Dr. Wakefield Research Justified

[Why Syzygy]

Drug Giant Merck – “Destroy” Critical Doctors “Where They Live”
Posted on October 12, 2009 by childhealthsafety

Court evidence now available on-line at the University of California library shows drug giant Merck systematically targetted “hit-lists” of doctors to discredit, neutralise or destroy critics of the safety and effectiveness of Merck’s drugs.

You can read the documents yourself at the links below .

One memo stated:

we may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live….”

Dr Andrew Wakefield said when interviewed by CBS:-

This is not conspiracy. This is corporate policy.“ – .

Wakefield is the British medical doctor who put child health safety over autism and the MMR vaccine before his career and has been hounded by big money ever since: Sunday Times’ Claims “Discredited” – Wakefield’s Autism Research Verified. (...)

http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/merckdestroydoccritics/

(...)The claim that The Royal Free Hospital London’s and Andrew Wakefield’s research into children with autistic spectrum disorders was ever “discredited” are shown here to be false. We provide the references.

The false “discredited research” claims were first made in the now discredited journalism of freelancer Brian Deer in The Sunday Times London: < Sunday Times Ordered ‘Remove Wakefield MMR “Data Fixing” Story’ and see related stories below>

The result of The Sunday Times’ “journalism” – republished wrongfully around the world ever since – has been that hundreds of thousands of children suffering these medical conditions are being denied the medical help they need but which is available.

The overall boss for The Sunday Times, James Murdoch, CEO of News International, is also on the Board of MMR vaccine supplier and litigation defendant GlaxoSmithKline. Murdoch’s Glaxo job is expressly to oversee:-

“external issues that might have the potential for serious impact upon the group’s business and reputation“:
Some have now dubbed the paper "The Sunday Glaxo".

The principal findings of the eminent team of 13 authors from The Royal Free Hospital, London a teaching hospital with an international reputation were published in a 1998 Lancet journal paper. These were of "intestinal inflammation" in children with an autistic spectrum disorder and “intestinal symptoms”. The findings have also been replicated by other researchers and have never been retracted or discredited. Not one of the 13 authors has ever retracted those findings.

Dr Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet and one of the architects of the ongoing GMC trial of Dr Andrew Wakefield has confirmed that:-

The essential clinical findings remain unchallenged as far as their accuracy is concerned”
“Half-Truths and Baloney“. British Medical Journal 28 June 2009, Bill Welsh, President Autism Treatment Trust (...)

http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2009/07/05/wakefieldreplicated/

[Warpy]

1. Perhaps he shouldn't have falsified his data

and subjected children to testing their condition didn't require, injuring several of them.

Wakefield is scum. Find someone else to defend.

[Why Syzygy]

2. That's the point... maybe try reading before spouting

The GMC trial has found he DID NOT falsify evidence. None of his research has been proved false.

***
The peer reviewers and other witnesses at the GMC trial have been most praiseworthy of the science, science that could benefit hundreds of thousands of autistic children worldwide. Lest we forget, Dr Andrew Wakefield and his team identified a new form of bowel disease affecting autistic children, an incredible discovery and one that has been lost in the ensuing brouhaha.“Half-Truths and Baloney“. British Medical Journal 28 June 2009, Bill Welsh, President Autism Treatment Trust
***

[Warpy]

16. I did, actually, I reacquainted myself with the whole thing

before I posted.

Again, Wakefield is scum. His antivax crusade has been especially successful in the UK, where morbidity and mortality from easily prevented illnesses are on the rise.

You need to pick your heroes a little more carefully.

[truedelphi]

3. The big problem is, as you'll see as more people come in to

Denounce this OP, is that once a person who believes in vaccines reads in M$M how vaccines are good, as such and such a study says they are, or believes that Wakefield is bad, as so many scientists at such and such a conference agree that he is, etc, that person can rarely be dissuaded from thinking otherwise.

I just received a large manila envelope, that looked to me like a friend had sent some requested research.

Lo and behold, it was a bunch of papers regarding the flu shot. Which clinics and drug marts were offering the flu shot. How I could get one hundred bucks in coupons by going and getting a flu shot. And on and on.

There was also an insert that stated that the flu shot is proven to be seventy percent effective.

However there was not a single statement as to how that information had been brought about... What Study? Conducted by who and according to what methods?

The more I thought about it, the more humorous it became. How could you know that this particular shot is 70 percent effective? We have not yet been through the flu shot - this sort of statement, to truly be vaild, wouild have to come about AFTER THE DAMN FLU SEASON.

And even then, if someone had the flu shot and didn't have bad side effects or go on to get the flu - if they were my age it could be that the reason they didn't get the flu was because they had already had that variety years ago!! (A large proportion of people born before 1957 are assumed to have already had the types of flu expected this year.) So how could any scientist other thatn a corporate-bought-out scientist, make such a statement? It is totally illogical, and non scientific!

[Why Syzygy]

6. It isn't effective ..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxTHz4WK8gc&feature=PlayList&p=D763EC330F4A67FC&index=0&playnext=1

Gary Null Speaks Out Against Vaccine Industry - NYS State Assembly

[truedelphi]

22. I was trying to figure out where I heard the name Gary Null

Then it dawned on me.

He was one of the experts that the "Vanity Fair" author interviewed back in 1999 concerning the Gulf War illnesses and the squalene in vaccines.

Thank you for this link. A treasure trove of quotes, proofs, etc.

Very grateful to you for this. I love his remark that he finds it abhorrent that usually every single person on the Vaccine Recommendation Panel (Forget the real name for it) is industry-connected. Although at one point they did have the woman who runs one of the Virginia vaccine information center come aboard, as she is truly an expert on vaccine information.

He is saying - in a nation that has tens of thousands of scientists - they can't find several people to serve on a seventeen member panel who have no industry connections? What's up with that?

[Euromutt]

59. Gary Null and Barbara Loe Fisher "experts"?

Please. The only thing in which Gary Null is an "expert" is in latching onto every cockamamie contrarian hypothesis (and I use the term loosely) about health issues that has zero evidence supporting it. "Gulf War Syndrome" was as much a manufactroversy as the vaccine-autism "link," only on a smaller scale. The telling detail about "Gulf War Syndrome" was that there was no syndrome; a syndrome requires the sufferers to display a common set of symptoms, but the supposed sufferers of GWS (and its equally specious descendant, "Balkan syndrome") manifested a wide range of symptoms, none of them common to all supposed sufferers, and all of which could be readily explained by PTSD or by other disorders (both physical and mental) which affected both Gulf War and Balkan vets to the same extent as the general population. (For example, much was made of the fact that two Spanish soldiers deployed to Bosnia with the Spanish contingent in IFOR/SFOR developed leukemia, but when the numbers were crunched, it turned out the rate of leukemia among the Spanish troop contingent was the same as for the general Spanish population in that age group.)

Barbara Loe Fisher, of the self-styled "National Vaccine Information Center" in Vienna, VA, is an expert demagogue, whose qualifications consist of a BA in English and a 29 year-long devotion to the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc, blaming a DPT shot for her oldest son's neurological problems.

And what the hell does "industry-connected" even mean? Gosh yes, scientists who develop vaccines (or any pharmaceutical) do have connections to the pharmaceutical industry, if only for the reason that it's the pharmaceutical industry that manufactures, markets and distributes the vaccines (and other pharmaceuticals) once they've been developed and approved by the FDA. That's about as stunning a revelation as the one that members of the Writers' Guild of America, Directors' Guild of America and the Screen Actors' Guild have "connections" to the movie industry. But who else understands better how to make a movie than people who make movies for a living, and are (or have been at some point in their careers) therefore by definition associated with the motion picture industry?

