Pity poor Andrew Wakefield.
2010 was a terrible year for him, and 2011 is starting out almost as bad. In February 2010, the General Medical Council in the U.K. recommended that Wakefield be stripped of his license to practice medicine in the U.K. because of scientific misconduct related to his infamous 1998 case series published in The Lancet, even going so far as to refer to him as irresponsible and dishonest, and in May 2010 he was. This case series, thanks to Wakefield's scientific incompetence and fraud, coupled with his flair for self-promotion and enabled by the sensationalistic credulity of the British press, ignited a scare about the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine in which, afraid that the MMR vaccine causes autism, parents in the U.K. eschewed vaccinating their children in droves. As a result, vaccination rates plummeted far below the level necessary for herd immunity, with the entirely predictable result of massive measles outbreaks in the U.K. Measles, which as of the mid-1990s had been declared under control by British and European health authorities, came roaring back to the point where in 2008 it was declared once again endemic in the British Isles. In a mere decade and a half, several decades of progress in controlling this scourge had been unravelled like a thread hanging off a cheap dress, all thanks to Andrew Wakefield and scandal mongers in the British press.
True, Wakefield had long since moved to Texas, the better to be the founding "scientific director" of a house of autism quackery known as Thoughtful House. Thus, the removal of his license to practice had little practical import, or so it would seem, given that Wakefield did not treat patients and hauled in quite the hefty salary for his promotion of anti-vaccine pseudoscience. Fortunately, karma's a bitch, and, as a result of the GMC's action, in short order The Lancet retracted Wakefield's 1998 paper; Wakefield was pushed out of Thoughtful House; and his latest attempt to "prove" that vaccines cause autism in an animal study was also retracted. Investigative reporter Brian Deer's investigation finding that Andrew Wakefield had committed scientific fraud in carrying out his Lancet study joined prior findings that Wakefield had been in the pocket of trial lawyers (to the tune of £435â643, plus expenses) seeking to sue the vaccine industry at the time he carried out his "research" and the allegations by renowned PCR expert Stephen Bustin during the Autism Omnibus as to how shoddily Wakefield's other research was carried out. Finally, the mainstream media started to back away from its previous embrace of Wakefield and his claims. As a result, for a while at least, Wakefield was reduced to lame appearances at sparsely attended anti-vaccine rallies last spring.
As bad as the findings were that Wakefield had committed scientific fraud, it turns out that it was even worse than the original reports indicated. A few hours ago, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) published an analysis of the scientific fraud committed by Wakefield, fraud that journalist Brian Deer likens in an accompanying editorial to the Piltdown Man. The articles are:
- How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed by Brian Deer
- Wakefield's article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulent (editorial by BMJ editors Fiona Godlee, editor in chief, Jane Smith, deputy editor, Harvey Marcovitch, associate editor).
- Piltdown medicine: The missing link between MMR and autism by Brian Deer.
And here is CNN reporting on the story:
Even better, this is part one of a two-part series, and it knocks down whatever is left of Andrew Wakefield's scientific reputation (such as it was), jumps up and down on it, and then kicks the ashes away. Deer begins, as he began one of his news stories before, with the testimony of a parent of one of the 12 children that Wakefield included in his study:
Mr 11, an American engineer, looked again at the paper: a five page case series of 11 boys and one girl, aged between 3 and 9 years. Nine children, it said, had diagnoses of "regressive" autism, and all but one were reported with "non-specific colitis." The "new syndrome" brought these together, linking brain and bowel diseases. His son was the penultimate case.
Running his finger across the paper's tables, over coffee in London, Mr 11 seemed reassured by his anonymised son's age and other details. But then he pointed at table 2--headed "neuropsychiatric diagnosis"--and for a second time objected.
"That's not true."
Child 11 was among the eight whose parents apparently blamed MMR. The interval between his vaccination and the first "behavioural symptom" was reported as 1 week. This symptom was said to have appeared at age 15 months. But his father, whom I had tracked down, said this was wrong.
"From the information you provided me on our son, who I was shocked to hear had been included in their published study," he wrote to me, after we met again in California, "the data clearly appeared to be distorted."
Then Deer describes exactly how. For instance, before Wakefield ever undertook his infamous study, he and a solicitor named Richard Barr had claimed to have identified a new syndrome consisting of bowel inflammation and regressive autism and aimed to show a temporal association between MMR vaccination and the onset of first symptoms. Unfortunately, Child 11's case was a disappointment, as his discharge summary from the Royal Free Hospital, which showed that the boy's regression began two months earlier than claimed in Wakefield's paper and a month before he had ever received his MMR vaccine. Deer also describes Child 2, whose parents were the first to have approached Wakefield, sent by the anti-vaccine group JABS. This boy appeared in numerous news reports and was one of the four "best cases" used by Barr in a lawsuit. The boy's mother's story was vague and she wasn't clear on how long it was between the child's vaccination and the onset of his symptoms.
But that's not all. The more the paper was investigated, the more anomalies were found. For example, only one child clearly had regressive autism, and three of nine described as having regressive autism did not. In fact, none of these three even had a diagnosis of autism at all! There were other anomalies as well. Several of the children clearly had preexisting conditions. For example, all twelve children were described in the paper as "previously normal," but at least two of them clearly had developmental delay and facial dysmorphisms noted before they were vaccinated with the MMR. All twelve children taken together did not support the existence of a syndrome of bowel problems and regressive autism, at least not the syndrome as described in Wakefield's paper. Deer summarizes how Wakefield "fixed the link" between MMR and regressive autism with enterocolitis:
The Lancet paper was a case series of 12 child patients; it reported a proposed "new syndrome" of enterocolitis and regressive autism and associated this with MMR as an "apparent precipitating event." But in fact:
- Three of nine children reported with regressive autism did not have autism diagnosed at all. Only one child clearly had regressive autism
- Despite the paper claiming that all 12 children were "previously normal," five had documented pre-existing developmental concerns
- Some children were reported to have experienced first behavioural symptoms within days of MMR, but the records documented these as starting some months after vaccination
- In nine cases, unremarkable colonic histopathology results--noting no or minimal fluctuations in inflammatory cell populations--were changed after a medical school "research review" to "non-specific colitis"
- The parents of eight children were reported as blaming MMR, but 11 families made this allegation at the hospital. The exclusion of three allegations--all giving times to onset of problems in months--helped to create the appearance of a 14 day temporal link
- Patients were recruited through anti-MMR campaigners, and the study was commissioned and funded for planned litigation
As Brian Deer so aptly put it, Wakefield "chiseled" the data, "falsifying medical histories of children and essentially concocting a picture, which was the picture he was contracted to find by lawyers hoping to sue vaccine manufacturers and to create a vaccine scare." The discrepancies between the case reports as described in Wakefield's Lancet paper and the actual medical records are anything but random; all are in the direction of suggesting a link between the MMR and Wakefield's as yet unverified syndrome of regressive autism and enterocolitis. The cases that were selected appear not to have been random, sequential patients but were rather recruited specifically through anti-vaccine activists and trial lawyers. Moreover, as Deer puts it:
Moreover, through the omission from the paper of some parents' beliefs that the vaccine was to blame, the time link for the lawsuit sharpened. With concerns logged from 11 of 12 families, the maximum time given to the onset of alleged symptoms was a (forensically unhelpful) four months. But, in a version of the paper circulated at the Royal Free six months before publication, reported concerns fell to nine of 12 families but with a still unhelpful maximum of 56 days. Finally, Wakefield settled on 8 of 12 families, with a maximum interval to alleged symptoms of 14 days.
Between the latter two versions, revisions also slashed the mean time to alleged symptoms--from 14 to 6.3 days. "In these children the mean interval from exposure to the MMR vaccine to the development of the first behavioural symptom was six days, indicating a strong temporal association," he emphasised in a patent for, among other things, his own prophylactic measles vaccine, eight months before the Lancet paper.
Yes, that's exactly what Deer has found. When the time frame between vaccination and the onset of symptoms was too long to be useful for showing a link between MMR and regressive autism with enterocolitis, Wakefield systematically removed subjects whose parents blamed the MMR for their children's autism until the time frame between vaccination and onset of symptoms was a much more impressive 14 days. There is no innocent explanation possible for the systematic and numerous discrepancies between the medical record and Wakefield's paper, as the editors of the BMJ point out in their accompanying editorial:
The Office of Research Integrity in the United States defines fraud as fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism. Deer unearthed clear evidence of falsification. He found that not one of the 12 cases reported in the 1998 Lancet paper was free of misrepresentation or undisclosed alteration, and that in no single case could the medical records be fully reconciled with the descriptions, diagnoses, or histories published in the journal.
Who perpetrated this fraud? There is no doubt that it was Wakefield. Is it possible that he was wrong, but not dishonest: that he was so incompetent that he was unable to fairly describe the project, or to report even one of the 12 children's cases accurately? No. A great deal of thought and effort must have gone into drafting the paper to achieve the results he wanted: the discrepancies all led in one direction; misreporting was gross.
Exactly. The degree of falsification and the number of discrepancies were huge. The chutzpah Wakefield demonstrated in his fraud was truly breathtaking. So is the chutzpah he continues to exhibit today with his denials. Even after this report and all the stories reporting on it, Wakefield continues to deny that he has done anything at all wrong and blames the criticisms leveled against him on conspiracies. In reality, given the way the anti-vaccine movement has begun to circle the wagons to defend Wakefield yet again, it's tempting to claim that this is a conspiracy. Personally, I consider it a conspiracy of utter cluelessness. For one example, check out this video of J.B. Handley:
Yes, Handley's regurgitating antivaccine favorites like the "tobacco science" mischaracterization, touting Wakefield's "monkey business" study (which he neglects to mention was withdrawn), and defending Wakefield.
For another example, check out this defense of Andrew Wakefield by the anti-vaccine National Autism Association, which makes the astonishingly ludicrous claim that the BMJ article is "yet another attempt to thwart vaccine safety research." The anti-vaccine crank blog Age of Autism naturally reposted the NAA's counterattack.
One of the NAA's claims in its press release is that Wakefield's study has been "repeatedly confirmed," and the NAA cites five studies that allegedly confirm Wakefield's fraudulent results. However, as Just the Vax and Sullivan show, these studies do not represent independent confirmation of anything. One of them was by a close associate of Wakefield; one is a case report of an adult autistic with enterocolitis; and none of the rest confirm Wakefield's results either. Yet, every time a story pops up showing that Wakefield committed scientific fraud, Wakefield defenders in the anti-vaccine movement dutifully trot out the same five studies, as though any of them were independent confirmation of his work, while anti-vaccine activists launch ad hominem attacks against BMJ editor Fiona Godlee and regurgitate old attacks on Brian Deer. Particularly off-base is the NAA's claim that somehow, by laying bare Wakefield's clear cut and vile scientific fraud, the BMJ is interfering with "vaccine safety research." No, it's revealing a dangerous scientific fraud, nothing more.
So egregious was Wakefield's fraud that Deer likens it in an accompanying blog post to "Piltdown medicine," making this direct comparison to the infamous "Piltdown Man" hoax:
The Piltdown contrivance involved the pre-arranged "discovery" of features brought together to be sensationally "found." A piece of skullcap was human, a partial jaw was an orangutan's, and a tooth was a chimpanzee's, filed down. They were stained with chemicals and, to fabricate a temporal link, were buried with flint tools in datable gravel near the tiny village of Piltdown, East Sussex.
Some would suggest that their proximity was a matter of chance, but the odds of this would have taxed an astronomer. "That two different individuals were present," one of the scientists who unmasked the fraud explained later, "a fossil man, represented by a cranium without a jaw, and a fossil ape, represented by a jaw without a cranium, within a few feet of each other and so similar in colour and preservation, would be a coincidence, amazing beyond belief."
And so it was with Wakefield, eight decades after the Piltdown discoveries. Amazing beyond belief. For skullcap read "developmental disorders", for the jaw "enterocolitis", and for the tooth "parental complaints about MMR". Bring them together at one hospital, with a 14-day temporal link, and another assemblage was "found".
This is a very apt analogy. The more we find out about how Wakefield put together his case series for The Lancet, the more it becomes obvious that he calculatingly put together a fraud every bit as elaborate and planned as that of the Piltdown Man hoax.
What I can't figure out--I mean, really, really can't figure out--is why the anti-vaccine movement continues to cling to Wakefield's tattered "science." Surely the more sober and intelligent members of the anti-vaccine mvoement (they do exist, believe it or not) must realize by now that Wakefield is now very much like the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, who, having had his arm hacked off by King Arthur declares it to be "just a flesh wound." After hacking off all but the Black Knight's left leg, the Black Knight keeps taunting Arthur, who retorts, "What are you going to do, bleed on me?" and finally, unable to take any more, cuts off the Black Knight's last leg.
This article by Brian Deer is the last swing of the sword that hacks off Wakefield's last limb.
Unfortunately, like the Black Knight, not realizing that, scientifically he's been utterly discredited, Wakefield fights on. Worse, he is still feted by the anti-vaccine movement. Right now, he's in Jamaica as part of a "vaccine safety" conference whose list of speakers is chock full of anti-vaccine activists.
For Wakefield, even 13 years later, fraud pays.
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On a totally unrelated note, I thought you'd enjoy this article from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/science/06esp.html?hp
The misery this man has caused to parents and children around the world. His actions are no less than evil.
Orac, I think you mean to say "Wakefield" in this sentence:
"Particularly off-base is the NAA's claim that somehow, by laying bare Deer's clear cut and vile scientific fraud..."
Nobody in the anti-vaccine movement will ever admit that Wakefield's nothing but a scammer. Because once they do, then they invite scrutiny of some of their "research", which I'd bet is as fradulent and scandal-ridden as Wakefield's.
I think the most telling part of the article was the table which showed that none of the 12 children conclusively developed sysmptoms within days of MMR (although there are 2 that are unknown) compared to the 8 cited in Wakefield's original paper.
The sad part is that the funding he received could have been used for genuine autism research
Maybe it's just a techological delay or fault (I wouldn't want to be accused on conspiracies!), but I've seen several sites (including my own and Orac's post above) link to the Age of Autism page: despite offering a list web logs that link their page, none are shown.
Not that they seem to listen much to what others say...!
Just wondering, supposing Wakefield is the devil you paint him to be, how does that make my son's injury any less real, or that of Hannah Poling or any other child who suffered a vaccine injury?
I might be mistaken but Brian Deer's paycheck is signed by James Murdoch. Murdoch of course sits as a member of Merck's Board of Directors. Should there be any reason why I should place a great deal of trust and faith in Mr. Deer's expose' because of such relationship? Or really even in a company that's owned by the people who bring us Glenn Beck and whose News Group NewsÂpapers paid out more than £1m to settle legal cases that threatened to reveal evidence of his journalists' repeated involvement in the use of criminal methods to get stories? http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jul/08/murdoch-papers-phone-hacking
Did you know 200 Americans died in the Gulf War? 26,000 died afterwards of Gulf War Syndrome from the vaccines they were given.
Little Augie, if you just make bold statements like that without posting the real verifiable evidence we just assume you made it all up.
Citation Needed.
Augustine has apparently nothing on-topic to say about his fraudulent friend, so he tries trolling.
The pessimist in me says that this news will only elevate Wakefield's martyr status among his fawning fans.
The optimist in me hopes beyond hope that his decline towards a career as a public toilet cleaner has just been given a kick-start.
Orac wrote:
It seems fairly obvious to me - if they abandon him now, they'd have to admit to themselves that they were duped (or simply dishonest) to defend him before.
Ge wrote:
That differs from any of his previous posts how?
Orac, I took a look at the speakers at the "vaccine safety" conference and noted a name I recognized, no not Andrew Wakefield or Barbara Loe Fisher (they are both there) ... Larry Rosen, MD is Chairman-Elect of the AAP Section on Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Very sad and disappointing for pediatricians everywhere.
It's about time Wakefield was shown for being the fraud he is, every study he touches seems to be corrupted.
Hopefully 2011 will be the year that the rest of the anti-vaccine movement is shown up for the dangerous nonsense that it really is.
There will be an interesting mix of reactions here - you'll see quite a number of fence-sitters (the ones that are concerned about the vaccine-autism link, but not convinced) fall to the wayside here & come to their senses.
But, this will only encourage the die-hard anti-vaxers to dig their heels in even further, because any attack on their beliefs is taken as an attack on themselves - they've invested so much of their identity into this mess, that they cannot disassociate themselves from the idea.
Age of Autism is going absolutely bloody nuts, it's like someone kicked over a beehive over there.
Actually, US Army is now performing field trials with mortar shells filled with vaccines due to their superior efficiency over high explosives.
True fact.
Words fail.
It was interesting to see how Handley tap danced and failed to answer direct questions, but managed to keep talking over Spitzer. The guy was teetering on becoming his typical unglued self. Perhaps he'll ask his pal John Best to start stalking those hosts now.
@boojum - Kathy Blanco and John Best types are typical of Handley and his crew.
@Bensmyson: Hannah Poling is a bad example; she has NOT been diagnosed with autism. The court declared that she had suffered a vaccine injury related to her mitochondrial issues. She was compensated appropriately. (And it's very nice for her parents that they were able to pin it on a vaccine, rather than a cold with fever, the flu, or anything else that could cause a fever and make her issues worse).
No one denies that vaccine injuries occur. We DO say that there is no sciene that links vaccines with autism. The Vaccine Court has compensated families many times for "table injuries" that have been proven to be related to vaccines.
Since you have not bothered to go to the court and try to get compensation (and yes, I remember you have spouted your reasons), you cannot honestly claim your son's autism is related to a vaccine as it has not been proven.
And really. Conspiracy issues, much? Amazing how Brian Deer finds and shows PROOF of his information, unlike AOA, NAA, or anyone else who only clings to refuted research.
Thanks for the great writeup Orac.
Brian Deer has done some really great work on this issue, and is fast becoming one of my skeptic and journalistic heroes.
There's one thing that I still don't understand about Wakefield. Even before the extent of the faked data came to light, even before Stephen Bustin testified as to how sloppy the PCR was, a lot of people were talking about how hard it was to conclude anything from such a small sample of data.
So why the falsified data AND the incredibly small sample size? If he was going to just make crap up about patients, why not make crap up about lots more patients?
A little update, Fox News has reported on the kerfuffle, and their take is that the anti vaccine crowd are dangerous, and Wakefield is a fraud.
Bet you didn't think that FNC and CNN would ever agree on anything.
Alan: actually that doesn't 100% surprise me. Brian Deer is employed by the Sunday Times which is also owned by News Corp.
I appreciate that Brian Deer is a good and impartial journalist, the Sunday Times is a respectable conservative newspaper and Fox News is a hive of far-right insanity, but I wouldn't be surprised if Fox has been instructed to follow a party line on this one.
Can someone please translate the Kathy Blanco post quoted above into English? Yeesh.
@18: The Lancet paper was just the first in a series of papers by Wakefield. He "looked" at more kids later, supposedly finding measles virus in their bowels. Unfortunately, that was rigged too - his grad student testified at the Autism Omnibus hearings that all the positive tests for measles virus were false positives, and that he informed Wakefield of this, but that Wakefield insisted on publication anyway.
You know I should be elated but after finishing reading everything I'm just deeply depressed.
It's completely unrelated to ACTUAL vaccine injury. But it is another nail in the coffin of the fraudulent claim that vaccine injury includes autism. Remember that Hannah does NOT have autism. I don't recall the full details of your son's case to comment more specifically on that bit.
This is the sort of utterly meaningless tenuous connection that can be found between ANY two individuals.
Like what Leherer missed in his bit of fluff, Science eventually rights itself. Unlike religion, superstition or woo, which keep on going, unchanged through the ages save for occasional fads.
*sigh* Of all nights, I had to go to bed early last night. This morning I wake up with this story on the local news. When I finally get around to logging on, I find that it's already been covered all over the place. Here, over at Bad Astronomy, Just the Vax, Skepchick...
Ah well. Good news, at any rate.
Story on the Today Show a few minutes ago. Nancy Snyderman pulled no punches.
23:
I agree. It's very disheartening that, in the face of overwhelming and probative evidence, some people dig in their heels as their claims of conspiracy cascade to include more participants.
Now what?
I just read this story as posted on the Huffington Post.
The comments were mind-blowing. At least 80% were PRO-vaccine. Supporters of Wakefield and posters of nonsense are quickly put in their place.
What is happening? I feel like I fell down a rabbit hole.
@Andreas Johansson (10): Well, since the comment has now been quietly disappeared, I'd imagine it differs from augustine's usual pronouncements in not actually having been made by augustine. I'm a bit curious as to the motivations of this meta-troll imposter. It's not as if augustine doesn't say enough stupid things anyway ... there's no need to make up even more stupid things for him to have said.
