Based on the findings of Britain's General Medical Council, the journal had no choice but to retract the twelve-year-old research and I agree with their retraction. At the very least, the study was far too small, and -- as I've said repeatedly -- had too many methodological flaws, to be used as proof of anything at all.
Neither The Lancet nor Britain's General Medical Council have stated that there is not a connection between vaccines in autism, just that they deem this particular piece of research unethical and incorrect.
This prestigious journal is now forced to cover their own embarrassment at having done virtually no rigorous due diligence of Dr. Wakefield's methodology, data gathering and conclusions before they published the paper in 1998.
Whether or not you believe that Andrew Wakefield is a savior, a misguided researcher with "his heart in the right place" or an attention-mongering, unethical "biostitute" the real blame must be shared by the world's most-respected medical journal, The Lancet, for allowing the flaws and potential conflicts of interest to go unnoticed. The self-righteous attitude they now assume serves no one, least of all families affected by autism.
I am on record recognizing the importance of Dr. Wakefield's research for calling attention to a potential connection between the vaccines and autism. I strongly support looking at this possible etiology alongside other possible environmental influences on genetic predisposition to Autism Spectrum Disorders.
A large leap was made in assigning any sort of "proof" from the small Lancet study. I'm not certain that Dr. Wakefield, himself, feels that anything was proven. I continue to join him and others in urgently requesting much more study of the possible causal link between vaccines and autism.
There are no easy answers to this and there continues to be no sufficient proof that a connection does not exist between the MMR and autism. What is clear is that a sloppy evaluation by a medical journal combined with research poorly done is being used to discredit those of us who believe that real research into the causes of autism must continue. This must take place with great respect shown for children and their families and adequate funding for ethical thorough investigation of all possible etiologies including immunizations.
Jay Gordon, MD, FAAP
Follow Jay Gordon, MD on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JayGordonMDFAAP
David Kirby: The Autism-Vaccine Debate: Why It Won't Go Away
As to the research paper, it has been withdrawn by the editor of the journal.
Like that makes him innocent of the charges the GMC found he was guilty of, yeah right.
It's the journals fault, or its the editors fault, or its the medias fault, or its the pharma conspiracy, or the illuminati, or the government, or tony blair or anyone. Or someone who publishes the journal once shared a taxi with the cousin of a man who cleans bins in galxos offices so this is proof it is all a frame up job. Basically its everyones fault except their "heroe" [sic] St Andrew.
You will defend this man to the death, and why? He's a doctor with a persuasive manner who appeared to try and help your kids- so what? - we trust doctors now? Because they are charismatic and plausible? Ohh! he had a lovely bedside manner that one, and so handsome too, he's doing his best for us all, i'm sure. Meanwhile he was laughing all the way to the bank. He made money from your kids illness, and stood to make much more if his patented treatment/vaccine came on line, and he's still making money- nearly $300 thou a year from charity funding which could have gone into proper research about autism or bowel problems.
Elsevier controversies:
1) Faked journals:
Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine
Australasian Journal of General Practice
Australasian Journal of Neurology
Australasian Journal of Cardiology
Australasian Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
Australasian Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine
2) Shill reviews
"Elsevier has been accused of offering Amazon gift certificates to academics who would write positive reviews at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble of their textbook Clinical Psychology"
3) Parent organisation links to weapons industry
Reed Elsevier, for its participation in the international arms trade
4) Chaos, Solitons and Fractals
"There is speculation that the editor-in-chief, M. El Naschie, is misusing his power to publish his work, without peer review."
5) Resignation of editorial boards
"November 1999 the entire Editorial Board ... collectively resigned"
"In 2002,...European Economic Association"
"2003, the entire editorial board ... Journal of Algorithms resigned"
"in 2005 to the International Journal of Solids and Structures"
"2006, the entire editorial board of the distinguished mathematical journal Topology"
Not from uneducated parents like us.
Considering how much research is actually government supported, it is fairly outrageous that this private company is doing the price gouging and controlling access to the research results.
Thanks for the summary of some of their dirty dealings, Dugmaze.
http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/02/no-parent-ever-complained-to-gmc-public-statement-from-lancet-families-supports-the-mmr3.html
"No Parent Ever Complained to the GMC: a Public Statement from the Lancet Families Supports The MMR3 (Dr. Wakefield, Prof. Murch, Prof. Walker-Smith.) "All of the investigations were carried out without distress to our children, many of whom made great improvements on treatment so that for the first time in years they were finally pain free."
One fact often lost in the media frenzy over the MMR 3 is that the accusations against the three doctors came entirely from the medical industry and their hired guns, never from the parents of the patients who were served"
There is a reason why the parents didn't complain, which is one charge found proven beyond a reasonable against Wakefield. They were parents who were in the process of suing vaccine makers for the autism or similar disorders of their children.
Why would anyone expect them to change their minds? They didn't.
But if you want to know who to blame, blame Wakefield. He called for investigation of the allegations against him that were publicly made by Brian Deer. He got his wish.
AND ANDREW WAKEFIELD
------------------------
The GMC has the ability to start investigations on its own authority, which is what they did with Wakefield. Yes, they did ask for information from Brian Deer but the complaint was one that they could hardly avoid.
