J.B. Handley Forsworn

Update 5/16/2011: The domain name PaulOffit.com has been transferred to Dr. Paul Offit and his wife,  Dr. Bonnie Offit.  See J.B. Handley Makes Good on His Promise, Finally, Sort Of.

Mr Handley also published his version of the whole issue, including the phrase,

looking for some reason to sully my reputation,

No, Mr. Handley, your actions sullied your reputation -- you didn't need outside help.

see blog post http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/05/pauloffitcom-the-website-no-one-wants.html

Update 5/14/2011: Mr. Handley claims to have fulfilled his end of the deal.  He didn't.  He is still forsworn.  See below. 

The best short response to J.B. Handley's claim to have fulfilled the deal?  Andrew at Respectful Insolence

I didn't break my promise to return your car - I left it unlocked on the street, so it's your own fault that someone took it.

Remember, the deal was:

I will make sure that the pauloffit.com website is given to you [Bonnie Offit] and your husband [Paul Offit MD] for good.

A person of honor and integrity would have:

1. Determined the steps for domain transfer
2. Communicated the steps necessary for domain transfer to Dr. Bonnie Offit and Dr. Paul Offit, with sufficient back-and-forth communication to ensure all three parties (Handley and the Drs. Offit) were aware of the steps including any time limitations, and that the Drs. Offit were prepared to act on the transfer when it became actionable.
   
3. Initiated the transfer at a time and in such a way that the Drs. Offit were ready and able to take possession of the domain name.
4. Safeguarded the transaction  in such a way that only the three parties to the deal were aware of the transfer.
   
5. Safeguarded the transaction in such a way that the property (the domain name) could only come into the possession of the Drs. Offit.

It is clear from Mr. Handley's communication (screenshot above of comment below) took only the first of those five steps.

J. B. Handley is still forsworn.  He did not keep his promise.

Update #1 One of my readers reminded me privately that I had not explained that J.B. Handley had purchased the domain name PaulOffit.com in order to revile Paul Offit MD.  This is commonly called "cybersquatting," or purchasing a domain name in bad faith.  This  purchase is not Mr. Handley's first or only act of cybersquatting. It is a further indication of Mr. Handley's character.

Update #2 A list of blog posts on the topic of the current ownership and content of PaulOffit.com is at the bottom of the post.

Update #3 Screencaptures of the current contents of PaulOffit.com is at the bottom of the post

Update #4: What Handley's supporters thought about his agreement to honor his word and transfer the PaulOffit.com domain name to Paul Offit

 Last month there was the big reveal of Sullivan's real identity, as I discussed in Now it Can Be Revealed: the Blogger Sullivan's True Identity -- Time for JB Handley to Make Good on His Promise.

edited 5/14/2011 to add:

 Here is the promise J. B. Handley made, on November 16, 2010, in the blog post http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/04/matt-carey-phd-says-hes-bonnie-offit-just-kidding.html:

(click image to see full size)

 

In response to Sullivan revealing that he was indeed Matthew J. Carey, Mr. Handley wrote, on April 29, 2011

... I also made a simple promise that if Sullivan was NOT Bonnie Offit, I would not utter said name of said leader of the Dark Side.

I also offered to give up the website www.pauloffit.com

....‘Nuff said, in the world I live in, a deal’s a deal...

For a while, the website pauloffit.com had this image:

Which wasn't exactly keeping his promise, but was close enough (and humor counts).

Now, the forsworn J.B. Handley (who still controls the website, apparently) has posted this:

 

(click to embiggen)

Forget that "voted himself rich" is the endless lie. 

J. B. has reneged on his deal.  He is forsworn; he has demonstrated what his word is worth.

Update: evidently the PaulOffit.com website has not been transferred to Paul Offit, as Mr. Handley promised to do.  However, Handley, who used to control the website, has granted someone named M. Wazowski editing privileges Evidently I am clueless when it comes to Monsters Inc. M. Wazowski is also a Monsters Inc. character.  And Mr. Handley has previously sneered at those who use pseudonyms for blogging. Handley has still gone back on his word.

