Merged Retracted autism study an 'elaborate fraud'

[Foster Zygote]

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.

That reminds me of those morons on FoxNews neglecting to mention that the sinister Muslim backer of the "ground zero mosque" just happens to be the second largest shareholder in their own network after Rupert Murdoch.

 

[Rolfe]

I remember reading all this stuff about falsified medical records in Brian Deer's blog, earlier last year. I had a short email correspondence with him, as I suggested he might do an expose on what Wakefield was really injecting into children and calling it a "single measles vaccine". He said he wasn't finished with Mr. Wakefield yet, and this I gather was what he meant. I'm a little surprised it took so long to get the splash treatment.

He seemed to think that the nature of Wakefield's quack treatments was probably a bridge too far for the public to follow, but if anyone's interested, it wasn't exactly a single measles vaccine Wakefield had a patent application on.

Rolfe.

 

[Drudgewire]

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.

The techdirt piece linked by Ducky two posts above yours takes CNN to task for doing the same thing in their report.

That link goes to CNN and is a perfect example of what Jay Rosen refers to as "the view from nowhere" journalism. It seems to bend over backwards to let "both sides" weigh in on the story with some people supporting Wakefield, and others disagreeing, but appears to do nothing to help establish what is factual and what is not.

Heaven forbid we appear unfair to those who don't want to stop believing a scam artist and a ditzy Playboy model.

 

[John Jones]

Actually using your logic the rate of autism should have shot down drastically because at the time my parents were alive/babies mercury salts were still being used in certain materials.

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

Where I live, rubbing alcohol is isopropyl alcohol - neither methyl nor ethyl alcohol.

 

[Soapy Sam]

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

Thoughtful House web site

SG- He was only struck off in May 2010. Don't know when he made his US fortune. I can't get that link to work. It finally opened.
That item looks to be during his hearing, not after. So it appears he made his pot across the pond before being struck off here.
Not that I suppose that makes you feel much better...

 

[Frying Dutchmen]

Fraud Wakefield talks about a smear campaign against him on CNN. I agree with this it's just it's his smear campaign that is finally come back to bit him on his lying scumbag arse.

 

[BenBurch]

But you don't believe all that rubbish do you? Of course they will say that? These criminals are responsible for destroying the lives of millions of people. They are the reason that kids are being filled with drugs for ADD, and mothers are still grieving their babies that have died of SIDS. What else are they going to come up with? Surely you would understand that they are way up to their eyeballs now and are not about to back down.

Here we have, right in our midst, an example of a common Conspiracy Theorist mindset;

Once they have decided that a false thing is true, and that the false thing is a Evil Conspiracy, any data that would show a sane person that s/he was in error will only reinforce the belief in the false thing, because only the Evil Conspiracy would be trying to discredit it.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

SG- He was only struck off in May 2010. Don't know when he made his US fortune. I can't get that link to work. It finally opened.
That item looks to be during his hearing, not after. So it appears he made his pot across the pond before being struck off here.
Not that I suppose that makes you feel much better...

Feb 2010 on SB's Respectful Insolence: Andrew Wakefield: Pushed out by the board of directors at Thoughtful House?

So I guess that's why he was willing to be called a liar so he could push his book on CNN. He's out of a job.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Here we have, right in our midst, an example of a common Conspiracy Theorist mindset;

Once they have decided that a false thing is true, and that the false thing is a Evil Conspiracy, any data that would show a sane person that s/he was in error will only reinforce the belief in the false thing, because only the Evil Conspiracy would be trying to discredit it.

Kind of like the god meme, lack of evidence is evidence god is testing your faith.

 

[Dorian Gray]

The point is that these people have been poisoning kids with vaccines for years. So they've developed these lying memes that you guys trot out every time.

These people have been poisoning your head with memes that you believe and repeat without question, no matter how many studies are presented to you.

Get it through your head: Jenny McCarthy is never going to sleep with you.

 

[Dorian Gray]

NSFW Penn and Teller show about Vaccinations:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/08/penn_teller_deconstruct_the_anti-vaccine.php

 

[bozothedeathmachine]

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.

Sorry for the late reply. I agree my comment was a bit of a kneejerk and may lead to a slippery slope.

However, as many above have stated, if the article was intentional fraud, it has nothing to do with freedom of speech or scientific research. Fraud is fraud. If this fraud lead to injury then I think it is reasonable to call it criminal negligence, for which there are laws.

 

[bozothedeathmachine]

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.

I think this is going to be the nail in Wakefield's coffin that exposes him. If this issue gets loud enough, some new organization somewhere will track down these parents and ask them point blank about it. Then Wakefield will have nowhere to turn.

And I predict this will happen soon (where's my million?)

 

[bozothedeathmachine]

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

You're welcome

 

[Soapy Sam]

While there's no excusing Wakefield, I'd repeat Ben Goldacre's point that the whole MMR affair is more a consequence of irresponsible journalism than of one man's misdeeds.

 

[Rolfe]

I'm not sure I'd let Wakefield off the hook in any way on that account, but I certainly agree the problem was made far worse than it would otherwise have been by the irresponsible journalism.

I wonder if any of the journalists involved feels at all bad about pushing Wakefield's agenda, now it's all come out? Not the obvious red-top woos of course, but there were some quite respectable people in there attacking the defenders of vaccination, all in the name of "balance".

Rolfe.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

I'm not sure I'd let Wakefield off the hook in any way on that account, but I certainly agree the problem was made far worse than it would otherwise have been by the irresponsible journalism.

I wonder if any of the journalists involved feels at all bad about pushing Wakefield's agenda, now it's all come out? Not the obvious red-top woos of course, but there were some quite respectable people in there attacking the defenders of vaccination, all in the name of "balance".

Rolfe.

The Observer was particularly bad in the whole MMR nonsense.

 

[bozothedeathmachine]

I wonder if any of the journalists involved feels at all bad about pushing Wakefield's agenda, now it's all come out?

I can't speak for an entire industry, but I'll bet there's a lot of "I just report the news, I don't make" rationalizing on massive scale hapenning. And that's just the ones who are self-aware enough to realize it. There's probably an entire subset of the population that is completely ignorant of the damage done by their if-it-bleeds-it-leads mentality.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I can't speak for an entire industry, but I'll bet there's a lot of "I just report the news, I don't make" rationalizing on massive scale hapenning. And that's just the ones who are self-aware enough to realize it. There's probably an entire subset of the population that is completely ignorant of the damage done by their if-it-bleeds-it-leads mentality.

The more Gupta speaks on this the more it is obvious, a lot of the experts don't realize the words they choose, which I'm pretty sure they believe are just being scientifically accurate, do tremendous damage as well.

In followup segments, Dr Gupta has said several times, "Vaccines probably don't cause autism". I'm sure he has no clue what damage that does.

 

[Emet]

Science-Based Medicine weighs in:

“Piltdown medicine” and Andrew Wakefield’s MMR vaccine fraud

Pity poor Andrew Wakefield. Well, not really. I tend to view what’s happening to him yet again as the chickens coming home to roost.

Let’s put it this way. 2010 was a terrible year for him, and 2011 is starting out almost as bad.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=9552