Clinicians Giving Expert Witness Testimony on Vaccines

Vaccination is under attack by individuals who occasionally use the legal system to oppose mandatory vaccination laws and in some cases to obtain exemptions for particular children whose parents are opposed to vaccination. During the legal proceedings, as we have witnessed, experts testifying in favor of vaccination may be challenged with references from journals of doubtful quality that oppose vaccination.

To provide important references that discuss and disprove claims made against vaccines, the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has created a library of references addressing certain safety issues that may be useful as an aid and refresher to clinicians giving expert testimony on the safety of vaccines and to lawyers defending vaccination of children.

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia legal library may be entered through the web address vaccine.chop.edu/safety-references.

We would be grateful if you could inform your colleagues about the availability of this resource, which should be of great value for experts testifying for vaccination and for clinicians who need to convince parents about vaccine safety.

Stanley A. Plotkin, MD

Department of Pediatrics

Perelman School of Medicine

University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Paul A. Offit, MD

Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Dorit Reiss, LLB, PhD

University of California Hastings College of the Law