Comments on: Barbara Loe Fisher’s lawsuit against Paul Offit dismissed

By: Julian Frost

Julian Frost — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 05:41:35 +0000

Mr Gale, if you are insinuating that Paul Offitt used his position to get his rotavirus vaccine accepted, you are committing libel. Those so-called conflicts of interest were noted, and appropriate measures were taken to ensure that Offitt could not unduly influence the committee.
You mention the “autism epidemic”. Better diagnosis, more awareness and changes to the diagnostic criteria have had an influence. I subscribe to the hypothesis that autism was under-recognized and under-reported in the past. As a side note, yesterday I saw an episode of The Big-Bang Theory. Sheldon comes across as a high-functioning autistic.

By: Sullivan

Sullivan — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 20:51:00 +0000

Richard Gale,

You offer much opinion as fact.

Please, tell me where Dr. Offit has been “severely reprimanded” by congressional leaders. There have been past congresspeople who promoted the autism-as-vaccine-injury agenda who were critical of him, but to my knowledge there is no official reprimand of Dr. Offit. I am well aware of the false arguments that Dr. Offit manipulated the advisory committee. He voted along with the rest of the committee to allow a competitor’s vaccine be added to the schedule. He abstained from voting to remove it. He wasn’t a voting member when his own vaccine was added.

It is certain that children receive too many vaccinations? Please, provide the science that determines how many vaccines a child can have before it is “too many”.

You are aware that one of the proposed explanations for the increase in autism prevalence is genetic, don’t you? Kind of strange how that works out. The “there can be no genetic epidemic” saying is actually false.

Please, show that the past prevalence of autism (as defined today) was ever 1 in 10,000.

By: Richard Gale

Richard Gale — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 20:28:12 +0000

Please do your homework. Offit has been the poster child for vaccines within the pharmaceutical industrial complex and has been severely reprimanded in the past by congressional leaders for his many conflicts of interest and his manipulation of the CDC’s advisory committee that approves vaccines. It is certain that children today receive far too many vaccinations. Epidemics do not appear out of thin air, they have definite causes, and hunting for genes will not close the matter. Developmental genetics simply doesnt work that expediently, capable of increasing the autism rate from 1 in 10,000 or more to 1 in 166 in 2006 and again 1 in 91 (harvard’s last survey in Fall, 2009) in several decades. The current vaccine schedule for kids should be reduced, but I recommend Offit be the first to be dropped.

By: Anti-vaccination Stories Shift with the Tides « Confutata

Anti-vaccination Stories Shift with the Tides « Confutata — Wed, 12 May 2010 18:18:08 +0000

[...] Barbara Loe Fisher, who has in the past been one of the more effective anti-vax spokespeople, filed a defamation suit against Dr. Paul Offit, journalist Amy Wallace, and Wired magazine, for printing Offit’s [...]

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:20:21 +0000

Looking back at the three 990s on that page, I see that before 2007 the president of NVIC is listed as “Barbara Littles.” I am assuming that is Barbara Loe Fisher.

Reminds me of the my son’s fourth grade teacher. When I met her she had one name… then after her divorce she reverted back to her maiden name. A couple of years later she married again and changed to his name. During the years my kids were in that school she had three different names.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:09:49 +0000

Because that is name. If you look at the 990 forms for NVIC (available here: http://www.casewatch.org/990/index.shtml ), you will see that her name changed a couple of years ago. I assume it is because she married a Mr. Arthur.

By: Christine

Christine — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:11:34 +0000

Anyone know why she filed suit as Barbara Loe Arthur rather than Barbara Loe Fisher? Just curious.

By: FreeSpeaker

FreeSpeaker — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:54:50 +0000

BLF: When you cannot win on the facts and science, sue, sue, sue.

By: Kathleen Seidel

Kathleen Seidel — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:09:43 +0000

For me, the real kicker comes at the end, where Judge Hilton basically says, “Sure, I know you’d like to find yourself another place to strut your stuff, but no way in hell is that going to happen in my courtroom.”

“...[I]n the context of the Wired article, the statement “she lies” lacks the probably false content that is required to support a defamation action. Not only Plaintiff’s claim of the statement’s falsity invite an open-ended inquiry into Plaintiff’s veracity, but it also threatens to ensnare the Court in the thorny and extremely contentious debate over the perceived risks of certain vaccines, their theoretical association with certain diseases or syndromes, and, at bottom, which side of this debate has ‘truth” on their side. That is hardly the sort of issue that would be subject to verification based upon a “core of objective evidence.”

”The same prospect of litigation over unresolved – and perhaps unresolvable – scientific arguments was among the reasons that the accusation of lying in Faltas were deemed to be nonactionable.

”Plaintiff may wish to defend in Court the credibility of her conclusions about the danger of vaccines, the validity of the evidence she offers in support of those theories, and the policy choices that flow from those views – as well as her own credibility for advancing those positions. These, however, are academic questions that are not the sort of thing that courts or juries resolve in the context of a defamation action…”

By: Clay

Clay — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 04:23:05 +0000

Let’s hope his “History of the Anti-Vaccination Movement” has the effect of burying it! Sure, AoA will complain, but it would be like the muffled screams coming from a 6 feet deep coffin. Someone yelling,”My son is my science!” will barely be heard.