Sure, there are tens of thousands of scientists in the country, but what's the point of putting an astronomer or a geologist or a marine biologist or a historian or a sociologist on the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee? The best people to put on such a panel are people who work on vaccines themselves, and those people are almost by definition going to have some link, past or present, to the pharmaceutical industry. Note that Fisher only got on there as the "consumer representative," to which I can only say that she doesn't represent me, or rather a large number of other parents of small children of my acquaintance.

[Why Syzygy]

62. New York state considered him an expert witness. Good enough for me. nt

[Euromutt]

63. The State of New York has done other stupid things

It's spent a million dollars a year for the past seven years on a ballistics imaging database that hasn't produced a single conviction, for a start. And the fact that someone is called as an "expert witness" doesn't actually make them a trustworthy authority. Did you follow Kitzmiller v. Dover? Michael Behe got called as an "expert witness" for the defense, and he got pwned to the point that it almost wasn't funny any more (almost), including by the judge!

[mzteris]

4. Wakefield is a complete QUACK. n/t

[mzteris]

5. The trial is ongoing - you're posting "CLAIMS"

made by the Defense. This is NOT "Proof" in any way, shape, or form.

[Why Syzygy]

7. Wrong.

Sunday Times’ Discredited – Wakefield’s Autism Research Verified
Posted on July 5, 2009

[mzteris]

8. From your article -

". . . ongoing GMC trial of Dr Andrew Wakefield. . . "

according to what you posted, the trial is not over. This is merely testimony given by one of his supporters.

[truedelphi]

11. Scientific reality is scientific reality and whether

the scientific reality is upheld by a court (or not) is irrelevant.

Those of us who know our history know that often scientific realities are disproven by the court -- that whoever holds the power can control the judicial outcome.

When the Catholic Church tried Gallileo (in abscentia if I Remember Correctly,) the Church had the proofs that the earth was the planetary body about which the sun orbitted. And thus, they won the court case. Gallileo ended up being convicted of heresy, with the court papers showing how the Church PROVED him wrong.

Did that affect at all the TRUTH? Did the sun suddenly start orbitting the earth at that point?

No it did not. (Sidenote: in the mid-nineties, when the Catholic Church finally absolved Gallileo of his being excommunicated for having gone about with his "propaganda" that the earth and other planets orbitted around the sun, the Church said that they had to re-instate him to the Holy Mother Church and void out the excommunication - however, the Church would not totally forgive him as even though his science was correct, he was guilty of the sin of PRIDE!)

Now one of the things I have noticed when gathering with other activists about the GMO issue is that sometimes someone will state that if the Industry Controlled Pinch Hitters like Velsick get it wrong now, they simply can, at some point in the future, go and legislate the matter correctly.

What the person making that statement doesn't realize is that in the interim, the scientific reality of GMO's ultimate destructiveness could by then be at such a tipping point that legislation will not matter one whit. After all, no one can legislate how pollen is distributed by the wind, and once the GMO pollen is out there, there will no putting that genie back in the bottle.

[mzteris]

19. scientific reality is one thing -

slipshod and/or cooked-up research and crooked doctors on the take are another.

[truedelphi]

21. Pls go to response six above, watch entire video, then get back to me

I agree that we need to figure out who is telling us what.

But after twenty years researching the Powers behind the Thrones of Industrial/Corporate science, I have to say that at this point I stand with:

1) Pusztai (GMO issue)
2) Wakefield (Vaccine issue)
3) George Carlo (EMF issue)
4) Warren Porter (Pesticides and Big Pharma products)
and all others who have risked their reputations, livelihoods, and their ability to have a research laboratory, in order to tell us the consumers, what the truth is behind the Industrial complexes glut of shoddy products.

[mzteris]

23. Gary Null . . .

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

He's nearly as credible as those anti-vax'ers who work out of their basement - what's their names? Oh yeah - GEIER.

Nulls "credentials":

". . . Null says he holds an associate degree in business administration from Mountain State College in West Virginia, a bachelor's degree from Thomas A. Edison State College in New Jersey, and a PhD in human nutrition and public health sciences from The Union Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio. Two papers he co-authored during the early 1980s identified him as Gary Null, M.S," but I have seen no information about the source of that credential.

Edison State is a "nontraditional" school with neither campus nor courses. It is accredited but awards accredited bachelor's degrees based on career experience, equivalency exams, and courses taken at other schools. In the late 1980s, a prominent college guidebook described it this way:

Thomas A. Edison State College, established in 1972, administers an external degree program that enables qualified students to earn or work toward a college degree without attending college in the usual way. There is no resident faculty, no campus, no classrooms, and no library. Administrative officers in Trenton evaluate college-level learning achieved through work or life experiences, self-study, college courses taken previously, industry-sponsored education programs, military instruction, etc. The college administers its own examinations in the liberal arts and sciences, business, and radiologic technology under the Thomas Edison College Examination Program <6>.

The Union Institute is also accredited, but its degree requirements and standards for health-related doctoral degrees differ greatly from those of most traditional universities. Students design their own program, form and chair their own doctoral committee, and are required to attend only an introductory colloquium and a few interdisciplinary seminars. Null's thesis, entitled "A Study of Psychological and Physiological Effects of Caffeine on Human Health," was approved in in August 1989. The approval document states that his PhD committee was composed of a "core faculty member," three "adjunct professors," two "peers," and a "second core reader." The "core faculty member," Peter Fenner, was a well-credentialed academician whose expertise (in geologic sciences) was not related to Null's topic. One of the three "adjunct professors" was Martin Feldman, MD, a "complementary" physician (and "clinical ecologist") who has pinch-hit for Null as a radio host, and helped develop some of Null's books and supplement formulations. The other two were Philip J. Hodes and Elayne Kahn. When I asked a school official about their background or location, he replied that information was in storage and was too difficult to obtain. In 2005, I located mention of "Dr. Philip Jay Hodes, Ph.D, Ed.D., Practitioner Holistic, Health Detoxification & Orthomolecular Nutritionist, Consultant" on a Web site that sells "natural tropical herbal medicines." <7> I also discovered that Elayne Kahn is a psychologist in New York City who coauthored a book with Null that was published in 1976 <8>. " Quackwatch

More on Union Institute:

Union Institute is in Ohio and its accreditation is handled by the Higher Learning Commission, an arm of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, which is the body that accredits all schools in the region. You can go to the web site of the Higher Learning Commission and look up the page that describes the accreditation of Union Institute, where you will find that3

The Institute may add no new centers or degree programs beyond the Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies, the Psy.D. (Doctor of Psychology), and the Ed.D. (Doctor of Education) without the Commission’s approval. The Ph.D. program in Interdisciplinary Studies is limited to the social sciences and humanities research areas.

So it would seem that their granting of a Ph.D. in the health sciences, or any kind of science other than social science, is outside the realm of their accreditation, and was in 1989, when Null got his degree. This is as if a high school in Ohio, which is accredited by the same umbrella organization, decided to give someone a Ph.D. in physics in return for a fee. Yes, they are an accredited school, but their accreditation does not include the granting of Ph.D.s in physics, so the degree is bogus.

"board certified" : Board certification is a credential earned by doctors that means they are qualified in a particular medical specialty. Gary Null is not a doctor and, needless to say, is not “board certified” in anything. I don't know whether he’s confused or is trying to create the impression, in his listeners’ minds, that he is a medical doctor, but either way, it should stop, especially since he shows no restraint in offering medical and even veterinary advice over the air for the treatment of specific diseases and conditions.

