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Saturday 4 February 2012

The witch-hunt against Andrew Wakefield

Wednesday, 11th February 2009

The Sunday Times last weekend resumed its witch-hunt against Andrew Wakefield, the gastro-enterologist who warned against the possible risks to children of the MMR vaccine following a paper he wrote in the Lancet in 1998. In this paper, he described a new childhood syndrome which he called autistic enterocolitis, which suggested a connection between a new type of bowel disease and autistic spectrum disorder and reported the fact that some of the parents of the children in the study thought there was a connection between these symptoms and the MMR vaccine. The titanic furore which subsequently engulfed Wakefield, in which virtually the entire medical establishment turned on him, effectively forced him out of Britain and has resulted in his being investigated by the General Medical Council for serious misconduct.

The campaign against Wakefield in the Sunday Times has been led by journalist Brian Deer. Last weekend, the paper published a two-page ‘investigation’ and a front-page spin-off story alleging that

confidential medical documents and interviews with witnesses

have established Wakefield had

changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism...

amidst various other lurid charges. Deer claimed that his ‘investigation’ was

confirmed by evidence presented to the General Medical Council

What the Sunday Times did not report was that the GMC investigation into Wakefield was triggered by a complaint from... Brian Deer, who furnished the allegations against him four years ago. He has thus been reporting upon the hearing into his own complaint. Since when has a reputable paper published a story by a reporter who is actually part of that story himself -- without saying so – and who uses information arising from the disciplinary hearing which he himself has instigated and which is investigating allegations he himself made in the first place?

Wakefield has issued a detailed refutation of Deer’s allegations, reported here. I reproduce his response below in full ( for clarity, I set out Wakefield’s responses to Deer in bold type and identified by the letter W).

W: Below is a list of the allegations made by Brain Deer against me, received on Friday 6^th February 2009, 2 days prior to his publishing in the UK’s Sunday Times newspaper.

Dear Dr Wakefield,

I'm directed by editors managing my investigation of the MMR matter for The Sunday Times to inform you that we intend to publish further on this topic, and particularly on your role in it. It is now some five years since I first sought to discuss with you your work, and I've made numerous attempts to do so. As you will appreciate, the safety of children by means of vaccination is an unparalleled issue of public interest and concern.

As you will know, not least as a result of our concurrent attendance at the General Medical Council fitness to practise hearing into your conduct, I'm now extremely familiar with the precise medical histories, diagnoses and so forth of the children enrolled for your study, published in the Lancet on 28 February 1998. Based on this knowledge, and other sources of information, including the cooperation of families enrolled in your research, I must put to you, for your response, a number of serious matters.

(1)That you repeatedly, and without justification, changed and misreported findings from those children for publication in the Lancet.

I cite, for instance, three children who you represented as having regressive autism, who in fact had Asperger's disorder, or in one of those cases PDAS, which are not regressive and involve no loss of language or other basic skills. You claim that the paper is a series of "previously normal" children, but medical records - which you had a duty to read and understand - show that some five of the 12 children were subject to concerns prior to vaccination, and were not "normal". Other children, who you claimed to have suffered their first "behavioural symptoms" within days of vaccination, in fact had none for months. In the cases of some 8 children - two thirds of the total - you changed normal histopathology results to abnormal results, in a so-called "research review", despite claiming that the series was merely a clinical report.

W: The diagnoses reported in the Lancet were accurate based upon the information provided to the clinicians and review of the available records. (I) Where there was considered to be a pre-existing developmental problem, this was accurately reported in the Lancet paper. (II) This is not the place to get into a detailed discussion on developmental regression which is still a subject of debate

experts in child development and is certainly not something about which Deer has any expertise.

It is a matter of fact that I did not play any part whatsoever in making the microscopic diagnoses of inflammation on any biopsy from any child investigated at the Royal Free Hospital. Intestinal tissues were examined, and the children’s pathology documented, by two doctors (not me) employed in the Department of Histopathology who were experienced in bowel disease, using an agreed protocol to ensure rigor and consistency . These doctors were co-authors on the paper. The same tissues were reviewed by Professor Walker-Smith and his team. I merely entered the documented findings into the Lancet paper. I did not “change” any findings as alleged. The paper was then reviewed by the relevant authors prior to submission to the Lancet in order to confirm that the diagnoses were correct. The findings reported in the Lancet are, in the opinion of the relevant authors, correct. This is a matter of record at the GMC.

(2) That, without justification, you omitted parental links to MMR in the case of one quarter of the children, in order to reach your unsubstantiated claim in the paper that problems came on within days.

Contrary to your claim that the parents of 8 of 12 children linked MMR to their child's problems, in fact the parents of 11 of the children made this connection whilst at the Royal Free. The additional, unreported, children are Child Five, Child Nine and Child Twelve. Their parents said that problems came on between one and four months after MMR, and their hospital records, which you had access to (and in one case wrote), show this. Through the device of their omission, you contrived to create the appearance of a clearcut temporal link between MMR and autism, when there was none such. Furthermore, by their omission, you contrived to create the appearance that these children were routine clinical cases passing through the hospital, when in fact, as you knew, they were recruited, marshalled and referred in collaboration between you, JABS and a solicitor. As such, they were bound to blame MMR when they came to the hospital.

W: This is a particularly tortuous argument that reflects Deer’s grasp (or lack of it) on both the scientific process and the evidence. Parents of 8 of the 12 children made the link between MMR vaccination and onset of symptoms contemporaneously. Other parents made the link retrospectively, that is, some years later. We reported on those 8 who made the link at the time of their child’s deterioration and excluded those who made the link later in order to remove any bias associated with recall that may have been prompted by, for example, media coverage. To have done otherwise would have been potentially misleading.

In fact, when all of the medical and parental records were made available via the GMC many years later, it became apparent that one further parent had made the link with MMR contemporaneously, but had remained silent on this at the request of her husband because it had led to doctors dismissing their concerns about their child’s medical problems on the basis that they were “just looking for something to blame.” This in itself is a telling indictment of how a possible cause risks being overlooked because of the prejudice of some physicians.

The second part of this allegation, which is dependent upon the fallacy in the first part, is nonsense. The route by which the children came to the Royal Free was one driven by clinical need and had nothing whatsoever to do with the lawyer Richard Barr. The facts of this matter and in particular the route by which the children came to be seen by Professor Walker-Smith, have been reported to the GMC. This allegation – one which Deer has rehashed in spite of the evidence – has no basis in fact.

It need hardly be stated again after so many occasions in the GMC but the leading, primary and principal reason all twelve children ended up at the Royal Free, was that they had bowel or 'stomach' problems. The matter of vaccination was brought up by parents because they thought that it was relevant to the clinical diagnosis.

(3) That the paper you wrote and published in the Lancet was a device, assisting you in obtaining money from the Legal Aid Board.

I draw to your attention your prior contractual undertaking with Mr Barr, and your joint undertaking to the Legal Aid Board to attempt to find a "new syndrome". This latter undertaking was entered into before any of the children were admitted to the Royal Free, or you could ever have known of any syndrome. Eighteen months later, you would declare that you had found precisely such a syndrome, based on the 8/12 temporal link, and an alleged coincidence of regressive autism and inflammatory bowel disease. The records show that neither of these are valid. Without the public ever suspecting, the route by which you reached this claim required the wholesale changing and misreporting of data. Following your claims, to which you attached the reputations of 12 other, generally unwitting, doctors, you successfully extracted substantial sums of money from the legal aid fund, not least for the business Unigenetics, of which you were a director, and for yourself personally. We have previously reported that the Legal Services Commission says that you pocketed more than £435,000, plus expenses. The amounts you received increased as the scare you created continued: the grossest possible conflict of interest.

W: Deer is wrong on all counts. The purpose of the contract with Mr Barr was to conduct a scientific study to look for measles virus proteins in the bowel of children (initially those with Crohn’s disease and later, to include those with autism and intestinal symptoms (such as abdominal pain and diarrhea) that required endoscopic examination and biopsy. On the other hand, the clinical basis for the investigation of the autistic children has been established by my pediatric colleagues – two of the most experienced pediatric gastroenterologists worldwide - beyond any reasonable doubt.

Deer has completely missed the point; the “syndrome” that we have accurately and reproducibly described is the combination of autistic regression, swelling of the lymph glands in the last part of the small intestine (ileum) and inflammation of the colon. Any association of this syndrome with MMR vaccine remains to be confirmed and, in contrast with Deer’s claim, the syndrome does not require any temporal link to MMR vaccination at all. This has been made clear to the GMC.

The children who turned out to suffer from the “syndrome” were referred as early as May 1995, long before I had ever heard of Richard Barr or vaccine litigation. Deer is aware of this fact.

Any payment that I received over the course of working for more than 7 years as a expert to the UK courts in the MMR litigation – substantially less than the sum Deer claims – was donated to an initiative to build a new center for the investigation and care of patients with inflammatory bowel disease at the Royal Free. This matter is described in more detail in a forthcoming essay by Bill Long, access to which will be posted in due course at http://www.drbilllong.com/index.html.

I resigned from Unigenetics and was not involved in the dealings of this company with the Legal Aid Board.

Finally, I did not “create” a scare but rather, I responded to a scare that parents brought to my attention. To have ignored their concerns would have been professional negligence.

(4) That, additional to the above, in recent years you have reviewed your changes and misreportings in the Lancet, and yet you have neither withdrawn your claims in the paper, nor sincerely and publicly apologised for your conduct, as you should have done.

As a result of the GMC hearings, you have been supplied with all the documentation, and, indeed, were last year taken by counsel through the changes and misreportings. There can be no question that you know the precise details of these children. Particularly given outbreaks of measles, widely reported in UK media most recently today, and the appalling burden of guilt laid on the parents of autistic children who believe it was their own fault for vaccinating their child, you had an absolute duty to come forward at the earliest opportunity and make the position clear. You have not done so, but indeed continue to display the paper's claims on your website, and to campaign against MMR.

W: The evidence presented by me to the GMC described precisely and accurately the basis of the findings reported in the Lancet. The absence of any ‘misreporting’ is a matter of record both in my oral testimony and in that of my clinical colleagues. There is absolutely nothing either to withdraw or to apologize for in this matter. It is, however, a tragedy that the continued misrepresentation of the facts has had a negative impact on the ability of affected children to get access to the care that they so desperately need.

(5) That, overall, you created the appearance of a possible link between MMR and autism, when you knew, or should have known, that there was no reasonable basis for this in the histories of those children, and, as a result have caused immense and growing harm, unnecessary concern and waste of public money.

In summary, not one of the 12 children is free of serious doubt as to the manner in which their case has been reported by you. Indeed, there is no real evidence that any of the children were as you reported in the Lancet. When lack of evidence of previous normality, lack of evidence of regression, lack of evidence of inflammatory bowel disease, and lack of any temporal link as you describe, are taken into account, there was no basis in the records for your claim to have discovered any new syndrome at all.

W: Based upon the parental histories of regression in their children after MMR vaccine, the known link between measles and brain damage including autism (III)and the findings in the children, there was and continues to be every reasonable basis for suspecting a possible link between MMR vaccination and autistic regression.

The reporting of the children in the Lancet paper is an accurate account of the clinical histories as reported to Professor Walker-Smith and his clinical colleagues. The normality or otherwise of the children’s development was evident in the medical history taken by these clinicians, and backed up by the Health Visitor’s (IV) contemporaneous record of the respective child’s development. The claim to have detected a possible new syndrome was valid and, in contrast with Deer’ false claim, is supported by confirmation of the original findings by others. (V)

As you will see, the issues we raise with you are not the same as the charges you face before the GMC, although the fitness to practise hearings have, as expected, yielded important insights and evidence. It is clear that, particularly in the context of measles outbreaks in the UK, US, Europe and now Australasia, it is important that the public be urgently informed of the true position at the earliest possible date.

W: On the contrary, the issues raised by Deer are, in many respects, identical to those raised by him on previous occasions. One can only imagine that, as the evidence has emerged at the GMC, the fallacy of Deer’s original allegations has become clear. The timing and content of Deer’s latest allegations and the published article, his behavior at the GMC hearing (See “The Incident” by Martin Walker (VI) ), and recent admissions of failings in the area of vaccine safety by the US National Vaccine Advisory Committee, suggest a degree of desperation on the part of Deer and those with whom he is working.

Measles outbreaks are preventable, immediately, by offering to parents with entirely valid concerns about the safety of MMR vaccine, a choice of single measles vaccine; not to do so is unethical and puts the vaccine policy, “our way or no way”, before the wellbeing of children.

There is absolutely no question of the continuing investigation and treatment of these children coming to a halt because of this or any other kind of subversive tactic.*

It is remarkable how so many commentators take at face value the claims being made by Wakefield’s detractors, and how many recycle the misrepresentions of easily verifiable facts – such as what the Wakefield paper actually said – which his detractors disseminate. For more context, read this new paper by Wakefield et al which points out, among other things, the suspect nature of much of the research upon which the claims that MMR has been proved beyond a shadow of doubt to be safe are based:

Most critics fail to reference the authoritative Cochrane review of these studies—exclusively non-clinical—which dismissed most of the “major studies” upon which the IOM relied as being of insufficient quality to merit consideration. This includes the work of Eric Fombonne [133], of which the review said, “the number and possible impact of biases in this study was so high that interpretation of the results was difficult” [134]. Further, in an extraordinary paper, “Tale of Two Cities” [135], Dr. Fouad Yazbak uncovered how Dr. Eric Fombonne mixed data from two Canadian cities, Montreal and Quebec City, to create the misleading impression that autism had gone up when MMR uptake was falling [136]. Dr. Yazbak’s investigation showed that when autism and MMR uptake rates in the same city (Montreal) were compared, both went up [135].

More importantly, however, data that have been represented to the public as showing no association between MMR and autism in fact show just the opposite. A case in point is the CDC’s own study looking at age-at-first-MMR vaccination and autism risk [137]. The study found a statistically significant association between younger age at MMR vaccination and an increased risk of autism. This risk was greatest in the most recently vaccinated children. Why? The age at first MMR vaccination has gone down over time [138, 139]

And also, on the original vaccine safety trials:

The deficiencies in vaccine safety studies were later reinforced by the systematic analysis of Dr. Thomas Jefferson and colleagues from the Cochrane Collaboration, an internationally respected body that provides independent scientific oversight. They wrote, “The design and reporting of safety outcomes in MMR vaccine studies, both pre and postmarketing is largely inadequate” [134]. In an interview with Richard Halvorsen for his book The Truth about Vaccines, [155] one of the lead authors of the Cochrane review left no doubt as to his true feelings when he said, “The safety studies of MMR vaccine are crap. They’re the best crap we have but they’re still crap” [156].

I have written about the Wakefield MMR affair here, here, here, here, here,here,here and here. I have read much of the relevant research, spoken to dozens of parents, interviewed several of the dramatis personae in the history of this vaccine and consulted experts on both sides. Like everyone else, I await the conclusion of the GMC hearing and have no idea how that will end. But I note the fact that, in relation to the most incendiary allegation against Wakefield -- that he used the children who figured in the Lancet paper to further an undeclared and pre-existing paid study in connection with the parents’ law suit to prove that something was wrong with MMR -- the first of these children was referred to him in 1995, while he did not undertake the study in question until two years later. The parents themselves told me, when I wrote about this in 2003, that they had gone to Wakefield in desperation because no other doctor would take seriously their perception that something untoward and catastrophic had gone wrong with their child’s gut and that this was somehow connected to an inexplicable developmental problem in the child– and they had heard on the grapevine that there was a gastro-enterologist at the Royal Free Hospital who was prepared to listen.

I stand by everything I have written and the conclusions I have previously reached: that the clinical jury is still out on the risks of MMR; that the epidemiological research on which the claims are based that it has conclusively been proved to be safe is at best methodologically inadequate and at worst has been misleadingly spun; that although any link to MMR remains unproven, Wakefield’s Lancet findings of a new clinical syndrome have been replicated; and that far from being, as it is claimed, conclusively disproved, his concern that while the vast majority of children have no side effects from MMR a small proportion may be vulnerable through the impact of the vaccine on some kind of pre-existing vulnerability looks ever more plausible.

I note that – unreported in the UK mainstream media – there have been two significant developments in the US. The first was the Hannah Poling case, which I first commented upon here and in which, in a landmark ruling, the US Court of Federal Claims, Office of the Special Master conceded a vaccine injury to a child from Georgia who, having been developing normally until she received nine simultaneous vaccinations including MMR, subsequently developed serious brain and body disorders. The court ruled that

the vaccinations [Hannah Poling] received on July 19, 2000 significantly aggravated an underlying mitochondrial disorder, which predisposed her to deficits in cellular energy metabolism, and manifested as a regressive encephalopathy with features of autism spectrum disorder.

We don’t know which of these nine vaccines triggered this catastrophic reaction. But the significance of this case is that it established for the first time that a hitherto unknown problem with a child’s cellular system caused a catastrophic reaction in that child to a vaccination schedule, including delivery of the already multiple MMR, that has produced no ill-effects in other children.

The Poling case was almost certainly behind the remarkable comments made by Dr Bernardine Healy, the former head of the National Institute of Health, who told CBS News last year:

The government has said in a report by the Institute of Medicine, and by the way I’m a member of the Institute of Medicine—I love the Institute of Medicine—but a report in 2004 basically said ‘do not pursue susceptibility groups—don’t look for those patients—those children who may be vulnerable.’ I really take issue with that conclusion. The reason why they didn’t want to look for those susceptibility groups was because they were afraid that if they found them, however big or small they were, that that would scare the public away....there is a completely expressed concern—that they don’t want to pursue a hypothesis because that hypothesis could be damaging to the public health community at large by scaring people. First of all, I think the public’s smarter than that. The public values vaccines. But more importantly, I don’t think you should ever turn your back on any scientific hypothesis because you’re afraid of what it might show.

...When I first heard that there was a link between autism and vaccines, I thought that was silly. Really, I tended to dismiss it just on the superficial kind of reading, just reading what was in the papers, no offense to the media—so when I first heard about it I thought ‘well, that doesn’t make sense to me.’ The more you delve into it, if you look at the basic science, if you look at the research that’s been done in animals, if you also look at some of these individual cases, and if you look at the evidence that there is no link, what I come away with is the question has not been answered ...I think that the public health officials have been too quick to dismiss the [autism link to vaccination] hypothesis as irrational.

It is of course precisely Wakefield’s concern that the MMR vaccine might, in a small proportion of cases, trigger a catastrophic reaction in a child with an as yet unknown pre-existing vulnerability. For that he is being hung out to dry – and any discussion about his concern is being suppressed by the intimidatory tactic of blaming anyone who says he might have a point for the reported rise in measles cases. As has been said over and over again from the very start, that problem could have been totally avoided if the government had provided single measles jabs. It refused -- because it was determined not to concede any ground over multiple vaccines and so decided instead to play for the highest possible stakes in destroying Andrew Wakefield. It is the Department of Health – which never flags up similar concerns about the rise in cases of autistic spectrum disorder -- that is responsible for the rise in measles cases.

