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](http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=10726293)
Fuck him. I hope he has a miserable life, and his legacy is to be forever linked to Weston A. Price, DDS and Francis M. Pottenger, Jr. MD. Can we ban him from the US? Have we done it already? Why the hell not?
According to wikipedia, he doesn’t have a medical license in the U.S.
I just wish it was more due to the crapness of his research rather than the dubious methods he used to gain “data”.
Oh, he was just banned from the practice of medicine, and not actually prohibited from entering the UK?
It’ll do for a start, I guess…
Me, too, but I guess injuring children with unnecessary procedures will have to do.
Maybe be we recognize what a terrible fucking idea it is to condition one’s license to practice medicine on conformity to the prevailing politics of the public health establishment.
His first paper went through the ordinary peer-review process. Apparently, it survived that vetting. It was wrong though (which should give those lay cheerleaders of science, a group that is legion on the SDMB, some pause … a little more sophistication from that crowd would be a breath of fresh air. I’m looking at you, Snowboarder.)
Anyway, the first study was wrong. And eventually, the ordinary scientific process discredited the thesis, much as it had first lent it its initial credibility. So far, so good — that’s the way the test tube shatters.
Now we have a public-health-o-crat stripping people of medical licenses and talking about “Christ-like figures.” Hardly the kind of bloodless, dispassionate analysis that makes science a useful guide to understanding our natural world and hardly the kind of talk that encourages cutting-edge, counterintuitive scientific investigation.
OK, first off, evolution happened and autism isn’t caused by vaccines, and homeopathy doesn’t work. I hope I’ve hit whichever nerve you’re really getting at here.
Second, the peer-review process exists to question faulty methodology or reasoning. When a scientist outright fabricates data and lies in other ways in his paper, peer-review is somewhat limited. Wakefield is the villain here, not Big Science and not those close-minded naturalists who refuse to accept the presence of Krishna in their life or whatever your real moronic target is here.
Ha fucking ha.
Wakefield is quite a piece of work.
Some really good information on him here from an investigative journalist:
Wakefield lied about his connections with commercial interests. Wakefield actually patented his own allegedly safer version of the MMR vaccine. Wakefield cooked the data in question.
And the bastard is still at it promoting his quackery:
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/37312715
Screw him. Shut up, Wakefield. And take Jenny “I got my medical degree from google” McCarthy with you.
Here’s a nifty cartoon based summary of Wakefield’s trail of scumbaggery:
I posted in the other thread regarding this asshole:
Fucker. Bastardly child-killing research-money-stealing research-time-stealing fucker.
Now, we can only hope that Jenny McCarthy develops a permanent and untreatable form of laryngitis.
I agree with Condescending Robot regarding the limitations of peer review. If Wakefield faked his data (he did) and failed to reveal his funding source (he did), there’s not a lot a peer review board can do to find that out. Unless we want to create a system in which editorial boards are forced to basically do investigative journalism (Brian Deer-style ninja raids) on every author of every paper submitted.
I truly do believe that most scientists and researchers who submit papers for review and publication are basically good (just like I believe that most PEOPLE are basically good). But that means that the ones that aren’t are at an advantage (just like life). Does that mean the system of peer review is fatally flawed, and we should just give up on any hope of ever being able to discover scientific truth? IMO, no. But I’m willing to hear arguments otherwise.
I regret to inform you that I quite agree that “evolution happened, autism isn’t caused by vaccines, and homeopathy doesn’t work.” Sometimes, when people disagree about whether someone ought to lose his medical license or not, it is not because one side doesn’t know which propositions are supported by scientific evidence and which aren’t.
But turnabout is fair play: to hit your nerve, it does usually mean that one side knows how science works and the other side doesn’t really know how science works but wants visibly to be seen as being “pro-science.” In this instance, I am the one who understands how science works and you are the poseur.
It seems that Wakefield was very slip-shod with his data, however, I’m not sure that we should get government regulators involved in determining when (1) people have engaged in falsifying data versus accepted practices of discarding outliers and other such practices (clinical studies just are messier than laboratory studies), and (2) what sanctions with respect to doing research should be meted out for bad data collection and reporting practices.
Not least because the scientific community has been able to deal with the Wakefield problem without bringing the long arm of the law to bear. I’m not sure what you think this further sanction gets you — it’s not as if Wakefield has much credibility left in the scientific community, after all.
