I don't trust Paul Offit.
I wouldn't recommend looking to Paul Offit for leadership on vaccines, because what the Trump administration is doing he was lobbying for in the Biden administration all along.
This is from a thread I posted on social media after becoming concerned that people might think this is the guy to lead up championing vaccine access.
If you think Paul Offit is going to save vaccines for you, first look at his history throughout the pandemic. He's been attempting to restrict the vaccines for years, while public health advocates have had to press against him. I've been trying to warn people!
https://teamshuman.substack.com/p/restricting-vaccine-access-because#footnote-24-112169113
Washington Post: FDA proposes switching to annual coronavirus vaccine, mimicking flu model. By Laurie McGinley. January 23, 2023 Paul A. Offit, a member of the panel who is a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine recently that it is fruitless to try to “prevent all symptomatic infections in healthy, young people by boosting them with vaccines containing mRNA from strains that might disappear a few months later.” Offit said such boosters should be reserved for older people, or those who are immunocompromised or have multiple medical conditions.
What astounds me is that nobody seems to realize that the only reason the vaccines weren't completely restricted in 2023 and 2024 was because of sustained pressure from public health activists.
Restricting vaccine access because of anti-vax bs or waiting for hospitals to overflow is unethical
(updates added at the end, last updated 25 April 2023) (link to updates)
This is fine dog meme, the first panel with the dog sitting drinking coffee in the midst of a fire the caption says No Booster 4 U. the second panel the dog’s cartoon bubble says Hospital parking lot tent has capacity.
Paul Offit always wanted to restrict them to 75+ and the severely immunosuppressed all along. Getting the age down to 65+ & people with conditions is better than what some of these (supposedly) liberals we've been fighting have argued for. Anti-vax has permeated everywhere.
Chloe’s Public comment submitted to the ACIP June 21-23 meeting_05.05.2023 The goal should be to get as many people vaccinated as possible. Why has this been forgotten? Why is covid vaccination being restricted? And if we’re supposed to take individual responsibility, why are we not being allowed as citizens to decide what the goal of vaccination should be and therefore allowed to get the vaccine on a schedule that provides maximum benefits? I do NOT want the government deciding that reducing my risks is “not worth it” on some “30,000 feet view” of “good enough” – that’s an egregiously immoral standpoint. I value my life and my health. And I expect my representative government to represent me and the fact that my life has value! Vaccination has shown a reduction in risk of not just death and hospitalization, but a reduction of transmission and a reduction of the risk of long covid. Flu vaccination has been shown to reduce the number of sick days out of work for working age adults, why would you restrict vaccine access to old people only? Even if your only goal is catering to The Economy, restricting vaccines is counterproductive. I’m also concerned that restricting covid vaccines to the very very old, people who are most likely to be hospitalized or die, despite vaccination, will further erode the possible effectiveness of those vaccines, and undermine the public’s view of it, because it will look like vaccination doesn’t work, when in fact, it does work if it’s broadly distributed in a schedule that the data warrants. Vaccines should be offered to all adults on a 6 month schedule according to the data of waning effectiveness, so we can protect ourselves.
People on "the left" have been chasing the center and taking advice from weirdos who don't even want infection control in HOSPITALS (that's been done away with too you know!)
https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/dont-listen-to-monica
Paul Offit has spread misinfo about vaccines on podcasts for example he WRONGLY claimed immunocompromised people can't get vaccinated (after saying they're the only ones who should be) He did NOT say "they don't get the full benefit" which is the reality.
https://thispodcastwillkillyou.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/TPWKY-Special-Episode-Paul-Offit.pdf
from the transcript of the linked podcast screenshot of text of what Paul Offit said, and the highlighted text which is what he said in the podcast is quote There's 9 million people in this country who can't be vaccinated, for example because they're immunocompromised.
He was also doing fossil fuel industry PR in the "back to normal" moral disengagement genre where we're meant to pretend nobody's getting covid or dying from it anymore in service to The Economy which also promotes harassment of people who "still use N95s"
https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2024/07/16/book-review-tell-me-when-its-over-by-paul-offit/
Book review of Paul Offit’s Tell Me When It’s Over: FDA covid vaccine advisor’s roadmap for a post-pandemic world. And the picture is a highway sign that says Leaving the Pandemic, Take off your N95.
If you think the mask bans are not about medical masks and "just about the student protesters", think again. It's political. The people who want to unmask people see medical masks as political.
https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/dont-include-poison-pills
Paul Offit was literally arguing against people under 75 getting vaccinated for covid.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/15/health/fda-advisers-covid-19-boosters/index.html
FDA advisers recommend that Covid-19 boosters for fall should drop original strain. By Meg Tirrell, CNN, Thu June 15, 2023 Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine scientist and professor of pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the advisory committee, emphasized before the meeting that it’s important to discuss who needs an updated vaccine this fall. “What’s the goal of the vaccine?” he asked. “If the goal of the vaccine is the stated goal, which is protection against severe disease, do you really need a yearly vaccine for otherwise healthy people less than 75? I mean, is this the flu model? Because I would argue it shouldn’t be.” Flu shots are updated each year and recommended annually for everyone over 6 months old because the strains can change so dramatically from season to season. With Covid, Offit said, it’s important to have evidence about whether protection from the vaccine against hospitalization and death is waning and, if so, in which groups.