Truly, health policy and a show trial straight out of Kafka.

Update: An American court looking at three further test cases has ruled that there is no proven link between the MMR vaccine and autism. The judges said parents had been misled by doctors who were guilty of 'gross medical misjudgment' and had peddled 'speculative and unpersuasive' theories. Campaigners have claimed the ruling was a politically driven reaction to the Poling case.

*Notes:

I) Health Visitor checks: a routine regular developmental and physical in-home assessment of children by the National Health Service in the UK

II) Lancet 1998:351; 637-41

III) Deykin EY, MacMahon B, Viral exposure and autism. Am J Epidemiol, 1979;109:628–38. Ring A, Barak Y, Ticher A, et al. Evidence for an infectious etiology in autism. Pathophysiology, 1997; 4:91–96.

IV) Health Visitor checks: a routine regular developmental and physical in-home assessment of children by the National Health Service in the UK

V) Gonzalez, L., et al., Endoscopic and Histological Characteristics of the Digestive Mucosa in Autistic Children with gastro-Intestinal Symptoms: A Preliminary Report. GEN Suplemento Especial de Pediatria, 2005;1:41-47. Balzola, F., et al., Panenteric IBD-like disease in a patient with regressive autism shown for the first time by wireless capsule enteroscopy: Another piece in the jig-saw of the gut-brain syndrome? American Journal of Gastroenterology, 2005. 100(4): p. 979- 981. Krigsman A et al. http://www.cevs.ucdavis.edu/Cofred/Public/Aca/WebSec.cfm?confid=238&webid=1245 last accessed June 2007) (paper submitted for publication)

VI) http://www.cryshame.co.uk//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=113&Itemid=192

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Fergus Pickering

February 11th, 2009 2:30pm

Thank you for that, Melanie. You are right, the consensus among run-of-the-mill bone-idle journalists is that Wakefield has been proved wrong. But, as you show, he hasn't.

Andrew

February 11th, 2009 2:51pm

"...We don’t know which of these nine vaccines triggered this catastrophic reaction..."

Quite.

That is emphatically NOT how non-scientific jounalists have reported this matter.

John Stone

February 11th, 2009 2:54pm

Dear Melanie

I do believe that this is a public scandal of monumental proportions, but also perhaps the biggest journalist scandal of our times, and I do not think that Brian Deer is exclusively to blame. I quote from the remarkable and already long buried House of Common's Health Committee report 'The Inflence of the Pharmaceutical industry' 2004 p. 60

'The use of PR to counter negative publicity'

'221. Public relations is particularly important during times of bad publicity, especially when the safety of brands is called into question. Considerable resources are invested into building long-term, sustainable relationships with stakeholders and ‘key opinion leaders’ and journalists. These relationships are used to promote the use of certain brands and counter concerns relating to safety. Efforts to undermine critical voices in particular were identified, under terms of “issues management”. In later evidence, in response to the ISM’s memorandum, Pfizer stated that PR is entirely legitimate and can “help to educate and inform”. According to the PMCPA, PR activities may include “placing articles in the lay press, TV documentaries, soap operas etc”.'

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmhealth/42/42.pdf

Thank you for your courage in being the journalist who stood up to be counted.

John

Dave

February 11th, 2009 3:03pm

"I stand by everything I have written and the conclusions I have previously reached: that the clinical jury is still out on the risks of MMR"
Untrue. And a wicked thing to say. Cases of measles and mumps are rising because of this sort of ill thought out commentary seeding confusion in the minds of parents and leaving healthcare workers to pick up the pieces.
You are directly responsible for the damage to and even deaths of our children.
Wicked.

Joan Campbell

February 11th, 2009 3:21pm

Brian Deer's actions are atrocious. Shame on him and the powers that be who have ignored thousands upon thousands of parents and grand parents who have tried to speak out about the injustice that has happened to the children through un-safe vaccines.

Mark

February 11th, 2009 4:13pm

Melanie
I hope Jenny Barnet of LBC reads this piece as she is the victim of a witch-hunt for doubting the safety of vaccination. your article neatly sums up why we should all be concerned.
thanks

Valentinus

February 11th, 2009 4:16pm

Not again. Please. No. Se F. DeStafano. The title says it all.

http://www.nature.com/clpt/journal/v82/n6/abs/6100407a.html
Vaccines and Autism: Evidence Does Not Support a Causal Association

Borboski

February 11th, 2009 4:29pm

Please stop Melanie. Now have a daughter, I would really like you to stop encouraging people to not have the triple jab. Seriously, please stop.

Fergus Pickering

February 11th, 2009 4:33pm

Dave, you're a fool. Of course Melanie Phillips is not directly responsible for any such thing. And stop your absurd scaremongering about measles and mumps. I had them both when I was a little boy. Most children had measles. Some had mumps. These are not killer diseases. Give us some figures if you know any. But then you could just make them up, couldn't you? After all, our government, of whom you must be some paid hack, do it all the time. I take it you are telling us that Wakefield has been proved wrong, is a money-grubbing liar etc etc. Give us chapter and verse, old chap. And if you can't, just make a noise like a hoop and roll away, as Bertie Wooster might have said. He had measles too.

Forlornehope

February 11th, 2009 4:35pm

Melanie continues to post on scientific subjects with all the conviction of a member of the liberal elite with a degree in English from Oxford. This nonsense does rather question the validity of her views on other matters.

Children are dying in developing countries because measles is being reintroduced from Europe. This kind of journalism may have a following but it is not worthy of a serious publication.

Walter S Nimmo

February 11th, 2009 4:37pm

Congratulations Melanie

I cannot understand why single measles immunisation was not encouraged. Only boys need mumps and only girls need rubella.

In what other circumstances do we give something that half the population does not need

John Stone

February 11th, 2009 4:38pm

Dave

Or just possibly all the tub-thumping about measles is to sideline next week's promised revelations about the MMR, ordered by the Information Commissioner:

http://tinyurl.com/727ady

We did not anyhow have to go down the triple vaccine route. The entire episode has been political manipulation, the only point of which was to protect vested interests. I am sure they matter much than our children.

Kathleen Heltsley

February 11th, 2009 4:47pm

Thank you Melanie. I prefer the risk of measles to the risk of damagin my osn further. The mumps cases in America are not being covered like the 135 cases of measles sonce the children with mumps were ALL vaccinated-go figure.
I appreciate your efforts to bring integrity to this tragic story for Dr wakefield. You are in the minority for representing his side in this with honesty and real reporting. Funny how much easier it would be for you to just repeat the poo being spewd without research. I thank you, my son would if he could, for taking the time to research what you write. Andrew Wakefield is a hero, adn what is being done to him is criminal.

al_capone_junior

February 11th, 2009 4:51pm

Shame on you for an excellent attempt at distracting the public from the real point of the whole Wakefield/MMR/Autism debate - which is that Wakefield acted irresponsibly and unethically, and that as a result, measles has once again become endemic in the UK. You, and other irresponsible journalists, are exactly what allowed this health crisis to gain such a foothold in the first place.

David

February 11th, 2009 4:56pm

"the injustice that has happened to the children through un-safe vaccines."

There is none. It's utter rubbish. The results were falsified, and no other study has replicated the results.

Don't beleive it? Thanks to this idiot and people like Mel, we have a real life experiment going on. Measles cases are through the roof, there is no change in the levels of autism reported.

Nick

February 11th, 2009 5:01pm

The MMR vaccination is completely safe. Wakefield's study has been thoroughly discredited: there is no link between MMR and autism.

If you do not vaccinate your children you risk their health and that of others around you. There is nothing more to say.

David

February 11th, 2009 5:02pm

http://www.badscience.net/2009/02/lbc-mmr-jeni-barnett-an-early-day-motion-the-times-and-er-a-bit-of-stephen-fry/

Worth reading as to the damage this idiot and his supporters have caused.

plh

February 11th, 2009 5:06pm

“I have read much of the relevant research...”

Given what it says, that hardly seems credible. If you really have read it, either you're very stupid indeed or you've failed to revise your ignorant and crackpottery fuelled delusions despite it.

Ploniella

February 11th, 2009 5:06pm

Dave
the health care industry that chooses not to offer parents single vaccine jabs is responsible, not a journalist.

ross

February 11th, 2009 5:19pm

Melanie,

I don't think you will ever admit you are wrong on this matter but perhaps you could just walk away from the subject and stop compounding the damage you and the rest of the mainstream media have done perpetuating the mmr hoax.

Dyson

February 11th, 2009 5:30pm

Ms Phillips and those from the antivaccine lobby remind me of the black knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It seems as though they have reached the stage where they are writhing helplessly on the ground, screaming in desperation at the victorious Arthur: "I'll bite your legs off!"

Joseph

February 11th, 2009 5:30pm

How do you explain why Wakefield previously backed down from his lawsuit against Brian Deer and Channel 4, and agreed to pay court costs?

http://briandeer.com/wakefield/lawsuit-discontinues.htm

Deborah Heather

February 11th, 2009 5:33pm

Melanie thankyou for raising this sublect , it is quite unexceptable that Mr Deer has been privy to confidential information , and it seems medical records , i can see how conveniant it is for Mr Deer to have this story in the Times very clever especially as the GMC is nearing its end , Dr Wakefield should have always been given the opportunity ti finish his research

BadScience

February 11th, 2009 5:43pm

The issue which Melanie never confronts is the basic public health one of maintaining herd immunity. It may be that some vaccines do cause a very rare reaction in a small minority of patients (I speak as the father of an autistic child). We should do everything to identify the reasons for such reactions, if they exist (while avoiding the publicity which deters parents from getting their children vaccinated). However those very rare reactions have to be balanced against the benefit to society as a whole of maintaining herd immunity through high rates of immunisation. This has led to the virtual elimination of many infectious diseases which in the past were the cause of a vast number of deaths and lifelong disabilities. Perhaps we are now too selfish to let our children be exposed to any risk - however tiny - for the benefit to society as a whole?

MinorityView

February 11th, 2009 5:47pm

Valentinus, Melanie presented a whole stack of studies, but your single study which says "does not support" trumps them all? Right. And you have no ethical concerns with Brian Deer writing an article about a case he is participating in? Excellent.

Ian C

February 11th, 2009 5:50pm

Why all consensus should be questioned, constantly. Global warming is another case in point, as is the eternal adulation of Obama.

Well done Melanie. That is why we read you.

NM

February 11th, 2009 5:58pm

Mark, she is not a victim of a witch-hunt for doubting the safety of anything. She has rightly been criticised for suggesting on her radio programme that children not be vaccinated against these ghastly diseases without any knowledge or evidence. She commented to a nurse that she was worried about all the ghastly things in the vaccine. When the nurse challenged her to name any of these alleged nasty ingredients, she could not, and said she'd "look it up on the Internet".

Such dangerous, illiterate scare-mongering with no evidence, no study and no intelligence should be answered forcefully. If you call that answer a witch-hunt, then you are as lazy in your analysis as Jeni is.

The Biologista

February 11th, 2009 5:59pm

Some points:
-Wakefield's 1998 study does not claim a causal connection between MMR and autism, not even close.
-Wakefield made said claim without the approval of his co-authors in press releases, NOT in research papers. His data does not back him up. The co-authors withdrew their support.
-The "confirmation" paper a couple of years later is also by Wakefield and was shown to be a false positive due to contamination.
-There are AT LEAST a dozen very good studies disproving Wakefields claims about MMR. Claims he has not backed up with evidence.
-Anecdotal evidence, be it from 1 person or 1 million, is not the way to determine cause and effect. Science exists for a reason. We are a poor judge of these things without proper controlled studies.
-HOWEVER: The media attempt to hang Wakefield now that the evidence is clearer on MMR is rather dishonest and unfair. Wakefield's press releases were cautious, but some media outlets decided to scare people. They did their part in perpetuating the myth that MMR is linked to autism and now they want a scapegoat.

To Mark,
Jeni Barnett made a number of serious claims without any evidence. She has unapologetically perpetuated a very harmful myth.

Tom Chivers

February 11th, 2009 6:05pm

Mel, isn't - finally - time to drop it? You were wrong. MMR is safe. The 'debate' you called for has been had, the 'more research' has been done, and there is no link.

People who have received MMR are no more likely to have autism than those who haven't. There was no sudden leap in autism cases after MMR's introduction in 1988 (just a continuing steady increase).

Vast studies have been done over ten years and found nothing. All there is is anecdotal evidence from distraught parents whose child has been diagnosed autistic and who understandably want someone to blame.

In the meantime measles cases soar, and children, actual children, suffer brain damage, blindness or death. Do you really want to be on that side of this ludicrous non-controversy?

Yours

Tom Chivers

DBH

February 11th, 2009 6:24pm

The simple facts remain:

1. Wakefield's data has not been reproducible. The overwhelming scientific evidence is that there is no causal link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

2. There is no correlation with a rise in autism since the introduction of the MMR vaccine.

3. There is no correlation with a drop in autism since the Wakefield fiasco led to a drop in uptake in the MMR vaccine.

BUT there is a rise in the incidence of measles since uptake has fallen.

We have lost herd immunity for this disease and measles is endemic in the UK again.

Articles like these and ill-informed radio show hosts like Jeni Barnett are why we have an increasing number of children getting measles.

Chris Pitcher

February 11th, 2009 6:25pm

Another classic! You always know how to make us laugh, and I love the way your commenters keep the spoof going. It's like 'This is Spinal Tap' but playing with children's lives! What a hoot!!

Stan

February 11th, 2009 6:26pm

Not only do I appreciate your giving Wakefield a chance to respond to so-called investigative journalist Brian Deer's accusations, Melanie - and for keeping your eye on this issue - but I appreciate John Stone's pointing out on this Comments thread the PR link to all this sort of thing. Simply put: the pharmaceutical industry - like many other corporations - has gained too much power, in 'having their way' with the media. And on that note: Interesting about the timing here, with Deer's last shot coming at a time that the GMC hearing is wrapping up. A person can be excused for seeing this as an attempt by the powers-that-be to send a message to the committee: Don't come up with the 'wrong' conclusion, or you will be smeared from here to kingdom come; just like Wakefield has been, for daring to call the emperor on his new clothes.

This scandal still has a way to go yet, unfortunately. But the truth will out, in time. Though not in time for some kids damaged by their vaccines to receive redress, by a government in bed with the drug industry, stonewalling as long as they can, so that the 'outing' doesn't happen on their watch. Not a pretty story, this.

The Biologista

February 11th, 2009 6:32pm

Fergus Pickering: "I take it you are telling us that Wakefield has been proved wrong, is a money-grubbing liar etc etc. Give us chapter and verse, old chap. And if you can't, just make a noise like a hoop and roll away, as Bertie Wooster might have said. He had measles too."

Wakefields findings are supported in total by 3 papers that I know of, 2 written by himself. Allow me to direct you to a selection of studies which refute Wakfield.

Madsen KM et al. (2002). N Engl J Med 347 (19): 1477–82 - No correlation

Jefferson T et al. (2003). Vaccine 21 (25-26): 3954–60. - *Meta analysis* correlation is "unlikely"

DeStefano F et al. (2004). Pediatrics 113 (2): 259–66. - No correlation

Smeeth L et al. (2004). Lancet 364 (9438): 963–9. - Non significant negative correlation (ie MMR shown protective)

Barbaresi WJ et al. (2005). Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 159 (1): 37–44. - Autism reporting rates are up but do not correlate with MMR.

Honda H et al. (2005). J Child Psychol Psychiatry 46 (6): 572–9. - withdrawl of MMR in Japan results in no change to autism rates. (n=30,000)

Demicheli V et al.(2005). Cochrane Database Syst Rev 19 (4). -Cochrane Library meta analysis of 31 studies. No correlation.

Fombonne E et al. (2006). Pediatrics 118 (1): e139–50. -no correlation (n=27,749)

Taylor B (2006). Child Care Health Dev 32 (5): 511–9.

D'Souza Y, Fombonne E, Ward BJ (2006). Pediatrics 118 (4): 1664–75.

Richler J, Luyster R, Risi S et al. (2006). J Autism Dev Disord 36 (3): 299–316.

Uchiyama T, Kurosawa M, Inaba Y (2007). J Autism Dev Disord 37 (2): 210–7. - An update of the situation in Japan. Still no correlation.

Cox AR, Kirkham H (2007). Drug Saf 30 (10): 831–6. PMID 17867721.

DeStefano F (2007).Clin Pharmacol Ther 82 (6): 756–9.

Hornig M, Briese T, Buie T et al. (2008). PLoS ONE 3 (9): e3140

Incidentally, for those who see conspiracy and corporate interests everywhere, single jabs might well suit Big Pharma just fine. They can certainly charge more.

Hugh Parker

February 11th, 2009 6:34pm

According to cochrane.org: "There was no credible evidence behind claims of harm from the MMR vaccination."

That's from the first line of their press release relating to their study of MMR in 2005:
http://www.cochrane.org/press/MMR_final.pdf

Wakefield's comments on the Cochrane review are hard to reconcile with the actual report. What he's doing, as far as I can see, is cherry picking: selecting the parts that, out of context, seem to support his point of view, regardless of the actual meaning of the review.

Karen

February 11th, 2009 6:40pm

Walter S Nimmo - what are you talking about? What do you suppose will happen if a boy with rubella comes into contact with a pregnant woman who, for whatever reason is not immune? For the most vulnerable to be protected against these very serious diseases, those with the luxury of choice need to make the right decisions. Misinformation, scaremongering and fatuous jumps of logic on this scale are dangerous and irresponsible. Please stop. All of you.

Mike

February 11th, 2009 6:44pm

Thank you so much for this report. Dr. Wakefield is only the first of many other qualified doctors and scientists who believe that further research in the role that the increased vaccination schedule may have in the autism pandemic should be explored further. Science will provide the answer yet public health agencies continue to want to avoid the question. Why? Why are not single MMR jabs available? Why don't we explore spreading out the vaccine schedule? Those out there placing blame on Dr. Wakefield of those continuing to search for answers are either idiots, employees of Big Pharma, or both.

Sam Cook

February 11th, 2009 6:50pm

I think it would help if you looked up some of what Wakeford talks about in his paper. Here is the abstract from the cochrane meta-analysis of MMR in children:

"MMR was associated with a lower incidence of upper respiratory tract infections, a higher incidence of irritability, and similar incidence of other adverse effects compared to placebo. The vaccine was likely to be associated with benign thrombocytopenic purpura, parotitis, joint and limb complaints, febrile convulsions within two weeks of vaccination and aseptic meningitis (mumps) (Urabe strain-containing MMR). Exposure to MMR was unlikely to be associated with Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, autism or aseptic meningitis (mumps) (Jeryl-Lynn strain-containing MMR). We could not identify studies assessing the effectiveness of MMR that fulfilled our inclusion criteria even though the impact of mass immunisation on the elimination of the diseases has been largely demonstrated."

The first part lists likely short term side effects. It then states that even with the papers that wakefield highlights as removed from this report there is no likely association with autism, there maybe a tiny one but it would appear that it has yet to be detected in any significant way - court cases are NOT scientific evidence especially as the cases you mention only require a *possible* causality to be suggested not proven.

