Paul Offit, Every Child By Two and the Black Hole Swallowing Our Children
By John Stone
"Children have an enormous capacity to respond safely to challenges to the immune system from vaccines," says Dr. Offit. "A baby's body is bombarded with immunologic challenges - from bacteria in food to the dust they breathe. Compared to what they typically encounter and manage during the day, vaccines are literally a drop in the ocean." In fact, Dr. Offit's studies show that in theory, healthy infants could safely get up to 100,000 vaccines at once.
From a feature in Babytalk Magazine reproduced in a Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia pamphlet (2005).
"Of course, most vaccines contain far fewer than 100 antigens (for example, the hepatitis B, diphtheria, and tetanus vaccines each contain 1 antigen), so the estimated number of vaccines to which a child could respond is conservative. But using this estimate, we would predict that if 11 vaccines were given to infants at one time, then about 0.1% of the immune system would be “used up.”
Offit et al, Addressing Parents’ Concerns: Do Multiple Vaccines Overwhelm or Weaken the Infant’s Immune System? (2002).
“I think conservatively, one could say that, based on their caveats, that one could probably respond to about 100,000 different vaccines at one time."... "I would say you probably could get 100,000 vaccines every day.”
Paul Offit, Lecture: Are vaccines safe? (2008).
Here is an interesting question. As regular readers will be aware I have been berated on the Every Child By Two (ECBT) and Shot of Prevention websites by resident expert Dr Joel Harrison for being naïve in my understanding of Paul Offit’s claim (Prof Offit is on the Executive Board and Scientific Board of ECBT , a charitable foundation started by Rosalynn Carter and Betty Bumper ). Well, I am not sure who is being naïve (though I note that Dr Harrison’s article was warmly received by vaccine industry advocate Dorit Reiss ), or that I was giving anything else but a straight reading of what was being said. Meanwhile, Offit continues to hide behind pawns and surrogates who deny the obvious truth: his ideas were pseudo-scientific fantasy, although enthusiastically taken up by health officials in the United Kingdom, particularly. It is apparently not something he, or anyone else directly connected with him, wants to own up to now. If he wants to stand up as things are and say he did not mean it like that, there is quite a lot evidence that he meant it pretty much like that.
However, the folly – which is not mine – points to a fundamental void in the science. What wass being proposed was a justification for the safety of multiple vaccines and an indefinitely expanding schedule. But it does not work. Not only that, there is really nothing to replace it with. There is no core science that anyone can point to which says that it is safe to go down the route of an ever expanding schedule. All we have is the bare reality of an ever increasing number products any one of which can have nasty or devastating effects (nothing like the normal effects of eating food or breathing dust) and which are administered multiply and coercively to the tiniest infants. But there is no grand theory – it has gone.
John Stone is UK Editor for Age of Autism.
"A baby's body is bombarded with immunologic challenges - from bacteria in food to the dust they breathe...." But what if the baby had 10,000 antigens injected into him? Evolution has prepared babies for antigenic invaders coming through the respiratory and digestive systems and the type and quantity of antibodies are different in these systems than in the blood. The primary mucosal antibody, IgA, is good at gathering pathogens and sweeping them out of the body without triggering inflammation. By contrast, IgG, the most abundant antibody in the blood, is good at "fixing complement" which includes an inflammatory response. Cytokines generated by inflammatory response can up-regulate class I MHC expression on normal cells in the tissues, making these normal cells better targets for destruction.
Posted by: Carol | April 14, 2017 at 11:58 AM
rtp, Greta
Yes, indeed, I said this very early on in a letter to the British Medical journal (3 July 2004):-
---------------------
Irresponsible claims about vaccine safety? Questions for Sir Liam Donaldson and Prof Lewis Wolpert.
In an NHS leaflet [1] Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer
is asked: "Does MMR overload young bodies?" to which he replies: "Again,
all the evidence refutes this. In fact, a child's immune system is
designed to cope with many different viruses at the same time, so a
combined vaccine is a natural choice."