That number 75 Offit chose seemed so creepy at the time because that same summer Zeke Emmanuel was included in a (supposed) pandemic advocacy book. that's the same guy who said people should die at 75. I agreed with Sam Friedman's critique of the book.
In 2023 Paul Offit was also arguing against a yearly covid vaccine update. So he’s actually getting what he wants now. He was fully aligned with what the Trump administration quacks are suggesting now. So why is anyone is looking to him for leadership?
https://pauloffit.substack.com/p/do-we-really-need-a-yearly-covid
Headline in Philly saying point blank Paul Offit's not a fan of covid boosters. He's been against boosters the whole time!
The Philadelphia Inquirer - Paul Offit, Philly’s most vocal vaccine advocate, on science, truth, and why he’s not a fan of the latest COVID boosters. Nov 8, 2022 by Jason Laughlin A proponent of the new booster shots, Bob Wachter, chair of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said the risks of additional shots are so minimal even a little more protection is worthwhile. He still respects Offit’s position.
In 2020 Paul Offit in an interview with Eric Topol said if he had to choose between social distancing & masks or vaccine he'd choose social distancing and masks. Then he pivoted and went against both.
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/936937#vp_8
Managing Expectations Topol: We've covered a lot, Paul. Have we missed anything important? Offit: I'll tell you the thing that keeps me up at night on this particular issue. We have two ways of stopping this virus: One is hygienic measures — face masks, social distancing, handwashing — and the other is the vaccine. With those two, we will be able to bring this virus under control. But it will take both. What worries me is that if you had to pick which is the stronger of the two, I would go with hygienic measures. I mean, if I wear a mask and stand 6 feet away from you, and you wear a mask and stand 6 feet away from me, the chances that I'm going to get the virus from you or you from me is about zero. You have two things going for you. One, you have a mask, which is going to prohibit the virus' small droplets from traveling very far. And two, even if I didn't wear a mask and stand 6 feet away, the odds are also that you wouldn't get it.
At the time in 2020 I thought Paul Offit had known that high vaccine uptake was absolutely imperative along with NPIs but yet he still somehow pivoted to wanting the vaccines restricted from most people and against masks. And I now wonder if he was just against the covid vaccines the whole time.
We've been asking these trials to look not only at whether they're protecting against moderate to severe disease, but to what extent they are protecting against shed. I think that is important to know. But people have such an unrealistic expectation of these vaccines that they see it as the panacea, as the magic bullet to make it all go away. If people have unrealistic expectations, such that they think "I've gotten the vaccine, I'm good. I don't need to wear a mask. I don't need to social distance. I can engage in high-risk activities," then we've lost one of the important arms to bring this virus under control, arguably a more important arm. If, when we bring the vaccine up in terms of users, we move social distancing and masking down, we could end up having a sort of break-even effect.
And by the way, falsely claiming that the vaccine trials only looked at "moderate to severe disease" is now an anti-mrna anti-vax talking point that's being spread online right now. TRUTH: The vaccines were trialed for ANY symptomatic disease.
Anyone out there claiming that MRNA covid vaccines were only trialed for death and hospitalization is lying or is confused. This was published May 22, 2021 on SciShow:
https://youtu.be/5jMeJjVm5k0?si=I_FRq99uHj0WlHVB
youtube screenshot and the screen text says Moderna and BionTech looked for any symptomatic covid-19 after two doses of vaccine or placebo shots, and counted those as cases in their trials.
But Paul Offit didn't just push that dubious claim in the media in 2023 to push the Biden administration toward restricting the vaccines just as the Trump administration is doing now.
https://www.science.org/content/article/should-i-get-covid-19-booster
Paul Offit, a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who sits on FDA’s own vaccine advisory group, has strongly opposed the broad recommendation for previous boosters and says it makes even less sense now. “The goal of the vaccine is to prevent severe illness,” he says, stressing that many people wrongly expect the shots to prevent mild disease or even transmission. “You can’t ask people to get a vaccine if you’re trying to prevent serious illness and there’s no clear evidence that you are at risk of serious illness.”
And Paul Offit's wrong claims that there was no evidence of serious illness in young people are directly contradicted by facts and the CDC ACIP committee doctor even said that there's no group that has no risk from covid!
