The short answer is that no, Dr. Offit has never been "reprimanded by Congress" for any reason.
This myth came up again today at LeftBrain/Rightbrain.
[Paul Offit] was reprimanded by Congress for voting on vaccine policies for which he had financial conflicts.
What actually did happen is that Dr. Offit served on the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) from from October 1998 until June 2003.
In August 1999, the Congressional Committee on Government Reform initiated an investigation into Federal vaccine policy; the investigation focused on possible conflicts of interest on the part of Federal policy-makers. Why would a committee undertake such an investigation, if there wasn't a hint of a problem? Because the committee was chaired by Rep. Dan Burton, the congressman who to this day believes in the vaccine theory of autism causation and is notably anti-vaccine.
Note the date, 1999. This was during the "autism is vaccine injury" panic. Do you think the investigation was unbiased? I don't either.
The other half of the puzzle is the short-lived rotavirus vaccine Rotashield. This vaccine was licensed in August 1998, and withdrawn October 22, 1999, after concerns about an elevated occurance of intussusception among children who received the vaccine. The CDC estimated that one to two additional cases of intussusception would be caused among each 10,000 infants who received the RotaShield vaccine. The incidence of intussusception was sufficiently rare that field trials of hundreds of thousands of children would have been required to detect this attribute of the vaccine. In other words, the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System worked.
The report, Conflicts of Interest in Vaccine Policy Making, was released on August 21, 2000. The report was critical of the CDC's policies and enforcement of policies, and used the conditions of committee members to illustrate the weak policies and lax enforcement.
Here's what the actual report says about Dr. Offit:
Page 30:
Dr. Offit shares the patent on the Rotavirus vaccine in development by Merck and received a $350,000 grant from Merck for Rotavirus vaccine development. Also, he acts as a consultant to Merck.
Dr. Offit began his tenure on ACIP in October of 1998. Out of four votes pertaining to the ACIP’s rotavirus statement, he voted yes three times, including voting for the inclusion of the rotavirus vaccine in the VFC program.
Dr. Offit abstained from voting on the ACIP’s rescission of the recommendation of the rotavirus vaccine for routine use. He stated at the meeting, “I’m not conflicted with Wyeth, but because I consult with Merck on the development of rotavirus vaccine, I would still prefer to abstain because it creates a perception of conflict.”
Hardly a "reprimand".
If you want to read the actual report yourself, Download Conflicts_of_Interest_Aug_21_2000
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