Amy Wallace and Thomas Goetz: Wired to Pharma
By Jake Crosby
Considering the abuse I sustained from millionaire vaccine industrialist Paul Offit last spring, I am continually amazed at the contrast between who he really is and the fairy tale humanitarian our pharma-controlled media make him out to be. But in 2009, Wired Magazine ran a piece that promoted him more than any other article that has ever been published by the popular press.
The article was written by freelance entertainment business reporter Amy Wallace. Remember Amy Wallace? I still wish I didn't. To those lucky enough not to, I apologize for ruining your day.
Wallace was hired by Wired Magazine to write a cover story that ran in October of that year: “An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All.” It was nothing more than a puff piece of Paul Offit, entirely composed of his talking points. Wallace essentially supplied the byline. In the article that led to a lawsuit against him, Offit accused the National Vaccine Information Center's Barbara Loe Fisher of lying.
Responding to a barrage of angry letters, Wired Magazine posted a taunting blog mocking readers' accusations that Wallace is a “pharma lobbyist,” and lying that she is not. In an interview with Wired Magazine about how the story was conceived, Wallace credited a now-laid off editor named Mark Horowitz for giving her the idea, but that idea was likely not conceived by Horowitz.
After the article ran, Wired also posted a podcast discussion between senior editor Nancy Miller and executive editor Thomas Goetz, who lauded Wallace's shill story. What Goetz concealed was that he was writing a book and a blog with a Senior Research Associate of a vaccine developer and major pharmaceutical subsidiary.
When this story ran, Wired's executive editor Thomas Goetz did not disclose that he was writing a book called The Decision Tree and a blog of the same name with the assistance of Brian Mossop, an employee of Genentech – a biotechnology firm wholly owned by the Swiss pharmaceutical giant, Roche. Genentech also developed the Hepatitis B vaccine manufactured by SmithKline Beecham (now GlaxoSmithKline). The licensing of that vaccine for routine infant immunization is proudly mentioned in the corporate chronology on Genentech's website. That vaccine was preserved with the mercury-based neurotoxic preservative thimerosal until roughly the early 2000s, but continues to be recommended for all newborns on day of birth.
In June 2009 – four months before Wallace's Wired article appeared – Mossop had already posted a screed on The Decision Tree blog lauding Newsweek for running a hit-piece on Oprah who had recently invited Jenny McCarthy on her show. In the book The Decision Tree authored by Thomas Goetz with Mossop's help, Barbara Loe Fisher and her organization were similarly panned. For this entire period, Mossop was still employed by the vaccine developer and pharmaceutical subsidiary Genentech while partnering with Wired's Executive Editor to write The Decision Tree.
Undoubtedly, Brian Mossop was the architect of Amy Wallace's Wired article; Paul Offit was the ghost-writer who supplied the talking points; Thomas Goetz was the executive editor who supplied the space and cover while Mark Horowitz took the heat. After leaving Genentech in 2010, Mossop would become community manager for the Public Library of Science (PLoS), where vaccine industry media talking head Seth Mnookin now blogs. After Mnookin joined the network, Mossop was then hired at Wired Magazine where he is now community editor, working as an employee for his longtime book/blog partner, Thomas Goetz – still executive editor of Wired magazine.
When it comes to pharma, where there's smoke, there's Wired.
Jake Crosby has Asperger Syndrome and is a contributing editor to Age of Autism. Jake is a 2011 graduate of Brandeis University with a BA in both History and Health: Science, Society and Policy. He currently attends The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services where he is studying for an MPH in epidemiology.
Jake Crosby and Justin Young- Good for you ! We'll all stand behind you as much as we can and for as long as we can
Posted by: Cherry Sperlin Misra | September 02, 2012 at 02:59 PM
From cmo's post above:-
".......What's more, researchers found, women who got vaccinated were less likely to suffer a stillbirth (a pregnancy loss after the 20th week): 0.3 percent did, versus 0.6 percent of unvaccinated women.
Their newborns also had a lower death rate: 0.2 percent died soon after birth, compared with 0.4 percent of babies born to unvaccinated moms."
As cmo points out, these calculated differences in stillbirth and post birth mortality rates between influenza vaccinated and unvaccinated are very small and may even be within statistical error limits; in other words NOT a significant difference at all.
This misuse of statistics in order to 'present' some kind of case in favour of vaccinations of all kinds is ubiquitous within the pro-vax/pro-pharma community. It is time for this kind of statistical misrepresentation to be made illegal.
