Doc who linked MMR and autism cooked the data

MMR doctor Andrew Wakefield fixed data on autism
Brian Deer

The doctor who sparked the scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine for children changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism, a Sunday Times investigation has found.

Confidential medical documents and interviews with witnesses have established that Andrew Wakefield manipulated patients’ data, which triggered fears that the MMR triple vaccine to protect against measles, mumps and rubella was linked to the condition.

The research was published in February 1998 in an article in The Lancet medical journal. It claimed that the families of eight out of 12 children attending a routine clinic at the hospital had blamed MMR for their autism, and said that problems came on within days of the jab. The team also claimed to have discovered a new inflammatory bowel disease underlying the children’s conditions.

However, our investigation, confirmed by evidence presented to the General Medical Council (GMC), reveals that: In most of the 12 cases, the children’s ailments as described in The Lancet were different from their hospital and GP records. Although the research paper claimed that problems came on within days of the jab, in only one case did medical records suggest this was true, and in many of the cases medical concerns had been raised before the children were vaccinated. Hospital pathologists, looking for inflammatory bowel disease, reported in the majority of cases that the gut was normal. This was then reviewed and the Lancet paper showed them as abnormal.

Despite involving just a dozen children, the 1998 paper’s impact was extraordinary. After its publication, rates of inoculation fell from 92% to below 80%. Populations acquire “herd immunity” from measles when more than 95% of people have been vaccinated.

Last week official figures showed that 1,348 confirmed cases of measles in England and Wales were reported last year, compared with 56 in 1998. Two children have died of the disease.

With two professors, John Walker-Smith and Simon Murch, Wakefield is defending himself against allegations of serious professional misconduct brought by the GMC. The charges relate to ethical aspects of the project, not its findings. All three men deny any misconduct.

Through his lawyers, Wakefield this weekend denied the issues raised by our investigation, but declined to comment further.

http://www.timesonline.co...683671.ece

Genesia said:

lilgish said:

Genesia said:

Last week official figures showed that 1,348 confirmed cases of measles in England and Wales were reported last year, compared with 56 in 1998. Two children have died of the disease.

Oh they want show numbers do they, funny they don't want to show the rise of autism of over the last 20 years just about the same time themarasol is used, yet they want to link the rise of measles to this guys alleged false research.

4EVER
~~

lilgish said:

Genesia said:

Last week official figures showed that 1,348 confirmed cases of measles in England and Wales were reported last year, compared with 56 in 1998. Two children have died of the disease.

Oh they want show numbers do they, funny they don't want to show the rise of autism of over the last 20 years just about the same time themarasol is used, yet they want to link the rise of measles to this guys alleged false research.

lilgish said:

Genesia said:

Last week official figures showed that 1,348 confirmed cases of measles in England and Wales were reported last year, compared with 56 in 1998. Two children have died of the disease.

Oh they want show numbers do they, funny they don't want to show the rise of autism of over the last 20 years just about the same time themarasol is used, yet they want to link the rise of measles to this guys alleged false research.

Genesia said:

lilgish said:

Oh they want show numbers do they, funny they don't want to show the rise of autism of over the last 20 years just about the same time themarasol is used, yet they want to link the rise of measles to this guys alleged false research.

You need to learn a little something about cause and effect. There has been no proven link between the MMR and autism.

On the other hand, it's fairly easy to correlate the rise in measles to this moron. All you have to do is ask the parents of children who weren't immunized why they didn't have their kids immunized - and record what they say.

The preposterous prejudice of the anti-MMR lobby

The campaigners were always irrational. Yet the paranoia persists and children's lives are more at risk than ever. David Aaronovitch
Last week there was a bust-up in blogland. I'll explain later why it matters, but for now I'll just give you the bones of it. On one side was the author of the Bad Science blog, Ben Goldacre, who is an invaluable persecutor of the anti-scientific and wilfully inexpert.

On the other side was the warm, friendly broadcaster, Jeni Barnett, whose most substantial incarnation currently takes place on afternoons on LBC, a London local radio station, where she hosts a phone-in.

Goldacre was so annoyed about the January 7 edition of Barnett's show, dealing, among other things, with MMR and vaccination, that he posted the whole of it as a clip on his own website, where it acted as a sort of audio chamber of horrors to appal his readers. A few days later the lawyers for LBC contacted Goldacre and told him that he was infringing their copyright and must remove the clip forthwith, or else.

Goldacre was now anger squared. “This is not about LBC or Jeni Barnett,” he wrote. “This is about one perfect, instructive, illustrative example of a whole genre of irresponsible journalism that drove the media's anti-vaccine campaign for ten solid years, with serious consequences for public health.”

