image: Book cover of "Autism's False Prophets." view more
Credit: Columbia University Press
Paul Offit, M.D., announced today that all author royalties earned from the sale of his new book, "Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure," will be donated to the Center for Autism Research at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
"We are very pleased to partner with Dr. Offit, and to accept the royalties of his book for the work done here at the Center for Autism Research (CAR) at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia," said Dr. Bob Schultz, director of the Center for Autism Research at Children's Hospital. "CAR is dedicated to helping children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and their families. CAR's mission is to identify the causes of ASD, and from that knowledge devise effective treatments. By donating profits from his book, Dr. Offit is helping to push science forward for the good of all."
Dr. Offit, who is chief of Infectious Disease and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital, recounts the history of autism research and argues that antivaccination forces have misled the public by claiming a false link between vaccines and autism, a challenging neurological condition whose true cause remains unknown.
Dr. Offit's book underscores the importance of dedicating scarce social resources toward supporting legitimate scientific research into autism, rather than being needlessly diverted into implausible and scientifically unsupported treatments.
Paul A. Offit, M.D. is the chief of Infectious Diseases and the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia as well as the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology and professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He has received numerous awards, including the J. Edmund Bradley Prize for Excellence in Pediatrics from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the Young Investigator Award in Vaccine Development from the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and a Research Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Health. An international expert on rotavirus-specific immune responses, Dr. Offit is the co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine RotaTeq, for which he received the Jonas Salk Award from the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, the Gold Medal from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and the Stanley A. Plotkin Award in Vaccinology from the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society.