Merck and GSK have already both been fined for this kind of false safety promotion of unsafe drugs, yet somehow vaccines are 'sacrosanct', including those given to pregnant mums and infants.
Posted by: Jenny Allan | August 31, 2012 at 03:55 AM
Okay, that cements it. I am cancelling my subscription to Wired. I did not know about this article beforehand but every once in awhile the editors slip in a pejorative comment that is bashing those of us who choose to not vaccinate. No more.
Posted by: Mary R. | August 30, 2012 at 07:19 PM
Great article Jake..sooo sad just when you think Offit has slipped as far he,can Offit goes lower.
What about his own kids/ family have they all had the 10,000 vaccines he says a baby can have SAFELY ..one would think so if he such a great guy!!
charity starts at home Offit...
Angus
Posted by: Angus Files | August 29, 2012 at 07:19 AM
in other news....
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/08/28/no-risks-seen-with-flu-shot-in-early-pregnancy/#ixzz24tbAIl76
"Jolly good fellow / vaccine BOZO, my son was BORN with Autism" Dr. Manney talks about the flu shot and pregnancy ...
.
FOR SOME REASON he finds "a HELL of a lot of meaning" in the 99.8% survival rate and the 99.6% survival rates .2% ?????
.......What's more, researchers found, women who got vaccinated were less likely to suffer a stillbirth (a pregnancy loss after the 20th week): 0.3 percent did, versus 0.6 percent of unvaccinated women.
Their newborns also had a lower death rate: 0.2 percent died soon after birth, compared with 0.4 percent of babies born to unvaccinated moms.
It's not clear if the flu vaccine ......deserves the credit....... But Dr. Jeanne S. Sheffield, the lead researcher on the work, said it's possible the vaccine helped by preventing severe cases of the flu.
( Deserves the CREDIT ??? .2 % ????? give me a damn break...)
*********
Should Dr. Manney find the time..... please explain the followting few pages....
From Evidence of Harm by David Kirby pages 280 - 283
In October of 2003, Dr. Mark and David Geier were given access to the CDC vaccine injury database at the CDC's Center for Health Statistics.
With the "inside help of a CDC staffer" with an affected child in her family, they compared Autism rates for children who had received "three DTaP shots with Thimerosal" and those that had received "three Thimerosal free" DTaP shots.
The CDC vaccine injury records of thousands of children, showed Autism rates 27 times higher in the Thimerosal / mercury group.
Similar "off the chart vaccine issues" were noted by CDC epidemiologist Dr. Verstraeten, which led to the June 2000 ileagal vaccine industry meeting in Simpsonwood, Georgia.
Posted by: cmo | August 28, 2012 at 10:08 PM
I wouldn't mind any of these people, although it's hard to like them (Offit, Amy Wallace, & whats their names) if they would just mind their own business. But no, they insist on pushing their toxic products down everyone's throat--it's overwhelming. Today I went into a drug store and at the front door I was greeted with a warning that I must get a flu shot, and then the flu shot theme continued down every aile. Oh and I also should update myself on a lot of other "immunizations" that are covered by most insurance companies. Yes, the time has come to push back. It is the law that every medical procedure requires informed consent--the person who administers it should warn the person of possible side effects and if they don't they are open to a law suit. Bring in on, I say. That means any nurse at a school who doesn't read the entire pamphlet of side effects, any drug store clerk, any doctor, etc. All of them could get sued if they don't inform the patient. And none of them do because if they did...no one would buy the product...right because who wants to risk death, and debilitating chronic illness to avoid the uhhh flu.
Posted by: Kapoore | August 28, 2012 at 06:47 PM
cmo: That sums him up so well
Posted by: 4Bobby | August 28, 2012 at 03:33 PM
Bob's metatphor is pretty darn good though. Pharma is a small Hollywood That likes those little printed and short segment news instead of the big screen
Posted by: Benedetto | August 28, 2012 at 01:45 PM
I suppose those educated at the top colleges in biological sciences and work in the pharmacutical industry would be a small world..
John is just saying it is not coincidence. My own metaphor would be money is like a river and all in some way must come to drink. Some watering holes are better than others . While at the favorite watering holes the beast do run across each other. Which devour each other to become the hydra.
The hydra a great metaphor an organization corruption with many heads that continue to grow back as you chop them off.
