Paul Offit Agrees that Vaccines Cause Autistic Spectrum Conditions
[AUTHOR'S NOTE] This article was written before I saw Robert Krakow's response on behalf of EBCALA to Robert Lowes of Medscape (HERE) to which I presume no answer has been forthcoming. I also posted similar comments in BMJ Rapid Responses (HERE ) and Seth Mnookin's blog (HERE). Mnookin responded by closing the blog and removing the link from his homepage, and embarrassed silence has so far reigned on BMJ as well.
By John Stone
In an initial response to the EBCALA study documenting autistic spectrum disorders in 83 vaccine injury award cases leading vaccine programme advocate, Paul Offit, has admitted that vaccines give rise to autistic spectrum conditions. Robert Lowes of Medscape News reported:
“Dr. Offit said the study authors reach erroneous conclusions due to an erroneous definition of autism. A child with measles encephalopathy, he said, may have severe cognitive deficits that fall into the autism spectrum, but such symptoms themselves do not necessarily translate into a diagnosis of autism.”
It really looks as if the person who is confused here is Prof Offit, who does not seem to understand that autism is in most cases a non-specific diagnosis based on behavioural symptoms. Not only has he made a distinction without a difference he has also used the term “autistic spectrum” in relation to vaccine damage cases. It does not however look as if Offit is the only person who is confused. Lowes went on to record:
“A spokesperson for HRSA mounted the same defense — shared symptoms do not make 2 different conditions identical — in an email to Medscape Medical News. The spokesperson affirmed that while the US Court of Federal Claims has granted awards for encephalopathy, it has never granted awards for autism per se.”
It is likely that spokesperson used the same statement given to journalists Sharyl Attkisson and David Kirby in 2008 and 2009 (HERE):
"The government has never compensated, nor has it ever been ordered to compensate, any case based on a determination that autism was actually caused by vaccines. We have compensated cases in which children exhibited an encephalopathy, or general brain disease. Encephalopathy may be accompanied by a medical progression of an array of symptoms including autistic behavior, autism, or seizures."
If this is the case it is rather hard to see what we are arguing about. With all the semantic ingenuity in the world children on the autistic spectrum are surely autistic and so are children who have autistic behaviour.
John Stone is UK Editor for Age of Autism.
Series from Hilary Butler examines the underlying causes of immune dysfunction resulting from vaccinating infants http://www.beyondconformity.co.nz/_blog/Hilary%27s_Desk/post/Vaccines_and_neonatal_immune_development/ (Part I)
http://www.beyondconformity.co.nz/_blog/Hilary%27s_Desk/post/How_a_baby_fights_infection_and_develops_the_immune_system/ (Part II)
http://www.beyondconformity.co.nz/_blog/Hilary%27s_Desk/post/Can_vaccines_become_cranial_and_immunological_cluster_bombs/ (Part III
Posted by: MinorityView | May 26, 2011 at 11:06 AM
It is commonly spouted that science has not been able to replicate Dr Wakefield's findings. How could they if they don't test biopsies from children who regressed with bowel problems after the MMR. If they were honest enough to do this, they would of course be 'unethical' according to the GMC findings.
Lots of what the opposition says has obvious flaws but we are never allowed to go 'head to head', by the media. It is always controlled, thus letting the likes of Prof. Offit a chance to say what they want without fear of contradiction.
Posted by: Deborah Nash | May 26, 2011 at 11:03 AM
Maybe lay people aren't so stupid after all.
BMJ 2011;342:d3160
"Patients’ reports of adverse reactions to drugs are richer in detail and better at describing the impact of suspected side effects on their daily lives than information provided by healthcare professionals, shows a UK study.
Researchers assessed the effect of inviting patients or their representatives to report to the United Kingdom’s yellow card scheme for reporting adverse reactions. Healthcare professionals have reported side effects to this voluntary scheme since 1964, but it was opened up to patients in October 2005. Yellow card reports are submitted to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency by post or telephone or through the internet.
The study compared 26 129 yellow card reports made by patients (20% of the total) and health professionals (80%) between 1 October 2005 and 30 September 2007 (Health Technology Assessment, doi:10.3310/hta15200). It was funded by the health technology assessment programme of the National Institute for Health Research.
Analysis showed that patients’ reports of suspected adverse drug reactions were more likely to include information about symptoms (93%) than reports made by health professionals (78%) and to describe their extreme nature (47% versus 17% of reports). They were also more likely to explain the effect of the reaction on the patient’s life (47% versus 12%).
Patients commonly reported on temporal associations, with 61% stating that the suspected reaction had followed administration of the drug, 26% that it had improved on stopping the drug, and 7% that it had recurred on restarting the drug.
Qualitative analysis showed that patients’ descriptions of suspected adverse drug reactions were more detailed. They also gave information on reasons for the drug being prescribed, how patients identified the adverse reaction, and responses from health professionals.
'Our study has shown that patient reports of adverse drug reactions add value by highlighting problems that are not commonly reported by healthcare professionals and by providing detailed information about adverse reactions, including the impact on patients,' said Tony Avery, the study’s lead author and professor of primary healthcare in the School of Community Health Sciences at the University of Nottingham.
