False Prophet: Rotateq, Created By Paul Offit, Responsible for at Least One Death
By
J.B. Handley
http://www.ageofautism.com/2008/08/false-prophet-r.html#more
Paul Offit, the vaccine industry's well-paid spokesperson, has been on quite a roll lately. Recruiting Amanda Peet to be a spokesperson for the Wyeth-funded Special Interest Dot-org (SID) called Every Child By Two seems to have given him some new energy in talking to the press. Consider his comments yesterday to the Orange County Register:
"I asked him whether, given how much money he made because of a vaccine, he is the best person to advocate for vaccine. Even if we assume he's never done anything improper, does he have the credibility to convince the public? He says yes, because he has the knowledge of how vaccines are tested and created, because he's been behind the curtain at pharmaceutical companies — things a strictly academic scientist wouldn't have access to. He admits his vaccine made him wealthy, but he says he spent 25 years trying to develop it because he wanted to save kids."
So, Paul Offit admits the Rotateq vaccine
has made him wealthy? Offit goes on to
clarify the "a child can tolerate 10,000
vaccines" comment that CBS News attributed
to him:
"Asked whether any specific facts in the
story were wrong, he said it was primarily
the tone he objected to. But he did say that
the hospital owns the patent, not him
(though he received a share of royalties
from it). Also, when Attkisson noted that he
had been quoted as saying children could
safely take up to 10,000 vaccines at once,
"what I actually have said is at least
10,000. It's probably closer to 100,000."
Oh, so it's actually 100,000 vaccines a kid can tolerate?
"A London researcher was
the first to assert that the combination
measles-mumps-rubella vaccine known as MMR
caused autism in children. Following this
"discovery," a handful of parents declared
that a mercury-containing preservative in
several vaccines was responsible for the
disease. If mercury caused autism, they
reasoned, eliminating it from a child's
system should treat the disorder.
Consequently, a number of untested
alternative therapies arose, and, most
tragically, in one such treatment, a doctor
injected a five-year-old autistic boy with a
chemical in an effort to cleanse him of
mercury, which stopped his heart instead.
Children with autism have been placed on
stringent diets, subjected to
high-temperature saunas, bathed in magnetic
clay, asked to swallow digestive enzymes and
activated charcoal, and injected with
various combinations of vitamins, minerals,
and acids. Instead of helping, these
therapies can hurt those who are most
vulnerable, and particularly in the case of
autism, they undermine childhood vaccination
programs that have saved millions of lives.
An overwhelming body of scientific evidence
clearly shows that childhood vaccines are
safe and does not cause autism. Yet
widespread fear of vaccines on the part of
parents persists.
In this book, Paul A. Offit, a national
expert on vaccines, challenges the
modern-day false prophets who have so
egregiously misled the public and exposes
the opportunism of the lawyers, journalists,
celebrities, and politicians who support
them. Offit recounts the history of autism
research and the exploitation of this tragic
condition by advocates and zealots. He
considers the manipulation of science in the
popular media and the courtroom, and he
explores why society is susceptible to the
bad science and risky therapies put forward
by many antivaccination activists."
Let's try and put all these pieces together:
1. Paul Offit has been made wealthy from
Rotateq, according to him.
2. A child can tolerate 100,000 vaccines at
one time, according to him.
3. In his book summary, he misstates the
facts surrounding the death of a child to
bolster his argument that biomedical
treatment for autism is quackery.
So, I just have one simple question. For all the ink Paul Offit gets, how come not a single journalist covered the death of a child from Paul Offit's vaccine?
And, I guess I have one more question, this one for Dr. Offit. If a child can tolerate 100,000 vaccines, how did just one of your vaccines kill a child?
Below, please find a letter from the FDA to Merck & Co. updating the label to include "death due to intussusception that has occurred after vaccination with RotaTeq®."
April 30, 2008
Our Submission Tracking Number (STN): BL
125122/443
Merck & Co., Inc.
Attention: Paul L. Koser, Ph.D.
P.O. Box 1000
UG2D-68
North Wales , PA 19454-1099
Dear Dr. Koser:
We have received your April 14, 2008, Supplement to your Biologics License Application for Rotavirus Vaccine, Live, Oral, Pentavalent, to include changes to the post-marketing experience section of the label to include a post-marketing report of a death due to intussusception that has occurred after vaccination with RotaTeq®. The patient package insert has also been updated to include this information.
This Supplement has been reviewed under STN 125122/443 and is approved effective this date.
Please submit all final printed labeling at the time of use and include implementation information on FDA Form 356h. Please provide a PDF-format electronic copy.
This information will be included in your License Application File.
Sincerely yours,
/Loris McVittie/
Loris D. McVittie, Ph.D.
Acting Director
Viral Vaccine Branch
Division of Vaccines and
Related Products Applications
Office of Vaccines
Research and Review
Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research
J.B. Handley is co-founder of Generation Rescue and Managing Editor of Age of Autism.