DR. RENEE JENKINS: CHANNELING PAUL OFFIT'S BULLSHIT

By J.B. Handley

Renee Jenkins, the President of the American Academy of Pediatrics, is helping her organization rocket ahead of the CDC in becoming parent enemy number one for our community. In a month when Julie Gerberding conceded that the entire foundation of the CDC's position that vaccines do not cause autism—the Verstraeten Study—had major weaknesses, the AAP seems hell-bent on defending the CDC's Recommended Vaccine Schedule at all costs.

Moreover, we are seeing the AAP's new media strategy, forged through the formation of the "Immunization Alliance"--a front group for parties with a vested interest in promoting vaccines—which is likely to not only backfire, but also put the AAP in the middle of the line of fire for parent activism.

For those of you who have been enjoying your summer, here's a little background:

- In the July 2008 issue of Pediatrics, a trade magazine published by the AAP, the Editor in Chief of the AAP wrote an article detailing the newly formed "Immunization Alliance" and its plans for combating declining immunization rates. Breathtaking in its dismissiveness of parent concerns, it's no surprise to read that Dr. Paul Offit is a key architect of this alliance and that the groups forming it are almost exclusively fronts for the CDC, AAP, or Big Pharma. Here's an excerpt:

"Underscoring the need for compelling vaccine messages is the No. 1 ranked resolution from the 2008 Annual Leadership Forum, calling for the Academy to lead a coalition that will develop a media campaign on the value of immunizations that can be marketed to parents, added Dr. Jenkins.

The group agreed that communication strategies must appeal to parents who are Internet and media savvy, and go beyond presentation of the science by engaging consumers on an emotional level. There was acknowledgment among attendees that messages from anti-vaccine groups' helped erode public confidence in immunizations through their use of celebrities to deliver heartrending first-hand accounts."

(Editor's Note: Please find the full text of the article below, which has not previously been available online – an AoA exclusive!)

- Julie Deardorff, a writer for the Chicago Tribune, challenged the AAP's new attitude in an excellent blog post that you can read HERE, where she noted:

"The American Academy of Pediatrics is growing so concerned about the climbing rate of vaccine exemptions--and the possible affect on community health--that it recently formed a group called the "Immunization Alliance" to address the growing refusal of some parents to vaccinate…But here's a problem the AAP missed: The sheer number of recommended and mandated vaccines is freaking parents out. And new combo shots that contain a stew of four or five different vaccines aren't going to help matters."

- On July 3rd (what is it about the AAP and the day before the fourth of July?) Renee Jenkins responded to Julie Deardorff's post with a statement that clearly reflects the new plans of this "Immunization Alliance" to go after critics in a more aggressive manner. An excerpt from the full text of Dr. Jenkins statement which you can read below includes the following:

"Deardorff parrots the misleading pseudoscience of the most strident anti-vaccine Web sites and the scare tactics of celebrity-funded ad campaigns. In quoting the number of vaccines children receive today compared to 1982, Deardorff takes the extra step to write the numbers in boldfaced type, suggesting she believes these numbers alone should give parents pause about immunizing their children."

Dr. Jenkins goes on to explain that, "today's vaccines are safer than any in history. Current vaccines are more refined than older versions, so children receive fewer immune-challenging antigens overall even though they get a larger number of immunizations."

She also tries to scare parents by noting, "It's true that doctors recommend more vaccines for children today than they did two decades ago. The number of vaccines has increased because new vaccines have been developed to prevent more diseases. That is a good thing. That means children will not have to suffer devastating diseases such as Hib meningitis, which once killed 600 children a year and left thousands more with deafness, seizures and mental retardation. The vaccine available today has wiped out 98 percent of these cases."

While I wasn't in the room for the first meeting of the "Immunization Alliance", I know that Dr. Paul Offit was. In fact, he is cited specifically in the AAP article in Pediatrics and his picture even appears in the article. Having studied his media approach quite closely over the years, his fingerprints are all over this new strategy of the AAP's. Imagine Offit in a room with a bunch of self-conscious Doctors who have never dealt with the media with his smugness and track record of media experience. (Read more in Paul Offit: Quote Machine For Hire HERE.) It's no surprise that he would have heavy influence over this new approach and that many of Dr. Jenkins comments paraphrase things Offit has said in the past.