The second source that I'd like to highlight (I don't have time to check them all) is the one that wakefiled states:

"The CDC’s own study looking at age-at-first-MMR vaccination and autism risk [137]. The study found a statistically significant association between younger age at MMR vaccination and an increased risk of autism."

The paper itself says this:

"More case (93.4%) than control children (90.6%) were vaccinated before 36 months (OR: 1.49; 95% confidence interval: 1.04-2.14 in the total sample; OR: 1.23; 95% confidence interval: 0.64-2.36 in the birth certificate sample). This association was strongest in the 3- to 5-year age group."

With the following reasoning behind this association

"Vaccination before 36 months was more common among case children than control children, especially among children 3 to 5 years of age, likely reflecting immunization requirements for enrollment in early intervention programs."

It concludes that:
"Similar proportions of case and control children were vaccinated"
ie there is measurable difference between the number of children with autism who have been vaccinated and those without.

I would also like to know if there has been any studies on Autism numbers in the UK in the last few years, as given the drop in MMR uptake there should be a corresponding drop in autism numbers (there has certainly been a rise in cases of mumps and measles).

Just so you know the wakefield paper is the on linked in the article and the referenced CDC paper can be found here (abstract only): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14754936
with the cochrane report here:
http://www.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab004407.html

Melanie, while something of a witch-hunt has sprung up around wakefield he has yet to be proven right in any scientific way while conducting himself in a dubious manner. He has seemingly only achieved the reintroduction of measles, mumps and rubella into the country. By convincing many people that the MMR jab is dangerous he has endangered many people while seemingly saving none your support of him without good evidence is only aiding this.

MB

February 11th, 2009 7:19pm

Ben Goldacre is right. This issue is not about Wakefield, or MMR, it's about the media's presentation of science and medicine. Melanie's writings on this and all other scientific issues demonstrate a total lack of understanding of the scientific method and the evaluation of evidence. She is not alone in this, as other posters have said. Those with editorial control of these outlets should be called to account in cases such as this, because this rubbish does great harm to public health. As a scientist myself, I'd like to see some sort of rule, law or protocol for the media dissemination of medical and scientific stories. One of the reasons we see so much "sciencey" garbage in the news is because advertising standards do not allow products to be sold making dubious scientific claims, so they target newspapers (with stupid equations, "Boffins discover cure for x,y,z" etc.). Why should news articles be any different? We have enough science graduates who could check the copy. Media standards need to change, because lives sometimes depend upon it.

Neil M.

February 11th, 2009 7:25pm

You will find the same pro-propaganda concerning the toxic artificial sweetener that is added to many hundreds of items, that being, Aspartame, and its horrific effects, and all passed by the American FDA on extremely suspicious politicised grounds, and also routinely passed by our own authorities with no checks at all into its well known neurotoxicity!

The Biologista

February 11th, 2009 7:43pm

"Those out there placing blame on Dr. Wakefield of those continuing to search for answers are either idiots, employees of Big Pharma, or both."

Mike, for goodness sake look at the studies I listed above. If you can show me that they're all sponsored by or written by Big Pharma then I'll think twice. But they're all saying the same thing: Wakefield was wrong.

Besides, what motive do Big Pharma have to block the move back to single jabs? They'll still be the ones selling the jabs, except now they'll be selling us three of them.

Natasa

February 11th, 2009 7:49pm

Thank you Melanie!!!!!

bill

February 11th, 2009 8:09pm

MB : YOU ARE LIVING IN A PAST AGE ! I have absolutely no idea who is right or who is wrong in this . I understand nothing . BUT one thing I do know and that is to distrust anything which emanates from the "government" or a "government enquiry" when I see an advertisement extolling the virtues of a certain type of chocolate I and 99% of the British are sceptics . What we have to get used to is the government telling us lies. in the form of "spin" or falsifying statistics. Being a scientist means nothing!What kind of moral superiority are you claiming?. I suspect that the truth might be that this injection has problems for a tiny percentage of the population and I will stick to that belief as I cannot rely on anyone else.on

bill

February 11th, 2009 8:21pm

superburger

February 11th, 2009 8:26pm

Mel Philis is a female Jeremy Clarkson - she doesn't *believe* the stuff she writes, she does it to get a response.

Martin

February 11th, 2009 8:26pm

The steady increase in the number of diagnoses of Autistic Spectrum Disorder happened before the introduction of MMR, and all over the world people have attributed many differing causes for it. The only thing the different nations have had in common is that there is NO REPRODUCIBLE EVIDENCE of any foodstuff, medicine or vaccine causing Autism.
People with a passing acquaintance of how scientific method works are well aware that MMR is safe; instead, it falls to assorted quacks, crystal huggers, conspiracy theorists and professional contrarians to cruelly take advantage of vulnerable parents for their own ends.
For articles like this to still be written ten years after a discredited and non-reproducible study makes me question the intellect and morality of its author.

Alex Stoker

February 11th, 2009 8:31pm

Wakefield is not a hero. He is, at best, deluded, and at worst, a charlatan, fraud and liar.
Can any of the anti-vacc lobby show evidence that autism has decreased in incidence in line with decreased uptake of MMR?

Dixon

February 11th, 2009 8:33pm

I will admit I have read only a part of that mammoth entry. However, I note that a great deal of emphasis is placed upon who, which and how many parents linked the "onset of symptoms" with MMR. Which is like arguing over who, which or how many people claim that their sleep disorders coincided with strange lights in the sky.

To put it another way, who, which or how many people claim to have been abducted by aliens has really no bearing upon whether or not there is any such thing as alien abduction.

John Mack, professor of psychiatry at Harvard medical school believes millions of Americans and hundreds of his patients have been repeatedly abducted by aliens. He has not been subjected to censure, let alone a witch-hunt.

Wakefields medical sophistry no more validates his wacky "theories" than Macks academic authority does his. Nor, as far as I can see, does one article in a newspaper constiutute a "witch hunt".

Of course many scientists must dream of having a disease named after them, and some, unable to find a new one, resort to invention. Such as "shaken baby syndrome" and "Munchausens by Proxy".

Science is absolutely riddled with data manipulation and fraud. It started to come to light with the expose in the Seventies of Sir Cyril Burts hundreds of invented experimental subjects in the Thirties.

Since then there has been a veritable Tsunami of lesser exposes.

If forced to choose whether a medic has discovered an entirely new disease or simply cooked the books to create the impression that he has, it seems that the latter is much more plausible than the former.

Raymond Joseph Douglas

February 11th, 2009 8:40pm

Once again, our Mel boldly goes where few ,so called journalists, will dare to go !

Silas Greenback

February 11th, 2009 8:47pm

What I find most amusing about this debate is the considerable amount of conspiracy theorists who instantly assume that every public health issue that can be addressed through the use of pharmaceutical products must by definition be manipulated in the favour of 'big pharma' (or whatever hysterical phrase they wish to use). Are you the same people who believe that man didn't land on the moon or the CIA was behind 9/11? Why so selective about MMR to the exclusion of all other equally ludicrous conclusions?

As for the Spectator, whilst you are generally to be supported for encouraging debate, it's about time this utter bilge is laid to rest. There is no need for further debate. The science stands firmly behind the safety and efficacy of the MMR vaccine. Leave the crackpots to their conspiracy theories.

Tom

February 11th, 2009 8:56pm

The "anti-vaccine lobby". Are they as powerful (rich) as the pharmacutical lobby? Or are they just parents of injured children?

Mark

February 11th, 2009 8:57pm

Melanie, I think you are seeing a conspiracy where there isn't one. This furore over MMR has to stop. Antivaxxers have lost the argument. They just won't accept that or the human consequences of that.

I have to say though that your writing style is excellent and authoratitve. It's just a shame that you're taking everything Wakefield et al are saying without question. I know it's a romantic story; dashing doctor railing against the establishment-- but it's also horseshit. Like Jeni Barnett, you're not fair in your reportage, and you don't appear to know/ wilfully ignore the science, which rather diminishes your authority on any of these matters.

Oh well. First time Reading the Spectator. Thanks to you, also the last.

David

February 11th, 2009 9:36pm

"What kind of moral superiority are you claiming?."

I suspect he is claiming no moral superiority, but actual knowledge. This appears to be a dirty word in Melanie's world. See her views on evolution.

EC

February 11th, 2009 9:38pm

It is obvious that so many of the supposedly clever and literate critics here haven't actually read and/or understood what Melanie has written - either that or they are deliberately misrepresenting it. This casts doubts on their motives and/or the veracity of their arguments.

Melanie is one of the few journalists in the world today that is prepared to do more than unthinkingly disseminate what the PR machines give out on press releases. That will never do!

Once again all we are getting is:

"Don't ask questions. Keep your mouth shut. Do and think as WE say."

Sound familiar?

Someral

February 11th, 2009 9:47pm

I'm confused by the underlying logic of the big pharm' plot - if they're interested in maximising profits, wouldn't they wish to create a state where people take many individual jabs rather then one? So, wouldn't the MMR scandal play into their hands?

Unless, this is about having no vaccinations. However, that's madness for all: just lots of dead children.

John Stone

February 11th, 2009 9:53pm

What we are getting from people here is cant, not science. To be cautious about a medical treatment in ordinary circumstances you do not have to establish every aspect of the mechanism to recognise that it is probably doing damage. In this case science and medical ethics are turned on their head: instead of concerned medical practitioners you have people looking away and denying what you have seen. The only official and professional response to the parent of a damaged child is "Go on, prove it!"

Wakefield made the great professional mistake of listening to the parents rather than the cynical ideology. A lot of people posting here want these parents to go away, and mostly out of fear. People are labelled anti-vaccinationist who did what they believed at the time to be right, and then found society had turned their back on them.

I don't know whether Goldacre is the author of the Bad Science post, but the message seems to be that it does not matter how you win the argument - it does not matter what dirty tricks are played in order to gain the upper hand. Nor is it ordinary people who matter in the end. What does he think of the behaviour that Melanie describes?

I would simply point out that the epidemiological arguments in Ben Goldacre's ABSW/GSK award winning article 'Never mind the Facts' are fallacious, and the evidence cited flawed. This has been pointed out by me many times - notably here:

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/335/7618/480

but he has always walked away from the challenge of disproving me. The system is unaccountable, and completely without rules. Indeed, we will only have bad science if people are allowed to conduct themselves in this way.

Alison

February 11th, 2009 10:04pm

My son has been diagnosed with measles in his small intestine with subsequent brain inflammation.you can't tell me it didn't happen because he is sitting right next to me and so are his labs.He was fully vaccinated.He has had explosive 3x a day diahhrea since his mmr at 15 months.He is now 4 and has a diagnosis of autism. You can argue all you want - the fact is, it happened to us and our GI is not Wakefield. We are the truth.

Mark

February 11th, 2009 10:09pm

NM
i had measles my sister had measles even Zippy from rainbow had measles,
seems like since max vaccination autism is the new measles
Dixon
nice so we are all crazy creationist flat earch ufo spotting nut jobs, for all noticing symtoms after vacination , wow thats really original.
people love quoting deer brian ,, so whats his science qualification ??

Mark

February 11th, 2009 10:18pm

Alex
as you well know health officals are far to busy collecting data on measles cases to take any accurate numbers of the children being diagnosed with autism.
1 in 86 is nice number maybe its less in london though!!

Mark

February 11th, 2009 10:20pm

Bad Science
wow you must be really busy split between wakefield , barnet Philips and Mathew Wright.
and its all thans to Brian throwing petrol on the fire.
Thanks Brian

Clifford G Miller

February 11th, 2009 10:40pm

The true risks of childhood diseases are not as stated by the Department of Health. For accurate information look here:-
http://tinyurl.com/5yonvo

[prepared for the Donegan GMC case in 2007 in which I represented Dr Donegan and she was more than exonerated - her evidence on vaccination was held to be valid and based on sound medical and scientific literature.]

JosephS

February 11th, 2009 10:41pm

The media is responsible for this whole fiasco and it should have been dealt with differently, too late now though, and all the feverent bloggers out there have become victims of their own spin. I think crazed responses are from individuals who are quite frankly pissed off from all the unwillingness of enquiry together with constant put downs and are winding you up and you are all rising to it day after day. How can mothers have a logical discussion on evidence based thinking and science related to vaccine damage when most of the published evidence is one sided pro-vaccine and their experiences are to the contrary. All the mothers are asking here is for their observations be taken seriously and looked into.
The media started all this scaremongering and continues to stonewall the real issue of what is causing the multitude of ASD incidences. They labelled concerned mothers as antivaxer’s all because they started informing other mothers to their experiences and the known dangers. It would be irresponsible for them not to. Most people are blinkered to all information and require a clearer picture to make an informed balanced decision.
Measles, Mumps and Rubella are not trivial infections for everyone who get them. Some will have brain damage, some will die. Agreed, but the MMR vaccine are live viruses from which, some have brain damage and some have died and the number of incidences are increasing. Can we get all your pro-vaccine energy focused into some beneficial research towards the real cause/s instead of harping on and on about what it is not. Please, please, please tell us what it IS.
In the meantime place an embargo on the press until they sort themselves out.
Malicious
Endeavours
Destroying
Individuals
Assertions

Mike

February 11th, 2009 10:48pm

The ability of uneducated people to make massive assumptions about things they know nothing knows no bounds. Go to med school, read some scientific journals, please... just stop spouting off about things you know nothing... for our kids' (and yours) sakes.

Seonaid

February 11th, 2009 10:55pm

Congratulations Melanie - for helping publicize the damage done by vaccines. My son is vaccine damaged and I assure you I would rather he had measles once a year for the rest of his days, than go through the never ending hell that is now his life. Those here who think MMR protects their children from these illnesses are wrong. The vaccine pushes the occurrence of measles, mumps and rubella into adolescence or adulthood when they can be much more unpleasant and harmful. Only in countries where the population is malnourished and with poor sanitation, do these once everyday illnesses become dangerous. This triple vaccine was never properly tested - until tried on human babies that is - and of course now the establishment chooses to ignore and conceal the ill effects MMR can have on countless defenceless youngsters. THEY had no choice, but we as parents DO, and should be allowed to choose whether or not we are willing to play Russian Roulette with our babies' lives.
The lengths this journalist will go to, to try and destroy a man of amazing courage and integrity, amazes me. perhaps now, Brian Deer is afraid that the GMC will vindicate the doctors, as it should, and is this why Brian Deer has opted to shift the whole case into the public arena, leaving the press to continue his dirty work?
Keep up the good work Melanie - we very much appreciate what you are doing.

Seonaid

February 11th, 2009 11:14pm

Tom, the anti-vaccine 'lobby' are not rich. They do NOT have the pharmaceutical companies and their billions behind them. They do NOT have the establishment behind them either - just the opposite. They do not have support from any corporate organisation. All they have on their side is extreme anger and frustration at having to watch their perfectly healthy toddlers regress into a world of autism after being given vaccines. The having to live with the daily insult and pain of being ignored by the DOH and the government.

ALF

February 11th, 2009 11:17pm

Unfortunately, from the whole case it is tricky to sift the wheat from the chaff
Here are some statements that I hope any reasonable person might agree with -
That on the balance of probability a "mother" knows her own child and would register any change in that child better than any health care professionsl.
That the UK incidence of measles deaths and serious injury had fallen to figures in the teens "before" any introduction of measles vaccination - UK government statistis (HMSO)
There are no statistics for the incidence of Autism in the UK - they were supposed to be recorded but the UK county councils have not got round to it yet (a central goverment requirement since 2005)
The Amish people in America have no incidence of Autism - they don't have vaccinations either.
American military families have the highest incidence of Autism in America - vaccination is compulsory without question.
Both anecdotal but worth thinking about.
That journalists should not have accesss to "childrens" private medical records
Lastly - YOU trust a government that takes you to war over weapons of mass destrution that could destroy our way of life in 45 minutes, but after 2 years of searching not a single thing was found AND you would trust them NOW over vaccines?
Well done Mel for making us think & question the evidence!

Seonaid

February 11th, 2009 11:21pm

Hi Mark, Antivaxxers as you call them, have far from lost an argument in this . And no, they would NOT accept the consequences of losing such an argument. What seems to escape your attention, is, that these antivaxxers are not just fighting for justice, recognition and treatment for their own vaccine damaged children, but to protect future generations from having to suffer the same terrible fate. One day this problem may come knocking at YOUR door. Wonder what your stance will then be?

MarkD

February 11th, 2009 11:21pm

Tom -
Many of the anti-vaccination lobby are part of the homoeopathy movement, and while they are not as wealth as pharmaceutical companies they are not some sort of charity, or group of concerned volunteers.

Homoeopathy is a multi-billion pound, cut throat industry, that has a vested interest discrediting medicine. Unlike the pharmaceutical companies, they are also allowed to do so with absolutely no form of regulation. Yes, pharmaceutical companies are evil, but that doesn't mean the sun shines out of the arse of homoeopaths.

Chris Pitcher

February 11th, 2009 11:23pm

Mark, its not horseshit its bullshit. See http://tinyurl.com/37tcq2

michael framson

February 11th, 2009 11:30pm

Thanks Melanie for a concise article accurately depicting the witch hunt trial of Dr. Wakefield. Your articles do seem to provoke the blustery of the Brian Deer Jeerleading squads. Keep printing the truth, the other side can only spin Kafkaesque distortions.

another mom with another child with regressive autism & bowel disease

February 11th, 2009 11:33pm

Thank you Dr. Wakefield. You are a hero. God bless you.

For those of you with a fully vaccinated, healthy child: there by the grace of God you go. Not all of us are that lucky.

Natasa

February 11th, 2009 11:43pm

I a proud member of the "anti-vaccine" lobby! Guess why we are interested in warning others about dangers of vaccines? Imagine all the fantastic things we gain? Guess why our membership is growing every day? And guess how we all became "anti-vaccine" - what made us examine closely the thing that we never thought of questioning in the past, before it was too late?

The Biologista

February 12th, 2009 12:00am

Tom,
The anti-vaccine lobby do indeed contain many worried and guilty-feeling parents. But they're getting their information from celebrities who got their information from some very poor scientists. Poor in method I should say.

Andrew Wakefield made a patent application for a competing measles vaccine in 1997. You can view scans of the patent application here:

http://briandeer.com/wakefield/vaccine-patent.htm

As for the money on the pro-MMR side, scientists are rarely wealthy unless they are successful patent holders. This would include the MMR patent holders. However, the "Big Pharma" companies themselves have no motive to promote the pro-MMR side. They'll sell you the vaccines regardless of the side that prevails.

The Biologista

February 12th, 2009 12:14am

Melanie: "For more context, read this new paper by Wakefield et al."

The "new paper" you have linked is a self-published review-style essay. It is not peer-reviewed and is of little or no scientific merit on that basis alone. The Cochrane meta-analysis which Wakefield uses in his own defence in fact also concludes that there is no causal link between MMR and autism, Crohn's disease, colitis or indeed any serious condition. It does indeed show up some weak pro-MMR studies. But it also find Wakefield's position to be baseless.

