I do think he should give accurate information, but what I have read that he has written and said does not appear to be the string of lies that he is accused of telling. I make no claim of having extensively read his writings though. That’s why I asked what he has said that I’m supposed to be outraged by.
There are a lot of links provided here to opinion blogs. That doesn’t make the opinions wrong, but I prefer to draw conclusions from the actual sources. Many open with banal errors, claiming Bob Sears is the youngest son in his family, which simply is not true (Wikipedia reports him as the second child of eight), so how accurate is the rest likely to be? Sometimes a blogger will interpret the context of a statement in a way that is not entirely supported by the primary source. I read his rebuttal to Paul Offit’s criticism and it seemed to be thoughtful and not the ragings of a nefarious anti-vaxxing loon hoping to convince people not to vaccinate. He says he is quoted out of context. Without reading Offit’s paper and Sears’ book, I can’t draw a proper conclusion.
If a doctor tells people they ought to quit smoking and they say they aren’t going to, should he/she dismiss them from his practice? If they did so, I’d understand, but I’m glad they usually don’t and try to help them anyway.
Oooh, Salon, a respected journal! And some blogs!
I never claimed he was harmless.
You aren’t “patiently” trying to do anything. You are calling me an idiot and a moron. Patient people refrain from that type of thing.
I don’t care what you are “free” to do and have not requested that anyone stop you. Go ahead, exercise your right to behave poorly.
Although I would not support legislation forcing vaccination, as I strongly believe in personal freedom, your approach leaves a lot of vulnerable kids at the mercy of their parents’ bad decisions, so I don’t like it either.
The Salon article was written by a ped. Respected Insolence is written by a doctor. Here’s another link by an Ob. Just how many people with medical degrees have to point out how badly he’s behaving for you to agree? I am calling you an idiot and a moron because you are acting like one. Dr. Sears is giving solace to stupid people who are doing stupid things that are not only stupid but contagious as well. He’s telling people that not only is okay not to vaccinate but it can even be smart to do so. While I am sure that a handful of people may have been persuaded to get some vaccines because of his lies, he’s probably convinced quite a number that vaccination is a bad choice.
I’m horrified you feel the need to side with him or defend the guy.
Dr. Sears is a doctor. His father and brother are also doctors. They seem to all agree that his approach is fine, as it is featured on their website.
So should I blindly follow the opinions of medical degree-holders or not?
You’re calling me an idiot and a moron because you are an ill-mannered bully who must resort to personal attacks instead of logic and reason. But this is the Pit, so that’s perfectly allowed of course, as it should be.
Neither of us knows whether he has increased or decreased the number of vaccinations. The fact that you refuse to even consider that this is not as black-and-white as you say just shows that your mind is shut. I know you aren’t an actual scientist or doctor, but it’s a shame you are embracing such an unscientific way of thinking while trumpeting the opposite.
You ought at least to have decent reading comprehension, but sadly it’s tabloid journalism at its finest with you. You take opinions you don’t like and try to cram them into my mouth, pretending I’ve claimed things I haven’t.
And if I’m such a stupid idiotic moron, why are you “horrified” by anything I’ve said?
You know perfectly well he has supporters, you keep saying so. You also claim they are stupid idiotic morons. What, then, has you “horrified” exactly? Isn’t this exactly as you’d expect?
Myself and others in this thread have spent quite a lot of time trying to patiently point out to you where Dr. Sears is wrong and why he is dangerous. I’m very, very, very sorry you can’t seem to understand such facts or why he is so dangerous. You are sitting there apparently quite prepared to tell someone you know who might be hesitant to vaccinate not to go to a good source but to head straight to a liar who will pat them on the head and tell the comforting bullshit. Yeah that’s pretty horrifying.
This is issue is pretty black and white. That’s not a question of my mind being shut. Most people should get vaccinated. If you can’t the best thing to do is tell others to get vaccinated. It is not to suggest that neo-natal tetanus does not exist or to pretend that delaying vaccines will reduce the risk of side effects when it won’t.
It certainly isn’t to write this sort of gibberish as Dr. Bob did on Facebook wall:
This is a childish temper tantrum and nothing else. FYI, Dr. Offit is presently the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology as well as Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania, Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, and the present Director of the Vaccine Education Center at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr. Offit has published over 130 papers in medical and scientific journals on issues such the immune responses and vaccine safety. He is also the author or co-author of several books on vaccines, vaccination. And this is how Sears responds to him . . .
