Many posts have been written about the incitement of violence and the violent rhetoric which has become de rigueur in the anti-vaccination movement. The increased vilification of healthcare professionals, researchers, politicians, journalists, bereaved parents, and layperson activists – incited by the likes of Meryl Dorey and her Australian Vaccination-skeptics Network, in Australia; Barbara Loe Fisher and her National Vaccine Information Center, in the US; and Sherri Tenpenny, also in the US – has certainly laid the foundation for real violence to happen in the community. Orac also noted, in December, the increase in the violent rhetoric from anti-vaccinationists, including the menacing use of firearms in anti-vaccine memes.
Dr Paul Offit is akin to public enemy number one, for the anti-vaccination movement. I’ve written several posts about how he has had threats made against him and his family, incited by Barbara Loe Fisher, and others. Anti-vaccinationists need to lie about Dr Offit. They are compelled to lie about Dr Offit. He is a public health hero. Of course they need to lie about him. Skeptical Raptor’s post which investigates anti-vaccinationists’ myths about Dr Offit is well worth a read. And this dedication to his work is not overstated:
I have long considered Paul Offit MD as one of heroes and leaders of the public discussion of how vaccines save lives, and how they have made the lives of the world’s children healthier and better. Dr. Offit, together with Edward Jenner (the father of immunology), Jonas Salk (discoverer of the polio vaccine), and Maurice Hillman (inventor of the MMR vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella), should have statues place outside of every pediatric hospital in the country for the number of lives that they have saved.
Neil Z Miller is one of the leaders of the anti-vaccination movement. He has authored anti-vaccine papers – such as this one, falsely asserting that rises in infant mortality are due to increases in the numbers of vaccines given – and is lauded around the world as a “researcher”, regardless of his lack of expertise in the area.
On November 28 2015, Miller dog-whistled to his greater-than-5000 Facebook friends and followers about Dr Paul Offit. If there’s one thing which brings out the fangs and the threats, it’s any post which deliberately strawmans Dr Offit. It’s a tried and true tactic of the leaders of the anti-vaccination movement:
Paul Offit recently gave a speech on eliminating ALL vaccine exemptions. He gave advice to pediatricians: Tell parents, “Let me love your child.” Apparently, parents who don’t vaccinate their children don’t love them. He also said that “parents don’t own their children,” and when parents are irresponsible, “the state can step in.” Read a summary of his speech here:
That was enough to incite Miller’s colleagues into action:
Fred Carpenter Bought
The anti-vaccine lie that Dr Offit advocates that infants can safely cope with 10,000 injections at once raises it’s head, immediately. Thankfully, for us, Miller includes the exact Dr Offit quote, down the thread:
Stacey Barnes Cambron Has he gotten his 10,000 vaccines yet?
Julia Schopick He is reprehensible. I have no words. . .
LeAnn Addleman And said that kids can safely take 10,000 vaccines at once, yet there is not mention about how many vaccines he’s had. I would like to witness him taking just 10% of what he says kids can take.
Colleen Murphy No, not 10%, I want to see him do the whole 10K.
Valerie Pietsch Ammendola Yep, tell him to 100 at the same time.
Jo Smith Colleen Murphy I’d pay money to see that, the whole 10K. Put your money where your mouth is, (pr)Offit!
Tiffiny Leon Narcissist
Kathryn Zochert Berg Worse. He is a sociopath!
Patrick J Hatwan On the issue of parents …they don’t own their children…?
This is all about Law and jurisdiction.
The STATEs became PIRATES when the social security act was passed and completed when MOTHER singed the “berth” certificate.
The STATE owns our children….that is our fight.Laura Bradley He needs to loose his medical license (if he has one!)
LeAnn Addleman He did practice medicine but interestingly, he went from being a doctor who took an oath to “first do no harm”, to working with the CDC and being instrumental in developing yet another vaccine to harm kids.
Jessica Elizabeth Robertson Mr. “All Profit” can sit on his needles.
Colleen Murphy Yes, all 10k of them–at once– since any baby can easily tolerate that.
Colleen Murphy the last few letters of profit spell out his last name, except add an extra f.
Stephanie Moitozo Hanscom Unbelievable! I cannot believe how far this man is going……. evil!
Colleen Murphy One of my first thoughts is that he is bottom of the barrel scum, but then I realized that I was insulting the scum.