Stan

February 12th, 2009 12:16am

Dixon: Wakefield's "wacky 'theories'"?
Silas Greenback: "ludicrous conclusions...utter bilge"?
MB and The Biologista: As scientists, please listen for a moment, to a plausible biological mechanism.
The MMR, with live viral components, contains glutamate/glutamic acid (a stabilizer), which is a neurotoxin. It also lowers glutathione levels, which is the substance necessary to eliminate heavy metals. If the MMR is given with other jabs that contain thimerosal/mercury or aluminium, the glutamate will make it more difficult for them to be cleared. In addition, genes found to be associated with autism code for - a major finding - glutamate. (www.medpagetoday.com/Neurology/Autism/tb/5082. This peer-reviewed article states, in part: "The candidate genes are involved in the trans-synaptic transportation of glutamate, a major excitatory neurotransmitter.") Glutamate, then, is bad news at the best of times, let alone when administered IN an inflammatory setting, as with a vaccine, in stimulating antibodies to its contents

Which brings up another problem with the MMR: the measles portion is, or at least used to be, cultured on chick embryo cells, which can contain MBP - myelin basic protein. Which factor can cause the body to attack its own MBP, thus stripping the cranial nerve systems of their insulation. This is not merely theoretical. Singh et al eg have found MBP antibodies associated with the measles portion of the MMR jab in the guts of children with ASD. So these subset kids can be damaged by other plausible biochemical processes than just 'leaky gut syndrome' from the measles virus in the gut.

The issue is not just the MMR (ASD was occurring well before its advent in the picture); it is the MMR in conjunction with a huge vaccine schedule, interacting with each other in ways that the medical authorities have not responsibly researched. They have, in short, been remiss in their duties. And that's the real story here.

Nehama

February 12th, 2009 12:27am

MB: I agree with you on this, it's not about Wakefield or MMR, it's all about the way the media's presentation of science. Wakefield wrote a paper that was published in a peer reviewed journal, and the media pick it up an ran with it. Whether Wakefield's findings have been subsequently proven or disproven becomes irrelevent once the media circus gets going. The problem is compounded by the media, once they have set a ball rolling, failing to take responsibility for their poor reporting of complex issues, and then looking for a scapegoat to cover their asses.

As someone who was never vaccinated against measles or mumps, I find this whole debate, particualarly the singling out of Dr Wakefield as solely and personally responsible for the increase in measles cases, to be rather ludicrous.

The issues are simply: Is the science good or bad? Is the topic reported responsibly or sensationalised? And are other vaccinations available, for parents who are worried about MMR? And if not why not?

There's no need for people to be getting upset and all hot and bothered by this.

Sullivan

February 12th, 2009 12:37am

Has Dr. Wakefield addressed the claims made in the news reports? No.

I find it very odd that he avoided that. There are some specific claims made--specific stories of specific events that contradict the story propagated by Wakefield--that need to be addressed.

Frankly, I would be fine with Dr. Wakefield winning his case before the GMC and returning to the UK. I would be fine with that since I am a US citizen.

JustAsItSounds

February 12th, 2009 12:49am

MMR was developed as a triple vaccine to replace single shots to innoculate against Measles, Mumps and Rubella separately in order to: 1) Reduce costs & 2) increase innoculation rates against all three (it's more convenient for parents and doctors to only need one appointment).

To those claiming that Big Pharma is conspiring against the general public by developing MMR - how does this conspiracy work if MMR costs less (ie makes them less money) than the single jabs?

Paul

February 12th, 2009 12:53am

Jesus, you have no shame, stop doing this. Do your research properly and objectively before writing this rubbish, it leads to a reduction in vaccinations and a rise in measles, mumps and rubella cases.

slippinaway

February 12th, 2009 1:58am

Spot on Melanie! I can't stop laughing at all these people runnin' around like chickens with no heads as they scramble for their vaccinatory security blanket.
Seriously, wake up people. You're all freaked out over 1,300 measles cases, when not too far away from you Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Romania, Turkey etc. experienced some 90,000 cases in 2005 - 2006 with WHO reported measles vaccine coverage of 95% or greater for quite some time. A majority of the cases being in the older population who were vaccinated.
And at the same time, in the U.S. there was some 6,000 cases of mumps with the highest incidence in 18 - 24 year old group and 84% of them had been twicely vaccinated with mumps. Problem here is that the risk of complications multiply the older you get. Ouch for the males!
Then a recent study in Zimbabwe illustrated that nutrition and Vitamin A added to treat complicated cases significantly reduced mortality from measles. Shortly after this abrupt reduction, introduction of measles vaccine did squat diddly, zippo, nada.
Any of you haters on here seen Immunoglobulin profiles of autistic children with GI complications compared to controls? Well, they're low for all the pathogens vaccinated against before MMR (i.e. DPT--even influenza), but oddly, they are elevated for measles, mumps and rubella.
Any of you haters seen the research showing cytokines in the csf, but the pathogens aren't in the csf. Same cytokines found in the guts of these sick kids.
Any of you haters seen the inflammed tissues of these kids (clinically or histologically or endoscopically or with capsule endoscopy)?
Any of you seen the Uhlmann et al. clinical article who's lab data is backed up by the extremely vague Hornig article).
From the haters responses, it is extremely unlikely any of you have a clue as to the extreme physical duress some of these kids suffer.
BTW, the epidemiology has been utterly thrashed, even by Cochrane, who oddly made the politically correct "conclusion".
Anyway, go ahead haters and have your security blanket vaccines. You can have mine and my family's doses. We took the risk and my son(s) lost.
Might wanna check your lifesaving vaxes for Mycoplasma though, cuz it's in a lot of em unbeknown to you. Oh, there's a lot of other stuff in those "miracle" potions too. Problem is, the manufacturers can't, or won't test for it.
Any of you haters ever wonder how mortality from hundreds of infectious diseases, in the U.S., dropped rapidly and in-sync before vaccines? In case you care, you can find it in the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA).
Peace
Thank you Dr. Wakefield for being the man you are and enduring the scum you've had to encounter!

Dixon

February 12th, 2009 2:17am

Alison
February 11th, 2009 10:04pm
My son has been diagnosed with measles in his small intestine with subsequent brain inflammation.you can't tell me it didn't happen because he is sitting right next to me and so are his labs.He was fully vaccinated.He has had explosive 3x a day diahhrea since his mmr at 15 months.He is now 4 and has a diagnosis of autism. You can argue all you want - the fact is, it happened to us and our GI is not Wakefield. We are the truth."

Well, thats plain stupid. By that logic, every time any two events happenned in conjunction we would conclude that one caused the other.

Day ALWAYS follows night in my experience...does that mean that night CAUSES day?

Dixon

February 12th, 2009 2:32am

People who claim merely to want everything to be "proven" harmless before it is allowed to be used ( MMR, GM, etc ) in actual fact tend to be very selective. They dont seem to worry about using mobile phones, sitting on their arse in front of a computer for hours or giving mothers ultrasound scans,all of which have implications for health.

Meanwhile, the dependence ogf all of society...including those who are anti-science... upon technology risks being exposed by an event that occurred Tuesday and has so far not percolated through to the mainstream media. Four hundred miles over Siberia one of 95 Iridium telecom sattelites collided with a retired Russian Cosmos, smashing them into thousands of pieces scattered over tens of thousands of cubic miles of space. Now there is anxious speculation that this may lead to a chain reaction, taking in more of those 95 sattelites orbiting in that peculiar plane ( between equatorial and polar ) and in turn others besides. Like the "Millenium Bug", its not that likely, but it could just result in an abrupt termination of many television and telephone networks.

It would be especially amusing if it happenned after terrestrial television has been terminated!

Suddenly without the gadgets they rely upon, heven forbid ( ! ) without television, even the anti-science brigade would have to wake up and smell their dependence on technology.

They take it for granted.

Rick Russell

February 12th, 2009 5:42am

Feargus Pickering said:

"I had them both when I was a little boy. Most children had measles. Some had mumps. These are not killer diseases."

Clearly, anyone who survives measles to adulthood is a bad example of a measles fatality. I am unsurprised that you think it's no big deal.

Measles was responsible for 454000 deaths in 2004, down from 871000 deaths in 1999. Widespread vaccination is credited for the reduction in deaths.

Mumps is rarely lethal, but can cause moderately severe side effects including hearing loss.

With all that said, Wakefield's main problem is that his scientific data and conclusions, such as they are, have been inextricably wound up with his compensated legal testimony. Whether his conclusions are correct or not, his behavior creates the perception of subjectivity.

catesby

February 12th, 2009 7:50am

Well done Melanie.

There are signs of a co-ordinated attempt to rubbish you in these comment, which is itself sinister.

First time Reading the Spectator. Thanks to you, also the last.

Hah! They must take us for fools.

I think Melanie has been genuinely open-minded on this issue. All the evidence against Wakefield seems to come from mega-statistical studies looking at vast populations.

If, as he seems to be saying here, some children who happen to have a bowel problem at the time they have MMR are susceptible - they are likely to be so few in number as to escape the notice of the epidemiologists.

The stalinist behaviour of the medical establishment is worrying.

Conservative Cabbie

February 12th, 2009 7:56am

Dixon

"Post hoc ergo propter hoc" -"after this, therefore because (on account) of this"

I've always wanted the opportunity to show off my knowledge on this - thanks for the chance. Unfortunately, it's not that I'm a whiz at Latin, just the West Wing, it was a title of one of their shows.

Dave

"See her views on evolution."

As I understand her views (although I may be wrong), Mel is not a creationist, just someone who is sceptical of Darwinian theory and respectful of those that believe in creation. Bearing in mind that scepticism is a legitimate form of intellectual enquiry and respect for others is a value we should all entertain, I'm not really sure what the problem is.

MB

February 12th, 2009 8:25am

Stan, I'm afraid you've challenged a human physiologist. Glutamate is NOT a neurotoxin, it is a NEUROTRANSMITTER. Being an abundant amino acid, it also forms (as 2-oxoglutarate) an essential component of the TCA (Krebs) cycle, which is responsible for the vast majority of energy transfer in the body. It is not surprising that genes associated with autism code for glutamate - because it is an amino acid, genes that code for a great many things will code for glutamate! But why let these trivial details get in the way of a damn good scare story? One of the reasons science is so successful as a mechanism of gaining knowledge is that it is self-censoring; we can't simply say "gravity varies inversely as the cube of distance between objects" because it is demonstrably wrong. The media (particularly editors) need to evaluate the veracity of an author's scientific commentary MUCH more carefully than they are doing. MMR is just the most serious current example.

John Stone

February 12th, 2009 8:34am

Sullivan, you raise an interesting question. It looks like Deer sent Wakefield a letter full unpleasant accusations but he did not send him a draft of the article. But I don't see how any disinterested competent reader of the article could fail to be unimpressed, or even shocked. In effect, Deer and the Sunday Times are asking us to take their word for documents they cannot publish, and almost certainly should not have. The fundamental accusation that Wakefield changed data to which their were 12 other signatory experts is also utterly crazy. Other things demonstrate Deer's ignorance - he does not know for example that Asperger Syndrome is an Autistic Spectrum Disorder and can be regressive.

But is very clear that Deer is feeding a market that wants to read bad things about Andrew Wakefield irrespective of substance or basis. And, indeed, this correspondence has shown this.

Why would not Ben Goldacre,for example, wish to dissociate himself from this sort of thing?

Neil

February 12th, 2009 8:41am

Stan. Regarding glutamate being a neurotoxin. You'd need to eat grammes of it to see any significant effect. Your average Chinese takeaway has around 1000 times more glutamate in it than is used in vaccine adjuncts (5-10 mg, if you were wondering). Glutamate has been used in vast amounts as a food additive for over 50 years. Stop worrying about it.

Jeannette Bishop

February 12th, 2009 8:44am

The GMC should dismiss this case that never had grounds to be brought to any hearing in the first place, and they should set up an intensive “autism recovery program” and ask, beg, plead (whatever it takes) Dr. Wakefield to bring his research and the knowledge he has gained from collaborating with physicians breaking ground in fighting this epidemic of damaged children to begin healing the 1 in 88 children that are being left without recourse by this institutional denial of their needs.

GPs telling parents they can’t examine, or even try to help their suffering children because “look what happened to Andrew Wakefield” is, I believe, the one of most significant consequences of this proceeding.

They can’t maintain confidence in “public health” programs with a forced “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” policy that is contradicted constantly by the loss in health in the rising generations.

John Stone

February 12th, 2009 8:49am

But also by Dixon's logic - which is interesting - it would never be possible to prove the association between vaccine and pathology, which would be very convenient for vaccine manufacturers, health officials, journalists on the take etc - but it would not offer any reassurance for the public over safety. It is simply demonstrating the truth that whatever happens in this culture can and will be denied.

There is something breath-takingly crass about this sort of 'I am a scientist and you are stupid' post.

tom catesby

February 12th, 2009 9:19am

Dixon

Day ALWAYS follows night in my experience...does that mean that night CAUSES day?

No, but it does suggest some possible link between the two phenomena. Enough to warrant further investigation of their relationship, I'd say.

Ditto MMR and autism.

bmc3186

February 12th, 2009 9:37am

Odd that Melanie doesn't mention the spreading measles epidemic which will undoubtedly cause far more damage than the remote possibility of the link Wakefield was investigating.

David

February 12th, 2009 9:43am

"But also by Dixon's logic - which is interesting - it would never be possible to prove the association between vaccine and pathology, "

Um, no it isn't. He's pointing out the post hoc ergo prompter hoc fallacy. That doesn't mean it would be impossible to prove a causal link, just that a following b alone is no where near sufficient.

"There is something breath-takingly crass about this sort of 'I am a scientist and you are stupid' post."

Yeah, heaven forbid someone with the requisite knowledge point out where someone without it is wrong. We can't have that.

"The GMC should dismiss this case that never had grounds to be brought to any hearing in the first place"

So, misleading and falsified research is not grounds for a hearing? Odd. What is?

"one of most significant consequences of this proceeding."

Is the dramatic reduction in MMR take up and resultant increase in measles epidemics (with no corresponding decrease in autism by the way). It's criminal.

David

February 12th, 2009 9:45am

"Enough to warrant further investigation of their relationship, I'd say."

And as pointed above, a number of investigations have shown no link, the only one doing so being the discredited Wakefield conclusions.

John Fryer

February 12th, 2009 11:06am

One million dead SIDS and 5 million autistic children is no "remote possibility" but a fact unfolding for 40 years with increasing vaccinations.

Vaccines can work and used one at a time do work. Smallpox eliminated, so why not do the same for measles?

A triple vaccine is harder to stand for an infant than a single vaccine and you dont need to be a rocket scientist to work that out.

Little children can only cry or stop talking so to inject these people is sick and deaths and injuries conveniently covered up as we dont know why they died or became maimed.

This is not good enough in 2009

Smallpox was eliminated decades ago by serious working health carers.

Moaninga bout one person preventing the singles measles from doing the same is PROPAGANDA and showing that todays vaccines do not work as well as the old smallpox vaccine did.

A good vaccine is needed only until that illness is wiped out.

130 vaccines today and many to cover up the bad effects of the first vaccines. Its an assault on children and an assault on common sense of adults.

I call it GENOCIDE.

Valentinus

February 12th, 2009 11:18am

Vaccination as been the single most successful public health intervention in human history. Try looking at the child mortality rates from preventable diseases in pre-vaccination societies. I hope Melanie is pleased to be drifting into the embrace of assorted wacko libertarians, anti-science paranoiacs and sad people who must blame someone for their personal misfortunes. My cousin developed a brain tumour two weeks after buying her first Windsmoor coat. I've met three other people to whom this happened. Should we start a campaign based on a causal relation?

Wakefield made a series of scientific claims. They have been comprehensively tested and retested in accordance with the strictest procedures of scientific verification. No such test has reproduced his results (setting aside the allegations that his results were manipulated and therefore invalid). His claims fail on both standard validity and reliability criteria and have been shown to be false claims.

Deal with it.

Dyson

February 12th, 2009 11:28am

Andrew Wakefield is my hero! He has shown how is is possible for me to do all the following, yet still receive the uncritical adulation of credulous, diehard supporters:

1. First get employed by vaccine damage claim lawyers to help them find a syndrome of vaccine damage and receive nearly £half a million in the process.
2. Get suitable cases subsequently directed to myself for inclusion in a study, so I might then collate them into a paper to prove the fore-mentioned vaccine damage.
3. Oversee a series of unnecessary invasive investigations on these cases under the guise of clinical need (despite no autistic child requiring the trauma of colonoscopy and bowel biopsy under general anaesthetic and also throw in a lumbar puncture for good measure).
4. Forgo valid informed consent and ethical approval for the study/procedures mentioned above.
5. Let someone in my medical unit cause serious side effects in at least one child, perforating his bowel multiple times, resulting in him ending up in ITU and suffering long term disability.
6. Improperly pay children at my son's birthday party to have blood tests to act as controls in my study, and then joke about it afterwards.
7. Misrepresented the clinical histories of most of the children in my study, suggesting they all developed autism immediately following vaccination with MMR when in fact the hospital and GP records show most had neurological problems before vaccination, and the remainder took as long as 4 months to develop signs of autism, making a causal role for MMR highly suspect.
8. Ignore evidence that my histopathology colleagues doubted the gut biopsy specimens had any abnormal changes present, and go ahead and publish that they all had significant inflammation (attributing this to measles virus damage from the vaccine).
9. Ignore evidence that the biopsy samples of gut tissue were wrongly identified as having measles virus in them, when in fact this was a laboratory error.
10. Go ahead an publish my paper including these false measles virus results, even after it has been pointed out to me that the results were wrong.
11. Get 10 out of my 12 study coauthors to disssociate themselves from my work and our published paper when they find out how in hock I am to the antivaccine lawyers and how this must have significantly influenced my conclusions.
12. Ignore subsequent independent research that refutes all my findings.
13. Make constant reference to more data I am collating that will prove I am right, but never get this data published.
14. Find out how to take out a patent for a new single measles vaccine just before I hold a press conference denouncing the combined Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccine, suggesting single vaccines would be safer.

The Biologista

February 12th, 2009 11:31am

Conservative Cabbie: "As I understand her views (although I may be wrong), Mel is not a creationist, just someone who is sceptical of Darwinian theory and respectful of those that believe in creation."

See, this actually highlights the problem. Mel is presenting that issue as a 50:50 debate. 1000 (very poor) scientists support the various forms of creationism. They publish little research even for that number.
3,000,000 or so scientists consider evolution to be valid.
It's not 50:50. It's 1:3000. It's not reasonable scepticism. It's religious belief.

Dyson

February 12th, 2009 11:33am

For those who think measles is harmless and only affects malnourished kids in the developing world, have a read of today's Sun:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman/health/health/article2213606.ece

Linda Smith

February 12th, 2009 11:51am

Alf: 11 Feb 2009 11:17 posted: "The Amish people in America have no incidence of Autism - they don't have vaccinations either. American military families have the highest incidence of Autism in America - vaccination is compulsory without question. Both anecdotal but worth thinking about"
In order to test your hypothesis it would be necessary to control all the other variables such as differences in childrearing practices between the two groups, Amish and military personnel, which might have an effect on the development of autism.

