In this fourth episode of the Bespoke Parenting Hour, Julie talks to Dr. Paul Offit, professor of pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine, and the author of Overkill. We discuss why vaccines are important and vital to the health and safety of not just your children, but others as well.
Transcript
Julie:
Hi everyone. I’m Julie Gunlock, your host for the fourth episode of the Bespoke Parenting Hour. For those new to the program, this podcast is focused on how parents should custom tailor their parenting style to fit what’s best for their families, themselves, and most importantly, their kids. So August was National Immunization Awareness month, and with school starting up, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about vaccines, which sadly, have become a fraught issue within the parenting space. And certainly, I have received some notifications from my school reminding me to get my kids vaccinated. So I know at this time, we have a lot of parents thinking about that issue, frankly worrying about that issue, and many people have questions. So I thought we would tackle that today.
Now I am unapologetically and fiercely pro-vaccine. I’ve written about the issue for the Wall Street Journal, and I’ve had countless and I would sometimes say, fruitless arguments on various social media platforms. Certainly on my own Facebook feed, I’ve put up my articles and other articles talking about the importance of vaccinating, but it does often ignite a fight on my feed, and I have responded on Twitter and other social media platforms. I’m not really sure there’s a more divisive issue out there. And there’s a lot of support out there for the anti-vax messaging, and this I think confuses the issue even more. There are movie stars and mommy bloggers and even seemingly knowledgeable or respectable people like medical officials and people on the news media that spread conspiracy theories on this issue every day. There’s just a lot of messaging out there that seems legitimate but really isn’t.
Now for some listeners, this might seem like an odd fit for this program. This podcast, it’s designed to encourage parents, to parent the way they think is right, to do what they think is best for their kids and their kid’s wellbeing. But on the first episode of Bespoke, I explained that even though I really think parents need to trust their instincts and they need to do what they think is best, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t experts, experts that really are partners with parents and they know a lot more about certain subjects, and I think that’s really important that parents view them that way. There just are people out there that know a lot more than me about certain issues, and I personally, listen to their guidance. So one of those people who knows a whole heck of a lot more than me on the topic of vaccines is Dr. Paul Offit, who I am… I’m really, really thrilled. I’m a huge admirer of his and I’m really thrilled to have him on the show today. So thanks for coming on Dr. Offit.
Dr. Offit:
Thank you, Julie. It’s my pleasure.
Julie:
So okay. So for those who are familiar with this issue and know Dr. Offit, they know you as a major rockstar in the vaccine and infectious disease world. You’re certainly one of the leading faces and voices in the media on this issue, but you also have a day job. Let me give the listeners a quick bio. This is sort of your official bio. Dr. Paul Offit is a pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases and an expert on vaccines, immunology and virology. He is the co-inventor… I mean, he invented a vaccine. He is the co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine that has been credited with saving hundreds of lives every day. I mean, just think about that. I can’t perfect my banana bread recipe, so I am personally very… That just amazes me. Okay. Offit is a professor of vaccinology. He’s a professor of pediatrics at The Perelman School of Medicine, at the University of Pennsylvania, and he is the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, better known as CHOP, the best hospital for children in the world. So again, Dr. Offit, thanks for coming on.
Dr. Offit:
Thank you.
Julie:
So, let’s just jump right in here. I don’t want to talk a whole lot. I really want the listeners, and I personally want to hear from you. Tell me, I mean, what’s the state of vaccines in this country first question? And then follow-up by, why aren’t people vaccinating?
Dr. Offit:
I’d say generally the state of vaccines is good. I mean, you have… I think we ask a lot of parents in this country. I mean, we ask them to get, in the first years of life, vaccines to prevent 14 different diseases, which could mean as many 27 inoculations during that time. It could mean as many as five shots at one time, to prevent diseases that most people don’t see using biologic fluids that most people don’t understand. I think it’s actually a testament to parents in this country that a solid 90% of them will make sure that their children are up-to-date on vaccines in those first few years of life. I mean, there is a solid sort of I would say, 1 to 2% of parents who simply don’t trust vaccines. They think that they’re harming their children and they refuse to get them. It’s small but vocal minority.
Julie:
Yeah. That minority though really does… I think, yes. I think you’re right. There’s 1 or 2% that are solidly, I mean, passionately anti-vax, but those people sort of contribute to what I would call the vaccine skeptics or vaccine resistant folks. And to be honest with you and my audience here, I was one of those people. I delayed vaccines for my first child, but I simultaneously read about them and sort of became much more relieved, and in fact, annoyed at the anti-vax movement, which is why I think this issue is so important to me, why I’ve written about it and why I care about it because I was one of those sort of ill informed, very nervous moms. So I think that we can talk about that 1 or 2% but there are vaccine delays. There are people who choose… maybe want to do one vaccine that they view as important but now another one. There’s a much larger group of people who sort of are in that group. And we see those people also maybe not wanting to fully vaccinate in order to go back to school. Is that growing or do you think that group of people… Is it sort of stagnant? Or is that a growing group of the skeptics out there?