Offit is the second generation that will be an angel vaccine devopler retiring on his laurels. In a million dollar home with beach front property.
Posted by: Benedetto | August 28, 2012 at 01:39 PM
Thanks, Jake, for writing "The Family Tree." You reveal the deep roots and strangulating branches of the corrupt crony journalists paid to shelter the vaccine industry from exposure of its dishonesties.
Posted by: nhokkanen | August 28, 2012 at 11:28 AM
Jake u are an amazing investigative reporter!
Our families have nothing to gain via our endeavors but Offit and company have everything to lose. They are so terrified of the voices of vaccine injured families that they put their professional reputations further on the line by lousy and biased reporting.
Didn't David Kirby offer to debate Offit anytime, anyplace?
Naturally Offit is afraid, knowing he would lose.
Posted by: Katie Wright | August 28, 2012 at 11:12 AM
Cash before kids.... It's as simple as that for these folk.
Bob.... love the game! It should be played somehow on the internet.
Posted by: Billie | August 28, 2012 at 10:35 AM
@ Bob and John - you're both right.
Even though the "small world phenomenon" that John refers to rests on the theory that everyone in the world is linked to everyone else by six degrees of separation, Kevin Bacon is actually linked to everyone in Hollywood by just one or two degrees of separation, based on his comment that inspired the trivia game "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon."
According to Wiki, "In a January 1994 Premiere magazine interview about the film The River Wild, Kevin Bacon commented that he had worked with everybody in Hollywood or someone who's worked with them." By my count, that's not six degrees - but just one or two.
When hysterical blog-ranter "Skepabra" compared Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon to Jake, he unintentionally complimented him on his ability to find very close relationships between pharma and the media.
In that same article, Skepabra magically attributes a reader's comment on an Age of Autism article to the author of the article. Poor Skepabra keeps stumbling over his own feet and landing face-down.
Posted by: Abra Cadabra | August 28, 2012 at 09:46 AM
Thanks for this expose, Jake. I used to read Wired to keep up on developments in technology. Then a few years ago, if I remember correctly, Wired published an article on MMR vaccine, how great it was and how those who declined it were menaces to society. Maybe bashing Andrew Wakefield? I forget the details. Anyway, that's when I stopped buying buying and reading Wired. What John Stone says is true... the media are all owned by the powers that be. That leaves us blogging here on the internet and hoping enough people get around to reading the blogs that they make a difference.
Posted by: Janet Levatin | August 28, 2012 at 08:22 AM
For some reason, when Dr. O creates a new vaccine and gives it to 100 children and three die....
he thinks he has saved 97 lives.
Posted by: cmo | August 28, 2012 at 08:00 AM
Hi Bob
I am not sure I go along with that example. The point there is surely that with a certain ingenuity you can link anything, but Jake isn't dealing with that kind of tenuousness at all.
My only reservation is the extent to which the entire US (not to mention British) media are a complete dead loss - bought out, intimidated, lazy etc. But it is also worth documenting how this comes about in certain instances: how those journalists who might want to take it on (or some of it) are largely silenced. Sharyl Attkisson use to be the loose cannon for CBS but we don't here much from her and CBS is pretty much 4 square pharma these days.
John
Posted by: John Stone | August 28, 2012 at 07:33 AM
Jake .. as usual .. your research skills are amazing.
Not too long ago there was a popular "trivia game" .. Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon .. based upon the concept of the small world phenomenon and rests on the assumption that any individual in the Hollywood, California film industry can be linked through his or her film roles to actor Kevin Bacon within six steps.
Reading your excellent research .. the very same trivia game based upon the small world phenomenon of the vaccine industry would be called "Six Degrees of Dr. Offit" .. resting on the assumption that any individual who writes blatant propaganda pieces on vaccines using offit as their main "expert" .. can be linked to Dr. Offit within six steps.
Again .. great job.
Posted by: Bob Moffitt | August 28, 2012 at 06:48 AM
Who is it , who has given these people like Offit and Salisbury the courage to be so dishonest ? some "crooked fellows" somewhere on high has given these fraudsters the encouragement to do all of this to us . And guarenteed these thieves that there will be no comeback . Well if any of you are reading this - we are working day and night to make sure there will be a reckoning .... We are after your complete discrediting , and then your liberty , and lastly your ill gotten wealth . Vaccines are a fraud , and worse than that they are a cull .
Posted by: Justin Young | August 28, 2012 at 06:25 AM