The British Medical Journal has the first (fantastic) article in a planned series on the now retracted Lancet journal article first drawing the (now demonstrated to be fraudulent) connection between the Measles-Mumps-and-Rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. It’s a crackling must-read.
Wakefield was working on a lawsuit,7 for which he sought a bowel-brain “syndrome” as its centrepiece. Claiming an undisclosed £150 (€180, $230) an hour through a Norfolk solicitor named Richard Barr, he had been confidentially 8 put on the payroll two years before the paper was published, eventually grossing him £435 643, plus expenses.
Curiously, however, Wakefield had already identified such a syndrome before the project which would reputedly discover it. “Children with enteritis/disintegrative disorder [an expression he used for bowel inflammation and regressive autism] form part of a new syndrome,” he and Barr explained in a confidential grant application to the UK government’s Legal Aid Board before any of the children were investigated. “Nonetheless the evidence is undeniably in favour of a specific vaccine induced pathology.”
The two men also aimed to show a sudden-onset “temporal association”—strong evidence in product liability. “Dr Wakefield feels that if we can show a clear time link between the vaccination and onset of symptoms,” Barr told the legal board, “we should be able to dispose of the suggestion that it’s simply a chance encounter.”
What follows is a detailed break down of how Dr. Wakefield carefully manufactured these temporal associations, in order to bolster the bogus lawsuits he and others were planning to profit from. You must read this article. At the end is a TL;DR summary of the fraud at the center of the MMR -> Autism bullshit that continues today:
The Lancet paper was a case series of 12 child patients; it reported a proposed “new syndrome” of enterocolitis and regressive autism and associated this with MMR as an “apparent precipitating event.” But in fact:
* Three of nine children reported with regressive autism did not have autism diagnosed at all. Only one child clearly had regressive autism
* Despite the paper claiming that all 12 children were “previously normal,” five had documented pre-existing developmental concerns
* Some children were reported to have experienced first behavioural symptoms within days of MMR, but the records documented these as starting some months after vaccination
* In nine cases, unremarkable colonic histopathology results—noting no or minimal fluctuations in inflammatory cell populations—were changed after a medical school “research review” to “non-specific colitis”
* The parents of eight children were reported as blaming MMR, but 11 families made this allegation at the hospital. The exclusion of three allegations—all giving times to onset of problems in months—helped to create the appearance of a 14 day temporal link
* Patients were recruited through anti-MMR campaigners, and the study was commissioned and funded for planned litigation
This fraud is infuriating on so many levels, none more central to me than the enormous waste of pediatric research dollars and subjects. There is a grave paucity of data available on a wide spectrum of medications now commonly used on children: antibiotics, anti-seizure, anti-nausea, antidepressants, anti-psychotics, pain medications, sedatives, appetite stimulants and on and on and on. Running a clinical trial on children is even more expensive and more difficult than on adults. Huge sums of money were wasted trying to reproduce the fraudulent connection between MMR vaccination and autism. Hundreds of children were recruited and run through clinical trials—having their health endangered for this fraud. All of this risk and money could’ve gone to testing all of these other medications we don’t know about—medicines we use on children, and legitimately cannot prove are safe. You should be furious.
Updated: Anthony beat me to it. Consider my take from the perspective of a scientist and physician.
What is the link between this post and Anthony’s post?
Will Jenny McCarthy shut the fuck up now? Probably not. I wonder how many children didn’t get vaccinated because they would rather listen to a nice pair of tits then somebody who studied medicine for 12 years.
The internet is a race, etc., etc….
The Global Climate “Crisis”? An Elaborate Fraud……
Dammit, I’m echoing comment from the other link. Oh well I would only comment on dr. Golob’s link anyway. Fuck Anthony. 🙂
“Studies” endorsing homosexual parenting? An Elaborate Fraud.
He should be charged with murder.
this is just how religion was invented. and most ghost stories.
I agree with @7. He should be injected with 100 cc of horse piss every three hours. Fucking SOB. When it was just bad research, it was bad, but fraud for money? Piece of shit.
@ 6: FUCK YOUR “MOTHER”.
I guess I’ll just comment in both threads.
It’s been known for many years the study was bullshit, but the BMJ story makes it abundantly clear that the study was deliberate, premeditated, well-compensated fraud, as well. I can’t begin to describe how much I hate fraudulent scientists, and then add that this particular case of fraud has led to the death of many children — an entirely foreseeable result of the fraud. There is no way a physician could have been unaware that his committing this fraud would with certainty lead to unecessary deaths of many children.
All you legal eagles out there in SLOGland — is there some way this case does not meet the formal criteria for first degree murder for hire? There is no statute of limitations on that crime.
Straight up fraud.
Quoting PZ Myers on Pharyngula.com, the bottom line is: “Children DIED because of the hysteria fomented by the contemptible Wakefield. How does that guy live with himself?”
This guy cause kids to die and more will die because of him.
Ooops Eric @ 11 I didn’t see you already said this and more articulately. Akin to murder.
@7 For every single child to die because of this atrocity of research. And the media that ate this story up and ran with it like they happen to do with every unreviewed research project should too. The abysmal scientific reporting is what allows this shit to happen.