Dr. Offit:
See, first of all, I think it’s good to be a vaccine skeptic. I think you need to be skeptical of anything you put into your body. I mean, now through the COVID-19 vaccine raising its head, people… CNN and the Boston Globe have done polls and find that anywhere from a third to a half of people will say they wouldn’t get a vaccine if offered. I would actually put myself in that group. My feeling about that is I want to wait to see what the data are before I know that it is safe and effective at least in my age group. So I think it’s good to be a vaccine skeptic. I think you should ask questions. And so people have questions like do vaccines contain harmful ingredients? Do children get too many vaccines too soon? Is it overwhelming or weakening their immune system? That’s fine. The good news is that there are answers to those questions, and I think what happens is, is when studies have been done and the questions have been answered, and then people still don’t believe those answers, and still choose not to get vaccines, that’s when you sort of cross the line from being a vaccine skeptic to being a vaccine cynic, which is to say, you just don’t believe those studies, and that’s when I think… That I have less sympathy for.
Julie:
Well, it is interesting and I think that’s the key though. Are people willing to listen to the other side? Are they willing to have a conversation? And I think part of the problem is is that you… And I think increasingly so today, no matter what the issue is, people are sort of closing down and not willing to have those conversations. And I think there’s other things, particularly in the conservative, sort of people that are more conservative, there’s a lot of things wrapped up in why they might not want to vaccinate. There’s a sort of, this is a government mandate and so that sort of… I mean, that’s the kind of thing that makes me kind of itchy. I don’t like that. I don’t like government mandates. Although I do think in some cases, they are warranted. And so I’m able to sort of make those separations, but I think for some people, it’s just all government mandates are wrong.
I think there’s also this idea of don’t tell me what to do, which is kind of connected. And then from Christians, and I was hoping that maybe we could talk about these concerns I hear from more conservative folks. But again, it’s interesting. I don’t know that this really is a partisan issue because I hear these same arguments no matter what your politics are. But I do want to talk from a Christian’s perspective, a lot of evangelicals and a lot of Catholic friends of mine are concerned about things like fetal tissue. This is one of these things that constantly comes up in my own conversations on this issue, so maybe you can talk a little bit about that. Maybe we can also talk about some of the other things I hear.
Dr. Offit:
Right. And that has come up. I mean, there are four vaccines which were made from two elective abortions that were performed in the early 1960s, one in Sweden, one in England. And those cell lines have been used to make vaccines for the 60 years since. But an abortion is… I mean, from the Catholic perspective is sin worthy of ex-communication, which means that you don’t get to participate in the sacraments of the Catholic Church. You’re sort of expelled from the Catholic society. And so I think Catholics reasonably wonder, is this okay? Is it okay for me to inoculate my child with vaccines like the chicken pox vaccine or the hepatitis A vaccine or the rubella vaccine or one of the rabies vaccines that were derived from these fetal cells?
And so I mean, the Catholic Church has weighed in on this through the Pontifical Academy of Life, back when Joseph Ratzinger was the head of that essentially policy making body for the Catholic Church before he became Pope Benedict XVI, and he ruled on this that because the Catholic religion like all religions cares deeply about health, including child’s health, that on balance that you’re saving lives. In a sense, you’re preventing spontaneous abortions in the sense that rubella virus can cause a lot of spontaneous abortions. So if you can prevent rubella virus, you’re preventing spontaneous abortion. So that’s the ruling. I mean, it’s unlikely that any of these companies are going to go back and re-derive these vaccines in non-fetal cells, so this is just something we’re going to be living with. And again on balance, it’s certainly, the Catholic Church has ruled on this.
Julie:
Yeah, it’s interesting. I get into a lot of conversations about this on… And conversation, the word conversation is being generous. But I get into… I try to always stay calm and be civil, and your voice is very compassionate, just listening to you talk about this where you say it’s good to be a skeptic and Catholics have every right to be concerned about this stuff. I mean, that is a voice that I think a lot of people on the pro-vaccine side really need to adopt because these are legitimate issues and people do have legitimate concerns, so I really appreciate that.
But it’s interesting when you actually dive sort of deeply into some of these objections. I had one person talk about religious exemptions. And when you actually look at… Most large, organized religions do not object to vaccines, and there are some of course. There are going to be some much smaller Christian groups that do, but even the Christian scientists, I looked at their position on vaccines and they’re generally opposed to medical interventions. But it’s interesting when you look at their official position. It’s sort of if you feel you want to get the vaccine for your children, get the vaccine and then pray that there are no adverse effects because of it. And so they’re not actually objecting to the vaccine or saying you’re excommunicated or you’re not allowed to attend our church anymore. So it’s often more complicated than that, and as you’ve mentioned and what I was just saying is most religions do approve of vaccines. But this gets into this kind of… Go ahead.
