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Wakefield Innocent

madurobob

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madurobob
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I don't know enough about this to comment on the specifics, but this article is making the rounds today on all the "natural" health sites & forums. It claims the charges of fraud against Wakefield are themselves fraudulent

Remember, Dr Wakefield has been accused of completely fabricating his findings about these same children in his 1998 paper, but these documents reveal that fourteen months before Dr Wakefield's paper was published, two other researchers -- Professor Walker-Smith and Dr Amar Dhillon -- independently documented the same problems in these children, including symptoms of autism.

Thus, Dr Wakefield could not have "fabricated" these findings as alleged by the British Medical Journal, which now finds itself in the position of needing to issue a retraction, or it must now expand its accusations of fraud to include Professor Walker-Smith and Dr Dhillon... essentially, the BMJ must now insist that a "conspiracy of fraud" existed among at least these three researchers, and possibly more, in order to back up its allegation that Dr Wakefield's study results were fabricated.
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Full story: Documents emerge proving Dr Andrew Wakefield innocent

I've been loosely following the Wakefield fiasco for at least a year or so and the latest BMJ article calling Wakefield's study an "elaborate fraud" seemed a logical conclusion. But, what do you think of this article mentioned above? Does it have legs, or is it the desperate grasping at straws I suspect it is?
 
The despicable little worm is guilty, no conspiracy, no retractions and best of all no "Dr."
He should now be tried for the manslaughter of thousands.
 
I don't disagree. But, what about the story's supposed connection between Wakefield's fabrication of data and the earlier study?

ETA: that is to say, the article says that Wakefield's results, in at least one area where he is accused of fabrication, are replicated independently by the other study. Is this technically correct, or is this just someone clumsily finding correlation where there is none?
 
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I'm sure if its doing the rounds on anti-vaccination sites, the facts are twisted beyond all recognition. But you are welcome to investigate further - its not worth my time.

ETA - I will just note that "independently documented the same problems ... including autism" doesn't necessarily mean that they found the same details that Wakefield is accused of fabricating (eg the timing of the diagnosis in relation to MMR and whether the autism was regressive). Its just the sort of contorting that I expect from the anti-vaxers.
 
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madurobob said:
I don't know enough about this to comment on the specifics, but this article is making the rounds today on all the "natural" health sites & forums. It claims the charges of fraud against Wakefield are themselves fraudulent



Full story: Documents emerge proving Dr Andrew Wakefield innocent

I've been loosely following the Wakefield fiasco for at least a year or so and the latest BMJ article calling Wakefield's study an "elaborate fraud" seemed a logical conclusion. But, what do you think of this article mentioned above? Does it have legs, or is it the desperate grasping at straws I suspect it is?
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The evidence shows Wakefield fabricated results... this is just an Op_Ed piece with no data.

ETA: I looked at it, they don't adrress the allegations of the lancet at all as to why they feel Wakefield perpetrated fraud. So they are moving goal posts and using a strawman.

The main charge is that Wakefield violated ethics!

http://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c696.full?fmr
“In particular, the claims in the original paper that children were ‘consecutively referred’ and that investigations were ‘approved’ by the local ethics committee have been proven to be false. Therefore we fully retract this paper from the published record.”
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Dr Wakefield, 52, failed to disclose to the Lancet that his research had received funding from the Legal Aid Board through a solicitor who hoped to mount a legal action against the manufacturer and that he had also filed a patent application for a new vaccine.

His failure to mention these conflicts of interest was contrary to his duties as senior author of the Lancet paper, the GMC panel found, and he had dishonestly represented that the children in the study, several of whom were litigants in the legal action, had come through GPs or paediatricians by the standard route.
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After a hearing lasting 148 days over two and a half years—the longest in the GMC’s history—he was also found guilty of a “callous disregard” for the distress and pain of children who had blood samples taken from them at his son’s birthday party and were paid £5 (€6; $8) each.
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Professor Yaffle said:
I'm sure if its doing the rounds on anti-vaccination sites, the facts are twisted beyond all recognition. But you are welcome to investigate further - its not worth my time.
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:) Understood. I know there are folks here who are very well versed in this mess. So, I figured my initial "investigation" would be to ask here. Lazy, I know, but its always effective to ask someone who already knows rather than having to repeat the work they've already done. I'll keep poking around.
 
madurobob said:
:) Understood. I know there are folks here who are very well versed in this mess. So, I figured my initial "investigation" would be to ask here. Lazy, I know, but its always effective to ask someone who already knows rather than having to repeat the work they've already done. I'll keep poking around.
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Note my ETA on my previous post.
 
Without following the link, the quoted portion appears to be saying Wakefield may not have fabricated all his data, therefore he's innocent. :confused:
 
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So, let me see if I got this right:

The Lancet's accusation is of general ethics violations, including but not limited to the fabrication of data.

Wakefield's response is that data wasn't fabricated, that it was independently verified.

But, the real fabrication issue is not that Wakefield fabricated all of the data, but that he fabricated the timing and correlation of some of the factors. This is not supported by the earlier study he claims verifies his data.

Is that about it?
 
I love the hyperbole in the article from the OP. But how long before the author of that article begins complaining that the "revelations" which he, at the moment, claims will "rock the medical world", are being "suppressed"? You can smell it a mile away.:rolleyes:
 
George II said:
I love the hyperbole in the article from the OP. But how long before the author of that article begins complaining that the "revelations" which he, at the moment, claims will "rock the medical world", are being "suppressed"? You can smell it a mile away.:rolleyes:
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No doubt. Google "Wakefield Innocent" and you'll see this article posted all over the place and many of them are introduced with something like "there is no excuse for the BMJ and mainstream media to squelch the facts before they are revealed" (that's the one I saw on an anti-vax site a friend sent me a link to).
 
George II said:
I love the hyperbole in the article from the OP. But how long before the author of that article begins complaining that the "revelations" which he, at the moment, claims will "rock the medical world", are being "suppressed"? You can smell it a mile away.:rolleyes:
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Wait till the author is served with a suit from the GMC or BMJ for libel: then he'll really know what suppression feels like. :D
 
This blog post goes into some detail about where Wakefield falsified things. Much of it was in letters from GPs referring the child to Wakefield's study, in which they note that although the parent thought their child was developing normally prior to vaccination, there is some considerable doubt about this. Wakefield reports these as "previously normal".

http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2011/01/7246/
 
Tatyana said:
Professor Walker-Smith was also found guilty of serious professional misconduct and struck off the register for this incidence with these children.

http://www.gmc-uk.org/Professor_Walker_Smith_SPM.pdf_32595970.pdf
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Oh good grief! Am I just confused, or are these these people complete idiots (or, perhaps, believe the rest of use are complete idiots)?

When accused of fabricating data Wakefield claims his data was clearly not fabricated and was, in fact, verified by an independent study by Walker-Smith. But, Walker-Smith was a colleague of Wakefield's on the study in question and was sanctioned because of his "serious and repeated departures from good medical practice" in gathering data for the study. I.. ummm.... wow. Just wow.
 
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