Anyway, I'm hopeful that mainstream opinion in the UK is moving back towards the side of sanity. I read an article in this morning's Metro about the possible shortage of flu vaccine, and it was presented as unequivocally a Bad Thing with no "balance" from anti-vaxxers. Perhaps even a tabloid journalist can now not help but see that Wakefield's "research" was complete bollocks from start to finish.
PR is a screwy thing - in this case, because of the amount invested in their particular areas (AoA, etc) we are seeing the "saving-face" defense of Wakefield to placate their hardcore supporters, but in a day or so, they will very quickly and quietly sever their ties with him - and start re-writing history again, as they've done in the past.
@Scott
Whether or not Hannah Poling meets your criteria for an autism diagnosis is not what Im curious about. Suppose the children in Wakefield's study all had encephalitis and he pointed to a possible connection between encephalitis and the MMR, do you think this is about autism? I think this is about vaccine safety or the lack of it. Encephalitis or a mitochondrial disorder doesn't fit on Murdoch's front page as well as autism otherwise Deer would have been all over it, or would he?
Wakefield's response in a nutshell: "Buy my book, please!!"
He came off as pretty crazy in his interview with Cooper I thought, claiming there is a global conspiracy against you probably isn't a good way to attempt to save face.
For anyone who missed it, Anderson Cooper's interview of Andrew Wakefield is here.
Wakefield's blusterings and evasions get shredded, not only by Cooper but by none other than Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Seth Mnookin. Mnookin highlights the bizarre chutzpah of Wakefield trying to link reporter Brian Deer to a pharma-funded conspiracy against him, while obfuscating the actual conflict of interest scandal in the matter - Wakefield's acceptance of heavy cash from trial lawyers and his attempt to patent a vaccine to compete with the MMR.
Another terrific thing about the program was that participants addressed false equivalency - the media pattern of giving fringe proponents of bad science equal time to debate evidence-based views held by the vast majority of scientists and public health experts.
It looks like the news media has definitively turned on Andrew Wakefield (and due to its uncritical acceptance of him, the antivax movement is getting a far more critical look).
"PR is a screwy thing - in this case, because of the amount invested in their particular areas (AoA, etc) we are seeing the "saving-face" defense of Wakefield to placate their hardcore supporters, but in a day or so, they will very quickly and quietly sever their ties with him - and start re-writing history again, as they've done in the past."
I suspect there will be a split among antivaxers on this score. Some will find this reverberating scandal to be doubleplusungood and file Wakefield down the memory hole. The most hardcore (like AoA) will champion him no matter how egregious his fraud or numbers of papers retracted. He could take a post as staff physician for the World Wrestling Federation or run an autism clinic with John of God* and they'd still love him.
*come to think of it, this isn't all that far out a possibility.
I too first heard of this story on the local news radio this morning. They pulled no punches against Wakefield. They even had a clip from an angry other who complained that she trusted his research so much that she denied the MMR vax for her daughter "leaving her needlessly unprotected". Then, at the end of the story, their medical reporter came on and skewered Wakefield again.
It was like waking up in an alternate universe. It totally made my day.
I'm so happy for all of the hard work that people like Brian Deer, Orac, and Todd W. have done on this front. I worried a good bit about those first few vaccinations I got for my son because of that fraud Wakefield, I'm glad that people have been willing to fight the good fight so that other parents can avoid that needless worry.
bensmyson wrote:
Well, in fact, you are mistaken -- it took me about three seconds to find Merck's web page listing their board of directors, and there is nobody named Murdoch on that board. You're welcome.
The coverage of this story on my local Fox affiliate this morning was wonderful. (I like KMSP; I've been watching them since they were a UPN affiliate.) They have a "morning Q" on Facebook every day, and on air they'll read some of the responses. All the ones they read were pro-vaccine, though at least one brought up the "too many too soon" gambit. Even that one was solidly anti-Wakefield, though.
I don't give anything controlled by Murdock any credibility. Too bad a thief outed another one.
You've been of great service here, Orac. (Like you needed vindication.)
BTW, Offit's on Science Friday tomorrow:
http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201101076
bensmyson @ 5:
It doesn't, of course. What it does is to make depressingly clear how much valuable time was wasted in understanding, treating, and preventing actual vaccine injuries -- and in understanding, treating, and possibly preventing autism as well. On top of that, infectious diseases once thought under control are making a comeback. All in all, like many great scientific frauds, it wasted a great deal of time and effort by directing research in a futile direction.
Wouldn't you rather *good* science be done to understand your son's condition, its cause, its treatment, and how to prevent it happening to another? Fake science doesn't do your son any good at all.
Easy, Your son did not suffer any vaccine injury per your own account of his medical history and your Vaccine Court claim was quickly tossed out. As for Hannah Poling, we don't have all of the facts of her case and she didn't suffer from 'autistic enterocolitis' following an MMR jab as Wakefield claimed. None of the other children compensated for vaccine injuries remotely resemble what Wakefield has claimed. Next strawman?
Of course, the next strawman. BMS, Mr. Deers findings speak for themselves and are verified so his tenuous ties are irrelevant. Murdoch doesn't sit on the board of Merck, it's GSK so if you can't get those facts straight, what else can't you get right? And Alisyn Camerota works for Fox News, owned by the Murdochs. Didn't you folks over at AoA just give her an 'award' for her journalism? By your logic, publications such as the Wall Street Journal and New York Post should also not be believed.
Wakefield is coming out with the usual claims that CTs come up with. It seems that Big Pharma is entirely responsible for the outcome of the investigation:
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/autism-study-doctor-andrew-wakefie…
And some of the comments to the news report below have to be seen to be believed:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/wakefield-study-that-linked-autism…
"What I can't figure out--I mean, really, really can't figure out--is why the anti-vaccine movement continues to cling to Wakefield's tattered 'science.'"
You've studies the Holocaust. Even after the existance and operations at the death camps was widely known, people obeyed the orders to show up at the train stations for deportation from their homes and transport to them. They would not believe that a "civilized" nation would engage in systematic genocide. Similarly, when Stalin systematically starving and ethnically cleansing various populations within the USSR, many ignored the facts and asserted that all would be well "if only Uncle Joe knew what was happening."
If you give up the belief in vaccination causes autism (blaming someone else -- and Big Pharma is vilified (sometimes rightly so) quite widely), you are left with concluding that autism is genetic. As a parent, that means that if someone has to be blamed, you blame yourself and your spouse. Further, you tell your neurotypical children that they may be "carriers," as well. It is hardly surprising that there are those who would rather believe a falsehood that allows blaming a faceless "they" rather than accept what may be an awful, personal, reality.
I think the Wakefield affair has made me, more now than ever, take those "my son was vaccinated and suddenly got autism" claims with serious grains of salt. Whenever I hear that, I just figure that they are distorting reality in a Wakefieldian manner.
I would think that those people who are making those claims would want to disavow Wakefield completely, and any association with him, because he does not help their credibility.
Orac writes:
What I can't figure out--I mean, really, really can't figure out--is why the anti-vaccine movement continues to cling to Wakefield's tattered "science."
Pretty simple. Ever see An Officer and a Gentleman? Remember the segment where Richard Gere's drill sergeant tries to "break" him, and is surprised at Pretty Boy's tenacious refusal to quit? The sergeant is hollering contemptuously at Gere "Why don't you just get the hell out?", or words to that effect, and Gere, with rain, sweat and tears dripping off him and obviously at the end of his rope, finally howls:
I got nowhere else to go!
It's always astonishing to me that Wakefield has the gall to accuse others of conflict of interest when he himself was attempting to create a competing vaccine:
http://briandeer.com/mmr/st-wakefield-vaccine.htm
Seriously, you don't get to say "you can't trust them because they're making money off of it" when you are trying to make the exact same money.
Is Andrew Wakefield the new Cyril Burt? No, I take that back- it's much too complimentary. I was very fortunate to turn on the TV to Cooper's show at *exactly the right time* and see what D. Bacon has so graciously provided above; later, they also re-played some of the Handley/ Spitzer exchange.
Some employment opportunities for Wakefield:
Pet owners often have the most obtuse "theories" about what causes the kitteh's IBD or dog's behavioral anomalies ( some even involve vaccines)- Andy could start a Research Institute for pet IBD/"autism"
He could work for Deirdre Imus' Research Center,@ HUMC, investigating toxins.
His own radio show @ the Progressive Radio Network.
"Citizen Journalist"/ House Physician/ Research expert for NaturalNews.
Being a regular on the "educational" lecture circuit, cruise ship division.
He could develop his own line of vitamins/supplements and set up shops in malls, eventually selling franchises.
Late night TV info-mercials- works for Trudeau!
Day time TV- Oprah has network with 24hr time slots to fill.
Writing fiction.
Medical director for a cut-rate weight-loss spa ( Hyman's read "Ultra Wellness" books for clues )
Does anyone know why Wakefield left Toronto or qualified in pathology after having invested years in training in clinical medicine?
Wow a bensmyson sighting. Still dumb as hell, too.
Face it everyone, we simply cannot survive without drugs and vaccines! I would even expect that Jesus would get a flu shot before returning! My family doesn't drink water unless it has fluoride! We avoid anything organic and we're certainly not eating anything without preservatives! Dr. Wakefield? What a crack pot! We made sure that we all had weekly flu shots last month, we also doubled up on vaccines and we drink lots of tylenol instead of juice! Hey...you never know...Thank Heaven for the pharmaceutical companies! I don't know how I would make it through the day without my Adderall. And I certainly couldn't sleep without my prescription sleep aids! It saddens me that the entire population doesn't vaccinate their children. I would vaccinate my parents had they not passed away from cancer! They died because they refused the chemo! Anyone know where I can get a dose to prevent this horrible disease? Face it! We need our drugs! Drugs are the only way to ensure our survival! Come on! Don't you believe the commercials?
Here's to drugs and alcohol!
Marco
If, as Wakefield claims, this is all a conspiracy by Big Pharma, then how are they doing it? Are the holding guns to the heads of the parents of children from the study? Changed their memories in a way to discredit Wakefield? And if Big Pharma has that kind of massive power, why didn't they just nip the problem in the bud in the first place?
Marco, maybe you should take a cup of tea, close you're eyes for a moment and relax a little: you're starting to hyperventilate.
Big yawn Marco, boring stupid troll is boring.
Come back when you have something original to say, not just a post of old strawmen. Why don't you actually take a few minutes and read the posts here on the topics you mention so that you can understand why they are strawmen? Or do you just enjoy attacking positions no one actually holds because it is much easier and makes you feel good about yourself?
"Does anyone know why Wakefield left Toronto or qualified in pathology after having invested years in training in clinical medicine?"
I've never heard of Wakefield having trained in pathology.
As a pathologist, please, please tell me he has no connection with the field other than promoting someone else's dubious pediatric intestinal biopsy interpretations.
By the way, another enjoyable moment during the Anderson Cooper show on CNN was when Wakefield attempted to co-opt Sanjay Gupta with the "we're both doctors so you'll understand we can't trust those muckraking journalists" gambit. To his credit, Gupta was having none of it.
About the only criticism I have of Gupta was that he did not bring up the great amount of time and resources spent on a futile search for a vaccine-autism connection, and the need to now concentrate efforts on deserving avenues of research into etiology, prevention and treatment of autism.
Oh, this is so wonderful. I'm just happy today.
Why AoA and the Anti-vaxxers cling so tight to Wakefield? Pride. It's very hard to admit that you are not only wrong, but the other side is right, especially when you've dedicated your life to attacking them based on fraudulent evidence.
They're too proud to admit they're wrong, and they've perfected a selective view of reality over the years, so this then becomes one more thing to deny, no matter how tenuous their position becomes. The more the mainstream turns against them, the more fanatic they will become, flattering themselves that they are the lone "truth seers" - a delightful, special-snowflake position that makes them super-unique.
I'm just glad the mainstream media is starting to call out their nonsense, and Brian Deer is a fabulous journalist.
I am not sure what to think about Gupta now. Perhaps he sort of blows in the breeze and will take the stand that he feels will be popular considering the current situation. Wakefield is looking bad so he is critical. John of God is looking popular and people seem to like the stuff so he is positive about it.
I really do not get this man at all, one minute he seems fairly competent and the next he is a train wreck.
Congratulations Orac.
I just watched Dr. Nancy nail Wakefield on the Today Show with Matt. She was you but much prettier. Living in the heartland of woo, I am celebrating all day. Going to write an editorial for the local rag. Piss off more than a few people and not care.
Thank you Orac for all you do, have done, and will do.
CNN's Elizabeth Cohen also presented a summary of last night's Wakefield news after 11 am.
bensmyson, you can feel skeptical of the reporting journalist all you want, but you should believe the science and the facts, regardless of who reported them.Does anyone know of a transcript of the Anderson Cooper interview? I can't hear the audio; I need something I can read.
Marco:
So, you're dead, then? Could you give me the name of your Internet provider? I want to be sure that I, too, can post from the afterlife.
Travis:
Gupta's a human being. There probably is a certain component of fad-following, but people are not stereotypes. Although there are people who are total woo-meisters and people who worship conventional medicine to absurd extremes (I know because I'm related to some of them), most people are more complex, and it's unwise to draw too many conclusions based on any one view they may express. But if we have to place Gupta in a camp, it's probably the "shruggie" camp -- basically a proponent of conventional medicine, but perhaps a little too casual in his assessment of unconventional medicine.
Calli Arcale:
I guess I am a little more suspicious of him. I know lots of somewhat science minded people, people with degrees in physics or other sciences, who are shruggies but normally they do this over things that are fairly harmless and while have little evidence could conceivably do something, but probably will not hurt anyone. But for the crazier things I find they generally think they are indeed crazy (though often underplay the danger by assuming people only do it for minor ailments, seemingly not realizing that people do die perusing quackery). John of God is one of these crazy ones that I really have a hard time attributing to him simply being a little too casual in his critical thinking, it is just so far out there in lala land.
I agree with Alan "A little update, Fox News has reported on the kerfuffle, and their take is that the anti vaccine crowd are dangerous, and Wakefield is a fraud.
Bet you didn't think that FNC and CNN would ever agree on anything."
I have spent way too much time basking in this wonderful news today. Anyone who endangers children like this man has deserves to be tarred and feathered in the media. Wakefield looks entirely unhinged in the Anderson Cooper interview. In all the interviews I have seen of him before he seemed composed and utterly detached from reality. It is gratifying to see him sweat.
It is laughable that BMS acts all innocent parent now, as if we have all forgot the bile he (and she) has spewed in this same space in the past.
@ Travis...
Sorry to offend my friend! Just having some fun!
Seriously, I clearly understand everyone's concerns. My wife and I never bothered having our two youngest children vaccinated and both are well. The issue I have is this: I have many friends and family members that are on too many prescription drugs and worry that without the drugs, they would certainly not be able to function. Most are unfit and not as healthy as they could be and they're all over stressed. We've never put too much worry into getting sick as we are perfectly able to keep ourselves well. If parents want to vaccinate, by all means, take the immunizations. If one believes the shots offer protection, I expect they will choose to vaccinate. (Our two oldest were vaccinated) No worries! Dr. Wakefield will certainly not have any sympathy from me if he intentionally mislead folks with his research.
Stay healthy!
Marco
So here's a question: will formal charges of fraud likely be levied against Wakefield, now? It's one thing for Deer to write his article, full as it is with evidence, and another for actual formal charges of fraud to be brought against him. Any thoughts?
Travis -- don't get me wrong. I tend to think of shruggies as more dangerous than the outright woo-meisters. John of God -- well, I don't want to get too much offtopic here, but I suspect Gupta probably regards John of God as a harmless crank, and so if his network sponsors want to endorse him, why not smile and go along? It's not like anybody will be hurt by him . . . right? And that's where the danger lies, of course. The shruggie is the person who doesn't fully appreciate the ramifications of thinking of this stuff as just human interest fluff stories with no serious ramifications in the real world.
Back to Wakefield. I'm pleased that this spade is being called a spade in such a definitive way at last, and not just by the authorities and those in the know. The tide of public opinion has clearly turned, and in this case, that is a good thing.
Marco:
So you admit to being a leech on society by using the benefits of herd immunity.
Good to read news like this.
...I'm surprised there hasn't been a Creationist troll rambling about his "Darwinists worship Piltdown man!" straw man.
Marco:
Offended? Not really.
I rolled my eyes a bit, another tired post of the same old, same old. Which is boring. If you are going to disagree with people at least disagree with their actual viewpoints. It leads to much more honest and interesting discussions.
And about Wakefield, as Calli mentioned, I am glad they are finally pushing him hard like he deserves. It seemed to take so long though. Fawning article after another, with only a few journalists like Deer apparently actually looking into this stuff.
@Marco:
So you believe that vaccines are ineffective?
Just wondering, supposing Wakefield is the devil you paint him to be, how does that make my son's injury any less real, or that of Hannah Poling or any other child who suffered a vaccine injury?
No one is saying any kid's injuries aren't real. This expose only reinforces that they weren't really caused by vaccines. If you can't understand the difference, then you're too emotional to participate in a grownup debate, or be a half-decent parent.
Chris
So after being thoroughly punk'd, junk'd, and debunk'd in the more advanced part of the world, Wankfield is now taking his medicine-show to the Third World, presumably to find a less educated and more pliable audience. Just like the Roman Catholic Church and certain other phony right-wing religious sects. Coincidence? I think not. Birds of a feather migrate together.
Mathew Cline
Arsenic is effective. Is it necessary?
Raging Bee
No it doesn't!
Translation: you've been lucky so far, so you're willing to play Russian Roulette with your children's lives. Do you also not wear seatbelts? Walk across the street without looking?
It's not a question of belief. You might as well say "if one believes in gravity, I expect they will not walk off cliffs." Vaccines are highly safe and effective. Full stop, end of story, thoroughly established fact.
@Ben's parents - Big Pharma Cover-Up Gambit. I have the tee shirt. Would you like one?
@ Marco (61): My wife and I never bothered having our two youngest children vaccinated and both are well. ... We've never put too much worry into getting sick as we are perfectly able to keep ourselves well."
Think of vaccines as being kind of like seat belts. You don't truly need them very often, but when you do, they perform an essential service. Do you drive yourself or your kids around without seat belts?
As for believing that you have complete control over your health: think of microbes as being like other drivers, debris, and sudden hazards on the road. When a drunk in the next lane loses control and swerves into you before you can react, your best defense will be to have fastened your seat belt before you left home.
When someone is in the infectious but presymptomatic stage of measles, your child's best defense is to have been vaccinated. Oh, and measles isn't always a benign infection: it almost killed my sister in 1960. She was lucky; it did kill lots of other kids (it also causes sterility in adults). Just google measles deaths and you'll find all sorts of grim information on the subject.
If that's not enough, just think of my husband, who takes vitamins. He loved to tell others about how they protected him from getting sick! Vitamins are great! They boost your immune system!! Well...they protected him until he got laid out flat for ten days after a virus got him.
He doesn't brag about the power of his vitamins so much these days.
Science Mom - Ben's case is still hanging in there in front of a Special Master.
and 68, Hannah Poling didnt suffer a vaccine injury???? You're serious? What about all these, http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/opinions_decisions_vaccine/Published including this one,
HARRY TEMBENIS AND GINA TEMBENIS, ADMINISTRATORS OF THE ESTATE OF ELIAS TEMBENIS V. SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES [03-2820V]Entitlement; Death; DTaP; Seizure disorder; epilepsy; Cause-in-fact; Complex febrile seizure; No alternative cause
It's good to see Wakefield's blatant fraud exposed once more in the media. This should help to innoculate the public against the virulent misinformation of the anti-vaxers.
That still leaves all the dubious or fraudulent natural health products I ever credulously acccepted on recommendation from friends, (and their pseudo-professional bodies, and fake studies)and all the other health fraud I didn't personally fall for, but their comeuppance can come another day. The anti-vax fraud threatened a lot more lives indirectly.
And again, another tip of the hat to Brian Deer. Bravo.
Marco writes:
I have many friends and family members that are on too many prescription drugs and worry that without the drugs, they would certainly not be able to function. Most are unfit and not as healthy as they could be and they're all over stressed.
Europeans in the mid-1300s got a great deal of physical exercise in the open air, ate "natural" foods, had no prescription drugs, and certainly didn't have the stressful high-speed pace of life and work-life balance issues we do today. Children were breast-fed and vaccines were unknown.
How'd that work out for them when the Bubonic Plague came along? (Hint: There's a reason "Plague" is in the name.)