Dr. Offit:
I mean, I was so inspired actually by a woman named Rita Swan who was a Christian scientist who had chosen not to vaccinate her son, her 15 month old son when he had a form of bacterial meningitis caused by a bacterium called Haemophilus influenzae Type A. I mean, this was before there were vaccines but it wasn’t before there were antibiotics, and she chose prayer instead of antibiotics for her son and her son died. And with that, she became really a vigorous activist against that. It bothered her not only that her son died obviously. It bothered her that she could do that, that she was allowed to do that, that there was essentially no recourse against her doing that, that she said that the fact that she prayed meant that it was okay that she didn’t give her son antibiotics, that this 15 month old boy dies unnecessarily.
So, she became actually the basis for a book I wrote called Bad Faith: When Religious Belief Undermines Modern Medicine. But it’s funny. I came away from that… I mean, I actually read the New Testament in preparation for writing that book, and I just came away with the notion that a choice to put your child unnecessarily in harm’s way is the opposite of religion. It’s the opposite of what is taught in either the New or Old Testament. To me, it’s religion at it’s worst when you use it to put the people in harm’s way, or to express your sort of worst sort of instincts whether it’s homophobia or misogyny or whatever.
Julie:
Yes, yes. Exactly. But your voice on this, I’ve seen a lot of clips of you, of interviews. I’ve heard a lot of interviews and I have read a lot of your writing, and you are compassionate to people, and don’t dismiss their religious beliefs. And certainly, it is important to point out where sort of… when your religion dictates doing something that’s quite reckless. And I again, I don’t think the Christian Science religion does that. I think they’ve been very clear that you’re welcome to go ahead and give your kid a vaccine, but you should pray for no adverse reactions to that vaccine. But I do think that it really is important, especially what I mentioned about the Catholics, that the Catholic Church has been very clear on this with guidance that they are pro-vaccine. Because again, I see these arguments trotted out all the time, and it has a profound effect on for instance, fellow Catholics. So anyway. I just wanted to thank you for… I think you’re very respectful on that matter and are compassionate towards people for having beliefs that might make it a struggle for them.
Dr. Offit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Good.
Julie:
I want to also talk about, and this is less… This is much more of something I hear across the board. It doesn’t matter what politics you are, but tell me a little bit about when you see other influentials out there talking about how vaccines aren’t important. We’ve got a real big problem in Hollywood. My favorite is Alicia Silverstone of Clueless fame saying that she doesn’t give her child vaccines, but she gives them miso soup every morning and that seems to protect him from all sorts of infectious diseases. And you have a lot of Hollywood actresses, and we may pretend that those people don’t have influence, but they do. And what do you think is the best way to push back on that kind of stuff?
Dr. Offit:
Well I think, first of all, you’re exactly right. I think they do have influence. I think when people see either Alicia Silverstone or others who have become anti-vaccine activists like Jenny McCarthy, that they think… Or Jim Carrey. I mean, they see them on the big or little screen and they assume they know them. They assume at some level, their characters are them and so therefore, they have influence. They clearly have influence. That’s why they’re used to sell products. And so you’re given a platform, and I think when you’re given a platform, there’s an enormous responsibility that comes with that platform. And there are many celebrities like Jennifer Lopez or Amanda Peet or others, Kristen Bell, who use that platform to stick up for the science.
And I just, I have a lot of respect for… Because it’s not easy. I mean, it’s much easier to take the anti-vaccine position I think in some ways just because it fits for that. What you argued I think correctly before with there is not a politics to this. I think both the right and left sort of can be anti-vaccine activists. On the left side, it’s more the kind of crunchy granola, all things natural, dolphin free etc. foods. So that’s where I think they come in, and in Hollywood, that plays. So I give the people, like Amanda Peet, credit for standing up because it doesn’t necessarily reflect their community. But you’re right. I think it’s irresponsible to be given a platform and use it to put children in harm’s way.
Julie:
Yeah. And also, I think… I don’t know what your opinion is on when the sort of modern anti-vax movement… because you can’t really… There’s not really a start date. I mean, there’s always been people saying this is bad or harmful or scary or I don’t want to put this in my child’s body since vaccines really emerged, although those were lonely voices back then, for instance, when a polio vaccine came into play. But you can’t really necessarily pinpoint a start date. Maybe you do. I really don’t, but Oprah, and Oprah having Jenny McCarthy on. Who doesn’t love Oprah, right? I mean, that was devastating in terms of here’s a woman who everyone trusts, or most people trust and see as friendly and caring.
And so those moments have a profound impact on the audience and her following. And I think it’s very, very hard to push back on that, particularly when… And certainly, you’re the exception here, but science communication isn’t always… I don’t know. I think it’s been improving over the last several years, but there wasn’t a good pushback on that, at least a glossy Hollywood pushback, not at first. But you mentioned Amanda Peet. You mentioned other Hollywood stars out there pushing back and that’s helpful, but there was a lag time there where there wasn’t sort of that counter message.
Dr. Offit:
Right. And the counter message shouldn’t necessarily come from celebrities.
Julie:
Right.