Licensed nutritionists are permitted to do things such as interview an overweight person about his diet and recommend changes in his eating habits. They need not have any formal education beyond a two-year degree. This is a low-level vocational license granted by the Department of Education; dieticians are not health professionals in the sense that doctors, RNs, or physician assistants are. Having a dietician’s license does not confer any special credibility in discussions of current biomedical research. If a dietician tried to treat a cancer patient with a coffee enema, as Gary Null recommends,10 he would likely be prosecuted for, at the least, practicing medicine without a license.


More info on Mr. Null:

"Null -- a nutritionist, lecturer, broadcaster, "educator" and "one of America's leading health and fitness writers and alternative practitioners," according to his publicity -- is the author of more than 100 books, treatises and tracts on stress-free living, anti-aging, proper eating, "springtime cleansing," "lifetime dieting," "healing with magnets," "juicing," weight management and "life changes." . . . In addition to his role as a fitness guru, Null is the kind of pop-psych P.T. Barnum, never absent in a crisis, who will "help you find answers" to those really tough questions . . .

. . . He's also a longtime AIDS denialist, or "dissident," as they're called, part of a loose fraternity of scientists, patients and (mainly) quacks who insist that AIDS is a false epidemic; that HIV either doesn't cause it or doesn't really exist; that the medications normally taken to fight the virus are pure poison, foisted on a frightened population by the pharmaceutical industry - . . . In last year's primer, "Seven Steps to Perfect Health," Null recommended what he does to everyone, all the time, whether or not they're infected with a killer virus: a strict vegetarian diet; no processed foods; no dairy products, sugar, preservatives, coffee, tea or cola, etc.; multiple glasses every day of fresh fruit or vegetable juice -- preferably squeezed from a $249.95 "Gary Null Juicer";. . ."

[SemiCharmedQuark]

32. Gary Null is an AIDS denialist. Do you really want to use him as a source?

That's the second time Gary Null came up today.

[mzteris]

34. and he's still

a QUACK - every single time he's mentioned.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

37. Yeah....I wouldn't be so quick to hitch my wagon to that horse.

[Why Syzygy]

43. Someone who doesn't go lockstep

with the Pharmaceutical Industrial Complex is exactly who I want to watch.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

45. Ok. What about this guy? He cures AIDS with green paste and bananas.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-437628/Gambian-presidents-cure-AIDS--green-paste-bananas.html

The establishment calls him a crank. Therefore, he must be speaking truth to power.

[Why Syzygy]

12. That's why I posted the DATE - July 2009!

:dunce:

[mzteris]

14. A verdict by the GMC has not been released as yet . . .

For those interested in more real info about the investigation:

". . .Deer's revelations that Andrew Wakefield had almost certainly falsified data used in his original 1998 Lancet paper. Specifically, and in brief, this is what Wakefield was found to have done:

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

. . . Stephen Bustin, arguably the preeminent expert in the use of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to detect DNA sequences, testified for the government about the methods used in the laboratory that did the PCR analysis for Andrew Wakefield. Suffice it to say that this had to be about the sloppiest laboratory I've ever seen. Also suffice it to say that the negative controls were amplifying measles sequence, meaning that it was impossible to tell a signal was a true signal or a false positive. In fact, Bustin's investigation concluded that what Wakefield was reporting was almost certainly all contamination from plasmids made in an adjacent laboratory. Ironically, this was the same laboratory that participated in the 2008 attempt to replicate Wakefield's results. Clearly, it had cleaned up its act by then.

. . . Wakefield's conflict of interest was even worse than that. In fact, it turned out that Wakefield had been paid by lawyers seeking to sue vaccine manufacturers for "injury" due to the MMR. In fact, his services had been bought and paid for to the tune of paid £435,643 in fees, plus £3,910 expenses. Neither this conflict of interest nor the conflict of interest inherent in having an alternative vaccine for measles, a single vaccine, with its patent pending were reported in the Lancet paper.

[mzteris]

15. General Medical Council charges:

". . . Watchdog body the General Medical Council (GMC) has confirmed that Dr Andrew Wakefield will be summoned for a disciplinary hearing on July 16. Two former colleagues, Professor John Walker-Smith and Professor Simon Murch, will face a number of charges at the same time.

. . . allegations include that they undertook research between 1996-8 without proper ethical approval. They are also accused of allowing investigations such as colonoscopies and lumbar punctures to be carried out on children, against the patients' interests.

Wakefield and Walker-Smith are said to have acted "dishonestly and irresponsibly" by failing to disclose in the Lancet study the method by which they recruited patients for the research, which it is claimed resulted in misleading information in the paper. They also face charges relating to giving a treatment - which is not identified by the GMC - to a child for experimental reasons, without checking its safety first. Murch faces no such charges.

Wakefield alone faces several other charges. It is alleged he was involved in advising solicitors acting for people alleged to have been harmed by the MMR vaccine and failed to disclose to the hospital ethics committee that he had received funding from the Legal Aid Board for the study. It is alleged that he ordered investigations on some children without having relevant paediatric qualifications.

He is also charged with failing to disclose his involvement in MMR litigation to the editor of The Lancet. And he is accused of acting unethically and abusing his position of trust by taking blood from children at a birthday party to use for research purposes.

[xchrom]

17. +1

[Why Syzygy]

42. You need a source link. nt

[trotsky]

9. Childhealth safety is a BLOG.

It's not a journal. It's not even a media outlet. You yourself have bashed bloggers when they disagree with you, and then you come back with this nearly 4-month-old non-news BLOG link. Which itself is full of claims from a court case, NOT anything established in fact.

I love the smell of desperation from anti-vaxers.

[mzmolly]

10. K and R ~ "we may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live….”

Chilling.

[philly_bob]

13. UNREC because source is blog and i'm worried about opposition to vaccines

However, I know nothing about Wakefield research.

[truedelphi]

24. Wakefield had done research that showed

That after a MMR shot, children who ended up being diagnosed with autism had measles virus material floating around (or maybe adhering to) the lining of their gut.

C Span showed something like six hours of testimony that Wakefield and his colleagues presented to the Senate Committee on Government Reform. Dan Burton, Republican Senator from Indiana, had put together the hearing because he and Chenowith (Lady Senator from a Western State) had children or grandchildren who had developed normally until they experienced their MMR shot. Then they became ill, alternating between extreme constipation and extreme diarrhea, and eventually became autistic.

One of the problems with Wakefield's survey was that it was small numbers. Less than 100 kids. (Again it has been a while, and so I cannot remember exact number.) However, industry always gets absolutely frothing at the mouth any time any indie researcher dare question its infallible stance on its products.

When in the humble opinion of many of us activists, what industry should be doing is to expand a study. But they don't do that - they just start blacklisting whoever says anything against the industry products. (Of course, when industry does do a large study, they continually skew their results. Important info on this in the Gary Null video, links provided here at response six.)

Anyway I was very impressed with Wakefield. And he WAS NOT saying that no one should ever vaccinate their children. All he was trying to say was that

1) a good idea to vaccinate a child for each disease separately, with a two week wait time in between the shots. So he was NOT saying, do not vaccinate against measles mumps etc - he was saying, take it slow.

Even that little tiny bit of opposition to what the industry is doing made them nuts. After all, somewhere out there are parents whose lives are so stressed that they may miss a vaccination. Causing said industry a slight downturn in sales of product.

Vaccine manufacturing is a big business. THey will not stand for anything, even rational thinking, to come between them and their profit margin. The flu vaccine alone netted Big Pharma two billion dollars from USA Federal government - just between Jan and May 2009. And their is no conclusive proof that the vaccine for the flu is effective. (Again see reply six and follow link to YouTube video.)

