The most recent public promulgation of the lie was from Jake Crosby on May 12. Mr. Crosby stood up and claimed that Paul Offit, while sitting on the Advisory Council on Immunization Practices, voted three times to approve a competitor's rotavirus vaccine to "open up the market for a rotavirus vaccine". Mr. Crosby went on to allege that the votes were in themselves an unethical conflict of interest.
It's a lie.
The RotaShield vaccine was voted onto the US immunization schedule early in 1998.
In an email to Kim Wombles, Dr Paul Offit wrote (emphasis added):
Further reading:1) Although I was brought onto the [Advisory Council on Immunization Practices ]ACIP because of my expertise in rotaviruses and intestinal immunology, I didn't first vote until October 1998. So I didn't get to vote RotaShield onto the infant vaccine schedule. However, I did vote to approve RotaShield for the VFC [Vaccines for Children] program, which in those days could follow the vote to put a vaccine onto the schedule by several months. I was allowed to vote because I was not involved with a competing vaccine (our vaccine was still years away). Ironically, when I voted to approve RotaShield for the VFC program, I couldn't imagine how anyone could declare a conflict of interest because the product would only compete with the vaccine we were working on. But I guess I was dammed if I did and dammed if I didn't.
2) I left the ACIP in June 2003, three years before our vaccine (RotaTeq) was voted onto the schedule (which was in February 2006).
- A detailed and factual analysis of Paul Offit's "vaccine payout".
- Paul Offit on continuing payments from his rotavirus vaccine patent
- Short, factual sources for countering vaccine misinformation: Vaxfax.me
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