Dr. Offit:
I mean, it’s the people who know the data the best, and you stated this at the beginning of this program, are people who understand science. But I can tell you, as a scientist, as a lifelong scientist, being trained to communicate with the public is the opposite of the way that we’re trained. I mean for the, what, 25 years I spent inoculating mice in a windowless room at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, that wasn’t training for being on the Colbert Report I promise you, so. I mean, that’s what you’re always fighting against. So we’re not good at it. We’re not trained for it. We assume everybody else is doing it, but they’re not. It shouldn’t be your celebrities versus our celebrities.
Julie:
No exactly.
Dr. Offit:
It shouldn’t come down to that but sadly, it does.
Julie:
Well, I’ve written on a number of issues that consumers are very afraid of. I often will defend pesticide use, and I will defend chemical preservatives that keep things fresh and affordable and oh, I spent a long time defending GMOs. I get all the issues that most moms look at me like I’m crazy. So I have this sort of history of looking at things that are really scaring moms and being curious about them. And I enjoy kind of delving into that stuff, but you mentioned earlier that it’s harder to take a certain position. And boy, it’s not easy trying to explain to a mom why GMOs are perfectly fine, or why pesticides are not going to kill their kid.
I mean, these are… It’s tough. And I’m certainly not a scientist, but one of the things that I’ve tried to do is look to the writing of people like you and other scientists in the field and sort of translate it into more understandable ways. Because to be honest with you, I think one of the drivers for me is that I had this little baby. I was a Hill staffer. I worked on Homeland Security issues. I had a clearance. I would go to briefings and learn about scary people. And then I have a kid and I’m being told that everything is going to kill him. Everything. I mean, I’m not talking just vaccines. I’m talking the crib sheets were going to kill him because they have some sort of flame retardant chemical on them. And oh my God, the food. The food. I mean, that’s going to kill him too.
So, I was really overwhelmed by this, and I think going through that, I had this understanding but the problem was I couldn’t find good sources on the other side. It was very, very hard for me. And soon, I found you and I found many other people. Richard Pan and other folks that were kind of pushing back on this and it was helpful, but it was very hard to find. And I agree with you that it shouldn’t be your Hollywood star versus my Hollywood star but we can’t… I’m not in your world. I’m a normal mom. I pick my kids up at play dates and school, and frankly, I think a lot of moms aren’t really checking the work of the leading virologist in the country. They’re reading People Magazine. So that’s kind of why it is important that we have Hollywood stars and influential on the other side.
Dr. Offit:
Yeah. No, I agree with you. And I think they are clearly influential. I think we scientists need to get better at this. We do. We need to get better at explaining what we do, why we do it, what we’re learning, how we’re learning it. And now, we’re coming up to this COVID-19 vaccines which I think we’ll have by next year. It becomes all the more important because our lives have been turned upside down by this pandemic, and vaccines, along with hygienic measures, are our way out of this. And if we don’t explain this well, because people are skittish about the COVID-19 vaccine, then we’re going to be even more hurt by this. And I mean, I wrote a book called Bad Advice: Or Why Celebrities, Politicians, and Activists Aren’t Your Best Source of Health Information. But in that, I talk about the weaknesses of scientists in terms of communicating facts, about why it is we’re particularly bad at communicating science to the public. But the time is now to step up and learn how to do it.
Julie:
Yeah. I want to tell the viewers if I didn’t impress you enough with… or give you an impression of how impressive Dr. Offit was, you’ve written… Have you written 12 books?
Dr. Offit:
I think it’s 11.
Julie:
Oh my God. Unbelievable. Well, I’m impressed with your time management skills as well. Tell me a little bit, I do want to just touch on the COVID vaccine because I know you also are on… I think you’re on a NIH panel. You’re on one of the panels trying to develop a vaccine. Is that correct?
Dr. Offit:
Well, so I’m in the NIH so-called active group which is put together by Francis Collins whose head of NIH to try and sort of accelerate and facilitate the development of the vaccine. I’m also on the FDAs vaccine advisory committee. So the purpose of the NIH committee is really just to sort of help design what the trials would look like, I mean, to sort of help figure out how we’re going to test for safety issues. And there are a number of people that are on that group, including pharmaceutical companies. So that speaks to that group.
Julie:
Well, if any sort of the skepticism about masks, which totally burns me up, and that’s a whole different… That’s like I always say, it’s a different Oprah show, or it’s a different Bespoke. We don’t have time to get into the mask debate at all, but I wonder if you can comment a little bit on there’s… And I’ve already seen some skepticism and some outright just declarations that I will not take the COVID vaccine from people. Speaking of the science world, again, we need scientists to come out and reassure people. What do you think the communication will be on this vaccine? What do you think the communication about safety… And will it be safe? I mean, we should start there. Is this going to be a… Obviously, I think it’s going to be a safe vaccine. I think there are going to be tests. But how do we reassure the public that it is?
Dr. Offit:
Well, so if we finish the phase three trials, which is a large prospect of placebo control trials that as recommended by our group, the NIH group, is a 30,000 person trial. That’s fairly typical for vaccines. The human papillomavirus vaccine was a 30,000 person trial. The conjugate pneumococcal vaccine was a 35,000 person trial so that is… Although, clearly the timelines have been compressed here, and the government has basically paid for phase three trials and paid for mass production so that took the risk out of it for a pharmaceutical company meaning the financial risk. As long as we do that phase three trial and let it go to completion, then I think what you can… then the question is what do we know and what don’t we know?