More than 200 years after Jenner first demonstrated a working vaccine, and more than 125 years after Pasteur's experiments conclusively confirmed the germ theory of disease and how vaccines work, you doubt them? I don't know how a serious, thinking person could do so.
Wow. I watched the interview with Handley and he kept touting the NYU Stony Brook study (which was linked from his own website)... that was a mistake since that study was performed regarding PRE-2000 Hep B vaccination, before the thimerasol was removed. Even IF the tiny amount of preservative children got was harmful, children's vaccines (except for some influenza) no longer contain the offending ingredient. So to quote a study that is no longer valid only makes you look smart to the people unwilling/unable/too lazy/uneducated to go read it for themselves.
Sorry Mr. Handley, your hero has no clothes and neither do you!
Wow. I watched the interview with Handley and he kept touting the NYU Stony Brook study (which was linked from his own website)... that was a mistake since that study was performed regarding PRE-2000 Hep B vaccination, before the thimerasol was removed. Even IF the tiny amount of preservative children got was harmful, children's vaccines (except for some influenza) no longer contain the offending ingredient. So to quote a study that is no longer valid only makes you look smart to the people unwilling/unable/too lazy/uneducated to go read it for themselves.
Sorry Mr. Handley, your hero has no clothes and neither do you!
And once again, I'm going to state thusly:
Even if the link were proven true and vaccines DID INDEED cause autism, I'd still vaccinate because I'd rather have a child who is severely autistic and alive (And he is severely autistic and alive) then one dead from a horrible, preventable, disease.
But maybe it's because I've chosen to accept my child's diagnoses and love him despite of them.
I have a personal message here for all the parents who have posted in defense of Wakefield and for what you perceive as a lack of empathy from parents of healthy children and medical professionals. I do understand your anger and umbrage because I am the parent of a child who died at age 28 from a genetic disorder (Cornelia de Lange Syndrome)..and I am also a public health nurse.
I've been down the road you are on; searching for answers while trying to maintain equilibrium to care for my son and to live a life with some sense of normalcy. Thirty-four years ago when he was born, there was absolutely no information available in medical journals, no less popular media, about this rare syndrome. Prior to his death in 2004, NIH funding for genetic researchers located genes that are implicated in "some" instances of the disorder. Much more research is warranted for this syndrome and all the syndromes and disorders that affect our children from birth.
Can't we all agree that a small number of researchers and other medical practitioners have gone rogue in their endeavors...either for the publicity they garner or remuneration for testifying at trials? Brian Deer, with his excellent research into Wakefield's methodology, has proven that point.
The extraordinary resources (emotional, physical and financial) that you devote to your children who are diagnosed with autism is nothing short or heroic. We in the medical professions should remember that when we comment on unproven science.
Jay Gordon is Twittering away:
"I changed the way I vaccinate kids in 1980. I saw unusual behavior after the usual combinations. Wakefield changed nothing for me. Relax."
"Wakefields' "discrediting" does not invalidate possible vaccine autism connection. It proves nothing. Look elsewhere, though. Other toxins."
"Don't get me wrong, the Lancet's irresponsibility in publishing the article was tragic. Wakefield has good ideas but study was inconclusive"
more
http://twitter.com/JayGordonMDFAAP
Seth Mnookin is on MSNBC right now discussing the downfall of St. Andy, the scientific consensus about the lack of an association between vaccines and autism and the reemergence of vaccine-preventable diseases in the US because of declining vaccine rates. Also advises parents to stay away from google for getting scientific info. The anchor conducting the interview is also clearly pro-science. Good stuff.
My local forums has literally exploded with this news report, with threads in the Natural, Health and Sandbox debate areas. The antivaxers have all gone on defensive, and started whining that their relatives are bombarding them with emails and calls about this. I usually wade in on some of those threads, but I'm going to sit this one out and let their families and others do the heavy lifting. I'm enjoying watching a lot of people that pretty much ignored the vaccine threads speaking up now.
This is big. Really big. Like a significant portion of the population just got introduced to what we all knew all at once big. Previously antivaxers were able to blur the science just enough to leave questions for the uninitiated, but now their flagship hero has been shown for the fraud he is with very little in the name of false "balance".
Of course, some of them are already pretending they were never about him, or that it was never about the MMR, etc. But, it is the MMR that they screamed about so much that it is coming back to bite them. It was this brave, handsome, maverick doctor so many of them put up on a pedastal - and now they are having a hard time shoving the shit back in the goose.
"Smarter Than You" was right, there was a bombshell on the horizon. It just isn't what he thought it was.
@79: Looks like in this case Dr. Gordon can't maintain logical consistency from the beginning of one sentence through to the end of the next. If Wakefield's study was merely "inconclusive" and he had "good ideas," then in what way could the Lancet's publication of that study be characterized as tragically irresponsible?
No, the tragedy is that kids died due to Wakefield's purposeful fraud, and the irresponsibility of the Lancet, Wakefield's co-authors and others is being set forth in detail in the BMJ.
@Michelle
Yeah. When I was getting lunch at one of the work cafeterias, I saw that CNN was still talking about it, too.
I love the way that when JB was cornered on CNN's Parker/Spitzer by Elliot Parker about this publication from Wakefield that was clearly fraudulent, JB responded by referring to the UofPitt monkey 'study' as an example....another study by Wakefield. Great job JB! We can all feel comfortable knowing that this time the research wasn't fraudulent.
Sorry. As some jerk just pointed out to me, it's Elliot Spitzer...I work with Elliot Parker and he had nothing to do with the story.
Thanks for pointing that out jerk!
Anonymous, quoting Dr Gordon's tweet:
"Don't get me wrong, the Lancet's irresponsibility in publishing the article was tragic. Wakefield has good ideas but study was inconclusive"
Inconclusive? Inconclusive??!!! It was faked!
@86
...and, it's the Lancet's act of "irresponsibility" for not catching it. As if all publishers of journals pursue investigations of all submitted work prior to publication. It's not the authors or even the reviewers...it was the journal that failed (in not following up on work that is still considered 'inconclusive').
Just want to add my voice to those saying well done Orac - you've certainly been a driving force behind exposing Wakefield's fraud. Your blog has also been a source of education and sanity during the darkest days of the war waged by my anti-vax family pre and post the birth of our first baby.
Went to a nice pub in Piltdown many years ago and noticed a winking ape was the establishmentsâ logo. Perhaps a winking orifice would suit Wakefield.
I saw the interview and was struck by the number of times Andy Wakefield pleaded for someone - anyone! - to read his book. I'm one of the small number of people who has read his book (I borrowed it) and, as far as I can recall, there's nothing in it that excuses his ethical lapses and certainly nothing that would justify changing medical data to make it fit his hypothesis better.
Like many people who end up caught in their own webs, Andy Wakefield claims to have done a small wrong in order to do a greater good. In reality, he's done everyone - including himself - a grave disservice.
At some point, once it finally sinks in that he and his supporters have led to a resurgence in vaccine-preventable diseases, Andy Wakefield (and probably a few of his more vocal supporters) may finally disappear into that anonymity he so richly deserves...in order to avoid the mobs screaming for his head.
Good on ya' to Brian Deer, the British Medical Journal and, of course, our respectfully insolent host, Orac.
Prometheus
@ 78 As a parent of a child with autism I thank you for your kind words. I've never bought into the MMR connection because that was not our experience at all...my daughter exhibited problems much sooner than this affecting her motor abilities and later language/communication. I'm hoping that the truth of how this strange incidences of why kids are neurologically challenged and why the numbers are growing will come out WHATEVER that truth is. Pure speculation on my part, but can anyone point me to any study that is examining if the schedule of vaccines may play a role? I'm not an anti-vax parent...but I have to admit that when my son was born after my daughter's diagnosis--I was scared to death and didn't know WHO to believe. I ended up doing a slower schedule for him...not sure if this helped or not. The point is there is only so much time in a day...I have a lot of time invested in helping my daughter and trying to maintain some semblance of a 'normal' life for my son--only so much time to research. The stuff I've read on genetic link seemed pretty inconclusive. And I feel for you #88...my extended family has gone anti-vax and is making my already stressed out life a living hell.
Anonymous, quoting Dr Gordon's tweet:
"Don't get me wrong, the Lancet's irresponsibility in publishing the article was tragic. Wakefield has good ideas but study was inconclusive"
-- That doesn't even pass the laugh test. "Inconclusive" studies do not get published in top journals.
"At some point, once it finally sinks in that he and his supporters have led to a resurgence in vaccine-preventable diseases, Andy Wakefield (and probably a few of his more vocal supporters) may finally disappear into that anonymity he so richly deserves..."
-- Prometheus, you have more faith than I do. Once one of these folks gets a 15 minutes of fame, they seek it out again and again. OctoMom keeps showing up. Jenny re-appears on Oprah to talk about her books and her child is her science. You can play Whack-A-Mole till your arms fall off, and Truthers and Birthers and Big Foot Sightings keep popping up elsewhere. Why should you expect something different with the Andy and Handley Crowd?
Check out the speakers at this conference of 'experts' that Wakefield mentioned he was at last night on CNN.
http://www.vaccinesafetyconference.com/speakers.html
Barbara Loe Fisher, germ deniers, and--oh hai--Andrew Wakefield!
re @4 (my earlier comment).
It seems AoA has deleted my comment asking after the absence of trackbacks on their pages, so perhaps the absence of trackbacks is intentional after all? Bit poorly of them if that's the case.
@91
Diagnostic substitution and increased awareness explains a lot of (and perhaps all of) the increase in autism diagnosis. There is no evidence of any benefit to spreading out vaccinations. This is not surprising since there is no evidence that vaccinations cause autism.
Anonymous @69 should be
Jay Gordon is Twitting away:
Fixed that for you
Calli @86
You are forgetting that Jay Gordon has a different scale of evidence than the rest of us. Since he considers his undocumented "clinical experience" to be equivalent to large epidemiological studies, then fake data moves up the scale to "inconclusive".
Please accept my sympathies, and know that you are not alone. Two dearly loved and very intelligent members of our clan have become deeply invested in this stuff. Recently I made the serious mistake of saying what I thought was true on this topic and ... well, let's just say that the piano player stopped and everyone hit the floor. Probability that Andrew Wakefield will be a topic around the family table this year = sqrt(fuckall).
I was wondering how anti-vax woo-meisters, who had previously expounded repeatedly upon the *dangers* of vaccination and/or Andy's "contributions" to science, might react to the news:
Mike Adams has several articles on NaturalNews today- a call to stop fluoridation of public water systems in NYC and San Diego, a new rant about airport security, a new contest, and a diatribe against the FDA outlawing injectable vitamin C.
Mercola has two articles about food woo.
Null's radio show featured a long, droning "lecture" about how vaccines are not effective *at all*: the diseases were already declining when vaccines were introduced.
I wonder if mentioning Wakefield might be bad for business?
Maybe the problem is that Wakefield's opponents have never had the opportunity to experience him in person. All doubts engendered by revelations of sloppy, fraudulent research and massive conflicts of interest would evaporate under the glow of Wakefieldean charisma. As Jay Gordon says on his website in a comment posted last May:
"I spent Saturday at an incredible conference in Chicago. Any thoughts I ever had about wavering in my support of Andrew Wakefield have dissolved."
Would you phrase that quite in the same way today, Jay?*
Talk about remarks that should find their way down the memory hole...
*a triple rhyme, woo-hoo.
Taste, perhaps. Does he also mebbe prefer writing short fiction to novels?
There's also the matter of those ever-so stringent requirements the experimental design apparently placed around selection of samples...
A critical criterion being, apparently: are the subject's parents also clients of Richard Barr?
It amuses me no end to see that AoA's "UK Editor", John Stone has been let loose on this. He's written a piece that does its best to smear Brian Deer for having information that he shouldn't really have, but doesn't even try to claim that a single fact in Mr Deer's piece is inaccurate.
From this I deduce that John "Cock" Stone has realised that "Saint" "Andy" Wakefield actually is a liar and a fraud.
http://jabsloonies.blogspot.com/2011/01/john-stone-admits-wakefield-is-…
Kind regards,
Becky
"The Lancet" should not have published a study drawing conclusions from such a small sample size. Medical authors, as we all know, need guidance from editors and from peers. Dr. Wakefield did not get that guidance. You left out my favorite tweet:
BMJ and Deer slamming Lancet and Wakefield is like GM and Ford coming after Toyota and Volvo: Maybe some truth but read skeptically.
By an amazing coincidence, most of the kids I saw today received vaccines. I think that there's a place for vaccines in medical care but very little scientific evidence supporting the way we vaccinate babies.
Best,
Jay
Dr. Wakefield may be an evil man, however, it will be a cold day in a hot place before I ever trust the drug companies! It is blatantly clear that they have scared the sense out of the public. The vaccines may be safe but what about the hundreds of other drugs out there that are slowly killing thousands? I'm no fanatic, but I don't think I'll be eatin' alive by any microbes any time soon. I'd rather eat my mother in law's cooking than take any prescription drug! And they can shove their flu shot right up their...
Anyway, just thought I would share.
Your friend, Captain Ken
:)
I have worked on the "front lines" of pediatrics for twenty-three years, ten of which were in the emergency department of a pediatric teaching hospital in a major city.
For the last thirteen years I have worked for a developmental pediatrician and have had close contact with many families with kids "on the spectrum." Exposing Snakefield is the best thing that has happened in all those years. Should the media decide to handle this story in a responsible way (high hopes, I realize) then I really do think that the next generation will not fall victim to this anti-vaccine bullshit.
We tell parents that according to youth protection guidelines, not vaccinating a child is tantamount to abuse and neglect.
Long live Brian Deer.
(I happened to see a friend today who's autistic son is followed at the office. We did a little jig of glee in the waiting room. I love my job.)
@Dr. Jay: The study was fraudulent, independently of the sample size. You're attempting to whitewash significant wrongdoing.
BMJ has the hospital records of the children. Wakefield's response? "Conspiracy! Buy my book!" If there were any facts that could be disputed, Wakefield would've claimed so already.
It's true, though, that it would better if peer-review involved double-checking raw data, source code, etc. Science should be as transparent as possible, but that's not quite how it is, so outright fraud does go undetected on occasion.
Oh Noes!
Won't someone think of Olmstead and Blaxill's BoOK?
The Thimerosal/Thiomersal...the mecrcury...what about the mercury?!11eleventyone!!
Oh, by the way, Jay Gordon? Why not ignore him? Why not? There is nothing a delusional narcissist hates more.
Dr. Jay:
Other than they tend to die from pertussis, Hib, tetanus and other diseases when exposed. Perhaps, as we have suggested to you several times, you should actually review the research where studies are done using the outcomes from babies and children all over the world.
"Does anyone know why Wakefield left Toronto or qualified in pathology after having invested years in training in clinical medicine?"
As one person has already said, Wakefield didn't go into pathology: he went into experimental gastro-enterology as a researcher, consultant and lecturer. Before that, as you note, he was at the University of Toronto... that's where he studied further surgical techniques in transplant surgery and got into enteric surgery there. This was on a limited-time study fellowship. That'd be why he left Toronto and ended up at the RFH Med-School.
I hope that sheds some light.
Jay Gordon
Good point Dr. Jay - also the editors and peers did not give Snakefield (HT to Jack Rabbit) guidance regarding fabricating data. If only someone had told him this was wrong, he wouldn't have faked his study.
"Medical authors, as we all know, need guidance from editors and from peers. Dr. Wakefield did not get that guidance.". Ah, yes, I can see the conversation that should have occurred:
"Andy, this is a very interesting paper. Now we have some special policies at this journal. I know it's a bit peculiar and unexpected, but we expect that if you describe a patient's symptoms, you will describe the symptoms they actually had and not the symptoms you think they should have had. And the history you give should relate to the actual history of the patient. Oh, you hadn't encountered policies like that before? I understand that they seem very strange and onerous, but we have an old-fashioned idea here that if you make a statement in our journal, that statement should be true to the best of your knowledge. Here, we have a written policy, perhaps you could peruse it at your leisure. I can give you the names of some honest doctors, if you like, and perhaps they can clarify the concepts of truth and honesty for you."
Jay said "Medical authors, as we all know, need guidance from editors and from peers. Dr. Wakefield did not get that guidance."
Wakefield had no peers to read his manuscript before he sent it to the Lancet, is that what you're saying? Was he the only author? Is he an island? Poor, poor Wakefield, IF ONLY he got some guidance, none of this would have ever happened.
We aren't talking about a poorly designed study, or small sample sizes, we're talking about FRAUD. The real "if only" is that if only Wakefield would have had some ethics, then none of this would have ever happened!
Over at Leftbrain/Rightbrain: Brian Deer responds to Wakefield's charges.
No, he doesn't. That's a stupid thing to say. I won't say it's a lie, because you may believe it, but thirty seconds with Google and checking the Merck web site would show you that nobody named Murdoch is on Merck's board.
Totally OT, but this was posted on my facebook feed from TED, wondered if you'd seen it and how this relates to your previous posts about early detection not necessarily being a good thing
http://www.ted.com/talks/deborah_rhodes.html "Deborah Rhodes: A tool that finds 3x more breast tumors, and why it's not available to you"
Murdoch is a non-executive director at GlaxoSmithKline, has been a few years, looks like. This is probably where the non-factual factoid in question came from.
@88, 91, 97
Thank you for sharing; I feel a little less alone. I'm due with my first baby in 8 weeks. My husband and I asked all the people who are planning to come visit us after the baby's born to get updated flu and pertussis vaccinations. It will be at the height of flu season, plus we're in an area with a pertussis outbreak, so I did not think this was unreasonable.
My mother is no longer coming because of this request. I knew she was anti-vax and expected some opposition from her, but I didn't realize her beliefs ran so deeply that she will forgo seeing her first grandchild. :(
This story made my day a little brighter, but I'm still saddened to remember that reality, facts, and science have zero impact on so many people.
Well - wasn't I surprised to by my copy of "The Australian" today, and find this story on the front page:
Door Closed on Vaccine Health Scare
Great work, Orac!
@91 - The only thing that worked for us was to repeat over and over and over to the family members in question that the topic (vaccinating our baby) was not up for discussion. They eventually got the idea. Could this work for you? I really feel for you - it was a horrible enough situation with just one baby, let alone two and to have them still going on at you.
@97 - Haha yes, either no comment or play the 'Brian Deer is a hitman' card.
Ooo I just thought of a great title for an AoA (or the like) article: 'St Andy vs The Hitman'. Or a comic strip...
@117
Firstly: congratulations on the impending addition to your family. Your wee one has won the sweepstakes for having caring and courageous parents.
Secondly: That's just heartbreaking about your mum. Perhaps she will reconsider her stance once your baby joins the world. It seemed to have that effect on my mum (also very anti vax). If not, take heart in the fact that you are making the very best decision for your baby. Once you meet him/her you will feel even more resolved. Nothing else will matter more than protecting them to the best of your ability. Our darling is now 7 months old and despite the hysterical warnings of autism, SIDs and a compromised immunity, is hale and hearty.
We should have a venting post somewhere to share and support!
Best wishes to you and yours. This is such an exciting and precious time for you.
@91 No need to thank me; I sincerely believe that you and other parents of developmentally-disabled children are doing extraordinary things with your children.
In answer to your question about slowing down immunizations, there really aren't too many options for you. Years ago, back in "my time", I had that option as many of the immunizations were not in combined form. With the pediatrician's approval we started them a little later, as he was released from the NICU at ten weeks of age. As I recall we started with DTP (not the newer DTaP) and delayed polio immunizations. Now DTap is offered in combined doses along with polio vaccine. Newer immunizations against dangerous bacterial illnesses that cause meningitis,the viruses that cause chicken pox and Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C, were not available for infants...or adults, at that time. The reason why there are combination childhood immunizations is that it increases patient (parent) compliance to provide timely protection against deadly diseases.
While I didn't have benefit of the internet for "research" I wasn't bothered by the gross mis-representation presented on many anti-vaccination sites. The CDC site has portals to get you to excellent sites about immunizations with the childhood immunization schedule chart that physicians refer to, to keep their patients on schedule. The American Pediatric Academy site is also a valuable resource about immunizations, childhood diseases and other problems associated with child-rearing.
I presume you have already visited "Autism Speaks" and "The Autism Society of America" web pages for excellent articles including some interesting research about autism. And, you've made an excellent choice by visiting and posting on this site.
"Unlike religion... ...which keep[s] on going, unchanged through the ages save for occasional fads"
Yeah. All hail Thor. Moron.
