Dr. Andrew Wakefield - the British physician who was accused in February by the Sunday Times of London of altering data in a 1998 paper on autistic children, bowel disease and the MMR vaccine - has filed a formal complaint against the freelance journalist who wrote the article.
Wakefield this week delivered the complaint against the journalist, Brian Deer, to the UK's Press Complaints Commission (PCC) - an independent body that investigates alleged inaccuracies, invasion of privacy and misreporting by the media.
The complaint accuses Deer of "publishing incorrect information and also of having a conflict of interest caused by his involvement in the General Medical Committee's (GMC) investigation of Wakefield," according to a news release issued by the doctor's advisors.
Wakefield - who now lives in Austin, TX - and two colleagues are currently the subject of hearings at the GMC, which has accused them of serious misconduct in the research and writing of the 1998 paper on autism and MMR vaccine.
"Mr. Deer has failed miserably as a reporter and has done great harm to me and many others conducting autism research," Wakefield said in the release.
The most sensational accusation against him printed in the Sunday Times held that Wakefield had altered and manipulated data on many of the 12 children who were written up in the paper.
Deer wrote: "The doctor who sparked the scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine for children changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism, a Sunday Times investigation has found."
Deer also said that, "Confidential medical documents and interviews with witnesses have established that Andrew Wakefield manipulated patients' data, which triggered fears that the MMR triple vaccine to protect against measles, mumps and rubella was linked to the condition."
The accusations made worldwide headlines and further lacerated Wakefield's already tarnished reputation within mainstream health and science circles. But Wakefield, in his 58-page complaint to the Press Commission, is finally pushing back.
"There is no basis in fact for any suggestion that I "manipulated patients' data" at any time," he says in the complaint. "There was no misreporting or changing of results by me," he wrote. "None of the evidence presented during the GMC hearing over the past year-and-a-half, supports any allegation of manipulation of data by either myself or any of the other 12 co-authors on the paper.
Deer had reported that, "In most of the 12 cases, the children's ailments as described in The Lancet were different from their hospital and GP records." But Wakefield explains the discrepancies as follows:
The documents relevant to the evidence presented in the Lancet paper are clearly identified in that paper. These included the Royal Free Hospital records and where available, the prospective developmental records from parents, Health Visitors and General Practitioners (GPs). The team therefore relied on the totality of the information available to them, as stated in the paper. This is entirely normal practice. Since then further records have been collated for the GMC enquiry, which were not available to the hospital team at the time of writing the paper.
The records that were before the GMC included a complete set of the children's local hospital records, a full set of the GP records to include all GPs who had been involved the child's care as well a the Royal Free Hospital records and any other records relating to the child e.g. school medical records.Reliance on differences between these data sources i.e. those relied on by the Lancet authors and those relied upon by Mr. Deer in his allegations is disingenuous and misleading since the majority of the latter records were not available to the Royal Free doctors at the material time.
Accordingly, the authors of the Lancet paper cannot and should not be held responsible for any alleged 'differences' between the records available to them and the full set of records as set out above. But that is not to say that Mr. Deer's interpretation of any differences is accurate. Rather he has "cherry picked" differences with a view to undermining the credibility of the Royal Free doctors and the Lancet paper.
His premise, namely that I am determined to pull off an impossible scientific and medical scam. Indeed, the notion that any researcher can cook such data in any fashion that can be slipped past the medical community for his personal benefit is patent nonsense. Such an idea is absurd on its face and unravels before the evidence (as has happened at the GMC hearing), which is consistently ignored by Mr. Deer. Scientific rigor requires repeatability for verification of any research and Mr. Deer's implications of fraud against me are claims that a trained physician and researcher of good standing had suddenly decided he was going to fake data for his own enrichment.
"(Deer) shouldn't even be writing about my case since he is on record as having filed the original complaint with the GMC and has become complicit in the agency's investigation," Wakefield writes.
Deer has denied he is the source of the GMC complaint against Wakefield - although Wakefield notes that in February of 2004, Deer wrote to a GMC official to "ask your permission to lay before you an outline of evidence that you may consider worthy of evaluation with respect of the possibility of serious professional misconduct," by Wakefield and his associates.
"It was in fact Mr. Deer who initiated the investigation by the GMC in the first place," says Wakefield's complaint to the PCC. "He therefore has an undeclared interest in its conclusions. Failure to have disclosed this conflict to readers of the Sunday Times is misleading."