“There is no group that clearly has no risk from COVID. And even children and adults with no underlying conditions can still experience severe illness due to COVID.” - Sandra Adamson Fryhofer, MD at the CDC ACIP meeting September 12, 2023
references: https://teamshuman.substack.com/p/cdc-acip-public-comment
Chloe’s Public comment to CDC ACIP committee Sep 8, 2023 TO: CDC ACIP, CC President Joe Biden There are people on this ACIP committee like Cody Meissner, signer of the infamously wrong Great Barrington Declaration,(1) who has in the past voiced incoherently anti-vax opinions and vague opposition to vaccine development.(2) Paul Offit, who is on the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC),(3) appears to favour restricting vaccines to only the very old,(4) — “focused protection” is something promoted by the Great Barrington Declaration, with the idea of natural herd immunity taking it’s natural course among youths, which of course results in some dying (something that’s only seen as good from a eugenics pseudoscience perspective). Someone anonymous at the FDA was quoted in WaPo as saying they didn’t think they should update boosters for new variants because they believe the public has “little interest in getting repeated injections”(5) — calling them “injections” itself invokes anti-vax talking points. In other words there are people at government agencies who might be anti-vax, or at least believe a majority of the public is anti-vax, and so the government appears to be catering to the anti-vax contingent by restricting vaccine development, frequency, and putting limits on who can get it, for reasons other than a scientific basis.(6) Mike Osterholm was quoted in Stat News saying that public health is trying to “thread the needle” between people who want to be vaccinated and the anti-vaxxers who want nobody vaccinated.(7) Trying to implement policy that’s halfway between Qanon and reality is not rational, and it’s costing people’s lives, because what the government recommends has direct impact on what a lot of healthcare providers do, what insurance covers, and what the public and healthcare workers believe is real.
Paul Offit is a vaccine skeptic that's been part of the problem when it comes to bad vaccine messaging and undermining public health all along.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/boost-now-or-wait-steady-stream-of-new-variants-sow-confusion
Consistent messaging has been complicated by the different views of leading vaccine scientists. Although physicians like del Rio and Dr. Peter Hotez of Baylor College of Medicine see the value in getting a second booster, Dr. Paul Offit, a member of the FDA’s vaccine advisory committee, is skeptical it’s needed by anyone but seniors and people who are immunocompromised. “When experts have different views based on the same science, why are we surprised that getting the message right is confusing?” said Dr. Bruce Gellin, chief of global public health strategy at the Rockefeller Foundation and Offit’s colleague on the FDA panel.
I wrote this after Paul Offit was platformed on MedPage Today’s tiktok platform, discouraging vaccination — again. This time it was the RSV vaccine! So if you think this anti-vax stance of his is just confined to covid boosters, think again! It's never just about covid.
Paul Offit was also platformed in 2024 by a doctor influencer and parroted the right-wing buzzword phrase “died with covid” (as opposed to from) & also erroneously claimed epidemiologists wanted to stop covid testing at hospitals - I could never find evidence for that
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Vo38L-uFO4E
Screenshot of Youtube that says Were COVID deaths overcounted? (from a doctor licensed in the US)
Discouraging testing is Trumpian. Paul Offit has been aligned with Trump anti-vax covid contrarians all along. As someone who's been an activist advocating for public health for over 5 years now, I would advise against trusting Paul Offit.
Discouraging testing is Trumpian. Nov 2nd, 2024 I heard a clip on the Knowledge Fight podcast #969 where Alex Jones, as usual talking nonsense on his show, was reminiscing that at some point during the pandemic he was asked to take a PCR test to be…
And Paul Offit has also invoked the right-wing buzzword of "injections" when speaking to the New York Times in 2023.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/24/health/covid-booster-older-immunocompromised.html
“Given the lack of data, I don’t think it’s fair to say to people, ‘Inject yourself with a biological agent,’” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and an adviser to the F.D.A.
Referring to them as injections is a right-wing anti-vax buzzword.. An anti-vax activist who spoke in the public comments section of the FDA VRBPAC meeting kept repeatedly calling them "injections"...
https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/fda-vrbpac-public-comments
And walkerbragman.bsky.social reported that the Republican Senator Ron Johnson admitted why they use this buzzword. In order to make it sound like vaccines are scary, different, or bad, instead of the real preventative medicine that of course they are.
https://www.importantcontext.news/p/senate-gop-ramps-up-attacks-on-covid
IMPORTANT CONTEXT - Unsurprisingly, given the line-up of speakers, dubious narratives about the jabs proliferated during the three-hour event. Johnson began the hearing with an apology to the vaccine-injured. Throughout the proceedings, he referred to the vaccines as “injections.” “So much of our miserably failed response to COVID made no sense,” he said, calling out “masking, devastating shutdowns, the sabotage of early treatment, rapid approval of Remdesivir, and the maniacal reliance on the COVID-19 injections...as the only way to end the pandemic.” ”I use that word purposely…injections, they’re not standard vaccines,” Johnson said. What followed was a spectacle of dubious claims, bad science, and conspiracy