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Robert "Bob" W. Sears, MD, FAAP (known as Dr. Bob) is a pediatrician from Capistrano Beach, California, noted for his unorthodox views on childhoood vaccination. His best-selling book, The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for your Child (2007), proposes two alternative vaccine 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 US child population.

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, a book positing that the whooping cough vaccine was dangerous. The book was written by anti-vaccination authors Harris Coulter and Barbara Loe Fisher.

Views on vaccines

Sears is well-known for his views on vaccine scheduling. He has promoted the idea that parents avoid or delay vaccinating their children, counter to the recommendations of mainstream medical bodies, and his book recommends following two alternative vaccine schedules, rather than that of the American Academy of Pediatrics. His proposals have proved popular with concerned parents seeking a "compromise" between embracing, or avoiding, vaccination, and have contributed to under-vaccination in the US child population, putting public health at risk.

Sears has said that he was concerned that "there really hasn't been enough research on the various chemicals and ingredients in many vaccines to prove that they are 100 percent safe." His notions, for example that vaccination risks causing "antigenic overload", are however based on misconceptions and not sound scientific evidence.

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 including Oprah Winfrey.

Sears has written about vaccines and autism for the 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."

Sears' viewpoints and The Vaccine Book have been criticized. 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 soft science, circular logic, reporting rumors and outright falsehoods."

A writer on the intersection of science and the media, Peter Lipson, 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 least 15 were not vaccinated." Lipson has also stated that "anti-vaccine doctors should lose their licenses," just like Andrew Wakefield did, and named three doctors in that connection: Sears, Jay Gordon, and Jack Wolfson. Sears responded to Lipson's article in an email, and Lipson chose to use an extensive point-by-point criticism of the email, a technique known as fisking, in his response.

In 2008, an "intentionally undervaccinated" seven-year-old boy who had been a patient of Sears was identified as the index patient who started a measles epidemic. This was the largest outbreak in San Diego since 1991: it "resulted in 839 exposed persons, 11 additional cases (all in unvaccinated children), and the hospitalization of an infant too young to be vaccinated.... a net public-sector cost of $10,376 per case."

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)

See also

• Andrew Wakefield
• MMR vaccine controversy
• Vaccine controversies

References

1. "Dr. Bob". Askdrsears.com. Retrieved 31 August 2013.
2. ^ Kirkland A (2012). "The legitimacy of vaccine critics: what is left after the autism hypothesis?". J Health Polit Policy Law. 37 (1): 69–97. doi:10.1215/03616878-1496020. PMID 22003097.
3. ^ Poland GA, Jacobson RM (2012). "The clinician's guide to the anti-vaccinationists' galaxy". Hum. Immunol. (Review). 73 (8): 859–66. doi:10.1016/j.humimm.2012.03.014. PMID 22504410. Sears' alternative vaccination schedule has resulted in significant under-vaccination, putting children at risk from infectious diseases, which is measurable in terms of increased rates of measles and pertussis ...
4. Meet the Sears
5. "Entries by Dr. Bob Sears". Huffington Post. Retrieved 18 July 2013.
6. ^ Esquivel, Paloma (September 6, 2014), Vaccination controversy swirls around O.C.'s 'Dr. Bob', Los Angeles Times, retrieved January 27, 2015 {{citation}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
7. Hendrick, Bill (December 29, 2008). "Alternative Vaccine Schedule Stirs Debate". WebMD. Retrieved 18 July 2013.
8. Jacobson RM (2010). "Vaccination refusal and parental education: lessons learnt and future challenges". Pediatric Health. 4 (3): 239–242. doi:10.2217/phe.10.27. ISSN 1745-5111. the delays leave the child and others at risk for vaccine-preventable diseases.
9. Lenneman, Fritz (9 October 2009). "Understanding Childhood Vaccine Schedule Options". O, The Oprah Magazine. Retrieved 5 February 2014.
10. Ołpiński, Marian (July 2012), Anti-Vaccination Movement and Parental Refusals of Immunization of Children in USA, Pediatria Polska, retrieved January 28, 2015 {{citation}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
11. Kam, Katherine (July 2, 2012), What Is the Alternative Vaccine Schedule? Experts debate the pros and cons of the alternative vaccine schedule and what it means for parents., WebMD, retrieved January 29, 2015 {{citation}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
12. ^ Woo, Michelle (9 August 2012). "Dr. Robert Sears Takes on Both Sides of the Great Vaccination Divide". OC Weekly. Retrieved 5 April 2014.
13. Sears, Bob (September 9, 2009). "Vaccines and Autism: What Can Parents Do During This Controversy?". Huffington Post. Retrieved 18 July 2013.
14. Offit, Paul (2009). "The Problem With Dr Bob's Alternative Vaccine Schedule". Pediatrics. 123 (1): 164–169. doi:10.1542/peds.2008-2189. PMID 19117838.
15. Gorski, David (September 10, 2009). "After all this time, Dr. Bob Sears finally tips his hand on vaccines, part III". ScienceBlogs. Retrieved 18 July 2013.
16. Willingham, Emily (23 March 2014). "Worried About Measles? Don't Call Dr. Bob Sears". Forbes. Retrieved 5 April 2014.
17. Parikh, Rahul (October 13, 2010), Face off with the best-selling vaccine guru, Salon, retrieved January 25, 2015 {{citation}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
18. Lipson, Peter (January 14, 2015), Measles Spreads From Southern California, Sickens Dozens, Forbes, retrieved January 20, 2015 {{citation}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
19. Lipson, Peter (January 30, 2015), Anti-Vaccine Doctors Should Lose Their Licenses, Forbes, retrieved January 31, 2015 {{citation}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
20. Lipson, Peter (February 2, 2015), Measles Vaccination: A Response From Dr. Bob Sears, retrieved February 3, 2015
21. ^ Sugarman, DE (April 2010), Measles outbreak in a highly vaccinated population, San Diego, 2008: role of the intentionally undervaccinated., Pediatrics, retrieved January 22, 2015 {{citation}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
    "The importation resulted in 839 exposed persons, 11 additional cases (all in unvaccinated children), and the hospitalization of an infant too young to be vaccinated. Two-dose vaccination coverage of 95%, absence of vaccine failure, and a vigorous outbreak response halted spread beyond the third generation, at a net public-sector cost of $10 376 per case. Although 75% of the cases were of persons who were intentionally unvaccinated, 48 children too young to be vaccinated were quarantined, at an average family cost of $775 per child."
22. Sears, Robert (March 25, 2012), Response by Dr. Bob Sears: In reply to lilady, 25 Mar 2012 9:56 AM, The Huffington Post, retrieved January 22, 2015 {{citation}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
23. Perkes, Courtney (December 29, 2008), OC's Dr. Bob Sears discusses measle outbreak on NPR, Orange County Register, retrieved January 22, 2015 {{citation}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
24. CDC (February 29, 2008), Outbreak of Measles --- San Diego, California, January--February 2008, CDC, retrieved January 22, 2015
25. Haelle, Tara (January 20, 2015), Five Things To Know About The Disneyland Measles Outbreak, Forbes, retrieved January 22, 2015 {{citation}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

• Living people
• American pediatricians
• Anti-vaccination activists
• Georgetown University Medical Center alumni
• People from Dana Point, California
• People in alternative medicine