EDDIE

February 12th, 2009 12:07pm

The power of the press is awesome as can be seen by the campaign against Israel. Its practitioners can be irresponsible and allow their own personal prejudices to colour their reporting, obscuring the boundary between fact and propaganda.
No one would make a judgement about research unless they are totally familiar with the methodology used. I have every respect for Melanie’s depth of knowledge and understanding regarding events in the near east but her apologia for Dr Wakefield is, in my opinion, based on insufficient knowledge. The publicity and support for Dr Wakefield’s research has resulted in the spread of measles, which is a serious illness and in some cases, lethal. The arguments about the connection between vaccination and autism are completely unproven and based on superstitions that echo the witch hunts of the middle ages and the old wives cure for the plague.

Brian Williams

February 12th, 2009 12:26pm

Good on you Melanie. How is it so many idiots failed to read your final point, that the rise in measles is due to the government not providing single jabs? Why aren't the pack of hounds complaining about that? What is this assumption that parents are too stupid or lazy to get the jabs separately? It's not so long ago that you HAD to get them separately! It saves the government money to give them all out at once? Then charge money for the single jabs! (Of course they need every spare penny to pay for the diversity champions Salary ca $38k) now employed by NHS trusts. (A nurse would have to work longer than 15 years to get the starting salaries of these worthless pieces of unmentionables. But that's another story.)

CNH

February 12th, 2009 12:35pm

Very simple - if Wakefield's work is correct, then it can be verified by other scientists. In over ten years, no one has been able to replicate his results. Conclusion: there is something wrong with his work. Forget all the other side issues - the simple test is whether other people get the same results. They don't. In science. that's it. He's wrong.

Pot Head

February 12th, 2009 12:37pm

Mel is a Creationist:

"In suggesting that life sprang into existence without any kind of governing intelligence, they fly in the face of the evidence emerging from science that the hitherto unimaginable complexity of life forms, including the living cell, makes it scientifically impossible for life to have emerged without some kind of intelligent design.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/columnists/article-496394/The-real-nutters-fanatics-despise-religious-belief.html

Where is all this evidence emerging from science? I'm at a lose to find it.

Cassandra Alls

February 12th, 2009 12:48pm

Thank you Melanie and Dr. Wakefield!

Maryland Coalition for Vaccine Choice

David

February 12th, 2009 1:05pm

"Why aren't the pack of hounds complaining about that?"

Because a) there is no reason for single jabs and b) single jabs are actually less effective. Hence the MMR. Which is safe, and there is no reason to pander to the likes of Mel and others who have no actual knowledge about the topic.

Pete Beaudro

February 12th, 2009 2:10pm

@catesby, who notes "Hah! They must take us for fools.
I think Melanie has been genuinely open-minded on this issue. All the evidence against Wakefield seems to come from mega-statistical studies looking at vast populations."

I am incredulous. How foolish of a study not simply to look at a tiny number of incidences of assumed link between MMR and autism but to look at large study data with control groups and everything - they'll never arrive at their pre-determined conclusion that way!

CNH - nicely put.

Nick

February 12th, 2009 2:13pm

Pot Head - thanks for reminding us of Mel's wacky Creationist beliefs - I've been looking for that link for ages!

I'll take great pleasure quoting it whenever she makes a fool of herself banging on about things she so clearly knows nothing about.

ALF

February 12th, 2009 2:33pm

I read the article recommended by Dyson in the Sun.
I note the contect as follows:
"Most were in children who were not fully protected with MMR. "
Therefore "some" were protected but it was ineffectual = GIVE THEM SOME MORE
"Lydia caught measles when she was just seven months old, and too young to be vaccinated." Within the first year immunity is derived from the mother - I believe research has found the strength of the immunity passed on by the mother is greater for naturally caught measles then that provided through vaccination
Which was Annette?
I am pleased to read Lydia made a full recovery - Children affected by Autism DO NOT
While on the point of drug companies caring for their customers - they care for their shareholders too. To the extent in the beginning there was a measles vaccine then there was an MR vaccine, then there was an MMR vaccine and I have heard next there is an MMRC vaccine to come to save our children from the itch and inconveniece of Chickenpox (I'm not sure if it is fatel or has serious consequences)However, I have been led to believe that drugs have a "Patent" life after which anyone can produce the same thing competitavely? maybe someone can put me right and explain the changes are to reduce the cost to all of us, and not just to protect profits

Stan Lukebra

February 12th, 2009 2:54pm

I has Measles twice as a child, and I was OK.

Kennybhoy

February 12th, 2009 3:17pm

EDDIE wrote,

"The arguments about the connection between vaccination and autism are completely unproven and based on superstitions that echo the witch hunts of the middle ages and the old wives cure for the plague."

Indeed. But do not forget the "man made global warming" scare!

Dixon

February 12th, 2009 3:30pm

tom catesby
February 12th, 2009 9:19am
Dixon
Day ALWAYS follows night in my experience...does that mean that night CAUSES day?
No, but it does suggest some possible link between the two phenomena. Enough to warrant further investigation of their relationship, I'd say.
Ditto MMR and autism.2

Tom, not my choice of example, from R.L.Gregory, I saw what you now say just as I posted it.

Ronald Reagan was diagnosed with altzheimers after he had been president. Does being president cause Alzheimers?

East Germany collapsed after Thin Lizzy performed a gig in east Berlin! That surely proves Phil Linott caused the end of Communism!

Then theres the fact that nobody was ever diagnosed with bi-polar disorder before the invention of television! Whats the link?

Come to that Walt Disney started making TV programmes after Wernher Von Braun went to live in the USA! Suspicious or what. Did W.V.B CAUSE the Disney TV show? He certainly appeared on it. There MUST be a connection there, surely.

Grenada was invaded after Michael Foot had a fart. Did Michael foots flatulence CAUSE the invasion of Grenada? Questions need to be asked!

But there are plenty of other examples from every day life.

Tea always tastes better when you put the milk in first! Absolutely no objective basis for that.v weve had plenty of attempts to find one. Does LOOKING for a connection CAUSE a connection?

The mother of one person I know
was adamant that her car worked better when it was kept tidy inside!

Im sure it does, in her world.

Dixon

February 12th, 2009 3:38pm

catesby
February 12th, 2009 7:50am
"Well done Melanie.
There are signs of a co-ordinated attempt to rubbish you in these comment, which is itself sinister."

Well done Catesby...you have created a first, a conspiracy theory that would appear to include me!

Thats brilliant...because I KNOW I am part of no conspiracy, therefore you have given me an example of the idiocy of conspiracy theorists that I shall use in argument forever more!

Thankyou very much indeed for that, Catesby!

Indeed, your propensity to see "connections" where there are none in itself constitutes an excellent example of the foolish "thought" processes underlying such perceived "connections" as MMR and alleged autism.

So, really, you have presented the very best illustration yet as to why such a "connection" should be treated with a pinch of salt.

Dixon

February 12th, 2009 3:46pm

BTW. that space collision which I mentioned the other night has finally started to permeate dense layers of preoccupation with celebrity clap-trap and lifestyle shows in the media, three days after the event.

Hundreds of TV channels and cell-phone networks depend on shared individual satellites. They orbit the Earth at 16-17 thousand miles per hour. They are large ( big as a bus ) and very fragile. You only need a piece of debris as big as an M6 washer to put one out of action.

I would love to see the consternation that would cause!

Bring it on!

shark

February 12th, 2009 4:33pm

Sowing the seeds of our own destruction.

Dixon

February 12th, 2009 5:20pm

P.S to sattelite story...unfortunately, most telly sayts are at vastly higher orbits, so there would have to be a jolly long chain-reaction till it reached them!

Drat!

Kerry

February 12th, 2009 5:29pm

Eugenics is not the answer to life, it destroys it. No amount of spin from government or science can change the truth.

Shaun Pilkington

February 12th, 2009 5:40pm

This very afternoon, CNN reports that Vaccine did not cause autism:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/02/11/autism.vaccines/index.html?eref=rss_latest

Other fatuous lawsuits where people have to hold someone to blame for an unpleasant affliction include the Multiple Sclerosis guys v. Aspartame which should be rumbling to the surface of the US Court system shortly. Sh*t happens - sometimes nobody is to blame!

Dixon

February 12th, 2009 6:05pm

John Stone
February 12th, 2009 8:49am
But also by Dixon's logic - which is interesting - it would never be possible to prove the association between vaccine and pathology, which would be very convenient for vaccine manufacturers, health officials, journalists on the take etc - but it would not offer any reassurance for the public over safety. It is simply demonstrating the truth that whatever happens in this culture can and will be denied.
There is something breath-takingly crass about this sort of 'I am a scientist and you are stupid' post."

THAT is a really "crass" and I should add, stupid comment.

I never said I was a scientist. If you must have labels, Im a layman with a scientific outlook who has studied science at college and use scientific research in forming my opinions in regards my professional work. Whats arrogant about that?

Your first claim is itself jaw droppingly stupid: The effect ( or dependent variable ) of one thing ( the independent variable ) upon another ( the subject ) is demonstrably present when it statistically occurs in the presence of the independent variable, not in its absence, all other factors ( contingent variables ) being kept the same between the two conditions, being the "Experimental condition" ( where the independent variable is present ) and the "Control condition" ( being without the independent variable but the same in all other respects or "Contingent" variables ).

Pseudo-science is trash because it obviously has no "control condition".

In other words, if you can show the alleged effect of MMR occurs to a statistically significant degree in the presence of MMR but not in its absence, WHEN ALL OTHER CONDITIONS ARE STATISTICALLY THE SAME, then you have "proof" of a connection.

To say that "A" sometimes happens after "B" does NOT prove anything. As, for example, the invasion of Grenada following Micheel Foot having broken wind on Newsnight does not mean that the Labour leaders flatulence triggered the invasion.

To say that this observation of a very basic truth amounts to saying that nothing can ever be proven is, basically, very, very stupid!

Dave

February 12th, 2009 6:32pm

Stan Lukebra: "I has Measles twice as a child, and I was OK."
Yes well done, Stan. I've never been in a car accident but we still have seatbelts and airbags and I think they've proved quite useful

Harold Stone

February 12th, 2009 6:34pm

Vaccination is an assault. It is spun as a necessity when it is anything but. Animal tissue, mercury, aluminium - it's all in there. The WHO - responsible over forty years for the wildly misleading anti-fat campaign - is out to reduce populuation numbers. Doctors only know to trust the word of other doctors so they go along with it. To arrest the rising incidence of disease arrest first the intake of yak-herders, day labourers and assorted ju-ju men who enjoy unrestricted access to our country and who are responsible for it. Under no circumstances will they get near my children with a needle.

darwinist

February 12th, 2009 9:22pm

Ah, well - there seems to be one good thing to come out of all of this - the more scientific illiterate seem intent on removing themselves from the gene pool. Trouble is, they may take some of the rest of us with them.

John Stone

February 12th, 2009 9:52pm

Dixon

You attribute things to me I did not say. I was pointing to how easy it is deny causality, and also that there is an undue lack of interest in the adverse events that follow vaccination by the medical profession - anyone steps out of line and they are in trouble, as the Wakefield case proves.

Aggressively maintaining the no causality line subverts the long term safety of the vaccine programme. It also makes people arrogant and complacent, as your response so admirably demonstrates.

pv

February 12th, 2009 10:44pm

Harold Stone, excellent and insightful comment there!

John Stone

February 12th, 2009 11:45pm

Instructive how abusive all these "scientific" people are.

Alexis

February 12th, 2009 11:59pm

The Amish most certainly DO have autism. That theory has been conclusively debunked. Dan Olmsted is still pushing it, but there are autistic Amish children. At best the incidence may be slightly lower than the general population, but the Amish are also a genetically distinct group which could also explain it.

Researchers have looked at unvaccinated children and the autism rates are the same. Further, immunisation rates have dropped in the past 10 years; autism rates have continued to rise.

Tanya

February 13th, 2009 12:18am

"Besides, what motive do Big Pharma have to block the move back to single jabs? They'll still be the ones selling the jabs, except now they'll be selling us three of them."

How about the fact that if the truth comes out (that vaccinations and autism are linked), they will loose billions of dollars THROUGH LAWSUITS!

I suspect that most of the people posting negative comments are afraid for themselves and their children because of recent measles outbreaks. If you think that's scary try being parent to a child with autism. Yes, measles can be deadly occasionally. To any of you that have posted and have measles or a child who has died of measles, my deepest condolences. To the millions of you out there who either have autism or have children with autism, my deepest condolences. (I have a feeling there are a lot more of the latter.)

If your child had or has measles I'm sure it's painful to watch them suffer through a week or two of fever, cough, runny nose, conjunctivitis, Koplik's spots and skin rash but how about watching your child suffer through a life time of being "lost" to autism. I watched my son go through all of the same symptoms as measles besides koplick's spots and rash only hours after he received the MMR. Then I got to watch as the light left his eyes, the voice left his mouth, and the autism took control. I got to watch while he cried through the pain of the several times a day explosive diharea. I got to watch as he banged his head just to feel. I got to watch while the clothes on his body became the enemy because they felt like "millions of needles poking his skin". I got to watch as the words I love you mommy turned to blood curdeling screams. That's just the beginning, to explain all he went through would fill pages and pages. So those of you who have not experienced watching your "normal" baby turn into an unrecognizable being right in front of your eyes, really need to keep your low blow opinions to yourself. You weren't there, you don't know! I wish so desperately I could go back in time and be an "Antivaxxer" because I know in my heart and mind it would have saved my son from the hell he had to go through. FYI my son has mostly recovered (After 11 years and hundreds of thousand of dollars.) but that's another story for another time:)

israel

February 13th, 2009 1:10am

Hmmmm............

An interesting story from the AP:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090212/ap_on_go_ot/austism_ruling

Wakefield had to move to the US to find people who believed in him agan and found it with Jenny McCarthy. This is a pity as she has done some very stering work, along with Holly Robinson Peet, to highlight this issue in the US media.

Mairead Hilliard

February 13th, 2009 2:14am

One of possible side effects of
the MMR vaccine is encephalitis
i.e. inflamation of the brain.

There is also a cover-up of the
huge increase in bowel disease
in children/young adults since the introduction of the MMR
vaccine.

Alan Foos

February 13th, 2009 6:06am

Mr. Wakefield's data I can't be sure of, but his conclusions were correct. I'm 60yoa, BA, MSs, 8yrs univ biology/chem/math, high gpa, research with statistical design. Oservations of family members and med records provide 100% scientific certainty that autism and many other disorders, however diagnosed, are caused (roughly 90%) by vaccines and/or amalgams, or rather the mercury (MOSTLY, but also other) toxins in them. Few are properly diagnosed, or morbidity overlooked due to the large number of uncontrolled variables and absence of profit in real medicine. Claims that vaccines ae effective are based on heavily biased studies and coincidental correlations w/o support for cause and effect, aka lies. For those affected by the vaccines, your (childs?) life may well also become the living hell of a victim being slowly, rituallly murdered by the gov/med "system." Do you really think it's just autism or only 1/150? Don't you thnk the joker laughs at YOU? You may find the statistical theorem I wrote for spoofing bias in statistical designs to sharpen your scientific wit, the most significant result of my scientific career after being fired for refusing to embezzle money in the gov under dire threat. Click on the button, Randomized Block (google mecury xx poisoned)

Dave

February 13th, 2009 8:32am

Tanya. You describe an awful experience. And I'm glad your son is "mostly" better now.
But I'm afraid we need science not "mother knows best" when it comes to the health of our chilren.

Neil

February 13th, 2009 8:37am

Tanya, the plural of anecdote is not data.

Valentinus

February 13th, 2009 9:08am

It's a sad, sad story, Tanya. But this is what we do in such situations: when a correlation between two unpleasant events occurs, we apply hugely sophisticated scientific instruments to see if the first event caused the second one. In the case of the MMR being followed by autism, this test has now been done over and over and over. No causal connection has ever been established anywhere––except, apparently, by Andrew Wakefield. Moreover, we now have what is called counterfactual evidence: rates of MMR uptake have dropped to such a statistically significant extent that were the two phenomena related we would simply have to have seen a drop in autism. We have not seen this. Difficult though your situation is, you have nothing for which to blame yourself, and journalists who imply otherwise are tasteless and irresponsible. MMR and autism are not connected.

Incidentally, on the more general point––I see that 'liberals' (ha!) like Melanie Phillips have gone quiet on Intelligent Design. This seems to have happened for two reasons: the links of the seemingly 'scientific' ID movement to fundamentalist creationism have been more fully revealed and all of the evidence cited to support ID has been demonstrated to be fully consistent with natural selection (the tosh, for example, about the camera eye being incapable of having evolved through fully functional and adaptive intermediate stages). The same will happen with MMR in due course.

Woman of Science

February 13th, 2009 9:19am

Dixon said: "I never said I was a scientist. If you must have labels, Im a layman with a scientific outlook who has studied science at college and use scientific research in forming my opinions in regards my professional work. Whats arrogant about that?"
---------------------------------------

Dude, you're not the only person here with a 'scientific outlook' but you and others here act as if you are. You and others basically describe your debating opponents on this issue as irrational, emotional, unversed in scientific method, stupid etc. John Stone's description of the 'I am a scientist and you are stupid' post" is apt in the circumstances.

It is highly significant the way pro-MMR, anti-Wakefield types (Goldacre included I have to say-the Crippen blog is another) have used ad hominem and appeals to authority against their opponents to the point that, if you cut away those, there is very little rational argument. This has been going on for years. That level of attack on those concerned about MMR and the treatment of Wakefield raise alarm bells alone- without the latest 'dirty trick' Times/Brian Deer debacle, which is just so unethical and potentially prejudicial to the GMC hearing that people should really be up in arms at this media ethical breach- yet hey ho, it's open season on Wakefield again, so that's alright then.

Rita Pal on the Crippen blog has just used some generalised ad hominem on women per se recently in order to attack the concerns of mothers! Hey, it'a bird making sexist comments- so that's alright then? I think not.

That level of unreasonableness does raise alarm bells for those without a dog in the fight. People like 'Dixon', Goldacre, Crippen et al really ought to be aware of that and try and learn to argue logically (sorry Dixon- you're getting exposure in this post because of your last exchange here with John Stone- there's more people on this forum that to which this post also applies) and refrain from the emotionally charged snidey remarks. But since the level of ad hominem attack and appeals to authority do function also as an intimidatory tactic (on a verbal level) towards opponents (it takes a brave man- and even braver woman- because the attacks on them contain elements of sexism which in this day is jaw-dropping- to stand up to this) I can't see that device being dropped any time soon.

