Dispatches - MMR on Channel 4

Look also at this thread. It's discussing the article in last weekend's Sunday Times which accompanies the TV programme. (It says, a joint investigation between the Sunday Times and Channel 4's Dispatches.)

Judging by the Sunday Times stuff, Wakefield is in for a right good pasting. I also saw a small article in yesterday's Daily Mirror (don't ask!), saying that it appeared that there had never been any evidence that MMR caused autism in the first place!

Rolfe.
 
:(
I'll be at work for this, I would like to see Wakefield getting a good pasting.
Never mind, Mrs D will video it for me.


Oh, and Rolfe - why were you reading the Daily Mirror?
 
Rolfe said:
Which part of "don't ask" don't you understand?

Rolfe.
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I was expecting an amusing tale involving a lab assistant, a cat and probably a homeopath.
 
Dragon said:
I was expecting an amusing tale involving a lab assistant, a cat and probably a homeopath.
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I expect she'll have to admit because the daily record isn't in the newsagents down in sassenach land.

And maybe her cat had scratched up her copy of the Daily Sport before she got to it.
 
Rolfe said:
Look also at this thread.
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Ah! In fact I nearly appended my link to that thread; if I'd read it more carefully I'd not have bothered because you've already beaten me to it!

I once read a copy of the Daily Mirror by accident. I didn't see any actual news in it, though. Although I suppose this could have been under "TV Review" section ;)
 
Programme was pure dead brilliant. Wakefield left without a leg to stand on. Exposed now as a complete quack selling useless high-priced "supplements" supposed to cure autism except that there's either no evidence that they do or the available evidence says they don't.

I especially liked the bit where Wakefield tried to break the reporter's camera.... Who said "it if ducks like a quack...."?

Hope somebody videoed that for Peter Bowditch.

(Problem was, there was a very well-recommended programme on BBC2 about liver transplants at exactly the same time, might have reduced the viewing figures. That's the reason I have no tape of the MMR programme, as I was taping the liver transplant one while watching Dispatches.)

Rolfe.
 
I must admit I wish this programme could have gone out years ago. To have Wakefield's own lab partner stand up and say that the research they did together did not support what Wakefield was claiming, and add in the conflict of interest with Wakefield's own Wonder Vaccine for measles and I think a lot more people would have been skeptical.

Add in the rest of the stuff about him effectively being a money-grubbing quack (and how often is that directed in our direction by the anti-vaxers?) and I think perhaps the anti-MMR industry might not have such a toehold today.

Sadly, it does have a toehold. I wonder if this is too little, too late? Hope it'll have some effect, anyway.
 
Can we expect an apology from the Daily Mail school of health-scare journalists, or will they now jump onto an anti-Wakefield band wagon as if the last 6 years had never happened?
 
Badly Shaved Monkey said:
Can we expect an apology from the Daily Mail school of health-scare journalists, or will they now jump onto an anti-Wakefield band wagon as if the last 6 years had never happened?
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I'm sticking by this prediction made a while back. Do I get a million dollars if I'm right?

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=1870602606#post1870602606

think the mostly sadly amusing bit will be the inevitable media volte face of "shock, horror, not getting vaccinated is dangerous, why were we NEVER TOLD, we're all going to DIE".

Fortunately most people have incredibly short memories, especially when being spoon-fed sensationalist silliness.

I bet we see lines of parents outside clinics, a national shortage of vaccines, semi-competent tele-journalists inexpertly haranging equally challenged government ministers about the crisis.

I expect to see those self same anti-vax parents covertly trying to get their kids immunised three or four times over in the belief they'll be better protected.
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I am going to disagree.

My prediction: it's a conspiracy.

That is where advocates like these tend to go when the "evidence" of their claim begins to evaporate.

I am curious to see Melanie Phillips' view on all this new information. I expect she will lie doggo.
 
The "Wakefield Scorecard":

-He took money from trial lawyers, and produced a study that conveniently supported the trial laywers' claims.

-He then lied about where he got the children for said study, on more than one occassion.

-He tried to persuade medical leaders not to continue vaccination programs, and then repeatedly lied, saying he never told anyone not to vaccinate children for measles.

-He came up with a patent for a treatment protocol (or vaccine, depending on what you want to call it) that would directly compete with the MMR at the same time he was damning the MMR.

-He got involved with quack doctors in the U.S. who peddle useless autism treatments.

-He claims to be broke, yet seems to have the money to travel the globe spreading the gospel of MMR v. autism.

Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies. All of it.

That goes WAY beyond any conflict of interest, IMO. Now we're talking about outright fraud, and how anyone cannot see this guy for the quack he is - well, that's just crazy.

Yet mainstream doctors are the bad guys.
 
sodakboy93 said:
The "Wakefield Scorecard":
-He tried to persuade medical leaders not to continue vaccination programs, and then repeatedly lied, saying he never told anyone not to vaccinate children for measles.
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Do you have evidence for that one? I thought the guy had been quite careful to steer clear of actually coming out and advising people against vaccination. He did seem to try and influence them toward single jab programmes but if I recall that seemed to come along late on in the controversy.

I'm sure his motives for that were questionable, but still.
 
http://briandeer.com/mmr/lancet-deer-2.htm

At the Department of Health and in the wider medical establishment, experts were deeply concerned by the reaction to The Lancet study. Yes, the journal had pushed it and yes, officialdom had gained little in the way of public trust after the debate over “mad cow” disease, but Wakefield appeared not so much an objective scientist, more as a man with a mission. He had even written to the department attacking the MMR vaccination before his own research was completed.

“I am writing to you in order to express formally my anxieties over your intention to re-vaccinate all pre-school children,” he wrote on September 6, 1996 to Sir Kenneth Calman, then the government’s chief medical officer. The letter closed with the blunt instruction: “Do not re-vaccinate.”
 
Doe anyone else think that Wakefield ought alo to be condemned for the weird haircut he was sporting in 1998? I noticed that American woo money seems to have bought him better hair.
 
Badly Shaved Monkey said:
Can we expect an apology from the Daily Mail school of health-scare journalists, or will they now jump onto an anti-Wakefield band wagon as if the last 6 years had never happened?
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Can we expect an apology from Channel 4 itself for that travesty Hear the Silence?

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe said:
Can we expect an apology from Channel 4 itself for that travesty Hear the Silence?

Rolfe.
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Oh, yes, I'd forgotten about that. With a memory like this I should apply to work on the Daily Mail's medical staff.
 
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