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.…
This clears the air for my theory that circumcision gave my son ASD.
@13
Are you fucking serious? He shouldn’t be responsible for the deaths caused by his illegal actions because nobody called him on it until now?
Culpability isn’t a zero-sum game.
*GOODWIN ALERT*
I mean, really, do you think they should have charged Klaus Barbie’s neighbours with crimes against humanity instead of him, since, you know, they didn’t report him?
That’s great. I can’t wait until they expose the fraud behind the global warming “science” also.
One depressing fact that this story highlights for me is that, much as I’d like to believe that the right wing has a lock on anti-science conspiracy bullshit, the left has its share of misguided, ideologically-driven credulity too. Many of my lefty friends lapped this story up, once it was framed properly as a corporate conspiracy on the part of the evil pharmaceutical companies and the Bush/Cheney administration.
The rhetoric on the part of the vaccine conspiracy true believers was virtually identical to what we would hear from any global warming denier. Even a unified response from the scientific community pointing out the glaring flaws in this study was simply taken as further proof of the conspiracy to cover up the truth. Perversely, scientific consensus is now regularly used as an argument against something, based on the assumption that unanimity of opinion necessarily points to sinister collusion.
Arg. 13, You make me so fucking mad.
Congrats, you pointed out that the media is biased, sensationalist bullshit. You’ve hit the popular talking point so loved by us educated urban leftists. You’ve even made daring and controversial ™ assertions to show you’re really serious about spouting platitudes about the ineffectual media. But stop to think for a moment, do you really want to suggest that the media are the ones REALLY at fault for the deaths of thousands of children who died because of one man’s crime? If so, you a big fucking moron… I’ll give you a chance to rescind that now, allowing you the chance to qualify for the slight upgrade to brainless moron.
Like I mentioned in the other post, the antivax nutjobs are way past claims of autism anyway. They just say it’s “not safe” and that there are neurotoxins and other dangerous chemicals. (Like NaCl! ZOMG!!!)
Hey Golob, I’m feeling intellectually lazy, so can you craft a response to this: http://preventdisease.com/news/09/102809… All of the answers I can think of are “You’re a dumbass and the fact that you’re even asking these questions indicates that you clearly shouldn’t be making your own or your children’s healthcare decisions.”
The anon. comments in here are hilarious. You do realize that the anti vacc. movement is far more analogous to the anti evolution/climate change denial movements than to their widely-supported-by-science-for-years “antagonists,” right?
And yeah, most people have known this is bullshit for a long time, unfortunately there is a large section of the population who thinks of these issues as ones of faith.
Asparagus@15: I think you have misread @13. I think Prompt starts off by agreeing with your call for Wakefield to be charged with murder. That would be just about the opposite of saying Wakefield “shouldn’t be responsible for deaths”. Over the months, lots of people have vigorously disagreed with your various comments on SLOG. Prompt, however, does not appear to be one of them!
I don’t think I did, but, you know, I have a 100+ fever right now, so it’s possible my reading comprehension isn’t at its finest.
Its yet another example of how bat-shit crazy humanity is in general. When the whole autistic “facilitated communication” fad of the 1980s/90s was completely debunked over and over, the large sub-culture that it had spawned just kept on rollin’. But – as always! follow the damn money, because a whole bunch of people were making a whole bunch of money off of it, and probably still are.
What’s that?
Skeptics win?
Fuck yes. Chalk up another one for the Randi crowd. I don’t know what motivated Wakefield, but I know he acted like an utter scumbag and it’s nice to see that his downfall – and more importantly, the collapse of his fraudulent enterprise – isn’t flying completely under the radar.
@20
Thanks for reading those. The only reason I’d read un-registered commenters is to remind myself of how many idiots are still out there. I’ve already accomplished that feat today, so they stayed unread.
Linking this issue to climate change, eh? lol. America is awash in stupid, and there’s no ark to climb into.
Asparagus! @15 and 18: yeah I agree w/Eric in Boulder at 21. You read @7 exactly the reverse of how I read it. I think that fever has you addled.
Chill Asp. I blame them both.
I think our trolls are actually just one or two people. They say the same thing in pretty much the same style all the time.
As I understand it, the fear was that the mercury used in vaccinations was what was causing the illnesses. Does that mean that we don’t have to worry about the mercury anymore, or is that a separate issue that still needs addressed.
http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com/Je…
@28
It’s not a separate issue nor is it a problem.
Mercury is only used in a small number of vaccines these days. In addition, there is much less of it in a vaccine than in your average tuna sandwich, from what I understand.
Murder?
Absolutely.
And as soon as we pull the needle from this scumbag’s cold arm lets put Dan on trial.
For all the teens who contract AIDS from practicing “Anal Sex, Oral Sex, GAY SEX!” as birth control.
And for all the homosexuals who got AIDS after they threw away their condoms based on Dan’s advice.
Murder. Indeed.
lol @ 31
Dr Golob will tell you that it is very easy for a clever researcher to design a study to give results in the direction they seek.
And how, even if a researcher is trying to be nuetral it is easy to allow the biases we all poses about pretty much everything (social policy, scientific theory, etc etc) to unintentionally colour study design and interpretation.