[mzteris]

27. oooo - 12 kids to draw data from . . .

In 1998, a London doctor, Andrew Wakefield, published a paper claiming to show a link between MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccination and autism.

By so doing, he joined Betelheim in the ranks of those making false claims about autism, based on shoddy research. His wrong theories have already, like Betelheim's, caused a lot of mental suffering to the parents of autistic children. Even worse, children have died and suffered severe permanent damage as a direct result of the drop in vaccination rates following the MMR scare.

On a scientific level, there is absolutely no controversy. There have been lots of very large, very reliable trials that have proved quite conclusively that MMR does NOT cause autism. All the scientists, doctors and experts on the subject around the world agree about this.

Other researchers have repeated Wakefield's original experiments, but more carefully, and found that he apparently misinterpreted his results. (to put it delicately!)

The Lancet journal, which printed the original paper in 1998, has retracted it, as have most of the original authors. The GMC (General Medical Council) of the UK is currently in the middle of proceedings to strike Andrew Wakefield off the medical register.


*****

Horton’s argument appears to be that, even though Wakefield’s methods were flawed, his conclusions were valid. In fact, as Professor Trisha Greenhalgh, one of Britain’s leading authorities on evidence-based medicine, points out, ‘the Wakefield study was scientifically flawed on numerous counts’ (2). She is ‘surprised that neither the editor nor the reviewers spotted these flaws when the paper was submitted’."

********

[truedelphi]

28. There were other researchers with Wakefield who had

Independently verified his data, when the Hearing on Vaccines took place for the Committee on Governmemnt Reform.

All you are doing is repeating industry lies.

Twelve kids is too small a field of study. (Though the C Span presentation didn't have Wakefield invoking a study that small - it was at least over twenty kids.) Industry has the big bucks to expand such a study - but refuses to do so.

Inother words, if someone has the ssense to look at a particular product in a particular way, and industry says "Heavens! Your study was so small," then why don't they expand the study? They have the dolalrs.

Lancet has to worry about being sued for slander -- British laws are extremely punitive about slander and libel.

And like Puzstai himself said after he was blacklisted - the young researchers eventaully back down in their support of any pariah, because they have mortgages they have to fulfill, kids they have to feed, etc.

Pusztai doesn't back down because he was already at retirement age.

[mzteris]

31. you'll only believe what you want to believe -

what you need to learn is critical thinking skills. The ability to discern the flaws, to recognize that there is a problem - maybe you won't necessarily know exactly what the problem IS - but you'll know there is something wrong with it.

There is NO Conspiracy, chica. Really. Do yourself a favor a stop reading Mercola and Wakefield and watching ijuts like Null. They are NOT "real doctors" and they have no true expertise. I suppose you think the GEIERs are great, too, huh? :sigh:


You need to broaden your horizons in your reading material. I read through enough today alone that adequately shows that these quacks are completely uncredible. Dig a little deeper. Stop believing there's a boogyman behind every door.

[Why Syzygy]

44. You need to educate yourself

about how many lawsuits have been won against the Pharmaceutical Industrial Complex in recent years. The numbers will astound you. They are presented in the video linked above. They are convicted criminals. That's who YOU defend?

[mzteris]

48. I am educated - not brainwashed.

Sorry - your "heroes" are liars and opportunitists and quacks and charlatans and snake-oil salesmen.

[Why Syzygy]

52. You didn't look into how many

convictions the pharmcos have and amounts of fines they have paid, did you?
There is no moral basis from which to cast stones.

[truedelphi]

70. Maybe you have never read my posts concerning the fact that

I suffered from Guillaun Barre Syndrom after receiving a 1976 flu shot. That is what first made me think about things like this. Luckily I recovered but I realized that something was fishy.

I am far better read than you are on the topic of vaccines. There simply is not the data to support the contention that having a flu shot leads to any sort of immunity at all for the flu. A certain proportion of those vaccinated become ill from the vaccine itself. (My mom in law was one of this year's casualties, more than likely.)

Also, flu virus ends up being of different strains by the middle of any flu season - so how can it protect someone from having the flu during the flu season? If there is much consistency in the flu virus, that is a result of so much of the flu virus out there being the virus promoted by the vaccines themselves!

[mzteris]

33. Pusztai . . .

another one who "cooked the books" and didn't follow protocol:

Pustzai first came to prominence after he published a study in The Lancet claiming that rats who were fed genetically modified potatoes experienced immune system changes. The Lancet published the study over the objections of its own referees assigned to conduct a peer review of Pustzai’s research. A number of those referees, who are usually semi-anonymous, went public with their objections to the Lancet’s publication. Professor John Pickett, for example, who refereed Pustzai’s paper for The Lancet, told the BBC,

Since I understand that a number of us were very, very critical of the work and yet the journal is going to go ahead and publish this information with its conclusions, then we have decided to speak out.

If this work had been part of a student’s study, then the student would have failed whatever examination he was contributing the work for.

An independent group of six toxicologists appointed by the UK’s Royal Society concluded that Pusztai’s research was fundamentally flawed. Its report said,

We found no convincing evidence of adverse affects from GM potatoes.

Where the data seemed to show slight differences between rats fed predominantly on GM and on non-GM potatoes, the difference were uninterpretable because of the technical limitations of the experiment and the incorrect use of statistical tests.



************

. . .By late
yesterday it emerged that the relevant data provided by Dr. Pusztai
referred not to experimental studies on potatoes with transgenic Con A
but to GNA transgenic potatoes. The detailed analyses on the
transgenic GNA studies are due to be completed by Friday of this week
and were not data, as originally suggested, which had been discussed
extensively at scientific meetings involving UK collaborators and the
Scottish Office in April of this year. All the preparations for the
transgenic Con A feeding trials are complete but the only data
available on Can A are, in practice, the long-term studies with Con A
added to the potato based diets.

This morning the director suspended Dr. Pusztai from all
responsibility for Institute. UK and European studies on these issues
and Dr. Pusztai will now retire from the Institute. . .

. . .The original decision by the Institute to allow Dr. Pusztai to respond
to the "World in Action" request for information was based on the
Institute's recognition of its responsibility not to suppress
scientific views of importance in this, or any other, field. It was
recognized and agreed that previously published concepts relating to
the use of lectins as transgenics could be discussed but that it was
improper to present data which had not been publicly scrutinised by a
variety of international experts and published. Senior Managers and
special staff with responsibility for scientific issues of public
interest were assigned to ensure that this agreement was adhered to.
It is therefore regrettable that discussions with the media at other
times led to the presentation of information which misled everybody
concerned.

This morning it would be premature
to conclude whether or not there are data of concern to those
assessing the safety of foods with transgenic lectins. The analysis of
the new findings will not be released by the Institute but will be
scrutinised by collaborating groups of scientists and official expert
committees. The Institute will also arrange to do appropriate
additional studies on these safety issues once the significance of the
current findings is clear.

The Institute regrets the release of misleading information about
issues of such importance to the public and the scientific community.

The Rowett Research Institute is an independent government sponsored
institution for nutrition and has a range of research concerned with
assessing the risk of genetically modified foods. The Institute has
the responsibility to help develop new and better approaches to the
risk of genetically modified foods. The Institute's staff recognise
the great potential value of genetically modified foods and
collaborate with a wide range of scientists, companies and government
around the world in helping to assess the value and safety of such
products.


*******

you really need to find some new - and credible - heroes.