However, John Stone is right about this : "Aggressively maintaining the no causality line subverts the long term safety of the vaccine programme. It also makes people arrogant and complacent..." From what I've see even Goldacre and Crippen are trying to get others to tone down their personal attacks on opponents, because they are becoming aware that it doesn't help their position (though Crippen doesn't seem to understand that applies to him also (!) which is quite funny. They wouldn't last a minute in a school debating forum- they'd have to keep going back and retracting the ad hominem for one thing!

David

February 13th, 2009 9:42am

"How about the fact that if the truth comes out (that vaccinations and autism are linked), "

It's not true though. As noted above, a large number of studies have shown it isn't. Only one thoroughly discredited one has shown any hint of a link.

"I suspect that most of the people posting negative comments are afraid for themselves and their children because of recent measles outbreaks."

Yes, and it's worse because the reason for the danger is scandalously ill informed articles by journalists like Melanie. There should be no danger, and it's criminal that there now is.

CNH

February 13th, 2009 9:57am

@Women of Science: forget the 'he said/she said'. Just try replicating Wakefield's results in a lab. That's all that's necessary.

tom catesby

February 13th, 2009 11:08am

Dixon/David

Here’s my rationale for choosing the single jabs over the MMR for my child. Do let me know why I have been “irrational” etc.

My grandparents and parents went through the whole of their lives never encountering anyone with an autistic child. However, on my Christmas card list there are four families who have children with autism. In each and every case (i.e. 100%) the parents are convinced that MMR was a key factor. In each case, the problems started with the children having a strong adverse reaction to MMR (which they treated with Calpol) and each parent uses the same phrase about what happened next: “he never really recovered”. In all cases, previously bright, alert and communicative toddlers began to regress in terms of mental faculties and was subsequently diagnosed as autistic. In no cases was there a previous family history of autism.

I know nobody who has an autistic child who didn’t have the MMR.

Based on this experience, I read some of the epidemiological studies that the government says proves conclusively that there is no statistical correlation between MMR and autism. These related to whether there had or had not been a rise in autism in the years following the introduction of MMR in various countries. However, the studies I saw adjusted their raw data to take account of what the researchers feared would be a bias caused by an improvement in the diagnosis of autism by doctors. The magnitude of this weighting appeared to me to be largely subjective. It was different country by country and was substantial.

It struck me as odd that this was necessary – autism isn’t, after all, something a doctor might easily miss.

The effect seemed to be to give the MMR a clean bill of safety – irrespective of whether in actual fact the raw data showed an increase.

I thought this was dodgy.

I therefore decided to shell out the £600 for individual vaccinations and to space them out over 18 months. My child had the measles jab first – and at the same time the MMR would normally have been administered. Accordingly, there was no risk to the rest of society, in terms of us contributing to a measles epidemic.

My child also had a reaction to the measles jab. Instead of calpol, I treated it with baby-nurofen.

We then went on holiday to the Algarve. With the fate of Madeleine McCann in mind, my wife and I were careful not to leave our child unattended in our apartment at the resort – even though the chances of child abduction are always slim, and the chances of two children being abducted in the same part of Portugal would be infinitesimally small.

Like the jabs decision, it just seemed the prudent, responsible and reasonably cautious thing to do.

lloyd

February 13th, 2009 12:06pm

Yes, but today's Daily Mail cites the US federal court of claims ruling that MMR is not linked to autism and the research was flawed.

"Judge Denise Vowell said that to conclude a child's condition was the result of MMR 'an objective observer would have to emulate Lewis Carroll's White Queen and be able to believe six impossible or, at least, highly improbable things before breakfast.'"

Full story;

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1143731/New-blow-MMR-vaccine-campaigners-U-S-court-rules-NOT-linked-autism.html

John Stone

February 13th, 2009 12:47pm

Just to make the point reactions are just ignored by doctors and their sequelae never investigated. This advice has appeared on NHS websites for at least the last five years (mis-spelling unaltered):

Q: "My son had a sever reaction to the first MMR jab. Does this mean that he is well protected from these diseases, or is a second dose still necessary?"

A: "If a child has responded to all the components of the vaccine the first time, he will not have a problem being exposed to the viruses again. It's like any one of us who is already immune meeting someone with the disease - the infection can't get established.

"If he hasn't made protection to all three diseases after the first time, then he would still be susceptible to those natural infections, and still needs the 2nd dose.

"Reactions after the 2nd dose are essentially the same as after the 1st dose, but if they do occur they are even rarer. There are no new side effects after the 2nd dose that do not occur after the 1st dose. The advice is therefore that it is safe for your child to have the 2nd dose in order that he is properly protected."

http://tinyurl.com/6mpucs

This demonstrates that they routinely do not record, examine, investigate or follow up "severe" adverse reactions to MMR. I first documented the existence of this advice on 6 July 2004 in BMJ Rapid Responses 'Think harm never - Vaccines and the Inversion of Medical Ethics":

http://tinyurl.com/ca34pm

After further exposure in BMJ Rapid Responses in October 2004 they removed the advice for a few months, putting it back up in early 2005. Bizarrely, early in 2008 they altered it to say you might like to consult a doctor, but then only a few weeks later it was changed back again.

So there you have it: the policy is hit and run. Even the manufacturers could not possibly openly support the advice of health officials regarding their products.

Valentinus

February 13th, 2009 1:47pm

Oh dear, Tom. I think you answer your own question. The response on all counts is, no. While comprehensible, your responses were not rational.

The reason your parents and grandparents knew no autistic children? Simple, and discussed at length by Simon Baron-Cohen: first, because many were hidden away; secondly because of huge advances in diagnosis. In fact medical historians have established for some time that many more individuals were autistic in the past but were never labelled as such (Dr Johnson being a famous example––but most of the work is done on early 20th century case notes). This part of your argument has an unintended Fry and Laurie feel to it: homosexuals? There were no homosexuals in my day!

Autism incidence among your friends? Sad, but of no statistical significance and a shame that they have made the baseless link to MMR. Explained by my point above. You are wrong about the epidemiological studies, by the way, which all use standard deviation regression based on the relative diagnostic incline. The application of the same instrument, btw, is what shows incontrovertibly that declines in MMR uptake have produced no corresponding decline in autism reporting either by parents or doctors.

As for your Algarve decisions? This is what logicians call rational risk redundancy––perfectly understandable emotionally, but of no significance. By your own reasoning, the best risk-reduction measure you should have taken is not to have gone to the Algarve at all. Applying the principle consistently, I presume you do not take children in cars, since as soon as you do the chances of them incurring injury or death increase by about 900% compared to baseline 'non-driven' children. So while perfectly understandable (we might all do it), neither prudent nor reasonable.

tom

February 13th, 2009 2:38pm

lloyd

yes but the US court had nowt to go on except the same iffy studies the UK government uses to spin its line on MMR.

The Denmark study, for instance is all over the place. It includes vast numbers of children who weren't old enough to even have the MMR.

Rebecca Fisher

February 13th, 2009 2:52pm

What John Stone means is that investigations (along with all good evidence, studies etc) do happen, but just don't give the answer he wants.

Until yesterday, John and his fellow JABS forumites (along with David Kirby and Melanie Phillips) were eagerly awaiting the American MMR verdict, which they were convinced would vindicate their stance. If it had done so, it would have been an excellently conducted investigation, the results of which proved categorically that MMR causes autism.

As it utterly dismissed their claims, it is to be brushed under the carpet and derided as an example of the Big Pharma conspiracy covering up evidence from the right-minded and the free-thinkers.

John, Melanie - it's over. It was over a long time ago. You know it, but can't face having to admit it.

Dixon

February 13th, 2009 3:37pm

tom catesby
February 13th, 2009 11:08am
Dixon/David
Here’s my rationale for choosing the single jabs over the MMR for my child. Do let me know why I have been “irrational” etc.
My grandparents and parents went through the whole of their lives never encountering anyone with an autistic child."

First up I must dfeclare that I havent said the fears are "irrational", but that the conspiracy theories are daft and some of the lines of argument are basically flawerd. People DO naturally tend to see patterns in coincidences but its infuriating when they attack anyone who tries to point out the mistake in this accusing them of being secret conspirators in the pay of giant multinational companies. BTW, the biggest of those companies is smaller than Sainsbury's. They dont sit at the right hand of God in power terms as the conspiracy theorists seem to think.

In response to your comment...the key is in the first part, quoted. In your parents and grandparents time there simply was no category of diagnosis as "Autistic Spectrum Disorder". people are glibly referring to this as Autism, but it isnt.

I'll cite a version of my earlier analogy: Nobody was diagnosed with Munchausens Syndrome before the invention of television! Sinister or whaty? No, tyhere was no such diagnostic category before the invention of television.

Unless you had personally witnessed the childhood development of every individual in your parents and grandparents generations you are not able to say how exceptional the handful of cases you know about are.

John Stone

February 13th, 2009 3:44pm

The interesting result of the US Vaccine Court decision has been to unite the autism community there. Even the most powerful and ultra-mainstrean charity 'Autism Speaks' has taken a sceptical view:

http://www.autismspeaks.org/statement_regarding_feb_12_vaccine_court_decision.php

Dixon

February 13th, 2009 3:56pm

Woman of Science: "That level of unreasonableness does raise alarm bells for those without a dog in the fight. People like 'Dixon', Goldacre, Crippen et al really ought to be aware of that and try and learn to argue logically (sorry Dixon- you're getting exposure in this post because of your last exchange here with John Stone- there's more people on this forum that to which this post also applies) and refrain from the emotionally charged snidey remarks. "

I declare "foul" here. You quote me stating explicitly that I am clearly ( as a layman ) NOT claiming authority and then lump me in with a bunch of people who are! THAT is a traduction. Plus you lump me in with people who make ad-hominem attacks. THAT too is unfair...if I seem to get over excited about one or two peoples comments its because they have been "snide" at ME, not the other way around: one suggested I was part of a pharma conspiracy ( doh ) and another sleighted my intelligence on the basis of a really stupid interpretation of what I had said ( drawing the daft conclusion that nothing can ever be proven about anything ).

Assertions of "scientific" authority and ad-hominem are indeed pathetic dodging of debate. However, I will say that in all arenas ( not just science ) some things take such a lot of study to get "inside" of that confronted by a laymans gaffs it seems like a monumental challenge to bridge the gap between knowledge and ignorance. so its commonly easier to slip into saying "You dont know what you are talking about".

Give me credit, whilst others have perhaps, I have NOT!

Nor will you find evidence that I am an MMR proponent. Whether folks do or dont use it, whether their kids do or dont die of Rubella or become autistic, are issues that do not interest me in the remotest. I dont give a damn. But I DO get irritated by people claiming they have proof for things which on even superficial examination clearly proves nothing.

As I hinted earlier, I am equally excited at the stupidity of Prof R.E.Macks claim that he has "proof" that an epidemic of psyhiatric disorders in the USA is caused by millions of alien abductions! And hes a senior professor at Harvard. Believe me, I pay no heed whatsoever to academic "authority".

Dixon

February 13th, 2009 4:03pm

Re Woman of science:

If you want to see real claiming authority and dubbing all opponents either stupid or corrupt, look at this post:

Alan Foos
February 13th, 2009 6:06am
" Mr. Wakefield's data I can't be sure of, but his conclusions were correct. I'm 60yoa, BA, MSs, 8yrs univ biology/chem/math, high gpa, research with statistical design. Oservations of family members and med records provide 100% scientific certainty that autism and many other disorders, however diagnosed, are caused ..."

Not only is this sheer arrogance, "Dont tell me, I have letters after ,y name" , but its also sheer doggeral...he cannot even construct a sentence, let alone a paragraph.

...And which "side" is HE on?

Dixon

February 13th, 2009 4:07pm

israel
February 13th, 2009 1:10am

"Wakefield had to move to the US to find people who believed in him agan and found it with Jenny McCarthy. This is a pity as she has done some very stering work, along with Holly Robinson Peet, to highlight this issue in the US media."

Thats because in the USA there are millions of people who will believe in anything...even seriously that they are regularly abducted by aliens!

Dave

February 13th, 2009 5:42pm

Dixon: To be fair "You dont know what you are talking about" is a pretty fair response when confronted by people who don't know what they are talking about.

Rebecca Fisher

February 13th, 2009 7:07pm

Only John Stone could try and spin the US vaccine decision as some kind of victory.

Robin

February 13th, 2009 7:10pm

Dave,

You said:
"Tanya... I'm afraid we need science not "mother knows best" when it comes to the health of our chilren."

That's the most patronising comment I have ever read. You'd have been better just thinking it.

tom catesby

February 13th, 2009 7:17pm

Dixon

I certainly don't believe in any conspiracy theory involving pharmaceutical companies large or small.

I dare say the same ones make the single measles jabs as make the MMR.
But I don't trust the government. And I certainly don't trust the science establishment or the famous 'consensus of scientific opinion.'
I remember when all the politicians kept saying that there was 'no scientific evidence' that mad cow disease could jump species. And the whole science community were waving their so-called scientific evidence in our faces and calling us irrational, just as you (plural) are today over MMR.
Then suddenly.....oops...here's new variant CJD. The consensus reversed itself overnight. And not a single scientist apologized. I dare say they were all terribly rational. But they were also terribly wrong.

Dixon

February 13th, 2009 7:25pm

Dave
February 13th, 2009 5:42pm
Dixon: To be fair "You dont know what you are talking about" is a pretty fair response when confronted by people who don't know what they are talking about."

believe me, I know the feeling. But its really a pointless thing to say. The other party learns nothing. You lose any chance of enlightening them. Ultimately, they can turn round and say the same back at you.

Hence my analogy between Wakefield and Mack. Mack is very highly qualified. If I argue that the "evidence" for his belief in the literal reality of alien abduction as advanced in his books is rubbish with much simpler psychiatric explanations, whats to stop him saying "Im premier lecturesr in psychiatry at Harvard...who are you?"

Then theres the intellectual sterility of such an approach. Hence Leonardos famous observation that "He who in argument adduces authority uses not intellect but memory".

Stephen Rouse

February 13th, 2009 8:18pm

Let me see if I've got this right.
Global warming = deeply harmful scare-mongering by irresponsible scientists on the flimsiest of evidence.
Linking MMR to autism = noble scientific quest to expose an inconvenient truth.
Don't really do irony, do you Mel?

Conservative Cabbie

February 13th, 2009 8:43pm

The Biologista
There was a time when 'science' decided the earth was flat and the earth was the centre of the universe. Just because science at a particular point of time has reached a consensus on something, it does not mean that they are right. Evidence might be revealed tomorrow that blows away a scientific consensus. That is why scepticism is justified. Also, the fact that science has become so politicised is another reason.
Science today is seen as an absolute. It is not. It is one branch of intellectual thought. There are many questions it fails to answer, but those questions are seen as being unscientific and therefore dismissed as irrelevant. Dave, our regular science advocate on another post referred to a "new dark ages". Perhaps he's right, science advocates both here and generally do resemble a modern day "spanish inquisition".

Dave

February 13th, 2009 10:11pm

Robin. But it's true. "Commonsense", "I'm a parent", "It's really cold outside" these are all words and phrases used as arguments against real scientific understanding.
So to shorthand it, climate change is real and we're responsible, MMR is safe and so are mobile phone masts.

Dixon: Of course you are right. But sometimes people need to stand up and take a stand.
Mobile phone masts don't cause cancer. In the course of an argument about the science of this fact someone once said to me "But I've had breast cancer"
As if that is actually an argument.
While I accept people don't like to be belittled and made to feel stupid and that it's not a very honourable course of argument the simple truth is... these people are stupid and no they don't understand it.

John Stone

February 13th, 2009 10:49pm

Dixon

Ridiculous claim - pharmaceutical products are not inherently safe, all have risks: you seem to believe (to use the phrase of the CMO) that vaccines are "very safe", though somehow "very safe" is less safe than "safe" as a concept. There is nothing far fetched in suggesting that vaccines can cause damage - even the award schemes are predicated on the fact that damage is sometimes catastrophic. The only question is how often, and how. Aggressively denying everything does not solve the problem and is not reasonable or rational.

In your case it is apparent that you have almost no knowledge of this subject, which makes you a good example. The judgement which you make is that it is simply safest to trust the scientist rather than the parents (who unlike you were there and saw what happened) only to find it arrogantly dimissed by people with overwhelming professional conflicts.

But having a concern about vaccine damage is not remotely comparable to believing in alien abduction (incidentally, I have never heard of Mack - I obviously haven't lived).

Dave

February 13th, 2009 10:54pm

Or to put it another way. Why is it ok to look down on someone because they have never seen Hamlet? But we can't do the same for someone who doesn't understand the inverse square law?

Dixon

February 13th, 2009 11:02pm

tom catesby
February 13th, 2009 7:17pm
Dixon
I certainly don't believe in any conspiracy theory involving pharmaceutical companies large or small.
I dare say the same ones make the single measles jabs as make the MMR.
But I don't trust the government. And I certainly don't trust the science establishment or the famous 'consensus of scientific opinion.'
I remember when all the politicians kept saying that there was 'no scientific evidence' that mad cow disease could jump species. And the whole science community were waving their so-called scientific evidence in our faces and calling us irrational, just as you (plural) are today over MMR."

Thats outrageous, you are taking a bystander ( me ) and throwing him in the bear pit with his determined opponents! I never said anything about anybodies "rationality". But such "tactics" make me wonder. You say your opponents dub you "irrational" and I am perceived as an opponent, therefore according to you I have as good as said you are "irrational"...even if I havent! Your logic is like saying "The chief NAZI was Hitler. Hitler was a white man. Therefore white men "plural" are NAZIs!"

But while you are at it, you do raise hapharzadly the matter of the phenomenon in science of the "paradigm shift". Which can indeed manifest itself as a broad reversal of opinion. My awareness of the unreliability of "consensus" I have trumpeted many times on these blogs in the context of "Climate Change". I have also stressed that I am not a professional scientist but a layman. I therefore take great offence at being lumped together with all those dweebs who simply say "Im a scientist, you're a nitwit".Not least because they are as liable to say that to me as anyone else.

I wont want your apology, they seem all to cheap these days.

olly

February 14th, 2009 12:34am

Dixon - your posts are spiralling into incomprensibility. Please try to maintain basic sanity even when ranting.

Teresa Binstock

February 14th, 2009 1:03am

The persecution of Andy Wakefield, M.D., reminds of inquisitors pursuing 15th Century midwifes, of inquisitors pursuing Giordano Bruno.

Warwick

February 14th, 2009 6:21am

Stephen Rouse,

You have missed the most obvious parallel.

Emissions Reduction schemes = government plus scientific establishment using global warming scare campaign to institute a scheme which will destroy our our technology - based prosperity.

MMR immunisation = Government plus medical establishment use our fear of Measles etc to institute a vaccination campaign that spreads autism amongst our children.

Dixon.
"Whether folks do or dont use it, whether their kids do or dont die of Rubella or become autistic, are issues that do not interest me in the remotest. I dont give a damn."

If an inability to experience emotional sympathy with others is a symptom of autism, it seems that you suffer from the condition. Perhaps you should give a damn.

Sheldon

February 14th, 2009 7:22am

THE PROBLEM WITH
WITCH HUNTS.

