Retracted autism study an 'elaborate fraud,' British journal finds

[Rosemary]

BIG Lie Wakefield Lancet Paper Alleged Fraud Not Possible For Anyone To Commit

The BIG Lie Wakefield Lancet Paper Alleged Fraud Was Not Possible For Anyone To Commit

Posted on January 8, 2011 by childhealthsafety

Central to the latest claims of journalist Brian Deer published in the British Medical Journal 6th January is the allegation that Dr Wakefield altered numerous facts about the patients medical histories in order to support his claim to have identified a new syndrome.

What Deer and the BMJ fail to point out is that not only did Wakefield not produce the results, which were the work of a team of 12 other specialists at the Royal Free Hospital, London, England but that:-

It was not possible for Wakefield or anyone else to falsify the prior clinical records of the children because no one at the Royal Free Hospital London had them nor is it normal practice for them to have had them. So there could be no fraud over altering those histories. It just was not possible.

http://childhealthsafety.wordpress....eer-dr-wakefield-the-british-medical-journal/

 

[lancelot]

It is certainly far more complex than this simplistic generalisation you've given, and the evidence has not 'proven Wakefield wrong' because in science, 'proof' hardly ever happens. The original paper was so tentative and careful in its conclusions, yet was retracted later as if it had said ludicrous and/fraudulent things, which it had not. There has also been papers supporting Wakefield's hypothesis. If all things were equal, this science would just proceed with conflicting findings etc.

So wakefield is right and the rest of the world is wrong? Like how the weasel is right and the rest of the world is wrong? Wake up hun!

wakefield = weasel

 

[urbantravels]

Cites, please, for the papers supporting Wakefield's hypothesis, where were they published, and what was their methodology?

 

[floydguy]

So wakefield is right and the rest of the world is wrong? Like how the weasel is right and the rest of the world is wrong? Wake up hun!

wakefield = weasel

You're missing the point: BMJ is painting Mikovits=Wakefield. The Brits et al are doing the best they can to make it seem like it's Mikovits and tiny WPI against the rest of the respectable science world. Check out the Forbes link - pretty good example of what's going on. Forbes states Lombardi et al shouldn't have been published!

Forbes:
"In retrospect, Science shouldn’t have published the flawed study, and you could argue that peer review failed. On the other hand, the final resolution illustrates the self-correcting mechanism of science at its best. All of this is very reminiscent of the scientific response to Andrew Wakefield’s notorious 1998 study claiming that autism was associated with the MMR vaccine: multiple followup studies, most of them conducted far more carefully, failed to reproduce the results."

 

[lancelot]

You're missing the point: BMJ is painting Mikovits=Wakefield. The Brits et al are doing the best they can to make it seem like it's Mikovits and tiny WPI against the rest of the respectable science world. Check out the Forbes link - pretty good example of what's going on. Forbes states Lombardi et al shouldn't have been published!

Forbes:
"In retrospect, Science shouldn’t have published the flawed study, and you could argue that peer review failed. On the other hand, the final resolution illustrates the self-correcting mechanism of science at its best. All of this is very reminiscent of the scientific response to Andrew Wakefield’s notorious 1998 study claiming that autism was associated with the MMR vaccine: multiple followup studies, most of them conducted far more carefully, failed to reproduce the results."

You are confusing yourself. you are coming to conclusions by piecing unrelated issues to fit your own personal views and biases to two unrelated diseases.

Here it the big picture. Respect science by not holding a double standard. The worldwide scientific community(not just the brits or americans) decides through many many studies and consensus whether wakefield, weasel and mikovitz is right or wrong. You cannot just believe the scientific community in one health matter, but discredit them in another. That's called hypocrisy. Science will always tell the truth whether you want to believe it or not.

With respect to MMR and autism, these studies have been done by many countries since wakefield's 1998 study and the final consensus is that he is wrong. there is not one study that supports wakefield from anyone or any country. I dare you to post one study(not hypothesis) that supports wakefield. i can post dozens of large epidemiological studies from many countries that dispute wakefield. Even after japan went to single separate MMR doses administered at different times, the autism rate did not change for an entire country. MMR vaccine does not cause autism. MMR vaccine saves lives not take lives.