[Euromutt]

60. All of those other researchers subsequently disavowed Wakefield's study

Bet they'd have done it even sooner if they'd known he'd been cooking the books. I think a number of them actually said as much following Deer's expose.

[LeftishBrit]

66. Burton and Chenoweth? Seriously?

I had already heard of them as Republicans who supported the Clinton impeachment over Lewinsky, while carrying on their own affairs. I have just looked them up and found that they were both regarded as right-wing even by the standards of other Republicans In Burton's case still is; Chenoweth died a couple of years ago) and, more relevant to the specific issue, both espoused RW conspiracy theories. Burton accused the Clintons of murdering Vince Foster; Chenoweth claimed that federal agents were landing black helicopters on Idaho ranchers' property to enforce the Endangered Species Act. If they could espouse this sort of paranoia over some issues, who is to say that they were reliable on any other allegations?

[truedelphi]

25. Here is an article that I wrote several years ago

With fuller description of the effects that Wakefield observed on the gut linings.

URL -
http://tinyurl.com/yzk8dhb


The entire article is noteworthy - it is the only health article in my career of writing for the Coastal Post that was peer reviewed (and lauded) by former Marin County Public Health Directer.

[mzteris]

26. flawed study

Dr Wakefield, Professor Walker-Smith and Professor Murch, were at the relevant times employed by the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine with Honorary Clinical contracts at the Royal Free Hospital.

It is alleged that the three practitioners were named as Responsible Consultants on an application made to the Ethical Practices Committee of the Royal Free Hospital NHS Trust (“the ethics committee”) in 1996 to undertake a research study involving children who suffered from gastrointestinal symptoms and a rare behavioural condition called disintegrative disorder. The title of the study was “A new paediatric syndrome: enteritis and disintegrative disorder following measles/rubella vaccination”. The Panel will inquire into allegations that the three practitioners undertook research during the period 1996-98 without proper ethical approval, failed to conduct the research in accordance with the application submitted to the ethics committee, and failed to treat the children admitted into the study in accordance with the terms of the approval given by the ethics committee. For example, it will be alleged that some of the children did not qualify for the study on the basis of their behavioural symptoms.

It is further alleged that the three practitioners permitted a programme of investigations to be carried out on a number of children as part of the research study, some of which were not clinically indicated when the Ethics Committee had been assured that they were all clinically indicated. These investigations included colonoscopies and lumbar punctures. It is alleged that the performance of these investigations was contrary to the clinical interests of the children.

[truedelphi]

29. Industry may be far better at adhering to the overall outline

Required or submitted, regarding any study they undertake, but industry is also extremely guilty of simply skewing the data whenever they want to.

Like mentioned in several of my posts, the overall "facts" that Big Pharma is continually spewing forth about the flu vaccine are flawed statements. There is no proof that the flu vaccine is effective, yet the inserts on mailers currently going out to hundreds of thousands of American households indicate a 70 percenbt effectiveness rate.

Read my previous posts, and watch the Gary Null interview (Link at response six.)

[philly_bob]

46. TD, I appreciate your calm & clarity, although I'm not convinced on AW.

Too much heat in this thread, and I don't know credentials of any speakers.

But I share your concern about pharmaceutical lobby interference with science.

Can I ask you a personal question: are you going to get (1) a flu vaccination shot and (2) an H1N1 vaccination? "None of your business" is an acceptable response.

FYI, the recent "Endorsement Guides" revision by the FTC will require identification in advertising of supposedly "independent" third-party studies which are funded by manufacturers of the product being studied. That might help, at least in consumer advertising.

[mzteris]

18. Full Charges against Wakefield

This case will be considered by a Fitness to Practise Panel applying the General Medical Council’s Preliminary Proceedings Committee and Professional Conduct Committee (Procedure) Rules 1988.

Dr Andrew WAKEFIELD
GMC Reference number: 2733564

Professor WALKER-SMITH
GMC Reference number: 1700583

Professor Simon MURCH
GMC Reference number: 2540201

The GMC's statutory purpose is to protect, promote and maintain the health and safety of the public by ensuring proper standards in the practice of medicine.

We investigate complaints about individual doctors in order to establish whether their fitness to practise is impaired and whether to remove or restrict a doctor’s registration.

The GMC does not regard its remit as extending to arbitrating between competing scientific theories generated in the course of medical research.

The following is a summary only of the allegations which will be made before the Panel at the forthcoming hearing.

The Panel will inquire into allegations of serious professional misconduct by Dr Wakefield, Professor Walker-Smith and Professor Murch, in relation to the conduct of a research study involving young children from 1996-98.

Dr Wakefield, Professor Walker-Smith and Professor Murch, were at the relevant times employed by the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine with Honorary Clinical contracts at the Royal Free Hospital.

It is alleged that the three practitioners were named as Responsible Consultants on an application made to the Ethical Practices Committee of the Royal Free Hospital NHS Trust (“the ethics committee”) in 1996 to undertake a research study involving children who suffered from gastrointestinal symptoms and a rare behavioural condition called disintegrative disorder. The title of the study was “A new paediatric syndrome: enteritis and disintegrative disorder following measles/rubella vaccination”. The Panel will inquire into allegations that the three practitioners undertook research during the period 1996-98 without proper ethical approval, failed to conduct the research in accordance with the application submitted to the ethics committee, and failed to treat the children admitted into the study in accordance with the terms of the approval given by the ethics committee. For example, it will be alleged that some of the children did not qualify for the study on the basis of their behavioural symptoms.

It is further alleged that the three practitioners permitted a programme of investigations to be carried out on a number of children as part of the research study, some of which were not clinically indicated when the Ethics Committee had been assured that they were all clinically indicated. These investigations included colonoscopies and lumbar punctures. It is alleged that the performance of these investigations was contrary to the clinical interests of the children.

The research undertaken by the three practitioners was subsequently written up in a paper published in the Lancet in February 1998 entitled “Ileal-Lymphoid-Nodular Hyperplasia, Non-Specific Colitis and Pervasive Developmental Disorder in Children” (“the Lancet paper”).

It is alleged that the three practitioners inaccurately stated in the Lancet paper that the investigations reported in it were approved by the ethics committee.

The Panel will inquire into allegations that Dr Wakefield and Professor Walker-Smith acted dishonestly and irresponsibly in failing to disclose in the Lancet paper the method by which they recruited patients for inclusion in the research which resulted in a misleading description of the patient population in the Lancet paper. It is further alleged that Dr Wakefield gave a dishonest description of the patient population to the Medical Research Council.

The Panel will inquire into allegations that Dr Wakefield and Professor Walker-Smith administered a purportedly therapeutic substance to a child for experimental reasons prior to obtaining information about the safety of the substance. It is alleged that such actions were irresponsible and contrary to the clinical interests of the child.

The Panel will inquire into allegations that Dr Wakefield was involved in advising solicitors acting for persons alleged to have suffered harm by the administration of the MMR vaccine. It is alleged that Dr Wakefield’s conduct in relation to research funds obtained from the Legal Aid Board (“LAB”) was dishonest and misleading. It will be alleged that Dr Wakefield ought to have disclosed his funding from the LAB to the Ethics Committee but did not.

The Panel will inquire into allegations that Dr Wakefield ordered investigations on some children as part of the research carried out at the Royal Free Hospital from 1996-98 without the requisite paediatric qualifications to do so and in contravention of his Honorary Consultant appointment.

The Panel will inquire into allegations that Dr Wakefield failed to disclose his involvement in the MMR litigation, his receipt of funding from the LAB and his involvement in a Patent relating to a new vaccine to the Editor of the Lancet which was contrary to his duties as a senior author of the Lancet paper.