You have done no such thing. You can’t be bothered to answer simple questions and instead resort to repeated childish insults and personal attacks.
You have concocted an idea in your head that I’m a big fan of Dr. Bob Sears. In reality, while it turns out I’d heard of him before today – in the context of his fathers’ idiotic attachment parenting nonsense and in the context of his delayed vaccination schedule – I never felt the need to find out more about him.
That’s why I asked you whether there was something beyond the Facebook posts you originally put up. It simply did not appear to contain the despicable lies that had you frothing so rabidly at the mouth.
Now I’ve read these links and briefly perused his site. There are a lot of people bashing and accusing him, to be sure. A lot of it really does seem to be cherry-picking and twisting out of context things he has said or written. He sure talks about trying to get people to vaccinate a lot for an anti-vaxxer. It could all be part of an evil scheme, but I don’t know enough about what claims he has made to have an opinion about that.
Instead of having a reasonable discussion, you just rant and insult. Where he acknowledges both pro-vaxxers and anti-vaxxers, you basically dismiss anti-vaxxers as non-people.
I believe strongly that there are no non-people and that people who do not share my opinions still count and matter.
You don’t seem capable of understanding why or that some people actually don’t care about your facts. I could direct people to credible sources in information, but they wouldn’t even understand them. If I can convince them to delay-vaccinate rather than not vaccinate, that is good enough. It’s the best I can do and you’re doing no better. You’re just being rude and obnoxious, poor long-suffering pseudoscientist.
I’m not familiar with the sociological underpinnings of modern day anti-vaxxers. Did it start in America and travel to Europe, like ID, or did it arise in both places at about the same time? I’d like to believe America, adjusted for educational opportunities, has the greatest kooks in the world. But Europeans have a General Ripper attitude when it comes to their precious bodily fluids, so maybe they got us beat on this one.
If this is all you’ve gotten from my posts the problem is your fault not mine. Dr. Bob deliberately misleads people on the subject of vaccines. He lies about them and gives a cover to those who avoid them or make the dumb choice to delay based on bad science. One of his patients refused vaccines and caused an outbreak of measles that spread to nearly a dozen other people. If you can’t seem to understand this, it is not for lack of information from me.
He panders and he lies and people like you have no problem with this. And then we get unnecessary cases of measles and thousands of dollars spent to clean it up and outbreaks of completely preventable diseases that hurt people. Worse, when we dare get upset at this kind of behavior we are the ones accused of behaving like barbarians.
This is not an opinion, you sanctimonious dipshit. This is public health. When you deliberately shit in the water supply you have no right to demand a “discussion” about why shitting in the water supply is an acceptable thing, let alone be granted a place at the table to expand on the possible virtues of doing so.
There’s another crazy that advises parents to “cure the autism” with bleach. By feeding it to their kids.:eek: Kills the parasites, dontchaknow.:rolleyes::eek:
You keep repeating the same unproven refrain. If “Dr. Bob” is deliberately misleading people, pandering, and lying, rather than mistaken, misinformed, or simply wrong, you should have some evidence to back that up. Instead you insist it doesn’t matter which it is. If it doesn’t matter, why do you keep coming back to these accusations, which you apparently have no indication of?
In post #65 you claim that “the moron [Sears] told some parents not to vaccinate,” which caused a measles outbreak. Now you’re backpedaling a bit and just saying his patient’s parents “refused” the vaccination.
Is it his stupidity or bad intentions that were to blame?
Did he actually tell them not to vaccinate or did they refuse and he did not somehow make them do it? Wasn’t the child in question seven years old, in which case had he received vaccinations according to the delayed schedule, rather than none at all, he would have been vaccinated by this time?
Who are these “people like me” that are “shitting in the water supply”? Are you under the mistaken impression that I eschew vaccinations for myself and my wards? We all have more than the required vaccinations. Are my people the ones that dare to have a discussion and ask a question instead of just lining up whenever the CDC orders us to? Meet me by the reservoir and bring your full bowels, people. I can’t wait to finally get our group organized now that I know they’re may be more of us!
The whole thing goes back to smallpox. Both places embraced the vaccine and both places had opposition to it. Modern day anti-vax movements have varied from country to country.