As to ME/CFS and XMRV, the studies are ongoing and there is no final consensus on this matter. Maybe the BWG, Lipkin and Singh studies can settle this if they come to a consensus. Be open minded about this. To be locked into one side or one theory dooms you into what has happened in the autism commnunity whereby desparate people cannot let go of a false theory that they held too close to their hearts for too long.

The lesson to take away from the wakefield/mmr/autism controversy is that no ONE person(wakefield, weasel, or mikovitz) settles a controversial health problem, but that it takes a worldwide scientific community and their consensus to resolve these issues through careful science.

 

[Undisclosed]

You're missing the point: BMJ is painting Mikovits=Wakefield. The Brits et al are doing the best they can to make it seem like it's Mikovits and tiny WPI against the rest of the respectable science world. Check out the Forbes link - pretty good example of what's going on. Forbes states Lombardi et al shouldn't have been published!

Forbes:
"In retrospect, Science shouldn’t have published the flawed study, and you could argue that peer review failed. On the other hand, the final resolution illustrates the self-correcting mechanism of science at its best. All of this is very reminiscent of the scientific response to Andrew Wakefield’s notorious 1998 study claiming that autism was associated with the MMR vaccine: multiple followup studies, most of them conducted far more carefully, failed to reproduce the results."

Science speaks for itself. I have seen the results that Wakefield got disputed over and over. As far as Mikovits goes, her research has been supported. The recent kerfuffle with contamination had more to do with being careful with PCR testing -- it had nothing to do with the WPI findings per se -- the press took the slant that it did, just like the press took the slant that Wakefield actually found causation where there wasn't any. The results of WPI will either stand or they won't, it's up to research to show either way. WPI research can't even be compared to Wakefield's so why bring it up?

 

[Angela Kennedy]

So wakefield is right and the rest of the world is wrong? Like how the weasel is right and the rest of the world is wrong? Wake up hun!

wakefield = weasel

'Rest of the world'? What?

Wakefield equals weasel?
These are false generalisations that add nothing to the careful discussion of a complex issue but one which we are trying to unpick to a manageable level here, Hun.

 

[Angela Kennedy]

Cites, please, for the papers supporting Wakefield's hypothesis, where were they published, and what was their methodology?

I really don't know, it's really not my specialist subject. I do know he's mentioned studies in that CNN interview.

But that's not the point. Even if his hypothesis was wrong, in normal 'science' people do get hypotheses wrong! Look at the 'CFS is deconditioning' as just ONE example. If they're wrong (they are- but lets suppose it becomes clear to more scientists- say XMRV pans out at causative- just hypothetical) they are unlikely to incur the level of opprobium and be hauled up before the GMC and accused of fraud, for example. it'll be merely a presumed case of 'science as usual' - no matter how many people have died because of psychogenic dismissal, how many lives ruined.

Many scientists have got many things wrong in the past without this level of attack (and that's just presuming for the sake of argument his hypotheses were wrong).

 

[Wayne]

Anybody ever heard the axioms, "You can prove anything using statistics"; and "You can prove anything using the Bible"? To which I would add, "You can prove anything using science". Look how many "expert" commentators have come out recently saying that XMRV findings by WPI and Judy Mikovits have now been proven to be flawed and that XMRV is not causal for CFS. They then go on to cite the recent "scientific" evidence supporting their absurd assertions. Huh? Science may indeed always tell the truth, but the human beings with various vested interests do not always accurately tell us what that truth is.

 

[Angela Kennedy]

You are confusing yourself. you are coming to conclusions by piecing unrelated issues to fit your own personal views and biases to two unrelated diseases.

Here it the big picture. Respect science by not holding a double standard. The worldwide scientific community(not just the brits or americans) decides through many many studies and consensus whether wakefield, weasel and mikovitz is right or wrong. You cannot just believe the scientific community in one health matter, but discredit them in another. That's called hypocrisy. Science will always tell the truth whether you want to believe it or not.

The lesson to take away from the wakefield/mmr/autism controversy is that no ONE person(wakefield, weasel, or mikovitz) settles a controversial health problem, but that it takes a worldwide scientific community and their consensus to resolve these issues through careful science.

Wow. These are unbelievably naive comments. Science is a self-correcting system that needs no outside intervention and is answerable to no-one outside its field? So why are you even daring to criticise 'weasel' as you call him? By your own logic, he is a scientist who will get there in the end, is unanswerable to you because he's a scientist, and you have no right to contradict him as he carries on with his heroic but careful scientific quest, because you are not a scientist.

