Lisa Randall, executive director of Voices for Vaccines, has asked CBS to retract a story it ran last week that documented financial ties between some defenders of vaccines and the vaccine industry.
The story was by Sharyl Attkisson, an investigative reporter who covers government spending and taxpayer issues for CBS.
“It was a pretty sorry piece of reporting,” Randall told me in an email. “It bothers me when journalists make unfounded accusations and defend themselves with the claim that they’re doing a service simply by raising questions. David Kirby [the author of "Evidence of Harm"] has tried to argue similarly recently. I think ‘raising questions’ without a firm evidentiary basis is exactly the same as ’starting rumors.’”
Read my take on the CBS story, and my previous interview with Randall.
Lisa’s letter to CBS is after the jump.
Katie Couric, Managing Editor
CBS Television Network
524 West 57th Street
6th Floor
New York, NY 10019-2902
Via Facsimile
Dear Ms. Couric:
Voices For Vaccines objects to the defamatory allegations made by the CBS Evening News on Friday, July 25, against the American Academy of Pediatrics, Every Child By Two, and the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, with our colleague Dr. Paul Offit singled out for baseless criticism.
It is our privilege to partner with these institutions in our mission to disseminate reliable information about vaccines. These groups advocate for immunization based on the overwhelming evidence for the lifesaving power of vaccination, and motivated by a sincere concern for the health of America’s children. It is preposterous and deeply offensive for CBS to suggest otherwise by insinuating that the pharmaceutical industry improperly influences the views of these vaccine advocates.
An obvious starting point for an unbiased reporter assigned to investigate this possibility would have been to determine whether the advocates’ recommendations were in accord with the scientific consensus on immunization, as articulated by neutral bodies such as the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (In fact, all three subjects of the CBS story do promote vaccination according to federal guidelines.)
In contrast, Sharyl Attkisson relied solely upon tangential observations in concluding that the judgment of these respected authorities has been co-opted by drug companies. Ms. Attkisson’s choice to pursue her story even after failing to uncover evidence of malfeasance reveals not bias on the part of the story’s subjects, but on the part of Ms. Attkisson herself. Professionalism required her to acknowledge that the targets of her story have done nothing other than emphasize to the public that which is well known to science — that vaccines allow children to grow up safe and healthy.
We call upon CBS to issue a retraction of Ms. Attkisson’s report and an apology to the individuals and institutions whose good and honorable work in the field of immunization has been smeared. We further ask CBS to reflect upon the fact that it does not befit a user of the public airwaves to broadcast misleading claims about the most important public health measure of our time.
Sincerely,
Lisa Randall
Interim Executive Director
cc: Katie Boyle, Senior Producer
Jonathan LaPook, MD, Medical Correspondent
Sharyl Attkisson, Reporter
By his own doing, Paul Offit is in so deep, he has nowhere to go and there’s no pulling him out of it. He is the self-annointed vaccine prophet of our times and his entire professional reputation and credibility are riding on the single premise that vaccines are safe and good and therefore more vaccines are safer and better. If he had allowed but a little sliver of daylight into his rhetoric, the remotest possibility that not all is known or understood about this medical intervention called vaccination, perhaps he could be artfully weasling his way out of his current predicament. Self-promotion and personal enrichment have always invited scrutiny. Offit has actively courted the media for advancement of his own industry and for individual gain. This man has by all appearances never turned down a Pharma stipend, award, grant, consulting gig or media event to pad his wallet and sell vaccination to the masses. For this man, now, to decline to face the media glare and answer to these allegations leaves me speechless. Stand up, Dr. Offit. America deserves to take its measure of you as a medical professional and a public health servant.
Facts are facts… How can you retract facts?
If people don’t want information about the money they make made public, maybe they should stop the conflict of interest.
