Paul Offit

Paul A. Offit, MD, is a pediatrician specializing in infectious disease medicine, an internationally known expert on vaccines, immunology, and virology, the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology, Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania, Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, and the Director of the Vaccine Education Center at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr. Offit has been a member of the Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. He is also an author and a consultant to pharmaceutical giant Merck, with whom he shares a rotavirus vaccine patent (number 353547). Dr. Offit has published more than 120 papers in medical and scientific journals in the areas of rotavirus-specific immune responses and vaccine safety and is the co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine recently recommended for universal use in infants by the CDC. Offit is the co-author of three books, entitled Vaccines: What You Should Know (2003), Breaking the Antibiotic Habit (1999), The Cutter Incident: How America’s First Polio Vaccine Led to Today’s Growing Vaccine Crisis (2005), and Vaccinated: One Man's Quest to Defeat the World's Deadliest Diseases (2007).

Education
Offit earned his bachelor's degree from Tufts University and his Medical Doctor credentials from the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

Rotavirus and the CDC
Offit is a co-patent holder for RotaTeq, a rotavirus vaccine manufactured by Merck in 2006. It is the second vaccine against rotavirus to be introduced in the United States. (The first rotavirus vaccine, RotaShield, was pulled from the market six months after its introduction because of numerous vaccine injury reports. Some children developed serious and painful bowel obstructions, which had also been found during the clinical trials of the vaccine.)

Offit was not involved in the development of this first vaccine, but he was a part of the CDC advisory committee that recommended its universal administration to infants in the United States in the late 1990s.

In October, 1998, Offit began his tenure on the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). Out of four votes pertaining to the ACIP's rotavirus vaccine recommendation, he voted yes three times, before abstaining from voting on ACIP's decision to withdraw its recommendation for routine use of the vaccine after its first, albeit brief, market introduction. At the meeting where the decision was made, he explained that "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." The CDC has granted conflict of interest waivers to every member of the APIC advisory committee.

The rotavirus vaccine is necessary to protect public health, according to Offit. In the US, rotavirus is blamed for killing about sixty children a year. Rotavirus is often a deadly disease in developing countries, where it is thought to cause nearly a million deaths annually from severe dehydration. However, vaccine critics point out that sanitation and dietary problems in such countries greatly undermines attempts to attribute such death tolls strictly to the virus.

Rotavirus vaccine returns
In February, 2006, a new version of the rotavirus vaccine, with the brand name RotaTeq, was approved by APIC for inclusion in the recommended US vaccination schedule, after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted marketing approval to Merck. Two studies, by Merck and its competitor GlaxoSmithKline and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, concluded that the drug companies have separately, each with their own new versions, overcome the serious problems that plagued the original rotavirus vaccine. Offit, who regularly tours the US touting the safety of vaccines, has been featured widely in the media promoting the vaccines derived from his patent.

Recognition
Offit is a recipient of numerous awards, including the J. Edmund Bradley Prize for Excellence in Pediatrics from the University of Maryland Medical School, the Young Investigator Award in Vaccine Development from the Infectious Disease Society of America, and a Research Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Health.

Quotes

 * "If they were willing to look at all the studies that were done with vaccines, they would find that they are, I think without question, the safest, best-tested thing we put into our bodies. I think they have a better safety record than vitamins."  (60 Minutes, October 20, 2004)
 * "I think without question the smallpox vaccine has severe adverse events that occur at a rate far greater than any of the other vaccines that we use today. Which means that the smallpox vaccine, is I think, without question, our least safe vaccine.  But it is absolutely safe if one defines 'safe' as benefits outweigh risks in a situation where the disease is present.  When the disease isn't present, then one only is frankly aware of the risks, because there are no benefits."  (PBS, 2002)

Books

 * 2007, Vaccinated: One Man's Quest to Defeat the World's Deadliest Diseases, Smithsonian Books/Collins, ISBN 978-0-06-122795-0
 * 2005, The Cutter Incident: How America's First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis, Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-10864-4
 * 2003, Vaccines: What You Should Know (third edition), with Louis M. Bell, Wiley
 * 1999, Vaccines: What Every Parent Should Know, by Paul A. Offit and Louis M. Bell
 * 1999, Breaking the Antibiotic Habit: A Parent's Guide to Coughs, Colds, Ear Infections, and Sore Throats, with Bonnie Fass-Offit and Louis M. Bell
 * The Vaccine Handbook: A Practical Guide for Clinicians, with Gary S. Marshall, Penelope H. Dennehy, David P. Greenberg and Tina Q. Tan

Medical articles

 * Moser, C.A., Speaker, T.J., Berlin, J.A., and Offit, P.A. 1996.  "Aqueous-based microencapsulation enhances rotavirus-specific humoral immune responses after parenteral inoculation of mice".  Vaccine 14:1235-1238.
 * Lomotan, E.A., Brown, K.A., Speaker, T.J., and Offit, P.A. 1997.  "Aqueous-based microcapsules are detected primarily in gut-associated dendritic cells after oral inoculation of mice".  Vaccine 15:1959-1962.
 * Moser, C.A., Speaker, T.J., and Offit, P.A. 1997.  "Effect of microencapsulation on immunogenicity of a bovine herpes virus glycoprotein and inactivated influenza virus in mice.  Vaccine 15: 1767-1772.
 * Coffin, S.E., Moser, C.A., Cohen, S., Clark, HF., and Offit, P.A. 1997.  "Immunologic correlates of protection against challenge after intramuscular immunization of mice with rotavirus". Journal of Virology.  71:7851-7856.
 * Moser, C.A., Cookinham, S., Coffin, S.E., Clark, HF, and Offit, P.A. 1998.  "Relative importance of rotavirus-specific effector and memory B cell responses in protection against challenge".  Journal of Virology.  72:1108-1114.
 * Brown, K.A. and Offit, P.A. 1998.  "Rotavirus-specific proteins are detected in murine macrophages in both intestinal and extraintestinal lymphoid tissue".  Microbial Pathogen. 24:327-331.
 * Coffin, S.E., and Offit, P.A. 1998.  "Induction of rotavirus- specific memory B cells in gut-associated lymphoid tissue after intramuscular immunization. Journal of Virology.  72:3479-3483.
 * Moser, C.A., Speaker, T.J., and Offit, P.A. 1998. "Effect of water-based microencapsulation on protection against EDIM rotavirus challenge in mice".  Journal of Virology.  72:3859-3862.
 * Coffin, S.E., Moser, C.A., Cohen, S., Speaker, T.J., and Offit, P.A. 1997. "Enhanced protection and mucosal immunity induced by intramuscular inoculation of mice with microencapsulated rotavirus".  Journal of Virology 71(10): 7851-6.
 * Coffin, S.E., Clark, S.A., Bos, N.A., and Offit, P.A. 1999.  "Migration of antigen-presenting B cells from peripheral to mucosal lymphoid tissues may induce intestinal antigen-specific IgA following parenteral immunization".  Journal of Immunology 163:3064-3070.