Expert’s new book defends vaccines against autism critics
September 17th, 2008
In the Philadelphia Inquirer, an interview with vaccine expert Paul Offit, whose new book defending the safety of vaccines is already generating heat. It’s called “Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure.”
Offit is director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a leading expert on infectious diseases. He gets regular hate mail as the public face of the majority in the scientific and medical communities who agree there is no evidence connecting vaccines and autism-related conditions.
Offit doesn’t think any of his critics mean him real harm, though he was rattled once when a caller knew his children’s names and where they went to school.
“We put a new security system on our house as a way of celebrating the launch of this book,” Offit said during an interview in his office. “Which I think most authors don’t do. Maybe Salman Rushdie.”
Offit worries that parents will choose not to vaccinate, allowing for a resurgence of long-forgotten diseases.
See earlier posts here and here.
(Photo from Philadelphia Inquirer)
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September 17th, 2008 at 9:28 am
Book: Changing the course of autism by Dr. Jepson.
It is a personal decision, and an important one, whether or not a parent should vaccinate his/her child, and it should be a well-informed decision. Mine wasn’t a well-informed decision, but steered by health professionals such as Offit.
Would I make the same decision now that I am well-informed: no.