From my perspective, there are five major problems with the AAP's new approach:

1. You can't defend the assertions

The "fewer antigens" argument has been a Paul Offit special for years. Not only is this argument confusing for parents to understand, it also means nothing. Offit's claim is based exclusively on the removal of an older Pertussis vaccine (which was causing many problems) decades ago.

What parents see clearly is how many more vaccines they are getting. When Dr. Jenkins says that today's vaccines are "safer than any in history" there is simply no evidence and no study to back this up. Moreover, the combination risk of so many vaccines administered simultaneously has simply never been studied, so the AAP has no way to respond to this concern.

I sincerely hope they keep making this "less Antigen" argument, it is a real loser.

2. The news is making them look very stupid

With the Hannah Poling case, Dr. Bernadine Healy's recent comments, the potential for an Omnibus decision going our way, Julie Gerberding retreating, the IOM revisiting the "environment's" role in autism, and the case reports of children falling into autism after vaccines continuing to roll in, the AAP's position is looking chronically old and inconsistent with the reality many parents see. It's starting to remind me of that great spokesperson for Saddam Hussein who kept telling the press how the Iraqi Army was winning the war.

3. They don’t know who their “enemy” is

The AAP believes the decline in immunization rates is due to “anti-vaccine groups” and “celebrities” as if Jenny and a few websites are the only problem. What they fail to realize is that the message of groups like Generation Rescue would fall flat if there weren’t tens of thousands of parents who agreed with it. 8,000 people don’t march on Washington because of Jenny McCarthy and a few websites, they march on Washington because they know what happened to their child. If parents weren’t hearing our message corroborated in their own communities, there wouldn’t be an impact.

4. They are not dealing honestly with parent concerns

If you have no safety studies verifying the issue of combination risk of so many vaccines, defending the schedule in its current form will backfire on you. If your best defense is to cite the 600 deaths a year from HIB now being prevented, parents will compare this to the 1 in 150 risk or higher of autism and make their own conclusions. By not acknowledging that the risk-reward of vaccines is potentially wildly out of balance, parents will not listen to you.

5. Offit is a time bomb

When the face of the public vaccine initiative—which Offit very much is as a Google search of "Paul Offit & Vaccines" reveals 47,800 separate hits—happens to be both a patent holder of a vaccine that may well get pulled from the market due to adverse events and a guy who was admonished by the US Congress for his conflicts, you are dealing with a slippery slope.

Consider:

"In 2006, Dr. Offit's vaccine, Rotateq, was added to the CDC's recommended schedule. In May 2008, it was reported that, "Later in 2007, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that there were 117 confirmed cases of intussusception among recipients of Rotateq between March 2006 and June 2007." This is more cases of bowel obstruction than the vaccine the FDA recalled from the market, Rotashield. Also, in 2008 it was reported that, "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved an update to the product label for Merck & Co.'s Rotateq vaccine to include the report of a death of a recipient due to an intestinal obstruction."

And:

"In August 2000, the Committee on Government Reform of the US Congress issued a highly critical document called Conflict of Interest in Vaccine Policy Making. Dr. Offit was reprimanded by Congress and his actions were a primary focus of the report. The report focused on the introduction of the Rotavirus vaccine called Rotashield in the late 1990s. The report stated, "A little more than one year after the "RotaShield" rotavirus vaccine was licensed by the Food and Drug Administration as a safe and effective vaccine, it was removed from the market due to adverse events. More than 100 cases of severe bowel obstruction, or intussusception, were reported in children who had received the vaccine."

The report singled Dr. Offit out for questionable voting as a member of the Advisory Committee ("ACIP") affiliated with CDC that adds new vaccines to the vaccine schedule. The report stated, "Dr. Offit began his tenure on ACIP in October of 1998. Out of four votes pertaining to the ACIP's rotavirus statement, he voted yes three times, including voting for the inclusion of the rotavirus vaccine in the VFC program. Dr. Offit abstained from voting on the ACIP's rescission of the recommendation of the rotavirus vaccine for routine use."

