Merged Andrew Wakefield/Callous doctor who claimed MMR jab causes child autism is struck off

[Delscottio]

[snip] And even worse that he has such undying support; pass that bucket please.

Its this that puzzles me, can these people not read? Can they not accept they may have been wrong or have been lied to?

I know your childs health is one of the most emotional things out there, but come on it pretty clear the bloke is an absolute fraud.

 

[Rolfe]

I'm half way through Deers summary and am in absolute shock. At every turn, every bloody turn this bastard knew exactly what he was doing and what the outcome would be. This was all about ego and money, what i've found most surprising is how easy it was for him to get published in one of the most respected journals.

Evil grubby little man.

He was mates with the editor.

Rolfe.

 

[Estellea]

He was mates with the editor.

Rolfe.

Right you are and Richard Horton's hands are not exactly clean in this matter. He overrode reviewer concerns and ignored Brian Deer's findings on Wakefield back in 2004, went so far as to boot him out of his office when presented with the evidence of Wakefield's dubious methods.

Este

 

[Rolfe]

Brian Deer is my hero!

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

I'm a bit confused about Wakefield's postgraduate qualifications. He's described as a surgeon, and he signed himself as FRCS on letters posted on Brian Deer's web site. So actually, he was properly "Mr." Wakefield even before he was struck off!

His wiki biography says he was in Canada on a Wellcome fellowship studying intestinal transplantation. That's quite high-powered, I think. Mr. Wakefield the transplant surgeon.

So how come he reappears at the Royal Free as a Reader in Medicine and Histopathology? Completely different disciplines. Deer says he wasn't a pathologist, and it seems he wasn't, if he was FRCS. How did he suddenly turn into a histopathologist then? It's a really weird career move for our transplant surgeon.

I read elsewhere that he's an FRCPath, which is the real qualification a histopathologist should have. Another FRCPath I work with is eagerly awaiting news of his expulsion from the RCPath, assuming he's in it in the first place. But he may not be.

I'd love to know how he got from there to here. From being a trainee transplant surgeon in Toronto to this strange medicine and histopathology post he actually doesn't seem qualified for. What happened?

Rolfe.

 

[AdinDraco]

That Dr Wakefield was wrong was established long before this. He was 100% provably demonstrably wrong. Dozens of far better studies demonstrated this fact beyond any reasonable level of doubt. Yet it's no crime to be wrong, it's not even against BMA regs. You don't get struck off for being wrong.

The question the BMJ asked was how could he be so wrong. His study was low quality and unreliable. Such studies can easily be wrong just by chance of by honest to goodness error. It's not unusual for such small studies to be proven wrong by larger more rigorous research.

However they examined evidence that Wakefield was wrong on purpose. That he accepted money to produce a result, money that he didn't declare. That he stood to benefit from an alternative to MMR that he'd developed, a further conflict of interests that he didn't declare. That in attempting to obtain this pre-arranged result he violated medical ethics in subjecting children to invasive tests that were not in their best clinical interests. That he didn't inform the ethics panel of tests on children. That even with his biased patient sample provided to him by the litigators footing his bill he still didn't get the results he wanted so he faked his data.

We tooks his claims seriously to start with. It took a few years of painstaking research to look into them and find that they were wrong. Years later the the evidence mounted up that he's wrong wrong wrong. (There's other threads to discuss the quality of that evidence if you wish) Wakefield being wrong is now a matter of history not worth rehashing. The news here is that he's an evil, lying, child exploiting deathmonger for hire.

Brilliant! Well said..

 

[Physiotherapist]

Rolfe,

Wakefield was a surgeon. When he graduated medical school he studied to become a gastrointestinal surgeon and won the Wellcome scholarship to Toronto to study small intestinal transplantation. It was whilst he was there I think that he started to develop his theory about the measles virus and a possible link with Crohn's Disease.

When he returned to London, he went to the Royal Free, but to the Liver transplantation team and from there he then side stepped to the gastrointestinal team, when he came across more cases of the link with the measles virus and Crohn's and inflammatory bowel disease. He says that he then started getting calls from parents about kids who had 'regressed' after measles vaccine and this is where the autism link comes in. He says that he stopped the parents there, saying that he didn't know anything about autism, but the parents were saying that their kids had bowel problems - inflammatory bowel symptoms and that when they started treating the gut, other symptoms improved.

I think it was following this that he went more into the research side of things and possibly became an FRcPath. So I think that when he returned to London from Canada and went to the Royal Free he was still very much involved in the surgery side of things, only then moving onto research.

I found this info by listening to the Joseph Mercola interview with him on YouTube and yes, I did listen to all 10, which was boring after a while, but I think all this info is contained in the first 3 or so - the clips are only about 7 to 8 mins long each.

 

[Rolfe]

Thanks, Physiotherapist. That clarifies the matter quite a bit.