No-non-scientist should have complained about the Tuskegee experiments, lobotomies or beliefs about refrigerator mothers either- by your own logic, or Nazi science experiments. It would have all worked out ok in the end, cos "it takes a worldwide scientific community and their consensus to resolve these issues through careful science" and "Science will always tell the truth whether you want to believe it or not".

Go and learn some sociology and philosophy of science hun, quickly, please.

And double-standards? That's a ludicrous generalisation of issues with the level of complexity they actually have.

 

[Angela Kennedy]

Anybody ever heard the axioms, "You can prove anything using statistics"; and "You can prove anything using the Bible"? To which I would add, "You can prove anything using science". Look how many "expert" commentators have come out recently saying that XMRV findings by WPI and Judy Mikovits have now been proven to be flawed and that XMRV is not causal for CFS. They then go on to cite the recent "scientific" evidence supporting their absurd assertions. Huh? Science may indeed always tell the truth, but the human beings with various vested interests do not always accurately tell us what that truth is.

Good points Wayne. The problem is also that people attribute almost a divine righteousness to the word 'science' as if it was something apart from human activity, almost a being in its own right, rather than a linguistic term that means different things to different people. 'Science' can never tell 'the truth' either because 'the truth' is untenable as a scientific concept (Popper shows this), especially where human activity and social systems are concerned.

 

[lancelot]

Wow. These are unbelievably naive comments. Science is a self-correcting system that needs no outside intervention and is answerable to no-one outside its field? So why are you even daring to criticise 'weasel' as you call him? By your own logic, he is a scientist who will get there in the end, is unanswerable to you because he's a scientist, and you have no right to contradict him as he carries on with his heroic but careful scientific quest, because you are not a scientist.

No-non-scientist should have complained about the Tuskegee experiments, lobotomies or beliefs about refrigerator mothers either- by your own logic, or Nazi science experiments. It would have all worked out ok in the end, cos "it takes a worldwide scientific community and their consensus to resolve these issues through careful science" and "Science will always tell the truth whether you want to believe it or not".

Go and learn some sociology and philosophy of science hun, quickly, please.

And double-standards? That's a ludicrous generalisation of issues with the level of complexity they actually have.

Woo, calm down and take a chill pill girl! No need to get all worked up in here.

If you want to have a healthy debate and to prove your point, you need to back that up with facts. Instead you're now resorting to name calling, going completely off-topic and talking total gibberish which proves nothing except that you like to talk alot of rubbish.

My challenge for you is to grow up and to prove your point by posting one study that supports wakefield's 1998 study. Surely if wakefield is remotely correct, there must be one study in this entire world that supports him after 12 years right?

go ahead darling, make my day!

 

[Mark]

Lancelot, Angela said those comments were unbelievably naive, which isn't ad hominem name calling; it's obviously hard to hear one's POV criticised harshly but please try not to take offence.

What Angela posted is not off-topic at all, nor is it gibberish, she's trying to put science in its proper context for you and it's only gibberish to you, I think, because you don't understand this point about the philosophy of science that she's making.

She's absolutely right btw, and I would have made the same point myself.

And why waste her time looking up the studies supporting wakefield, that information's easily available on google, surely? You can research via the mercola interview, age of autism, etc, I expect, I think they say there are 4 papers (last I heard), internationally, which they take as back up, but I'm not sure of the status of those papers, and I have heard that wakefield was involved in at least some of those.

What have you heard from their side of the story, have you explored their side much yourself?

 

[Angela Kennedy]

Woo, calm down and take a chill pill girl! No need to get all worked up in here.

If you want to have a healthy debate and to prove your point, you need to back that up with facts. Instead you're now resorting to name calling, going completely off-topic and talking total gibberish which proves nothing except that you like to talk alot of rubbish.

My challenge for you is to grow up and to prove your point by posting one study that supports wakefield's 1998 study. Surely if wakefield is remotely correct, there must be one study in this entire world that supports him after 12 years right?

go ahead darling, make my day!

