Things that seem to good to be true usually are, yet when it comes to alternative medicine far too many people put their faith in belief and testimonials rather than science. Dr. Paul Offit’s must-read book, Do You Believe in Magic? takes on alternative medicine’s producers and practitioners, explaining why their products and therapies are generally not better and certainly not safer than traditional approaches. Yet his approach is compassionate — he understands that people want guarantees, hope, and sympathy, and will go elsewhere if traditional medicine can’t provide those things. We talked with Dr. Offit about all these topics, as well as whether or not alternative approaches do have some legitimate benefits, and how his own thinking about alternative approaches changed while he was writing and researching Do You Believe in Magic? TPGA: Many folks view the alternative medicine industry as a group of outlaw heroes, who give…
Tag: Paul Offit
We occasionally feature posts about vaccines on this site and our Facebook page, to debunk declining but Internet-fanned beliefs about vaccines being linked to autism. Though our 2011 interview with vaccine and infectious disease expert Dr. Paul Offit addresses most questions people have about autism and vaccines, we sometimes get queries outside that interview’s scope. So I was grateful for the opportunity to have another conversation with Dr. Offit when he spoke at the Children’s Hospital and Research Center of Oakland earlier this month, and ask him some of your questions. Matt Carey from Left Brain/Right Brain joined the conversation as well. -SR TPGA: Autism rates have not declined since 2001 event though thimerosal was eliminated from most vaccines in the US by then. In some cases, those who believe in an autism-vaccine link have just shifted the goalposts to injection of foreign substances into the body and other theories.…
I got a chance to talk with Dr. Robert Goldberg PhD about his new book “Tabloid Medicine.” In it he breaks apart the formula for Tabloid Medicine: change the terminology to fit your agenda, create an instant expert, play the little guy against the big guy, proliferate bad information, then find a celebrity to lead the charge. Voila! Your very own epidemic-I make light, but this book doesn’t, since it’s not really a funny topic. We spoke of how he came to the topic as a parent, when his own daughter struggled with misinformation in the media, but continued, fueled by the tragedy that with so much good the internet could be doing, it was being “hijacked” by the likes of Andrew Wakefield, Jenny McCarthy, David Healy, Sidney Wolfe MD, and Barbara Loe Fisher. Passionate about the subject, and well-grounded by facts, Dr. Goldberg answered a few questions for me.…
Dr. Paul Offit is the Chief of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and a relentless advocate for children’s health and childhood vaccination. We interviewed Dr. Offit several weeks ago here on The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism, and in a continuing effort to support him with the release of his new book, we are encouraging people to buy the book via Amazon on Monday, February 21, 2011. A frenzy of book-buying could push the title into Amazon’s Hot New Release list, raising publicity about the importance and safety of vaccines. Even if you already have a copy of the book, consider purchasing another copy and donating a book to your local public or high school, a health education teacher, or your child’s pediatrician. Hard cover: Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All ($17.11) and the Kindle edition: Deadly Choices on Kindle ($9.99) (Dr. Offit is…
Vaccine expert Dr. Paul Offit is the author of the new book Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All. We talked with Dr. Offit about realities of vaccine-preventable diseases, the importance of herd immunity, just how contagious measles really are, why you shouldn’t have chickenpox parties, why neither he nor Jenny McCarthy are autism experts, why it is unethical to run studies featuring vaccinated versus unvaccinated children, and just how extensively the autism-vaccine hypothesis has been debunked. [update 2/1] Dr. Offit discussed many of these same topics during his 1/31 guest spot on The Colbert Report. What is your elevator pitch for parents concerned about vaccines and autism? I think raising the concern is reasonable. Children get vaccines, and for some children, the signs and symptoms of autism may appear soon after receiving the vaccine, so asking those questions is reasonable. The good news is that the question…