The problem with most witch hunts is
that there never was any real evidence
of there being a witch.

This was the case in Salem and the
case with all the crazy cases of
satanic child abuse in the '90s.

Fortunately, after many years, we've
learned the truth about the 90's witch hunts

But there's nothing wrong with a
witch hunt when
you've actually got
good evidence that
there is a witch.

And surely, Wakefield
fits the bill.

In putting forward an
article calling into
question a major public health issue -- his responsibilities
went beyond those of
a normal small scale study.

He had a duty to be as accurate as possible.

With only 12 children
in the study, getting
the medical history of one of them even
slightly incorrect
is unbelievable negligence.

Getting more than one child wrong is in
this case criminal.

I'd like to see an attempt to charge
him criminally. Children died in the UK.

His actions may have
lead to the failure
of the polio eradication effort.

If well known modern vaccines are unsafe and contaminated then
how hard is to believe that the polio vaccine might
be contaminated to
make people sterile as charged in Nigeria.

As for his apologists, such as yourself, I doubt very much if you
have the courage to
admit you were wrong.

Lea

February 14th, 2009 9:06am

See the research at the bottom.
http://www.singlejabs.co.uk/jabs.htm

Sam C

February 14th, 2009 9:24am

Further to CNH's reply to Women of Science:

"@Women of Science: forget the 'he said/she said'. Just try replicating Wakefield's results in a lab. That's all that's necessary."

Those attempts at replication have already been tried and universally failed. Wakefield was asked to redo his work but refused (how competent is that).

The results from the O'Leary lab where the DNA/RNA work was done were clearly not reliable; they had huge contamination, mis-calibrated equipment, incorrectly reported results, a totally shocking bit of work.

It is a fact that Wakefield's work has been discredited and has not been replicated. The anti-vax wing cannot and should not use it for support.

Without Wakefield, they have no serious evidence of any sort of link between vaccines and autism, only a lot of screaming. As the autism omnibus trial showed, caring parents can easily be misled about the timing of onset of symptoms of developmental abnormality; in at least 2 of the 3 test cases, the parents' videos and medical records show that the child was showing signs and symptoms long before vaccination.

But perhaps the JABS loonies will now tell us that MMR is so powerfully evil that it can affect children even before they are injected??

Anna of Arnica

February 14th, 2009 10:35am

Lets say that we live in another time / space continuum and that Andrew Wakefield does not exist?

What would Deer and others say if a case of vaccine-linked autism paid out $6 million in compensation? Hannah Poling IS in our time... yet most journalists 'chose' not to report on it.

Vaccine safety and over-all health benefits should be our paramount aim, whether we hold a Creationist or Darwinist theory, whether we went to Peckham community school or Oxford University. It seems that the aim of most, of eradicating measles and achieving mass innoculation, comes with the foot note "at whatever means".

By holding such an aim as a holy grail, and ignoring the means and is resulting in protectionist speech and research. The OVERALL health of our children should be the aim and means, which should unite, not divide us.

You ask for why the research hasn't been done to replicate Wakefield's findings et al, well many offers have been turned down by the MRC...However, the government has given the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control £300,000 to try to replicate Wakefield's research....But the scientist who heads the institute, Dr Phil Minor, is being paid to advise GlaxoSmithKline, makers of the MMR vaccine, in the forthcoming lawsuit (!)

Many of us are asking where is the research which compares the long-term and over-all health of the vaccinated and the unvaccinated?

Remain open minded to health
www.arnica.org.uk

Dave

February 14th, 2009 10:48am

Conservative Cabbie: Oh come on. Interesting as discussions of the philoposphy of evidence can be at the end of the day gravity will always keep the wheels of your cab on the ground.
Science isn't political. What we do with the information it gives us is. But how can people have that debate if they don't understand the framework of the argument itself?
We are facing a public health crisis that will result in the deaths of children. And all because of some very poor research (long discredited) and the ramblings of journalists who simply we're not capable of understanding what was wrong with the original work.
For the most part I keep out of the Israel stuff on this blog, I just don't know enough.
I wish Mel had done the same when it came to MMR.

Louise

February 14th, 2009 10:54am

Thanks for the article Melanie. I think you've just proved your point and brought lots of the witch-hunters out in full cry!!

Louise T

February 14th, 2009 11:15am

"There was a time when 'science' decided the earth was flat and the earth was the centre of the universe."

Debatable, at best - I'd say those beliefs owed more to folklore and religious types.

And who was it exactly who found out that the Earth revolved round the Sun? That's right, scientists - people who looked at the evidence, took careful measurements, and rigorously interpreted their data to draw the correct conclusion. The great thing about science is that it IS open to being wrong, it just demands the evidence to prove your case.

Compare the reaction of Galileo etc to finding out that the Earth revolved around the Sun with that of the non-scientists at the Vatican.

desoi

February 14th, 2009 11:40am

Mark - Jenny Barnet of LBC is subject to criticism, not a witch hunt, because she spoke at length from a position of complete ignorance on an important public health issue. I sincerely hope she loses her job as she is clearly unfit for it.

tom catesby

February 14th, 2009 11:49am

Could one of the smart alec science boffins tell me what's wrong with this critique of the Denmark study (madsen et al) upon which HMG tells us not to worry our little heads about MMR:

Of the 440,655 children who received MMR vaccinations in Denmark
those developing autism represented 6.1 per 10,000 as compared to the rate of 4.9 per 10,000 in the 96,648 unvaccinated children. At the population level, the risk of autism was therefore 26% HIGHER in the group vaccinated with MMR. The authors never
report this calculation.

Children who were in fact vaccinated were assigned to the unvaccinated group
if they were diagnosed with autism before they received the MMR. The reassigned cases comprise 10% of the unvaccinated autism cases.

This makes a nonsense of the whole thing in my view.

Why should we trust evidence like this?

Valentinus

February 14th, 2009 11:55am

point of information: there was no time at which science suggested the earth was flat. Ever. There was also no Spanish Inquisition during the so-called Dark Ages.

Dave

February 14th, 2009 1:03pm

Tom: You could argue there is a flaw in the study. The fact they included births up to December 08 and completed things a year later could be considered a problem. It would mean those children would not be old enough for the vaccine or to show signs of autism and they were put into the non-vaccinated, non-autistic group....
Hang on, that would push the results the "wrong" way for those who think MMR is problem.
So apart from that (which actually doesn't help your argument) the study was lengthy and the statistical analysis solid.
MMR doesn't cause autism.
Beyond this of course (thanks to Mel) we've been conducting our very own experiment in this country for the past few years. We know MMR rates have gone down and we know measles rates have gone up.
Autism rates have stayed the same.

tom catesby

February 14th, 2009 2:26pm

Dave

Autism rates have stayed the same.

Really? How do you know? The government has refused to make autism notifiable, and there is no national monitoring.
One recent study in Cambridge schools suggested autism could be much more common than previously imagined. Or, possibly, that Cambridge is an autism hot-spot.
By the way, you didn't address the point that even the useless Denmark study showed that autism risk was higher in the vaccinated than in the unvaccinated population. Yet the study was spun as a refutation of Wakefield!

Yellowriver

February 14th, 2009 2:45pm

7,000 children were diagnosed Autistic last year.

Autistic parents who see Brian Deer as your saviour are sadly conned and mis-guided by this person who is only out for himself. He has no compassion for children who have been damaged by the MMR. I am not an anti-vaxxer, sadly further from the truth.

And yes time will tell, whose telling the truth here.

Dixon

February 14th, 2009 3:13pm

tom catesby
February 14th, 2009 11:49am
Could one of the smart alec science boffins tell me what's wrong with this critique of the Denmark study (madsen et al) upon which HMG tells us not to worry our little heads about MMR:
Of the 440,655 children who received MMR vaccinations in Denmark
those developing autism represented 6.1 per 10,000 as compared to the rate of 4.9 per 10,000 in the 96,648 unvaccinated children. At the population level, the risk of autism was therefore 26% HIGHER in the group vaccinated with MMR. The authors never
report this calculation."

Tom, you dont understand, in properly conducted scientific studies NET figures are not a measure of findings but a step in the process which requires mathematical correction for mean variations in the ratio of the number of subjects to the poulation as a whole.

Very many reliable scientific experiments produce net findings which are the opposite ( in "common sense" terms ) to their meaning when those figures are subjected to evaluation of "statistical significance" ( as in so many ways, the word "statistical" means something very different in science to its laymans usage ).

I learned this "hands on " as a student when I conducted trials in an experiment designed to evaluate the influence of subliminal messages upon interpretation of ambiguous data. I was cock-a-hoop when most of my subjects seemed to respond positively to the stimulus most of the time. "It works!" But when I came to apply the basic students "T Test" to the data I was dismayed to discover that the figures showed that it DIDNT work!

We can understand this by analogy. If we try to evaluate whether there is a causal link between playing pool and drinking Guinness by "sampling" the incidence of these phenomena in a pub, the NET figures may show that only 1% of men both drink Guinness and play pool. Because we dont know that on the night we were there, a pool team was in house, who have all for-sworn the drinking of Guinness. A particular localised caucus not representative of the poplulation at large. Because we CANNOT know where and when such transient convergences are in the population at every given instant, we have to correct the NET figures ( 10 in a pub of 100 customers who do both ) to take into account the intermittent presence of such fluctuations as averages in relation to the size of any given set of numbers. Hence the statistical test which reveals that minus SUCH fluctuations as a team of anti-Guiness pool players the figure of 10% is not "significant" as an indication of a causal link. ( These are invented figures, not statistically true ).

Dixon

February 14th, 2009 3:24pm

John Stone
February 13th, 2009 10:49pm
Dixon
Ridiculous claim - pharmaceutical products are not inherently safe, all have risks: you seem to believe (to use the phrase of the CMO) that vaccines are "very safe", though somehow "very safe" is less safe than "safe" as a concept. There is nothing far fetched in suggesting that vaccines can cause damage - even the award schemes are predicated on the fact that damage is sometimes catastrophic. The only question is how often, and how. Aggressively denying everything does not solve the problem and is not reasonable or rational."

WHAT is a "ridiculous claim" I certainly have no idea what statement or by whom ( certainly doesn't sound like one of mine ) you are referring to.

Have the courage to quote or cite it man...cos clearly, it shows total lack of orbs to accuse someone of saying something with no evidence of their having ever said it.

You are the THIRD anti-MMMR rattler here to accuse me of saying things I had not! It starts to look like....well, would it be a "witch hunt"!

Dixon

February 14th, 2009 3:50pm

Dave
February 13th, 2009 10:54pm
Or to put it another way. Why is it ok to look down on someone because they have never seen Hamlet? But we can't do the same for someone who doesn't understand the inverse square law?2

You are making the same "catgegory error" as Tom Catesby, as I pointed out earlier after he lumped me in with you as a "camp".

IE, because some "mouseholes" may look down on you...as you put it...for not having seen Hamlet, it doesnt mean that you can attribute such arrogance to ALL people who do not know the inverse square law ..most of whom have not seen Hamlet either. So it is daft, wrong, self-defeating and also defensive to respond to everyone who doesnt know the inverse square law AS THOUGH they were an arrogant mousehole who is secretly sneering at you because you havent seen Hamlet.

In fact, your comment suggests an inferiority complex about not having seen Hamlet.

Personally, I DO know the inverse square law ( I have to take it into account routinely in lighting studio photography ) and I have NEVER seen Hamlet ( discounting the TV movie version ). I dont give a squiddlies what people think of my not having seen Hamlet. Not just because I do know the inverse square law ( the difference between perigee and apogee, between catalepsy and cataplexy, distal and proxal, etc, etc, etc ) and they maybe dont...but because I can only consider anyone who "looks down on" anyone, regardless of what they do or dont know as a veritable "mousehole".

The way its shaping up, Dave, that appears to include you.

BTW, if you are the same Dave who tried to justify "an astronomers" referring to the nonexistent atmosphere of Mercury by refernce to an "exosphere" ( on the climate thread ) I DID post a reply, which didnt appear.

Essentially, that was a very ingenuous bit of wriggling on your part, be you an astronomer or not. Because as you no doubt are aware, the Earths atmosphere extends at least two thousand miles into space whilst astronauts orbit at only two hundred miles, yet are conventionally referred to ...not by "laymen" but scientists ...as OUTSIDE the atmosphere. Moreover, the entire Solar System is well within the "exosphere" of the Sun, actually called a "heliosphere". So, by your ingenuous criterion of "specialist" knowledge, it would be proper to say that there is no body in the Solar Sytem, including our Moon, which has no "atmosphere". Which I think you will find most astronomers would NOT agree with. Except in a childishly ingenuous sense by way of a footnote.

Dixon

February 14th, 2009 4:11pm

Dave
February 14th, 2009 10:48am
Conservative Cabbie: Oh come on. Interesting as discussions of the philoposphy of evidence can be at the end of the day gravity will always keep the wheels of your cab on the ground.
Science isn't political. What we do with the information it gives us is. But how can people have that debate if they don't understand the framework of the argument itself?"

On THAT I will agree with you Dave. Only the other night I had this rambling digression for about an hour with a political science graduate who ended up insisting that the issue was that we cannot in fact say for certainty that the Earth IS round! Yes, in as I say an ingenuous sense ( showing how clever one can be with words and games of meta-criteria ) but in any practical sense, it doesnt matter...he can only live by assuming correct a myriad such things ( as that the Earth IS round ) as being "facts" whether he likes that or not. ( He then went on to say if I died now, how would I know for a fact that I was dead! ). And this all a "footnote" to my attempt to say something uncontroversial about the motivation behind "hate crime" legislation, which I am glad to report he did not endorse.

HOWEVER...the problem with peoples lack of understanding about science cuts both ( or all ) ways. It also means that people like the governments "Chief Scientist" ( a political appointment ) can spout twaddle and few can see through it.

If you want to know where the largest concentration of pseudo-science is generally to be found, it is in "New Scientist" magazine.

The problem, Dave, is that being in a career sense a "scientist" does NOT mean understanding science critically either! Most "scientists" just have their nose to the grindstone and no time for Karl Popper.

EC

February 14th, 2009 6:50pm

Valentinus @11:55am,14Feb09

Indisputable! But "sooner or later some SOFAB ..." will do!

All your posts have been very clear and reasonable. However others accuse Melanie of writing things they think she said or what others said she said, and not what she actually said.

Sounds familiar?

Valentinus

February 14th, 2009 7:59pm

A rather weird use of the Madsen's study, which strongly suggests you have not actually reads it. Especially since it actually states in its conclusion:

'There was no association between age at vaccination, time since vaccination or calendar period at time of vaccination and development of autistic disorder....This study provides strong evidence against the hypothesis that MMR vaccination causes autism.' Who is actually spinning then here? The authors? If you are going to use science (unusual here), please use it in accordance with the scientists' findings.

Dave

February 14th, 2009 8:08pm

Tom: Here's the paper. I just can't find the figures you mention.
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/347/19/1477

John Stone

February 14th, 2009 9:18pm

Dixon@February 14th, 2009 3:24pm

The "ridiculous claim" is to equate having a belief in the likelihood of vaccine damage with a belief in the liklihood of alien abductions: the only purpose of talking of them in same breath. You are dismissing something quite likely by pretending it is similar to something extremely unlikely.

Dyson

February 14th, 2009 11:22pm

John Stone, I see you are declaring the autism omnibus rulings as some form of "victory" for those who say autism is caused by vaccines.

Have you thought of getting a job as a spin doctor for Alastair Darling? He needs someone with your qualities.

Dyson

February 14th, 2009 11:31pm

Mairead Hilliard, you state encephalitis is a side effect of MMR.

It decidedly is not. It used to be, when the urabe strain of rubella virus was a component of the vaccine. This could cause a very mild meningitis/encephalitis in some cases (but natural rubella caused this in 10% of cases). Since they replaced urabe with a different strain, there have been absolutely zero vaccine-related cases.

If you are referring to SSPE, (a delayed form of encephalitis) there is NO association with vaccine, but it occurs in one in 10-25 thousand cases of measles.

I find your allegation that there is a national conspiracy among all paediatricians and GPs to cover up the existence of bowel disease in autism cases completely laughable.

Dixon

February 15th, 2009 3:21am

John Stone, the man who advances claims for alien abduction has much better qualifications than your Wakefield bloke. If you set such "medical status" aside, then Wakefield is "just some bloke".

The MMR - autism link actually has LESS evidence for it than the millions-of-Americans-abducted-by aliens hypothesis. At least in the latter cae there are tens of thousands of "eyewitness" testimonies that it happens. Obviously most of us dont accept such twaddle at face value. Its only in areas such as MMR-autism that we find that the apparent plausibility of the claim allows someone like Wakefield to perform a numerical conjuring trick and the uncritical to fall for it.

John Stone

February 15th, 2009 7:40am

Dyson

The result of the vaccine court decision - and most particulary not just its verdict but the vindictive style of it, has actually resulted in the destruction of its own credibility. It was there to re-assure parents that if something went wrong they would get help. It was never much of a re-assurance but now people will see that the risk is entirely their's. As to the autism lobby it has united them in condemnation, and three day later with initial shock absorbed everyone is ready to go forward with new vigour and determination.

This is quite simple in political terms: the court has overplayed its hand and it has lost the game.

tom catesby

February 15th, 2009 9:50am

Dixon

Because we dont know that on the night we were there, a pool team was in house, who have all for-sworn the drinking of Guinness.

Yes, maybe it is because the researchers keep 'adjusting' for one after another wholly imagined scenarios that they end up representing black as white.

This study claims there is no clustering around the time of MMR. How do they know? They say that nearly all the "diagnoses" were around age 4-5 (long after MMR at 15 months). But they only use figures referring to 'registration' as autistic - the equivalent of getting a special needs statement for school. No attempt is made to find the date of the onset of symptoms.

Elizabeth

February 15th, 2009 9:57am

Dyson and others, Please google "Merck"+"MMR II" which will take you to the pharmaceutical manufacturer Merck's website. Please read carefully the twelve-page document which Americans call a "Material Safety Data Sheet" for the MMR II. Pay particular reference to p.7 which lists the "Adverse Reactions". Look at "Nervous Systems" which reads "Encephalitis; encephalopathy; measles inclusion body encephalitis (MIBE) (see CONTRAINDICATIONS); subacute scloerosing panencephalitis (SSPE); Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS); febrile convulsions; afebrile convulsions or seizures; ataxia; polyneuritis; polyneuropathy; ocular palsies; paresthesia."

Please read the entire document very carefully to understand for yourselves that Merck itself acknowledges rare side-effects from administration of MMR II.

Please realise that "rare" has a different meaning to "never".

Oh yes, "conflict of interest", I saw one of my children inexplicably descend into regressive autism shortly after MMR. Now you tell me, where is there a medical research team willing to clinically examine my ASD child and others with a similar history of regression?

