Public Health Doublespeak on Natural Immunity: When Paul Offit Debated Martin Kulldorff, And Argued Against Himself

For about a year, I’ve had this question floating around in my head, refusing to go away. Did Dr. Paul Offit really debate on the side of ignoring natural immunity for the purposes of vaccine mandates, while he personally believed the opposite?

In today’s Rumble Stream, Ryan and I went through the evidence—and showed beyond a reasonable doubt—that yes, he did. It’s quite stunning to hear: a clear example of public health doublespeak, where someone will stand up in public, argue vociferously for one position, while actively advising the opposite in private. I strongly believe we need to be documenting all these examples so that we never forget the power of bureaucracies to mislead us.

But let’s take it from the top.

A Stunning Admission

About a year ago, I tweeted out this clip that went somewhat viral. It got coverage from alternative media like the Kim Iversen Show and Brownstone Institute:

Alexandros Marinos 🏴‍☠️ @alexandrosM

How was the decision made to ignore immunity from prior infection? In this clip, Paul Offit describes how he and another person advised in favor of accepting natural immunity, while two others voted against it. A🧵 on why that was possibly the worst decision of the pandemic:

In this podcast, released January 25, 2022, Paul Offit described a meeting in the White House, in which top US Public Health officials (Fauci, Collins, Wallensky, Murthy) got opinions from four advisors—including Offit—about whether natural immunity should count as a vaccine for the purpose of vaccine mandates. Here are his exact words (emphasis mine):

[…] I was asked, along with three other people, to advise the administration on whether or not natural infection should count as a vaccine. I think you just have to say, how are you going to show that you were naturally infected? So I think PCR would not be the way I would go. I would show that you have antibodies, say, to viral nuclear protein. Just that, because that way you know that you've been naturally infected, because that's not something you would get from a vaccine. So you could do that, for example. So bureaucratically, that's tough. I understand that. But the four of us were asked to comment on, did we think natural infection should count in situations where the vaccine is mandated? And I was one of the two people that said yes. The other two people said no.

The federal vaccine mandate was announced on September 9, 2021, which means that this advisor meeting must have happened earlier, likely sometime in July or August 2021. The timeline here is important.

Double Talkin’ Jive

And yet, he argued in private that natural immunity should count as a vaccine in situations where the vaccine is mandated—on September 22—when debating Martin Kulldorff as part of the Munk Debates.

The relevant portion starts at around 22 minutes and 28 seconds:

In it, he makes a number of comments vaguely talking up the benefits of vaccinating the already immune, but his main argument is one of bureaucratic inconvenience:

[…] I think we really have no choice at this point but to mandate vaccines for the unvaccinated. If you want to try and add a layer above that to screen out who's been previously infected and who hasn't, I think that makes it a more difficult program to institute, with no downside to vaccinating the people who've already been naturally infected. But the point is, we have to find a way to vaccinate the unvaccinated and mandates, I think, are the only way.

So while in the summer of 2021, he privately voted in favor of natural immunity counting as a vaccine equivalent for the purposes of mandates, in the fall, he publicly argued against his own vote.

Perhaps he had changed his mind? It’s hard to believe when in January of 2022, in the same podcast, he said things like this:

Zdogg: More data coming out still saying, well, [natural immunity is] actually pretty good, right? If you've been infected…

Paul Offit: As you would expect. It's true for every other virus. With the arguably, the exception of flu. I mean, if you've gotten measles, there's no reason for you to get a measles vaccine, or Mumps, or Rubella, or chicken pox. You've been vaccinated, essentially. And I think it was probably more bureaucratic than anything else. It is not at all surprising that if you're naturally infected, that you will develop high frequencies of memory B and T cells, which would protect you against serious illness. And I think that is what the CDC now has shown.

Public Health Looks Down On The Public

The obvious explanation is that Dr. Offit was simply talking up the company line. He delivered the unified message all public health officers were expected to deliver: that public health was wise and correct in its judgements, and that those deviating had to be subjugated, even if he privately disagreed with the very argument he was publicly making. And yet, he was not introduced in the debate as the press secretary of the CDC, but as an independent academic. With so many examples of this kind of doublespeak, how can we ever trust public health officials to not bamboozle us? How are we going to go into the next health emergency with decision makers so discredited? Most importantly, why didn’t they consider this in their infinite wisdom?

I will close this article with a quote from Martin Kulldorff—who refused to play the game—and told it like it is:

And it makes zero sense from a public health point of view. But it's worse than that. It actually creates problems because when people see that they are forced to take a vaccine that they don't need because they already are immune, then that sows a lot of distrust in public health. And we have seen during this last year and a half that all the hard work we have done over many decades to build trust in the vaccines are now disappearing because we're making these mandates that this makes no sense from a scientific or public health perspective.

We desperately need more public health officials like Martin Kulldorff—who trust the public’s intelligence, and who will tell the truth when it matters, not months or years late. So far, we see no intention of elevating them in public health. Instead, we’ll see more promotions of loyal insiders who will toe the line, despite what they think is best.