Sunday House Call, #454, September 8, 2013

 

There is belief and there is reality when it comes to alternative medicine practices. What leads many to believe unproven health benefits from a myriad of health products and yet harbor suspicions about what medical treatments and vaccines have to offer? Are we being duped by the same old approach but with snake oil being gussied-up by celebrities and new media where the internet is a free for all zone of amazing yet unproven health claims?

This divide is made readily apparent in Dr Paul Offit’s new book, Do You Believe in Magic: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine.

Paul Offit is the Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and the Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

He is the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology and a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He is a recipient of many awards including the J. Edmund Bradley Prize for Excellence in Pediatrics from the University of Maryland Medical School, and a Research Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Health. He has published more than 140 papers in medical and scientific journals in the areas of rotavirus-specific immune responses and vaccine safety. He is also the co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine.

Dr. Offit was honored by Bill and Melinda Gates during the launch of their Foundation’s Living Proof Project for global health. In 2009, Dr. Offit received the President’s Certificate for Outstanding Service from the American Academy of Pediatrics.