Goldacre's accusation is important. Last week ended with new figures for measles cases in the United Kingdom, showing that over the past decade we have managed the interesting - and almost unprecedented - trick of reintroducing into this country a disease that had more or less disappeared. A few children will have died as a result and some others will suffer serious long-term health problems. These figures correlate to the drop in parents giving their children the MMR vaccination. And that drop, more controversially, may be seen as the consequence of a panic about MMR that began around 2001, peaked in 2002-03, and still - even after the discrediting of the claims about the supposed link between MMR and autism- affects vaccination rates today.

Unable to listen to the withdrawn audio clips, I settled for some of the transcripts of Barnett's phone-in as posted on various websites. The host had begun telling listeners: “Always at the back of it [vaccination] in my head is ‘hold on a minute, there's a drug company that's making lots of money out of it'.” She reminded listeners (in case they had overlooked it) that “if, as a human being you decide you do not want to give your child a vaccination, you should, in a democracy, have that right to say ‘no'.”

Of course they do have that right, which is why we're suffering measles outbreaks now. But it was more than that for Barnett, concerned as she was to bolster the position of those brave parents who refused to vaccinate. “It's a lonely decision, if you're not part of the herd, if you're not mooing with the other cows or baaing with the other sheep...” And so it went on.

The third element to today's argument is provided by a spread in The Sunday Times last weekend, providing new evidence about how the original scare story over MMR was created. It claimed that several of the 12 children who were the subjects of Dr Andrew Wakefield's original research paper in 1998 - the one on which virtually the entire MMR scare was founded - either had symptoms that predated their vaccination, or that developed several months afterwards. It also reminded readers that before the examination of any of these children Wakefield was already employed by a lawyer for the anti-vaccination pressure group, Jabs, to establish a case against the manufacturers of vaccines. One month before the first child in the study arrived at Wakefield's hospital, Wakefield had already filed a confidential document stating that the object of his research was to discover evidence “acceptable in a court of law” of a link between MMR vaccines and “certain conditions” reported by families seeking compensation.

And sure enough Wakefield did “discover” a link (though not one ever “acceptable in a court of law”). That research was never replicated by any other study and no correlation has ever been found between the incidence of autism and the use of MMR, despite Wakefield's constant and confident assertions that such definitive evidence was imminent.

But, oh Lord, who'd have believed it? It was the way in which Wakefield's lone thesis was reported, dramatised and discussed that created the MMR scare and, therefore, the current measles outbreaks.

Last week, justifying herself on her blog, Barnett invoked the spirit of the insurgent ignoramus. Yes, she said, she should have been ready with facts and figures on MMR. “As a responsible broadcaster I should have been better prepared; as a parent, however, I can fight my corner.” Then she added: “I don't know everything that goes into cigarettes but I do know they are harmful.”

But how did Barnett “know” they were harmful? Wasn't it down to the huge body of evidence showing the correlation between lung cancer and smoking? And didn't she recall the early days of that discussion, when anti-herd people would pause before lighting up and tell of elderly relatives who'd smoked all their lives without coming to harm? The shamefulness of much of the reporting of MMR by some journalists is the subject of much longer studies than I have space for.

What I find just as interesting is the psychology. And here's my fourth element. Last week a relative became involved in a multi-person e-mail exchange concerning vaccination against the virus that causes cervical cancer. The first query had hardly been lodged before one correspondent - a highly educated and intelligent woman - asserted that “girls have died in the US” from the vaccination, and implying that profit-seeking drug companies (with the connivance of governments, presumably) were prepared to kill our kids in order to make money.

This reply, though intended for limited circulation, was so categorical yet so paranoid, that it was easy to imagine a fresh scare, perhaps arriving later in the year, concerning these new vaccinations. Maybe there'd be a maverick doctor, maybe Juliet Stevenson would portray a bereft but instinctual mother in a docudrama, maybe hacks would fill their pages and phone-in hosts their long hours with speculation dressed up as information.

That's why I'm passionately for Goldacre, and why I find myself wondering whether we can file a class action against LBC for permitting a presenter to inflict her preposterous prejudices on her listeners, to the detriment of someone else's kids.

Here's a link to the full evidence the Times unearthed.

http://www.timesonline.co...683643.ece

The sad thing is, like all conspiracy theories, it soon becomes impossible to argue against. All the evidence that shows the claim to be false is just taken as yet more 'proof' of some massive cover-up operation.

http://childhealthsafety....ournalism/


Here we go again I see.

Genesia said:

Here's a REAL incident of a vaccine causing Autism. The US Government has agreed to help and compensate the family.

http://www.ajc.com/metro/...0306b.html

JDODSONandFlashpointe said:

JDODSONandFlashpointe said:

illimack said:

meow85 said:

JDODSONandFlashpointe said:

Here's a REAL incident of a vaccine causing Autism. The US Government has agreed to help and compensate the family.

http://www.ajc.com/metro/...0306b.html

The article states that there wasn't a conclusive link....