Ok, firstly, 'darling' (yes I know I am guilty of the tu quoque fallacy here - but I am only human), you are again misrepresenting my own argument here. As I've shown in previous posts, it's not about whether Wakefield is 'right' or 'wrong' in his and others hypotheses. This thread is actually about the latest allegations of 'fraud' made against him, and their context (a long campaign of attack against his motives in ways not usually committed against people working in 'science' (caveat as to what that actually is, for various reasons as I am trying to discuss), people who often get things 'wrong' (or 'right'), although I am also concerned about not being able to find the facts because of the irrational appeals to authority from various parties that has dogged the whole issue since 1998.

Secondly, you have a modus operandi of being highly patronising, and making wild and often insulting generalisations, I've noticed, especially against me, and particularly when I'm discussing things productively with other people I've also noticed. Accusing me of talking gibberish and 'a lot of rubbish' (most likely I suspect because it appears you cannot dispute the points I've been making) is a case in point. You are unable to grasp specifics and therefore have resorted to insulting and patronising generalisations, and a red herring of demanding I prove something I have already told the forum on this thread I don't even know about, and which is not relevant to the discussion on this thread (these latest BMJ allegations of 'fraud' against Wakefield).

Now if you could either learn to argue and discuss productively and carefully, without recourse to ad hominem misrepresentation of other people's arguments, an apparent chauvinistic patronisation of me (with your use of over-familiar addresses like 'dear', 'hun' and 'darling'), attempts to construct false opposition between North American and U.K. sufferers and their supporters, poor generalisations to try and score points, etc. you would actually be making MY day.

 

[Sam Carter]

There was a documentary on Radio 4 recently which I think is interesting within the context of the current discussion because it is a journalistic report examining the WHO's dismissal of the epidemiological work of Dr Peter Aaby who has shown that vaccines have unpredictable effects on the health of children and can in fact *increase* infant mortality by a significant margin, with the effect being greatest in girls.

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00x4013

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Richard Phinney reports from the West African country of Guinea Bissau, where a team of Danish and African medical sleuths have pieced together evidence that could change public health care forever. They have discovered that vaccines and vitamin supplements have unexpected effects - good and bad - on the immune systems of children.

It's the first time a British journalist has visited the Bandim health surveillance unit, where Dr Peter Aaby and his team has toiled for more than 30 years - through wars, natural disasters and epidemics. A small army of doctors, nurses, field workers and lab technicians now monitor the health of 100,000 people.

Their health detective work has generated more than 600 scholarly articles in the world's leading medical journals, and been responsible for the withdrawal of a potentially deadly measles vaccine by the World Health Organisation.

But the WHO has not acted on the most explosive findings yet coming from Guinea Bissau. They show that the world's most commonly used vaccines can strengthen - or weaken - a child's immune system in the long term, and affect their ability to fight off disease. The results directly challenge the WHO's global health advice, followed by most countries in the developing world, and could mean that thousands of young lives, in Africa and beyond, are needlessly at risk.

We'll hear from some of world's most respected public health scientists who back Aaby's findings. The documentary also asks why the WHO has not yet acted on the evidence generated so far. And whether safety tests for new vaccines and vitamin supplements, heavily promoted by donor agencies and pharmaceutical companies alike, are sufficiently far-reaching.
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

 

[markmc20001]

I don't disagree that certain vaccines have hurt people such as the HPV vaccine-gardisil and people should be compensated. This have been proven by scientific rigor and worldwide concensus. While the MMR vaccines or any vaccine can produce side effects in some individuals, it has not been proven by scientist worldwide to cause disease or autism(not just side-effects). In fact the MMR vaccine have saved hundreds of millions of lives if not billions. Who are you to believe in this matter or any controversial health problem? Sometimes it takes time and alot of time to come to the truth based on science. yes, there are conspiracies and coverups by certain doctors, big businesses, private institutions, government agencies and even a entire government. However, i do not believe there can be a WORLDWIDE conspiracy nor can science support that kind of conspiracy. there are just too many good people that will blow the whistle or get down to the truth of the matter.

In the case of autism, i believe there are enough studies now from scientists around the WORLD not associated or funded by the pharm industry that proves wakefied is just wrong. He came up with a good theory that needed to be proven but to hold on to it any longer is a travesty to the autism community. To expend anymore monies and time to this MMR/autism controversy takes away from funding and finding the real cause and cure. To a much lesser degree, this reminds me of dr amand still holding onto his guanifesin treatments when he has been proven wrong again and again. He was sincere in his initial theory and treatment but he will not let go now even after being proven wrong so he continues to hurt patients now to save his reputation.

