Can we just kick the son of a bitch out of the country and be done with it? You Brits brought him into the world and even gave him a medical degree. You should take him back.
The comments are equally disgusting. Yes, you can get whooping cough more than once. Natural immunity wears off in as little as seven years just like the vaccine can. At least the vaccine won’t crack your ribs or suffocate a baby. Yes, autism has a hereditary component so if that you have asperger’s that’s probably the reason why your kid has autism and not the hep b vaccine. No, they haven’t been able to find any studies replicating Wakefield’s findings. In fact his original study does not even indicate any correlation between vaccines and autism so STFU. Vaccine makers would make more money treating measles than preventing it. Yes, vaccines carry risks. So does crossing the street or driving a car. So do vaccine preventable diseases.
Ugh. The arrogance of ignorance never ceases to amaze me.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - if it were up to me, Wakefield would be brought up on murder charges. There’s no way that evil bastard can truly believe in his own theory, given the utter lack of scientific evidence to back him up, which makes him either psychotically delusional on this issue (and therefore a danger to others) or deliberately causing an increase in vaccine-preventable diseases.
Wakefield is currently a resident of Austin, Texas, and his suit cites Texas’s “Long Arm” statute as justification for the venue. I’m no lawyer, though, so the wikipedia link is about all I can offer without completely talking out of my ass.
The way I figure it, Wakefield’s hoping the case is dismissed out of hand because of jurisdiction issues - then he can claim that he’s still being oppressed, and live off the money that he’s been collecting from his followers for the hilariously misnamed “Justice fund.” I’m hoping that this goes down as one of the great disasters of a libel suit, in which the persons sued show such definitive evidence of the validity of their disputed statements that the persons suing not only lose the case, but go to jail.
Apropos of nothing: that’s the exact thing that happened to Oscar Wilde. He sued the Marquis of Queensbury for libel, but ended up in jail himself due to the suit. Wilde and Wakefield, although both British, are quite different from one another, however. The following absolutely true and in no way libelous quotes on the nature of love should illustrate my meaning:
“Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.”
-Oscar Wilde
Why would he file in Texas? Wouldn’t British libel law be much more favorable for him? I’ve never seen someone chose the US as the venue for a weak libel suit when the UK also would have jurisdiction. Is there something I’m missing?
While UK libel law may be more favorable to the plaintiff the cost of loosing in the UK is much higher than the US. In the US the looser of a law suit does not generally have to pay the legal fees of the winner. In the UK the looser generally has to pay the legal costs of the winner.
I am well aware of that. I’m talking about his CONTINUING insistence on the link after the scads of scientific studies that indicate no such link, and after his fabrication of the evidence was revealed.
Wakefield is a charlatan who should be fed feet first into a industrial shredder for the impact caused by his claims. However, I believe the claim that he was developing his own vaccine is unproven. I would very much appreciate any links proving this, just so I can hate him a little bit more.
Long arm statutes simply define the reach of state courts (and federal courts in that state). Individual states usually limit the reach of their own courts to avoid overburdening their judiciaries with other peoples’ problems. In any event, states can’t extend their courts’ reach beyond that allowed by the constitution, and the BMJ almost certainly does not have the “minimum contacts” with Texas necessary to find personal jurisdiction.
Just to clear this up, under the “American rule” the losing party generally pays only the winner’s litigation costs, if anything (witness fees, discovery costs, deposition costs and travel expenses), and not its attorneys’ fees.
Under the “English rule” (which should really be called the “everywhere but America rule”) the loser pays the winner’s attorneys’ fees and costs.