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The Anti-Vaccine Movement And The Threat To Our Children
Paul Offit
Perseus Books
February 2, 2011
Nonfiction
Hardcover
There’s a war going on out there--a quiet, deadly war.
On one side are parents. Every week they’re bombarded with stories about the dangers of vaccines. They hear that children are getting too many vaccines, overwhelming their immune systems--then they watch their babies get as many as twenty-six shots and sometimes five at one time. They hear that vaccines cause autism, learning disabilities, developmental delays, and autoimmune diseases. And they hear this from people they trust: celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Larry King, Jenny McCarthy, and Jim Carrey, congressional representatives like Carolyn Maloney, Chris Smith, Dan Burton, and Dave Weldon, television correspondents like Sharyl Atkisson of CBS Evening News, and doctors like the former director of the National Institutes of Health, Bernadine Healy, or Bob Sears, son of noted pediatrician William Sears. But mostly they hear it from parents like them. Parents whose children were fine one minute, got a vaccine, then weren’t fine anymore. Understandably, parents are backing away from vaccines; as many as one in five are delaying, withholding, or separating them. Some aren’t giving any vaccines at all. During the past few years the number of unvaccinated children has doubled.
On the other side are doctors. Weary of parents who insist on individualized schedules, scared to send children out of their offices unvaccinated, and concerned their waiting rooms will become a dangerous place, they’re fighting back. Four of ten pediatricians now refuse to see parents who don’t vaccinate their children.
Caught in the middle are children. Left vulnerable, they’re now suffering the diseases of their grandparents. During the past five years, several outbreaks of whooping cough have occurred in under-vaccinated communities. In 2008, the United States suffered its greatest measles epidemic in more than a decade. In 2009, at least four children died from meningitis caused by a type of bacteria (Hib) for which a vaccine has been available for twenty years. They died because their parents feared the vaccine more than the disease it prevented.
How did we get here? How did we get to a place where vaccines are viewed with horror rather than life-saving medicine? The answer is rooted in one of the most powerful citizen activist movements in our nation’s history--a movement that was born on April 19, 1982 and that, despite recent epidemics and deaths, continues to grow. The story of anti-vaccine activity in America--its origins, leaders, influences, and impact--as well as strategies to avoid returning to an era when children routinely suffered and died from infections are the subjects of this book.
"A medical crisis has come to America. Diseases of our grandparents' generation are making a deadly comeback as more and more parents choose not to vaccinate their children. How did this happen? Who is responsible? And what can be done to reverse this unconscionable assault upon our nation's public health? For the answers, provided in clear, common sense, page-turning fashion, I recommend DEADLY CHOICES by Dr. Paul Offit—a timely and courageous call to arms by the nation's foremost expert on pediatric infectious disease."—David Oshinsky, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for POLIO: AN AMERICAN STORY, and Jack S. Blanton Chair in History at the University of Texas
"This is a courageous book by a courageous researcher and physician. Paul Offit's new book tells the truth about the anti-vaccine movement, its unquestioning followers in the media and about the deadly consequences of their campaign of fear. DEADLY CHOICES demonstrates that the enemies of immunizations are successful because too many of us have remained silent in the face of their falsehoods and intimidation. Dr. Offit shows that by standing up for science we can win the war against those who would leave our children defenseless against infectious disease."—Robert M. Goldberg, Ph.D., Vice President, Center for Medicine in the Public Interest and author of TABLOID MEDICINE
"DEADLY CHOICES carries a very important message for parents, journalists, physicians, and everyone who cares about children and health. It is a passionate, but also compassionate, call for civil discourse and rational conversation on a subject which matters so much to each of us individually, and also to us all as a society. It is a fascinating account of society and science, politics, publicity, and public health."—Perri Klass, Professor of Journalism and Pediatrics, New York University; author of TREATMENT KIND AND FAIR
"With DEADLY CHOICES, Paul Offit has once again brought clarity and reason to a subject that desperately needs them both. If you care about the health of your children – or the health of anybody's children – you need to read this book as soon as you can."—Michael Specter, Staff Writer, THE NEW YORKER; author of DENIALISM
British Rights: Perseus Books
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