I asked mmrthefacts: "Is the CMO entitled to present this as a
medically established fact rather than a theoretical proposition? What is
the experimental evidence that all children are equally able to sustain
multiple exposure? What does the CMO mean by "designed?"
To which I had the reply (received 27 May 2004, 13.10):
"The CMO is entitled to present his statement about the immune system
as a medically established fact rather than theoretical proposition. From
the moment of birth a child's immune system is able to cope with the
constant barrage of pathogens. As the CMO stated, this is what
the..."immune system is designed cope tih (sic)..."As for example, the
digestive system is "designed" to digest food and liver is "designed" to
detoxify the blood. Part of the licensing process of any combination
vaccine, such as MMR, has to show that the combination is safe and
effective when administered to the age group for which it is intended.
There is recent research from the US which supports this statement as it
has specifically looked at the ability of children's immune systems,
estimating that a child's immune system could cope with 10,000 vaccines
any one time. Please see Offit PA et al (2002) Addressing parents'
concerns: Do multiple vaccines overwhelm or weaken infant's immune system?
Pediatics, 109 (1): 124-9
Thanks
Support Team"
There are patently contradictions here. On the one hand we are being
assured that children's immunes systems are of incredible robustness, and
this is apparently stated as a fact. But if this was the case you might
wonder why they needed to be vaccinated at all. Secondly, we are assured
that the multiple vaccine products are tested to ensure their safety,
because (presumably) the science that declares that their immune system is
so robust cannot be relied upon. Thirdly, the extreme theoretical claim of
Offit et al, is offered as evidence (but presumably no one is queuing up
to test their child with the 10,000 vaccines claim).
As to the point about the immune system being "designed", even if we
accept the gloss of the mmrthefacts support team we have to answer: fine,
but what happens when the digestive system goes wrong, and what happens
when the liver goes wrong, and what happens when the immune system goes
wrong...?
So, to return to the point that Prof Wolpert made in the Evening
Standard (24 February 2004):
"One should be suspicious of maverick scientists. With rare
exceptions, they are simply wrong. The core of science
is remarkably reliable, and when there are disputes it takes exceptional
scientific skills to make the right judgements."
But I submit that it would be misleading to claim that Andrew
Wakefield has challenged "the core of science". His challenge exists in a
field of exceptional uncertainty (unless Offit's paper is a cornerstone of
modern science): the effectiveness and safety of pharmaceutical products,
and whether these particular products are adquately tested, or properly
monitored.
[1] An NHS leaflet "The facts about MMR and your child - A letter
from the Chief Medical Officer". I have not been able to locate the text
on-line.
[2] See recent entries under Watts 'The new MMR?' BMJ 2004: 328: 773
http://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/10/30/irresponsible-claims-about-vaccine-safety-questions-sir-liam-donaldson-and
---------------
Wolpert, btw, is a Nobel laureate micro-biologist who attacked Wakefield savagely in the London Evening Standard in February 2004 over his allegedly undiclosed conflicts and as well as attacking "the core of science". The previous day I had called Wolpert in BMJ Rapid Responses for not disclosing his relationship with MMR manufacturer Aventis Paseur, which was pretty egregious in the circumstances.
Posted by: John Stone | April 14, 2017 at 06:18 AM
That's exactly right Greta. If Offit was right about us encountering so many antigens naturally then it just proves vaccines are a complete waste of time.
Posted by: rtp | April 14, 2017 at 05:49 AM
Look at this horror:
http://www.naturalnews.com/2017-04-12-judge-orders-forced-vaccinations-for-children-in-shocking-uk-court-case.html
Posted by: Sun~Rose | April 13, 2017 at 07:58 PM
"... Compared to what they typically encounter and manage during the day, vaccines are literally a drop in the ocean." In fact, Dr. Offit's studies show that in theory, healthy infants could safely get up to 100,000 vaccines at once..."
