Paul A. Offit

Paul A. Offit is the Chief of Infectious Diseases and the Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia as well as the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology and Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.  He is the author of more than 130 scientific papers in the areas of virology, immunology, and vaccines and has received numerous awards including the J. Edmund Bradley Prize for Excellence in Pediatrics from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the Young Investigator Award in Vaccine Development from the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and a Research Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Health.  He is an international expert on rotavirus-specific immune responses and the co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine (RotaTeq) that was licensed by the Food and Drug Administration and recommended for all infants by the CDC in February 2006.

Dr. Offit is the co-author of three books titled VACCINES: WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW (Wiley, 2003, 3rd Edition), BREAKING THE ANTIBIOTIC HABIT (Wiley, 1999) and THE CUTTER INCIDENT: HOW AMERICA’S FIRST POLIO VACCINE LED TO TODAY’S GROWING VACCINE CRISIS (Yale University Press, 2005).  His fourth book, VACCINATED:  ONE MAN’S QUEST TO ERADICATE THE WORLD’S DEADLIEST DISEASES was published by Smithsonian Books in June 2007.  His books have been favorably reviewed in FORBES magazine, THE NEW YORK POST, THE CITY JOURNAL, SCIENCE, LANCET, NATURE MEDICINE, THE JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, THE BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL and THE NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE.

His next book, AUTISM'S FALSE PROPHETS, will be published by Columbia University Press in September 2008.

Dr. Offit is a national expert on vaccines and has appeared on THE TODAY SHOW, GOOD MORNING AMERICA, CNN, 60 MINUTES, MSNBC, THE JIM LEHRER NEWS HOUR, C-SPAN and NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO. He is quoted frequently in THE NEW YORK TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, WALL STREET JOURNAL, and USA TODAY.  In April 2003, he spoke before Dan Burton’s Committee on Government Reform; in 2005 on CBS’s 60 MINUTES; and in February 2007 on ABC’s 20/20, all concerning the relationship between vaccines and autism.  Dr. Offit was also a member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to the CDC between 1998 and 2003 when the controversies about MMR and thimerosal as causes of autism were first discussed and voted upon.

• AUTISM'S FALSE PROPHETS