The AAP's new approach will not only fail, but it puts them front and center for criticism and action from our community. As people who are supposed to be defending our kids, I had much higher hopes for how the AAP would deal with the vaccine-autism issue.

Using "Bullshit" is not going to work, particularly the kind Paul Offit has been spewing for years.

J.B. Handley is Editor at Large for Age of Autism and Co-Founder of Generation Rescue.

APPENDIX

AAP Article from July Issue of Pediatrics:

Immunization Alliance to develop compelling messages for parents
Anne Hegland
Editor in Chief

With pediatricians facing an increasing number of parents who question the safety of vaccines, representatives from organizations with a shared interest in advancing children's health met May 30 to compare notes and develop strategies to help recapture public trust in childhood immunizations.

The newly formed Immunization Alliance, representing 15 groups, agreed that together they must work on short-and long-term solutions before falling immunization rates lead to further outbreaks of once-common and sometimes deadly vaccine-preventable childhood diseases.
Fresh in everyone's mind were the measles outbreaks in nine states earlier this year.

Framing the challenges

Paul Offit, M.D., FAAP, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, identified some of the factors contributing to the increase in vaccine refusal and the need for quick action:

• parents who have never experienced or seen vaccine-preventable diseases;
• media and Internet reports that are unbalanced;
• decreased trust in the government and health care providers;
• an increasing number of states allowing philosophical exemptions; and
• parent-to-parent spread of misinformation.

Dr. Offit pointed out that the majority of vaccine refusals stem from parents' fears, with only 10% of refusals associated with parents who strongly oppose vaccines.

"We need to work on public messaging around vaccines — the benefit of vaccines — and to have the right messenger delivering those messages," said AAP President and meeting co-facilitator Renée R. Jenkins, M.D., FAAP.

Underscoring the need for compelling vaccine messages is the No. 1 ranked resolution from the 2008 Annual Leadership Forum, calling for the Academy to lead a coalition that will develop a media campaign on the value of immunizations that can be marketed to parents, added Dr. Jenkins.

The group agreed that communication strategies must appeal to parents who are Internet and media savvy, and go beyond presentation of the science by engaging consumers on an emotional level. There was acknowledgement among attendees that messages from anti-vaccine groups' helped erode public confidence in immunizations through their use of celebrities to deliver heartrending first-hand accounts.

"The greatest challenge is getting these messages out in a timely fashion. We've got August coming up, which is a big month for kids going to the pediatrician for back-to-school visits and for immunizations," said Dr. Jenkins.

At press time, Alliance members were prioritizing strategies to be shared with communication experts who will help craft messages promoting the value of immunizations.

Messages for pediatricians

Meeting co-facilitator Margaret Fisher, M.D., FAAP, chair of the AAP Section on Infectious Diseases, said the Alliance's efforts also are an effort to help pediatricians in practice, whose messages have not always been understood by parents.

"We're all about what's best for children, and what we're trying to do is find a way to re-establish our trust with the public. We want to help provide our members with the messages and the method that can regain that trust and make it easier for them on a day-to-day basis.

"The public has lost trust in medicine in general — not in their individual pediatricians," Dr. Fisher added.

The Immunization Alliance meeting was supported by the Tomorrows Children Endowment of the AAP.

Immunization Alliance

The following groups are represented on the Immunization Alliance:
• American Academy of Family Physicians
• American Academy of Pediatrics
• American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
• American Medical Association
• American Public Health Association
• Association of State and Territorial Health Officials
• Easter Seals
• Every Child By Two
• Immunization Action Coalition
• March of Dimes Foundation
• National Foundation for Infectious Diseases
• National Vaccine Program
• Parents of Kids with Infectious Diseases (PKIDS)
• Rotary International
• Voices for Vaccines

AAP Response to Julie Deardorff:

New vaccines are preventing more diseases

The American Academy of Pediatrics is disappointed that a premier newspaper like the Chicago Tribune would publish such a one-sided, fear-mongering report as columnist Julie Deardorff's June 27 blog post, "The AAP gets tough on vaccine dissenters.