According to the complaint, the PCC code of conduct "states that the Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information and that while 'free to be partisan' it must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture, and fact."
In yet another section of the complaint, Wakefield alleges that Deer gave him less than 24 hours "to respond to what are clearly very complex issues in an article which had inevitably taken some considerable time to put together. This was clearly insufficient time to consult properly with the lawyers handling these issues on my behalf at the GMC to seek their considered advice, and to access the documentation needed to formulate a proper and thorough response."
It is not clear where this will lead. According to its website, the Press Complaints Commission is "an independent body which deals with complaints from members of the public about the editorial content of newspapers and magazines. Our service to the public is free, quick and easy. We aim to deal with most complaints in just 35 working days."
Commission members will review the accusations and decide what, if any action to take from there. In 2007, however, the Commission ruled on only 32 out of more than 3,400 complaints it had received. "All those which were critical of a newspaper were published in full and with due prominence by the publication concerned," the PCC says.
It has been a full month since the Sunday Times article ran, and Wakefield has remained relatively silent about it - until now. The response from Mr. Deer will likely be widely anticipated on both sides of the Atlantic.
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NOTE: It has been pointed out that my name appears on a list of "Advisors" on the website for Thoughtful House, the autism treatment center in Austin where Dr. Wakefield works. An official there asked me a few years back if I would lend my name and, because I respect their work, I agreed. It is an honorary listing - I do not literally provide advice to the group, nor do these advisors ever meet or speak. I had forgotten I was even on the list, or else I would have made this disclosure originally. Thanks to the person who pointed it out.
Of course, Dr Wakefield could always sue.
The actions of the GMC, reporters like Brian Deer, etc. only amplify Dr. Wakefield's message that the MMR does significant damage in a subset of the population, even with all the distortion/false representation of what he has said and done.
I don't care what he has said and done. I don't care what Mr. Kennedy has said or done. I care that the reformulation of the vaccine several years ago proved conclusively that the vaccine is not responsible. It is difficult to even consider who is being harmed here more grievously: the poor parents of autistic children misled to tilt at windmills or the population as a whole who's fight against disease is increasingly being hampered by selfishness and paranoia.
the problem with this whole idea is the idea it is thermisol that is doing it! I DON'T KNOW THAT IT WAS THE MERCURY I ONLY KNOW IT HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE VACCINE!!!!!!
There is so much poison in those shots(that doesn't need to be there except that it makes the vaxes more profitable) it could be any one of them.
For example
Excitotoxins, too many viruses at once, biological containiments, metals and preservatives!
By coincidence, on Mar 12, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. had the story, Linking vaccines, autism tantamount to crying 'fire' where there isn't one.
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/03/11/f-strauss-autism-vaccines.html
"On the internet, the desperate parents of autistic children haven't stopped their anti-vaccination campaigns. I see this and conclude: there are just limitations on free speech. . . . the legal system should declare that promoting the vaccine/autism hypothesis is the modern equivalent of falsely crying 'fire' in a crowded theatre."
I keep remembering the comments by Dr. Peter Fletcher, former Chief Science Officer in the UK, in Mar 2006, also in the Daily Mail.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-376203/Former-science-chief-MMR-fears-coming-true.html Dr. Fletcher said, 'There are very powerful people in positions of great authority in Britain and elsewhere who have staked their reputations and careers on the safety of MMR and they are willing to do almost anything to protect themselves.'
Anne Dachel
Media editor: Age of Autism http://www.rescuepost.com/age_of_autism/
I think it is more likely that The Times report reflects the view that Wakefield is likely to be cleared and it is just left trying to deny the science. They don't even mention that the hearing resumes this morning, and instead raise the question as to why £1m (bet it is much more than that) has been spent trying to prosecute him. As if, of course, News International had nothing to do with it!
http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2009/03/16/times-journo-costs-gmc-1m/
What do they care about the GMC spending £1m?
John Stone
Contributing UK Editor, Age of Autism http://www.ageofautism.com/john-stone-uk/
But Wakefield has already explained that "the notion that any researcher can cook such data in any fashion that can be slipped past the medical community for his personal benefit is patent nonsense."
In fact, Wakefield is probably right that such fraud cannot be slipped past the community indefinitely, which is why he is now facing the music. There is no similar indication of fraud in the many studies that show no evidence for an autism-vaccine link.