Perhaps if you thought there was a danger that he might engage in bad human subject practices in the future, I could see why his license would need to be revoked. But that showing hasn’t been made here. Instead all we have is: He once wrote a paper based on suspect data which survived peer review, influenced some people, and was later discredited. This is garden-variety science; it moves in fits and starts. Sometimes there’s good reason to massage data, and sometimes it’s due to more venal concerns.
Science has gotten us this far without much in the way of state policing; I don’t see why we should start now. Surely you don’t think regulators talking about Wakefield as a “Christ-like figure” or—try this on for size—Virginia’s Attorney General subpoenaing a University department’s records for evidence of climate change falsifications is a good thing?
Missed edit window: I am willing to get the government involved when it relates to bringing a new pharmaceutical product to market, a la the FDA. But not when it’s a study such as “Drug D might cause condition C.” If monetary, over and above academic sanctions, are desired for sloppy data in that case, let the drug company sue for libel; don’t impose a blanket ban on the perp’s research/practice.
For the simpler minds in the audience—my point is about how the government should regulate the conduct of research, and I am espousing a very hands-off position. This has nothing do with any particular scientific conclusion, no matter how very much the likes of Condescending Robot and FinnAgain et al. would love to have yet another quote-unquote “intellectually stimulating” battle against astrology or biorhythms or palmistry or whatever.
One should read the General Medical Counsel’s fitness hearing findings before going off on a tangent about government involvement, public-health-o-crats, and conformity to the prevailing politics of the public health establishment.
I wouldn’t let Wakefield near my cat, let alone a child: “FITNESS TO PRACTISE PANEL HEARING 28 JANUARY 2010.”
This isn’t part of my main point, but I don’t think government regulators have taken part in the discovery of Dr. Wakefield’s unethical behavior.
The scientific community has done a good job of being unable to replicate Wakefield’s falsified data, but that’s about it. This guy had a book, announced his study’s results with a press conference, and got Jenny McCarthy on the bandwagon to lauch what looks like to be a continuing campaign against the MMR vaccine. This guy needs to be discredited with more people than just a bunch of nerds.
See above to see why what you have to say here is completely missing the details that are required to understand this case and the need for a sound bashing of Dr. Wakefield in any way legally possible. In addition, I am of the opinion that this NEVER was a science issue except superficially. This guy duped the public, the scientific and medical communities in order to sell an idea. He was a charlatan and his ‘research’ is a textbook example of pseudoscience. He needs to have not a leg to stand on in terms of credibility and revoking his licence is a great way to go about doing it.
As a very popular subject in scientific experiments I take issue with you equating this public rebuking of Dr. Wakefield to VirginiaAG/Climate change deal. My kind has benefited from policing and ethics and without it scientists would be doing all sorts of harmful experiments without proper controls or consideration of my pain and discomfort. Even during my graduate studies I saw a very big issue with animal welfare ethics unfold at my alma mater, precisely because of poor policing. Since scientists are human, they are going to need proper policing to act ethically. There is no organization of humans that is above the need for this kind of policing except, of course, individuals like Christ-like Dr. Wakefield.
The VirginiaAG is also trying to police science but what he is doing it to make a political point and he is attacking a fundamental manner in which the funding of science is conducted. This is wholly different from taking the license away from a discredited quack.
Either way, if scientific knowledge is going to have any benefit to people, it is going to be made public, and after becoming public it is going to be attacked by those wishing to control the information. Scientists will have to properly defend their decisions or risk looking like Dr. Wakefield whether they deserve it or not.
“Trail”, indeed. I wonder how he moves without leaving a line of slime in his wake.
Nonsense. Fraud is, quite properly, illegal. The determination of whether someone is or is not guilty of fraud, and the assessment of a penalty if they are guilty, necessarily requires the government to make determinations on precisely those points.
Since you singled me out here, I’ll ask: what the fuck are you talking about, and why are you glaring at me and calling unsophisticated (whatever that means)?
I knew there was a reason I despise Jim Carrey so much. :mad:
He’s gathered quite the following among laypeople over here in the States. It’s true that his shitty “research” was exposed but a sizable fraction of Americans are too closed minded to see that. The damage has been done.
He did it once why wouldn’t he do it again? Would you let your children (assuming you have any) be treated by someone whose greed indirectly cost other children their lives?
This is also a huge public health issue. The efficacy of vaccination depends on herd immunity, and if people decide to not vaccinate their children because of Mr. Wakefield’s desire to push his own product, not just their own children’s lives will end up being at risk. In this case the government is right to take action.
I never thought I’d be one to yell “think of the children”, but here’s one case where that’s perfectly warranted.