Synopses & Reviews
There's a silent, dangerous war going on out there. On one side are parents, bombarded with stories about the dangers of vaccines, now wary of immunizing their sons and daughters. On the other side are doctors, scared to send kids out of their offices vulnerable to illnesses like whooping cough and measles--the diseases of their grandparents.
How did anyone come to view vaccines with horror? The answer is rooted in one of the most powerful citizen activist movements in our nation's history. In Deadly Choices, infectious disease expert Paul Offit relates the shocking story of anti-vaccine America--its origins, leaders, influences, and impact. Offering strategies to keep us from returning to an era when children routinely died from infections, Deadly Choices is a vigorous and definitive rebuttal of the powerful anti-vaccine movement.
Synopsis
A renowned researcher vigorously challenges the anti-vaccine movement in this powerful defense of science in the face of fear.
Synopsis
Some will never encounter the very best antidote to vaccine-related misinformation: the writings of vaccinologist Paul Offit. No one is better at reducing anti-vaccine claims to intellectual rubble.”Chris Mooney, New Scientist
Synopsis
In 2010, California suffered the largest and deadliest outbreak of pertussis, also known as whooping cough,” in more than fifty years. This tragedy was avoidable. An effective vaccine has been available since the 1940s. In recent years other diseases, like measles and mumps, have also made a comeback. The reason for these epidemics can be traced to a group whose vocal proponents insist, despite evidence to the contrary, that vaccines are poison. As a consequence, parents and caretakers are rejecting vaccines for themselves and their families.
In Deadly Choices, infectious-disease expert Paul Offit takes a look behind the curtain of the anti-vaccine movement. What he finds is a reminder of the power of scientific knowledge, and the harm we risk if we ignore it.
About the Author
Paul A. Offit, MD, is the Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and the Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Offit is a founding advisory board member of the Autism Science Foundation.