The Panel will inquire into allegations that Dr Wakefield acted unethically and abused his position of trust as a medical practitioner by taking blood from children at a birthday party to use for research purposes without ethics committee approval, in an inappropriate social setting, and whilst offering financial inducement.

[trotsky]

20. "taking blood from children at a birthday party to use for research purposes"

Fucking A, if a "big pharma" company did something similar, the anti-vaxers would be screaming from the hilltops at how unethical (and rightly so!) that was.

But when it's their hero, well it's just some big global sekrit conspiracy to bring him down.

[truedelphi]

30. Here is Wakefield's entire statement - For those unwilling to use links WS provided.

A STATEMENT BY DR ANDREW WAKEFIELD

Allegation 4 completely misrepresents the facts. These were two quite distinct issues; the first a clinical report of 12 cases and the second, a hypothesis-testing laboratory study to examine for the presence or absence of measles virus in autistic children when compared with appropriate controls.

A minority of the children described in the 1998 Lancet report were part of the second study that was funded in part by the Legal Aid Board (later to become the Legal Services Commission). The relationship of these two distinct studies to the legal status of the relevant children is set out below. Professor Walker-Smith has already described the basis for the referral of these children according to clinical need.

At the time that the children reported in the 1998 Lancet paper were referred to Professor Walker-Smith for investigation of their gastrointestinal symptoms—the time material to their sequential investigation and subsequent inclusion in the report—none of the 12 reported children was in fact legally aided, ie, in receipt of legal aid certificates and therefore legal aid funding.

Whether parents perceived an association with MMR vaccine or not, whether parents had approached lawyers with the intent to seek legal redress, or whether children were in receipt of legal aid funding or not, had no bearing whatsoever on their selection for clinical investigation or inclusion in the Lancet report. Since these allegations were made I have returned to parents (and where appropriate their current lawyers) to determine these facts. At the time the children underwent ileo-colonoscopy (ie, the time at which their pathology, as reported in The Lancet in 1998, was detected and reported by endoscopists and histopathologists), one child had been granted a legal aid certificate. The authors had no knowledge of this fact until now.

In support of this and in view of these allegations, parents of children in the 1998 Lancet report have provided a written signed statement that (i) they contacted me for help given their child’s gastrointestinal symptoms, (ii) their referral to the department of paediatric gastroenterology at the Royal Free was through their child’s doctor, (iii) that at no time did I encourage them to seek legal redress through the courts in the MMR class action, and (iv) that their child formed part of the initial study of 12 children reported in The Lancet in 1998.

Independently, I was commissioned through a solicitor, Richard Barr, to undertake quite separate virological studies on ten children. This is entirely in line with other university-based studies that have been similarly funded by the Legal Services Commission, and reported, for example, in the BMJ.1 The list of children provided to me by Richard Barr was based on his knowledge of an overlap between patients referred to the Royal Free and those whose parents had made contact with Richard Barr. I could not have constructed such a list since I had no knowledge of the litigation cohort or the legal status of children within this cohort. I was specifically concerned with addressing the scientific question in relation to measles virus—a perfectly legitimate question in view of the nature of the intestinal disease and the sequence of events in the children. Measles virus infection of the intestine is a specific interest of mine.

Once again, it is important to emphasise that I had no specific knowledge of the legal status of the ten children on the list other than as described above. Investigations, in light of the current allegations, indicate that four of these children (exact number to be confirmed by Richard Barr) were among those reported in the 1998 Lancet paper. The virological studies on these children have been submitted for publication. If and when these studies are finally published, due acknowledgement will be made of all sources of funding, including that from the Legal Services Commission.

Allegation 5 is an inaccurate misrepresentation of the facts. The results eventually reported in the 1998 Lancet paper were in the public domain long before their publication in February, 1998, having been presented at several national and international scientific meetings. They were readily available for interested parties to scrutinise and interpret as they saw fit. The findings were not actively made available to the media until after publication but, other than this, there was no attempt to conceal these data.

Such was the level of concern from the clinical and scientific team at the findings in this group of children with a similar history and an apparently novel bowel pathology, that I and Professor Walker-Smith reported them to a meeting in October, 1997, convened by the Hon Tessa Jowell MP, then Minister of Health, attended by the Chief Medical Officer Sir Kenneth Calman and other officials from the Department of Health in the presence of Richard Barr of Dawbarns solicitors, and representatives of interested parent groups. Barr, for his part, was in attendance as a lawyer, responsibly concerned by the sheer numbers of parents reporting, to him, developmental regression and gastrointestinal symptoms in their children following MMR vaccination.

It is important to emphasise that the only aspect of the 1998 Lancet paper that could have been used to justify a multi-party action, as in the foregoing accusation, is the parents’ perception of a temporal relationship between MMR vaccine exposure and onset of symptoms. This perception was well known to the lawyers long before we were even aware of the role of the lawyers, or the proposed multi-party action, and certainly long before our publication in The Lancet in 1998. This publication alone added nothing further to the issue of causation than that which was already well known to the lawyers. The accusation is therefore specious. My own report to the Legal Services Commission on this matter was served in 1999.

With respect to allegation 6, as has been indicated above, these were two separate matters. One, a report of clinical investigations, and the other, a study commissioned quite independently through Richard Barr. The latter study was designed in order to explore the issue of possible causation. These studies were concerned with viral detection in the diseased intestinal tissues of ten potentially affected children. This approach is entirely in line with other university-based studies that have been similarly funded by the Legal Services Commission, and reported in the BMJ.1 Funds received from the Legal Aid Board were paid into, and properly administered through, a research account with the special trustees of the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust.

I have stated above that the origin of the list of children was provided to me by Richard Barr. My involvement was limited to the legitimate concern: was measles virus present in the intestinal tissue of these children?

As outlined above, I can confirm that publication of the relevant virological studies is still awaited. An interim submission of a report of this study (rejected) contained an explicit acknowledgment of the Legal Aid funding; this will be made available as necessary.

If and when the relevant virological studies are finally published, due acknowledgement will be made of all sources of funding, including that from the Legal Services Commission.

For none of these or any subsequent children has legal status influenced the need for investigation or the interpretation of the findings. Where it is known that children are in receipt of legal aid certificates or where studies receive funding from the Legal Services Commission, this will be included in any relevant publication.

The clinical and pathological findings in these children stand as reported. They have now been confirmed independently by reputable physicians and pathologists. On the basis of the molecular detection of measles virus in the diseased intestine of these children this issue, too, merits further study.

I regret the difficulties that this issue has caused my colleagues over the last week and I am grateful to them for their advice and support. I am enormously grateful for the timely manner in which Richard Horton has dealt with this issue and for his clarification of the issues surrounding perception and reality where conflict of interest may be concerned.

My colleagues and I have acted at all times in the best medical interests of these children and will continue to do so.

Dr Andrew Wakefield

[mzteris]

35. why believe a proven liar?

"best medical interests"

:rofl: like taking their blood at a BIRTHDAY PARTY???


Tell me, you DO understand that the severe measles outbreak in the UK recently is a direct result of people not getting vaccinated because of this putz.

"There were 1,217 cases from January to November 2008 in England and Wales – the highest number for 13 years, and the only time the number of cases has exceeded 1,000 in that period, according to the Health Protection Agency (HPA).

There were 990 measles cases reported in the whole of 2007.

The number of cases reported rose sharply in the autumn, with 115 cases reported in November alone, said the HPA, which monitors infectious diseases.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/jan/09/measles-record-numbers

***

IT IS only a matter of time before someone dies from measles in Wales, public health experts warned last night.