I mean, what hopefully we’ll know is that, let’s say, 20,000 people got the vaccine safely. Now, that’s not 20 million people, so we haven’t ruled out a rare adverse event, but again, we have systems in place like the vaccine safety data link which can pick that up. And then we’ll know that the vaccine is effective at a certain level, hopefully 70 or 75% effective for a certain period of time, let’s say, four to six months, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be protective for a year or two years or three years. We’re only going to know that post-approval. So I think what we need to do to communicate this is make sure that we manage expectations so people can know what we know and what we don’t know, and what we’re going to learn and how we’re going to learn it over time. But I mean, I think if it’s been tested safely in 20,000 people, you can be assured that at least it doesn’t have a very uncommon side effect problem, and if the virus is still killing 1,000 people a day, I think that the benefits then would clearly outweigh what at that point would be theoretical risks.
Julie:
Yeah. One of my favorite quotes, and I hope when I say this you recognize it because I have quoted you before, but you said, “We haven’t just eradicated the disease…” You were talking about vaccines. “We haven’t just eradicated the diseases. We’re eradicated the memory of the diseases.” That is correct, correct? Or maybe I’m paraphrasing.
Dr. Offit:
That’s correct. No, that was me.
Julie:
Okay, good. That is a brilliant quote and it really captures I think, where we are right now. And I often, when I give public speeches about sort of the issue of fear, consumer fears, I often use that to say, “We’ve eradicated the memory of lot of hardships that occurred in very, very recent history.” And it’s interesting to me to kind of think about how COVID may change the opinions of vaccines because I think a lot of us kind of are getting a sense that we may not go fully back to normal until there is a vaccine and until enough people have gotten that vaccine. And so do you see a change maybe in that one or two… I don’t think we’ll ever see a change in that 1 or 2%, but maybe fewer vaccine skeptics because people really do want to go back to normal and they might see how vaccines really… how at least this COVID vaccine will facilitate that?
Dr. Offit:
I think sort of this hits in a central worry actually. I mean, I have to go on Fox News tomorrow, and then I’m on CNN twice on Sunday and Monday. And I hope I’m going to be able to make the point to them that I’m about to make to you because I haven’t made it yet. There are two ways we can rid ourselves of this pandemic and they both have to be in play. One is hygienic measures and the other is vaccines. By far and away, the most powerful of those measures is hygienic measures. If you wear a mask and you stand six feet away from somebody, you’re not going to get this infection. You’re not. It’s spread by small droplets. You’re not going to get it.
On the other hand, if you get a vaccine, let’s assume the vaccine is 75% effective, which would be great. I think everybody whose involved in this program would be happy with 75% effective. What that means is that 25% of people… And by effective, what I mean is protection against moderate to severe disease. That’s the clinical endpoint. The clinical endpoint is not infection. It’s significant symptoms associated with infection. So that would mean 75% of people are protected against moderate to severe disease, which means 25% aren’t, and you don’t know whether you’re one of those 25% or not. It means one out of every four people that get that vaccine could still get moderate to severe disease associated with infection. Also, this is not going to be the measles vaccine which provides sterilizing immunity. I mean, you’re protected against everything. You’re protected against asymptomatic infection, mildly symptomatic infection, everything. That’s not going to be this vaccine. I think you’re probably still going to be at some risk for either reinfection or asymptomatic reinfection, in which case, you could still be shedding, which is to say, we should still use masks.
And if you’ve watched countries like Germany or China or Japan or Singapore or South Korea, have basically wrestled this virus to the ground using only hygienic measures. I think if we didn’t do that at all and only used a vaccine, we wouldn’t be able to do as well as with hygienic measures. So imagine trying to get people to wear a mask who’ve already been vaccinated. I mean, right now, it’s hard enough to get people to wear a mask because as you say, somehow people consider this their freedom. I mean, it shouldn’t be your freedom to catch and transmit a potentially fatal infection anymore than it should be your freedom to run a stop sign. It’s something that you’re doing to somebody else as well as yourself. And so it’s going to be… I think this is going to be a struggle over the next couple years.
Julie:
That’s really interesting. I want to just ask you one more question, and I know that we’re coming up on our time break here, but this is… I’d like to ask you about schools, some schools remaining closed. And I’d like to specifically ask you, first of all, your opinion on school closures. And I can be kind of sympathetic because I think a lot of schools are dealing with parents who are really afraid, and I think teachers are afraid, so we can have some sympathy on that. But one thing that has really, this is sort of a personal question. In my school district, they have chosen to close entirely, but there are some vulnerable populations within any public school, and any private school. It’s not just public schools.
But in my particular private school, or public-school district, there are something called IEP and 504 students. These are special needs. These are kids with ADHD, ADD, autism, other disabilities. These are kids with down syndromes and other developmental issues. And 504s are some behavioral issues. And these kids are especially vulnerable, but there’s not very many of them. And my school district has chosen to not even allow those kids to come into a massive school… I mean, I live in a big city. We have big schools, big buildings. And hasn’t even allowed those kids, those very vulnerable kids, who basically cannot do… Most of them cannot do an online format of school.
