Autism Guru Fights for His Reputation and Theory

[n2doc]

By SUSAN DOMINUS
Published: April 20, 2011

As people streamed into Graceview Baptist Church in Tomball, Tex., early one Saturday morning in January, two armed guards stood prominently just inside the doorway of the sanctuary. Their eyes scanned the room and returned with some frequency to a man sitting near the aisle, whom they had been hired to protect.

The man, Andrew Wakefield, dressed in a blazer and jeans and peering through reading glasses, had a mild professorial air. He tapped at a laptop as the room filled with people who came to hear him speak; he looked both industrious and remote. Broad-shouldered and fair at 54, he still has the presence of the person he once was: a conventional winner, the captain of his medical school’s rugby team, the head boy at the private school he attended in England. Wakefield was a high-profile but controversial figure in gastroenterology research at the Royal Free Hospital in London when, in 1998, he upended his career path — and more significant, the best-laid plans of public-health officials — by announcing at a press conference that he had concerns about the safety of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine (M.M.R.) and its relationship to the onset of autism.

Although Wakefield did not claim to have proved that the M.M.R. vaccine (typically given to children at 12 to 15 months) caused autism, his concerns, not his caveats, ricocheted around the world. His belief, based on a paper he wrote about 12 children, is that the three vaccines, given together, can alter a child’s immune system, allowing the measles virus in the vaccine to infiltrate the intestines; certain proteins, escaping from the intestines, could then reach and harm neurons in the brain. Few theories have drawn so much attention and, in turn, so much refutation: a 2003 paper in The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, which reviewed a dozen epidemiological studies, concluded that there was no evidence of an association between autism and M.M.R., and studies in peer-reviewed journals since have come to the same conclusion. In Britain, the General Medical Council revoked Wakefield’s medical license after a lengthy hearing, citing numerous ethical violations that tainted his work, like failing to disclose financing from lawyers who were mounting a case against vaccine manufacturers. The Lancet, which published the original Wakefield paper, retracted it. In a series that ran early this year, The British Medical Journal concluded that the research was not just unethically financed but also “fraudulent” (that timelines were misrepresented, for example, to suggest direct culpability of the vaccine).

Andrew Wakefield has become one of the most reviled doctors of his generation, blamed directly and indirectly, depending on the accuser, for irresponsibly starting a panic with tragic repercussions: vaccination rates so low that childhood diseases once all but eradicated here — whooping cough and measles, among them — have re-emerged, endangering young lives.

more
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/magazine/mag-24Autism-t.html

[Deep13]

1. So he lied about vaccine safety to gain publicity...

and the UK medical authorities found out and suspended his license. Meanwhile, well-meaning idiots continue to support him and continue to put children in danger of disease.

[Confusious]

10. Worse then that

To sell a vaccine he was part owner of. He was going to make money somehow.

[cleanhippie]

2. Wakefield is a liar and put people at great risk. He is a pariah and he earned it.

Fuck him and those that defend him. He should be run out of town on a rail.

[Ian David]

3. Wakefield belongs in jail. n/t

[MineralMan]

4. He's not a guru. He's a fraud.

Let's get the terminology straight.

[MineralMan]

5. That phony "Guru" showed up in Minneapolis twice

and warned Somali immigrants not to get the vaccine at a public meeting. They didn't, and now we have a minor measles outbreak in the city, started when a Somali child visited Somalia and brought the disease back. It's endemic in that country. Multiple hospitalizations have been required in Minneapolis. Way to go, Wakefield, you fraud!

[damntexdem]

6. Autism-scam nutcase fights to continue his scam ...

despite the thorough debunking of his claims and uncovering of his greedy attempts to profit from making said claims.

[laconicsax]

7. Does "Guru" mean "fraud" now?

:shrug:

[LeftishBrit]

8. Ugh. Anyway you can keep him; we don't need him back in the UK.

[SheilaT]

9. I have a son who has Asperger's.

I can tell you that he was absolutely different from day one. The fact that I didn't figure out he had Asperger's until he was 18 years old and half way through high school doesn't mean he didn't have it every single day before then.

He was born in 1982, and the Asperger's diagnosis didn't hit the DSM until a decade later, so I have an excuse for the first ten years or so. But I always knew he was different from other kids, just didn't know there was a name for it for a very long time.

[Odin2005]

11. Rot in HELL, you fradulent POS.

[xchrom]

12. vile creature. nt