You can believe the scientific (+4,000) studies and the majority of non-UK CFS specialist worldwide that have proven ME/CFS is a physical disease, but you can't believe the same scientific studies and worldwide scientific community that have proven wakefield is wrong? Science doesn't lie only people lie.

I must say, it's always interesting to see everybody's different perspectives. And is a very heated topic. However, it's the politics that are slowing down the science in my opinion. If not bringing the science it to a grinding hault with all the effort put into dealing with the dang politics and false contamination meme.

I don't think there is a worldwide conspiracy either. In the case of CFS, it's just since the 1980's the UK and US(two of the most powerful countries) have decided to ignore all the studies that don't agree with their opinion. Once you accept that, no matter how much other good science that comes out, if 5 or 10 conflicting studies come out that claim contamination(when contamination is not the issue) and are given favorable spin in the news media. It's game over.

Until, one has enough guts, money, and drive to go ahead and create their own research facility with the mission of getting the truth out. LIke the WPI has done.

The governments have never had to deal with any very determined group before. Plus the government never had to deal with the internet before either, so they could control ALL of the news until the last 10 years. And the few little docs that spoke out? They just steam roll them with all the tactics I described below.

Please try to see my side. Here is what I see.

The CDC is supposed to be helping, right they should they work for the american people right? What if they are influenced by lobbyists or some other force? what is the CDC won't accept the science?What if the CDC doesn't properly quantify the disease through objective testing? What if the CDC calls it a mental, disease instead of a neuroimmune disease? Then..... I don't think big pharmas will develope drugs for a neuroimmune disease that the CDC doesn't recognize. Then.... doctors won't know how to test for it. Then Insurance companies won't pay for it (treating with "experimental treatments" not approved by the CDC). Doctors won;t treat for neuroimmune becuase they just go to the CDC website to see they should be using CBT. It just goes on and on.

It's a hard concept to grasp and it took me a few months to get a handle on it. I don;t have the clarity of mind (or energy) to lay it all out. However I am convinced we are not dealing with just science. It is one old big octopus that reaches beyond human nature, and what is good for the majority of the population.

 

[markmc20001]

There was a documentary on Radio 4 recently which I think is interesting within the context of the current discussion because it is a journalistic report examining the WHO's dismissal of the epidemiological work of Dr Peter Aaby who has shown that vaccines have unpredictable effects on the health of children and can in fact *increase* infant mortality by a significant margin, with the effect being greatest in girls.

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00x4013

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Richard Phinney reports from the West African country of Guinea Bissau, where a team of Danish and African medical sleuths have pieced together evidence that could change public health care forever. They have discovered that vaccines and vitamin supplements have unexpected effects - good and bad - on the immune systems of children.

It's the first time a British journalist has visited the Bandim health surveillance unit, where Dr Peter Aaby and his team has toiled for more than 30 years - through wars, natural disasters and epidemics. A small army of doctors, nurses, field workers and lab technicians now monitor the health of 100,000 people.

Their health detective work has generated more than 600 scholarly articles in the world's leading medical journals, and been responsible for the withdrawal of a potentially deadly measles vaccine by the World Health Organisation.

But the WHO has not acted on the most explosive findings yet coming from Guinea Bissau. They show that the world's most commonly used vaccines can strengthen - or weaken - a child's immune system in the long term, and affect their ability to fight off disease. The results directly challenge the WHO's global health advice, followed by most countries in the developing world, and could mean that thousands of young lives, in Africa and beyond, are needlessly at risk.

We'll hear from some of world's most respected public health scientists who back Aaby's findings. The documentary also asks why the WHO has not yet acted on the evidence generated so far. And whether safety tests for new vaccines and vitamin supplements, heavily promoted by donor agencies and pharmaceutical companies alike, are sufficiently far-reaching.
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

So we question their vaccines, then they twist it into a reason to pull vitamins?

Last sentence bothers me quite a bit. Might be some more new media spin doctors at work.

Sorry folks, I don't trust any of it. The good could be mixed with the bad with a little creative reporting.

 

[Rosemary]

Autism hoax......or vaccine witch hunt ?

Immunization researcher hit with fraud allegations
by WC Douglass MD

Start pounding those stakes into the ground and gather up some firewood -- we've got a witch to burn.