Reformawhat?
bensmyson cited the Vaccine Court's Tembenis case as an example of proof of a vaccine-caused injury.
bensmyson, you should read carefully. Here is the Vaccine Court Special Master (filling the role of judge) explaining the reason for the ruling in favor of the parents:
"[B]ased on the statistics, it is more likely that Eliasâs epilepsy was caused by a congenital condition than by a vaccine reaction. This fact, alone, is insufficient to negate causation. See Knudsen v. Secây of Depât of Health & Human Servs., 35 F.3d 543, 550 (Fed. Cir. 1994) (discussing burden of proving an alternative factor in an on-Table case). The medical literature shows that some uncertainty exists in the medical community as to the cause of the documented association between a complex febrile seizure and epilepsy. Although Petitioners have not proven that Eliasâs DTaP vaccination was a medically certain cause of his epilepsy and subsequent death, that is not the standard for causation under the Vaccine Act. In enacting the Vaccine Act, Congress made a deliberate choice not to impose on petitioners the burden of producing conclusive scientific proof that an unlikely event actually occurred." [Emphasis added.]
The Vaccine Court does not and was never intended to find facts in the same way as a typical civil or criminal court proceeding. The burden the complaining party (usually the parents) must carry is intentionally set quite low. Essentially it is a burden of showing scientific plausibility, in contrast to the typical civil court proceeding where one must show likelihood. So in Vaccine Court one can be awarded compensation simply for showing something may have happened, rather than that it was likely to have happened.
That is what occurred in the case you cite. The parents did not establish as a fact or even as a likelihood that the vaccination-induced fever caused their child's epilepsy and subsequent death. They simply showed this chain of events was scientifically plausible - it could have occurred.
No one disputes that in extremely rare cases vaccine reactions may include fevers high enough to cause problems, including seizures or even death. But what this same Vaccine Court found in the Autism Omnibus proceedings was that the theory of autism causation from vaccines wasn't scientifically plausible - the petitioners hadn't even carried the low burden of showing how vaccines could possibly cause autism, let alone that they do.
So fair's fair, bensmyson. If you find the pronouncements of the Vaccine Court persuasive, take to heart their conclusions in the Autism Omnibus, after having given the petitioners every opportunity to bring forth proof. Realize that no, it's not some vast conspiracy, it's that the whole explanation offered for how vaccines cause autism - begun by Wakefield fraudulently, then through all its subsequent permutations - may be scientific-sounding, but is in fact a line of BS that in reality makes absolutely no sense. Then begin to put your energy and persuasive efforts behind the researchers who are looking for the real causes (and are in fact slowly making some headway), so that we might hope for some light at the end of the tunnel sooner rather than later.
In fact, here are three organizations that are doing some good autism work.
Well said Jud. Hope you don't mind if I clip this as a succinct (excellent) rebuttal to pass along when others try bensmyson's reasoning.
autism is a born decease its cant be curable. i will pray that no parents in this world face this wit there child.....
autism is a born decease its cant be curable. i will pray that no parents in this world face this wit there child.....
Dr. Gordon writes, The Lancet" should not have published a study drawing conclusions from such a small sample size. Medical authors, as we all know, need guidance from editors and from peers. Dr. Wakefield did not get that guidance
I can't agree. Small case studies can play an important role in generating hypotheses for subsequent investigation. I'm curious as to what evidence Dr. Gordon has that the authors did not receive guidance. In fact, the statements in the paper itself are reasonably qualified and acknowledge the limitations of the small sample size. Particularly compared to Wakefield's overheated fear-mongering in press conferences, this suggests that considerable guidance was received from editors and reviewers. Of course, scientific journals and reviewers necessarily must start from the assumption that a submission is made in good faith--they should not have to explain to an author that it is improper not to disclose financial interests, or to omit or distort data that does not serve those interests.
I'm imagining Dr. Wakefield saying something like this.
@ T. Bruce McNeely: LOL you're dead-on with that clip :)
Dr. Jay @114: "I think that there's a place for vaccines in medical care but very little scientific evidence supporting the way we vaccinate babies."
Really? I guess you don't know how to use UpToDate.
Don't be silly.. This is, after all, Jay Gordon we're dealing with. He has decades of clinical experience. It's just not possible to be more up to date and informed than that.
@103 I'm pretty sure there've been several large studies in several countries that've looked for a correlation between childhood vaccines in general and autism. They've not found anything.
One of the most maddening things about the whole autism-vaccine link is how much funding it has diverted away from research that might have actually gone somewhere towards understanding the aetiology (and possible prevention, even) of autism. And how much energy has been diverted from possible interventions to assist the development of autistic children.
Could you imagine a brain surgeon trying to pull that type of crap?
I have a few questions regarding this fraud.
1) why did it take the "scientific" community so long to prove this as a fraud?
2) What pharma companies were funding this study?
3) How much money does big pharma stand to make now that they have "proven" Wakefield as a "fraud"?
4) If Wakefield did indeed fake these reports and this whole thing is a fraud, what now?
5) Remember that the British have a communist style "health care" system. What does this new finding mean for how much money the politicians who run thissytem gets? In other words, if we follow the money trail through the political health care system and back through the lawyers, pharma companies, and big wheels in government, who stands to make more money?
Personally I still beleive Wakefield. I distrust anyone who is remotely socialist. I distrust government and scientists in general. We all know how they have screwed us on a real fraud - global warming. I think if the media would do their job and follow the money trail, they might come up with some answers to who is behind this sneaky attack on wakefield and how much they stand to profit on it.
@ Chris
Don't even think about. Everytime you get started with me, you end up griping about me calling you my stalker after you follow me around.
Oh, wow, you are an idiot.
Well of course you do dear! After all, reality isn't really your forte is it cupcake?
Run along now...the grown ups are talking.
@Medicien man
I like how you always bring up this "stalking." How does this happen? By premonition? Chris' first comment is #8. Yours is #146. Surely you know which occurred first on a timeline. And it's fucking ALWAYS THAT WAY. I second what Chris said: you really are an idiot.
Hmmm....believe Wakefield or believe the actual PARENTS of the "study" children?
Somehow, given the massive amount of evidence now available & the fact that Wakefield himself had a HUGE financial interest in the faked results, I can't imagine why anyone (including trolls like our MM friend, Sid of STY) would still even remotely believe him.
My son was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome at age 5. I had both of my kids vaccinated according to schedule and I honestly can't pinpoint an exact time when he began to show signs because I didn't know anything was wrong. But looking back, as an infant, Ryan looked us in the eye, smiled, laughed, and enjoyed being with other people. His maladaptive behaviors became noticeable at age two.
I'd never even heard of Wakefield until today and I have never placed much faith in panicked science. I believe in vaccinating to prevent disease but surely the vaccines don't need to have thimerosol and aluminum. Some vaccines have had these removed but look at the excipients list for vaccines and you'll still see thimerosol and aluminum listed as ingredients without the note on some that the amount is reduced.
Having an autism spectrum child puts you in contact with other parents for support and sanity. What astounds me is the number of parents who have had their children tested for mercury and found out they had dangerous levels in their blood. I'm finally taking my son in to get tested just to be safe. So what can I conclude if his mercury levels are too high? Was it his vaccines or environmental toxicity?
Fraud like Dr. Wakefield's should be exposed and eradicated but that does not mean that science should not continue to study vaccines and other possibilities to find the answer to autism. One autistic child in 100 is too many.
Ryan's Mom:
Neither of those have ever been in the MMR vaccine at any times since its approval for use in the USA in 1971.
Yeah, I just watched videos of my oldest son when he was under a year old, up to the Christmas when he was fifteen months. Then he got very sick from a now vaccine preventable disease, had seizures and was taken to the hospital by ambulance. His speech development stopped, and he needed at least ten years of speech therapy. As an adult he is still disable and gets disability services at the community college.
Sure, research vaccines all you want, just don't take funds away from other disability services.
Ryan's Mom - Mercury testing is a scam. They use a chelating agent to cause an abnormally high concentration of mercury (we all have some mercury in our bodies) by flushing it all out at once. This artificially raised level is used to sell you on unnecessary (and potentially harmful) chelation treatments.
Before you get those tests, you should be aware that one of the most popular forms of testing is rigged to produce positive results. Basically, they give the patient a chelation agent, which artificially increases the mercury levels in the patient's urine for a few hours. They then compare this artificially increased level to the levels typically found in people who haven't received a chelation agent.
...and that's why I should refresh the page prior to posting.
@Medicien man
"Scientific"
"Fraud"
"Health Care"
Oooooooo. Scaaarrry. (spoken in Count Floyd accent)
New Rule: You are allowed only two sets of "scare quotes" per post. Notice how "terrifying" innocent little words become when surrounded by these ominous "quotes?" Aren't you just "awesome" for having used so many?
You sir, are a conspiracy nut. But then again, that's exactly what you'd expect one of "them" to say, now isn't it?
Myself:
Oh, crud, I left out a sentence. I forgot to note that he was babbling and beginning speech development. He was doing "na na na" and "da da da", but after the seizure I had to wait until he was four years old before I heard "ma ma."
Fortunately he did learn sign language when he was two (he learned seventy signs in one summer!). That was a lifesaver. Though what was interesting was that people who saw him signing would assume he was deaf and come over and ask me about raising a deaf child. After I explained that he was not deaf but had a severe speech disability possibly from seizures they would find a way to creep away from me. It was something they could not comprehend.
[obligatory]
Yes it is. Just because Medicien man is paranoid, doesn't mean "they" are not all out to get him.
Ryan's mom - then why isn't your other child Asperger's too, since you had them both vaccinated? Why aren't you, since you were presumably vaccinated? And your husband? You might as well pin your child's autism on the food he ate the day before the diganosis as to his vaccination for all the correlation it has.
@Ryan's Mom
Take a look through some of the archived articles here. Also, you may want to visit antiantivax.flurf.net, which covers some of the more common misconceptions promoted by the anti-vaccine types. There are a lot of links there to further information. I also recommend visiting Science-Based Medicine and going to their Topic-Based Reference section on Vaccines and Autism. The Topic-Based Reference tab is on the upper right when you first land on the SBM site. Scroll down and click on the "Vaccines and Autism" link. Lots of resources there, too.
As to the testing for mercury thing, what Militant Agnostic and MartinM said. In particular, you may want to do some reading up on an organization called Doctor's Data Inc., which uses those fraudulent tests to convince parents that they need to chelate their kids.
Matthew @155/156
Your post was not redundant. I forget to mention the comparison to normal unprovoked levels - good that you did. The area of ignorance that the con artists pushing this tests exploit is the whole toxiphobia issue.
There are 2 aspects - one is that the dose makes the poison. Far to many many people subscribe to an almost religious view that any amount of a toxin, no matter how tiny is very bad. The second is that most people are unaware of how ubiquitous many toxic substances are (especially aluminum) or how our body even produces some of them (like formaldehyde).
As a result, if a test indicates the tiniest trace of a toxin they feel they think they need to eliminate it to become pure again.
Anti-vaxxer crank Meryl Dorey gets a smackdown:
http://www.2ue.com.au/blogs/2ue-blog/to-vaccinate-or-not/20110107-19i9a…
The only thing worse than previously thought is the industries ruthlessness in trying to scapegoat Dr. Wakefield. One example of the various smears? The allegation that Dr. Wakefield had a patent on a competing MMR vaccine. The truth? It was a transfer factor "vaccine format" in order to deal with persistent measles infection and intestinal pathology which could be due to wild measles or MMR vaccine. Oh yes, and Dr. Wakefield didn't hold the patent, his hospital did. It either didn't work as hoped or it threatened the snot out of them to even have the suggestion that MMR vaccine could cause problems like this.
Also, why don't the media care about fraudulent studies such as Thorsens' or Fombonnes? I would also like to point out that parents fears aren't due to a guy like Dr. Wakefield. That would be convenient but it just isn't so. Many have heard of things like Offit's vaccine causing bowel
intusseption and contamination with pig virus. That kind of stuff makes people nervous...
The full text of the patent application makes it abundantly clear that it is indeed for a competing vaccine. And the fact that Wakefield's institution held the patent doesn't mean he didn't stand to make a bucketload of cash from it.
Brave brave Anon:
You seem to be cutting and pasting without even checking the facts. The vaccine that caused problems was RotaShield, not RotaTeq.
Also, the pig virus is a non-story. Since it is an oral vaccine, consider it being better with extra bacon.
Oh, and the transfer factor stuff: How is Hugh Fudenberg these days? Is he still making the stuff by rolling out his own bone marrow on his kitchen table?
Anon writes:
Many have heard of things like Offit's vaccine causing bowel intusseption and contamination with pig virus. That kind of stuff makes people nervous...
The "many" who have heard of intussusception and pig virus contamination ought to practice reading for comprehension.
- Intussusception problems occurred with Rotashield, a vaccine Offit had nothing to do with, in 1998. No problem with intussusception has been found with either of the two vaccines in wide use today, Rotarix (GlaxoSmithKline) or RotaTeq (Merck, the one Offit is involved with).
- The contamination in Rotarix (note this was not the vaccine Offit was involved with) was viral DNA, not virus itself, from a virus that does not cause disease in either pigs or humans. Inoculation with Rotarix was suspended (while Offit's vaccine, which did *not* have this problem, was used instead), not because of any problems found in inoculated children (none were in 90,000 participants in trials of the vaccine or in 69 **million** administered doses), but because officials quite properly wanted to know how any contaminant, no matter how innocuous, had made its way into the vaccines.
The kind of stuff that *should* make people nervous is the 20-60 child deaths a year in the USA that occurred from rotavirus infection pre-vaccine, and could occur again if enough people don't have their kids vaccinated.
Well thank you for clarifying about the rota vaccines. Still, no comments about Fombonne or Thorsen?
Chris- you can't dispute, though, that Dr. wakefield's MMR "vaccine" is being characterized wrongly.
So, yes, I agreed that it was Fudenberg's transfer factor. Now, is he still making the stuff by rolling out his own marrow in his kitchen?
What about Fombonne? What did he do, and what evidence do you have? Link to the original papers, not to anything from AoA. I remember it coming up, but it was just one guy making lots of noise and I have not heard about it until you brought it up. So is there some kind development in the real world?
And Thorsen is another non-story.
Now, what does that have to do with Wakefield not declaring conflict of interests, or actually changing data in his "research."
Thank you for the information on mercury testing. The doctor I am taking my son to specializes in Autism and brain injury. His emphasis is on dietary sensitivity/allergies, brain mapping with EEG, and biofeedback treatment. His common recommendations for autism are gluten free/casein free living confirmed by labs and gastroenterologist, supplements for nutrient deficiencies confirmed by multiple types of tests including blood and urine, neurofeedback for ADHD and OCD, referral for occupational therapy, counseling with a licensed therapist, hormone levels and treatment if necessary, and parent coaching. He does recommend chelation in some cases but it is not his emphasis. I am the one who asked for it.
All of that being said, I still think that no one should count out thimerosol as an issue because mercury is one of the most dangerous neurotoxins. And before you count out chelation, several of the parents I have known that allowed their children to have chelation therapy saw dramatic improvements in their children. As with all therapies, what works for some does not work for all.
As for my other child, she actually is mildly Asperger's as well but doesn't need treatment. My husband and I also have a lot of Asperger's characteristics as does my hub's brother and his nephew.
One thing I don't understand is why they want to give children so many vaccines at one time and why they give them so many boosters. Perhaps research should be conducted on children to see if one round of each vaccine would be enough to produce immunity.
Knowing my son, I suspect that we'll find he has a problem with gluten because he gets hyper after eating wheat.
Chris, I now understand your strong opinion on vaccines after what happened with your son. I've always felt that turning down vaccines is not a smart thing especially if you have a child in day care or public school. And having had some of those childhood diseases myself, I would not want my children to have them.
Would anyone wish Polio on their children? Absolutely not. But I do believe that there could be problems with the vaccine schedule. As a child, I only had one shot for each disease. They didn't mix them so much back in the late 60s and early 70s. I was tested for immunity as an adolescent for several diseases because the old family doc didn't believe in overvaccinating. I was still immune.
Obviously the answer is not one size fits all. Research should continue. I don't believe that any one is suggesting that money should be taken away from any therapy, but neither should any viable hypothesis be ignored.
Ryan's Mom:
My son was not in daycare.
So what pediatric vaccines are there that still have thimerosal? Almost half of the eight influenza vaccines approved for children are free from thimerosal, and the rest are available without thimerosal. Aren't your concerns about ten years to late?
I still have my shot record from birth through to the 1970s. I had both the DTP and smallpox vaccine on the same day as an infant, and later I had typhoid and yellow fever given on the same day (born in another country).
I also had boosters. Have you never had your tetanus booster? You should really get yourself a Tdap. (note about those bacterial diseases, getting the disease itself only provides about five years of immunity)
Sounds like a DAN quack. Change doctors.
On lab tests, I remember reading somewhere that hair testing is very accurate for metals.
Ryan's Mom:
Not really. There is enough variation that they are only useful to see the effect on populations. Which means it is useful to have hair tested of the large group of people who live in a certain area to check for environmental contaminants. Not for checking the levels in an individual.
Beware of any kind of lab testing that requires you to take the samples and mail them away.
Trolls these days. Anon at 166 and 168 doesn't even seem to be trying. I mean to say, a couple of egregiously wrong assertions about the wrong vaccine and two names without any allegations about them, followed by a petulant complaint that Chris has merely corrected the wrong-vaccine stupidity but failed to say anything about the non-allegations? Is that all?
In my day trolls took more pride in their work.
Actually, Chris etc. I have done some research and see that there are several doctors who have taken the time to really dissect Fombonne's prevalence study and Dr.s Ayoub and Yazbak really criticize his findings as completely flawed. Not only that but they weren't allowed to include their critiques in the journal of Pediatrics.
www.whale.to/vaccine/yazbak201.html
Yay, whale.to! I call Scopie's law!
I'll tell the anon that whale.to is a site that claims dolphins can fly.
He is a DAN doctor and I have tried other doctors whose only answer was medications that made him catatonic. One medication made his blood pressure so low that he spent the night in the hospital. A pediatric cardiologist was called in and said his blood pressure was too low caused by a medication prescribed by his traditional psychiatrist. The cardiologist recommended removing the drug from his regimen, but the psychiatrist wanted to continue the medication and didn't want to decrease the dosage. I took him off of it anyway.
As Jenny McCarthy and Holly Robinson Peete advocate, try every therapy out there. You might find something that helps your child. These two women both helped their children by dietary changes and other therapies. Since I've already tried almost every medication out there (with some success and then they all eventually failed), I am going to try alternative therapies. Checking for food allergies is not harmful, especially when I already know there is Celiac disease in the family. Trying biofeedback is not harmful. Testing for deficiencies is not harmful.
I remember that most doctors used to believe that coronary arteries could not be cleared of plaque and then Dr. Dean Ornish proved them wrong. A little known bacterium causes 90% of ulcers. Doctors who think outside the box may have the answers the mainstream doesn't want to hear. If this DAN doctor helps my son, my son is the winner. If he can't do anything, then there is nothing lost.
Ryan's Mom, here is a resource for you, it even contains an article by Holly Robinson Peete. Also because science does move on, does not mean that DAN doctor are correct (and they actually cling to therapies that have been proven ineffective).
Ryan's mom
The research has been done, and that's why all those boosters are given. I'll refer you to the Every Child by Two website for more links on how vaccines are researched: http://www.ecbt.org/parents/vaccinesafety.cfm
(scroll down the page)
We've also seen this in outbreaks of diseases: children who haven't received all of their boosters can (and do) get sick.
As for giving so many at once - let's look at it this way: Which disease would you prefer your children to get? Personally, I'd rather get mine protected as soon as possible.
I still have my vaccination card from the 70s. The only mixed vaccine I received was the DTP. All others were single. And I only had 7 vaccines. My children got two vaccines the day they were born. They got 36 vaccines by the time they were 4, most of them containing parts of at least 3 to 4 diseases. Back in the day when your son was a child, autism was rare even when the different diagnostic criteria is factored in. Those children who would now be diagnosed as Asperger's may have been classed as mentally retarded or ADD. Still there were far few children in Special Ed in the 70s and 80s than there are now. My son is 10 and when I have meetings for his IEP, I am blown away at the number of Autistic kids in a school of 500. All the teachers agree they have seen a dramatic increase in the last 15 years.
Some doctors theorize that some children have lower functioning immune systems that are further impacted by getting too many vaccinations in a short period of time and at too young of an age. Are they right? Let's find out. Interestingly enough, Celiac disease is an autoimmune disorder. If my son has that or some other form of abnormal reaction to wheat, it can only help him to remove it from his diet.
