'Deadly Choices' Author Paul Offit On Colbert: 'A Choice Not To Get A Vaccine Is A Risky Choice'

Paul A. Offit, author of "Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All", was interviewed on The Colbert Report.

Offit stated that there is currently a whooping cough outbreak in California that is the worst seen in 50 years. Ten children have even died. It was at this point that he said, "A choice not to get a vaccine is a risky choice."

Colbert and Offit also discussed the idea of "herd immunity," the notion that if enough people around have been immunized, then those who haven't been are safe. Unfortunately, there are 500,000 people who simply cannot be vaccinated because they're already undergoing chemotherapy or immune suppressive therapy for chronic disease. Because of this, it is important for healthy people to get immunized for, as Offit noted, people who are unable to get immunized "depend on those around them to protect them."

At the end of the interview, Colbert quipped that Offit's smallpox vaccine scar would be bad for swimsuit season. Offit replied, "That scar seems to be a fairly small price to pay."

Watch the full interview below!

WATCH:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Paul Offit
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Comments

[john649]

01:15 PM on 02/10/2011

One More Girl is a documentary filled with stories of anguish and travesty, futures destroyed, and families reduced to financial ruin by medical costs brought on by a supposedly safe vaccine, Gardasil. The vaccine is designed to prevent Human Papillomavirus (HPV).

Pre-production is in process right now and we are raising funds so that we can begin production this summer with a tentative 2012 release date.

We are two brothers that were motivated to make this documentary when our sister had experienced several serious side-effects after her first injection of the Gardasil vaccine. Her adverse reaction demanded further investigation which led to the startling discovery that thousands of young girls were having serious reactions to the vaccine, including death. At last count, there have been 89 confirmed deaths as a result of Gardasil.

These girls’ reactions to the vaccine range from muscle pain, weakness, seizures, strokes, autoimmune problems, paralysis, tremors, heart issues, and the list goes on and on. Furthermore, it is estimated that only 1-10% of vaccine related side-effects are reported.

Treating these girls is a challenge. Doctors don‘t know how to treat them and are reluctant to do so without establishing the cause of their symptoms, yet they are resistant or refuse to link the medical conditions with the vaccine. So, these girls have been suffering in silence.

[john649]

01:17 PM on 02/10/2011

Haunted by the tragic stories of thousands of girls injured by Gardasil, we began in-depth research to verify a correlation between the vaccine and the girls’ medical conditions. We wanted to know more about the HPV that causes cervical cancer, the vaccine created to prevent it, and Merck Pharmaceutical Company, which developed the HPV vaccine Gardasil.
The Gardasil Girls stories are backed up with research and data from global activists, attorneys, medical experts and journalists. Dr. Dianne M. Harper, the leading researcher that worked for 20 years developing the Gardasil vaccine states that, ”There is not enough evidence gathered on the side-effects to know that safety is not an issue” and “giving it to 11 year old girls is a great big public health experiment.” Dr. Harper speaks out even though her words could be detrimental to Merck. She claims, ”That she wants to be able to sleep with herself when she goes to bed at night.”
With this information we had to ask, “Why hasn’t the use of this vaccine been stopped?” This is a classic case of pharmaceutical company/government versus the medical consumer.
As filmmakers, we decided that the best way to bring this topic to the forefront was to make a documentary giving the “Gardasil Girls“ a voice. We intend to educate the public on HPV, the impact of Gardasil on young girls’ lives, and to expose Merck’s irresponsible marketing and testing procedures.

[john649]

01:18 PM on 02/10/2011

Help expose the truth about vaccines - go here:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1995527181/one-more-girl-documentary

[RedDogBear]

10:58 PM on 02/02/2011

I know some people who are quite intelligent but still believe in this nonsense. I think one issue that people need to come to terms with is the justifiable mistrust that the public has against corporations, in this case Big Pharma. The problem is that some people abandon critical thinking and just start to believe any negative thing they hear regarding the Pharma companies. I don't trust them either but that doesn't mean that everything they do is necessarily evil nor does it mean that people who criticize them don't have their own agenda (selling books, quack cures, etc.)

[lesterbud]

12:44 PM on 02/02/2011

Offit also very correctly pointed out that the original studies claiming to show a correlation between vaccines and autism (and other) was beyond false - it was fabricated entirely to fit the authors premise. The author has since said that "even if I see 100% incontrovertible evidence that I am wrong, I will not change my stance".
It is vitally important that those duped by this movement understand the facts. I know how desperate parents can be to find answers to the afflictions their children suffer, but threatening the lives of other children is not the desired outcome any of them should want. We are all sorry for your suffering, but base your actions on facts, not feelings. Otherwise, you are doing your children and my children a great disservice.

[William K]

04:07 PM on 02/02/2011

Specifically, Andrew Wakefield. From the Wikipedia article titled "Andrew Wakefield":

"The panel [of the Brtish General Medical Council or BMC] ruled that Wakefield had "failed in his duties as a responsible consultant", acted both against the interests of his patients, and "dishonestly and irresponsibly" in his published research. The Lancet immediately and fully retracted his 1998 publication on the basis of the GMC’s findings, noting that elements of the manuscript had been falsified. Wakefield was struck off the Medical Register in May 2010, and may no longer practise medicine in the UK.

In January 2011, an article by Brian Deer and its accompanying editorial in BMJ identified Wakefield's work as an "elaborate fraud". In a follow-up article, Deer said that Wakefield had planned to launch a venture on the back of an MMR vaccination scare that would profit from new medical tests and "litigation driven testing". However, by that time, Wakefield's study and public recommendations against the use of the combined MMR vaccine were linked to a steep decline in vaccination rates in the United Kingdom and a corresponding rise in measles cases, resulting in serious illness and several fatalities."

And unfortunately the fraudulent claims have become established here (in the US) as well. Please, parents, listen to rationality and proven research and vaccinate your children, for their own well being as well as society's. Don't allow them to become possible agents of transmission.

[lesterbud]

06:03 PM on 02/02/2011

But, of course, there are those that shamelessly prey upon those families suffering with children having various afflictions, by loudly proclaiming that it is a GOVERNMENT and CORPORATE conspiracy to hide confirmatory findings. And I hold those people to blame for the injury and death of those children who suffered due to not receiving vaccinations. This number is significant, not just a handful.
Families should be informed that the rate of autism, for example, is statistically the same for vaccinated and unvaccinated children (some studies show a bit higher for unvaccinated). Instead, they are forced information that these predators know to be false, just to further their own ideology.
Here is a test we should all use - if asked for real, validated and peer reviewed data, and that person responds with claims of conspiracies against them, don't just doubt them, report them as the criminals they are.
Shameful.
Horrible.
Ignorant.

[Alicia Ponder]

08:15 AM on 02/09/2011

Hey that's exactly what I say when they plaster a sick kid on the news and make out that everyone is dying of vaccine preventable illnesses.

except I don't go around threatening everyone else if they don't agree with me.
Yes, illnesses can be serious. But there is a limit to the carcinogenic and nerve destroying compounds you can inject into a child. Maybe we should take more care as to which would give us the best results - only it's a little hard finding those results. Most independent research tends to be quietly withdrawn - so much so that anybody publishing anything that might be linked to vaccines - very quickly points out how wonderful vaccines are and there is no link, even when the mechanism of a possible link seems pretty straightforward.

P.S. Study suggested a POSSIBLE link. it was after all a CASE study. Does nobody on this planet know the difference?