AND ANDREW WAKEFIELD ASKED FOR IT
I knew there was this quote somewhere:
"It has been proposed that my role in this matter should be investigated
by the General Medical Council (GMC). I not only welcome this, I insist on it and I
will be making contact with the GMC personally, in the forthcoming week."
Andrew Wakefield - February 2004
But apparently no-one from the Wakefield camp wants to hear or respond to this.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/101/3/383
Let us say that this is correct. The risk is encephalopathy which as far as I can tell is not the same as ASD. Moreover, it is a a complication of measles.
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=098F4DFB26EDC998477C4BD8921DB284.tomcat1?fromPage=online&aid=375156
You know that the human body responds differently to vaccines than natural viruses. If the measles virus (from the disease) causes so much autism - why wasn't it being labeled until the 20th century? Autism wasn't diagnosed until the early 1900s. It's incidence didn't skyrocket until the end of the century...when the rate of vaccination also skyrocketed.
I just wanted to apologize for responding with hostillity to you previously. I had not articulated my point well enough and when you responded with understandable minunderstanding of my point, I responded with hostility when none was warrented. These kinds of blogs just get me so worked up, having spent so much time in third world countries where vaccines are not available and people are desperate for them in the face of unmanagable infectious diseases. However, that is no excuse.
In actuality, I very much appreciate your posts.
Here are some great websites that deal with debunking frauds like Wakefield and others who prey on the desperation and scientific ignorance of others that you may like. These are also actual scientific blogs, so they deal with hard data as opposed to emotional arguments for why one point of view should be believed.
http://forums.randi.org/
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/
(Why, even one of the Wakefield 12 got their "autism" following measles encephalitis)
How do you figure?
"Anyone fully vaccinated from mumps receives two doses of the vaccine, according to the CDC. Of the New Jersey cases, 77 percent were vaccinated, Terjesen said."
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/08/mumps.outbreak.northeast/index.html?hpt=T2
Episode 69 of This Week in Virology explains it.
http://www.twiv.tv/
If you are interested in vaccines, you should listen to this. I figure I understand about half but it is still well worth listening to
Vaccines which may not have prevented disease, appear to have, as expected, lessened course and complications of disease. So far, no deaths and no sterility.
Isn't it more dangerous to get mumps - as a teen or adult? How many of these young men won't be able to go on and "procreate" children - as you mentioned in another post? Maybe if they had gotten mumps as a small child, they wouldn't face the higher risk of permanent complications (incl. sterility).
--------------------
This is the part of the story that I don't understand. Why groups don't say, we were fooled, now we know the truth, we are no longer having anything to do with Wakefield?
I don't see what there is to lose. You say, Wakefield was a good man who tried to help autistic children but he made so many ethical mistakes that we can no longer support him. If you are careful, you don't have to talk much about the trash science.
Of course, the response will be, why did it take you so long. But not doing so leads to the responds that Polly Tommey found, we won't have anything to do with you, if you support Wakefield.
But they won't do this. So I get to watch these groups kicking themselves, tell them why it would be smart to stop and know that they will keep kicking themselves but now a bit more annoyed. Sweet.
At least Wakefield is a good man. He's helping families who have a child in physical pain...versus many doctors in the industrial medical complex who say kids with ASD "don't have GI issues - it's just psychosomatic".
3. Wakefield ran many (not just the 12) children through a week of nasty, invasive procedures that were not needed.
4. GI issues are GI issues whether they are caused by physical damage to the guts or not. Wakefield claimed that there was physical damage. Experts have concluded that ASD kids don't have more physical GI problems than other kids. Doesn't mean they don't need treatment. Does mean that putting kids on long term steroids or immunosuppressant or anti-TNF factor drugs gives kids side-effects without benefit.
Because "groups" are made up of a whole spectrum of independent thinkers who know the issues very well.
Geners, on the other hand, are all on the same page because they're fed big pharma paste on soilent green gluten wafers which the stomach can't digest. This causes stomach leakage and leads to SBF(Science Based Fog).
No vaccine currently exist for SBF but some people should grow out of it.
http://www.autismone.org/content/discredited-defamation-fallacious-case-against-dr-andrew-wakefield-polly-tommey
Here's more proof of the witch hunt this has been. The good doctor has been black balled by special interests and words now coming out big time.
Claim: First, it has been demonstrated beyond doubt that The Lancet study was not
funded by Legal Aid. Not one penny of Legal Aid money was used for the
study.
Response: From a timing point of view, that statement might be true, if you work hard enough. But let us state the facts that matter. At the same time as Wakefield was getting approval in 1996 for the conspiracy that became the Lancet paper, he was arranging and getting Legal Aid money for items covered by the NHS. There was a costing application of June 1996 and there is an application to the ethics comittee of August 1996. And the money got to Wakefield's account.
Claim:Second, it has been shown that the children in the study were not
sourced by lawyers. None of the children reported in The Lancet study were
involved in any legal action at the time of their referral to the Royal Free
Hospital.
