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

[fagin]

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/stand...-mmr-jab-causes-child-autism-is-struck-off.do

About time too.

 

[Rolfe]

Oh, it's Wakefield. Good.

Maybe there will be other articles that don't segue into an anecdote from parents who declare that nevertheless the MMR caused their child's autism and bowel disease, and the vaccine virus has been found in their child's gut.

Rolfe.

 

[fagin]

Yeah I saw that at the end but supposed to be at work, so just used the article I had.

 

[ExTechOp]

Oh, it's Wakefield. Good.

Maybe there will be other articles that don't segue into an anecdote from parents who declare that nevertheless the MMR caused their child's autism and bowel disease, and the vaccine virus has been found in their child's gut.

The BBC seems to be doing a better job, pointing out that measles has been increasing in proportion to vaccination rates going down.

----

In making the verdict on the sanctions, Dr Surendra Kumar, the panel's chairman, said Dr Wakefield had "brought the medical professional into disrepute" and his behaviour constituted "multiple separate instances of serious professional misconduct".

In total, he was found guilty of more than 30 charges.

Dr Kumar also explained the reasoning for striking Dr Wakefield off.

"The panel concluded that it is the only sanction that is appropriate to protect patients and is in the wider public interest, including the maintenance of public trust and confidence in the profession, and is proportionate to the serious and wide-ranging findings made against him."

[...]

In explaining this decision, Dr Kumar said he took into account the fact that Professor Murch stopped carrying out tests on children for the study because he did not think they were necessary.

Professor Terence Stephenson, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said the scare over the vaccine had done "untold damage to the UK vaccination programme".

"We cannot stress too strongly that all children and young people should have the MMR vaccine."

 

[Capsid]

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

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=175918

 

[Walter Ego]

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

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=175918

He was on the Today Show this morning, too.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/37312715#37312715

The guy's doing a media blitz.

Edit: It turns out Wakefield is in the U.S. to attend what's described as a "quackfest" in Chicago and promote his new book.

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2....php?utm_source=networkbanner&utm_medium=link

 

[pgwenthold]

He was on the Today Show this morning, too.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/37312715#37312715

The guy's doing a media blitz.

Edit: It turns out Wakefield is in the U.S. to attend what's described as a "quackfest" in Chicago and promote his new book.

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2....php?utm_source=networkbanner&utm_medium=link

I thought Wakefield had moved to the US permanently? He was stationed at the Thoughtful House in Texas, a quack-a-remedy joint, until he got booted out of their for having no credibility (what does that say about him?)

 

[Red3]

Andrew Wakefield Struck Off Medical Register

The doctor who first suggested a link between MMR vaccinations and autism has been struck off the medical register.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8700611.stm

About time too.

 

[AlBell]

The case did not investigate whether Dr Wakefield's findings were right or wrong, instead it focused on the methods of research.

Fits right in with what usually goes on here.

 

[Rolfe]

There's already a thread on this.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=176365

Rolfe.

 

[Red3]

Dammit...Always in second place!

 

[Red3]

Fits right in with what usually goes on here.

It probably didn't "investigate whether Dr Wakefield's findings were right or wrong" because most people in this field already agree he's wrong.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

And because you can produce research with wrong findings without doing anything to warrant being struck off.

 

[Ocelot]

Fits right in with what usually goes on here.

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.

 

[pgwenthold]

Ocelot - well said!

 

[andyandy]

It must be pretty damn hard to be struck off, if it's taken a decade for Wakefield to be taken off....

Shouldn't the BMA (or GMC?) wheels turn a little quicker?

 

[Red3]

This is a fairly good summary of Wakefield's" work" for anyone interested :

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5683643.ece

 

[pgwenthold]

It must be pretty damn hard to be struck off, if it's taken a decade for Wakefield to be taken off....

Shouldn't the BMA (or GMC?) wheels turn a little quicker?

No. It is important that actions like this be done deliberately and thoughtfully, without being rushed.

 

[Finster]

As seems to be the norm - The comments on-line are disturbing and make me despair for the human race. There are a few rational ones but most seem to be on par with this gem.

"Repeat after me ... Mercury is GOOD as a preservative... Autism is GOOD for big pharma."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100524/ap_on_sc/eu_britain_autism_doctor

Arrgh.

 

[andyandy]

No. It is important that actions like this be done deliberately and thoughtfully, without being rushed.

Sure, there's thoughtful and not rushed, and then there's laboured and overdue. Over a decade to strike off a man whose dishonesty has done immeasurable harm to public confidence in vaccinations seems to stray into the latter...