It's very clear from the details on Brian Deer's web site that Wakefield is a habitual liar, saying whatever he thinks will present him in the best light, or avoid whatever accusation has been levelled at him at that particular time. Thus I take the part about the calls from the parents and so on with a very large pinch of salt. Deer has an entirely different explanation for how he became involved in the autism field, and frankly my inclination is to believe Deer, who seems to be a meticulous journalist, rather than Wakefield.

Nevertheless I imagine his basic account of his career is more or less accurate, and does clarify events quite a bit. I'm unsure about the FRCPath part. That requires a great deal of work and study over a number of years, and some fairly stiff examinations. While we don't know that he didn't do that, I'm not going to assume he did until I find more definite information.

Rolfe.

 

[Estellea]

Brian Deer discussed Wakefield's involvement and he also mentioned something really fascinating that he may or may not have up on his site. First, some of the parents were already involved with Richard Barr when Wakefield was contacted. Barr wanted to pursue the mumps portion of the vaccine since the Urabe strain was used at the time and caused a number of aseptic meningitis cases. They may have had a case for that but Wakers wanted to pursue the measles angle. They, of course, lost.

Este

 

[Physiotherapist]

Rolfe,

I did a little more research online and apparently, Wakefield was awarded a Fellowship of the Royal College of Pathologists in November 2001 for submission of and recognition of his publications.

Would this be a honorary fellowship I wonder and not the same as becoming a member by passing all the required exams? However, he is very likely to loose this too after being struck off by the GMC.

It was quite interesting watching the Joseph Mercola interview with him. He came across as someone who is so convinced that he is right, that at times he does not really seem to know the difference between truth and fiction - he talks about conspiracy and cover up by drug companies and is just totally convinced that he is right and everyone else is wrong and out to get him.

 

[Rolfe]

I did a little more research online and apparently, Wakefield was awarded a Fellowship of the Royal College of Pathologists in November 2001 for submission of and recognition of his publications.

Would this be a honorary fellowship I wonder and not the same as becoming a member by passing all the required exams? However, he is very likely to loose this too after being struck off by the GMC.

Ah, that makes sense. No, it's not an honorary fellowship, it's another route to fellowship I hadn't considered - even though I thought of taking that route myself by submission of my PhD thesis. It does mean he's done less specific study and it may be right that (as Deer says), he isn't a fully trained and qualified histopathologist.

I'm still a bit hazy as to why the Royal Free gave someone whose main training was in surgery a readership in medicine and histopathology, but it's making more rational sense with the details you've filled in.

I think it's particularly likely that the RCPath would withdraw a fellowship that was awarded on the basis of someone's publications, if the publications were shown to be fraudulent. If he'd passed all the exams it might be arguable that he'd met the standards, but submitting fraudulent papers is rather equivalent to having cheated in the exams.

It was quite interesting watching the Joseph Mercola interview with him. He came across as someone who is so convinced that he is right, that at times he does not really seem to know the difference between truth and fiction - he talks about conspiracy and cover up by drug companies and is just totally convinced that he is right and everyone else is wrong and out to get him.

This seems to be a feature of the altmed mindset. The homoeopaths demonstrate it very well. It's less often seen in qualified medics, but it does happen and he's a case in point.

I don't really understand it at all. How can anyone cling to a theory that has been comprehensively debunked, to the point of believing they're the victim of a conspiracy? And yet they do. I'll never understand it.

The milk pills are a particular case in point. The science underpinning that is precisely zero. He had no idea what he was fractionating off from the goat's milk, or what the "active ingredient" might be (assuming there had been one), or the mode of action. This is simply unacceptable in the 21st century where purification and characterisation of the active molecule is an essential part of pharmacotherapeutics.

The mindset of "we don't know what it is and we've no real reason for believing it might do anything but we're convinced it does and we're going to tell you it does and sell it to you" is pure quack. And Wakefield, FRCS, FRCPath, quacks like a duck.

Rolfe.

 

[TsuDhoNimh]

I want to know how many nanny-goats he had, and what their welfare standards were, and specifically how they policed the parturition to ensure that the kids didn't consume any colostrum. Obviously, if you want the colostrum the kids can't have it, but guess what they do very soon after they first get to their spindly little legs.

Most births occur during the night, and if you specifically want to prevent the neonate consuming colostrum for some reason (sometimes necessary if you have a parental anitgen mismatch and the potential for haemolytic anaemia of the newborn, the animal equivalent of rhesus baby syndrome), you have to stay up and monitor the birth then immediately step in and remove the neonate.

You use a brassiere - seriously, you strap the pregnant animal into a bra that covers the nipples to prevent nursing.

If the thought of bras for nanny-goats boggles your mind, they also exist for cats. I knew someone who made them for a research project that needed to get blood saamples from kittens before any exposure to maternal antibodies.

 

[geni]

I don't really understand it at all. How can anyone cling to a theory that has been comprehensively debunked, to the point of believing they're the victim of a conspiracy? And yet they do. I'll never understand it.