Miller includes the original 10,000 vaccines claim, which shows that Dr Offit was talking about a “theoretical” calculation of the number of vaccines’ worth of antigens with which a child’s immune system could cope, based on the number of antigens to which a child’s immune system could respond in daily life. It’s not that hard to understand, unless you have an ideological purpose to the use of the claim, and you want to dishonestly demonise someone for your own ends:
Neil Z. Miller Here is Offit’s original claim that infants could be given 10,000 vaccines without overwhelming the immune system (published in Pediatrics, Jan 1, 2002):
“A more practical way to determine the diversity of the immune response would be to estimate the number of vaccines to which a child could respond at one time. If we assume that 1) approximately 10 ng/mL of antibody is likely to be an effective concentration of antibody per epitope (an immunologically distinct region of a protein or polysaccharide), 2) generation of 10 ng/mL requires approximately 10^3 B-cells per mL, 3) a single B-cell clone takes about 1 week to reach the 10^3 progeny B-cells required to secrete 10 ng/mL of antibody (therefore, vaccine-epitope-specific immune responses found about 1 week after immunization can be generated initially from a single B-cell clone per mL), 4) each vaccine contains approximately 100 antigens and 10 epitopes per antigen (ie, 10^3 epitopes), and 5) approximately 10^7 B cells are present per mL of circulating blood, then each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10,000 vaccines at any one time (obtained by dividing 10^7 B cells per mL by 10^3 epitopes per vaccine). Of course, most vaccines contain far fewer than 100 antigens (for example, the hepatitis B, diphtheria, and tetanus vaccines each contain 1 antigen), so the estimated number of vaccines to which a child could respond is conservative.”
Barbara Vernes Ugh…terrorism and communistic thinking.
Shala Tigre I realised an anagram of dr paul offit is PUTRID OFFAL. Quite fitting innit!
Kim Stagliano is one of the leaders of the anti-vaccination movement, being one of the editors of the Age of Autism misinformation blog:
Kim Rossi Stagliano Sounds more like NAMBLA than AAP!
Kim Hollub Rangel That is exactly what I immediately thought! It sounds like pedophilic grooming!
Julie Sarah he is an evil man
Renee Smith Satan’s sock puppet
Cammy Benton-Espinosa He scares the hell out of me
Nick Johansen I can’t wait till he is in prison.
Cathy Hernandez Better yet hell
Kate Tietje, another anti-vaccination leader, runs a website called Modern Alternative Mama:
Kate Tietje He’s a terrible person and this is scary, because his language is psychologically powerful and he knows it.
Also, where I live, there’s something called “Project Love” and it’s an initiative to get all parents to vaccinate. Kind of offensive because they associate loving your children with vaccinating also.
Valerie Pietsch Ammendola That’s so sad.
Adriana Gamondes Offit’s general creepiesns reminds me of this great exchange in the HBO series Rome in which the young, sociopathic new emperor Octavian argues that he was only warm and reassuring to Cleopatra and could not understand why she would go off and promptly commit suicide:
Maecenas: You can have that effect on people.
Octavian: I was all sweetness and light with her… charm itself.
Maecenas: Yes, that is your most disheartening manner.Colleen Rasmussen He is shit not worthy of being crapped out of a leper’s ass.
Donna Barraclough thats offensive to lepers hahahah
Ginger Landry Lee He’s repugnant.
Julie Skurnowicz Asshat
Nadine Dentice War criminal!
Mary Hackstock A very sick man. He should get ALL the vaccines that the kids get in the same time frame!
Kelly Sutton Is he speaking as a physician or as a salesman? Who owns Offitt?
Jo Smith He’s also known as dr. (pr)Offit 😉
Kelly Sutton Paul R. Offit ?
Jo Smith Kelly Sutton Yep, that and also because he profits directly from rotavirus vax he concocted. He is the very definition of a pusher, and conflict of interest…
Kelly Sutton Got it! You made the link: Paul Rotavirus Offit = PROFFIT
Joanne Birsan Addis Proffit Offit…(profit of it)… hmmm
Kelly Sutton yes, time for the minstrels and comedians to come in…
Suzanne Humphries is one of the leaders of the anti-vaccination movement:
Suzanne Humphries It’s because he knows he has no chance of co-opting busy, overwhelmed doctors to take even more time not only to learn the minutiae about vaccines in order to talk to intelligent, well informed parents effectively but to take the time to talk to them and not lose ground; thus the other tactics. Kick them out, tell them silly things. It’s going to backfire IF doctors are dumb enough to be puppy trained by a fool like Offit.
