Report linking vaccine to autism 'an elaborate fraud'

[laconicsax]

http://www.usatoday.com/yourlife/health/medical/autism/2011-01-06-autism06_ST_N.htm

An infamous 1998 study that ignited a worldwide scare over vaccines and autism— and led millions of parents to delay or decline potentitally lifesaving shots for their children — was "an elaborate fraud," according to a scathing three-part investigation in the British medical journal BMJ.

The study has long since been debunked and dismissed by the scientific community, which points to 14 independent studies that have failed to find any link between vaccines and autism.

...

Now, the BMJ reports that Wakefield, who was paid more than $675,000 by a lawyer hoping to sue vaccine makers, was not just unethical — he falsified data in the study, which suggested that children developed autism after getting a shot against measles, mumps and rubella.

In fact, the children's medical records show that some clearly had symptoms of developmental problems long before getting their shots, BMJ says. Several had no autism diagnosis at all. Wakefield could not be reached by USA TODAY.

I'd love to post the entire article (all 13 sentences formatted into ten paragraphs), but rules are rules so here are four of the first five.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. 12 years is all it took to figure it out.... dey quick yeah! n/t

[laconicsax]

2. Had you been paying attention...

The Wakefield study had been debunked and discredited for years before this investigation. The BMJ report is really just another repetition of what's been known publicly for years.

[Warpy]

3. 12 years of real research into autism delayed because they were stuck

spending their time and funding disproving that greedy old fuck's horseshit "study."

That's the real tragedy of this thing, that so much valuable time and precious funding were wasted.

That emotion driven people are still refusing to protect their children based on his bogus study just adds to that.

Come the revolution, he should be one of the first up against the wall. In his own way, he's as bad or worse than the Koch brothers.

[HuckleB]

8. +1

[EvolveOrConvolve]

11. Bingo! That's what I've been saying for a long time

The lost years are heartbreaking, and the blame for them can be laid directly at that old fuck's feet. :mad:

[varkam]

4. In other news, the sky is still blue and the Earth is still round.

Well, I guess it will be news to some, but I think for anyone that's been paying attention Wakefield has been already been pegged, and correctly, as a fraud and a charlatan for many years now.

[laconicsax]

5. As far as I'm concerned, it never hurts to post a nice reminder of the fact. n/t

[varkam]

6. Sorry -- I'm not trying to criticize you for posting it.

I realize that could've been how it came across after I posted it -- apologies.

And no, it certainly never hurts.

[laconicsax]

7. No worries, I caught your intent. n/t

[HuckleB]

9. Link to the BMJ editorial:

http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452.full

[uppityperson]

10. Link to the CNN article

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/05/autism.vaccines/index.html?hpt=T1

A now-retracted British study that linked autism to childhood vaccines was an "elaborate fraud" that has done long-lasting damage to public health, a leading medical publication reported Wednesday.

An investigation published by the British medical journal BMJ concludes the study's author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study -- and that there was "no doubt" Wakefield was responsible.

"It's one thing to have a bad study, a study full of error, and for the authors then to admit that they made errors," Fiona Godlee, BMJ's editor-in-chief, told CNN. "But in this case, we have a very different picture of what seems to be a deliberate attempt to create an impression that there was a link by falsifying the data."

Britain stripped Wakefield of his medical license in May. "Meanwhile, the damage to public health continues, fueled by unbalanced media reporting and an ineffective response from government, researchers, journals and the medical profession," BMJ states in an editorial accompanying the work....(more)

[HuckleB]

12. "Elaborate" seems to minimze the fraud, IMO.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=9552

[laconicsax]

13. I don't know..."Elaborate" seems to indicate a greater severity.

A simple fraud could just be fudging some numbers.

An elaborate would involve inventing the numbers wholesale.

[HuckleB]

14. Certainly, it does.

But I still argue that the term minimizes the act.

[laconicsax]

15. Hmm...not sure about this...

A disagreement not degenerating into a shouting match? Is that allowed here in Health?

[HuckleB]

16. Someone's gonna hit the alert button, any time now.

:toast:

[HuckleB]

17. Fact checking Brian Deer on Andrew Wakefield

http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2011/01/7246/

Mr. Deer got the facts straight, while Wakefield did not.

[laconicsax]

18. What else could Wakefield have done? Even the data was biased against him. n/t