*****************
A flu shot contains at least 25 micrograms of mercury.
If those 100,000 vaccines were all flu shots , then the total amount of injected mercury would be 2.5 MILLION micrograms.
According to the EPA, the maximum permissible daily dose for ORALLY ingested mercury (.. not even injected), is 0.1 µg/kg body weight.
So to have even a chance of safety metabolizing THAT much mercury.... you would need to weigh at least 55 MILLION pounds. Which is roughly the weight of 4,200 full grown African bull elephants.
And this clown thinks it would be safe to inject that .... into an infant?????
Posted by: Barry | April 13, 2017 at 06:26 PM
Has anyone pointed out to Mr. Offit that all bacteria and immunological challenges are NOT equal. If they were we would be indestructible and we wouldn't need vaccines in the first place. I am not anti-vaccine I am anti the vaccine schedule and the number of different vaccines we have. You have to weigh the risks of each.
Posted by: Greta | April 13, 2017 at 05:04 PM
Of course with Paul Offit's vaccine it sounds like you are essentially swallowing swill, with lots more of porcine virus particles (and maybe who knows what else) than the human rotavirus you're supposed to be getting "immunized" to (with accompanying concerns that aren't even canvassed by Offit's representation of that study's findings):
https://youtu.be/DVoWFb8QaUQ?t=1h6m52s
And Dr. Thomas is not seeing positive results ("not seeing positive results" is possibly antidotal anti-hyperbole on my part, likely inspired by Dr. Offit, for the more correct phrase "is making kids sicker than not") when he has given this vaccine:
https://youtu.be/J4sbBMgsLis?t=27m30s
Posted by: Jeannette Bishop | April 13, 2017 at 03:33 PM
Whyser
In that quote Offit was operating on the calculation of 10,000 vaccines not 100,000, so the calculation if not the hypothesis may be correct. But, of course, afterwards he became more ambitious.
Posted by: John Stone | April 13, 2017 at 02:50 PM
I'm reminded of another of Offit's gems as he smugly quips in front of a room full of yes men, "There is no vaccine for autism". I think the practice of pediatrics is slowly by surely coming to the inevitable conclusion that the "vaccine" for autism is the elimination of his unscientific tutelage.
Posted by: annie | April 13, 2017 at 02:13 PM
Whyser, instead of provaxxer, I use the term vaccine-pusher. :)
Because that's what they do, push them on people.
It infuriates me, what these people do, and meanwhile our children are paying the price. I have a son who's highly intelligent yet he seems babyish thanks to vaccines. His seems to be a combination of PDD-NOS and Asperger's.
I'm bound and determined to help him improve any way I can. I want my son to be able to have a relatively normal life--and it's a big "screw you" to the vaccine pushers.
Posted by: Alexandra | April 13, 2017 at 01:58 PM
"All currently available evidence suggests that DTP vaccine may kill more children from other causes than it saves from diphtheria, tetanus, or pertussis." -- Mogensen/Aaby 2017 PMID: 28188123
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5360569/
In the face of this data for a vaccine that was pushed upon all infants worldwide with only the assumption the "benefits outweighed the risks," and titer measurements as "science," I think the actual motives of those silencing debate, making whatever magical-thinking-founded claims to sell a vaccine, shutting down funding and support for research that will begin to move us out of the zone of human experimentation we are operating in, become pretty suspect the longer they stay the course. Why aren't all the public health proponents insistent they are on life-saving missions essentially going, oh my gosh, we've got to study all our vaccinations this way to make sure we are not really, really, REALLY screwing up, big time?!?
Posted by: Jeannette Bishop | April 13, 2017 at 01:47 PM
Examples of some typical provaxxer statements:
"Vaccine injuries are rare. Like one in a million"
"if 11 vaccines were given to infants at one time, then about 0.1% of the immune system would be “used up.”"
"healthy infants could safely get up to 100,000 vaccines at once"
Let's put these claims together:
- An infant getting 100,000 vaccines at once would increase vaccine injury to 1 in 10.
