Transcript - Offit & $$ made - Vaccine Exemptions'? Call Them What They Really Are

[Guest guest]

This way you don't have to look at his arrogant face...........

" Disclosure: A. Offit, MD, is the coinventor of the RotaTeq® vaccine, but

he receives no financial remuneration for sales of the vaccine from either the

manufacturer or his employing institution. " - he may not receive money now for

his vaccine, but he certainly did receive money - see here

http://www.ageofautism.com/2009/12/counting-offits-millions-more-on-how-mercks-r\

otateq-vaccine-made-paul-offit-wealthy.html

" Offit, vaccine entrepreneur and public health spokesperson, has earned

approximately $10 million in income from Rotateq® royalties through 2009 and

stands to earn a total of between $13-35 million over the life of his rotavirus

vaccine patents, " and then later in the article - " Offit now claims that the

one-time payment from CHOP was less than our estimate, revealing to Amy Wallace

of Wired Magazine that CHOP paid him " several million dollars " and to others

that he received " about $6 million. " and " Based on two crucial new disclosures

from Offit, we estimate in a revised and more detailed analysis that Offit has

received and will continue to receive multiple payments based on Rotateq®

licensing revenue, that he may already have earned $10 million from Rotateq® and

that he stands to earn between $13-35 million over the lifetime of Rotateq's key

patents " and later " Furthermore, to the extent that Offit has attempted to

create the perception that he only made $6 million from Rotateq®, our analysis

shows that he has selectively withheld information on important additional

payments. Our calculations show that he has likely received $8.4 million in lump

sum payments so far and earned approximately $10 million in total income based

on Rotateq® sales through this year, after including ongoing royalty payments he

has earned based on Rotateq® revenues through year end 2009. " - so what is the

truth here - see whole article above.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/768746

A. Offit, MD

Authors and Disclosures

Professor, Department of Pediatrics, University of Pennsylvania School of

Medicine; Chief, Division of Infectious Diseases, The Children's Hospital of

Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Disclosure: A. Offit, MD, is the coinventor of the RotaTeq® vaccine, but he

receives no financial remuneration for sales of the vaccine from either the

manufacturer or his employing institution.

Posted: 08/10/2012

Vaccine Exemptions'? Call Them What They Really Are

Hi. My name is Offit. I am talking to you from the Vaccine Education Center

at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Today I want to talk about an article that recently came out in the journal

Pediatrics, titled " Frequency of Alternative Immunization Schedule Use in a

Metropolitan Area, " by Steve Robison and colleagues in Portland, Oregon.[1]

These authors looked at the choice by parents to separate, delay, withhold, or

space out vaccinations in the Portland metropolitan area from 2003-2009. They

found a 4-fold increase, from about 2.5% to 10% of parents, who made this choice

during those years. The parents were making this choice because they could. With

this article as background, I thought we would talk about vaccine exemptions.

There are 3 ways to exempt yourself from vaccines. The first way is a medical

exemption. For example, a person may have a contraindication to getting a

vaccine. Some people are allergic to gelatin. Gelatin is used as a stabilizer in

the chickenpox vaccine and in the nasal spray influenza vaccine. That would be a

reasonable reason not to get a vaccine.

A second way people can exempt themselves from vaccines are the so-called

philosophical or personal belief exemptions. Twenty states allow that kind of

exemption. I would argue that these exemptions are misnamed.

First of all, the notion that vaccines are a " philosophy " is inaccurate. Philo

means love, sophos means wisdom. Exactly where is the wisdom in saying that it

is better not to get vaccines than to get them?

The term " personal belief " is also incorrect in that vaccines are not a belief

system. Religion is a belief system. Religion is a faith-based system. Science

and medicine are evidence-based systems. They are data-based systems, not

beliefs. If you want to feel better about vaccine use, I think one needs only to

look at the roughly 20,000 studies that have evaluated the safety or efficacy of

vaccines, or the hundreds of studies that have looked at what happens when you

combine vaccines and give them at the same time to feel confident that, in fact,

there are data to support that choice.

The third way one can exempt oneself from vaccines are so-called religious

exemptions. Forty-eight states have them. I would argue this also does not make

a lot of sense.

The first vaccine was Jenner's vaccine in 1796. The New Testament was

written around 100 AD, the Old Testament between 1400 and 400 BC, and the Qur'an

around 600 AD. All those texts were written well before vaccines existed, so not

surprisingly, they never mention or predict them.

I also would argue that it does not make sense to say, " It is my religious

belief that a child not get a vaccine, " and therefore a child should be left

with less protection under the law. The 14th Amendment of the Constitution, the

so-called Equal Protection Clause, states that a child or anyone should be

equally protected and implies that this is independent of a parent's belief

system. If the child is exposed to harm, that child should have equal

protection. For example, if a Jehovah's Witness parent says, " I do not want my

child to get a lifesaving blood transfusion, " the parent does not have the

freedom of religion to practice that because of the 14th Amendment.

What is interesting -- and I do not think most people know this -- is that the 2

states that do not have religious exemptions are Mississippi and West Virginia,

states you would not necessarily pick. The reason these states do not have a

religious exemption is because both states' Supreme Courts said that it was a

violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

I think we should call these exemptions what they really are. Let's not

sugarcoat this choice. We should call them the " I do not want to get vaccines

because I have read a lot of scary things about vaccines and I am afraid that

they might hurt my child, and I am not so sure I believe in pharmaceutical

companies or the medical establishment or the government, so I do not want my

child to get them " vaccine exemption. That would be, I think, more honest.

Thanks for your attention.

References

Robison SG, Groom H, Young C. Frequency of alternative immunization schedule use

in a metropolitan area. Pediatrics. 2012;130:32-38. Abstract

Sheri Nakken, former R.N., MA, Hahnemannian Homeopath

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