Bad Advice

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).

• Prologue: On Being Naïve1. What Science Is—and What It Isn’t2. White Mice and Windowless Rooms3. An Alibi for Ignorance4. Feeding the Beast5. To Debate or Not to Debate6. Make ’Em Laugh7. Science Goes to the Movies8. The Emperor’s New Clothes9. Judgment Day10. The Nuclear Option11. Pharma Shill12. A Ray of HopeEpilogue: The End of the TourAcknowledgmentsAppendix: Blogs and PodcastsNotesSelected BibliographyIndex

In breezy and deceptively conversational prose that often winks with humor, Bad Advice breaks down complex scientific subjects that have been distorted through several cultural lenses. Offit takes to task actors, network news anchors, quack scientists, and even politicians who, unlike Jolie in her thoughtful article, have opined on scientific subjects in ways that misinform the public, on occasion to a potentially dangerous degree.