Deardorff parrots the misleading pseudoscience of the most strident anti-vaccine Web sites and the scare tactics of celebrity-funded ad campaigns. In quoting the number of vaccines children receive today compared to 1982, Deardorff takes the extra step to write the numbers in boldfaced type, suggesting she believes these numbers alone should give parents pause about immunizing their children.

The fact is, today's vaccines are safer than any in history. Current vaccines are more refined than older versions, so children receive fewer immune-challenging antigens overall even though they get a larger number of immunizations.

It's true that doctors recommend more vaccines for children today than they did two decades ago. The number of vaccines has increased because new vaccines have been developed to prevent more diseases. That is a good thing. That means children will not have to suffer devastating diseases such as Hib meningitis, which once killed 600 children a year and left thousands more with deafness, seizures and mental retardation. The vaccine available today has wiped out 98 percent of these cases.

Deardorff is less than fair in her depiction of how the American Academy of Pediatrics is responding to parents with questions about vaccines. Pediatricians spend many hours in their day counseling parents about the safety and importance of immunization and answering their specific questions. Pediatricians want to provide parents with accurate information; our job is made all the harder by misleading reports like this one.

Comments

[Holly M.]

Our local one size fits all pediatric practice is not wasting any time in implimenting the "Immunization Alliance" recommendations. They have large two page letters posted in the waiting room and in the examination rooms proclaming the safety of vaccinations, blasting the selfish sponges "riding the coat tails" of the vaccinated and of course their my way or the highway closure.

I can't wait till there is a FOR RENT sign on the door.

[Angela Warner]

Katie Wright - I love it and I love your question - "Who does Renee Jenkins think she is?"

Please go to my blog and read... I'm sure everyone has by now read the letter that all of our national autism organizations endorsed pertaining to change in federal policy supporting autism treatment. Read the exchange between Karen Hendricks and myself. This should give you a clue as to who they all think they are.

The Untouchables... They better think again.

http://autismsalute.blogspot.com/2008_04_01_archive.html

[Riley's mom]

Also, can someone please inform me why I, as a NURSING student, am required to take a FULL nutrition class and pass it with no less than a "C" and a Dr isn't required this? Is it a class taught or just not taught well? Another thing that amazes me is we were also taught in basic chem class which substances on the periodic table were TOXIC to living cells....DUH!!!

[Riley's mom]

ANDREA
I seen your link that you posted to Vindy.com. That's the doctor that told us to find a new doctor in our "area". Dr K Iqbal. Small world huh? We have moved to Portage Co and no longer receive that paper so I had no idea he had writen that.
My question is, when I called the office and asked for my son's records, why did he want to see me? I them I was filing for the VICP and then he REALLY wanted to see me. He told me when I got there that he had "reviewed" the chart and thought that we had a case. Then he "dismissed" us from his practice. They knew Riley had eczema and a severe egg allergy and continued to vaccinate him. Do you think he's afraid of me now?
Just wanted to let you know that he and Dr. O. Shaihk from that practice were my kids Peds for over 4 yrs and that's what we get....shown the door!!!

[Katie Wright]

Great piece JB!!!
It is truly incredible that the AAP continues to know so little about autism and the basics of good public relations. Since when does attacking parents of sick kids convince anyone of anything. It only reeks of desperation. Apparently education is the real enemy here. Parents need to stay off the internet, not watch TV or read newspapers and get all their facts only from approved AAP sources (maybe the NYT is OK).

This is the same kind of nitwit argument against educating kids about safe sex when the AIDS epidemic began. Information is scary and dangerous! This is also the same kind of condescending arrogance displayed by the medical community's decades long acceptance of the Bruno Bettleheim school of autism causation.

Who does Renee Jenkins think she is? How has she done anything to help autistic kids? The last I heard she was fighting the Combatting Autism Bill until the final hour because it might take money away from other diseases or lead to the dreaded- vaccine safety research!!!

Renee Jenkins should be ashamed of herself.

