds more suffered and some died.
The claim that whooping cough vaccine, not whooping cough itself, causes permanent brain damage is just plain wrong. But the scare about the vaccine in England in 1973 led to the immunisation rate falling from 79 per cent in 1972 to 31 per cent in 1977. Subsequently, 100,000 children got whooping cough and 600 died.
By 1976, the USA had only 1,010 cases of whooping cough, the lowest number ever reported. But in 2010 California suffered the largest and deadliest outbreak in more than fifty years. 9,000 people were diagnosed with the disease, and ten infants died of it.
Some alternative medicine practitioners oppose vaccination. Rudolf Steiner, for instance, wrote absurdly that vaccination ‘interferes with karmic development and the cycles of reincarnation’.
Contrary to the deniers, vaccines are tested for safety in larger numbers of people for longer periods than any drug. Vaccines do not have a high rate of serious side effects. Vaccines don’t contain dangerous quantities of dangerous ingredients. Vaccines prevent some very serious illnesses.
Dr Offit urges US states to end health laws that allow religious exemptions even for lifesaving medicines (and for vaccines), which exist in all US states but three.
It is often claimed, by, ironically, well-funded advocacy groups backed by very rich personal-injury lawyers, that big pharma engages in illicit marketing practices for vaccines. But there is no example of this.
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More About This Textbook
Overview
In 2010, California suffered the largest and deadliest outbreak of pertussis, also known as “whooping cough,” in more than fifty years. This tragedy was avoidable. An effective vaccine has been available since the 1940s. In recent years other diseases, like measles and mumps, have also made a comeback. The reason for these epidemics can be traced to a group whose vocal proponents insist, despite evidence to the contrary, that vaccines are poison. As a consequence, parents and caretakers are rejecting vaccines for themselves and their families.
In Deadly Choices, infectious-disease expert Paul Offit takes a look behind the curtain of the anti-vaccine movement. What he finds is a reminder of the power of scientific knowledge, and the harm we risk if we ignore it.
Editorial Reviews
Publishers Weekly
In the second book this season (after journalist Seth Mnookin's The Panic Virus) to attack vaccine paranoia, Offit—who drew antivaccinist fire for Autism's False Prophets—presents a smart, hard-hitting exposé of vaccine pseudoscience. Offit brings outstanding credentials to the subject: he's a vaccinologist at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia and an expert in infectious diseases, and he tackles claims that childhood inoculations cause brain damage, autism, diabetes, and cancer, finding a farrago of misinformation, faulty research, and sly deceptions fed to distraught parents by media hype, ax-grinding activists, and personal-injury lawyers. He embellishes his account with a sprightly history of paranoid medical populism—19th-century critics of the cowpox-derived smallpox vaccine insisted it could turn people into cows—and a blistering attack on celebrity antivaccine ideologues Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey, and Bill Maher and the medical writers who pander to parental anxieties. Offit dwells less than Mnookin on the sociology of the controversy and more on the science. The result is a thorough dismantling of antivaccine notions and a sober warning about the resurgence of deadly childhood infections stemming from declining vaccination rates. Worried parents, especially, will find this a lucid, compelling riposte to antivaccine fear-mongering. Photos. (Feb.)Kirkus Reviews
Offit (Vaccinology and Pediatrics/Univ. of Pennsylvania; Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure, 2008, etc.) takes aim at the anti-vaccine movement in America and scores a bull's-eye.
If only people would listen. Unfortunately, it's often a case of irrational behavior fueled by hostility toward doctors, researchers, drug companies and government. The issue comes down to coincidence vs. causality. A baby is vaccinated and thereafter develops seizures, brain damage, autism or other disorders. So powerful is the need to find a cause that vaccines become the target and no amount of clinical or epidemiological evidence will change opinions. Abetting belief are the activists and celebrities who champion the cause on the nightly news or on their own inflammatory blogs. What Offit offers in response is a well-documented history dating back to the first vaccine for smallpox. That, too, occasioned widespread attack once vaccination was made compulsory, with protesters even claiming that children would develop little cows at the inoculation site (because the vaccine is based on the cowpox virus. The author traces recent anti-vaccine activism in America to the 1982 documentaryDPT: Vaccination Roulette, which inveighed against the pertussis part of the DPT regimen (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus). In spite of exonerating evidence, negative publicity and lawsuits drove drug companies out of the vaccine business and led to the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. But the battle was renewed with the association between autism and the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine or its mercury component. Now that vaccine is mercury-free, and countless studies have discounted any association, but the protests mount, with many states allowing parents to opt out of vaccine programs. The danger is that with too many kids unvaccinated, herd immunity is lost and epidemics become a reality. Offit rightly points out that it would be a mistake to go this route to demonstrate why vaccines are essential; what we need is a restoration of trust. He suggests that this could happen if concerned parents and public health workers who have seen the devastation wrought by childhood disease speak out.
A much-needed book with solid evidence—deserves all the publicity it can get.
Product Details
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Meet the Author
Paul A. Offit, M.D. is the Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and the Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Dr. Offit is a founding advisory board member of the Autism Science Foundation and the author of five books, including Autism’s False Prophets and Vaccinated. He lives in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.
Table of Contents
Prologue ix
Introduction xi
1 The Birth of Fear 1
2 This England 13
3 A Crude Brew 25
4 Roulette Redux 45
5 Make the Angels Weep 57
6 Justice 85
7 Past Is Prologue 105
8 Tragedy of the Commons 127
9 The Mean Season 149
10 Dr. Bob 171
11 Trust 191
Epilogue 207
Notes 215
Selected Bibliography 255
Acknowledgments 257
Index 259