Other blog posts about Handley's integrity and honor:

1. May 12, 2011, ToddW at Harpocrates Speaks Integrity and Honesty, which includes a comment from Paul Offit MD confirming that Mr. Handley made no attempt to contact Dr. Offit for ownership transfer of PaulOffit.com
2. May 12, 2011 Kim Wombles at Countering J.B. Handley Backs Out of Agreement Regarding Offit Website 
3. May 12, 2011 René Najera at The Epi Times: Quick Note: I Guess Honor Doesn't Stand for Much Anymore 
4. May 12, 2011 Leart Shaka at The Vaccine Times: J.B. Handley and the Unkept Promise

Responses from Age of Autism readers to Mr. Handley's post http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/04/matt-carey-phd-says-hes-bonnie-offit-just-kidding.html, posted at 5:44 am on April 29, 2011

Mr Handley wrote at the link above:

I’m also pleased to see you now blogging in your own name, as all AoA writers and parents do. I think it’s a simple way to demonstrate courage, conviction, and integrity in the things you write.

I urge readers to examine each of the signatures to the comments below, and evaluate for themselves how many of the comments are signed with the commenter's real name.

(Images represent all comments in order of posting, to the best of my ability.  I may have missed some comments.  Images shown reduced size. Click to open full-size images full size)

 

 

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END Comments

Current Contents of PaulOffit.com

Images shown reduced size. Click to open full-size images full size

END

Comments

[Anne]

Hey that's Sullivan's buddy Mike Wazowski! Hmm, is JB Handley now using this website to attack Paul Offit and Matt Carey at the same time? He said he wasn't going to attack Matt, but that's JB for you.

[Maureen Chuck]

What does he mean by "voted himself rich". I'm in Australia, so I may be missing parts of the story
Maureen

[Andrew]

It means "abstained from voting whenever the vote concerned anything he had a financial stake in" in JB's quaint dialect.

[Chris]

Especially when it takes very little effort to find the truth. That Dr. Offit was not on the ACIP when RotaTeq was voted in can be verified just by looking at the records. A quick search on the CDC website for ACIP documents finds a 2005 draft version of ACIP minutes where Dr. Offit is a presenter, and not a committee member. RotaTeq was approved in 2006, Dr. Offit was no longer an ACIP member.

Actually the ACIP minutes where RotaTeq were voted in are also online, the Feb. 2006 ACIP meeting. The rotavirus discussion starts on page 34, with a vote several pages later, I cannot find Offit’s name.

[Liz Ditz]

Maureen, thanks for the comment:
The "big lie" is that Paul Offit was an active, voting member of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) when his vaccine was approved in 2006.

The facts

1. Paul Offit MD served on the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) from 1998 to 2003. During his tenure, ACIP approved a previous rotavirus vaccine, Rotashield, for which he voted.
2. After-market safety surveillance of Rotashield found that it had a side-effect so rare that could not have been reliably detected in pre-market trials, and ACIP voted to suspend distribution of Rotashield
3. Dr. Offit recused himself from that vote.
4. Dr. Offit finished his service at ACIP in 2003.
4. Dr. Offit was no longer serving at ACIP when RotaTeq was approved in 2006

As Chris wrote

A quick search on the CDC website for ACIP documents finds a 2005 draft version of ACIP minutes where Dr. Offit is a presenter, and not a committee member. RotaTeq was approved in 2006, Dr. Offit was no longer an ACIP member.

[Liz Ditz]

Anne, thanks for the heads-up that "P. Wazowski" might be a fictitious name (obviously, I'm not that up on the cast of Monsters Inc., other than Sullivan).

Hmmn, J.B. Handley has previously sneered at those who post using pseudonyms. Is this his own back-handed work, or is there indeed an autism parent

[KWombles]

Nice work, Liz. Mine's up at Countering.

[Vwl]

Perhaps someone should inform Pixar that Mr. Handley is using their trademarked and copyrighted characters to spread lies about a notable medical researcher.

[Todd W.]

And my post is up at Harpocrates Speaks. http://silencedbyageofautism.blogspot.com/2011/05/integrity-and-honesty.html

[Todd W.]

Looks like the Vaccine Times has also written about it. The Epi Times also has a short piece.

[Matt Carey]

This is all rather sad, really. I hate to have been proven right on this.

For whatever it's worth, I'm at IMFAR this week. Not really keeping up on these events. Gotta say, neither is anyone else at IMFAR. I just reposted a piece I put up last month (when the abstracts were mistakenly made public pre embargo). It's about a vaccine oriented study. Kev noted another one in a blog post. But there isn't any real discussion of vaccines here.

It's nice to walk up to researchers and have them say, "I read your blog", though.

I had a great time on Wednesday with an amazing group of people. Stephen Shore, John Robinson, Alex Plank, Steve Silberman, Shannon Rosa. Also, Alex's team covering the event, AJ and Noah (sorry I don't have their last names). It gives me great hope. We agree more than we disagree. And when we disagree, we stay respectful.