There are also fears children could be left with permanent brain damage as the number of people affected by the potentially lethal virus in a series of outbreaks across Wales has risen to 207.

The outbreaks and disease are so serious 26 people have been hospitalised and some patients have even been treated in intensive care units.

It is understood at least three of the patients hospitalised were children under the age of two, who have links to a nursery in Burry Port, Carmarthenshire.

Babies as young as five months old have been infected with measles. Experts said school-age children and children under four who are not up to date with their vaccinations are most at risk of becoming infected.

There were signs last night that the virus is continuing to spread rapidly among those who have not received their two doses of the MMR jab.

. . .“There is strong evidence that, worldwide, as many as one in 500 children who catch measles will die, and another one in 500 will suffer permanent brain damage.”
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2009/05/27/health-experts-warn-measles-outbreak-in-wales-could-cause-deaths-91466-23720531/

[mzteris]

36. more debunking . . .

". . . Studies in these areas have taken Dr Wakefield beyond his own sphere of professional competence - gastroenterology - into epidemiology, public health and autism in which he has no particular experience or expertise. These studies have failed to provide support for the MMR-bowel disease-autism link.

Dr Wakefield has conspicuously failed to persuade his medical colleagues of his case against MMR. A number of expert review groups have analysed the published work and some have received oral presentations from Dr Wakefield and his colleagues. The UK Medical Research Council (MRC) has produced three separate reports, in March 1998, April 2000 and December 2001. Other studies have been conducted by the American Medical Association, the Institute of Medicine (USA), the World Health Organisation, the American Academy of Paediatrics, the Canadian Public Health Body and the Irish Department of Child Health.

According to the survey published by the MRC in December 2001, these reviews were 'unanimous in their conclusions that a causal link between the MMR vaccine and "autistic colitis" and autistic spectrum disorders was not proven and that current epidemiological evidence did not support this proposed link' (6).


******

Speaking on 19 June 2002 before a US congressional committee considering 'The status of research into vaccine safety and autism', Dr Andrew Wakefield, the British gastroenterologist who launched the MMR-autism scare in 1998, outlined the progress of his research.

He claimed that, 'most significantly', a currently unpublished study that is due to be presented by virologist John O'Leary at a conference in Dublin in July, had 'confirmed that the measles vaccine virus is present in the diseased intestinal tissues of children with regressive autism'. Furthermore, 'state-of-the-art molecular science' had shown that, in the cases of 12 children with a combination of autism and inflammatory bowel disease, the measles virus in their intestines originated in the MMR vaccine. For Wakefield, these studies constituted 'a key piece of evidence in the examination of the relationship between MMR vaccine and regressive autism'.

On 2 July 2002, however, Professor O'Leary rejected Dr Wakefield's interpretation of his work, insisting that it 'in no way establishes any link between the MMR vaccine and autism' (1). Indeed, he strongly recommended that parents should give their children MMR. O'Leary's judgement echoed that of other experts who had earlier dismissed Wakefield's claims for this research to the congressional committee in Washington. The first piece of evidence promising some support to the hypothesis advanced by Dr Wakefield in 1998 was thus discredited even before publication.

[trotsky]

38. Has Wakefield ever acknowledged his Nimitz-class conflict of interest?

Namely, that he was being paid by lawyers who wanted SOME kind of evidence that vaccines could have harmed someone, so they could be victorious (and rich) in a lawsuit?

[xchrom]

39. +1

[LeftishBrit]

40. No. he has not.

And the research was bad anyway. The keystone of good research in such a field is an adequate control group: in this case, non-autistic children of similar age. There was no control group in this study. All that the research showed was that some autistic children had measles virus in the gut; unless it had also been shown that non-autistic children *don't* have measles virus in the gut (subsequent studies have in fact shown that at least some do), the result means nothing.

[trotsky]

41. There were contamination issues too, weren't there?

So we can't even be sure his results are true.

[truedelphi]

47. Industry had the bucks and therefore the ability to

Expand on his work. But why oh why does industry never bother to expand on the "indies" small "inconclusive" studies?

And as far as lawyers buddying up to Wakefield - that sounds like a totally made up situation.

Just like others I have uncovered over the years.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/6/22/143038/082?new=true

[mzteris]

49. The "studies" were completely BOGUS -

that's why.

NO ONE (of any credibility) was able to reproduce his "findings". You really need to read up on this. Wakefield is a crook, pure and simple.

[mzteris]

50. Wakefield reviewed and found wrong . . . (and a liar)

Dr Wakefield has conspicuously failed to persuade his medical colleagues of his case against MMR. A number of expert review groups have analysed the published work and some have received oral presentations from Dr Wakefield and his colleagues. The UK Medical Research Council (MRC) has produced three separate reports, in March 1998, April 2000 and December 2001. Other studies have been conducted by the American Medical Association, the Institute of Medicine (USA), the World Health Organisation, the American Academy of Paediatrics, the Canadian Public Health Body and the Irish Department of Child Health.

According to the survey published by the MRC in December 2001, these reviews were 'unanimous in their conclusions that a causal link between the MMR vaccine and "autistic colitis" and autistic spectrum disorders was not proven and that current epidemiological evidence did not support this proposed link' (6).


******

Speaking on 19 June 2002 before a US congressional committee considering 'The status of research into vaccine safety and autism', Dr Andrew Wakefield, the British gastroenterologist who launched the MMR-autism scare in 1998, outlined the progress of his research.

He claimed that, 'most significantly', a currently unpublished study that is due to be presented by virologist John O'Leary at a conference in Dublin in July, had 'confirmed that the measles vaccine virus is present in the diseased intestinal tissues of children with regressive autism'. Furthermore, 'state-of-the-art molecular science' had shown that, in the cases of 12 children with a combination of autism and inflammatory bowel disease, the measles virus in their intestines originated in the MMR vaccine. For Wakefield, these studies constituted 'a key piece of evidence in the examination of the relationship between MMR vaccine and regressive autism'.

On 2 July 2002, however, Professor O'Leary rejected Dr Wakefield's interpretation of his work, insisting that it 'in no way establishes any link between the MMR vaccine and autism' (1). Indeed, he strongly recommended that parents should give their children MMR. O'Leary's judgement echoed that of other experts who had earlier dismissed Wakefield's claims for this research to the congressional committee in Washington. The first piece of evidence promising some support to the hypothesis advanced by Dr Wakefield in 1998 was thus discredited even before publication.

[Why Syzygy]

53. Without source links...this stuff is WORTHLESS.

Why do you keep posting unsourced typing? It amounts to a bunch of letters on a page. Nothing more without documentation.

[mzteris]

54. happy reading . . .

http://books.google.com/books?id=enaxHaHVVYMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=MMR+and+Autism+fitzpatrick#v=onepage&q=&f=false

MMR and autism: what parents need to know‎
Michael Fitzpatrick

[mzteris]

51. and last, but not least -

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

. . . Stephen Bustin, arguably the preeminent expert in the use of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to detect DNA sequences, testified for the government about the methods used in the laboratory that did the PCR analysis for Andrew Wakefield. Suffice it to say that this had to be about the sloppiest laboratory I've ever seen. Also suffice it to say that the negative controls were amplifying measles sequence, meaning that it was impossible to tell a signal was a true signal or a false positive. In fact, Bustin's investigation concluded that what Wakefield was reporting was almost certainly all contamination from plasmids made in an adjacent laboratory. Ironically, this was the same laboratory that participated in the 2008 attempt to replicate Wakefield's results. Clearly, it had cleaned up its act by then.