He noted that reports made by patients were just as likely to be about serious reactions as those from healthcare professionals.
A sixth (15%) of the total reports by patients and healthcare professionals described adverse drug reactions not listed on the drug’s summary of product characteristics, so potentially providing new information.
The researchers concluded that patients could be given a more important role in reporting of adverse drug reactions and suggested that more should be done to encourage them to participate in the yellow card scheme. A survey of more than 2000 members of the public showed that only one in 12 had heard of the scheme.
June Raine, director of vigilance and risk management of medicines with the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), said, 'Medicines have important benefits; however, they may also have side effects. We welcome the results from this important study, which confirm the MHRA’s experience that patients make an important contribution to monitoring the safety of medicines through yellow card reporting.
'The findings from this study will help us continue to strengthen the role of patients as reporters to the scheme. The more reports the MHRA receives about suspected adverse drug reactions, the sooner we can relay important safety messages to the public and healthcare professionals—everyone benefits from better information.'”
Posted by: Carol | May 26, 2011 at 10:55 AM
Paul offit has know opened the floodgates , will we know see brave doctors come forward and say we think Vaccines cause Autism , lets not pussyfoot about they have not done the correct research respectively concerning vaccinated verses unvaccinated because they are very aware that vaccines cause damage , stop the deceit and stop damageing our children
Posted by: Debra | May 26, 2011 at 10:12 AM
ASD is a vaccine-induced encephalopathy. This we can be sure of. The common pathological traits in the spectrum, are due, IMO, to the fact that brain injuries occur during developmental stage of early infancy and childhood, when brain is actively developing, thus affecting certain brain structures more than others. Nonetheless, we now know that in autistic encephalopathy practically all brain structures are affected in some way. The blood-brain barer (BBB) is not fully developed until 6-8 week of life, hence all toxins present on vaccines go directly to the brain, if vaccines are given during this period. Moreover, most current vaccines contain substances, which damage BBB, thus toxins from vaccines given at later age enter the brain as well. The bottom line is – vaccines are designed to damage the brain by various biochemical mechanisms. This is obvious to anybody, who knows something about the brain and is obvious to millions of parents, who witnessed tragic consequences of vaccinations on their children. There is no pharma-paid so called “scientific authority”, who can convince these parents that vaccines are safe, as personal experiences count most for every human being.
Posted by: veritas | May 26, 2011 at 04:41 AM
They open their mouths and words come out, but when you analyse it, it makes no sense. Unfortunately, I think this 'condition' is getting more common among 'scientists' who think that if they say something with enough conviction, we will believe them, whether it makes sense or not. Examples can be seen in Part 6 of Robert MacNeil's Autism Now Series.
Posted by: Deborah Nash | May 26, 2011 at 03:36 AM
Here's a steaming plate of crow... call it Maggiepie a'la FRAUD?
“It is genetically different from the fully human H1N1 seasonal influenza virus that has been circulating globally for the past few years. The new flu virus contains DNA typical to avian, swine and human viruses, including elements from European and Asian swine viruses.” - Maggie Fox, Reuters
The description of the so called Swine Flu is pathognomonic or diagnostic that the Mexican virus came from Offit's circle of friends.
A jointly-authored article in Virology written by Novavax and CDC was posted on-line at the precise time Mexican authorities started reporting deaths due to this new flu which was clearly an unprecedented, recombinant of Avian, Swine, and 1918 Spanish Flu.
“No other group in the world takes H5N1 Asian Flu-infected chickens, brings them to Europe, extracts their DNA, combines their proteins with H1N1 viruses from the 1918 Spanish Flu isolate, additionally mixes in Swine Flu genes from pigs, then reverse engineers them to infect humans.
The end product that Reuters describes could only end up in Mexico via the United States from Britain in care of the CDC.” Dr. Len Horowitz
How quickly we forget fraud based on how well organized the fraud scheme is carried out!
Posted by: Media Scholar | May 25, 2011 at 11:38 PM
If it walks like a duck.... (fill in the blank)
Posted by: AutismDad in PA | May 25, 2011 at 11:01 PM
I would think Dr. Offit and all his intellectual friends would be a bit embarrassed that they "still have not a clue" as to the cause of a epidemic 30 times more common than polio.
What parent is going to trust their children to his endless, elite bullshit ?
Is there recent data on Offit book sales ? Of course it is a required purchase by the AAP and phama picked up a few hundred thousand copies to keep in a warehouse somewhere.
Posted by: cmo | May 25, 2011 at 07:25 PM
Jim
First of all I think we must emphasise that the statement "Nearly two dozen studies have failed to find any link between vaccines and autism.." may sound vaguely impressive, but actually it is not say anything very much at all: it is all too easy design studies which don't find anything, but actually we've got a huge body of evidence, and published science which supports us, and even Offit seems to support us: vaccines cause autistic conditions. What more could we want?
Posted by: John Stone | May 25, 2011 at 06:39 PM
""Nearly two dozen studies have failed to find any link between vaccines and autism.."
