Bad Advice

Paul A. Offit shares hard-earned wisdom on the dos and don’ts of battling misinformation. From conspiracy theories linking vaccines to autism to Holocaust and climate-change denial. Bad Advice is a humorous guide to taking on quack experts and self-appointed activists and a must-read for any American disturbed by politicized attacks on science.

Offit Paul :

Paul Offit is Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He holds a BS in Psychology from Tufts University (1973) and an MD from University of Maryland School of Medicine (1977). He is the author of Autism's False Prophets (CUP 2008) and, most recently, Pandora's Lab (Nat Geo 2017).Paul A. Offit is 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 Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He is an award-winning physician, coinventor of a rotavirus vaccine, and the author of several books on medical and scientific issues including, from Columbia University Press, Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure (2007) and Vaccines and Your Child: Separating Fact from Fiction (2011, with Charlotte A. Moser).

David Oshinsky, Director of the Division of Medical Humanities at NYU School of Medicine:
The beauty of mass communication in our free society is also our curse. Information flows so quickly,
from so many different sources, that one can’t help but be overwhelmed—and too frequently misled.
No one has fought harder over the years to educate the public, and to puncture the dangerously false
dogmas of pseudoscience, than Paul Offit. “Bad Advice” is a brilliant extension of his dictate, so aptly
stated by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, that one is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.
Celebrities and politicians bear the brunt of Offit’s elegantly written, often hilarious, pinpoint assaults.
But what makes this book truly special is its vision of how science can, and must, be defended against its
despoilers. “Bad Advice” is, in every sense, an essential read.

Adam Ratner, M.D., New York University:
With humor and a unique perspective, Offit takes us step by step through our culture’s missteps (and some of his own), relating stories of real science and the difficulties of communicating complicated concepts clearly to a skeptical and sometimes hostile public. Bad Advice shows us how we can succeed in the battle against pseudoscience, seductive gurus with simple messages, and snake oil-hawking celebrities.

Geoffrey Kabat, cancer epidemiologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and author of Getting Risk Right: Understanding the Science of Elusive Health Risks:
Paul Offit is a pediatrician, a vaccine scientist, and one of our foremost explainers of science. In Bad Advice, he distills what he has learned—often the hard way—from standing up for science in the face of bogus theories, quack remedies, and the flat-out denial of empirical fact. Skillfully, Offit uses stories of his many missteps in the treacherous public arena to teach us how to confront pseudoscience effectively. In the process, without noticing, we learn fascinating lessons in the relevant science. A forcefully-written, indispensable book, particularly at the present moment.

Melissa Stockwell, MD, MPH, Columbia University Medical Center:
Bad Advice gives us a front row seat to Offit’s role on the leading edge of the vaccine fight as he shows just how important communicating good science can be. The author's rare storytelling blend of equal parts humorous anecdotes and serious facts leads to an entertaining and captivating read that is hard to put down.

Arthur L. Caplan, Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Professor of Bioethics, New York University School of Medicine:
Bad advice about your health, firmly grounded in fact-free marketing, greed, and science denialism, is omnipresent in the new and old media these days. One of the few reliable sources of good advice is Dr. Paul A. Offit who, unlike all too many scientists and doctors, is ready to take on the hype and lies of celebrities, charlatans, ideologues, and money-grubbers with logic, evidence, and humor. Take my advice: Bad Advice is just what you need to navigate the murky waters of an unending stream of really bad information about your health.