My husband's cousin has a son with autism whose symptoms completely stopped once they removed gluten from his diet. He has Celiac disease. Before his dietary change, he was completely nonverbal. Now he's off the spectrum. And it was found by a "quack" DAN doctor who had a gastro doc do a biopsy on his small bowel confirming the diagnosis.
@Ryan's mom
"As Jenny McCarthy and Holly Robinson Peete advocate, try every therapy out there. You might find something that helps your child. "
Jenny McCarthy has also suggested that her child with autism is actually the next phase of human evolution. What is your position on this since the learned Dr. McCarthy offered it up.
"Some doctors theorize that some children have lower functioning immune systems that are further impacted by getting too many vaccinations in a short period of time and at too young of an age."
What is the antigenic load in the vaccines given to children by 2 years of age and how does that compare to the antigenic load they get by doing baby stuff by 2 years of age?
"And it was found by a "quack" DAN doctor who had a gastro doc do a biopsy on his small bowel confirming the diagnosis."
Why did it require a biopsy? I know several people with celiac's, none of them mentioned it requiring invasive procedures to diagnose. Also, none were autistic.
I know all about the rise of autism rates, I experience it. My son went to preschool with non-verbal children who were later given a diagnosis of autism. My son was in kindergarten when the DSM IV came out and included autism. I was online then and saw the changes.
I know people with celiac disease, absolutely none have autism, and one was diagnosed as a teenager (she was quite verbal and in the marching band with my younger son).
You are just presenting anecdotes and opinion. I have been there and done that, I think you are being very gullible.
If your son is ten, why are you persevering on thimerosal? It was pretty much gone form the pediatric schedule by then. Even SafeMinds had to trouble finding it for any study they sponsored after Mady Hornig's autistic mice study, which is why Burbacher and other had to add thimersal to their vaccines.
Why even go on about thimerosal on this thread to begin with? As I told you the MMR, which is the vaccine that Wakefield demonized, has never contained it, nor even aluminum. Try to keep up.
As far as Anon goes: those guys are loons, and you have invoked Scopie's Law:
"Why did it require a biopsy? I know several people with celiac's, none of them mentioned it requiring invasive procedures to diagnose.". From personal experience ... I had symptoms strongly suggestive of celiac disease, and they did do a biopsy to try to confirm the diagnosis. So in at least some cases, diagnosis of celiac disease does require a biopsy.
Ryan's mom: if you were immunized in the 70's, we're around the same age. You may be a little bit older if you had separate mumps, measles, and rubella - I had the MMR. The fact that teachers are seeing a lot more special needs kids now reflects the fact that back when we were kids, many of them were institutionalized. I don't see how providing them with a public education instead is a bad thing.
Oh, and please don't use that silly "36 vaccines" number J.B. Handley invented. Are you counting shots, or diseases? Neither one adds up to 36. And again, if you think there are too many vaccines, please tell me which disease you'd rather have your children contract.
Except that you don't know that. For all you or they know, those children were already on their way to improvement when the mother tried a dietary change. Picture primitive cave people shouting and dancing frenetic dances, trying desperately to make the sun come up. Sooner or later, the sun is going to come up. The cave people will naturally assume that whichever song and dance they did last was the one that "worked," but the truth is that the song and dance didn't have a thing to do with it. As you yourself indicate, these mothers "try every therapy out there" -- if their child makes any sort of improvement, of course there's going to be some therapy that looks like it "worked."
Chelation, which you have already said this DAN doctor of yours recommends, is harmful. It kills children. Its use on autistic children is based on absurd premises: not just that autism is somehow related to heavy metal poisoning (the two actually bear very little resemblance to each other) but that removing a toxic substance reverses the injury. If a chunk of heavy masonry falls and crushes your leg, does your leg magically get better when someone lifts the masonry off?
Ah yes, the famous "Galileo gambit." This is a favorite refrain among those who want to believe in some form of pseudoscience. "Galileo was right when all the authorities thought he was wrong; therefore my current guru, whom all the authorities think to be wrong, may well be right."
Problem is, how do we distinguish between those who are thought to be wrong who are actually right, and the much greater number who are thought to be wrong who really are wrong? Hmmm, tough question.... if only we had some sort of rigorous process for testing their claims... something that would actually involve looking at the evidence and not just accepting the favorable claims for it that almost any pundit would naturally offer for their own work... such a process would not produce perfect and certain results, but it would be the closest we could get...
Oh, hey, I think we just described science. If the methods of your favorite "brave maverick doctor" are not accepted by mainstream science, perhaps it's because his methods don't stand up to scientific examination. "Answers the mainstream doesn't want to hear"? Bosh and nonsense; the mainstream wants answers to the problem of autism. But it takes it more to make something a real answer than "hey, these celebrity moms said their kids improved after they tried this!"
Why go on about thimerosol? Because my son's vaccines contained it even after it had supposedly been removed, and some vaccines still contain thimerosol. Aluminum has been found in high quantities in the brains of Alzheimer's patients and it was suspected as a problem agent in the 1930s. Why add it to vaccines?
Why don't I know as much as you? I trusted my son's doctors and therapists. They suggested I put him in a facility because his behavior is getting worse and his psychiatrist refused to change a medication that a heart specialist warned was endangering him. That's when I began looking for more information on my own.
And why would they do such an invasive procedure to confirm a diagnosis? I would have to have you speak to a gastroenterologist to answer that. Perhaps it has something to do with the very difficult lifestyle necessary for those who react so strongly to gluten. Not all autistic children have celiac disease but many are intolerant to gluten. Not all with celiac disease are autistic but some are.
I never knew about the issue with the MMR vaccine. I made sure my children received all of their required vaccines and I don't regret that decision.
One interesting note on boosters...my niece had her DTP booster (not sure if it was called that or Tdap back then) at age 12. At 16 she got pertussis anyway even though she had been vaccinated 4 years earlier.
I'm not here to criticize anyone and I greatly appreciate the information on your site and from other people. I've bookmarked the sites you all gave for further research.
Whatever its cause, autism must be stopped and that will take the dedication of brilliant researchers. I hope that the acts of men like Andrew Wakefield will not stop others from proceeding with their ideas. I fully believe that they'll find the truth some day.
This says differently. If you have any evidence that the amount of thimerosal has any connection with autism, or that aluminum is an issue: bring it up elsewhere. This thread is about Wakefield's wonky research on the MMR. Which I will remind for a third time neither contained thimerosal or aluminum.
Now in the future please post on topic, and present evidence as opposed to your little anecdotes.
Can you post the name of the vaccine? Maybe the year it was given?
@Ryan's Mom: did you have any "weird" kids in your classes at school? I did. He was barely verbal, violent, and we were scared of him. Gradually, over the years, he improved. Today he would probably have a diagnosis of Asperger's, if not Autism. He had many of the characteristics. Back then, in the late 1960's-early 1970's, he was just a weird kid. The special ed kids were in their own classroom and we never saw them. No mainstreaming.
I'm a few years older than you, I guess. I got several combined shots. We have family members who would have certainly had either an Asperger's diagnosis or an Autism diagnosis (the family members were either considered eccentric, weird or "very naughty" depending on their age). One family member WAS institutionalized. No MMR back then. The only vaccine most of them got was smallpox.
Vaccines are not at fault. You, yourself, admit that you, your husband, and family members all have Asperger's symptoms. Genetics vary and some people are affected worse than others. Your son just got the hardest hit. Don't chelate him for nothing.
And, by the way - think about WHY most insurance companies don't pay for hair testing for heavy metals...it's NOT accurate. Blood tests are the only accurate test for heavy metal poisoning. If your son's blood tests are normal, let him grow and develop. He will. Remember, these are issues of developmental delay not developmental stasis. Yes, it will be slow. Yes, he may never be independent. But he will develop.
DTaP 2000, 2001; HIB 2000, 2001; Hep B 2000, 2001 all vaccines containing thimerosol at the time.
MMR 2001 contains human fetal tissue. I don't remember that being disclosed in the literature.
Dr. Ornish proved that coronary arteries can be cleared of plaque by following a diet of 10% fat, conducted clinical trials in 1994.
H. Pylori is now treated with antibiotics and is the number one factor in peptic ulcers proven by clinical trials and discovered by a maverick doctor criticized by his peers until he proved them wrong.
If I change my son's diet, it will only be after lab tests have proven that is a necessary step due to food intolerance or allergy.
I don't believe everything the FDA states because they have been proven wrong on many things they initially believed were safe. My mother died from Aortic valve failure after taking an FDA approved drug called Avandia, now recalled for causing damage to heart valves. And how many other tested and "safe" prescription drugs have later been recalled? The list is long.
So with this last post, I'll move on since my post is so off topic. Thanks to those of you who gave me helpful information. I really appreciate those who did not respond in a condescending manner just because I cannot quote every scientific study I've ever heard about in a news article.
You were asked for evidence, but you have decided to go the lazy route. Now you are spouting off anti-vax stuff from AoA, whale.to and other nonsense websites.
I love how you mention condescending when you said things to me like: "You might find something that helps your child. " and "Back in the day when your son was a child, autism was rare even when the different diagnostic criteria is factored in."
@ Ryan's Mom
Well, it was no secret that the rubella virus is cultured on cells derived from a human fetus. On what do you think viruses are grown, prior being made into a vaccine? You need something the virus will be happy to replicate into. Quite logically, viruses attacking human beings will need human cells.
Viruses like the measle or the flu virus can accept other media, like chicken eggs.
Rubella virus is more choosy. However, we don't kill babies to make today's vaccine, if this is what you refer to by human fetal tissue.
In the case of the rubella vaccine, these fetal cells come from one or more fetus who caught rubella while inside the womb, back in the 1960's. I don't remember if the poor babies were stillborn or if it was decided to abort the pregnancies, or a mixture of both.
The Wikipedia entry on MMR vaccine is more precise than me.
Note that these are cell lines derived from fetal tissues. In other words, cells from the tissues were isolated, cultured in flasks, and the content of the flasks extracted, frozen and sent to whatever facility was needing these types of cells, for research or production purpose, where more cells will be grown. Once we arrive at the vaccine production level, there is nothing left of the original tissues.
I found personally satisfying to fight the rubella virus using the cells from one of its little victim. So this virus is comfortable in this poor baby's cells? Let's use its gluttony against itself.
Chris, I've never heard of AoA, whale.to, etc. Some of my information came from Dr. Russell Blaylock's Wellness Reports. He's a brain neurosurgeon and researcher. My information on changing diets and gluten intolerance came directly from friends and family who have experienced improvement in their children's conditions through the elimination of gluten and/or casein. Given the family history of both autism and gluten intolerance, it makes sense to investigate this for my son.
"Dr.Jay" comes back with a masterful defense of Andy Wakefield (#114):
As mentioned above, case series and pilot studies can be used to draw conclusions. Of course, the conclusions should be supported by the data and - need I really say this? - the data shouldn't be falsified.
Given the fact that this wasn't Dr. Wakefield's first publication (see: MedLine), he should have been aware of how scientific publications are done. Does "Dr. Jay" really think that researchers need their reviewers and editors to tell them, "Don't make up your data!"?
"Dr. Jay" continues:
So, if GM and Ford showed definitively that Toyota and Volvo had fabricated their safety data, "Dr. Jay" wouldn't believe it? Again, "Dr. Jay" seems to have trouble with analogies - let me help out:
There, "Dr. Jay", fixed it for you.
And he wraps it with:
And he lives in California. Can you say "pertussis"? What more can I say - he's terminally clueless.
Prometheus
He is just as bad. He retired years ago, and here is the thing: he was a neurosurgeon. Plus he sells supplements.
Here is what he is not:
an immunologist
a virologist
a pediatrician
an infectious disease specialist
Here is what he is now: a crazy old retired doctor.
Years ago his website had him teaching at a the University of Mississippi. Except he had the name of the Medical Center wrong, and in the end they asked him to remove that affiliation from his website. Last I heard he teaches at a private religious college in the southern US. He went off the deep end years ago.
Use the handy dandy search box on the upper left side of this page. Using "Blaylock" as a search, see what you find. One thing will be this:
And then there is this:
Yes, any Blaylock website is worthy of Scopie's Law. Again, I say, do try to pay attention.
I do pay attention...to the results I have seen in my nephew, my husband's second cousin, and friends. When medical doctors told them there was nothing they could do beyond occupational therapy and medications, they took matters into their own hands and sought out another option. For the ones I know personally, their symptoms improved dramatically. My husband's nephew has been retested and is not considered autistic any longer. I'll let you know the results of my son's therapy.
You really need to vet your sources better. And I really should remind you that all you have offered are anecdotes. The plural of anecdote is not data, it is anecdotes. Try to learn what the difference is.
I have been at this much longer than you, and fortunately it started before the internet. I used this thing that most of us call a "library." Perhaps there is one in your community.
During the hours my sons were in therapy (my younger son had a language delay, but with early intervention he caught up by kindergarten to "low normal" levels, he graduated from high school as an honor student), and my younger kids were in music lessons I did this thing you also might have heard of: I read books.
Here are some books you should probably acquaint yourself with:
Unstrange Minds by Roy Richard Grinker
Vaccine by Arthur Allen
Conversations with Neil's Brain by William Calvin
Not Even Wrong by Paul Collins
Flu! by Gina Kolata
The Great Influenza by John Barry
Plagues and Peoples by William McNeill
Polio, An American Story by David M. Oshinsky
Lies, Damned Lies and Science by Sherry Seethaler
Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon
Deaf Like Me by Thomas Spradley
Dangerous Pregnancies by Leslie Reagan
Train Go Sorry by Leah Hager Cohen (my son's special ed. program was a direct off shoot of the deaf ed. program)
The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night-Time by Mark Haddon
The Silent Boy by Lois Lowry
Both books by Temple Grandin
All 0f the books by Oliver Sacks
All of the books by Paul Offit (I am waiting for his next from library)
Remember, I told you my son had at least ten years of speech therapy. I did lots of reading (I actually completely read Because of Winn Dixie when youngest kid was in a martial arts class). I suggest you do the same, just be sure it is not anything by Bob Sears, Jenny McCarthy or others of the same ilk.
Time has not been my friend. Reading is not a luxury I really have as I work full time and spend time with my kids at night. My son has been in speech and OT since 2005. It has helped him tremendously. His grades are excellent. His social skills are next to none. His attention deficit and obsessive behaviors are his biggest problems. He also tends to get violent. He seems to develop immunity to any medication he has been on and they no longer work after about a year. We switched psychiatrists and the new one wants to put him in a group home. He's ten, he needs to be home.
I saw Jenny McCarthy on Oprah and her story was moving, however, when friends asked me if I regretted vaccinating my kids, I told them I wasn't going to change the way I treated my children just because some entertainer had a sad story.
What little time I do have to read involves picking up magazines during lunch and seeing articles about studies like the one Wakefield did. I expect that professional scientists to tell the truth about what they research. How disheartening to find out this one has brought such a stain on the idea of autism research.
You are very gullible. You really ought to replace those magazines with real books.
Oh, poor you! My son had seizures as an infant, so as was standard at the time due to the scaremongering perpetuated by Barbara Loe Fisher and Harris Coulter, he was not vaccinated for pertussis. At that time due to the same scaremongering there was return of pertussis to our county (it was called epidemic). I could not have my baby in daycare, and even though I was an aerospace engineer I did not earn enough money to afford a nanny. So I had to quit work to take care of my son.
Thanks, anti-vaxers! (not)
Fortunately I am married to someone who has a decent income.
So instead of a nanny taking my son to multiple therapy sessions per week, it was me. That is where I did my reading (along with weekend mornings).
So, quit your job and fire your nanny. Go to the various therapy sessions yourself and bring a real book. You might learn something.
Actually, that's something of an urban legend.
You are very gullible. You really ought to replace those magazines with real books.
@Chris
Ryan's mom may not appreciate the book list you posted, but I sure do. I'm currently reading The Emperor of all Maladies, which I believe you recommended a while back. I look forward to checking out these other titles.
"MMR 2001 contains human fetal tissue."
Aww not this shit again.
@Ryan's mom; my PDD-NOS daughter would tell you that autism does NOT need to be eliminated. She does not want to be normal. Temple Grandin has said that given the choice she would remain autistic. We need to stop trying to put square pegs into round holes. Do you think some of the oppositional behavior your son displays may be because he likes the way he is and doesn't want to change? It is very hard to wrap your head around that idea. Maybe you need to think how you can help him cope rather than try to make him 'normal'. If he has verbal skills, have you asked him? Don't forget, he needs to be a participant in all of these so-called interventions, he is not a puppet on a string.........
I have reread some of the posts by Ryan's Mom and the replies and I realize I have the same question I have been left with many times when anti-vax people come here. Actually, the same issue I often have when people with various wooish beliefs are around.
Why do people maintain their position and not doubt themselves when they are consistantly shown to have said misleading things, or repeated outright lies they found elsewhere. Why would someone not start to wonder if they really know that much about a topic when post after post it is shown the things they say are often incorrect?
Han:
Thank you, but I was not the one who suggested it. When it was I put it on hold at the library, and I am 156 in line for 60 copies.
I have just finished reading Tabloid Medicine by Robert Goldberg. Even though he quotes Orac, it was a "meh", okay, but he really is a professional pharma shill so there was a bit too much cheerleading for pharmaceuticals. I then put on hold the book White Coats, Black Hats as a version of similar stuff from the other extreme side.
I logged onto my library account and noticed that Offit's Deadly Choices is "in transit." Woo hoo!
Oh, I should recommend something for those who are busy: audio books. I downloaded Oliver Sacks' book on music to my mp3 player and listened to while I was gardening.
@ militant agnostic
Selenium is a natural mercury chelating agent.
Besides chelation can clear your arteries so that you do not have to go through the painful and expensive heart bypass surgery. Just thoght I would let you know there are alternatives to big pharma and the doctor bills.
@ Chris
Aren't you cute? Calling Medicien Man an idiot all while being a bigger one for believing in the lies of big pharma.
Evidence - crickets - I though not
Folks, Doctor Smart is one of Medicien Man's multiple sock puppets. He is an electronics technician who occasionally trolls his inane right wing and alt med idiocy here.
He hates me because I pointed out that he got the Desiree Jennings story all wrong, and the fact that he challenged me that he could cure any disorder I named. So I named Diabetes Type 1, to which his answer were links to commercial supplement sites.
Which is ironic that he calls up pharma shills, yet posts commercial supplement web sites as some kind of proof.
He is just comedy gold.
"He is just comedy gold."
So... a pillock, yes?
Selenium is also a heavy metal and can be toxic.
LIKE MERCURY YOU FUCKING BIG PHARMA SHILL!!!
go fucking shill elsewhere.
A while back, there was a blog essay that briefly went viral, about "the three types of knowledge," which in the pithy phrase of the blogger, were: 1) The Sh*t You Know, 2) The Sh*t You Don't Know, 3) The Sh*t You Don't Know You Don't Know. The essay established these categories and went on to posit that the real goal of education is not so much, as traditionally believed, to put knowledge into the first category, but to take it out of the third category... because it's the stuff in Category 3 that makes you truly dangerous, to yourself and those around you. In an update to the essay, the blogger identified a sub-category of the third category as "the most dangerous of all knowledge", namely, Sh*t You Think You Know But You Don't. I agree with that characterization, since it's that knowledge, "misknowledge," that's least likely to ever move to category 1 or 2.
I think that of those diehards who come here to inform us of this piece of misknowledge or that, many of them actually are capable of recognizing it when that information is shown to be categorically false. They just aren't emotionally capable of taking the right decision in response to it: instead of saying "Oh, wow, I believed Mike Adams when he said he knew exactly where skeptics were wrong in their beliefs about health, but it turns out he doesn't even know what those beliefs are, so I'd better start unlearning everything I thought I learned from him," they say "This new evidence points almost unavoidably to a conclusion that's pretty terrifying for me, and therefore I choose to disbelieve this new evidence. It must be fraudulent evidence cooked up by some conspiracy, or there must be some other factor which means that this evidence doesn't actually matter." It's just psychological denial; deep down they know there's a problem, but they find it too easy to pretend there isn't. It's easier for a woo-ster to pretend there's some knowledge out there in Category 2 which explains all the glaring contradictions than to realize they've been not just harboring but proselytizing stuff from the worst recesses of Category 3.
Seekenium can be toxic in large doses, dummy. Selenium is a cancer fighter as well. Selenium can be found in Brazil Nuts, etc.
Human fetal cell lines were also used in the 2005 manufacture of the flu vaccine in Alabama. Most were recalled. It should be illegal.
@ Chris
Chris is just mad becuase he is my stalker and won't listen to anything. Everytime i say something he jumps back into his time machine again. I though secualr oppressives always moved "forward". I guess Chris ddin't get that memo. Hey Chris you like my website? maybe I'll feature a story about you an me soon. Oh, I told you medicien man was one of my brothers, you dummy. You NEVER listen!
