Deadly Choices Quotes

“Barbara Loe Fisher failed to note that many scientists before Wakefield had published papers proving the rare tragic consequences of vaccines without risking their career—for example, William Sawyer, who showed that a yellow fever vaccine had been contaminated with hepatitis B virus; Neil Nathanson, who showed that a polio vaccine wasn’t properly inactivated, causing children to become paralyzed and die; and Trudy Murphy, who showed that an early rotavirus vaccine caused intestinal blockage, killing one child. Scientists and public health officials didn’t marginalize Wakefield because he had challenged the belief that vaccines are absolutely safe; they did it because he was wrong—clearly and inescapably wrong.”
― Paul A. Offit, Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All

“Parents may be free to become martyrs themselves, but it does not follow that they are free, in identical circumstances, to make martyrs of their children.”
― Paul A. Offit, Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All

“In 1999, Daniel Salmon and co-workers from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health found that the risk of contracting measles in five- to nine-year-olds whose parents had chosen not to vaccinate them was one hundred and seventy times greater than for vaccinated children.”
― Paul A. Offit, Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All

“Today, however, anti-vaccine activists go out of their way to claim that they are not anti-vaccine; they’re pro-vaccine. They just want vaccines to be safer. This is a much softer, less radical, more tolerable message, allowing them greater access to the media. However, because anti-vaccine activists today define safe as free from side effects such as autism, learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, strokes, heart attacks, and blood clots—conditions that aren’t caused by vaccines—safer vaccines, using their definition, can never be made.”
― Paul A. Offit, Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All

“All horror movies start the same way. Whether the scene is an abandoned cabin, a dark alley, or a peaceful cottage, one line of dialogue, quietly uttered five minutes before the carnage starts, is inevitable: “Did you hear something?”
― Paul A. Offit, Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All

“In April 2009, Brendalee and Julieanna Flint traveled to Washington, D.C., to speak to congressional staffers about the importance of vaccines. “Parents need to understand that when they choose not to vaccinate, they are making a decision for other people’s children as well,” said Brendalee. “Someone else chose Julieanna’s path. It doesn’t seem fair that someone like Jenny McCarthy can reach so many people while my little girl has no voice.”
― Paul A. Offit, Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All

“Various preparations of aluminum salts have been used in vaccines since the late 1930s. So, the safety of aluminum in vaccines has been assessed for more than seventy years. Aluminum salts act as adjuvants, enhancing the immune response. Inclusion of aluminum salts in vaccines that otherwise wouldn’t evoke a good immune response makes it possible to reduce the number of doses and the quantity of immunological components within each dose.”
― Paul A. Offit, Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All

“Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, an editorial appeared in the New York Times: “The contention that compulsory vaccination is an infraction of personal liberty and an unconstitutional interference with the right of the individual to have the smallpox if he wants it, and to communicate it to others, has been ended. [This] should end the useful life of the societies of cranks formed to resist the operation of laws relative to vaccination. Their occupation is gone.” The prediction couldn’t have been more wrong. Anti-vaccine activism in the United States was just getting started.”
― Paul A. Offit, Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All

“By 2009, almost a hundred million doses of the pneumococcal vaccine had been given to American children. As a consequence, the incidence of pneumococcal disease has decreased dramatically.37 Far fewer children now get meningitis, pneumonia, and bloodstream infections caused by pneumococcus.”
― Paul A. Offit, Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All

“Like Mendelsohn, Stewart believed the decline in pertussis in the United Kingdom had nothing to do with the vaccine; it was simply a matter of improved sanitation.”
― Paul A. Offit, Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All

“But when Samuel Berkovic finally found the answer to the question of what had actually caused the problem, no one noticed. Not a single newspaper, magazine, or radio or television program carried the story.”
― Paul A. Offit, Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All