Today's witch: Dr. Andrew Wakefield, now accused of fabricating the research in his landmark 1998 study that linked vaccinations to autism.

And if he really did fake his work, then burn, baby, burn.

But before you set that fire, ask yourself why so many people are so hellbent on destroying this man -- and what they're so afraid of.

After all, Dr. Wakefield never told anyone not to vaccinate a child. He's not even against vaccinations.

All he did was suggest that the ludicrous combo vaccinations that overwhelm young immune systems be split up into a series of individual shots -- or at least allow parents the option to choose between the two.

That doesn't sound very radical to me -- but you should have seen Anderson Cooper go after Dr. Wakefield on his CNN show the other night. You would've thought he found a Nazi war criminal instead of a relatively minor threat to one of the world's biggest, most powerful and most crooked industries.

If you want some witches, I've got a much better place for you to bring your torches: to the offices of drug company bosses and their public health lackeys who push needless vaccine after needless vaccine on children around the world.

I don't know if these things really cause autism, but it doesn't matter -- because I do know this: Many of these shots are dangerous, unnecessary and ineffective.

You heard me right. Despite the mainstream's mantra that "vaccines have saved millions of lives," let's take the scientific point of view on this: Prove it.

That's how science works, right?

But you can't prove it, because it's just not true -- the very diseases that launched the vaccination movement in the early 20th century were already on the decline before a single arm was ever poked!

These vaccines didn't end disease -- better living conditions, improved sanitation and the greater overall health of advancing society did that.

But while scientists can't prove that vaccines have worked, I can prove they've harmed millions -- and exposed millions more to serious and unacceptable risk while undermining our natural immunity.

In one case, 11 million British kids were given polio shots contaminated with mad cow disease. In a separate case of contaminated polio vaccinations, millions of Americans were "accidentally" injected with a virus known to cause brain tumors.

You want more? I've got plenty. Remember the Lyme disease vaccine? If you don't, that's because it was quickly pulled off the market after being linked to a severe and crippling form of arthritis.

Then there's that dangerous HPV vaccine I've been warning you about, still on the market despite dozens of deaths and thousands of adverse events among little girls across the country.

And don't even get me started on flu shots... or the millions sickened or hurt through the known and expected side effects of "perfectly good" vaccines.

You want to burn a witch, then c'mon baby light that fire -- just make sure you burn the right one.

 

[lancelot]

Ok, firstly, 'darling' (yes I know I am guilty of the tu quoque fallacy here - but I am only human), you are again misrepresenting my own argument here. As I've shown in previous posts, it's not about whether Wakefield is 'right' or 'wrong' in his and others hypotheses. This thread is actually about the latest allegations of 'fraud' made against him, and their context (a long campaign of attack against his motives in ways not usually committed against people working in 'science' (caveat as to what that actually is, for various reasons as I am trying to discuss), people who often get things 'wrong' (or 'right'), although I am also concerned about not being able to find the facts because of the irrational appeals to authority from various parties that has dogged the whole issue since 1998.

Secondly, you have a modus operandi of being highly patronising, and making wild and often insulting generalisations, I've noticed, especially against me, and particularly when I'm discussing things productively with other people I've also noticed. Accusing me of talking gibberish and 'a lot of rubbish' (most likely I suspect because it appears you cannot dispute the points I've been making) is a case in point. You are unable to grasp specifics and therefore have resorted to insulting and patronising generalisations, and a red herring of demanding I prove something I have already told the forum on this thread I don't even know about, and which is not relevant to the discussion on this thread (these latest BMJ allegations of 'fraud' against Wakefield).

Now if you could either learn to argue and discuss productively and carefully, without recourse to ad hominem misrepresentation of other people's arguments, an apparent chauvinistic patronisation of me (with your use of over-familiar addresses like 'dear', 'hun' and 'darling'), attempts to construct false opposition between North American and U.K. sufferers and their supporters, poor generalisations to try and score points, etc. you would actually be making MY day.

gibberish much?

 

[Rosemary]

Chilling research into vaccine-autism link

Chilling research into vaccine-autism link

Richard Deth, professor of pharmacology, offers his response to the controversy surrounding a study linking a childhood vaccine to autism.
January 10, 2011

The British medical journal, BMJ, has published a report by an investigative journalist on the first study to link a childhood vaccine to autism and inflammatory bowel disease. The article in the BMJ called the study an "elaborate fraud," and claimed that the "appearance of a link with autism was manufactured at a London medical school."