What Voices for Vaccines objects to is the fact that Sharyl Attkisson pointed out a well-kept secret: The industry is financially tied to those individuals who pretend to be independent experts vouching for vaccines. Countless times in the news we’ve been told that Paul Offit is “head of infectious diseases at Philadelphia Children’s Hosp.” He then announces to the public that there is no proof that vaccines cause autism. Almost never in these reports do we hear that he’s making money off the mandated vaccine schedule.
We expect the press to tell us the truth. Parents who don’t hear that Offit has big reasons to deny harmful side effects believe that this unbiased children’s doctor is giving us his honest opinion. It is not legitimate journalism is cover up Offit’s industry ties, but it happens routinely.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and Every Child by Two may present themselves as the promoters of children’s health, but Sharyl Attkisson told us about the pharmaceutical ties that these organizations have. They both claim that the industry has no influence over what they stand for, but shouldn’t the public at least be told about them? And if Paul Offit is a vaccine patent holder, a member of ACIP, the group that recommends vaccines to the CDC, and is a board member of Every Child By Two, doesn’t it begin to look like everyone is a bit too cozy with the vaccine makers?
Lisa Randall says that Attkisson’s report amounts to “defamatory allegations” and “baseless criticism.” She denies any wrong-doing on anyone’s part. The problem is while Offit and the AAP can’t say enough good things about vaccines, they haven’t noticed the autism epidemic yet. As more and more parents are out there saying vaccines are responsible for their child’s autism, officials and experts like Paul Offit pretend that an autism rate of one in 150 children/one in every 94 boys is nothing new.
Last year, after the CDC announced the “new” rate based on studies of eight year olds done back in 2000 and 2002, Offit was on ABC’s 20/20 where he was billed again as chief of infectious diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He explained that the increase in autism is due to the fact that “people that we once called quirky or geeky or nerdy are now called autistic.”
He further stated that with a label of autism, it would “allow that child then to qualify for services which otherwise they wouldn’t be qualified to get.”
The AAP finally got around to addressing autism at their annual meeting in San Francisco in Oct. 2007. And while they attribute the epidemic number of children with autism to “better diagnosing” by doctors, they told their pediatricians in San Francisco that they should be looking for the signs of autism at well-baby checks. Their leadership even went so far as to list the five symptoms to look for.
What is obvious to parents is the fact that the same people who tell us vaccines are safe and claim that there’s no link to autism, can’t tell us why so many children are disabled. They show little if any interest in this health care crisis, as if their denials and apathy will make the issue go away. To also learn about the money ties to the very industry they’re promoting has got to raise serious questions about their objectivity. Randall may not like the publicity all these conflicts are attracting, but she better get used to people pointing them out. This is the biggest controversy in medicine and it deserves fair and thorough coverage.
Thank you Sharyl Attkisson and CBS for telling us the truth.
Anne Dachel
Age of Autism media editor
I think that CBS’s next piece should be an expose of Voices for Vaccines. They claim to be free of influence from the vaccine makers. Yet nearly every one of the people and organizations listed on their website as their “steering committee” takes money from the vaccine makers. Gone are the days when you can get by with listed the “American Academy of Pediatrics” as your partner and make us think that somehow you are purely a scientific organization, unbiased and uninfluenced by the profit motive. The AAP takes loads of money from the pharm. industry and truly is nothing more than a front organization for that industry now. If people want us to stop making the connection between vaccines and profits, then they should stop mixing the two things up themselves. I don’t want to hear even one more person who makes money off these vaccines tell me how good they are for me.
Grow up Lisa Randall!
The AAP and Paul Offit were given an on air opportunity to refute their financial interest in vaccines and refused to do so.
The facts are the facts and if you and Paul Offit and the AAP do not like it then maybe you should stop accepting money from the pharma companies who promote and profit from our immunization program.
This conflict of interest was not created by concerned citizens but by vaccine industry insiders who have placed profits above the need for adequate safety testing of vaccines. If you care so deeply about preserving our vaccination program the best way for Voices for Vaccines to support this endeavor is to support full finanical disclosure and financial transparency on this issues.