And so, I’d like to ask you your opinion of that. You have a huge school. You have about 175 students, usually about 500 students go to this one building. It’s actually more like 150 of them are these special needs kids. And I’m just sort of baffled at the idea that you can’t space them out. You mentioned these hygienic steps that a lot of countries like Germany and Japan have taken. And their schools are fully reopened by the way, and I know that’s partly because there’s no new infections, but they also put cleaning stations in these schools. So I’d like to kind of get your opinion on that and why schools… I understand maybe doing a all… I mean, I don’t totally understand it but doing an all online format. But particularly for these needs kids, why are schools so afraid to let anyone in the building and any child in the building, especially ones who have these special needs?
Dr. Offit:
No, I think you make a great point. I mean, first of all, there’s so much good that comes with going back to school. It’s not just the special needs kids, but for some children, it’s their best meal during the day, or their only meal during the day. It frees up parents to go to work. There’s a social component to this, being able to go to school. And some kids who are for example, being abused, that’s when that child abuse gets picked up. So there’s much good that comes with going to schools.
I mean, a number of countries have opened up schools without a problem, but they’ve had pretty strict guidelines on that. I mean, for example, people wear masks. People have cleaning stations. It’s the teacher that moves from one classroom to the next, not the student, that students will eat at their desk if they can, not necessarily at the cafeteria, and if it is the cafeteria, they maintain spacing. I mean, all that stuff you need to do were really outlined by the CDC early on when this question was about going back to school. Denmark certainly had school reopenings without a problem, so there’s no reason we can’t do that. But we don’t do it.
I think it’s hard to do it in a population, for example, Florida or Texas or Arizona or Southern California that are on fire with fire this virus. I think it’s harder there. But that’s not true of most communities. And I think you also have to get past the notion of zero tolerance for infection. I mean, there’s going to be some infection. So the question’s whose most at risk? In children children, so people less than 18 years of age, there have been about 90 deaths so far, which obviously is awful, but remember, it’s probably half of the number of flu deaths we had last year in children. We’re talking about 160 deaths, so. I’m not saying any death is tolerable-
Julie:
I know. I know. I know.
Dr. Offit:
… but we do seem to tolerate those flu deaths. So I just think the person whose most vulnerable is the teacher, especially the older teacher. So they need to wear a mask and be careful and stuff. But I think the way this plays out on the media, which hasn’t helped, is that when we do go back to school, and areas are going back to school, the first teacher to get sick, or God forbid dies, that’s going to be in the media for three days. If we want to avoid infection and death, then stay inside for the next three years. The minute we walked outside, there’s a certain level of risk, and we’re going to have to decide what level of risk we’re going to tolerate.
Julie:
You talked about kids being at school to avoid abusive situations, or meals or whatever, but we can’t also forget the academic side of school. They’re also supposed to be educating kids and I think… And the reason I bring up the kids with IEPs and 504s is because that’s all I care about, although I do have a child with a special need and he has an IEP. But I’m just trying to account for the kids who are most vulnerable who will not be educated under those circumstances. And I think you’ve nailed it, and you’ve frankly nailed it for the entire population that there is this weird idea now in our country, and among moms in particular, that everything has to be 100% safe and proven. You can’t prove some things. It’s very much this… I always talk about the precautionary principle which is the regulatory sort of structure used in Europe. Or I always say in mom… To translate it to mom speak, the better safe than sorry sort of philosophy.
And that is to me, a lot of what the problem is here is that when we’re dealing with these unpredictable and really unknown diseases, it’s really hard to make things absolutely 100% safe, and certainly, going to school carries with it some risks. But I think for a small segment of the population like special needs kids, or English language learners for crying out loud. I mean, can you imagine these kids, they’re learning language in a school. Their parents probably do not… They certainly don’t speak better English than their children, and they’re trying to figure out how to get on a Zoom and Clever and the Chromebook and I mean… So I just, I do think that schools could be better about servicing vulnerable populations and I think that COVID has made it sadly, impossible for many of them. So Dr. Offit, I really appreciate you coming on today, and I’m sad because I really want to spend more time talking to you because I have about 30 more questions that I haven’t gotten through, but I know you’re busy saving lives and writing books and doing things that are totally impressive. So I think we’ll end it here.
Dr. Offit:
Well, we can do this again sometime.
Julie:
Before I let you go though, do tell people… I mean, if there’s a Twitter handle or a new book coming out or something that you’d like to promote on this podcast, please let us know.
Dr. Offit:
Okay. Well, I had a book that just came out called Overkill: When Modern Medicine Goes Too Far because I think it’s important to release a book when not a single bookstore in the world is open. I just thought it was clever, but…
Julie:
Excellent. Excellent. Overkill. Overkill. Well, I will certainly… I will now go on Amazon. I will buy it, and I will put a blog up on it to… Hey, because Amazon is still working, so God bless Amazon, right?
