Robert W. Sears, FAAP -- known as Dr. Bob -- is an American pediatrician from Capistrano Beach, California, noted for his unorthodox views on childhood vaccination. His best-selling book, The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for your Child (2007), proposes two alternative vaccination schedules that depart from accepted medical recommendations. His proposals have enjoyed celebrity endorsement, but are not supported by medical evidence and have contributed to dangerous under-vaccination in the national child population. In spite of his denial that he is "anti-vaccine", he is characterized as an anti-vaccine doctor and a vaccine delayer.
Video Robert Sears (physician)
Views on vaccines
Sears is well known for his views on vaccine scheduling. He recommends that parents avoid or delay vaccinating their children, counter to the consensus recommendations of medical bodies, and his book recommends that parents follow his two alternative vaccine schedules, rather than that of the American Academy of Pediatrics. His proposals are popular with parents who are influenced by incorrect information propagated by anti-vaccination activists and seek a "compromise" between embracing, or avoiding, vaccination. This has contributed to under-vaccination in the US child population, putting public health at risk.
Sears has written about vaccines and autism for The Huffington Post, stating, "back in the 1990s, the party line within the medical community was that vaccines do not cause severe reactions...So the party line has changed to the opinion that such severe reactions are so rare that the general population doesn't (and shouldn't) need to worry about them." In 2014, Sears said that he thinks "the disease danger is low enough where I think you can safely raise an unvaccinated child in today's society."
Although he is characterized as an anti-vaccine doctor and a vaccine delayer, he does admit that vaccines work: "Chicken pox, measles, whooping cough, polio, diphtheria, all these diseases that we no longer see very much of anymore, I do say that the vaccines are responsible for getting rid of these." Sears is against mandatory vaccination.
Sears has encouraged those parents who choose not to vaccinate their children to not tell others of their decision. He writes, "I also warn them not to share their fears with their neighbors, because if too many people avoid the MMR, we'll likely see the diseases increase significantly." He thus encourages "free riding" on the herd immunity created by others. His position has been criticized: "Such free-riding is immoral...because it demonstrates a willingness to make unfair use of the contributions others have made to social cooperation." In 2008, Sears told the New York Times that 20% of his patients do not vaccinate at all, and that another 20% vaccinated partially. He also said that "I don't think [vaccination] is such a critical public health issue that we should force parents into it."
Sears' activism includes open opposition to California's Senate Bill SB277, a bill which proposes to eliminate non-medical vaccine exemptions. He also invoked Godwin's law by comparing non-vaccinating parents to Nazi-persecuted Jews. A fellow pediatrician considered the comparison "disgraceful":
- "To compare the plight of the Jews under Hitler to that of those who willingly forego a preventive treatment that safeguards not only the health of their children, but the community as a whole is to lose all moral grounding. It is to purloin the most appalling suffering of the 20th century's greatest victims, and assign it to those whose choices make not only themselves but their neighbors less safe. It is repulsive.... Dr. Bob Sears should be ashamed of himself."
Alternative vaccine schedules
In 2007, Sears published The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision For Your Child through the Sears Parenting Library, and, as of 2012, it had sold more than 180,000 copies, and garnered support from celebrities. The book includes his two alternative vaccine schedules: "Dr Bob's Selective Vaccine Schedule" is for those "who want to decline or to delay vaccines". "Dr Bob's Alternative Vaccine Schedule" is for those "who worry that children are receiving too many vaccines too early". This schedule involves spreading out the vaccines received by the child, and separating some vaccines that would otherwise be combined. The book has been described by Vox as "basically a guide to skipping vaccines," and that "it may as well be called The Anti-Vaccine Book."
Sears has said that he created his alternative vaccine schedules to allow parents to vaccinate their children "in a more gradual manner" than by following the CDC-recommended schedule. His notions, for example that vaccination risks causing "antigenic overload", are, however, based on misconceptions and not sound scientific evidence. On an episode of All In with Chris Hayes, Sears admitted that there was no published, peer-reviewed evidence to support the notion of vaccine overload, and that "my precautions about spreading out vaccines are theoretical, a theoretical benefit to kids..." Health journalist Julia Belluz has stated: "From a scientific standpoint, Sears is a quack: while he claims to be a vaccines expert, he is not a researcher and has never conducted his own vaccine science." Regarding his theory of vaccine overload, "according to the data mustered by the scientific community, he's simply wrong."
In 2008, an "intentionally undervaccinated" seven-year-old boy-- a patient of Sears -- was identified as the index patient who started a measles epidemic in 2008, an epidemic which was the largest outbreak in San Diego since 1991. The epidemic "resulted in 839 exposed persons, 11 additional cases (all in unvaccinated children), and the hospitalization of an infant too young to be vaccinated....[with] a net public-sector cost of $10,376 per case.... 48 children too young to be vaccinated were quarantined, at an average family cost of $775 per child".