[Stagmom]

I'd say most pediatricians know as much about autism (beyond the rudimentary checklist that any mother knows) as they do about nutrition. Now AAP is recommending Cholesterol drugs to kids as young as ten. My friend's daughter is in med school. Nutrition training is painfully brief. Instead of asking why American kids are obese and working to fix the cause, they are pushing more drugs as "preventative care."

[Anne Dachel]

Excellent points JB. Personally, I've had a few questions for the AAP ever since their Oct. 2007 autism meeting in San Francisco. That's where they came up with their cutting edge plan to fight autism---They told their doctors to do autism checks at well-baby visits. They even gave them a list of red flags for autism:
http://www.aap.org/advocacy/releases/Oct07autism.htm
not turning when the parent says the baby's name;
not turning to look when the parent points says, "Look at." and not pointing themselves to show parents an interesting object or event;
lack of back and forth babbling;
smiling late; and
failure to make eye contact with people.

When parents come in with questions about autism, doctors can put their fears to rest because now they know the signs to look for.

The whole thing scared me. Why would doctors need to be given this elementary list of developmental problems? Haven't we for years been told that all the autism is the result of "better diagnosing" by doctors? How can you have it both ways? How will this do anything to stop the epidemic of autism?

This pathetic response in the face of a nightmare of disabled kids should have been seen as an embarrassment and an insult by their membership.

Meanwhile, the controversy rages on and the AAP has no choice but to deny, deny, deny and be inflexible about the mandated schedule. If the AAP were to concede that vaccines could be spaced out or delayed, they'd open the door to the possibility that they've been giving too many, too soon and that vaccines are overwhelming kids. Therefore the only possible response is self-protection, under the guise of protecting children.

Anne Dachel
Media editor

[nhokkanen]

I have never heard anyone from the AAP reassure me that children who succumbed to vaccine-induced mitochondrial dysfunction did not die in vain. Nothing is being learned from vaccine-injured children. No prevention. Nothing. Where is the science in that?

[ElizaCassandra]

From "across the pond":- For the past who-knows-how-many-years I've been telling anyone who's prepared to listen:-

Each autistic child has a circle of influence which starts with its parents, siblings, aunts/uncles, grandparents, cousins. It continues outwards to the mother's boss who gets fed up with constant requests for absences due to medical appointments, her professional/work colleagues (also fed up with covering for her) and the father's boss and professional/work colleagues (likewise). Then you add into the mix the neighbours who complain about the shrieking at all hours of the day and night and the bizarre behaviour (posting pizza in the neighbour's letterbox, anyone?). You continue with the special needs teachers who complain to you, the mother, about your child's behaviour (yes, folks, that happened to me!). You continue by adding those few friends who're prepared to have your little darling in their house and watch the invitations slowly dry up - very few friends last the course, treasure them if they do.

With the rate in England running at 1:80 at primary school level (informal National Autistic Society survey, 2002), you're getting to the point where everyone either knows an autistic child or has one in their family. Out here in the real world of real children something or, more likely, somethings are causing/triggering autism in our children. Just who do these bureaucratic idiots think they're fooling? Just how long do the "powers that be" think they can keep the lid on a cauldron that's about to boil over?

[They Live!]

Heh...I love the picture! John Carpenter's "They Live!" Quite appropriate if you ask me, i.e. don't ask any questions, just be brainwashed like the rest of the sheeple out there and take your damn vaccines because it's what we want you to do. I've always thought that (For pr)Offit was like one of the aliens from that movie.

"I have come here today to chew bubblegum and kick a$$....and I'm all out of bubblegum!"

[Holly M.]

Just this AM GMA talked about advertisers using word-of-mouth to promote their products and actually paying people to recommend their product to a friend. A person with good news tells 1-2 people. Depending on how bad the news is up to 15. With so many kids being injured, the AAP is fighting a loosing battle.

Just this AM as a dropped my girls off at camp, I had moms parked behind my car reading my signs and stickers. Priceless.

[Becky]

In today's news, the aap recommends cholesterol drugs for children as young as 8 years old. Disgusting.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25556140/

[Andrea]

JB,

In response to a letter to the Editor my husband and I had published in a local paper after the GOV rally, a local pediatrician felt compelled to respond.

