Intended for healthcare professionals

Rapid response to:

Feature

The unofficial vaccine educators: are CDC funded non-profits sufficiently independent?

BMJ 2017; 359 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.j5104 (Published 07 November 2017) Cite this as: BMJ 2017;359:j5104

Rapid Response:

Re: Voices for Vaccines

I am grateful to Peter Doshi [1]. Venturing into the web-archive I have turned up one of the first existing pages for Voices for Vaccines from August 2008 where it states:-

"Voices For Vaccines is currently led by a Steering Committee [2]:

Joseph Bocchini, MD – American Academy of Pediatrics
Douglas Campos-Outcalt, MD and Jon Temte, MD – American Academy of Family Physicians
Anna DeBlois – Association of State and Territorial Health Officials
Alan R. Hinman, MD – Task Force for Child Survival and Development
Mark Kane, MD – Consultant
Frankie Milley – Meningitis Angels
Paul A. Offit, MD – Vaccine Education Center, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Walter Orenstein, MD – Emory Vaccine Center
Denise Palmer and Gary Stein – Families Fighting Flu
Trish Parnell – Parents of Kids with Infectious Diseases (PKIDS)
Amy Pisani – Every Child By Two
L J Tan, PhD – American Medical Association
Deborah L. Wexler, MD – Immunization Action Coalition"

On another page it states [3]:

"Voices For Vaccines has already begun enlisting members to demonstrate the strong support that vaccines enjoy across the population. Membership is at no cost and provides a subscription to our newsletter as well as the opportunity to participate in VFV-coordinated action campaigns.

"Voices For Vaccines is administratively housed within the Task Force for Child Survival and Development, an Atlanta-based 501(c)(3) organization."

So it is apparent that whatever steps Task Force took to make VFV look like a financially independent parent-led organisation it was a professional operation from inception.

[1] Peter Doshi, 'Voices for Vaccines', BMJ Rapid Responses 9 November 2017, http://www.bmj.com/content/359/bmj.j5104/rr-2

[2] Voices for Vaccines: Our leadership https://web.archive.org/web/20080820113513/http://www.voicesforvaccines....

[3] Voices for Vaccines: History https://web.archive.org/web/20080820113527/http://www.voicesforvaccines....

Competing interests: No competing interests

09 November 2017
John Stone
UK Editor
AgeofAutism.com
London N22