. . . Wakefield's conflict of interest was even worse than that. In fact, it turned out that Wakefield had been paid by lawyers seeking to sue vaccine manufacturers for "injury" due to the MMR. In fact, his services had been bought and paid for to the tune of paid £435,643 in fees, plus £3,910 expenses. Neither this conflict of interest nor the conflict of interest inherent in having an alternative vaccine for measles, a single vaccine, with its patent pending were reported in the Lancet paper. . ."

[truedelphi]

55. Your last paragraph suggests that

The children who were indeed injured by the vaccines have no rights to have a researcher on their side.

Offered to a researcher like Wakefield, a lot of the 435 thousand pounds would only keep a laboratory afloat and not be money in his pocket. Do you have any idea how expensive it is to have a laboratory up and running?

Why are you not bemoaning the fact that despite the billions spent on vaccine material, the vaccine production labs are often filthy and overflowing with contamination? That might be somethiing good to grouse about as well.

And as far as Wakefield wanting to establish single injection protocols, and perhaps profitting from same, good for him.

How is that bad? For example, if industry refuses to put out cars with seat belts and you prove that policy is risky, and you also come out with a car model that has seat belts, how does that invalidate your work?

[Why Syzygy]

56. The good thing about this

is last I checked, Wakefield had started a clinic in .... AUSTIN TEXAS!

[LeftishBrit]

57. Is Crawford anywhere near Austin?

Probably not; but Dubya really deserves to get Wakefield as a doctor!

[Why Syzygy]

61. No. It isn't.

They are poles apart on ideology as well. Austin is progressive. Crawford is establishment.

[truedelphi]

64. HAve you seen the six hours of testimony offered not just by Wakefield

But by the parents of autistic kids at the Senate Reform Hearing?

C Span might even still have it as a purchasable video. For some of these people, Wakefield was the only person they could turn to - the more Establishment doctors just told them to go away. And while these paretns were American, Wakefield was of UK origin. Shows you how controlled our form, of "non-socialized" Ameerican medicine is.

[LeftishBrit]

65. You're certainly very welcome to keep him if you want him.

And I would turn your comment on its head: isn't it interesting that Wakefield was not successful or respected in a government-regulated 'socialized medicine' system, and had to move to a country and state with a profit-driven system in order to thrive?

[LeftishBrit]

58. So it's OK for someone to be a 'pharma shill' if they shill *against* vaccines?

Every single one of your arguments could be used to excuse *anyone* who skews research in favour of financial interests!

Yes, it's expensive to run a lab. But in the UK, the majority of medical research funding comes from state sources (Medical Research Council predominantly) or charitable foundations. Research funding never exactly grows on trees especially in a recession; but there are certainly *other* sources than lawyers with an interest in one outcome, or your own business interests in a particular vaccine. And at the very least, he should have declared his funding sources at the time when he published his results..

[truedelphi]

67. And just what has your "Medical Research Council" done if not persecute those who

Search for truth? Google Puzstai and see how his work with leptin- induced potatoes forced him to be the pariah of the GMO industry when he refused to skew his results.

I am sick and tired of people like you saying I am for this or for that. All I am for is the TRUTH. Having no way of meeting Wakefield and talking to him (Though perhaps that will be a project for the near future,) I have to rely on the "news" which happens to be the most corrupted form of discussion out there.

I am someone who is fully aware that our Brave New World means that the Corporate Scientists will destroy our way of life. Right now, in the USA, the various laws are being used against producers of organic foods - they cannot have even a bird fly over their crops, without someone from industry screaming that that bird might excrete bird poop and contaminate the field. Yet how did millions of people on earth live before these Corporatists came along? So the farmers are forced to make sure that the birds and other wildlife will not be around - how is having a policy in place htat encourages farmers to kll off birds an ecological stance?

As far as the news being corrupted -
www.dailykos.com/story/2008/6/22/143038/082?new=true

[LeftishBrit]

68. I didn't say you were for or against anything, except defending Wakefield from charges

that I suspect you would be more likely to believe if they were levelled against a pro-vaccine doctor. You come across as assuming that Wakefield *must* be telling the truth, and that evidence must be evaluated from that point of view. But I didn't accuse *you* of being an instrument of the profit-motive in healthcare; I accused Wakefield of being one.

And organic farming had nothing to do one way or another with Wakefield or vaccines.

I consider access to government-funded vaccination to be a basic human right. I do not think that it should be mandated; but it should be available.

The MRC does not persecute people who 'search for truth'. That sounds like a religious fundie's argument. (Note: I am not saying that you ARE a religious fundie; I am just drawing an analogy.) And no, the MRC are not funding me.

[truedelphi]

69. Titt for tatt - you say that Wakefield deserves to be the pariah of the scientific community

I would say that those who back any type of flu vaccine are that.

Show me one decent piece of research anywhere that might convince me that "Vaccines against the flu are 70% effective."

Who did that study? Why is it nameless, but important enough to put into a mailer that is trying to convince me to get a fly shot (And offering me a hundred bucks in coupons if I do so.)

Name the research and the researchers conducting it that tell me why the shot is effective.

I don't think you can - the flu is a disease that continually self-develops into new strains of itself. Therefore there is not much in the way of a guarantee that anyone receiving a flu shot will get any flu other than the one that they are injected with (And thus they are sick 48 hours later.)

[LeftishBrit]

71. Here's a link to a study that shows that flu vaccine reduces hospitalizations and deaths in

vulnerable people.

http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/165/3/274

I don't think that anyone thinks that the seasonal flu vaccine is perfect, or that it prevents flu long-term. No vaccine that needs to be repeated every year, and which depends on predictions as to what sort of flu virus will be around in a few months' time, is ideal. But for most people IMO it's better than nothing.

[truedelphi]

72. The study doesn't address what I am asking for

I am not asking about death and hospitalizations.

I am asking for the basics - the very basics. How many people actually avoid the flu due to a shot against it?

[truedelphi]

73. On further reflection, have you considered that the article you posted links to

Actually offers me fuel for my fires?

I am asking for a study that shows some research that "Proves" the fact stated in a pamphlet I received in is true. That if an adult receives a flu shot, that shot will be effective for 70% of those taking it. In other wrods, 70% of those who receive the flu shot will NOT GET THE DAMN DISEASE!

The study you link to talks about people WHO RECEIVED the shot and who then were hospitalized, and some of them DIED!
From getting the flu after being vaccinated. This is eactly why so many of us question the policy of vaccination - it si NOT effective!

[LeftishBrit]

74. No one ever said that vaccination is 100 per cent effective

Of COURSE some people are hospitalized and die even after being vaccinated against the flu. But a higher proportion are hospitalized or die when they are not vaccinated against the flu.

In any case, you are barking up the wrong tree with the wrong person when you assume that being anti-Wakefield and pro-MMR means being an uncritical fan of the seasonal flu vaccine. As I said in another post, the latter is, for most people, better than nothing; but it is by no means a complete protection, largely because it has to be prepared before the flu season starts, and depends on an accurate prediction of what the major flu bugs will be. E.g. the H1N1 bug was not predicted, and so not included in the last flu jab.

It would be great if a flu jab could be developed that could offer protection long term to a wide variety of flu bugs, or that could even be *guaranteed* to offer complete protection against all the major flu bugs of the coming season, but this is not the case now, and I don't think that anyone is suggesting that it is.

The MMR is different. The measles, mumps, and rubella viruses don't change every year, and the vaccine offers a very high rate of lasting protection. Not absolute (for that matter getting the diseases doesn't offer absolute protection for the future; some people have had such diseases twice); but in the vast majority of cases.

[GoneOffShore]

75. I think someone is trying to move the goal posts

on you.