To Ryan's mom,
I have read many comments from you. That's why I think you will find "AoA" has a lot of good information for you. AoA = ageofautism.com. The best and most intelligent site about autism I've ever come across where many think "outside the box".
@215
That's new, an aoa agent spamming links here, probably one of the most pathetic things I have seen a troll do here. And that's saying something.
And for your ilk, thinking "outside the box" = anti-science, anti-public health, anti-reason, pro-disease.
@214
Of course, to have a rational discussion, you have to be willing to listen and back up your points, which you have consistently failed to do. Instead, you constantly use ad hominems and ill-reasoned arguments which make you look silly, to put it mildly.
So it should be no surprise to you that you are constantly mocked for your foolishness.
I call BS,
A few things about Doctor Smart: He is medicien man (unless he and his "brother" make identical comments within mere minutes of each other on different posts (as he has been known to do)). So he is either a liar (very likely) or his "brother" is an idiot with no independent thought.
Also, Chris is a woman. Doctor smart/medicien man knows this but he is a misogynistic jerk that constantly try to get her goat because he has nothing constructive to say.
Unless he indeed has something OT to say about Wakefields egregious fraud.
I meant, of course, on topic, not off topic. Acronym fail (facepalm).
Medicien man is my brother you dummy.
Chris is a woman? Wow, I didn't see that one coming. No wonder I have so much trouble fending off chris.
Wakefield a fraud? Now global warming. That's a fraud! Evolution is a fraud. Obama's HELLthcare "law"is a fraud.
My brother, medicien man does not have much of a personality. We have interesting idea exchanges.
Oh, and Rumpleforskin is my sister. PZ Myers, the poll fornicator, loves her. Oh and Ed Brayton is my cousin. He gets his feelings hurt so bad sometimes. He is tender.
Boring trolls are obviously boring.
Actually, Age of Autism is more about suppressing information, as perusal of http://silencedbyageofautism.blogspot.com/ will show. I'll shamelessly note my own experience, where I responded to an Age of Autism story titled "BMJ Editor Refuses to Acknowledge Brian Deer's Role as Complainant in GMC Case" by pointing out that "complainant" is a specific legal role, not a general term; even if the case had (for the sake of argument) been initiated by a complaint by Brian Deer, that would not make Brian Deer the complainant, any more than John Stone, by publicly defending Wakefield, becomes Wakefield's "public defender."
That comment, containing factual legal information which any of them could have verified, was censored. So much for AoA "having a lot of good information"; if they get good information, they delete it as quickly as possible, before their target audience might see it and wake up to AoA's deceptions.
Girls with boys' names are boring. Do you wear boy clothes too?
Don't make me call my brother on you.
@Antaeus
Thanks for the shout-out for Silenced. I was catching up on comments and was going to post that far from being a good source of information, Age of Autism is, if not as bad as someplace like whale.to or Natural News, a pretty abysmal place to get accurate info. And it's not just my site that was sprouted by AoA's censorship of dissenting voices. Left Brain/Right Brain and Countering... both came about because of AoA's censorship, as did Age of Ignorance (the author of which sadly passed away last year).
For research, I would recommend Autism Science Foundation. Thinking Person's Guide to Autism is probably a decent blog to peruse. For those needing support or advice, try getting in touch with the Lurie Family Autism Center, which has a big focus on support for individuals with autism and their families. It's based in Boston, but they may still be able to provide advice or contacts with other organizations around the U.S. Also, Science-Based Medicine has a pretty extensive resource on the whole vaccine and autism issue.
And, of course, there are the CDC and FDA. Ryan's Mom mentioned she doesn't exactly trust FDA because they've been wrong about products they approved, but try to understand that they operate with the level of knowledge that is currently available, including information to which the general public may not necessarily have ready access. As more research is done and the degree of knowledge changes, they may be forced to change their stance, for instance by issuing a recall. Ultimately, I would say to generally trust the FDA, cautiously, but don't outright distrust them on all things.
Isn't it interesting that certain people have avoided the subject of this article, Andrew Wakefield's scientific fraud, and keep going off on all sorts of odd tangents from fluoride to complete vapid stupidity? It is like they want to avoid discussing the uncloaking of one their cohorts.
RM2: "The best and most intelligent site about autism I've ever come across where many think 'outside the box'."
Can I call Poe's Law on your arse, or are you serious?
That egomaniacal pillock: "Doctor Smart, Ph.D"
Pitifully-hung Dipshit?
With that much egomania, I would think so...
Chris: "It is like they want to avoid discussing the uncloaking of one their cohorts."
That's exactly what they want. They're pathetic, really...
@ David Andrews,
waht does yours stand for?
Mr. Ed's Creepy Pecker Sugary Eggs?
I call silly law on you. What's with the letter buddy? You trying to impress Chris? She's already spoken for. Didn;t you know she's my stalker.
Boy, don't make me call my brother on you. You know better. I guess all that global warming finally cooked your brains.
*shoots and scores*
Mind you... this ("Mr. Ed's Creepy Pecker Sugary Eggs?") was almost chuckle-worthy.
*writes on the troll's grading paper: "You must try harder"*
@Chris #197
You probably don't want to read all of Offits's books!
("Vaccines" by Offit and Plotkin runs to over 3000 pages)
I believe him! I believe that this site has missrepresented the facts and believe that Andrew Wakefield has caused irrifutable financial damage to the Pharma companies ! I challenge ANYONE here who remains an advocate and diasbelier of the risks of the vaccine to inject themselves with a proportionate dose of MMR (take the weight differentials of an infant and multiply the dose by the BMI of of the victim / patient ! In fact, given that Brian Deer is so much so a proponent of these jabs and believes that there is absolutely no health risks associated with them, I'd like to see him get up on national television and give himself a jab! Bet you he wouldn't ! Come on Brian, are you man enough to put your life where your mouth is?
Hmm, so the same Ryan's Mom who says
One thing I don't understand is why they want to give children so many vaccines at one time and why they give them so many boosters.
also thinks
As Jenny McCarthy and Holly Robinson Peete advocate, try every therapy out there.
So if it's found safe by extensive trials and research, you want to be watch out, but if it hasn't been tested and is being peddled by a combination of non-experts and quacks, go for it! Yep, sounds logical to me.
Before you get miffed at the "condescension," Ryan's Mom, just review the above and see where I've got you wrong. I don't.
You had crappy experiences with some of your children's doctors. Hey, join the crowd. My dad, who was on multiple medications, was prescribed an antibiotic that interacted with his anti-clotting medicine and caused an intestinal bleed that almost killed him outright, and I'm sure hastened his death (which occurred within a couple of months). And he got the antibiotic because he was unlucky enough to be one of a very small percentage of people receiving pacemakers whose implant site got infected - which happened to a cluster of pacemaker implant patients at that hospital-based clinic at that time. So at least two fairly significant medical screw-ups contributed to my dad's death.
Oh, but - my father was 91 when he died, after a couple of heart attacks (the first at age 60) and more bypasses than you can count on one hand. He was overweight nearly his entire life, had bad cholesterol genetics (my mom too, which I unfortunately inherited from them), had diabetes later in life, a broken hip a few years before he died, the aforementioned pacemaker (his second or third, I can't remember which), and was completely mentally sharp up through the day he passed away. Without modern medicine, I doubt he would have made it much past that first heart attack.
Like anything else, with modern medicine there's good and bad; in my dad's case, 30 additional years says to me it's mainly to the good. In your case, a couple of bad experiences with child doctors means there are a couple of bad child doctors (okay, maybe more than a couple), not Entire Medical Establishment Bad, Flavor-of-Month Unproven Snake Oil Good.
David Anderson @ 229:
If you know this damage is irrefutable, surely you have some evidence of it. As far as I can see, pharmaceutical companies are doing quite well. Wakefield's attempt to discredit the MMR so that he could introduce a new measles vaccine failed years ago, at least as far as Big Pharma is concerned; in fact, Wakefield's efforts arguably helped them. Yes, seriously! His bad science coupled with the fearmongering of the antivax movement managed to get herd immunity to drop below the minimum required to keep measles, mumps, and rubella at bay -- but not very much below. So they were still selling millions of doses of MMR; given population growth in the same time period, it may not even have resulted in a decline in sales. BUT it did reduce the overall effectiveness of it, leading to an increase in sales of medicines to treat the illnesses, followed now, years later, by a resurgence in interest in vaccination.
Big Pharma never retaliated against Wakefield. It never needed to. His threat was against public health, not the pharmaceutical companies. Seriously.
I'm not sure why the dose needs to be increased; however, I've had repeat MMR shots in adulthood. One, because the MMR lot that had been used on my in childhood was associated with a suspiciously large number of cases of rubella later on, suggesting it hadn't been effective, so I was revaccinated. When I became pregnant a decade later, my rubella titers were too low so as soon as I'd given birth, I was vaccinated again. I would rather not get the vaccine again (it's one of the more painful ones) but if there were any doubt of my immunity against rubella, I'd get it again in a heartbeat. Rubella is *nasty* to unborn babies, and I'd hate to be an unwitting carrier.
Going on television to get a jab is just plain stupid, though. A dumb publicity stunt, because if you're sufficiently paranoid to not believe the science about MMR vaccination, you're not going to believe the shot received on live television is real. You'll claim it was just saline. It's like the moon-hoax proponents. They ask why NASA doesn't send a mission to photograph the landing sites*, and the answer (besides the cost) is that if they did, the moon hoax proponents would just claim the new photos were faked. There's no point. It's far better to give such claims exactly the response they deserve -- none.
*Actually, NASA did eventually send a mission which has photographed the landing sites, but that's just a bonus to its primary mission. And predictably, when they even acknowledge the existence of the images, the conspiracy theorists claim they're faked.
dt:
Ooops, you are correct! I should change that to most of his books for the general public. Thanks!
@ David Anderson #229
You want I should get an MMR shot which is the volume for weight equivalent that a toddler gets? You think it will be "toxic" to me?
How about I crank up the stakes considerably.
I will give the exact volume for weight of MMR to someone I love more dearly than life itself and whose health I prize above all else, even my own.
And what's more, I'll make sure she has an immature and weak immune system so that the toxins have even more of a chance to do the devil's work on her vulnerable brain and body.
Doh!
I just realized.
I've done that already, to my daughter, when she was only 13 months old.
"I challenge ANYONE here who remains an advocate and diasbelier of the risks of the vaccine to inject themselves with a proportionate dose of MMR (take the weight differentials of an infant and multiply the dose by the BMI of of the victim / patient !"
Oh good, another "vaccine challenge".
The most famous of these was by Jock Doubleday who offered docs (later expanded to pharm. co. execs) up to $150,000 if they'd drink vaccine components. A number of people reportedly took him up on the "challenge", only to find that there was always something wrong with their applications and/or other roadblocks to being accepted (among other things, Doubleday required psychiatric examinations (at your own expense, apparently) to make a point about how you'd have to be crazy to accept his offer. It was all a publicity stunt.
Harriet Hall has a good article here on such "challenges", and makes the point that physicians and other parents have made all the statements they need to, by not only getting their own immunizations but assuring their children are protected too. She notes that while monetary stakes wouldn't motivate her to apply as a "challenge" candidate, there's one prize she'd compete for - if successful completion of the "challenge" would result in antivaxers giving up their vitriolic fact-deprived campaign against vaccines, it'd be worthwhile.
To take his challenge you had to sign two agreements, A and B. The thing is, only agreement A was publicly available, since you'd have to sign agreement A to get a copy of B. However, if you signed agreement A but then refused to sign agreement B once you'd read it you'd have to pay a fine of at least $1,000. If I was a doctor or pharma exec I would have refused to go through with something like that! Also, the contract said that, after ingesting the vaccine ingredients, you had to make at least five different TV appearances about your experience. Doubleday tried to make his "challenge" so onerous that as few people as possible would accept (and then he stonewalled the people who did accept)
(Note that this is all from memory. The text of agreement A seems to have disappeared from the Internet)
How about I crank up the stakes considerably.
I will give the exact volume for weight of MMR to someone I love more dearly than life itself and whose health I prize above all else, even my own.
And what's more, I'll make sure she has an immature and weak immune system so that the toxins have even more of a chance to do the devil's work on her vulnerable brain and body.
Doh!
I just realized.
I've done that already, to my daughter, when she was only 13 months old.
Posted by: dt | January 10, 2011 11:47
Oh gee - now that you put it that way I have no doubt about the logic and validity of your argument ! Like you, I'm more than happy to inject toxic and foreign materials past the natural defense of my child directly into his/her blood stream! Makes perfect sense !
David Anderson - how many vaccines are injected into the bloodstream? Hint: it rhymes with "Nero."
Brian Deer is dodgy. see:
www.ageofautism.com/2011/01/keeping-anderson-cooper-honest-is-brian-dee…
Anonymous, how can you tell if someone is lying? They posted an article on AoA.
Hahahahaha! David Anderson, you're a hoot! "I'm more than happy to inject toxic and foreign materials past the natural defense of my child directly into his/her blood stream!" Makes it clear that you don't even understand how vaccines are intended to work, let alone knowing enough to second-guess the huge body of data showing that they do indeed work.
Here's a hint: A vaccine does not get injected "past the natural defense" of the recipient; a vaccine is designed to activate the natural defense of the recipient. If you don't understand that, you don't understand anything. (Which is not exactly news, now is it.)
Ahh, biased, blind little Chris. So afraid to see Saint Deer as anything but upstanding. Pretty soon he'll be feeling the heat.
@Anonymous:
Really? Like, say, Wakefield suing Deer for libel? Like Wakefield already tried, failed at, had to pay Deer's legal expenses, and was the reason why Deer got access to the medical records? 'Cause I'm not sure how to interpret your statement except as implying that Deer is soon going to be sued.
I think antivaxxers must be under the impression that the Exclusionary Rule applies to outside of criminal trials.
In a criminal trial, if you can prove that the police violated the law or the Constitution in obtaining evidence, then that evidence can be thrown out and treated as if it never existed, and then the accused might get off.
But the Exclusionary Rule does not apply in other contexts. No matter how Deer got the evidence (though there is no reason to believe that he did anything wrongful, unethical, or illegal to get it), that evidence proves that Wakefield committed scientific fraud in his paper. The only way antivaxxers can get around that is to prove that the evidence Deer provides is not true. Attacking Deer is just a distraction to try to prevent us from noticing that they cannot prove that Deer's evidence is false -- indeed, they have not, so far as I can tell, even really tried to prove it false.
Also, I join others in this thread in thanking Brian Deer for his tireless efforts to unmask this fraud.
@Antaeus Feldspar
You're so right ! How stupid of me. Injecting foreign and "toxic" materials directly into the bloodstream is totally natural.
You're comment - Here's a hint: A vaccine does not get injected "past the natural defense" of the recipient; a vaccine is designed to activate the natural defense of the recipient. If you don't understand that, you don't understand anything. (Which is not exactly news, now is it.)
I mean - ridiculous of me to think that injecting the vaccine into the bloodstream of a human is NOT totally natural. I mean the body was designed for this kind of trauma wasn't it ! Jeez I'm so glad you cleared that up ! For a moment there I was totally on the wrong track.
As for this costing the Pharma companies revenue, I guess a significant drop in immunizations would have NO bearing on the revenue otherwise created by Pharma companies. Again I'm just jumping to conclusions there.
Jeez - you guys are so smart. Thanks for all your help !
David Anderson, I'm trying to decide if the problem is that you actually have never experienced, seen, or even known anyone who experienced or saw a vaccination, or if the problem is that you have no inkling of anatomy.
When doctors *want* to put something directly into the bloodstream -- when they're putting in an IV, for instance -- they generally do not put the needle into the shoulder, thigh, or buttocks, all of which are favored for vaccination. Instead, they put the needle into one of those more accessible blood vessels on the inside of the lower arm, and even then it can be fairly difficult. If sticking a needle into the body just any old where is sticking it "directly into the bloodstream", why are IVs difficult to place?
Indeed, you are jumping to unwarranted conclusions here. If there were a Pharma company that sold vaccines and nothing else, yes, a significant drop in immunizations would harm them. But there are no such companies, and if there were, they would be very small and hence unable to bribe politicians to join their conspiracy. The Pharma companies that actually exist sell many products, including vaccines but also including all the antibiotics used to treat secondary infections, antipyretics for fever, aspirin and other painkillers for headaches and body pains, cough syrup ... all kinds of things that will be consumed in greater amounts if fewer people are vaccinated and therefore more get sick.
Instead of sneering at the commenters here, maybe you should think about whether your statements even make sense.
David Anderson:
I love it when folks like you come here to educate us on the evils of vaccine, but make incredible stupid errors like "inject the vaccine into the bloodstream."
LW:
What's more, given that there are regularly shortages of various routine childhood vaccinations (including MMR), a minor decline in uptake would do little more than reduce the pressure on their manufacturing line for a while. The vaccine manufacturers were never seriously threatened by Wakefield; anti-vaccination has never gained enough adherents to threaten their bottom line -- especially since vaccines are not purchased by patients but by the clinics, often with government funding.
Apart from your other errors, you seem to have this unexamined assumption that "natural" = "good" and vice versa. Do you put bandages on your wounds? Do you think that's natural? It sure isn't, but it happens to be effective, so we do it. The same applies to vaccines.
You also happen to be right when you think you're being sarcastic. "I mean the body was designed for this kind of trauma wasn't it !" In a sense, yes.
The way that a body reacts to a vaccine is that the immune system detects the antigens in the vaccine, says "Uh-oh, invader!" and starts preparing cells to clobber invaders of that kind. That's exactly the way it would react to an actual infectious agent in the wild with those antigens.
The body's reaction to a vaccine is natural, and the reason the body is "designed" to react in such a way is that humans evolved in a messy, dangerous world where random things quite frequently did (and do) invade the body. Since we can never ensure that "foreign and toxic materials" will never invade the body, we do the next best thing: we try to give the immune system "wake-up calls" which pose no actual danger, but make the system prepared in case it ever has to face the real thing.
I realize that, just as you keep repeating "injected into the bloodstream! injected into the bloodstream!" despite it already being explained to you that this is inaccurate, you will probably clap your hands over your ears and grit out your sarcasm once more: "Silly me how could I ever be concerned that Toxic-And-Foreign-Materials are being allowed to contaminate our precious bodily fluids!" But somewhere out there, there's someone who has an ability you lack: the ability to learn from their discussions. They may not know yet how a vaccination works. But your willful ignorance will help them leave their own unwitting ignorance behind.
People, we seem to be playing with semantics here, and in spite of the clear logic, I conclude only that you must do so in order to help cement an otherwise weak point.
Firstly, *(and let me clarify, I am certainly no doctor, but my understanding is that a Vaccine works by having an "apparent dead pathogen introduced into the bloodstream, whereby causing the bodyâs B-cells to go to work. It is these cells that are responsible for fighting disease-causing pathogens. Once the B-cells are stimulated to act, antibodies are formed and the body develops immunity to the particular pathogen. Once a person receives a vaccine and develops immunity, he or she is usually protected for life.
By very definition, had the vaccine NOT entered the blood stream, NO antigen would be created. Tell me, is this NOT how it works? I'm clearly not as well intellectually endowed as many of you are so I may well be basing my understanding of how this process works on misinformation. Although it would appear as though that is perfectly acceptable here?
Finally, let me point out the following. Regardless of the overall "wealth", and "volume of scripts/medications" which are sold by the major pharmas, you'd have to be a complete dim wit to not acknowledge that the immunization market is going to suffer financially if people were to stop immunizing. In fact, assuming that everything stays on track for the Pharma industries and you PRO Vacco's get your way, it is estimated that the Vaccine market will be worth a total of $52bn by 2016 ! Holly gosh, goodness me. You guys are right, a mere 52bn aint worth all this effort. How stupid of me to conclude that a drop of 15 - 20 percent in immunizations world wide would have a financial impact on the industry. In fact, by my numbers, I conclude that a drop of only 10 percent usage is worth 5.2 BILLION dollars. Yeah, your right - this isn't about money ! How down right stupid of me to have thought it was !
"I mean - ridiculous of me to think that injecting the vaccine into the bloodstream of"
In case you didn't get it yet, you're a dumbass. Vaccines aren't injected into the bloodstream.
Also any citations for your numbers or are you just making them up too?
I'm assuming then that you are refuting my claim that vaccine's work by entering the blood stream, or are you simply still trying to make a valid point on a mute point?
