Paul Offit Continues His Practice of Noisy Deception: The Record Shows that Two Vaccine Deaths, Unsafe Vaccine Storage and Vaccine Failure Led to Samoan Vaccine Skepticism, Not Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Vaccinators have cracked the code: when their product fails, blame the critics. Project your guilt and shame on others. Anyone. Corporate narcissism is what you get when you have no liability.
In a recently published online video, Paul Offit, who makes his living off vaccines at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia, made a few startingly false claims that are easily debunked. The most egregious of these is his reckless claim that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s visit to Samoa to ground-truth news reports of a measles outbreak caused vaccine refusal, leading to the deaths of Samoans from measles.
Offit is contributing to misinformation and noise.
The reality is that the measles outbreak in Samoa was not clearly a wild-type measles outbreak; that fear of the MMR vaccine was earned because the MMR shot had killed two infants, allegedly due to vaccine preparation issues, and the numbers of official reports just don’t add up.
Per Wikipedia: “The 2019 Samoa measles outbreak began in September 2019. As of 6 January 2020, there were over 5,700 cases of measles and 83 deaths, out of a Samoan population of 200,874. Over three percent of the population was infected.”
Wikipedia also reports that “The cause of the outbreak was attributed to decreased vaccination rates, from 74% in 2017 to 31–34% in 2018”. That’s a remarkable drop in whole-population vaccination rates in a single year, (how does 50% of the population become unvaccinatedion in 1 year??(!).
In July 2018, CNN reported, "Samoa pulls MMR vaccine after two babies die".
They died minutes after receiving the MMR vaccine.
Clearly, Kennedy had nothing to do with the cause of vaccine skepticism in Samoa.
If the cause of the outbreak is attributed by Wikipedia to decreased vaccination rates, from 74% in 2017 to 31–34% in 2018, and Kennedy did not visit Samoa until June of 2019, Offit has a problem understanding temporal causality.
Edwin Tamasese, a Samoan community organizer had been distributing vitamins to reduce mortality due to measles in Samoa and had been attempting to procure a measles vaccine for testing. He was arrested for speaking out to warn his fellow Samoans of the risk of unsafe and incorrectly stored vaccines.
I asked Edwin to recount the events that transpired.
Unfortunately, just as in the Disneyland measles outbreak in the US, the percentage of cases of measles in Samoa in 2019 that were wild-type versus vaccine-type is unknown. According to Tamasese,
“In Samoa, only 7 of the 34 initial cases sent to Australia for testing came back positive for measles.”
When the measles outbreak made news, doctors around the world realized that the vaccine skepticism caused by the deaths of the two girls meant that two large therapeutic doses of Vitamin A would be needed to reduce the severity of measles cases.
From WHO (Nov 22, 2019 report):
“UNICEF has delivered to Samoa a total of 105,500 doses of MCV (measles-containing vaccine) since 1 October. In addition, UNICEF has also delivered 30,000 Vitamin A tablets and six 42 sqm tents. Six units of ice-lined refrigerators (ILRs) and three emergency trolleys are in the pipeline. UNICEF has deployed three health and nutrition specialists, one communication for development specialist, and one logistics specialist to provide technical assistance to the government and augment the Samoa-based immunisation specialist…”
The Cold Chain Storage of Vaccine Custody Was Broken
Samoa went from 99% MMR vaccine coverage in 2002 to 62% in 2003, and 25% in 2004. his means that the majority of Samoan children were unvaccinated and unless they had prior exposure to the virus, they had both risk of clinical measles and Vitamin A deficiency.
The situation on the ground was a debacle. Notice the “ice-lined refrigerators”? There were reports of vaccines traveling overland via dirt roads to the villages inland with the cold chain storage of the vaccines broken. On April 13, 2022, SBS News Australia reported that more than 60 measles vaccines that had not been properly refrigerated by a Samoan clinic had been thrown out.
That’s why Edwin was warning families - as any ethical person would do.
Type of Virus Involved in Deaths Uncertain
The WHO reported that
"The outbreaks in Samoa and Tonga (were) caused by the D8 strain (genotype) of measles virus."
Edwin: “The status on the Samoan reports for this and literally all those that died never changed from ‘suspected measles’ suggesting that there was never any confirmation that they actually died from wild-type measles. Samoa also had a historically low vaccination rate as per WHO data over a 14-year period of around 34%. Within this 14 year-period, there were several recorded measles outbreaks with no fatalities.”