Marnie McNaught Hinze This man is a vile excuse for a human being. One word….KARMA
Pennie Blair He is an atheist therefore has no say in anything resembling love nor my children that came from MY body! They belong to God and I have been charged with their care.
Jo Smith I’m also an Atheist, but would not let Offit near my family. Religion has NOTHING to do with this subject.
Maureen Block Offitt is a Merchant of Doubt. See the movie to understand how certain people will go to any length for corporate profit.
Kathleen Colfer Seravalli “Let me love your children'”..more like him loving his $$$$$…he is a pathetic excuse for a human being…truly sickening!
Donelle Weber West Satan
Jenny Smith He unfortunately does not understand the dark history of vaccines and why they NEVER eradicated a disease. They only spread disease. Look at how sickly a society of ours is, and yet we we are highly vaccinated. I would like him to take all those shots because truly his Titre tests will fail. Antibodies do not equate to immunity…. but let’s not tell him that. Get him to the nearest nurse at Walgreens. 😈
Jo Smith “Let me love your child”? My response would be brief: “fuck off, you sound like a pedophile. And what makes you think YOU own my children?” Sheesh.
Jo Smith Angie, that would be awesome, if the government backed the citizens, too. But, from just a brief observation, the government is bought and paid for by the corporations, such as Pharma and Agra. Heck, the government itself is just one giant, corrupt corporation. People like (pr)Offit have a lot of pull with the various agencies of the government, too much pull. That’s why he’s allowed to spew junk science at the people, and he’s backed by a LOT of money…
Tyler Tee Sick.
Jean van Zyl Absolutely chilling.
Evelyn Meletlidis I have nothing but obscenities right now….
Michele Angelucci Disgusting man.
Michele Angelucci Horrifying
Christopher Gamez Evil, plain and simple. Let a Dr tell me that.
Heather Bonin If a doctor said that to me, I’d turn right around & ask if they were a pedophile. I can’t think of many things creepier than that…
Joanne Birsan Addis United Nations speak, is what this is! Agenda 21, now Agenda 2030. Take control of the children, it’s coming to our countries. It’s Nazi 2.0.
Danielle Maziarz He would be the last person I would let love my child. Creepy statement.
Shoshana Martinez Kaplan Monster
Brindle Markey-Molina This fucker is getting paid the big bucks!! He needs to be taken out
Carolyn Gordinier Simpson I’d call him a sociopath but he’s not intelligent enough
Tracy Nicole He needs a bullet
Carolyn Gordinier Simpson I’d prefer 10,000 vaccines.
Haroot Tovanyan 10,000 vaccines.
Tracy Nicole Yeah agree, more painful !! [real name: Tracy Maynard]
Cathy Hernandez Our children do belong to us if not then who do they belong to? Pharma ? Pharma owns our children? F* you MF I love my son he’s my life my world how dare you say I don’t we don’t. How can any pediatrician just sit and listen to that cold hearted man. What ever happen to do no harm?
Jeni San This is beyond ugly….
Rebecca Claire Piece of crap!
Becky Mitchell Sherbanenko Slap him
Jen Glover Bishop This man is scary!!
Tina Corrine Evil prick. Hope Karma is a bitch to him and soon.
Cathy Galeotti Playing God
Marygrace Coneff The axis of evil.
Chris Savage is the unhinged former Queensland police officer who advocated that immunisation providers should be shot:
Chris Savage Needs a fair trial and then death penalty
Jeremy Rodrock Sick man
Tatyana Kroshka Offit for profit!!
Alice Becker It’s time to have him take his recommended 10,000 vaccine at once challenge.
As stated above, this is now common discussion for anti-vaccination posts featuring Dr Offit. The only thing which surprises me about it is that Neil Z Miller hasn’t deleted it. But, deleting it wouldn’t serve his purpose; it wouldn’t vindicate his reasons for posting in the first place.
Anti-vaccinationists are not intelligent. They are not funny. They are not harmless.
Anti-vaccinationists pose a real and present threat to public health and safety, and our society needs to hold them in the same standing which anti-vaccination activists afford others. Tell your friends. Tell your family. This is the real anti-vaccination movement.
Thanks for reading.
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