And how, in the murky subjective field of social policy research it is especially difficult not to let your personal feelings affect your research.
He can also explain how the university/research community, especially where social science is concerned, is an overwhelmingly liberal one fervent in all the tenents of the secular humanist homoliberal theology.
And how devasting it can be to one’s career to swim against the homoliberal orthodox tide when it comes to securing position, tenure and grants.
Dr Golob could also tell you how fervently homosexual (and faghag) researchers at universities all across the nation are seeking “proof” to validate their beliefs about homosexuality.
After all, what’s a little academic fudging when it is for the good of The Cause?….
He could also explain how the media, another hotbed of liberalism, laps up the phony bullshit “research” shat out by Queer,Inc and regurgitates it to a credulous public.
We have already seen how Global Warming research fraud operated very similarly to this vaccine hoax.
Dr Golob could explain that gushing fawning “research” about lesbian moms and homosexual penguins and gay genes are part of the same fetid fecal gumbo of HomoLiberal BullShit.
Just ask him……..
@33 Relax, take a deep breath.
Just come out of the closet and everything will be ok.
Frontline had a great episode about this last year (obviously, before the outright fraud was discovered), but still a really good take on the evidence and the danger of non-vaccination.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/…
@33
You’ve done it.
You’ve uncovered the liberal bias of reality.
Reality should be ashamed of its oppression of you.
But seriously, your concerns are exactly why studies are reproduced and double checked. This study was reproduced but the results were never reconfirmed. All the “liberal” studies you criticize are actually many studies reproduced many times over.
Yes, a lot of Scientists lean towards the liberal side of the spectrum, but the danger of bias is why the scientific method is set up to be easily analyzed and criticized.
What’s really scary is that there is some research that says if we have 100 average Americans read this article, wait six months, then ask them about the link between autism and vaccines over half will remember the article as saying there is a link.
Calling it an “elaborate” fraud is being nice to all the dimbulbs who believed it. It was obviously made up from the start.
36
….right.
“easily analyzed and ‘criticized’.”
by other Liberals, who will in turn have their grant requests and studies “analyzed and criticized” by the person whose work they are analyzing and criticizing.
it’s a big circular group suckoff…..
@38 – i may be misinterpreting your tone, but i think your characterization is unfair. medical research can be incredibly complicated, and the way it typically gets written up for publication makes it easy for problems in methods or analysis difficult to track. even physicans who are brilliant clinicians but don’t spend much time in research can be led astray by a craftily written article like this one. the fact that it was published in a very highly regarded journal confounded the problem, because the Lancet name added credibility (though i imagine they’re going to experience a loss in that department after this whole thing). anyway, the point is that the particular way this fraud was perpetrated made it difficult to prove without some pretty extensive research. hence the 12-year time from publication to retraction. that it was made up was certainly not OBVIOUS to the lay community, nor even to physicians who do not specialize in pediatrics or epidemiology. calling them dimbulbs is unfair.
@39: If that’s seriously what you believe then maybe you should encourage more of your friends to enter the world of science. Is it that studying the scientific method is only encouraged by liberal parents? Or is it that studying the scientific makes you liberal? Those are the only simple answers.
Or is it the result of some vast conspiracy?
@24 Money is what motivated him, balderdash. I think it’s pretty clear from Jonathan’s post that he endangered vulnerable children out of greed. One of the oldest stories in the book. The man deserves life in prison, forced to watch home movies of children that died from preventable illnesses all day, everyday. And when he finally does die, we freeze him in the hopes that someday we can revive him so we can do it all over again.
The thing that I think is fascinating is that while this “study” (btw, only 12 subjects?! Nobody should’ve paid it any mind in the first place) was immediately taken up by the “all vaccines are bad” crowd, one of the things Wakefield wanted to do was patent his OWN measles vaccine. Follow the money, indeed.
wait a second. Parents were told there was no credible link between autism and vaccines over and over by the medical community. If they denied their children vaccines for fear of autism, then it was the parents that were responsible when their children became sick.
Yes, but what do the Scientologists say?
What about that recent science paper linking mercury and autism (as well as colon malabsorption with brain neural firing gone awry)? It goes on to carefully point out not vaccinations but mercury… What I want to know is – where is the mercury coming from? Just curious…
For the life of me I can’t find the article to link it… i’ll keep looking but maybe someone else ran across it too?
What paper, subwlf? You sure it wasn’t just an editorial?
41
we don’t have any friends…..
.
*sniff!*…..
@37 – No it was a science paper published within Dec 2010 or Nov 2010… I am still looking but i can’t believe how many hits are out there!! The study clearly said the mercury was not linked to vaccines though. But I found it interesting that mercury was one part of three things that seemed to touch off the autism (and i think you have to be somehow genetically susceptible but don’t quote that). I am looking for the paper… I must use the right key words!! sheesh…
Well, part of the study being criticized in this post links heavy metals in vaccines to Autism and that movement has been linked to the anti mercury movement as well. And there is science linking high levels of mercury to mental issues.
But not trace amounts of mercury to autism, from what I understand.