Merged Retracted autism study an 'elaborate fraud'

[Tatyana]

There's a difference between misguided science and outright changing of undisputed facts. Wakefield changed facts in his Lancet study; Deer's article in the BMJ has a table summarizing three aspects of the 12 cases of Wakefield's study and how they differ between what Wakefield reported and what was reality.

The BMJ was very generous in giving the unknowns or '?' to Wakefield as a yes answer in the table.

I read the BMJ on a regular basis.

They are not on the side of big pharma, in fact, there are typically at least two articles every single issue about some sort of questionable practice by pharmaceutical companies.

They have an entire issue in recent years dedicated to further separation of the drug reps and doctors.

Anyone who is interested in actually looking at the sources can easily see that the BMJ is not a 'shill' for big pharma, in fact, it is a very ethical, compassionate and scientifically rigorous journal.

I personally think reading one issue would challenge the ability of anyone who thinks that 'western medicine is bad and wrong'.

In fact, if anyone of the doubters requests it, I will send you one of the issues.

 

[Tatyana]

Rubbing alcohol is technically still ethyl alcohol with crap thrown into it. It might not always be methanol.

Oops, very true.

Ok, he can drink methylated spirits, I will have the vodka.

 

[ddt]

The BMJ was very generous in giving the unknowns or '?' to Wakefield as a yes answer in the table.

Indeed, and so was I. I should have written:

To take one, Wakefield reported that in 8 of 12 cases, autism symptoms came days after the MMR vaccination. Deer's investigation shows that in at least 10 of the 12 children, the other two being unknown, this was not the case

Ok, he can drink methylated spirits, I will have the vodka.

I don't dispute your personal preference, I like vodka too, but do you really want him to go blind?

 

[Kuko 4000]

Here's the video of Anderson Cooper interviewing Wakefield:

Part 1:




PArt 2:




The claims are serious, this is not anymore about bad science, but fraud. Everyone should look carefully at the references that Deer gives before accepting them at face value. Deer is a journalist not a scientist. Anyways, it's great that this is on the news again, I hope Deer has a solid case.

In that interview Wakefield claims that Deer has not interviewed the parents of the children, in other words, he's calling Deer a liar. This will be very easy to verify. Interesting.

 

[ben m]

Which law which warrants serious prison time do you suggest he broke?
He has already been struck off the medical register in the UK, he doesn’t have a licence to practise medicine anywhere else and you can be dammed sure that he won’t be getting any legitimate research jobs any time soon. Therese not much more that can be done.

I wonder if there's anything that can be done about the lawyer that paid him to do this work.

If he knowingly paid an expert witness to falsify science in his favor, I would hope that was grounds for disbarment.

 

[zooterkin]

I don't dispute your personal preference, I like vodka too, but do you really want him to go blind?

I don't think he'd see the data any less clearly.

 

[Tatyana]

Here's the video of Anderson Cooper interviewing Wakefield:

Part 1:




PArt 2:




The claims are serious, this is not anymore about bad science, but fraud. Everyone should look carefully at the references that Deer gives before accepting them at face value. Deer is a journalist not a scientist. Anyways, it's great that this is on the news again, I hope Deer has a solid case.

In that interview Wakefield claims that Deer has not interviewed the parents of the children, in other words, he's calling Deer a liar. This will be very easy to verify. Interesting.

He is certainly flogging his book.

 

[Drudgewire]

All too true. Such people desperately want an answer as to why their child is autistic. Now that they believe they know with certainty, and even have villains to blame, they find it very difficult to let go of that feeling of closure. When what's-his-name, the leader of the big anti-vacc group in the US, was informed of huge public health studies in several nations that indicated no link between vaccination and autism, his response was, "I don't give a [F-bomb]".

Yeah, once they've proven a link in their own minds no amount of data can contradict it (especially once they have a personal stake in keeping their "facts" from being disproven). Anyone who has seen Taylor Hooten's dad react to even the possibility steroids aren't the reason his son committed suicide in the "Bigger, Stronger, Faster" documentary knows exactly what that is like.

 

[Beerina]

From CNN:

Wakefield has been unable to reproduce his results in the face of criticism, and other researchers have been unable to match them. Most of his co-authors withdrew their names from the study in 2004 after learning he had had been paid by a law firm that intended to sue vaccine manufacturers -- a serious conflict of interest he failed to disclose.

Ya know...

The bad part of something like this is that even though this study has now been completely discredited, there are folks that still believe that MMR is responsible for or at least linked to autism.

Worse, and clownishly so, they will still maintain vaccines themselves are a fraud because of the evil, greedy pharmo-com industry. Yet this very guy they hold holy was himself out for the cash and, apparently, deliberately and fraudulently so.

Hundreds of lives lost due to this fraud. Perhaps tens of thousands or more, when you realize entire swaths of Africa and other poor areas have government officials under the vaccines-are-a-dangerous-fraud meme.




ETA: And Jenny McCarthy was a co-host of this year's Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve. Soulless bastards everywhere. Shame on you, ABC and Dick Clark.

 

[pgwenthold]

Rubbing alcohol is technically still ethyl alcohol with crap thrown into it. It might not always be methanol.

