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New Study Confirms Wakefield MMR Study?

Viper Daimao

Critical Thinker
Viper Daimao
Joined
Jun 25, 2007
Messages
496
Just saw an anti-vaccine person link to this news article about a new study that supposedly confirms Andrew Wakefield's mmr vaccine results

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-388051/Scientists-fear-MMR-link-autism.html
Now a team from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina are examining 275 children with regressive autism and bowel disease - and of the 82 tested so far, 70 prove positive for the measles virus.

Last night the team's leader, Dr Stephen Walker, said: 'Of the handful of results we have in so far, all are vaccine strain and none are wild measles.

'This research proves that in the gastrointestinal tract of a number of children who have been diagnosed with regressive autism, there is evidence of measles virus.
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anyone know anything more about it? I know science reporting is notoriously inept.
 
I have a feeling he has talked about this research before - though it may not have been published then. I'll see what I can dredge up.

ETA: From 2006:

An American scientist whose research replicates a connection published in England in 2002 between the measles virus and bowel disease in autistic children strongly warns against making the “leap” to suggesting that the measles vaccine might actually cause autism.
“That is not what our research is showing,” said Stephen J. Walker, Ph.D., an assistant professor of physiology and pharmacology at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. Walker and colleagues have issued an abstract to be presented at this week’s International Meeting for Autism Research, indicating that a high percentage of autistic children that they have tested with chronic bowel disease show evidence of measles virus in their intestines.
..snip..
Walker says the new research does not support the connection, and he notes that the results have not even been published in a peer-reviewed journal. “Even if we showed association (between measles virus and bowel disease) and we published it in a peer-reviewed journal, the conclusion will be simply that there is measles virus in the gut of a large number of children who have regressive autism and bowel disease. End of story.
“We haven’t done anything to demonstrate that the measles virus is causing autism or even causing bowel disease.”
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http://www.wfubmc.edu/News-Releases...ween_Presence_of_Measles_Virus_and_Autism.htm
 
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That study was apparently completed in 2005 or 2006, but has never been published. So... Shrug.

ETA: Reverse ninja'd. :)
 
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'This research proves that in the gastrointestinal tract of a number of children who have been diagnosed with regressive autism, there is evidence of measles virus.
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This makes it immediately unscientific. Real research NEVER proves. It indicates or hints or points. It never, ever proves. Topic closed.

Also listen to the language: Some in a Number! What is that supposed to mean. One in ten, one in hundred, one in a million?

Lots of stuff, which you do not want in your home.... Imagine a toilet which exploded....
 
70 of 82 children were positive for a measles vaccination? I'm no doctor, so I may be missing something, but shouldn't the number be that much or higher (close to 100%) for non-autistic children? Isn't pretty much every child in America vacccinated against measles?

Also, isn't the Daily Mail kind of the UK's National Enquirer?
 
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brenn said:
70 of 82 children were positive for a measles vaccination? I'm no doctor, so I may be missing something, but shouldn't the number be that much or higher (close to 100%) for non-autistic children? Isn't pretty much every child in America vacccinated against measles?

Also, isn't the Daily Mail kind of the UK's National Enquirer?
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No, they were testing for measles virus in the gut tissues, not for immunity to measles.

And the Daily Mail is ****, yes.
 
Sensationalist press once again puts the cart before the horse. Dr. Walker himself is on record as saying this isn't a linkage of MMR to autism:

“the conclusion will be simply that there is measles virus in the gut of a large number of children who have regressive autism and bowel disease. We haven’t done anything to demonstrate that the measles virus is causing autism.”
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Link.

More info: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb4345/is_10_34/ai_n29321363/
 
Whoa, waitaminute....

http://blisstree.com/live/the-rush-...&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=b5hubs_migration

Yesterday the Daily Mail, the Telegraph, and the Times online reported about a study on research on an MMR vaccine/autism link being undertaken by Dr. Stephen Walker of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina. However, Dr. Walker’s study is funded by the National Autism Association (NAA), which endorses an MMR vaccine/autism link.
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... keeping in mind that the "yesterday" in that quote is a reference to May 27th, 2006. Anyway: I didn't realize that Walker's study was funded by the NAA. I'm not ready to throw it out yet, not until I locate and read it myself, but at the same time, the funding souce cannot be ignored. It's possible he's done some solid science and it's merely being spun by the NAA to favor their agenda (I noted how the Daily Mail didn't make any reference to Walker's opinion about the autism link. I think you can call that one a distortion via omission without a doubt). It's also possible that the science is shoddy. I won't know until I read it. Regardless, I am disappointed to discover what the funding source was.
 
Professor Yaffle said:
No, they were testing for measles virus in the gut tissues, not for immunity to measles.

And the Daily Mail is ****, yes.
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Yes, but how many healthy children would show the virus in their gut? Same percentage perhaps? Than no link to the disease.

And commonality is not cause-ality. Might be austistic children allow the virus to grow in their gut. Hmmm, if autistic kids have less resistance to viruses, perhaps they get some other virus in their brains? That would make this study an important link to finding a cause.

Hmmm, so, what other virus is also in their guts? Why concentrate on measles vax virus? Bias perhaps?
 
Not only is that old news, sloppy science, but it hasn't even seen the light of peer review. Dr. Walker's co-author, Dr. Hepner testified at the Omnibus Autism Proceeding which can be read here. They had no control group for starters, no sequence data (even though they claimed they did sequence) and yes, funding for this project is from dubious and agendised sources.

Este
 
Professor Yaffle said:
Ah, it seems that the Daily Mail article you linked to is from 2006 too.
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The dates on the comments are a bit of a giveaway.

That's the second rather elderly Daily Wail story I've seen presented as if it's current in as many days. The other one was headlined 'Homeopathy works!' and was presented on a homoeopathy-related blog as being a current story. In fact, while the story wasn't dated (and didn't have any comments), there are a couple of clues about its date: the person described as being President of the Faculty of Homeopathy was in that position between 1999 and 2005, and the study it is reporting is probably this one, published in 2000.
 
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