The answer is that it ieasier to cook some kinds data than others. It is very easy to formulate studies which give you negative results because you are looking in the wrong place, or because there are too many confounders. On the hand there is lots evidence of an association between bowel disease and autism, so little reason after a dozen years to doubt that they were looking at such cases. Also, as Wakefield points out he had little or no imput into the analysis of these results.
Read The Virus and The Vaccine, by NY Times and the Atlantic writers Debbie Bookchin and Jim Schumacher, to see how the Salk polio vaccine was contaminated by the carcinogenic monkey virus SV40, which is now showing up in human cancer cases worldwide.
The links I gave below provide good alternative sources of information. I urge people whose children are suffering from adverse reactions to seek out professional homeopaths and Chinese medical doctors in conjunction with their regular family physicians. I also suggest that they avoid foods with preservatives, food colourings and artificial sweeteners. Gluten free and casein free diets do help but aren't a cure, and the same for mercury chelation, but they do alleviate symptoms.
Every new ‘discovery’ promises much, but in my experience they only show part of the picture. How to otherwise explain autistic children who never had a vaccine, or genetic factors that are present in only 10 % of diagnosed ASD?
http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2009/03/15/sunday-times-mmr-lies-nailed/
Mr Deer's response below is surely about the most undignified and foolish imaginable. But how did the Sunday Times get into this ludicrous position?
Firstly, Wakefield's response doesn't actually rebut any of the facts originally highlighted by Deer, so it is a bit much to expect Deer to immediately respond. He doesn't need to.
Secondly, if he were to respond, how long do you think it would actually take for him to compile a response to a 58 page report? A couple of hours or so?
Get a reality check John.
The results of Wakefield's "powerful and important" 1998 study have never been reliably duplicated. Most of the study's authors recanted. The Hornig study from last September found contamination issues at O'Leary's lab.
Do you have any real evidence at all?
"so-called" journalism.
Be that as it may, Huffpo does not allow substantial replies in its posts - limiting them to 250 words. Therefore, I ask that those who are interested to see what I say in reply to Wakefield and Kirby (I believe they are indeed in it together), read it at the following link, which they can cut and paste into their browser.
http://briandeer.com/solved/wakefield-veracity.htm
If there is some Huffpo ban on links, I trust that the editor will accept that I am entitled to reply fully on this, and the alternative would be to provide me full space to do so
You said, "....they are indeed in it together". Thank God that they are "in it together "! *In it together* must mean searching for answers, looking for the truth, helping all of us who have sick children, trying to look at causation to prevent more diagnoses while making valiant progress on treatments for so many children who suffer from gastrointestinal, neurological, metabolic, sensory and the myriad symptoms that can accompany an autism diagnosis.
You, sir are not in it with them. No, you are in it with those who share your lack of interest in finding the truth about the environmental causes, including vaccines, and autism. You appear to invest your time and energy in not helping families with autism but instead present as someone on a twisted vendetta that excludes honest investigations and honest avenues of research.
It is too bad that you are not "in it together" with them as that is the road that will provide the correct scientific answers and treatments for a generation of sick children and soon to be young adults.
Twist it around as much as you will, your group's vested interest on attempting to close the pandora's box on vaccine concerns is a red flag to your motivations. Trying to paint a picture of dishonesty with individuals like David Kirby, Dr. Wakefield or any of those out to seek the truth just paints you as more desperate and conflicted.
What about all the other sources of mercury? Pregnant women can pass on heavy metal toxins to their babies in utero, correct? And many many women have high levels of mercury in their bodies. Whether from their dental work or the general enviroment....
And I know that it has been shown (correct?) that some people are much more sensitive to mercury that others, and that this may be genetic??? So many of the studies regarding autism and mercury are focused on vaccines, and rightfully so!, but could the link be harder to "prove" if other sources of mercury are not accounted for?
Hope this made some sense... I suffer from mercury toxicity and also have Lyme disease which I know is now being linked to autism. And on and on it goes in this sadly toxic world. May the truth come out soon!
You're absolutely correct. This whole thing, about ASD and such, has been terribly confused by the multiple sources of toxins in our environment - some of which have caused the genetic factors that have also exacerbated the situation.