Thomas Jefferson was a huge advocate for the vaccine:
Napoleon was in awe of Edward Jenner and went to great lengths to procure the smallpox vaccine.
In the present day UK, much of the opposition to vaccines has stemmed from Andrew Wakefield’s stupid debacle.
In the Netherlands, opposition to vaccines is based in some places on religious stupidity while the French have not done enough to vaccinate so they had a few thousand cases of measles alas in 2011.
He said vaccination is “a Choice” and mentioned potential side effects as a good reason to not vaccinate. Now yes,for a brief time, there were some allergy issues with a preservative used, but this was gone by 2001. And in any case, the risks by not getting the vaccine outweighed the risks by the allergy attack by a factor of a 1000 or more.
Yes, some rare few kids have a medical condition where routine vaccinations are not advisable. But then, that’s not “a choice”. Your pediatrician will tell you what to do and what not to do for the child’s medical safety.
Your right to ‘a choice’ stops when it impacts other people lives. So, getting your kids vaccinated is not “a choice”. You dont get to endanger other peoples kids because of your personal crazy.
And you wonder why I think you’re an idiot? A patient of Dr. Sears did not vaccinate their special-wesical snowflake and went abroad where they brought back measles to to others. I am sorry these facts seem beyond your comprehension or why you think I am back peddling when I use various phrases to state that fact.
Here is an extremely detailed post about what is wrong with Dr. Bob’s views. If I don’t post the entire post it is because of copyright laws. Please read the fucking thing and come back with any other defense you feel important other than to argue that it somehow matters if his lying is deliberate or he’s just being lazy or whatever.
You are not asking questions. You are making stupid remarks, insulting me and defending a man who lies to parents.
This is a list of some of the problems with his stupid book. Please tell me why you continue to think it constitutes frothing at the mouth to point this out.
Of course it is a Choice. When presented with a Choice, you can choose wrong. The fact that you’ve made a Mistake certainly does not mean you had no choice to begin with.
If you could just point out where he actually says that potential side effects are “a good reason not to vaccinate,” that would be great. I’m not saying he never said it, I’m just asking to read or hear his words for myself, as it does not seem to mesh with the other things that I have read that he has written. I’m no fan of the guy. Like I said, I have barely heard of him, so I certainly don’t have him up on a pedestal or consider him beyond reproach, like some people might a certain Offit guy.
And of course I, and all of you too, DO get to endanger others with our personal crazy. How can we possibly be stopped without restricting so many freedoms that it becomes an even less-funny joke than it already is? This is a problem with living in a society, but what else is there?
FYI, the people shitting in the water supply are anti-vaxxers who you have idiotically accused me of seeing as non-people. Their views are not an “opinion” as you so quaintly phrased it. The only thing that matters when it comes to them is either convincing them to stop or isolating them from harming others. As the first is not likely the second is probably more useful. It does not turn people into “non-people” when we refuse them the right to shit on public health measures.
You mean the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology? The Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania? The Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, and the present Director of the Vaccine Education Center at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia? The author of over 130 papers in medical and scientific journals on issues such the immune responses and vaccine safety?
That guy?
FYI, he’s a wonderful person – nice and kind and generous. He’s patiently answered my many questions on this subject. I met him in person last October and he was delightfully gracious.
This is a silly argument. Vaccinate your children unless told to avoid vaccinations by a competent ped for medical reasons. Worrying about the alleged issues that Dr. Bob brings up is just irrational. If you continue on that path, the public has the right to tell you to stop. If you refuse, the public has the right to restrict your freedom. You do not have the right to infect others deliberately.
I expressed no wonderment with regard to your opinion of my intellect. I know you think you are super-important in the field of Vaccination Opinion, but your approval is something I’d actively avoid, as you are obviously a bitter and troubled individual.
You aren’t using “various phrases” to state a fact. Perhaps you still maintain that Sears told these parents not to vaccinate? Can you provide a cite for that?
I would hope a writer would value the actual meaning of words, but it’s all kind of a mishmash for you, isn’t it? Murder, manslaughter, who cares, right?
I’ve read plenty of “he says” this and “he says” that, including the links that work, but where are his words actually saying these things?
Yes, the one you verbally fellate at every opportunity.
I’m sure he is a wonderful person, but you don’t seem to have any desire to actually evaluate facts for yourself when you can parrot him instead.