Dr. Offit:
Right.
Julie:
All right. Well, thanks again for joining us Doctor. It was really great to talk to you.
Dr. Offit:
My pleasure. Take care.
Julie:
Right. So it was great talking to Dr. Offit and as he said, we can do this again. I will certainly have him on again because I mentioned that there were a number of questions… I had 30 questions but this is not a two-hour podcast, so I couldn’t ask him everything. But one thing that I did not ask him and I think is kind of important to mention, particularly for people who might be listening to this and are skeptical. We touched on the religious stuff. We touched on the idea that we’d forgotten the horrors of these diseases, what they did to a child’s body. And then we go into our pediatrician, we get a shot, and then we never need to think about it, and that is wonderful.
But one issue that seems to percolate a lot, and I know people who fully believe in modern medicine, get their kids vaccinated but they have this nagging worry. And I say they get their kids vaccinated. Some don’t. Some really are put off vaccinations because they have this nagging worry about this supposed, this rumored connection between autism and vaccines. I’m going to give just a real quick summary of where this rumor is and why it is not true. But I want to be very quick here and say that that… And I’d love to have… I’d actually love to have Dr. Offit on again to talk more fully about this, but that sort of supposed connection between autism and vaccines, that is related to what’s known as the MMR vaccine, measles, mumps and rubella, okay? And this is a very safe vaccine. It has something like I think a 95% effective rate and incredibly good safety record. Not that there aren’t people who have had or children that have had adverse effects from this. There are. There are children who’ve been harmed by these. But the rumor out there is that, oh, this causes autism. The MMR vaccine causes autism and that is…
That rumor really happened in the ’90s when a doctor, who has since lost his medical license, published a study in the medical journal, Lancet, one of the most… I would say the most respected medical journal, that said that there was a… He had proved that there was a connection. That study was later retracted. It was found to be fraudulent and he actually acted illegally in doing that study, and he had… He was simultaneously trying to develop an alternative vaccine which would have brought him billions of dollars. And so there was also a conflict of interest which he did not relay, and so there were just a whole host of problems with that study. And yet, that study set off this panic, worldwide panic, about the MMR vaccine causing autism. Okay.
So here we are today, and I try to explain that, that that study was fraudulent, and it actually still gets cited by the way. It still gets cited. I see it. People are like, “Oh, well. Have you seen this study in the Lancet?” And typical, the study itself, the fraudulent crappy study gets a million headlines in the media, and then the retraction gets two. It’s so frustrating, but anyway. So I try to reassure people. No, no, no. That’s not a good study. That’s a fraudulent study. That was retracted. And by the way, so Lancet almost never retracts things, okay? So it’s a major thing if the Lancet, the major British most respected medical journal, for them to retract something, it’s a big deal, okay? So. But the other thing I think people need to understand is something happened just a couple years… Okay. Wait, I have to back up.
What you hear from people as well, autism rates have skyrocketed. Autism rates have gone up. Yes, they have gone up. I am not arguing about that, but I think it’s really important to point out what happened a couple years ago within… The psychiatry world, the psychology world, what they did is they changed the definition of autism, okay? And so many of you have probably heard… I’ll just give you an example. Many of you have probably heard of the condition called Asperger’s, okay? And Asperger’s is very similar to autism. These are very high functioning people which today, we call on the spectrum, right?
And so, what happened a couple years ago is they got rid of all these individual, I hate to say, autism-y or similar to autism conditions, and they put them all in one big diagnosis category. And it’s called Autism Spectrum Disorder. It used to be Asperger’s and autism and this one and that one all separate. Now it’s in one diagnosis called the Autism Spectrum Disorder. Okay? So that is why we have seen this massive ballooning of the number of autism cases. It’s because they changed the definition. It’s not because suddenly, a bunch of autistic people are coming out of the woodwork, or oh, the MMR vaccine is causing all of these people to have autism. It is because of a simple change in the autism diagnosis.
Julie:
The other thing is you have to realize, okay, I remember in the ’80s when Rain Man came out, okay? This is a movie that came out in the 1980s. Nobody had heard of autism, okay? I remember that movie so clearly. It made such a big deal, but what it did is also, it really informed people that this condition exists. When you think about it today, I mean, everyone knows what autism is, okay? And so the medical field has been able to come up with much better ways of diagnosing people, much better ways of determining people who have autism where a lot of people sort of fell through the cracks. I think probably all of us, certainly at my age, you can sort of… You remember the kid that was a little strange or maybe didn’t make eye contact or sort of rocked or had other sort of ticks. Well, probably in the ’80s, he wasn’t diagnosed as autism, but today, they have a much better sense of the manifestations of the disease and the signs and the characteristics.
And so between better diagnosis techniques and tools plus the change of the definition, we have had, yes, an explosion in the number of autism diagnosis and the number of autistic individuals, or I should say, people with Autism Spectrum Disorder. So I think people need to understand this stuff. It is not because of the MMR vaccine. It’s because of some pretty banal reasons, really. I mean, oh look, they changed the definition of the diagnosis. That’s the real reason, not some sort of nefarious conspiracy between pharmaceutical companies and the government to cover up something that hurts children. That’s insane. So I really do think that… That was a question. I’m sure Dr. Offit could have explained it in much better terms than I did, but I did my best.