Why smart people believe weird things?

Varies. In Wakefield's case I'd guess the intial monetary reasons followed by ego. He's a big fish in a small pond right now. In terms of the anti vac movement he's one of their more credible figures. Not that there is much competition. The Geier father and son team perhaps?

That said Wakefield doesn't appear to be too popular on the US side of the pond:

http://www.mothering.com/discussions/showthread.php?t=1227314&highlight=wakefield

 

[Rolfe]

You use a brassiere - seriously, you strap the pregnant animal into a bra that covers the nipples to prevent nursing.

If the thought of bras for nanny-goats boggles your mind, they also exist for cats. I knew someone who made them for a research project that needed to get blood saamples from kittens before any exposure to maternal antibodies.

Quite right. Why didn't I think of that? [Shoots self.]

I've never seen it done, but it makes sense that's the way to do it. As I said earlier, sometimes you have to do it if you know the neonate is as risk of haemolytic anaemia of the newborn. Cats and horses can get it. (Beats having to give foetal blood transfusions, which is where the human haemoendothelial placenta gets you!)

That would allow the dam to lick and take care of the neonate, and you'd just have to jump in within a few hours with a colostrum substitute. Welfare standards would be perfectly acceptable. As I said, I imagine this could be done with perfectly acceptable welfare standards on a cottage industry scale. You could even sell the goats with week-old kids at foot, if you didn't want to wait for her to get pregnant again.

The problem would start if the process had to be scaled up to industrial levels of production, with vastly more kids being born than anyone would be likely to need. There's enough evil happening to harvest HRT hormones from pregnant mares without more of the same.

The whole idea is moonbat crazy though. It could never have gone anywhere.

Rolfe.

 

[Deetee]

Why smart people believe weird things?

Varies. In Wakefield's case I'd guess the intial monetary reasons followed by ego. He's a big fish in a small pond right now. In terms of the anti vac movement he's one of their more credible figures. Not that there is much competition. The Geier father and son team perhaps?

That said Wakefield doesn't appear to be too popular on the US side of the pond:

http://www.mothering.com/discussions/showthread.php?t=1227314&highlight=wakefield

The bit I've read so far consists of non-vaxing mothers all confirming that they have "never heard of the guy" or that their decisions not to vax had nothing to do with the MMR scandal.
As if.

This tickled me though:

My decision not to vax had nothing to do with this guy either, but rather my research on each vaccine. And I whole heatedly [sic] stand by my decision not to vax.

 

[Rolfe]

Yeah, I read that too. These people are pretty weird. The sig lines alone are from another planet.

The whole thing is one concentrated post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, combined with "if you've never had a child with autism, you're not entitled to any opinion." (Also, on occasion, "unless you yourself are engaged in cutting-edge medical research, you're not entitled to quote any medical research papers.")

Then of course no research is enough for them. Provide exactly the studies they demand, and they'll simply move the goal-posts. Or, if all else fails, ignore the information and go on asserting that the studies haven't been done, or declare that they're now ten years old, we need fresh studies. I'm particularly struck by the way they rubbish the Danish study, which almost exactly delivers the information they demand. Of course this was rigged and falsified to get the result the drug companies wanted!

The irritating thig is, we know that for the vast majority of those who claim a close temporal relationship between their child's behavioural problems and vaccination, this is not the case. Umpteen studies of familiy photos and videos and medical records have shown that (just like the original 12 children) many cases showed clear signs before vaccination, and some showed nothing until many months afterwards. The relationship is imaginary, brought on by publicity and suggestion.

But of course you can't challenge any one parent and say, you're mistaken, little Tarquin was almost certainly weird well before any vaccination. No doubt a few do coincide temporally, it's inevitable, and you don't know which ones.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

I did a little more research online and apparently, Wakefield was awarded a Fellowship of the Royal College of Pathologists in November 2001 for submission of and recognition of his publications.

Wakefield was fired from his employment at the medical school in late 2001....

I get the impression that the appropriate committees at the RCPath weren't paying attention! The rumblings about the guy had been going on for most of that year as far as I can see.

Rolfe.

 

[MatildaGage]

Wakefield was interviewed on Radio 4 this morning. He claims that he never said that the MMR was linked with autism.

That takes some real cohones (which con artists often have), considering he said the opposite in a medical journal and on live TV [@ around 4:40 on the Today Show vid].

 

[Rolfe]

The line I heard was that he didn't say that in the beginning (i.e. explicitly in the paper in the Lancet), and he isn't saying it now.

It's the 12 years in between he's conveniently glossing over.

Rolfe.

 

[TsuDhoNimh]

The problem would start if the process had to be scaled up to industrial levels of production, with vastly more kids being born than anyone would be likely to need.

There is always "cabrito al pastor" http://recipeland.com/recipe/v/Cabrito_Al_Pastor_47324