Man Up: Paul Offit

The NY Times reports that Paul Offit, a doctor and author of the new book Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure, is under siege.

Some opponents of his book--and his position on vaccines--have submitted death threats and forced him to cancel his book tour.

In recent years, the debate over vaccines and autism, which began in fear and confusion, has hardened into anger. As Dr. Offit’s book details, numerous studies of thimerosal, measles virus and other alleged autism triggers in vaccines have been conducted, and hundreds of children with diagnoses of autism have undergone what he considers sham treatments and been "cured." Both sides insist that the medical evidence backs them ...

Dr. Offit’s book traces the history of autism theories, starting with the child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim’s blaming "refrigerator mothers." It describes early false cures, including "facilitated communication," in which assistants helped mute children type their thoughts; head-squeezing by osteopaths; cod liver oil; diets; and a 1998 fad for secretin, a pig hormone. It sums up 16 epidemiological studies showing no link between autism and either measles or thimerosal, a vaccine preservative.

To the newer argument that vaccines overwhelm babies’ immune systems, Dr. Offit notes that current shots against 14 diseases contain 153 proteins, while babies cope with thousands of new foreign proteins daily in food, dirt and animal hair, and that the smallpox vaccine that nearly every American over age 30 got as a child contained 200 proteins.

If this subject interests you, have a look at Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine's Greatest Lifesaver by Arthur Allen.

Or try Evidence of Harm: Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic: A Medical Controversy by David Kirby.