Dixon, if you are satisfied with being "somewhere on the spectrum" (my term, sorry no time to read all the thread) from birth then I'm happy to acknowledge your reality. Please accept that my reality was to see a much-loved child descend into regressive autism in front of my eyes.

carol jewell

February 15th, 2009 10:44am

I urge those journalists supporting Andrew Wakefield to continue doing so and never give up until justice is done. His research and findings were (are)for real. It was extraordinarily that he and his few fellow consultants put their heads above the parapet, making a point of focus for the wrongdoings being meted out to these children. His physiological findings highlight a very serious health problem, coupled with the signs and symptoms being presented by these children, of major proportion. Why then would anyone in the hierarchy of the medical profession spend five years and more trying to paint him as the villain of the piece? Perhaps we ought to be focussing more on this aspect and remembering, whether we care to believe it or not, our medical profession is harbouring bandits. DR ANDREW WAKEFIELD IS NOT ONE OF THEM.

Dyson

February 15th, 2009 11:14am

Elizabeth, the product insert for vaccine reactions by law MUST include every single possible clinical event that has ever been thought to be associated with a vaccine or vaccine component, regardless of whether it was thought to be the actual cause. This is standard practice. It is not an acknowledgement or indication that the vaccine is the real or direct cause of the reported event.

As an example, one commonly referred to reaction (by antivaccine activists) is "atypical measles", because it is listed in the SPC. This is in fact an unusual phenomenon first described in the sixties when those who had ineffectual protection from the first single measles vaccine subsequently were exposed to and caught natural measles. It is an historical irrelevance, but still has to be mentioned on MMR product inserts for some incomprehensible reason.

As the product insert points out, these "reaction" events are listed "without regard to causality" and are not specific to MMR, but also have to be mentioned for M, M and R single vaccines. Resorting to single vaccines should not provide you with any reassurance either then, would it. (Unless you are suggesting we stop vaccinating completely, which only a fool would advocate)

(I am not suggesting the vaccines do not cause reactions, just saying that reactions are uncommon, and usually far milder than would be the case if someone caught the natural disease.)

Dixon

February 15th, 2009 12:29pm

tom catesby
February 15th, 2009 9:50am
Dixon
Because we dont know that on the night we were there, a pool team was in house, who have all for-sworn the drinking of Guinness.
Yes, maybe it is because the researchers keep 'adjusting' for one after another wholly imagined scenarios that they end up representing black as white."

You asked for an explanation as to why a 26% leeway was not statistically significant. I took the time to explain it in v-e-r-r-y simple terms even a child could understand. Now you seem proud of the fact you havent understood it.

Im afraid I am with Dave in your case, yes, you are thick!

Dave

February 15th, 2009 12:42pm

Elizabeth. Of course I accept the reality of what you saw. But I hope the science would bring you some comfort. We know MMR doesn't cause autism. Nothing you did was responsible for the problems you have experienced. You are totally blameless.
But we do know that measles rates are increasing because of a drop in use of MMR. That parents are seeing their children suffer deafness and worse because of this health scare.
I do in no way dismiss or underestimate what you are going through. But it is not your fault or the fault of MMR.

Dixon

February 15th, 2009 12:42pm

Elizabeth
February 15th, 2009 9:57am

Please realise that "rare" has a different meaning to "never".
Oh yes, "conflict of interest", I saw one of my children inexplicably descend into regressive autism shortly after MMR. Now you tell me, where is there a medical research team willing to clinically examine my ASD child and others with a similar history of regression?
Dixon, if you are satisfied with being "somewhere on the spectrum" (my term, sorry no time to read all the thread) from birth then I'm happy to acknowledge your reality. Please accept that my reality was to see a much-loved child descend into regressive autism in front of my eyes."

Very haughty, very arrogant...patronising, condescending and utterly ignorantt of anything about my circumstances, yet expecting me to collapse in shame at your personal tragedy. No you dont get any sympathy points off me. I dont give a monkeys what your experience is, its only "your reality" as you sarcastically put it IN YOUR HEAD to think that a coincidence equals a cause.

Frankly, I wouldnt give a monkeys if MMR DID cause autism. I never had mumps. For an adult male to catch it can be devastating. I have to run a gauntlet of your snivelling wheezing kids every time I go to any shopping centre. Frankly, I'll support the government on this one. People like you are a threat to my health.

youll find Im a "heartless" objective person and sob stories if anyhthing only provoke a counter-reaction to your attempts at emotional manipulation...so it wont work, keep it Mrs!

Now youve pushed me into the Dave/Dyson et al camp here. Im on their side now. You are irrational.

See what good your attempt at manipulating the debate did you!

Dixon

February 15th, 2009 12:45pm

Message for Dave...all is forgiven, you can count me on your side of this division now, that last post from Elizabeth convinced me, preceded as it was by the one from Tom Catesby, you are right, they are irational and uneducated...except maybe in "the arts".

Dixon

February 15th, 2009 12:48pm

Dyson, note on your addendum, in fact, you cannot "catch" autism anyway. its a phenomenon of developmental neurology, not a virus. Which is partly why Wakefields "hypothesis" is every bit as far fetched as alien abduction.

Dave

February 15th, 2009 3:40pm

Dixon! Hang on a tick. My argument isn't people are thick. I don't think Tom is stupid. Just that people don't really want to make the effort to understand the scientific method. As to why they don't want to? I've no idea.

Jenny

February 15th, 2009 4:38pm

Carol Jewell, it's not that he's done anything wrong in itself, it's just that if the door is opened and what's behind it really doesn't stack up, the can of worms it opens up is just huge, for the government, the drug companies and so on.

That's why they're determined to keep the door shut.

All this man wants to do is ask questions, it's vital for so many vested interests that he doesn't.

I believe he has more support in the medical community than people might realise but even to voice his right to ask questions would be to bring the trouble on your career. He is being made an example of. Any dissent and you're finished.

tom catesby

February 15th, 2009 6:23pm

Dixon
I am very far from being 'thick'. But you are not so clever as you think you are. All the problems I have raised about the Madsen study have been raised before by scientists.
Goldman and Yazbak have revisited the data, avoiding the errors made by the original researchers and come to quite a different conclusion. Here's Yazbak quoted in the Observer:

'The most important age group to look at comprises children aged from five to nine. The number with autism increased from 8.38 per 100,000 before the MMR jab was introduced in 1987, to 77.43 in 2000.' Writing in the latest edition of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Yazbak and Dr Gary Goldman, concluded: 'The systematic error of missing a large number of autism diagnoses in the later years was a major shortcoming {of Madsen et al}.

Rebecca Fisher

February 15th, 2009 7:16pm

"This is quite simple in political terms: the court has overplayed its hand and it has lost the game."

Interesting to see that John Stone now sees the whole MMR Hoax as a big game.

John Stone

February 15th, 2009 7:19pm

Dixon accuses Elizabeth of being "haughty, arrogant, patronising" - yet I seen no indication in her post of any such thing. Not the faintest hint. I am inclined to think this is trolling, accusing the other side of just the strategies you have using from the beginning. This is a technique used to make the correspondence unintelligible - someone throwing a spanner in the works.

Above all "they" do not want parents to be able to recount their experiences. It is actually policy of industry lobby groups like Science Media Centre and Sense About Science to get parents excluded from the media and from debate. It has to be admitted their bullying tactics have by and large been pretty successful.

Dave

February 15th, 2009 7:58pm

Jenny: No. How can a study of 12 (self selecting) children compare to a study of every child in Denmark? Seriously.
As for the "villain" of the piece... you do know what he did to those 12 poor children don't you?

CNH

February 15th, 2009 8:11pm

@Jenny: There are perhaps millions in doctors in this whole wide world. Do you think that every one of them, in countries ranging from Chile to Estonia, would be worried about 'bringing trouble on their career'?
On the contrary, if a researcher somewhere could replicate Wakefield's results - which, after ten years, they haven't - then they'd be famous overnight.

Dixon

February 15th, 2009 11:07pm

Tom catesby, you asked for an explanation as to why a 26% greater incidence in the experimental group over the control group was not seen as "proof" of a causal link.

I explained why. In very simple terms. You then brushed that off as "changing the figures" or somesuch, but quite clearly didnt understand what I had spelled out quite clearly. You didnt have to agree. But neither did you indicate any point of comprehending disagreement. YES you ARE THICK! Or else you are incredibly lazy and one-sided. which do you prefer?

Now its YOU who are changing the facts and moving the goalposts by re-defining what it was in the study you cite that you were questioning.

Thick, lazy, one-sided or a liar, which characterisatio do you prefer? They all seem to fit.

Dixon

February 15th, 2009 11:10pm

John Stone
February 15th, 2009 7:19pm
Dixon accuses Elizabeth of being "haughty, arrogant, patronising" - yet I seen no indication in her post of any such thing. Not the faintest hint. I am inclined to think this is trolling, accusing the other side of just the strategies you have using from the beginning. This is a technique used to make the correspondence unintelligible - someone throwing a spanner in the works.
Above all "they" do not want parents to be able to recount their experiences. It is actually policy of industry lobby groups like Science Media Centre and Sense About Science to get parents excluded from the media and from debate. It has to be admitted their bullying tactics have by and large been pretty successful."

Oh, I see, now Im in the pay of big-time industry am I. Good god, what a silly deludded fool you are.

Dixon

February 15th, 2009 11:14pm

Its interesting that the ignorati like Tom Catesby and John Stone trust scientific judgement when they get on an airplane or use sattelite navigation, or a microwave, or any form of medicine that some charlatan hasnt started a circus about.

Dixon

February 15th, 2009 11:22pm

No, she was qyuite clearly talking down to me, implying that my only experience of autistic Spectrum Disorder was "in your reality". As I said, arrogant, conceited, patronising and I might add, damned offensive!

So far, all weve seen from you lot are ridiculous accusations that those of us who wont agree with you are working secretly for the pharmaceutical industry. You are worse than Catesnby. Ive lost my patience with you. you are an idiot.

BTW, Ive no doubt that when you next have a serious illness requiring medication you wont object to the pharmaceutical industry quite so vociferously.

It happens to everyone sooner or later.

Meanwhile, you go back to your stories of Roswell and how the moon landings were faked and alongside the MMR tosh you will have a full set of crack-pot conspiracy theories to play with.

As long as I can bite my lip I see no point in further exchanges on the matter.

Dixon

February 15th, 2009 11:26pm

CNH, forgive me if Ive missed earlier contributions, but I think your new here. Be warned, talking sense like that here will only earn you abusive labels and the honour of being referred to as part of an "industry" conspiracy.
Read my posts from the top and you'll notice how I tried to be reasonable but the wall of stupidity they keep up eventually blew my top!

FeFe

February 15th, 2009 11:38pm

Thank you for continuing to follow this story - parental rights over big pharma. Thank you so much.

CNH

February 15th, 2009 11:57pm

@Dixon: they'd have a hard job showing I'm part of an industry conspiracy, since I'm now retired and have never had an connections with industry!
On the other hand, it's pointless arguing with most of the anti-vaccers, since their knowledge of how the world works seems rather warped.

olly

February 16th, 2009 12:16am

Scientists all once believed in... (cue half-remembered example of pre-medieval scientific belief), so scientists are wrong now...my son had the MMR jab then (cue whatever tragic consequences followed post hoc).

Anti-MMR people - I am afraid there is good reason why we scientists deride you as genuinely thick.

Robin

February 16th, 2009 8:38am

Olly,

Scientists - aren't they the ones who told pregnant women to take thalidomide? Surely not.

Dyson

February 16th, 2009 10:09am

It's a sure sign that people have lost the argument when they start invoking industrial complex conspiracy theory, accusing people of being paid pharma shills, and raising irrelevancies totally unconnected with the issues at hand.

Science has spoken, and what's more it has been backed up with a conclusive and damning legal judgment. Of course the antivaccination crew are whimpering.

Melanie Phillips, John Stone, Jenny et al win the Monty Python "Black Knight" award for their pitiful attempts to sustain their "fatally flawed" ideas.

And Jenny, if you think Wakefield has any medical supporters left after the latest revelations you are sadly mistaken. The consensus among medics is one of gob-smacking incredulity at his naiveity and serious financial conflicts of interest, embarassment at his foolishness and the opprobrium he has brought down on the medical profession, and pure disdain for his "science", "research" and all his subsequent actions, activities such as his unashamed continued exploitation of parents for yet further financial gain.

tom catesby

February 16th, 2009 11:33am

Dyson

In her post above, Melanie quotes extensively from Wakefield regarding what you refer to as serious financial conflicts of interests and exploitation ....for further financial gain.
It seems to me that Wakefield has explicitly denied any personal gain (he says he gave any monies to a fund for a unit at the Royal Free) and he denies outright the other allegations. Are you saying he is lying?

tom catesby

February 16th, 2009 11:39am

Dixon

Since you are such a jolly clever scientist, do you think you could learn to use HTML tags? Reading your comments, it's sometimes hard to tell when you are quoting and when you are screeching in your own voice.

Robin

February 16th, 2009 4:56pm

Dyson,

"Science has spoken". Boy, that's got to be one of the funniest examples of pomposity I have ever read.

You complain about accusations levelled against people of being paid "pharma shills". Sadly, especially in the USA, the Freedom of Information Act enables one to establish exactly how much Big Pharma has paid scientists acting as "consultants" - especially in the field of drugs.

btw, I make this comment not because of any view about Wakefield, but in a general sense.

Richie Craze

February 18th, 2009 1:34pm

"...the fact that some of the parents of the children in the study thought there was a connection..."

How can anyone be impressed by this sort of demagoguery? The "fact" that "some" parents "thought"...

Part of me enjoys seeing Melanie continue to make a complete and utter fool of herself over MMR, too proud ever to apologise; but the larger part, reading about an increase in Measles cases (not a trivial disease, as some of Melanie's devotees have tried to make out) in the news, just feels angry.

tom catesby

February 18th, 2009 5:15pm

Richie Craze

There has only been one death from measles in since Wakefield's paper came out and that related to a 13 years old male who had an underlying lung condition and was taking immunosuppressive drugs. Prior to 2006, the last death from acute measles was in 1992.

The Biologista

February 19th, 2009 12:46am

tom catesby"Of the 440,655 children who received MMR vaccinations in Denmark
those developing autism represented 6.1 per 10,000 as compared to the rate of 4.9 per 10,000 in the 96,648 unvaccinated children. At the population level, the risk of autism was therefore 26% HIGHER in the group vaccinated with MMR. The authors never
report this calculation."

Of course not. 26% increase sure sounds like a whole lot but in this case it actually amounts to an absolute increase of 1.2 cases per 10,000.

That's minuscule and illustrates why only newspapers use relative risk values. Exciting sounding, even when they're meaningless.

"There has only been one death from measles in since Wakefield's paper came out "

There's been at least two actually, and two is too many. The count due to MMR is zero.

The Biologista

February 19th, 2009 12:59am

Robin: "Olly, Scientists - aren't they the ones who told pregnant women to take thalidomide? Surely not."

Robin, Scientists - aren't they the ones who figured out what was happening with thalidomide, put a stop to it and then overhauled the clinical trials system to ensure that such a tragedy could not happen again?

That tragedy was discovered through evidence, not untested hypothesis. A letter to a journal, not a press release to the media.

Richie Craze

February 19th, 2009 8:51am

tom catesby: That may well be true in Britain. Measles still kills a million people worldwide every year.

Even if, in Britain, the child (it's most common in children) goes on to fully recover, it's still a horrible illness that could have been avoided by not listening to cranks.

There can be complications caused by measles such as pneumonia and ear infections, which can lead to weakened lungs, permanent hearing impairment or even deafness etc. As I say, not a trivial disease even if completely curable in this country in the majority of cases.

Mary Concerned

February 23rd, 2009 4:33pm

I think that the public at large would benefit from sound scientific education and that Melanie Philips should do a basic deree in Immunology. She clearly does not understand a thing

Kit

January 30th, 2010 2:24pm

Bravo to Dr Wakefield for his brave and thankless fight.

Having seen the despicable way the GMC treated Dr Barry Durrant-Peatfield - another doctor who cared more about his patients than appeasing establishment groupthink - little surprises me.

gregory cox

February 2nd, 2010 10:21pm

I know little about the subject. Having read the exchanges, I consider that several valid points raised by the anti-MMR correspondents have not been satisfactorily answered. Why is there the bias against the single jab option? Doctors I have met privately consider it safer.

kevin morris

February 7th, 2010 12:16pm

I don't know this Brian Deer, but note that many of the media people who pursue people who have the courage to conduct research that runs counter to current medical orthodoxy tend to be members of campaigning organisations that end up being funded by the drug commpanies.

The pursuit of Dr Wakefield has been breathtaking in its arrogance.

In the meantime rates of autism, an illness almost unknown before the introduction of the pertussis vaccine in the 1940s, rockets.

Anna of Arnica

February 8th, 2010 4:13pm

Vaccines are NOT randomised double blind placebo controlled safety tested where the placebo is benign.

Studies comparing the health of the vaccinated and unvaccinated have not been done.

2 million children remain un-vaccinated with the MMR in the UK yet the death rate is nearly zero.

I will not inject poisons into my child, and should not be expected to do so in order to save another's life.

MRSA kills thousands each year and over use of antibiotics are partly to blame. Society does not hound you if you use antibiotics, why does it hound you if you do not use the vaccine range of products. But we do not use antibiotics in our family - do you?

Philippa Muggridge

May 26th, 2010 3:13pm

I have been following the Wakefield case, although not in detail till up to now, and firmly believe that he has been traduced on the basis of all the vested interests and agendas involved - not least that of the Sunday Times, who with its proud tradition of expose stories, ought to know better!

I hope Wakefield is able to appeal against the latest GMC findings although understand that any such appeal could be hampered by a shortage of funds. I am very glad that you, with your attention to detail, are on the case. I had been listening to the Media Show on Radio 4 at 1.30 pm today which was looking at the media's coverage of this story. Sadly however their report failed to get to the truth of the story and said at one point that Brian Deer had effectively nailed the case against Wakefield by reporting that he stood to make financial gain as a result of his interest in patenting single vaccines - or words to that effect. There were at least 2 journalists commenting on this story plus the presenter, none of whom had clearly delved beneath the superficialities of this case. I then looked up your name in relation to this story as I was interested to see what you made of the latest development. I had previously read a D.Mail article by you I think in June 2004 ish supportive of Wakefield which I had completely agreed with at that time.

Mrs Theophilis

October 20th, 2010 9:05pm

Living with autism on a daily basis(my son is autistic) if there is any shadow on what causes this we should be spending millions if not more to finding out what causes this.If science is the answer where is the research.Even if one child was harmed by vaccinations why is this not important for the scientists to investigate.This is an epidemic now here in Scotland and you are still talking about herd immunity!If vaccines are causing damage we should be identifying and protecting these vulnerable children.Please do not allow this damage to continue on our little children anymore.

Sylvia Denton

January 6th, 2011 12:23pm

Is anyone supporting Dr Wakefield as he battles against powers that seek to destroy him and his witness? How can I find him to support him?

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Melanie Phillips is a Daily Mail columnist. She also writes for the Jewish Chronicle and is a panellist on BBC Radio Four's Moral Maze. Her most recent book is 'The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth and Power', published by Encounter.

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