Your point about mercury/heavy metal toxins in the bodies of pregnant women is especially tragic. This can come from their amalgam fillings, as you suggest; from fish, as we know; from coal-fired power plants; - and from the flu shot, now on the recommended/ mandated/ schedule. It is this addition of the flu vax to the schedule that has been a particular problem, because it confused the signals in epid studies regarding the withdrawal of thimerosal over a period of years (still found in doses as late as 2004, that I have read about). This has not been one of science's better examples.
"Autistic spectrum disorder: No causal relationship with vaccines"
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=19030398
"Large population-based epidemiology studies (5–9) in Finland, Denmark, the United States and England have shown no association between MMR and autism. The evidence in these studies does not meet the consistency of the finding, the strength of the association or the specificity of the association causality assessment criteria. Both the Institute of Medicine (IOM) review and the Cochrane systematic review failed to show any association between MMR and autism. (10,11)." (the citations are in the article)
Furthermore, "10 of the 13 authors of the original paper have now retracted their interpretation of a connection between the MMR vaccine and ASD (17)," the original paper being Wakefield et al.'s 1998 Lancet article.
But I suppose anything I write or pull from Pubmed can be dismissed as propaganda from the "medical establishment". After all, the fact that I actually do research (some of it funded by Autism Speaks) on the genetic factors involved in autism shouldn't sway anyone's opinion. Better to listen to Jenny McCarthy...
1) What about other vaccines?
2) What about other ingredients in other vaccines?
3) What chemicals / factors / genetics / incidents / environments are associated with Autism?
Vaccines will continue to be suspect as a factor - and rightly so - until an irrefutable causal relationship is found.
You sound so much like another geek who leaves this type of post...and then exits with a Jenny McCarthy zinger-- how juvenile.
Yes, pubmed is full of all kinds of interesting studies. Here's more and note their conclusions show a pattern that epidemiological research will not show but just what Dr. Wakefield and others have been doing--immunological, cellular, and molecular research dealing with the actual children affected with an autism diagnosis.
Biomed Sci. 2002 Jul-Aug;9(4):359-64.Links
Abnormal measles-mumps-rubella antibodies and CNS autoimmunity in children with autism.
Singh VK, Lin SX, Newell E, Nelson C.
Thus the MMR antibody in autistic sera detected measles HA protein, which is unique to the measles subunit of the vaccine. Furthermore, over 90% of MMR antibody-positive autistic sera were also positive for MBP autoantibodies, suggesting a strong association between MMR and CNS autoimmunity in autism. Stemming from this evidence, we suggest that an inappropriate antibody response to MMR, specifically the measles component thereof, might be related to pathogenesis of autism.
Pediatr Neurol. 2003 Apr;28(4):292-4.
Elevated levels of measles antibodies in children with autism.
Singh VK, Jensen RL.
Thus autistic children have a hyperimmune response to measles virus, which in the absence of a wild type of measles infection might be a sign of an abnormal immune reaction to the vaccine strain or virus reactivation.
Again, I could be wrong here but I thought I would mention it since I, too, think that studying the Amish population is possibly very important to understanding the vaccine link.
There was no conspiracy to discredit him. He did all the shoddy work for unscrupulous reasons on his own.
Guilty until proven innocent. We are in America, you know?
Considering measles is so rare in comparison to vaccination for measles, he might have concluded that the risks of becoming autistic were greater following measles than following MMR.
Considering monovalent measles vaccine was a t that time very rarely given (most kids were getting MMR) he might also have concluded that the risks of becoming autistic were greater with monovalent measles vaccine than they were with MMR.
Guess what? In a press conference, he declared MMR was the culprit, and suggested single monovalent measles vaccines instead!
We now know he was paid nearly $1 million by lawyers specifically to find evidence of MMR damage they could point to in vaccine claims cases, and that Wakefield himself was patenting a type of monovalent measles vaccine.
Whadya know!?
We also find that the cases in Wakefield's Lancet paper had neurological problems BEFORE they got MMR. Deer pointed this out, and Wakefield's response is "I didn't commit fraud, this was because we only had acces to some case records and not full information from the GPs". So he is admitting the Lancet paper was wrong, but says he didn't know this at the time so it wasn't fraud.
Therefore, concentrating on a single vaccine, the MMR, and the role of thimerosal (which is still present in the flu shot and vaccines sent to third world countries) is unhelpful for those seeking a solution to this baffling illness.
http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/vaccines_part2.htm also has useful information, but my own experience as a parent is that Autism is an auto immune disease which requires a multi-disciplinary approach.