So as I end this podcast today, I think we’ve gone a little bit over time, listeners know that I like to end this podcast by spending a few minutes talking about what life was like before some of the modern conveniences that are so often vilified as killers or as harmful to children or the environment, for instance. We see this narrative with things like plastics. People say we need to stop using plastic. Plastic should be done away with from your containers for holding leftovers to plastic water bottles. And to be honest with you, I do think there’s a very good argument about reducing the use of plastics, especially in certain shipped products.
I ordered some hair bands, some rubber bands. I have very long hair and I always put it up in a bun. I should probably just cut it off. But I ordered some rubber bands. Simple. It was $3 on Amazon. I ordered these rubber bands. It was in a CD case. Do you remember that old CD cases where you could literally injure yourself trying to get into it? It was that huge plastic case that it came in. Now that seems to me unnecessary. First of all, rubber bands are not going to break. They don’t need a special plastic casing, so that kind of stuff… Look, I’m in that camp. I think that we could really reduce plastic use. But plastic has so many benefits that we never hear about. It’s durable. It’s lightweight. It’s versatile. It’s cost effective. And especially germane to this topic we’re talking about today, it keeps things sanitary.
You hear this stuff about processed food, which is often labeled as bad for you, but which also offers consumers like, I don’t know, working mom’s major convenience. And while most processed foods are presented as nutritionally empty, that is not true. Even things like cereals that may look unhealthy and sugary, many times they fortify them with vitamins and nutrients. And some kids are just not going to get that stuff through a fruit or through a vegetable, and so there are some benefits to this stuff. Another thing, and I’ll finish up here, but another thing is the word factory. It’s basically a pejorative at this point. Oh, factories are terrible. I don’t know if anyone remembers that Chipotle ad a couple years ago where they sort of made it seem like Chipotle is so virtuous and all other restaurants use factory food, and they showed a cartoon of a factory with cows probably suffering of course.
We should marvel at the invention of the factory. It allows machines to do quickly what took men and women hours, days, months, years to accomplish. They had to do things very slowly and very inconsistently, and often got hurt doing these things manually. And the sort of creation of the factory… And look, I’m not sitting here defending sweatshops. I’m talking about it allowed people to sort of get inside and do a job. And today, the automation, it allows machines to do work that was very physically difficult, or that is very physically difficult. And so these are benefits of these things that we so easily dismiss as sort of gross or ewww or as not good. They really are. They’re a definite plus for society.
Julie:
Vaccines are definitely one of these things that is easily dismissed these days by people who don’t have any clue. And I don’t mean to be rude, but I do feel like many people don’t have a concept of what it was like to live without vaccines. The CDC actually has this really great page, which I use quite often to sort of show people, okay, what was it like. And this is just data. Before the middle of the last century, diseases like whooping cough, polio, measles and the flu and rubella struck hundreds of thousands of infants, children and adults in the US. Thousands died every year from them. As vaccines were developed and became widely used, rates of these diseases declined. Nearly everyone in the United States got measles before there was a vaccine, and hundreds died from it each year.
My mother remembers a childhood friend of hers being in an iron lung because of polio. And one of my great aunts died as a two year old from something today you get a vaccine from. So my mother and my immediate relatives have memories of people dying or being disabled because of these diseases. More than 15,000 Americans died from diptheria in 1921. I mean, do we even think of diptheria today? No. We do not. And let me tell you why. There have only been two cases of diptheria reported. There were only two cases of diptheria reported to the CDC between 2004 and 2014. I don’t have more recent data, but a 10-year period, two cases, of course no one remembers the dangers of diptheria. Rubella, also known as german measles, in the year 1964/1965, there was an epidemic and it killed 12.5 million Americans, or infected, rather. It killed 2,000 babies and caused 11,000 miscarriages. Since 2012, 15 cases of rubella were reported to the CDC.
So, I think it’s really important that people kind of have a handle on just how serious these diseases were and just what a miracle vaccines have been to the growing health of the American public, and of children. The mortality rate for children is something to be very happy about in the United States. Countries around the world are still struggling with some of these diseases and so I hope people take a little time to sort of put it in perspective when they’re considering putting off vaccines. In many countries, people will walk miles, will wait in line for days in order to get a vaccine for their children. So we’re very lucky in this country to have the benefits of modern medicine and vaccines.
Julie:
Thanks everyone for being here for another episode of the Bespoke Parenting Hour. If you enjoyed this episode or liked the podcast in general, please leave a rating or review on iTunes. This helps ensure that the podcast reaches as many listeners as possible. If you haven’t subscribed to the Bespoke Parenting Hour on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play or wherever you get your podcasts, please do so so you won’t miss an episode. Don’t forget to share this episode and let your friends know that they can get Bespoke episodes on their favorite podcast app. From all of us here at the Independent Women’s Forum, thanks for listening.