We had all seen from Roy et al. that 37% of “measles” cases - a surprisingly large percentage - were shown by PCR testing to be measles vaccine-type associated rashes; i.e., vaccine-derived measles cases.
Edwin: “The status on the Samoan reports for this and literally all those that died never changed from ‘suspected measles’ suggesting that there was never any confirmation that they actually died from wild-type measles.”
Earlier Low Vaccination Rate Not a Problem? Smells Like Vaccine Failure
A Ministry of Health report from the same period reported that most of the measles cases in Tonga were vaccinated; this also points to vaccine failure.
Edwin also reported: “The first child to die from ‘measles’ in Samoa was fully vaccinated according to schedule.” That further points to unsafe vaccines or vaccine failure. He continued: “Samoa also had a historically low vaccination rate as per WHO data over a 14-year period of around 34%. Within this 14 year-period, there were several recorded measles outbreaks with no fatalities.”
The US CDC admits that generally failed measles and mumps vaccine programs
A US CDC Report from May 2018 showed that following an initial high antibody response, a two-dose schedule of MMR vaccination leaves about 70% of individuals a decade or two later able to catch and spread measles. Their data show that a third dose only boosts antibody counts temporarily: within a single year of a 3rd dose, counts return to baseline. It’s the same pattern for mumps. What’s going on?
The death of people with natural immunity is exposing the poor performance of measles vaccines. Their immunity contributed to a large portion of the claimed early “success” of measles vaccine campaigns. As those populations die off, new infants are born to women who do not pass on adequate passive immunity, CDC reported that the population is undergoing “changing measles epidemiology, with increased measles incidence occurring among adolescents, young adults, and infants too young to be vaccinated”.
Their evidence includes the resurgence of measles in vaccinated populations (image credit: Bernadette Pajer).
Clearly, Kennedy had nothing to do with this, either.
Stolen Valor
This debacle reveals the stolen valor M.O. of vaccine operatives: according to them, vaccines, and they alone are given credit when, in reality, the measles virus’ natural relationship with humans was seasonal cases, increased immunity in those susceptible leading to lifetime immunity, followed then by a period with no measles cases reported until a new birth cohort emerged from protection from passive immunity from antibodies acquired from their mothers during breastfeeding.
Edwin confirms: “Offit's claim that the outbreak ended with the lockdown and forced vaccination of the entire population is blatantly false as well. The outbreak had already peaked and was well into decline. By the time the measles vaccine would have been active, the outbreak was essentially over although in fact cases slightly increased after the two-week period post-vaccination.”
The WHO and UNICEF reports confirm this assertion.
Edwin also reports that few of the children who received measles diagnoses received medical care; in a recent (2022) outbreak in Ohio, by contrast, treatment of dehydration seemed sufficient to allow all children given a measles diagnosis to recover.
Paul Offit is a professional noisemaker, but he does not seem to be aware that his slander of Robert F. Kennedy., Jr. does not bode well for his own public image as an objective scientist or professional.
In contrast to vaccine zealot Paul Offit, Arkmedic published this walk down memory lane re: Samoa as a warning of the modus operandi of the vaccinologists in Nov 2022:
You promised us excellent articles from Popular Rationalism in the near future--and you have delivered! I forwarded the article to three friends who are religious followers of the church of perpetual boosters. One is a medical doctor who recently moved from the U.S. to Australia because his medical university was trying to force him to practice medicine against his better judgment. He does call anti-vaxxers who oppose measles idiots who are endangering the lives of innocent children. It's odd that professional people--especially doctors--seem to be the ones most religiously accepting of the necessity of vaccines.
Loved this article - it made me laugh and think. The debunk was too easy. “Offit has a problem understanding temporal causality” 😂 My grandchildren understand temporal causality very well - “But, Amo, I wasn’t even there!!!” On a more serious note... the short term benefits of measles vaccinations versus long term harms to overall community immunity, all while antibiotics lose their potency, is a real crisis people need to understand. Does this “penny wise, pound foolish” thinking in science/medicine have a scientific term or phrase? “Vaccine-wise, immunity foolish” is a real problem! Worse than ever since COVID vaccines.