As for the $$$ fact, see;
http://www.in-pharmatechnologist.com/Industry-Drivers/Vaccine-market-wo…
When you say, "making it up", do you mean in the same way that your dribble has been provided or do you mean in the way that Brian Dear has been doing?
David Anderson, are you not capable of reading? Vaccines are injected into the muscle, not the bloodstream.
(not that it would make much of a difference, I suspect, but I admit to not having studied the matter in that level of depth.)
Again with the whole "profit" fallacy. It is much more profitable to treat diseases (and expensive to society in general) than to administer vaccines and support herd immunity. You have one shot (or a short series) vs. potentially days or weeks of treatment - including hospital visits, additional medications, lab time, etc.
So, if the medical establishment was based purely on the profit-motive, they'd minimize the influence of vaccines & want to see a major uptick in infectious diseases - because they'd make much more money on treatments than they ever would by actually preventing the diseases in the first place.
David Anderson writes:
I mean the body was designed for this kind of trauma wasn't it!
Yes, in fact it is - it's designed for continuous "trauma" on a scale far, far greater than any vaccine, or even all the vaccines you have ever received in total.
Upon birth, babies begin to be infected with trillions of microbes. But these must be good microbes that the body is OK with, right? Well, no, things aren't quite so simple. Immune cells in the body are actually put in what is called a state of "chronic activation" by these microbes. These trillions of microbes play a critical role in training the immune system and keeping it operating. Every second of every day you're alive your immune system puts out proteins in response to the microbes living in you. Researchers are discovering that at least some of these proteins have important functions, such as protecting the intestinal lining.
There are a few differences between these trillions of microbes (which far outnumber your own cells - you might think of yourself as more a micro-ecosystem than an isolated animal) and the contents of vaccines:
- There are far fewer antigens, by many orders of magnitude, in all the vaccines any person ever receives in total, than the numbers of microbes in your body.
- The antigens are weakened, killed, or just bits of the antagonist, rather than live and capable of replicating as the microbes in your system are.
- The body's reaction to certain classes of microbes that could be very harmful if allowed to spread unchecked typically includes "turning up the heat," i.e., fever, and sending lots of immune cells to the infection site, i.e., inflammation. Scientists have gotten so good at eliciting a robust immune response even with extremely low doses of weakened, killed or chopped-up antigens that vaccines can occasionally produce fever and inflammation at the injection site. That's not a sign of "trauma," it's the body's immune system being trained to respond big-time if the real thing ever shows up. Even though the load on your immune system every second of your life is far, far greater than all the vaccines you'll ever get, the potential immune system response to the particular antigens in vaccines - possibly including fever or inflammation - is often much more outwardly apparent than the far greater actual volume of immune system responses to your own internal microbes.
- In summary: A vaccine isn't a "trauma" to a pristine system, it's a drop in the ocean. The body's potential reaction to that drop ("It's the flu! Better gin up a fever to kill all those viruses!"), however, can occasionally be more outwardly apparent than its reaction to the ocean. ("Just pumping out all sorts of proteins all over the body in response to trillions of microbes - nothing to see here, please move along.")
A quick note re. the relative level of profit for vaccines:
Going by the link which David Anderson provides, the total global vaccine market was ~$26 billion in 2009 and may be as much as $52 billion in 2016.
According to an overview of the global pharmaceutical industry as a whole (http://www.policymed.com/2010/04/ims-reports-significant-global-pharmac… ), the total global pharmaceutical market was $837 billion in 2009, and may be $1,100 billion by 2014.
Yes, the industry gets some revenue from vaccines, but (a) they are far from being high-profit compared to most drugs (that is, the profit above costs is much smaller), and (b) the industry would hardly collapse without them. And, as Lawrence points out, antibiotics and therapeutics to treat disease sequelae are FAR more expensive and higher profit items.
David -
FYI, various cells involved in the development of immunity can slide out of the blood vessels and wander around in the body tissues. They exit through the capillaries, somehow making a temporary opening at the seam where on capillary cell touches another.
These cells detect the presence of a foreign substance (bacteria, virus, or particle of foreign antigen) and engulf it. They carry the stuff to other cells involved in the antibody development process.
Slight inflammation triggers these engulfers to be more active - which is why the adjuvants are used. That slightly swollen, sore arm is part of the process.
Michael Ralston:
Actually, it does make a difference -- the vaccination site matters. In fact, there's a difference between different muscles, even. The deltoid is favored mostly because of a combination of accessibility (usually not too much fat), size, and convenience (people would much rather pull up a sleeve than pull down their pants). Some injections still require a larger muscle; my Rho-Gam shot was in the gluteus maximum, and boy did it sting! I'm a software engineer, so I'm not really clear on all the details, but I seem to recall that the muscles are really good sites for vaccination because it's a great place to mount a localized immune response. My guess is this is an evolutionary response to the likelihood of getting deep cuts or punctures on one's arms and legs -- the muscles need to be able to respond promptly to infection. Also, by injecting into the muscle instead of the bloodstream, you aren't diluting the stuff over the entire body, which means you don't need anywhere near as much.
Note: this is probably wrong in at least some respects. It is not my area of expertise; just interest. I think there are vaccines given subdermally as well; I've certainly seen my dogs given vaccines that way. (It's easy to do that on a dog, because their skin is so loose, especially around the scruff of the neck.) That's where the needle is slipped under the skin but not actually into a muscle.
David Anderson:
Why are you so worked up about the fact that a company might make a profit on a huge investment like a vaccine - especially a product that will cut into the sales of its other products?
You're not a communist, are you?
Global vaccine revenues will be $52bn in 2016.
Revenues is not profit. Revenues are basically net sales. Let's look at an industry example of how net sales compares to revenues. In 2009, Novartis reported increases in revenues of $0.8 billion. It also reported increases in net sales of $44.3 billion. That's a profit margin of about 1.8%
At revenues of $52 billion, that equates to less than a billion dollars of profit. I really don't think an industry that measures profit in tens of billions is really all that concerned about a loss of $100 million spread over several companies, especially since the treatments are much more profitable.
LOL - What a stretch. We go from trying to identify motive to becoming a communist. Of course I'm a communist! I also eat children and practice witch craft!~
You know what - I'm inclined to think that you guys are trolling for big pharma. Your arguments lack conviction and when challenged you lash out personally. As for your comment Kevin, it lacks evidence or fact. It's just another void statement that has absolutly no basis of fact.
Let me ritterate.
1. A "toxic" substance is "injected" into a human and enters the blood stream.
2. Pharma has a "financial" imperative to ensure it continues.
3. There are many, many studies that prove that such vacines have real and traumatic health impacts.
These are the facts. Everything else is just induendo and BS. Now if you excuse me, I am off to attend my commy meeting !
LOL - Nice stretch. I simply point out that the Pharma industry is worth some 52 billion dollars and am then accused of been a communist.
FYI I am also a practicing witch and like to eat the fetuses of young children.
Now Iâm not going to waste my time highlighting how the Stock Exchange works and revenue is as valuable as profit because Iâll probably get flamed down as some Right Wing Nazi Fascist. However, what I will say once again is the following.
1.Pharma has a real financial interest in ensuring that the Vaccine Industry stays healthy. (Iâm sure that many of you work in this industry so you already get that!).
2.There are many, many case studies of vaccines causing irrefutable long term health impacts. (Iâm not going to waste my time providing you with information you are already aware of.)
3.A vaccine works by âenteringâ the blood stream.
It appears to me that many of you are very likely trolls working for the Pharma industry so Iâm sure youâll come back with some other ridiculous taunt that is a personal attack. Whatever the case, I wish you all well.
Now if you will excuse me, Iâm off to my monthly pro-communist meeting ! LOL
Would you like some salt with that crow?
1. Yes, that is essentially correct, especially if you add the "eventually" before the word "enters." Except for the fact that the substance isn't toxic, of course.
2. Pharma had a financial imperative (not a "financial" imperative - what did they teach you in school about the use of quote marks?) to continue selling secretin after it was determined that secretin performs no better than placebo. By the way, what do you do for a living, David? Are we allowed to assume that because you have a financial imperative for doing the work, it must be valueless work and you must be concealing its valuelessness?
3. Yes, there are numerous studies purporting to show that this vaccine or that one is dangerous. Most of them are junk, like Wakefield's fraudulent MMR hit-job, or Wakefield and Hewitson's meaningless macaque study.
It really doesn't do any good to "ritterate" your position if your position is still based on poor premises.
I love how the AoA bunch try to edumacate us, but reveal they are clueless by using the following false statements:
1) Vaccines are injected in the bloodstream.
2) That everyone here thinks the MMR is 100% safe and effective.
3) That there was mercury in the MMR.
4) Measles is a mild disease.
5) Vaccines make a big profits.
Those are just off the top of my head. I am sure there are more.
I was stuck in an airport for hours a few years ago and had to listen to a moronic homeopathy ad over and over endlessly. I finally got the earbug out of my system but now it's back with a slight change, thanks to David Anderson: "Apply directly to the bloodstream! Apply directly to the bloodstream!". Gah! Thanks, David.
David:
LOL - Nice stretch. I simply point out that the Pharma industry is worth some 52 billion dollars and am then accused of been a communist.
We actually already got your points, and responded to them. You do not need to reiterate; however, responding to the rebuttals would be nice. Nevertheless, for simplicity, I'll summarize.
$52 billion may be the net worth of the entire pharmaceutical industry; the vast majority of that is not vaccine-related. The biggest earners are typically drugs for chronic illness, rather than preventative medicine -- things like statins, acid reducers, psychiatric drugs, painkillers, hormone replacement, birth control, impotence treatments, etc. This isn't surprising if you think about it for a moment.
1. Pharma has a real financial interest in ensuring that the Vaccine Industry stays healthy. (Iâm sure that many of you work in this industry so you already get that!).
Actually, I think most of the commenters don't. I don't; I'm a software engineer in a very definitely non-medical industry. (Aerospace, mainly.) But we're not stupid; of course a maker of vaccines will want the market to remain healthy. But their control is limited. For the routine vaccines, governments typically set the prices in order to ensure herd immunity will be economically feasible. This considerably narrows the profit margin; an MMR shot has very little profit margin compared to a Gardasil shot. In fact, manufacturers for the routine vaccines are currently barely able to meet demand, and shortages occur routinely.
So the market *is* healthy, from an economic standpoint, so healthy that they really don't need to groom it at all. To date, antivaccination fearmongering has failed to reduce vaccine uptake enough to harm their bottom lines.
2. There are many, many case studies of vaccines causing irrefutable long term health impacts. (Iâm not going to waste my time providing you with information you are already aware of.)
I appreciate your concern, but I am not aware of such studies. I am aware of extremely rare long-term adverse effects from vaccines, but they are so rare as to not make it worth skipping the vaccine unless the patient has a specific reason, like egg allergy or something.
We like data here; don't be afraid of "wasting" our time by supporting your arguments adequately. Honestly, failing to support your arguments wastes more time.
3. A vaccine works by âenteringâ the blood stream.
As has been repeatedly pointed out to you, this is untrue. I'm not aware of any vaccines which are injected into the bloodstream. The majority are injected into muscle tissue, not blood. It is true that many of the vaccine components will make it into the bloodstream eventually, but by this time they have already done their job.
It appears to me that many of you are very likely trolls working for the Pharma industry so Iâm sure youâll come back with some other ridiculous taunt that is a personal attack.
What makes you think that? Merely because we disagree? Is the possibility of other points of view so foreign to you that you must assume others to be lying? Are you so closed-minded you cannot accept the possibility that there is more to the world than you think you know?
They need to disbar the lawyers who were involved in this.
Oooh, David Anderson has sure got his panties in a bunch about my "communist" question. How about I apologize for that? It was a cheap shot. Fun, but cheap.
Maybe I'll ask a few other questions instead:
1) In an capitalist economy, why is it so evil for pharmaceutical companies to be motivated by revenues and profits, when every other private enterprise is motivated in exactly the same way?
2) Why are companies marketing supplements, homeopathic preparations and other Alt-Med products not subjected to the same criticism, since their motivation (money) is exactly the same?
3) If private enterprise is too corrupt to be responsible for providing pharmaceuticals, what would be the alternative? Non-profit organizations? Turn the whole system over to universities? Government takeover of pharmaceutical companies? Any ideas, David?
BTW, I have no ties to any pharmaceutical company and receive no income from them. Just thought you'd like to know.
Another thought occurred to me after I hit the post button:
If somehow the provision of vaccines was taken out of the hands of the private pharmaceutical companies, they would still be developed and recommended the way they are now. This is because they work. They save lives, prevent suffering, keep people from missing school, work, etc. and prevent chronic disease in the future. If you think that the profit motive is the reason vaccines are recommended, you are delusional.
I think Wakefield's next move is going to have to be to have a "reality" TV show about his exploits as he dodges the global conspiracy against him while trying to save the world and sell his book. Maybe they'll call it "Rogue:Doc" or something edgy like that. And Deer would not make actual appearances but would be occasionally represented in the edge of the camera-frame as a shadowy black shape kind of like Darth Vader. With a bangin' soundtrack and some actress who wears minimal clothing (in the role of loyal assistant and homeopathic cure-tester...) it'd work. It just might work.
1) In an capitalist economy, why is it so evil for pharmaceutical companies to be motivated by revenues and profits, when every other private enterprise is motivated in exactly the same way?
In all fairness, I think it's reasonable for people to have some concerns about the behavior of capitalists. It does, after all, emphasize the maximum possible transfer of wealth, and that encourages abuses. It's why we DO have to regulate pharmaceutical companies and it's why we DO have to require that they not give doctors "payola" for prescribing products based on the interests of the pharmaceutical company instead of the patient.
As a non-involved observer, I see this whole kerfluffle as a sort of proletarian backlash against the perceived power of the insurance industry and medical care costs. Walkefield and his cronies exploited that discomfort to make money for themselves - thereby confirming Doctor John's argument "if I don't do it - somebody else will" with regard to ripping off the ignorant.
I hope Brian Deer goes after the lawyers who got Wakefield started on his path; there's probably a lot of newsworthy dirt there.
Actually, I would like see the TV bio-pic Hear the Silence given either the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment, or a mini series based on Brian Deer's investigation and experience. That would include scenes of Wakefield collaborating with Barr, and the every strange Dr. Fudenberg. Plus Brian Deer being accosted by a crazy woman at the GMC hearings. Which comics should play John Stone and Clifford Miller?
Indeed, the lawyer who initially funded Wakefield appears to be a director of the British Society of Homeopaths.
http://www.homeopathy-soh.org/about-the-society/Bod.aspx
Second from the bottom
*evil laugh* I like the idea of a MiSTie version. On the other hand, it's 120 minutes. That'd be brutal to produce and stay funny the whole time.
Young children are getting pregnant? Who knew?
These video's are so great. Love how JB Handley just has nothing. There is no credibility to anything he says.
To Ryan's mom,
I have read many comments from you. That's why I think you will find "AoA" has a lot of good information for you. AoA = ageofautism.com. The best and most intelligent site about autism I've ever come across where many think "outside the box".
To Ryan's mom,
I have read many comments from you. That's why I think you will find "AoA" has a lot of good information for you. AoA = ageofautism.com. The best and most intelligent site about autism I've ever come across where many think "outside the box".
As I understand it, the General Medical Council's lawyers demanded that the hospital and the researchers provide their files. Brian Deer's latest articles summarize the GMC's 6-million-word transcript of their hearings.
If the vaccines are all totally safe, why is it necessary to continue to have the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act in place, which prevents any and all courts up to the Supreme Court of holding vaccines manufacturers responsible for ANY adverse reactions to their vaccines outside of a specially mandated "vaccine court" which rarely rules in favour of the injured and dispenses cases in record time.
Why can I not find any studies that show the levels of formaldehyde used in vaccines to be non-carcinogenic?
Why does vaccine testing rarely require more than a couple weeks observation of a few groups of people and never involve long-term tracking of any adverse consequences of using carcinogenic ingredients.
With the UK recently moving the flu vaccine schedule from everyone at 6 months up to only those 5 yrs and up, and the Cochrane Library's recent analysis in 2010 of 50 available flu reports, including 15 done by the manufacturers and 40 having 70,000 or more people in them, concluding that the effectiveness against transmission is ZERO and the effectiveness against the flu on average is 1% vs non-vaccination does Health Canada and the US Gov's Flu website continue to maintain that the flu vaccine is your best protection against the annual flu when other studies in Japan have shown D3 levels to be several times more effective?
If the vaccines are all totally safe, why is it necessary to continue to have the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act in place, which prevents any and all courts up to the Supreme Court of holding vaccines manufacturers responsible for ANY adverse reactions to their vaccines outside of a specially mandated "vaccine court" which rarely rules in favour of the injured and dispenses cases in record time. Wouldn't removing this Act ensure that the manufacturers take the time to make sure the ingredients their using are safe in the long-term and that the combination and number of vaccines being done these days aren't responsible AT ALL for the massive increase in neurological disorders such as ADHD, Autism, Parkinsons, Alzheimers, etc?
Why do massive organizations like Big Pharma and the WHO claim that innoculations are responsible for so much of the world's diseases being 95% eradicated when the data from the US, UK and Australia shows that 95% of the credit should be given to changes in our sanitation?
Why can I not find any studies that show the levels of formaldehyde used in vaccines to be non-carcinogenic?
Why does vaccine testing rarely require more than a couple weeks observation of a few groups of people and never involve long-term tracking of any adverse consequences of using carcinogenic ingredients.
With the UK recently moving the flu vaccine schedule from everyone at 6 months up to only those 5 yrs and up, and the Cochrane Library's recent analysis in 2010 of 50 available flu reports, including 15 done by the manufacturers and 40 having 70,000 or more people in them, concluding that the effectiveness against transmission is ZERO and the effectiveness against the flu on average is 1% vs non-vaccination does Health Canada and the US Gov's Flu website continue to maintain that the flu vaccine is your best protection against the annual flu when other studies in Japan have shown D3 levels to be several times more effective?
Hope Steve @279 doesn't smoke -- all that straw is SUCH a fire hazard.
Dude, you might want to try reading through this blog first and see how thoroughly your strawmen have been deconstructed, time and time again.
@Steve
For beginning reading, you may want to read The Truth About the Evils of Vaccination. Lots of additional resources there. And, as Scottynuke said, peruse this blog, as well as Science-Based Medicine.
Because nobody claims that vaccines are totally safe.
They're already required to do so by the FDA. What repealing the Vaccine Act would do is allow antivax idiots to destroy all vaccine manufacturers with frivolous lawsuits, thereby killing millions.
What massive increase? What reason to suspect vaccines as opposed to, say, plasma TVs? And it's impossible to prove such a negative conclusively.
Citations needed; what the figures actually show is that disease incidence drops dramatically with vaccination and comes back when vaccination drops. Are you suggesting that the UK's standards of sanitation somehow plummeted, coincidentally right after Wakefield's fraud?
Because they're far less than the levels the body produces naturally, so such a study would be quite a waste of time and money. As well study whether drinking 2 oz. of water a day is carcinogenic.
Citations needed that this is all the FDA requires. You're going to have a major uphill battle against the mountains of evidence to the contrary (e.g. the existence of VAERS).
Because that's not what any of the studies you mention actually said.
Can't help but notice that Steve doesn't have a damn thing to say about the actual topic of discussion; namely, Wakefield's blatant, malicious, self-serving fraud.
@283
What can steve say, when he doesn't have a valid point or an argument, he just unloads with a bunch of misplaced strawmen attacks.
Steve:
Okay, there's several things that need to be said here:
1) The vaccine court actually is *more* likely to rule in favor of the injured, not against, as compared to a normal civil court
2) Vaccines, like everything in life, cannot ever be totally safe. Someone, somewhere is going to be injured. The most common serious injury (they don't rule for stuff like "my arm was a little sore for a while") is anaphylaxis -- a life-threatening allergic reaction. Even that's rare, but rareness doesn't mean they don't deserve compensation.
3) The government fixes the prices of many vaccines, because it's not fair to require people to get vaccinated and then make them pay an excessive amount to do so. The end result is that the profit from the mandatory vaccines is very slim. This makes vaccine manufacture much less appealing than, say, making a blockbuster erectile dysfunction pill. It wouldn't take many lawsuits (even failed lawsuits) to clean out that profit. So the national vaccine injury compensation program was started to remove that worry. It gives out awards for "table injuries" -- like anaphylaxis, for instance. If there was something new and novel that NVICP can't award for, by all means, take it to the next stage.
4) Most significantly, NVICP doesn't actually shield the manufacturers. It does reduce their risk from a business perspective, but there is no law forbidding suing a vaccine manufacturer. You simply have to go through NVICP first. If you fail there, you can try again in regular court, and you can indeed take it all the way to the Supreme Court if you so choose.