The question that I think Offit must be asked - preferably publicly in front of a lot of cameras is that even if we do wave our semantic wand and say that these brain-injured children don't have "autism" - THEY ARE STILL SICK! Even if vaccine-inujured-encephalopathy is not "autism" - IS IS STILL DISABILITY. What is he going to do about this? What are any of us going to do about it? Even if "autism" is only 10% of "vaccine-caused brain injury" and the rest of vaccine injury in general is diabetes, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, etc - kids are still going to need care. More than 1 in 6 children may have chronic illness? Has this little tidbit entered the political debate on whether Medicaid and like systems can continue?
What happens when there aren't places anymore for the more severely brain-injured individuals among this 16%?
Posted by: Jim Witte | May 25, 2011 at 06:25 PM
One more thing, if Offit actually were a practicing pediatrician--I don't think he is--, he would know that many symptoms are identical for different illnesses. Only very common illnesses can be pinpointed without any second thoughts. That's why there is such a thing as a differential diagnosis. It's a diagnosis that may be made when the obvious one does not pan out. Offit is using semantics to try to snow the general public. But we all know that the majority of the parents of autistic, pardon, I mean encephalopathic children, have a lot more motivation to go to the bottom of what might be wrong with their child than a Dr. Offit would considering how much time he has spent on inventing vaccines and how many books he writes and promotes, and all the TV and radio appearances he attends.
Posted by: Birgit Calhoun | May 25, 2011 at 04:56 PM
If Offit were on it, he would be able to Google the word encephalopathy, and he would realize that there are all kinds of encephalopathies. Wikipedia says the following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalopathy
Posted by: Birgit Calhoun | May 25, 2011 at 03:36 PM
The rub is that the brain is damaged in a unique way by vaccines causing symptoms that are specific and easily recognizable.
Brain damage can pdisplay hundreds of symptoms but vaccine damaged brains have very specific symptoms (autism spectrum)
Posted by: Rich | May 25, 2011 at 03:13 PM
Have the ever heard of heterogeneity/ASD? Not all our kids got here by the same route or environmental trigger(s). Autism is only a DSM-IV criteria psychiatric disorder - NOT a disease. The different diseases (triggers) are giving them their psychiatric state. Duh.
Posted by: Duh. | May 25, 2011 at 03:01 PM
As I have said on many occasions.... The A word has to go. Play there little game with them. Your child doesn't have autism... rather vaccine injury. Sue any doctor who has labeled your child autistic without the proper medical work ups for GI, immune, heavy metals, metabolic issues... etc. The doctors are being negligent in handing off sick kids to the neuro people and until this behavior is stopped it will ocntinue. It is the responsibility of each parent to prevent negligence. The insurance companies are loving this.... no medical treatment for neurodisorders... no neuro treatment without a dx.. rather than paying for both, they only have to pay for one. It's time for a revolution and it begins in the fields with the lazy doctors who don't dx properly. Sue their butts and this whole thing will turn around.
Posted by: laughter is the best medicine | May 25, 2011 at 02:38 PM
So... if you enjoy the Chicago Cubs, you are demonstrating sports fan symptoms -- but you are not a sports fan?
Posted by: nhokkanen | May 25, 2011 at 02:18 PM
Earth to Offit do you read me...hello anyone at home..?? hello!
Angus Files
Posted by: Angus Files | May 25, 2011 at 01:13 PM
"Nearly two dozen studies have failed to find any link between vaccines and autism, says Paul Offit, chief of the infectious disease division at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia."
He chooses his words carefully Carol.
John
Posted by: John Stone | May 25, 2011 at 11:49 AM
http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/medical/story/2011/05/CDC-Measles-epidemic-poses-travel-risks/47546128/1
"Concern for the youngest travelers has led CDC to issue an alert to families planning to go abroad. Although babies typically don't get their first measles shot until they're 1 year old, the CDC now says that babies who will be traveling abroad can be vaccinated as early as 6 months.
Babies who are 1 year or older should get two doses of the measles vaccine, four weeks apart, the CDC says.
Vaccinated adults, or those born before 1957, when measles was common, don't need additional shots, Wallace says....
Myths about autism and vaccines have led some parents to skip or delay shots for their kids. Those fears are unfounded, experts say. Nearly two dozen studies have failed to find any link between vaccines and autism, says Paul Offit, chief of the infectious disease division at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia."
Posted by: Carol | May 25, 2011 at 11:43 AM
What is even more curious is that he said ....
"A child with measles encephalopathy ..."
Doesn't he mean vaccine induced measles encephalopathy.
We are clearly talking about MMR in this article.
Posted by: Personal Perspective | May 25, 2011 at 09:17 AM
Vaccines cause brain damage -just don't call that brain damage autism. Do people like Paul Offit really think there is a distinction between autism symptoms and autism? Of coarse not. Does he realize how completely full of it he sounds describing the difference?
We have an epidemic of brain damage that we are calling a an interesting and trendy word-autism.
Posted by: Andrea | May 25, 2011 at 06:07 AM