Response: Polly is being really sloppy, she should quote directly from Wakefield. The sentence,"Second, it has been shown that the children in the study were not
sourced by lawyers", is false. I think even Wakefield would agree it was false.
Claim: Horton knew connection of Wakefield with lawyers in advance.
Response: Could be true. So Horton was wrong as well as Wakefield.
--------------------------------------------------
I doubt if anything can change those who have made a pact with Wakefield. But for others, I don't think they understand how Wakefield was 'convicted'. It wasn't so much on testimony, as it was on the documents.
The GMC's Panel decision is a terrible piece of judicial/quasi-judicial writing. It is enough to get the conspirators 'erased from the register' but confuses every one else.
I'm writing a paper/essay that explains some of what the Panel left out, partly in response to my exchanges with Bill Long. In doing so, I'm spending time at, now give me 30 seconds before you stop reading, www.briandeer.com. It is a terribly organized site. I read a document and then can't find it again. If necessary, ignore what Deer has to say, except when he is putting the documents he has in context.
The documents are amazing. Brian Deer's stories are very, very much a story of the documents. They convict the conspirators out of their own mouths and out of the contemporary documents created routinely by others.
It is a shame that the documents are merely images. They need to be typed up and put up as searchable documents. That would be a great thing to do.
Once the GMC panel saw these documents, it was pretty much game over. All that was left, was slogging through the medical histories of the 12 children.
By now you should have carefully looked them over. So which of them are fakes and how when you read them, can you believe a word that Wakefield says.
http://news.google.com/news/more?um=1&cf=all&ned=us&cf=all&ncl=d9WVYerJ_rqaxRMhXGhnzwP4Kj4yM
Wakefield has been the scapegoat in calling the "much needed" attention to this whole charade of atrocity & I thank & commend him. Very soon parents & their children will be thanking him for the change he & those like him will bring to this sad state of a world we have become due to greed of man. Men & women responsible for taking something meant for good & turning it in to something evil are soon to be replaced as much revamping & restructuring of the system & entities associated in this matter, who have taken the wrong turn, resulting in this epidemic of injury & harm that's been done to our children. To a higher court we will go now and the world is, thankfully & finally paying attention
"False Testimony Denies Dr Wakefield a Fair Hearing at MMR GMC Witchhunt"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyvKnavzPjM&feature=related
It's said to be going to the high court and with everyone watching now, well, he, he, he.
The jokes on them!
Mums ejected from the GMC Dr Wakefield Witch-hunt Trial Speak out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeDAKz6fJiA&NR=1
Awesome.
Read my comments on the second page here guys and add yours please. I'm addressing all good people here here like you, Ergon, Dugmaze, CraigWilloughby and anyone else looking in, to get to it and speak out right now in truth, right here;
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/radical-behaviorist/201002/the-autism-vaccines-myth-the-impact-the-media/comments
Then go right down the line here;
http://news.google.com/news/more?um=1&cf=all&ned=us&cf=all&ncl=d9WVYerJ_rqaxRMhXGhnzwP4Kj4yM
And hit back hard via all these articles aimed at destroying the credibility of Dr. Wakefeild in attempt to stop the frieght train that's coming from running them over. And recruit all you can do do the same
They seem er, inconsistent in application of their own logic.
Hmm.
And all the bacteria you pump into the child's bloodstraem doesn't lead to inflammatory and auto-immune disorders, uh huh.
Vaccines helped reduce rates next to nothing ONLY AFTER the disease rate declined on it's own. Why?
I'm sure there's a disease out there that has increased until the invent of a vaccine for it but so far I haven't found one. Why?
You speak like a politician. Never answering the question directly. Changing the course of the debate away from the original question.
Your either feeding your ego or deliberately trying to convince people that vaccines should never be questioned.
"Dr. Bernard Greenberg, a biostatistics expert, was chairman of the Committee on Evaluation and Standards of the American Public Health Association during the 1950s. He testified at a panel discussion that was used as evidence for the congressional hearings on polio vaccine in 1962. During these hearings he elaborated on the problems associated with polio statistics and disputed claims for the vaccine's effectiveness. He attributed the dramatic decline in polio cases to a change in reporting practices by physicians. Less cases were identified as polio after the vaccination for very specific reasons. "Prior to 1954 any physician who reported paralytic poliomyelitis was doing his patient a service by way of subsidizing the cost of hospitalization and was being community-minded in reporting a communicable disease."
http://www.tetrahedron.org/articles/vaccine_awareness/Polio_Meningitis_Diagnosis.html
She took great care of him and at one point after he got sick instead of having his nannies take care of him she did it all herself and even did the special food preparation and cooking herself.
She gave most of her money away to the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders and left a suicide note. She has given detectives her password to her computer and it shows she has been planning this for some time.
Here are my wonders.
I wonder if she knew the harm she took part in or if she was ignorant on the truth behind pHARMaceuticals in the direction they have taken through the decades which began as something good but went real bad due to the evil and greedy people that we thought had our well being at heart.
I wonder if she thinks vaccinations were to blame for her son's condition.
I wonder if she will become a voice that helps the children in any future she has? I hope so.