As noted above, this act does not protect the manufacturers from lawsuits. It reduces the risk of them being served with frivolous lawsuits, and it takes care of the garden-variety lawsuits for them. A more serious defect would almost certainly progress past the vaccine court and become very bad business for them. The FDA also has the power to impose additional penalties beyond what a court could; courts can award damages, but the FDA has the power to shut them down altogether, at least as a vaccine manufacturer. The CDC can also get involved.
It has been said that 93.217% of all statistics are made up on the spot....
I've never seen any claims that specific, either way. The truth is that the reductions in disease prevalence and in disease morbitity and mortality are due to many things. The three biggest are probably public sanitation, hygeine, and vaccination. None would have done it alone, because they address different things.
Public sanitation can eliminate ancient scourges such as cholera and the guinea worm (a horrific parasite likely to go extinct in the near future), but counterintuitively, it makes polio much worse. And it does absolutely nothing to protect against Haemophilus influenzae type B (HiB), measles, rubella, tetanus, petussis....
Hygeine was the second thing I listed. The introduction of routine handwashing by medical workers reduced the incidence of puerperal fever (a major killer of new mothers) to a very low number -- in the US today, the incidence is between 1-8%, with three dying of it for every 100,000 deliveries. (Maternal death rate in the US is 13 per 100,000, so it's still a significant fraction of the deaths.) But back in the 17th Century, a quarter of all mothers died this way. The rate is lower but still significant in parts of the world where women must give birth in squalor and access to soap is poor. (Hospitals in the pre-handwashing era had higher rates of infection than homebirth of the period, because of the opportunity for contagion to be passed from one mother to another via the physicians hands. In particularly bad outbreaks, all of the women in a maternity ward might die. It was bad.)
*Numbers from Wikipedia's article on puerperal fever
Now we come to vaccination. While handwashing is great at controlling the spread of many diseases, and clean water is all you need to prevent the transmission of cholera, other diseases aren't so easy to control. Air-transmitted diseases are nearly impossible to control by these means, and quarantine is a reactive method of control, not proactive -- a lot of people will become sick and perhaps even die before the problem is recognized, and more still before the scope is understood and an appropriate quarantine can be put in place. This used to be the preferred method for controlling the spread of measles -- indeed, if you read Dr Suess' early book "The King's Stilts", measles becomes a plot device as the villain puts ink dots on our hero's face so that people will think he has measles and force him to stay in quarantine. The problem is that with most of these diseases, you are contagious before you show symptoms, and you may develop so mild a case that nobody even realizes afterwards that you even *were* contagious. So the quarantines, while helpful, were not very effective, and a great deal of productivity was lost as communities had to shut down, in whole or in part, until the latest outbreak subsided. Since the introduction of widespread vaccination, quarantines have become rare. They're no longer needed. Most notably, smallpox (which, being transmitted by direct contact, wasn't much affected by sanitation measures) was eliminated by the 1970s. I have never been vaccinated against it, because I was born too late to need the vaccine. It is quite likely that polio will be the next vaccine-eradicated disease; the remaining reservoirs are in Nigeria, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan -- not coincidentally, regions with significant logistical challenges for any health measure.
Interestingly, vaccines have successfully extirpated polio from regions with shockingly poor sanitation. There is cholera in Haiti, but no polio.
Beats me, because it's actually a very well-studied chemical. Formaldehyde is actually more benign than people generally realize -- and much more common, too. It's actually naturally occuring in our atmosphere, synthesized by natural processes in the upper atmosphere. (You'd be surprised how much chemistry goes on in the stratosphere. Much of it is driven by solar radiation that doesn't penetrate to ground level.) It is also produced by pretty much any combustion of organic material. It is rapidly metabolized to formic acid in the human body, which means that it can't accumulate in the body -- thus, to be toxic or carcinogenic, you'll need to be exposed to enough of it to exceed the body's capabilities, or be exposed so frequently that your body is always having to clean it out. (The latter is why the EPA has fairly strict limits for occupational exposure.) It is primarily known to cause cancer when inhaled as a gas, particularly through outgassing from wood products, paints, varnishes, tobacco smoking, etc. This was the source of the problem in the infamous Katrina FEMA trailer fiasco. (People housed in temporary trailers which became sort of permanent developed respiratory problems because of the low quality of particleboard used in their construction, leading to potentially hazardous levels of formaldehyde fumes.)
So the main risks with formaldehyde are long-term exposure to gaseous formaldehyde. (Breathing it in, day in and day out for weeks.) It's cleared from the blood fairly rapidly, so unless you're regularly eating food contaminated with it or injecting yourself on a daily or maybe weekly basis, low levels should not present a problem.
There are actually many types of testing, and novel vaccines have to undergo a lot more testing than that before they can be approved. (The 2009 H1N1 vaccine did not, but it wasn't a completely novel vaccine; it was an old vaccine with a new antigen, so much of the old testing was still applicable.) Novel vaccines generally are tested for YEARS before they are approved, not just a couple of weeks, and need a lot of subjects. And it is compltely false that there is never any long-term tracking of adverse consequences. Obviously if a vaccine is only three years old, you can't have any data on what things are looking like in ten years, but there is post-market surveillance, and researchers (including independent researchers) do continue to study the effectiveness and adverse effects which may be associated with a vaccine down the road.
1%? The last time I looked, the cochrane report found a 60% reduction in flu symptoms. Where did you get 1%? How could you even *detect* 1%?
Bottom line, Steve: these questions are neither unasked nor unanswered. You've done enough online searching to stumble upon these claims. Don't stop there and assume that because they *say* the questions are unanswered that they really are.
@Calli Arcale and beamup: nice responses to Steve. Unfortunately, it appears that he dumped his strawmen and ran.
Cleanup on Aisle 4!
In another discussion thread, a defender of Wakefield says this:
"Rather than attack one man, governments and medical establishments would be better off finding ANSWERS to the question of autism."
That's absolutely true. Since it is also absolutely true that vaccines don't cause autism, we have found another reason not to try to link those two things. We should, instead, invest our autism research funds elsewhere.
Time to look more closely at Brian Deer's 'research' !
He's gone as far as he can and the cracks are beginning to show.
'methinks he doth protest too much',
Time to look more closely at Brian Deer's 'research' !
He's gone as far as he can and the cracks are beginning to show.
'methinks he doth protest too much',
Rosherville, if you actually could provide even one example of Brian Deer's research showing "cracks", you certainly would have. But you didn't, leading to the conclusion that you can't. Talk is cheap; don't bother coming back until you have the guts to commit yourself to a specific claim.
Why does the CDC pay this Danish criminal tax payer money to buy himself a house, a motorcycle, and cars? In reading about this Danish researcher he reminds me of Madoff. And this Danish study is the one everyone always cites. In the meantime Wakefield discovered measles viruses in the guts of autistic children--a study confirmed I believe in North Carolina by another research team. People will be using Wakefield's work 20 years from now while the Danish study will probably lie forgotten. The Danish study is another one of those horrendous abuses against the American people like the CIA studies on LSD in the 50s & 60s. It makes you wonder if the CDC has any humanity whatsoever. Maybe we should line them all up and inject them with all those vaccines at once and send them off into brain fog land for the rest of their lives. Oh would I love to give them a dose or two of their own toxic brews
Sorry, this article isn't about Thorsen (who, while guilty of theft, has not been accused of faking research), it's about Wakefield and his crimes. Here's the article you want:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/04/tpoul_thorsen_vaccine_safety…
As far as I know, Thorsen's indictment was only a week ago. The accusations in the indictment do make a pretty damning case -- but it's worth remembering that the accusations in the Duke lacrosse case were even more damning, and those turned out to be lies from beginning to end.
But of course, Gray Falcon is correct: this is not a post about Poul Thorsen at all, and seeing that the list of recent posts on the left-hand pane lists not one but two recent posts about Thorsen our Necromancer "kapoore" could have posted on, the logical conclusion is that he posted on a dormant thread because he was too scared to voice his brave opinion someplace where someone might answer.
Kapoore - so your contention is that the CDC paid off Thorsen to lie about vaccines, and then reported him for fraud so the story would get out? Brilliant theory.
Cracks in his research (Deer research)
Going to a persons home claiming to be someone else.
Good ruse but it does sort of prove you are a LIAR.
To Ryan's mom,
I have read many comments from you. That's why I think you will find "AoA" has a lot of good information for you. AoA = ageofautism.com. The best and most intelligent site about autism I've ever come across where many think "outside the box".
Vaccines? Still people blame them for a host of imagined problems.
I suspect that many of the illnesses claimed to be perpetuated by the vaccine haters (autism etc) can be linked to something far more common.
A lot of people never get vaccinated
To Ryan's mom,
I have read many comments from you. That's why I think you will find "AoA" has a lot of good information for you. AoA = ageofautism.com. The best and most intelligent site about autism I've ever come across where many think "outside the box".
To Ryan's mom,
I have read many comments from you. That's why I think you will find "AoA" has a lot of good information for you. AoA = ageofautism.com. The best and most intelligent site about autism I've ever come across where many think "outside the box".
To Ryan's mom,
I have read many comments from you. That's why I think you will find "AoA" has a lot of good information for you. AoA = ageofautism.com. The best and most intelligent site about autism I've ever come across where many think "outside the box".
Wow you provaxers never fail to humor me. What a shallow bunch of uneducated pharma shills. Oh wait... Sorry your not uneducated. Pharma hires the best. How about evil twisted educated people that only care about themselves and making a buck. God forgive you guys. I am pretty sure the meaning of life has nothing to do with lying and treating people like crap for no other reason than to line your pockets.
It's funny that people who call Orac a pharma shill bother to post here. Surely, if Orac was a pharma shill, he'd be diligent in deleting any comments that exposed him. Yet Kodave posts here, indicating that
a) he has nothing to do in his life other than writing comments he imagines will be deleted
b) he knows he's lying, but can't be bothered to come up with a plausible lie
c) he really thinks that pharma shills are evil, twisted folks, but that even they wouldn't stoop to deleting comments
Kodowe, did you actually spend almost a year thinking up the old lame and rather boring Pharma Shill Gambit? Why are you gracing us with your lack of brilliance on this article and not the one posted today about SaneVax's friend, Dr. Sin Hang Lee?
Oh, and what has Andrew Wakefield been up to lately? Talking at conferences where they discuss 9/11 conspiracies, or making more videos with infamous supplement shill Mike Adams for Alex Jones?
Yes, since obviously none of us could possible believe what we say. The only possible reason for anyone to say something favorable about vaccines is money.
Kodawe posts here because he is sick and tired of the lies and unbending nature if the provaxers. I have a vax damage child and two more that are reactive to the same chemicals contained in these vaccinations. I have twin foster children that had to have a TB test run about a week and a half ago. Both reacted within 48 hours of this test. One was hospitalized with resperitiry failure due to this TB test. It is documented in their medical records as a reaction to the Tween 80 (aka Polysorbate 80) found in this TB PDD skin test. If you will reference the medical journals of The Annauls of Allergy and Asthma (2005) volume 95 you will find a study conducted showing reactions to Tween 80 resulting in respiratory distress, low blood pressure and death. I am not opposed to vaccinations in general. I would love to think there is some magic bullet that every single person on the face of the earth can take that will protect them. However, logic alone says this is not feasible. We are all different. What my be fine for some can kill or damage others. That is my problem. I am totally fine with someone getting a vaccine if they want one but to force people to get them is just insanity. Forcing these things on my kids is a possible death sentence. That is why I fight this fight. Why do you? What is your vested interest? Mine is keeping my children out if the hospital or possibly the cemetery. Your reply will be the same, you are worried that my unvaxed child could cause you child to catch something. To that I ask, do the vaccinations work and actually immunize? If so get one shut up and move on. But as long as you are here talking crap about how everyone needs to get these for the betterment of society, that my friend is pure crap, and shows a lack of caring for the children that can die or be damaged by these vaccinations. That is why I am here, my life... You betcha!
Dude, read the comment! Why did you post on an old article?
Here, let me type slower:
W h y n o t t h e SaneVax a r t i c l e p o s t e d
t o d a y?
(also, you might want to learn about this cool literary concept that makes wall of text easier to read: paragraphs)
Kodawe:
A proper cite includes the title and actual date of the paper. Or you can just post the PMID.
And the blog software screwed up my slow typing, I'll try again:
W_h_y
n_o_t
t_h_e
SaneVax
a_r_t_i_c_l_e
p_o_s_t_e_d
t_o_d_a_y
?
Hello Kodawe: Why are you posting in the third person and why are you resurrecting an old post?
I'm wondering why your twin foster children were tested for TB...it seems you have extraordinary bad luck with all these natural children and foster children either damaged by vaccines, sensitive to ingredients contained in vaccines and two foster children who had a respiratory reaction to the PPD administered during Mantoux testing.
Are you certain that the "reaction" that occurred within 48 hours following the Mantoux test is not indicative of latent TB infection?
You owe us an apology for your vicious attacks on Orac and others who post here.
Notice that Kodawe's argument rests on a claim that provaxers (i.e., the scientifically literate) do not make: that vaccinations provide 100% protection from disease. In reality, vaccinations greatly improve your protection against disease, but that is only one part of what protects us in the modern day from the rampant disease that used to be a constant of life. The other half, the complement to individuals increasing their own protection, is that as more and more individuals acquire individual protection, they reduce the number of individuals in the population who can pass the disease on to others.
It would be nice if real life worked like the fantasyland Kodawe describes, where we can give ourselves perfect protection from the irresponsibility of others simply by choosing to be responsible ourselves. Unfortunately, it's not so. You can't tell people who are angry with your choice to drive drunk, "Well, if sober driving is so much safer, you go drive sober, shut up and move on," because both sober drivers and pedestrians can still be badly hurt by those who insist on the "freedom" to drive drunk and endanger others.
@Kodawe:
There are (at least) two other reasons:
1) General altruism, because the pro-vaxxer thinks that vaccines have a good risk/benefit ratio and helps people.
2) Being anti-pseudo-science in general (which is why many people argue against things like perpetual motion machines, moon landing hoaxers, and so on).
Also, does the "Your reply will be..." sentence mean you no longer think we're shills?
@ Matthew Cline:
I would suggest that there is a third and fourth reason
3. I grew up in the era before vaccines were available to protect against polio and measles. I lost my close childhood friend to polio and my cousin was left with lasting sequelae due to measles encephalitis.
4. My involvement has to do with being a public health nurse who has seen firsthand the devastating consequences of childhood vaccine-preventable diseases. These sad cases include the death of a young infant from pertussis and numerous cases of invasive meningitis and bacteremia that resulted in deaths of kids, neurological impairments, organ failure and gangrenous amputations, because effective vaccines were not available.
We all questioned the necromancing Kodawe for additional "details" about what he reports as vaccine-induce autism, sensitivities to vaccine components and the supposed "reaction" to a Mantoux test and Kodawe has chosen to not reply.
Kodawe is a drive-by anti-vax troll who is afraid to respond because he/she knows we would dissect the bogus posting bit-by-bit and destroy the arguments presented.
Kodawe,
Should you return, I think the article you refer to is this one. It is a case study of one patient who experienced a non-IgE-mediated anaphylactoid reaction to an IV multivitamin preparation, not a vaccine. There is no mention of the patient dying, and it would be very unusual for a patient to die after any IV as epinephrine injections should always be readily available in case of such a (very rare) reaction, just as they are when vaccines are administered.
The amount of polysorbate in IV multivitamin preparations is very much greater than in vaccines, as it is used to solubilize fat-soluble vitamins. For example 5 ml of one preparation intended for children contains 50 milligrams of polysorbate 80, while a vaccine typically contains less than 50 micrograms, as does the dose of tuberculin PPD. This is 1000 times less.
This is a tiny amount - I have estimated it is a similar quantity to the amount of dish-washing detergent (a very similar chemical) you would find in a drop of the water you use to wash your dishes.
I have never seen a case of a reaction to such a tiny amount of polysorbate 80 reported in the scientific literature. As we can see, even a reaction to 1000 times that amount is unusual enough to be reported as a case study. Are you sure your children have definitely been diagnosed with a hypersensitivity to polysorbate 80?
Mmm, so, in the end, I wonder who will truly be found to have falsified reports/data etc.?
http://gaia-health.com/gaia-blog/2011-11-10/brian-deers-charges-against…
Perhaps Andrew Wakefield's year will end more positively than it began. Who knows the truth?
Here is more:
http://biologyfiles.fieldofscience.com/2011/11/oh-what-tangled-web-we-w…
@ Dominique:
So they're claiming that one of the many outright falsehoods on the paper was the result of gross incompetence rather than deliberate fraud. Not exactly a positive claim.
And Deer made no claim that "Wakefield is the sole person responsible for claiming that nonspecific colitis was found in children with autism" - that's just made up out of whole cloth, as a read of the April 2010 BMJ article discussing that point (http://briandeer.com/solved/bmj-enterocolitis.htm) will clearly demonstrate.
It's worthy of note that there's no attempt made in your link to argue that the Lancet paper was RIGHT - just claims that Wakefield misunderstood Dhillon's forms. Beyond pathetic.
And here is more commentary:
http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2011/11/brian-deer-on-andrew-wakefield…
@ Dominique: Are you the same Dominique Adey Balinova who has posted on the Facebook-Dr. Wakefield's Work Must Continue website?
Are you also the same Dominique Adey Balinova who has posted about your permanent injury resulting from mercury amalgam dental fillings?
Tell us all about your "theories" of mercury poisoning and gut bacteria and why you think that "Dr. Wakefield's work must continue".
No, not Wakefield, but BMJ and dishonest journalist Brian Deer (probably paid for by lobbyst) are FRAUD.
An Elaborate Fraud, Part 8: In Which The British Medical Journal Tries to Debunk a Clear-Cut Case of Regressive Autism - AGE OF AUTISM
http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/11/an-elaborate-fraud-part-8-in-which-t…
We Support Dr. Andrew Wakefield
http://www.wesupportandywakefield.com/
Being myself a scientist, have had a look at this case recently, and now i expect some serious reflection on this issue "Wakefield is fraud" on your blog. Thanks for attention.
Ray
====
It is now March 2012.
What a difference a year makes!
Professor Walker-Smith was just reinstated. See http://www.ageofautism.com/2012/03/general-medical-council-response-to-…
Dr Andrew Wakefield is soon to be vindicated.
Brian Deer is a fraud. Neener, neener, neener.
Dear Necromancer Troll, have you checked more recent articles on this blog? Like:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/03/will_prevail_in_his_libel_sui…
Uhh....
All the justice found was that the GMC did not have sufficient evidence to prove the claim that Walker Smith understood he was ordering procedures for the purpose of research rather than clinical investigation and treatment which required prior approval by a Research Ethics committee. This finding does not speak to the GMC's separate findings against Wakefield (which may be found at http://www.gmc-uk.org/Wakefield_SPM_and_SANCTION.pdf_32595267.pdf ) in any way, shape or form?
Haven't you heard, necromancing fanboi of Wakefield...he is in deep doo-doo.
Brave intrepid defrocked doc has two legal avenues open to him; either he discontinues his lawsuit, to avoid testifying and a criminal charge of perjury...or he gets (b*tch) SLAPP'ed by Deer.
Whatever recourse he opts for, he will be paying all of Deer's considerable legal costs...and may be assessed for fines due to the frivolous nature of his lawsuit.
Oops correction...my last sentence should read...
"Whatever recourse he opts for, he will be paying all of Deer's considerable legal costs...and Deer may receive monetary damages due to the frivolous nature of Wakefield's defamation lawsuit."
I think you might have gotten that backwards: Wakefield's SLAPP against Deer likely to be b*tched by the courts.
I wonder about the intellectual rigor that the Necromancer Troll used to find the appropriate post to tell us something we have known about for a while. Plus the "science" education of Ray M (who has crashed and burned elsewhere).
Bronze Dog: Somehow "...gets anti-(b*tch) SLAPP'ed by Deer..." does not convey my thoughts on the subject :-).
Necromancer Troll, here is some reading for you:
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pediatrics/Vaccines/31655
The last sentences say "That ruling does not affect Wakefield's status. Walker-Smith retired in 2001."
lilady, your comment above should be tweaked to : "and Deer may receive monetary damages due to the frivolous nature of Wakefield's defamation lawsuit, again."
Can I just say bitch-SLAPP'ed is awesome and would like permission to use that if I may?
@ Science Mom: Sure, and here's your "permission slip".
http://media.photobucket.com/image/bitch%20slap/lorrdraiden/bitch-slap…
Heh. Thanks lilady.