Rubbing alcohol is isopropyl alcohol, and is as different from ethanol as methanol is.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

13 Deer unearthed clear evidence of falsification.[/url]

Man, I had to read this sentence twice. There was me thinking "why were 13 Deer looking for evidence of falsification?"

I would be very uncomfortable if Wakefield were charged under such a law (and I don't think one exists), as reprehensible and damaging as his actions were, prosecuting him would be abhorrent to my ideas of freedom of speech and would have a pretty nasty chilling effect on science (however badly conducted).

Him not being prosecuted would be abhorrent to my idea of not deliberately causing the deaths of hundreds of children for personal monetary gain. I think he should be held accountable. I don't see how deliberately making up terrible side-effects of life-saving drugs and creating and feeding a worldwide panic about them is a freedom of speech issue. Nor do I see what it has to do with real science.

 

[Tatyana]

Rubbing alcohol is isopropyl alcohol, and is as different from ethanol as methanol is.

I love the smell of isopropyl alcohol (I should have googled that as I did know better).

The point being, isopropyl and methyl alcohol will trash your liver pretty much immediately (if you can manage to drink enough).

Ethyl alcohol has the potential to trash your liver if you work really hard at drinking a lot of it over a long period of time, or if you have some really odd genetic disorder.

The same scenario applies to methyl and ethyl mercury.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I listened to it. He did manage to fit in a few claims of "It's all lies." and "It's all a conspiracy between Big Pharma and every clinician in the world." in between those plugs.

The sad part is that the entire time I was listening to that slime-ball I knew that he was going to sell more books and reinforce the "conspiracy" meme with every word he said.

Bless Anderson Cooper for trying, but the brain dead morons who still believe that bastard's's ******** aren't going to be swayed by any of this. Every added detail exposing him is just another proof of the conspiracy.

Wow, why can't the news stick to the fact Wakefield is a fraud? Cooper did do a reasonably good job. But Gupta has no idea of the harm his replies did. Instead of saying we don't know what causes autism but we know it isn't vaccines, he said, we don't know what causes autism and that's why it's hard for parents to know what to do about vaccines. Damn, why don't these public figures get a clue about messages they are sending unintentionally?



It was amazing Wakefield just denied everything and called everyone else liars. One has to wonder if he believes in his fantasies, or, is fully conscious of the fact he's now just making money selling a totally bogus CT book to his CT followers?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

There is this myth going around that Thiomersal (or however you spell it) is less toxic then Mercury. This is not the case. Its far more toxic then Mercury. The traditional way we get metals to stop from passing straight through the body is to attach them to proteins or other molecules. The metal itself would never do anywhere near that amount of harm.

How have you managed to miss these key facts about mercury in vaccines?
1) It's not in any single dose vaccine vials, and all kids' vaccines except Japanese Encephalitis vaccine come in preservative free, mercury free, Thimerosal free single dose vials.
2) Wakefield's fraudulent work was with MMR vaccine. THERE ARE NO PRESERVATIVES, NO THIMEROSAL, & NO MERCURY IN MMR VACCINES.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

MMR? Who mentioned MMR. Whats the matter with you? Too busy to spell out things? Have to go for abbreviations every time? No-one mentioned MMR.

Right, the entire thread is about Wakefield's fraudulent work on MMR Vaccine and you think no one mentioned MMR.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

In the UK, it's spelt thiomersal.

From Wiki:

Thiomersal (International Nonproprietary Name) and commonly known in the US as thimerosal

Just an FYI so I can keep spelling it the way I'm used to.

 

[Ducky]

Techdirt had a good article on this also:

http://dlvr.it/CpM0n


ETA: The fact that one tag on this thread was "prison rape" just made me laugh so hard I cried!

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Linky



Now it looks to be that the original paper in The Lancet was deliberate fraud. Seriously, how is this guy not doing serious prison time?

Worse yet, how is it this guy left England after losing his license to practice medicine and managed to make millions in the US?

MMR scare doctor Andrew Wakefield makes fortune in US

..Dr Wakefield, a gastroenterologist, told The Times that he was not practising medicine in the United States, where he does not have a licence, but was working on research as executive director of the clinic. His salary is understood to be almost £200,000 a year.

However, parents at Thoughtful House told The Times that Dr Wakefield had been present as colleagues examined and treated their children, which may constitute a breach of medical regulations.

Thoughtful House web site

 

[FattyCatty]

Just listening to my local news, and they were talking about the BMJ article. Kind of a confusing report. On the one hand, they said some people are saying Wakefield is responsible for child deaths (which, in Southern California, means people will sue). On the other hand, they showed an interview with Wakefield where he basically says it's all a smear campaign against him because "they" are afraid of what the vaccines are doing and trying to stop him telling the "truth" about those vaccines. He says he will not be stopped from his attempts to save the children.

I wish the report had been more coherent and had ended with the facts against Wakefield instead of ending with his ******** statement. But at least the beginning of the report including the information on Wakefield's dishonesty.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...

ETA: And Jenny McCarthy was a co-host of this year's Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve. Soulless bastards everywhere. Shame on you, ABC and Dick Clark.

While Cooper mentioned McCarthy's celebrity promotion of the antivaxxer cause, he steered clear of saying CNN had promoted McCarthy's cause many times on Larry King.