Reception
Sears' viewpoints and The Vaccine Book have been criticized by the press and numerous medical professionals.
Paul Offit wrote that "Sears sounds many antivaccine messages" in the book. Sears has been criticized by David Gorski, who wrote that Sears is anti-vaccine, and by Emily Willingham, who has dismissed The Vaccine Book as "non-evidence-based." Steven Novella criticized the book's attempt to tell both sides of, and assume a moderate position in, the vaccine debate as like "trying to compromise between mutually exclusive positions, like young-earth creationism and evolution".
Pediatrician Rahul Parikh has described Sears as someone whose "understanding of vaccines is deeply flawed," that his Vaccine Book "is a nightmare for pediatricians like me," and "is peppered with misleading innuendo and factual errors". He also writes that "Sears misleads parents," using "tactics [like] soft science, circular logic, reporting rumors and outright falsehoods".
Peter Lipson, a physician who writes about the intersection of science and the media, states that "...Sears is a useful (although hardly unique) example of a dangerous doctor.... Despite his protestations that he is not 'anti-vaccine', his language and his recommendations very clearly guide parents to be suspicious of vaccination and to avoid the safe and effective recommended vaccination schedule." Lipson also considers it less than coincidental that Orange County, California, the same county where Sears practices, has "reported the highest rate of measles in the state last year. It's also home to some of the state's highest numbers of unvaccinated children. Of the 20 people infected by the current outbreak [at Disneyland], at least 15 were not vaccinated." Lipson has also wrote that "The anti-vaccine movement has been driven by lay people such as Jenny McCarthy, and disgraced doctors such as Andrew Wakefield, the author of the fraudulent autism-vaccine paper. He's no longer permitted to practice medicine. But there have been a few actual licensed medical voices over the last several years fighting to keep our kids sick" and said that such doctors should also lose their licenses. As examples of such doctors, Lipson named Sears, Jay Gordon, and Jack Wolfson. Sears responded to Lipson's article in an email. Lipson's response was an extensive point-by-point refutation of each point in the email, a technique known as fisking.
Arthur Caplan calls Sears an "anti-vaxx pediatrician who favors alternative medicine". He also discusses Sears and similar physicians, calling for the revocation of "the license of any doctor who opposes vaccination". He believes they are purveyors of "junk science" who are in violation of the American Medical Association's Code of Ethics. He also states that "California's medical licensing board frowns on doctors who endanger the public health, and says that 'the board shall take action against any licensee' charged with unprofessional conduct, incompetence or dishonesty. That unprofessionalism is not, the courts have said, limited to 'the actual treatment of a patient.' Sears is squarely in violation."
At an AMA House of Delegates' committee hearing, David T. Tayloe, former president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, expressed his opposition to non-medical exemptions and mentioned Sears in that connection:
- "The AMA does not need to leave a loophole in its policy for the likes of Jenny McCarthy, Bob Sears, etc ... Our vaccines are extremely safe, and children need to be immunized at 90% or more to achieve herd immunity, and we can't do this with choice."
Accusation of medical negligence
On September 8, 2016, the Medical Board of California released documents accusing Sears of "gross negligence" when he issued a letter in 2014 prescribing no vaccines for a two-year-old patient without adequately examining the patient's medical history. If found negligent, he faces a variety of sanctions, including revocation of his medical license.
Maps Robert Sears (physician)
Selected works
- Father's First Steps (2006). With James M. Sears
- The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision For Your Child (2007)
- The Premature Baby Book: Everything You Need to Know About Your Premature Baby from Birth to Age One (2008). With William Sears
- The Autism Book: What Every Parent Needs to Know About Early Detection, Treatment, Recovery, and Prevention (2010)
Personal life
Sears is married and has three children. He is one of eight children born to William Sears, a well-known pediatrician and founder of the Sears Parenting Library, and Martha Sears, a registered nurse. Sears received his medical degree from Georgetown University in 1995 and completed his pediatric training at Children's Hospital Los Angeles in 1998. Sears credits his interest in vaccines to reading DPT: A Shot in the Dark (1985) as a medical student. It is an anti-vaccination book positing that the whooping cough vaccine was dangerous. It sparked "a backlash against vaccines".
See also
- Andrew Wakefield
- MMR vaccine controversy
- Vaccine controversies
References
External links
- Cashing in on fear: the danger of Dr. Sears, a critique of his book.
- Dr. Bob's Response to Dr. Offit's Statements About The Vaccine Book
- Interview with Sears - "The Vaccine War", Frontline
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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