Fighting a little more ignorance.
It’s not really news, though. The details of how the study was commissioned expressly for the lawsuit have been out there since no later than 2002 (which is when I was working with kids who have austim) and the accusation of fraud always accompanied said details.
The worst thing about this is that anti-vaxers don’t care that Wakefield has been discredited, they think he’s some sort of martyr who is being painted as in the wrong by the vaccine companies. The damage is done :
I know Wakefield was struck off, but could he be prosecuted for fraud as well? Or possibly be sued by people who’ve contracted diseases in recent epedemics caused be low vaccination rates? I know the last one is probably a stretch, since it would be hard to prove causation in a specific case, even if the general trend is clear.
There’s no doubt that Andrew Wakefield is a massive douche, but he’s not entirely responsible for the hysteria surrounding vaccines and autism. He’s not the one who ran with the story making more and more sensational headlines while ignoring the countless studies that proved there is no link between MMR vaccines and autism. The press is just as much if not more responsible for the scare.
This video of Dr. Ben Goldacre is a good little summary how stupid the press has been.
Dr. Goldacre is my newest hero. That was an incredibly spot-on piece. Props to the journalists who helped him rat out their colleagues.
Seconded. I love his Guardian column, and I cannot recommend his book Bad Science strongly enough. It’s fairly UK-centric - there’s a chapter on Gillian McKeith (is she big in the US?) but it’s clearly written and, well, brilliant.
On the mommy boards this morning nobody’s insisting that vaccines cause autism; the new refrain is that (1) the long-term effects of vaccines haven’t been studied, so their kids won’t be vaccinated, and (2) the current vaccination schedule is way too aggressive for little immune systems.
There’s also a new current of thought that blames food additives for autism and autoimmune diseases. I think that’s a harmless rabbit hole; I’m happy for the anti-vaxers to fall down it.
The latest fraud revelations are news. The story has evolved over the years since the Wakefield study first appeared in the Lancet. There were questions about the significance of its conclusions early on. Then it was revealed that Wakefield had massive undisclosed conflicts of interest (getting paid massive sums by a trial lawyers group hoping to sue over the MMR vaccine and Wakefield having tried to patent a vaccine of his own that could have made a lot of money had the MMR been discredited). Revelations including sloppy and poorly conducted research followed, Wakefield’s co-authors abandoned him and the Lancet retracted the paper. Fraud allegations have surfaced only recently, and the latest expose by Brian Deer (the British Medical Journal is running articles) details how patient data was manipulated by Wakefield to falsely create the impression of a “syndrome” arising within 14 days of MMR immunization (and using patients who either did not have a diagnosis of autism, or in at least one case had actually developed symptoms before they got an MMR shot).
There was a terrific Anderson Cooper program on CNN last night in which Wakefield was interviewed, and his sleazy evasions and conspiracy-mongering given short shrift by others on the program (Cooper, Seth Mnookin (who’s written a book dealing with antivaxers’ war on public health) and Dr. Sanjay Gupta). Well worth watching.
Not true.
Open for investigation.
Meanwhile, I’ll continue to follow the recommended protocols with my children.
Not entirely sure it’s harmless, but certainly less harmful than the vax paranoia.
That clip is from a BBC show called Newswipe. The show gives a snarky insight into how news are reported. It’s very British but most of the criticism applies to news all over the world. Most of the episodes should be on Youtube. Here’s a clip on the visual language of news.
Oh, excellent!
Thank you - I now have a new time-waster that isn’t a waste. 
He did a US edition at the end of last year.
holy shit, that’s the best thing I’ve seen all week.
The “too much too soon” mantra is believable if you conceive of your child as living in a bubble without immune stimulation other than that provided by vaccination.
The reality is that one’s immune system is constantly under challenge from infectious agents, allergens etc.
And as Sanjay Gupta pointed out last night on CNN, older vaccines like that for smallpox contained large quantities of immune-stimulating antigen, unlike vaccines on the new schedule. If “little immune systems” were getting overwhelmed with the greater immune stimulus provided by the old vaccines, why weren’t we seeing more cases of autism in those days?
has anyone ever thought outside the simple box that the vaccinations cause it? Anyone think maybe the kids are supposed to have those diseases and that having them helps create immunity to others that come later?
We also do know that someone who gets a childhood disease later in life, well it is a lot worse in effects and damage, seeming to help prove the point. Also shows why they can’t find bad causes in the shot itself but yet this did not happen much 50 years ago. I think I have the answer right.
This could explain all the new cancers too, the childhood diseases act like a vaccine themselves for other more serious diseases. It would explain everything we see in one swoop, therefore is likely correct.
Well, I think all diseases are caused by invisible aliens that are trying to take over the planet by slowly killing off all the humans. It explains everything in one fell swoop, so is therefore likely correct.
Mumps, measles, polio, pertussis, and so on can be deadly diseases. This ain’t like chicken pox where you’re sick for a week and then get over it. Kids DIE from these things. You just don’t realize it, because you’ve never seen a kid die from measles. And that’s because kids are vaccinated against measles.
In all your posts on the board so far, you have not posted *anything *that was right.
No. It doesn’t make much sense.
There are no new cancers. More people get cancer today, but it’s largely because people live longer while in the past they would have probably died of something else first. Problems like obesity also seem to contribute. There is something to be said for having a robust immune system - many people think the increased use of antibacterial products has lead to more allergies - but your theory is wrong. If you get whooping cough or the flu as a child, there’s a good chance it’s going to kill you. It’s not going to toughen up your immune system. I guess if we stopped vaccinating there would be fewer people getting cancer, but that’s because there would be more dead children.
Andrew Wakefield should be held criminally responsible for the deaths that can be attributed to the hysteria causewd by his “study.” But the anti-vaxxers don’t care. I have already been drawn into a debate with one who is using the “too many too soon” argument.