What I want to know is, if the natural cause for autism still has not been determined, how is it even possible that the unnatural (man-made) cause is so obviously vaccinations? I'm not saying it's not possible, but where's the proof that one had anything to do with the other?
[Edited 2/10/09 18:20pm]

JDODSONandFlashpointe said:

meow85 said:

The article states that there wasn't a conclusive link....

What I want to know is, if the natural cause for autism still has not been determined, how is it even possible that the unnatural (man-made) cause is so obviously vaccinations? I'm not saying it's not possible, but where's the proof that one had anything to do with the other?
[Edited 2/10/09 18:20pm]

Right- no "conclusive" link, but the government paid them compensation anyway. It's just like MJ wasn't guilty in a court of law, but everybody knows something ain't right with the brother, and he paid folks to shut up. Paying off people to shut up is the closest thing to admission of guilt that you can get.

meow85 said:

JDODSONandFlashpointe said:

meow85 said:

JDODSONandFlashpointe said:

meow85 said:

JDODSONandFlashpointe said:

So then, is the shot a trigger if it's not the cause?

I'm more willing to consider that a possibility than saying the cause is entirely vaccines. The right (or wrong) combination of genetics, hormones, and environmental factors combined with the chemicals or preservatives in certain vaccines might play a role in autism's development. But I think it's a mistake to claim flat out that vaccines cause these disorders.

Especially considering the age of onset is the same whether or not the child has had immunizations.

JDODSONandFlashpointe said:

meow85 said:

I'm more willing to consider that a possibility than saying the cause is entirely vaccines. The right (or wrong) combination of genetics, hormones, and environmental factors combined with the chemicals or preservatives in certain vaccines might play a role in autism's development. But I think it's a mistake to claim flat out that vaccines cause these disorders.

Especially considering the age of onset is the same whether or not the child has had immunizations.

I just find it hard to believe that a child from a family with no previous history of such disorder would get it and get it so coincidentally around the same time of the vaccine.

The only reason I even say anything is that I don't want it to be law that people HAVE to get these things. No government owns my body, your body, our the bodies of our children. They will have to decapitate me or assassinate me first.

JDODSONandFlashpointe said:

meow85 said:

illimack said:

They won't believe u. There are thousands of parents who have seen their children transformmed before their eyes due to vaccine damage. The naysayers will just repeat the company line....."correlation does not equal causation." How many times does this equation have to repeat itself before it does? My nephew, who is a little league quarterback, got the chickenpox vaccine last year. He got a huge knot on his arm and he literally could not raise his arm for two weeks. My sister was not going to let him get the vaccine becuase she knows that the pox is not usually dangerous. Her doctor gave her all these stories about how chicken pox could be dangerous and deadly. She asked me, when did chicken pox get so dangerous...my answer....when they created a damn vaccine for it and now they want parents to buy it.

Why would anyone bother to vaccinate against chicken pox?

Just let the kid catch it, heal from it, and there's your natural vaccine right there.

And no, correlation does NOT equal causation. That is the first basic rule of all statistical studies. Only when there's viable proof can there said to be cause and effect, not just because they happen to occur together. I'm not saying vaccination hasn't played a role, but you can't assume that's the only possibility in the rise of diagnoses.

razor said:

illimack said:

razor said:

illimack said:

Mass Jabs To Stop Measles Deaths
1:23pm UK, Saturday November 29, 2008

Michelle May, North of England correspondent

A measles outbreak is threatening lives, prompting a mass vaccination programme in one of the country's worst-hit areas.


Cases of the disease are soaring across England and Wales



Doctors are preparing to immunise residents in a small corner of east Cheshire around Crewe, where almost 70 cases have been reported this year.

The alarming figures are worse than anywhere in England and Wales outside London.

Dr Ayo Oyinolye, from Cheshire Health Protection Unit, told Sky News: "The outbreak here is not showing any signs of tailing off.

"If we don't respond the infection will grow, and in the worst case scenario, we will see one or two deaths and many children suffering serious side effects from the disease."

Teams of nurses will vaccinate up to 10,500 children in 177 primary schools and 33 secondary schools. The jab will also be offered to young staff members.

Measles cases are soaring across England and Wales with 1,049 confirmed cases so far this year, surpassing last year's total of 990.

Dr Rosemary McCann, from the Health Protection Agency, said: "Britain is on the cusp of a measles epidemic because a large cohort of children and teenagers missed out on MMR vaccination over the past five to 10 years."

In 2006, a 13-year old boy from north west England became the first person in the UK to die of the virus in 14 years.

Last August the Chief Medical Officer announced an MMR catch-up programme, urging Primary Care Trusts and GPs to identify individuals not yet vaccinated.

As a result of the recent outbreak in Cheshire, the local Health Protection Unit has written to parents seeking urgent consent for their children to be immunised.

Dr Oyinolye said: "This is a big step but it's a nasty disease which is avoidable.

"So long as MMR uptake is low, we have a large number of children who are not immune…the virus can easily spread across the country."

http://news.sky.com/skyne...1415165895