The higher ground for us all is to confess our sins.
Retractions won’t make them go away.
As a chemist who has evaluated material for mercury for 27 years, I was shocked to discover the large amounts of organic mercury in childhood vaccines. I’ve never tested any other product that has even come close. Mercury causes neurodegenerative brain disease in children. When a child’s brain is damaged they do not funtion correctly. When this happens, a psychiatrist steps in and labels the child autistic. Thanks to CBS for for pointing out the behind the scenes corruption taking place within the organizations responsible for our children’s health.
“An obvious starting point for an unbiased reporter assigned to investigate this possibility would have been to determine whether the advocates’ recommendations were in accord with the scientific consensus on immunization, as articulated by neutral bodies such as the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
“…by neutral bodies…?” Ms Randall, do you seriously believe this statement? The WHO “neutral”? With their rep at the Simpsonwood meeting making it very clear that the WHO was going to proceed with its mission regardless of any ’scare’ about the safety of vaccines? The CDC “neutral”? With its primary purpose being to prosecute the vaccine schedule??
Which brings up perhaps the most important thing that can come out of this ASD disaster: that the CDC be stripped of wearing the hat also of overseeing the safety of the v. schedule. That’s where your ‘neutral’ needs to come in: a truly neutral body, looking at ALL of the evidence about vaccines, both pro and con.
With your sense of the value of ‘neutrality’ in this matter, I hope and trust that you will support such a move. Until that time, the public owes a particular debt of gratitude to such truly investigative journalists as Sharyl Attkisson for pointing out these blatant conflicts of interest - and to CBS for being willing to take the heat in giving such investigations their much-needed airing. May ALL the facts come out in this appalling matter, and the atrocious stonewalling by the PTB give way to good, honest, ‘neutral’ evidence.
CB and Sharyl Attkisson are to be commended for exposing the blatant conflict of interests that are rampant in this industry. Why doesn’t “Voices for Vaccines” spend some time asking where the safety studies are for all these vaccines they are so quick to recommend?
“Don’t ask questions. Bring your baby in and let us inject him with anything we want while we make millions. But don’t ask any questions!”
These people are living in the past. Yes, this is what was happening in the 1980s and 1990s. Few people had sense enough (could see past the deception enough) to ask questions. We took our kids in willingly; we trusted these zealots. They obviously enjoyed this power and got quite use to it. Now they just cannot understand how parents and even the news has the audacity to ask questions. Let me paint you a picture of 21st Century America:
Most vaccinated kids in history of the world
Autism Epidemic
1 in 6 kids developmentally impaired
ADD, ADHD everywhere you look
Seisure Disorders
60% of American kids on medication
Juvenile Diabetes: rising
Asthma: rising
Allergies: rising
Auto-Immune Disorders: rising
Babies dropping dead after shots
9, 10, 11 year olds inexplicably dropping dead
Lisa Randall acts like she’s so concerned about children’s health — but how dare anyone raise questions about conflicts of interest in the great American vaccine machine. How dare anyone question why all these kids — that the zealots claim vaccines make safer and better and healthier —
ARE SO DAMN SICK! The evidence is in schools, institutions, hospitals, doctors’ offices, pharmacies and at the morgue! Based on all this EVIDENCE, why in the world are the AAP, CDC, Offit, Voices for Vaccines and Lisa Randall not asking questions?!? Especially considering THAT IS THEIR JOB. CBS News answered that question with this report. They have forgotten all about the job description; they’re just in it for the money
I think the CBS story could have been alot harsher. Sharyl was actually very nice in her approach. For one of the first times, Lisa Randall and Paul Offit are being exposed by the truth. These truths are public record and their should be no reason why it cannot be shared.