- If 11 vaccines would use up about 0.1% of the immune system, then 100,000 vaccines would take up 909% of the immune system.
Provaccine science = pseudoscience
Posted by: whyser | April 13, 2017 at 12:23 PM
Sandy
One aspect of inappropriateness of the Offit comparison which I hadn't gone into is that he is comparing casual exposure of a human body over 24 hours, with delivery of a toxin to a single locale in a single instant.
Posted by: John Stone | April 13, 2017 at 12:16 PM
In correspondence with immunologist Tetyana Obukhanych regarding an unlimited number of antigens, I received this explanation:
”The immune system has a theoretical capacity to respond to an unlimited number of antigens, but not all at the same time. Once immune reaction starts in the lymph nodes, there is strong competition between immune cells for antigen presentation, which means that some antigens would predominate over the others. And there is also limited physical space in the lymph node that restricts how much proliferation of the activated immune cells it can support”.
Posted by: Sandy Lunoe | April 13, 2017 at 12:03 PM
Paul Offit's advice to get parents to swallow "hook, line and sinker" for all things vaccine, in spite of evidence to the contrary.
Posted by: michael | April 13, 2017 at 11:46 AM
Excellent idea...follow the money...
2016 U.S. Gardasil Sales: $ 2,173,000,000
Merck runs a 9.9% net margin, 215,000,000 net profit
Avg cost/unit wholesale: $ 193.63 Avg retail: $ 270.00
Clinic profit/unit = 76.37
Multiply by units: 11,222,434 yields a nifty profit for the clinicians of 857,057,326
This is for one vaccine. Its called a conflict of interest and the reason Merck and their agents can't be trusted.
Posted by: kws | April 13, 2017 at 11:44 AM
John...
Thanks to a never-ending chain of manipulative arguments, wordplay, techniques of obfuscation (such as what surrounds Offit's absurd claim) etc etc, each and all created to protect and advance the interests of the usual suspects, 'science' has become incalculably devalued. It has basically turned into statistical play-dough for anyone sufficiently 'qualified' who wishes to squeeze out and distort the data into whatever shape may prove necessary, their claims eagerly reinforced by those who have a vested interest in agreeing with them.
You need only take a look at the following clip - whereby a University of Toronto gender studies professor claims how 'science' indicates that there's no actual biological distinction to be made between the sexes - to see that this particular claim of mine is not at all far-fetched. The professor occupies the same level of sanity as Offit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYtzFBI-INU
Posted by: Benjamin | April 13, 2017 at 10:44 AM
"But using this estimate, we would predict that if 11 vaccines were given to infants at one time, then about 0.1% of the immune system would be “used up.”"
A bomb can do quite a lot a damage when it lands even though it only took up 0.1% of the sky.
Posted by: Linda1 | April 13, 2017 at 09:42 AM
Hard to read it without gagging.
Posted by: Sun~Rose | April 13, 2017 at 09:19 AM
The core science of radiolobiology and ethics's of ALARA from the Radiologists of the world would point to just the opposite. The combined stochastic catastrophic autoimmune mediated vaccine induced diseases or rare deaths are unpredictable but happen just as a rare cancer death or contrast allergy death in my branch of medicine. The cumulative effects of non-antigen immunotoxicants used to stimulate the response also has a population wide impact that is temporally much more subtle and difficult to pin down because of lesser metabolic and immunologic derangements - similar to radiation related DNA changes that are heterogenous across a population of cells or mitochondrial genomes....these diffuse effects in populations become quite difficult to quantify whether in people, cells, or organelles.
If the American College of Radiology was pushing so hard for radiation based imaging in pediatrics and on day one of life, there would of course be a huge backlash. At least my medical students who have come and gone in great institutions like the Mayo Clinic know how to spot the outright frauds in medicine....follow the money.
Posted by: Ted Fogarty, MD | April 13, 2017 at 08:36 AM