Whoever owns the site, they should consider the tag line and where they put it on the page. Apparently, M. Wakawoski thinks that Mark Blaxill and Dan Olmsted are either (a) not telling the truth or (b) not journalists or (c) both. Just my read ;)

For whatever it is worth, on April 29th, I sent an email to Mr. Handley:

Mr. Handley,

A few people have forwarded your piece to me today. I appreciate what you have said and I have offered a public apology on LeftBrainRightBrain for questioning your integrity in honoring your commitments.

As far as the domain pauloffit.com, you can transfer that directly to the Offits. I believe you have his contact information. If not, it can be found on his website: http://www.paul-offit.com/

Matt Carey

He replied that he "would take care of it".

I frankly don't care what doublespeak he has to explain why he didn't (or how in his mind he did).

[JB Handley]

Sent to Todd W's blog:

Todd:

Dr. Offit is lying, as usual. On may 3rd, Dr. Offit received an email from register.com offering the transfer of the site to him. After 72 hours, Dr. Offit had not claimed it and the site was available to anyone to register. The email where the register.com transfer was sent was provided to me by Matt Carey, who directed me here to find it:

www.paul-offit.com

I even sent Mr. Carey a note on May 6th advising him of that and offering to interview him for AoA, in the spirit of closing the gap between us, to which he has never responded, here's the contents of that email:

Just an fyi that pauloffit.com was unlocked and an email sent to Dr. Offit making it available to him was sent Tuesday afternoon this week. Case closed. The offer stands for an interview to be posted at AoA, thanks, JB

Someone is lying to you, JB Handley

[Chris]

Perhaps you'd be willing to re-email Dr. Offit with details, and really hand it over.

[Do'C]

What happened to "in the world I live in, a deal's a deal" JB?

"I will make sure that the pauloffit.com website is given to you and your husband for good."

[Andrew]

> Someone is lying to you

But who?

>, JB Handley

Oh. Him.

[Roberta]

I wonder what Mr. Handley would do with an employee who handled a transfer as haphazardly as this? I doubt that he'd be as magnanimous with them as he's being with himself.

Roberta

[Aletheia]

Translation of J.B. Handley's statement:

I, J. B. Handley, promised to put U. S. bearer bonds directly into the hands of Bonnie Offit and her husband.

Here's what I actually did:

1. I put the bearer bonds in an open, unsecured location.
2. I did not communicate directly with Dr. Offit on my letterhead, in a conversation, or any other way in which Dr. Offit and I would have a two-way conversation.
3. I instructed a third, corporate party to leave a note in Paul Offit's business inbox as to the location of the bonds. The note was NOT on my personal letterhead, but on the generic letterhead of the third party. It's kind of like getting a personal message on a coupon from McDonald's.
4. I told other people about the location of the bonds, and indicated if Offit hadn't retrieved the bonds after 72 hours, anybody else was free to pick them up.

See? I fulfilled my promise. It's not my fault that Dr. Offit didn't read the message printed on the McDonald's coupon from the third, corporate party. He should have known it was from me. He should have known to get right to the unsecured location.

[Richids A. Coulter]

edited to remove personal information that "Richids A. Coulter -- a fake name, not even a pseudonym -- had no business posting. Mr. Coulter also supplied a bogus email address.

Shame on you, Mr. Coulter, for lying about the date the website was registered to Dr. B. Offit, and shame on you for futher propagating private information

Registered to Bonnie Offit on May 4th, 2011

Registrant:

Bonnie Offit
[redacted address, phone, email]

Who is lying, that's the real question.

Mr. Coulter, somebody at Age of Autism -- somebody named Steve who posted a comment that's been removed, but I have a screenshot-- lied to you about the registration date.

[Chris]

Perhaps it would help if you did not edit the information. From my whois search I get:
ICANN Registrar:
REGISTER.COM, INC.
Created:
2006-04-14
Expires:
2012-04-14
Updated:
2011-05-15

And from another whois site:
Domain Name: PAULOFFIT.COM
Registrar: REGISTER.COM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.register.com
Referral URL: http://www.register.com
Name Server: DNS073.B.REGISTER.COM
Name Server: DNS211.A.REGISTER.COM
Name Server: DNS233.C.REGISTER.COM
Name Server: DNS249.D.REGISTER.COM
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Updated Date: 15-may-2011
Creation Date: 14-apr-2006
Expiration Date: 14-apr-2012

>>> Last update of whois database: Mon, 16 May 2011 11:55:34 UTC <<<