In his letter he states:

"At present, several trials are being conducted to evaluate the interaction of vaccines when used in different combinations. Our own practice is involved in some of these multinational/multicenter trials, and the results will be published in the near future."

So administering multiple vaccines in different combinations is being studied AFTER THE FACT ???? He tells the reader just to go ahead and give all vaccines anyways. His whole letter had the tone- "we have 'em, why not use 'em?" attitude. He admits there are still concerns about the relationship between vaccines and autism, but blows that fear off. He uses the typical argument vaccines have saved thousands from death and diseases blah, blah, blah... When are these pediatricians going to start understanding that autism is a terrible disease/disorder?

So is this guy totally full of bull? Or are there really these studies going on at present? And, if there are shouldn't we use caution in the interim?

If you are interested you can read his letter by clicking on the link below:

http://www.vindy.com/news/2008/jun/15/denying-children-vaccines-will-do-more-harm-than/

I think the AAP coming out with a stronger stance on the neccessity of administering all vaccines to all children is simple. It is a desperate attempt to re-establish themselves as the ultimate authorities on the matter. It may be the CDC who recommends what we inject into our kids, but it is the AAP and their members who put those recommendations into practice. They are the end of the road. It's just you, your kid and them in that office and he's got that needle(s) all ready to go. I think the AAP thinks it's time to get tough with these parents once and for all.

Besides, can you imagine the loss of income for them? People can't just start limiting the vaccines they give their kids when so many are available? I mean those poor doctors have their shelves stocked full of those things. Oh, the thought of lost revenue....

BTW, we are having a great summer. Wink, wink. The summer my ASD kid hit puberty. And, I'm sorry to say it hasn't been a day at the beach.

[Riley's mom]

"Underscoring the need for compelling vaccine messages is the No. 1 ranked resolution from the 2008 Annual Leadership Forum, calling for the Academy to lead a coalition that will develop a media campaign on the value of immunizations that can be marketed to parents, added Dr. Jenkins.

The group agreed that communication strategies must appeal to parents who are Internet and media savvy, and go beyond presentation of the science by engaging consumers on an emotional level. There was acknowledgment among attendees that messages from anti-vaccine groups' helped erode public confidence in immunizations through their use of celebrities to deliver heartrending first-hand accounts."
***BEYOND the science?!?!?! Oh and as much as I just love Jenny...her story is no more "heart" rendering than mine. I think we can safely say that EVERY story of a vaccine injured child is heart rendering!!
This B*tch also needs to learn how to write her own papers. Plagiarism isn't very nice even if she is using Offits words!!!
More comments to follow because I don't have time to write anymore, I have to go take my son to his "special needs" school now.

[AnneS]

Dr Meg Fisher is another piece of work. Here in NJ she told the assembly committee that they didn't need to pass a bill to prevent mercury in vaccines, since it was all out. What a liar!

[John Stone]

Also notice Renee Jenkins' intervention in the Eli Stone controversy. She wrote to ABC:

"Many people trust the health information presented on fictional television shows, which influences their decisions about health care. In the United Kingdom, erroneous reports linking the measles vaccine to autism prompted a decline in vaccination and the worst outbreak of measles in two decades, including the deaths of several children."

http://www.ageofautism.com/2008/01/aap-its-time-fo.html

This will not tally with people's memories in the UK. The tragic death of an unvaccinated immune compromised 13 year-old in 2006 was widely publicised as the first measles death in 14 years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/5081286.stm

Admittedly, this does not seem to be exactly true. Recently, Health Protection Agency records have come to light detailing a further 18 deaths trailing back through the period, and their reticence suggests that the cases may have been vaccinated.

http://www.hpa.org.uk/web/HPAweb&HPAwebStandard/HPAweb_C/1195733835814

The only thing you can eventually rely on is official health spokespersons telling you the very first thing that come into their head.

http://www.jabs.org.uk/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2169

Of course, fictions which pretent to be truth are much more worrying than fictions which only claim to fictions.