This is no revelation. Why are children currently being mandated to obtain 55 vaccines by the age of six? What problems lie within the vaccine program? Why are America’s children, who are also the most highly vaccinated children, the sickest children as well? One answer to all of these reasonable questions - follow the money - plain and simple.
As for the reference to the WHO and CDC being a “neutral bodies” when it comes to immunization practices and vaccine safety, please! Talk about the fox guarding the hen house! The CDC is watching over the very program it created and promotes. Need I say more?
Ms. Randall, I strongly urge you to stop insulting our intelligence.
Thank you CBS and Sharyl Attkisson for laying it all out there for your viewers and readers to decide. And, for not insulting us in the process.
What a lame letter, Ms Randall. You have really got nothing to say, have you - which facts are you disputing?
Here’s what I just posted on Orac’s site. Seems he thinks Lisa and V4V are above reproach. Ahh, I don’t think so.
Pssst Orac:
Want to make sure you caught this little gem from my Age of Autism NVAC Invites V4V: What Were They Thinking? piece:
Deborah Wexler, MD of the Immunization Action Coalition (IAC) sits on the Steering Committee for Voices for Vaccines along with Lisa Randall who works as a part-time attorney for the IAC.
The Immunization Action Coalition (IAC) gets their 2008 funding from the following sources:
Sanofi Pasteur
Merck & Co., Inc.
GlaxoSmithKline
Wyeth Pharmaceuticals
MedImmune, Inc.
Baxter Healthcare Corp.
National Center for HIV, Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention, CDC
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, CDC
And Lisa Randall isn’t influenced one iota by Pharma…..righhhhtttt. And I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
Bottom Line: Me thinks thou doest protest too loudly.
Thanks to the OC Register Freedomblog for keeping this issue in the spotlight where it should be.
Thanks to CBS, Katie Couric and Ms. Attkinsson for covering it and providing balance in the light of the potential consequences of losing millions in ad revenue and pressure like this letter from the manufacturers.
ABC, NBC , CNN, NPR, FOX, the AP and Reuters could only wish to have the journalistic b***s that Sharyl and Katie have shown.
Lisa Randall isn’t insulting your intelligence. You’re doing that all by yourselves.
Oh Kelli Ann, how could you make such “defamatory allegations”!?!?
The Autism.-Vaccine connection will be the biggest scandal in our
country’s history. The only reason why this has not been blown wide open yet is because our current administration has chosen to protect
the economic well being of pharma over the health and welfare of our children. To all you vaccine fanatics , there won’t always be a Bush in the white house to cover up for the vaccine manufacturers.
I’m just waiting for the govt to lose the test cases in vaccine court.
All hell is going to break loose.
Lisa Randall is another PHARMA funded lawyer who’s made a career out of bullying and patronizing the parents of children with autism who connect their children’s health issues to the adverse effects of vaccines. Just Google her name with autism and you’ll find plenty of hateful, condescending letters to the editor and blog comments she has written.
The CBS piece is exposing the dirty side of vaccination of which Ms. Randall is a part.
I agree with KFuller…..facts are facts….how can you retract an information that is under public domain?…unless you want to concoct
lies which the CDC, AAP,Offit have been telling us all these years.This Randall chick doesn’t know what she is complaining about.
Enough is enough! The day of reckoning is coming……
Hey Sullivan, You’re right. Vaccines do not cause autism (a psychiatric disorder from the DSM-IV manual). There are now 11 published, peer-reviewed papers that identify the underlying medical conditions of autism as neuroinflammatory disease. One of these papers is titled, “Neuroglial Activation and Neuroinflammation in the Brains of Patients with Autism”. It was done at John Hopkins University using brain tissue from deceased autistic patients. Now, do you want to debate whether mercury, a known neurotoxin added to childhood vaccines at levels 250 times higher than what the EPA identifies as hazardous waste, causes neuroinflammatory disease? Do you want to debate whether brain damaged kids behave in a way so that some psychiatrist can label them as somewhere on the autism spectrum?