Dr. Andrew Wakefield linked the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism in a study published in the medical journal Lancet more than 10 years ago. Lancet retracted the study last year after the British General Medical Council found that Wakefield had acted "dishonestly and irresponsibly" in his research.

Richard Deth is a professor of pharmacology in the Bouv College of Health Sciences and the School of Pharmacy at Northeastern University. His research suggests that vaccines containing aluminum and/or the mercury-based preservative thimerosal could contribute to the development of autism in children who lack the genetic capability to excrete neurotoxic metals. The MMR vaccine does not contain aluminum or thimerosal.

Deth, who is currently attending a vaccine safety conference with Wakefield and other scientists, clinicians and legal experts, offers his response to the controversy.

What are your thoughts on the BMJ report?

I think its very unusual, but at the same time revealing, that the BMJ chose to publish this story. Investigative journalist Brian Deer has been on a mission to discredit Wakefield for years. His report is not a scientific article, but rather an opinion piece that doesnt focus on the scientific finding of whether or not autistic children have inflammation in their gastrointestinal tract, which I believe is the crux of the original paper. That paper never set out to prove an explicit link between autism and the MMR vaccine. Nobody studying 12 subjects could conceive of proving a link. Wakefield found that subjects had gastrointestinal inflammation and at least some of parents reported that they thought this occurred after their children received the MMR vaccine.

Our recent research has identified an amino acid transporter that may be involved in gastrointestinal inflammation and might also contribute to the neuronal inflammation that others have found in the brains of autistic children. A connection between the gut and the brain in autism makes sense to me.

What is the link between vaccines and autism?

Vaccines provoke an immune response to an antigen derived from a virus or bacteria. They can also contain agents, called adjuvants, such as aluminum, which augment the antibody response and can provoke inflammation throughout the body, as well as preservatives such as mercury, in the form of thimerosal.

Aluminum and mercury can enter the brain and remain for years, where they provoke neuroinflammation. Inflammation during childhood can interfere with the normal mechanisms by which gene expression is controlled, leading to neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism.

While the MMR vaccine does not contain aluminum or mercury, simultaneous exposure to these three viruses induces inflammation, which contributes to the cumulative effect of vaccines on children.

Its common for children to receive several vaccines in a single doctors visit. As a result, they receive a tremendous dose of aluminum, well beyond limits set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. This increases the chance of excessive inflammation and a metabolic condition known as oxidative stress, which can disrupt development and/or precipitate regressive autism. Studies of autistic children show that they have inflammation and oxidative stress.

Why haven't other studies shown a link between the MMR vaccine and autism?

Most vaccine safety studies have been epidemiological in nature. They examine large population-based datasets rather than individual autistic subjects. The latter type of study has revealed the central role of oxidative stress and inflammation, which could not be identified in epidemiological studies.

Epidemiological studies are intrinsically unable to uncover causal mechanisms, even if an association was found. In my view, MMR vaccination is only a partial contributor, while other vaccines contribute to the total risk of autism. Vaccines are certainly not the only agents contributing to autism, but its likely that the major cause is some kind of environmental exposure, as opposed to a genetic abnormality.

In light of this, should parents have their children vaccinated against MMR and other diseases?

Yes. I support vaccination and safer vaccines that don't contain aluminum or mercury.

Britain stripped Andrew Wakefield of his right to practice medicine. Was this justified?

No, not in my opinion. The ethical issues he was found guilty of were not of sufficient magnitude to justify this penalty. Moreover, doubt remains about whether there was significant and willful misconduct.

The British General Medical Council and Brian Deer have conspired to make an example of Wakefield for daring to suggest that vaccination may cause disease in some individuals.

Wakefield's identification of gastrointestinal inflammation in autism will remain an important scientific contribution. The magnitude of the effort to discredit him betrays a strong fear that his suggestion of a link to vaccination may be correct. It amounts to a public pillorying that frightens others from investigating this controversial but important issue.


For more information, please contact Jason Kornwitz at 617-373-5729 or at j.kornwitz@neu.edu.

http://www.northeastern.edu/news/stories/2011/01/deth.html