That's Meryl Dorey's claim, made September 22, 2011 on the Australian Vaccination Network Facebook page (image and link at the bottom of the post).
[Offit] has been pushing long and hard for ALL EXEMPTIONS to be removed so that everyone will have to vaccinate their children.
The short answer is that no, Dr. Offit does not oppose "all vaccine exemptions", but Dr. Offit (like most physicians involved in pediatrics and vaccinology and the majority in public health) would like exemptions more difficult to obtain.
The following passage is from an article published October 2010, in California's Quest Magazine: Health Officials to Consider Tightening Vaccine Exemptions,
The 20 states that appear in green – California among them – allow parents to get a personal belief exemption for their child. The states highlighted in pink allow parents to opt out of vaccination only for religious reasons. (Credit: Institute for Vaccine Safety, Johns Hopkins University).
California is one of 20 states that allow parents to opt out from providing proof that their children have received mandatory vaccinations by stating that they are philosophically opposed to their child being vaccinated.
All states except for Mississippi and West Virginia allow parents to opt out because of their religious beliefs. And every state allows for children who have a medical reason to opt out.
California’s vaccine exemption system is among the easiest in the country, said Dr. Saad Omer, of the Emory Vaccine Center at Emory University in Atlanta, who has compared exemptions around the country. California law requires only that a parent sign a form called a personal belief affidavit – also known as a personal belief exemption – stating that immunizations are contrary to his or her beliefs....
Omer found that in states where getting an exemption is easy, such as in California, the rate of whooping cough was at least 50 percent higher than in states that made it more difficult for parents to opt out.
In California, it is actually easier to get a "personal believe exemption" as it's called, than it is to get your child vaccinated. All a parent or guardian has to do is to sign the back of the school immunization record ( Download Pm286b) .
Paul Offit on exemptions: 2007 Wall Street Journal article, "Fatal Exemption".
Some would argue that philosophical exemptions are a necessary pop-off valve for a society that requires children to be injected with biological agents for the common good. But as antivaccine activists continue to push more states to allow for easy philosophical exemptions. more and more children will suffer and occasionally die from vaccine-preventable diseases.
When it comes to issues of public health and safety, we invariably have laws. Many of these laws are strictly enforced and immutable. We don't allow philosophical exemptions to restraining young children in car seats, to smoking in restaurants or to stopping at stop signs. And the notion of requiring vaccines for school entry, while it seems to tear at the very heart of a country founded on the basis of individual rights and freedoms, saves lives. Given the increasing number of states allowing philosophical exemptions to vaccines, at some point we will to be forced to decide whether it is our inalienable right to catch and transmit potentially fatal infections."
In Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All (2011), Offit discusses religious and philosophical exemptions on pages 191-196. The bottom line? It's his opinion that both religious and philosophical exemptions would be "difficult to eliminate".
In March, 2011, The Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society (of which Dr. Offit is a member) released a position statement, A Statement Regarding Personal Belief Exemption from Immunization Mandates (Download Pids-pbe-statement).
The statement calls for any legislation or regulation regarding personal belief exemptions to contain the following provisions to minimize use of exemptions:
- The personal belief against immunization must be sincere and firmly held.
- Before a child is granted an exemption, the parents or guardians must receive state-approved counseling on the importance of immunization, vaccine safety, and the consequences of exemption for their child, as well as for other children in the community who are vulnerable to disease and cannot otherwise be protected.
- Before a child is granted an exemption, the parents or guardians must sign a statement that delineates the basis, strength, and duration of their belief; their understanding of the risks that refusal to immunize has on their child's health and the health of others; and their acknowledgement that they are making the decision not to vaccinate on behalf of their child.
- Parents and guardians who claim exemptions should be required to revisit the decision annually with a state-approved counselor and should be required to sign a statement each year to renew the exemption.
- Children should be barred from school attendance and other group activities if there is an outbreak of a disease that is preventable by a vaccination from which they have been exempted. Parents and guardians who claim exemptions for their children should acknowledge in writing their understanding that this will occur.
- States that adopt provisions for personal belief exemptions should track exemption rates and periodically reassess the impact that exemptions may have on disease rates.
The signatories to the statement:
Vaccine Advocacy Committee of Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society
- Chairman Christopher J. Harrison, MD
- Committee Members
- David M. Berman, DO, MS
- James H. Conway, MD
- Jaime Fergie, MD
- Sandra L Fowler, M.D.
- Phillip S. LaRussa, MD
- Edgar Marcuse, MD
- Gary S. Marshall, MD
- John F. Modlin, MD
- Dennis L. Murray, MD
- Martin M. Myers, MD
- Paul A. Offit, MD
- Barbara Pahud, MD
- Mobeen H. Rathore, MD
- Emmanuel B. Walter, MD
- Bonnie Word, MD
- Society President Penelope H. Dennehy, MD (ex-officio)
So the evidence is clear: Dr. Offit is not pushing for the elimination of all vaccine exemptions. Meryl Dorey lied. Again.
click to emMerylate Link: http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=111420278965592&id=55142201924
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